The Composition of the Pentateuch G.J. Wenham

8/13/2019 The Composition of the Pentateuch G.J. Wenham

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So, thirdly, Israel must keep the covenantwholeheartedly. 'Love the LORD your God withall your heart and with all your soul and with allyour strength' (6:5) sums up the whole messageof Moses. This meant keeping the Ten Commandments given by God at Sinai (ch. 5). tmeant applying the Commandments to everysphere of life. The second and longest sermonof Moses consists of a historical retrospectfollowed by an expansion and application of thecommandments to every sphere of Israel's lifein Canaan; the laws in chs. 12 - 25 roughlyfollow the order of the commandments and expand and comment on them. Israel must be aswarm-hearted in her response to the law as theLord had showed himself in giving her the landand the law itself.Finally, Israel's future destiny depended onher response to the law. Obedience to the commandments would lead to immense prosperityin family, farm and nation, whereas disobedience would result in disaster, culminating inexpulsion from the land (ch. 28). But if this happened, and Moses feared it would, it would notspell the end of Israel's relationship with God.Repentance would lead to renewal of the covenant blessings and national prosperity would berestored (chs. 29- 30, 32).The composition of the PentateuchWhile there is broad agreement among manyscholars about the theme of the Pentateuch assketched above, there are very deep differencesof opinion about its composition. This has notalways been the case; indeed, for nearly twomillennia it was universally agreed that Moseswas the principal author of the whole Pentateuch. t therefore seems best to tackle theissue of composition under three heads. First,the traditional theory of Mosaic authorship.Secondly, the consensus critical view, thedocumentary hypothesis, which reigned almostunchallenged from 1880 to 1980. Thirdly,modem theories.The traditional viewFrom pre-Christian times to the beginning ofthe nineteenth century it was accepted by nearlyeveryone that Moses was the author of nearly allthe Pentateuch. This is a natural conclusion todraw from a straightforward reading of Genesisto Deuteronomy. From Ex. 2 onwards Moses isthe leading actor in the story. The Lord revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3);then Moses negotiated with Pharaoh for Israel'srelease and brought the people through the RedSea to Sinai. There he personally received theTen Commandments, other laws and the instructions for erecting the tabernacle. The narrative stresses that many of the laws were not

47

THE PENTATEUCHannounced publicly to the whole nation, for theLord's appearance on the mountain was too terrifying. Instead they were made known toMoses alone (Ex. 20: 19-21; Dt. 5:5), who thenpassed them on to the people.

Moses' role as a mediator is stressedthroughout the Pentateuch. Time and againlaws are introduced by the statement, 'Then theLORD said to Moses'. This implies a special intimacy with God, suggesting that if God is theultimate source of the law, Moses was its channel, if not the human author of it. This impression is reinforced most strongly by the book ofDeuteronomy, with Moses addressing the nation in his own words, explaining the laws givenon Sinai and urging Israel to keep them whenthey enter the promised land.

Deuteronomy contains the last words ofMoses to Israel before he died. Moses talksabout himself in the first person, 'The ideaseemed good to me 1:23); and sometimes heidentifies with Israel 'as the LORD our God commanded us we set out' 1: 19). At other times hesets himself over against them, I told you, butyou would not listen' 1:43). Chs. 1 - 11describe most of the same events from the exodus to the conquest of Transjordan as thebooks of Exodus to Numbers do, but whereasthese books recount it from the perspective of anarrator outside the situation, Deuteronomydescribes the events as Moses experiencedthem. The claim that Moses is the speaker inDeuteronomy is inescapable.

f Deuteronomy ended at 31 :8, it would bepossible to suppose that Moses preached aboutthe law, but someone else, perhaps much later,committed his ideas to writing. However 31 :9,'Moses wrote down this law and gave it to thepriests', and 31 :24, 'Moses finished writing in abook the words of this law from beginning toend', seem to exclude such a loose view ofMosaic authorship. If then Moses wroteDeuteronomy, it would seem likely that Exodusto Numbers were written by him earlier in hiscareer, and that Genesis, the indispensable introduction to the other books, may well havebeen composed by him too.

