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Who Lies Sleeping?

The Pentateuch 2

Torah
Deuteronomy

Abstract

Moses, an Egyptian prince with no known knowledge of Babylonia, begins his books of the Torah with stories known to be from Mesopotamia. Their outlook was that of Mesopotamian people emigrating to Canaan. Allusions to the “Exile” in Deuteronomy proves that the Pentateuch is Persian, from the fifth century BC, 700 years after Moses was putatively writing it. So, it was not written by Moses. The older material consisted of Mesopotamian myths, elements of Syrian myths and folklore. The priests added detailed laws to do with temple worship like Leviticus, genealogies to give credence to their authority, and bogus history to justify the temple cultus from a putative antiquity. It showed the Israelites as serial apostates from the worship of Yehouah, and a lucrative meal ticket for the priests.

Torah

The Pentateuch is the Jewish law or Torah, often defined as “teaching” rather than “law”, but S Dean McBride Jr, in an essay in Old Testament Interpretation, is much more precise:

Torah is closer in meaning to decree than to edifying discourse, mandatory instruction rather than insightful counsel…

Baruch Spinoza in 1670 AD announced that Ezra was Moses (Tractatus theologico-politicus), and he attributed the Pentateuch to the Persian minister. The reaction of the authorities of the Church was to place the Tractatus on the Papal Index of proscribed books in 1677 AD. Leibnitz and Newton invented the calculus at the same time and now it is taught to every schoolchild, yet the same child is still taught the myth of Moses as if it were history. That over 300 years later Christians and Jews are no wiser goes to prove the might of religious ignorance.

As in Genesis, large units can be seen in the rest of the Pentateuch:

Moses and Exodus (Ex 1-18)
Sinai (Ex 19-24)
the journey to Moab (Ex 16-18 and Num 10:11-36:13)
Deuteronomy

The conquest in Joshua and the early parts of Judges could perhaps be added to this scheme. Five covenants are found within this framework:

with Noah (Gen 9:9-17),
with Abraham (Gen 17:1-14 (cf 15:1-17)),
with Moses ( Ex 19:1-34:28),
with Phinehas (Num 25:11-13),
the original and proper one, upon which the others were modelled, Deuteronomy 29:1-32:47).

Each covenant has attached laws, so the later priests introduced retrogressively new covenants to impress new laws. The expressions of these laws are:

the Deuteronomic Code or the Law of Moses (Dt 4:44-28:68)—the original law laid down by Ezra for the Persian king,
the ethical decalogue (Ex 20:2-17 (cf Ex 34:28; Dt 4:13; 5:6-27)),
the Book of the Covenant (Ex 20:22-23:33 (cf Ex 24:7)),
the description of the tabernacle and its rites (Ex 25:1-31:17) and a plan of how they were implemented ((Ex 35:1-40:33),
the cultic decalogue or dodecalogue (Ex 34:11-17),
the Priestly code (Lev 1-26) which includes the Holiness code, possibly a somewhat earlier stratum,

The philological problems of The Decalogue are considerable, Garbini tells us. Of the three versions in the bible the one that is least altered and therefore likely to be the earliest is that in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. It presuposes a sedentary not a nomadic life, and therefore could not have been devised by migrating tribes with no settled home. The Decalogue was produced in a settled society, contradicting the biblical myth, and, right from the outset, it is in conflict with the worship of gods other than Yehouah, called idolatry. Since the native Canaanite religion was a polytheistic idolatry, the religion of Yehouah certainly fits the idea that it was imposed. As Garbini puts it:

The initial part of the Decalogue becomes completely relevant if seen in the perspective of a religious reform which originated in Palestine and which with its monotheistic message tended towards a conscious and total revolt against the Phœnician religion…

Why the reform had to originate in Palestine, Garbini does not explain. It originated in Persia.

The whole structure of Exodus/Numbers is set in a large chiasm (a symmetrical entry and return compositional structure) about Exodus 33 where God promises to be with Israel, which stretches from Exodus 14 to Numbers 32. It is a cycle from success through apostasy to covenant to renewed success in which at the centre the covenant is instituted and then the cult. Exodus and Numbers are therefore all one composition.

