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The Pentateuch, in the Core Biblical Studies series, will introduce the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It will combine a purely literary approach to reading the final form of the Pentateuch with a historical reading of the text. The literary approach will emphasize the structural role played by the so-called toledoth (generations) formulae that trace the history of humankind from Adam, through the ancestors of Israel, and finally to Moses and Aaron as the founders of Israel's priesthood. The historical reading of the text will challenge the older model of source analysis to argue instead for a model that traces the composition of the Pentateuch from its origins in northern Israel during the 9th-8th centuries B.