Conservative treatment of introductory and critical issues surrounding the Pentateuch.  College and serious lay level.

Serious, scholarly, comprehensive guide to the critical study of the Pentateuch by a distinguished Roman Catholic scholar.

Our runaway favorite. Compositional analysis by a premier evangelical scholar. Clearly the most ambitious attempt to trace the textual and thematic strategy of the whole Pentateuch as a carefully constructed book. Details how narrative, poetry, and legal material are woven into a single literary fabric. Shows that the Pentateuch displays a twofold theological strategy which (a) looks forward into the eschatological future to the coming of a savior-king who will defeat Israel’s enemies and restore the blessing God originally intended for all humankind “in the last days,” and (b) demonstrates the failure of the Sinai covenant and engenders a hope in the coming of a New Covenant. The Pentateuch therefore initiates a point of view shared by the rest of the OT books and the NT.

Partially successful attempt by former Princeton professor and now UCC pastor to read the Pentateuch as an integrated story. Treats the Pentateuch as both a composite document (standard critical view) and a unified narrative, but focuses on the latter in order to delineate both the internal literary cohesiveness of larger units and the narrative integrity of the whole. Proceeds “book” by “book” through the Pentateuch, applying insights from literary/narrative analysis to the respective texts.

A short primer for individual or group study by a recognized Baptist professor. Provides an overview of the background, structure, movement, scope, and basic message of the Pentateuch. Introductory-level survey.

Responsible handling of the literary character, content, and message of the Pentateuch by a veteran Lutheran scholar. Helpful introductory chapters on how to read the Pentateuch, plus one chapter per pentateuchal “book” covering nature and origin, narrative structure and flow, and key themes and strategies. Lucid and engaging treatment, with many rich insights. Excellent survey of the main substance of the Pentateuch for college-level and up.

Although generally sympathetic with critical scholarship, this University of Sheffield professor departs from mainstream critical agendas to assert the legitimacy of treating the Pentateuch as a single literary work with a unifying theme plot. Discerns the shape of the Pentateuch as “a movement towards goals yet to be realized” (29) and sees the theme of the Pentateuch as “the partial fulfillment–which implies also the partial non-fulfillment–of the promise to or blessing of the patriarchs” anticipated in Genesis 1-11, consisting in posterity (Gen 12-50), divine-human relationship (Ex and Lev), and land (Num and Deut) (30).

Much like the WBC series (above), the Interpretation series “is written for those who teach, preach, and study the Bible in the community of faith.”  And like Mann, Miller achieves this objective admirably, with a slightly fuller discussion and a little more obvious engagement with contemporary scholarly research.  Both of these volumes are splendid models of how to “do commentary” in a way that encourages and informs the reading of Scripture, inspires and guides the walk of faith, and serves the life and mission of the Church.  Miller is at his best in putting penetrating insights in accessible language.  Readers will be especially blessed by a number of excursuses (e.g., theology of land, Moses the teacher, Moses as exemplary prophet) and by a fuller-than-average exposition of the Ten Commandments (on which the same author has produced a more recent volume of 477 pp.!).