The legal parts of the Pentateuch start at Exodus 19. Then we have definitions of Torah:

a divine edict: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Isa 2:3

a formal judicial decision: According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do. Thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.
Dt 17:11

a sacred atoning ritual: Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering: it is most holy.
Lev 7:1

a priestly instruction: Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law.
Hag 2:11

The law demands immediate attention and the faithful obedience of those to whom it was addressed, if prosperity and not disaster is to ensue:

Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
Josh 1:7-8

Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
2 Kg 17:13

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me. Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
Hos 4:6

Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.
Hos 8:1

The Torah was promulgated publicly, that everyone might know it, and implemented with the force of any law under the royal auspices of the state:

When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law. And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.
Dt 31:11-13

Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according unto the manner.
Neh 8:18

And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God, and teach ye them that know them not. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.
Ezra 7:25-26

The reason for all this is plain. Who is addressing Ezra in the last of these citations? God? Obviously not. It is the Persian king! He begins, saying (Ezra 7:13), “I make a decree”. The law was imposed upon the Jews by their Persian masters by decree and they were obliged to learn it. As we would still say today: “Ignorance of the law is no defence”.

Deuteronomy

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, W M L de Wette, following S Jerome long before, identified the laws in Deuteronomy as “the law” and proposed that it was the Book of the Covenant found by Hilkiah in the reign of Josiah (2 Kg 22:3-23:25). The laws mentioned in the Pentateuch were the laws of a settled agrarian society and could not have been formulated by wanderers in transit.

Julius Wellhausen in Prolegomenon told everybody that the law of Moses was introduced as the basis of Judaism—a post-exilic cult—not a millennium before as the basis of a fictional ancient Israel. Deuteronomy 12-26 were laws imposed by the Persians when they deported colonists to Yehud to begin a temple state for financial reasons. One of its main intentions was to centralize authority and worship in Jerusalem, and this not just for the small local population, but for all the “nations” of Abarnahara.

Several references within Deuteronomy itself mention the dispersion among the nations whence the Jews returned, though they are among the parts added by later editors to frame the laws.

And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead you.
Dt 4:27

And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee.
Dt 30:1

That then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.
Dt 30:3

The first mention of Moses after the exile in the biblical chronology is in Nehemiah 8 where we find, the “Book of the Law of Moses”, when it was publicly read to the people at the feast of tabernacles. The prayer of the Levites which follows, and is a later composition containing insertions from other books of the Pentateuch, is mainly from Deuteronomy.

Moshe Weinfeld, in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (1972), noted that the structure and content of Deuteronomy was of the form of the ancient near eastern vassalage treaties. This is so near the knuckle for professional Jews and Christians that they had to thrash around for an explanation. It was that the royal court of Israel had a school of professional court scribes—sort of proto-Christians, you might say—trained in secular humanism and wisdom, and also vassalage treaties! They promoted Deuteronomy in the time of Josiah as a secular law to counter the influence of the temple cult. Aren’t these “scholars” amazing? Doubtless this might still be heard in certain high school RI classes, but it is manifestly bunkum.

Why, though, should books of law contain a lot of narrative? Was it always thus? It was not. The central, legal, parts of Deuteronomy were the original law, perhaps with some parts now transferred into Exodus and some lost altogether.

The bulk of Deuteronomy is a compilation of laws. A framework based on the departing of the aged Moses has been added, but it does not further the story of the fulfilment of the promise of land. Some scholars think they can detect a Deuteronomic hand at places in the Tetrateuch, though Noth could not see it in Genesis. Rentdorff could see the Deuteronomists in all four Tetrateuchal books. A likely candidate is the “Book of the Covenant” in Exodus 19-24, where Moses should be called Ezra and the whole affair set on Mount Zion where the Persians laid on a show for the gullible Canaanites (Israelites) making sure they were not allowed near to see the preparations and trickery by keeping them at a distance. The introductory review of Moses in Deuteronomy naturally refers back to this spectacle but says it was at Horeb, not Sinai.

The trouble is the usual one of multiple ediing. Douglas Knight tells us frankly that the evidence is overwhelming that the biblical texts are not by any single author but have mostly been reworked by successive editors with “distinctive styles, language, perspective, themes and intentions”. These editors often recast their material and rearranged them according to their own plans. In short, the books have been partly mixed up. Editors could have moved a chunk of Deuteronomy to what they thought they saw as a better place in one of the books they were preparing, and, naturally, these were men who would use the didactic Deuteronomistic style when they wanted to, either simply because it was appropriate in context or to give the passage a gravitas they needed, for Deuteronomy at first was seen as God’s law.

