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

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Torah The Torah ( , "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. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

('' Pentateuch'') and the book of Joshua.

Overview

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

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

. Following the work of Eichhorn, de Wette,

Graf (; feminine: ) is a historical title of the German nobility and later also of the Russian nobility, usually translated as "count". Considered to be intermediate among noble ranks, the title is often treated as equivalent to the British title ...

, Kuenen, Nöldeke, Colenso and others, in his '' Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels'' Wellhausen proposed that Joshua represented part of the northern Yahwist source (''c'' 950 BC), detached from JE document by the Deuteronomist (''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 In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

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, expressed by the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia (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 (1855–1930) that there never was any ''Hexateuch'' per se, but that the Law (that is, the Torah), ''Joshua'', ''Judges'', ''Samuel'', and ''Kings'' all together once formed one great historic work.

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''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. {{Authority control 1870s neologisms Biblical criticism Hebrew Bible studies

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