Zohar abstract concepts that are never completely expressed. The earlier part of the Zohar, also known as "Zohar 'Al haTorah" (Zohar on the Torah, זוהר על התורה) or "Midrash Rashbi", contains several smaller "books", as described below. This book was published in three volumes: Volume 1 on "Bereishit" (Genesis), Volume 2 on "Shemot" (Exodus) and Volume 3 on "Vayikra, Bamidbar and Devarim" (Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). At the start of the first volume is printed a "Preface to the Book of the Zohar" (pages 1a to 14b). After this introduction is the Zohar's commentary on most of the parashahs of the
Old Testament account for the many different Old Testaments which exist today. Timothy H. Lim, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism at the University of Edinburgh, identifies the Old Testament as "a collection of authoritative texts of apparently divine origin that went through a human process of writing and editing." He states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. By about the 5th century BC Jews saw the five books of the Torah (the Old Testament Pentateuch) as having authoritative status; by the 2nd century BC the Prophets