George W. Coats – författare

These essays from the doyen of Moses studies focus on issues primarily in Pentatuchal/Hexateuchal research. The volume, containing several papers previously unpublished, forms a companion volume to Coats''s ''Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God''. Together the two volumes comprise the whole of Coats''s unique and wide-ranging investigations of the figure of Moses.

Dr Coats, widely recognized for his work over two decades on the Pentateuchal traditions, here presents us with his distinctive portrait of Moses. George Coats identifies two strands in the Moses tradition, the tradition of the hero who represents the people of God, and that of the ''man of God'', distinctly unheroic in folkloristic terms, who represents God to the people. This duality in the portrayal of Moses becomes evident already in the call narrative of Exodus 3, a narrative that should not be divided between J and E but reflects the most ancient perception of the character Moses and his significance.

Exodus 1-18, by George W. Coats, is Volume IIA of THE FORMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE, a series that aims to present a form-critical analysis of every book and each unit in the Hebrew Bible. Fundamentally exegetical,the FOTL volumes examine the structure, genre, setting, and intention of the biblical literature in question.They also study the history behind the form-critical discussion of the material, attempt to bring consistency tothe terminology for the genres and formulas of the biblical literature, and expose the exegetical process soas to enable students and pastors to engage in their own analysis and interpretation of the Old Testament texts. More than twenty-five years in preparation, this present study provides a form-critical analysis of the first eighteen chapters of the book of Exodus. Dividing his discussion between the Exodus and Moses traditions and the wilderness traditions, Coats examines each unit of the text of Exodus in turn, showing how the units' internal structures reveal the genre and social setting in which the book was written and what that setting and genre mean for proper interpretation. Illuminating to scholars and students alike, this volume will open up a new perspective on this important section of Scripture.

In the introduction to this volume, George Coats discusses narrative in general and the principal Old Testament narratives in particular. He then sets the book of Genesis in its larger Old Testament context, analyzing its major sections and subsections, and uses the succeeding chapters to treat each of the major sections individually.