SOURCE: "Themes of the Pentateuchal Narratives" in The Pentateuch: A Study in Salvation History, Herder and Herder, 1964, pp. 22-100.

In this essay, Suelzer examines the themes that structure what he takes to be an essentially unified Torah.

Introduction

The partition of the Pentateuch into the individual books of Moses was a practical measure undertaken to render the massive work more manageable and intelligible. The essential unity of the work as a whole however was not impaired, for no matter what additions and redactions the Pentateuch underwent it ever retained a basic constant in the light of which disparate traditions were eliminated, adapted or transformed. That normative was the Hebrews' vital experience of Yahweh effecting his will for all men and for Israel in particular; hence the traditions chosen by the sacred writers for preservation in the Pentateuch are all aspects of the dominant thesis: Yahweh's salvific deeds and...