The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch (Oxford Handbooks) 0198726309, 9780198726302

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T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f

T H E PE N TAT EUC H

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The Oxford Handbook of

THE PENTATEUCH Edited by

JOEL S. BADEN and

JEFFREY STACKERT

1

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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2021 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2021 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020946581 ISBN 978–0–19–872630–2 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, cr0 4yy Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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Acknowledgments

Like so many projects of its nature, The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch was one long in the making. We wish to express our gratitude to the many who have contributed to its completion. We are very grateful to the volume’s authors for their outstanding art­icles. We would also like to thank our student assistants, Ms Aurélie Bischofberger, Ms Abi Mason, and Mr David Ridge, whose keen attention to editorial details significantly improved this book. Thanks are also due to the editorial staff at Oxford University Press and, in particular, Mr Tom Perridge and Ms Karen Raith, for their patience and steady guidance throughout the process of the volume’s preparation. Finally, we would like to ac­know­ledge the support of our home institutions, Yale Divinity School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.

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Contents

Abbreviationsxi List of Contributorsxv

1. Introduction: Convergences and Divergences in Contemporary Pentateuchal Research

1

Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert

PA RT I   T E X T A N D E A R LY R E C E P T ION 2. The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon

23

Olivier Artus

3. The Text of the Pentateuch

41

Sidnie White Crawford

4. The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism

61

John J. Collins

5. The Relevance of Moses Traditions in the Second Temple Period

79

Molly M. Zahn

6. The Pentateuch and the Samaritans

95

Magnar Kartveit

7. The Greek Translation of the Pentateuch

111

Cécile Dogniez

PA RT I I   T H E F OR M AT ION OF T H E   P E N TAT E U C H 8. The Beginnings of a Critical Reading of the Pentateuch

135

Jean-Louis Ska

9. The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School Rudolf Smend

143

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viii   contents

10. The Documentary Hypothesis

165

Baruch J. Schwartz

11. Form and Tradition Criticism

188

Thomas B. Dozeman

12. Defining and Identifying Secondary Layers

208

Reinhard G. Kratz

13. Positions on Redaction

237

Reinhard Müller

14. The Priestly Writing(s): Scope and Nature

255

Jakob Wöhrle

15. The Place of Deuteronomy in the Formation of the Pentateuch

276

Udo Rüterswörden

16. The Relationship of the Legal Codes

297

Jeffrey Stackert

17. The Identification of Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch

315

Frank Polak

18. The Identification of Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch

345

Rainer Albertz

PA RT I I I   T H E P E N TAT E U C H I N I T S S O C IA L   WOR L D 19. The Genres of the Pentateuch and Their Social Settings

363

Angela Roskop Erisman

20. Ancient Near Eastern Literature and the Pentateuch

379

David P. Wright

21. The Pentateuch: Archaeology and History

399

Israel Finkelstein

22. Pentateuchal and Ancient Near Eastern Ritual Yitzhaq Feder

421

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contents   ix

23. The Imperial Context of the Pentateuch

443

Mark G. Brett

24. The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch

463

Reinhard Achenbach

25. The Pentateuch as (/and) Social Memory of “Israel” in the Late Persian Period

484

Ehud Ben Zvi

26. The Pentateuch as “Torah”

506

James W. Watts

Reference Index Subject Index

525 555

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Abbreviations

AASF AASOR AB ABRL AnBib AOAT AoF ArOr ASOR ATANT ATD BA BASOR BBB BBET BBR BCH BEATAJ BETL BHQ Bib BibInt BibOr BIOSCS BJS BK BKAT BN BO BWA(N)T BZABR

Annales Academiae scientiarum fennicae Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research Anchor (Yale) Bible Anchor (Yale) Bible Reference Library Analecta biblica Alter Orient und Altes Testament Altorientalische Forschungen Archiv Orientální American Schools of Oriental Research Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Das Alte Testament Deutsch Biblical Archaeologist Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bonner Biblische Beiträge Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie Bulletin for Biblical Research Bulletin de correspondance hellénique Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Judentum Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Biblia Hebraica Quinta Biblica Biblical Interpretation Biblica et orientalia Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Brown Judaic Studies Bibel und Kirche Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament. Edited by M. Noth and H. W. Wolff Biblische Notizen Bibliotheca orientalis Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten (und Neuen) Testament Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte

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xii   abbreviations BZAW CahRB CBET CBQ CHANE CSCO DBAT DJD DSD DtrH EHAT EncJud ER ErIsr EvT FAT FB FOTL FRLANT FZPhTh GAT HACL HAT HBAI HBS Hen HS HSM HSS HTKAT HTR HUCA IEJ Int JAJ JANER JANESCU JAOS JBL JCS

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Cahiers de la Revue biblique Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology Catholic Biblical Quarterly Culture and History of the Ancient Near East Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium. Edited by I. B. Chabot et al. Paris, 1903– Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament und seiner Rezeption in der Alten Kirche Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Dead Sea Discoveries Deuteronomistic History Exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament Encyclopaedia Judaica. 16 vols. Jerusalem, 1972 The Encyclopedia of Religion. Edited by M. Eliade. 16 vols. New York, 1987 Eretz-Israel Evangelische Theologie Forschungen zum Alten Testament Forschung zur Bibel Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie Grundrisse zum Alten Testament History, Archaeology, and Culture of the Levant Handbuch zum Alten Testament Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel Herders biblische Studien Henoch Hebrew Studies Harvard Semitic Monographs Harvard Semitic Studies Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Israel Exploration Journal Interpretation Journal of Ancient Judaism Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Cuneiform Studies

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abbreviations   xiii JHS JJS JNES JNSL JPOS JQR JSHRZ JSJ JSOT JSOTSup JSS JTS Jud LD LHBOTS MARI MdB OBO ÖBS OLA OTL Proof PVTG QD RB RevQ RGG RlA RSR SAA SBAB SBL SBLABS SBLAIL SBLDS SBLEJL SBLRBS SBLSCS SBLSymS SBLWAW SBS

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society Jewish Quarterly Review Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies Judaica Lectio divina The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies Mari: Annales de recherches interdisciplinaires Le Monde de la Bible Orbis biblicus et orientalis Österreichische biblische Studien Orientalia lovaniensia analecta Old Testament Library Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti Graece Quaestiones disputatae Revue biblique Revue de Qumran Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Edited by K. Galling. 7 vols. 3rd ed. Tübingen, 1957–1965 Reallexikon der Assyriologie. Edited by Erich Ebeling et al. Berlin, 1928– Recherches de science religieuse State Archives of Assyria Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände Society of Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Archaeology and Biblical Studies Society of Biblical Literature Ancient Israel and Its Literature Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and Its Literature Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World Stuttgarter Bibelstudien

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xiv   abbreviations SC SemeiaSt SSN STDJ StPB TA TAD

Sources chrétiennes. Paris: Cerf, 1943– Semeia Studies Studia semitica neerlandica Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Studia post-biblica Tel Aviv Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancien Egypt, ed. by Bezael Porten and Ada Jardeni, 4 volumes, Jerusalem:, 1986–1999. TB Theologische Bücherei: Neudrucke und Berichte aus dem 20. Jahrhundert TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich. Translated by G. W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids, MI, 1964–1976 TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren. Translated by J. T. Willis, G. W. Bromiley, and D. E. Green. 16 vols. Grand Rapids, MI, 1974–2018 Text Textus TRE Theologische Realenzyklopädie. Edited by G. Krause and G. Müller. Berlin, 1977– TRu Theologische Rundschau TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum TSK Theologische Studien und Kritiken TynBul Tyndale Bulletin TZ Theologische Zeitschrift UF Ugarit-Forschungen UTB Uni-Taschenbücher VT Vetus Testamentum VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum WD Wort und Dienst WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament WO Die Welt des Orients WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament ZA Zeitschrift für Assyriologie ZABR Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtgeschichte ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ZBK Zürcher Bibelkommentare ZDPV Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

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List of Contributors

Reinhard Achenbach is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Münster. Rainer Albertz is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at the University of Münster. Olivier Artus is Rector of Lyon Catholic University. Joel S. Baden is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale University. Ehud Ben Zvi is Professor Emeritus of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. Mark G. Brett is Professor of Old Testament at Whitley College, University of Divinity. John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University. Cécile Dogniez  is Dr. HDR Honorary Researcher at the UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée (CNRS / Paris-Sorbonne). Thomas B. Dozeman is Professor of Old Testament at United Theological Seminary. Angela Roskop Erisman is Regional Director and Associate Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Yitzhaq Feder is Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at the University of Haifa. Israel Finkelstein is Professor Emeritus of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University. Magnar Kartveit is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at VID Specialized University, Stavanger, Norway. Reinhard G. Kratz is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Göttingen. Reinhard Müller is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Göttingen. Frank Polak is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Tel Aviv University. Udo Rüterswörden is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Bonn. Baruch  J.  Schwartz  is A.  M.  Shlansky Associate Professor of Biblical History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jean-Louis Ska  is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Exegesis at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.

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xvi   list of contributors Rudolf Smend is Professor Emeritus of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at the University of Göttingen. Jeffrey Stackert is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Chicago. James W. Watts is Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. Sidnie White Crawford is Professor Emerita at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Jakob Wöhrle is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Tübingen. David P. Wright is Professor of Bible and Ancient Near East at Brandeis University. Molly M. Zahn is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas.

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Chapter 1

I n troduction: Con v ergence s a n d Di v ergence s i n Con tempor a ry Pen tateuch a l R ese a rch Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert

Introduction The field of pentateuchal studies continues to witness an impressive volume of ­scholarly productivity, activity that underscores the vibrancy of this area of academic research. Given this robust interest, it is unsurprising that diverse perspectives, approaches, and foci are represented in current scholarship. In part this is a feature of sub-­specialization within biblical studies itself: it is possible, for example, to direct one’s research only to questions of linguistic analysis or textual criticism or reception history—across the texts or even within a single language, manuscript, or interpretive tradition. Such specialization is a welcome feature of pentateuchal studies. Yet as we will discuss below, and as the various essays across this collection demonstrate, there are also relatively well-­endorsed and identifiable lines of inquiry that feature in contemporary pentateuchal research, especially with respect to the issue of compositional history—an issue that has preoccupied the field over the past two centuries and one that has implications for almost all literary and historical analysis of the Pentateuch. On the basis of such recognizable trajectories of scholarship, some have identified alternative “models” within pentateuchal studies. The first and more prominent of these approaches may be characterized, in broad terms, as transmission-­historical, and

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2   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert though there is hardly a single profile for this approach, in its present practice it is primarily redaction-­critical. Transmission-­historical scholarship typically reconstructs a long, multistaged history of literary composition and transmission, beginning with shorter, internally cohesive compositions—sometimes very brief, sometimes longer— and tracing their agglutinative growth over time, ending with the pentateuchal ­text-­types identifiable in the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts and ancient translations. The second and less prominent contemporary approach is what has been termed Neo-­ Documentarian: it self-­styles as a revision of nineteenth- and early twentieth-­century scholarship and seeks to reground the Documentary Hypothesis of that era by offering a more circumscribed and defensible source analysis. In so doing, it argues that the bulk of the Pentateuch results from the combination of four originally independent literary compositions (in the order of their initial appearance in the text: P, J, E, and D) in a single compilational process. Yet even as Neo-­Documentarian scholarship focuses especially on the compilation of the Pentateuch and the shape of the pentateuchal sources immediately prior to their compilation, it also acknowledges and, to the extent possible, identifies growth in these documentary sources prior to their combination in the Pentateuch and additions to the Pentateuch after its compilation (Baden 2012). It has become increasingly common for representatives of these two approaches to frame their discussions by contrasting them with research featuring the other identifiable approach. This consolidation of the field and framing of its discussion represent a sort of convergence in contemporary pentateuchal research. Readers of the contributions to this volume will occasionally observe sharp distinctions drawn, for instance, between scholars who endorse a documentary analysis of the Pentateuch and those who do not—or do so only in part. Strongly articulated distinctions can give the impression that pentateuchal studies is a field riven with factions and divisiveness (Gertz et al. 2016). Yet even as real and fundamental disagreements persist, focusing too narrowly on scholars’ disagreements risks overlooking the important lines of convergence that also exist among them. This is not least because, as this volume’s essays attest and as we will discuss further below, the issues salient to the study of the Pentateuch are not all composition-­historical (or only composition-­historical). Newer developments in the broader field of biblical studies are also impacting pentateuchal studies in ways that are opening up new possibilities for its future. For example, research that applies the theorization and methods of literary studies, gender studies, memory studies, ritual studies, diaspora studies, translation studies, linguistics, and other fields are yielding important new insights into the history, meaning, and reception of pentateuchal texts. Such new approaches are in many cases being combined productively with more established research trajectories; they are also offering important correctives to existing research. The contributions of these newer approaches highlight and add to a set of circumstances that has long existed: the lines of both convergence and divergence that exist in pentateuchal studies, whether concerning method or particular content, frequently cut across identifiable divisions in the field, including (and especially) in the area of compositional history.

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Introduction   3 In what follows, we will lay out in broad terms both the most salient points of agreement among contemporary pentateuchal scholars as well as points of persistent disagreement. At the same time, we recognize that pentateuchal studies as a field is experiencing salutary growth and development that, in some ways, challenge this characterization. Moreover, even within areas of convergence, as we will point out, differences remain. The snapshot offered here is meant as an overview of the recognizable contours of the field; as such, it also serves as an introduction to the essays in this handbook.

Convergences Compositional History as a Fundamental Question A starting point for identifying specific points of convergence in contemporary pentateuchal studies is the recognition that an overwhelming majority of scholars agree on a basic set of observations and a general explanation for them. Regardless of the specific solutions they propose, modern critical scholars acknowledge that pentateuchal texts brim with literary discrepancies, including conflicting historical claims, duplications, narrative discontinuities, inconsistent characterizations, and legal and theological contradictions, and that the Pentateuch itself does not adequately account for these discrepancies. These internal discrepancies lead modern pentateuchal scholars to a shared conclusion: the Pentateuch is the product of multiple authors and a process of textual combination and growth over time. Thus regardless of what other concerns scholars may pursue in their interpretation of individual texts, reconstructing their compositional histories regularly plays a central role in pentateuchal research. Contemporary scholars also share a common aim as they identify the smaller, once distinct parts that the Pentateuch comprises. That is, in response to the literary discrepancies encountered, scholars seek to reconstruct shorter, internally cohesive compositions—sometimes very brief, sometimes longer, up to and including documents that span from Genesis to Deuteronomy (and even beyond) and that include portions of some or all of these scrolls. This common procedure stems from the coherence that scholars achieve when reading portions of the Pentateuch as apparently unified compositions, beginning at the level of small phrases and building up to sentences, paragraphs, and longer units. Where scholars diverge, even in their pursuit of this common aim, is in their de­ter­ min­ation of what constitutes internal cohesion and thus unified composition. As will be discussed in greater detail below, the alternative compositional theories that scholars then generate result directly from the size of the units deemed literary unities and the relations that are drawn between and among them. Thus, for example, when Rolf Rendtorff (building especially on the 1972 dissertation of Rainer Kessler, published in

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4   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert 2015) famously diagnosed a fundamental opposition between documentary analysis, on the one hand, and form-­critical and tradition-­historical analysis, on the other, it was based on his identification of “the smallest literary unit” and his inability to connect those smaller units into longer running literary documents (Rendtorff 1990, 178–181). Yet the claim that the form critic or tradition historian begins from small pieces and builds to longer ones while the documentarian starts with the compiled text and then divides it only into a limited number of smaller units is also inaccurate, even if it reflects in some respects the field’s self-­description of its work. The reading process dictates that all critics begin with a textual whole that they break down into smaller literary units; these small units, in turn, become the parts from which scholars build longer ones, as their determinations of internal consistency and continuity permit (cf. Eissfeldt 1962; Hendel 2017, 253–255).

The Importance of Textual History As noted already, some pentateuchal scholarship focuses on textual history alone. Yet scholars of the Pentateuch regularly affirm, whether explicitly and simply through their research practice, that any serious study of its contents requires attending closely to its textual history. This is because the textual evidence makes clear that there is no single Pentateuch; there are only competing editions and differently preserved manuscripts of this text (and its ancient translations), a scenario with potential implications for virtually all research questions posed. The task of pentateuchal textual analysis is greatly aided—and its importance underscored—by the Qumran manuscripts of its texts as well as other, related texts from the Judean Desert (e.g. the Temple Scroll, Jubilees, and the Genesis Apocryphon). Such analysis has also been complicated by the “Reworked Pentateuch” texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. These manuscripts, once understood as examples of a so-­called “rewritten Scripture” genre, have been reanalyzed by some scholars as exemplars of the Pentateuch itself rather than derivative, interpretive compositions (Zahn 2011; Crawford 2016). The significance of textual analysis has thus only become greater in recent decades, taking its place alongside compositional history as a leading feature of contemporary research.

Pentateuchal Compositions as Political Allegories Alongside and accompanying the common conviction that the Pentateuch is a composite text, contemporary scholars largely agree on what they think pentateuchal texts are. In their view, these texts, which recount elaborate stories set centuries and even millennia prior to their composition, point beyond their fictive worlds to real political, social, and religious circumstances that their authors sought to characterize, challenge, and reshape for their contemporary contexts. With their simultaneous internal and external referentiality, these texts may be characterized as (partially) allegorical. Pentateuchal

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Introduction   5 scholars regularly seek to identify the external referentiality of these texts and, in so doing, reconstruct the historically embedded interests of their authors and the circumstances of their composition. Though such analysis is hardly confined to a single set of pentateuchal texts, contemporary research on Deuteronomy exemplifies this approach to the text as allegory. A number of scholars have argued that Deuteronomic texts point to the exilic/postexilic religious community’s attempts to re-­establish itself after the destruction of Jerusalem and the loss of the Judean kingdom. One factor driving this interpretation is the paucity of explicit Deuteronomic references to the monarchy and its temple cult, features presumed to be central to a monarchic-­era composition (Pakkala 2009). Other factors are specific claims in the Deuteronomic text itself, including its differentiation between Israelite generations. Commenting on the famous reference to Israel’s generations in Deut 5:3, for example, Otto argues, “The generation of the Exile distance themselves in Deut 5:3 from their predecessors before the catastrophe. Those who survived the catastrophe are the addressees of Deuteronomy, and it is with them that the covenant is concluded” (Otto 2012, 2:680–681 [translated]). The Deuteronomic allegory is sometimes extended to the work’s basic setting: the Israelites’ imminent entry into the land, it is argued, indexes the Judeans’ return from the Babylonian Exile, and the Deuteronomic threats of future exile are reflections of past experiences. The account of Israel’s first settlement of the land thus provides an explanation of and model for a second one (Römer 2005, 124). The Deuteronomic rhetoric itself is also thought to participate in the text’s allegorical mode: repeated references to the present (“today,” ‫ )היום‬are understood to draw together the Israelites of the story world and the putative exilic/postexilic audience (Markl 2011, 278). To be sure, not all pentateuchal scholars endorse a particular identification or interpretation of allegorical symbols in pentateuchal compositions. Nor do they agree on how to identify and differentiate internal and external referentiality in the text. For example, in a recent response to Juha Pakkala concerning the dating of Deuteronomy, Nathan MacDonald emphasized that the ambition and literary inventiveness of the Deuteronomic authors are features that significantly complicate the identification and interpretation of the text’s allegory (MacDonald 2010, 431–432). Yet almost all scholars understand these texts to employ the allegorical mode to some extent: even as, in its story world, the Deuteronomic work presents speeches and instructions for Israel prior to their entry into the land of Canaan, its content is understood to be shaped by and responding to the historical and social circumstances in Judah several centuries later.

Literary Reuse and Revision in Pentateuchal Law Beyond these broad lines of scholarly convergence regarding compositional analysis and literary mode, there are several more specific points of substantial agreement in contemporary pentateuchal studies, some of which build upon the commonalities already highlighted. Perhaps the most robust is the view that a direct, literary relationship

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6   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert exists between laws in the different legal corpora in the Pentateuch. Scholars regularly identify such a relationship between the two instances of the Decalogue (Exod 20:2–17; Deut 5:6–21) based upon their verbatim and near-­verbatim similarities. They commonly argue, moreover, that the Decalogue exemplar in Exod 20 serves as the literary patrimony for the Deut 5 exemplar (Blum  2011a, 290). On similar grounds, a substantial number of scholars contend that a direct literary relationship exists between the Deuteronomic laws and the legislation of the Covenant Code (Exod 20:22–23:19). In light of both similarities and differences between topically related laws in each corpus and the larger contexts in which they appear, strong support exists for the claim that the Deuteronomic authors borrowed from and revised the laws of the Covenant Code (Levinson 1997). Numerous examples may be offered, including these texts’ corresponding laws on altars and sacrifice (Exod 20:24//Deut 12), slavery and manumission (Exod 21:2–11//Deut 15:12–18), seventh-­year release (Exod 23:10–11//Deut 15:1–11), festivals (Exod 23:14–19//Deut 16:1–17), and asylum (Exod 21:12–14//Deut 19:1–13). Many scholars also identify a direct literary relationship between the Covenant Code and Deuteronomic laws, on the one hand, and the Holiness Legislation, on the other (Cholewiński 1976; Otto 1999; Nihan 2007; Stackert 2007). Though its topical similarity with other pentateuchal law is substantial, and though there are notable instances of precise similarity between Holiness Legislation laws and other pentateuchal laws (e.g. Lev 25:3–4//Exod 23:10–11), the Holiness Legislation does not attest the same density of verbatim or near-­verbatim correspondences with other laws that may be observed between legislation in the Covenant Code and Deuteronomic laws. Comparison between potential cases of literary reuse in the Pentateuch and preference for a particular style of reuse thus sometimes contribute to competing assessments of the Holiness Legislation’s relationship to other pentateuchal laws.

The Interrelatedness of Narrative and Law Another point of substantial convergence in contemporary scholarship concerns the relationship between narrative and law in the Pentateuch. To be sure, all of the legislation in the Pentateuch is presented as part of the narrative, namely, as speeches delivered by the story’s characters and normally mediated prophetically by Moses. Yet within the history of modern pentateuchal studies, scholars have sometimes sought to distinguish between narrative and law, whether on ideological, socio-­historical, or formal/literary grounds. More recently, scholars have increasingly recognized that (at least some) pentateuchal laws and narratives are inextricably tied up with each other and therefore must belong to the same literary composition. One such example is the Covenant Code. Scholars have argued that details within the Covenant Code require it to be situated within a larger narrative and have found that narrative in the texts that surround it in the Exodus scroll (and, in some cases, extending beyond Exodus). Taking cues from the legal material, David Wright reconstructed a “Covenant Code Narrative” in order to explain the story elements and assumptions

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Introduction   7 observable within the Covenant Code itself as well as the strong thematic and plot-­line correlations between the Covenant Code and surrounding narratives (Wright  2009, 332–344). From a documentary perspective, Simeon Chavel (2015) recently argued for a fundamental tie between the Covenant Code and its surrounding Horeb narrative, and his work builds significantly on the non-­documentary arguments of Blum (1990). Contemporary scholarship observes an especially robust connection between ­narrative and law in pentateuchal Priestly texts. The long-­observed tie between the Priestly sacrificial laws and the plot line developed in the Priestly narrative remains a scholarly commonplace (Gilders 2009), and recent research has offered similar arguments for the narrative embeddedness of other Priestly laws (Feldman  2020). Current research on the Holiness stratum of pentateuchal Priestly literature regularly observes that its legislation, too, assumes and builds on an antecedent Priestly composition that includes both narrative and law (Knohl  1995; Schwartz  1999; Nihan 2007).

Post-­Compilational Supplementation Contemporary pentateuchal scholarship has increasingly highlighted the continued growth of the Pentateuch after much of the compilation(s) by which its basic contours were achieved (Giuntoli and Schmid  2015). Scholars identify such supplementation, sometimes labeled “post-­Priestly” or “post-­pentateuchal” or even “post-­end-­redactional,” to varying extents (Schmid 2016). For example, some identify much of the material, including various laws, in the scroll of Numbers as late accretions (Achenbach 2002). Other studies have identified more isolated instances of such late literary growth in the Pentateuch. Shimon Gesundheit, for instance, has observed that the laws in Exod ­34:18–26 are a late pastiche that employs Exod 23:14–19 as a base text and embellishes it on the basis of both Priestly and Deuteronomic laws. The result is a harmonization of  disparate legal compositions (Gesundheit  2012). Liane Marquis (Feldman) has ­identified a similar interpolation in Num 32:7–15 (Marquis 2013). Sometimes a late interpolation can be limited to a single clause or even a single word. On both literary and linguistic grounds, the clause ‫“( מפני אשר ירד עליו יהוה באש‬because Yahweh had descended upon it [the mountain] in fire”) in Exod 19:18 has been identified as an interpolation that likely dates to the Persian or Hellenistic period. Specifically, the clause is literarily unaligned with the surrounding narrative, and the adverbial marker ‫ מפני אשר‬that governs the clause may be understood as a contact-­induced formulation in Hebrew, reflecting the common Aramaic pattern of preposition + relative in cases of causal subordination (Boyd and Hardy 2015, 44–49). In Exod 31:17, it is possible that the verb ‫“( וינפש‬and he refreshed himself ”) is a late interpolation. In no other Priestly text is there any indication that Priestly authors understood the Sabbath to include a positive rest component. Moreover, if this verb is an interpolation, it functions in a similar manner as Gesundheit argues for Exod 34:18–26, namely, as a harmonization—in this case, on the basis of Exod 23:12 (Stackert 2011, 13–14).

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8   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert

Pre-­Pentateuchal Compositional Growth Not only do contemporary scholars agree that the Pentateuch shows evidence of post-­compilational supplementation; they also agree that the texts that the Pentateuch now comprises experienced growth prior to their combination. For those scholars whose work is strongly transmission-­historical, this pre-­pentateuchal compositional growth is normally understood as a slow process over a relatively long period of time, oftentimes with several discrete stages and strata identified. For example, building on mid-­twentieth-­century tradition-­historical research, some have suggested that the patriarchal and Exodus accounts represent competing traditions of Israelite origins that were only first combined in the Priestly source (Rendtorff 1977; Schmid 1999). Those who identify a single, major compilation of pentateuchal source documents also readily observe the growth of the pentateuchal sources prior to their compilation. This is especially the case for the pentateuchal Priestly source. A majority of scholars, regardless of the other details of their reconstruction of pentateuchal compositional history, identify a P(g) base text that has been supplemented by at least one major stratum (H), and many scholars identify additional strata within or beyond H (Schwartz 1999; Nihan 2014; Chavel 2014).

The Pentateuch in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context Some scholarship of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries intentionally eschewed comparison of the Pentateuch with other ancient Near Eastern literature (Machinist 2009, 497–504). More recent research, however, has recognized the shortcomings of this approach and the ideological underpinnings that sometimes attended it. Contemporary scholars thus regularly seek to situate pentateuchal texts and their interpretation within a wider ancient Near Eastern literary and historical framework. Such contextualization has resulted in significant new insights, including deeper understanding of literary genres in the Pentateuch, the content of its laws and their possible origins, the social and religious practices and ideas depicted in pentateuchal narratives and laws, the language of pentateuchal texts, and more (e.g. Wells  2008; Sanders  2015; Joosten 2016). One area of pentateuchal research that is especially concerned with historical and social contextualization concerns the scribal practices that produced the Pentateuch. Oftentimes framed as a search for “empirical models”—building from Jeffrey H. Tigay’s influential volume Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism—recent research on the scribal practices responsible for the Pentateuch has sought to trace backward from Qumran manuscripts, ancient translations (e.g. Septuagint) and scriptural traditions (e.g. Samaritan Pentateuch), and other early Jewish interpretive works to hypothesized, earlier stages in the compositional history of the text. In some cases, the evidence of

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Introduction   9 Hellenistic manuscripts is employed as a control for theories of composition in the Iron Age and Neo-­Babylonian and Persian periods (Carr  2011; Zahn  2016; Kratz  2016). Others have pushed back against such arguments, holding up the importance of situating Israelite and Judean scribal practices in their ancient Near Eastern context while also observing a dearth of empirical models for the style of interwoven material found in some parts of the Pentateuch (Sanders 2015).

The Distinction between Priestly and Non-­Priestly Texts in Genesis and Exodus Though scholars disagree, sometimes extensively, on other aspects of the Pentateuch’s compositional history, there is broad agreement among researchers concerning the differentiation of Priestly texts from non-­Priestly ones (Carr 2011, 70). This distinction applies, in the main, to texts in Genesis and Exodus; Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy each present special circumstances that make the differentiation of Priestly from non-­Priestly texts within them at turns less relevant or more disputed. In the cases of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, there is little contestation: the texts of Leviticus are almost universally acknowledged to be of Priestly origin, and the majority of the scroll of Deuteronomy is attributed to a (set of) “Deuteronomic” author(s). The compositional history of Numbers texts, by contrast, remains strongly contested, with some scholars identifying them as mostly or entirely late additions to the Pentateuch while others ascribe them to the J, E, and P documentary sources (Achenbach  2002; Baden 2012).

