Pentateuch

“Creation of Light”, initial moment of the Pentateuch (grabbed on metal by Gustave Doré). “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without order and empty, and darkness covered the surface of the abyss, and the Spirit of God moved on the surface of the waters. Then said God, Be the light. And there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from darkness. And God called the light day, and called the night to darkness. And it was the afternoon and it was the morning: one day.”
— Genesis 1:1-5

The Pentateuch (from the Greek πέντε [pénte], 'five', and τεύχος [téukhos], 'roll', 'case '; that is, "five scrolls", for the cylindrical cases where the Hebrew texts were kept rolled up) is the set formed by the first five books of the Bible, which the Judeo-Christian tradition attributes to the Hebrew patriarch Moses.

The Pentateuch is considered canonical by all Christian denominations and is part of all Bibles.

It corresponds to those that in the Hebrew tradition form the Torah —The Law—, the nucleus of the Jewish religion. The five books that compose it are:

1. Genesis
2. Exodus (Shemot [) ה He]
3. Leviticus (Vayikrá (Vayikrá)
4. Numbers (Bemidbar [according to verses]
5. Deuteronomy (Devarim [boundary vote])

It is contained in turn in the Tanakh, which is considered sacred by all Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Despite the above and that it is one of its three sacred texts, Muslims believe that the text suffered corruption (tahrif) by Jewish and Christian scribes, so they do not fully trust it. While the Hebrews name them by the first significant word of each, Christians have traditionally followed the nomenclature of the Greek version of the LXX.

Content

Corresponding to the category of the so-called historical books of the Bible, the books of the Pentateuch narrate in a more or less orderly manner the history and vicissitudes of the people of Israel. The five texts range from the creation of the Universe to the death of the patriarch and lawgiver Moses. In it appear the Ten Commandments of the book of Exodus and the 613 commandments that make up the law or written Torah followed by the Jews and Samaritans.

The Pentateuch deals with the providential election of the Israelite people by God as his chosen people. Paradoxically, this divine choice would mean for the Israelites a bitter series of misfortunes for their disobedience to God. In this way, it recounts the establishment of a theocracy, the granting of the promised land to its followers, the assumption of ethical, civil and religious law, and the long journey of the Hebrews to get out of their slavery in Egypt and reach the Canaan.

The Pentateuch or Torah in its original Hebrew language teaches us God's choice of the Israeli people, not to discard the world, but God's means to rid the world of idolatry.

With the Pentateuch and the rest of the Tanakh, Abrahamic monotheism would appear around the IV century B.C. C. and his concept of unique and exclusive truth.

Historical Alignment

Although it begins in an extremely broad way —the creation of the world—, as humanity grows, spreads, multiplies and differentiates, the Pentateuch begins to narrow more and more the historical line it will follow, soon concentrating on a single and exclusively in the fraction from which the Chosen People will emerge.

Shortly after finding it, he restricts himself even more, narrating only the hardships and successes of the Israelites since their departure from Egypt and their arrival in Canaan. Most of these stories serve as a framework for a lengthy and meticulous exposition of the rules that Yahveh grants to the Hebrews, which has earned the five books the name of "The Law" (the Torah )..

Authorship

The author

Moses, traditionally considered the author of the Pentateuch (Michael Angel Buonarotti marble).

Traditionally the composition of the Five Books has been attributed to Moses. This is how the Jews admitted it from remote times, as witnessed by the rabbinic tradition in the Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b-15a) and the Jerusalem Talmud (Sota, v, 5); and in the same way the first Christians admitted it. If true, this would place his writing around the 15th century BC. c. approximately.

This attribution of the authorship of the Pentateuch to Moses is based on the internal content of the work itself, in which several verses can be found in which it is stated that Moses himself wrote a so-called "Book of the Alliance" (Ex. 24, 4-7), and whose known content is explicitly coincident with that of the current Pentateuch itself in said parts, as is clear from the verses that mention it (Ex 17, 14; Ex 24, 4; Ex 34, 27; Num 33, 1-2; Deut 1, 5 together with Deut 31, 9 and Deut 31, 19-22). Also in Deuteronomy it is stated that the book containing the Law should be placed next to the Ark of the Covenant (Deut 31, 26), thus implying that it should be a very sacred work. All these reasons previously exposed have been those that traditionally led Jews and Christians to identify such a book with said Pentateuch.

This fact began to be questioned, however, as far back as Late Antiquity by philosophers such as Porphyry and later from the 17th century XVII, with the advent of the Enlightenment. Around the XVIII there was a very strong “anti-Mosaic” movement that questioned the authorship of Moses.

