The Five Classics includes the first five books of the Old Testament-Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. Numbers and Deuteronomy. The "Five Classics" comes from the Greek Pentateuchos, which means "five volumes" and represents five volumes of Jewish law books. Jews call it "Torah" (meaning teaching), English translation is "law", New Testament is also called law, and Greek is nomos (such as mt.517: lk.1617; Acts 7: 53; Oh, my god 9: 8). The Five Classics is the most important part of the trilogy of the Old Testament. For Jews, it is far more authoritative and sacred than prophets and holy books. The books in the Five Classics are not as independent and self-sufficient as modern people think, but are purposefully merged together, and each book becomes a unit in the whole, so it is necessary to call it the Five Classics rather than accident. Although the five volumes are integrated into a whole, it is not convenient to divide them into five parts, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. The reason why it is divided into five volumes is that there are obvious editing traces in the Five Classics, which shows that the editor also intends to divide the material into five volumes.
consistent
There are undeniable differences and complexities in the source and structure of the Five Classics, but more importantly and fundamentally, it has a consistent unity. The historical narrative part of the Five Classics can be regarded as its backbone, and other relevant laws and regulations are attached to this framework, thus forming a unified whole. This period of history is very important and is quoted most by the authors of the New Testament. It is regarded as the background and preparation of Christ's coming into the world by the New Testament, and the event of Christ's coming into the world is also the continuation of a series of events such as God calling Abraham to the David dynasty. It can be seen that the historical account of the Five Classics plays a central role in the Old Testament. This passage of "God's Action" is often summarized as "summary" or "confession of faith" (G. von Ladd). For example, when Paul arrived in Antioch, he preached in the synagogue (Acts 13: 17-4 1). At first, he (65438). Paul's practice shows that he knows the patriarch's history of David, which is the most important part of the Old Testament story. He is convinced that this is the starting point of God's redemption, and only by gradually accumulating in Christ can he achieve complete achievements. From this point of view, there are several similar summaries in the Old Testament (especially in the Five Classics), which are very enlightening: for example, in the etiquette of the first harvest festival (Shen26th 5- 10), the above summary is an important part. Moses once told the Israelites that if their children asked about the meaning of God's law, they would tell their children about going out of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea and entering Canaan (Deuteronomy 6: 20-24). Similarly, in the Etiquette of the Lord's Covenant, Joshua also quoted this history as an introduction (Book 24: 2- 13).
Although Joshua's summary has different forms and usages, it still includes some basic details of God's saving his people:
God chose Abraham and his descendants (Acts 13: 17: Book 24: 3) and gave them the promised land (Deuteronomy 6: 23).
(2) Israel to Egypt (ACTS1313; Joshua 24: 4) and was later enslaved by the Egyptians (Deuteronomy 6: 2 1, 22, 26: 5).
(3) God led the Israelites into Canaan as promised (Acts 13 19: Book 24113: Shen 6 23, 26 9).
This is just the epitome of the trunk of the Five Classics! However, there are several other different elements, which together constitute the Five Classics, namely, promise, selection, redemption, covenant, law and promised land.
But every historical retelling (or confession of faith) has a core element, that is, the experience of going out of Egypt, which represents the redemption of the Lord and realizes the event of choosing Israel in history. It is the first rescue action of the Lord in the history of Israel, and it has also become a model for future rescue (see Mo 24- 10, III 1-2: Jeremiah 2 17: Psalm 7713-19,78/kloc). Therefore, going out of Egypt has also become the core part of the Five Classics. God did wonders in the Red Sea and saved Israel, thus "choosing Israel as his own people from all peoples". (for example. 19: 5), make a Covenant with them and be their god: invite them to accept the Covenant with love and unconditional redemption, and give his law as the norm of their group. This is recorded in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Genesis 15-50 is a preface, which tells that the ancestor got a promise, and this promise was realized when he left Egypt and entered Canaan. At the beginning of patriarchal clan history, the commitment to acquire land and establish a country has marked the goals and themes of the Five Classics history:
The Lord said to Abram, "Leave your country, your family and your father's house and go to the land I will show you.". I will make you a great country, I will bless you, I will exalt you, and you will bless others. (genesis 1 1, 2)
This dual theme is repeatedly described in Abraham's series of stories (see Chuang 13: 14- 17, Chuang 15: 2-5, Chuang 18-2 1, Chuang1. Jacob/Israel: XXVIII 13, XXXV11-13; Yue Se and his son: 48 1-6). Salvation begins in Exodus (Exodus 6-8). In fact, at the end of Pentecost, God's word to Moses (Deuteronomy 34 1-4) showed that the author believed that the promise had been fulfilled.