These are the arguments that led early Jewishwriters, the NT, and nearly everyone whostudied the Bible until about 1800 to concludethat Moses was the author of the Pentateuch:Consequently, Genesis was often called the firstbook of Moses, and so on. However in the nineteenth century this ancient consensus began tocrumble, and to this change of approach wemust now turn.The documentary h y p o t h ~ s i st all began with an interesting book written by a

French doctor, J Astruc in 1753. AstrucIffrom the land,11).


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THE PENT TEUCHobserved that in the early chapters of GenesisGod is sometimes referred to as God and atothers as 'the LORD . This suggested to him thatat least two sources had been drawn on byMoses in the writing of Genesis. This was supported by the observation that there wasduplication of material in Genesis e.g. two accounts of creation in chs. I and 2).Astruc had no intention of denying theMosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; he wassimply exploring what sources Moses may haveused. Yet his source analysis became a key ingredient of later criticism. In the course of thenineteenth century his analysis was refined, andsome scholars argued that these sources werelater than Moses.About fifty years after Astruc a much moreradical proposal was put forward by W. M. L.de Wette, who in his dissertation of 1805, andin another work (1806-7), argued thatDeuteronomy was written in the time of Josiahi.e. about seven.centuries after Moses) and thatthe book of Chronicles gives a quite unreliableaccount of the history of Israel's worship. Boththese ideas became central in the view of pentateuchal origins that emerged later in the century. So it is appropriate here to note how deWette reached his conclusions, for they are fundamental to the new critical consensus oftenknown as the documentary hypothesis.De Wette noted that Chronicles has muchmore to say about worship than Kings does,although both deal with the same historicalperiod. Hitherto scholars had regarded the

details of Chronicles as an accurate supplementto the picture in Kings, but de Wette arguedthat since Chronicles was written after Kings, itcould not be trusted. By dismissing the evidenceof Chronicles in this way he could more easilyargue that Deuteronomy too was a late work.The language and atmosphere of Deut-eronomy differ from the preceding books, butthat hardly determines when it was written.What de Wette fastened on was Deuteronomy'sinsistence that all worship should be conductedat the place which the Lord would choose.Deuteronomy forbids worship at the countryshrines, on the hilltop altars under every green

tree, but insists that sacrifices, and especiallythe national feasts of Passover, Pentecost andTabernacles, must be held at the central sanctuary chosen by the Lord (ch. 16). A reading ofSamuel and Kings suggests that such stric t ruleswere not introduced until the seventh centuryBe. Then in about 622 BC King Josiah abolishedall the country shrines and required worship totake place only in Jerusalem (2 Ki. 22 - 23). IfDeuteronomy's principles for worship were notenforced until Josiah's day, is it not easier tosuppose the principles were invented then than

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to suppose that Deuteronomy's laws weredead letter from the time of Moses? This argment of de Wette connecting Deuteronowith the centralization of worship inJosiah's dwas to become one of the main planks in 'Wellhausen synthesis' at the end of the centuMost of Wellhausen's ideas had been a

ticipated by others. But he transformed Oscholarship with a book published in 18sweeping away traditional views of the originthe Pentateuch. I ffew of his ideas were new, tway they were presented by Wellhausen wbrilliant and appealed very strongly in an ewhen the theory of evolution was new abelieved by many to explain not just biologichange but many other historical developmenWellhausen painted a picture of Israereligious development that seemed natural ainevitable without the need for miracle or divirevelation. In the earliest stages, he argueIsraelite religion was relatively unregulatePeople offered sacrifice when they liked awhere they liked, without any priestly terference. This is the situation Wellhausen sareflected in the books of Samuel and Kings. the end of the monarchy period King Josiah itervened, limiting all worship to Jerusalethereby greatly enhancing the power of tpriests, who were now able to control the detaof worship. Once the priests had this powthey consolidated it, and during the ex(587-537 BC they invented allsorts of rules aregulations about the details of worship, thstatus of the priests, their entitlement to tithand sacrificial portions and so on.Wellhausen then proceeded to show how thpicture of Israel's religious evolution could tied in with the sources of the Pentateucwhich had first been identified by AstruWellhausen accepted that four main sourccould be identified, which were designated bthe letters J, E, P and D. J, the Yahwistic sourcuses the divine name the LORD (Yahweh).comprises about half of Genesis and small parof Exodus and Numbers. E, the Elohistsource, only uses the generic term Go(Elohim). t comprises about a third of Genesand small parts of Exodus and Numbers. P, thpriestly source, like E uses the generic ter'God'. It comprises about a sixth of Genes(mainly chs.l, 17, 23 and various genealogieand most of Ex. 25 - Nu. 36. 0 is the book Deuteronomy.Wellhausen argued that Deuteronomy (Dknows only the material found in J and E, buthat P knows the material in J, E and D. Thgives a relative ordering of the material in thPentateuch; J E D P . He then argued thathe picture of worship in J and E matches thpractice of worship in the monarchy period


