Rolf Rendtorff subjects, but was notable chiefly for his 1977 book, "Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch" ("The Problem of the Transmission of the Pentateuch"). The book was a study of the question of Pentateuchal origins (the question of how the first five books of the bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Book of Numbers and Deuteronomy – came to be written), and appeared at the same time as two other important books, John Van Seters' "Abraham in History and Tradition" (1975), and Hans Heinrich Schmid's "Der sogenannte Jahwist" ("The So-called Yahwist") (1976). The three studies, appearing almost together, inaugurated a heated discussion in
On the Reliability of the Old Testament 10. On the Reliability of the Old Testament On the Reliability of the Old Testament (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids and Cambridge,2003: ) is a book by British Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen (1932-). The book provides the reader with "the most sweeping scholarly case in a generation for the traditional beliefs held by Orthodox Jews and Christian conservatives", according to Richard Ostling. The book was intended to serve as a counterpart to F.F. Bruce's "Are the New Testament Documents Reliable?" (1943), and in so doing to counter the arguments of Biblical minimalism, which casts doubt upon the historical value