Divergences The Rationale for Compositional Analysis Interest in the history of the Pentateuch’s literary development originated in the early eighteenth century, when scholars, released by the Enlightenment from theologically-­ motivated claims regarding Mosaic authorship, attempted to account for the manifest literary inconsistencies of the Pentateuch: its doublets, contradictions, and ostensible gaps. Having been trained as astute and close readers of the Pentateuch in its canonical form—like the premodern thinkers before them, including the classical rabbis and medieval exegetes—these early critics were sensitive to the difficulties encountered when attempting to read the Pentateuch as a straightforward narrative of the past. The story of Noah and the flood, which remains a locus classicus for pentateuchal literary analysis, was one of the first passages to receive what we would now recognize as a

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10   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert nascent source division. Attention to the narrative problems focused initially on Genesis, but quickly spread to the entire Pentateuch, and, of course, eventually beyond. For some scholars, the rationale for literary analysis of the Pentateuch remains fundamentally the same. It is the difficulty of reading the canonical narrative as a story—with logically and chronologically cohesive plot, characterization, and setting—that presents the driving question. According to this approach, a text that lacked the distinguishing literary problems of the Pentateuch would not be susceptible to a composition-­historical analysis. That is, whatever actual compositional history may exist, it is only on the basis of inconsistencies, discontinuities, and duplications that compositeness can be identified (Baden  2012). With this approach, it should be noted, it is possible that some instances of textual combination are overlooked. Such cases can be attributed to what John Barton (1997, 57) has termed “the disappearing redactor”: if no evidence of redaction is present, no claim for it can be sustained. The rise in the early to mid-­twentieth century of the twinned methods of form criticism and tradition criticism opened new avenues for inquiry into the history of a text, with particular focus on its preliterary development, in terms of the form or genre to which a text belonged or in terms of the specific content transmitted by a text respectively. These critical modes introduced a new framework for understanding the development of pentateuchal passages: as discernible units that grew from relatively shorter to relatively longer and more complex, from decidedly local to broadly national. In addition, form and tradition criticism fundamentally shifted the starting point of the analysis, from the canonical Pentateuch as a whole to its ­constituent formal and traditional elements: from the overarching narrative to the individual episode. Contemporary transmission-­historical models are grounded in the world of form and tradition criticism. As evident in the pioneering work of Rendtorff (1977) and Blum (1984), the starting point is the attempt to understand how an identifiable episode (e.g. that of Jacob at Bethel, to take Blum’s starting point) grew from an original core to its present shape and placement in the Pentateuch. The familiar contradictions and other inconsistencies in the narrative, both within individual episodes and across them, are not ignored by any means; yet they are no longer the initiating factor in the analysis. Form and tradition criticism are applicable to any and every text of the Pentateuch, and the entire Bible, and indeed virtually all literature. Thus, while literary contradictions are helpful indicators of compositional growth, they are not required for the analysis to proceed. Episodes that may be lacking any overt literary difficulties in the classical sense may still be understood to have undergone stages of development, from an original kernel to their present state (Levin 2009). It is this growth, and its logical continuation into the eventual combination of episodes into larger narrative structures, and thence toward the Pentateuch as we have it, that the transmission-­ historical model attempts to explain. It is in this sense that it is often said, rightly or wrongly (see above), that documentary theories begin with the canonical text while the transmission-­historical theories attempt to begin with, to use Rendtorff ’s term, the “smallest literary unit.”

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Introduction   11

The Basis for Compositional Analysis Partly as a result of their different starting points, scholars performing compositional research on the Pentateuch sometimes focus on different elements of the text in their respective analyses. In light of its form- and tradition-­critical origins, transmission-­ historical scholarship is considerably more attuned to the identification and isolation of themes and concepts in the text. The overlapping roles of Moses, Aaron, and the elders in the Exodus story, for example, can be seen as the result of a gradual accretion of actors around the central narrative episodes. Each actor comes with its own tradition history, and each was potentially added to the story by different literary hands with differing ideological claims (Noth 1981, 156–188). Neo-­Documentarian scholarship, by contrast, focuses rigorously, if not exclusively, on the inconsistencies and contradictions inherent in the plot of the narrative. Though theme and concept may at times come into play, it is the narrative claims of the text— what happened, when, where, how, and involving whom—that are determinative for the analysis. Thus Moses, Aaron, and the elders may all participate in a single literary source despite their admittedly distinct tradition-­historical trajectories, so long as the narratives in which they appear are literarily cohesive (Baden 2012, 77–78). According to the latter approach, a passage that may be thematically consistent may nonetheless be judged literarily disjointed and thus require separation into sources. An example is the call of Moses in Exodus 3, which is typically viewed by transmission-­ historical scholars as a unified (and rather late) text. Neo-­Documentarians, by contrast, argue that it is the product of a combination of J and E because the instructions given to Moses, Moses’s response, and God’s subsequent retort are viewed as impossibly convoluted—duplicated, contradictory, and otherwise disjointed (Baden  2009, 234–235, 269–270, 273–275). The Neo-­Documentarian focus on plot largely ignores elements of style and ter­min­ ology—a perhaps surprising twist of intellectual history, as it was these types of distinctions that were responsible for the popularization of the classical Documentary theory in the late nineteenth century. Many contemporary documentary scholars eschew compiling lists of words and phrases to be attributed to one source or another, nor do they fragment passages because a particular turn of phrase is used. Instead, style and ter­min­ ology are used as supporting evidence, only after the analysis has been completed on the basis of the plot (Baden 2009). The flood story, for example, can be divided neatly into its two constituent threads exclusively by following its storylines, without taking into consideration the different words used for the dry ground, for dying, or for destruction, or even the two designations for the deity (Schwartz 2007). That these words and designations do, in most instances, turn out to fall precisely into one or the other of the two threads is useful corroborative information; but if they did not do so, the literary ana­ lysis would not be changed. In some cases, late interpolations are identified at the end of this process through stylistic comparison. Somewhat ironically, style and terminology have come to play a more significant role in some transmission-­historical scholarship. The presumption of more authorial and

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12   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert redactional hands at work in the text requires more evidence for their existence, evidence which is often linked to precise wording and word order. An example may be seen in Rendtorff ’s analysis of the patriarchal promises (1977), in which the literary development of the expression “I will give the land to you and to your descendants” is based on the order of the verb and the prepositional phrases.

The Role of Oral Tradition The Neo-­Documentarian theory posits four independent sources that contain significant overlaps in content, on the level of the narrative macrostructure and that of the individual episode. Yet because of the general lack of precise linguistic ­correspondences among them, the theory also holds that the J, E, and P sources were essentially unaware of each other. The explanation for overlaps among the sources thus falls on the existence of a substantial oral tradition standing in the background of the literary texts. Parallel narratives, such as that of Moses getting water from a rock—from J in Exodus 17 and from P in Numbers 20—are attributed not to one source’s knowledge of the other, but to a common oral tradition (one that in this case appears also in poetic form in Deut 33:8). This extends at times even to traditional phrasing, such as ‫ארץ זבת‬ ‫חלב ודבש‬, “land of milk and honey,” which appears in the wilderness portions of all four sources. This phrase is understood to have been a long-­standing element of the wilderness tradition underlying all the sources equally. The recollections of the plagues in Egypt in Pss 78 and 105 similarly suggest the existence of traditions held in common with pentateuchal sources, without necessarily requiring direct literary relationships between texts. In this sense, contemporary documentary scholarship follows fairly well the approach of Noth (1981), who used the existence of parallels across the classically defined pentateuchal sources to isolate and identify the pre-­literary traditions of ancient Israel. As was the case with Noth, the existence of oral traditions was a conclusion drawn from the source-­critical evidence, rather than a presupposition that was necessary for the acceptance of source-­critical solutions. Though the transmission-­historical approach owes an enormous debt to Noth’s work, it has largely jettisoned any significant role for oral tradition in the development of the pentateuchal text. Where parallels exist, whether episodic or stylistic, they are assumed to be the product of strictly literary development: one author or redactor writing in awareness and response to another (Ska 2009). Part of the rationale for this view is that oral traditions are fundamentally unrecoverable; it is thus impossible to base a theory on evidence that cannot be confirmed or even accessed. Where parallels exist, it is more reasonable, according to the transmission-­historical model, to assume that they are the result of conscious literary reuse. For example, while Noth identified separate Jacob– Esau and Jacob–Bethel traditions, he set them on the preliterary level, and understood them to have been combined before they were taken up and rendered in written form by the authors of the pentateuchal sources. Blum (1984), however, identified the same tra-

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Introduction   13 ditions within the precise wording of the biblical text itself, positing literary development and combination.

The Role and Prominence of Redaction Redaction—defined broadly—plays a central role in every view of the Pentateuch’s compositional history. Yet the nature of redaction is at times almost entirely different among approaches to the issue. While each recognizes that there were literary hands involved in the combination of previously extant texts, the degree of redactional intervention in those texts, and the identifiability of redaction, and redactional intention, sets them radically apart. The transmission-­historical approach requires, and posits, an abundance of redactional activity. Redactional hands are necessary for combining the early, smallest literary units and larger literary structures. They are also responsible for creating much of the pentateuchal literature, as the process of Fortschreibung entails the expansion of existing text as well as the combination of various units. In other words, at a certain point the roles of redactor and author are virtually indistinguishable (Ska 2009). Each layer of a text is both a new composition and a redactional move. It is notable that this conflation of author and redactor has a long history in pentateuchal studies, including among earlier documentarians (e.g. Wellhausen, Kuenen). Yet in more recent research, it has become the special domain of scholars who have largely rejected the documentary model. As a result of this blurring of lines between authorship and redaction, redaction in the transmission-­historical approach brings with it the kind of intention, ideological or otherwise, that is usually associated with authorship. Redactional hands are associated directly with conceptual innovation. In the Neo-­Documentarian model this is not unheard of—it is essentially what one finds in the prevailing theory of the relationship between H and P, for example—but it is the primary mode of literary composition in the transmission-­historical model. Virtually every text, it is argued, can be shown to have grown through a sequence of redactional moves, each of which is identifiable in the text and can be linked to a particular perspective (and, in some cases, historical moment). By contrast, the Neo-­Documentarian theory conceives of redaction as a necessary byproduct of the existence of four interwoven sources. It also posits that there was only one major redactor, or one major moment of redaction. The redactor, usually referred to in this approach as “the compiler,” is identified almost entirely by the required role: compiling the sources into a single continuous text. Moreover, because the method of compilation is consistent across the Pentateuch, only a single compiler is posited (Baden 2012, 217–226). This minimalist theory of compilation is sometimes described as “mechanical” redaction, though this description need not be pejorative. Few passages are attributed to the compiler; namely, only those that can be argued to directly contribute to the process of combining the sources; accordingly, the compiler is not generally associated with any particular ideological position.

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14   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert This is not to say that, in the Neo-­Documentarian view, there are no ideologically motivated insertions in the pentateuchal text. Rather, such literary interventions are seen as distinct from the redactional process by which the sources were brought together. In a sense, then, this approach simply takes a more restrictive view of what is labeled as redaction. The melding of combination and supplementation so prominent in the transmission-­historical approach is largely absent from the Neo-­Documentarian. More precisely, the Neo-­Documentarian theory works in terms of process, rather than actual literary hands. It is possible that the same figure who combined the pentateuchal sources also added blocks of text to the near-­finished product. But because these are separate literary processes, they are kept distinct, with the understanding that it is impossible to confidently assign both to the same literal hand.

The Intertextuality of Pentateuchal Texts As noted above, there is a sharp divide among pentateuchal scholars with regard to how much, if at all, pentateuchal texts are aware of and writing in response to each other. Neo-­Documentarian scholars recognize that the D source was aware of both J and E, borrowing structures, episodes, and even precise wording from its literary predecessors (Baden 2011; Stackert 2014). They generally hold, however, that P, J, and E each wrote in isolation, without explicit or implicit reference to the others. (This is true for P only of its underlying stratum; H, the later supplementary layer of P, seems to have been aware of both E and D.) Even in the case of D, however, it is held that the source was not meant to be read alongside J or, as is more commonly posited, E. Awareness of other sources does not necessarily entail an intention to be read as part of a continuous text with them. There is no dialogue between sources, even when there is an evident genetic relationship. D does not comment or expand on E; it also has an identifiable beginning, middle, and end and a largely consistent story world. It can thus be concluded that D was meant to be read independently of E (Stackert 2009). Such literary independence is almost entirely absent in the transmission-­historical approach. Because the development of the Pentateuch is held to take place exclusively within the world of the text—that is, each new hand is building on those that came before it—it is only in the early, smallest literary units that we find any independent writings. Once those small pieces were brought together into larger blocks, each stage of the Pentateuch’s growth was accomplished with conscious intertextuality. Texts are responding to texts, adopting and adapting their ideas.

The Scope and Existence of a Pentateuch In recent years, the very notion of the Pentateuch as a unit has been challenged, or at least reanalyzed, in the transmission-­historical approach. Because there are ostensible

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Introduction   15 literary references that link passages in the canonical Pentateuch with others outside it, it is posited that at an earlier stage we are dealing with a Hexateuch, or even an Octateuch or Enneateuch (extending through Kings) (Blum  2011b). A standard example is the three passages that refer to the bones of Joseph, in Genesis 50, Exodus 13, and Joshua 24. These passages are seen as part of a redactional stratum intended to link the originally independent patriarchal, Exodus, and conquest traditions. If so, then, there must have been a document that spanned all six books: a Hexateuch. The Pentateuch as we have it would therefore be a later stage in the development of the biblical text, one in which the figure of Moses, and the centrality of the law, determined the end point. According to this view, this is an indication of another ideologically charged redactional moment, identifiable in part by what is seen as the rather late supplementary text of Deut 34, which highlights Moses’s unique status (Römer and Brettler 2000). For many transmission-­historical scholars, the pentateuchal super-­narrative as we now understand it, reaching from creation through the death of Moses, is also something of a redactional fabrication. P is often thought to have ended well before the last chapters of the Pentateuch, sometimes as early as Exodus 29 (for an overview of options and discussion, see Nihan 2007, 20–68). The primeval history is sometimes considered to be an entirely separate and late addition to the complex (Rendtorff 1990, 185). Much, if not all, of Numbers is seen as secondary (Achenbach 2002). Neo-­ Documentarian scholarship holds that the Pentateuch was created at the moment of compilation, and that there was no Hexateuch (or longer unit). Each of the sources contained virtually the entire pentateuchal narrative (with the obvious exception of D, which describes only Moses’s farewell speeches in the plains of Moab, though it rehearses the story of the Israelites’ wilderness experiences). The literary connections and references in Joshua especially are understood as evidence not for an originally longer corpus, but rather for the original length of the sources from which the Pentateuch was created. That is, P, J, and E did not originally end with the death of Moses, but continued on. The compiler, however, was evidently not interested in what happened after Moses, because the aim was to create a law book. Hence the death of the lawgiver was the natural conclusion. Moreover, the post-­Moses portions of the sources had already been taken up into the Deuteronomistic History (although with different editorial interests and techniques) (Schwartz 2016).

Conclusions As the foregoing discussion suggests—and as this entire volume attests—pentateuchal studies is a lively and multifaceted area of biblical studies, and the differences represented in the field show no signs of abating. Indeed, it is likely that the different sub-­areas of pentateuchal research, and the different directions within them, will continue to develop side by side, in tensive dialogue with each other. New data, new approaches, and new analyses also promise to contribute to the vibrancy of the field’s ongoing conversation

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16   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert and debate. Yet in the midst of the variety that characterizes contemporary pentateuchal studies, the overview presented here underscores that researchers hold a significant set of ideas and observations in common. This shared stock is more than enough to facilitate a productive conversation among them. It is the intent of this volume to present this critical dialogue so that its readers might learn from it.

Suggested Reading For a more expansive and detailed overview of the diverse state of pentateuchal studies, see the collection of essays found in Gertz, et al., 2016 (full references in the bibliography below), along with The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research (ed. T.  B.  Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz; FAT 78; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). The classic expression of the transmission-­historical approach can be found in Rendtorff 1977, with fuller development in Blum 1990; for the (Neo)-documentary approach, see Baden 2012.

Works Cited Achenbach, R. 2002. Die Vollendung der Tora: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Pentateuch. BZAR 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Baden, J.  S. 2009. “Identifying the Original Stratum of P: Theoretical and Practical Considerations.” In The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, edited by S. Shectman and J. S. Baden, 13–29. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Baden, J.  S. 2011. “The Deuteronomic Evidence for the Documentary Theory.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T.  B.  Dozeman, K. Schmid and B. J. Schwartz, 327–344. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Baden, J. S. 2012. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. ABRL. New Haven: Yale University Press. Barton, J. 1997. Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, 2nd ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Blum, E. 1984. Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte. WMANT 57. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Blum, E. 1990. Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch. BZAW 189. Berlin: de Gruyter. Blum, E. 2011a. “The Decalogue and the Composition History of the Pentateuch.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T.  B.  Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 289–301. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Blum, E. 2011b. “Pentateuch–Hexateuch–Enneateuch? Or: How Can One Recognize a Literary Work in the Hebrew Bible?” In Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or Enneateuch?: Identifying Literary Works in Genesis through Kings, edited by T. B. Dozeman, T. Römer, and K. Schmid, 43–71. SBLAIL 8. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Boyd, S., and Hardy, H. 2015. “Hebrew Adverbialization, Aramaic Language Contact, and mpny ʾšr in Exodus 19:18.” In Semitic Languages in Contact, edited by A. M. Butts, 33–51. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 82. Leiden: Brill. Carr, D. M. 2011. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Introduction   17 Chavel, S. 2014. Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah. FAT/II 71. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Chavel, S. 2015. “A Kingdom of Priests and its Earthen Altars in Exodus 19–24.” VT 65:169–222. Cholewiński, A. 1976. Heiligkeitgesetz und Deuteronomium: Eine vergleichende Studie. AnBib 66. Rome: Biblical Institute Press. Crawford, S. W. 2016. “What Constitutes a Scriptural Text?: The History of Scholarship on Qumran Manuscript 4Q158.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Intellectual Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 483–489. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Eissfeldt, O. 1927. “The Smallest Literary Unit in the Narrative Books of the Old Testament.” In Old Testament Essays: Papers Read before the Society for Old Testament Study at Its Eighteenth Meeting, Held at Keble College, Oxford, September 27th to 30th, 1927, 85–93. London: Charles Griffin and Co. Eissfeldt, O. 1962. “Die kleinste literarische Einheit in den Erzählungsbüchern des Alten Testaments.” In Kleine Schriften: Erster Band, 143–149. Edited by R. Sellheim and F. Maass, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Feldman, L. 2020. The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Pentateuchal Source. FAT 141. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Gertz, J. C. et al., eds. 2016. The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Intellectual Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Gesundheit, S. 2012. Three Times a Year: Studies on Festival Legislation in the Pentateuch. FAT 82. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Gilders, W. K. 2009. “Sacrifice before Sinai and the Priestly Narratives.” In The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, edited by S. Shectman and J. S. Baden, 57–70. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Giuntoli, F., and K. Schmid, eds. 2015. The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on Its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles. FAT 101. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Greenberg, M. 1960. “‫ נסה‬in Exodus 20:20 and the Purpose of the Sinaitic Theophany.” JBL 79:273–276. Hendel, R. 2017. “God and the Gods in the Tetrateuch”, In The Origins of Yahwism, edited by J. van Oorschot and M. Witte, 239–266. BZAW 484. Berlin: de Gruyter. Joosten, J. 2016. “Diachronic Linguistics and the Date of the Pentateuch.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Intellectual Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 327–343. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kessler, R. 2015. Die Querverweise im Pentateuch: Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der expliziten Querverbindungen innerhalb des vorpriesterlichen Pentateuchs. BEATAJ 59. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Knohl, I. 1995. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Translated by J. Feldman and P. Rodman. Minneapolis: Fortress. Kratz, R. G. 2016. “Reworked Pentateuch and Pentateuchal Theory.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Intellectual Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, , edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 501–524. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Levin, C. 2009. “Source Criticism: The Miracle at the Sea.” In Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David L. Peterson, edited by J. M. LeMon and K. H. Richards, 39–61. SBLRBS 56. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Levinson, B.  M. 1997. Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press.

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18   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert MacDonald, N. 2010. “Issues in the Dating of Deuteronomy: A Response to Juha Pakkala.” ZAW 122:431–435. Machinist, P. 2009. “The Road Not Taken: Wellhausen and Assyriology.” In Homeland and Exile: Biblical and Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Bustenay Oded, edited by G.  Galil, M. Geller, and A. Millard, 469–532. VTSup 130. Leiden: Brill. Markl, D. 2011. “Deuteronomy’s Frameworks in Service of the Law (Deut 1–11; 26–34).” In Deuteronomium: Tora für eine neue Generation, edited by G.  Fischer, D.  Markl, and S. Paganini, 271–283. BZABR 17. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Marquis (Feldman), L. 2013. “The Composition of Numbers 32: A New Proposal.” VT 63:408–432. Nihan, C. 2007. From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus. FAT/II 25. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Nihan, C. 2014. “Das Sabbatgesetz Exodus 31, 12–17, die Priesterschrift und das Heiligkeitsgesetz: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit neueren Interpretationen.” In Wege der Freiheit: Zur Entstehung und Theologie des Exodusbuches; Die Beiträge eines Symposions zum 70. Geburtstag von Rainer Albertz, edited by R. Achenbach, R. Ebach, and J. Wöhrle, 131–149. ATANT 104. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Noth, M. 1981. A History of Pentateuchal Traditions, Translated by B. W. Anderson. Chico, CA: Scholars. Otto, E. 1999. Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie und Rechtsreform in Juda und Assyrien. BZAW 284. Berlin: de Gruyter. Otto, E. 2012. Deuteronomium 1–11. 2 vols. HTKAT. Freiburg: Herder. Pakkala, J. 2009. “The Date of the Oldest Edition of Deuteronomy.” ZAW 121:388–401. Rendtorff, R. 1977. Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch. BZAW 17. Berlin: de Gruyter. Rendtorff, R. 1990. The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch. Translated by J. J. Scullion. JSOTSup 89. Sheffield: JSOT Press Römer, T. 2005. The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction. London: T&T Clark. Römer, T., and M. Z. Brettler. 2000. “Deuteronomy 34 and the Case for a Persian Hexateuch.” JBL 119:401–419. Sanders, S. L. 2015. “What if There Aren’t Any Empirical Models for Pentateuchal Criticism?” In Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, edited by B. B. Schmidt, 281–304. SBLAIL 22. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Schmid, K. 1999. Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testaments. WMANT 81. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Schmid, K. 2016. “Post-Priestly Additions in the Pentateuch: A Survey of Scholarship.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Intellectual Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 589–604. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schwartz, B. J. 1999. The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code. Jerusalem: Magnes (in Hebrew). Schwartz, B. J. 2007. “The Flood Narratives in the Torah and the Question of Where History Begins.” In Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Language, edited by M. Bar Asher et al., 139–154. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute (in Hebrew). Schwartz, B.  J. 2016. “The Pentateuchal Sources and the Former Prophets: A Neo-Documentarian’s Perspective.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the ­

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Introduction   19 Intellectual Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., ­783–793. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Ska, J. L. 2009. “A Plea on Behalf of the Biblical Redactors.” In The Exegesis of the Pentateuch, 232–245. FAT 66. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Stackert, J. 2007. Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Stackert, J. 2009. “The Holiness Legislation and Its Pentateuchal Sources: Revision, Supplementation, and Replacement.” In The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, edited by S. Shectman and J. S. Baden, 187–204. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Stackert, J. 2011. “Distinguishing Innerbiblical Exegesis from Pentateuchal Redaction: Leviticus 26 as a Test Case.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T.  B.  Dozeman, K.  Schmid, and B.  J.  Schwartz, 369–386. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Stackert, J. 2014. A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy and Law in Israelite Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. Stackert, J. 2016. “Political Allegory in the Priestly Source: The Destruction of Jerusalem, the Exile, and their Alternatives.” In The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah, edited by P. Dubovský, D. Markl, and J.-P. Sonnet, 211–226. FAT 107. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tigay, J.  H., ed. 1985. Empirical Models of Biblical Criticism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Wells, B. 2008. “What is Biblical Law?: A Look at Pentateuchal Rules and Near Eastern Practice.” CBQ 70:223–243. Wright, D. P. 2009, Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi. New York: Oxford University Press. Zahn, M. 2011. Rething Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts. Leiden: Brill. Zahn, M. 2016, “Scribal Revision and the Composition of the Pentateuch: Methodological Considerations.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Intellectual Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, ed. J. C. Gertz et al., 491–500. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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Pa rt I

TEXT AND E A R LY R E C E P T ION

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Chapter 2

The Pen tateuch: Fi v e Books, On e Ca non Olivier Artus

Book Division and Compositional Structure in the Pentateuch It is commonly assumed that the division of the Pentateuch into five books is the result of a late process, significantly postdating the composition of this work. Nevertheless, there are problems with this view (Blenkinsopp 1992, 34). In particular, the fact that the five books of the Pentateuch evince significant variations in their size already suggests that this division was not the result of a strictly mechanical process (Römer 2007a, 32 with n. 96). While the book of Genesis is the longest, with 1,534 verses, Leviticus has only 859 verses; Exodus and Numbers are more or less the same size (1,209 and 1,288 verses); finally the book of Deuteronomy has 955 verses. This is not to say that the division of the Pentateuch into five books did not have practical reasons as well: it was presumably too long to be contained on a single scroll. However, it seems that, according to the technical possibilities of the late Persian period or of the beginning of the Hellenistic era, three or four scrolls would have been sufficient for the entire text (Haran  1982; Zenger and Frevel 2008, 36–38). The division of the Pentateuch into five books is prior to the Greek translation of the Pentateuch. It is also known in Qumran literature (reference to the five books: 1Q30, fragment 1, line 4), even if some Qumran manuscripts associate two books of the Pentateuch: 4QGen-­Exoda (4Q1), 4QpaleoGen-­Exod1 (4Q11), 4QExod-­Levf (4Q17), 4QLev-­Numa (4Q23).

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24   Olivier Artus These data suggest, therefore, that the division of the Pentateuch into five books reflects other motivations as well, which have to do with the attempt to impose a certain structure and organization to this work. They also imply, additionally, that the division of the canonical text of the Pentateuch is the result of a process rather than of a unique event, and this observation leads in turn “to the question of whether older literary ­connections . . . lurk behind the canonical caesura” (Kratz 2011, 57). Moreover, it is important to note that the creation of a five-­book structure for the Pentateuch does not correspond with the establishment of a final and stable text. As K. Schmid emphasizes, “the biblical manuscripts from the Dead Sea provide evidence of a strikingly fluid textual tradition in the first century B.C.E.” (Schmid 2012, 296). The definition of a fivefold Pentateuch does not exclude the possibility that changes may have been added later into the text: a good example is given by the chronological system preserved in the MT, which seems to have been introduced into the Pentateuch after 164 bce (see Gen 5; 11), allowing for a connection between the Maccabean reconsecration of the temple in 164 bce and the year 4000 after the creation (e.g. Schmid 1999, 20–21; 2012, 297n31). Finally, if the fivefold division of the Pentateuch reflects the attempt to impose a certain structure to this material, we should note that this structure stands in tension with the one preserved in other scriptural traditions like, e.g. the Psalms. As Thomas Römer remarks, “most of the historical summaries in the Psalms commence with the Exodus” (Römer 2011, 484), not with Genesis. Also, comparing the historical summary of Neh 9:6–31 with the Pentateuch, Römer notes that this summary does not follow exactly the narrative outline of the Pentateuch. One could ask whether Neh 9 deviates deliberately from its pentateuchal model. This would mean that, even if the Pentateuch was well known and quoted, it had not yet gained the sort of canonical authority that would later come to be associated with the Torah (Römer 2011, 475–477). Taking into account these preliminary observations, this study comprises four parts. First, some recent hypotheses concerning the origins of the materials preserved in the Pentateuch will be considered. The purpose of this initial stage of the study is to seek correspondences between the narrative, thematic, or theological specificity of one or several ancient texts and the specificity of one or several books of the Pentateuch. As we will see, in particular, the recent discussion points to the existence of not one but several distinct patterns underlying the formation of the Pentateuch, which in turn may shed some light on the specific profile of the individual books constituting this document (see also Römer 2013). Second, the essay will discuss the main hypotheses regarding the process leading to the composition of larger narrative assemblages, such as the Pentateuch, the Hexateuch, or even the Enneateuch, on the basis of originally discrete documents. The question that arises here, in particular, is whether this process of com­pos­ition leads to the building of a unified text, or whether the structure of the proto-­Pentateuch prepares for the later division of the text into five distinct books. Third, the essay will discuss the structure and coherence of the Pentateuch as a whole. It will ask, in particular, what techniques were used by ancient scribes to emphasize the

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The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon   25 specificity, the unity, as well as the authority of the Pentateuch. It will also ask whether, and to what extent, the structure of the pentateuchal narrative effectively corresponds to the five-­books division preserved in the canon. Fourth, and lastly, the essay will survey the evidence for considering each book of the Pentateuch as a literary unit; it will also discuss the literary and ideological issues that were presumably at stake in the process of de­lin­eat­ing these books. Specific attention will be devoted in this context to the book of Numbers, especially in light of the evidence suggesting that this was the last book of the Pentateuch to receive its final shape. As such, Numbers serves as a bridge of sorts between Genesis–Leviticus on the one hand and Deuteronomy on the other (Römer 2007b), but is nevertheless characterized by a careful structure which conveys a specific ideology (Artus 2008).

The Preexilic Literary Materials Scholars disagree regarding the history of the composition of the text of the Pentateuch, especially with respect to the existence of preexilic materials which were later integrated into larger compositions. There follows a brief survey of some of these debates.

The Hypothesis about a Preexilic Historiography The so-­called “Münster” model for the composition of the Pentateuch (E. Zenger) postulates the creation of a “normative historiography of the beginnings of the relationship between Yahweh and his people Judah/Israel,” composed toward the end of the seventh century bce: the “Jerusalem Geschichtswerk” (Zenger 2012, 120–125). According to this hypothesis, different fragments were unified into a story that begins with the narrative of the creation of humankind (Gen 2) and eventually leads to the story of the conquest of Canaan (Joshua). Following Zenger, the ideology underlying this text could have been the claim to the possession of the territories of the former northern kingdom: starting with the promise of the land in the patriarchal traditions, this historiography would have ended with its fulfillment in the story of the conquest. R.  Kratz, for his part, ­postulates the existence of a preexilic narrative extending from Exod 2 to Jos 12, which was initially separate from the story of the origins and of the patriarchs (Kratz 2000, 129–130). While both models differ in their reconstruction of the origins and extent of the narrative traditions underlying the Pentateuch, they concur nonetheless in the idea that there already existed in the preexilic period a continuous history connecting various traditions, which presumably served the purpose of building national identity and ideol­ogy in the late days of the kingdom of Judah.

