The Bible: The Opposing Theories Of Deuteronomy

The argument over the material that is comprised of the first five books of the Bible and that Moses was the author is speculated to be hypothetical. The data that led scholars to arrive at the Documentary Hypothesis points out that there is no evidentiary support or documentation to back up the information claimed in the first five books. The Documentary Hypothesis includes repetition, shows similarities, reflects inconsistences,

These writers belonged to a particular school of teaching known as the Deuteronomistic School, which has organization similar to other ancient schools of thought; a member would engage writing and editing stories located in sections of the Old Testament to cause the interpretation to fit their theological beliefs (Tate). Tate explains that the particular kind of history was named by Martin Noth and applied to stories within the pages of Deuteronomy until the book of 2 Kings. The method in which many scholars believe writings in the Deuteronomist tradition are the result of years of revising and rewording to create a layering effect that successfully represents themes with each layer (Tate). W. Randolph Tate states the likelihood of the history to have been written during the Babylonian Exile and that it was written with a biased agenda in mind; he goes so far as to say,

According to the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, the Hebrews were promised that as long as they followed the Ten Commandments that God had given to them through Moses, they would be blessed with prosperity and good fortune. However, if the Hebrews failed to follow God’s instructions, they would be cursed with a plethora of disaster and disease.

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.

As we move further into the research of this paper, defining some terms under the viewpoints of the selected authors is necessary. Millard Erickson defines inspiration as “that supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit upon the Scripture writers which rendered their writings an accurate record of the revelation or which resulted in what they wrote actually being the Word of God.” While inspiration primarily concerns the quality of the finished product rather than the process of that period of time in which the entirety of the Scriptures came into being, the divine-human authorship raises the tension as to how those Scriptures came into being. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states: “We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking applies only to the autographic text of Scripture.” The leads to the question “What constitutes an autograph or the autographs?” In general, scholars use the term autographs to refer to the first or original copies of the biblical documents which is the material the author actually wrote himself. One customary definition of the term “autographa” in a theological discussion refers to the unchanging form of text whereby the original document is identical to the final canonical form of a given OT biblical book. Since canon involves the list of all books that belong in a bible or those reckoned as Holy Scriptures which

The term scribe gave them authority over the information because it was they who passed it down in the first place. The authority is not ownership because passing down certain information is not claimed it as one's own. it wasn't until "The age of Hellenism brought with it the concept of authorship." The authority of a text came to be associated with its author. Jewish tradition wanted to find authors for its books, however there was little evidence about who wrote the Bible. " The earliest Jewish text that identifies its author is the Wisdom of Ben-Sira, dating from the early second century B.C.E. In some places, the bible indirectly would contradict later ascription of authorship." (From How the Bible Became a Book) it also states that Moses could have been an author and many other possible theories of who is the

In Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, Bart D. Ehrman, a well-known New Testament scholar and critic, seeks to show that the New Testament is a corrupt document that has been changed through the evolutionary process of scribal alteration, Early Christian theological apologetics and poor scholarship’s. Ehrman begins by speaking of his personal experience with the study of the Bible and textual Criticism. He concludes that various early scribes altered the New Testament in which we have no idea of knowing if what we’re reading is even the word of God or just what the scribes wanted to write.

While there is some speculation in regards to the authorship of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the general scholarly consensus is that all three share titular authors. Haggai and Zechariah were contemporaries; however, while Haggai's messages were only in a short period in 520 b.c., Zechariah's ministry stretched from 520 b.c., until after 480 b.c. Malachi was likely a contemporary of Nehemiah, and it is likely that his book was written in 433 b.c., right after Nehemiah returned from Persia. (NIV Study Bible)

This writer only covered the fifth and final book of Moses. The Deuteronomy writer is believed to have lived during the reign of king Josiah between 640 and 609 B.C.. The writer of D wrote the Law Code which enforced many rules on the public like not being able to sacrifice outside of a place of worship, limited the power of the kings, and practicing pagan religions. (Friedman 118) Friedman identifies the D writer to be most likely prophet Jeremiah. He supports this by saying that the book of Jeremiah and the Deuteronomy use the same language. He points out that both texts are so similar that they could very well be made by the same person. (Friedman 127) Jeremiah also calls the deity Yahweh so it's possible that the Deuteronomy originated from Judah in the southern

The book of Colossians is commonly believed to have been authored by the Apostle Paul and coauthored by his companion Timothy, however scholars have strongly questioned the authorship of the letter and the location in which the letter was composed. The letter itself in the opening verses claim to be composed by Paul whilst Paul was imprisoned. The question of authorship is

The Deuteronomist works are thought by scholars to have been compiled around 650 BC during Israel’s Babylonian Captivity from documents written before Israel was exiled. It is uncertain who the Deuteronomist was. Some possibilities mentioned by scholars are Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch, Jeremiah himself, or the priests of Shiloh. It theoretically included all of Deuteronomy, as well as Joshua, Judges, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings.

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,

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

The author of the book is Zechariah, he whom the lord remembers. The book was written to the Jews in Jerusalem that had returned from their captivity in Babylon. The book was written in and around 520 B.C.