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The Book of Judges (First part)

According to Römer, the minor number of deuteronomistic interventions (=Dtr) is recorded in the Book of Judges. The texts to which he refers would be 2:6-3:6; 6:11-18; 10:6-16. These texts would be not dtr, but would reflect a rather late period and not attributable to the age of the scribes…

The Book of Joshua (Third part)

The most favorable political and social context at the beginning of deuteronomic literary activity is the age of Josiah. Like Deuteronomy, so the first edition of Joshua is probably functional to the political intentions of Josiah. The stories of conquests were therefore instrumental to the affirmation of Juda’s political and…

The First Edition of the Book of Deuteronomy (Second part)

According to T. Römer, the first edition of Deuteronomy began in 6:4-5 and ended with the curses in Dt 28. At the center were the prescriptions that presupposed the ideology of centralization in Jerusalem. Within this section – i.e. the cc. 12-26 – chapters 12 and 13 stand out. These texts…

The First Edition of the Book of Deuteronomy (First part)

The book of Deuteronomy, as well as many other books of the Bible, has not been written straight away, as if it were the work of a single author belonging to a specific historical moment. Some literary features represent the clear proof: the book has two prologues (chapters 1-3 and…

The origins of the Dtr story

Many scholars believe that the Dtr – i.e. the Deuteronomist – was written during the exile (at the end of VI cent. BC). This was the Noth’s theory about Dtr’s origins. Römer maintains that if the Dtr was written during the exile it is difficult to explain texts where the…

Deuteronomy 12 as an Example of the Threefold Deuteronomistic Editing

12 These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. 2 Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess…

The scroll of the Law found by Josiah in the Temple: myth or reality?

According to 2 Kings 22-23, in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, the priest Hilkiah found a roll during the renovation work of the Temple of Jerusalem. By order of the king, High Officer Shaphan reads the scroll in front of all the people. The reaction is strong and…

Who were the Deuteronomists?

As is often the case in the Bible, especially in the Pentateuch, it is very difficult – if not impossible – to describe the authors/editors a little more in detail. It is also for deuteronomists, those who wrote for the first time a history (not a historiography) of Israel. Here’s what…

The Composition of the Historical Books. From Joshua to 2 Kings (Third part)

The multiplication of dtr editors has made many scholars skeptical about the very existence of deuteronomic history. The problem is essentially the concept of “historiography” and the coherence of the dtr work. The “dtr” history can not be termed in any way, since it still belongs to the mythical genus…

The Composition of the Historical Books. From Joshua to 2 Kings (Second part)

Until the end of the 1960s, Martin Noth’s theory – that of a single author for Dtr – remained basically unchanged, finding mainly confirmations and some minor correction. Among the supporters we find Ivan Engnell (1906-1964). Otto Eissfeldt (1887-1973) argued that the complexity of the texts contained in the so-called Former Prophets…

Category: Course on the Historical books