November 11, 2024 • 16 mins
In this Podcast, I explain how the first, foundational part of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, called in Hebrew Torah, was five books instead of four or six. Some have argued that this foundational part of the Bible should be a Hexateuch—that is, the first six books—because the promise of land is so prominent in Genesis and Joshua (the 6th book) describes Israel’s getting the land. Others have argued that the Torah is a Tetrateuch, or the first 4 books, because the vocabulary and outlook of Deuteronomy is replete in Joshua through 2 Kings, but is not found in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Despite these hypotheses, the canonizing community made sure that the Torah was five books. In effect, they took the first book of the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomy) and made it the last book of Torah. Why did they do that? Because the Torah ended when Israel did not have the land, the monarchy, or the temple, the very situation they experienced in the Exile. It was in that period that decisions had to be made about how to “shape” Scripture.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Bible is full of stories that we all know
and love, but how well do we know? That the
answer might surprise you. The Bible you thought you knew
is going to dive deep into the exquisite details of
the Biblical stories that make them fascinating and transforming. In
(00:25):
this week's podcast, I'm going to do a Q and
A session. The question is why were the first five
books of the Bible chosen to be a literary whole.
These first five books are sometimes referred to as a pentaduke,
a term in which the number five is part of
(00:45):
the penta. At first, it might seem to be a
silly question, but in fact it is an important question.
To answer this question, we need to begin with a
little historical background. The material that became the Bible, the
Jewish Bible, the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians called the
(01:06):
Old Testament, was collected and organized after the exile that
happened in five eighty seven, before the Common era. Keep
in mind that after Solomon's reign, Israel had been divided
into two kingdoms, each ruled by differing royal houses. The
(01:27):
northern kingdom was known as Israel. The southern kingdom was
known as Judah, of course, both thought that they were
the best embodiment of Israel. Famously, the Northern Kingdom Israel
was defeated by the Assyrians in the eighth century around
(01:47):
seven twenty two before the Common Era. To be exact,
many of its most prominent citizens were at this time
exiled and forced to live in Assyria. When Israel lost
its autonomy. This gave the Southern Kingdom Judah a false
sense of security. Even worse, Judah saw Israel's defeat and
(02:12):
their continuing survival. In theological terms, Judah thought that the
Israelite God had allowed Israel to be defeated and exiled,
while at the same time protecting the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
In time, that belief turned out to be badly mistaken.
(02:35):
This is because Judah suffered defeat and exile themselves in
the early sixth century, around five hundred and eighty seven
before the Common Era. The only difference was that their
defeat and exile came at the hands of the Babylonians
rather than the Assyrians. In the exilic period, Israelites from
(02:59):
both kingdoms had to think hard and long about what
had happened. Neither Israel nor Judah had simply suffered a
military defeat. Both exiles, most especially the one that occurred
early in the sixth century, was a blow, a serious
blow to the people's identity as Israelites. Why was that
(03:24):
It was due to the fact that virtually everything that
symbolized their election by God, their covenant with God, their
future with God, was now gone. In the exile, Israel
lost not only autonomy, but the promised land, the monarchy, Jerusalem,
(03:44):
and the Temple. Their identity had been called into question.
In the subsequent decades and even centuries, Israelites had dispersed
all over the place. Many of them indeed lost their
identities and assimilated to this or that culture, but a
(04:05):
critical mass of them strove to keep their communities alive.
Various groups emphasized maintaining moral standards and also did various
things that would foster community, such as practicing circumcision, keeping
kosher regulations, keeping a religious calendar, developing local liturgies, and
(04:28):
the like. Perhaps one of the most important developments in
this post exilic era was gathering, writing, editing, and putting
together the written materials that would one day come to
be considered holy scripture. That is, where the first five
books of the Bible become a significant issue. Remember that
(04:54):
biblical materials were written by differing people, most of them unknown,
in in differing places, two differing audiences, audiences, and for
differing reasons. These materials underwent a complex editorial process for
a very long time. When the Bible was put together,
(05:16):
so to speak, we learned very important things about its
makeup by the way it has been organized and rendered
into final form. Let's begin with the basics. The Jewish Bible,
sometimes called the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament for Christians,
this is Jesus's Bible, keep in mind, was organized in
(05:40):
three major sections. The first section is called Torah, a
word that means law, but even more basically instruction or
even story. It is foundational to the rest of the Bible.