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26   Olivier Artus Yet reconstructing such a preexilic historiography remains highly tricky, and other studies lead to the delimitation of more narrow narratives. These narratives would entail, in particular, as a story of Jacob, which could have been written as early as the eighth century bce (an argument for this dating is the allusion to Jacob in Hos 12; see, e.g. Römer 2015, 42–45); a story about Abraham, presumably from the seventh century bce (e.g. Finkelstein and Römer 2014); a “life of Moses”; a story of Exodus with or without Moses (Römer 1998; 2015, 48–51). According to these hypotheses, the composition of the Pentateuch, during and after the exile, presupposes the connection of literary fragments, the specificity of which is essentially thematic and narrative (focusing on a specific character or event).

The Book of Deuteronomy In the studies dealing with the composition of the Pentateuch, there has long been ­consensus about the idea that Deuteronomy was originally independent. On the other hand, there is debate about the existence of a preexilic Deuteronomy—an ­Ur-Deuteronomy—on the definition of which there is no agreement. For instance, Otto (2000; 2002, 5–19, 29–38) proposes that Deut 13* and Deut 28* might be the most ancient traditions of Deuteronomy, using the structure of ancient Assyrian loyalty oaths and subverting them. According to Otto, this material was then reused by an exilic Deuteronomist Deuteronomy (DtrD), who added various legal materials reinterpreting the Covenant Code. This independent Deuteronomy was later integrated through a DtrL (for “Landnahme”) redaction into the story of the conquest of the land (Deut 1–Josh 23). Many other scholars, for instance T. Veijola, retain for their part the classical view, according to which the core of the preexilic book of Deuteronomy should be found in the law of centralization of Deut 12 and related passages. On the other hand, some recent studies raise objections against the delimitation of a preexilic Deuteronomy (Pakkala 2009).

Synthesis It is remarkable that three of the five books of the Pentateuch appear to be built around a specific core of traditions going back to the preexilic period: the story of the patriarchs (for Genesis), the stories of Moses and of the exodus (for Exodus), and the original collection of Deuteronomic laws (for Deuteronomy). Nevertherless, these different and specific narratives or traditions did not remain independent, but were gradually integrated into larger compositions before the division of the Pentateuch into five books. The purpose of these compositions was to unify the different narratives into a comprehensive history of Israel’s origins. Even so, however, these postexilic compositions did not erase the specific literary and theological profile of these traditions, which can still be observed in the books in which they are preserved.

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The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon   27

Unifying Preexilic Literary Materials in Exilic and Postexilic Documents, Redactions, and Compositions The process that led to the creation of the Priestly Document, and later on to a Hexateuch, a Pentateuch, or an Enneateuch, is closely connected to a process of defining the ideological or/and theological identity of the exilic and postexilic Israel. From a source- and redaction-­critical perspective this process can be summarized around three main issues: the building of the priestly narrative, the connection between Priestly and Deuteronomistic texts and theologies, and the building of a Hexateuch, a Pentateuch, or an Enneateuch. For all these issues, the delimitation of a text corresponds to the def­in­ ition of a new understanding of the identity of the community. The definition of the Pentateuch is linked with the assertion of the specific role of this text, presented by its composers as a canon endowed with a distinctive authority.

The Priestly Texts There is no consensus about the status and the delimitation of the priestly writing. E. Blum, for instance, argues for a priestly composition (that is, neither a source nor a redaction), designated as “KP” (Blum 1990, 229–285). According to Blum, this com­pos­ition is more or less responsible for the shaping of the Pentateuch, and rewrites an earlier postdeuteronomist composition, KD, written toward the end of sixth century bce (188–207). Other scholars favor the hypothesis of a Priestly source, which does not correspond exactly to the “P” source of the classical Documentary Hypothesis, but which forms nonetheless a coherent whole, even if the literary analysis suggests that this document was composed in several successive stages (Frevel 2013, 1–17). Like Blum, R. Albertz considers that P presupposes earlier compositions, but he defines five priestly “rewritings” (Priesterliche Bearbeitungen) between the sixth and the fourth centuries bce (Albertz 2013, 19–26). Another debate has to do with the question of the end of “P.” On the basis of literary and narrative arguments, the identification of the end of P in the book of Joshua (Josh 18:1 or Josh 19:51; see e.g. Lohfink 1978), or at the end of Deuteronomy, has been challenged. In 1988, Perlitt questioned the attribution of Deut 34:7–9 to Pg, as these verses presuppose Num 27:12–33, considered to be post-­P (Perlitt 1988). T. Pola for his part, proposes to see the end of P in Exodus 40 (Pola 1995). He brings to the fore the differences between the understanding of the community of Israel in the P texts of Exodus (where Israel is predominantly defined as a cultic community) and in the post-­P traditions of Numbers (where Israel is represented as an ecclesia militans). Following Pola, several scholars propose to find the end of P in the context of the narratives and laws relating the establishment of the sanctuary and its cult at Mount Sinai: Exod 29:26

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28   Olivier Artus (Otto 1997), Lev 9:23–24 (Zenger 2001, 145–161), or Lev 16 (Nihan 2007, 20–110). These different hypotheses might, in fact, be complementary rather than contradictory. T. Römer, for instance, suggests that Exod 40 might have originally formed the end of Pg. Then, Lev 1–16 might have been an independent scroll of supplements to Pg, finally integrated into a P document comprising two discrete scrolls: one centered on the story of Israel’s origins in Genesis and Exodus, the other containing various ritual instructions for the community (Römer 2013, 15–16). Another key issue in this discussion regards the connection between the traditions of the patriarchs and the tradition of the Exodus: as was already noted, the traditions about the patriarchs on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the traditions about Moses and the story of the Exodus were presumably transmitted separately. There is no ­unanimity about the date when the connection between the patriarchs and the Exodus was established. As we saw before, several authors suggest the hypothesis of a preexilic link between the traditions of Genesis and Exodus (Kratz 2000, 129–130; Zenger 2012, 120–125; Schmidt 2012). But a significant trend in research is in favour of a priestly link between the stories of the patriarchs and the story of the Exodus (Römer 1990, 567–574; Schmid 1999, 56–102). This literary connection can be observed, for instance, in Exod 6:2–5: the text explicitly refers to the covenant recounted in Gen 17; it mentions the names of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the context of the exodus; and it asserts the equivalence of the names ’elohim and Yahweh (Exod 6:2). Bringing to the fore the work of a priestly writer or composer who linked the narratives dealing with the Patriarchs and the narratives of the Exodus leads to a more general question about the later division of this priestly story into two books (Genesis, Exodus) when the five-­book structure of the Pentateuch was created (see below).

Unifying Priestly and Deuteronomist Narratives Even if the specifics of the models present significant differences, the idea that the Pentateuch is the result of a “compromise” or a “dialogue” between the Priestly texts and theology, on the one hand, and the Deuteronomistic texts and theology, on the other, is widely shared. Blum, in 1990, understood the Pentateuch as the result of the work of two successive compositions, KD and KP (Blum 1990). In their compositional model of the Pentateuch, Otto (Otto 2000) and later Achenbach (Achenbach 2003) understood the composition of a Hexateuch as resulting from the combination of the Priestly text (PG and PS) and of a Deuteronomistic story of the conquest linking the book of Deuteronomy and Joshua. The pentateuchal redaction reworks a hexateuchal redaction and leads up to the delimitation of the first five books (Genesis to Deuteronomy) as a coherent unit, proposing an identity that is no longer centrally related to the land but to the biblical text itself, interpreted as a “Torah.” In a similar way, Römer understands the Pentateuch as resulting from the com­bin­ ation of a Priestly document and of the Deuteronomistically edited book of

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The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon   29 Deuteronomy. The creation of the Pentateuch supposes the separation of Deuteronomy (and perhaps also of a Deuteronomistic vita Mosis in Exodus and Numbers) from the “Deuteronomistic History.” According to this model, the literary materials collected in the book of Numbers have the function of being a bridge between P and Deuteronomy (Römer 2007a, 27–30). All these models understand the delimitation of the Pentateuch as the result of a theological and literary compromise between Priestly and Deuteronomistic authors, leading to a new definition of the identity of Israel. The expression of this compromise is the connection of divergent traditions through the creation of unified narrative com­pos­ itions (Otto and Achenbach), or of literary bridges (Römer). These conclusions, however, raise further questions about the division of the text of the Pentateuch into five books, since that division implies a certain break within the redactional strands unifying P and Dtr materials.

Pentateuch, Hexateuch, Enneateuch There is likewise little or even no unanimity with regard to the question of the precedence of an Enneateuch or of a Pentateuch: Schmid, Zenger, and Kratz, for instance, argue for the priority of an Enneateuch before the creation of the Pentateuch. According to Schmid, an Enneateuch composed of two main parts (Genesis to Joshua, centered on Israel’s deliverance, and Judges to 2 Kings, centered on Israel’s sin) was created before the delimitation of a Pentateuch (Schmid 1999). Zenger likewise argues for the separation of the Pentateuch from the Enneateuch toward the end of the fifth century bce (Zenger 2001, 119–122); for Kratz, the separation of the Pentateuch from the Former Prophets would reflect the latest stage in the composition of these traditions (Kratz 2000). On the other hand, the models of Otto and Achenbach, as well as of Römer (see above), exclude the hypothesis of the priority of the Enneateuch. In these models, the creation of the Pentateuch results from the exclusion of the book of Joshua (Otto and Achenbach), or of Deuteronomy from the Former Prophets (Römer). A further issue, which cannot be discussed in the context of this chapter, concerns the problem of the social-­historical context for the creation of the Pentateuch. Recent studies highlight the historical relationship between Samarians and Judeans as a key for a proper understanding of the formation, editing, and transmission of the Pentateuch (Knoppers 2006, 2011). Moreover, the narratives of the Pentateuch are particularly anti-­Egyptian. This feature could reflect, at least to some extent, the political situation of the very end of the fifth century, which was characterized by the opposition between Egypt and the Persian Empire (Fantalkin and Tal 2012). Despite the differences between the various scenarios discussed above, all these ­models agree that the formation of the Pentateuch was one of the latest stages in the com­pos­ition of the text (this is also the case for the “Neo-­Documentary Hypothesis,” see

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30   Olivier Artus Baden 2012). Once the Pentateuch has been delimitated as a specific literary unity or as a canon, the question arises about the origin and the purposes of the five-­book structure.

The Unity and the Authority of the Pentateuch It seems obvious that the narrative structure of the Pentateuch as a whole does not match its subdivision into five books. The example of the so-­called “Sinai pericope” provides a good illustration of this point: the topographical notes of the text allow the delimitation of a literary unit that runs from Exod 19:1 to Num 10:10, ignoring the borders of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. A consequence of this situation is the difficulty of demonstrating the literary coherence of books such as Numbers or Exodus (Milgrom 1990, xi–xiii; Lee 2003, 90–91; Artus 2014a, 137–140). Before paying attention to the literary construction of the five-­book structure, we will first consider the literary elements that contribute to the delimitation and unity of the Pentateuch.

The Specific Function of Deuteronomy 34 The narrative of Moses’s death in Deut 34 received redactional supplements, converting this narrative into the conclusion to the Pentateuch, and building a network of literary correspondences that connect this chapter to other key narratives in the Pentateuch: • As already demonstrated by Römer and Schmid (Römer 1990, 566; Schmid 2007, 186), the expression of Deut 34:4 (the promise of the land to “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob“ without the word ’bwt, “fathers”) is only found in Gen 50:24; Exod 32:13; 33:1; Num 32:11, with Lev 26:42 being interpreted by Schmid as a close parallel to this formula. In this light it may be suggested that Deut 34:4 links the last chapter of Deuteronomy to each other book of the Pentateuch, and that the delimitation of the Pentateuch is contemporary with its division into five books. But the literary argument is not totally convincing, and the study of the vocabulary of Deut 34:4 also highlights the parallelism of this verse with Gen 12:7; 13:10–15 (Schmid 2007, 187). The main function of Deut 34:4 is therefore to connect Deut 34 with the narratives about the patriarchs. • In the same way, Deut 34:7, with its reference to Moses’s 120-­year lifespan, is linked to Gen 6:3, connecting Deut 34 with the story of the origins, and building a frame around the Pentateuch as a whole. • Deut 34:10–12 has two functions. First, in affirmating the prophetic preeminence of Moses, it contradicts Deut 18:15–18. This means that, according to Deut 34:10, the Pentateuch claims a specific authority above that of the prophetic texts.

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The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon   31 Deut 34:10 aims at the canonization of the Torah. Otto and Achenbach ascribe this verse to a pentateuchal redaction contrasting with the hexateucal redaction of Deut 18:15–18 (Otto 2000, 229–233; Achenbach 2003, 334). Second, Deut 34:11–12 builds a link with the stories of Exodus. To sum up, the late supplements of Deut 34 serve to connect the last chapter of Deuteronomy with the main narratives of the Pentateuch: the narratives of the origins, the stories of the patriarchs, and the story of the Exodus. In this way, Deut 34 highlights the unity of the Pentateuch, and, through Deut 34:10, underlines its specific authority.

The Character of Moses The character of Moses unifies the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Exodus opens with the narrative of the birth of Moses (Exod 2:1–10), and Deuteronomy ends with the narrative of his death (Deut 34:5–6, 8–9). This could underline the originality and the independence of Genesis within the Pentateuch. But, according to Römer (2013, 12–13), Gen 15 could have had the function of presenting Abraham as a prophetic character (Gen 15:1), a model of faith (Gen 15:6, in contrast with Moses in Num 20:12), who was the first to receive the revelation of the name of God, even before Moses (Gen 15:7). The post-­Priestly composition of Gen 15 could have had the function of connecting the character of Abraham and the character of Moses, in the perspective of a global redaction of the Pentateuch. Otherwise, the redaction of the Pentateuch uses the character of Moses to emphasize the specific authority of the Pentateuch. In the same way as Deut 34:10, a series of texts grant Moses an exceptional status: his intercessions in Exod 32:11–14; 33:12–16; and Num 14:13–19 illustrate his proximity to God, and the efficiency of his word. The grammatical construction of Exod 14:31 makes Moses the direct object fo the verb ’mn, as Yahweh himself: “The people believed in Yahweh and in his servant Moses.” Finally, Num 12:8, like Deut 34:10, draws a distinction between Moses and the prophets: only Moses sees the tmnh of the Lord. This particular status of Moses is closely linked with the specific status of the Torah: just as in the Sinai pericope Moses had the duty of writing the words of the covenant (Exod 24:4) and reading them (Exod 24:7), according to Deut 31:9, 24 Moses now has the responsibility of writing the whole Torah (Otto 2002, 86–91).

Key Texts The heading “key texts” should be understood here as refering to texts which do not clearly belong to a single, specific tradition and redaction, which use a language or a vocabulary that is difficult to classify, or which have the function of linking different literary and theological traditions. Kratz has underlined the utility of these texts for the understanding of the late composition of the Pentateuch (Kratz 2011, 46–49). We have

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32   Olivier Artus already quoted Deut 34 and Gen 15, which combine vocabulary rooted in different ­traditions and contribute to building a unified Pentateuch. In the same way, Exod 3:1–4:17 breaks the narrative continuity between Exod 2 and Exod 4:18, and links the theme of the promise made to the fathers with the theme of the Exodus. Moreover, the narrative of Exod 3–4 connects different divine names, and finally, proposes an explanation of the origins and the function of Aaron as Moses’s brother (Exod 4:14). Deut 4 can also be quoted in this category of texts, insofar as it links Deuteronomistic parenesis and reference to the Priestly theology of creation (Deut 4:16b–19a and Gen 1:14–27). On the other hand, some texts have the function of framing the literary unit of the Pentateuch. We have already mentioned the correspondence between two verses: Gen 6:3 and Deut 34:7. There is also a parallelism between the end of the book of Genesis and the end of the book of Deuteronomy with the blessings (Gen 49; Deut 33) and with the death of Joseph (50:26) “marking the end of the Patriarchal period,” parallel to the death of Moses, marking the end of “the formation of the people of Yahweh” (Ska 2006: 19). These different literary observations are related to a process of unification of the Pentateuch: this process leads to a compromise between two main theological trends (P and Dtr, see above), and to the delimitation of a text separated from the Former Prophets, unified by different literary means, and closely linked to the character of Moses. This process of construction of the Pentateuch seems independent from the div­ ision of this text into five books, as the comparison of the global structure of the Pentateuch with the “five-­books” structure will now demonstrate.

The Global Structure of the Pentateuch and Its Meaning It is evident that different structures for the Pentateuch could be proposed. Many solutions can be formulated. The structure that is briefly presented in this paragraph is based on the main themes of the text, as well as on its narrative gaps. The outline of the text, based on these criteria, does not fit the canonical division into five books: Gen 1–11: narratives of origins; Gen 12–50: the revelation of God to the patriarchs; Exod 1:1–15:21: the revelation of God to the people through the exodus; Exod 15:22–18:27: Wandering in the desert: narratives of salvation (parallel to Num 11–21: wandering in the desert—narratives of sin and punishment); Exod 19:1–Num 10:35, the Sinai pericope (and its supplements in Num 1–10): the giving of the law; Num 11–21: wandering in the desert—narratives of sin and punishment (parallel to Exod 15:22–18:27); Num 22–36: preparation of the settlement in Canaan; Deuteronomy: collection of discourses by Moses.

This structure conveys a theological meaning:

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The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon   33 • The narratives of Gen 1:1–Exod 18:27 describe the gift of God offered to humankind, to the patriarchs, and finally to the people of Israel. • After the narratives that expound the deeds of God, the laws of the Sinai pericope give the people the means of answering God in the context of the covenant (Artus 2005, 19–30). • The Decalogue of Exod 20:2–17, introduced by a narrative verse (v. 2), illustrates the complementarity of narrative and law. • Num 11–21 exposes the consequences of the disobedience to the law and provides a typology of sin and intentional faults. Twice in the last part of the book of Numbers (Num 26:9–10, 64–65; 32:6–15), the faults of the desert are recounted to the second generation of the people of Israel who have left Egypt. • The book of Deuteronomy collects four discourses of Moses which have close parallels to the narratives and laws of the Tetrateuch. It underlines and reinforces the authority of the character of Moses: the whole message of Deuteronomy is presented in the form of discourses of Moses, who has the responsibility of the formation of the theological identity of the people (Markl 2012, 47–57, 70–87).

The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon Pentateuchal Logic and the “Five Books” Logic The structure that has just been proposed shows the major role of the Sinai pericope in the organization of the text of the Pentateuch. Namely, the giving of the law presupposes the gifts of creation and salvation and allows a definition of faithfulness and sin: the obedi­ence to the law leads to God’s blessing, whereas disobedience leads to curse (Lev 26). An organization of the Pentateuch in five books seems to disregard this theological logic of the text as a whole, as well as occasionally breaking the pericopes that have a real coherence: • The book of Exodus ends with the coming of the cloud on the tent of the meeting, at the end of the Tabernacle’s construction (Exod 40:34–35). But, as C. Nihan has showed, Moses is not admitted into the tent of the meeting. Only in Lev 9:23–24 are Moses and Aaron admitted inside: from a narrative perspective, Lev 9 describes the denouement of a plot that began in Exod 40 (Nihan 2007, 90–91). • The first part of the book of Numbers is related to Sinai. In fact, the geographical note of Num 1:1 mentions the “wilderness of Sinai,” and no longer the “mountain of Sinai” as in Lev 27:34 (Nihan 2007, 69–76; Römer 2008, 23). Nevertheless, the narratives and legal texts of Num 1–10 bring supplements to the laws of Exodus

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34   Olivier Artus and Leviticus: for instance, Num 7 presupposes the narrative of the achievement of the sanctuary in Exod 40:33, just as the prescriptions regarding the celebration of the Passover in Num 9:1–14 presuppose Exod 12:1–14. These observations make it necessary to understand properly the logic of the div­ision of the Pentateuch into five books—a logic which, as noted at the outset of this chapter, cannot be simply understood as a functional process linked with the material conditions of writing.

Literary Construction of the Beginning and of the End of the Books The formation of a fivefold Pentateuch introduces a new logic in the understanding of the text. From a literary point of view, it rests on late supplements of the text used as introductions and conclusions of the books, and building a transition from book to book: • Gen 50:24–25 closes the story of Joseph and announces the narrative of Exodus. • Exod 1:1–7 summarizes the stories of Jacob and Joseph (vv. 1–6), and hearkens back to the first chapter of Genesis (Exod 1:7 and Gen 1:22, 28). It introduces the story of a new generation (Exod 1:8). • Lev 1:1 introduces the book of Leviticus, using the expression “tent of meeting,” which echoes Exod 40:34–35. • Lev 27:34 (parallel to Lev 26:46) closes the book. • There is a wordplay between Num 1:1 and Lev 27:34 through the expressions “Mount Sinai” and “wilderness of Sinai.” • Num 36:13 closes the book of Numbers and builds a parallel with Lev 27:34. • Deut 1–3 builds a transition between the Tetrateuch and the book of Deuteronomy, with a series of parallels with the former narratives (institution of judges; Deut 1:9–18 and Exod 18:13–27; Num 18:13–26; revolt in Qadesh: Deut 1:19–46 and Num 13–14; 20:1–13; wars in Transjordan: Deut 2 and Num 21; settlement of two and a half tribes in Transjordan: Deut 3 and Num 32). These chapters are commonly understood as the beginning of a Deuteronomistic History, or as the beginning of a story of the conquest (Otto  2000, 12–109, 130–155). In the context of the Pentateuch they link Exodus and Numbers with Deuteronomy. At the very beginning of the book, Deut 1:5 links Deuteronomy with the end of the book of Numbers by the reference to “Moab.” • Deut 34:10–12 closes the book of Deuteronomy and closes the Pentateuch as well (see above). The last book of the Pentateuch ends in the same way as the first one (Genesis), namely, with the narrative of the death of the main character and the mention of his burial.

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The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon   35

Unity, Coherence, and Specificity of the Five Books of the Pentateuch The Book of Genesis The book of Genesis links traditions about the origins (Gen 1–11) and narratives about the patriarchs. The link between these two elements could be rather late, as the study of the historical summaries of the Psalms suggests (Römer 2011, 479–488): “The fact that creation is often related to (in knowledge of P account) but seldom integrated into a comprehensive summary confirms the independance of the origin tradition in Gen 1–11” (Römer 2011, 488). The unity of the book is mainly established by the toledot formula (ten times in the book: Gen 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1; 37:2), connecting the main characters through genealogies (Ska 2006, 19–22). The unity of the book is also thematic: Genesis tells a proto-­history of the people of Israel—the characters of Abraham and of Jacob being described as proto-­ Moses (Nihan  2007, 71–72n11; Römer 2013, 12–13).

The Book of Exodus The unity and the coherence of the book of Exodus are less evident: the main narrative theme of the first part (Exod 1–18) is the Exodus itself, but the links with the beginning of the Sinai pericope, and particularly with the laws related to the building of the tent of the meeting seem quite artificial. The building of the book rests on the topographical contrast between Egypt and Sinai: Egypt is the place where the people are not allowed by Pharaoh to worship God properly. On the contrary, Sinai is presented as a place of closeness to God, of intimacy with him. Notice the parallel topographical structure of Exodus and Numbers: in the same way as Exodus, Numbers underlines the contrast of two places: Sinai and the plains of Moab—the place of the meeting of God, and the place of the preparation of the conquest. Between the two, as in Exodus, the experience of wilderness challenges the faithfulness of the people of Israel.

The Book of Leviticus Through its introduction and conclusion refering to the revelation given to Moses on Mount Sinai (Lev 1:1 and 27:34), Leviticus is made a separate book and given a high authority. This specific status in confirmed by the fact that Leviticus forms the center of the five-­book structure constituting the Pentateuch (Nihan  2007, 74). The book of Leviticus links legal material of different origins: the end of the Priestly Laws (Lev 1–16) and the Holiness Legislation (Lev 17­–26). The majority of the authors consider the Holiness Legislation as later than P, even if there was a strong debate about this issue: Elliger (1959, 175–176), as well as later Blum (1990, 318–319) and Crüsemann (1992, 322–323) interpret H as an integral part of P, whereas Milgrom (2000; 2001, 1319–1443), Knohl (1995), Otto (2000), and Nihan (2007, 559–560) consider H to be later than P. In any case, the formation of an independent book of Leviticus privileges the unity of the

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36   Olivier Artus legal texts that are put together in that book, the structural analysis of which leads to consider Lev 16 as the heart of the book (Luciani 2005, 325–334).

The Book of Deuteronomy The overall composition of the Deuteronomy is the result of the work of several Deuteronomistic redactors, during and after the exile (Otto 2000). These redactors rewrote a preexilic nucleus (see above), building the book of Deuteronomy as a collection of discourses of Moses (see the section The Global Structure of the Pentateuch and Its Meaning), and kept its independence in the context of a Hexateuch, and then of a Pentateuch. The self-­reference within the book (Deut 17:18–19) underlines its specific authority.

The Case of the Book of Numbers The delimitation of the book of Numbers is a particular issue, as the literary materials that were collected in this book probably represent the latest texts of the Pentateuch, written or gathered when other books were almost fixed (Römer 2008, 30). This pre­lim­ in­ary remark leads us to notice that the process leading to the delimitation of the different books of Pentateuch may have been gradual rather than simultaneous. With regard to the question of Numbers, the book gathers in a unified work literary materials from different origins: • Some narratives emphasize the status of the character of Moses, and can be ascribed to a pentateuchal redaction (Num 11–12; 14:13–20). • Num 1–10, as well as Num 15; 19; 27:1–11; and 36 are post-­Priestly texts. These supplements often presuppose the Priestly laws and narratives. • The festival calendar of Num 28–29 presupposes and brings supplements to the calendar of Lev 23 (Nihan 2008). The book of Numbers is also delimited by an introduction and a conclusion parallel to those of Leviticus (see the section Pentateuchal Logic and the “Five Books” Logic). The topographical notes allow us to delineate three main parts: • Num 1–10 is related to the wilderness of Sinai. The text describes the organization of the community following a logic of holiness: Num 1–2 deals with the organization of the community; Num 3–4 with the organization of the Levites; Num 5–6 gathers stipulations that highlight the specific responsibility of the priests; and finally Num 7–8 deals with the functioning of the sanctuary. Through this structure, the text sets up a hierarchy of holiness that revises and in part even contradicts the theological understanding of holiness expounded in H (Artus 2014a, 141). • Num 11–21 is related to the wandering in the wilderness. At the heart of this second main part of Numbers, the pericope of Kadesh illustrates the main theological topic of the text: holiness. The intentional disobedience of the community (apart

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The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon   37 from Caleb and Joshua) toward God’s commands leads all of the first generation after the Exodus to be condemned to death, including Moses and Aaron. • Num 22–36 represent the last part of the book of Numbers, connected with the plains of Moab, and describing the organization of the second generation after the Exodus, in anticipation of the conquest of Canaan. The behavior of the community is determined by the paradigmatic fate of the first generation (Num 26:64–65; 32:6–15), and the preeminence of the high priest is emphazised through the narratives dedicated to the characters of Eleazar and Phinehas (Num 25; 27:12–23; 31). To sum up, the book of Numbers collects very heterogeneous literary materials, which are organized according to a theological project, the main topic of which is holiness. The literary work leading to an independent book organized in three parts can be attributed to post-­Priestly composers (Achenbach 2003).

Interpretation of the Five-­Book Structure The previous remarks underline the coherence of each book. But the five-­book structure also allows the building of a global organization of the Pentateuch that differs from the structure that was drawn up from thematic and narrative parameters (see above). • There is a symmetry between Genesis and Deuteronomy on the one hand (Nihan 2007, 71–75; Zenger 2012, 78–79), and Exodus and Numbers on the other hand: • There is a parallel between the end of Genesis and the end of Deuteronomy, with the blessing of Jacob in Gen 49 and the blessing of Moses in Deut 33, then the narratives of the death of Jacob (Gen 49:28–29) and Joseph (Gen 50:24–26), with instructions for their burial (Gen 49:29–33; 50:25), parallel to the narrative of the death of Moses (Deut 34:5–6), including the motif of his burial. • Another parallel concerns the reference to the promise of the land (Deut 1:8 and 34:4; Gen 12:7 and parallels in Gen 12–50, see Gen 26:3; 48:4). • There is a series of parallel stories in Exodus and Numbers: Numbers 14 is sometimes described as an “anti-­Exodus 14” (Lohfink  1978). Num 14:39–45 (defeat) corresponds to Exod 17:8–16 (victory); Num 20:1–13 corresponds to Exod 15:22–27; 17:1–7, and Num 11 corresponds to Exod 16 and to Exod 18:13–14. The narratives of Exodus are narratives of salvation, while their parallels in Numbers highlight intentional faults and punishment. To conclude, Genesis and Deuteronomy on the one hand and Exodus and Numbers on the other build “a twofold frame to Leviticus” (Nihan 2007, 71) that highlights the particular position and function of the book of Leviticus in the five-­book structure of the Pentateuch.

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38   Olivier Artus Making Leviticus the heart of the Torah, the composers of the five-­book structure of the Pentateuch underline their understanding of the Pentateuch as law. The history of the composition of Leviticus—unifying Priestly legal texts, the Holiness Code, and finally late rewritings like Lev 10—becomes blurred and gives way to a unified legal text. The other books of the Pentateuch can be understood according to this view: the Exodus is the preliminary condition for the giving of the law at Mount Sinai; the book of Numbers draws out the consequences of the disobedience to the law. Faithfulness to the law is the condition of the realization of the promise of the land (Genesis, Deuteronomy). As a result of this fivefold structure, the legal interpretation of the Pentateuch overrides any other interpretation: the narratives assume the role of preparation of the gift of the laws or of illustrations of the requirements of the laws. The theological issues linked with the narratives of creation or salvation are now used as foundations for the laws, as in Lev 25:1–12, 38, 55 (Artus 2014b).

