Deuteronomic Code - Dating and Authorship

Dating and Authorship

It is difficult to date the laws found in the Deuteronomic Code. Many of the laws can be found elsewhere in the Torah, and it is likely the Deuteronomistic author(s) were influenced by such laws. Biblical scholar Michael Coogan notes two examples, the Covenant Code and the Ritual Decalogue found in Exodus 20:22-23:33 and Exodus 34 respectively.

It is remarkable that Amos (c. 760 bce), Hosea (c. 750 bce), and the undisputed portions of Isaiah (Isaiah 1-39, c. 700 bce) show no certain traces of any influence from the Deuteronomic Code, or its style, while Jeremiah exhibits marks of these things on nearly every page, especially in his prose. The prophetic teachings, the leading theological ideas, and the principles which the author seeks to inculcate, exhibit many points of contact with that of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and especially with the characteristic principles of the compiler of the Book of Kings, who must have lived after the events described in that Book, or during the later ones. If the code had been composed between Isaiah and Jeremiah, these facts would be exactly accounted for.

It is for these reasons that the unanimous opinion of modern biblical criticism is that Deuteronomy is not the work of Moses, as is the traditionally held opinion, but that it was, in its main parts, written in the seventh century B.C., during the reign of Josiah. It is not difficult to realize the significance which the book must have had if it were written at this time. It would have formed a great protest against the prevalent tendencies of the age, a century, as Jeremiah readily testifies, in which religious viewpoints, other than that of centralised worship of Yahweh, was making serious encroachments in the Kingdom of Judah, associated with its decline. The Deuteronomic code thus may be described as the prophetic reformulation and adaptation to new needs of an older legislation, essentially the work not of a jurist or statesman, but of a prophet.

It should be noted, though, that traditionalists generally maintain that the Deuteronomic code was, indeed, the work of Moses. As regards the contention that the earlier books do not emphasize the centrality of the Temple worship in Jerusalem, those books primarily discuss the service in the desert Tabernacle. Nevertheless, Leviticus 17 clearly mandates a centralized venue of sacrifice. The similarity to the works of Jeremiah appears to be a result of the renewed interest in Deuteronomy during the reign of King Josiah, but with Jeremiah borrowing from the conventions of Deuteronomy - not the other way around.