El Pentateuco James Allman

BE102.
Old Testament History I

Unit 1. Intro to the Course/ Intro to the Pentateuch
Video 1. Pentateuch Date and Authorship: A Response to the Scholarly
Position Part 1
James Allman
Dr. Allman: I start with an assumption, page one, or page two actually, I start with the
assumption that the Pentateuch is a single book with a single author. We read in II
Chronicles 25:4, and elsewhere about Moses, in Moses, in the Book of Moses, well the
Book of Moses, which is the Book of Moses? You know the Pentateuch, not simply
Genesis or Leviticus, but the Pentateuch. So I’m thinking of the Pentateuch as a single
work with a single author in five volumes. Yes? The necessities of writing on a scroll limit
the length of a work and so what we have is something that will fit roughly on a scroll and
therefore we have five scrolls making up the Book of Moses. So this idea I want to try to
defend and discuss as we go through the material on the Pentateuch.
So introductory issues: the date and authorship of the book, the date according to the
scholarly establishment. If you go to any university almost in the world and take a course
on Bible, if you go to most seminaries they will say, they will give you the point of view or
some variation that I’m about to give on the notes here. There are four documents from
which the Pentateuch was complied. First the Yahwist gathered the patriarchal traditions
and edited them into a single work in the 9th or 10th century B.C. The Pentateuch is the
result of centuries of work, I don’t know what’s going on here, here we go, the Yahwist in
the 10th or 9th centuries B.C. In the 8th century B.C. you have a second redactor, what
does the word redactor mean? Editor. I don’t know why they use redactor except that they
are scholars so they have to use strange language in order to confuse things. In the 8th
century, a second redactor, the Elohist added material. Why do they have the names
Yahwist and Elohist?
Response: Is that the names of God?
Dr. Allman: Yeah. Yahweh is the name of God. Elohim is a common noun that is applied
to God as a name, so in the Yahwist document the name of God is Yahweh. In the Elohistic
document the name of God is Elohim. So Genesis 1 is a Elohistic, actually Genesis 1 is not
Elohistic, but it’s priestly. Let’s go on and talk about the priestly and the Deuteronomist. In
the 7th century the Deuteronomist worked adding his material to the Pentateuch and finally
in the 6th century the priestly group added their material and so the Pentateuch grew by
accretion over the centuries between the 10th and 6th centuries B.C. The Deuteronomist is
usually dated to the 7th century based on the story of Josiah in II Kings. Josiah was
refurbishing the temple. Do you remember the story of Josiah? Was refurbishing the
temple, they found a book. What a surprise! They found a book. How do you suppose they
found the book? The Deuteronomist wrote it, papal wrote it, we’re in good shape, I’m
moving well here, wrote the book and planted it in the temple so that it would be found and
obviously the Deuteronomist wrote it in the 7th century because the concern in the 7th
century was to get rid of all the worship sights that were around the countryside and
centralize all worship in Jerusalem and Deuteronomy clearly teaches a single central
sanctuary. We’ll try to debunk that later, but the point is that the politics of the time
necessitated that the Book of Deuteronomy be written in the 7th century. The priestly group
wrote in the 6th century, that is during the Babylonian captivity in order to preserve the
traditions of how the rituals were carried out in the temple. And so anything that deals with
ritual, anything that deals with cultic matters is priestly and so was written in the 6th
century B.C. We’ve got some problems here. There The evidence now: There are eight
lines of evidence for the scholarly position. I wanted to make sure that I was on sound
ground with this material so I reread, in fact I read some new material on the evidence for
the scholarly position and it added nothing to what I am about to say. Of course there is
much more detail than we can give in a class like this, but at least I should deal with this
and give it its evidence.
First are the terms for deity Yahweh and Elohim. This is first because this is the first thing
that people began to notice in studying, frankly, in studying the Flood narratives. People
began to see part of the Flood narrative was about Yahweh and part of it was about Elohim
and they began to wonder why is the case and they concluded that the name Yahweh was a
device used by an author who preferred that and the name Elohim was used by an author
who preferred that and so these were obviously signs of varying authorship and varying
history behind the material.
Second is vocabulary. You have much more discussion on the notes here than I have for
you immediately on the screen, but we can talk about it. There are passages that don’t
contain divine names, and yet they find some of the same vocabulary in the divine name
passages and the non-divine name passages. For example, in Hebrew there are two words
for maidservant. One is ‘amah, and the other shiphchah and they found that the Yahwists
used one and the Elohists used the other so these became means of identifying the Yahwist
and the Elohists where the names Yahweh and Elohim didn’t occur. Does that make sense
to you?
Third is style. Having identified unique vocabulary for each source they noticed that the
various unique passages also had variances in style that were identifiable. For example the
style of P. P uses the same terms for deity that E did, but P used a style described as
prosaic, precise, formulaic, repetitious, lacking in metaphor and simile. P includes
genealogies ritual directions and various other kinds of lists. If you limit P to genealogies,
ritual directions and lists how much simile and metaphor are you going to expect?
Dr. Allman: None. That might be a telling observation. But let’s move on. Fourth line of
evidence for the Documentary Hypothesis are, there are other points here that you can see,
doublets. There are several stories told two or more times in the Pentateuch. We have two
stories about Abraham endangering his wife, yes? And a third story about Isaac
endangering his wife. That would be an indication that the traditions of Abraham
endangering his wife had come down from different sources. The stories had been told
differently. The author was a very conservative, the editor was a very conservative person
who wanted to preserve the stories as they had been told and so he put the stories in at two
different places and there was a third story about Isaac and so he included that in order to
tell the whole story as it had been handed down from tradition. Does that make sense to
you? There are other kinds of doublets, though some stories are held to be separate
accounts of different events but held by conventional theory to be variants of one event. So
we have the endangerings of the matriarch. You have the flight of Hagar. Hagar leaves the
family of Abraham twice, so you’ve got different outcomes, but they’re really just stories
about the one thing that happened, but told in different ways. Third supposedly repetitious
narratives, each a unity in the Old Testament text, but partitioned into two or three rival
accounts by conventional theory. So the Flood narrative is the place where Documentary
Hypothesis got its start. Pentateuchical source criticism started in the Flood narrative, and
they found that the thing keeps getting told over and over again, see. And since it’s told
over and over again then it must be a complex story from a complex origin. The sale of
Joseph, the plagues in Egypt, this, these would be evidences of doublets in the text.
Fifth, anticronisms. That’s a French word. I don’t speak French. I read French, but I don’t
speak it, so if I’ve mispronounced it please forgive me. I abhor myself and repent in
sackcloth and ashes, but that’s the best I can do. I do need to add something to this, to the
notes at this point. Anticronisms according to the notes were events related out of their
chronological order showing therefore editorial influence at the, at work in the formation of
the Pentateuch. We’re going to talk about that. There are clear evidences that things are not
told in chronological order. In Leviticus, for example, in Leviticus 1 to 7, we’ve got two
indications that there are different times.
In fact chapters 6 and 7 are probably written, are probably occurred before, sorry let me say
it more appropriately, the revelation that God gave in Leviticus 6 and 7 was given before
the revelation given in chapters 1 to 5. But Moses has organized these chapters in this
fashion in order to accomplish a particular purpose. We’ll talk about that later, but there’s
another kind of anticronism and that would be something, which I now cannot remember,
anachronism. It would be anachronisms.
For example, you have camels in Abraham’s day and everybody knows that there were no
camels in Abraham’s day. There were no camels domesticated until the 12th century or
13th, and so Abraham being in the 19th or 20the century B.C. couldn’t possibly have been
around camels. And furthermore there are Philistines in the patriarchal narratives. The
Philistines didn’t come to Canaan until the 12th or 13th century so these are anachronisms
and therefore indications that this was the sources were simply were wrong and here are
evidences to identify the various sources of the text.
Seventh, is this seventh? Different theological concepts. Sixth, different theological

concepts: J has an anthropomorphic view of God. In the J narrative Genesis 2. How does
God make man? Hm?
Response: From the dirt.
Dr. Allman: From the dirt. He’s a potter. The Hebrew word for he formed man from the
dust of the earth is yatsar. He formed man. That’s the word for pottery, making pottery. So
God’s a potter, working at a potter’s wheel, throwing clay, making the pot and it comes out
a man. How does God create man in Genesis 1, which is a P document? Spoke, so God is
transcendent in P and E. He is other, He is distant from man, in J He is near, He is close, He
is anthropomorphic. He comes walking in the Garden, in the cool of the day. Do you follow
this? So J and E and P have different theological concepts. There are differing social
usages. In P, for example, the father names the son. In J and E, on the other hand, the
mother does the naming. Now that’s one example of many others that they would give if
you had somebody who really believed this up here. But, then the cumulative argument.
The argument goes this way: though no single argument amounts to absolute proof of the
hypothesis. When all put together they support each other and demonstrate the validity of
the whole.
It is true if I take seven strands and weave them together I have a stronger rope than I
would have with any one strand by itself, yes? On the other hand, you see, if we’re
analogizing anyway maybe I can change the analogy. Is a chain of seven weak links
stronger than any link by itself? Well no, so while I might weave them together and have a
stronger argument, I might not, if I simply link them together as a links in a chain, and so
the cumulative argument is not a very sound argument. Let’s go and evaluate the eight
arguments now page 4 of the notes, and my pages will be slightly different later than yours,
but at this point they’ll be the same.
© 2018 Dallas Theological Seminary
BE102. Old Testament History I

