The Making of the Pentateuch Pentateuchal origins the composition and dates of the first five books of the Old Testament. In the closing decades of the 19th century Julius Wellhausen published "Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels", in which he had set out the definitive version of the historical development of the Hebrew bible. According to this hypothesis, the Pentateuch Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy was originally four separate documents, retelling the same episodes and stories, but with differing emphases designed to further the theological and political agendas of their authors. Their combination by a Redactor (editor) into a single narrative spread over five books had
Old Saxon Genesis Old Saxon Genesis Genesis is an Old Saxon Biblical poem recounting the story of the Book of Genesis, dating to the first half of the 9th century, three fragments of which are preserved in a manuscript in the Vatican Library, "Palatinus Latinus" 1447. It and the "Heliand", a heroic poem based on the New Testament, a fragment of which is also included in the same manuscript, constitute the only record of Old Saxon poetry. It is also the basis of the Anglo-Saxon poem known as "Genesis B", and Eduard Sievers postulated its existence on linguistic evidence before the manuscript was