Reference: Hexateuch
Hastings
The first five books of the OT were known in Jewish circles as 'the five-fifths of the Law.' Christian scholars as early as Tertullian and Origen adopted the name Pentateuch, corresponding to their Jewish title, as a convenient designation of these books. 'The Law' was regarded as a unique and authoritative exposition of all individual and social conduct within Israel: a wide gulf seemed to divide it from the Book of Joshua, which inaugurated the series of historical books known as 'the Latter Prophets.' As a matter of fact, this division is wholly artificial. The five books of the Law are primarily intended to present the reader not with a codification of the legal system, but with some account of the antiquities and origins of Israel, as regards their religious worship, their political position, and their social arrangements. From this standpoint, nothing could be more arbitrary than to treat the Book of Joshua as the beginning of an entirely new series: 'its contents, and, still more, its literary structure, show that it is intimately connected with the Pentateuch, and describes the final stage in the history of the Origines of the Hebrew nation' (Driver, LOT [Note: OT Introd. to the Literature of the Old Testament.] 103). Critics have accordingly invented the name Hexateuch to emphasize this unity; and the name has now become universally accepted as an appropriate description of the first six volumes of the OT. In this article we propose to consider (I.) the composition, (II.) the criticism, and (III.) the characteristics of the Hexateuch.
I. Composition of the Hexateuch.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
These are the histories of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens, and every shrub of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for Jehovah Elohim had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. read more. But a mist went up from the earth, and moistened the whole surface of the ground. And Jehovah Elohim formed Man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and Man became a living soul. And Jehovah Elohim planted a garden in Eden eastward, and there put Man whom he had formed. And out of the ground Jehovah Elohim made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; and the tree of life, in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden, to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four main streams. The name of the one is Pison: that is it which surrounds the whole land of Havilah, where the gold is. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and the onyx stone are there. And the name of the second river is Gihon: that is it which surrounds the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which flows forward toward Asshur. And the fourth river, that is Euphrates. And Jehovah Elohim took Man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to till it and to guard it. And Jehovah Elohim commanded Man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou shalt freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die. And Jehovah Elohim said, It is not good that Man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate, his like. And out of the ground Jehovah Elohim had formed every animal of the field and all fowl of the heavens, and brought them to Man, to see what he would call them; and whatever Man called each living soul, that was its name. And Man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the heavens, and to every beast of the field; but as for Adam, he found no helpmate, his like. And Jehovah Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon Man; and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up flesh in its stead. And Jehovah Elohim built the rib that he had taken from Man into a woman; and brought her to Man. And Man said, This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Woman, because this was taken out of a man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, Man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt go into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee: they shall be male and female.
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee: they shall be male and female. Of fowl after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of each shall go in to thee, to keep them alive. read more. And take thou of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee, that it may be for food for thee and for them. And Noah did it; according to all that God had commanded him, so did he.
Of all clean beasts thou shalt take to thee by sevens, a male and its female; but of the beasts that are not clean two, a male and its female. Also of the fowl of the heavens by sevens, male and female; to keep seed alive on the face of all the earth.
And they went to Noah, into the ark, two and two of all flesh, in which was the breath of life.
And Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned a king over the children of Israel.
And a man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the country; and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I am seeking my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. read more. And the man said, They have removed from this; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them at Dothan. And when they saw him from afar, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to put him to death. And they said one to another, Behold, there comes that dreamer! And now come and let us kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, An evil beast has devoured him; and we will see what becomes of his dreams.
And Jehovah said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened: he refuseth to let the people go.
And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh; but Jehovah made Pharaoh's heart stubborn, and he did not let the children of Israel go out of his land.
And Jehovah said to Moses, Write this for a memorial in the book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens.
And Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
And he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the ears of the people; and they said, All that Jehovah has said will we do, and obey!
But the man Moses was very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth.
When thou comest unto the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me;
And it came to pass, when Moses had ended writing the words of this law in a book, until their conclusion,
And there arose no prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom Jehovah had known face to face;
And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of Jehovah.