Editing Martin Noth (section)

==Influence==
Noth first attracted widespread attention with "Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels" ("The Scheme of the Twelve Tribes of Israel", 1930), positing that the [[Twelve Tribes of Israel]] did not exist prior to the covenant assembly at [[Shechem]] described in the [[Book of Joshua]].

"A History of Pentateuchal Traditions" (1948, English translation 1972) set out a new model for the composition of the  [[Torah|Pentateuch, or Torah]]. Noth supplemented<ref name="Oxford">Cross, F. L., ed. ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005</ref> the dominant model of the time, the [[documentary hypothesis]], seeing the [[Pentateuch]] as composed of blocks of traditional material accreted round some key historical experiences. He identified these experiences as "Guidance out of Egypt", "Guidance into the Arable Land", "Promise to the Patriarchs", "Guidance in the Wilderness" and "Revelation at Sinai", the details of the narrative serving to fill out the thematic outline. Later, [[Robert Polzin]] showed that some of his main conclusions were consistent with arbitrary or inconsistent use of the rules that he proposed.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Polzin |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Polzin |title=Martin Noth's A History of Pentateuchal Traditions |journal=Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research |issue=221 |pages=113–120 |publisher=The American Schools of Oriental Research  |url=http://www.jcu.edu/BIBLE/200/Readings/Polzin_NothHistoryPentateuchalTraditions.pdf |year=1976 |doi=10.2307/1356091 |jstor=1356091 |s2cid=53451334 |access-date=2009-07-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100601220715/http://www.jcu.edu/BIBLE/200/Readings/Polzin_NothHistoryPentateuchalTraditions.pdf |archive-date=2010-06-01}}</ref>

Even more revolutionary and influential, and quite reorienting the emphasis of modern scholarship, was ''The Deuteronomistic History''. In this work, Noth argued that the earlier theory of several [[Deuteronomist]] redactions of the books from [[Book of Joshua|Joshua]] to [[Books of Kings|Kings]] did not explain the facts, and instead proposed that they formed a unified "Deuteronomic history",<ref name=judaica>{{cite encyclopedia |contribution=Noth, Martin |contribution-url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_14927.html |via=[[Jewish Virtual Library]] |access-date=17 April 2015 |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopedia Judaica]] |date=2008 |author=Michael V. Fox}}</ref> the product of a single author working in the late 7th century.

Noth also published commentaries on all the five books of the Pentateuch: [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]], [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]], [[Leviticus]], [[book of Numbers|Numbers]], and [[Deuteronomy]]. Noth considered that the book of Deuteronomy was more closely related to the following books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings (''The Deuteronomistic History'').<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.crivoice.org/hexateuch.html|title=Hexateuch, Tetrateuch, and the Deuteronomic History|website=www.crivoice.org}}</ref> This theory is widely accepted today, and provides the framework for current research on the historical books of the Old Testament.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hill|first=Andrew E.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/309916553|title=A survey of the Old Testament|date=2009|others=John H. Walton|isbn=978-0-310-28095-8|edition=3rd|location=Grand Rapids, Mich.|oclc=309916553}}</ref>