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when lay people could worship where and whenthey liked. The picture of Dleuteronomyl fits inwith the aims of Josiah's centralizing reforms,while P's attention to the minute details of worship fits in with the dictatorship of the priestlyclass which Wellhausen surmised haddeveloped in and after the exile. He thereforesuggested that J should be dated c 850 BC, EC 750 BC, 0 c 622 BC and Pc 500 Be. Thesesources, once they had been written down, weremerged one after the other, so that eventuallythe current Pentateuch emerged in the time ofEzra (fifth century BC).

The implications of this approach to the Pentaeuch were far-reaching. If the earliest sources,J and E, were written about six centuries afterMoses, they could hardly be relied on to give anaccurate picture of that era, let alone thepatriarchal era. And ifJ and E were untrustworthy, how much more so were the later sources 0and P. Wellhausen himself was quite clear aboutthe consequences of his critical position. J and Egive us no historical information about thepatriarchal period; instead they project thereligious situation of the monarchy period intohoary antiquity like a 'glorified mirage'. Similarly, 0 and P reflect the concerns of the time inwhich they were composed, not the Mosaic era.We IIhausen's negative judgment about thehistorical worth of the Pentateuch initially evoked a very hostile reaction. Nevertheless, his approach soon became widely accepted by criticalProtestant scholarship. t took much longer forit to be embraced by Catholic or Jewishscholars.The acceptance of this theory was aided byseveral factors. First, it was accepted and advocated by scholars like S. R. Driver, who,unlike Wellhausen, did believe in biblical inspiration and argued that the late dating of thepentateuchal sources did not affect theirspiritual value. One could accept Wellhausen'scritical theories without betraying the Christianfaith and becoming an atheist.Secondly, and probably more significant inthe long run, were the modifications made tothe documentary theory by the form-criticalschool of Gunkel, AIt, Noth and von Rad. Byarguing that behind the relatively late sources0 E, 0 P) there were old traditions, (some indeed reaching back to, or even before Moses),this form-critical school restored trust in thehistorical value of the Pentateuch to some extent. t may after all tell us something about theperiods to which it purpor ts to relate; maybe nota lot, but certainly more than the nil returns ofWellhausen. For example, Gunkel in his commentary on Genesis (1901) suggests that theearliest form of the patriarchal stories camefrom before Israel's settlement in the land.

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THE PENT TEUCHSimilarly H. Gressmann (1913) argued that aprimitive form of the Ten Commandmentscame from the time of Moses.

More important for confirming the impression that acceptance of the documentaryhypothesis did not mean saying good-bye to anyknowledge of the patriarchal era was the work ofA. Alt (1929). He argued that the picture ofpatriarchal religion in a few passages in Genesis(31:5, 29, 53; 46:3; 49:25) was true to theirnomadic life-style, with the essential idea of atribal god, who protected the tribe in itswanderings and blessed it with children.Although Alt relied on a very narrow range oftexts, his picture of patriarchal religionresembles in outline the picture a more traditional reader might construct.Similarly, by focusing on those elementscommon to both J and E, M. Noth (1930) wasable to construct a picture of Israel before themonarchy that consisted of a league of tribesbound together by covenant, fighting holy warsand worshipping at a centra l shrine. Once again,though Noth was very far from finding muchhistory in the Pentateuch itself, he was sketching an outline ofIsrael's religious constitutionthat was not dissimilar to an uncritical readingof Exodus to Judges. In a similar way G. vonRad 1938) argued that the earliest Bible creedin Dt. 26 gradually developed in the course oftime into our present Pentateuch. By affirminga continuity between the oldest elements in thePentateuch and the existing work and finding aslim historical kernel within it, these scholarshelped to make the documentary hypothesismore palatable.The archaeological approach of the AmericanW. F. Albright and his school further enhancedthe impression that the Pentateuch could betrusted, even ifit s constituent sources were verylate. They argued that the names of thepatriarchs were typical names of the early second millennium, that the migrations and seminomadic life-style of the patriarchs also fittedthis period, and that many of the legal rites andfamily customs mentioned in Genesis e.g. giving dowries) were also attested in old nonbiblical texts. This all showed the essentialhistorical trustworthiness of Genesis. R. deVaux's The EarlyHistory ofIsrael (1971) is probably the greatest monument to this approach,combining judiciously the insights of archaeology with the critical methods of AIt, Nothand Wellhausen to produce a quite positive viewof Israel's historical development.

