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Revision as of 20:31, 28 September 2004 by Jayjg (talk | contribs) (NPOV; Orthodox covers both)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Deuteronomist is the title given to the hypothetical author of the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. Some scholars would attribute the book of Leviticus to him as well.
The Book of Deuteronomy is presented as a series of three long sermons by Moses. A small amount of interpository material, along with a coda describing the death and subsequent Divine burial of Moses, which obviously could not be of Mosaic origin, has been added. 19th century textual critics argued that the actual compilation of the book came hundreds of years after Moses' time; many scholars felt that it might be the "book of the Law" read by Ezra, with some suggesting that he was in fact the Deuteronomist; many Islamic scholars who insist that the Jews had lost the true Mosaic law agree with this analysis. A theory predating modern criticism was that the "book of the Law" found by Hilkiah the priest that supposedly spurred the reforms of King Josiah was Deuteronomy. Conservatives take this story at face value and say that Hilkiah found the ancient and long-lost text of the original book; others see it possible that Hilkiah was the Deuteronomist who had added rather seamlessly some post-Mosaic traditions and other anachronisms to strenghten his reform movement. Higher criticism tended to agree with this conclusion and expand upon it. Only the most staunchly conservative defended Deuteronomy as being exactly what it puported, transcriptions of Moses' sermons delivered shortly before his death, but they defended this quite vehemently (as do their modern successors today, ususally in the context of Orthodox Judaism and Christian fundamentalism). These conservatives often attribute the interpository material and the concluding passage to Joshua except that the very staunchest of them would suggest that God revealed to Moses advance knowledge of the form that his death would take and the details of its circumstances, meaning that these even these passages would be of Mosaic authorship. Even moderate conservatives see this as straining credulity.
Among those who accept the critical viewpoint, however, are many that doubt the existence of a sole "Deuteronomist"; they would suggest that the book probably achieved its current form over decades or even centuries. Some Hebrew scholars see linguistic similarites pointing to both Leviticus and Deuteronomy as being of a common authorship, others question or deny this. It would seem fair to state that the existence of a single Deuteronomist is less proven than the case for a sole Chronicler being the author of 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles.
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