Video 2. Pentateuch Date and Authorship by the Scholarly Establishment
James Allman
Dr. Allman: The terms for deity. None of you has ever prayed and prayed to God or, O
Lord in the same prayer, have you? Have you?
Response: Yeah, probably have.
Instructor: Well then you must be psychotic because you’re two different people. You can’t
do that. It’s not an option for us. Ancient people, folks, you got to get this down right away,
sooner you get this down the easier it will be to understand modern scholarship. Ancient
people are stupid. Right? The more ancient they are the more stupid they are. Ancient
people can’t think. They thought about miracles and they thought miracles really happened.
We’re not stupid like they were. We know that miracles didn’t happen so we know what
they didn’t know. Yes? So ancient people are stupid, yes?
Response: Yeah.
Instructor: So you’ve seen the commercial for what it is Geico? On?
Response: The cave man.
Instructor: Yeah, the cave man. They invented the wheel and fire right? My favorite
professor said ancient man supposedly primitive man invented all the major inventions on
which all subsequent technology depends, except he said anesthesia. [Laughter] But and
you can even make a case for that because they did know how to ferment the grape so
there’s a form of anesthesia. But first of all we start with this presupposition, the more
ancient they are the more stupid they are, and yet as I look at the literature of the ancient
Near East and look at this usage of divine names I begin to find there are problems with this
criterion. In ancient Near Eastern literature such as the Baal-Aliyan cycle and Ugaritic
poetry alternating names for deity are regularly used. One of the gods possess a compound
name Kothar-wahasis that wah in the middle, do you see it there in the notes, wahasis, that
wah means "and" in Ugaritic. It’s Kothar- and - hasis is this god’s name. And in some lines
of Ugaritic poetry you call him simply Kothar, in other lines you call him Hasis. Am I then
to recognize a K and a Ha source?
And third in the Enuma Elish is this a new name to you? To many of you it will not be new.
Is it new? If I say something in class and I’ve just run off and left you, you have no idea
what I’m talking about if you will do this, movement in class gets noticed, because you all
like this the whole class. But if I say something and you don’t know what it is then you
don’t have to raise your hand and expose your ignorance to the whole class, right? So just
wiggle your finger. Enuma Elish is the Babylonia creation epic. In the Enuma Elish the
God Marduk is given 50 titles at the end of the epic. Shall we conclude that there were
originally 50 documents from which the Enuma Elish was drawn? This, of course, is not
reasonable. So, what I have to do is say that it was common to use poetic variation of
names for gods throughout the ancient Near East, so the divine name issue simply cannot
be an issue in discovering the sources of the Pentateuch. Indeed, I mention to you Umberto
Cassuto, Cassuto wrote a book called The Documentary Hypothesis, and in his books, a
very brief book, we have it in the library, he shows that there are reasons for using the name
Yahweh and using the name Elohim. And so it was intentional by the Hebrew authors of
the Bible in their use of Yahweh and Elohim. Proverbs tends to use Elohim because
Proverbs is not dealing in a specifically Jewish or Israelite context. Psalms, with the
exception of Psalms 41, 42, to 72, Psalms tends to use the name Yahweh. 42 to 72 uses the
name Elohim and it’s called the Elohistic Psalter. So there are reasons for using the names.
Secondly vocabulary. Vocabulary style and differing theological concepts are circular
arguments. Once one limits a source to certain types of literature, all genealogies are P
documents then one would expect a certain homogeneity in vocabulary style and theology.
The theology of ritual instructions is always going to be the same, right? You do this and
this was all false. It’s normal for any good author to vary the vocabulary within a section
and throughout a book for stylistic purposes. Such variation cannot be a judged evidence of
differing authorship.
Let me get caught up here. Plato, you will all have heard the name Plato, whether you’ve
read any Plato is another question, but Plato wrote dialogues. One of his dialogues is The
Lysis. There is a, we have orations by a Greek orator names Lysis and those who study
such things have studied both Lysis’ orations and Plato’s dialogue called The Lysis, and
they have found that Plato has reproduced Lysis’ style pretty well. What a brilliant author
can do who knows? You see what I’m saying? In style? Furthermore over time your style
changes. Had occasion several, many years ago now, to read some papers that I wrote in
high school. And I thought, "Oh gosh, this is terrible." I don’t now read my papers that I
wrote in Seminary. They’re pitiful. It’s just amazing, but style both grows and may be
varied for literary purposes. Does that make sense to you? So style can’t be an inherent
guide for determining authorship.
Fourth doublets: You all know that no one ever committed the same sin twice, yes?
You certainly haven’t in your life. You commit a sin once, God disciplines you, you never
do it again, right?
Response: Right.
Instructor: Amen?
Response: Amen. Absolutely.
Instructor: Amen, glory! And therefore, Abraham could not have possibly have lied about
his wife except for Genesis 20. In Genesis 20 Abimelech says to Abraham, “Why have you
done this?” He says, “Well when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said
to my wife, ‘This is the kindness you will show me. Everywhere we go say, he is my
brother.’” In Genesis 20 is when Abraham is 99 years old, so how many years has he been
doing this? 24. He left Haran when he was 75. He’s now 99, so he’s been doing this for 24
years. He is, by the way, a habitual liar, yes? Are you with me? As a habitual liar, then
would I expect Abraham to get caught a couple of times? Why are only two of the lies
recorded? I have this notion that he lied, kept lying for 24 years because it worked, except
for two times. And those are the two times he got caught. Now how did Isaac learn to do
this?
Response: From his dad.
Dr. Allman: From his dad. He continued to do it after Isaac was born. Do you follow me
here? Yes?
Response: Is that why, I was just reading this the other day, is that why when it came to
Melchizedek he told the King of Salem, or whatever, he’s like I’ve already sworn an oath I
can’t give you any service or whatever else. Why would he have to proclaim that, but now
that you say he was a habitual liar, I’m like well he would have to say that he has to keep
his oath so that he would actually keep his oath.
Dr. Allman: Turn to Genesis 21, in light of your comment there, so well taken. Genesis 21,
I have a new Bible here, I’m using the NET Bible, the reader’s edition and I’m having
trouble getting the pages to turn like I want them to. Gracious, this Bible doesn’t have
Genesis 21. There it is, finally. Genesis 21:22, “At that time Abimelech and Phichol, the
commander of his army, said to Abraham, ‘God is with you in all that you do.’” Like what
for example?
Response: Lying.
Dr. Allman: Lying. “God is with you in all that you do. Now swear to me right here in
God’s name that you will not deceive me.” Why does he want an oath that Abraham will
not deceive? Because he has. Do you follow this? Abraham is not a trustworthy man. He’s
dangerous. You bring him in plagues come to your family and cities, so he’s not a safe
man. God is with him and he’s a liar. Do you follow this? The situation with Melchizedek
is slightly different, but your observation is well taken. So why are there three stories of
endangering the matriarch? Because that’s the way it happened and it was germane to
Moses’ purpose to include it in the book. We’ll talk about that a little bit later, but at this
point I simply make the point. Brothers and sisters when you write a story or when you tell
a story you select the elements of the story that are germane to your purpose for telling it.
Have you ever heard a story told by a five-year old? What’s the story told by a five-year old
like? You laughed first. Why do you laugh?
Response: I have a six-year old.
Dr. Allman: Okay. What’s a story told by a five or six-year old like?
Response: Well you never know when you’re part way through or end of subject or you’re
just lost. Instructor: It has no Dr. Allman: It has no purpose. The purpose is to have
relationship with you.
Response: And he has a lot of fun telling it.
Dr. Allman: Oh yeah. And he wants your attention. And that’s so important, and that’s
good, that’s a good thing. But the story is not worth retelling. [Laughter] Moses has
selected the matter that is important to accomplish his purpose and so we'll have to ask,
"what is his purpose and how do the doublets then fit together?" I have a friend who is a
professor of English and we were talking one day and he said, “My biggest problem with
accepting the historicity of the Bible is its patterning.” He said, “The stories are too well
patterned. Reality doesn’t happen that way.” I knew my friend, I knew him well, we spent a
lot of time together and I said to him, “Now let me ask you a question. I know that you
begin your whole thinking about God with creation.” He said, “That’s right.” “And you
begin by thinking that God is the greatest artist in history.” He said, “That’s right.” “Then
what if the greatest artist is not only an artist in terms of visual beauty but also in terms of
narrative beauty? What if that great Artist has not only put beauty in the world of sight, but
has put beauty in the world of events so that He has patterned events and part of the
inspiration process for the writers of Scripture is to be able to see the patterns in the
events?”
I was in Corrie ten Boom’s home a few, several months ago, it’s been seven years now, so
that’s several months. You know the name Corrie ten Boom? She has in the dining room a
needle, not a needle point, some stitchery that she did and they always have it, they have
glass on both sides and they have it hanging with the back of the piece hanging out, facing
the group as they come into the dining room and it’s absolutely terrible. If you’ve ever seen
any cross-stitch or anything from the back it just looks awful, yes? So they tell the story of
Corrie going through the camps in World War II and all that, then they turn the thing
around and it’s a gorgeous beautiful crown. It’s just gorgeous. You see it’s like that with
God; it’s also like that with reality. I don’t, as I’m going through the events I don’t see their
significance. I don’t see their purpose. It may be years, it may be decades before I see any
purpose in what’s going on. Does that make sense to you? But what God has done in part
for the authors of Scripture is He’s highlighted the patterns for them so that they can see
them and record them. And so the doublets that are in Scripture are part of God’s patterning
to help us to be able to understand what’s happening, what’s going on as the events are
recounted.

Video 3. Pentateuch Date and Authorship: A Response to the Scholarly
Position Part 2
James Allman
Instructor: Antichronisms. Well of course some things are out of order. You never have to
tell a story in chronological order. What rule makes you have to tell a story in chronological
order? Where’s the rule? Who wrote it? Which volume of the Talmud is it in? Does this
make sense to you? Frequently a story’s beginning doesn’t make sense. You don’t know
what it’s the beginning until you’ve gotten to the middle.
So for example David Copperfield, the author, the narrator, David Copperfield, the narrator
says, “I was born at such and such of time, that that was really true I don’t know I’ve been
told it all my life but I wasn’t aware of it at the moment.” [Laughter] So the story has begun
in his adulthood even though the words begin with his birth. Do you follow this?
The story begins in the middle and then goes back to the beginning to bring you up to the
time of the significant events that he wants to talk about. You see what I’m saying here?
The Iliad, one of the greatest books ever written, Homer’s Iliad, menin aeide thea Peleiadeo
Achileos, of wrath, sing O goddess of the wrath of the son of Peleus, Achilles. Well the
wrath of Achilles comes in the tenth year of the war of the Trojan War and we don’t know
why Achilles is angry because the cause must be told subsequently. Do you follow this?
Of course, stories are told out of chronological order. So what, that doesn’t prove any
complexity of origins. It’s just the way stories are told. Just tell a story from the beginning
may not be very interesting, so I may have to set the reason for the story before I can go
back to the beginning and tell the beginning.
Anachronisms are more difficult. It may be, there are any number of explanations for
anachronisms. It may be that scholars are just wrong that camels weren’t first domesticated
in the 12th and 13th centuries B.C. There is evidence of camel bones in archeological digs
that in dwellings that go back to the time of Abraham so there’s no inherent reason why
Abraham couldn’t have traveled by means of camels. And who knows why you kept
camels in the first place. Maybe you didn’t travel by camels. Maybe you just had camels in
a petting zoo; who knows. Yes.
Response: If something like that happened how would we have evidence that would say oh
camels weren’t domesticated until, you can’t prove that, right?
Instructor: Yeah, I don’t know. So much of archeology is interpretational. It’s really

difficult to know what is absolute proof of a particular fact in any given time. So and it may
be that the Philistines did come in the 12th and 13th centuries B.C. in mass to Canaan. On
the other hand these are seafaring peoples and if they’re seafaring peoples they may have
had colonial settlements all over the Mediterranean at any given time. Does that make sense
to you? Might have small settlements without having the mass migration that you have in
the 12th and 13 centuries of the Philistines. So I don’t know. There are just too many
loopholes in this problem of anachronisms and things told out of chronological order.
Next is differing theological concepts. Jeremiah 23, God asks a question, “Am I a God who
is near? Well what’s the answer?
Response: Yes.
Instructor: Yes. And not a God who is far off? Well what’s the answer?
Response: Correct.
Instructor: Well yes. Well which is He? Is He a God who is near or is He a God who is far
off? He’s both. Well how can that be? A cannot be both A and non A at the same time and
in the same sense, so how can he be both near and far off?
Response: In different senses of the word.
Instructor: In different senses of the word. Psalms in two different places God surrounds
Himself with light, I’m sorry, clothes Himself with light, Psalm 104, and I think Psalm 96
or 98, I can’t remember which it is. He surrounds Himself with clouds and thick darkness.
Well which is it? Does He clothe Himself in light or does he surround Himself in clouds of
thick darkness? A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense.
Well just go outside this afternoon. It’s supposed to be clearing off and go outside and look
at the sun for ten minutes. Is it clothed in light? Sure. At the end of ten minutes is it clothed
in darkness? As a matter of fact so the light reveals but it also hides, yes? The placement of
light for photography is absolutely crucial, yes? If I place the light at one point my subject
will be in shadow and I won’t even be able to see the characteristics of my subject. If I
place the light in a different point I may not be able to see the background. Does that make
sense to you? So light both conceals and reveals and what the Psalms are saying is God is a
God who both reveals Himself but in the very act of revealing He also conceals Himself,
because the more I know of God the more I realize there is to be known that I don’t know.
Does that make sense? So I have differing theological concepts.
Then is God anthropomorphic? Yeah, in some sense. Anthropomorphic, yeah, does He