Noth thought that P was restricted to Genesis to Numbers with only a trace in Deuteronomy concerning the death of Moses (Dt 32:48-52;34:1;5;7-9). Noth had his own theory of the Deuteronomic history beginning with Deuteronomy and extending to 2 Kings. In fact, there are additions to Joshua that might be from the Priestly school. The Deuteronomic history, according to Noth, has a distinctive use of language and a distinctive style. The author inserted homiletic speeches by the chief participants at certain points Joshua (Josh 1;23), Samuel (1 Sam 12), and Solomon (1 Kg 8:14ff)), and conjunctive notes in a similar didactic style. The beginning of Deuteronomy, Noth took to be the introduction to the whole work.

Deuteronomy was the original law and also began the Deuteronomistic history, so any added laws had to be added before Deuteronomy, out of necessity and to give the new laws invented by subsequent priests the authority of age, the foundation history obviously having to precede the history culled from the Assyrian annals of the kings. Van Seters saw D as primary, followed by J and then P (DJP), E being an illusion. There seems to have been a genuine conflict over the name of God, so E is perhaps not so illusory, but otherwise, Van Seters is correct, as he often is. Though Hooke tells us that much of P has been shown to be early, it is surely the last layer of legal tradition added.

The promise of land pervades much of the Pentateuch except the Primordial unit, and Rentdorff sees it as being attached to Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, although it concludes the Pentateuch, its narrative sections do not advance the position of the wandering tribes. They are on the plains of Moab at the end of Numbers and they are still there after Moses’s speeches at the end of Deuteronomy. If the promise of land is to be fulfilled in this unit then Joshua should be added making the Pentateuch into a Hexateuch. Yet, Deuteronomy is the odd book in the Pentateuch and looks as though it should not be there, in which case the Pentateuch is reduced to a Tetrateuch. This classification supports Noth’s idea that Deuteronomy is properly the beginning of the Deuteronomic history, not a part of the Pentateuch really.

This ambiguous quality of Deuteronomy places it at the centre of interpretation of the Jewish scriptures. If biblical history were sound, then Deuteronomy is an anachronism added where it is, because far more detailed laws precede it and it seems strange that an editor should have added the older looking Deuteronomy rather than altering the more refined laws, if necessary. It follows that Deuteronomy was the earliest of these books, in fact, but that it could not be moved because the Deuteronomic history had been written based on it. The other laws and sagas therefore had to be added before it. D Petersen says that the Tetrateuch was written as a prologue to the Deuteronomic history. The order of composition implied is therefore Deuteronomy, DH and then the Tetrateuch.

Rudolf Smend could not see the uniformity of style that Noth saw, and claimed that its unevenness and diversity suggested multiple authors and editors. Smend saw an editor with a particular interest in the law and Walter Dietrich saw one interested in the prophets and whose rhetoric is that of Jeremiah. Both are probably among the interests of the original authors, but later editors are also certain. Many scholars though persist in believing de Wette’s idea that the book found by Hilkiah is Deuteronomy. They cannot accept the subtlety of the biblical authors. Were it not for this clever touch, one wonders whether any such idea could be held. Without it, few scholars would be ready to believe that Deuteronomy made more sense in the seventh century than in the fifth. Engnell seems to have no doubt that its proper date is the fifth century and he points to the exilic references, which he plainly does not accept as making any sense as interpolations. Biblical editors tended to want their compilation to seem older than it was, not younger.

The homiletic or didactic style of Deuteronomy shows it was intended to be read out by the priests to the people on the occasions when they met for service. This was August Klostermann’s view, and Georges Minette de Tillesse pointed out that the singular and plural used in it showed that the message was being redirected from a singular recipient, the High Priest, to the body of the people—all Israel—via the congregation.