This history of the Five Classics does not exist independently. It has an "ancient introduction" (Zhuang-Xi). The connection between this introduction and the latter part endows the whole story with unique historical and theological significance, which marks the purpose of the history of the Five Classics. From Genesis 12 to Shen34, there is a strong particularism between promise and choice, but the focus of Genesis 1 to1is universal. It traces back to the ultimate source of creation (especially men and women), and then puts forward arguments from a theological point of view to explain how human history has become like this: people are at war with themselves, separated from God, alienated from people, and in a broken and chaotic world, countries attack countries and countries. The author wants to trace the root of evil and draws a dark picture-the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden betrayed God and sin entered the world (Genesis1-3); Cain killed out of jealousy (4:1-16); Lamai's boastful poems are full of vendetta and hatred (4:17-23); The universal corruption of human beings leads to the punishment of floods (6): In the story of Babel, the basic unity of human beings is disintegrated and dispersed into the chaotic world (1 1).
At the end of this ancient history, the authors of chapters 1 to1seriously ask whether God's tolerance has reached the limit in the face of broken and fragmented human nature. Will he give up mankind forever in anger? Only from the perspective of this introduction can we understand the main idea of the Five Classics. The genealogy after the introduction immediately reveals the story of the patriarch: obviously, Genesis1-1is placed at the beginning of the story of the patriarch, just like a title, which shows the meaning and importance of God's blessing and Abraham's choice.
The first eleven chapters of Genesis are quite different from the subsequent history of promise, selection, redemption and covenant. But the arrangement of the two is the author's intentional and vivid arrangement: the former asks questions and the latter tells the answers. The reason why God has a special relationship with Abraham and his descendants is that God seeks a way out for all mankind.
It can be seen that the Five Classics has two main paragraphs: chapters 1 to 11 and 12 to 34. The relationship between them is the relationship between questions and answers, and between difficulties and solutions. The clue lies in Genesis 12, chapter 3.
This structure shows the continuity of the Five Classics, and also shows that the Five Classics is only the starting point of the history of redemption, and the structure inside extends far beyond the Five Classics, and the completion of the history of redemption is outside Deuteronomy; To be exact, it is outside the whole old testament! Nowhere in the Old Testament can provide a final solution to the acute problems pointed out to XI in Genesis. The history of redemption expressed in the Old Testament is incomplete and has not achieved complete redemption. When the Old Testament ended, the Israelites still looked forward to the fulfillment of the promise, and they still waited for the hope to come true one day. Therefore, the dividing line between Genesis-1 1 and Genesis-12 is not only the main point of the whole Old Testament, but also one of the most important places in the whole Bible. From this point on, the history of redemption has been waiting for God's gospel of redemption in Jesus Christ: only in Jesus Christ can Abraham's blessing become the blessing of all nations in the world. It is true that the Five Classics is an endless book, and its redemption history can only be completed on Abraham's real "son" (Taiyi 1). Only he can summon all nations to him (about 10: 132), and only he can change the humanity that has been separated from God in the prologue of ancient times.
