Reflections on the Documentary Hypothesis
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SYLLABUS - BI6630 Studies in the Pentateuch
SYLLABUS - BI6630 Studies in the Pentateuch Note: Course content may be changed, term to term, without notice. The information below is provided as a guide for course selection and is not binding in any form. SYLLABUS - BI6630 Studies in the Pentateuch Course Number, Name, and Credit Hours BI-6630 Studies in the Pentateuch, 3 credit hours Course Description This course is an examination of the Pentateuch. It includes a review of the content and structure of the Pentateuch; an analysis of its meaning and function with respect to both its ancient Near Eastern and canonical context; careful examination of particular texts from various genres embedded within the Pentateuch; exploration of various themes; interaction with various methods of interpretation; and a consideration of how the Pentateuch relates to the New Testament and the contemporary church. Prerequisites: BI-5500 Hermeneutics and BI-5533 Old Testament History, Literature, and Theology. Course Objectives 1. Describe and locate the basic content, key themes and the flow of the Pentateuch (Knowledge and Understanding) 2. Express how key historical, archaeological, geographical, structural, and cultural background issues affect the Pentateuch and defend their view of authorship (Reflection and Critique) 3. Exegete a passage in the Pentateuch by utilizing a variety of methods and appropriately using digital resources in the process (Performance and Action) 4. Articulate a theological framework which clarifies and defines how the Pentateuch applies and functions authoritatively in the church (Commitment and Identity) 5. Integrate biblical knowledge into a ministry setting (Performance and Action) Course Textbook(s) and/or Supporting Information Required textbooks for all Moody Online classes can be found on the Required Textbooks section of the Moody website. -
THE AUTHORSHIP of the PENTATEUCH: an OLD CRITICAL ISSUE THAT REFUSES to EXPIRE Vernon J
THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH: AN OLD CRITICAL ISSUE THAT REFUSES TO EXPIRE Vernon J. Steiner, Ph.D. The Emmaus Institute Lincoln, Nebraska 0. PREFACE The comparison is an unfortunate one, but taking up this topic reminds me of how a mortician might feel upon discovering that a cadaver in the advanced stages of rigor mortis continues to show signs of life. About the time one thinks all critical discussions on the history and authorship of the Pentateuch have died a long-overdue death, the topic suddenly sits up again as an interesting point of inquiry or even as a test of critical orthodoxy on the one hand or of Christian piety and scriptural fidelity on the other. This was brought to my attention again in a conversation just over a decade ago which reminded me of a course I endured early on in my graduate studies. That was in a previous millennium, at a time when the authorship of the Pentateuch was identified in conservative circles as one of four critical issues in the study of the Old Testament by which one’s commitment to the authority of Scripture could be measured (alongside the dating of the exodus, the authorship of Isaiah, and the dating of Daniel). The more recent exchange resulted in my being declined a teaching gig overseas, ostensibly because my views on the authorship of the Pentateuch did not align with the position espoused by the faculty of the school seeking my services as a visiting professor. The present piece, which many of my students have seen in one version or another over the decades, represents a kind of belated peace offering to my recent interlocutor and my earlier seminary professors. -
Authority of Scripture Authorized Versions of the Bible Authorship I. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament
Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2011 Authorship Schmid, Konrad DOI: https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1995.03520260035027 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-50488 Book Section Published Version Originally published at: Schmid, Konrad (2011). Authorship. In: Spieckermann, Hermann. Encyclopeida of the Bible and Its Reception: Athena – Birkat ha-Minim. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 116-120. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1995.03520260035027 115 Authority of Scripture 116 Consequently, together with other state magis- or by his sources, judging by the use of the plural trates, the “elders” are accused of corruption by π λιτ!ραι (Acts 17 : 6, 8) and the characterization some of the prophets (Isa 3 : 2–3; Amos 5 : 10–15). of the politarchs as bearing responsibility for main- In Jerusalem, both Jesus and Paul are con- taining public peace and order (vv. 6–7) and setting fronted with the Jewish temple staff, spearheaded bond (v. 9). by the high priest and the local representatives of Paul is also repeatedly in contact with provincial the Roman Empire. Jesus is arrested on behalf of authorities on his journeys. On Malta, he and Bar- the high priests, scribes and elders (Mark 14: 43) nabas preach the gospel to the Roman governor Ser- and is interrogated by the Sanhedrin (Mark 14 : 53– gius Paulus (13 : 7). During his arrest in Caesarea Maritima, the apostle is questioned by the govern- 65) and the Roman governor (γεμν/praefectus) ors Felix and Festus (23 : 33–26 : 32). -
