Hello, I'm Gary Stevens, and welcome to the History in the Bible podcast.

All the history, in all the books, in all the Bibles. Episode 1.21. Moses farewells his people.

In the last episode, we left the Book of Numbers and the Israelites on the verge of entering the promised land of Canaan.

But before the conquest, Moses spends the entire book of Deuteronomy on a valediction.

Deuteronomy is the fifth and final book of the Torah, the Pentateuch.

It is also known as Mishnah Torah, copy of the teaching, because the heart of

the book, chapters 12 to 26, are a great law code. The authors of the Septuagint translated that as

Deuteronomous, Second Law. Scrolls of Deuteronomy are amongst the most popular found in the Dead Sea Scrolls,

ranking just after the Psalms.

Although the book is attributed to Moses,

we have very good reasons for thinking that it was composed in the last century of the Kingdom of Judah.

The authors, we think, were religious reforms,

writing during the reigns of King's Hezekiah and Josiah,

determined to centralise all worship on Jerusalem.

I'll explore that idea in detail in later episodes.

Deuteronomy is set in the Israelite encampment on the plains of Moab.

The people are poised to enter Canaan 40 years after leaving Egypt.

Before he dies, Moses addresses his people one last time in three great speeches of a length that would have given Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez pause.

But unlike their ramblings, the speeches of Moses are especially touching.

Moses knows that the Israelites will conquer, and he also knows that he will never be part of that conquest.

In the middle of his second speech, a full 14 chapters, Moses lays out the final great law code of the Pentateuch.

It is thought that this legal code is the earliest part of the book.

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