There was thus a consensus across thescholarly world that there were four mainsources 0 E, 0 , P) in the Pentateuch, mostlywritten long after 1000 BC, which, despite theirage, gave a good insight into the history ofIsrael


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TH PENTATEUCHbetween2000 and 1300BC.The collapse o f the consensusThe 1970s saw the publication of severalseminalworks whichinitiatedaperiodofgreatturmoilinpentateuchalstudies. In 1974T L.Thompson presented a thorough examinationoftheoft-citedarchaeologicalargumentsforthehistoricalcharacterofthe patriarchalnarratives.He showed thatmanyoftheargumentsprovedmuch less than wasoftenalleged, indeed thatsometimestheBibleor theparallel non-biblicalsources had been misinterpreted to bolsterbeliefin Genesis. There were some elementsleft that looked early, e g the names of thepatriarchs,but if one believedthatGenesiswaswrittenafter 1000BC, asThompsondid, thesecould beexplainedquitedifferently.J.VanSeters(1975)wentfurtherinqueryingthe critical consensus.He argued, not that thepatriarchalstorieswereundatableasThompsondid, but thatthey actuallyfitted conditionsandlegal institutions ofthe sixth century BC. Fur-thermore,hequeriedthetwo-centuryoldbeliefthat the variation in the names of God ('theLORD'/'God')or thatparallel stories cf Gn.12/Gn 20)werenecessarilyindicatorsofdifferentwritersorsources.InfactVanSeterswentalongwaytoeliminatingthe Esource inGn.12- 26,arguingthatitwasnotacoherententity,butjustearlyelementsincorporatedbyJ, who wasthemajorauthorof thispart of Genesis.R. Rendtorff (1977), like Van Seters, dispensed with many of the standard criteria fordistinguishing sources and poured scorn onmanyof theargumentsput forwardbyscholarsfavouring a documentary,analysis. He arguedthat Genesis emerged in qui te a differentfashion. There wasone group of stories aboutAbraham, anothergroupaboutJacob, anotheraboutJoseph.These grew independentlyforalongwhileuntil theywerejoinedtogetherbyaneditor who linked up the originally separatestoriestoformacoherentlongnarrative.Finally, therewasthe greatcommentaryonGenesis by C. Westermann, published in instalmentsfrom 1968to 1982.Wes termannisofsimilarvintageandoutlooktodeVaux,whereas

Thompson, Van Seters and Rendtorff areyoungerradicals,andhisworkisprobablymoreOld documentary hypothesisJ 10thcentury ContainauthenticechoesofMosesandthepatriarchsE 8thcenturyD 7th centuryP 6thcenturyorlater

significantthan theirs. Yet Westermann,whholding fast to atenth-century date for thsource (not the sixth century as Van Setholds) does more or less dispense with thesource.The patriarchalstoriestendtobevieed by Westermannasasubstantial unity frthe hand of J, with occasional inserts frommuch laterPsource.Anothertrendinbiblicalstudiesthatbeganmake its mark in the 1970s has encouragscholarstoreadthe Pentateuchasaunity.Tnew literary criticism is primarily concernwithunderstandingworksintheirexistingfonot with the process oftheircomposition.tconcerned with the arrangement of workswholes,theirtheme,theuseanarratormakesdevicessuchasrepetition,mimesis(portrayareality),anddialogue;thedepictionofcharacand motive within narrative.The oldcriticison the other hand, was preoccupied wauthorship, the date of composition, sourcand the historical circumstances surroundithe writing of the text. The new literacriticismhasledtoamuch greaterappreciatiof the techniques of the Hebrew writers aoften, as a consequence, to a rejectionof tcriteriaused todistinguish sources, For exaple, whereasrepetition tended tobeviewedoldercritics asamarkof multiplesources,necritics tend to regard it as an importantnarativedevice,whichcanbeexploitedbyasingauthor for dramaticeffect.There has beenfrontal attack by new literary critics on tdocumentaryhypothesis,butmanyasides froe g R. Alter (1981) and M. Sternberg (1985whoindicatetheirdissatisfactionwith thes tadardsourcecriticism.And the unifiedreadinof the Pentateuch offered by Clines (sbibliography) and Whybray owe much to tnewcriticism.These newdirectionsinpentateuchalstudiehavebroken the century-oldcritical consensubut they have not established themselves asnew orthodoxy. They probably represent thviewsofavocalminority,whereasasilentmjority still hold a moderate form of thdocumentary hypothesis such as de Vaudefended.

