Fredriksen (66-69) integrates source critical theory of Pentateuch with her overview of Jewish history as follows:

*Bible is a collection of texts of varying antiquity dating from ca 1000 to 2^nd c. BCE

*Not a history, or law code tout court, but rather preserves religious reflections by later

redactors and authors of events in life of their people.

*Babylonian exile in 586 traumatized and marked all subsequent Jewish thought and thus

left its mark on the Torah which was put into its final form only AFTER the return from the Babylonian exile; Hence Torah narrative is a dialectic of exile and return contingent on covenant between God and the people of Israel. All earlier tribal traditions about Creation, Abraham, patriarchs, exodus from Egypt, Sinai revelation originating in various times and places in Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel were recast in light of the national trauma. These editors incorporated their own religious reflections on theodicy into their history of the peoples’ origins and culture. And formed the material into a narrative unity-story of election by God of a people and his plans for all people. Retrojection of present into past. Historically anachronistic.

*Thus we must distinguish between the history of the BOOK and the Historical Events it refers to.

Jewish Bible as we have it bound together by common religious themes centering on

1.God’s intervention in the history of Israel

2.God’s demands/promises on Israel-Covenant

God is the central actor of the 5 books and thus was assumed to be its author.