Suggested Reading On the specificity of Leviticus and Numbers in the context of the Pentateuch, see Römer 2008, Frevel 2013. On the legal texts of the book of Numbers, and their relationship with previous traditions, see the study of Nihan 2008. On the reference to pentateuchal traditions by nonpentateuchal traditions, see Römer 2011. On the latest phases of the compostion of the Pentateuch and its process of canonization, see Schmid 2007, Kratz 2011, Fantalkin and Tal 2012.

Works Cited Achenbach, R. 2003. Die Vollendung der Tora: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Pentateuch. BZABR 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Albertz, R. 2013. Exodus 1-18, 19–26. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Artus, O. 2005. Les Lois du Pentateuque. LD 200. Paris: Cerf. Artus, O. 2008. “Le Problème de l’unité littéraire et de la spécificité théologique du livre des Nombres.” In The Books of Leviticus and Numbers, edited by T. Römer, 121–143. BETL 215. Leuven: Peeters. Artus, O. 2014a. “Les Enjeux socio-historiques de la composition d'ensemble du livre des Nombres.” In Congress Volume Munich 2013, edited by C. M. Maier, 125–153. Leiden: Brill. Artus, O. 2014b. “Lévitique 25: Année sabbatique et Jubilé dans le contexte des traditions bibliques et des cultures du Proche-Orient Ancien.” Transversalités 129:9–27. Baden, J. S. 2012. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. ABRL. New Haven: Yale University. Blenkinsopp, J. 1992, The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible. ABRL. New York: Doubleday. Blum, E. 1990. Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch. BZAW 189. Berlin: De Gruyter. Crüsemann, F. 1992. Die Tora. Munich: Kaiser Verlag. Elliger, K. 1959. “Heiligkeitsgesetz.” RGG 3:175–176. Fantalkin, A., and O.  Tal. 2012. “The Canonization of the Pentateuch: When and Why? (Continued, Part II).” ZAW 124:201–212.

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The Pentateuch: Five Books, One Canon   39 Finkelstein, I., and T. Römer. 2014. “Comments on the Historical Background of the Abraham Narrative: Between ‘Realia’ and ‘Exegetica.’” HBAI 3:3–23. Frevel, C. 2013. “The Book of Numbers—Formation, Composition and Interpretation of a Late Part of the Torah: Some Introductory Remarks.” In Torah and the Book of Numbers, edited by C. Frevel et al., 1–37. FAT/II 62. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Haran, M. 1982. “Book-Size and Thematic Cycles in the Pentateuch.” JJS 33:161–173. Knohl, I. 1995. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Translated by J. Feldman and P. Rodman. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Knoppers, G. N. 2006. “Revisiting the Samarian Question in the Persian Period.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by O. Lipschits and M. Oeming, 265–289. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Knoppers, G. N. 2011. “Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation: The Jewish and Samaritan Pentateuchs in Historical Perspective.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 507–531. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kratz, R. G. 2000. Die Komposition der erzählenden Bücher des Alten Testaments: Grundwissen der Bibelkritik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Kratz, R.  G. 2002. “Der vor-und der nachpriesterschriftliche Hexateuch.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 295–323. BZAW 315. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kratz, R.  G. 2011. “The Pentateuch in Current Research: Consensus and Debate.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T.  B.  Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 31–61. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Lee, W. W. 2003. Punishment and Forgiveness in Israel’s Migratory Campaign. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Lohfink, N. 1978. “Die Priesterschrift und die Geschichte.” In Congress Volume Göttingen 1977, 189–225. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 29. Leiden: Brill. Luciani, D. 2005. Sainteté et pardon, I. BETL 185A. Leuven: Peeters. Markl, D. 2012. Gottes Volk im Deuteronomium. BZABR 18. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Milgrom, J. 1990. Numbers. The JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Milgrom, J. 1991. Leviticus 1–16. AB 3A. New York: Doubleday. Milgrom, J. 2000. Leviticus 17–22. AB 3B. New York: Doubleday. Milgrom, J. 2001. Leviticus 23–27. AB 3C. New York: Doubleday. Nihan, C. 2007. From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch. A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus. FAT/II 25. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Nihan, C. 2008. “Israel’s Festival Calendars in Leviticus 23, Numbers 28–29 and the Formation of ‘Priestly’ Literature.” In The Books of Leviticus and Numbers, edited by T. Römer, 177–231. BETL 215. Peeters: Leuven. Otto, E. 1997. “Forschungen zur Priesterschrift.” TRu 62:1–50. Otto, E. 2000. Das Deuteronomium im Pentateuch und Hexateuch: Studien zur Literaturgeschichte von Pentateuch und Hexateuch im Lichte des Deuteronomiumrahmens. FAT 30. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Otto, E. 2002. Gottes Recht als Menschenrecht: Rechts- und literaturhistorische Studien zum Deuteronomium. BZABR 2. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Pakkala, J. 2009. “The Date of the Oldest Edition of Deuteronomy.” ZAW 121:388–401. Perlitt, L. 1988. “Priesterschrift im Deuteronomium?” ZAW 100:65–88.

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40   Olivier Artus Pola, T. 1995. Die Ursprüngliche Priesterschrift, Beobachtungen zur Literarkritik und Traditionsgeschichte von Pg. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Römer, T. 1990. Israels Väter: Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition. OBO 99. Freiburg: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. Römer, T. 1998. “Moïse entre théologie et histoire.” Lumière et vie 237:7–16. Römer, T. 2007a. “La Construction du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Ennéateuque: Investigations préliminaires sur la formation des grands ensembles littéraires de la Bible hébraïque.” In Les Dernières Rédactions du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Ennéateuque, edited by T. Römer and K. Schmid, 9–34. BETL 203. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Römer, T. 2007b. “Israel’s Sojourn in the Wilderness and the Construction of the Book of Numbers.” In Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, edited by R. Rezetko et al. VTSup 113:419–445. Römer, T. 2008. “De la périphérie au centre: Les Livres du Lévitique et des Nombres dans le débat actuel sur le Pentateuque.” In The Books of Leviticus and Numbers, edited by T. Römer, 3–34. BETL 215. Leuven: Peeters. Römer, T. 2011. “Extra-Biblical Evidence for the Existence of a Pentateuch?: The Case of the ‘Historical Summaries’, Especially in Psalms.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 471–488. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Römer, T. 2013. “Zwischen Urkunden, Fragmenten und Ergänzungen: Zum Stand der Pentateuch Forschung.” ZAW 125:2–24. Römer, T. 2015. “D’Abraham à la Conquête: L’Hexateuque et l’histoire d’Israël et de Juda.” RSR 103:35–53. Schmid, K. 1999. Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testament. WMANT 81. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Schmid, K. 2007. “Der Pentateuchredaktor: Beobachtungen zum Theologischen Profil des Toraschlusses in Dtn 34.” In Les Dernières Rédactions du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Ennéateuque, edited by T.  Römer and K.  Schmid, 183–197. BETL 203. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Schmid, K. 2012. “The Canon and The Cult: The Emergence of Book Religion in Ancient Israel and the Gradual Sublimation of the Temple Cult.” JBL 131:289–305. Schmidt, L. 2012. “Die vorpriesterliche Verbindung von Erzvätern und Exodus durch die Josefgeschichte (Gn 37; 39–50*) und Exodus 1.” ZAW 124:19–37. Ska, J.-L. 2006. Introduction to the Reading of the Pentateuch. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Veijola, T. 2004. Das 5. Buch Mose Deuteronomium: Kapitel 1,1-16,17. ATD 8,1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Zenger, E. ed. 2001. Einleitung in das Alte Testament. 4th ed. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Zenger, E. ed. 2012. Einleitung in das Alte Testament. 8th ed. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Zenger, E., and C.  Frevel. 2008. “Die Bücher Levitikus und Numeri als Teile der Pentateuchkomposition.” in The Books of Leviticus and Numbers, edited by T. Römer. BETL 215. Leuven: Peeters, 35–74.

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Chapter 3

The Text of th e Pen tateuch Sidnie White Crawford

This essay reconstructs the history of the text of the Pentateuch from the extant ­evidence available, starting with a brief inscription from the seventh century bce and ending with the medieval Masoretic Text and Samaritan Pentateuch. It begins with an overview of the available textual evidence. There follows a history of text-­critical the­or­ ies concerning the development of the text of the Pentateuch, finishing with the author’s own reconstruction of that development. Finally, the essay ends with a brief discussion of the relevance of this textual data to the current debate concerning the composition of the Pentateuch.

The Textual Evidence The ancient evidence for the text of the Pentateuch comprises two corpora: ancient inscriptions and manuscripts, and the three complete witnesses: the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch. Although it is common in text-­critical circles to discuss the ancient manuscript evidence with reference to the complete witnesses, it must be borne in mind that this is a chronologically anachronistic procedure. The complete witnesses as they are now known by their earliest manuscripts are all later than the manuscript evidence that comes from the Judean Desert. Thus the correct procedure would be to begin with the more ancient manuscript evidence and move forward in time to the three complete witnesses. However, we are hampered by the fact that the manuscript evidence is fragmentary and incomplete, and it is thus difficult to create a coherent picture of the textual history of the Pentateuch from these manuscripts alone. In contrast, the three complete witnesses afford an opportunity to study their ­text-­critical features as a whole and thus to make overarching statements as to their

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42   Sidnie White Crawford characteristics. In the following discussion I will follow a hybrid approach: when a single manuscript or multiple manuscripts agree in text-­critical characteristics with one of the three complete witnesses it will be noted. However, when constructing an overall picture of the textual history of the Pentateuch I will attempt to move from the earliest evidence forward.

Inscriptions and Ancient Manuscripts The oldest inscriptional evidence for materials preserved in the Pentateuch is found on two small silver rolls unearthed in a burial chamber at Ketef Hinnom (Barkay et al. 2004). The rolls, which probably functioned as amulets, are incised in the ancient Israelite script and are dated to the end of the seventh century bce. The first amulet does not contain an exact biblical quotation, but uses language similar to phrases in Exodus and Deuteronomy. The second amulet contains a quotation of the Aaronic Blessing found in Num 6:24–26, with variants from other known versions. It is unlikely, however, that the scribe of these rolls was quoting from a manuscript of Numbers; it is probable that the priestly blessing was well known in the oral tradition of ancient Israel. After the Ketef Hinnom rolls there is a gap of several centuries before the oldest dated manuscripts of pentateuchal books appear among the finds from the Judean Desert caves. The oldest such manuscript is 4QExod-­Levf from Qumran Cave 4, dated by ­paleography to the mid-­third century bce (Cross 1994b, 134). Other Pentateuch manuscripts dated to the late third–early second centuries bce include 4QpaleoDeuts, 4QExodd, 6QpaleoGen, and 6QpaleoLev. The latest manuscripts, dated to the second century ce, were discovered in the caves of the Wadi Murabba’at (MurGen, MurNum). The manuscript evidence for each book of the Pentateuch is listed below; the critical editions of the manuscripts are found in the appropriate volume of the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series, while Ulrich (2010) provides a convenient one-­volume transcription. In addition, the Nash Papyrus, discovered in the Fayyum of Egypt in 1902 and dated to c.150 bce, contains a mixed text of the Decalogue and the Sh’ma (Burkitt 1903; Albright 1937). Although, as will be seen below, the pentateuchal books are found in several distinct forms from antiquity, there also existed “rewritten compositions” that build on a pentateuchal base text to create a new composition. Examples include the book of Jubilees and the Temple Scroll. Such rewritten compositions are not included in the manuscript counts below. Genesis: There are twenty-­seven extant manuscripts of (portions of) Genesis; five of these contain more than one book (4QGen-­ Exoda, 4QpaleoGen-­Exodl, and 4QReworked Pentateuch A, B, and C), and three are in the paleo-­Hebrew script (4QpaleoGen-­Exodl, 4QpaleoGenm, and 6QpaleoGen). The only chapters from Genesis for which there is no ancient manuscript evidence are chapters 7, 9, 11, 13–16, and 20. Exodus: There are twenty-­five extant manuscripts of portions of Exodus; six or seven contained more than one book (4QGen-­Exoda, 4QpaleoGen-­Exodl, 4QExod-­Levf, 4QReworked Pentateuch A, B, C, and D, and 4QDeutj). Two are written in paleo-­Hebrew,

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The Text of the Pentateuch   43 including the important manuscript 4QpaleoExodm as well as 4QpaleoGen-­Exodl, and one is Greek (7QpapLXXExod). All of the chapters of Exodus are represented in the manuscript evidence. Leviticus: There are sixteen or seventeen extant manuscripts of (portions of) Leviticus; four or five contain more than one book (1QpaleoLev [with 1QpaleoNum?], 4QExod-­Levf, 4QLev-­Numa, and 4QReworked Pentateuch C and D). Four are written in paleo-­Hebrew (1QpaleoLev, 2QpaleoLev, 6QpaleoLev, and 11QpaleoLeva), while one may be preserved in the Cryptic A script (4Qpap cryptA Levh?). Two manuscripts are Greek (4QLXXLeva, 4QpapLXXLevb), and there is one Aramaic Targum (4QtgLev). The only chapter of Leviticus not represented in the manuscripts is chapter 12. Numbers: There are fifteen extant manuscripts of Numbers; four or five contain more than one book (1QpaleoNum [with 1QpaleoLev?], 4QLev-­Numa, and 4QReworked Pentateuch B, C, and D). One is written in paleo-­Hebrew (1QpaleoNum), and one is in Greek (4QLXXNum). The only chapter not covered by the manuscripts is chapter 6. Deuteronomy: There are thirty-­seven extant manuscripts of Deuteronomy; four contain more than one book (4QDeutj, 4QReworked Pentateuch B, C, and D). Two are written in paleo-­ Hebrew script (4QpaleoDeutr, 4QpaleoDeuts), and one is in Greek (4QLXXDeut). All of the chapters of Deuteronomy are covered by the manuscript evidence. There are thus 121 Judean Desert manuscripts that contained the entirety or portions of one, two, or more books of the Pentateuch. Fully 43 per cent of manuscripts from Qumran and 62.5 per cent from other Judean Desert sites of what later became the bib­ lical books are pentateuchal, indicating the importance of this corpus in the late Second Temple period (Tov 2015, 242). Further emphasizing the Pentateuch’s significance, only its books and Job are copied in the paleo-­Hebrew script, a nationalist revival of the ancient Israelite script that appeared in the mid-­third century bce on coins, inscriptions, and manuscripts. Further, only books of the Pentateuch and Job are found in Greek or Aramaic translations in the Judean Desert caves. A note concerning the Reworked Pentateuch manuscripts (4Q158, 4Q364–367) is in order here. In the 1950s, the Cave 4 editorial team considered the text of these manuscripts as too far removed from the received text for them to be considered Pentateuch manuscripts. Thus, they were classified as “Biblical paraphrase: Genesis, Exodus” (4Q158; Allegro 1968, 1–6) and “Reworked Pentateuch” (Tov and White 1994, 187–352). The main reasons for this classification are that these manuscripts sometimes deviate from the order of the received text, harmonize even more extensively than the Septuagint or the Samaritan Pentateuch (see below), and add text that is otherwise unknown (Tov and White 1994, 191). However, further reflection on the nature of these texts, alongside consideration of the history of the text of the Pentateuch as a whole as revealed by the Judean Desert manuscripts, has led the editors (along with others) to reevaluate these manuscripts, and now to consider them as ancient pentateuchal witnesses that differ from the complete witnesses (MT, LXX, and SP) to varying degrees (see most recently Tov 2015, 18–19; Ulrich 2015, 208; Crawford 2017). This article will, however, continue to refer to these five manuscripts according to the label given in the

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44   Sidnie White Crawford editio princeps, 4QReworked Pentateuch (4QRP), in order to avoid confusion of nomenclature. Now that these manuscripts are generally accepted as witnesses to the text of the Pentateuch, it has further become clear that they are not all alike (Segal  2000, 393; Zahn 2011, 129–134; Crawford 2019, 260–264). 4QRP B and 4QRPC, when whole, were most likely complete manuscripts of what we now recognize as the Pentateuch (it is true that 4QRP B does not conserve any passages from Leviticus, but this is in all probability an accident of preservation). 4QRP A, 4QRP D, and 4QRP E, on the other hand, seem to have contained only excerpts from certain pentateuchal books, and should be classified as “excerpted” texts, possibly used for study or liturgical purposes. There are a number of these excerpted texts among the ancient manuscript witnesses to the Pentateuch. In addition to 4QRP A, 4QRP D, and 4QRP E, it has been suggested that 4QGend, 4QGenf, 4QExode, 4QDeutj, 4QDeutk1, 4QDeutn, 4QDeutq, 5QDeut, and the Nash Papyrus are also excerpted texts. These excerpted manuscripts contained selected passages for study or liturgical use; they remain valid evidence for text-­critical purposes. When the Judean Desert scriptural manuscripts were first discovered and deciphered, scholars were excited to discover that certain manuscripts contained texts that affiliated them with one of the three complete ancient witnesses. This was especially noteworthy in the case of manuscripts that pointed to the Hebrew Vorlage underlying the Septuagint, for example 4QDeutq (Skehan 1954, 12–15) and 4QSama (Cross 1953, 15–26). A natural tendency arose to try and place each scriptural manuscript in affiliation with one of the three complete witnesses (e.g., Albright 1955, 27–33 and Cross 1964, 281–299). (For a counter to this tendency, see the early articles of Talmon, especially Talmon  1964 and 1975.) As our knowledge of the entire scriptural corpus has grown, it has become clear that the textual picture is much more complicated. However, within the pentateuchal corpus, certain individual manuscripts do demonstrate affiliation with one of the three ancient witnesses, and these will be noted below (see also Lange  2009; Tov 2004).

The Three Complete Witnesses and Their Daughter Versions The three complete witnesses to the text of the Pentateuch are the Masoretic Text (MT), the Septuagint (LXX), and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP). Each preserves an ancient text of the Pentateuch that can be retrojected back at least as far as the last three­ cen­tur­ies bce.

The Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text as it now exists is a medieval Hebrew text, which consists of an ancient consonantal text to which vocalization and accentuation marks have been added. The consonantal base of this text is usually referred to as the proto-­masoretic or proto-­rabbinic text (hereinafter M). Among the oldest codices of MT are the Aleppo

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The Text of the Pentateuch   45 Codex, c.925 ce, and the Leningrad or St Petersburg Codex, 1009 ce. However, most of the Torah is missing in the Aleppo Codex, so diplomatic editions of the Torah are usually based on the Leningrad Codex (e.g. BHS, BHQ). Other medieval witnesses to MT Torah, all from the tenth century ce, include codex C3 from the Karaite synagogue in Cairo, Codex B.M.Or.4445, Codex Jerusalem 24º 5702, and Codex Sassoon 1053. The proto-­masoretic consonantal text on which MT Torah is based (M) is attested in the Pentateuch in scrolls from Judean Desert sites other than Qumran, i.e., Masada, Wadi Murabba’at, and Naḥal Ḥever, all of which are first- or second-­century ce manuscripts. These manuscripts are described by Tov as “internally identical” to consonantal MT; he suggests that they are copies of “master scrolls” kept in the Temple in Jerusalem (Tov 2012, 30–31), although others dispute this claim (see Ulrich 2015, 21–25). The con­ son­ant­al MT contains variants that make it a unique offshoot of M; the most prominent of these is the qere perpetuum in which ‫( הוא‬3ms independent pronoun) is the ketiv and ‫( היא‬3fs independent pronoun) is the qere. This phenomenon can be explained in one of two ways: it is either a dialectical feature in which ‫ הוא‬is an epicene pronoun representing either gender (recognized by the Masoretes), or it is the result of graphic confusion of waw and yod stemming from a period in which the two letters were indistinguishable. According to Cross, the only paleographic period in which this phenomenon occurred is the early Herodian period (30–1 bce; Cross  1998, 223). Given that the earlier ­proto-­masoretic manuscripts from Qumran do not display this variant (see, e.g., 4QLev-­Numa), the latter explanation appears more plausible. The Qumran Pentateuch scrolls, on the other hand, exhibit textual variety, even those close to M. Tov therefore describes these manuscripts as “MT-­like” (Tov 2015, 244). The manuscripts 4QGen-­Exoda, 4QGenb, 4QpaleoGen-­Exodl, 1QpaleoLev, 4QDeute, and 4QDeutg may be characterized as members of the M branch of the Pentateuch. This M branch is a carefully copied, conservative (unexpanded or harmonized) text, handed down over the centuries with relatively few changes. The daughter versions of M are the Aramaic Targumim, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Latin Vulgate. There are several Targums to the Pentateuch, all more or less similar to M: 4QtgLev, from the late second–early first century bce; Targum Onkelos, from Babylon or Palestine, dated somewhere in the third–fifth centuries ce; Targum Pseudo-­Jonathan from Palestine, dated to the seventh–eighth centuries ce, the Fragment Targums, Targumim from the Cairo Genizah, and Targum Neophyti, from 1504 or slightly later. The Syriac translations were preserved in Christian circles; a critical edition is avail­ able in the Leiden/Amsterdam Peshitta. The Vulgate is the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin by Jerome between 390 and 405 ce. Jerome used Hebrew texts reflecting M as the basis for his translation. The text found in M may be characterized as an unexpanded text, essentially unmarked by the expansions and other editorial changes found in G and the pre-­ Samaritan texts (see below). It is normally characterized by careful copying; the manuscript evidence indicates that the text was passed down with few changes from the time that the Pentateuch received its final shape, some time prior to the third century bce. (This date is based on the date of the translation of the Torah into Greek.) However, it

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46   Sidnie White Crawford should be noted that M does contain its share of variants, some of which are certainly secondary. The chronology of the antediluvian patriarchs in Genesis 5 is an example of revision on the part of M (as well as G and pre-­SP; see below). In Exodus 35–40 M’s text differs from G’s and is probably later. M contains sequence differences from G at Gen 47:5–11 and Num 10:34–36. M also has secondary readings, most likely theologically motivated, at Deut 27:4, 32:8 and 32:43 (see below).

The Septuagint The Septuagint (LXX) denotes the original translation of the Hebrew books of the Pentateuch into Greek. There is general agreement that this translation was made in Alexandria in the early–mid-­third century bce. The Letter of Aristeas claims that the translation was made under the auspices of Demetrius of Phalerum for the Library of Alexandria by seventy-­ two Jewish elders from a Hebrew original brought from Jerusalem. While this account is assuredly fictional, it does indicate the approximate time of the translation and its Jewish origin. The reconstruction of the original translations (and their Hebrew Vorlagen) are referred to as the “Old Greek” (G). The oldest witnesses to the LXX are leather and papyrus fragments from the Judean Desert and Egypt. 7QpapLXXExod, 4QLXXLeva, 4QpapLXXLevb, and 4QLXXNum date to the first century bce (4QLXXDeut is too fragmentary to date with certainty). One noteworthy feature of 4QpapLXXLevb is the rendering of ‫ יהוה‬as Ιαω, a trans­lit­er­ ation of the Hebrew rather than the usual translation κυριος. The oldest complete manuscripts of LXX are Codex B (Vaticanus) from the fourth century ce, Codex S or ‫א‬ (Sinaiticus), also from the fourth century ce, and Codex A (Alexandrinus) from the fifth century ce. For the critical editions of the books of the Greek Pentateuch, collating all the Greek and Latin witnesses, the reader is referred to the five volumes of the Göttingen Septuagint. The most important daughter version of LXX is the Vetus Latina (Old Latin; VL), the first Christian translation of LXX. The evidence for VL may be extracted from the ap­par­ atuses of the Göttingen Septuagint. On the basis of internal considerations, it is likely that each book of the Pentateuch had a separate translator, each of which has slightly different traits, although all the books share, to a greater or lesser extent, the same general character. The main feature of G is its large number of small harmonizing pluses. With Tov (1985, 10), we may define “harmonization” as a procedure involving “the change, addition or omission of a detail in some MSS of text A according to a parallel text B.” Most (but not all) of these har­mon­ iza­tions took place in the Hebrew Vorlage of G and were not the work of the translator(s). Many of these harmonizations are shared with the pre-­SP textual branch (see below), pointing to a common Vorlage. Two examples of harmonizations in G are given here (see also Hendel 1998, 81–92; Tov 2015, 166–188; 2008, 271–282): In the chronology in Genesis 11, G fills out the formula on the basis of the parallel formula in Genesis 5, adding at the end of each entry καὶ ἀπέθανεν (Heb. ‫)וימת‬.

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The Text of the Pentateuch   47 In the MT form of Deut 6:21, 7:8, and 9:6 the phrase ‫ביד חזקה‬, “with a strong hand” occurs. The LXX adds the parallel phrase καὶ ἐν Βραχίονι ὑψηλῷ, “and a high arm,” in parallel with the formula in 3:24, 4:34, 5:15, 7:19, and 11:2. In addition to this type of small-­scale harmonization, G in each book of the Pentateuch preserves unique features. (The exception to this statement is Leviticus, which contains, among all its witnesses, a relatively stable, unvarying textual tradition.) In G Genesis the main variations occur in the chronologies of the antediluvian and postdiluvian patriarchs, found in chapters 5 and 11. A comparison of these chapters among the witnesses reveals chronological (and theological) difficulties; in Genesis 5, based on their ages of death, some of the ancestors (e.g. Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech) would have survived the flood, while in Genesis 11 some of Noah’s offspring survived into the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (e.g., Shem). G makes a mostly successful effort to resolve the difficulty in Genesis 5 by systematically revising its dates by ± 100 years, although not entirely—Methuselah survives the flood by fourteen years (Hendel 1998, 61–78; 2012, 8–9)! In Genesis 11 G (along with pre-­SP) raises the ages at which the ancestors first begat a son; G also adds another patriarch, Kenan II. The result of these changes is that only Abraham’s father, grandfather, and great-­grandfather are alive in his lifetime. Finally, G Genesis is extensively harmonized, and 31:46–52 contains a sequence of verses different from the other witnesses. G Exodus differs considerably in chapters 35–40 from other witnesses in internal order and content; it is also somewhat shorter. In these chapters G most likely reflects a different Hebrew Vorlage than the other witnesses (Aejmelaeus 2007, 107–121; Tov 2012, 316). G Numbers differs from M and pre-­SP in the order of the tribes in chapters 1 and 26, and in the order of verses in 10:34–36. In addition, G Numbers has a series of small pluses throughout, with the exception of 9:22–23, which is shorter than the other witnesses. G Deuteronomy is characterized throughout by numerous small harmonizations (see the example above). Several of the Qumran manuscripts have been determined to have characteristics similar to those of G. 4QExodb shares several readings with G, including at 1:5, where the number of Jacob’s descendants is given as seventy-­five (against seventy in M and SP; Cross 1994a, 84–85). 4QLevd shares two long readings with G at 17:3 and, with SP, 17:4. 4QNumb shares a significant number of small plusses with G and G/SP, pointing to a common Vorlage. 4QDeutj shares a significant variant with G at 32:8: ‫( בני אלוהים‬G υίῶν θεοῦ) against M and SP’s ‫( בני ישראל‬Crawford, Joosten, and Ulrich 2008, 1–15). 4QDeutq and G agree in seven readings against M, preserving a longer version of the poem found in Deuteronomy 32. In addition, outside of Qumran the Nash Papyrus is closest in its textual affiliation with G.

The Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch, as its name suggests, consists of the first five books of the Jewish Bible, and constitutes the canon of the Samaritan community. It can be characterized overall as an expansive text, with many variants, both small and large in scale.

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48   Sidnie White Crawford These variants include scribal error, grammar and morphology, orthography, ­substitutions of rare words or forms with more common ones, small harmonizing changes (often shared with G), clarifying small additions, and large-­scale editorial changes (Crawford  2016; Tov  2012, 80–90). These editorial changes, carried out by scribes, have the overall goal of “perfecting” the text; that is, removing perceived inconsistencies. This editorial principle, however, was not consistently applied across all the books of the Pentateuch. This is most obvious in the legal sections, particularly in Leviticus, where SP (and its ancestors) did not harmonize or otherwise change seemingly contradictory laws. Since the discovery of manuscripts from the Qumran caves that share the above characteristics with the SP (e.g., 4QpaleoExodm, 4QNumb, 4QRP B), it has become accepted practice to refer to manuscripts of this type, without sectarian Samaritan features, as the pre- or proto-­SP textual family (e.g., Tov 2012, 75–78). One example of this pre-­SP text­ ual family, in a paleo-­Hebrew script, became the base text for the SP. The Samaritan community, after its final rupture with the Jews following John Hyrcanus’s destruction of their sanctuary on Mount Gerizim in 110 bce, chose a paleo-­Hebrew exemplar of this textual group and added its own theological editorial layer (Crawford 2011, 130–133). This text then began its separate transmission within the Samaritan community. The earliest manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch in existence are medieval copies. The theological editorial layer added by the Samaritan community to its pre-­ Samaritan base text emphasizes the choice of Mount Gerizim as God’s sanctuary in the Promised Land. These tendentious changes can be seen especially in the Samaritan versions of the Decalogue (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5), which add a commandment to build an altar on Mount Gerizim. The Deuteronomy version of this commandment is as follows (5:18+): And when the Lord your God brings you to the land of the Canaanites that you are entering to possess, you shall set up large stones for yourself and cover them with plaster. And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law. And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Gerizim as I command you today. Build there an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. Do not use any iron tool on them. Build the altar of the Lord your God with unhewn stones and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. Sacrifice whole offerings and eat them there and rejoice in the presence of the Lord your God. That mountain is across the Jordan, westwards toward the setting sun, in the territory of the Canaanites who dwell in the Arabah facing Gilgal, near the oak of Moreh, facing Shechem.

