"Pentateuchal origins the composition and dates of the first five books of the Old Testament. In the closing decades of the 19th century Julius Wellhausen published ""Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels"", in which he had set out the definitive version of the historical development of the Hebrew bible. According to this hypothesis, the Pentateuch Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy was originally four separate documents, retelling the same episodes and stories, but with differing emphases designed to further the theological and political agendas of their authors. Their combination by a Redactor (editor) into a single narrative spread over five books had"
"with the following books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, as Deuteronomistic History. There is a growing recognition that Genesis developed apart from the Exodus stories until joined to it by the Priestly writer. The Torah (or Pentateuch) is the collective name for the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. According to tradition they were dictated by God to Moses, but when modern critical scholarship began to be applied to the Bible it was discovered that the Pentateuch was not the unified text one would expect from a single author. As a result, the Mosaic"
"Heptateuch The Heptateuch (seven containers) is a name sometimes given to the first seven books of the Hebrew Bible. The seven books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges. The first four of these are sometimes called the Tetrateuch, the first five are commonly known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, the first six as the Hexateuch. With the addition of the Book of Ruth, it becomes the Octateuch. The ""Enneateuch"" is the Heptateuch plus the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings (each pair of books counted as one, and not including the Book of Ruth)."
"Augustine of Hippo produced a piece called ""Questions on the Heptateuch"". Ælfric of Eynsham produced an Old English version of the Heptateuch. Heptateuch The Heptateuch (seven containers) is a name sometimes given to the first seven books of the Hebrew Bible. The seven books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges. The first four of these are sometimes called the Tetrateuch, the first five are commonly known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, the first six as the Hexateuch. With the addition of the Book of Ruth, it becomes the Octateuch. The ""Enneateuch"" is the Heptateuch plus the"
"Damascus Pentateuch The Damascus Pentateuch ( Keter Dameseq or Crown of Damascus) is a 10th century Hebrew Bible codex (Pentateuch), containing the first Five Books of Moses. The codex was copied by an unknown scribe, replete with Masoretic annotations. The manuscript is defective in its beginning, as it starts with Genesis 9:26 (Exodus 18:1–23 is also missing). It was acquired by the Jewish National and University Library in 1975, and published in a large, two-volume facsimile edition in 1978 (not to be confused with another Damascus Keter, of medieval Spanish origin). The Damascus Pentateuch came to renown owing largely to"
"written at different times by different authors. All books of the Bible are not strictly religious in nature; for example, ""The Song of Songs"" is a love poem and, along with ""The Book of Esther"", does not explicitly mention God. ""Torah"" in this instance refers to the Pentateuch (to parallel ""Chumash"", חומש), so called because it consists of five books: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. It is the core scripture of Judaism and Samaritanism, honored in these religions as the most sacred of scripture. It is sometimes called the ""Five Books of Moses"" because according to the Jewish tradition,"
"Hexateuch The Hexateuch (""six scrolls"") is the first six books of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah (""Pentateuch"") and the book of Joshua. The term ""Hexateuch"" came into scholarly use from the 1870s onwards mainly as the result of work carried out by Abraham Kuenen and Julius Wellhausen. Following the work of Eichhorn, de Wette, Graf, Kuenen, Nöldeke, Colenso and others, in his ""Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels"" Wellhausen proposed that Joshua represented part of the northern Yahwist source (""c"" 950 BC), detached from JE document by the Deuteronomist (""c"" 650–621) and incorporated into the Deuteronomic history, with the books of Judges,"
"it remains crucial to their understanding of the unity and authority of Scripture. The Torah (or Pentateuch, as biblical scholars sometimes call it) is the collective name for the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It forms the charter myth of Israel, the story of the people's origins and the foundations of their culture and institutions, and it is a fundamental principle of Judaism that the relationship between God and his chosen people was set out on Mount Sinai through the Torah. The development of the Torah began by around 600 BCE when"
"Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch, also known as the Samaritan Torah ( ""torah shomronit""), is a text of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, written in the Samaritan alphabet and used as scripture by the Samaritans. It constitutes their entire biblical canon. Some six thousand differences exist between the Samaritan and the Masoretic Text. Most are minor variations in the spelling of words or grammatical constructions, but others involve significant semantic changes, such as the uniquely Samaritan commandment to construct an altar on Mount Gerizim. Nearly two thousand of these textual variations agree with the Koine Greek Septuagint"
"continues: The term occurs 15 times in the Hebrew Bible, a further 7 times in the New Testament, and repeatedly in Second Temple period, intertestamental, rabbinical and patristic literature. The Hebrew word for the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, ""Torah"" (which means ""law"" and was translated into Greek as ""nomos"" or ""Law"") refers to the same five books termed in English ""Pentateuch"" (from Latinised Greek ""five books,"" implying the five books of Moses). According to some scholars, use of the name ""Torah"" to designate the ""Five Books of Moses"" of the Hebrew Bible is clearly documented only from"
"draft of the Pentateuch was composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BCE (the Jahwist source), and that this was later expanded by the addition of various narratives and laws (the Priestly source) into a work very like the one existing today. ""The consensus of scholarship is that the stories are taken from four different written sources and that these were brought together over the course of time to form the first five books of the Bible as a composite work. The sources are known as J, the Jahwist source (from the German transliteration of the Hebrew YHWH),"
"as the ""Five Books of Moses"" or the Pentateuch, meaning ""five scroll-cases"". The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books: The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel) and Jacob's children, the ""Children of Israel"", especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham"
"Ashburnham Pentateuch The Ashburnham Pentateuch (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS nouv. acq. lat. 2334, also known as the Tours Pentateuch and the Codex Turonensis) is a late 6th- or early 7th-century Latin illuminated manuscript of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament). Although it originally contained all five books of the Pentateuch, it is now missing the whole of Deuteronomy as well as sections of the other five books. It has 142 folios and 19 miniatures, and measures 372mm by 321mm. It is thought to have originally included as many as 68 full page miniatures. A"
"the Pentateuch, starting with Adam, the first man, and concluding with the death of Moses, adding thereto anecdotal material not available in the Hebrew Bible. It deals mainly with the succession of personages from Adam to Moses, some 26 generations. The whole book is written around the story of their lives, as handed down by oral traditions. The book, preserved by the Samaritan community of Nablus, compiled on parchment in late Samaritan Aramaic mixed with an antiquated Arabic vernacular, and divided into twelve chapters, was discovered by Gaster in 1907. Its antiquity is attested to by the fact that it"
"may be contrasted with the view of scholars following the older rabbinic tradition, as expressed by the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia (compiled between 1901 and 1906), that the ""Pentateuch"" is a complete work in itself. The thesis may also be contrasted with the view put forward by Eduard Meyer (1855–1930) that there never was any ""Hexateuch"" per se, but that the ""Law"", ""Joshua"", ""Judges"", ""Samuel"", and ""Kings"" once formed one great historic work. Hexateuch The Hexateuch (""six scrolls"") is the first six books of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah (""Pentateuch"") and the book of Joshua. The term ""Hexateuch"" came"
"Five Megillot The Five Scrolls or The Five Megillot ( , ""Hamesh Megillot"" or ""Chomeish Megillos"") are parts of the Ketuvim (""Writings""), the third major section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). The Five Scrolls are the Song of Songs, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and the Book of Esther. These five relatively short biblical books are grouped together in Jewish tradition. An early testimony that these five scrolls were grouped together is in the ""Midrash Rabba"". This ""midrash"" was compiled on the Pentateuch and on the Five Scrolls. All five of these ""megillot"" (""scrolls"") are traditionally"
"Five Megillot The Five Scrolls or The Five Megillot ( , ""Hamesh Megillot"" or ""Chomeish Megillos"") are parts of the Ketuvim (""Writings""), the third major section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). The Five Scrolls are the Song of Songs, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and the Book of Esther. These five relatively short biblical books are grouped together in Jewish tradition. An early testimony that these five scrolls were grouped together is in the ""Midrash Rabba"". This ""midrash"" was compiled on the Pentateuch and on the Five Scrolls. All five of these ""megillot"" (""scrolls"") are traditionally"
