My Redeemer > Bible > The Pentateuch
Pentateuch is a satisfactory way of identifying these books. By virtue of nearly two thousand years of usage, it is deeply ingrained in Christian tradition. However, a more accurate and informative term is Torah (Hebrew torah). This name is based upon the verb yarah, to teach. Torah is, therefore, teaching. Careful attention to this will lead to an appreciation both of the contents of the Pentateuch and of its fundamental purpose: the instruction of GOD's people concerning Himself, themselves, and His purposes for them.
The enormous amount of legal material in the Pentateuch (half of Exodus, most of Leviticus, much of numbers, and virtually all of Deuteronomy) has led to the common designation Law or Books of the Law. This way of viewing the Pentateuch does enjoy the sanction of ancient Jewish and even New Testament usage and is not without justification. However, recent scholarship has shown conclusively that the Pentateuch is essentially an instruction (hence torah) manual whose purpose was to guide the covenant people Israel in the way of pilgrimage before their GOD. For example, Genesis, though containing few laws, still instructs GOD's people through its narratives of primeval history and the patriarchs. The law was the "constitution and bylaws" of the chosen nation. Torah is therefore the title best suited to describe the full contents and purpose of this earliest part of the Bible.
Until the Enlightenment in the 1700s, there was a consensus within Jewish and Christian tradition that the witness of the Pentateuch revealed Moses as its author. Both the Old (Deut. 1:5; 4:44; 31:9; 33:4; Josh. 8:31-34; I Kings 2:3; II Kings 14:6; 23:25; II Chron. 23:18; Ezra 3:2; Neh. 8:1; Mal. 4:4) and New Testaments (Luke 2:22; 24:44; John 1:17; 7:19; Acts 13:39; 28:23; I Cor. 9:9; Heb. 10:28) support the tradition of Mosaic authorship. Some pre-Enlightenment interpreters raised incidental questions about chronological discrepancies. For example, they noted reference to kings of Israel in Genesis 36:31, Moses' reference to himself as "a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth" (Num. 12:3), and his authoring the account of his own death (Deut 34:5-12). These, however, can be explained as either the result of divine revelation of the future or more likely as examples of later additions to the text. Those accepting Moses as a historic person whose life and experience are evidenced by Scripture (Exod. 2:10-11; Heb. 11:23-24) must admit the genuine possibility of his authorship of those writings that traditionally bear his name.
Many scholars affirm Moses' significant contributions to the formation of the Pentateuch but hold that the final form of these books evidences some editing after the time of Moses. Such critics in no way deny the divine inspiration of the Pentateuch or the reliability of its history. Rather, they affirm that after the death of Moses, GOD continued to move people of faith to elaborate those truths Moses taught earlier. Evidence for such retelling of accounts after Moses' death includes the account of his death in Deuteronomy 34, especially 34:10-12, which appears to reflect a long history of experience with prophets who failed to measure up to Moses. Further evidences are historical notes that appear to reflect a time after Israel's conquest of the Canaanites' land (Gen. 12:6; 13:7) and place names that have apparently been updated to those used after Moses' death (compare Gen. 14:14 with Josh. 19:47 and Judg. 18:29).
Some radical critics have denied the possibility of GOD's supernatural involvement in history and questioned the trustworthiness of the history found in the Pentateuch. Yet any adequate view of the Pentateuch must recognize Moses' real contribution and the historical reliability of its traditions (see the discussion of the Pentateuch as history that follows).
Deuteronomy, the last book of the Pentateuch, was composed by Moses in the Plains of Moab (Deut. 1:1-5; 4:44-46; 29:1) just before his death (Deut. 31:2,9,24). The first four books probably share this time and place of origin. Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus, however, could have been penned as early as the convocation at Mount Sinai, thirty-eight years earlier. This setting in Moab is particularly appropriate because GOD had already informed Moses that he would not live to cross the Jordan and participate in the conquest and settlement of Canaan (Num. 20:10-13; 27:12-14). It was thus urgent that he bequeath to this people the legacy of divine revelation - the Pentateuch - that the LORD had entrusted to him. The inspired prophet had to address any questions they had about their origins, purpose, and destiny then and there. The date of the final form of the Pentateuch as it came from Moses' hand is about 1400 B.C., forty years after the exodus from Egypt.
The description of the Pentateuch as torah, "instruction", immediately reveals its purpose: to educate the people of Israel about their identity, their history, their role among the nations of the earth, and their future. The Pentateuch contains information about such things as creation, the cosmos, and the distribution and dispersion of the peoples and nations. However, this information finds its relevance primarily in relation to Israel, the people to whom Moses addressed himself at Moab.