Complexity of Five Classics
If we study the Five Classics carefully, we will find that there are obvious differences and complexities besides the consistency of goals, plans and arrangements. Because of this, there are many different theories about the origin of the Five Classics. These theories try to provide information such as source, date and author, so as to evaluate the historical and theological value of the Five Classics. Unfortunately, most of the comments are negative. Scholars usually think that the Five Classics were compiled into books many centuries after Moses, so there are few real historical materials preserved. The religious theological concepts and etiquette expressed in the classics were added later. For example, Wilhelm Howard, the most touching scholar of the Five Classics, believes that the Five Classics is the product of exile and later exile, so it is only the historical starting point of Judaism, not the history of ancient Israel.
Even though William's theory has been revised and almost abandoned, the evaluation of the Five Classics is still generally not "friendly". In fact, one of the most important schools of the Old Testament in modern times (including the famous Norman [m. north]) believes that we can't affirm any historical facts according to the tradition of the Five Classics. Normandin insisted that it is not correct to say that Moses was the founder of a religion, and even it is inappropriate to talk about a religion of Moses. But as mentioned earlier, the story of the patriarch and Moses affirmed God's actions in history, and affirmed that God arranged redemption for mankind, which made the Five Classics form a consistent whole. If this is right, then Norma Martin's view will cancel the core content preached by the Bible and make the Five Classics irrelevant-even a book full of mistakes and omissions.
Those who are committed to biblical truth must respond to these extreme and exaggerated criticisms. Mistakes must be corrected. However, some conservative scholars often overcorrect and go to the other extreme, and do not write a comprehensive introduction to the Five Classics at all. On the contrary, the theory attaches great importance to all aspects of argument, including the basic unity and differences of legal books. Therefore, we must discuss the complex arts and sciences of the Five Classics, and then put forward some conclusions about the origin, development and stylistic nature of the Five Classics.
Complexity of art and science. Whenever a person begins to discuss the style of the Five Classics, he will immediately ask an obvious question: Are the Five Classics laws or history books? No modern or ancient law book is similar to it-some historical narratives are often inserted in the legal part. On the other hand, the ancient historical preface, the story of the patriarch and Moses have all become the introduction of Moses' law! If we want to trace back to the source, we must first understand the duality of the Five Classics. God didn't just list laws, nor did he just save his people with a series of salvation actions: however, he adopted both methods: he chose a nation and made a Covenant with people by law. Therefore, the Five Classics includes two aspects: the narrative part is arranged in the legal provisions.
When we carefully analyze the scriptures, we can find other characteristics.
(1) When the narrative part and the legal part meet, there is no coherence in theme and order. For example, Gen 4: 26 and Gen 5: 1: In fact, Gen1to Gen 2: 4 and Gen 5: 1 and below were cut off from Gen 2: 4 to Gen 4: 26. Similarly, Gen 19: 38 and Gen 20: 65: 438+0 also have obvious segmentation. There are also 19: 25 and 20: 65,438+0,19: 65,438+0-25 and 20: 65,438+08-265,438+0, which were originally historical narratives, but there was a ten in the middle. In addition, there is no logical connection between these laws and regulations.
(2) There are great differences between different parts in terms of words, sentence patterns, styles and the overall structure of the article. However, after understanding the above situation, these differences will not be too surprising. When comparing Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the difference is very obvious.
③ Another indicator showing the complexity of the Five Classics is the two names of God: Jehovah and Luo Xing. When using these two names, there is no special purpose, just using one name (or choosing most of them) in a certain chapter or chapters of the scripture (which often happens in Genesis), so two groups of scripture are produced, one for Jehovah and the other for Luo Xing, and both groups have their own names, theological concepts and literary characteristics.