Brass Plates' and Biblical Scholarship
THE 'BRASS PLATES' AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP JOHN L. SORENSON One of the notable intellectual activities of the 19th and early 20th centuries was development of the view that the Old Testament was a composite of ancient documents of varied age and source. Although the origin of the view in western European thought goes back over two hundred years, it was not until the early decades of this century, with the triumph of an evolutionary view of history, that the logical extreme of the position was attained. Julius Wellhausen's phrasing of the "classical documentary hypothesis" then became orthodox for virtually all well-educated divines and secular scholars on antiquity.1 Four major strands of tradition—or early sources—were thought distin- quishable, particularly in the Pentateuch. These were variously considered actual original documents, or the distinct revisions of later editors, or the manifestations of separate bodies of tradition, first oral and then written. The earliest, or "}" strand was seen as fundamental, from which an "E" tradition diverged. Each had telltale stylistic differences and theological biases, especially in the preference for a different name for divinity—"}" deriving its designation from its common use of Jehovah (Yahweh), and "E" from Elohim. A third source, "P" (for Priestly), was held to present a tradition-conscious picture of a God distant from the lives and immediate concerns of men. The fourth source, "D", was identified as that emphasizing the Deuteronomic law.2 The Old Testament was seen as an intricate composite of all these separate sources or traditions. In its extreme form, the logic of documentary analysis on the basis of lexicon, style and content eventually led to distinguishing many more than four sources, all supposedly based on peculiarities detected in the text by one or more analysts. -
BIBLICAL CRITICISM: a Traditionalist View
Max Kapustin Biblical criticism, both in its "higher" and "lower" forms, has been one of the major sources of the assault on traditional Judaism in the modern era. Most Orthodox scholars were usually preoccupied with the study of Talmud and its vast literature; few remained to organize the defense against the critics of the Book itself. Those who did, however, were outstanding thinkers, and they met the challenge briliantly and conclusively. The fact that their works have been largely ignored does not detract from the validity of their thesis. Rabbi Max Kapustin, who here discusses their major contributions, out- lines the general attitude he believes traditional Jews ought to adopt to Biblical Criticism. He is the Di- rector of the Hilel Foundation at Detroit's Wayne State University. Ordained by the (Hildesheimer) Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin, and recipient of a doctor's degree in Semitics from Heidelberg Uni- versity, he was instrctor in Bible and Talmud at the Rabbinical College (Hoffmann Yeshivah) of Frankfurt a.M. He is the author of two works in rab.. binics. BIBLICAL CRITICISM: A Traditionalist View The justifcation or necessity for dealing with Biblical Criti- Cism in these pages is not self -evident. Work on the Bible offers rich rewards even without taking into consideration so-called critical problems. For a modern example we have only to turn to S. R. Hirsch's great commentary to the Pentateuch now being made accessible to the English reader.1 To broach critical prob- lems to people with no genuine concern is unnecessary, perhaps even undesirable. Yet whenever problems. -
Deuteronomy 202 1 Edition Dr
Notes on Deuteronomy 202 1 Edition Dr. Thomas L. Constable TITLE The title of this book in the Hebrew Bible was its first two words, 'elleh haddebarim, which translate into English as "these are the words" (1:1). Ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties began the same way.1 So the Jewish title gives a strong clue to the literary character of Deuteronomy. The English title comes from a Latinized form of the Septuagint (Greek) translation title. "Deuteronomy" means "second law" in Greek. We might suppose that this title arose from the idea that Deuteronomy records the law as Moses repeated it to the new generation of Israelites who were preparing to enter the land, but this is not the case. It came from a mistranslation of a phrase in 17:18. In that passage, God commanded Israel's kings to prepare "a copy of this law" for themselves. The Septuagint translators mistakenly rendered this phrase "this second [repeated] law." The Vulgate (Latin) translation, influenced by the Septuagint, translated the phrase "second law" as deuteronomium, from which "Deuteronomy" is a transliteration. The Book of Deuteronomy is, to some extent, however, a repetition to the new generation of the Law that God gave at Mt. Sinai. For example, about 50 percent of the "Book of the Covenant" (Exod. 20:23— 23:33) is paralleled in Deuteronomy.2 Thus God overruled the translators' error, and gave us a title for the book in English that is appropriate, in view of the contents of the book.3 1Meredith G. Kline, "Deuteronomy," in The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, p. -