"of Anglican and Lutheran bibles place such books in a separate section called Apocrypha. These extra books are ultimately derived from the earlier Greek Septuagint collection of the Hebrew scriptures and are also Jewish in origin. Some are also contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Old Testament consists of many distinct books by various authors produced over a period of centuries. Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections: (1) the first five books or Pentateuch (Torah); (2) the history books telling the history of the Israelites, from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in"
"with the Leningrad Codex. As for the variants in vocalization it follows that of Ben Asher up to 52% of the time, and that of Ben Naphtali up to 46% of the time, for which diversity it has been called by him ""a mixed manuscript where one can find in it a few 'improvements,' but which differs in several aspects regarding its vocalization and trope symbols from the Aleppo Codex."" Damascus Pentateuch The Damascus Pentateuch ( Keter Dameseq or Crown of Damascus) is a 10th century Hebrew Bible codex (Pentateuch), containing the first Five Books of Moses. The codex was"
"heaven and earth"". There are four major textual witnesses to the book: the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, and fragments of Genesis found at Qumran. The Qumran group provides the oldest manuscripts but covers only a small proportion of the book; in general, the Masoretic Text is well preserved and reliable, but there are many individual instances where the other versions preserve a superior reading. For much of the 20th century most scholars agreed that the five books of the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—came from four sources, the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Deuteronomist and the Priestly"
"Ezra 3:2; 7:6; Neh. 8:1; II Chron. 23:18; 30:16) was intended to be comprehensive. Other early titles were ""The Book of Moses"" (Ezra 6:18; Neh. 13:1; II Chron. 35:12; 25:4; cf. II Kings 14:6) and ""The Book of the Torah"" (Neh. 8:3), which seems to be a contraction of a fuller name, ""The Book of the Torah of God"" (Neh. 8:8, 18; 10:29–30; cf. 9:3). Christian scholars usually refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as the ""Pentateuch"" (, ""pentáteuchos"", ""five scrolls""), a term first used in the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria. The Torah starts from the"
"including a familiar ""piyyut"" (liturgical song) entitled ""Usherers of Mercy"", recited before and after Rosh Hashanah in Selichot (Jewish penitential prayers). The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh is the Jewish scriptural canon and central source of Jewish law. The word is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the three traditional subdivisions of the Tanakh: The Torah (""Teaching"", also known as the ""Five Books of Moses"" or ""Pentateuch""), the Nevi'im (""Prophets"") and the Ketuvim (""Writings""). The Tanakh contains 24 books in all; its authoritative version is the Masoretic Text. Traditionally, the text of the Tanakh was said to have"
"text of the Samaritan Targum have appeared. In 1875, the German scholar Adolf Brüll published his ""Das samaritanische Targum zum Pentateuch"" (""The Samaritan Targum to the Pentateuch""). More recently a two volume set edited by Abraham Tal appeared featuring the first critical edition based upon all extant manuscripts containing the Targumic text. Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch, also known as the Samaritan Torah ( ""torah shomronit""), is a text of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, written in the Samaritan alphabet and used as scripture by the Samaritans. It constitutes their entire biblical canon. Some six thousand differences"
"Pentateuch, or as the """"Five Books of Moses"""". Printed versions (rather than scrolls) of the Torah are often called """"Chamisha Chumshei Torah"""""" ( """"Five fifth-sections of the Torah"""") and informally a """"Chumash"""". ""Nevi'im"" ( , """"Prophets"""") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains three sub-groups. This division includes the books which cover the time from the entrance of the Israelites into the Land of Israel until the Babylonian captivity of Judah (the """"period of prophecy""""). Their distribution is not chronological, but substantive. The Former Prophets ( ) The Latter Prophets ( )"
"Ketuvim (Writings). The Septuagint has four: law, history, poetry, and prophets, with the books of the Apocrypha inserted where appropriate. The Torah (Pentateuch in Greek) always maintained its preeminence as the basis of the canon; it is not known when the Ketuvim (""writings""), the final part of the Tanakh, were established, although some sort of selection process must have been utilised, because the Septuagint did not include other well-known Jewish documents such as Enoch or Jubilees, or other writings that do not form part of the Jewish canon and which are now classified as ""pseudepigrapha"". However, the Psalms of Solomon,"
