PentateuchClass Strategies

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Pentateuch--Class Strategies

• Initial survey on blackboard.com
  http//www.blackboard.com/courses/B-310
• Geocities. Http//www.geocities.com/ralphklein200
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• Study groups
• Deadlines for quizzes, book reports, mid-term,
  and final
• Appointments call (256-0695 238-1856) E-Mail
  (rwklein_at_mindspring.com or rklein_at_lstc.edu)

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Strategies continued

• Class participation--how class begins how you
  take charge of your own education.
• Extra Credit
• Oriental Institute
• Worthwhile web sites

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The OT Canon (TeNaK)

• Pentateuch canonical by ca. 400 (Torah)
• Prophets canonical by ca. 200 (Nebiim)
• Writings canonical by end of 1st century CE
  (Kethubim)
• Are all canonical books inspired?
• Are all inspired books canonical?

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Pre-Critical Moses as author. Based on

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

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Materials in Pentateuch are post-Mosaic

• Gen 126 Canaanites were in the land in ancestral
  times--but not now at time of composition
• Deut 346, 10 Grave of Moses unknown to this day
  no subsequent prophet as great as Moses
• Gen 3631 kings of Edom before there were any
  kings in Israel

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Some Materials in Pentateuch are from more than
one person

• Doublets
• Genesis 12, 20, 26--wife/sister
• Decalogue--Exod 20, 34, Deut 5
• Jacob names Bethel in Genesis 28 and 35
• Yahwehs name revealed in Exodus 3 and 6

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Multiple authorship (continued)

• Genesis 1 plants, animals, man-woman Genesis 2
  man, plants, animals, woman
• 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?
• Exod 2024 an altar wherever God reveals Godself
  Deut 12--only one altar
• Yahweh known from beginning from Exod 3 from
  Exod 6 (Elohim El Shadday)

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Multiple authorship (continued)

• Sinai or Horeb Canaanites or Amorites Jethro,
  Hobab, or Reuel
• Angel of Yahweh on earth Angel of God in heaven
• Gen 2812 ladder as bond between earth and
  heaven 2813 Yahweh stands on earth
• Sacrifices performed from beginning or only
  after Leviticus 9
• Chronology Sarah beautiful at 65 at 90! Isaac
  spends 80 years on deathbed.

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The Source Hypothesis

• Witter Astruc
• DeWette--the importance of Deuteronomy
• Wellhausen
• Martin Noth 5 themes patriarchs, Exodus, Sinai,
  wilderness, entry into land
• Gerhard von Rad--historical creeds from Deut 6
  and 26 Joshua 24

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Wellhausens proposal (modified)

• J 10th c E 9th C JE 8th c
• Deuteronomy 7th c
• Priestly writing (source or redaction?) 6th c
• Tribes-nation-theocracy polytheism-henotheism-mon
  otheism many sanctuaries- reform to one
  sanctuary-there was only one sanctuary from the
  beginning.

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Approaches to the text in the last century

• Historical focus
• Wellhausen developmental view of history
• Albright opposite results archaeology
  uniqueness of Israel in ANE
• Difficulties in writing biblical history
• theological emphasis of texts
• no eyewitness accounts
• lack of corroborating evidence

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Approaches to the text (continued)

• Is interpretation a science or an art?
• Wellhausen analytical discipline text an it
• Gunkel Text a thou text has a prehistory and
  earliest stage was oral (form criticism)
• Theological approach
• Gerhard von Rad--Confessing Church brackets out
  historical questions
• Brueggemann

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Recent Developments

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