reveal Himself in the form of a human being? Sometimes, Genesis 18, three men came
walking down the road. One of them is the Lord. Yes? So can He reveal Himself in human
form? Sure, He’s God. Can He be distant and transcendent? Yes, He’s God and He can be
both at the same time. So these wouldn’t be inherent either evidences of different
authorship.
Differing social usages: I named my son. My wife named our second daughter. The two of
us together named our first daughter, so there must be three different families involved,
yes? Ancient people are stupid. Stupid people have to do things in ritualistic ways. See, and
so everybody has to do the same thing same way all the time for a thousand years all men
named the children until the E document came along when all women named the children.
Where’s the logic in that? People do things the way the do things. There’s not an inherent, I
can’t from one or two examples draw conclusion about who named anybody at any given
time in history. This is just nonsense folks, ultimately.
And then finally the cumulative argument when you boil it down, yeah it may be true that
seven weak cords woven together give a stronger rope, but it may be also true that if I link
seven links together all of which are weak and pull on them they’re all going to break. Does
that make sense? So my analogy may have to change for thinking about a cumulative
argument.
So I don’t find here a strong argument for the Documentary Hypothesis. In the study guide
this will be called the J, E, D, P theory. Why is it J, E, D, P? Jehovah, or Yahweh, Yahwist,
Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly Document, so J, E, D, P theory, also called the
Documentary Hypothesis.
Response: Is this widely believed today?
Instructor: Say again?
Response: Is this widely accepted?
Instructor: Oh my yes. If you go to SMU, if you go to Perkins, if you go to, that’s at

Perkins, Bright at TCU, if you go to University of Texas and take a Bible as literature
course this is what you’re going to be taught. So, and even as I pointed out Gordon
Wenham in his two-volume commentary, Word Biblical Commentary on Genesis uses this.
So it’s very widely believed. Everybody basically follows this view.

Video 4. Pentateuch Date and Authorship: An Alternative View
James Allman
Instructor: Just to summarize what we’ve said in the first session the J, E, D, P theory, or
the Documentary Hypothesis is the scholarly consensus view of how the Pentateuch came
together. The four sources J, E, D and P are ancient groups or individuals who gathered oral
tradition, put it together, and accumulated to the point where we have the five Books of
Moses that we now have.
I didn’t mention but was reminded to mention the name Julius Wellhausen, Wellhausen
was a 19th century German scholar who really popularized this whole Documentary
Hypothesis view. Its root is in evolutionary theory. Ancient people not only were stupid but
also went from very simple forms to very complex forms of thought and so the more
complex has to be later and the more simple has to be earlier. Wellhausen and Darwin
published about the same time. Neither one initiated their views. They were the
popularizers of them. So these go hand in hand. It’s part of the type guys of the 19th
century.
Now I’ll give you the right view. Is that prejudging sufficiently? The Moses is the author.
Now when I say Moses is the author I have to nuance that a little bit. Numbers 12 says,
“Moses was a humble man, the most humble man on the face of the earth.” How could a
humble man say that? Perhaps a humble man didn’t say that. There are at least two other
possibilities. One possibility is that the word 'anav does not mean humble at all. In this case
it means afflicted. He was an afflicted man, the most afflicted man on the face of the earth,
the most miserable man on the face of the earth. And that’s a possibility. Moses might have
written that.
Another possibility is that we do have evidence that the Books of Moses are supplemented.
The vocabulary is updated. The grammar and syntax of Hebrew is updated over the
centuries and there’s certain comments that are made in the text that indicate that somebody
has updated the text so you’ll find from time to time the statement, “And it is there to this
day.” Are you with me here? Moses makes comments about things that are in Canaan. So
far as we know Moses had never been to Canaan so how would he know they are there to
this day? Do you follow that? So somebody may have, and somebody did update the text.
You have the Living Bible form of the Pentateuch, if you will. It’s a modernized, obviously
not paraphrased, but modernized over the centuries, so there’s a good chance that someone
did supplement with isolated comments here and there, but the bulk of the book, Genesis to
Deuteronomy is by Moses and therefore, should be dated to the time of Moses. That leads
me to the next slide then.
The book was written sometime in the period 1446 to 1406 B.C. The timing of the writing
depends on your, let me say it better; your opinion of the timing of the writing depends to
some degree on your sense of the purpose of the book. Allen Ross took the position that
Genesis would have been the kind of thing that Moses would need to say to the Egypt, to
the Egypt generation to explain to them why they should leave Egypt after four centuries
and go to Canaan. But if I view Genesis as part of a larger work, not just on its own, but as
part of a five-volume work there might be a different reason, and we’ll try to suggest that
later. For that reason I would argue that the Pentateuch is probably later in the period 1446
to 1406. Even saying 1446 to 1406 is open to question. This is the early date of the Exodus
1446 B.C. There’s a late date of the Exodus sometimes around 1280 B.C. that probably
most scholars hold, and they hold that on the basis of archeological evidence. There are
several lines of argument that we might take time to talk about when we get to Exodus
itself, but at this point it will be sufficient to say that there are two dates that are
traditionally given for the Exodus 1446 and 12, what 1280 or there abouts. But I take the
early date and so I would give then as the time of the writing of the Pentateuch this period
40 years in the wilderness. The Pentateuch assumes Moses as it’s primary author.
Consistently we find statements like God saying to Moses, “Write in a book things that I
say to you.” And so the Pentateuch, where it gives us any indication of authorship assumes
Moses is the author. Exodus 24:4, Deuteronomy 31:9, certainly would be part of the
evidence that the Pentateuch assumes Moses as its author.
The New Testament assumes the same, John 5:46-47, Mark 12:19, both assume that Moses
is the author of the Pentateuch. We would, of course, in nuancing that statement would
want to add the death of Moses. Did Moses write the account of his own death, probably
not, but somebody supplemented it. But the core, the vast majority of the bulk of the books
are written by Moses in the 15th century B.C.
There is something wrong with my presentation and I don’t know what it is. We’ll see all
of these twice apparently. The Old Testament at large assumes this chronology that is 1446
as a beginning period, a beginning time in Moses as the author. I Kings 6:1, Solomon’s
fourth year, we can establish as 966 B.C. or so was the 480th year since the Exodus if those
numbers are reliable and there are reasons, there are ways that you could call into question
the reliability of the numbers, but if the numbers are reliable then 1446 is the time of the
Exodus. Does that make sense? Therefore, the Exodus occurred in 1446, thus the conquest
of Canaan 40 years occurred in 1406 B. C. And we’ll see that a second time.
You go to things like Ezra and Nehemiah and they refer to the Book of Moses. You go into
Kings and Chronicles and you have the Book of Moses. And so here the Old Testament and
the New Testament assume essentially Moses as the author of the Pentateuch, and so I
conclude Moses is the author and the date of writing is 1446 to 1406 B.C.

Video 5. Theme and Purpose of the Pentateuch Part 1
James Allman
Instructor: Now the theme and purpose of the Pentateuch, this is page five of the notes if
you’re following that as well. I would argue along with John Sailhamer that the Pentateuch
is not written primarily to the generation that came out of Egypt. It’s written primarily for
the generation that will enter Canaan. There are some indications of that, that we will talk
about. It’s original readership was specifically the generation of Israelites that was about to
go into the Promised Land.
The focus of the writer was on the future. Let me try to defend that with some material that
will come up shortly as we go. Look at Genesis 49. “Jacob called for his sons and said
gather together so I can tell you what will happen to you in the future.” In Hebrew this is
bahari a-amien in the end of the days and probably here that should be the way it’s written
in spite of what the Net Bible does. If you turn to Numbers 24, I believe that’s right. By the
way what followed that statement in Genesis 49?
Response: Assemble yourselves.
Instructor: What follows that statement?
Response: Assemble yourselves and hear?
Instructor: Yeah what follows that statement?
Response: Blessings?
Instructor: Yeah, the blessing of the tribes. Genesis, I’m sorry, Numbers 24. By the way
further what follows the blessing of the tribes in poetic form? Did you notice that? Right.
Numbers 24:14. Here Balaam is speaking, “And now I’m about to go back to my own
people. Come now and I will advise you as to what this people will do to your people,
bahari a-amien, in the end of the days. Does that ring any bells? Turn to Deuteronomy 31.
What follows that in Numbers 24? What follows that?
Response: The oracle of Balaam.
Instructor: Yeah the oracle of Balaam, but especially it’s poetry again. Deuteronomy 31:28,
“Gather to me all your tribal elders and officials so I can speak to them directly about these
things and call the heavens and earth to witness against them. For I know that after I die
you will totally corrupt yourselves and turn away from the path I have commanded you to
walk. Disaster will confront you in bahari a–amein, in the end of days. Is this begin to
strike a cord in your mind? The author of the Pentateuch has intentionally structured the
ends of significant sections with poetry that is a prophecy about what will come in the end
of days. Does this make sense to you? Why would that emphasis be there? We’ll put more
flesh on that as we go, but at this point why would that emphasis be there unless the book is
written to the generation going into the land of Canaan, so they will know how to live in
light of all this that has been written.
Let’s go back then to what we have both on the screen and in the outline. My, my what is
causing this? Then what is the Pentateuch about? Let me have you look at page 5 of the
outline under the heading theme and purpose of the Pentateuch. One further observation, if
you’re there, one further observation should be made regarding the setting of the
Pentateuch’s composition.
It becomes clear as one reads through the second half of the Pentateuch that it was not
written primarily to the generation that came out of Egypt. It’s readership was specifically
the generation of Israelites that was about to go into the Promised Land. All the events of
the Exodus and the wilderness journey, as well as the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai,
were cast as something that happened in the past. What other story could you tell? Right?
From the perspective of the Pentateuch as a whole the events of Sinai and the wilderness
were as much a part of the past as were the patriarchs. Those events had already become a
part of the lessons Israel was to learn from. The focus of the writer was on the future, the
next generation. They were the particular readers he had in mind.
So as we look at this we’re looking at a story that aims to tell people about their future. Are
you with me? Ultimately where we’re headed with this is that Sailhamer will argue the
Pentateuch is a biography of two entities. It’s a biography of the patriarchs and it’s a
biography of Moses. The patriarchs were people who lived before the Law but kept the
Law. You believe that? Why do you not believe that?
Response: Abraham’s a liar.
Instructor: Abraham’s a liar. Jacob is a thief and a schemer and a cheat. Yes? Isaac doesn’t
do anything much. The chaplain at the Seminary when I was a student said Isaac is the
mediocre son of a great father and a mediocre father of a great son. I’ll differ with that. But
I think he’s a man of significant faith, but we’ll need to say in what sense. But I have
Genesis 26:5 on my side. Look at Genesis 26:5. Speaking to Isaac God says, “all this will
come to pass,” Genesis 26:5, page 29 if you have the right Bible, “all this will come to pass
because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and
My laws.” What commandments, statutes and laws did Abraham have?
Response: Be fruitful and multiply.
Instructor: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. [Laughter] There’s been an enormous
amount of discussion about what laws Abraham had. Even people will say and in the new
perspective on Paul now people are arguing the way Jewish scholars have argued that the,
that in the Garden of Eden Adam had the whole Mosaic Law and knew the whole Mosaic
Law. And Abraham had and knew and kept the whole Mosaic Law. Is that the testimony of
Scripture?
Response: No.
Instructor: No. So what law did Abraham have?
Response: One God.
Instructor: We’ll have to answer that. We will, but we’ll talk about it. The point is to say
that from Moses’ point of view Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph lived before the Law,
but keep the Law. Moses lives under the Law, yes? Israel lives under the Law. Did they
keep it?
Response: No.
Instructor: No. Moses did, yes? Do you have any indication after the Law is given that
Moses broke a single law commandment that God gave?
Response: He didn’t go in the land?
Instructor: Say again?
Response: He didn’t go in the land.
Instructor: Ah ha. Good. Why did he not go into the land?
Response: He was bad. He was angry.
Instructor: Bad attitude. [Laughter] I see this is going to be a fun semester. You weren’t
able to do this at West Point were you? Why was Moses prohibited from going into the
land? He kept the Law. No it’s not because he struck the rock. Look at Numbers 20:12, say
again? Numbers 20. He broke the type. Jesus was the rock that followed them through the
desert and Jesus’ only stricken once and Moses struck the rock twice. So he broke the type
so that’s why God prohibited Moses from going into the land because he violated the type
of Jesus.
Response: An offering?
Instructor: An offering. Well yeah this is too late for the offering. Numbers 20:12. And it
has to be before the sermon because he might not get as much afterwards. Verse 12, “Then
the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, ‘because you did not ---
Response: Trust Me.