In addition to this “Samaritan commandment,” until recently the variant ‫“ בחר‬has chosen,” found in SP Deuteronomy in reference to God’s choice of Mount Gerizim, as opposed to ‫יבחר‬, found in M Deuteronomy and almost all G Deuteronomy manuscripts, was also considered as a tendentious Samaritan change, as well as the word ‫ בהרגריזים‬in Deut 27:4. However, recent reconsiderations of the evidence have suggested that these variants belong to the pre-­Samaritan layer of the text (see below).

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The Text of the Pentateuch   49 The Samaritan Pentateuch is written in a particular version of the paleo-­Hebrew script, and is a consonantal, unvocalized text. It is accompanied in the Samaritan community by a sacred reading tradition that is for the most part in agreement with MT vocalization (Schorch 1997, 1999). The discovery of Pentateuch manuscripts in the Qumran caves that reflect the expansive editorial tradition of the Samaritan Pentateuch has made it clear that the Samaritan Pentateuch is not the peculiar creation of the Samaritan community, but is based on a text of the Pentateuch in general circulation in Palestine in the last centuries bce. These manuscripts, 4QExod-­Levf, 4QpaleoExodm, 4QNumb, 4QRP B, and perhaps 4QRP C, as well as extended quotations in 4QRP A and 4QTestimonia, contain a text of the Pentateuch that, in its extant portions, is nearly identical to the Samaritan Pentateuch in its large-­scale editorial changes, but without the Samaritan ideological layer. This textual group is therefore referred to as “pre-­Samaritan” (pre-­SP). The pre-­Samaritan text, as recovered from its Qumran exemplars and the base text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, is characterized by scribal intervention on both small and large scales. Many of the small-­scale changes are shared with G, indicating a common ancestor. The large-­scale changes, however, are unique to this textual group and enable the text critic to identify easily manuscripts belonging to this group. These editorial changes may be grouped as follows (see also Kartveit 2009, 310–312): Genesis 5 and 11. Changes in the chronology in chapter 5, in partial agreement with the changes in G and shared with Jubilees, resolve the difficulty of having some of the antediluvian ancestors survive the flood. In the pre-­Samaritan tradition the ancestors in question die in the year of the flood. The pre-­Samaritan chronology (also shared with Jubilees) in chapter 11 solves the problem of many of the postdiluvian ancestors surviving into the lifetimes of the patriarchs by revising so that only Abraham’s father is alive when Abraham is born (Hendel 1998, 64–77). Exodus 7–11. In the story of the plagues, the pre-­Samaritan tradition fills out the narration of God's commands to Moses (and Aaron) and their fulfillment by ensuring that each time God gives a command, its fulfillment by Moses in all its details is explicitly recounted, or, if Moses carries out a command, that command has been previously narrated. Either the fulfillment of the previously received divine command is inserted, or the divine command, missing before the narration of the fulfillment, is given. These insertions are found at 7:18, 7:29, 8:19, 9:5, 9:19, 10:3, and 11:4. Deuteronomy 1–3. The editor(s) compared the details of Moses’s speech on the Plains of Moab to the corresponding narratives in Exodus and Numbers. If a detail in the Deuteronomy speech did not occur in the previous narrative, it was retrojected back into the earlier books. One example from Exodus and one from Numbers illustrates the technique. In Exodus 20, Deut 5:24–27 is inserted at MT 20:19, and Deut 5:28b–29, 18:18–22, 5:30–31 is inserted at MT 20:21. In Numbers, Deut 2:17–19 is inserted after 21:13. Other editorial changes. The pre-­Samaritan text has other editorial changes aimed at “perfecting” the text, that is, removing perceived inconsistencies. Gen 30:36 has a long harmonizing plus, found in both the SP and 4QRP B, in which Jacob receives the dream

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50   Sidnie White Crawford which he later recounts to Rachel and Leah in 31:11–13. A verse-­long harmonizing plus occurs at Gen 42:16. Num 4:14 adds material concerning the wash basin and stand in the court of the Tabernacle. Finally, Deut 2:7 and 10:6 add material from the corresponding passages in Numbers 20 and 33. Two special cases occur in Deuteronomy. In SP, Deuteronomy is characterized by the perfect form ‫ בחר‬in the formula ‫המקום אשר בחר יהוה אלהיכם לשים את שמו שם‬, which occurs twenty-­two times, the first at 12:5. M, by contrast, consistently has the imperfect ‫יבחר‬ (followed by most G witnesses; no Qumran manuscripts preserve any of these occurrences). Both readings reflect an election theology; in SP, the election of Mount Gerizim; in M the (coming) choice of Jerusalem. Until recently, most scholars argued that the Samaritan reading reflected a late and polemical change by the Samaritan community, to emphasize the sanctity of Gerizim over Jerusalem (e.g. McCarthy 2007, 84*–85*; Tov 2012, 88). However, Schenker has collected eleven instances in the G tradition that preserve the past tense; these instances appear to be independent of SP (Schenker 2008, 342–345). These instances indicate that the ancient textual tradition was more fluid than previously thought, and the Samaritan and Jewish communities chose the reading that best reflected their own theological position (Knoppers 2013, 85; Crawford 2016). At Deut 27:4 SP contains an important variant: ‫תקימו את האבנים האלה אשר אנכי מוצה אתכם היום בהרגריזים‬ “You will place these stones which I am commanding you today on Mount Gerizim . . .” M and most of the other witnesses read ‫( בהר עיבל‬on Mount Ebal). Again, until recently this variant was considered a polemical change on the part of SP, emphasizing the choice of Mount Gerizim as the proper place for God’s sanctuary. Recently, fresh con­sid­er­ ations of the evidence have led to a reevaluation of the variant. In addition to the SP, two independent witnesses, a VL manuscript (Codex Lugdunensis) and a Greek manuscript, Papyrus Giessen 19, preserve the Gerizim reading. On the basis of these independent witnesses it can be argued that the reading ‫בהרגרזים‬ (on Mount Gerizim) is an ancient reading, one that in fact accords better with its context, in which blessings are to be pronounced on Mount Gerizim and curses on Mount Ebal (Deut 11:29 and 27:12–13). Ulrich (1994, 145–146) suggests that the most ancient version of 27:4 did not have a place name at all; ‫ בהר גרזים‬was included first for clarification, and then ‫ בהר עיבל‬was substituted in a Judean revision to bolster their counterclaim of the choice of Jerusalem against the Samaritan claim of Mount Gerizim.

Quotations of the Pentateuch in other Jewish Literature The books of the Pentateuch are also extensively quoted in Second Temple literature (Lange and Weigold 2011), in addition to serving as the base text for many rewritten or parabiblical compositions (e.g., Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, and the Genesis Apocryphon).

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The Text of the Pentateuch   51 While these quotations must be used with caution by the text critic, when a variant in a quotation is in agreement with a variant found in an ancient witness, the quotation serves to bolster the evidence for the variant. All of the above data forms a rich base on which to reconstruct the history of the text of the Pentateuch.

The Textual History of the Pentateuch The textual history of the Pentateuch can be approached in two ways. The first is by reconstructing the textual history of the individual books, since our manuscript evidence indicates that each book circulated separately in antiquity (except in the few examples given above of manuscripts which contained two or more books, e.g., 4QExod-­Levf ). The second is by examining the textual history of the Pentateuch as a whole, since it is clear from the editorial activity happening in the pre-­SP textual trad­ ition that the five books of Moses were considered to be one entity by at least the end of the third century bce. We will discuss both approaches, with our discussion based on the extant manuscript evidence, which is no earlier than the third century bce. First, however, it will be helpful to discuss text-­critical theories as they took shape in the ­post-­Judean Desert discoveries period.

Text-­Critical Theories after the Judean Desert Finds Although there were many scholars active in the text criticism of the Torah from at the least the seventeenth century (some of the famous names include Kennicott, de Rossi, Wellhausen, de Lagarde, and Kahle; see Tov 2012, 155–157), the field was profoundly and unavoidably changed by the Judean Desert discoveries in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. After those discoveries, it became clear that the three complete witnesses, MT, LXX, and SP, which had dominated text-­critical theories until then, were the end results of a long process of textual development. How to understand the new evidence, and how to integrate it all into a larger understanding of the textual development of the Pentateuch, became the task at hand. Four voices have dominated the discussion since the 1950s: Frank Moore Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon in the first generation of post-­Judean Desert scholars, and Eugene Ulrich and Emanuel Tov in the second (for a helpful overview, see Hendel 2010). Frank Moore Cross, building on the model proposed by W.  F.  Albright (Albright 1955), proposed a “local-­texts” theory of textual development. Cross argued that in the Pentateuch there were three distinct textual families: the Palestinian, the Egyptian, and the Babylonian. All of these textual families derive from a common ancestor. Each of them developed in relative isolation from one another, in their

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52   Sidnie White Crawford respective geographical locations, before being reunited in Palestine in the late third–early second centuries bce. According to Cross, the Palestinian family’s character is expansionistic, harmonistic, and modernizing. The manuscripts identified as pre-­SP and the Samaritan Pentateuch itself are members of this textual family. The Egyptian family, which stems from an early phase of the Palestinian family, is also expansionistic, but less so than the late Palestinian texts. The (reconstructed) Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint is the chief witness to this textual family. The Babylonian family, which comprises the proto-­rabbinic text and its ancestors, has relatively little expansion or revision, and lies closest to the common ancestor. Cross’s theory remains helpful in recognizing the common patterns of variants that comprise his three textual families, and the relation of certain Qumran manuscripts to the three complete witnesses. However, his model has been criticized on two grounds. First, the geographical locations of these texts is conjectural, especially the Babylonian (which Cross himself recognizes; see Cross and Talmon  1975, 193–194, 311). Second, Cross’s model privileges the three complete witnesses as the “types” into which other manuscripts are fitted; yet as already noted above, this may not reflect the ancient picture at all. Shemaryahu Talmon, reacting to the textual variety found in the Qumran caves, placed his emphasis on the “variegated transmission” of the biblical text in the last cen­ tur­ies bce (Cross and Talmon 1975, 325). The preservation of the three complete witnesses as different text types is in a sense accidental; they were preserved and passed on by distinct social groups, who did not necessarily select them on the basis of their text­ ual characteristics. The MT was preserved by the rabbis; the SP by the Samaritan community; and the LXX by Christians (Cross and Talmon 1975, 325). According to Talmon, there may well have been a greater number of textual families in antiquity, most of which did not survive because they were not adopted by a distinct social/religious group. There is in Talmon’s scheme no descent from a common ancestor, but instead a number of “pristine texts” which varied among themselves to a limited degree (Cross and Talmon  1975, 327). Talmon’s insight into the activity of social groups and individual scribes in textual transmission remains valid, but his view has been criticized for its lack of specificity and also its reductionism: a single unique variant found in a single manuscript does not necessarily point to an entirely new line of textual transmission; rather it is necessary to discern patterns of variants when attempting to discern a manuscript’s family tree (Tov 2012, 163–165). Moving to the second generation, Ulrich has made a major contribution in his recognition of “multiple literary editions” of certain biblical books, that is, that the production of a new “edition” of an existing text was a major moment in the history of a given text. According to Ulrich, the text of the Pentateuch “developed in a succession of gradually developing forms—genetically related, with the new form generated by adaptation to new religious, political, or social ideas or environment” (Ulrich 2012, 39). The “identifying criteria” for a revised edition of a book are “a significant number of additions or changes to a base text that are intentional, repeated, and similar in themes or tendencies” (Ulrich 2015, 41).

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The Text of the Pentateuch   53 Ulrich finds evidence for literary editions in the Pentateuch in the books of Genesis, Exodus and Numbers. Exodus will serve as an example of his model of successive literary editions. Ulrich starts with a hypothetical “first edition” (= n). The Old Greek, with its older version of Exod 35–40, forms a second edition (n + 1). The MT, which revises chapters 35–40, is n + 2. n + 3 is found in 4QpaleoExodm, n + 4 in SP, and n + 5 in 4QRP (which Ulrich refers to as 4QPent [Ulrich 1998–99, 88]). Ulrich’s model is helpful in its recognition of different “editions” of the same book in circulation at the same time, but can be misleading in its implicit assumption of textual linearity. Emanuel Tov has continued to emphasize manuscript filiation; that is, that many Second Temple Pentateuch manuscripts have a pattern of variants that enable the text critic to recognize that manuscript as part of a particular textual branch (using the ana­ logy of a tree to describe the process of textual devolution). Tov recognizes “no less than fifteen” textual branches of the Pentateuch circulating in antiquity (Tov 2015, 243). These branches are (1) MT, which includes all the Judean Desert texts found outside Qumran, as well as some Qumran manuscripts. This branch has a central place in the development of the Torah text. (2–4) The SP group, which includes the pre-­Samaritan Qumran scrolls (2) and 4QNumb (3), and the SP known from medieval manuscripts (4). These branches are a popularizing offshoot of MT or a similar text. (5) The reconstructed Hebrew source of the LXX. (6–10) The Reworked Pentateuch scrolls, described by Tov as “five exegetical Torah scrolls.” (11–14) Four manuscripts not exclusively close to any of the above (i.e., nonaligned). These are 4Q[Gen]-Exodb, 11QpaleoLeva, 4QDeutc and 4QDeuth. Tov also lists the liturgical texts 4QDeutj, k1, and n, the tefillin and mezuzot from the Judean Desert, and the Nash Papyrus as a separate group (15). Groups 1 and 11–14 are placed at the bottom of his tree, and groups 2–10 are offshoots of Group 1 (Tov 2015, 243–248). In other words, all the textual branches in Tov’s model, with the exception of 11–14, branched off from MT or a text very similar to it. Tov’s model has the advantage of dealing with the extant evidence in an organized fashion, recognizing the commonalities among different textual groups, and putting together the evidence into one coherent whole. However, his reluctance to posit an archetype at the very bottom of his tree (which would admittedly be conjectural) leaves open the question of the origin or early relations of his textual branches. In addition, his divisions are slightly misleading, in that 4QNumb, 4QRP B, and 4QRP C are part of the branch of the pre-­Samaritan group (that is, minor branches or twigs); they simply go beyond what we now recognize as the base text of the Samaritan Pentateuch in their edi­ tor­ial activity. In other words, after the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch was stabilized by the Samaritan community and their theological editorial layer was added (c.100 bce), the pre-­Samaritan textual group continued to develop at the hands of Judean scribes.

The Present State of the Question Our extant evidence allows us to trace the history of the text of the Pentateuch from the third century bce onwards. By that time, each book of the Pentateuch had arrived at a relatively stable textual form, a form which would remain the same even while the text

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54   Sidnie White Crawford within that shape continued to be edited and altered by the scribes responsible for handing down the textual tradition (Crawford 2012, 113). By the time we reach our earliest recoverable evidence, the oldest Qumran manuscripts and the LXX translation, a certain amount of editorial activity had already taken place within the Pentateuch’s stable form. Thus, we can posit that a common form of the text, an archetype or common ancestor, existed prior to those editorial changes. In other words, no extant text of the Torah contains an unaltered text. The evidence for a common ancestor comes from three locations in the Pentateuch: the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11, the tabernacle account in Exodus 35–40, and (­pos­sibly) Deut 27:4. 1. Genesis 5 and 11. As discussed above, the genealogies as found in the MT, LXX, and SP all give different solutions to the original problems of having the antediluvian patriarchs outlive the flood, and the postdiluvian patriarchs live into the generation of Abraham. Thus, the assumption of a common ancestor that contained the unaltered genealogies is reasonable (see also Tov 2015, 225). 2. Exodus 35–40. As noted above, G and M contain variant texts. G is somewhat shorter than M and has a different order of items. SP agrees in length and order with M, but also in small details with G. The Old Latin tradition (found in Codex Monacensis) preserves yet another version that is closer to G than to M. It is likely that G and M reflect two different Hebrew versions with a common ancestor (Aejmelaeus 2007, 118; Bogaert 1996). 3. Deut 27:4. M and most G witnesses read ‫בהר עיבל‬, while SP, Codex Lugudensis, and Papyrus Giessen 19 contain ‫בהרגרזים‬. It is possible that neither reading was found in their common ancestor, but that both readings are later additions. Once the evidence for a common ancestor is acknowledged, the “family tree’” of the Pentateuch may be sketched as follows. (I will follow Tov’s definition of a textual “branch”: “a text or group of texts that has a distinct place in the stemma of a biblical book” [Tov 2015, 240]. Large “branches” may have smaller branches [even twigs!] stemming from them.) It must always be acknowledged that other texts, for which we now have no evidence, may have circulated in antiquity, but they cannot enter into a discussion of the textual evidence that we now possess. Descending from the common ancestor we find two major branches whose development can be followed with a fair degree of certainty, plus a third group of texts whose route of descent from the common ancestor is much less certain. This third group of texts is quite important in understanding the textual history of the Pentateuch, since its existence proves that there may have been several more branches of the text circulating in antiquity; they simply were not preserved by distinct religious communities and thus fell out of existence. The first branch is the M group, which preserves the common ancestor in a relatively unchanged form (with the exceptions mentioned above). Manuscripts from this group appear in the Qumran caves, and it is the only branch preserved in the other Judean Desert find sites. Tov and Lange (Lange 2009, 14–16) make a distinction between the “MT-­like” or “semi-­MT” texts found at Qumran and the other Judean Desert texts which are virtually identical to MT. MT is descended from the M branch.

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The Text of the Pentateuch   55 The second major branch is the Hebrew ancestor of the G group and the pre-­SP group. This second branch descends from the common ancestor, and underwent small-­scale harmonizations at some point in its history prior to the mid-­third century bce. In the mid-­third century this branch divided into two smaller branches. The first smaller branch was the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX, which was translated in Egypt from manuscripts (or their ancestors) originating in Palestine. This branch continued to develop small-­scale harmonizations after it split off from the main branch (visible in the LXX). The second smaller branch continued its development in Palestine, where it underwent the extensive content editing found in 4QpaleoExodm. This branch is the pre-­SP group. An exemplar of this branch was chosen as the canonical text of the Samaritan community, at which point it received the changes recognized as purely Samaritan. This is the text from which the medieval SP descends. However, the pre-­SP branch continued in circulation in Palestine, and continued to undergo content editing at the hands of individual scribes. Thus, manuscripts such as 4QNumb or 4QRP B contain the major expansions of the pre-­SP group, but also expansions or scribal reworkings unique to themselves. This branch falls out of circulation in the Jewish community in Palestine with the triumph of the proto-­masoretic text. The third group, which should not be characterized as a branch since the relationship of these manuscripts to the two major branches and to each other is uncertain, demonstrates that other versions of the text of the Pentateuch were in circulation in antiquity. These individual manuscripts, which include 4Q[Gen-]Exodb, 11QpaleoLeva, 4QDeutc, 4QDeuth, and 4QRP C, relate to the two major branches in a variety of ways, indicating their affiliation with the common ancestor, but leaving their specific pattern of descent uncertain. It must be emphasized that this is only a sketch, an attempt to reduce the available evidence into a coherent pattern. The presence of the third group of texts serves as a warning that our picture is far from complete. Further, the activity of individual scribes, who served as the learned transmitters of the textual tradition, must be taken into account at all points in the sketch. Scribes intervened into their received texts in all periods and for a variety of reasons. Most of the time the circumstances of these scribal interventions are unrecoverable. The following examples all come from manuscripts containing unique variants. 4QDeutc, a member of my third group, contains eight unique variants at 7:4, 10:2, 16:8, 27:1, 28:1, 29:19, 31:17, and 31:18. Six of these variants, 7:4, 10:2, 16:8, 27:1, 29:19, and 31:18, may demonstrate scribal intervention. 7:4, 10:2, 27:1, and 31:18 are small plusses, while 16:8 and 29:19 update the language of the text. The paleographical date of 4QDeutc is c.150–100 bce, giving us a terminus ante quem for these scribal interventions. 4QRP C (4Q365), which has a paleographical date of c.75–50 bce, is another member of my third group of manuscripts. While it often agrees with the pre-­SP group in small details, it does not preserve any of the pre-­SP group’s major editorial changes, and in two instances (Exod 26:35 add. and Exod 29:21) it did not agree with the pre-­SP group. On the other hand, it does demonstrate unique variants that may have been the work of the manuscript’s scribe, or may have been part of his received text. These include: (1) the omission of the verses Exod 14:18, 39:6–7, Lev 11:19 and chapters 4–6 of Numbers; (2) The different

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56   Sidnie White Crawford internal sequence of Num 13:12–16; (3) The unique expansions at Exod 14:10, 15:21 (the “Song of Miriam”), Lev 24:2, and Lev 27:34 (?); (4) The juxtaposition of Num 27:11 and 36:1–2, the passages concerning the daughters of Zelophehad; (5) The unique material in frag. 37, which may belong to Deut 2. 4QNumb, a member (twig?) of the pre-­SP branch of the Torah family tree, dates ­paleographically to the latter half of the first century bce. The manuscript contains five major secondary expansions in agreement with the SP, at 20:13, 21:12, 21:13, 21:20, and 27:33, and five locations where the editor has plausibly reconstructed expansions: 12:16, 20:13, 21:22, 21:23, and 31:20 (Jastram 1994, 213–215). Thus it can be said with confidence that 4QNumb shares the same textual tradition as SP. However, 4QNumb also agrees with G in many small harmonizations not shared with SP (e.g., at 23:3). Most im­port­ ant­ly, 4QNumb has twenty-­four instances of secondary expansion not shared with either SP or G, demonstrating unique textual development that must have occurred after SP split off from the pre-­SP branch (Jastram 1998, 278–282). The largest of these secondary expansions occurs in Numbers 36, where Numbers 27:1–11, the parallel passage concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, is interwoven into the chapter to bring the two passages together. A similar harmonization that, however, resulted in a different text occurred in 4QRP C (see above). This is a clear example of scribes at work on a text: perceiving the same need or opportunity for harmonization, each scribe came up with a different solution, resulting in two unique readings. The sketch given above is a reconstruction of the textual history of the Pentateuch as a whole, since by the mid-­third century bce (and probably earlier) the five books appear to have been considered a unified corpus. However, within that corpus each book, owing in part to its differing content, did have different patterns of textual transmission. Genesis contains a relatively stable textual tradition aside from the major differences in chronology in chapters 5, 8, and 11, although the shared textual tradition of G and pre­SP contains many small-­scale harmonizations. Exodus and Numbers, mainly narrative texts, underwent a large degree of scribal intervention, especially the large-­scale content editing characteristic of the pre-­SP branch. Leviticus, which contains laws and very little narrative, and functioned as a law book rather than a narrative, demonstrates a relatively stable text. Deuteronomy, because of the repetitive, formulaic nature of its prose, was subject to many small-­scale scribal expansions in both its G and pre-­SP branches, and, in its pre-­SP form, has two longer plusses at 2:7 and 10:6. In all five books, M seems to have remained closest to the common ancestor, although it too evinces secondary readings, as noted above.

The Textual History of the Pentateuch and the Composition of the Pentateuch Scholars who embrace the Documentary Hypothesis argue for four distinct sources (J, E, P, and D) brought together to form our present Pentateuch (e.g., Baden 2012), while

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The Text of the Pentateuch   57 scholars who adhere to the alternative “successive stages” hypothesis argue that, aside from Deuteronomy and P (mainly Leviticus), all that can be identified are “non-­P” and “non-­ D” texts within Genesis, Exodus 1–24, and Numbers (Kratz  2011, 34–35). Although their differences in approach and conclusions are major, they do share a reliance on the consonantal text of MT when arguing for their respective positions. Given the conclusion reached above, that the M textual tradition stands closest to the common ancestor, their default choice of text, while simply assumed in the literature, is sound. However, the question is raised as to whether or not our textual evidence can shed any light on the literary processes that brought the Pentateuch to its present form. The short answer is “no.” All our extant textual evidence reflects the same combination of pentateuchal docu­ments in the same shape and to the same extent. Thus, the literary formation of the Pentateuch ended before our textual evidence begins. The textual evidence sheds light only on the transmission of the Pentateuch after it reached the form in which it now exists. However, evidence cited above for positing a common ancestor may shed some light on the prior history of some discrete sections in the Pentateuch. This evidence is found chiefly in the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and the account of the building of the tabernacle in Exodus 35–40. The genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 clearly presented the transmitters of Genesis with chronological difficulties. It was theologically impossible for any of the antediluvian ancestors apart from Noah and his family to survive the flood, and it was logically difficult for the postdiluvian ancestors (e.g., Noah, Shem) to survive into the time of Abraham. The fact that three textual traditions (M, G, and pre-­SP) arrived at three different solutions to the problems indicates that they were working with a common ancestor. Further, that common ancestor had to come from a source (a genealogical list, the sefer toledot Adam) that did not agree with the narrative chronology of Genesis (Klein  1974; Hendel  1998, 63). Thus the textual evidence supports the argument for source material incorporated into the Pentateuch. Likewise, the different texts found in M/pre-­SP and G in Exodus 35–40 may point to an original source from which they both derived, although the evidence is less clear-­cut in this case. Further, the techniques used by the scribes who deliberately altered their received text in the course of its transmission may by analogy shed some light on the techniques earlier scribes used to create the Pentateuch in its present form. In particular, the edi­tor­ial techniques used by scribes working in the pre-­SP branch of transmission may provide some parallels to earlier techniques. For example, the differing approaches to the combination of the two pericopes concerning the daughters of Zelophehad in 4QNumb and 4QRP C present an excellent opportunity to compare the editorial techniques of different scribes (see Zahn  2011, 117–119). The way in which the scribe inserted the “Song of Miriam” in Exodus 15, or the manner in which legislation for the Oil and Wood festivals was inserted in Leviticus 24 on frag. 23 of 4QRP C may also shed light on editorial techniques in the Pentateuch. The most fruitful avenue of study may be an examination of the Temple Scroll, which itself combines separate sources, including discrete sections of the Pentateuch, to produce a new composition (Crawford 2008, 84–104).

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58   Sidnie White Crawford

Suggested Readings The most up-­to-­date resource on textual criticism of the Pentateuch is Lange and Tov (2016), which contains articles on the Pentateuch by Emanuel Tov, Armin Lange, Ronald Hendel, Sidnie White Crawford, Nathan Jastram and others. For Eugene Ulrich’s most recent work see Ulrich (2015).

Works Cited Aejmelaeus, A. 2007. On the Trail of the Septuagint Translators: Collected Essays. Leuven: Peeters. Albright, W. F. 1937. “A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age.” JBL 57:145–176. Albright, W.  F. 1955. “New Light on Early Recensions of the Hebrew Bible.” BASOR 140:27–33. Allegro, J. 1968. “158. Biblical Paraphrase: Genesis, Exodus.” In Qumrân Cave 4.I (4Q158-4Q186), 1–6. DJD 5. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Baden, J. 2012. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. New Haven: Yale University Press. Barkay, G., M.  Lundberg, A.  Vaughn, and B.  Zuckerman. 2004. “The Amulets of Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation.” BASOR 334:41–71. Bogaert, P.-M. 1996. “L'Importance de la Septante et du ‘Monacensis’ de la Vetus Latina pour l'exégèse du livre de l’Exode (chap. 35–40).” In Studies in the Book of Exodus: Redaction— Reception—Interpretation, Bibliotheca, edited by M. Vervenne, 339–428. BETL 126. Louvain: University Press. Burkitt, F. C. 1903. “The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments.” JQR 15:392–408. Crawford, S.  W. 2008. Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Crawford, S. W. 2011. “The Pentateuch as Found in the Pre-Samaritan Texts and 4QReworked Pentateuch.” In Changes in Scripture: Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, edited by H. von Weissenberg, J. Pakkala, and M. Marttila, 123–136. Berlin: de Gruyter. Crawford, S. W. 2012. “Biblical Text—Yes or No?” In What is Bible?, edited by K. Finsterbusch and A. Lange, 113–120. Leuven: Peeters. Crawford, S.  W. 2016. “Samaritan Pentateuch.” In The Textual History of the Hebrew Bible, edited by A. Lange and E. Tov, 166–175. Leiden: Brill. Crawford, S. W. 2017. “Interpreting the Pentateuch through Scribal Processes: The Evidence of the Qumran Manuscripts.” In Insights into Editing in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, edited by R. Müller and J. Pakkala, 59–80. Leuven: Peeters. Crawford, S. W. 2019. “The Excerpted Manuscripts from Qumran, with Special Attention to 4QReworked Pentateuch D and 4QReworked Pentateuch E.” In Scribal Practice, Text and Canon in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Memory of Peter W. Flint, edited by J. Collins and A. Geyser-Fouché, 247–268. Leiden: Brill. Crawford, S. W., J. Joosten, and E. Ulrich. 2008. “Sample Editions of the Oxford Hebrew Bible: Deuteronomy 32:1–9, 1 Kings 11:1–8, and Jeremiah 27:1–10 (34 G).” VT 58:1–15. Cross, F.  M., 1953. “A New Qumran Biblical Fragment Related to the Original Hebrew Underlying the Septuagint.” BASOR 132:15–26.