Of course, it is represented by the first five books Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
(06:05):
and Deuteronomy. More about this in a minute. The section
second section is called nave Em or prophets, and it
is divided into two groups of prophetic material. The former
prophets are represented by Joshua, Judges, first and second Samuel,
(06:26):
and first and second Kings. Of course, these are primarily narratives,
but they are stories told from what might be termed
a prophetic perspective. After this we find the latter prophets,
consisting of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve.
(06:47):
The Book of the Twelve are sometimes called the minor prophets.
This designation has to do with their smaller size. The
third section is kethuven or the writings. In that section
we discover Psalms, proverbs, job cohalth Or, Ecclesiastes, lamentations, First
(07:10):
and second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and so forth. With
those basics in mind, let's go back to the Torah
or the first five books. As scholars have dealt with
how this material was originally written, a number of hypotheses
(07:31):
have been developed. One theory is that an argument may
be made that the Torah should be a hexatute, that is,
consisting of the first six books. This means that the
writings from Genesis to Joshua make up a coherent literary complex.
(07:53):
What is the basis for this position, Well, for well
over a century, scholars have our argue that the first
five books are actually a compilation of at least four
distinct sources. Each of these sources has been designated with
a different letter, J, E, D, and P. A letter
(08:18):
sometimes involves a name for the deity. J stands for
the yaoistic source, something in which the tetragrammaton why hwh
is prominent. E stands for a source that uses Elohem
as the deity's name, or a letter stands for the
(08:39):
material in Deuteronomy obviously the D source or the priestly source,
of course, the priestly source, of course, that is the
P source. Scholars believe that the final edited form of
this material came from the priestly source. That's why it's
the last letter in that range. Now in time, some
(09:03):
scholars argue that there were indications of JED and P
in the sixth book Joshua. There is some justification for this,
at least from a literary point of view, because the
promise of Israel is so prominent in the ancestral stories
that are told in Genesis twelve through fifty. Since any
(09:27):
good story has to have a beginning, a middle, and
an ending, it makes good sense to have Joshua a
story outlining Israel's taking over the promised land as part
of the most as part of the most foundational aspect
of the Bible. Scholars who have adopted this viewpoint suggest
(09:50):
that the Torah should be considered a hexatuke, but another
hypothesis challenged this argument. Martin Note, a famous German scholar,
observed that Deuteronomy had a distinctive vocabulary and a distinctive perspective. Amazingly, though,
(10:12):
this vocabulary and perspective could not be found in Genesis
through Numbers, but was prominent throughout Joshua Judges, first and
second Samuel, and first and second Kings. He insisted that
the material in Deuteronomy through Second Kings should be called
the Deuteronomistic history. In this story, by means of vocabulary
(10:38):
and point of view, Israel's story was told with the
Mosaic Covenant in mind. When Israel was obedient to the
covenant that God had made with them, they prospered in
every way imaginable. Conversely, when Israel was disobedient, their lives
were made miserable in various ways. Clearly, if Note was
(11:02):
was right, then the Torah was originally a tetratuc therefore
consisting of the first four books of the Bible. In
my judgment, note was right to observe the connections between
Deuteronomy and the material found in Joshua tho Second Kings. However,
(11:23):
when the final form of the Bible was reached, the
Torah was presented not as a hextatute or not as
a tetratuke, but as a pentateuch. Why did the people
who were responsible for this arrangement do this? To answer
that question, we have to remind ourselves once again about
(11:46):
the situation in exile. Israel had lost the monarchy, the land,
and the temple. All three were essential to their identity
as a people, as a community, as the veritable elect
people of God. They organize their scriptures with that in mind.