Instructor: Then Moses kept the Law and doesn’t enjoy the blessing? Is that what we’re
saying?
Response: No?
Instructor: Yeah, ultimately that’s what I’m going to be saying. He kept the Law, but didn’t
enjoy the blessing. I’m going to distinguish Law from commandment. Commandment and
Law are not identical. We know that. We know that commandment and Law are not
identical. We just don’t think about it theologically. We seem to think that commandment
and law are interchangeable terms, but they’re simply not. Build an ark of gopher wood.
When was the last time you obeyed that commandment? It’s a commandment, yes? It’s a
commandment right? So it’s a law, yes? When was the last time you built an ark of gopher
wood?
Response: It’s been a while.
Instructor: It’s been a while. So, you have broken the Law.
Response: No.
Instructor: No because the commandment is not to you and it’s not Law. Are you with me
here? So there’s some sense in which a commandment may be a law and there’s another
sense in which a commandment may not be a law and have to ask and answer the question
under what conditions is it one or the other. We’ll talk about that when we get to Exodus.
At this point I simply want to observe that Abraham didn’t have the Law but he kept it, as a
liar. How can Abraham keep the Law as a liar? How is it that Moses keeps the Law and yet
doesn’t experience the blessing? Does this make sense to you? This is the question that
we’re going to try to answer as we go through the material on the Pentateuch.

James Allman
Instructor: The various books, bottom of page 5, Genesis and this material on the screen is
on your page 5, so you can work at it either way you wish, Genesis does some basic things.
It lays a foundation for the covenant relation that God established with Israel at Mount
Sinai. When God created the sun, the moon and the stars in Genesis 1, He doesn’t say that
He created the sun, the moon and the stars. It says ‘owr, He created the ‘owr, the ‘owr
gadowl, the big light, the big lamp and the little lamp. Why does He call them lamps and
what is His purpose in creating the big lamp and the little lamp and the stars the kowkab.
Kind of He had some light left over so He spangled the sky with what was left over light.
What’s the purpose of making the big lamp and little lamp?
Response: Life, signs and seasons.
Instructor: Yeah for signs and for season, for months and for days. Then the word that’s
translated season is a word that will be used later for the festivals of Israel, which are tied to
the new moon and the full moon. Are you with me here? Then the creation of the sun and
the moon is to set up the festivals seasons that are going to be established for worship. Am I
making sense here? All right. How did animals get to be clean and unclean?
Response: Split hoof.
Instructor: Yeah. So how did they get a split hoof?
Response: God made them with it.
Instructor: God made them that way, so in Genesis 1 when God created the animals He
created them clean and unclean. He’s setting up the basis for the Covenant that’s coming.
Further, it explains who God is. Who is God?
Response: The big man!
Instructor: He’s the big, He’s the creator. He’s the creator who says, “Yeheor” let there be
light. Viyeheor, does that sound familiar? Yeheor viyeheor. It’s almost identical except for
the and. I can’t translate it the way I want to into English because it doesn’t make any
sense, but here it comes. Light be and light be’d. It’s lousy English, but it’s as close as I can
get to the Hebrew. What God conceived light to be was exactly what came into being,
identical. His conception was identical to what happened, and further when He gave the
commandment, “let there be light,” light came instantaneously. There was perfect
obedience in the creation. He is an absolute sovereign who is used to having His
commandments obeyed instantaneously and exactly. Are you with me here? Who is God?
Genesis 1: 1 and 2 begins to tell us, 3, Genesis 1:3 begins to tell us. Do you follow this? So
He’s really telling us who God is, why Israel should leave Egypt and go to Canaan. If God
is the creator of the land, He parted the waters and dry land appeared, yes? Yes? Is Canaan
part of that dry land? Then if He created the dry land does He have the right to dispose of it
as He wishes? Yeah. Why should they leave Egypt and go to Canaan? Because God is
giving them land in Canaan. He created it. It’s His right and the basis for the relationship to
be given in the Covenant. It explains how God intends to bring the blessing of creation to
all humanity through the descendants of Abraham.
I’m going to make a statement that you’re going to think is wild-eyed and nutsy. That’s
okay because I’ll make a lot of statements that you’ll think are wild-eyed and nutsy as we
go through this course. I grew up in the 1960’s. That means I’m a rebel. I just rebelled
within the system instead of leaving it, so I got to take the path less traveled. But here’s my
wild-eyed and nutso statement. Are you ready for it? God created the earth for Israel. This
is, I think, the message of Genesis. God created the earth for Israel.
I used to teach on the undergraduate level, taught Old Testament Survey and Old Testament
Survey textbooks are interesting critters. They do strange things. They’ll have a chapter on
Genesis 1 to 11, then a separate chapter on Genesis 12 to 50 because obviously there’s no
true unity in the Book of Genesis, so that you have the primeval period then you have
patriarchal stories and there’s no, you just can’t put them together, there’s no way to put
them together, or else Genesis is telling us a story about what God is doing for Israel. Do
you follow me here? But not only for Israel, it is for the whole human race through Israel,
so that God’s purpose is to bless the human race through the people of Israel and give the
human race the earth by means of giving Israel rule over the earth to bring blessing to them.
So Genesis, again we can look at these books individually and think about them
individually and then we can come back to the whole and think about them as a whole.
What is Exodus about? Exodus is about how God delivered Israel from Egypt and how He
established the Covenant, even in the face of the nations attempt to thwart His blessing. The
Amelekites try to keep Him from blessing Israel. Egypt tries to keep Him from blessing
Israel. Israel tries to keep Him from blessing Israel. So it’s not just one nation that, notice
the s apostrophe up there, that I know how to use apostrophes in English. Israel’s rebellion
at Mount Sinai and their continuing unbelief. Is Israel basically a believing people or an
unbelieving people?
Response: Believing.
Instructor: Say again.
Response: Believing.
Instructor: Okay. We’ll test that in the text. I think they’re basically an unbelieving people.
When Moses goes to Egypt they don’t want to leave. When they leave they want to go
back. God leads them parting the Red Sea, pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night and
they say, “You brought us out here to die,” to Moses. They don’t believe. They don’t have
any faith. They’re driven out of Egypt by Pharaoh. Because of Israel’s rebellion though
Yahweh imposed an increasingly burdensome covenant on His people. Here’s where it
really starts to get crazy folks, so just hang on, I’ll try to justify this as we go. But I’m
going to argue that the Law is not a blessing. The Law offers blessing but God, did God
know how Israel would respond to the Law?
Response: Yes.
Instructor: Moses knew. We just read it in Deuteronomy 31. If Moses knew, God knew.
Am I right or wrong?
Response: You’re right.

Instructor: Are you going strong? You’re right, sound off.
Response: One, two, three, four.
Instructor: The point is to say that if God knew how they would respond to the Law why
did He give it to them? If His purpose was to bless why did He give them something that
they would use to bring curse upon themselves, if His purpose was to bless? There is an
offer of blessing, but is that the purpose of the Law? Turn to I Timothy chapter 1. I hope
that’s right, yes, I Timothy 1:8. We’ll pick it up at verse 6. I Timothy 1:6. “Some have
strayed from these and turned away to empty discussion. They want to be teachers of the
Law but they don’t understand what they are saying or the things they insist on so
confidently. But we know that the Law is good if one uses it legitimately.” I would
paraphrase that in accordance with the nature of Law, “realizing that Law is not intended
for a righteous person, but for lawless and rebellious people, for the ungodly and sinners,”
and so on. Law is not given to righteous people. Why not?
Response: They don’t need it.
Instructor: They don’t need it. So why does God give Israel the Law?
Response: Because they need it.
Instructor: Because they need it. They’re not righteous. Is righteousness by the Law? No.
Then why did they get a Law? So they could be righteous?
Response: To show that they weren’t righteous.
Instructor: Yeah. Well to show them their unrig--- There are a number of things. We’ll talk
about that too. This absolutely essential discussion before we can go very far with this.
Thus delaying the fulfillment of the promise since the covenant must bring wrath. Yet God
renewed the Covenant through the gift of the tabernacle. So Exodus gives them an out,
gives them a way to keep from being destroyed. Now why must they be destroyed?
Because the soul that sinneth, it shall die, amen?
Response: Amen.
Instructor: Amen! Glory! But that’s not the reason given. That’s Ezekiel. This is different.
We’ll have to look at what’s in the text and let the text instruct us on how to think about
these things. Now Leviticus, what’s in Leviticus in light of Israel’s and the priesthood’s
rebellion. God imposed additional requirements on the people whose behavior endangered
the Covenant. Who made the golden calf?
Response: Aaron.
Instructor: Whose Aaron?

Response: Moses’ older brother.
Instructor: Moses’ older brother. What else can I say about Aaron?
Response: He’s an idiot.
Instructor: He’s an idiot. He’s the high priest. Well high priest made the golden calf. Why
do we have Day of Atonement? What precedes the Day of Atonement? Leviticus 16, Day
of Atonement. What precedes that in Leviticus? What’s in Leviticus 10? Let me ask it that
way.
Response: Instructions to the priests.
Instructor: Yeah, well there are instructions but there’s an event in Leviticus 10.
Response: Nadab and Abihu.
Instructor: Nadab and Abihu. What do they do? Who are they?
Response: Sons of Aaron.
Instructor: Sons of Aaron. Who are they?
Response: They’re not good temple keepers. They’re the future high priests.
Instructor: They’re the future high priests and they bring strange fire before the Lord. Is it
fire that’s green instead of orange? What is this strange fire? Text tells us, it was what God
had not commanded. It was strange fire that the Lord had not commanded. Are you with
me? The priests don’t know, later as you rightly say, there are instructions for the priests.
One of the functions of the priesthood is, verse 10, is to distinguish the holy from the
common and the clean from the unclean. But the priests don’t know what is clean and
unclean. They don’t know what is holy and common. So you have the Leviticus 11 to 16,
giving us the all the issues about clean and unclean, holy and common. Because in light of
Israel’s and the priesthood’s rebellion God imposed additional requirements on the people
whose behavior endangered the Covenant. It goes on. Israel’s continued failures led God to
enact the holiness code beginning in chapter 18, and going through chapter 22, I think, is
the holiness code to protect Himself against their sinfulness. And that’s exactly what the
text says. I just read it last night.
Numbers shows how Israel’s unbelief at Kadesh-Barnea almost caused them to lose all
covenant blessing but how God reserved the blessing for the next generation promising the
fulfillment of the eschatological blessing upon Israel and upon all the nations. Israel, why
didn’t they go in at Kadesh-Barnea?
Response: They were scared.

