Style, Vocabulary, and Message

Anyone who has ever read through the Pentateuch immediately notices that the book of Deuteronomy’s tone, style, vocabulary, and theological message are completely unique and different from what precedes it. Hebraists have remarked that the Deuteronomic style is not found in any biblical literature prior to the 7th century BCE, and, apart from the Priestly literature of the post-exilic period, it is abundantly found in texts written after the 7th century BCE. In fact, one might confidently claim that the voice and message of the Hebrew Bible as a whole can be boiled down to that of the Deuteronomist.

The Deuteronomist’s style displays itself through a unique set of phrases, theological emphases, and rhetorical devices. Phrases that are unique to the Deuteronomic literature include: “Yahweh your god”; “the place where Yahweh sets his name”; “listen O Israel!”; “listen to the laws and the judgements”; “listen to the voice of Yahweh”; … Read more

More Galleries | Leave a comment

The Book of Deuteronomy: A Brief Introduction

The book of Deuteronomy, like many of the Bible’s books, was composed in stages and by different authors living in different historical eras. Despite this fact, Deuteronomy displays a remarkable unity in its style, theology, and message. This is largely because the various revisions and additions that the book of Deuteronomy underwent were done by a specific scribal school, which we shall label as the Deuteronomic school, and its authors the Deuteronomists. This scribal guild was active during a lengthy period of time, from the late monarchal period of the 7th century BCE, through the exilic period of the 6th century BCE, and into the Persian period of the 5th century BCE. Thus the making of the book of Deuteronomy was an accumulative process of editorial activity that transpired over three centuries.

The book of Deuteronomy was composed around a core or base text which now makes up the content … Read more

More Galleries | Leave a comment

Using Moses to Rewrite History

When the author of the book of Deuteronomy sits down to write his text, he has Moses renarrate the story of Israel’s past from the revelation at Sinai to the current narrative setting on the plains of Moab. Renarrate because this “history” was already narrated in earlier textual traditions which served as the Deuteronomist’s sources. These earlier texts now make up parts of the books of Exodus and Numbers, and scholars have identified them as belonging to the Elohist and Yahwist.

In other words, stories from the older Elohist and Yahwist traditions, which are now preserved in the books of Exodus and Numbers, were used as sources for the Deuteronomist’s composition. Yet, on every single renarration of these stories, of this “history,” the Deuteronomist’s Moses radically alters them—indeed outright contradicts them—claiming to say and do things he never said and did, and narrating things that never happened, or happened … Read more

More Galleries | Leave a comment

The Bible’s Contradictory Stories and “Histories”

I rarely post here anymore since my more recent and extensively more active site, contradictionsinthebible.com, has been the focus of my attention. But I think I’m going to change all that, and start posting excerpts from a recent book I’m working on. It’d be nice to get some feedback from the public on these matters.

The book is tentatively titled Conflicting Stories and Competing Histories: How and Why the Bible’s Authors Rewrote, Altered, and Contradicted Each Other’s Texts. My one-liner about the book and its aims might be laid out as follows: The Bible’s authors consciously adopted, altered, and rewrote the texts and traditions they inherited, and in so doing left behind numerous contradictory stories and even “histories” in what later generations of readers labeled the Bible. The primary purpose of this book is to demonstrate this claim and to discuss how and why this happened, and the … Read more

More Galleries | Leave a comment

How do we know that the biblical writers were not writing history?

To answer our question directly, as it will be demonstrated below, because the Bible itself tells us so. Since I’ve been advocating and tooting the objective study of the Bible, one where conclusions are drawn, such as the one pronounced above, by collecting, examining, and explaining the textual data, let’s see if I can walk the talk.

