Irenaeus on Deuteronomy Being an Addition to the Tetrateuch

[Secret Alias]

From Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (and there are many parallels in Jewish tradition):

When the forty years were fulfilled, the people drew near to the Jordan, and were assembled and arrayed over against Jericho. Here Moses gathered the people together, and summed up all afresh, proclaiming the mighty works of God even unto that day, fashioning and preparing those that had grown up in the wilderness to fear God and keep His commandments, imposing on them as it were a new legislation, adding to that which was made before. And this was called Deuteronomy:82 and in it were written many prophecies concerning our Lord Jesus Christ and concerning the people, and also concerning the calling of the Gentiles and concerning the kingdom.

Against Gmirkin, there needs to be time for Deuteronomy to be written by a secondary author in any reconstruction of "how the Pentateuch was written." You need a second author for this second Law.

[rgprice]

I think Gmirkin would say that his theory accounts for this. He has multiple authors writing simultaneously adn working from some course set of source material.

However, I tend to agree that Deuteronomy was written after the core of the Pentateuch and is a later addition. As I think I've laid out here, I think Genesis 2:4-11 was written by the same person who wrote Deuteronomy. Both of these texts were added after the fact. The fact that nothing from Genesis 2:4-11 is referenced anywhere else in the Pentateuch, in spite of many places were it would be relevant, is strong indication that its a later addition. Material from Gen 1 is references and Gen 12, but nothing from 2-11, in spite of this being one of the richest narrative sections of the entire Pentateuch. But in addition, unique language is used in Gen 2-11 that is only otherwise found in Deuteronomy.

[Secret Alias]

I can only tell you what native Hebrew speakers, my friends in the Samaritan community think. Officially, Deuteronomy is understood to be written by Moses. Unofficially Samaritan native speakers who attended modern universities know this is bullshit. The Hebrew is completely different. It was written by someone else. I don't think it has anything to do with Genesis. This was a second law written by someone for a specific doctrinal purpose generations after the Tetrateuch was written. No one wants to "believe" this. This isn't part of a "plot" or a conspiracy of believers. In fact these are the kinds of people that WOULD WANT to believe that Deuteronomy was, like Gmirkin's theory, was written at the same time as rest of the Pentateuch. But because of the intellectual integrity of the people involved in the transmission of these texts they have to stop and say "hey, no way this is the same author."

Now it can be argued that Irenaeus has a vested interest in accepting (a) the secondary writing of Deuteronomy and (2) Ezra's "resurrection" of the Pentateuch because he's a radical spiritualist who's trying to demonstrate a previous literary composition composed by means of the Holy Spirit.