Instructor: Unbelief. Unbelief. That’s what God says. We say well they were disobedient
because those of us who were raised in the United States are Americans and being
Americans everything boils down to behavior. Amen! And the chief American in the
classroom is Dr. Gene Pond because if it’s not written down it didn’t happen. Am I right,
brother? We got to have evidence and it’s got to be in concrete form. It’s got to be
measurable. Am I right? Amen! That’s American. And so for years I have taught this
material and I’ve said, asked students, why did Israel did not go in or why did they have to
wander 40 years in the wilderness and they’ll say, “Well they were disobedient.” And I’ll
say absolutely they were disobedient, but why were they disobedient?
Response: They didn’t believe.
Instructor: Because they don’t trust God. Are you with me here? Are you beginning to see a
pattern? Deuteronomy is a sermonic record of a Covenant renewal ceremony. Here Moses
actually gives three major sermon blocks in the Book of Deuteronomy that recount the
giving of the Covenant and the significance of the Covenant. In that regard it’s a call to
Covenant loyalty, which they cannot now give because of their uncircumcised heart. Look
at Deuteronomy 29. What is the great commandment in the Covenant?
Response: Love the Lord your God.
Instructor: Okay good. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your strength. Why should Israel love the Lord their God with all their heart
soul and strength, because He’s God and He commanded it. He can tell them anything He
wants. Amen? But you see that’s Deuteronomy 26:5. Now I have a doctorate from Dallas
Seminary. It means I know great and wise things that most people don’t know. You are
poor be-knighted souls, not only because you take winter term courses but because you
don’t yet have a doctorate from Dallas Seminary, but I do. So I’m going to give you great
insight here. Yes, here is one bowing. I appreciate that. When I was pastoring they asked
me, “What shall we call you? Brother Allman, Pastor Allman, Pastor, Brother Jim? I said,
“Look, I’m going to make it simple for you. A simple Your Grace will do.” Since I have
this great wisdom I must point out to you that Deuteronomy 26:5, I’m sorry Deuteronomy
6:5, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength follows Deuteronomy
6:4.
Response: Wow! You see how wise Instructor: You see how wise that is. Wow, golly. I
don’t see you being overwhelmed by my wisdom. I think you should. Deuteronomy 6:4,
“Hear O Israel,” Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Hear O Israel the Lord is
our God, the Lord alone. The Lord has given Himself in an absolutely exclusive
relationship to Israel and the only proper response is for them to respond in an absolutely
exclusive relationship with Him and therefore you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Nothing reserved, nothing held
back. Do you follow this? Now Deuteronomy 29:2, Moses proclaimed, Deuteronomy 29:2,
since I hear you turning I’ll wait. Moses proclaimed to all Israel as follows: “You have seen
all that the Lord did in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, all his servants and his land. Your
eyes have seen the great judgments, those signs and mighty wonders.” Is that true? Stop
reading and look me. Is that true? No it’s not true. This is the next generation. Most of them
grew up afterwards and don’t remember that. So we got a problem.
But let’s leave that aside for the present and press on to verse 4. “But to this very day the
Lord has not given you an understanding mind, perceptive eyes or discerning ears.” They
have to love God with all their heart, soul, and strength and yet He hasn’t given them a
heart to understand. What’s the point? What’s the Pentateuch about? It’s a call to Covenant
loyalty, which they cannot now give because of their uncircumcised hearts, but which they
will ultimately fulfill since Yahweh will circumcise their hearts. You might if you’re still in
Deuteronomy 29 turn to Deuteronomy 30:6. “Then the Lord will circumcise your hearts
and the hearts of your children after you to love the Lord your God with all your heart and
soul and keep His commandments.”

James Allman
Instructor: Now let’s talk about the theme of the Pentateuch. The central idea of the
Pentateuch God the great king grants to His obedient vassal prince the right to dwell in His
land and promises protection from his enemies. This is what He does to Abraham. This is
what He does to Isaac and Jacob, yes? Yes?
This is what He offers to Israel. This is what ultimately He will give to David, yes? It is
ultimately what He will give to Messiah Jesus. We didn’t look at it, but in each of the
poetic passages that we introduced awhile ago, Genesis 49, Numbers 24, Deuteronomy 32,
the future salvation of Israel and all the nations is revealed as well as a king who is coming
to rule. Are you with me here? So Sailhamer is going to argue and I follow Sailhamer on
this that the Pentateuch is messianic in the sense that it anticipates a king who will be the
obedient vassal prince who will have the right to dwell in the land and have protection from
his enemies. Are you with me here?
It’s purpose is not so much to cast us ahead to Jesus as it is to call Israel to be that obedient
vassal prince, a princely people who will live in the land under protection. That’s what it
offers. The reality is somewhat short of that and God’s purpose ultimately is that. Sailhamer
continues, “The overall purpose of the author is to show that the Sinai Covenant failed for
lack of an obedient heart.” Is that consistent with the Pentateuch, as you know it? He goes
on, “We have also suggested that his intention in writing the Pentateuch is not to look back
in despair at human failure.” Has there been human failure? You better believe it. The
Pentateuch is jammed with human failure, but that’s not its purpose. Its purpose is rather to
look to the future, but rather to point in hope to the faithfulness of God. The hope of the
writer, the hope of the writer is clearly focused on what God would do to fulfill His
Covenant promises, and the attitude of people who will participate in the fulfillment of
those promises.
Well then what is the attitude of people that will participate in the fulfillment of the
Covenant promises?
Response: Faith.
Instructor: Faith. Faith. How did Abraham live?
Response: By faith.
Instructor: By faith. That’s how he got the blessings of God, is it not. How did Isaac live?
Response: By faith.
Instructor: By faith. That’s how he got the blessings of God, is it not? How did Jacob live?
It’s a little harder to see there. How did Joseph live?
Response: Definitely by faith.
Instructor: By faith. And that’s how he got the blessings of God, is it not? How did Moses
live?
Response: By faith, a lot.
Instructor: A lot, but not absolutely. Why didn’t he get to experience the blessing of God?
Response: He didn’t trust Him.
Instructor: He didn’t trust God at a crucial moment. He kept the commandments, but he
didn’t trust God at a crucial moment and so did not come to experience the blessings.
Response: Are you going to keep distinguishing between that and I still don’t necessarily
understand that he didn’t believe Him but he kept the commandments. Are we going to
come back to that assumption?
Instructor: Yeah, we’ll say more about it. You can keep commandments without being a
person of faith. Pharisees did. You see, there was a teacher in Memphis who taught the
essence of the Christian life is obedience. Well if that’s true Paul was obedient before he
came to Jesus. Paul didn’t need Jesus. Philippians 3, you’ve read it. How does Paul
characterize himself as a Pharisee?
Response: A Pharisee of Pharisees.

Instructor: A Pharisee of the Pharisees, blameless, as touching the righteousness of the Law
I was blameless. If the essence of the Christian life is obedience Paul didn’t need Jesus. But
what was gain to me I have come to count loss for the sake of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord for whom I have lost all things and I have counted them as dung that I might
be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own, which is by the Law. What are you
grinning about Dr. Pond?
Response: I’m not grinning at all, I love it.
Instructor: Well but this passage is too crucial, folks. If Paul was obedient then he didn’t
need Jesus. If he needed Jesus his obedience wasn’t satisfactory. Then Moses’ obedience is
not satisfactory. And the blessings don’t come specifically to the obedient. Hm. I wonder if
Paul had read the Pentateuch? He had memorized it. He was a Pharisee and a rabbi in
training. The Pentateuch then, I’m arguing is, and this is my hypothesis, this is not what
you are required to believe and accept, this is what I’m going to be defending through the
course. Are you with me here?
I’m going to say this strongly because to me the issues are too deep and too important, but I
understand that many of you, some of you will come away thinking, and I don’t know
whether I buy that view or not, and that’s fine, that’s what education is about. I’m not going
to try to browbeat you into my view, but I hold this view strongly. It’s too important to me
and so what I’m going to be doing is giving a strong defense of this view, but here it is.
Here’s my hypothesis: the Pentateuch is a sustained call to Israel’s second generation to

live by faith, like the patriarchs, and not by Law like Moses and their fathers. It’s a
fascinating thing that is only somewhat suggestive; it doesn’t prove anything. Before the
giving of the Law in Exodus 20, every reference to faith is positive. “Abraham believed
God and it was counted to him for righteousness.” After the giving of the Law in Exodus
20, every reference to faith is negative; they didn’t believe God. I wonder why that is. What
is it; what’s going on, what’s Moses trying to tell us? Again that’s only suggestive it’s not
probative; it’s only suggestive. But it is suggestive. We ought to take account of that.
What’s happening? What is going on in the Book of the Pentateuch.
© 2018 Dallas Theolo