④ Some parts of the Five Classics are repeated twice or even three times. It's not surprising if it's just the same repetition, but many times the theme is the same, the material is the same, and there are obvious differences! This phenomenon has been debated, affirmed and denied in detail by many scholars. Enthusiastic supporters of "Book Theory" regard them as equivalent paragraphs of different books. But in fact, we can have other better explanations. However, there are many repetitions that are difficult to explain. For example:
In two verses, Abraham regards Sarah as his sister, regardless of the danger of her reputation (Genesis12,20); And the story of Isaac is similar (36- 1 1). The name Beersheba (wishing well) comes from two sources: to commemorate the covenant between Abraham and Abimelech (Gen 2 1: 22-365: 438+0) and the alliance between Isaac and Abimelech (Gen 26: 26-33). In Genesis XXVIII 19, XXXV 7, Jacob changed Lu Si to Bethel; However, on 28th of 10- 19, on his way to Batalan, the Lord appeared to him, and he changed Lu Si to Bethel: another scripture (25th 9- 1 15), he "came out" from Batalan, and the Lord was right. Sign 1 1: 1-47 and Shen 13: 2 1, repeatedly citing the provisions on cleanliness addiction. As for the slave sutra, it also appeared three times (for example. 2 1: 1— 1 1; Leviticus 25: 39-55: SHEN WOO 12- 18).
Coupled with other evidence, we know that the Five Classics has a long spread and development process: some of them were obviously written after the death of Moses. The following are some representative scriptures: for example, "When the Canaanites were still in the promised land" (Genesis 12: 6, 13: 7), "The Israelites ate manna for forty years until they entered the inhabited land, which was the boundary of Canaan" (Genesis16: 35) These verses imply that Israel has occupied Canaan. Gen 14: 14 records that Abraham heard that his nephew was taken captive and pursued Lot until Dan. However, it was not until the conquest of Canaan that the "Danes" who lived in that place were called Dan (Book 19: 47: 18: 29). Gen 36: 365: 438+0 lists the names of the kings of Edom, beginning with the sentence "Israel did not reign before all the kings". The author obviously lived in the post-Saul era.
The above examples showing the complexity of the Five Classics are clear and vague, and some are literary facts. Others are vague and can be evaluated subjectively from the reader's point of view. But then again, complex scriptures do exist. In order to correctly understand the origin and stylistic nature of the Five Classics, these problems cannot be avoided.
Author and source. It must be pointed out at the beginning that the Five Classics is an anonymous work. There is no mention of Moses or anyone else in the scripture. The authors of ancient documents (including the Old Testament, of course) are usually anonymous. The ancient "author" in the Near East is not a modern "writer". His responsibility is to record old materials, so he was limited by the "tradition" and "method" at that time, and "literature" was the product of * * * rather than an individual.
Having said that, in fact, there are many places in the Five Classics that show that its content mainly comes from Moses. Moses was once described as a writer, including historical facts (for example. 17: 14; People's 33 illusions 2), laws or regulations (for example. 24, 4, 34, 27, 28) and a poem (Shen 3 1, 22). These verses refer to Moses' narrative, legislation, poetry and other writing activities. In addition to the above directly indicating that he is the author, there are probably other paragraphs involved in the writing process.
In other documents before exile, some scattered and important narratives recorded Moses' writing activities. Exiles and literature in the later period of exile are more aware of this statement. If we analyze it carefully, we will find that:
(1) documents in the later period of exile (chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, etc. ) It is often pointed out that the authors of the Five Classics are authoritative, and they quote the Five Classics extensively. The word "Five Classics of Moses" first appeared at this time.
(2) The history books before exile (Joshua, Samuel, Kings) rarely mention Moses' writing activities, and all the accusations belong to Deuteronomy.
(3) Early scrolls (Prophet before exile) did not contain the above allegations. This progressive mode shows that the tradition of the Five Classics is developing-at first, people just put Moses' name on some laws (Deuteronomy), then extended it to all laws, and finally extended it to the full volume of the Five Classics. This process continued into the New Testament. The New Testament often mentions the Five Classics, calling them the Law or the Book of Moses (Ke 12: 26: Luke 2: 22: Acts 13: 39), or just Moses (Luke 34: 27), and calling the whole Old Testament Moses and the Prophet (16: 29). In addition, in the works of Talimu and Godfather, it is pointed out that the author of the full volume of The Five Classics is a witness of Moses.
