Contents:
1. What is the Pentateuch?
- Name, genre, biography of Moses, National history, Torah or law, why five books? when did the Pentateuch become part of the Bible?
2. Genesis 1-11
- Ancient Near East parallels to Genesis 1-11, Genesis' transformation of oriental origin stories, the organization of Genesis 1-11, The New Testament use of Genesis 1-11
3. Genesis 12-50
- The genre of Genesis 12-50, The story of Abraham, Genealogy of Ishmael, The story of Jacob and Esau, Genealogy of Esau, The story of Joseph and his brothers, The New Testament use of Genesis
4. Exodus
- Structure, Slavery in Egypt and liberation, the law-giving, the Tabernacle, The New Testament and the book of Exodus
5. Leviticus
- Structure, The problems of reading Leviticus, Laws on sacrifice, Institution of the priesthood, Uncleanness and its treatment, prescriptions for practical holiness, the New Testament and Leviticus
6. Numbers
- Structure, The contents of Numbers, Numbers and the New Testament
7. Deuteronomy
- Structure, Deuteronomy and the New Testament
8. Theme of the Pentateuch
- Martin Noth on the themes of the Pentateuch, Gerhard von Rad and the Pentateuch, David Clines on the theme of the Pentateuch, Reassessment
9. Composition of the Pentateuch
- The traditional ascription of the Pentateuch to Moses, the documentary hypothesis, the identification of the sources, twentieth-century adjustment to the documentary hypothesis, the collapse of the consensus since 1975, the trend towards unitary readings, the dating of the sources
10. Rhetoric of the Pentateuch
- Guarded optimism - a twelfth-century setting, Celebration and protest- a tenth-century setting, Reassurance to the dispirited- a seventh-century setting, Hope in difficult times- a fifth-century setting