Arguments against the authorship of Moses

Throughout the entire collection, but particularly within specific sections of each book, there are lexical and stylistic differences, narrations told more than once, etc. The classic example is the fact that in certain parts of the text God is called by a different name from the one used in others (the famous dichotomy between the Yahwist and Eloist traditions). If one of them is used, the other is never mentioned. The two names of God are never mixed, throughout any of the five books. This suggests that the authors were more than one, that they used nouns different. According to this hypothesis, its antiquity would vary according to the sources between the 10th century B.C. C. and the year 400 a. c.

Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) formulated the so-called documentary hypothesis, according to which four different sources are recognized in the text, which would have been the object of the synthesis that we know of by late writers, from the time of the Babylonian captivity. Throughout the XX century, derivative interpretations and other alternatives to Wellhausen's have been elaborated, with varying degrees of rigor, consistency and explanatory power. They all agree on a multiple authorship of the texts of the Pentateuch.

Perhaps the strongest argument is Deuteronomy itself, which in its chapter 34 talks about the death of Moses, his burial, what happened to his body, the sadness of his people and various other things that happened in form after death. Moses could never have written those texts.

Official position of the Catholic Church

At the beginning of the XX century, the Catholic Church wanted to settle the discussion by entrusting its exegetes and theologians with the analysis and evaluation of the arguments for and against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

The Biblical Commission thus formed published its conclusions in 1906, which say that, while there is room for doubt, the arguments against Moses are not convincing. Therefore, the official position of Catholicism is that the Pentateuch is substantially the work of Moses, although its Mosaic authenticity does not necessarily demand that the entire text was written entirely by him alone.

This conclusion is supported by the obvious and incontrovertible antiquity of the texts in the collection, although no one disputes that the author could have used various sources, be they written documents or oral traditions, to carry out his work; as well as that he also may have used scribes and scribes, even entire teams of them, to write said work. Added to this is the possibility that, through the many centuries that have passed, modifications, mutilations and additions have been made to the books in question, although always acknowledging that such editions have been produced under the divine inspiration of various scribes and editors.

This position was later developed in a letter from said Commission in 1948, in which it was clarified that although Moses is at the head and base of the Pentateuch, providing the initial and persistent spirit in the writing of the work as author and legislator, no one doubted the progressive development of the sources of said work during times after it; so Catholic scholars were allowed to study the issue impartially in the light of sound biblical criticism and contributions from other sciences.

Fonts

Scholars admit four main sources or schools (“traditions”) of the Pentateuch:

• Yahvista tradition, dating from the Xth to C. and IXth centuries. C.;
• Elohist tradition, towards the eighth century a. C.;
• Deuteronomy tradition, around the seventh century BC; and
• Priestly tradition, between the sixth century BC and V BC.

Role of the author

The importance of the author of the Pentateuch was enormous for Judaism, and can be summarized in three main activities:

Politics

The political importance of Moses lies in the fact that he was the leader and leader of the escape from slavery and the achievement of his objectives of freedom and unity. Exodus and Moses are inextricably linked.

Religious

The religious role of Moses is central throughout the entire play. He was an important patriarch, and according to several parts of the Bible it is said that he would have been a priest and that the high priesthood was established from his brother Aaron; that one was a prophet of such importance that no one equal to him ever arose in Israel, and in a certain sense also a theologian as an intimate receiver and transmitter of divine Revelation.

Legislative

The laws that still govern Jewish life today appear to be the work of Moses, earning him the title of "Legislator." The laws that make up the second part of Deuteronomy are attributed to his pen in the book itself, explaining that in the person of the patriarch religious tradition, the administration of the Covenant with Yahveh and authority over ethics and morals come together.

In Exodus (20-23) you can read the Covenant Code, a complex legislation that regulates the Pact between God and Man and that Jewish and Christian authors traditionally attribute to the pen of Moses.

Religious meaning

The Pentateuch is the basis and regulation of Jewish life, and it has been so since the very date of its composition, because it explains God's concrete relationships with the world and with man. Every person can find in these books a clear and simple explanation of the reasons for their existence and their destiny.

From the beginning, books not only deal with answering in detail the questions that torment man (Where did the world come from? Where did we come from and where are we going? Why do we suffer and why do we die?) Rather, they resolve more technical and, if you will, more complex questions, such as the whys of Yahveh's unique relationship with Israel, the Covenant, justice, Law, and tradition.

The Pentateuch, moreover, is full of glorious promises: it promises Adam and Eve redemption, and also august future events to Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

What implies promises generates hope, and that is why it is not considered by chance that the Pentateuch ends before the arrival of the Jews in the Promised Land. As a book of hope, it leaves the doors open to the imagination, faith and religious fervors that will be consummated in the other books of the Old Testament and for Christians in the glorious coming of Jesus.