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The Text of the Pentateuch   59 Cross, F. M., 1964. “The History of the Biblical Text in the Light of Discoveries in the Judaean Desert.” HTR 57:281–299. Cross, F.  M. 1994a. “4QExod-Levb.” In Qumran Cave 4.VII: Genesis to Numbers, edited by E. Ulrich et al., 79–95. DJD 12. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cross, F.  M. 1994b. “4QExod-Levf.” In Qumran Cave 4.VII: Genesis to Numbers, edited by E. Ulrich et al., 133–144. DJD 12. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cross, F.  M. 1998. From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cross, F. M., and S. Talmon. 1975. Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hendel, R. 1998. The Text of Genesis 1–11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Hendel, R. 2010. “Assessing the Text-Critical Theories of the Hebrew Bible after Qumran.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by T.  Lim and J.  Collins, 281–302. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hendel, R. 2012. “A Hasmonean Edition of MT Genesis? The Implications of the Chronology in Genesis 5.” HBAI 1, no. 4: 448–164. Jastram, N. 1994. “4QNumb.” In Qumran Cave 4.VII: Genesis to Numbers, edited by E. Ulrich et al., 205–268. DJD 12. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jastram, N. 1998. “A Comparison of Two “Proto-Samaritan” Texts from Qumran: 4QpaleoExodm and 4QNumb.” DSD 5:264–284. Kartveit, M. 2009. The Origin of the Samaritans. Leiden: Brill. Klein, G. 1974. “Archaic Chronologies and the Textual History of the Old Testament.” HTR 67:255–263. Knoppers, G. N. 2013. Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations. New York: Oxford University Press. Kratz, R. 2011. “The Pentateuch in Current Research: Consensus and Debate.” In The Pentateuch, edited by T. B. Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 31–62. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Lange, A. 2009. Handbuch der Textfunde vom Toten Meer, I: Die Handschriften biblischer Bücher von Qumran und den anderen Fundorten. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Lange, A., and E. Tov. 2016. Textual History of the Bible: The Hebrew Bible. Vols. 1A and 1B. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Lange, A., and M. Weigold. 2011. Biblical Quotations and Allusions in Second Temple Jewish Literature. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. McCarthy, C. 2007. Deuteronomy. BHQ 5. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. Schenker, A. 2008. “Le Seigneur choisira-t-il le lieu de son nom ou l’a-t-il choisi? L’Apport de la Bible grecque ancienne à l’histoire du texte samaritain et massorétique.” In Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo, edited by A. Voitila and J. Jokiranta, 339–352. Leiden: Brill. Schorch, S. 1997. “Die Bedeutung der samaritanischen mündlichen Tradition für die Textgeschichte des Pentateuch (II).” Mitteilungen und Beiträge der Forschungsstelle Judentum, Theologische Fakultät Leipzig, 12–13:53–64. Schorch, S. 1999. “Die Bedeutung der samaritanischen mündlichen Tradition für die Exegese des Pentateuch.” WD 25:77–91. Segal, M. 2000. “4QReworked Pentateuch or 4QPentateuch?” In The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery, edited by L.  Schiffman, E.  Tov, and J.  VanderKam, 391–399. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Shrine of the Book.

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60   Sidnie White Crawford Skehan, P. 1954. “A Fragment of the “Song of Moses” (Deut. 32) from Qumran.” BASOR 136:12–15. Talmon, S. 1964. “Aspects of the Textual Transmission of the Bible in the Light of Qumran Manuscripts.” Textus 4:95–132. Talmon, S. 1975. “The Textual Study of the Bible—A New Outlook.” In Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text, edited by F. M. Cross and S. Talmon, 321–400. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tov, E. 1985. “The Nature and Background of Harmonizations in Biblical Manuscripts.” JSOT 31:3–29. Tov, E. 2004. Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert. Leiden: Brill. Tov, E. 2008. Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and Qumran. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tov, E. 2012. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Tov, E. 2015. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint. Leiden: Brill. Tov, E. 2016. “Textual History of the Pentateuch.” In A. Lange and E. Tov, The Textual History of the Bible, 3–21. Leiden: Brill. Tov, E., and S.  White [Crawford]. 1994. “Reworked Pentateuch.” In Qumran Cave 4.VIII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 1, edited by H. Attridge et al., 187–352. DJD 13. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ulrich, E. 1994. “4QJosha.” In Qumran Cave 4.IX: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Kings, edited by E. Ulrich et al., 143-152. DJD 14. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ulrich, E. 1998–9. “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Biblical Text.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, 2 vols., edited by P. Flint and J. VanderKam, 1:79–100. Leiden: Brill. Ulrich, E. 2010. The Qumran Biblical Scrolls: Transcriptions and Textual Variants. Leiden: Brill. Ulrich, E. 2012. “The Evolutionary Growth of the Pentateuch in the Second Temple Period.” In Pentateuchal Traditions in the Late Second Temple Period: Proceedings of the International Workshop in Tokyo, August 28–31, 2007, edited by A. Moriya and G. Hata, 39–56. Leiden: Brill. Ulrich, E. 2015. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible. Leiden: Brill. Zahn, M. 2011. Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts. Leiden: Brill.

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chapter 4

The Pen tateuch i n Secon d Templ e J u da ism John J. Collins

The Pentateuch consists of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The word means “five volumes.” It may have originally referred to the boxes or containers in which the separate volumes were kept. The Greek name pentateuchos is first used in Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora, in the third quarter of the second century ce (Epiphanius, Pan. 33.4; Patrologia Graeca 41:560). The division into five books was known long before this (Blenkinsopp 1992, 42–45). It is found in Philo (Aet 19) and Josephus (Ag. Ap. 1.8). A fragmentary text found in Qumran Cave 1 (1Q30–31) refers to [s]prym hwmsym, which has been interpreted as “the books of the Pentateuch” (Barthélemy and Milik 1955, 132–133; see Ska 2006, 2; cf. the rabbinic expression “the five fifths”), but the editors also allow that the reference could be to Psalms. In view of the fragmentary nature of the text, no confidence can be placed in either suggestion. The Greek names of the individual books are derived from the Greek translation, the LXX. In Hebrew, the books are designated by one of the first words in each: Bereshit (In the beginning), Shemot (names), Vayikra (and he called), Bamidbar, (in the wilderness), and Devarim (words).

Content These books tell the story first of humanity and then of Israel from the creation of humanity to the death of Moses. Genesis 1–11 covers the primeval history, from the creation of Adam to the tower of Babel and the birth of Abram, later known as Abraham. The remainder of Genesis tells

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62   John J. Collins the story of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the arrival of Jacob and his sons in Egypt. Exodus 1–18 continues the story of Israel, the descendants of Jacob, through the Exodus from Egypt, to their arrival at Mount Sinai. The remainder of Exodus, and all of Leviticus, recounts the revelations at Mount Sinai, primarily in the form of laws, after the initial theophany in Exodus 19. Numbers continues the divine instructions to Israel, mainly in relation to cultic matters, and intersperses brief narratives about the wandering in the wilderness and the non-­Israelite prophet Balaam. Moses is warned of his impending death, and does not enter the promised land, Joshua is appointed as his successor, and he (Moses) is told the limits of the land that is allotted to Israel. Deuteronomy recounts the words of Moses to Israel east of the Jordan, recapitulating the Law. Deuteronomy concludes with the death of Moses, and the declaration that since then no prophet has arisen like him. Some scholars have argued that the early history of Israel was originally clustered in different ways. Gerhard von Rad argued for a Hexateuch, on the grounds that the story was incomplete without the conquest of the promised land (Rad 1966, 1–78). Martin Noth, conversely, argued for a Tetrateuch, on the grounds that Deuteronomy was originally clustered with the Deuteronomistic history (Joshua through Kings, Noth 1972, 6; cf. Mowinckel 1964). Some have even spoken of an Enneateuch, that includes Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings (Freedman 1962, 716–717). Jewish tradition, however, has consistently held that the Torah is constituted by the five books from Genesis to Deuteronomy. The eulogy of Moses at the end of Deuteronomy provides a fitting conclusion to the books traditionally attributed to him (Ska 2006, 9–10). The brief summary given above is enough to show that the contents of the Torah are basically of two kinds: narratives and laws. Distinctions can be made within both ­categories. The narratives in Genesis are episodic and folkloristic. Those in Exodus form a more continuous narrative. Taken together, they tell the story of a people in the formative stages of its existence. Whether such a story is called “history” is a matter of definition; none of these stories admits of verification by modern standards, and all are  replete with reports of supernatural interventions. The stories, nonetheless, are ­foundational for Jewish identity. Again, it is possible to distinguish between the laws of Leviticus and Numbers, which have a priestly, cultic, character, and those of Exodus 21–23 and Deuteronomy, which are largely concerned with social issues. The difference is not absolute, however; consider, for example, the cluster of ritual laws in Deuteronomy 14. In Hebrew, these books are traditionally designated as “the Torah,” or “the Torah of Moses.” In Greek, Torah was rendered as nomos, “Law.” The designation “Torah” was applied to the five books by extension from Deuteronomy (Weinfeld 1991, 17). This is the first book of the Pentateuch to use the word torah in the sense of law code (Deut 17:19–20; 21:11–12; 28:58; 29:19). Elsewhere in the Pentateuch the word refers to specific instructions, especially priestly instructions, such as “the torah of the guilt offering” (Lev 7:1). We also encounter torah as a term for wisdom instruction in Proverbs. In the books of Joshua and Kings we read of “the Book of the Law of Moses” (seper torat Moshe, Josh

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The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism   63 8:21; 23:6), and “the Book of the Law” (seper ha-­torah) occurs in the account of the reform of Josiah, in 2 Kings 22–23. (Compare references to “the Torah of Moses” in Josh 8:30–31; 2 Kgs 14:6). In those passages, the reference is to Deuteronomy, or to some early form of it. We first encounter the designation “Torah” in the sense of a law broader than Deuteronomy in the book of Ezra. The connotations of Torah (“instruction”) are broader than “Law.” The narratives also have instructional value. (See further Fitzpatrick-­McKinley, 1999). Deuteronomy is also the only book of the Pentateuch that is ascribed to Moses (not as author but as the record of the words that he spoke). Moses is said to have written down at least parts of Deuteronomy in Deut 31:9, 34, and to have written down the song in Deuteronomy 32 (Deut 31:19). Of course, the whole revelation at Sinai is given initially to Moses, so he was the person best qualified to write it down. We are told in Exod 34:24 that “Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,” and again in Exod 34:28 that he “wrote upon the tablets the words of the covenant, ten words.” (He is also told to write a record of a battle with Amalek in Exod 17:14, and a record of the journeyings of Israel in Num 33:2.) There is nothing in the biblical text to suggest that Moses wrote Genesis. Nonetheless, all the books of the Pentateuch are regarded as “books of Moses” by the Hellenistic period.

The Torah in the Persian Period The Torah does not figure prominently in the literature of the restoration after the exile. Neither Haggai nor Zechariah nor Trito-­Isaiah refers to the Torah as an authoritative source. According to Ezra 3, Joshua and Zerubbabel began to rebuild the altar “in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses, the man of God” (3:2). Then, “in accordance with what is written, they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles with the required number of burnt offerings prescribed for each day” (3:4). Yet, when Ezra came to Jerusalem, some sixty years later, no one seemed to be aware of the requirement to observe the Feast of Tabernacles until they found it written in the book (Neh 8:14). It seems unlikely that the Law would have been so completely forgotten if it had been the basis of the initial restoration. The statements in Ezra 3 on conformity to what was written in the Law of Moses are of a piece with the claim of Chronicles that the Law was taught even before its discovery in the time of Josiah. So, for example, Jehoshaphat allegedly sent officials around the towns of Judah to teach the people, taking with them the Book of the Law of the Lord (2 Chron 17:9; Shaver 1989; Schweitzer 2007, 170). Both in Ezra 3 and in Chronicles, it would seem that later practice, or at least a later ideal, was retrojected into an earlier time. It seems clear that the Torah acquired new authority in the Persian era. In the biblical record, this shift is attributed to Ezra. According to this account, Ezra was a scribe well versed in the Law. He had apparently taken the initiative in approaching King Artaxerxes, who “granted him everything he asked for” (Ezra 7:6). (The majority view

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64   John J. Collins assumes that the reference is to Artaxerxes I, and that Ezra’s mission dates to 458 bce, but a reference to Artaxerxes II is also possible, giving a date of 398 bce). The text then presents “a copy of the letter King Artaxerxes had given to Ezra.” It is unlikely that the letter is authentic, in the form that has been preserved. The king is too generous to be credible, and the decree contains echoes of biblical language. Nonetheless, it is likely that Ezra had some stamp of royal approval, since his mission had far-­reaching implications for Judah. The decree of Artaxerxes has given rise to a controversy as to whether the Torah received official authorization by the Persian rulers as the law of the land in Judah (Frei and Koch 1984; see Watts 2001; Knoppers and Levinson 2007). A text preserved in a Hellenistic papyrus, on the reverse of the Demotic Chronicle, records an order by Darius I, dating from 519 bce, that scholars among the soldiers, priests, and scribes of Egypt write out the laws of Egypt from olden days to the forty-­fourth year of Pharaoh Amasis, or 526 bce (Spiegelberg 1914, 31; trans. Kuhrt 2007, 1:125). The laws were collected and written in Aramaic and Demotic over a sixteen-­year period, from 519 to 503. They included the laws of temples as well as the laws of the people. Peter Frei argued that this constituted a “codification” of Egyptian laws, and noted that Diodorus counted Darius as the sixth lawgiver of the Egyptians (Frei  2001, 9). Some Egyptologists see it as a more limited measure: a catalogue of exemptions and entitlements, intended to aid the Persians in controlling the sources of wealth (Redford 2001, 158). It does, in any case, indicate an interest on the part of the Persians in the laws of Egypt. Some biblical scholars have inferred that the Persians would have taken a similar interest in the laws of all subject peoples. On this scenario, the Pentateuch would have been drafted in response to a Persian demand, and then authorized by the emperor (Steiner 2001; Knight 2011, 107–10­8). It is noteworthy, however, that the Torah was not translated into Aramaic. In fact there is little evidence of a consistent Persian policy empire-­wide (Knoppers 2001, 115–134). Rather, Persian authorities typically responded to proposals by local officials. Even in Frei’s model, “authorization . . . means that the imperial authority issues in writing a norm proposed by subordinates . . . subordinates could apply to the king or to the easier-­to reach satrap and ask him for an authorization fixed in writing” (Frei 2001, 33). On this understanding, the Torah was composed by Judean scribes in Babylon and presented to the king by Ezra for authorization. It should be noted that there does not appear to have been any comprehensive code of Persian law before the Parthian period. Even if the Torah had been composed on the initiative of Judean exiles, Ezra presumably required Persian permission in order to give it any authority at all (Lee 2011, 213–253). James Watts infers that “the Persians may have designated the Pentateuch as the ‘official’ law of the Jerusalem community simply as a token of favor, with little or no attention to that law’s form or content” (Watts 2001, 3). The favor served a propagandistic purpose. By equating the law of Ezra’s God and the law of the king, the king announced himself as the divinely authorized champion of law, and reaffirmed his legitimacy as the ruler of the land.

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The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism   65 The idea that Persian rulers lent their authority to local rulings derives support from the so-­called “Passover Papyrus” at Elephantine, which transmits instructions to the “Judeans” (Yehudayya’) in Elephantine about the correct observance of the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the name of the king (TAD 1:54–55; see Lee  2011, 72–82). The Papyrus is interesting not only in its use of royal authorization but also in the attempt to regulate the behavior of Judeans outside the land of Judah by Judean law. It is dated to the fifth year of Darius II, several decades after the mission of Ezra, if that is correctly dated to 458 bce. It should be noted, however, that the authorities in Jerusalem did not provide a copy of the whole Torah, but attempted to regulate only a particular festival. In contrast, the decree of Artaxerxes in Ezra chapter 7 confers wide-­ranging, even comprehensive authority (Becking 2011, 50–52). Ezra is authorized to appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River who know the laws of your God; and you shall teach those who do not know them.  (Ezra 7:25)

This decree seems to grant Ezra authority over the entire satrapy, but as Blenkinsopp remarks “it seems tolerably clear that only those ‘familiar with the law of our God’ are intended, that is Jews and proselytes (gērîm) insofar as those came under the law” (Blenkinsopp 1988, 151). The decree did not apply to non-­Judeans. In any case, the aim is to regulate Judean life as a whole, and thereby prescribe a comprehensive way of life, in the name of the Torah of Moses. It is generally assumed that Ezra’s lawbook was something close to our Pentateuch, even if not in its final form (Pakkala  2004, 284–290). Blenkinsopp concludes that “the  law” in Ezra-­Nehemiah is basically “Deuteronomic law supplemented by ritual legislation in the Pentateuchal corpora conventionally designated P and H” ­ (Blenkinsopp  1988, 155). He adds, however, that this conclusion is “complicated by another factor: those indications in Ezra-­Nehemiah of practice in accord with neither Deuteronomic nor Priestly law” (155). There are several discrepancies between the actions of Ezra and Nehemiah and the Torah as we have received it (LeFebvre 2006, 103–131; Pakkala 2011, 193–221). Stipulations regarding the Feast of Booths “according to the Law” (Neh 8:13–18) are different from what we find in the Torah. The prohibitions against intermarriage go beyond Deuteronomy (Ezra 10:1), and making purchases on the Sabbath is not actually prohibited in the Pentateuch (Neh 10:32). The annual temple tax in Nehemiah 10 is a third of a shekel, rather than a half as in Exod 30:13, and the wood offering (also in Nehemiah 10) lacks scriptural support. In the words of Joachim Schaper, “some [texts] that refer to torah, in fact refer to no known (quasi)-canonical or otherwise authoritative text” (Schaper 2011, 32). Juha Pakkala finds that in no single case does the quotation or purported quotation correspond exactly to a known pentateuchal text. Only in one case is it unequivocally clear which passage of the Pentateuch was used: Neh 13:1–2 is quoting Deut 23:4–6. Even in this case, the text in Neh 13:1–2 differs from the known versions of Deut 23:4–6. (Pakkala 2011: 214)

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66   John J. Collins The most notable discrepancy is the absence of Yom Kippur from the festivals of the ­seventh month in Nehemiah 8, although there is a day of repentance and fasting on the twenty-­fourth (rather than the tenth) day of the month. It is apparent that the cultic calendar had not yet been finalized. The issues raised by the other discrepancies are more complex. Michael Fishbane has argued that at least some of them may have been derived exegetically from the text as we know it (Fishbane 1985, 107–134). So, for example Neh 8:14, which says that “they found it written in the law . . . that the people of Israel should live in booths during the festival of the seventh month,” is “a verbatim citation” from Lev 23:42 (“you shall live in booths for seven days”). Nehemiah differs from Leviticus with regard to what should be gathered, the kinds of branches to be gathered, and how they should be used (LeFebvre 2006, 108–109). Fishbane argues that the variations may be a matter of interpretation of Leviticus 23 (Fishbane 1985, 111–112). In the case of intermarriage, he argues that “the mechanism for prohibiting intermarriage with the Ammonites, Moabites, etc. was an exegetical extension of the law in Deut. 7:1–3 effected by means of an adaptation and interpolation of features from Deut. 23:4–9” (117). Deuteronomy 23 bars Ammonites and Moabites from the assembly of God, but not Egyptians, who are also excluded in Ezra. Fishbane explains the ban on Sabbath purchases, which is admittedly not found in the Torah, by reference to Jer 17:21–22, which forbids carrying burdens on the Sabbath day. According to Neh 8:8, the Levites read from the Torah meforash, an expression ­variously translated as “with interpretation,” or “distinctly.” We are also told that they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. Fishbane argues that even though the precise meaning of the preceding terms remains in question, the way these activities are referred to leaves little doubt that they express developed and well-­known exegetical procedures (108). But as Michael LeFebvre has argued, “the fact remains, however, that nowhere in Ezra-­Nehemiah is such an exegetical activity actually indicated” (LeFebvre 2006, 129). The reading by the Levites in Nehemiah 8 is more easily understood as translation. Moreover, even Fishbane’s ingenuity cannot explain away some discrepancies, such as the date of Yom Kippur. Lefebvre rightly concludes that the kind of exegetical procedure Fishbane assumes here is anachronistic, and is not attested before the second century bce. There is no doubt that the authors or editors of Ezra-­Nehemiah regarded some form of the Law of Moses as authoritative. It may be that the Law known to them was different, at least in some cases, from that which has come down to us. It may also be, as Schaper has argued, that “the reference to an alleged written text simply seems to serve the aim of lending greater authority to a rule that actually has no support in authoritative texts” (Schaper 2011, 2). Even in that case, however, the frequent use of the formula kakathub, as it is written, testifies to the new authority of written scripture as a point of reference for Judean practice in the mid to late fifth century bce. (See further Collins 2017a, 44-­50; Vroom 2018, 174-­201).

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The Torah as the Ancestral Law of Judea When Antiochus III conquered Jerusalem in 198 bce, he issued a proclamation that “all who belong to the people are to be governed in accordance with their ancestral laws” (Ant. 12.142). It is generally assumed that the ancestral laws corresponded to what we know as the Torah. At the beginning of the Hellenistic Age, Hecataeus of Abdera wrote about Moses as the lawgiver of Judea (apud Diodorus Siculus, Hist 40.3).

How the Torah Functioned As the ancestral law of Judea, the Torah functioned in various ways. To be sure it entailed laws, most importantly the distinctive ethnic markers such as the food laws, Sabbath observance, and circumcision. In the rather random literature that survives from the period before the Maccabean revolt, however, the emphasis is often on its character as story and as wisdom. Ben Sira, writing in the early second century bce, famously declared that all wisdom is “the book of the covenant of the Most High God, the law that Moses commanded us” (Sir 24:23). By this, he did not mean that wisdom was confined to the Torah of Moses, but that all wisdom corresponded to Torah. He does not cite specific biblical laws as examples of wisdom, and his teaching is still directed to individuals rather than to the covenant people. His nod to the Torah certainly testifies to its increasing importance in this period, but his acknowledgment is largely formal. It is not based on close interpretation of the biblical text. The same is true of late wisdom psalms, such as Psalm 119 and Psalm 19. In other texts, the emphasis is on the narrative. This is especially true of the corpus of Aramaic texts found at Qumran. Nearly half of the corpus refers to the book of Genesis (Berthelot  2010, 183). The Enochic Book of the Watchers uses the story of the fallen angels, which it probably knew from a text of Genesis, as a jumping-­off point, but is a free composition, drawing on various traditions. Other compositions follow the biblical text more closely. One such text is the fragmentary Genesis Apocryphon, found at Qumran (Machiela 2009). Surviving fragments correspond to Gen 5:18 to 15:8, in three cycles, dealing with Enoch, Noah, and Abram. The Abram cycle follows the text of Genesis more closely than do the other cycles, but on the whole, the Apocryphon only has a jumping-­off point in the biblical text. It is a literary work in its own right, which views Genesis as a fount of literary tradition that nourishes the imagination but allows the later writer great freedom. It is intended to entertain as well as to edify. The Genesis Apocryphon is an early example of the kind of writing called “rewritten Bible,” which re-­presents the content of the older Scriptures in new forms and with new

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68   John J. Collins emphases. Some examples of this quasi-­genre are more heavily ideological than is the case with the Genesis Apocryphon.

The Translation of the Bible into Greek One of the most momentous events in the history of the reception of the Torah was its translation into Greek (called the Septuagint or LXX because it was supposedly the work of seventy-­ two translators) in the third century bce (Tov  2012, 127–135; Rajak 2009). According to the legend preserved in the Letter of Aristeas, the Greek translation of the Judean laws was undertaken at the behest of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247) for the sake of ensuring the comprehensiveness of the collection of books in the library of Alexandria. The account must be dated more than a century after the supposed translation (Moore  2015, 210–213; Wright  2015, 21–30). Most modern scholars have been inclined to dismiss it as historical evidence. Recently Tessa Rajak, while granting that the story is oversimplified, has argued that it is not impossible (Rajak  2009, 38–43). Regardless of the supposed royal involvement, it is generally agreed that the translation was completed by the mid-­third century bce since it is presupposed in the work of Demetrius the Chronographer. Demetrius is usually dated to the time of Ptolemy IV (221–204), since he reckons the time from the fall of Samaria to that of Ptolemy’s reign (Demetrius fragment 6; Clement Strom 1.141.8; Holladay 1983, 78–79). From that point on, the Greek translation of the Torah is presupposed in virtually all Hellenistic Jewish literature. Indeed, some of that literature is recognized as Jewish only because of its use of the Septuagint. While the translation is uneven in quality, it is important because it was based on a form of the Hebrew text older than what underlies the Masoretic Text. So, for example, the Greek translation of Exod 35–40 is quite different from the MT, although the earlier chapters correspond closely. The current consensus is that the Greek of these chapters was based on a Hebrew text different from, and older than, the MT (Ulrich 2015, 234). The writings of the Hellenistic Diaspora appropriate the Torah of Moses in various ways (Collins 2000). In many, such as Ezekiel the Tragedian, Philo the Epic Poet, or the romance of Joseph and Aseneth, it is a source of stories about the past, retold in various genres, which provided an essential ingredient for ongoing identity. In some, there is an attempt to treat the Law as a work of philosophy, a tendency that reached its climax in the works of Philo. Many of these writings address questions of ethics, whether directly or indirectly. In general, but with some exceptions, they tend to bypass the d ­ istinctive Jewish laws and dwell on the importance of monotheism and matters of social and  sexual morality. When distinctive Jewish laws are addressed, in the Letter of Aristeas, they are given an allegorical interpretation, so that they are taken to exemplify some value that Gentiles could also appreciate. As in the Aramaic literature known from Qumran, the Torah is valued as a source of wisdom, and of stories that shape Jewish identity.

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The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism   69

The Maccabean Revolt No less momentous than the translation of the Torah into Greek was the change in perception brought about by the upheavals in Judea in the Maccabean era. A generation after his father had affirmed the right of Judeans to live by their ancestral laws, Antiochus IV Epiphanes suspended that right, and thereby sparked the Maccabean revolt (Doran 2011). (The causes of his action are complicated, and endlessly debated. It must suffice to say that it was a punitive measure for the attempted overthrow of his appointed High Priest Menelaus). Mattathias allegedly called on everyone who was zealous for the Law and supported the covenant to follow him (1 Macc 2:27). Thereafter, we are told, “Mattathias and his friends went about and tore down the altars; they forcibly circumcised all the uncircumcised boys that they found within the borders of Israel . . . They rescued the law out the hands of the Gentiles and kings” (1 Macc 2:44–47; compare Josephus, Ant. 12.278). The Maccabees were hardly scrupulous in their observance of the Law. They famously decided to fight on the Sabbath so that they would not be wiped out by the Seleucids. But they insisted on some level of observance, at least where key symbols were at issue. Josephus tells us that when John Hyrcanus conquered the Idumeans, about 128 bce, he permitted them to remain in their country so long as they had themselves circumcised and were willing to observe the laws of the Jews. And so, out of attachment to their ancestral land, they submitted to circumcision and to having their manner of life in all other respects made the same as that of the Judaeans. And from that time on they have continued to be Judaeans.  (Ant. 13.257–8)

Similarly, when Aristobulus conquered the Ituraeans in 104–103 bce, “he compelled the inhabitants, if they wished to remain in their country, to be circumcised and to live in accordance with the laws of the Judaeans” (Ant. 13.318). Some of the archeological findings from the Hasmonean period suggest a heightened concern for purity (Meyers  2008). Stepped pools (miqvaot) first appear in the Hasmonean period. Stone vessels, which were important for purity, proliferate even more in the late first century bce, when Herod’s rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple led to increased quarrying of limestone. Hellenistic amphorae, which were very common in Jerusalem in the period between 180 and 150 bce, are virtually absent in Hasmonean Jerusalem, and are also unattested in the Hasmonean palaces. The language of purification plays an important part in the account of the actions of Judas in 1 Maccabee, most obviously in connection with rededication of the temple (4:41–52).