Wecanperhapssetout themain criticalotionsinatable:New critical view6th century Reflects late monarchorexilicsituation

Not reallyadistinct source7thcentury

6th centuryorlater50


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The new critical view retains the late datingof D and P of the old documentary hypothesisbut rejects the distinction between J and E. tmaintains that the enlarged] (roughlyold] E)does not give historical insight into the earlyperiods i.e. the patriarchs, Moses or thejudges), but rather into the beliefs of the Jews inthe exile.Hitherto we have only looked at the views ofmainlin.e critical Christian scholars. CriticalJewish scholars have in recent years made thegreatest contribution to the study of the ritualtexts of the Pentateuch i.e. Ex. 25 - Nu. 36),what is usually termed P. For example,Milgram has argued that the exilicdating ofP ismistaken. The laws on worship in Leviticus donot correspond to what was done in the templewhen it was rebuilt after the exile, which theyshould do if the book was written then. Thelanguageof these books(P) ismore archaic thanthat of Ezekiel, the priest-prophet who preach

ed about 600 Be. The style of worship, theequipment used in worship, and the priests'duties as described in Exodus to Numbers havemany similarities to what is known about worship in other parts of the ancient Near East ofthe second millennium Be. This suggests tothese scholars that P (Ex. 25 - Nu. 36) is at leastpre-exilic and describes what happened in theworship of the first temple, and maybe thetabernacle as well. However, few Christianscholars have paid much attention to these argument and most still seem to regard P as an exilicor post-exilic work.A conservative responseGiven the current critical confusion about thePentateuch, what can be affirmed about itsorigins? Can it be trusted at all in what it saysabout the eras of Moses and the patriarchs? Orwere the stories and laws just made up by theexiles to express their hopes for the future? Isthe Pentateuch a substantial unity or is it composed of a variety of conflicting sources?One response to the current debate about thePentateuch might be: 'The critics are so dividedamong themselves that they cannot proveanything.So let us just go backto what the Pentateuch says about itself and accept that Moseswas its main author.' However, such a responsefails to do justice to the earnestness of thedebate and the very real issues that have beenraised. In attempting to set out a reasoned conservative reflection on the debate four issuesneed to be addressed. First, how many sourcescan be identified in the Pentateuch? Are thetraditional criteria for distinguishing thesources valid? Secondly, does] date from thetime of the exile c. 550 BC), early monarchy c.950 BC) or Moses c. 1250BC)? In particular is

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THE PENT TEUCHthere any history in the patriarchal stories, andwhen were the opening chapters of Genesiscomposed? Thirdly, how far can P and] besharply defined? When wasthe priestly materialcomposed? Finally, was Deuteronomy reallycomposed to promote or justifyJosiah's reformsin 622 BC These issues are, of course, highlycomplex, taking up acres of print in many books,and it is possible here to outline just one direction of thought.First, source analysis. t wasAstruc who suggested that the alternation between 'God' and'the LORD (Elohim/Yahweh) marked differentsources. Nowadays it is widely accepted thatthis criterion does not serve to distinguish thesources] and E very well, so that many concludethat there is no E source. However, the distinction between the P and] sources is often maintained on the strength of the divine-namecriterion and the sources' alleged difference instyle. On this basis the flood story (Gn. 6 - 9) isoften split into] and P versions. Yet even hereseveral recent writers have acknowledged thatthe case is not proven. Others have pointed outthat other ancient texts also use a variety ofnames for the same God, so why should thisphenomenon in the Hebrew Bible indicatemultiple sources? Often in Genesis a theologicalreason is evident for the alternation. WhereGod is the universal Creator of the world, theGod of foreigners as well as Israelites, 'God'(Elohim) is the preferred term. Where thoughhe is the covenant partner, particularly ofIsrael,'the LORD (Yahweh) is frequently used.Thus the divine name criterion is a doubtful

