Book of Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy isn't really a story, but a very large and inspiring speech about the Promised Land as well as a sort of a list of silly laws (along with Leviticus) that some Israelites wrote back in the day. It ties with the Book of Revelation and Genesis as the craziest shizznit in the whole Bible. It is also the oldest book in the Torah, having been first compiled in abbreviated form under King Josiah, and one of the oldest parts of the Bible (though the Song of Deborah in Judges is older).

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The Hebrew name is דְּבָרִים devarim — literally things — in Hebrew, the books of the Torah are all named after their first words (technically this is an incipit rather than a title). The English title comes from the Greek deuteronomion (via Latin deuteronomium), meaning "second law," deriving from a Septuagint mistranslation of chapter 17 verse 18.

Deuteronomy has some pretty interesting laws. Among these are:

  • The death penalty as a punishment for apostasy from Yahwism.
  • A limit of six years on holding people as slaves (but only if the other person is a Hebrew)
  • A call for genocide against the Amalekites (amongst many others).
  • The restriction against wearing fabric that is interwoven with wool and linen.
  • Telling women not to kick men in the balls.
  • Not letting castrated men enter Israel.
  • Banning anybody who happens to have a bastard in their 2,000 most recent ancestors from heaven

In summary, Deuteronomy contains a lot of the crazy stuff that makes modern, sensible humans want to slap a baby out of frustration. But near the end of the book God says, I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live which affirms that the Israelites do have free will and they are not predestined for destruction, if they so choose. This is completely repudiated by Calvinism.

Spoiler alert: Moses dies at the end.

Moses, who ultra-traditionalist Jews and Christians alike insist is the sole author of all five books in the Pentateuch, manages to describe his own death in chapter 34, and asserts, somewhat bizarrely, that his tomb has been lost, "So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." Martin Luther credited the prologue and epilogue of Deuteronomy to Joshua, son of Nun.[1]

Pulled out of Josiah's nether regions?

Deuteronomy may be the earliest example of an "ancient" holy book that was "conveniently discovered" by a later proselytizer.

From 2 Kings 22:8 and again from 2 Chronicles 34:14, we are given an account of a "book of the law" that was discovered in the Temple, which had gone completely unnoticed by all the previous generations. Many modern scholars believe that this refers to the book of Deuteronomy. Conveniently, the commandments laid out in this newly discovered book — supposedly authored by Moses himself — corresponded almost exactly to the sweeping reforms Josiah wanted to impose on the Kingdom of Judah. [citation needed]

Interestingly, if the words of Hosea are anything to go by, many of the reforms seem to correspond to precepts mostly held among the people of the Kingdom of Israel to the north (where Hosea had performed his prophecy), which Assyria had recently desolated for its rebellion. Many refugees made their way into Judah's upper class, and were responsible for placing Josiah on the throne after Amon was murdered. Meanwhile, Isaiah, an earlier, pre-refugees prophet of Judah, never made any mention of Deuteronomy-style covenants, or for that matter the Exodus. The important part is that whereas Israel had been monolatrous, Judah was still henotheistic, willing to give a measure of honor to divinities besides still-the-foremost YHWH. The upper-class refugees apparently couldn't have that, and since Josiah probably felt indebted to them, and may have wanted their support anyway to help kick away the remaining influence of Assyria.

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gollark: Except you're also now lugging around the weight of the batteries and motors.
gollark: Pedals are uncool.
gollark: So if you have a set of electric cars with small batteries - enough to travel within a city and near it - available for rent, and you don't suffer too much overhead from having to rent them out, that could conceivably be a good method of transport.
gollark: Electric cars are expensive *partly* because they need batteries for hundred-mile journeys, even though most actually won't be this long. And cars are kind of inefficient because most of the time they're left idling.

See also
  • Actions which demand the death penalty in the Old Testament
  • List of actions prohibited by the bible
  • RationalWiki:Annotated Bible/Deuteronomy

References
  1. Garrett, Don (1996). The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521398657. p. 387.
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