PENTATEUCH

(gr. “pentateuchos”, “consisting of five scrolls”).
Name given to the set of the first five books of the OT: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The term Pentateuch is not found in the Scriptures. The Israelites called this set of five books:

Law (Torah) (Josh. 1:7; Mt. 5:17);
They also called it the Law of Moses (1 Kings 2:3; Ezra 7:6; Luke 2:22);
Law of Jehovah (2 Chr. 25:3, 4);

book of the Law of Moses (Joshua 8:31);
book of the Law of God (Josh. 24:26);
book of the Law of Jehovah (2 Chron. 17:9).

These expressions allow us to think that, in fact, these five books formed one. They continue to be presented in this form in the mss. Heb., although each book is cited separately, giving its first words as its title. Josephus speaks of five books (Against Apion, 1:8).

It is possible that this division into five was an innovation introduced by the Greek translation, or that it had preceded it by a short time. In any case, it is from the LXX that the names of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy have been received.

The content of the first book of the Pentateuch was shaped by Moses based on previous oral and written tradition, all led by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (see INSPIRATION). Moses was an eyewitness to the events recorded in the following four books.

Writing was known long before Moses. Based on conventional chronology, in the fourth millennium B.C. The Sumerians and Babylon used cuneiform characters, and the Egyptians used hieroglyphics. The ruins of Ebla have yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from before the time of Abraham (see MARDIKH [TELL]).

The oldest inscriptions from Sinai can probably be dated to the 19th century BC. Nuzu (see NUZU), Sumer (see SUMER), and many other localities bear additional testimony to this fact. In view of the results of the research carried out throughout this century, it can no longer be argued that Moses could not have been capable of writing, as had been said by certain authors.

Archeology shows us a structured, civilized ancient world, with archives, memories, letters, medical, magical, religious texts, dictionaries between various languages, commercial lists, legal texts, treaties, etc. Thus, the art of writing was already very well known and widespread centuries before the birth of Moses (see MOSES).

Although no specific verse states that the entire set is Moses’, the Pentateuch expressly states that he is the author. Two passages in the narrative section mention the book in which Moses recorded what was happening, particularly the victory over Amalek (Ex. 17:14) and the itinerary of the Israelites, from Egypt to the fields of Moab, opposite Jericho (Number . 33:2).

A didactic song showing the attitude of the Almighty toward Israel states that it was written, sung, and taught by Moses (Deut. 31:19, 22, 30; 32:44). It is stated that Moses sang a song of praise immediately after crossing the Red Sea (Ex. 15:1-19; cf. v. 21).

The legal part of the Pentateuch is made up of three distinct sections.
The first, called the “book of the covenant,” includes the Decalogue, the fundamental law of the nation, with some complementary prescriptions (Ex. 20-23). In Ex. 24:4 it is expressly stated that it was Moses who wrote this code.

The second section of laws deals with the sanctuary and its service (Ex. 25-31 and 35-40); It also contains Leviticus and most of Numbers. It is insistently stated that Jehovah gave these laws to Moses (Ex. 25:1; Lev. 1-2 and more than fifty times in this same book, etc.).

The third section specifies Moses’ speeches to the new generation that was to enter Canaan. This third code briefly recapitulates God’s ways with respect to Israel, and presents the Law to the people, highlighting their spirituality and calling them to fidelity to God.

This book, Deuteronomy, insists on those points that were going to be of vital importance in the new circumstances in which the people in Canaan will find themselves. Certain details are modified in order to adapt the first ordinances to the sedentary life of Canaan, where the tribes would also be dispersed in a territory that would involve certain distances, instead of all of them being concentrated in a camp, as in the course of the pilgrimage through the desert (see PILGRIMAGE THROUGH THE DESERT).

Moses wrote all this, entrusting it to the Levites (Deut. 31:9, 24-26). All of these statements, scattered throughout the Pentateuch, constitute an explicit recognition that Moses was its author.