(12:09):
By ending Torah with Deuteronomy, the canonizers ensured that Israelites,
by now they referred themselves to themselves as Jews, could
maintain their identity as God's elect people without the land,
without the monarchy, and even without the temple. It took
(12:31):
a very conscious decision to take the first book of
the Deuteronimistic history, obviously Deuteronomy, and make that the last
book of Torah, and then make Joshua the first book
of the former prophets. This is reflected in God's admonition
(12:52):
to Joshua in the first chapter of the Book of Joshua,
the deity tells Joshua, and I'm talking about the person,
not the book, that he and the rest of Israel
are to heed moses Torah, not deviating it from it
in the least. That's in verse seven of chapter one
(13:13):
of the Book of Joshua. Moreover, on this Torah, now
conceived of as the first five books, are to be
meditated on day and night to foster appropriate obedience. That's
in Joshua chapter one, verse eight. This means that the
Torahs having five books instead of four or six was
(13:38):
not incidental. Instead, it was crucial to the shape of
the Bible for the people who trusted it as their scripture.
We have no identity of the idea of the identity
of the people who made this decision, but in retrospect
we can thank them for their insight and brilliance. Shaping
(14:01):
the Torah in this manner allowed for the Jewish community
to retain a semblance of unity in spite of enormous obstacles.
There were many centrifugal forces with which Jews had to cope.
This is why we encounter s Scenes, Samaritans, Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots,
(14:25):
and the small group who believed that Jesus of Nazareth
was Israel's Messiah, all debating the same Torah. There will
always be differences in interpretation, but the Torah, as the
first five books, remains a constant. Let me encourage you
(14:48):
to go to my website Faspoina dot com. Let me
know your email there. If you would like me to
answer another question in a Q and A session, email
me at f Spina one zero six at gmail dot com.
(15:11):
I want to thank you so very much for listening
to the Bible you Thought you Knew. I have a
question for you. Do you have a question or topic
that you'd like me to cover on the podcasts. If so,
all you need to do is head over to Apple
Podcasts and do two simple things. One, leave a rating
(15:31):
and review telling me what you think of the podcasts. Two.
In that review, ask anything you want related to the Bible.
That's all you have to do. Then listen in to
hear your question answered on a future episode. Join us
next time on the Bible You Thought you Knew when
(15:53):
we discuss Jesus' personal Bible, God Bless retain that rent.
The ant
The Bible is full of stories that we all know
and love, but how well do we know? That the
answer might surprise you. The Bible you thought you knew
is going to dive deep into the exquisite details of
the Biblical stories that make them fascinating and transforming. In
(00:25):
this week's podcast, I'm going to do a Q and
A session. The question is why were the first five
books of the Bible chosen to be a literary whole.
These first five books are sometimes referred to as a pentaduke,
a term in which the number five is part of
(00:45):
the penta. At first, it might seem to be a
silly question, but in fact it is an important question.
To answer this question, we need to begin with a
little historical background. The material that became the Bible, the
Jewish Bible, the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians called the
(01:06):
Old Testament, was collected and organized after the exile that
happened in five eighty seven, before the Common era. Keep
in mind that after Solomon's reign, Israel had been divided
into two kingdoms, each ruled by differing royal houses. The
(01:27):
northern kingdom was known as Israel. The southern kingdom was
known as Judah, of course, both thought that they were
the best embodiment of Israel. Famously, the Northern Kingdom Israel
was defeated by the Assyrians in the eighth century around
(01:47):
seven twenty two before the Common Era. To be exact,
many of its most prominent citizens were at this time
exiled and forced to live in Assyria. When Israel lost
its autonomy. This gave the Southern Kingdom Judah a false
sense of security. Even worse, Judah saw Israel's defeat and
(02:12):
their continuing survival. In theological terms, Judah thought that the
Israelite God had allowed Israel to be defeated and exiled,
while at the same time protecting the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
In time, that belief turned out to be badly mistaken.
