Torah and the Book of Numbers

Torah and the Book of Numbers Synopsis

The Documentary Hypothesis, which in the 20th century was the standard theory to explain the development of the Pentateuch, has been challenged from different angles. One important text corpus where new proposals have been brought into the debate is the Book of Numbers. The articles in this volume address the formation of the Book of Numbers from the earliest to the latest strata. They focus on topics like the source-source critical placement of the texts in Deuteronomy that retell events from Numbers and the status of the late priestly legal additions and their relation to prior texts of the Torah. Special attention is given to the composition of the final text of the Book of Numbers and its understanding of law and narrative. The authors of this volume partially contributed to a symposium on the topic "Torah in the Book of Numbers" at the Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, held on April 12-13, 2011.