It is broader and more consistent.
The meaning of these facts. What conclusions can we draw from these data? How are the Five Classics formed? First of all, we should follow the Bible and avoid putting existing ideas on it, such as what its style is and what its theology should be. All these should be avoided, and the Bible should speak for itself. At the same time, the theory about the development and origin of the Five Classics must be regarded as theoretical and experimental. When more facts appear, we must keep an open attitude and allow our theory room for revision.
There are two points that need to be mentioned here when studying scriptures and traditions; First of all, biblical materials and other different traditions consistently point out that Moses once wrote historical records, laws and poems. A large amount of evidence points out that it is not uncommon for ancient documents in the Near East to be written by one person in different styles, even centuries before Moses. Therefore, we can be sure that Moses played an important role in the formation of the Five Classics. This conclusion is highly credible: at least, the narrative outline and law materials were written under his influence. If he didn't write them, then the environment and events reflected by the Five Classics are quite real. Even though we think that the existing Five Classics can't be written by Moses, based on the above consistent and relevant evidence, we can be sure that the Five Classics was written under the influence of Moses, who was an important initiator in the process of writing the Five Classics.
Secondly, we should also consider the complexity of the classics, the distribution of the classics and the traditional progress in the source of the Five Classics. These literary phenomena show that the Five Classics is a complex and comprehensive work, which needs long-term inheritance and accumulation to be completed. We are sure that the spirit of God inspired Moses to speak and write, and also supervised its development. Although the process details are difficult to determine, the main development mode can be determined. During the slavery period in Egypt, the story of the patriarch was mainly preserved in the form of "oral transmission", which was recorded in writing for the first time in Moses' time. As for the poems of Exodus and The Wilderness, they are attached to them and may have been written in the early days of David. In the dynasty era, facing the new way of life, it became an important task for Israelis to record the events and significance in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China: various documents in the Moses era appeared different versions after editing. After the exile (the fifth century), Ezra compiled these documents into a scripture when rebuilding the country. This argument is supported by the following arguments: The Bible recognizes Ezra as the head of the scribes and he studied the law of Moses (Rev. 7: 1 1, 12). His responsibility is to teach the Bible and guide the people to enforce the law in Judah and Jerusalem (14, 25, 26); Jewish tradition also agrees that Ezra is justified. Israel's life and country were destroyed and its people were exiled abroad. The impact of the national disaster inspired them to collect ancient books and finalize them, so that their traditions could be preserved. This is a very reasonable theory. Finally, no matter what the details of this process are, we should, like Aubrey, draw the following conclusions:
"Generally speaking, the content of the Five Classics is older than the date of the final edition; New discoveries have continuously confirmed that these ancient documents recorded accurate historical details. Although we need to admit that there are some late materials attached to the core of the "Moses tradition", these extra materials only reflect the normal progress of ancient systems and habits, or show that the scribes are trying to preserve the tradition about Moses. Therefore, it is only an extreme criticism to deny that the Five Classics have the basic personality of Moses.
In order to explain why the Five Classics are so complicated, scholars in the Old Testament have developed the theory of "book theory" in the last two centuries, assuming that the existing Five Classics are selected from different books.
