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31-702: The Deuteronomist is one of the sources identified through source criticism as underlying much of the Hebrew Bible . Among source-critical scholars, it is generally agreed that the Deuteronomistic history originated independently of the books of Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus and Numbers (based on the Priestly source and the Jahwist ), and independently of the historical Books of Chronicles . Most scholars trace all or most of Deuteronomistic history to

62-593: A "Book of the Law," commonly identified with the law code, was found in the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah . According to the story in 2 Kings, reading the book caused Josiah to embark on a series of religious reforms, and it has been suggested that it was written to validate this program. Notwithstanding, it is generally accepted that at least some of the laws are much earlier than Josiah. The introduction to

93-496: A B.A. cum laude . He then moved on to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where he studied Old Testament from 1979 to 1982, graduating M.Div. Harvard University was next, and there Knoppers obtained an M.A. with distinction in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. His Harvard studies were from 1982 to 1986. Knoppers obtained his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1988. His doctoral dissertation at Harvard

124-460: Is Jerusalem. It also shows a special concern for the poor, widows and the fatherless: all Israelites are brothers and sisters, and each will answer to God for his treatment of his neighbour. This concern for equality and humanity extends also to the stranger who lives among the Israelites. The stranger is often mentioned in tandem with the concern for the widow and the orphan. Furthermore, there

155-469: Is a specific commandment to love the stranger. Source criticism (biblical studies) Source criticism , in biblical criticism , refers to the attempt to establish the sources used by the authors and redactors of a biblical text. It originated in the 18th century with the work of Jean Astruc , who adapted the methods already developed for investigating the texts of classical antiquity (in particular, Homer 's Iliad ) to his own investigation into

186-506: Is ascribed to J. While the documentary hypothesis has widespread support among biblical scholars, other hypotheses such as the "fragmentary" and "supplementary" have also been proposed. The writers of the Tanakh sometimes mention sources they use. These include Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (1 Kings 14:29 and in a number of other places), Chronicles of

217-625: Is found in the book of Ezra–Nehemiah (typically treated by biblical scholars as one book) where scholars identify four types of source material: letters to and from Persian officials, lists of things, the Ezra memoir (where Ezra speaks in first person), and the Nehemiah memoir (where Nehemiah speaks in first person). It is thus deduced that the writer of Ezra–Nehemiah had access to these four kinds of source material in putting together his book. Source criticism also leads many scholars towards redaction of

248-620: The Babylonian captivity (6th century BCE), and associate it with editorial reworking of both the Tetrateuch and Jeremiah . Since the mid-20th century, scholars have imagined the Deuteronomists as country Levites , a junior order of priests, or as prophets in the tradition of the northern Kingdom of Israel , or as sages and scribes at the royal court. Recent scholarship has interpreted the book as involving all these groups, and

279-705: The Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament). The documentary hypothesis considers the sources for the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), claiming that it derives from four separate sources: the Yahwist , Elohist , Deuteronomist , and Priestly : For example, of the two creation stories at the start of Genesis, the first is ascribed to P, while the second (the creation of Adam and Eve in chapter 2)

310-522: The book of Isaiah from original multiple authorship. In the study of the New Testament , an example of source criticism is the study of the Synoptic problem . Critics noticed that the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew , Mark and Luke , were very similar, indeed, at times identical. The dominant theory to account for the duplication is called the two-source hypothesis . This suggests that Mark

341-480: The "Jeremiah" Deuteronomists represent a distinct party from the "DtrH" Deuteronomists, with opposing agendas. Deuteronomy is conceived of as a covenant (a treaty) between the Israelites and Yahweh , who has chosen ("elected") the Israelites as his people and requires them to live according to his law. Israel is to be a theocracy with Yahweh as the divine suzerain . The law is to be supreme over all other sources of authority, including kings and royal officials, and

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372-599: The Book of Jeremiah occurring some time before the end of the Exile (pre-539 BCE) – a process which also involved the prophetic books of Amos and Hosea . The biblical text records about the "authors" of the Deuteronomistic works that Jeremiah the prophet used scribes such as Baruch to accomplish his ends. It is also noteworthy that the Deuteronomistic History never mentions Jeremiah and some scholars believe that

403-770: The Chronicler . In May 2005 the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies granted the R. B. Y. Scott Award to Knoppers for his two-volume Anchor Bible commentary on I Chronicles Knoppers was born in Edmonton, Alberta , Canada. His parents were Barthie Maria Boon Knoppers and Nicolaas Bastiaan Knoppers. Knoppers' upbringing was in the Dutch Reformed tradition. Knoppers studied at Calvin College from 1975 to 1979, where he majored in philosophy, obtaining

434-584: The Kings of Israel (1 Kings 14:19 and in a number of other places), the Book of Jashar (Josh 10:12–14, 2 Sam 1:18–27, and possibly to be restored via textual criticism to 1 Kings 8:12), and Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14). A more complicated and speculative form of source criticism results from critical evaluation of style, vocabulary, reduplication, and discrepancies. An example of this kind of source criticism

465-576: The code (chapters 4:44–11:32) was added during Josiah's time, thus creating the earliest version of Deuteronomy as a book, and the historical prologue (chapters 1–4:43) was added still later to turn Deuteronomy into an introduction to the entire Deuteronomistic history (Deuteronomy to Kings). The term was coined in 1943 by the German biblical scholar Martin Noth to explain the origin and purpose of Joshua , Judges , Samuel , and Kings . These, he argued, were