. .pointer to different sources. This IS not to saythat Genesis is a total unity that sprang completely fresh from the mind of one author. It iscertain that the writer used a variety of sources,genealogies, poems and narratives in creatinghis work, but the names of God are bythemselves an unreliable guide to sourcedivision.The second major issue is the extent and dateof]. For simplicity the discussion here is confined to Genesis. The fragmentary nature of] inthe later books makes its existence more problematic there. But in Genesis it comprisesabout 50% of the text according to the traditional documentary hypothesis; about 85 if,with modern writers, E is not recognized asdistinct; and nearly 100% if the P material waswritten before] and has been worked into hiscomposition.

The scope of ] thus remains subject fordebate and so does its date. The documentaryhypothesis held that] reflects the ideals of theearly monarchy, e.g. in the boundaries of thepromised land (Gn. 15:18-21), the implied riseof the Davidic monarchy (Gn. 38; 49:10) and so


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THE PENT TEUCHon. More recent radical critics like Van Setershave argued that J reflects the concerns of theexiles yearning to return to Canaan, henceGenesis' preoccupation with God's promise ofthe land to Abraham and his descendants.These observations about the interests ofJ certainly show its relevance to various epochs butdo not necessarily prove that it originated inthose times. In fact, each of the three main partsof Genesis, the 'proto-history' (chs. 1 - 11), thepatriarchal story (chs. 12 - 35) and the Josephstory (chs. 37 - 50) could have originated early.he closest ancient Near Eastern parallelsto Genesis 1 - 11, the Atrahasis epic, theGilgamesh epic tablet 11, the Sumerian floodstory, and the Sumerian king list all date fromthe early second millennium. Similarly, the portrait of patriarchal life and religion drawn inGenesis 12- 25 is unlike that of the Mosaic andsubsequent periods. Names, religious practicesand legal customs attested in these chapters ofGenesis find parallels in the second millennium.Finally there are features in the Joseph storythat suggest that it probably originated in theRamesside era, i.e. about the time of Moses.However, there are enough hints sprinkledthroughout Genesis to show that if the bookoriginated earlier than the monarchy period, itwas at least revised then. erms like Dan(14:14), Chaldeans (15:7) or Philistines(21:32,34) and Joseph's title 'lord of his entirehousehold' (45:8) look like modernizations tomake the stories more easily intelligible toreaders in monarchy times. Similarly, patriarchal religion is described from a later perspec

tive. It was to Moses that the name Yahweh (theLORD) was first revealed: the patriarchs worshipped God as EI Shaddai (God Almighty Ex.3:13-14; 6:3). Yet Genesis, acknowledging thatthe God who spoke to Moses was the Godwhom the patriarchs knew, interchanges theterms. Speeches by God tend to use the oldterms (EI Shadd ai, EI or Elohim), whereas thenarrator frequently speaks of God using laterterminology as 'the LORD (Yahweh).he P source is dated by the old documentaryhypothesis and the new radicals to the exilic eraat the earliest. Here the notion that fragments ofGenesis e.g. chs. 17,23) belong to P will not beexamined; contrary to the critical consensus,these passages do appear to be some of the olderparts of Genesis. he great bulk of the laws onworship between Ex. 25 and Nu. 36 are our concern here. he language and content of thesesections show that the P material is much earlierthan the exile. Indeed Milgrom believes itreflects worship in the first, i.e. Solomonic, temple. Haran has traced some elements to worshipin the even earlier tabernacle. This would meanthat Mosaic origin of the material is possible.

