{"id":48569,"date":"2024-12-26T05:54:59","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T12:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=48569"},"modified":"2024-12-26T08:24:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T15:24:06","slug":"old-testament-historicity-2-differences-with-the-pentateuch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/12\/old-testament-historicity-2-differences-with-the-pentateuch\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Testament Historicity 2: Differences with the Pentateuch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So as I went over my notes on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/12\/old-testament-historicity-introduction\/\">two books<\/a> I wanted to discuss, I noticed that it would be good refer to a trend they both mention: that the books <em>after<\/em> the Pentateuch in the OT, especially the history books, don\u2019t seem to know about the Pentateuch. My apologies if this is well known to other readers; both authors cite other books.<\/p>\n<p>This point is significant for the theme of these posts since Adler\u2019s focus in on the Pentateuch and not the OT as a whole.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Wright notes that the books of Samuel and Kings do \u201cnot know of an Exodus from Egypt. Instead it presupposes that the \u2018Israelites\u2019 had always lived in their homeland, albeit under foreign domination\u201d (Wright, 66)<\/p>\n<p>Adler observes a similar trend: \u201c<em>Most <\/em>of the causes of impurity found in the Pentateuch are cited nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Outside the Pentateuch, the notion of impure species of animals is never mentioned, women who give birth are never said to be impure, sexual intercourse and semen are never spoken of as ritually defiling,\u201d etc. (Adler, 80). Contrary to the Law\u2019s proscription on graven images, Adler notes, \u201cSolomon\u2019s temple is said to have been filled with sculpted and embroidered images of bulls, lions, and winged cherubim\u2014none of which seem to have provoked the ire of the biblical authors\u201d (Adler, 102).<\/p>\n<p>Wright argues for two different metahistories in the OT with varying theologies: the books of Samuel and Kings that Wright calls the \u201cPalace History,\u201d and that of Genesis and Exodus that he calls \u201cthe People\u2019s History.\u201d The palace history, Wright argues, focusses on the Yahweh\u2019s covenant with David, while the people\u2019s history turns away from monarchy and focuses on Yahweh\u2019s covenant with Israel through the Law. Again, Wright and Adler note that Samuel and Kings seem unaware of the Pentateuch.<\/p>\n<p>Thus in my upcoming posts, I\u2019ll discuss historicity questions with the OT as a whole, but my main focus will be the Pentateuch. As <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Historicity_of_the_Bible\">Wikipedia<\/a> points out, the evidence is pretty clear that the historical claims of the Pentateuch\u2014Exodus and conquest\u2014did not happen. But that still leaves the question of when the Pentateuch was written with considerable debate. Like I said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/12\/old-testament-historicity-introduction\/\">previous post<\/a>, Adler gives some pretty good evidence for a late date for the composition of the Pentateuch: c. 300 BC.<\/p>\n<p>My next posts will discuss more of Wright\u2019s and Adler\u2019s claims, but differences between the Pentateuch and later parts of the Bible is an important point in both books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So as I went over my notes on the two books I wanted to discuss, I noticed that it would be good refer to a trend they both mention: that the books after the Pentateuch in the OT, especially the history books, don\u2019t seem to know about the Pentateuch. My apologies if this is well known to other readers; both authors cite other books. This point is significant for the theme of these posts since Adler\u2019s focus in on the Pentateuch and not the OT as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10406,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48569"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48624,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48569\/revisions\/48624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}