The Pentateuch is the First 5 Books of the Bible
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
http://www.humanreligions.info/pentateuch.html
By Vexen Crabtree 2012
#bible #christianity #judaism #moses #old_testament #pentateuch #torah
The Five Books of Moses are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Together they are called the Pentateuch. It has been apparent for quite a while that these books were not written by Moses; for example, the text uses place names "that dated from hundreds of years after the time of Moses"1. Archaeological and historical evidence shows that these five books were primarily composed in the 7th century BCE. Finkelstein & Silberman explain that the evidence is that "the Deuteronomistic History was written in the days of King Josiah, to serve his religious ideology and territorial ambitions, and ... was finished and edited a few decades later in exile. ... The geographical and ethnic details of both the patriarchal origin stories and the Exodus liberation story bear the hallmarks of having been composed in the seventh century BCE"2. These five scrolls did not start out as being considered the holy word of god. They were modified and moulded over hundreds of years by various editors3 - although Christian tradition fiercely fought for them to be considered to be the works of Moses, this is clearly not the case. "The Pentateuch [was] considered to be canonical by the time of Ezra and Nehemiah in the fifth century BC"3.
Arguing against Biblical inerrantism in the 19th century, Bishop Colenso critically examined the text of the Pentateuch:
“Bishop Colenso in his exhaustive work on the Pentateuch shows that most of the records therein claiming to be historical facts are merely parables and figments of the imagination of different writers, composed at different periods, full of contradictions, interpolations and discrepancies.”
"The Woman's Bible" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1898)4
1. Introductions to the Books of the Pentateuch
1.1. Genesis (50 chapters, 1533 verses in most versions)
#bible #christianity #creationism #egypt #genesis
Genesis contains a creation story of the Earth and the first 2 people, Adam and Eve, and their incestuous (and murderous) family. It describes a version of the ancient Flood story where God, or the Gods, flood the Earth or at least a large portion of it, drowning all living creatures including all animals, men, women, children, infants, but saving Noah and his immediate family. Another period of incestuous family relations afterwards ensues. Genesis then tells the story of the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, each of which acted sometimes as immoral tyrant and sometimes as holy spokesperson. They all end up, according to these stories, in Egypt, although historical evidence is clear that most Hebrews continued to live in their homeland. Genesis was written and edited by various authors from between the 10th and 6th century BCE, and some scholars believe it wasn't completely written until as late as the 2nd century BCE5.
For more, see:
1.2. Exodus (40 chapters, 1213 verses in most versions)
#bible #christianity #egypt #judaism #moses #pentateuch #torah
The text of Exodus was written and edited at various times between the 8th and 2nd century BCE6,7.
The first half is about the oppression of the portion of the Hebrews who had ended up in Egypt. It contains classic scenes such as the nine plagues. The second half is the unhistorical story of Moses' leading some of the Hebrews out of Egypt and their wonderings in the desert. Some authors believe that this pseudo-history is based on a real, partial, movement of Jews in the 13th century BCE8 but most think that the movement was of a small group of Hebrews in the 7th century BCE. Certainly, the migration did not leave any archaeological evidence (campsites, etc). Moses receives the Law from God on Mount Sinai, where he also receives the Ten Commandments.
For more, see:
1.3. Leviticus (27 chapters, 859 verses in most versions)
Authored in the 5th Century BCE and editted until much later, Leviticus is a highly legalistic and ritualistic document, full of precise details about behaviour and rules of behaviour in both ritual and everyday settings. It is responsible for the dietary laws of Jews and early Christians. It is also the source of many of the illiberal and immoral laws that causes Judeo-Christianity to clash with equal-opportunities societies in areas of in marriage, sexuality and gender equality.
For more, see:
1.4. Numbers (36 chapters, 1288 verses in most versions)
Numbers begins with some Hebrews on Mount Sinai (which doesn't seem to match any real-life mountain), and describes some of their activities as they approach Canaan and scout it out. Life is hard, but God responds to whingers with large scale massacres of his people (15,000 of them). Moses receives more laws from God. The Book is named 'Numbers' "because of the various numberings and censuses of the people which are described"9. Despite the book's popular appeal, archaeological evidence has proven that there was no swathe of Israelite camps in the deserts during this period, and the stories are likely to be highly exaggerated to the point of being fictitious.
For more, see:
1.5. Deuteronomy (34 chapters, 959 verses in most versions)
#bible #christianity #judaism #moses #pentateuch #torah
The first 30 chapters of Deuteronomy are an (anonymous) author's writings of a speech by Moses, rallying the people to God-belief, and telling them some of God's laws. Few now believe that the text was written by Moses10. The text describes the end of Moses' life, his last words, death and burial, and the passage of leadership to Joshua.9 Investigators such as Thomas Paine have long concluded that "though it is impossible for us to know identically who the writer of Deuteronomy was, it is not difficult to discover him professionally, that he was some Jewish priest, who lived... at least three hundred and fifty years after the time of Moses"1. Deuteronomy is not a factual account of events; it describes the "complete destruction" of "all cities" in entire regions, but the archaeological record shows that this simply did not happen. Deuteronomy has particularly serious moral problems and proscribes a form of ethics that is harsh, deeply sexist and prejudiced, and endorses barbarism, intolerance, the death penalty and all kinds of restrictions on women's freedom. It also contradicts other texts in the Hebrew Scriptures on multiple fronts1, for example, Deut. 5 states a different 4th commandment to the one in Exodus 1211. Nonetheless, Deuteronomy has long been popular and was included in the Bible because it is where the instruction to tithe can be found (Deut. 14:22-29), meaning that Christian bodies can't afford to truly question its origins.
- Deuteronomy played an important part in the early centralisation and textualism of organised Judaism: "Fundamentalism and Literalism in World Religions: 3.2. Increasing Literalism in the history of Judaism and fledgling Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2012)
For more, see:
2. Moses Was Not the Author12
Although Christian tradition fiercely fought for these five books to be considered the works of Moses, this is clearly not the case. Critics of religion were often persecuted for arguing that the evidence does not support the traditional idea that Moses authored the Pentateuch. Thomas Paine advocated rational analysis of scripture, and ridiculed some of the assumptions that have to be made in order to preserve the idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. For example, Deuteronomic text uses place names "that dated from hundreds of years after the time of Moses"13. Thomas Paine points out Numbers 12:3 which says "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth" - imagine the contradictory embarrassment of arguing that Moses wrote this about himself14! It is clear that Moses was only posited as the author much later than the time the books were written.
“Moses is not the author of them; and still further, that they were not written in the time of Moses, nor till several hundred years afterward.”
"The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine (1807)15