First, let me start by stating what I’m not claiming. Just because the biblical writers were not writing history—if indeed this hypothesis holds up to the textual data—that does not mean that there are no historical facts or events in the Bible. Second the biblical writers were not writing mythology or allegory, other than at various places (e.g., Gen 1-11), rather it is what scholars call historiography— that is “history writing” from the perspective and conventions of the time period in which these writers were writing. This is not to be equated with … Read more

More Galleries | 2 Comments

Ancient Stories and the Bible’s stories

Stories were as much a part of the ancient world as the television is for us today. People told and heard stories on a daily basis. It was part of their lifeblood. Stories defined a people’s identity and origins; they explained the origins of current political and religious institutions; and they preserved traditional beliefs, worldviews, and customs. Most stories enjoyed a long oral tradition before they were finally written down. In many cases alternative versions of stories existed. A people living at one place in time might tell the story that they inherited from their forefathers differently in order to suit the needs of their community, or to better represent the changing views and beliefs of their community. One can easily imagine changing narrative details in an old story in order to modernize its message. If you’ve ever seen a modern production of a Shakespeare play, or Dickens’ A Christmas Read more

More Galleries | Leave a comment

Studying the Bible objectively

What does it mean to study the Bible scientifically or objectively? How is this different from studying the Bible subjectively, that is with respect to its subject, its readers? What might be the advantages of studying the Bible objectively? What would be its purpose? Or, the real question might be: can the Bible be studied objectively given that it is dear, on a subjective level, to the hearts of millions?

If, for example, I posted a survey where one had to fill in the blank, “the Bible is ______?,” I suppose that I would receive a number of differing responses. I suppose furthermore that these different responses would all be subjective in nature. They would all be premised by an unarticulated “I think that the Bible is….” or “I believe that the Bible is….,” or “My inherited tradition, culture, or faith community informs me that the Bible is….” But what … Read more

More Galleries | Leave a comment

Conflicting portraits of Israel’s deity

The use or non-use of the name of Israel’s god, Yahweh, is not the only distinguishing feature between the Yahwist and Elohist traditions when it comes to how they portray and conceptualize the deity. Right from the Yahwist’s opening creation account in Genesis 2:4b-3:24, Yahweh is depicted in stark anthropomorphic terms. Yahweh forms man from the dust of the earth, presumably with his hands, breaths into the man’s nostrils, plants a garden, takes and puts the man in the garden, commands the man, forms animals from the ground, builds a woman from the man’s rib, walks in the garden, calls and speaks to his creation, makes skins of garments for the human pair, and finally puts the human pair outside the garden. This type of anthropomorphism, that is presenting a deity in human terms, is only found in the Yahwist source and for the most part attests to its antiquity. … Read more

More Galleries | 1 Comment

Contradictions in the Bible

Did you know that the Bible contains thousands of contradictions, from minute differences in narrative details to sweeping theological and ideological disagreements? And that this has been a well-known fact in the scholarly community for roughly three centuries!

Join in this educational adventure here, at my new website, where I will be posting and explaining a biblical contradiction a day! That’s right—a contradiction a day!

Unlike many sites that have attempted to enumerate the Bible’s many contradictions, and in somewhat simplistic or even antagonistic terms, this site is devoted to explaining why there are contradictions in the Bible using modern biblical source criticism. As the term implies, this methodological approach to the Bible looks at the Bible’s sources, that is its once separate and individual texts—all of which were penned by more than 70 different authors, over a period of roughly 1,000 years, to vastly different audiences, and to … Read more

More Galleries | 3 Comments

Aaronids vs Levites

Did you know that there existed rival priestly houses in ancient Israel, and that they had vastly different and even contradictory views on religion, the role of the cult and its priesthood, Yahweh, ethics, sin, and even the covenant—all of which were preserved in two different and competing textual traditions now found together in the Pentateuch?

That’s correct. The redacted text of the Pentateuch as it now stands bears witness to an internecine rivalry that existed within the tribe of Levi, that is within the priesthood itself. At least two priestly groups that we know of wrote texts aimed at legitimating their right as sole officiating high priests and mediators to Yahweh. These two priestly schools and the texts they each wrote have come to be identified as the Aaronid writer of the Priestly source, whose main religious and cultic ideology is found in the books of Leviticus and Numbers, … Read more

More Galleries | Leave a comment