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.

Thank you. Episode 1.23, God's Historian.

With Deuteronomy, we finish the Torah, the five books attributed to Moses.

These books have been at the very centre of Jewish identity since at least Hellenistic times. In Christianity they hold a somewhat less exalted position,

coming well after the New Testament in Sanctity.

If you accept the traditional notion that Deuteronomy was the last book to have been composed by Moses,

and that it is all of a piece with Genesis through Numbers, much of Deuteronomy is baffling.

The story of Moses comes to an end in Numbers.

Moses impending death is confirmed.

The land of Canaan is allocated,

and Joshua is appointed his successor.

We look forward to the climax, the conquest.

But then Deuteronomy begins the story anew.

Deuteronomy differs in style, in terminology and in theology from the previous four books.

In those books, an anonymous narrator recounts the history of the world, then describes how God acts and speaks through Moses.

They are third-person narrative.

In Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers,

Israel receives all its laws from God at Mount Sinai.

God is described as living in the tabernacle,

enthroned on the winged cherubim,

his feet on the mercy seat that is the ark's golden cover.

...