Section outline

    • 5.1 Overview

      • The origin of the word Pentateuch
      • Tetrateuch, Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or Enneateuch?
      • Canonical context of the Pentateuch
      • Some literary problems of the Pentateuch

    • 5.2 Comment

      The first section of the Old Testament is called Pentateuch. It consists of five more or less separate books each with its own title, which, however, together form a unique literary work. The Pentateuch tells a story from the creation of the world up to the point, when Israel is standing at the border to the Promised Land, basically concluding with the report of Moses’s death. Besides telling the story, the Pentateuch is also characteristic for its extended legal and legal-cultic passages. The Pentateuch shows marks of complex composition in the process of its coming into the being, at the same time it presents interesting literary and theological plan.

    • 5.3 Literature for individual study

      Rendtorff, The Old Testament, 6–10, 77–88, 131–132.

      Ska, Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch, 1–15, 53–75.

      5.4 For further reading

      Kaminsky and Lohr, The Hebrew Bible for Beginners, 51–53.

    • 5.5 Verifying comprehension

      1. Explain the following terms: “Pentateuch”, “Enneateuch”, “Tetrateuch”, “Hexateuch”.
      2. What are the main reasons, according to Ska, to keep thinking about the Pentateuch as a distinct part of the Bible?
      3. What is the explanation of so-called “doublets” or “triplets” in the Pentateuch, for example Gen 1:1–2:4a and 2:4b–3:24 or Gen 12:10–20, 20:1–18, 26:1–11?
      4. What kind of slightly different literary problem is identified in the Flood Narrative (Genesis 6-9)?