Hebrew Names in the Book of Mormon
HEBREW NAMES IN THE BOOK OF MORMON by John A. Tvedtnes [Editor’s note: This paper was presented by John the preface to the work, David Noel Freedman wrote, Tvedtnes at the Thirteenth World Congress of Jewish “The editor is to be commended for his catholicity and Studies in Jerusalem, August 2001.] courage and for his own original contributions in sev- eral domains including a unique treatment of the Book In the spring of 1830, Joseph Smith, a young American of Mormon.”6 Taking his cue from Welch, Donald W. farmer in the state of New York, published a volume Parry, a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls translation entitled the Book of Mormon. The book purports to be team and contributor to the Oxford series Discoveries an abridgment of the history of a small group of people in the Judaean Desert,7 published The Book of Mormon who left Jerusalem about 600 B.C.E. and, led by a Text Reformatted According to Parallelistic Patterns in prophet named Lehi, came to the Americas. The abridg- 1992,8 just a few years after he published an article on ment was essentially prepared about a thousand years “Hebrew Literary Patterns in the Book of Mormon.”9 later by a prophet named Mormon. Smith claimed that he had translated the text from metallic plates with In 1979, Welch organized the Foundation for Ancient divine assistance. Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS). Although the organization is perhaps best known for producing the While more than twenty thousand people—mostly Dead Sea Scrolls CD-ROM distributed through Brill,10 Americans and British—came to accept the book dur- one of its primary activities is the publication of schol- ing Joseph Smith’s lifetime, most people considered it arly books and papers on the Book of Mormon, includ- to be the work of a charlatan.1 Today, more than eleven ing the semiannual Journal of Book of Mormon Stud- million people profess a belief in the Book of Mormon ies. -
Authorship of the Pentateuch
M. Bajić: Authorship of the Pentateuch Authorship of the Pentateuch Monika Bajić Biblijski institut, Zagreb [email protected] UDK:27-242 Professional paper Received: April, 2016 Accepted: October, 2016 Summary This piece is a concise summary of the historical and contemporary develo- pment of Pentateuch studies in Old Testament Theology. This article aims to provide information on the possible confirmation of Mosaic authorship. The purpose is to examine how the Documentary Hypothesis, Fragment and Su- pplemental Hypotheses, Form and Traditio-Historical Criticism, Canonical and Literary Criticism have helped to reveal or identify the identity of the author of the Torah. To better understand the mentioned hypotheses, this article presents a brief description of the J, E, D, and P sources. Key words: Pentateuch, authorship, Mosaic authorship, Torah, Documen- tary Hypothesis, Fragment and Supplemental Hypothesis, Form and Tradi- tio-Historical Criticism, Canonical and Literary Criticism. In the most literal sense, the Pentateuch 1 (or Torah) is an anonymous work, but traditional views support the belief of Mosaic authorship (Carpenter 1986, 751- 52). Yet, with the advent of humanism and the Renaissance, the sense of intellec- tual freedom and upswing in research have led to the fact that many have begun to read the Bible critically, trying to challenge its text as well as the traditions and beliefs that are formed from it (Alexander 2003, 61-63). One of the most commonly attacked beliefs is Moses’ authorship of the Torah. There has been an 1 Taken from the Greek translation LXX. Pentateuch is derived from the Greek word pentateu- chos, which means a five-book work, known as the Books of Moses (Carpenter 1986). -
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Authorship of Pentateuch By Anthony M. Wanjohi 1.0 Introduction This paper presents authorship of Pentateuch. The first part deals with description of the key term, namely Pentateuch. The second part presents authorship based on documentary hypothesis followed by mosaic authorship. The paper winds up with a conclusion. 2.0 Description of Pentateuch The key term in this paper is “pentateuch”. The term is used interchangeably with “torah” which refers either to the Five Books of Moses (or Pentateuch) or to the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts. These books include Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (Malick, 1999). These five books form a backbone for the rest of the Old Testament and New Testament theologically: Genesis: The origins behind the founding of the theocracy, the promised blessing of the seed in the land and of all peoples through the seed. Exodus: The redemptions of the seed of Abraham out of bondage and the formation of this people to be a nation with a constitution. Leviticus: Israel's culture is established by providing a manual of ordinances to help with their needs when approaching God who is going to live among His people in holiness (Lev 26:11-12) Numbers: YHWH orders Israel's walk (the military arrangement, census of the tribes, transport of the sacred palladium), but Israel disrupts YHWH's order; Nevertheless, the promised blessing cannot be frustrated from within or from without. Deuteronomy: The reconstitution of the nation under YHWH to enter the land through a covenant renewal in legal-prophetic form. 3.0 Authorship of Pentateuch Authorship of Pentateuch is discussed briefly based on two main approaches, namely authorship by Moses and Documentary Hypothesis. -
