The Opening of Devarim: Redaction Criticism and Modern Midrash

 Although I will be taking this point much further than the traditional commentators did, this change in narrative voice was noticed and discussed by the Medieval Jewish commentators as well. For an analysis of the use of this point by Ramban and Abarbanel, see: Yaakov Elman, “The Book of Deuteronomy as Revelation: Nahmanides and Abarbanel,” in Hazon Nahum: Studies in Jewish Law, Thought and History, Presented to Dr. Norman Lamm on the Occastion of His Seventieth Birthday (ed. Yaakov Elman and Jeffrey S. Gurock; New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1997), 229-250.

 I add this caveat since there are a number of contemporary Torah scholars who are excellent darshanim but who try and present their interpretations as an alternative to the modern academic model and as a defense of the traditional understanding of the composition of the Torah. See, for example: The Story of the Spies: The Contradictions between Shelach and Devarim by R. Elchanan Samet, Moshe’s Interpretation of the Torah by R. Yair Kahn, and The Differences Between Devarim and Earlier Accounts by R. Yonatan Grossman.