The rest of the OT confirms the Mosaic paternity of the Law (Josh. 1:7, 8; Ezra 6:18; Neh. 8:1, 18). There are abundant references to the Law of Moses (Josh. 1:7, 8; 8:31-35; Judges 3:4; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 18:6, 12; cf. Deut. 24 :16; 2 Kings 21:7, 8; Dan. 9:11, 13; Ezra 3:2; 6:18; 7:6; Neh. 8:1, 18; Mal. 4:4).

The law of the one sanctuary, which was a characteristic ordinance, was suspended when the ark was taken and kept in enemy territory, when the Lord left Shiloh (1 Sam. 4:11, 21, 22; 6:1; 7:2; Ps. 78:60; Jer. 7:12-15; 26:6).

The people, led by Samuel, sacrificed on high places (1 Kings 3:2-4), as their predecessors had done before the celebration of the Covenant, witnessed by the Law and the ark. After the national schism, the law of the single sanctuary was disobeyed. Pious Israelites belonging to the kingdom of Israel were prevented from worshiping at the Temple in Jerusalem, where the ark was.

Because of this, there were strong tensions at various times, and movements from north to south by those who wished to obey the voice of the prophets (2 Chron. 30:1-31:3; cf. 2 R.23:4-23 ). However, in very special cases, such as in the relentless war between the worship of Baal or Jehovah in the northern kingdom, exceptional sacrifices were offered such as that of Elijah on Mount Carmel, which was consumed by a special manifestation of God (1 R. 18:20-40; cf. Ex. 20:24; see Judges 2:1, 5; 6:19-24; 13:15-22). (See ALTAR.)

The northern kingdom, however, formally recognized the authority of the Law of Moses. Hosea and Amos, prophets for the ten tribes, do not mention Moses expressly, but they refer incessantly to the laws of the Pentateuch. Later, and especially during the reign of Manasseh, the book of the Law, deposited in the Temple, was disdained.

During the restoration of the building and the reorganization of the cult of Jehovah under the reign of King Josiah, the book was rediscovered (2 Kings 22:8; 23:21, 24, 25). There are those who wonder if it was specifically about the book of Deuteronomy, but it refers to the entire Law of Moses (v. 25).

It has also been assumed, but without any concrete proof, that the copy of the Law discovered by the high priest had been deposited within the wall of the Temple when it was built. Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah allude to the writing of the Law of Moses. In the time of Christ, the Jews attributed the Pentateuch to Moses (Mk. 12:19; Jn. 8:5; Ant. pref. 4; Against Apion 1:8).

The Lord Jesus Christ himself, as well as the evangelists, attribute the Pentateuch to Moses and call it “the book of Moses” (Mark 12:26; Luke 16:29; 24:27, 44). They affirm that Moses promulgated the Law and wrote the entire Pentateuch (Mk. 10:3-5; 12:19; Jn. 1:17; 5:46, 47; 7:19).

The so-called “Higher Criticism” denies that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch. To support this hypothesis, some verses are cited, through which it is intended to justify the allusion to a time after Moses:

(a) Gen. 12:6: “And Abraham passed through that land to the place of Shechem, to the valley of More; and the Canaanite was then in the land” (cf. Gen. 13:7). This verse is meant to say that the Canaanites were no longer in these places at the time the author of Genesis lived; but this phrase only means that the Canaanites were already in the time of Abraham in the country that had been promised to him.

(b) In Gen. 14:14 states that Abraham pursued the allied kings to Dan. It is objected that in the time of the patriarchs that place was called Laish, and that the name Dan was not given to it until the time of the Judges (Judges 18:29). Rebuttal: It is not certain that the Dan of Genesis is the same place as the Dan of Judges.

Even if this were the case, there is no problem in admitting that later copyists could substitute the name Dan in place of Laish for the sake of clarity. The Hebrew text sometimes presents some alterations.

