Stefan C. Reif, “Review of ‘Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School’, by Moshe Weinfeld,” Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 63, no. 3 (January 1973): 272-276 (original) (raw)
Related papers
“Overlooked Presuppositions in the Deuteronomistic History”
This presentation summarizes chapter 1 of my publication: Terror of the Radiance: A¡¡ur Covenant to YHWH Covenant, OBO 258 (2013). The chapter comprises a survey of the scholarship concerning Martin Noth’s hypothesis of the Deuteronomistic History (DH). Although scholarship has dissected the DH into its compositional elements, some presuppositions about its deep structure remain unexamined.
Deuteronomy contains a number of indications which locate its interests in the Levant rather than in Mesopotamia. This observation challenges two major theories of the book’s origins: Deuteronomy as pre-exilic attempt to subvert Assyrian imperial power and Deuteronomy as exilic, utopian manifesto for a restored Israel. The indications of a true Levantine context for the deuteronomic interest are identified in both the legal content of the book (passages which presuppose the audience’s presence in the land or identify its interests with the southern Levant and its inhabitants) and in its terminology (»in/from your midst«, »other gods«, lack of »foreigner« language). Note is also made of later attempts to reapply material originally orientated toward the Levant to an exilic population dealing with Mesopotamian culture.
Bill T. Arnold, The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapters 1–11 (NICOT). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2022
Reading Acts, 2022
Bill Arnold’s new commentary on Deuteronomy 1-11 replaces Peter Craigie’s 1976 commentary in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament series. In 2020, Arnold joined Robert L. Hubbard as the editor of this important commentary series. Arnold in the Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary since 1995 and has contributed many articles and monographs on the Old Testament. He co-edited Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books (IVP Academic, 2005). In the eighty-seven-page introduction Arnold suggests Deuteronomy can rightly be called a compendium of the most important ideas of the Old Testament. “It crystallizes the themes and messages of the first four books of the Bible, while at the same time it establishes the theological foundation for the books of history and prophecy to follow” (1). The message of the book is without question: the exclusive worship and faithfulness to YHWH Israel’s God.