Introduction to OT #2
Introduction to OT #2
Documentary Hypothesis. A critical attempt to explain the present composition of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. The Pentateuch is analyzed as a composite of four documents (JEDP), each of which had its own background and development before it was edited into the five books. The hypothesis arose from a serious concern with the duplications, stylistic differences, seeming contradictions, various names for Deity, and different perspectives in the books of the Pentateuch. Apart from several post-Mosaic passages, Jewish and Christian scholars had generally assumed the essential Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch
Deuteronomist. Name assigned by adherents of the Documentary Hypothesis of OT origins to the supposed author or compiler of an ancient document roughly corresponding to the Book of Deuteronomy. Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918), a chief exponent of the hypothesis, taught that King Josiah’s religious reforms in Judah (621 BC) formed a necessary backdrop for the Deuteronomic material. Josiah’s book of the law (2 Kgs 22:3–23:25) would thus be a basic part of Deuteronomy.
See DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS; FORM CRITICISM.
DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY. The name commonly used to designate the book of Deuteronomy as well as the section of the Hebrew Bible known as the Former Prophets, i.e., Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, and 1-2 Kings. The name reflects the scholarly theory that these books comprise a single literary unit alongside the other two great historical works in the Hebrew Bible—the Tetrateuch (Genesis through Numbers) and the Chronicles complex (1-2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah). According to this theory, a later editor shifted the notice of Moses’ death from its original position at the end of Numbers to its present location at the end of Deuteronomy (chapter 34) in order to group the first five books of the Hebrew Bible into the Torah or Pentateuch.
DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS
An alternate name (“second canon”) which the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches apply to those books found in the LXX and Vulgate but not in the Hebrew text of the OT. According to the decision of the Council of Trent (1548) and the First Vatican Council (1870) these books, like those of the Hebrew canon, are regarded as possessing divine and canonical authority.
See APOCRYPHA.
7:14 the virgin The Hebrew term here, almah, indicates a young woman of marriageable age. In the ancient world, a young unmarried woman who had reached puberty could reasonably be assumed to be a virgin because of the close social and familial restrictions on her activities.
There is ongoing debate about whether almah technically denotes a virgin, since the Hebrew term bethulah is the more precise word for “virgin.” If almah does not denote virginity, the implication would be that the NT interpretation of the virgin birth is mistaken (see note on Matt 1:23). However, Hebrew and Greek use a variety of terms to refer to young unmarried women or girls, indicating that physical virginity was the cultural norm and did not need to be explicitly expressed.
The overlapping use of almah and bethulah in Gen 24 to refer to the unmarried Rebekah demonstrates that these terms were considered to be interchangeable (see Gen 24:16, 43). The Septuagint uses the Greek term parthenos to translate almah in Isa 7:14 and Gen 24:43. Drawing on the Septuagint, the NT interpretation is based on the Greek word parthenos, also a more precise word for “virgin.” The NT describes the fulfillment of Isa 7:14 with the birth of Jesus in Matt 1:18–23. Matthew focuses on the miraculous nature of Jesus’ birth and the scandal of Mary’s pregnancy prior to the consummation of her marriage to Joseph. While Isaiah focuses on the child and the symbolic nature of his name, Matthew emphasizes the remarkable nature of the birth.
The Virgin Shall Conceive: The Vocabulary of Virginity
Virgin AYBD