Deuteronomy, Composition

​Originally, Deuteronomy presented itself as the torah, and even after its incorporation into the Pentateuch, it retains a distinct identity, which is why the Septuagint translates mishneh torah (Deuteronomy 17:18) as deuteronomium, “Second Torah.” At the same time, with the canonization of the Pentateuch, the role of the “second Torah” was claimed by: Jubilees, some Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, early Christians, and ultimately the rabbis, culminating in the composition of the Mishnah. A millennium later, Maimonides presented his Mishneh Torah as the (so-far) complete and final embodiment of that second revelation.

Hezekiah’s centralizing worship in Jerusalem, one altar for one God, failed in part because it created a spiritual vacuum for the average Judahite villager living far from the capital. Less than a century later, Deuteronomy revives the law, adding new provisions—a stipend for unemployed Levites, permission to slaughter animals outside the sacred precinct, and a requirement to make pilgrimage to the holy site three times a year—to address the law’s challenges.

Is editing and writing in the guise of Moses, Solomon, or Daniel a legitimate literary convention, justified because of the author’s inspired state? Or is this practice a form of deceit, even forgery?

Moses revises the account of why he appointed judges to oversee the Israelites, and the way the wars with the Amorites of the Transjordan were conducted. Examining the changes uncovers the ideological stances that motivated this revisionist history.

The festival calendar in Deuteronomy 16 began as a short revision of the calendar in Exodus 23. As it was expanded to clarify and adjust its details, it merged its springtime Matzot festival with the Pesach offering, which was originally connected to the consecration of firstborn animals.

The end of Deuteronomy recounts that at an age of one hundred and twenty Moses says he is no longer able/allowed to lead the people’s journey and will therefore not be carrying them on to cross the Jordan (Deuteronomy 31:2). According to other places in the Torah, however, Moses dies because of a sin – his or of the people.

The Book of Chronicles updates and reinterprets Deuteronomy’s court system.

Bewildered, Rashi asks: why does Deuteronomy record Aaron’s death at Moserah, not Mt. Hor as in Numbers? Also, why does this scene intrude in the middle of Moses’ description of his (second) forty-day stay upon Mount Horeb? Indeed, Rashi is picking up on an editorial insertion.

Deuteronomy, or Mishneh Torah, means “repetition of the law,” however, the author of Deuteronomy does not present the book as a repetition, but as the original revelation to Moses at Horeb, written down on the Plains of Moab.

Before the Five Books of Moses were compiled as a complete work, evidence from Deuteronomy as well as from Joshua and Kings shows that Deuteronomy itself was known as “the Torah.”