The Beginnings of a Critical Reading of the Pentateuch

Abstract

This essay presents a brief history of critical inquiry into the origin of the Pentateuch, whether to Mosaic authorship or to the idea of unified authorship in any sense, as well as into whether the Pentateuch, or the Bible more generally, is to be taken as “true” in a literal sense. It covers ground from Origen to Spinoza, and presents the background to later, and all modern, critical engagement with the text.

Art on Mission with the Tabernacle Builders

“…In the judgment of mainstream biblical scholarship, the same authorial hands that drafted the orderly days of creation in the Bible's first chapter also wrote the many chapters at the end of Exodus, most of Leviticus, and the first ten chapters of Numbers, among other Numbers materials (i.e., the Priestly composers: Driver, 1891: 159; Lohfink, 1994: esp. 145n29; Nöldeke, 1869: 143–144; see now the overview in Ska, 2006: 146–161). 17 The latter literary units respectively instruct the Israelites how to build the Tabernacle, service the Tabernacle, and transport the Tabernacle.…”

“… 21. Blenkinsopp notices the same solemn conclusory formula a third time in Joshua 19:51 (1976: 276), although with Ska, I am not convinced that Joshua 18–19 are priestly in the same way as Genesis 1 and the Tabernacle texts in Exodus (2006: 150–151).…”

“… 17. There is ongoing debate among exegetes over the profile and extent of the Priestly writings, that is: whether it is a self-standing document or a supplement, and also where it ends. Ska lists the following five options in the scholarship: the Priestly materials end at Exodus 40; at Leviticus 9; at Numbers 27; at Deuteronomy 34; or at Joshua 18/19:51 (2006: 147–148). See also Feldman (2023: 15–23).…”

“… 19. The priestly texts in Exodus use the divine name Yhwh , in contrast to which Genesis 1 uses Elohim, and the ancestral stories, El Shaddai (Gen 17:1); Exod 6:2 programmatically spells out the alternation of names (Driver, 1891: 127; Nöldeke, 1869: 37; Ska, 2006: 153).…”

Torah sebagai Kitab Suci Yudaisme: Konsep dan klasifikasi

“…Sayangnya, Bani Israel kemudian menolak untuk masuk ke Kan'an, ditambah dengan sejumlah pemberontakan mereka kepada Musa, yang kemudian menjadikan Tuhan menghukum mereka terasingkan di padang pasir. Hukuman ini bukanlah karena ketidaksiapan mereka namun karena ketidakpercayaan mereka kepada janji Tuhan, sebagaimana dituliskan oleh Ska (2006) sebagai berikut: "The most important episode is found in Numbers 13-14, where the whole generation of the Exodus is condemned to die in the wilderness because they refused to conquer the Promised Land. The message is clear: the failure was not in any way due to the preparation of the campaign: YHWH had foreseen everything.…”