LAUSR

The Deuteronomic authors (D) include several references to the Israelites’ forty-year sojourn in the wilderness. Yet even where it can be shown that these writers depend upon source material for this tradition, they seek to recast its purpose, a process that also requires modification of particular story elements. Specifically, D transforms the extended wilderness sojourn from a period of punishment to one of preparation. In so doing, it eliminates the tradition of Israelite generation change during this time. Subsequent interpolations were introduced non-systematically into Deuteronomy in order to harmonize D’s views with those found elsewhere in the Pentateuch.