The Pentateuch - My Approach

If Gilgamesh was daunting, then attempting to read and review the first five books of the Bible is -- well -- formidable doesn't even express it. I therefore acknowledge at the start of this post that I am bound to make some fundamental errors and that many others know this subject much much better than I. This post represents only my first fumbling attempts to make sense of what I read. I had also better say at the outset that I am neither Jewish nor Christian nor Moslem, and I hope I don't give offense to those for whom this text is a holy text.

My approach therefore is a secular one, considering this work as an historical cultural text text. My mother, who converted to Catholicism, says that the Catholic Church suggests that works of religion are to be read on four levels (my paraphrase from our conversations - again, I'm not a theologian!):

1. literal - what happened, to whom, when, where etc.
   
2. moral - what does the text teach us about how to live
   
3. allegorical - what do the characters in the text and the way they behave represent in terms of spiritual life
   
4. contemplative - a meditative reading in which the text is taken into the soul and its higher meaning revealed

I am not going to follow this because my aim is not a spiritual understanding, but others might find it interesting or wish to comment in that vein.

Now alternatively, this article suggests an approach to reading philosophy which stresses evaluating it for the strength of its argument and its logical flaws. This approach would seem to me to suck the marrow right out of a really meaningful text, and I just can't believe it would really be appropriate with such a text. I mean, can I answer the question: What evidence does Moses bring to support the idea that the Jews deserve to live in Canaan and expel its original occupants without missing the point of this text? Well, maybe it would be fruitful, what do I know.

Still, I am going to consider the following:

1. context - when was this text written and by whom (as far as we know)
2. literal and moral messages of the text, main characters and events, etc
   
3. reflection on the rhetorical purpose of the text

Have to go now so this will be continued