Deuteronomist

The accuser of our brethren has been cast out, thrown down, and they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb, as we read in Revelation 12, verses 10 and 11.

So in conclusion, what we have is something more than just a balance to Deuteronomic theology, the way so many historical critics have described Job.

It counterbalances the retributive theology that if you obey, you'll be blessed.

And so if you disobey, you'll be cursed.

You have what's called the Priestly, or what they call P, they just call it P, the Priestly source.

Or you have the Deuteronomist source, which their name obviously comes from the book of Deuteronomy.

I've seen some of what you're talking, where historians try to actually, you know, they use their, it's a bit of a soft science, but it's still cool.

You try to kind of forensically identify the contributors to this open source project and what their contributions might have been.

For one, one of the ways that you can see it is, okay, what name of God do they use? in what they're writing about, because different traditions will actually use a very particular name.

For example, you have one of the authors, which is called the Elohist, is because they use the word Elohim all the time, like just consistently.

The Deuteronomist always uses Yahweh or YHWH.

And then, you know, there's other terms that will end up getting used.

No, I'm sorry.

I'm thinking of the books of Joshua through Kings.

It's what scholars call the Deuteronomistic history.

And this repetitive loop isn't lazy writing.

It's a carefully crafted ideological framework built by a desperate group of thinkers trying to make sense out of the biggest catastrophe in their history.

Today, we're diving into the Deuteronomistic history to uncover the editorial engine driving the historical books of the Hebrew Bible and why its authors rewrote Israel's history to save their future.

I'm Megan Craig on the Bart Ehrman team, and I'm joined again by Hebrew Bible scholar, Dr. Joel Baden.

We also have a special segment today, Ask Joel, where Joel will be getting to your questions.

Many scholars look at Baruch, his scribe, as possibly a the main editor of the Old Testament, at least up until this time period.

One biblical scholar, Richard Freeman, wrote that Baruch is probably the one who was the main, what's called the Deuteronomistic historian, meaning he took the Torah scrolls and he edited them and kind of aligned them and put them together.

I think in our vernacular as Latter-day Saints, I would liken Baruch unto Mormon.

as in someone who did a lot of the editing and put things together.

They're condemned all throughout Samuel and Kings as places where the Israelites engage in either idolatrous or syncretistic worship.

And the Deuteronomistic writers believe that the God of Israel should be worshipped only at the temple in Jerusalem.

And it seems...

To be the case, at the high places, it wasn't just the God of Israel worshipped.

You know, there's only—it's a unique account.

And— This author, the author of Samuel, the Deuteronomistic historian, was influenced by some view or another, and in his view, you have the story.

So the deal is, is that Samuel, when Samuel is raised up by the Witch of Endor, by this medium, he's really upset with Saul for making this happen.

He said, why'd you do that? And so the idea is that he enjoyed not being alive.

With the construction of the house of Yahweh completed, Solomon would again meet his God in a dream vision.

And here the Deuteronomist editor has clearly inserted their very own covenantal theology.

Thus Solomon's wealth and power mean basically nothing given that his foreign wives and concubines have led him to worship foreign gods other than Yahweh and thus his downfall and the division of the Israelite monarchy ought to be laid at the feet of his own apostasy and idolatry.

The Chronicler, for what it's worth, is much more interested in Davidic propaganda, focusing much more on Solomon the builder than his purported wisdom, and even attributing some of that building to David in a sense.