(c) In Gen. 36:31 states: “And the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before he reigned king over the children of Israel. » It is stated that Saul was already reigning over Israel when this passage was written. But the kings of Edom (Gen. 36:32-43) reigned before Moses himself; This verse points out this fact at a time when the Israelites, who had been promised a king, did not yet have one (Gen. 17:6, 16; 35:11).

(d) The term “beyond the Jordan” (Heb., indicating east of the river) is alleged to show that the writer was in Canaan (Deut. 1:1). However, this expression does not demand such a conclusion. Canaan had been the home of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the Israelites considered that territory the Promised Land.

Whichever side of the river they were on, they gave the name Abarim (“who are from the other side”) to the mountains that rose to the east of the Dead Sea. Later, they gave the name Perea (region beyond) to the territory between the Jabbok and the Arnon.

(e) It is universally admitted that Deut. 35:5-12 (which recounts the death of Moses and compares him with later prophets) could not have been written by him; but the presence of this inspired appendix does not constitute any argument against the mosaicity of the Pentateuch.

In 1707, a theologian named Vitringa, convinced of the authenticity of Genesis, expressed the opinion that Moses must have used, in part, documents transmitted by the patriarchs and preserved within the Hebrew people. In 1753, the Frenchman Jean Astruc, a capable but immoral doctor, attributed Genesis to two main authors, whose writings Moses would have used.

Astruc intended to distinguish these two authors by the use of the terms Elohim and Yahweh to name God. Furthermore, he claimed that he could distinguish ten other secondary documents that did not contain the name of God, relating to pagan peoples. Johann Eichhorn (1783) assumed this hypothesis and developed it, stating that Genesis is a compilation of Moses, to whom, therefore, he attributed the authorship of the rest of the Pentateuch.

But it was soon realized that the principles that had led to the dismemberment of Genesis could be extrapolated to the rest of the Pentateuch. Having accepted this procedure, it was declared that the documents relating to the time of Moses also came from these older sources, and that they could not have been put together by him to write the Pentateuch as we have it.

With this, a leap was made from the reasonable hypothesis that Moses could have, perhaps, partly used patriarchal documents, to a documentary speculation of a compilation much later than Moses, and in which the documents would be distinguished by the name. used for God. Let us now see the main arguments in favor of this hypothesis, which is named after Wellhausen, a German scholar of the second half of the 19th century.

(a) Alternation of the names Elohim and Yahweh to designate God in successive sections.

(b) Continuity of each purported document examined in isolation.

(c) Diversity of style, vocabulary and ideas in the different documents.

(d) Doublets, or alleged contradictory accounts, indicators of different documents. The hypothesis in question, born from a simple assumption, has undergone, on the part of the critics themselves, numerous modifications that attempt to resolve the problems that it has itself raised.

Currently it is intended to be able to discern the main documents that will be mentioned, and that would have been used to write the Pentateuch (although critics are far from agreeing among themselves on a large number of points).

(a) The author who receives the name J (Jehovist or Yahwist, to give God the name of Yahweh) would have lived in Judah around the year 950-850 BC. There are critics who further divide this “source”, giving J’ and J,.

(b) The author E (Elohist, by giving God the name of Elohim), would be placed around the year 750 BC.

(c) After the fall of Samaria, a JE “editor” would have combined J and E adding from his harvest.

(d) Document D would comprise the majority of Deuteronomy. This would be the book of the Law “rediscovered” in the Temple, under Josiah, in 621 BC. (2 Kings 22:23).

(e) U (for Holiness), is the name of the “Holiness Code” (Lev. 17-26), which deals with ceremonial purity; Critics debate whether it should be placed before or after Ezekiel.

(f) P (from Priestly, English for priestly), the so-called priestly code, which would have been written by the priests after the exile, and which would have been read to the crowd by Ezra (attributing it to Moses) around the year 398 BC.

(g) Finally, one or more compilers would have amalgamated all these heterogeneous components to produce the current Pentateuch. Thus, in the words of the exponents of this position: «at the beginning of the second century BC, the law formed a complete whole, with no one assuming, in a credible way, its composite character.

