Reference: Hexateuch
Hastings
The first five books of the OT were known in Jewish circles as 'the five-fifths of the Law.' Christian scholars as early as Tertullian and Origen adopted the name Pentateuch, corresponding to their Jewish title, as a convenient designation of these books. 'The Law' was regarded as a unique and authoritative exposition of all individual and social conduct within Israel: a wide gulf seemed to divide it from the Book of Joshua, which inaugurated the series of historical books known as 'the Latter Prophets.' As a matter of fact, this division is wholly artificial. The five books of the Law are primarily intended to present the reader not with a codification of the legal system, but with some account of the antiquities and origins of Israel, as regards their religious worship, their political position, and their social arrangements. From this standpoint, nothing could be more arbitrary than to treat the Book of Joshua as the beginning of an entirely new series: 'its contents, and, still more, its literary structure, show that it is intimately connected with the Pentateuch, and describes the final stage in the history of the Origines of the Hebrew nation' (Driver, LOT [Note: OT Introd. to the Literature of the Old Testament.] 103). Critics have accordingly invented the name Hexateuch to emphasize this unity; and the name has now become universally accepted as an appropriate description of the first six volumes of the OT. In this article we propose to consider (I.) the composition, (II.) the criticism, and (III.) the characteristics of the Hexateuch.
I. Composition of the Hexateuch.
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These are the records of the heavens and the earth, concerning their creation at the time that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. No shrub of the field had yet [grown] on the land, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not made it rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. read more. But water would come out of the ground and water the entire surface of the land. Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He placed the man He had formed. The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the midst of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river went out from Eden to water the garden. From there it divided and became the source of four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon, which encircles the entire land of the Havilah, where there is gold. Gold from that land is pure; bdellium and onyx are also there. The name of the second river is Gihon, which encircles the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows to the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die." Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is like him." So the Lord God formed out of the ground each wild animal and each bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found who was like him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called woman, for she was taken from man. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.
But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark with your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives. You are also to bring into the ark two of every living thing of all flesh, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
You are also to bring into the ark two of every living thing of all flesh, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of everything-from the birds according to their kinds, from the livestock according to their kinds, and from every animal that crawls on the ground according to its kind-will come to you so that you can keep them alive. read more. Take with you every kind of food that is eaten; gather it as food for you and for them." And Noah did this. He did everything that God had commanded him.
You are to take with you seven pairs, a male and its female, of all the clean animals, and two of the animals that are not clean, a male and its female, and seven pairs, male and female, of the birds of the sky-in order to keep offspring alive on the face of the whole earth.
Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.
These are the kings who ruled in the land of Edom before any king ruled over the Israelites:
A man found him there, wandering in the field, and asked him, "What are you looking for?" "I'm looking for my brothers," Joseph said. "Can you tell me where they are pasturing [their flocks]?" read more. "They've moved on from here," the man said. "I heard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.' " So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him in the distance, and before he had reached them, they plotted to kill him. They said to one another, "Here comes that dreamer! Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of the pits. We can say that a vicious animal ate him. Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams!"
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Pharaoh is unresponsive: he refuses to let the people go.
Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his land.
The Lord then said to Moses, "Write this down on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to Joshua: I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek under heaven."
And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early the next morning and set up an altar and 12 pillars for the 12 tribes of Israel at the base of the mountain.
He then took the covenant scroll and read [it] aloud to the people. They responded, "We will do and obey everything that the Lord has commanded."
Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth.
"When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, take possession of it, live in it, and say, 'We want to appoint a king over us like all the nations around us,'
When Moses had finished writing down on a scroll every single word of this law,
No prophet has arisen again in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.