496-544: The last five years an increasing number of commentators have expressed grave doubts about fundamental tenets of Noth's classic study." The prose sermons in the Book of Jeremiah are written in a style and outlook closely akin to, yet different from, the Deuteronomistic history. Scholars differ over how much of the book is from Jeremiah himself and how much from later disciples, but the Swiss scholar Thomas Römer has recently identified two Deuteronomistic "redactions" (editings) of

527-666: The late 1960s. In 1968, Frank Moore Cross made an important revision, suggesting that the history was first written in the late 7th century BCE as a contribution to King Josiah of Judah 's program of reform (the Dtr1 version), and only later revised and updated by Noth's 6th-century author (Dtr2). Dtr1 saw Israel's history as a contrast between God's judgment on the sinful northern Kingdom of Israel of Jeroboam I , who set up golden calves to be worshiped in Bethel and Dan, and virtuous Judah, where faithful king David had reigned and where now

558-507: The like) to determine what sources may have been used by a biblical author. With some reasonable guesswork it is possible to deduce sources not identified as such (e.g., genealogies). Some inter-biblical sources can be determined by virtue of the fact that the source is still extant, for example, where the Books of Chronicles quotes or retells the accounts of the books of Samuel and Kings . Source criticism has been applied to several parts of

589-605: The material that is common in Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. In addition to Mark and Q, the writers of Matthew and Luke made some use of additional sources, which would account for the material that is unique to each of them. There is less of a consensus that the writers of the Gospel of John may have used a hypothetical Signs Gospel . Gary N. Knoppers Gerald "Gary" Neil Knoppers (November 14, 1956 – December 22, 2018)

620-453: The more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened. In the Bible where a variety of earlier sources have been quoted, the historian seeks to identify and date those sources used by biblical writers as the first step in evaluating their historical reliability. In other cases, Bible scholars use the way a text is written (changes in style, vocabulary, repetitions, and

651-472: The origin and growth of Deuteronomism is usually described in the following terms: Deuteronomy was formed by a complex process that reached probably from the 7th century BCE to the early 5th. It consists of a historical prologue; an introduction; the Deuteronomic Code followed by blessings and curses; and a conclusion. The book's core is the law code (chapters 12–26). 2 Kings 22 – 23 tells how

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682-494: The prophets are the guardians of the law: prophecy is instruction in the law as given through Moses, the law given through Moses is the complete and sufficient revelation of the Will of God, and nothing further is needed. Under the covenant, Yahweh promised the Israelites the land of Canaan , but the promise was conditional: they would lose the land if they were unfaithful. The Deuteronomistic history explains successes and failures as

713-622: The result of faithfulness, which brings success, or disobedience, which brings failure; the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 721 BCE and the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians in 586 BCE are Yahweh's punishment for continued sinfulness. Deuteronomy insists on the centralisation of worship "in the place that the Lord your God will choose"; Deuteronomy never says where this place will be, but Kings makes it clear that it

744-487: The righteous Josiah was reforming the kingdom. The exilic Dtr2 supplemented Dtr1's history with warnings of a broken covenant, an inevitable punishment and exile for the sinful (in Dtr2's view) Kingdom of Judah . Cross's "dual redaction" model is probably the most widely accepted, but a considerable number of European scholars prefer an alternative model put forward by Rudolf Smend and his pupils. This approach holds that Noth

775-403: The sources of the Book of Genesis . It was subsequently considerably developed by German scholars in what was known as "the higher criticism ", a term no longer in widespread use. The ultimate aim of these scholars was to reconstruct the history of the biblical text and also the religious history of ancient Israel . In general, the closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe,

806-492: The work of a single 6th-century BCE author/compiler seeking to explain recent events (the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile ) using the theology and language of the Book of Deuteronomy . The author used his sources with a heavy hand, depicting Joshua as a grand, divinely guided conquest, Judges as a cycle of rebellion and salvation, and the story of the kings as recurring disaster due to disobedience to God. A series of studies that modified Noth's original concept began in

837-683: Was Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, where was the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Religious Studies, and Jewish Studies. Knoppers also served as the head of that department from 1996 to 2006. His scholarly concentrations are: Ancient Israelite and Near Eastern History; Ancient Historiography; Biblical Theology; The Books of Kings and Chronicles; Comparative Ancient Near Eastern Religions; Inner Biblical Exegesis; and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy. In

868-409: Was a professor in the Department of Theology at University of Notre Dame . He wrote books and articles regarding a range of Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern topics. He is particularly renowned for his work on 1 Chronicles , writing I Chronicles 1 – 9 ( Anchor Bible Volume 12) and I Chronicles 10 – 29 (Anchor Bible Volume 12A), which together comprise a significant treatment of the work of

899-688: Was entitled "What Share Have We in David?": The Division of the Kingdom in Kings and Chronicles . Frank Moore Cross, Jr. directed his Ph.D. Knoppers first taught at Andover Newton Theological School for a term in spring 1986. In the fall of 1987 he began his career at Pennsylvania State University as an instructor in Religious Studies, and then was Assistant Professor in Religious Studies from 1988 to 1994. In 1994 he became Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Religious Studies and Jewish Studies. From 2002 to 2014 he

930-484: Was right to locate the composition of the history in the 6th century, but that further redactions took place after the initial composition, including a "nomistic" (from the Greek word for "law"), or DtrN, layer, and a further layer concerned with the prophets, abbreviated as DtrP. For a time, the Deuteronomistic history enjoyed "canonical" status in biblical studies. However, writing in 2000, Gary N. Knoppers noted that "in

961-426: Was the first gospel to be written, and that it was probably based on a combination of early oral and written material. Matthew and Luke were written at a later time, and relied primarily on two different sources: Mark and a written collection of Jesus's sayings, which has been given the name Q by scholars. This latter document has now been lost, but at least some of its material can be deduced indirectly, namely through

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