History Of Research On The Pentateuch

The History of research on the Pentateuch is the history of criticism and philological analysis of texts, from the first questioning of their allocation, until recent theories and assumptions.

Although Philo of Alexandria (De vita Mosis 1 84) assigns to Moses that the composition and writing partial Pentateuch, ancient traditions, Jewish and Christian, generally attributed to him in the total composition and writing. The story of Moses' death and burial by God in Deuteronomy 34, however, poses a logical problem. One answer is that Joshua, the successor of Moses, had continued the unfinished work (Babylonian Talmud, tractate Bava Bathra, 14b). In this line, Isaac ibn Yasushi the eleventh ^century, and Abraham ibn Ezra in the twelfth ^century drew up lists of post mosaic, in which one observes for example that:

• Genesis 36.31 requires that you have passed the period of the monarchy
• Number 22, 1 designates Transjordan as the country beyond the river, which requires write from Canaan, yet Moses is supposed not to be entered
• etc..

Subsequently Baruch Spinoza in his Theological-Political Treatise ( 1670 ) noted a unity between the Pentateuch and historical books from Joshua to Kings and concludes that it may have been written by Moses. He leans towards Ezra , after the Kingdom of Judah. The debate grew louder only in the ^eighteenth century.

Scope of sources and diversity of periods Editorial

When they spot breaks the narrative logic and observe a number of duplicates for other stories, Henning Bernhard Witter (1683-1715) and Jean Astruc ( 1 684 - in 1766 , physician to Louis XV ) develop independently of each other a theory of sources of the Pentateuch. Astruc published in 1753 Conjectures on the original papers which it appears, that Moses was used to compose the book of Genesis. He particularly item 12:

• At the Memorial, where God is named Elohim
• the memory B where God is called YHWH

This book will be regarded as attacking the Pentateuch ^{Reading the Bible in Europe in the nineteenth century}

The revival of reading the Bible (and not merely the Pentateuch) in Europe in the nineteenth ^century provides the context for this work.

The main models

Overall, the theories of the sources of the Pentateuch meet three models of explanation:

• Theories Documentary: Several narrative threads periods and held various editorial telling the same story with different theological and ideological perspectives are united by successive editors.

• Assumptions supplements: a small central core would have been rewritten and have received many compliments by many authors. This model could not win and was dismissed from the ^nineteenth century because it does not capture many frames as units parallel editorial.
• Assumptions fragments: a large number of narratives and legislative are scattered and isolated, with no narrative continuity. They are joined by several writers that gives them a time frame.

The system Graff-Wellhausen denies writing the Pentateuch by Moses, by showing that it consists of a compilation of different theological traditions and older.

Posterity of this methodology

Companies of Biblical Literature

Interdisciplinarity and internationalization are fast becoming the key research. (More)

Biblical Archaeology

Biblical Archaeology was founded by the American neo-Protestant churches in the draft to archaeological evidence with biblical accounts, and fuel the concordism. The flagship of these archaeologists is William A. Allbright. The theological results are not exactly expected, but the archeology of the Middle East is experiencing a development unparalleled in the elaborate team of British, American and German.

Posterity

Farewell to Yahwist

It is a theory European (German and Swiss researchers, mostly) developed by John Van Seters and others like Thomas Rmer and Albert de Pury. It calls into question previous theories, creating a debate. Perhaps the Yahwist Is a priest? Is a growing consensus around the idea that stories about the patriarchs and Moses were not related before drafting the Priestly Code.

See also

• Documentary hypothesis
• Deuteronomistic History
• The Bible Unearthed
• Biblical exegesis

External Links

• What's Happened to the "Yahwist?: Reflections after Thirty Years by Rolf Rendtorff
• tradition against Biblical Research Bibliography
  • Introduction to the Old Testament, Thomas Rmer , JD Macchi, Christophe Nihan (ed.), Labor et Fides, 2004, ISBN 2-8309-1112-1
  • A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition Of The Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation "under the direction of Thomas B. and Konrad Schmid Dozeman, Brill
  • Bible Portal

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