Karel van der Toorn

Without the Persians, there would not have been a Pentateuch. The Persians were responsible, too, for the transformation of the Torah into the Law, because the codification of the legal traditions did not leave their nature unaffected. It is often said that Greek nomos is a mistranslation of Hebrew torâ ; torâ means "instruction, advice", whereas nomos is law. The Greek translation, introduced by the Septuagint, turns an act of personal interaction into an impersonal and abstract notion. But the Greek language is not to blame. Well before the Septuagint, the Persian authorities defined the Torah of God as law (dât). They thus brought to a conclusion a development that had been going on for some time... By virtue of being written, the Torah became binding as a general rule ; particular situations became cases, and for each case, the law did provide.

p. 251