How Diverse Is the Pentateuch - Essay Example

?How Diverse is the Pentateuch and What Difference Does it Make? I. Introduction: What is the Pentateuch? Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible is also known as the Book of Moses. It has been thought that they contain the laws and instructions of God given to the people of Israel through Moses, hence Pentateuch’s other name “Book of Moses”. In the Pentateuch, the Israelites were appointed as the chosen people of God and the beneficiary of the Ark of Covenant and laid down the foundation of the coming of the Messiah in the presence of Jesus Christ. II. Passages in the Bible that suggests Moses authorship of the Pentateuch There are several passages in the Pentateuch and the Bible that led to the initial conclusion that indeed Moses wrote the entire body of the Pentateuch. Among these passages were; Passages in the Pentateuch that suggests Moses’ authorship; Exodus 17:14 "Then the Lord instructed Moses, 'Write this down as a permanent record...'" Exodus 24:4 "Then Moses carefully wrote down all the Lord's instructions." Exodus 34:27 "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Write down all these instructions, for they represents the terms of my covenant with you and with Israel.'" Leviticus 1:1 "The Lord called to Moses from the Tabernacle and said to him, 'Give the following instructions to the Israelites...'" Leviticus 6:8 "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Give Aaron and his sons the following instructions...'" Deuteronomy 31:9 "So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the priests." Deuteronomy 31:24-26 "When Moses had finished writing down this entire body of law in a book..." Passages elsewhere in the Scriptures that suggests Moses authorship Joshua 1:7-8 "...Obey all the laws Moses gave you." Joshua 8:31-34 "He followed the instructions that Moses the Lord's servant had written in the Book of the Law..." Joshua 22:5 "...obey all the commands and the laws that Moses gave to you." 2 Chronicles 34:14 "...Hilkiah the high priest...found the book of the Law of the Lord as it had been given through Moses." Matthew 19:7-8 "...why did Moses say a man could merely write an official letter of divorce and send her away?", they asked. Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted divorce...'" Matthew 22:24 "Moses said, 'If a man dies without children...'" Mark 7:10 "For instance, Moses gave you this law from God..." Mark 12:24 "...haven't you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush..." Luke 24:44 "...I told you that everything written about me by Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must all come true." John 1:17 "For the law was given through Moses..." John 5:46 "But if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me because he wrote about me. And since you don't believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?" John 7:23 "...do it, so as not to break the law of Moses..." Acts 26:22 "...I teach nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen..." Romans 10:5 "For Moses wrote..." III. Was the Pentateuch a work of a single author (by Moses) or an anthology of diverse material? It is easy to conclude that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses given the above Biblical passages suggestion that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch. Also, the Books were attributed to him not to mention that he was a central figure to it. A close examination on the Pentateuch by scholars beginning in the eighteenth century however led them to conclude that the Pentateuch is not written by a single author, or by Moses alone as the traditional thinking suggests, but rather an anthology of diverse materials. Evidences that Pentateuch is not written by a single author When critical literary analysis was applied to the Pentateuch, it was found that the five books contained numerous duplications, broad diversity of writing style and even contrasting view points. The discovery of the duplication of the texts in the body of Pentateuch led scholars to study that the first five books had its own history of composition (Campbell and O’Brian 3-4). The hypothesis that the Pentateuch is not a monolithic work of a single author was first raised by Richard Simon (1638 – 1712), who disputed the prevailing thinking that the whole five books were written solely by Moses. He argued that the Pentateuch is instead a compilation of a number of documents that came from Moses. According to Simon, the Pentateuch only took its final form as we know it today during the time of Ezra in the post-exile period. Another scholar, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) supported this when he elaborated on how God was addressed in the Pentateuch; the first term that was used was Elohim (God) and the other, YHWH (Lord) signifying different authors (Campbell and O’Brian 3-4). This repetition in the body of text of the Pentateuch indicate several sources of the Books even if the received text is intelligible to the ancient Israeli scholars according to the prevailing standards when it was given. Beginning in the 18th Century, the hypothesis that the Pentateuch came from different authors became in flower. Scholars like Witter, Astruc and Eichorn independently supported the two authorship hypothesis as what they have gleaned in the Pentateuch; There were two stories of creation in the Genesis The Covenant between God and Abraham had two descriptions The circumstance of how Isaac was named had two stories The manner on how the Ten Commandments were given also had two versions (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy). There were also two accounts when Moses struck the rock at Meribeh. Even the name of the Supreme Being had two sets, one is Elohim and the other is Yahweh. A century later (19th Century), investigators added one possible source. That instead of two, they argued that there could be three sources of the Pentateuch. It is because the book of Deuteronomy had a different writing style compared to the other four books in the Pentateuch. Until finally, when the century ended, scholars arrived at a consensus that there was also one writer, totaling to four authors, who edited or redacted the final version of the Pentateuch. IV. How did this diversity or lack of diversity affect my own interpretation of the Pentateuch. Personally, the source or the number of author of the Pentateuch is not really important. What matters to me are the lessons and the evidence of the existence of God or Elohim or Yahweh. It is already enough for me that the Pentateuch set the stage of the coming of Jesus Christ. V. Does the meaning of the Pentateuch change when it seen as an anthology of diverse voice? If so, how? It did not. Even if the number of authors changed, essence of the Pentateuch did not change. Whoever or how many may have written the Pentateuch did not change the fact that in the Pentateuch, the Israelites were still the chosen of people of God, that they were the recipient of the Ark of Promise and the lineage where Jesus Christ was born. References: Campbell, Anthony F, O’Brien, Mark A. Sources of the Pentateuch. USA 1993. Augsburg Fortress, 1993 The Documentary Hypothesis on the identity of the Pentateuch’s authors. B.A. Robinson. 21 August 2007. www.religioustolerance.org. 07 November 2011. Who Wrote the Pentateuchs? B.A. Robinson. 25 February 2008. . www.religioustolerance.org. 07 November 2011. . Read More