Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch

268 Pages·2022·1.847 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Stackert

Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch
The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library
is a project of international and interfaith scope in which
Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish scholars from many countries
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Copyright © 2022 by Jeffrey Stackert.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021948947
ISBN 978-0-300-16751-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
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Contents
Acknowledgments, vii
List of Abbreviations, ix
Introduction: The Importance of Deuteronomy
and the Challenge of Its Interpretation, 1
1. What Is Deuteronomy? 15
2. Literary Revision in Deuteronomic Composition, 52
3. Ancient Near Eastern Influence in Deuteronomic
Composition, 86
4. Deuteronomic Reception and the Compiled Pentateuch, 110
5. Dating Deuteronomic Composition, 134
Conclusion: Literature in History and the
Scriptural Pentateuch, 159
Notes, 163
Bibliography, 211
Index of Ancient Sources, 241
Index of Names and Subjects, 247
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Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to the many friends, colleagues, and students who
have generously discussed aspects of this book with me over the past
few years. Primary among them have been Simi Chavel, Joel Baden,
Baruch Schwartz, Sam Boyd, Bernie Levinson, and Stephen Young.
Each of these colleagues read parts of the manuscript and provided
valuable critique and encouragement in response. My students
Aslan Cohen Mizrahi, Justin Moses, and David Ridge likewise read
draft materials and made helpful suggestions for their improvement,
and David compiled the book’s bibliography. I was also fortunate to
have instructive conversations with, and to receive essential biblio-
graphical suggestions from, Jacob Lauinger, James Osborne, Jessie
DeGrado, Tzvi Abusch, Avi Faust, Liane Feldman, David Lambert,
and Chloe Blackshear.
Ideas developed in this book and parts of its chapters were pre-
sented orally in a number of venues, including meetings of the Soci-
ety of Biblical Literature, the Middle West Branch of the American
Oriental Society, and the Chicago-Yale Pentateuch Colloquium. I
offer my thanks to the participants at each of those meetings for
their insightful questions and comments. A portion of Chapter 2
appeared in a different form as “The Wilderness without Genera-
tion Change: The Deuteronomic Portrait of Israel’s Forty-Year Jour-
ney,” VT 70 (2020): 696–721. I am grateful for the opportunity to
include that material here. I also express my gratitude to my dean,
David Nirenberg, for approving the research leave that allowed me
to complete this book. The editorial staff at Yale University Press,
including Jennifer Banks, Heather Gold, and Abbie Storch, were
most patient and helpful as I worked on this project. John Collins,
the editor of the Anchor Yale Bible, was equally supportive. I thank
them each warmly. I am likewise grateful to the press’s anonymous
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viii Acknowledgments
referees for their judicious feedback and to Saul Olyan, Anchor Yale Bible
Reference Library editorial board member, for his careful reading of the
manuscript. Jessie Dolch copyedited the manuscript carefully, and it is a
pleasure to be able to thank her. Finally, Eve Levavi Feinstein prepared the
indexes for the book, and both she and my student Noah Avigan checked
the proofs. They did expert work, and I am grateful.
As I worked on this project, I benefited immeasurably from the love
and support of my wife, Richelle, and our two children, George and Kate.
Our “four family,” as we call it, has been a constant source of joy and en-
couragement, not least through the pandemic shutdown that accompanied
my completion of this volume. As a sign of my affection and appreciation,
I dedicate this book to Richelle, George, and Kate.
Abbreviations
AB Anchor Bible
ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library
ABS Archaeology and Biblical Studies
AIL Ancient Israel and Its Literature
AJSR Association for Jewish Studies Review
AnBib Analecta Biblica
ANEM Ancient Near Eastern Monographs
ANESSup Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Supplements
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und
Neuen Testaments
ATD Alte Testament Deutsch
AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies
AYB Anchor Yale Bible
AYBRL Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library
BA Biblical Archaeologist
BaAr Babylonische Archive
BaghM Baghdader Mitteilungen
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BBaghM Baghdader Mitteilungen, Beihefte
BBB Bonner Biblische Beiträge
BDB Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A.
Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the
Old Testament
BEATAJ Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments
und des Antiken Judentums
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