ABSTRACT

Most scholars agree with Halpern’s general point, that biblical authors often used written and oral sources. There is less agreement on, or even discussion of, how we may know that a particular unit is based on extant written sources. I would suggest that in order to demonstrate that historian A has reworked a composition of historian B, two things must be shown: that A is later than B and that A knew the work of B. The first can be demonstrated using the standard canons of biblical scholarship; the second depends on noting sufficient unusual terminology that is common to the two texts. Both of these criteria are fulfilled in certain texts in the introductory chapters of Deuteronomy which reflect a reworking of narrative material of JE.3