ABSTRACT
This chapter offers three alternative avenues of exploration that may provide scholars different directions worthy of pursuit in Pentateuchal study. It focuses on some fruitful recent research in biblical studies and on long neglected questions and issues. As John Barton has argued, the essence of biblical scholarship lies in the desire to make sense of the biblical texts, to determine how they 'hang together'. Smith, with reference to the monumental scholarship of Max Mller, reminds biblical exegetes that one of the most important tasks of the academic study of religion from its beginning has been the comparative project, and he rightly chides biblical scholars for having neglected this task. Smith goes on to urge biblical scholars to look at how different collections of sacred literatures the world over are formed and read over time. In other words, the oral-literate nexus in which ancient Israelite writers worked explains how biblical texts may be composed of 'multiple smaller segments of material'.
