Literary Criticism Of Deuteronomy

Based on the laws presented in Deuteronomy, aliens (or “sojourners”) are allowed to live amongst God’s chosen people. He forbids the Israelites from oppressing the “strangers” (or non-Israelites/Gentiles)—especially since they—too—were once aliens in the land. They are to be treated fairly and justly—every member of the community should have a fair hearing and judge rightly from one person to another (Deuteronomy 1:16). Anyone who deprives the alien, orphan, or widow from justice is to be cursed (Deuteronomy 27:19). In addition, aliens should be given (ample) food: God instructs the Israelites to give leftover grapes and olives to the foreigners, orphans, and widows (Deuteronomy 24: 20-21).

Prophecy, poetry, songs, and genealogy lists are just a few of the many genres found in the Pentateuch. However, the two dominant genres include biblical law and biblical narrative. In fact, 40 percent of the Old Testament is narrative (“Lecture 1,” 2015). Key to interpreting different texts within the Bible, it is critical to understand the genres themselves. Each genre possesses unique features that, when understood, assist in the interpretation of the text. Understanding the key features of biblical law and biblical narrative genres will affect how an individual interprets Scripture in the Old Testament.

Deuteronomy comes next in the Pentateuch--the do this, do that, Deuteronomy. The name Deuteronomy means “the second law. “It was given because the Greek translators found in it a repetition of some laws previously given, and the enactment of some new laws.” Almost similar in its structure to Numbers this book has three parts, the three parts are the three speeches delivered by Moses in Moab. The first speech Moses gives starts in Deuteronomy 1:6 and ends with Deuteronomy 4:40. This speech Moses gives has practical meaning and analysis of the events that led them up to the previous forty years. The second part of Deuteronomy is Moses’s second speech (Deuteronomy 5-Deuteronomy 26). Moses adds some laws and encourages the people to live up to their plan of being God’s nation and to raise the children up in this way. The third speech from Moses begins in the twenty-seventh chapter and finishes in chapter thirty. Moses tells the people not to

The whole book of Deuteronomy is telling the story of a people that made a deal with God. They made promises to serve him according to the way that he wanted to be served. Deuteronomy laid out all the wonderful things that would happen to them if they were obedient and kept their promises. It also laid out what would happen if they did not keep their promise. It was pretty harsh too.

Thousands of years ago, it was taught and learned that Moses was the sole author of the Torah, or the Pentateuch; this is known as the Mosaic Authorship. Although this view was proven to possess many flaws, it is still believed by some people today. It is now agreed by most that there cannot be one exclusive author to such an epic document. This is due to the fact that many studies have conducted in order to prove that there is indeed more than one author. It was decided are simply too many discrepancies when it comes to writing styles,

The Bible is divided into two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. This paper mainly focuses on the Old Testament. The Old Testament has 39 books in total which is also subdivided into four categories namely; Pentateuch books (5 books), the historical books (12 books), the poetic books (5 books) and the prophetic books (17 books). The Old Testament books were written back in 1400 B.C. The Pentateuch books were written by Moses during his time in Canaan, while the other 34 books were also written by different authors at different stated time. The aim of this paper is therefore, to analyze the authorship, dating, content, outline, themes, and unique features of one book of the Old Testament, and the book chosen is the book of Leviticus.

There were at least 3 views of how the Old Testament was composed which include the critical view, the compositional view, and the common view. Each view was somewhat similar and different in the aspects that gave it it's own characteristics. The main point of this discussion is to focus on the similarities and differences of each view which are but not limited to how the bible was created, the process, and design.

The Pentateuch is mainly composed of narratives from Moses’ point of view. The Pentateuch is written primarily as a narrative because it depicts the first hand experiences that Moses encounters throughout His interactions with God and the leading that God does throughout his life in order to further His people. The way that the Pentateuch is composed influences the manner that we derive theology from these narratives, view the inspiration that is present in these narratives, and how we in turn apply these narratives to our spiritual lives as Christians. As William Sweet states, “Christian theology has to deal with underivable, original experiences whose linguistic articulation shows narrative features.”

Created by Johannes Gutenberg, The Gutenberg Bible was the first mass produced book through the use of a moveable printer. Known for its artistic Latin writing, the Bible only has forty-nine copies remaining, one residing at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. The Gutenberg Bible exhibits religious qualities from the message, directly from God, and the original purpose of the creation of the Bible.

It is believed that the Pentateuch was compiled in the 5BCE from different sources. Coogan(2008:12) describes that Jewish tradition believed God revealed the Torah to Moses the author. Coogan(2008:20) challenges this perception by reporting that it was common place for authors of that area and culture to attribute their words to revered persons: Moses after all was the main character of the last four books. In the 17th century, the beginning of modern philosophy, men such as Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes and Richard Simon called for freedom from presumptions with consideration needed to explain style and inconsistencies such as different names used for God (Coogan 2008: 13.) Scientific challenges including Evolutionary biology and geology also appeared in 17th Century, again threatening the traditional perception associated with the authority of the Bible (Coogan 2008:15.) It is now believed that a number of authors wrote the Pentateuch. To help explain this, theories such as the Documentary Hypothesis have been considered. Coogan (2008:18) describes this as the editing of four different ‘sources’ into blocks or interwoven together to form the

Throughout the decades the traditional belief of the author of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible is believed to be Moses. The Pentateuch is the first division of the Hebrew Bible which consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Contrary to traditional belief, it is thought that the Pentateuch is a conglomeration of early written documents. The Documentary Hypothesis explains the issues of how and why the Pentateuch was written. The Documentary Hypothesis presents four source documents the Yahwist document, the Elohist document, the Deuteronomist document, and the Priestly document as the basis of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible that would later form the Pentateuch as the world knows it today.

The first 39 books of the larger work called the Bible, is called the Old Testament. The Bible itself is arguably the best selling and most read book of all time, yet it’s well known to be quite challenging to read through and understand. The Old Testament portion of the Bible, notably the most difficult portion of the Bible for most to study and follow, yields 39 books from multiple authors, and spans over 4000 years of crucial world and church history. If that were not enough to take on, the Old Testament comes our way through multiple styles of authorship and formats, including but not limited to, books of history, law, proverbs, ethics,

Discuss the significance of the books of Exodus-Deuteronomy as they move the storyline from Genesis forward.

In comparison to this, the section of the Hebrew Scriptures known as ‘prophecy’ is a far harder collection from which to discern common threads in the sense of genre or content. Set as a continuation of the greater biblical narrative, the Prophecy section is best understood when divided further into two parts, that of the former prophets and the later prophets . The former prophets consist of the books of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 kings and are generally referred to as ‘deutero-historical books’, expressing the role the theology of Deuteronomy plays in its

Deuteronomy 32:8 has caused controversy because of the phrase םיהלא ינב or םילא ינב “sons of God.” Some have postulated that this reading renders the Israelite religion to be polytheistic instead of monotheistic. Therefore, translators have changed the Scripture to read “sons of Israel” (NIV, NASB), “children of Israel” (KJV), or “people of Israel” (HCSB). Dr. Heiser has persuasively argued that the translation “sons of God” is the correct reading of the original Hebrew text, and should be translated that way in our English Bibles for a number of reasons. A few examples will be examined to show that “sons of God” is the correct translation of Deuteronomy 32:8.