According to the background theory, there are mainly four kinds of documents behind the Five Classics. The way to distinguish is to find the divisible paragraphs in the scripture. The criteria for distinguishing are: lack of coherence, the order of topics, taking "Jehovah" or "Luoxing" as the name of God, and repeated materials. Then, the paragraphs are combined into four manuscripts, and the criteria for combination are: text, style and theological point of view; If they are similar, they will be merged. If there are two parallel records of the same story, they will be divided into different groups. These four characters are-① j canon (meaning Jahweh in German) originated in Judah and appeared in Genesis to Numbers in 950 1850 BC. (2) E-Canon (EIohist), from northern Israel, was about 850 1750, which appeared from Genesis to the number of people. Some scholars believe that J code and E code merged into JE code after the national subjugation of the North (July 2 1 day). (3) Deuteronomy, roughly speaking, the D-Canon materials adopted by the Five Classics include Deuteronomy and the "historical structure" attached between Joshua and the kings. The completion date of code D is generally considered as 62 1. At that time, the law book found by King Josiah in the temple may be Code D (2 Kings 22 3 123 25). It is added to JE and becomes JE D code. (4) Written by priests in a short time (6th-5th century) after being taken captive, including narratives, genealogy and religious materials related to etiquette, are scattered in the scriptures from Genesis to Numbers. But basically, Code P is a collection of laws of all ages in Israel. The four-person manuscript finally synthesized JESP, and the editor was a member of the p school. The existing Five Classics are the fruits of their work.
H gunkel basically accepted this basic theory, and he introduced the concept of "literary formal history" around 1900, which brought new impetus to critical research. The analytical method he adopted was not to combine the basic units of scripture into a larger manuscript, but to study the individual units of scripture independently, so as to determine its style, and more importantly, to determine and study its "Sitz im Leben", because "life situation" determined the author's discussion point. This new method may produce a radical output theory, but if used properly, it will be of great help to understand the Five Classics, especially the study of poetry and gospels.
It is more valuable.
In the past, most of these criticisms and assumptions were just tests, and there were many problems. Of course, there is no doubt that the five classics have different origins, but it is doubtful whether they can be divided from strict classics.
God chose those affected writers, editors and communicators, and the Five Classics took a long time to produce. In fact, it is more important to interpret this final result!
The above discussion shows that the Five Classics is a complex document and a compound product of long-term inheritance and development. However, one fact is extremely important-the Five Classics have a unified structure. No matter when the last book was written, no matter how long the development process is, and no matter who or a group of people combined a large number of historical narratives into the existing appearance, the most important focus is the last Five Classics. Even though the source of the Five Classics is complicated, isn't it important to achieve unity and connect all the parts creatively? The danger of literary criticism and analysis lies not in denying that the contents recorded in the Five Classics come from God, nor in denying the spiritual value of the Revelation in the Old Testament. The real danger is that when scholars ignore the integrity of the Five Classics and only pay attention to analysis, they will divide the Five Classics into unrelated pieces, and as a result, they will not really grasp the unified meaning that really exists inside.
The latest trend in the study of the Old Testament is to affirm the above facts more and more. Scholars admit that in the past, the study of the Old Testament only focused on historical analysis and the historical situation of a certain scripture in order to reconstruct its manuscript or pursue its dissemination process, while ignoring the study of the scripture and not interpreting the scripture itself. We can say that even if the proportion is not large, there are still many Old Testament studies that adopt the analysis method of historical evolution, and think that only by understanding the writing process of scripture can we correctly interpret the Bible; Unfortunately, most of the theories of these processes are just assumptions: in fact, only the existing scriptures are objective materials. In recent years, more and more research on the Old Testament has gradually changed its direction, turning to the analysis, description and evaluation of the scripture itself as the research goal, rather than using the scripture as a tool to trace back history. Another new development is Critique of Canon, which affirms that the status quo of Canon was established by the "belief group" in the past, so it focuses on the form and function of scripture in Canon. Scholars of this school pointed out an "alternative choice in the later period of critical research", which seriously considered the achievements of historical critical research, but at the same time studied the form of canon itself to find out what role this canon played in Israeli beliefs:
"... Israel learned their beliefs from the Torah, and the formation of the Five Classics became the basis of this understanding. For the editors of the Bible, the Five Classics is the cornerstone of the spiritual life of the Israelites, and it also provides an accurate norm. Through it, we can understand how the people who made the Covenant understood the tradition of Moses. 」
Therefore, the basic method and steps we use are to make the Five Classics appear in its present posture, because it is the last edition edited by the Israelis, and its content records the most creative era in their tradition, and also witnesses what God did for them in this era of patriarch and Moses.