The Hexateuch ("six scrolls") is the first six books of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...

(''

Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the sa ...

'') and the

book of Joshua The Book of Joshua ( he, סֵפֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ‎ ', Tiberian: ''Sēp̄er Yŏhōšūaʿ'') is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Isra ...

. Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.

Overview

The term ''Hexateuch'' came into scholarly use from the 1870s onwards mainly as the result of work carried out by

Abraham Kuenen Abraham Kuenen (16 September 1828 – 10 December 1891) was a Dutch Protestant theologian. Kuenen was born in Haarlem, the son of an apothecary. On his father's death it became necessary for him to leave school and take a humble place in the busi ...

and

Julius Wellhausen Julius Wellhausen (17 May 1844 – 7 January 1918) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist. In the course of his career, he moved from Old Testament research through Islamic studies to New Testament scholarship. Wellhausen contributed to ...

. Following the work of Eichhorn, de Wette,

Graf (feminine: ) is a historical title of the German nobility, usually translated as "count". Considered to be intermediate among noble ranks, the title is often treated as equivalent to the British title of "earl" (whose female version is "cou ...

, Kuenen, Nöldeke, Colenso and others, in his ''

Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels ''Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels'' (, ''Prologue to the History of Israel'') is a book by German biblical scholar and orientalist Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) that formulated but did not found the documentary hypothesis, a theory on the co ...

'' Wellhausen proposed that Joshua represented part of the northern

Yahwist The Jahwist, or Yahwist, often abbreviated J, is one of the most widely recognized sources of the Pentateuch (Torah), together with the Deuteronomist, the Priestly source and the Elohist. The existence of the Jahwist is somewhat controversial, ...

source (''c'' 950 BC), detached from JE document by the

Deuteronomist The Deuteronomist, abbreviated as either Dtr or simply D, may refer either to the source document underlying the core chapters (12–26) of the Book of Deuteronomy, or to the broader "school" that produced all of Deuteronomy as well as the Deutero ...

(''c'' 650–621) and incorporated into the Deuteronomic history, with the books of Judges, Kings, and Samuel. Reasons for this unity, in addition to the presumed presence of the other documentary traditions, are taken from comparisons of the thematic concerns that underlie the narrative surface of the texts. For instance, the ''Book of Joshua'' stresses the continuity of leadership from

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu ( Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pr ...

to Joshua. Furthermore the theme of ''Joshua'', the fulfillment of God's promise to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, complements the thematic material of the Pentateuch, which had ended with the Israelites on the border of the Promised Land ready to enter. The thesis that ''Joshua'' completes the ''Torah'' in a ''Hexateuch'' may be contrasted with the view of scholars following the older rabbinic tradition, as expressed by the compilers of the

Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...

(compiled between 1901 and 1906), that the ''Pentateuch'' is a complete work in itself. The thesis may also be contrasted with the view put forward by

Eduard Meyer Eduard Meyer (25 January 1855 – 31 August 1930) was a German historian. He was the brother of Celticist Kuno Meyer (1858–1919). Biography Meyer was born in Hamburg and educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums and later at the univer ...

(1855–1930) that there never was any ''Hexateuch'' per se, but that the ''Law'', ''Joshua'', ''Judges'', ''Samuel'', and ''Kings'' once formed one great historic work.

References

External links

''Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels'' (1878; 1882)
''Prolegomena to the History Of Israel''. With a reprint of the article ''Israel'' from the ''Encyclopædia Britannica.'' By Julius Wellhausen, Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Marburg. Translated from the German, under the author's supervision, by J Sutherland Black, MA, and Allan Menzies, BD (1885). With a preface By Prof. W Robertson Smith. At Project Gutenberg. 1870s neologisms Biblical criticism Hebrew Bible studies {{bible-criticism-stub

Overview

See also

References

External links