ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the editorial policy evident in the canonization of the Hebrew Pentateuch, as well as the various traditions in Jewish law and lore that grew out of the circumstances surrounding this canonization. It shows that some of the problems that trouble the modern critical scholar were already known to the very people responsible for canonization itself. The book outlines the opportunities for theological advancement that present themselves once it has been concluded that the prophetic sponsors of the sacred word, at the very time of its canonization, were aware of maculations in the text. Traditional sources dating back to the time of canonization itself seem already to have struggled with the insufficiency of the Pentateuch’s literal surface, searching the text for hidden meanings and mining the tradition for corrective oral law.
