02/09/2009 16:18:00

← Pentateuch
←
 Penta = 5 Teuch = parts/digits
 Jews call it the Torah. Torah = law, or teaching
 Moses is central figure
 Connected with Moses as writing
o Exodus 17:14 – after Israel’s battle with the Amalekites,
God tells Moses to write it down.
o It is now known that writing existed a hundred years
before the Pentateuch. So, people did write stuff down in
those times.
o Exodus 24:3-4 – when they’re sealing the covenant at
Sinai. “Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord.”
o Numbers 33:2 – Israel wandering in the wilderness –
Moses wrote down the stages of their wandering.
o Deuteronomy 31:9 – Moses writes law down and gives it to
the priests of Levi. (This probably refers to the bulk of
Deuteronomy.)
o Joshua 8:31
o Daniel 9:11, Ezra 6:18, Ezra 7:6 – references to “the law
of Moses” or “the book of the law of Moses.”
o Mark 12:26
o John 5:45-46 “If you believed Moses, you would believe
me, for he wrote about Me.”
o Sources that identify Moses as the writer of the Pentateuch
 Ben Sira 24:23
 Ben Sira is part of the Apocrypha (also known
as Ecclesiasticus)
 Josephus – Antiquities of the Jews
 Antiquity 17.6.3
 Philo
 Cherubim 124
 Talmud
 Bava Batra 14b-15a
 But, claims that Joshua authored the end of
Deuteronomy (because it’s about Moses’ death)
  Jerome – treatises against Helvetius
 Believes Moses was the author and Ezra was
the editor.
 In Renaissance times, scholars started to question whether
Moses actually was the final author.
o Numbers 12 refers to Moses as the humblest man in the
world.
o Describes his death.
o Moses wasn’t alive for Genesis.
o Genesis 12:6
o Moses is described in the third person the whole time.
 02/09/2009 16:18:00

← Documentary Hypothesis (an example of source criticism)

←
 Similar stories are repeated – such as when Abraham tells people
that Sarah is his wife.
 Criteria
o “Doublets”
o Contradictions (is Moses’ father-in-law Raquel or Jethro?)
o Names of God (why is God called different things in
different places)
 Renaissance scholars used these criteria to judge what sources
the text of the Pentateuch might have been taken from.
 Main idea
o Starting in the 9th century B.C., there was a source called
J, because it calls God Jahweh.
 Harold Rosenberg “The Book of J.”
th
o 8 Century B.C., source E, because he calls God Elohim ..
majesty of God.
o Late 8th Century, J and E are spliced together.
o 7th Century, source D = book of Deuteronomy.
o After the exile, time of Ezra, 5th Century, Source P =
priestly writer. Leviticus + many laws and genealogies.
(Graf-Wellhausen theory – gained prominence in
1780’s/Enlightenment)
 P is the editor of the whole Pentateuch.
 The true religion of Abraham (by writers J & E)
supposedly was too free, and the legalist P editors
came along and changed things. Things got more
and more legalistic until the time of Pharisees/Jesus.
Jesus returned Christianity to the JE religion of the
patriarchs.
o However, there have never been manuscripts found of any
of these sources.
o The JEDP system/Documentary Hypothesis is the prevailing
theory in higher education. Graves (and the rest of
Wheaton’s Bible/Theology department) thinks its bullshit.
 In the 1950’s, you couldn’t get a job as a theology
prof w/o believing the DH.
 02/09/2009 16:18:00

← Creation & Origins

 Theories
o “Adam” = human being “Eve” = life. This is a metaphorical
story supporting evolution.