(02:35):
This is because Judah suffered defeat and exile themselves in
the early sixth century, around five hundred and eighty seven
before the Common Era. The only difference was that their
defeat and exile came at the hands of the Babylonians
rather than the Assyrians. In the exilic period, Israelites from
(02:59):
both kingdoms had to think hard and long about what
had happened. Neither Israel nor Judah had simply suffered a
military defeat. Both exiles, most especially the one that occurred
early in the sixth century, was a blow, a serious
blow to the people's identity as Israelites. Why was that
(03:24):
It was due to the fact that virtually everything that
symbolized their election by God, their covenant with God, their
future with God, was now gone. In the exile, Israel
lost not only autonomy, but the promised land, the monarchy, Jerusalem,
(03:44):
and the Temple. Their identity had been called into question.
In the subsequent decades and even centuries, Israelites had dispersed
all over the place. Many of them indeed lost their
identities and assimilated to this or that culture, but a
(04:05):
critical mass of them strove to keep their communities alive.
Various groups emphasized maintaining moral standards and also did various
things that would foster community, such as practicing circumcision, keeping
kosher regulations, keeping a religious calendar, developing local liturgies, and
(04:28):
the like. Perhaps one of the most important developments in
this post exilic era was gathering, writing, editing, and putting
together the written materials that would one day come to
be considered holy scripture. That is, where the first five
books of the Bible become a significant issue. Remember that
(04:54):
biblical materials were written by differing people, most of them unknown,
in in differing places, two differing audiences, audiences, and for
differing reasons. These materials underwent a complex editorial process for
a very long time. When the Bible was put together,
(05:16):
so to speak, we learned very important things about its
makeup by the way it has been organized and rendered
into final form. Let's begin with the basics. The Jewish Bible,
sometimes called the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament for Christians,
this is Jesus's Bible, keep in mind, was organized in
(05:40):
three major sections. The first section is called Torah, a
word that means law, but even more basically instruction or
even story. It is foundational to the rest of the Bible.
Of course, it is represented by the first five books Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
(06:05):
and Deuteronomy. More about this in a minute. The section
second section is called nave Em or prophets, and it
is divided into two groups of prophetic material. The former
prophets are represented by Joshua, Judges, first and second Samuel,
(06:26):
and first and second Kings. Of course, these are primarily narratives,
but they are stories told from what might be termed
a prophetic perspective. After this we find the latter prophets,
consisting of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve.
(06:47):
The Book of the Twelve are sometimes called the minor prophets.
This designation has to do with their smaller size. The
third section is kethuven or the writings. In that section
we discover Psalms, proverbs, job cohalth Or, Ecclesiastes, lamentations, First
(07:10):
and second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and so forth. With
those basics in mind, let's go back to the Torah
or the first five books. As scholars have dealt with
how this material was originally written, a number of hypotheses
(07:31):
have been developed. One theory is that an argument may
be made that the Torah should be a hexatute, that is,
consisting of the first six books. This means that the
writings from Genesis to Joshua make up a coherent literary complex.