Video 8. The Genre of the Pentateuch
James Allman
Instructor: The genre of the Pentateuch now. I’ve already made the argument that the
Pentateuch is a biography of the patriarchs and Moses. We usually say the Pentateuch is the
Books of ?
Response: Moses.
Instructor: Or the Books of?
Response: The Law.
Instructor: Law. And certainly the Old Testament and the New call the books of Moses the
Law, or the Old Testament calls it Torah and the New Testament calls it Nomos, yes?
Response: Yes.
Instructor: But Nomas and Torah don’t always mean law. They can mean simply
instruction. In the Book of Haggai chapter 2, God sends Haggai to the priest to ask for a
Torah. If a man is carrying holy meat in the fold of his garment and the fold touches
anything unclean, if the meat touches anything unclean will it the meat become unclean and
the Torah is yes. There’s not a commandment there, there’s not one commandment there.
It’s an interpretation of the Law. Do you follow this? So Torah is a very broad term as is
Nomos. Nomos is almost surely translated principle at some places in Revelation, in
Romans 7. But the Old Testament calls the Books of Moses, Torah and we have made this
simplistic translation law. It’s really not Law. The Book of, Joe are you a lawyer by any
chance?
Response: No.
Instructor: Okay. He was saying to me before, at break, that the Book of Leviticus he
approached on the basis of a contract and was trying to make it fit into a contract style. So I
thought maybe you had, are you a business man?
Response: I do a lot of negotiations.
Instructor: Okay. If you’ve read any law, have you read the Code of Hammurabi at all?
Move your head in some direction. Some is and some ain’t. Most ain’t. Go read the Code
of Hammurabi. That’s law. That’s what law is like. This is a story. This is a story about
what happened to people who received the Law. 20%. Let me see if I can remember the
statistics properly. They’re in the notes here. I have a lot marked here that I want to talk to
you about but I won’t do it because of time. Page 8, the last full paragraph on page 8, Rolf
Knierim wrote a book, wrote an article on the genre of the Pentateuch and Sailhamer is
citing him. Knierim rightly makes much of the fact that the whole of Genesis covering
some 2,000 years takes up only 25% of the total text of the Pentateuch, whereas Exodus to
Deuteronomy, which covers the span of Moses’ life so 120 years takes up 75%. If you drop
down to the third line from the end of that paragraph, the material in Genesis devoted to the
patriarchs, Genesis 12 to 50, is also about 20% of the Pentateuch, hence the narratives
about Moses and about those of the patriarchs appear equally important within the text. So
something like 40% of the Pentateuch is biography, the patriarchs and Moses. So I’ve got
to account for that. That’s not law. By the way how many commandments are in the Law of
Moses according to the Jews?
Response: 613.
Instructor: 613. You know where the first commandment is? It’s in Genesis 1:1. That’s the
first commandment in the Law. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
That’s how they came up with 613 commandments turning things that are not
commandments into commandments. That’s a statement of fact; that’s not a commandment.
Are you with me? By the way not all commandments are requirements either.
My wife might have said to me this morning, “Stay home today.” That’s a commandment. I
haven’t bought it for her, but I could the t-shirt that says, “She who must be obeyed.” But
she can’t command me to stay home today. Why not?
Response: You’ve got to work.
Instructor: I’ve have an obligation to her to be at work. Right? She expects the paycheck on
the 15th, so I have an obligation to her to be at work so she can’t command me to be at
home though it was stated in the form of a commandment, yes? So not all commandments
are to be obeyed. When you say, “Pass the potatoes.” That’s a commandment. Is it a rule?
Are you going to beat your children if they don’t pass the potatoes? So here folks, the
Pentateuch is law only in a sense. It’s Torah; it’s instruction. Do you follow this? So it’s a
biography of the patriarchs who lived before the Law who lived by faith and who
experienced the blessing of God. It’s also though, a biography of Moses who lived under
the Law and who failed to experience the blessing because of unbelief. Does that make any
sense? All right? Yeah.
Response: Is it also a contrast of the other people who did?
Instructor: That’s right, so we’re setting up, typically a character in a story is intended to be
representative of more than himself, so I have this character whose intended to represent a
class of individuals. The patriarchs are the class of people who live by faith. Moses is the
class of those who live under the Law and Israel was part of that. The Israel that was part of
his life is part of that, but also the Israel that will follow will be part of that. So here how
shall we live is the question that the Pentateuch is posing and that the book will answer who
live by faith. Oh my I don’t know what’s causing this.
Many other genre’s are present in the whole work. There’s historical narrative that we did.
We would be better to call historical theology, rather narrative theology. The narrative of
the Creation is not there simply to satisfy our curiosity. It is there to cause us to think about
God and who God is and how God relates, so there is historical narrative or narrative
theology. There’s legal literature. Certainly the Ten Commandments are a specific form of
legal literature called apodictic law. Then in Numbers and Deuteronomy we have what’s
called casuistic law. Apodictic law is a bare statement; a bare commandment, thou shalt not
commit murder. Or case law, casuistic law. If this happens then this is what is to occur but
on the circumstance that this happens then that occurs. Does that communicate to you? So
there are different kinds of legal literature. There is covenant in the Pentateuch. We have
various kinds of covenant. We have covenants of grant; we have divine obligation or
scissorian obligation treaties that we’ll talk about as we go, so there’s different kinds of
literature in the Old Testament.
One of the remarkable things about the Pentateuch is a particular feature that before I read
Sailhamer I had sensed, I have felt some tension, some dissonance intellectually about but I
hadn’t even formed a question about it and when I read Sailhamer and he raised the
question I thought, “Yeah, that’s a great question. I want an answer and he gave this
answer.” There are other answers, but this is Sailhamer’s answer. I didn’t know whether I
accepted it. I was in India when I read this book in ’94 and was preparing to teach the
Pentateuch in India so I was making out these notes that you are working on and I was
reading Sailhamer and studying through making the outline that’s here and so I thought gee
I don’t know whether I buy into this approach or not, but in studying through the
Pentateuch I was driven to Sailhamer’s position. So this is why I’m depending so heavily
on him.
There’s an alternation between narrative and legal material. In Genesis, in Exodus chapters
1 to 19 you have story how Israel got out of Egypt and came to Mount Sinai, yes? In
chapter 20 you get law. In 21, 22, 23, you have law. 24 you go back to narrative and you
stay in narrative in chapter 24, then in 25 you start getting law again about the directions for
building the tabernacle. Then in 30, what is it, 31, 32, you got the golden calf incident so
got back to narrative. Then we got the building of the tabernacle.
In Leviticus we get law up to chapter 10, where we get narrative of the failure of the priests.
Yes? Followed by law. In Leviticus 17:7, this is one of the weak points in Sailhamer’s
point of view, Leviticus 17:7, he calls narrative. Here it is, it’s a statement of fact. The
people were worshipping goat demons in the desert and what follows that is the holiness
code in chapters 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. So you have this alternation of narrative and legal
literature. The question comes why is that, why do you have that? In Sailhamer’s point of
view is this: the narrative gives the failures in Israel’s life that necessitate the Law that
follows. If the Law is not made for a righteous man but for sinners, then the Law is given to
Israel to regulate the sin that they have just committed.
As far as I understand it, one of the principles of justice is that it is not sufficient to be just.
You must also appear to be just. This is part of the whole discussion about the execution of
Saddam Hussein. Did it appear to be just? Was it a just act? Probably. I mean it was a just
act. I don’t have any question about that. What it carried out in a just way? Well that’s
questionable and certainly people, I had the opinion that maybe in a Muslim context
something like that would be expected, but when Mubarak of Egypt chimed in I concluded
no that’s not Muslim, it must have been problematic even for them, so the issue is that
justice to be seen to be justice and to be good for society must not only be just but must
appear to be just in its execution.
Then would it be just for God simply having, Israel having sinned at any given point for
Him to simply wipe them out? Would that be a just act? Sure. Yeah. I mean if God’s going
to do it, it will be a just act. But it might not be seen to be just if the people didn’t know that
what they were doing would bring a penalty of death. Do you follow this? So that the
giving of the Law enables God to act justly, He could have done that without the Law, but
to act justly and to be seen to be just in the action. There is more to it than that as we will be
saying, but this is the basic point of view I’ll be following as we go through the Pentateuch.
Turn to page 11 of the outline on the Pentateuch. There is a sentence that is in bold print,
italics and underlined. Do you see it? Page 11, not of the power point, but of the outline.
Let me start with the beginning of that paragraph. The narrative strategy of the Pentateuch
contrasts Abraham who kept the Law and Moses whose faith was weakened under the Law.
This strategy suggests conscious effort on the part of the author to distinguish between a
life of faith before the Law and the lack of faith under the Law. This distinction, and here it
is, this distinction is accomplished by showing that faith and trust in God characterize the
life of God’s people before the giving of Law, but after the giving of the Law faithlessness
and failure characterize their lives. I don’t know how to escape that. It seems to me that
that’s an inescapable statement I have to follow it.

Video 9. The Unity of the Pentateuch
James Allman
Instructor: I want to talk to us about the unity of the Pentateuch. In Genesis there is a unity.
You have the toledoth structure. Have you run into this? Toledoth structure, yes or no? No?
Toledoth, you will be familiar with it perhaps in the King James or in some of the
subsequent translations. These are the records of or this is the book of the generations of
repeated over and over. There are several of them as we indicate here already. By chapter
11, there are five and more through the rest of the book. The toledoth structure, this would
be one indication of unity in the Book of Genesis. There are many other indications, but we
have all of these signs that whoever put Genesis together, I would say Moses, did it with a
particular structure and I think my outline of Genesis ultimately ought to reveal the toledoth
structure. The word toledoth in Hebrew probably means the things that came from, because
when we read the toledoth of Terah doesn’t say anything about Terah at all, it only talks
about Abraham, so this is what came from the line of Terah.
For Exodus, there is some indications of structure. You have the deliverance from Egypt,
the march to Sinai, the giving of the covenant, instructions for the tabernacle, Israel’s
idolatry, necessitating their building of the tabernacle and then the actual building and
Yahweh’s acceptance of it. So there is a clear logical flow of thought through Exodus.
The same thing with Leviticus. In chapters 1 to 7 you have the sacrifices that keep the
priesthood and people from trampling God’s holiness. That’s a crucial statement from my
perspective in explaining what’s going on in the Pentateuch. The Law aims to keep God’s
reputation clear. Israel is always on the verge of sullying God’s reputation. The language in
Leviticus or the Pentateuch uses is defiling My holiness. But to put it in terms we’re
immediately able to identify with there are always in danger of sullying His reputation.
Mind you why didn’t He kill them at Kadesh-Barnea? What was Moses’ prayer? What was
the basis for his request for forgiveness? God’s reputation among the nations.
So, here Yahweh sacrifices to keep the priesthood and people from trampling His holiness.
Yahweh’s priesthood established to guard his holiness must themselves be guarded from
violating His holiness, Leviticus 10 Nadab and Abihu, since they cannot distinguish the
holy from the common, the clean and the unclean 8 to 16, then you have in 17:1 to 25:55
Yahweh’s instructions on holiness in light of Israel’s sacrificing to goat demons. They’re
engaging in the worship that the Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians engage in
and He’s got to tell them all the things they must not do in order to violate His holiness. If
they do these things they’re going to violate His holiness. One of them is don’t boil a kid in
it’s mother’s milk. I don’t know what that has specifically to do with the whole thing but
it’s in that section. You’re looking for help on that apparently. That’s the best I can do with
that, though it also occurs in the Book of the Covenant back in chapters 22 and 23 of
Exodus.
Leviticus 26, Yahweh’s Covenant renewal calling Israel to blessing, threatening the curse.
He calls them to blessing, but does He expect them to experience blessing? No. And then
27, Yahweh’s new ten commandments for vows and tithes. It’s kind of an inclusio between
Exodus 20 and Leviticus 27, ten commandments on both sides. We have all the Numbers
from side, Numbers is organized geographically. You have the movement from Sinai to
Kadesh-Barnea, from Kadesh-Barnea then round to the plains of Moab, so you have three
blocks of revelation, one at Sinai, one at Kadesh-Barnea, one in the plains of Moab, so you
have this working out through the Book of Numbers.
When the Covenant God’s wrath was over He moved Israel to the very point of inheriting
the blessing preparing them to inherit it. Notice that even Numbers is already looking to the
future. He’s preparing them to inherit, the census is preparing for the inheritance. The story
of Zelophehad’s daughters is preparing for the inheritance. What happens when a man dies
and leaves no son? Daughters don’t inherit. They normally go to the tribe of their husband.
So what happens when a man dies and leaves no son? That’s got to happen sometimes in
Israel, so that’s preparing for the inheritance. It’s looking to the future.
Then Deuteronomy, great literature rarely submits to single outline. Great literature
normally will have various structures depending on the way you look at it, so we have with
the Book of Deuteronomy. Probably the appropriate, the most appropriate outline for
Deuteronomy is the sermonic structure. The Book of Deuteronomy is a book of sermons
and we should treat it that way. That’s what the book tells us it is, so I should organize it
around the three sermons. The three sermons are: 1 to 4, 5 through 26 and 27 to 29 and then
what is it, 31, then 32 and 33 together and 34. So that’s one structure. But I can also look at
the Book of Deuteronomy based on ancient treaty structures. So here is another way to look
at Deuteronomy equally valid, because it’s there. I mean you can’t gainsay this. Treaty
begins with a prologue, I’m sorry, a preamble in which the main actors in the establishment
of the covenant are introduced. Then historical prologue. Historical prologue is exceedingly
important. It gives all of the great deeds of the king on the basis of which his servants
should respond in gratitude and loyalty. That’s crucial. Deuteronomy 1 to 4 is laying out all
the good things that God has done for Israel so that they will respond in gratitude and
loyalty to him. Then you follow with the stipulations, the commandments that the great
king imposes upon his servants, the vassal to protect the great king against the disloyalty of
his people. Remarkably this particular form of covenant it seems to me has that particular
nature. There’s a summary of the stipulations in chapter 5. What do we get in Deuteronomy
5? Crucial, Deuteronomy 5, the Ten Commandments. So two passages for the Ten
Commandments, Deuteronomy 5 and?
Response: Exodus something, 20.
Instructor: 20. Exodus 20. Chapter 6 through 11 in the stipulation section gives us a
summary and an exposition of the great commandment. I’m intrigued by that. One
commandment gets chapter 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. Six chapters to explain it. And then we
get all the rest of the commandments thrown in. What does that suggest?
Response: That it’s pretty important.
Instructor: It’s pretty important. Do you know the principle of proportion? What’s the
principle of proportion? Response: Whatever gets more time is more important.
Instructor: Yeah whatever gets more time in the narrative is relatively more important.
Whatever is repeated is relatively more important. Well here I’ve got 6 chapters out of 34
given to the discussion, more than a sixth of the book given to the discussion of the great
commandment. So I would argue that there are two portions of Deuteronomy that you must
master. Dr. Merrill taught Theology of Deuteronomy when I was a student and he said that
in his opinion the Gospels are the basic text for the New Testament and the Epistles are
commentaries on them, and Deuteronomy is the basic text for the Old Testament and the
Prophets are commentaries on it. I would argue if you’re going to study Deuteronomy there
are two portions that you must master. You must master Deuteronomy 1 to 4 and
Deuteronomy 6 to 11. Those are absolutely crucial.
My favorite professor said that there were four books of the Old Testament and four books
of the new that you should master. You should master Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs, and
Isaiah in the Old. In the New, John, Romans, Hebrews and Revelation. So it cuts down
your work a lot from 66 down to 8 books. That’s real help. But he did also say, my goal, he
said, “When they hand you that Master of Theology degree do not believe them.” So our
great goal is not to master the Bible, but to be mastered by it. Are you with me here? So
Deuteronomy 6 to 11: the exposition of the great commandment.
Then you have the ancillary or secondary commandments in chapters 12 to 26. There are
covenant sanctions. What happens when, how do the people come to be bound by the
Covenant? Well 27 talks about that. What happens if the people keep it or break it? 28:
talks about that. What’s the outcome of it? 29: talks about that. So Covenant sanctions, I
forgot that was on the overhead, and then 30, the promise of renewal of the Covenant after
cursing. And then dynastic position: Moses is the intermediary of the Covenant. He’s
getting ready to die. We’ve known that since Numbers. Whose going to take Moses’ place?
Well that disposition of the dynasty moving the representation from Moses to Joshua
occurs in 31 to 34 with the death of Moses.

