Did Moses Sing? Perspectives on Deuteronomy 32
Based on current knowledge of how scribes worked in the ancient Near East…[Nilsen] proposes that there were groups of scribes in Jerusalem that produced literature in the late sixth-early fifth century or so, amongst them one Deuteronomistic group and one Isaianic group. Texts could cross boundaries between the groups (cf. e.g. Isa 36-39 and 2 Kings 19-20). The poem in Deut 32 is so similar to Isaiah 1; 56-66 that it is probable that the Isaianic group was its author. The poem then crossed the boundary of scribal groups, and was inserted into what we now call Deuteronomy 32, where it took on the role of “the song of Moses.”
See Also: The Origins of Deuteronomy 32: Intertextuality, Memory, Identity (Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers, 2018).
By Tina Dykesteen Nilsen
VID Specialized University, Stavanger, Norway
January 2019
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