Five stars. Filled with insight and scholarship. Sweeney uses multiple forms of exegetics and exerts expertise in both synchronic and diachronic analyses. We know, with a certainty, that although Wellhausen was wrong about the order, he clearly showed that the Pentateuch had multiple authors with different agendas--as Israel faced different threats--and the Scripture was modified by polemic agendas.

Professor Sweeney walks through the Tanak, using Form analysis and explicating each Book of the "foundation for Jewish life, identity, practice, and thought from antiquity through contemporary life". The five books of Torah, or "instructions", are in turn the foundation of the Tanak. Torah was "revealed to the nation Israel at Mount Sinai". The four books of the Nevi'im Rishonim, the Former Prophets, account for time under Joshua until the Babylonian exile. The eleven books of the Ketuvim, or Writings, address aspects of worship, expectations, history, expressions. They were included "to be an intentional dialogue" essential to understand Torah and themselves, in the Past, Present, and Future.

Professor Sweeney also draws upon Christian disciplines of Old Testament theology, historical and cultural contexts, and major theological and hermeneutical questions. The Professor provides a guide for continuing reflection and dialogue among all interpreters of sacred literature.

For example, by the 1900s in Germany, the Christians began to emerge from their schismatic obsessions. Even as to theTanak, Julius Wellhausen – 1889 -- observes that the logic and ordering of text in the Tanak fits patterns consistent with different authorship or sources. He sought to establish sequence and imposed chronologies over these segments. His categories are still in use today, although he was wrong about the order. Curiously, he gave great weight to differences in divine names, not as Holy names but as Sources using different names for G-d. Yet he himself indulged a change in the spelling of YHWH to JHWH because it was more convenient for his Teutonic pronunciation.

According to Wellhausen theory, the Elohim (“E”) narratives show a Deity with increased moral perception. E only speaks thru Angels or brush, to Israel elites from the tribe of Ephraim; high point of northern Israel, 8th cent. G-d The Jehovah narratives (“J”) are sourced in House of Judah – North -- but E source is Israel/ tribe dominated by tribe of Epraim. Jahweh ("J" or “Y” or YHWH) is associated with face-to-face relations and talking animals. An anthropomorphic god, sourced in Judah. The Priestly source, (“P”) is associated with King Josiah, a Davidian monarch, pious, who sought the independence of Israel from Assyria, and started religious reforms and temple renovation. The relationship with god is not face-to-face, nor mediated by angels, but by a priesthood. Wellhausen could connect 7th century BCE with Josiah and the Babylonian exile. He found the polemic Priestly portions.

Once the polemics are found, then the shifts start to become more clear. And of course, the next stage is the Maimonidean -- hidden styles of writing which conceal truth. And this hidden Truth emerges: There is No God (he has No Name), but what is within us. We need a Religion better than what has served us in the past in order to unite the people and empower Justice. The point of Religion is to raise the level of conduct of ourselves and our leaders. I studied this book while experiencing the tragic spectacle of the Election of 2016.

OK, this last paragraph is not expressly stated in this text; it is my own "fuller reading" of this rich guide to Sacred Text. ( )