"subjects, but was notable chiefly for his 1977 book, ""Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch"" (""The Problem of the Transmission of the Pentateuch""). The book was a study of the question of Pentateuchal origins (the question of how the first five books of the bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Book of Numbers and Deuteronomy – came to be written), and appeared at the same time as two other important books, John Van Seters' ""Abraham in History and Tradition"" (1975), and Hans Heinrich Schmid's ""Der sogenannte Jahwist"" (""The So-called Yahwist"") (1976). The three studies, appearing almost together, inaugurated a heated discussion in"
"the origins of the non-Priestly source(s), but it is generally agreed that the Priestly source is post-exilic. David A. Clines, in his influential ""The Themes of the Pentateuch"" (1978), identified the overarching theme of the five books as the partial fulfilment of a promise made by God to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The promise has three elements: posterity (i.e., descendants – Abraham is told that his descendants will be as innumerable as the stars), divine-human relationship (Israel is to be God's chosen people), and land (the land of Canaan, cursed by Noah immediately after the Deluge). The theme"
"The Bible was purchased by the British Library in 1844. It is now kept in three volumes. The first volume (Add. MS 14788) contains the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Job, Tobit, Judith, Esther, I Ezra, 2 Ezra, and Nehemiah. The second volume (Add. MS 14789) contains Kings, Chronicles, Wisdom and Maccabees The third volume (Add. MS 14790) contains Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, the minor prophets, and the New Testament. Parc Abbey Bible The Parc Abbey Bible (London, British Library, Add. MS 14788, 14789, and 14790) is a 12th-century illuminated Bible. It was made in the Leuven region of Belgium"
"it must have been composed in that region, possibly in the second half of the 9th century BCE. Some recent reconstructions leave out the Elohist altogether, proposing a Deuteronomist-Jahwist-Priestly sequence for the Torah written from the reign of Josiah into post-exilic times. Modern scholars agree that separate sources and multiple authors underlie the Pentateuch, but there is much disagreement on how these sources were used to write the first five books of the Bible. This documentary hypothesis dominated much of the 20th century, but the 20th-century consensus surrounding this hypothesis has now broken down. Those who uphold it now tend"
"lost, God remained present with Israel. The history of exilic and post-exilic Judah is little known, but a summary of current theories can be made as follows: The Pentateuch or Torah (the Greek and Hebrew terms, respectively, for the bible's books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) describe the history of the Israelites from the creation of the world, through the earliest biblical patriarchs and their wanderings, to the exodus from Egypt and the encounter with God in the wilderness. The books contain many inconsistencies, repetitions, different narrative styles, and different names for God. There are, for example, two"
"Supplementary hypothesis In biblical studies, the supplementary hypothesis proposes that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the bible) was derived from a series of direct additions to an existing corpus of work. It serves as a revision to the earlier documentary hypothesis, which proposed that independent and complete narratives were later combined by redactors to create the Pentateuch. The supplementary hypothesis was developed over the 19th and 20th centuries, primarily deriving from a dissatisfaction with the adequacy of the documentary hypothesis, and came to a head in the 1970s with the publication of works by John Van Seters, Rolf"
"on the origins of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the bible:Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), arguing, with Martin Noth, that Deuteronomy was the original beginning of a history that extended from Deuteronomy to the end of 2 Kings. However, against Noth and others, he held that the so-called Yahwist, the oldest literary source in Genesis, Exodus and Numbers, was written in the 6th century BCE as a prologue to the older Deuteronomistic History, and that the so-called Priestly Writer of the Pentateuch was a later supplement to this history. This approach represented a revival of the ""supplementary hypothesis"""
"not authors and historians. Rolf Rendtorff (1925–2014), building on this insight, argued that the basis of the Pentateuch lay in short, independent narratives, gradually formed into larger units and brought together in two editorial phases, the first Deuteronomic, the second Priestly. This led to the current position which sees only two major sources in the Pentateuch, the Deuteronomist (confined to the Book of Deuteronomy) and the Priestly (confined to the books Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers). The majority of scholars today continue to recognise Deuteronomy as a source, with its origin in the law-code produced at the court of Josiah as described by De"