The verbal chracteristics and concerns by which the Deuteronomists might be recognized are:

Idols. Following, worshipping foreign gods, burning incense to them, burning or passing a son or daughter through the fire, abomination, and detestable things, used of Canaanite gods and idols.
Central. The site or city that Yehouah will choose, his chosen, and making his name live there.
Captivity. Ransome, house of bondage, the iron furnace, choosing to be a people to him, a strong hand and an outstretched arm.
One God. Know that Yehouah alone is God, in the heaven above and in the earth below, you alone are the God.
Obedience. Following, serving, fearing, loving Yehouah, walking in the way(s) of Yehouah, with all the heart and with all the soul, doing what is right or good in the eyes of Yehouah, doing what is evil in the eyes of Yehouah, turning away or aside, keeping commandments, testimonies, judgements.
The Land. The land which Yehouah, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, dispossessing nations, the good land or ground, being strong and resolute.
Reward. Prolonging days in order that Yehouah may bless you, living (prosperously) or (prosperous) life, was incensed, destroying, punishing, putting to an end, uprooting.
Fulfilment. Establishing the word of Yehouah, as at this day, behold I will bring evil upon.
David. For the sake of David, my (his) servant, doing that which is right as David… or not as David…
Rhetoric. Hear O Israel, pouring, laying upon, filling with innocent blood, know therefore.

Of course, it stands to reason that later editors or even writers could have used the same ringing phrases, so they cannot be used mechanically to distinguish different hands, but where they are not used the tradition is likely to be independent—either from elsewhere or an earlier period. Job and Proverbs are plainly quite independent works in the bible, showing almost nothing in common with the rest of the books. The Deuteronomic editors assume Jerusalem is the centre of the cult, but Deuteronomy is just establishing it. Thus there is no Zion philosophy in Deuteronomy, no reference to the Holiness code, no mention of David, and little else attributable to P. It precedes them. Some scholars see a lot in common with the prophets. It is because they were close contemporaries and had a similar purpose—achieving Persian foreign policy in Yehud. The only doubtful bits of later editorial in Deuteronomy are in the topping and tailing. So the earliest Deuteronomistic editors follow Deuteronomy by some time, probably several decades at least. The last editors were probably centuries later.

The importance of the Deuteronomic history to the religions of the Jews and Christians is expressed honestly by Douglas Knight:

If one removed DtrH as a source, our history of Israel from 1200 to 550 BC would be so sparse as to be unrecognizable—and probably unusable for modern religious, moral or other ideological ends as well.

John Van Seters examined all the historical traditions of the ANE and disputed the idea that any extended histories or collections of shorter historical works could have preceded the Persian period. All that existed then, were folk tales and lists of chronicles, kings and administrators. Earlier Professor E Voguelin had written:

The concern for the past as the paradigmatic record of God’s way with men, extending over a period of more than 1000 years could hardly translate itself into practice without a considerable apparatus of both personnel and material installations, for preserving this enormous body of traditions not only mechanically but with the necessary intelligence and erudition.
Israel and Revelation 1956

Much bigger countries like Assyria could not provide this intelligent apparatus, it seems, but a tiny country of 60,000 shepherds could. Doubtless it is another one of God’s miracles, but Voguelin is really saying it is impossible. The Deuteronomic History must have stood out as the equal of Herodotus and Thucidydes, but supposedly preceded them by hundreds of years! It is certainly later than Herodotus even in its inception, and much of it was written by Hellenistic writers.

Giovanni Garbini has observed on the peculiar absence of monumental inscriptions in the hill country of Palestine. He thinks all early monuments were destroyed by people with a vested interest in preserving the mythical history of the bible. The Maccabees might have been the most likely candidates. What is interesting though is that Jews and Christians have conspired ever since in this one endeavour—to disguise the true history of the Levant. Now scarcely anything remains written from any of it, even Phœnicia—and Phœnicans were not illiterate. The history of the Persian empire and the pre-history of Iran is almost blank by comparison with Egypt where Moses is supposed to have come from. Was there a rush to find out about Persia when Spinoza made his discovery? As we saw, the book was blacklisted. And we are taught that Stalin re-wrote history… as a student priest, he was doubtless taught how to do it properly.

Page Tags: Torah, Pentateuch, Judah, Yehud, Judaism, Israel, History of the Bible, Jewish Scriptures, Persia, Bible, Deuteronomy, Egypt, Exodus, Genesis, God, Land, Law, Laws, Moses, Persian, Yehouah

Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.