The Halakic Turn Concern for purity also comes to the fore in the literature of the Hasmonean era. Two “rewritten Bible” texts, the Temple Scroll and Jubilees, are major witnesses to this

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70   John J. Collins development (Himmelfarb 2005, 53–84 on Jubilees and 92–98 on the Temple Scroll). Both of these texts were written in Hebrew. While they are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Temple Scroll is only known from the Scrolls, neither is thought to have been a product of the sectarian movement known from the Damascus Document and Community Rule. Both clearly draw on the traditional Torah, but neither is presented as a work of exegesis. The Temple Scroll takes its name from the instructions for building the sanctuary, but these only occupy a portion of the text (cols. 2:1–13:8, and 30:3–47:18). Other major sections are devoted to the calendar (13:9–30:2), purity laws (48:1–51:10), laws of polity (cols 51:11–56:21, and 60:1–66:17), and the Torah of the King (cols. 57–59) (Crawford 2000, 22). The Temple Scroll attempts to integrate the laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, dealing with the sanctuary, the festivals, sacrifices and purity (Schiffman  1994, 260; 2008, 16). For example, 11QT 53:4–8 adds to the Deuteronomic permission of secular slaughter the provision that the blood be covered with dust, by analogy with the slaughter of wild animals in Lev 17:13. This kind of harmonistic exegesis is broadly typical of the Samaritan Pentateuch and the text known as 4QReworked Pentateuch. The Temple Scroll, however, is not presented as exegesis. While we do not have the opening column, and so cannot be sure how the text is introduced, the speaking voice throughout is that of God. There is a passing reference to “Aaron your brother” in TS 44:5, and another to “those things which I tell you on this mountain,” in TS 51:6. From these it appears that the discourse is addressed to Moses on Mount Sinai, but Moses is never mentioned by name. He is only the implicit initial addressee. The Temple Scroll appeals to a higher authority than Moses. It is presented as direct revelation from God. The Temple Scroll claims for itself the status of Torah. Several passages demand that the Israelites observe “the regulation of this law” (50:5–9, 17). It also refers to itself as “this Torah” (56:20–21; 59:7–10). TS 54:5–7 appropriates the warning of Deut 13:1: “all the things which I order you today, take care to carry them out; you shall not add to them nor shall you remove anything from them.” The question arises whether it was intended to replace the Torah. The main argument that it was not so intended is that there are many basic issues that it does not address. It does not, for example, reproduce the Ten Commandments. The traditional Torah also presupposed some basic matters, such as the law of divorce, which is only acknowledged indirectly in Deuteronomy 24. The author of the Temple Scroll apparently felt that the Ten Commandments were so familiar that they could be taken for granted. It may be that the Temple Scroll is meant to stand alongside the Torah, to supplement and explain it (Najman 2003b, 41–69) but it is surprising that it does not acknowledge the older Scripture at all. The date of the Temple Scroll is a matter of controversy complicated both by the ­manuscript evidence and by the use of sources. 4Q524 is variously taken as the oldest copy of the Temple Scroll, as a possible source or early edition, or simply as a related text. It contains close parallels to TS cols. 59–66, but also significant discrepancies. The text is fragmentary, but it clearly parallels the “law of the king” and also some of the Levitical laws. It reworks passages from both Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Puech (1998, 87) dates the script to 150–125 bce, and takes it to be a copy of an even earlier manuscript. The law

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The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism   71 of the king in the Temple Scroll, however, is often thought to be a polemic against the Hasmonean rulers, because it proposes a king subject to the priesthood and free from all cultic activities. The reformulation of the law of the king is likely to presuppose Hasmonean rule, and can be dated no earlier than the time of John Hyrcanus, in the late second century bce. The date of Jubilees is also controversial. The oldest copy, 4Q216, dates from the late second century. Doron Mendels (1987, 80) argued that Jubilees 38, which refers to the subjection of the Edomites, presupposes the conquest of Idumea by John Hyrcanus, about 125 bce. The question is further complicated if we acknowledge redactional layers in Jubilees, as Michael Segal (2007, 317–322) and James Kugel (2009, 215–272; 2012, 11–16) have argued. Nonetheless, a date in the Hasmonean period, probably in the second half of the second century bce, seems plausible. There is general agreement that Jubilees is older than the sectarian scrolls from Qumran. It seems to be cited as an authoritative text in the Damascus Document, CD 16:3–4. It has much in common with the Temple Scroll, and is probably roughly contemporary with it. Jubilees retells the story of Genesis and Exodus, through Exodus 19. Unlike the Temple Scroll, it explicitly acknowledges “the first law” (Jub 6:20–22; 30:12). But it too is presented as a revelation, delivered to Moses by the angel of the presence. While it presupposes the validity of the first law, it supersedes it at some points. James VanderKam (2010, 25–44) has aptly described it as “Moses trumping Moses.” Especially noteworthy is Jubilees’ appeal to what is written on the heavenly tablets (Jub 3:10, 31; 4:5, 32; etc.). The tablets contain the “testimony,” which complements the Torah. VanderKam (42) argues persuasively that the content of Jubilees itself corresponds to the “testimony,” although it may not exhaust it. One of the distinctive features of Jubilees is that it tries to show that the laws revealed to Moses were already observed by the patriarchs, and even in the creation stories. The account of creation in Jubilees 2 highlights the Sabbath, and the book concludes with instructions for the Sabbath in chapter 50. Halakic rules are woven into the narrative. So for example we read that Adam was created in the first week but Eve in the second, “and that is why the commandment was given for women to keep in their uncleanness— seven days for a male and fourteen days for a female.” Adam was brought into the garden after forty days but Eve only on the eightieth day, “and that is why the commandment is written on the heavenly tablets about a woman that gives birth” that she will be impure twice as long after the birth of a female as after the birth of a male (Jub 3:8–13). In this case, Jubilees grounds the law of Leviticus 12 in the story of creation. In other cases, it expands or elaborates the law. So, for example, we are told, apropos of the primal couple’s discovery of their nakedness, that it is prescribed in the heavenly tablets that all those familiar with the law should cover their shame and not uncover themselves as the Gentiles do (Jub 3:31). The festivals, and rituals such as circumcision, are a focus of attention throughout. Jubilees defends a 364-­day calendar, which is also presupposed in the Temple Scroll and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and warns against “the feast of the Gentiles” and the aberration of the moon (6:32–38). The dominant concerns of the book may be illustrated from the last words of Abraham, in chapters 20–22. Abraham warns his sons to practice circumcision, renounce fornication and uncleanness, refrain from marriage

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72   John J. Collins with Canaanite women, avoid idolatry, eat no blood, and perform washings before and after sacrificing. Marriage with Gentiles is emphatically forbidden in the story of the destruction of Shechem (ch. 30; Himmelfarb 2005, 66). The halakic turn towards intense concern for the detailed interpretation of the Torah, especially in matters of purity, was a major factor in the rise of sectarianism in the Hasmonean era, as evidenced by the Dead Sea Scrolls. The clearest evidence is provided by 4QMMT (“Some of the Works of the Law”), which is a treatise addressed to a leader of Israel, presumably a High Priest, urging him to accept the writer’s interpretation of the law rather than that of a third party (Qimron and Strugnell 1994; see now Kratz, ed. 2020). Part of the text deals with the religious calendar. The sectarian Scrolls generally attest to a calendar of 364 days (as do the Temple Scroll and Jubilees), whereas the traditional calendar observed in the temple had 354. The main body of 4QMMT, however, deals with some twenty issues bearing on holiness and purity, sacrifice and tithing, forbidden sexual unions, etc. In all cases, the views of the “we” group are stricter than those of their opponents. Several of the issues discussed in 4QMMT appear again in rabbinic literature. The views of the third party, to which MMT is opposed, generally correspond to those of the rabbis, and are widely assumed to be those of the Pharisees. Jacob Sussmann (1994) and Lawrence Schiffman (1992) argued that the viewpoint advanced in MMT corresponded to that of the Sadducees, even if the group in question was Essene. The Essenes shared the Sadducean view on these issues. The Sadducean interpretation of the Law was favored by the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus, in the first quarter of the first century bce, who was engaged in bitter conflict with the Pharisees. On his deathbed in 76 bce, however, he advised his widow, Salome Alexandra, to make peace with the Pharisees, and while she was queen the Pharisaic interpretation prevailed (Ant. 13.408–409). This time of transition of royal favor with regard to the interpretation of the Torah provides a plausible context for the appeal addressed to a Hasmonean ruler in 4QMMT (Collins 2010, 116).

The Torah in the Diaspora The halakic turn towards minute exegesis of the legal requirements of the Torah, especially in matters of purity, was not characteristic of all of Judaism in the Hellenistic/early Roman period. It is conspicuously absent in the Greek speaking Diaspora. Both Philo (Hypothetica 7:1–9) and Josephus (Ag. Ap. 2.190–219) present summaries of the Law. Philo begins with a list of offences for which the penalty is death, and boasts of the clarity and simplicity of the Law. The list begins with sexual offences: if you are guilty of pederasty or adultery or rape of a young person, even of a female, for I need not mention the case of a male, similarly if you prostitute yourself or allow or purpose or intend any action which your age makes indecent, the penalty is death.

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The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism   73 The following section focuses on household rules (“wives must be in servitude to their husbands . . .”). Philo touches here on distinctively Jewish matters relating to dedicated property, but discussion of household roles is commonplace in Hellenistic moral ­literature. He then proceeds to “a host of other things which belong to unwritten ­customs and institutions or are contained in the laws themselves” (Hypothetica 7.6). Not everything in these laws is derived, or derived directly, from the Torah. Philo has a negative formulation of the Golden Rule: “What a man would hate to suffer he must not do himself to others.” Other non-­biblical injunctions include the obligation to give fire and running water to those who need them, not to deny burial or disturb the place of the dead. Some other prohibitions, such those of abortion and abandoning children, are quite typical of Hellenistic Judaism, but are not explicitly found in the Torah. Other items, such as the concern for nesting birds, have a clear biblical basis (Deut 22:6). Josephus gives a fuller exposition of the Law, beginning with the conception of God and the temple cult. He proceeds to marriage laws and, like Philo, emphasizes the death penalty for sexual offences. He claims, inaccurately, that the Law forbids abortion and orders that all children be brought up. Also like Philo, he insists that the Law requires that people provide fire, water, and food to those who need them and not leave a corpse unburied. Some of these laws correspond to unwritten laws attributed to Buzyges, the legendary hero of an Attic priestly tribe. As Gregory Sterling has put it: “Ethical codes began with the Torah, but they did not end there. The issue was how to extend biblical material so that it would address contemporary concerns” (Sterling 2004, 183). These summaries of the Law are closely paralleled in the Sayings of Pseudo-­Phocylides, where the Law is not explicitly acknowledged at all. The tendency in this literature to emphasize the broader concerns of the Law, and to focus on matters that might also be of concern to Gentiles, is noteworthy. It accords with the tendency to associate the Law of Moses with the law of nature. This tendency is most explicit in Philo. Philo claims that the cosmos is in harmony with the law and the law with the cosmos, and the man who observes the law is at once a citizen of the cosmos, directing his actions in relation to the rational purpose of nature, in accordance with which the entire cosmos also is administered.  (Opif. 3; Najman 2003a, 59)

The lives of the patriarchs are included in the Torah because first, he wished to show that the enacted ordinances are not inconsistent with nature; and secondly that those who wish to live in accordance with the laws as they stand have no difficult task, seeing that the first generations before any at all of the particular statutes was set in writing followed the unwritten law with perfect ease, so that one might properly say that the enacted laws are nothing else than reminders of the life of the ancients, preserving to a later generation their actual words and deeds.  (Abr. 5)

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74   John J. Collins

The Torah as Civil Law It is sometimes claimed that the Torah was also normative for Jewish life in non-­cultic matters. This was presumably the case in the Hasmonean era, when Judea was governed by native rulers. It does not appear to be the case in the early Roman era. The main ­evidence for practice in this era is provided by papyri from the Judean desert in the Bar  Kochba period (Lewis  1989; Cotton and Yardeni  1997; Yadin et al.  2002; Oudeshoorn 2007; Collins 2019). The only court mentioned in these papyri is that of the Roman governor of Arabia. After the Roman incorporation of Nabatea in 106 ce, contracts were increasingly written in Greek, even when the parties to them did not know that language. This was necessary so that they would be recognized as valid. The contracts and legal documents “bear a striking resemblance to their Egyptian counterparts” (Cotton and Yardeni 1997, 154). It should also be noted that rabbinic law, which is often adduced as representative of “Jewish law” in this context, was not yet written down when these documents were drawn up. The same is true in the Diaspora, despite the claims of some scholars that Jewish communities were regulated by the Law of Moses (Tcherikover  1957; Mélèze Modrzejewski 1997). Even Tcherikover and Mélèze Modrezjewski, who championed the view that Judeans in Egypt enjoyed legal autonomy, recognized that the papyri rarely refer to Jewish law. Tcherikover found “two contradictory tendencies in Egyptian Jewry: the desire to follow old national and religious tradition, and the desire to participate vigorously in all aspects of Hellenistic life” (Tcherikover 1957, 36). Tcherikover supposed that Jewish communities as a whole followed the first tendency, “but individual Jews, when faced with the innumerable petty problems of everyday life, were more disposed to follow the second” (36), but his confidence in the community as a whole is not borne out by the papyri. Mélèze Modrzejewski noted that “in the practice of law, the choice of language and of formulae is determinative. Language is the vehicle of law. Jews who drew up Greek contracts followed Greek law” (Mélèze Modrzejewski 1997, 113). Both scholars cited the Talmudic principle that “the law of the land is law” (Tcherikover 1957, 36; Mélèze Modrzejewski 1997, 119). But if the Torah ceased to function as the law of the land for Jews living under foreign rule, it remained enormously important as the basis for the religious life, and even the identity of the people. Its importance is poignantly expressed in the apocalypse of 2 (Syriac) Baruch, written some decades after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans: But now the righteous have been gathered, and the prophets have fallen asleep. We, too, have left our land, and Zion has been taken from us, and we have nothing now except for the Mighty One and his Torah.  (2 Bar 85:3)

The Torah had been fashioned in the wake of one destruction. Its importance was underscored in the wake of the second. It would serve as the cornerstone of Jewish ­identity in the long Diaspora that followed.

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The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism   75

Suggested Reading On the question of Persian authorization of the Torah, see Watts (2001) and Lee (2011). On Ezra’s Torah, see LeFebvre (2006), 103-­131; Pakkala (2011) 193-­221; Collins (2017a, 44-­50). On the Greek translation of the Pentateuch see Rajak (2009). On the “halakic turn” in the Hasmonean era, see Collins (2017), 97-­113, Vroom (2018) and specifically on 4QMMT, Kratz, ed. (2020). For the Law in the Greek-­speaking Diaspora: Collins (2017), 134-­58; Melèze Modrzejewski (1997). On the papyri of the Bar Kochba period: Oudeshoorn (2007), Collins (2019).

Works Cited Barthélemy, D., and J. T. Milik. 1955. Qumran Cave 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Becking, B. 2011. “The Idea of Thorah in Ezra 7–10: A Functional Analysis.” Pp. 43–57 in Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Construction of Early Jewish Identity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Berthelot, K. 2010. “References to Biblical Texts in the Aramaic Texts from Qumran.” Pp. 183–98 in Aramaica Qumranica: Proceedings of the Conference on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran in Aix-en-Provence 30 June–2 July 2008, edited by K. Berthelot and D. Stökl Ben Ezra. Leiden: Brill. Blenkinsopp, J. 1988. Ezra-Nehemiah. A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster. Blenkinsopp, J. 1992. The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible. New York: Doubleday. Collins, J. J. 2000. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Collins, J. J. 2010. Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Collins, J. J. 2017. The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Collins, J. J. 2017a. “The Uses of Torah in the Second Temple Period.” Pp. 44–62 in When Texts are Canonized, ed. Timothy H. Lim, with Kengo Akiyama. Brown Judaic Studies; Providence: Brown University. Collins, J.  J. 2019. “The Law in the Late Second Temple Period.” Pp. 367–82 in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law, edited by Pamela Barmash. New York: Oxford. Cotton, H.  M., and A.  Yardeni. 1997. Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek Documentary Texts from Nahal Hever and Other Sites, with an Appendix Containing Alleged Qumran Texts (The Seiyal Collection II). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Crawford, S. W. 2000. The Temple Scroll and Related Texts. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Doran, R. 2011. Pp. 423–33 in “The Persecution of Judeans by Antiochus IV Epiphanes: The Significance of ‘Ancestral Laws.’” In The “Other” in Second Temple Judaism: Essays in Honor of John J. Collins, edited by D. C. Harlow et al. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Eshel, E., and H. Eshel. 2003. “Dating the Samaritan Pentateuch’s Compilation in Light of the Qumran Biblical Scrolls.” Pp. 215–40 Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov, edited by S. M. Paul et al. Leiden: Brill. Fishbane, M. 1985. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fitzpatrick-McKinley, A. 1999. The Transformation of Torah from Scribal Advice to Law. JSOTSup 287. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

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76   John J. Collins Freedman, D. N. 1962. “Pentateuch.” Pp. 711–727 in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by G. A. Buttrick et al., volume 3. New York: Abingdon. Frei, P. 2001. “Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary.” Pp. 5–40 in Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch, edited by J. W. Watts. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Frei, P., and K.  Koch. 1984. Reichsidee und Reichsorganisation im Perserreich. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag. Himmelfarb, M. 2005. A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Holladay, C. R. 1983. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors. Vol. 1, Historians. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. Knight, D. A. 2011. Law, Power, and Justice in Ancient Israel. Louisville, KY: Westminster. Knoppers, G. N. 2001. “An Achaemenid Imperial Authorization of Torah in Yehud.” Pp. 115–34 in Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch, edited by J. W. Watts. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Knoppers, G.  N., and B.  M.  Levinson, eds. 2007. The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Kratz, R. G. ed. 2020. Interpreting and Living God’s Law at Qumran. Miqṣat Macasw Ha-Torah. Some of the Works of the Torah (4QMMT). SAPERE XXXVII. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kugel, J. L. 2009. “The Interpolations in the Book of Jubilees.” RevQ 24:215–272. Kugel, J. L. 2012. A Walk Through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation. Leiden: Brill. Kuhrt, A. 2007. The Persian Empire. 2 vols. London: Routledge. Lange, A. 2007. “‘Nobody dared to add to them, to take from them, or to make changes’ (Josephus, Ag.Ap.1.42): The Textual Standardization of Jewish Scriptures in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Pp. 107–26 in Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez, edited by A.  Hilhorst, É. Puech, and E. Tigchelaar. Leiden: Brill. LeFebvre, M. 2006. Collections, Codes and Torah: The Re-Characterization of Israel’s Written Law. New York: T&T Clark. Lee, K.-J. 2011. The Authority and Authorization of the Torah in the Persian Period. Leuven: Peeters. Lewis, N. 1989. The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri, with Aramaic and Nabatean Signatures and Subscriptions edited by Yigael Yadin and Jonas C. Greenfield. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Machiela, D. A. 2009, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation with Introduction and Special Treatment of Columns 13–17. Leiden: Brill. Mélèze Modrzejewski, J. 1997. The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian. Translated by R. Cornman. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mendels, D. 1987. The Land of Israel as a Political Concept in Hasmonean Literature. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Meyers, E.  M. 2008. “Sanders’s ‘Common Judaism’ and the Common Judaism of Material Culture.” Pp. 153–74 in Redefining First Century Jewish and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders, edited by F. Udoh et al. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame. Moore, S. A. 2015. Jewish Ethnic Identity and Relations in Hellenistic Egypt: With Walls of Iron. Leiden: Brill. Mowinckel, S. 1964. Tetrateuch—Pentateuch—Hexateuch: Drei Berichte über die Landnahme in der drei altisraelitischen Geschichtswerken. Berlin: de Gruyter.

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The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism   77 Najman, H. 2003a. “A Written Copy of the Law of Nature: An Unthinkable Paradox?” Studia Philonica Annual 15:54–63. Najman, H. 2003b. Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism. Leiden: Brill. Noth, M. 1972. A History of Pentateuchal Traditions. Translated by B. W. Anderson. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Oudeshoorn, J. G. 2007. The Relationship between Roman and Local Law in the Babatha and Salome Komaise Archives: General Analysis and Three Case Studies on the Law of Succession, Guardianship and Marriage. Leiden: Brill. Pakkala, J. 2004. Ezra the Scribe: The Development of Ezra 7–10 and Nehemiah 8. Berlin: de Gruyter. Pakkala, J. 2011. “The Quotations and References of the Penteuchal Laws in Ezra-Nehemiah.” Pp. 193–221 in Changes in Scripture: Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, edited by H. von Weissenberg, J. Pakkala, and K. Marttila. Berlin: de Gruyter. Puech, É. 1998. Qumrân Grotte 4: XVIII: Textes Hébreux (4Q521–528, 4Q576–579). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Qimron, E., and J. Strugnell, eds. 1994. Qumran Cave 4: V: Miqsat Ma‘ase Ha-Torah. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rad, G. von. 1966. “The Problem of the Hexateuch.” Pp. 1–78 in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays. New York: McGraw Hill. Rajak, T. 2009. Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Redford, D. 2001. “The So-Called ‘Codification’ of Egyptian Law under Darius I.” Pp. 135–59 in Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch, edited by J. W. Watts. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Schaper, J. 2011. “Torah and Identity in the Persian Period.” Pp. 27–38 in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, edited by In O. Lipschits, G. N. Knoppers, and M. Oeming. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schiffman, L. H. 1992. “The Sadducean Origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. H. Shanks, 35–49. New York: Random House. Schiffman, L. H. 1994. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Schiffman, L. H. 2008. The Courtyards of the House of the Lord: Studies on the Temple Scroll. Leiden: Brill. Schweitzer, S. J. 2007. Reading Utopia in Chronicles. London: T&T Clark International. Segal, M. 2007. The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology, and Theology. Leiden: Brill. Shaver, J. R. 1989. Torah and the Chronicler’s History Work. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Ska, J.-L. 2006. Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch. Translated by P. Dominique. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Spiegelberg, W. 2014. Die sogenannte demotische Chronik: Des Pap. 215 der Bibliothèque nationale zu Paris, nebst den auf der Rückseite des Papyrus stehenden Texten. Leipzig: Hinrichs. Steiner, R. C. 2001. “The MBQR at Qumran, the episkopos in the Athenian Empire, and the meaning of LBQR in Ezra 7:14: On the Relation of Ezra’s Mission to the Persian Legal Project.” JBL 120:623–646.

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78   John J. Collins Sterling, G. E. 2004. “Was there a Common Ethic in Second Temple Judaism?” Pp. 171–94 in Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by J. J. Collins, G. E. Sterling, and R. A. Clements. Sussmann, J. 1994. “The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Pp. 179–200 in Qumran Cave 4: V: Miqsat Ma‘ase Ha-Torah, edited by E. Qimron and J. Strugnell. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tcherikover, V.  A. 1957. “Prolegomena.” In Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, edited by V. A. Tcherikover and A. Fuks, 1:1–111. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tov, E. 2012. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd edn. Minneapolis: Fortress. Tov, E., and S.  White. 1994. “Reworked Pentateuch.” Pp. 187–351 in Qumran Cave 4: VIII, edited by H. Attridge et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ulrich, E.  C. 1999. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origin of the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Ulrich, E.  C. 2015. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible. Leiden: Brill. VanderKam, J. C. 2010. “Moses Trumping Moses: Making the Book of Jubilees.” Pp. 24–44 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Transmission of Traditions and Production of Texts, edited by S. Metso, H. Najman, and E. Schuller. Leiden: Brill. Vroom  J. (2018). The Authority of Law in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism. Tracing the Origins of Legal Obligation from Ezra to Qumran. JSJSup 187. Leiden: Brill. Watts, J. W., ed. 2001. Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Weinfeld, M. 1991. Deuteronomy 1–11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, New York: Doubleday. Wright III, B. G. 2015. The Letter of Aristeas: “Aristeas to Philocrates” or “On the Translation of the Law of the Jews.” Berlin: de Gruyter. Yadin, Y., et al. 2002. The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Hebrew, Aramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.

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Chapter 5

The R eleva nce of Moses Tr a ditions i n the Secon d Templ e Per iod Molly M. Zahn

Throughout its history, the vast majority of scholarship on the formation of the Pentateuch, despite profound differences in philosophy, method, and results, has had one feature in common: it has taken the traditional Hebrew text (the Masoretic Text or MT) as the starting point for analysis. Pentateuchal theory has sought to explain how the Pentateuch achieved its “final form,” by which is generally meant more or less the form in which it appears in MT, allowing for a few later glosses or minor modifications in the course of transmission. In turn, the end of the compositional process that results in the MT Pentateuch has frequently been taken as coterminous with the ascendancy of “the Torah” to its traditional place as the highest scriptural authority within Judaism; the closure of the first part of the Jewish canon (see e.g. Barton 2007, 23). The wealth of new data presented by the manuscript discoveries at Qumran and elsewhere in the Judean Desert has led to a dramatic reconceptualization of how scriptural texts were produced, read, and transmitted in Second Temple Judaism (for an overview, see Ulrich 2015, 15–27; as well as the chapter by Sidnie W. Crawford in this volume). This new picture challenges both the text-­historical and the canon-­historical presumptions described above. From the textual perspective, the new data demonstrates that the text of the Pentateuch continued to be subject to change throughout the Second Temple period, such that identifying the “closure” of the Pentateuch with a text closely resembling MT is inappropriate. It also provides documented evidence of the range of ways in which Second Temple scribes engaged with earlier texts, which may prove instructive for evaluating non-­documentable reconstructions of how the diverse pentateuchal materials were brought together. From the perspective of canon, the finds at Qumran

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80   Molly M. Zahn and elsewhere have made clear that the authority of “Torah” was not limited to the Pentateuch, in the sense that non-­pentateuchal texts and laws could also be labeled “Torah.” Similarly, traditions surrounding Moses and other pentateuchal figures continued to develop throughout the Second Temple period, outside of the pentateuchal text itself. Thus the Pentateuch (in whatever form) was not seen as the only authoritative collection of Sinaitic law or of traditions concerning Israel’s ancestors. These “para-­ pentateuchal” materials (see Kraft 2007) may be relevant to questions of text as well as canon, since it has been proposed that in some cases manuscripts of biblical books were revised in light of or in response to perspectives found in related traditions (see further below). Taken together, the various Judean Desert manuscripts that pertain in some way to the Pentateuch suggest that the development of both the pentateuchal text and the authority of the Pentateuch as “Torah of Moses” was marked by more fluidity and complexity than previous models have allowed. This chapter elaborates on the above points in three main sections. The first focuses on textual matters, in particular the pluriformity of the pentateuchal text in the Second Temple period and the potential relevance of Second Temple manuscripts as “empirical models.” The second surveys appearances of pentateuchal figures and themes in non-­ pentateuchal texts and analyzes their impact on questions of canon and authority. The third section examines the term “Torah” itself, demonstrating that, even in the late Second Temple period, it was by no means coterminous with the Pentateuch. Finally, the Conclusion suggests ways in which future scholarship on the Pentateuch might more fully take advantage of the insights provided by the texts and manuscripts of the Second Temple period.

The Formation of the Pentateuchal Text The Text of the Pentateuch in the Late Second Temple Period While the biblical manuscripts discovered at Qumran and other Judean Desert sites spectacularly demonstrated the roots of the medieval MT in the Second Temple period, they also attest to a situation of diversity and fluidity. Multiple forms of biblical books were preserved side by side at Qumran, and the texts give no indication that this plurality was troublesome to the community that collected the Qumran library or to other Second Temple groups (Ulrich 2015, 24). Clear evidence for a single “standard” text of books later included in the Bible does not emerge until after 70 ce (Ulrich 2015, 20–25; somewhat differently, Tov 2012, 174–180). Though it is often regarded as the earliest section of the canon to be completed and to receive authoritative status, the Pentateuch was not excepted from this fluidity. Evidence for its ongoing textual development was amply available long before the discovery of the

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Moses Traditions in the Second Temple   81 Qumran scrolls, of course, in the form of variants preserved in the Greek Septuagint (LXX) and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), as well as in the New Testament and the works of Josephus (Ulrich 2002, 94–99). But this evidence was generally overlooked: assumptions about the MT’s primacy made it all too easy for scholars to attribute differences between MT and LXX to intervention on the part of the translators, while differences between MT and SP could be dismissed as the work of the breakaway Samaritans. Among the (Hebrew) pentateuchal manuscripts found at Qumran, however, are some that contain readings previously thought characteristic of LXX and SP. These variants therefore represent the work of Jewish (i.e. non-­Samaritan) scribes writing in Hebrew; they cannot be written off as products of marginal communities. Furthermore, the Qumran scrolls also contain many examples of previously unknown variants: fully half of the pentateuchal manuscripts large enough to classify must be labeled as “independent” or “nonaligned,” indicating that they do not correspond closely to MT, LXX, or SP (Lange 2009, 155; for slightly different figures see Tov 2012, 108). The kinds of (known and previously unknown) variants preserved in the Qumran manuscripts range from minor differences to additions of numerous words of new material and rearrangement or repetition of entire paragraphs (for examples, see e.g. Teeter  2014; Zahn  2011a; 2015; 2020). In this context, the five manuscripts labeled 4QReworked Pentateuch or 4QPentateuch (4Q158, 4Q364–367) deserve special comment. These manuscripts appear to have constituted copies of one or more books of the Pentateuch, but preserve more extensive differences vis-­à-­vis other known versions than what we find in other Qumran manuscripts. While they contain many small and moderate variants, rearrangements, and repetitions similar to what we find in SP and other versions, they also attest to major additions of new material. For example, 4Q364 adds at least six lines of new material to the scene of Jacob’s departure for Paddan-­Aram (Gen 28:1–9), while 4Q365 adds at least seven lines of new material to create a “Song of Miriam” prior to Exod 15:22, and at least nine lines pertaining to a “Wood Offering” after Lev 24:1 (see Zahn  2011a, 77–81, 100–108). The Qumran manuscript discoveries thus make clear that, like other works that later came to be included in the Bible, the books of the Pentateuch were subject to continued revision by scribes of the late Second Temple period. This observation raises important conceptual and methodological issues for pentateuchal theory, in that it implies that the compositional history of the Pentateuch extended beyond the text-­form that has come down to us in MT. Even aside from the dismissal of evidence from LXX and SP for the reasons described above, scholars have not typically seen manuscript variations of the type attested at Qumran as relevant to the question of the Pentateuch’s composition. Such variants instead have tended to be regarded as falling under the jurisdiction of textual (“lower”) criticism, not the “higher criticism” used to formulate theories of the Pentateuch’s origins and development. In other words, they properly belong to the transmissional phase of the texts’ history, rather than the compositional phase. But this distinction between the period of a text’s composition or literary growth and that of its subsequent transmission is not really defensible (Brooke  2013; Zahn  2020, 83–85).

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82   Molly M. Zahn All the evidence at our disposal suggests that there was no clearly identifiable point at which the composition of a text was considered complete and only minor glosses or ­corrections were permissible thereafter—certainly we cannot identify that point with the consonantal text of MT (Ulrich 2015, 29–45; Zahn 2014, 304–311). Instead, it appears that, while some Second Temple scribes copied their exemplars without introducing substantive changes, others participated in an ongoing process of compositional development. The text of the Pentateuch continued to develop in this way (in multiple parallel forms) until sometime around 70 ce, when the pluriform text tradition was replaced, for reasons we do not fully understand, by the single text tradition known most fully to us from the later MT (Talmon 1975, 21; Tov 2012, 179; Ulrich 2015, 25). A full understanding of the formation of the Pentateuch thus properly requires attention to these later phases in the text’s development, and not only to those stages that resulted in the MT form of the text. This is not simply a matter of accounting for continued development of the pentateuchal text in the form of “late,” documented additions or modifications (which, it should be stressed, are not entirely absent from the MT itself, though for the Pentateuch they are less frequent than in the LXX and SP). Rather, as D.  Andrew Teeter has emphasized, textual development in the late Second Temple period “had a major effect on the understanding of these books [sc. the texts of the Hebrew Bible] and how they were to be received in subsequent times” (Teeter 2013a, 352). It is constitutive of the meaning of the texts, not simply a removable accretion to be stripped away in the quest for earlier forms.