Video 10. The Structure of the Pentateuch Part 1
James Allman
Instructor: The structure of the whole has a three-part structure and it’s repeated. Sailhamer
says three times I will say four. There is narrative followed by poetry followed by an
epilogue. He identifies three units. He would start the second unit with Exodus 1 and end it
with the end of Numbers. I will see four because I think Exodus 15, is too significant within
the structure and message of the Pentateuch to omit it as a structural element. So I have
four, I’m going to say four narrative poetry and epilogue sections in the Pentateuch. I’ve
actually changed my opinion on the structure of the third section subsequent to writing
these notes so I’ve got to go back and revise all this, but I’ll tell you the changes as we go.
So this is the structure as Sailhamer identifies it. I think he’s right. We’ve already looked at
the introduction to the poetic sections. In three of them someone calls for a group to gather
and he says I’m going to tell you what will come to pass to you baharic hagmein in the end
of the days. Are you with me here? Then follows actually in two of them, in the first and
third look at the poetry section there on the screen, in the first and third Genesis 49 and
Deuteronomy 32, you have blessing of the tribes in both cases. That is either coincidental
or intentional. Are there any other options?
Response: Sort of.
Instructor: What is the likelihood that it’s not coincidental?
Response: Very high.
Instructor: Very high. Then it’s intentional. Then we’re looking for the blessing of the
tribes. Why? Because the blessing for the human race that God intends in Genesis 1 cannot
come until the blessing of Israel comes. Do you follow this? So He’s looking to the future.
How are you going to get the blessing? Then you have the epilogue that brings the narrative
prior to the poetry to a close and then you introduce the new section.
I want to talk to you about the function of poetry now. Why does Moses have poetry in the
Pentateuch? The poetry summarizes the preceding narrative theologically. In a sense on
each section of the Pentateuch, we really ought to begin with the poetry and then go back to
the narrative for interpretation. I need to see what the conclusion is going to be and then see
how the author reaches that conclusion, how he sets up that material. I had already arrived
at this conclusion when I found the same point of view in both Sailhamer and a wonderful
book on the Old Testament called The Faith of Israel by a man named William Dumbrell. If
you get a chance to read anything by William Dumbrell he’s really a good author and
especially The Faith of Israel is just outstanding. I have recommended it to undergraduate
students. They have read it with profit. I have recommended it to doctoral students and they
have said, “This is a great book.” It’s a theological survey of the Old Testament book by
book. I don’t know anything else that does what Dumbrell does in that book and it’s really
worth having, which again means what?
Response: We can check it out at the library. Go to the library Instructor: Yeah go to the
library and look at it. But one of the remarkable things is the brevity of the book. 39 books
in the Old Testament and he handles the whole Old Testament in a couple hundred pages.
That’s remarkable. That’s amazing that he’s able to do that. So, rarely do you have a
chapter that’s longer than 20 pages and typically they’re closer to 10, and yet he does a
masterful job of bringing together the concepts that are in the Old Testament and he tends
to do it by starting with chapter 1 and working through to the end of the book. So it’s kind
of an argument of the Old Testament. Have you looked at that Dennis?
Response: Yeah, I just got it.
Instructor: Okay. So you haven’t formed an opinion yet?
Response: No.
Instructor: Okay.
Response: But I did read his other one, The End from the Beginning, or The Beginning of
the End.
Instructor: Yeah. He does some awfully good work, so ---
Response: You said his name is Dumbrell?
Instructor: Dumbrell. D-u-m-b-r-e-l-l.
Response: It’s an excellent book. I had it for one of my classes.

Instructor: Oh wonderful. Where? Here?
Response: At the Century Plaza.
Instructor: Okay oh great, super! Who assigned that?
Response: I believe it was Dr. Waters.
Instructor: Okay, well great! Thank you for that testimonial. But Dumbrell takes this
position. He says on Samuel, I Samuel 2 is Hannah’s song about the birth of Samuel and II
Samuel 22 and 23 are the, actually II Samuel 22 is identical to Psalm 18, and then 23 is a
Psalm that David wrote about the true and proper king for Israel. Those two passages
bracket the books of Samuel and the first one introduces the ideas that are going to be
developed in the book and the II Samuel 22 and 23, then summarize what’s been in the
book. So the function of poetry summarizing narrative in the Bible is an important function
you need to be aware of. So in that respect, in some senses, we ought to go to Genesis 49
before we go to Genesis 1, except that Moses wrote Genesis 49, see I have a doctorate from
Dallas Seminary and I know great and wise things, he wrote chapter 49 after 48, and so that
places a little differently. But for interpretation it is often good to know the conclusion
before you go to the detail.
Some examples of poetry elsewhere in the Bible Genesis 2:23, “This is now bone from my
bone, flesh from my flesh. She shall be called woman for she is taken from man. That
summarizes the whole event in Genesis 2. Does that make sense to you? If you think about
it in Genesis 2, God creates the animals, yes? He creates man and he brings the animals to
man and the man named them and whatever he named them that was his name. You
remember this? So then we read but for the man there was no mate found that corresponded
to him. There was no helper found that corresponded to him. You remember this? What
was the point of bringing the animals to man? For naming, yes, but also for the man to
realize that it was not good for the man to be alone. And that’s the next statement, the Lord
said, “It’s not good for man to be alone.” Yes.
Response: Would God have done that or your interpretation being that they don’t know this
thought, is that to make him realize that he needed a helper perusing the animal or looking
for a helper, in a sense, in a very odd sense, in the animals?
Instructor: Yeah, it may be a little of both, frankly. As he sees the animals they all come by
two-by-two, there’s Mr. Turtle and Mrs. Turtle and he says well it’s a turtle and God says
how do you know it’s a turtle?
Response: He’s saying wait what’s going here?
Instructor: That’s right. How do you know it’s a turtle? Adam said, “Well it looks like a
turtle. Look at it. What else would you call it?” But then he realizes that each one is paired
and so he began, I think in part, God is raising a felt need in Adam for companionship,
someone that corresponds to him.
We’ve already talked about the Samuel references, but poetry also looks to the future.
We’ve already commented on this with Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 32, that the blessing
of the tribes is a blessing about the future. It’s what’s going to happen to the tribes in the
days to come. They anticipate in one way or another the future of the blessing and
particularly the ruler who will be foremost in accomplishing the blessing. In Genesis 49,
Jacob focuses on two of the tribes. There are twelve, but he focuses on only two. He
focuses on Joseph and he focuses on Judah and there is where you have the prophecy of
Shiloh. Is that right? No, that’s in Numbers. But that’s where you have the prophecy of the
star coming out of Jacob and so on, so you have this anticipation of the future. So here this
important function of the poetry and in that regard we already looked at Genesis 49:1,
Numbers 24:14, and Deuteronomy 31:29.

