Deuteronomy is the “Fourth Gospel” of the Torah

As I've mentioned in other posts, I recently listened to the whole Torah read aloud over the course of a few days. I've continued on and am in the middle of Judges now, but it is the Torah of Moses that has occupied my meditations.

When you take it all in quickly, and especially when you listen to it (as the Israelites were commanded to do every seven years), it is clear that the Torah has three main parts: There's Genesis (a prologue of pre-Mosaic material, retold only partly through the Mosaic lens), there's "core Torah" (Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers), and there's Deuteronomy.

Setting Genesis to one side, the four books about Moses have a certain parallel to the four books about Jesus, with Deuteronomy standing apart from core Torah in much the same way that the Fourth Gospel stands apart from the Synoptics. In both cases, the greater literary and theological sophistication of the fourth book leads scholars to conclude that it is later and less authentic (Deuteronomy is generally held to be a forgery dating from the time of Josiah), and in both cases I question that judgment.

It is interesting to note that Jesus seems to have had a special affinity for Deuteronomy. In the story of Jesus' temptation by the devil (Matt. and Luke 4), Jesus shoots down each temptation by quoting Deuteronomy. When asked which was the greatest commandment (Matt. 22), he did not quote any of the famous Ten from Exodus but rather a passage from Deuteronomy. And of course when Jesus said, "had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me" (John 5:46), it was to Deuteronomy that he was referring.

If all we had was core Torah, it would be hard to justify the claim that Moses was a greater prophet than Muhammad. If Muhammad is sometimes criticized for his materialistic paradise of houris and gardens beneath which the rivers flow, the Torah knows nothing of Heaven and indeed promises no afterlife at all, only a literal land flowing with milk and honey on earth. Deuteronomy, though it still knows nothing of Heaven, introduces the indispensable doctrine of divine love, and it is this above all that makes Moses the man of God the greatest precursor to Jesus the Christ.

The Torah contains 13 references to man loving God. One is in Exodus (20:6), and all the rest are in Deuteronomy (5:10; 6:5; 7:9; 10:12; 11:1, 13, 22; 13:3; 19:9; 30:6, 16, 20).

The Torah contains 8 references to God loving man. Every one of them is in Deuteronomy (4:37; 7:7, 8, 13; 10:15, 18; 23:5; 33:3).