Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
THE LITERARY CHARACTER OF THE PENTATEUCH
The only historical sources at our disposal recording the settlement of the Israelite patriarchs in Canaan, their stay there, Israel's sojourn in Egypt, the exodus and the wanderings in the Sinai peninsula and east of the ‘Arabah and the Dead Sea are the narratives in the Pentateuch. There are isolated and scattered pieces of information from sources outside the Bible—the texts from Mari, which shed new light upon the ‘Amorites’ the Egyptian evidence as to the Hyksos; the statements of writers of the Hellenistic and Roman periods concerning the connexion of Israel's sojourn in Egypt with the episode of the Hyksos, which are preserved by Josephus; Akkadian and Hittite texts of the first half of the second millennium, thought to refer to military events recorded in Genesis xiv; documents from Nuzi mentioning legal customs which are, or appear, similar to those presupposed in the stories of the patriarchs ; the mention of Habiru or Hapiru in the Amarna letters and the other texts of the same period containing this and similar names. But these are so ambiguous in interpretation that they can be adduced only as supplementing the story to be obtained from the Pentateuch narratives; they should not be used as a guide in any attempt to answer the complex questions posed by the biblical account.
The Pentateuch constitutes a combination of several distinct narrative works dealing with the same general subject. These start with the Creation, in the case of L also called J, J also called J, and P, or with the first mention of Abraham, as does E, or with the Theophany on Mount Sinai, as does D; in the Pentateuch they are used until the death of Moses in Trans-Jordan, in the sight of the Holy Land, but originally continued to the dealth of Joshua and perhaps even later.
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