Visionary Ascents of Moses in Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum: Apocalyptic Motifs and the Growth of Visionary Moses Tradition
Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Dissertations (1934 -) Projects Visionary Ascents of Moses in Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum: Apocalyptic Motifs and the Growth of Visionary Moses Tradition Kristine Johnson Ruffatto Marquette University Follow this and additional works at: https://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Ruffatto, Kristine Johnson, "Visionary Ascents of Moses in Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum: Apocalyptic Motifs and the Growth of Visionary Moses Tradition" (2010). Dissertations (1934 -). 84. https://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/84 VISIONARY ASCENTS OF MOSES IN PSEUDO-PHILO’S LIBER ANTIQUITATUM BIBLICARUM : APOCALYPTIC MOTIFS AND THE GROWTH OF VISIONARY MOSES TRADITION by Kristine J. Ruffatto, B.A., M.Div. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin December 2010 ABSTRACT VISIONARY ASCENTS OF MOSES IN PSEUDO-PHILO’S LIBER ANTIQUITATUM BIBLICARUM : APOCALYPTIC MOTIFS AND THE GROWTH OF VISIONARY MOSES TRADITION Kristine J. Ruffatto, B.A., M.Div. Marquette University, 2010 This dissertation explores the development of visionary Moses tradition from its origins in the Hebrew Bible through pro-Mosaic Second Temple literature and rabbinic texts. It demonstrates that throughout this variegated literature, there is a developing tendency to portray Moses as an apocalyptic seer. In the non-biblical Mosaic texts that were analyzed, Moses’ revelation on Sinai and Nebo is increasingly invested with esoteric content, and Moses’ ascents are often depicted as heavenly journeys. These revelatory developments have conceptual roots in alternative visionary traditions, notably Enochic lore. -
Deuteronomy (March 24)
Deuteronomy (March 24) Reading Deuteronomy She huddled her child in a smothering embrace, scolding and weeping. The boy had toddled out to the tent to visit the animals fenced and staked outside. A bull calf drew the boy’s attention. He walked beside the animal, brushing its soft, shaggy coat with his hand. The touch of his hand tickled the calf’s side. It kicked, just missing the boy’s head. It raised its foot again as the boy’s mother pulled her child away – just in time. In Deuteronomy, the Lord reminds Israel that they are his treasured possession. Moses begins his address as the Lord’s prophet, reminding Israel of how the Lord delivered them from the bondage of Egypt and how they abused their freedom while in the wilderness by worshiping the golden calf. Deuteronomy delivers the Lord’s rebuke against disobedience, yet it also affirms God’s surpassing, parental love for his people. Title The word “Deuteronomy” (meaning “repetition of the law”), as the name of the last book of the Pentateuch, arose from a mistranslation in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate of a phrase in Deuteronomy 17:18, which in Hebrew means “copy of the law.” The error is not serious, however, since Deuteronomy is, in a certain sense, a “repetition of the law.” The Hebrew name of the book is ‘elleh haddebarim (“These are the words”) or, more simply, debarim (“words”). Author The book itself testifies that, for the most part, Moses wrote it, and other Old Testament books agree – though, of course, the preamble (Deuteronomy 1:1-5) and the report of Moses’ death (chapter 34) may have been written by someone else. -
Lecture Notes In
April 10, 2013 – Intro Lecture Lakeside Institute of Theology Ross Arnold, Spring 2013 Policies and Requirements 1. Classes are free, but all students seeking a certificate or degree must purchase books (paper, not electronic), which will be made available by the Institute. 2. Students in certificate or degree tracks may miss no more than one class per course, without arrangements made in advance with the teacher to make up missed work (at the discretion of the teacher). 3. Students in certificate or degree tracks will be required to take a pass/fail final exam in each course, based on study guidelines provided by the teacher. 4. Students in certificate or degree tracks must make a passing grade (based on "pass/fail") in each course in order to receive credit towards a certificate or degree. 5. Candidates for degrees (Master of Theology and Master of Theology & Ministry) must be approved by the Institute Director before final admission into a degree program. Pentateuch (OT3) 1. Introduction to the Pentateuch 2. Genesis 1-11; The Prehistoric Prologue 3. Genesis 12-50; The Patriarchs 4. Exodus 1-18; God’s Deliverance 5. Exodus 19-40’ The Covenant at Sinai 6. Leviticus 7. Numbers 8. Deuteronomy; Final Exam On what do we base our faith? • Our beliefs are based on God’s own revelation to us, as given in four ways (in descending order of authority): 1. The revelation of God in Scripture. 2. The revelation of God to His Church, down through history. 3. The revelation of God in the world. (“General Revelation”) 4.