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
Book of Exodus accept God as a cause of events, but in Exodus, everything is presented as the work of God, who appears frequently in person, and the historical setting is only very hazily sketched. The purpose of the book is not to record what really happened, but to reflect the historical experience of the exile community in Babylon and later Jerusalem, facing foreign captivity and the need to come to terms with their understanding of God. Although mythical elements are not so prominent in Exodus as in Genesis, ancient legends have an influence on the book's content: for example, the story of