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 generations of heaven and earth when they were created, in the day [that] Yahweh God made earth and heaven-- {before any plant of the field was} on earth, and [before] {any plant of the field} had sprung up, because Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no human being to cultivate the ground, read more. but a stream [would] rise from the earth and water the whole face of the ground-- when Yahweh God formed the man [of] dust from the ground, and he blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And Yahweh God caused to grow every tree [that] was pleasing to the sight and good for food. And the tree of life [was] in the midst of the garden, {along with} the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river flowed out from Eden that watered the garden, and from there it diverged and became four branches. The name of the first [is] the Pishon. It went around all the land of Havilah, where [there is] gold. (The gold of that land [is] good; bdellium and onyx stones [are] there.) And the name of the second [is] Gihon. It went around all the land of Cush. And the name of the third [is] Tigris. It flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river [is] the Euphrates. And Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it. And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, "From every tree of the garden {you may freely eat}, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day {that you eat} from it {you shall surely die}." Then Yahweh God said, "[it is] not good [that] the man is alone. I will make for him a helper {as his counterpart}." And out of the ground Yahweh God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and he brought [each] to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called that living creature [was] its name. And the man {gave names} to every domesticated animal and to the birds of heaven and to all the wild animals. But for [the] man there was not found a helper {as his counterpart}. And Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. While he slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up {the flesh where it had been}. And Yahweh God fashioned the rib which he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said, "{She is now} bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; {she} shall be called 'Woman,' for {she was taken} from man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cling to his wife, and they shall be as one flesh. And the man and his wife, both of them, were naked, and they were not ashamed.
And I will establish my covenant with you, and you must go into the ark--you, and your sons, and your wife, and the wives of your sons with you. And of every living thing, from all flesh, you must bring two from every [kind] into the ark to keep [them] alive with you; they shall be male and female.
And of every living thing, from all flesh, you must bring two from every [kind] into the ark to keep [them] alive with you; they shall be male and female. From the birds according to their kind, and from the animals according to their kind, from every creeping thing [on] the ground according to its kind--two from every kind shall come to you to keep [them] alive. read more. And [as for] you, take for yourself from every kind of food that is eaten. And you must gather [it] to yourself. And it shall be for you and for them for food." And Noah did according to all that God commanded him; thus he did.
From all the clean animals you must take for yourself {seven pairs}, a male and its mate. And from the animals that [are] not clean [you must take] two, a male and its mate, as well as from the birds of heaven {seven pairs}, male and female, {to keep their kind alive} on the face of the earth.
And they came to Noah to the ark, {two of each}, from every living thing in which [was] the breath of life.
And Abram traveled through the land up to the place of Shechem, to the Oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanites [were] in the land at that time.
Now these [are] the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king ruled over the {Israelites}.
And a man found him, and behold, he was wandering about in a field. And the man asked him, "What do you seek?" And he said, "I am seeking my brothers. Tell me, please, where they are pasturing." read more. And the man said, "They have moved on from here, for I heard [them] saying, 'Let us go to Dothan.'" Then Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. And they saw him from a distance. And before he drew near to them, they conspired against him to kill him. And each said to his brothers, "Look, this master of dreams is coming. Now then, come, let us kill him and throw him in one of the pits. Then we will say a wild animal devoured him. Then we will see what his dreams become."
And Yahweh said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart [is] {insensitive}; he refuses to release the people.
And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not release the {Israelites} from his land.
And Yahweh said to Moses, "Write this [as] a memorial in the scroll and {recite it in the hearing of} Joshua, because I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens."
And Moses wrote all the words of Yahweh, and he rose early in the morning, and he built an altar at the base of the mountain and [set up] twelve memorial stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.
And he took the scroll of the covenant and read [it] in the hearing of the people, and they said, "All that Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will listen."
Now the man, Moses, [was] more humble than any other person on the face of the earth,
"When you have come to that land that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you and you have taken possession of it and you have settled in it, and you say, 'I will set over me a king like all the nations that [are] around me,'
{And then when Moses finished writing} the words of this law on the scroll {until they were complete},
And not again has a prophet arisen in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face,
Then Joshua wrote these words in a scroll of the law of God, and he took a large stone and set it up there under a large tree, which [is] at the shrine of Yahweh.