We are not taking any risks if we set the date of its completion around the s. 300 BC.” (<£sterley and Robinson, Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament, p. 63; cf. also L. Gautier, Introduction a l'Ancien Testament; contrast with the discoveries of Qumran, cf. QUMRÁN [DEI MANUSCRIPTS, section V , "cave 1, ZQ", in the section Biblical Literature, and section VIII, Biblical Literature, AT). Refutation. There is no shortage of arguments to show the lack of basis and implausibility of this tower of hypotheses built on hypotheses and how far this scheme is from the facts. (a) This hypothesis implies the denial of the veracity of the OT in its entirety. It does not only affect occasional details or minute inaccuracies. Wellhausen himself recognized this. (b) It is claimed that the Law did not constitute a complete whole until the beginning of the second century BC; However, the LXX version is the Greek translation of the OT from the mid-3rd century BC, beginning, of course, with the Pentateuch. The claim that the writing of the Pentateuch would have barely been completed without its illustrious translators knowing this fact is unsustainable. (c) The discovery by "critics" of such a multitude of "sources" for our current text dates back 100 or 200 years at most (and it is worth noting that these "discoveries" have been based on a skepticism). of the "researchers", and not the other way around). These "critics" should give a satisfactory answer to the fact that the Jews, so strictly conservative and so loyal to the person and work of Moses, had not realized that the authorship of so many false documents was attributed to him, and how they came to be. to accept, without vehemently protesting, the imposition of all these different legislative bodies, with all their multiple demands, and this falsely appealing to the name of Moses. In this context, some extracts can be cited from the aforementioned Eichhorn, who was a famous German rationalist scholar, not at all a believer in inspiration, but who wrote the following on the subject of the alleged falsification of biblical history: (A) «They do not arise from the inventiveness of an individual forger. Anyone who is equipped with adequate knowledge and who impartially investigates the question of whether the writings of the OT are genuine will necessarily have to give an affirmative answer. No deceiver could have falsified them all. This is what every page of the OT proclaims. What a variety of language and expression! Isaiah does not write like Moses, nor Jeremiah like Ezekiel; and between these and each of the minor prophets there is a great chasm that cannot be crossed. The grammatical construction of the language of Moses presents much that is unique; Provincialisms and barbarisms appear in the book of Judges. Isaiah expresses himself in words already formed in a new way; Jeremiah and Ezekiel are full of Aramaicisms. To recapitulate, when one passes from writers assigned to an early period to writers of a later period, one finds a gradual decline in the language, until it finally degenerates into a mere form of Aramaic expression. »Next come the discrepancies in the circle of ideas and images. The stringed instruments sound loud when they are played by Moses and Isaiah; the tone is soft when it is David who plays them. Solomon's muse shines with all the splendor of a court of great luxury; but his sister, in simple habits, wanders, like David, among the streams and the banks, in the fields and among the flocks. There are original poets, like Isaiah, Joel, Habakkuk; another copies, like Ezekiel. One sets out on the solitary path of genius; another slides along the path that his predecessors have left marked. Rays of erudition flash from one, while his companion gives no evidence of having been influenced by a single spark of literature. In the oldest writers the Egyptian color is clearly visible; in their successors they become paler and paler, until they disappear. »Finally, there is, in manners and customs, the finest of gradations. At first, everything is simple and natural, as can be seen in Homer, and among the Bedouin Arabs to this day; but this noble simplicity is gradually lost towards luxury and effeminacy, finally disappearing in the splendid court of Solomon. »There is no sudden jump anywhere; everywhere progress is gradual. No one but the ignorant and the unconscious skeptics can imagine that the OT has been falsified by a deceiver. (B) »They are not (the writings of the OT) the invention of many deceivers. "But someone might reply: 'Perhaps many forgers made common cause and, at the same time, at some later period, prepared the books in question.' But how could they have done so in a manner so completely in keeping with the progress of human understanding? And how would it have been possible, in later times, to recreate the language of Moses? This is beyond human capacity. Finally, one writer presupposes the existence of another. They could not have arisen at the same time; They must have existed in succession. »Then it