Pentateuch—Class Strategies n n n Initial survey on

Pentateuch--Class Strategies n n n Initial survey on blackboard. com http: //www. blackboard. com/courses/B-310 Geocities. Http: //www. geocities. com/ralphklein 2001 Study groups Deadlines for quizzes, book reports, mid-term, and final Appointments; call (256 -0695; 238 -1856); E-Mail (rwklein@mindspring. com or rklein@lstc. edu)

Strategies continued Class participation--how class begins; how you take charge of your own education. n Extra Credit n u Oriental Institute u Worthwhile web sites

The OT Canon (Te. Na. K) Pentateuch canonical by ca. 400 (Torah) n Prophets canonical by ca. 200 (Nebi’im) n Writings canonical by end of 1 st century CE (Kethubim) n u Are all canonical books inspired? u Are all inspired books canonical?

Pre-Critical: Moses as author. Based on: later parts of OT; NT n Philo (20 -15 BCE--50 CE) and Josephus (37 -100 CE)--Moses wrote about his own death! n Ibn Ezra 12 c. aware of chronological and geographical difficulties n Carlstadt: 16 c. Death account of Moses by someone else, but it is written in same style as the rest n

Materials in Pentateuch are post. Mosaic Gen 12: 6 Canaanites were in the land in ancestral times--but now at time of composition n Deut 34: 6, 10 Grave of Moses unknown to this day; no subsequent prophet as great as Moses n Gen 36: 31 kings of Edom before there were any kings in Israel n

Some Materials in Pentateuch are from more than one person n Doublets u Genesis 12, 20, 26 --wife/sister u Decalogue--Exod 20, 34, Deut 5 u Jacob names Bethel in Genesis 28 and 35 u Yahweh’s name revealed in Exodus 3 and 6

Multiple authorship (continued) Genesis 1 = plants, animals, man-woman; Genesis 2 = man, plants, animals, woman n Flood: Did it last 40 days or 1 year? Did they bring in seven pairs of clean and 1 pair of unclean animals, or 1 pair of all animals? n Exod 20: 24 an altar wherever God reveals Godself; Deut 12 --only one altar n “Yahweh” known from beginning; from Exod 3; from Exod 6 (Elohim; El Shadday) n

Multiple authorship (continued) u Sinai or Horeb; Canaanites or Amorites; Jethro, Hobab, or Reuel u Angel of Yahweh on earth; Angel of God in heaven u Gen 28: 12 ladder as bond between earth and heaven; 28: 13 Yahweh stands on earth u Sacrifices performed from beginning; or only after Leviticus 9 u Chronology: Sarah beautiful at 65; at 90! Isaac spends 80 years on deathbed.

The Source Hypothesis Witter; Astruc n De. Wette--the importance of Deuteronomy n Wellhausen n Martin Noth 5 themes: patriarchs, Exodus, Sinai, wilderness, entry into land n Gerhard von Rad--historical creeds from Deut 6 and 26; Joshua 24 n

Wellhausen’s proposal (modified) J 10 th c; E 9 th C; JE 8 th c n Deuteronomy 7 th c n Priestly writing (source or redaction? ) 6 th c n Tribes-nation-theocracy; polytheismhenotheism-monotheism; many sanctuariesreform to one sanctuary-there was only one sanctuary from the beginning. n

Approaches to the text in the last century n Historical focus u Wellhausen: developmental view of history u Albright: opposite results; archaeology; uniqueness of Israel in ANE F Difficulties • • • in writing biblical history: theological emphasis of texts no eyewitness accounts lack of corroborating evidence

Approaches to the text (continued) n Is interpretation a science or an art? u Wellhausen: analytical discipline; text an “it” u Gunkel: Text a “thou”; text has a prehistory and earliest stage was oral (form criticism) n Theological approach u Gerhard von Rad--Confessing Church; brackets out historical questions u Brueggemann

Recent Developments Canonical criticism (Brevard Childs) n Other holistic approaches (synchronical vs diachronical approaches) n Radical approaches to the question of history (patriarchs, Exodus, conquest) n Feminist, womanist, two thirds world perspectives n No consensus n