Biblical literature's true and ultimate purpose cannot be separated from its theological message. The Pentateuch sought to inform GOD's people of their identity and focus. Though both themes emerge regularly in Exodus and Deuteronomy especially, the focal text where Israel's identity and focus are found is Exodus 19:4-6. Here, on the eve of the Sinai covenant encounter, the LORD spoke to Israel.
Here then is what it meant to be Israel and to serve the LORD as Israel. This core text of the Pentateuch presents the central theme to which all the other themes and teachings relate and in light of which they and the whole Pentateuch find their meaning. In this magnificent affirmation the LORD proclaimed that He had brought Israel to Himself. The text immediately presupposes the exodus deliverance, the redemptive act in which GOD overthrew Egypt ("you yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt") through miraculous intervention ("how I carried you on eagles' wings"). It furthermore declares that the sovereign GOD of all nations was offering to only one nation - Israel - a covenant that would allow them the privilege of serving all the peoples of earth as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation".
This pivotal text looks both backwards and forwards. Reference to the exodus would naturally draw attention to Israel's past. Israel had come out of Egypt, a land of bondage, where it had sojourned for 430 years (Exod. 12:40). The reason for the long stay there had been a famine that forced the patriarchs to flee Canaan for relief. Another reason, however, was that Jacob and his sons had begun to lose their identity as the family of promise by intermingling with and becoming tainted by the Canaanites and their ungodly ways. The sordid affairs of Judah (Gen. 38) illustrate this leaning most clearly.
Moses thus had to reach back into the times of the nations' ancestors to account for the Egyptian sojourn and the exodus event itself. Beyond this he needed to explain who the patriarchs were and why GOD called them. The answer lay in the ancient patriarchal covenant. One man, Abraham, was called out of Sumerian paganism to found a nation that would be a blessing to all nations who recognized its peculiar nature and calling (Gen. 12:1-3). Israel was that nation, that offspring of Abraham, that now was ready to undertake the role long ago revealed to the founding father.
The purpose for the call of Abraham and the covenant promise entrusted to him are carefully spelled out as well. Humankind, which GOD had created to be in His image and to rule over all His creation (Gen. 1:26-28), had violated that sacred trust and had plunged the whole universe into chaotic ruin and rebellion. What was required was a people called out of that lostness to exhibit godly obedience before the world, to function as mediators and a redemptive priesthood, and to provide the matrix from which the incarnate GOD could enter the world and achieve His saving and sovereign purposes of re-creation. That people, again, was Israel. They surely understood their calling, but it likely had never been fully spelled out until Moses did so there on the edge of conquest.
The form this rehearsal of Israel's significance took was, of course, the Book of Genesis. Whether or not the account of these grand events had ever existed in written form cannot be known for sure, though there are strong hints of such in the Book of Genesis itself (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1). Moses, who was about to pass from the scene, shaped the story as we now have it. He wanted to provide Israel with a historical and theological basis for their status as a peculiar people (that is, GOD's "treasured possession").
The remainder of the Pentateuch is, for the most part, a historical narration of events contemporary with Moses and his generation. Embedded in it are the Sinaitic covenant text (Exod. 20:1-23:33), instructions for the creation of a tabernacle (Exod. 25:1-27:21; 30:1-38; 35:4-39:43; Num. 7:1-8:4), selection and setting apart of a priesthood (Exod. 28:1-29:46), a system of sacrifices and other cultic regulations (most of Leviticus), law and ritual appropriate to the people in the desert (Num. 5:1-4; 9:15-32), and the covenant renewal text (most of Deuteronomy). All of these nonnarrative sections and the narratives themselves relate to the theme of Israel as a community of priests. The Pentateuch then tells where Israel came from and why. It tells how they entered into covenant with the LORD following their redemption from Egypt, what claims this covenant laid upon them, and how they were to conduct themselves as the servant people of a holy and sovereign GOD.
Interpreters take one of three broad approaches to the Pentateuch as a source for history. (1) Many interpreters read the Pentateuch as a straightforward recounting of events. (2) Radical critics disregard the Pentateuch as a source for history. For example, Julius Wellhausen and his source-critical school saw the narratives - especially those of Genesis - as reflecting the first millennium era in which they were allegedly composed rather than the times of Moses and the patriarchs (second millennium). The form critic Hermann Gunkel coupled this historical skepticism with a dismissal of the supernatural. He viewed the first eleven chapters of Genesis as largely myth and legend and the patriarchal stories as folktale and epic. The most radical critics regarded only the core of the Mosaic traditions, the exodus event itself, as reliable history. Even that event had to be rid of all its miraculous overtones before it could be accepted as history in the strict sense. The rest of the Moses stories were regarded as embellishments of actual events or stories thought up to justify later religious belief and practice. (3) Others see the Pentateuch primarily as a theological interpretation of real persons and events. For these interpreters the narratives were written from the perspective of a later time. Such scholars differ widely over the possibility and value of recovering the "bare facts" behind the biblical interpretation of what happened.