(07:53):
What is the basis for this position, Well, for well
over a century, scholars have our argue that the first
five books are actually a compilation of at least four
distinct sources. Each of these sources has been designated with
a different letter, J, E, D, and P. A letter
(08:18):
sometimes involves a name for the deity. J stands for
the yaoistic source, something in which the tetragrammaton why hwh
is prominent. E stands for a source that uses Elohem
as the deity's name, or a letter stands for the
(08:39):
material in Deuteronomy obviously the D source or the priestly source,
of course, the priestly source, of course, that is the
P source. Scholars believe that the final edited form of
this material came from the priestly source. That's why it's
the last letter in that range. Now in time, some
(09:03):
scholars argue that there were indications of JED and P
in the sixth book Joshua. There is some justification for this,
at least from a literary point of view, because the
promise of Israel is so prominent in the ancestral stories
that are told in Genesis twelve through fifty. Since any
(09:27):
good story has to have a beginning, a middle, and
an ending, it makes good sense to have Joshua a
story outlining Israel's taking over the promised land as part
of the most as part of the most foundational aspect
of the Bible. Scholars who have adopted this viewpoint suggest
(09:50):
that the Torah should be considered a hexatuke, but another
hypothesis challenged this argument. Martin Note, a famous German scholar,
observed that Deuteronomy had a distinctive vocabulary and a distinctive perspective. Amazingly, though,
(10:12):
this vocabulary and perspective could not be found in Genesis
through Numbers, but was prominent throughout Joshua Judges, first and
second Samuel, and first and second Kings. He insisted that
the material in Deuteronomy through Second Kings should be called
the Deuteronomistic history. In this story, by means of vocabulary
(10:38):
and point of view, Israel's story was told with the
Mosaic Covenant in mind. When Israel was obedient to the
covenant that God had made with them, they prospered in
every way imaginable. Conversely, when Israel was disobedient, their lives
were made miserable in various ways. Clearly, if Note was
(11:02):
was right, then the Torah was originally a tetratuc therefore
consisting of the first four books of the Bible. In
my judgment, note was right to observe the connections between
Deuteronomy and the material found in Joshua tho Second Kings. However,
(11:23):
when the final form of the Bible was reached, the
Torah was presented not as a hextatute or not as
a tetratuke, but as a pentateuch. Why did the people
who were responsible for this arrangement do this? To answer
that question, we have to remind ourselves once again about
(11:46):
the situation in exile. Israel had lost the monarchy, the land,
and the temple. All three were essential to their identity
as a people, as a community, as the veritable elect
people of God. They organize their scriptures with that in mind.
(12:09):
By ending Torah with Deuteronomy, the canonizers ensured that Israelites,
by now they referred themselves to themselves as Jews, could
maintain their identity as God's elect people without the land,
without the monarchy, and even without the temple. It took
(12:31):
a very conscious decision to take the first book of
the Deuteronimistic history, obviously Deuteronomy, and make that the last
book of Torah, and then make Joshua the first book
of the former prophets. This is reflected in God's admonition
(12:52):
to Joshua in the first chapter of the Book of Joshua,
the deity tells Joshua, and I'm talking about the person,
not the book, that he and the rest of Israel
are to heed moses Torah, not deviating it from it
in the least. That's in verse seven of chapter one
(13:13):
of the Book of Joshua. Moreover, on this Torah, now
conceived of as the first five books, are to be
meditated on day and night to foster appropriate obedience. That's
in Joshua chapter one, verse eight. This means that the
Torahs having five books instead of four or six was
(13:38):
not incidental. Instead, it was crucial to the shape of
the Bible for the people who trusted it as their scripture.
We have no identity of the idea of the identity
of the people who made this decision, but in retrospect
we can thank them for their insight and brilliance. Shaping
(14:01):
the Torah in this manner allowed for the Jewish community
to retain a semblance of unity in spite of enormous obstacles.
There were many centrifugal forces with which Jews had to cope.
This is why we encounter s Scenes, Samaritans, Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots,
(14:25):
and the small group who believed that Jesus of Nazareth
was Israel's Messiah, all debating the same Torah. There will
always be differences in interpretation, but the Torah, as the
first five books, remains a constant. Let me encourage you
(14:48):
to go to my website Faspoina dot com. Let me
know your email there. If you would like me to
answer another question in a Q and A session, email
me at f Spina one zero six at gmail dot com.
(15:11):
I want to thank you so very much for listening
to the Bible you Thought you Knew. I have a
question for you. Do you have a question or topic
that you'd like me to cover on the podcasts. If so,
all you need to do is head over to Apple
Podcasts and do two simple things. One, leave a rating
(15:31):
and review telling me what you think of the podcasts. Two.
In that review, ask anything you want related to the Bible.
That's all you have to do. Then listen in to
hear your question answered on a future episode. Join us
next time on the Bible You Thought you Knew when
(15:53):
we discuss Jesus' personal Bible, God Bless retain that rent.
The ant
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