Video 11. The Structure of the Pentateuch Part 2
James Allman
Instructor: Now let’s actually turn to the text. On page 20 of your notes there is a summary
in one sentence of 50 chapters of Genesis. That’s a pretty arrogant thing to do, but I
attempted it. The covenant God worked to overcome the defilement of man’s sin and
rebellion by preparing a believing people who through a ruler they would engender would
bring God’s blessing to all mankind, but blessing remained in the distant future. One of the
things that we find in the entire Bible, folks, is that the Bible ends leaving everything
incomplete. We usually say the Old Testament is incomplete without the New. The New
Testament is incomplete too. We get all these promises of the return of Jesus, yes? Where is
He?
Response: He’s on His way.
Instructor: He’s on His way, but He isn’t here yet. So we’re waiting. Now the entire Bible
is incomplete. It’s an eschatological book. It points us to the future. Genesis 1 now,
chapters 1 to 11, there on page 20 again, the covenant God prepares, I’ll get more or less
caught up here, the covenant God prepares a land and people for Himself but they defile it
by their sin causing Him to destroy all mankind and begin again with a new family under
His blessing. So here we’re going into the section chapters 1 to 11. It’s part of the narrative
that we’ll be seeing that will lead us all the way to chapter 48 with the blessings in chapter
49, the poetic section.
So here we go. I can think about Genesis from the point of view of a standard narrative
plot. And it’s often helpful to think about it that way. We certainly have said that Genesis
can be outlined based on the toledoth structure, but it can also be analyzed on the basis of a
standard narrative plot. Standard plot has five parts. The first is the exposition, the
exposition lays out the fundamental issues that the story is going to be about and often will
introduce the main character. Since we have multiple characters in Genesis there is no one
main character except God. So God is the protagonist through out this entire story and man
is often enough the antagonist in it.
Genesis 1 and 2 being the exposition introduced then the story and the main issues of it.
God’s purpose is revealed in Genesis 1 to bless the human race. Look at Genesis 1:26. The
statement in Genesis 1:26 is not simply time bound. There’s more to it than that. I take it to
be a statement that is God’s overarching purpose with the human race. His overarching,
grand purpose, is to reveal Himself and as I tried to argue in the earlier session to reveal
especially His grace and His wrath. But with reference to the human race His purpose is to
bless the human race. So we read in verse 26, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make human kind in
Our image after Our likeness so that they may rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the
air, over the cattle and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.’
God created humankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and
female He created them. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and
subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and every creature that moves on
the ground.’”
His purpose is in part to bless the human race. That’s the point of the story that the Bible is
going to develop. Throughout the story, however, we’re going to face some problems and
stories tend to be about trouble. You rarely get stories that are not about troubled times.
You can almost not tell a story about happy times. In our culture we have stories that end
and they lived happily ever after. If you ask well what happened then? I just told you what
happened then. They lived happily ever after. There is no story for happiness. Are you with
me? Stories are not usually about what they seem to be about.
If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, as I am, the Lord of the Rings is not about destroying the
ring. It’s about saving the Shire. That’s why when, and it’s about preparing insignificant
persons to save the Shire. That’s why Sam and Frodo and Merry and Pippen have to go
through all that they go through so that they will be prepared to save the Shire at the end,
and when the Shire is saved that why the story has to end. Are you with me here? So, the
point is the story is not about the destruction of the ring. The ring is an instrument to that
end, saving the Shire. And the story is not about the saved Shire. It’s about saving the
Shire. Once everything has returned to happiness Frodo can’t stay there anymore because
there’s been too much pain, there’s too much agony in him to stay there. It’s not for him, as
he says. You know, some of you know the story. If you’re really godly you know the Lord
of the Rings.
So when happy times come typically the story ends. I read one year in India, I read Dickens
book Bleak House. I usually take a book to India I’ll never read any place else, because I’ll
get so bored in India. There’s no TV, there’s nothing to do so I’ll read anything in India,
and I thought, I’ve never been able to get into Bleak House, I’ll take it with me and I read
it. It was a remarkable book. It’s atypical Dickens, because Dickens usually takes you into
horrid circumstances and then brings you out. But Bleak House is about basically happy
times. You must be familiar with Bleak House?
Response: Yes.
Instructor: Yeah okay. And there’s only a little bit of real conflict toward the end of the
book. I was sure surprised at that, but typically stories are about trouble. The inciting
moment in a story is where the trouble begins. Are you with me here? And it’s crucial to
see where the trouble begins and to define it. The better you can define the trouble, the
better off you are in understanding the story. So, remember why did Frodo, to take the Lord
of the Rings again, why was Frodo willing to go destroy the, take the ring to Rivendell?
Response: The Shire.
Instructor: So that the Shire would remain safe. He doesn’t know he’s going to Mount
Doom. He’s just going to Rivendell and once they get there Sam’s already getting ready to
go home. He wanted to see elves, but he’s ready to go home because they’ve got it out of
Rivendell and the Shire is safe, but it’s not safe and nobody can make it safe except Frodo.
You follow this? So the inciting moment is a crucial moment of the story that you need to
spend special time studying because that’s where the trouble begins and that’s what the
con--- that’s what the story is going to be about.
Third is, in this case, Genesis 3 is the inciting moment, man’s rejection of God’s means of
blessing. Has God said, “You shall not eat from every tree of the garden?” Woman said to
the serpent, “We may eat from the trees of the Garden but from the tree that’s in the midst
of the Garden God has said, ‘You shall not eat it or touch it lest you die.’” And the serpent
responded, “You will not surely die.” Now I don’t know if you heard the difference in the
language between Eve’s statement and the serpents, but the serpent is not arguing with Eve.
He’s arguing with God. For she did not say, “You shall surely die.” The serpent said that
negated it, denied it. The only person in the story who said that was God. Are you with me
here? So he is offering an alternative way to blessings and she thinks that is a good thing.
“She saw that the tree was good for food and it was delightful to the eyes and desirable to
make one wise. She took and ate and gave to her husband who was with her and he ate.”
Do you follow this reasoning?
So the inciting moment Genesis 3 offers an alternative way to blessing, which humanity
appropriates and that calls into question whether God will even be able to bless the human
race. Should he not destroy them? He has said in the day that you eat of it you will surely
die. Should He not destroy them? Will He be able to bless them? And the answer, of
course, is yes. But it calls the faithfulness of God into question. So it creates all sorts of
problems here in the inciting moment.
Genesis 4 to 48 is the complication. Complication is the largest part of most stories. It’s
where the plot conflict gets more and more severe until it seems like there’s just no hope of
even possibly carrying out or accomplishing what the story was about. In the case of
Genesis Joseph is sold into slavery. His brothers hate him, yes? How can God bless Israel
when they hate their brother? And furthermore, when he’s sold into slavery what’s the
purpose of selling him into slavery?
Response: To prepare him.
Instructor: Well yeah that’s true. I didn’t ask the question sufficiently. What was the
purpose of the brothers in selling him into slavery?
Response: To remove him from his father.
Instructor: Yeah, ultimately to get him killed. Right? So how is God going to bless a bunch
of brothers who want to kill their brother? And then Joseph is taken to slavery and he rises
and okay every things going to be good now because he’s rising in esteem and in value,
yes? But then Potiphar’s wife lies about him and he’s put in prison. What possible way is
God going to, this can’t possibly work out the plan of God, can it? You see how it just
keeps getting more complicated as the story unfolds. Then there’s typically a climax. The
climax is often where the conflict reaches its worst pitch. Sometimes the main character
appears to loose. The climax, notice on the screen, the climax is not the fifth of the five
parts, it’s the fourth of five parts. Typically the end of the story is its resolution where the
conflict is resolved and in a comic plot, which the bible has by and large a comic plot, in a
comic plot the main character has gone through terrible times is restored to happy times. In
this case how does the Book of Genesis end?
Response: Is it Joseph being carried from Egypt?__________________
Instructor: Yes. Look at Genesis 50. Good, good. Verse 26. Genesis 50:26, “So Joseph died
at age 110. After they embalmed him his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.” What
resolution was is there, there? Is there any blessing? Well death is what was imposed with
the sin back in Genesis 3 at the inciting moment. Is there any blessing? No. So there’s no
resolution. You got to go on to Exodus and see actually a new plot introduced and a new
conflict and a new ---. Do you follow this? So here we can talk about Genesis and rightly, I
think, in terms of narrative plot.
So, and indeed, folks, the resolution of the story is not until Revelation 19, 20, and 21. In
that respect the whole Bible has a narrative plot and the Crucifixion is one of the climatic
points, in that the Resurrection is the beginning of the resolution then. So we can talk about
this. It is terribly important material, folks. The most important part of any story is the
inciting moment in the resolution. The resolution gives you the author’s point of view on
the conflict that was unfolding in the story.
So here we go. There’s no resolution in Genesis. All we can do is start the story. Now,
there’s not even a resolution in the entire story of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy 28 to 34,
chapter 28, Israel will be driven from the land. You remember this Deuteronomy 28? Yes,
no? Move your head in some direction. Right? Deuteronomy 28, they’re going to be driven
from the land. 29, God has not given you a heart to understand. Chapter 30, “When the
curse has come upon you,” verse 1. 31, Evil will befall you in the latter days. Everything in
this, there’s no resolution. Is God’s plan to bless the human race thwarted?
Response: No.
Instructor: No, but how in the world is He going to carry it out? One of our problems in
reading stories is that we tend the know stories from their ending and not from their
beginning. Once we know the story we know it in terms of its ending, not its beginning. For
those of you who are Americans the name Abraham Lincoln conjures up failed shopkeeper,
right? No? What do you think of first when you think of Abraham Lincoln?
Response: Emancipation.
Instructor: Emancipation Proclamation.
Response: Big hat.
Instructor: Hm?
Response: Big hat.
Instructor: Big hat, or ugly face, or Gettysburg Address, but not failed shopkeeper. Why
not? He was a failed shopkeeper long before he was president. Response: You only
remember the good stuff about dead people.
Instructor: Yeah, you remember the good stuff about dead people, but we tend to know
stories from the end and here because we know the ending, Jesus is coming, yes? Coming
again, coming again. May be morning, may be noon, may be evening and may be soon.
You know that song? There He is, He’s coming and glory and amen, yes?
Response: Amen, all right, praise God.
Instructor: I can’t watch a Return of the King and Aragorn’s coronation without thinking of
the crowning of Christ. And then when Aragorn turns and bows to Frodo and Sam, Merry
and Pippin I cannot think of that and yet it’s not Tolkien’s purpose to do this, I cannot see
that passage, see that section of the movie or read that portion of the book without thinking
of Jesus saying, “The Son of men will gird Himself and He will serve you. He will have
you recline at tables and He Himself will serve you.” I’m just stunned as I read that and see
that. So here, folks, we’re looking for the resolution. We are in the middle of the
complication. We’re still in it. So here the story has no resolution yet in our experience.
I learned from the Lord of the Rings that you can chose to get involved in an adventure. An
adventure in the middle of it is a catastrophe. So you can choose to get involved in an
adventure, but you can’t choose on how deeply you’re going to get involved in the
adventure. To say it in a way that is more related how I normally teach, you can choose to
risk, but you can’t choose how much you’re going to risk. We’ll see that as these stories
unfold.

El Pentateuco James Allman

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BE102.

Old Testament History I

Response: Is that the names of God?

Seventh, is this seventh? Different theological concepts. Sixth, different theological

Response: From the dirt.

© 2018 Dallas Theological Seminary

BE102. Old Testament History I

Response: Yeah, probably have.

Instructor: So you’ve seen the commercial for what it is Geico? On?

Response: The cave man.

Response: Amen. Absolutely.

Response: From his dad.

Response: I have a six-year old.

Response: And he has a lot of fun telling it.

BE102. Old Testament History I

Instructor: Yeah, I don’t know. So much of archeology is interpretational. It’s really

Response: In different senses of the word.

Then is God anthropomorphic? Yeah, in some sense. Anthropomorphic, yeah, does He

Response: Is this widely believed today?

Instructor: Say again?

Response: Is this widely accepted?

Instructor: Oh my yes. If you go to SMU, if you go to Perkins, if you go to, that’s at

BE102. Old Testament History I

© 2018 Dallas Theological Seminary

Response: Assemble yourselves.

Instructor: What follows that statement?

Response: Assemble yourselves and hear?

Instructor: Yeah what follows that statement?

Response: The oracle of Balaam.

Response: Abraham’s a liar.

Response: Be fruitful and multiply.

Instructor: No. So what law did Abraham have?

Response: One God.

Response: He didn’t go in the land?

Instructor: Say again?

Response: He didn’t go in the land.

Instructor: Ah ha. Good. Why did he not go into the land?

Response: He was bad. He was angry.

Response: Trust Me.

Response: It’s been a while.

© 2018 Dallas Theological Seminary

BE102. Old Testament History I

Response: Life, signs and seasons.

Response: Split hoof.

Instructor: Yeah. So how did they get a split hoof?

Response: God made them with it.

Response: The big man!

Instructor: Say again.

Response: You’re right.

Response: One, two, three, four.

Response: They don’t need it.

Response: Because they need it.

Response: To show that they weren’t righteous.

Instructor: Whose Aaron?

Response: He’s an idiot.

Response: Instructions to the priests.

Response: Nadab and Abihu.

Response: Sons of Aaron.

Instructor: Sons of Aaron. Who are they?

Response: They were scared.

Response: They didn’t believe.

Response: Love the Lord your God.

© 2018 Dallas Theological Seminary

BE102. Old Testament History I