Many scholars take the findings of scientific biblical archaeology as confirmation that the Pentateuch is most at home precisely in the second millennium setting in which the OT located it. Thus the discovery of ancient Sumerian and Babylonian creation and flood stories at the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh and at other places has lent credence to their antiquity in Israelite tradition. Documents by the thousands from Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, and Nuzi confirm for some interpreters that the life-style, customs, and habits of the biblical patriarchs are most at home in the Middle Bronze Age (about 2000-1550 B.C.) where biblical chronology places them. The now well-understood environment of New Kingdom Egypt and Amarna Canaan (about 1570-1300 B.C.) likewise demonstrates that the account of Israel's history assigned to the time of Moses is compatible with that period. In short, the historicity of the Pentateuch is affirmed by much that has been and is being understood about its setting in the ancient world. Though this may not (and indeed cannot) prove the historicity of individual details, especially personal and private episodes and miraculous intervention, evidence suggests the Pentateuch recounts genuine historical events centered around actual historical persons.
The fundamental importance and relevance of the Pentateuch lies in its theology, not in its historicity or even its literary form and content. What truth is GOD communicating about Himself and His purposes? What meaning did that communication have for OT Israel and the NT church (biblical theology)? What meaning does it have for contemporary Christian theology?
Such questions are obviously related to the matter of the Pentateuch's theme and purpose, matters dealt with previously. The historical, social, and religious setting of the Mosaic writings points to their purpose as that of instructing Israel about its past, its present, and its future. The nation had been redeemed by the great exodus event as a result of Yahweh's free choice of Israel in fulfillment of the promises to the patriarchs. Israel had to understand the context of those promises and their necessary fulfillment in light of the exodus salvation and the subsequent Sinai covenant. Israel now stood as covenant heir and servant people charged with mediating the saving purposes of Yahweh to the whole earth.
The great theme of the Pentateuch, then, is the theme of reconciliation and restoration. GOD's creation, having been affected by human disobedience, stood in need of restoration. Humanity, having been alienated from GOD, stood in need of forgiveness. GOD's saving plan began with a solemn pledge to bless the world through Abraham and his offspring (Israel). The pledge found expression in a covenant granting Abraham descendants and land and designating Abraham as GOD's instrument of redemption. Centuries later that covenant with Abraham incorporated within it a covenant of another kind. The Sinai covenant - a sovereign-vassal treaty - offered to Israel the role of redemptive mediation if Israel submitted to GOD's rule. Israel's acceptance of that servant role produced the whole apparatus of law, religious ritual, and priesthood. These institutions enabled the nation to live out its servant task as a holy people and by that holiness to attract lost humanity to the only true and living GOD. In brief, that is the theology of the Pentateuch.
The Christian is also part of a "kingdom of priests" (Exod. 19:6; I Pet. 2:5,9; Rev. 1:6) with privileges and responsibilities corresponding to those of Old Testament Israel. The church and each and every believer stand within the stream of GOD's gracious covenant promises. Believers have been made "children of GOD" (John 1:12), delivered from bondage to sin by an exodus of personal redemption, established on the pilgrim way to the land of promise, and provided with every means through the new covenant of serving as the instruments of GOD's reconciling grace. The theology of the Pentateuch is important for Christians because it models GOD's timeless purposes for creation and redemption.
The use of critical methods to study the OT began with the work of Jean Astruc, physician to the French King Louis XV. In 1753 Astruc developed a method he felt successfully separated the different sources standing behind Genesis. He used his discovery as a defense of Mosaic authorship of the book.
In later years, however, the results of the application of critical methods often were used as evidence against an orthodox view of Scripture. Thus, in the minds of many, criticism means judgmental. Some people often recoil against the use of critical methods on the grounds that it is improper or even blasphemous to stand as judge over the Scriptures.
However, the intended meaning of the adjective critical is not judgmental but analytical. The various branches of critical method, though sometimes used in a negative or destructive manner, may provide insights into GOD's message for us today.
We will examine the four principal critical methods in the order in which they came into use.