may still be objected: 'It is possible that such forgers arose at different times, and that they continued forward in the introduction of supposedly ancient books, from where their deceptive predecessors had stopped. It is in this way that all references to previous writers could be explained; In this way we can explain the notable gradation existing in all its parts.' »But, in the first place, how is it possible that no one had discovered the fraud, denounced it, and placed a mark of infamy on the forger, so that posterity would be free from all harm? How could a nation be deceived frequently and at different periods? Secondly, what purpose could such a deceiver have? Perhaps that of eulogizing the Hebrew nation? In that case his eulogies are the harshest of satires because, based on the OT, the Hebrew nation has acted in a degrading manner. Did he want to degrade them? In that case, how did he manage to impose his false books on the very nation he defamed, and whose story of defeat and humiliation under foreign powers is told in clear and harsh words? » (Johann O. Eichhorn, Introduction to the Old Testament, Stuart's English translation, cited in J. N. Darby: "The Irrationalism of Infidelity", pp. 202-203, in The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, vol. 6, APOLOGETIC) . To this we must add the capital recognition made by all the authors of the OT and the NT, as well as the Lord Jesus himself, of the mosaic nature of the first books of the Bible. Based on the claims of so-called modern criticism, they were all wrong and subject to a series of prejudices that only modern skepticism has been able to overcome. (d) The Samaritan Pentateuch (see SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH) represents a text believed to have been brought to Samaria after the deportation of the ten tribes (722 B.C.), at the time of the construction of the temple on Mount Gerizim (2 R. 17:28). Another ancient tradition even claims that it is a copy preserved in the northern kingdom from the kingdom of Rehoboam. However, the Samaritan Pentateuch (apart from some very small textual differences) is the same as that of the LXX and the Masoretes; It was written much earlier than critics accept, thus collapsing all their theories about the dates of writing. It would be highly implausible to claim that the Samaritans, violently hostile to the Jews, would later in their history have accepted the entire code of laws from their declared enemies. (e) An argument presented by conservative scholar Alfred Edersheim for the antiquity of the Pentateuch is as follows: "Those most superficially familiar with modern theological controversy are aware that certain opponents of the Bible have especially directed their attacks against the antiquity of the Pentateuch, although they have not yet reached an agreement among themselves as to which parts of the Pentateuch were written by different authors, nor by how many, nor by whom, nor at what times, nor when, nor by whom were they finally collected in a single book. Now, what we allege in relation to this is: that the legislation of the Pentateuch presents evidence of its writing before the people were established in Palestine. We reach this conclusion in the following way: Suppose that a code of laws and institutions is prepared by a practical legislator (for it is undoubtedly in force in Israel): we maintain that no human legislator could have ordained a system for an already established nation. just like the one we find in the Pentateuch. The world has seen many speculative constitutions of society prepared by philosophers and theorists, from Plato to Rousseau and Owen. None of them could have been adapted to a state of an already established society. Furthermore, no philosopher would have ever imagined or thought of laws such as those given in the Pentateuch. Selecting only a few, almost at random, let us make the reader think about applying (to England for example) provisions such as the one that all males had to appear three times a year in the place that the Lord chose, or those related to the sabbatical years or the Jubilee, or those that deal with the corners of the fields, or those that prohibit the taking of usury, or those related to the Levitical cities. So let each one seriously consider whether such instructions could have been proposed for the first time in the time of David, Hezekiah or Ezra. The more we think about the spirit and details of the Mosaic legislation, the more our conviction grows that these laws and institutions could only have been introduced before the people were actually established on the land. To the best of our knowledge, this line of argument has not been proposed; However, it seems necessary for our opponents to confront this preliminary and, we think, insurmountable difficulty facing their theory, before we are asked to respond to their critical objections" (A. Edersheim, "Sketches of Jewish Social Life" (Wm. