III. Authorship, Composition, Date

The date, composition, and authorship of Deuteronomy have been moot issues for over a hundred years. The best approach must involve a consideration of critical data and appropriate presuppositions about the text as Scripture.

Deuteronomy seems to have reached substantially its present form during the middle to late period of the United Monarchy, with some later editing. The book reports the words of Moses in a dynamic way that preserves their significance for the Israelite community at that time and for subsequent communities of God’s people (cf. Craigie, 29, n. 31).