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Careful study of Deuteronomy by Milgrom anMcConville has demonstrated that it knows PContrary to Wellhausen and his documentarhypothesis, Deuteronomy was written after Pas the order of the biblical books itself suggestshis brings us to the final question, the dateof Deuteronomy. For more than a century thedate of Deuteronomy has been taken as the fix

ed point in critical debate; all the other parts othe Pentateuch are dated relative tDeuteronomy. Current critical discussion hahardly looked at this assumption. he sourceanalysis is questioned by some, J and P may beredated by others, but that Deuteronomy ifrom the late seventh century is hardly questioned. t is simply accepted that the similarityof Deuteronomy's style to that of Jeremiah andthe books of Kings and that it contains the programme for Josiah's reformation prove that idates from that era.Again these arguments cannot be properlydealt with here. But their uncertainty may bepointed out. First, similarity of Hebrew styledoes not prove a similar date for DeuteronomyJeremiah and Kings. Literary styles changedslowly in the ancient Near East. t is more likelythat Jeremiah and Kings were quoting from oralluding to the earlier Deuteronomy to givecredibility to their own message. Jeremiah appears to quote from all parts of Deuteronomy,but never from the so-called deuteronomichistory i.e. Joshua - 2 Kings). Secondly,Deuteronomy does not promote the aims ofJosiah's reformation by limiting all worship toJerusalem; rather it insists that an altar be builtand sacrifices offered at what Josiah would havecalled 'a high place', namely Mt. Ebal (Dt.27:5-7). his makes it inappropriate to regardDeuteronomy as a programme for, or ajustification of, Josiah's reforms. Thirdly,Deuteronomy does not seem to be aware of thebig religio-political issues of the late monarchyperiod. t is unaware of the division of the nationinto two kingdoms. t gives no description ofBaalism and Canaanite worship, just condemning it in general terms. On the other hand, itdemands the extermination of the Canaanites,who by the seventh century had long sincedisappeared as an identifiable entity.

hese observations undermine the case for aseventh-century date of Deuteronomy. Thereare features in the book which make an earlierdate more probable. First, it appears to bequoted by the earliest writing prophets, Amosand Hosea, in the eighth century Be Secondly,it is arranged like Hittite treaties of the sixteenth to thirteenth centuries BC and the olderlaws of Hammurabi c. 1750 BC), not like firstmillennium treaties. Thirdly, some of its lawson marriage seem closer to those of documents


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Milgrom andit knows P.documentaryafter P,suggests.a century the

the fixother parts of

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of the second millennium than those of the firstmillennium. These points do not requireMosaic authorship, but they suggest that an early origin of Deuteronomy is possible.ConclusionIn those days Israel had no king; everyone didas he saw fit' is Judges acid comment on the

anarchy of that time. A similar lack of consensusis found. today in the debates about the Pentateuch. Scholarly arguments are traded to andfro, but underlying the debate there are manyundeclared assumptions. For example, shouldwe expect texts to be coherent unities or collections of fragments? Is the Bible innocent untilproved guilty or guilty until proved innocent?Does the teaching of Jesus and the apostlesdetermine our view of the inspiration andauthorship of these books? Different scholarsanswer these questions differently and their integrity must be respected.Reasons have been given above for seeingmuch greater unity within the Pentateuch thanis often alleged by source critics, and for accepting the basic.historical trustworthiness of thesebooks. But those who do not share a belief in theessential coherence of texts, or who start with anassumption of their guilt, may find little difficulty in sweeping aside these arguments. Sodoubtless the debates will continue for a long

THE PENT TEUCHtime. However Christian readers of the OTshould remember that 'everything' (includingthe Pentateuch) 'was written to teach us', notabout theories of authorship, but to give ushope (Rom. 15:4), a hope disclosed first toAbraham, partially fulfilled in Moses time, and

ever more fully since. If we make the divinepurpose of Scripture ('training in righteousness'; 2 Tim. 3:16) our paramount concern, wemay keep critical debates in their properperspective.

G.]. WenhamFurther readingD. ]. A. Clines, The Theme of the PentateuchaSOT Press, 1978).R. W. L. Moberly, The Old Testament ofthe OldTestament (Fortress, 1992).R.K. Harrison, Introduction tothe OldTestament

(Eerdmans/IVP IUK 1970 .]. H. Sailhammer, The Pentateuch as Narrative(Zordervan, 1992).G.]. Wenham; Method in Pentateuchal SourceCriticism', in Vetus Testamentum 41 (1991),pp.84-109.

- - - - , The Date of Deuteronomy:Linch-Pin of Old Testament Criticism ,Theme/ios 10/3 (1985), pp. 15-20; 11/1(1985), pp. 15-18.

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Documents

The Composition of the Pentateuch G.J. Wenham