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, reprint, 1984). For his part, Darby adds: "Rarely has something as absurd been proposed as that Josiah or Huldah not only persuade an entire nation to accept a new system, as has already happened throughout history, but also They would make them believe that they and their ancestors had always lived under this system since the immemorial times of Moses. (Colleted Writings, vol. 6, APOLOGETIC, p. 204.) (f) Another problem unresolved by Wellhausen's thesis is that of the book of Joshua. Critics try to find in it, as in the Pentateuch, the "sources" J. E. D. P., and believe that it must be part of the same set. In that case, the question arises as to why the Samaritans did not adopt it with the Pentateuch. Furthermore, Joshua's allusions to the book of the Law (Josh. 1:8; 8:31-32; 23:6) clearly show that he has always formed a separate entity. This is how the Jews have always considered it, having given it a place in their canon that is well differentiated from that of the "Law." The term Pentateuch is equivalent to the expression by which the Jews designated "the five fifths of the Law." (g) Professor R. Dick Wilson presents strong linguistic arguments for the mosaicity of the Pentateuch ("Is High Criticism Scientific?" and "Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament"). While terms of Persian origin are found in Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Daniel, none are found in the Pentateuch (despite the fact that the alleged "Priestly Code" is attributed to Ezra). On the other hand, Professor A. S. Yahuda has pointed out numerous evidence of Egyptian influence in the language and way of thinking of the Pentateuch, which can only be explained if the author is Moses. It is clear that there are differences of expression in these five books, which are easily explained by the topics covered and the documents used. "It is unscientific to search through special passages, such as genealogies, solemn contracts, or ritual ordinances, and group them together postulating a different author, under the pretext that the vocabulary used is different!" (Manley, "Nouveau Manuel de la Bible", p. 131). (h) Throughout the Bible, revelation is progressive. It is true that the psalmists and prophets received more precise information about salvation, the Messiah, the future and the afterlife. But it should be noted that in the so-called "protoevangelium" of Gen. 3:15 there was already implicit a whole content that is later developed in the following revelations of God to man: (A) the destruction of the power of the serpent, (B) by the seed of the woman. In reality, this passage is a masterful synthesis of the masterpiece of salvation that God, made man and born of a virgin, was going to carry out without the intervention of any father. This evident fact of explanation of the doctrines is contradictory with the attribution of such a late date to the alleged "documents." (i) The existence of the laws and institutions of the Pentateuch in an early period is testified by the numerous allusions found in the oldest prophets. In order not to be forced to admit that these laws and institutions already existed well before the 8th century BC, it is alleged that these passages have been introduced late, by interpolation in the authentic prophetic works; but there is not a single genuine evidence in favor of this statement. Furthermore, the examination of the books of the prophets gives evidence that these allusions to the Pentateuch are inextricably linked with their context, constituting an essential part of the discourse of these servants of God. (j) The hypothesis of the late origin of Jewish institutions is part of a false conception of ancient civilization in the time of Moses. The theory of evolution, which is highly contested today, was in vogue 125 years ago, and influenced a large part of theology. It was believed that Moses was ignorant of the art of writing, and that he had nothing at his disposal with which to keep written records for himself; However, it has already been shown that writing was widespread in the ancient world for many centuries not only before Moses, but before Abraham himself. It was thought impossible to give semi-savage tribes a code of laws and a ritual as elaborate as that of the Pentateuch; For this reason, it was intended that everything that was developed from a social, legal, religious and spiritual point of view had to necessarily be late. Since then, modern historical and archaeological research has shown that both the Babylonians and the Egyptians, and other local or regional kingdoms, had a highly detailed civilization, legislation and ritual before the rise of Moses. It is undeniable that the Israelites had a full capacity to receive at Sinai the laws and regulations given by God through Moses. He also came to receive a new revelation of a God who is Spirit, holy, merciful, unique, with whom the nation entered into a new relationship through the Covenant. Thus Moses became the mediator of the Covenant and the expositor of the great truths of which he became the depositary of Israel to be a witness to all humanity.