Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
August 19 - October 8, 2025
The Pentateuch (that is, a book in five parts) has been a designation for the first five books of the Old Testament (and Hebrew Bible) since the second century CE at least.
The five-part division may have been a formal move dictated by convenience in scroll handling
The biblical texts make no reference to this five-part form. They do refer to "(the book of) the law" (Ezra 10:3; Neh 8:3), but it is unclear whether this wording refers to the laws or to the entire Pentateuch
The basic form of the Pentateuch is not law, but narrative, moving from the creation to the eve of Israel's settlement in the promised land; laws have been woven into this narrative structure at various points. Moreover, the basic content of the Pentateuch is not legal in character; it is the story of God and (primarily) a people called Israel, often in interaction with each other.
The Hebrew word torah can be more properly used if it is broadly defined as instruction, and hence could include both law and narrative. But, given the usual meanings of the word "law," it should not be used as a shorthand reference to the Pentateuch in its entirety.
the New Testament writers use the Pentateuch to interpret and proclaim God's act in Jesus.
The World Behind the Text This phrase represents author-centered approaches, focused on the production of the text. The meaning of the text is what the author intended and can be discovered within the text itself. This is commonly called the historical-critical method (or historical criticism)
Generally for this approach, the text is to be read as a historical document, the result of a complex historical process, wherein it was shaped by the circumstances of the times and places in which it was produced.
one must seek to understand as much of that ancient world as possible—language, history, society and culture, literary conventions, and religious ideas and institutions.
This approach makes clear that reading the Bible is a crosscultural experience; it exposes interpreters to a world that is other than our own, helping break us out of our cultural insularity, our narrow visions, and our limited experience.
Source Criticism. Long the dominant scholarly approach to the Pentateuch, source criticism is a literary-historical analysis that seeks to determine the origins of a text, and hence focuses on such questions as authorship, the oral and written sources used, and the editorial stages through which it may have passed.
one basic result of source critical study remains in place: the Pentateuch is a composite work that grew over the course of a half millennium or more.
The two primary genres in the Pentateuch are law and narrative. While they are at times interwoven, they are not evenly distributed. Narrative predominates in the first third of the Pentateuch (Genesis–Exodus 19), while collections of law dominate Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
the basic "acts of God." These confessional elements constituted an outline for what in time became the Hexateuch (= the Pentateuch plus Joshua).
the Pentateuch has been decisively shaped by religious and theological interests and institutions. The extent to which practitioners had their hand in this process may be debated
The study of Deuteronomy has taken a somewhat separate route from that of the other major sources. Deuteronomy has long been associated with the book of the law that shaped the reform of Josiah in the late-seventh century BCE
Sometime in the postexilic period, Deuteronomy, because it focused on the law and its mediator Moses, was joined with the Tetrateuch (with certain texts transferred from the end of Numbers to the end of Deuteronomy).
the Hebrew Bible counts 1,946 years from the creation to the birth of Abraham (Gen 11:26); 2,666 years to the Exodus (is it important that this is 2/3 of 4,000?), and 40 more years to the death of Moses, for a total of 2,706 years.13
The flow of time through the Pentateuch is generally coherent, but very uneven. The chronology of Genesis is laid out in terms of over 2,000 years. On the other hand, Deuteronomy covers only twenty-four hours (1:3; 32:48-50). In between, the long stretch from Exod 19:1 through Leviticus to Num 10:11 covers almost twelve months.
It is wise to remember that archaeological findings do not prove (or disprove) the truth of the Bible;
For text-centered methods, meaning is inherent in the text itself and can be discerned by a careful analysis of how the textual features work together.
new literary criticism, and includes various strategies that have not yet been defined precisely in relation to one another (e.g., rhetorical criticism and structuralism). This approach emerged in the middle of the twentieth century within biblical studies and has gained considerable strength.16 This approach honors the text as text, as it presently exists in its own right, apart from historical issues that may be raised, including authorship.
This approach, rather than investigating how the text may have originated and evolved through the years (a diachronic concern), studies the text in its present form (a synchronic concern).
In contrast to author-centered and text-centered approaches, a reader-centered approach has emerged; it focuses on the reception of the text or, more precisely, on the interaction between reader and text.
While the act of reading is held in common by all, there are many different types of readers. I note three here: (a) the implied reader, the one for whom the text is written (see next chapter). This reader is inferred from data within the text itself (in a similar way one speaks of an implied author); (b) the historical reader, the reader who would have read the text in ancient times, which may correspond to the implied reader in many ways; (c) readers in every postbiblical generation. The latter are the special concern of reader-response criticism.
Eisegesis (reading into the text) has long been denounced in favor of exegesis (reading out of the text), but the truth of the matter is that both moves are employed in every readerly act.
The Pentateuch is shaped in such a way as to address these implied readers. Certain rhetorical strategies are employed to have an effect on them. What sorts of effects on these readers are possible? Three may be noted: (1) the reception of new information or a new perspective; (2) to be moved to think, speak, or act differently; (3) a religious response, wherein one is converted or comforted or challenged to a new appreciation of God or the divine-human relationship and its implications for life.
At the simplest level, the Pentateuch assumes that its readers are able to read texts and to read them in Hebrew. It is assumed that they will have certain general information in hand, for example, the basics of their social and religious heritage. Knowledge of key events, characters, customs, and traditions, including the law and certain features of the Mosaic tradition, are often presupposed.
One of the Pentateuch's most basic assumptions about the readers is that God does not have to be introduced (1:1). Moreover, the name Yahweh is assumed to be known (2:4).
