Deuteronomy wrap up

*Now that we are finished with Deuteronomy, we can see that it is very unlikely that the book was written by Moses, unless he wrote about himself in the third person, telling how wonderful he was. It seems to have been written by a person or persons, far in the future of Moses, who knew that the Israelites had prophets and that they were conquered and taken into captivity. This makes its authorship either during the captivity or after their return to the promised land. We are also not told that the book is the word of God.

*Deuteronomy is extremely redundant with very little new material. There is a repetion of many laws, traditions, and admonitions. There is a constant harping on the need for complete obedience, or else dire consequences would ensue. Most of the new material is an expansion on old themes and an addition of details to material found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

*We find no references to Angels, demons, and Satan. There is no mention of a personal savior or messiah. Heaven is mentioned as the place Yahweh lives in the clouds. We find a hint of hell in one passage about sheol, but it is not said to be a place of eternal torture or a spiritual punishment. It is underground. All rewards and punishments appear to be earthly and physical.

*In this book, Yahweh is a jealous, angry, and strict God, expecting absolute obedience. He continues to communicate solely with Moses, often from the pillar of smoke over the tabernacle tent. He seems to forget that he killed off most of the original adult Israelites who left Egypt forty years ago during the exodus.  His commandments and covenants with Israel are said to be eternal and everlasting, which could  present a dilemma to christians.

*The book ends with the death of Moses and the institution of Joshua as the new leader. If we assume Bishop Ussher's date of creation at 4004 BCE, and do the math using the numbers gleaned from the Old Testament so far, and without adjustments based on New Testament input, it should now be around the year 1297 BCE. Just for the record, I realize this probably isn't going to work out later, but let's just go with it.

On to Joshua, which promises to be more interesting, and more bloody.

Edited.