Notes on 'Who Wrote the Pentateuch?'

1. More detailed descriptions of Pentateuchal criticism may be found in most introductions to the Old Testament. We suggest, however, that—unless you are specifically called by God to a life of historical scholarship, or unfortunate enough to have enrolled in a seminary where they still waste precious time on it—your time, apart from what you have already spent here, will be far more profitably spent on other things (yes, even soccer; at least, you can talk to your friends about it).

2. I am here dependent on G. W. Wenham, Genesis (WBC 1; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987): xxxv.

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4. I recently (2018) had a young man visiting us who is attending night classes at a local Bible-school, with an eye towards devoting his life to the Christian ministry. I asked over dinner what was his favourite subject. He said it "was" the OT. But why "was," I asked. For the course on the OT they had spent an entire evening on JEDP. His passion for the OT "wassed" after that. When will we Bible teachers and seminaries ever catch on?

5. Deut 1:1 speaks of Deuteronomy being "the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan," implying that Deuteronomy is a record of Moses's addresses written down by someone else living in Canaan, i.e., after the event.