Source Criticism
Source criticism attempts to uncover the documents used to compose a biblical book. No one doubts that some biblical authors used sources. Perhaps the best known example is the author(s) of Chronicles, who used Samuel and Kings as a source. The Book of Kings often mentions other sources such as the "book of the annals of Solomon" (I Kings 11:14).
Source criticism originated and developed with a focus on the Pentateuch, the first five books of the OT. Scholars developed criteria by which the original sources of the Pentateuch could be separated from one another. Julius Wellhausen, a German scholar, who published his major work in the 1880s, represents this type of source criticism.
Wellhausen felt that he could distinguish five sources which he named the Yahwist (J), Elohim (E), Deuteronomist (D), and Priestly (P) sources. He argues that these sources were produced by different, sometimes conflicting, schools of thought at different time periods. According to this scheme the books of the Pentateuch were not completed until late in OT history, hundreds of years after Moses.
Wellhausen's approach received a hostile reception from biblical scholars holding a traditional view of the Bible. The trend of the past decade has been away from a classic source-critical approach to a renewed appreciation for the literary integrity and wholeness of the text (even in light of the obvious use of some sources).
The use of sources demonstrates that the Hebrew people treasured the accounts of how GOD worked in their history. The writer(s) of Chronicles demonstrated how GOD's people drew from such sources to meet the challenges of a new time in much the same way as Christian theologians and pastors have turned to the NT for GOD's word for their day.
Form Criticism
Interest in types of literature (genre) was reawakened in the early 1900s primarily through the work of the German scholar Herman Gunkel. Gunkel felt that source criticism was unprofitable and supplemented it with study of the form (literary category) of the text. He applied his method mainly to the Psalms and Genesis. Others, notably Gunkel's student, Hugo Gressmann, and the Scandinavian scholar, Sigmund Mowinckel, carried his ideas even further.
Simply put, Gunkel's approach focused on identifying the type of text he was studying. In the Psalms, for instance, two main types were hymns and laments. Laments expressed a sorrowful, often repentant mood and were characterized by language used in mourning ("woe", "alas"). Gunkel was confident that, like a detective, he could work backward from a written text through countless retellings to the original oral material. Gunkel also felt that each type of literature had been determined by being retold in a particular setting or situation in the life of the community.
Gunkel's confidence that he could get behind a literary text to the original oral saying was unwarranted. Some of his genre categories ("legend", "saga") also discounted the historicity of the Bible.
Form criticism has yielded great benefits to Penteteuchal scholarship. To see that the geneologies of Genesis have a particular function based on their form (that is, to represent connections between covenant promises and to highlight specific links) is exegetically and theologically useful. Likewise, to know that the covenant texts associated with Abraham and the patriarchs are, by form, in the pattern of royal land-grant treaties gives the Abrahamic covenant a rich theological dimension. The book of the covenant (Exod. 20:1-23:33) and the Book of Deuteronomy are patterned after classic Hittite sovereign vassal treaty texts. Form criticism, judiciously employed, has self-evident value.
Redaction Criticism
Form criticism tended to fragment a text by examining isolated passages. Redaction criticism corrects the dangerous side effects of a form-critical analysis.
Form criticism focuses on how a single passage was shaped by the process of repeated telling before being written down. Redaction criticism focuses on the final written form of a biblical book. Form criticism focuses on what is typical of a type of literature (hymns, miracle stories). Redaction criticism focuses on what is distinctive to a specific work of literature (Genesis, Deuteronomy). It asks what theological concerns motivated the biblical redactor (editor) to bring together isolated, traditional materials.
Such an approach is most helpful when there are two parallel sources. A comparison between accounts of Solomon's life in Kings and Chronicles allows the reader to see the different (not contradictory) theological concerns of the two books.
Redaction criticism, though, becomes much more speculative when applied to books without parallels.
Literary Approach
There has been a steady movement away from approaches that isolate Scripture texts and look at them outside of their present literary context. The resurgence of a literary approach to biblical texts is a further step in this direction.
A literary approach recognizes that the OT texts are mostly poems and stories and applies the methods and categories of contemporary literary analysis to discover the conventions of Hebrew literature.
Poetry has long been subjected to this kind of analysis, and literary devices such as parallelism and imagery have been analyzed and debated. Only recently, however, has narrative been treated like story. Since each culture and time period have different conventions of story telling, scholars have concentrated on what goes into a Hebrew narrative.
Literary study and other analytical methods are tools for understanding the Scripture. Their usefulness, like that of any tool, depends finally on the worker who uses them. Occasionally such study obscures rather than illuminates the text. In some hands it becomes a tool for negating the historical value of the text. In other hands literary and other analytical methods have produced many helpful insights.
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