History of Technology Volume 28

This overview of the Pentateuch reviews the various historical-critical attempts to read it that arise from notions about the social evolution of Israel's religion and culture. Is the Pentateuch an accumulation of folk traditions a work of ancient historiography a document legitimizing religious reform? The present book in dialogue with competing views advocates a compositional model that recognizes the social and historical diversity of the literary strata. It argues that a proto-Pentateuchal author created a comprehensive history from Genesis to Numbers that was written as a prologue to the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomy to 2 Kings) in the exilic period and later expanded by a Priestly writer to make it the foundational document of the Jerusalem temple community.