Second Temple Manuscripts as “Empirical Models”? Not only must late layers of development be taken seriously as significant shapers of the meaning of the pentateuchal text, but there is evidence that these later activities attested in Second Temple manuscripts continue processes of scribal intervention that occurred prior to our earliest manuscripts. For example, several scholars have demonstrated that Exod 34:11–26, once frequently considered some of the earliest legal material in the Pentateuch, in fact represents a late revision of Exod 23:14–17 in light of other existing pentateuchal materials (e.g. Bar-­On 1998). In its combination and reworking of parallel materials from disparate sources, Exod 34:11–26 witnesses the same compositional strategies as those attested in Second Temple manuscripts like the Temple Scroll and the 4QRP manuscripts (Carr  2001, 127–129). A second example is presented by Jeffrey Stackert (2013), who first shows that the Temple Scroll inserts elements of Deut 1:9–18 and 18:20–22 into its revision of Deuteronomy’s law of judges (Deut 16:18–20//11Q19 51:11–18). Stackert then demonstrates how the authors of Deuteronomy themselves engage in a similar type of conflation, working elements of both Exod 18:13–26 and Num 11:11–30 into their description of Moses’s appointing of judges in Deut 1:9–18. If these examples are taken as representative, documented cases of textual development might provide urgently-­needed methodological controls on the necessarily hypothetical work of pentateuchal theory, serving as models for the kinds of changes that would likely have

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Moses Traditions in the Second Temple   83 been made to the pentateuchal text in earlier periods for which we do not have manuscript documentation. While the idea of “empirical models” appeals strongly to scholars and students frustrated by the methodological impasse that has characterized pentateuchal theory for the last two generations, the issue is not as straightforward as it may appear. It remains an open, and fiercely debated, question whether the kinds of scribal intervention attested in Second Temple manuscripts can in fact be assumed to be representative of how earlier composers would have acted. The scholars who have most readily answered that question in the affirmative, especially David M. Carr and Reinhard G. Kratz, tend towards a redaction-­critical approach to the text. Kratz in particular argues for seamless continuity in method and approach between the successive redactional layers of the Pentateuch and the interpretive rewriting documented in Second Temple manuscripts, both biblical and nonbiblical (Kratz  2013, 203–208; also Kratz  2004). Carr bases his recent (2011) reconstruction of the formation of the Hebrew Bible on the results of his investigation of documented cases of textual growth, thus suggesting that the Pentateuch has undergone a long series of revisions of varying scope—though Carr warns of the impossibility of reconstructing every stage of this development in detail (e.g. Carr 2011, 147–148). Other scholars, however, are less sanguine about the use of documented cases of scribal activity as models for reconstructing earlier stages in the development of the Pentateuch. They argue that the Pentateuch’s preservation side by side of parallel but contradictory texts has no clear analogue in Second Temple cases of rewriting, or in ancient Near Eastern texts (Sanders 2015, 295, 299). In their view, the internal literary evidence of the text cannot be overlooked, and should not be forced into agreement with what is found in other texts (Stackert 2014, 21n67). They thus argue, on the basis of their reading of this literary evidence, that the vast majority of the Pentateuchal text (as represented by MT) can be attributed to one of a limited number of internally coherent source documents, and the activity of the redactor (or, more appropriately, the “compiler”) was limited to interventions necessary to the combination of these originally independent documents (Baden 2012, 215; Stackert 2013, 169). Interpretive revisions resembling the kinds of changes common in Second Temple manuscripts are not the work of the compiler of the Pentateuch. Either (as in the case of Exod 34:11–26) they represent rare postcompilation insertions (Baden 2012, 224), or, as Stackert argues for the example from Deut 1 discussed above, they are the work of the authors of the pentateuchal sources and thus took place prior to the Pentateuch’s compilation (Stackert 2013, 181–184; see also Stackert 2011). From an outside perspective, it is somewhat unfortunate—if, perhaps, unavoidable— that the question of the relevance of “empirical models” has gotten tied up with other disagreements between “Non-­Documentarians” (i.e. redaction critics) and “Neo-­ Documentarians” (for the terminology, see e.g. Sanders 2015, 285). In reality, the Second Temple evidence presents challenges to both approaches. To begin with, the critique raised by Seth L. Sanders and “Neo-­Documentarian” scholars such as Stackert is fair, to a certain extent. The degree to which the Pentateuch preserves duplicate and/or contradictory narratives and laws does appear to be distinctive, suggesting a particular concern

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84   Molly M. Zahn to preserve diverse perspectives that, as far as I am aware, is not evident—at least not to the same degree—in Second Temple compositions. My own work has borne out the observation that scribes—even potentially the same scribes—could work in many different ways depending on the situation, and thus we cannot level all scribal activity to the interpretive Fortschreibung prominent in Second Temple texts—though not exclusively so (Zahn 2015, 287–292; 2016; see also Sanders 2016). It follows that the evidence of Second Temple manuscripts cannot be used to reject the idea that the person or persons who first compiled the pentateuchal sources introduced only minimal revisions. This does not entail an endorsement of the Neo-­Documentarian approach, however. The ability of scribes to engage texts in a variety of ways even in the same social or historical setting suggests that, even if some kind of proto-­Pentateuch was produced by an act of conflation of independent pre-­existing sources, this text would have been immediately subject to a variety of additional revisions and modifications, including the types of changes typical of Second Temple manuscripts. That is, although Neo-­ documentarians may have a point about the initial combination of the sources, the text likely underwent considerable further modification between that act of combination and the copying of our earliest datable manuscripts. This assertion is predicated on a further observation that raises questions of methodology for both documentary and redaction approaches. The salient issue here is the observable fact that most cases of textual intervention are so seamlessly integrated into the existing text that we would not be able to identify the precise boundaries of the intervention were it not for our ability to compare earlier and later forms of the text side by side. Stephen Kaufman has made this point for the various types of rewriting, major and minor, attested in the Temple Scroll (Kaufman 1982, 42), while Carr has drawn attention to the myriad examples of what he calls “memory variants” (or what text critics would call “synonymous variants”) in Second Temple texts (Carr 2011, 57–65). Another excellent example is the expanded text found in 1QS 5 vis-­à-­vis the shorter version attested in 4QSb, d (see Hempel 2010, 173). It is true that occasionally scribes used recognized devices like Wiederaufnahme to signal their editorial activity (e.g. in the inserted blessing de­livered by the angel to Jacob in 4Q158’s revision of Gen 32; see Zahn 2016), but more often additions, omissions, and modifications are not marked. This is especially true of minor additions or word substitutions (for examples see Teeter  2014, 118–160; Tov 2012, 240–262). The bottom line is, editorial activity cannot always be identified accurately (see also Kratz 2004, 153; Carr 2011, 4; Hempel 2010, 176–178). The careful integration of most textual interventions into their context means that critics cannot depend on the text of the MT (or any other version) to accurately represent the text that would have been known by any given redactor or compiler. On the one hand, this means that the extremely detailed reconstructions offered by redaction critics are unlikely to be correct. The odds of correctly identifying the precise scope of any one intervention are quite low, to say nothing of a whole chain of interventions. On the other hand, it also poses problems for documentary approaches that argue that all pentateuchal texts should be presumed to belong to one of the documentary sources unless

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Moses Traditions in the Second Temple   85 there is incontrovertible proof to the contrary. “The redactor,” in the broader sense of scribes who may have made changes to the pentateuchal text, does not “only owe his existence to the theory,” as Joel S. Baden puts it (Baden 2012: 215). Rather, such activities are demonstrable throughout the manuscript record such as we have it, and it would be very surprising if they did not occur frequently throughout the course of the development of the Pentateuch. More likely, these interventions did take place, but did not leave clear traces in the texts: though they did not, of course, always do so, scribes were perfectly capable of intervening in such a way as to preserve (or even enhance) the literary coherence of the text (see further Zahn 2020, 88–93). The question then becomes: what should pentateuchal scholars do with this frustrating state of affairs, in which we can be virtually certain that more has happened in the course of the Pentateuch’s development than is recoverable to us? First, continued analysis of possible specific points of contact (as well as differences) between the types of textual growth attested in the Pentateuch and what is found elsewhere may further refine our understanding (besides the studies of Exod 34 mentioned above, see Stackert 2013; Zahn 2016; Milstein 2016). In that sense, “empirical models” continue to have something to offer pentateuchal theory. Second, I would echo Carr’s (2011, 147) call for all parties to move towards more “methodologically modest” theories of the Pentateuch’s composition. Whether scholars are proposing redactional layers or source attributions, it must be recognized that we know far less than we would like about the development of the Pentateuch, and that many stages in this development may be permanently hidden from us.

Second Temple Traditions Related to the Pentateuch Alongside the Pentateuch itself, in whatever specific text-­form it was known to them, Second Temple audiences also had access to a rich collection of other texts that would have provided additional information about pentateuchal characters, events, laws, and themes. Although these texts are often categorized as “rewritten Bible” or “parabiblical,” such designations anachronistically imply the centrality and superiority of the texts that came to be included in the Bible, vis-­à-­vis other compositions that were not. As is emphasized below, these texts differ from manuscripts of the Pentateuch not in their level of authority—which could be comparable to that of the Pentateuch—but simply because they constitute different literary works (Segal 2005; Zahn 2011b). The following survey is not exhaustive, but gives the main contours of this collection as known from the Qumran corpus and elsewhere.

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86   Molly M. Zahn

Pentateuchal Figures and Themes The Antediluvian Period Numerous texts contain materials that supplement or expand upon the Primeval History of Gen 1–11. Predominant among these are several manuscripts that contain parts of 1 Enoch and the related Book of Giants. Both works provide extensive ­mythological background to the brief notice in Gen 6:1–4 about the bǝnê ’ēlîm (“Watchers” in the terminology of 1 Enoch) who mated with human women (Nickelsburg 2001; Stuckenbruck 2014, 1–35). The myth of the Watchers also figures prominently in Jubilees and in the first part of the Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen ar), which focuses on the conception and birth of Noah. More fragmentary texts also contain Noah traditions, including Birth of Noah (4Q534–536) and Admonition Concerning the Flood (4Q370).

Abraham, Levi, and other Patriarchs Jubilees and the Genesis Apocryphon both also elaborate, in different ways, on the story of Abraham. The most significant augmentation of the pentateuchal Abraham tradition in the Genesis Apocryphon comes in its expanded narration of Abraham and Sarah’s sojourn in Egypt (Gen 12:10–20). Jubilees on the other hand makes sizeable additions throughout the Abraham story as known from Genesis (see van Ruiten 2012). These include details of the patriarch’s life in Ur (Jub. 11:15–12:14); his celebration of the Festivals of Weeks/Firstfruits (15:1), Tabernacles (16:21), and Passover/Unleavened Bread (18:18); and his final testaments to his descendants (chs. 20–22). Jubilees also participates in another stream of tradition that emphasizes the importance of the tribe of Levi and the transmission of priestly instruction. This stream is also represented in  Aramaic Levi (1Q21; 4Q213–214), the Visions of Amram (4Q543–549), and the Testament of Qahat (4Q542) (Kugel  1993; Kugler  1996; VanderKam  2002; Tervanotko 2014).

Moses and Sinai Another major locus of continued development of tradition pertains to Moses, Sinai, and the law. Jubilees and the Temple Scroll represent two different paradigms for such development. Jubilees presents its entire review of history, from creation through the exodus from Egypt, as a revelation delivered by the Angel of the Presence to Moses on Sinai (Jub. 1:1–3, 26–29; cf. Exod 24:18). There is a sense in which the narratives of Genesis and Exodus are elevated in authority by being presented as revealed at Sinai, a claim not made for them in the Pentateuch itself. In another sense, however, Jubilees relativizes Sinai by presenting the contents of revelation (both law and narrative) as preexistent, engraved upon the heavenly tablets, from which the angel reads as he dictates to Moses (Najman 2009, 48). The Temple Scroll, on the other hand, focuses exclusively on law. Though its use of Exod 34 in the first extant column (col. 2), and a brief reference to “this mountain” (51:7)

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Moses Traditions in the Second Temple   87 establish the setting as Sinai, the Temple Scroll takes almost no interest in narrative ­history or in the figure of Moses. Its instructions for a gigantic temple complex and accompanying legal materials are presented as direct divine revelation, with Yahweh as the speaker. The significance of the divine voicing is made clear in the latter part of the scroll, where large amounts of material from Deuteronomy are included. Here, the syntax is changed systematically so that, rather than Moses speaking, referring to Yahweh in the 3rd person (e.g. Deut 17:14, “When you come into the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you . . .”), God speaks directly (11Q19 56:12, “When you come into the land that I am giving to you . . .”). The result is a legal revelation presented as equal to or exceeding the authority of the legal materials in the Pentateuch (see already Levine 1978, 20; also Zahn 2005, 437–441). Besides Jubilees and the Temple Scroll, several poorly preserved manuscripts also contain materials related to Moses and/or Sinai. For example, 1Q22 (Words of Moses) appears to present an address by God to Moses and then an address by Moses to Israel, dated to the first day of the eleventh month in the fortieth year after the exodus (cf. Deut 1:3; Feldman 2014, 259). The two manuscripts labeled Apocryphal Pentateuch A and B (4Q368 and 4Q377) both contain rewritings of several different pericopes pertaining to Israel’s time at Sinai and in the Wilderness (Feldman  2014, 190–194, 220–224). Four additional manuscripts (1Q29, 4Q375–376, 4Q408) appear to represent a single composition, labeled Apocryphon of Moses (see Goldman  2014, 351–358). Although much remains uncertain about the nature of this composition, the wording of 4Q375 in particular closely mimics the style of Deuteronomy and thus suggests a work cast as the words of Moses (despite the name Apocryphon of Moses, there is no obvious indication, besides the use of Deuteronomic phraseology, that Moses is the speaker). The text seems to constitute an elaboration of pentateuchal law in that it draws on several parts of Deuteronomy and Leviticus to describe rituals to be conducted by the high priest in the course of difficult legal decisions. As Liora Goldman notes, the reworking of legal materials from Deuteronomy and the general approach to earlier traditions connect the Apocryphon of Moses closely with the Temple Scroll (Goldman  2014, 357). Yet the Apocryphon does not share the Temple Scroll’s self-­presentation as the words of Yahweh, and is seemingly content to adopt a Mosaic/Deuteronomic voicing.

Interpretation, Authority, Text, and Canon This brief survey indicates that the Pentateuch itself was far from the only source of information available to Second Temple audiences about Israel’s early history and divinely-­revealed law. From our later, canonically-­influenced vantage point, it can be easy to dismiss all of this extra-­pentateuchal material as later interpretive elaborations that might speak to the reception history of the Pentateuch but not to its composition history. For several reasons, however, such assumptions appear misguided. First, although many of these “para-­pentateuchal” materials clearly postdate and interpretively rework texts known to us from the Pentateuch, there are methodological

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88   Molly M. Zahn problems in taking for granted that the corpus in its entirety simply results from interpretation of the Pentateuch. In some cases, these texts may incorporate independent materials parallel to or even predating pentateuchal traditions. To give just one example, the myth of the Watchers in 1 En. 6–11 clearly engages exegetically with Gen 6:1–4. However, numerous commentators have suggested that Genesis alludes only briefly to a fuller myth, which may in turn have influenced 1 En. 6–11 more directly (for references see Nickelsburg 2001, 166). Other Enochic materials, in particular the Astronomical Book (1 En. 72–82), have parallels in Babylonian astronomical texts (Nickelsburg and VanderKam 2012, 373–383). In other words, the Pentateuch likely represents one crystallization of a range of traditions associated with the primordial period and Israel’s earliest history, and some of our Second Temple manuscripts may represent parallel crystallizations of the same larger range of tradition. Second, this observation is in no way meant to minimize the important role of interpretation in the creation of new compositions related to the Pentateuch (see Zahn 2010, 331–333; Teeter 2013a, 354–355). But our classification or recognition of these texts as interpretive should not obscure their self-­presentation. None of the texts mentioned above are explicitly interpretive; all (as far as we can determine) cast themselves as the words of illustrious ancient humans (Enoch, Levi, Amram, Moses, etc.) or of heavenly/ divine beings (the Angel of the Presence in Jubilees, Yahweh in the Temple Scroll). Thus from the perspective of Second Temple audiences they are best labeled simply as “prophecy” or “revelation” (Najman 2009, 189–199). Insofar as the authority claims of these texts were accepted by at least some Second Temple communities, they would have been perceived as the same type of thing as the Pentateuch, not as secondary interpretations of it (Collins 2011, 34–40). We have ample evidence that the Pentateuch was considered authoritative in the Second Temple period, but we also have ample evidence that it was not uniquely authoritative. There would have been a range of compositions that claimed and were granted authoritative status, only some of which were later included in the Hebrew Bible. Of course, the status afforded a given text likely varied from group to group, as well as over time (Brooke 2005, 87–91). Third, the presence of all these authoritative texts alongside the Pentateuch may pertain to more than just the contexts in which the books of the Pentateuch were received in the Second Temple period, perhaps more directly impacting the shape of the Pentateuch itself. In a situation where the text of the Pentateuch was fluid, and other authoritative traditions were present associated with the same characters, events, or themes, it seems likely that some of the updating made to pentateuchal texts could have occurred in response to or under the influence of these parallel traditions. Such a dynamic has been suggested by Mladen Popović for the Masoretic form of the book of Ezekiel in light of the kinds of apocalyptic ideas contained in 4QPseudo-­Ezekiel (Popović 2010: 242–247). Clear examples for the Pentateuch have yet to be proposed, to my knowledge, but future research would do well to take into consideration this possibility. All in all, the wealth of Second Temple texts that relate to the Pentateuch topically and claim origins comparable to it illustrates that, even apart from the fluidity of the pentateuchal text itself, “pentateuchal” traditions continued to be created throughout this period. Although the formation of the Pentateuch may have been in its later stages by

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Moses Traditions in the Second Temple   89 the late Second Temple period, this relative fixity did not put a stop to the continued production of authoritative traditions pertaining to Israel’s ancient past (Mroczek 2016; Newman 2018). In terms of legal material, even if, as some have claimed, later redactions of the Torah aim to route all access to Sinaitic revelation through interpretation of the Pentateuch itself, Second Temple scribes rejected this restriction and felt free to continue to claim access to Sinai (Otto  2007, 114). This even as interpretation of the Pentateuch provided the impetus for much (though not necessarily all!) of the new legal content.

“Torah” in the Second Temple Period Corollary to the continued production and availability of apparently authoritative Pentateuch-­related texts, the late Second Temple period witnesses ongoing fluidity in the conception of the nature and scope of the “Torah of Moses.” The books of Deuteronomy and, following its lead, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles attest to what Carol A. Newsom calls a “textualization of torah,” such that the earlier, general sense of torah as an individual ruling or teaching, or as the body of instruction by which one is to live, becomes concretized in certain texts (Newsom 2004, 24). Deut 30:10, for example, equates covenantal obedience with observance of “his commandments and his statues that are written in this book of the torah.” In Neh 8:1–3, Ezra reads to the assembly of returned exiles from ‫ספר תורת מושה‬, “the book of the torah of Moses” (see also e.g. 2 Chr 17:9; 34:14–15; Ezra 3:2; Neh 9:3). While many scholars have assumed that “the book of the torah” here refers to the Pentateuch, or at least to its legal contents (i.e. the laws of Deuteronomy and of the Priestly Code; see García López and Fabry 2006, 639), it is ­difficult entirely to substantiate this assumption; at the very least we cannot presume that whatever torah the author of Ezra–Nehemiah had in mind was coterminous with the MT Pentateuch or any part of it (Pakkala 2011, 214–219). Even if we suggest, as seems reasonable, that the Pentateuch became the (or a) paradigmatic instantiation of torah, the conceptual boundaries of the Torah of Moses were fluid (Levenson 1987, 561; Newsom 2004, 24). This fluidity is the result not only of the ongoing development of the pentateuchal text (as described above), but also of the way the term was used. As Hindy Najman puts it, “Torah of Moses” does not function as the name of a specific collection of texts (i.e. the Pentateuch), but was meant to indicate authoritative status. Therefore, traditions not included in the Pentateuch itself can still be designated “Torah of Moses” (Najman 2009, 83; see also Najman 2003). Najman highlights this practice as it is implemented in Ezra and Nehemiah as an authority-­conferring strategy, according to which laws not found in the Pentateuch are claimed to be consonant with the Torah of Moses (e.g. Ezra 6:18; 10:3–4; Najman 2009, 78–83). The fluidity of the notions of “Torah” and “Torah of Moses” continues in later Second Temple contexts as well. As mentioned earlier, both Jubilees and the Temple Scroll are cast as revelation to Moses on Sinai and thus fit within the conceptual framework of “Torah of Moses” as Sinaitic law (Najman 2003, 41–69). Both also use the terminology

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90   Molly M. Zahn of Torah. Jubilees claims to represent the ‫תורה ותעודה‬, the “law and the testimony,” that the angel reveals to Moses (e.g. Jub. 1:26). “Torah” here likely includes the laws of the Pentateuch but is not limited to them; as Teeter, following Steck, argues, Torah in Jubilees represents the entirety of divine law for the created order; together with the testimony it comprises the “entire stock of Israel’s existing authoritative tradition” (Teeter 2013b, 250). In the Temple Scroll, on the other hand, the phrase “this Torah” is taken over from Deuteronomy in such a way that its meaning shifts to refer to the Temple Scroll itself (11Q19 56:21; 57:1; 59:10; see Zahn 2013, 416). A related reconstrual of Torah is found in Serekh ha-­Yaḥad and the Damascus Document. Unlike Jubilees and the Temple Scroll, both explicitly refer to tôrat mōšeh as the foundation for proper behavior (CD 15:12; 16:2; 1QS 5:8). Yet the contents of this Mosaic Torah cannot simply be the laws of the Pentateuch. For example, the Serekh describes how new initiates must swear an oath “to return to the Torah of Moses . . . everything revealed from the Torah according to the council of the men of the yaḥad . . .” (4QSb 9:7–8//4QSd 1:6–7; cf. the similar formulation in 1QS 5:8–9). Thus the Torah of Moses is explicitly identified with the distinctive rules and practices of the community. The same move occurs in the Damascus Document, where, after the initiate swears to return to tôrat mōšeh, he is instructed by the mǝbaqqer in “everything that has been revealed from the Torah to the multitude of the camp” (CD 15:13–14). In other words, although neither the Serekh nor the Damascus Document explicitly claims for itself the status of Torah, both indicate that “Torah of Moses” includes not only the laws accessible to all Israel in the Pentateuch, but also the hidden revelation accessible only to the yaḥad (Kampen 2012, 246–247; Zahn 2013, 425–426). These examples indicate that caution must be used in determining the referent of the words tôrâ or tôrat mōšeh when they appear in Second Temple texts. Even when “torah” is used in reference to a written text (as e.g. in 11Q19 56:21), it is not justified automatically to assume that the referent is to the Pentateuch, much less the Pentateuch in the forms that have come down to us (see also the discussion of Ben Sira 24:23 in Wright 2013, 164–165). The Pentateuch, to return to Newsom’s formulation referenced earlier, may have been the paradigmatic example of “Torah of Moses,” but was far from the only text the term could be applied to.

Conclusion Recent scholarship on the Qumran manuscripts and related Second Temple texts has given us new insight into the textual culture of late Second Temple Judaism, a period crucial to our understanding of the formation of the Pentateuch. The challenge for future scholars of the Pentateuch is to develop models for the Pentateuch’s composition that account for its position as an integral but also integrated part of this textual landscape. To recapitulate some of the main points articulated above, future study should particularly seek to incorporate the following perspectives:

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Moses Traditions in the Second Temple   91 1. A proper understanding of the development of the Pentateuch should take multiple text traditions into account. The MT was only one of numerous forms in which we know the Pentateuch circulated in the late Second Temple period. To regard the relatively early MT form of the text as the proper subject for study and to disregard other forms, even when they postdate the readings of MT, is to impose a later canonical perspective that obscures the full history of the text. 2. Study of the formation of the Pentateuch should take seriously the full range of ­evidence of the ways Second Temple (and other ancient) scribes worked, especially regarding the kinds of traces they left, or did not leave, in the course of textual transmission. It is a mistake to regard Second Temple evidence (“empirical models”) as some sort of yardstick for adjudicating methodological disagreements. The fact that, more often than not, revisions are seamlessly integrated into their surroundings instead poses a methodological challenge to all scholars who seek a detailed reconstruction of the Pentateuch’s development. Yet the vast repository of scribal activities now available constitutes a rich resource for further exploration of instances where similar activities might be attested in the Pentateuch—or for documenting clear cases of difference. 3. The Pentateuch did not have unique status within the literary and cultural landscape of Second Temple Judaism. The ongoing development of the pentateuchal text took place alongside the continual composition and development of related traditions that were also regarded as ancient, authoritative, and divinely revealed. This situation has implications not only for our understanding of the canonical process, but also for our understanding of the development of the Pentateuchal text itself.

Suggested Reading On the fluidity of scriptural texts in the Second Temple period, see Brooke (2013); Ulrich (2002; 2015); Tov (2012, 283–326); Zahn (2014). Teeter (2014) provides a masterful discussion of the exegetical activities of Second Temple transmitters of biblical law, as well as an analysis of the history of scholarship on textual plurality. For arguments for continuity between documented cases of scribal revision and non-­documented stages in the composition of the Pentateuch, see Kratz (2004); Carr (2011); Teeter (2013a); see also the caution of Sanders (2015). On the function and authority of non-­ pentateuchal traditions relating to the Pentateuch, see Najman (2003); Brooke (2005); Collins (2011); for overviews of “rewritten scripture” and related categories, see Zahn (2010; 2011; 2020). Other important recent considerations of the textual culture of Second Temple Judaism include Mroczek (2016) and Newman (2018). For a sophisticated consideration of the nature of torah for the Qumran community, see Newsom (2004).

Works Cited Baden, J. S. 2012. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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92   Molly M. Zahn Bar-On, S. 1998. “The Festival Calendars in Exodus XXIII 14–19 and XXXIV 18–26.” VT 48:161–195. Barton, J. 2007. Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brooke, G. J. 2005. “Between Authority and Canon: The Significance of Reworking the Bible for Understanding the Canonical Process.” In Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran, edited by E. Chazon, D. Dimant and R. A. Clements, 85–104. Leiden: Brill. Brooke, G. J. 2013. “The Qumran Scrolls and the Demise of the Distinction between Higher and Lower Criticism.” In Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method, 1–17. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Carr, D. M. 2001. “Method in Determination of Direction of Dependence: An Empirical Test of Criteria Applied to Exodus 34,11–26 and Its Parallels.” In Gottes Volk am Sinai. Untersuchungen zu Ex 32–34 und Dtn 9–10, edited by M. Köckert and E. Blum, 107–140. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Carr, D. M. 2011. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Collins, J.  2011. “Changing Scripture.” In Changes in Scripture. Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, edited by H.  von Weissenberg, J. Pakkala, and M. Marttila, 23–45. BZAW 419. Berlin: de Gruyter. Feldman, A. 2014. “Rewritten Scripture: Narrative and Law.” In A. Feldman and L. Goldman, Scripture and Interpretation: Qumran Texts that Rework the Bible, 12–261. Berlin: de Gruyter. García López, F., and H.-J. Fabry, 2006. “tôrâ ‫ּתֺורה‬. ָ ” In TDOT, edited by G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren, 15:609–646. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Goldman, L. 2014. “Rewritten Scripture: Law and Liturgy.” In A. Feldman and L. Goldman, Scripture and Interpretation: Qumran Texts that Rework the Bible, 263–358. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hempel, C. 2010. “Sources and Redaction in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Growth of Ancient Texts.” In Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods, ed. M. L. Grossman, 162–181. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Kampen, J. 2012. “‘Torah’ and Authority in the Major Sectarian Rules Texts from Qumran.” In The Scrolls and Biblical Traditions. Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the IOQS in Helsinki, edited by G. J. Brooke et al., 231–254. Leiden: Brill. Kaufman, S. 1982. “The Temple Scroll and Higher Criticism.” HUCA 53:29–43. Kraft, R. 2007. “Para-mania: Beside, Before and Beyond Bible Studies.” JBL 126:5–27. Kratz, R. G. 2004. “Innerbiblische Exegese und Redaktionsgeschichte im Lichte empirischer Evidenz.” In Das Judentum im Zeitalter des Zweiten Tempels, 126–156. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kratz, R. G. 2013. “Das Alte Testament und die Texte vom Toten Meer.” ZAW 125:198–213. Kugel, J. 1993. “Levi’s Elevation to the Priesthood in Second Temple Writings.” HTR 86:1–64. Kugler, R. 1996. From Patriarch to Priest: The Levi-Priestly Tradition from Aramaic Levi to the Testament of Levi. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Lange, A. 2009. Handbuch der Textfunde vom Toten Meer. Vol. 1, Die Handschriften biblischer Bücher von Qumran und den anderen Fundorten. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Levenson, J. D. 1987. “The Sources of Torah: Psalm 119 and the Modes of Revelation in Second Temple Judaism.” In Ancient Israelite Religion, edited by P.  D.  Miller, P.  D.  Hanson, and S. D. McBride, 559–574. Philadelphia: Fortress.

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Moses Traditions in the Second Temple   93 Levine, B.  A. 1978. “The Temple Scroll: Aspects of Its Historical Provenance and Literary Character.” BASOR 232:5–23. Milstein, S. J. 2016. Tracking the Master Scribe: Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. Mroczek, E. 2016. The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press. Najman, H. 2003. Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism. Leiden: Brill. Najman, H. 2009. Past Renewals: Interpretative Authority, Renewed Revelation and the Quest for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity. Leiden: Brill. Newman, J. H. 2018. Before the Bible: The Liturgical Body and the Formation of Scriptures in Early Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press. Newsom, C.  A. 2004. The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran. Leiden: Brill. Nickelsburg, G. 2001. 1 Enoch 1. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Nickelsburg, G., and J. VanderKam, 2012. 1 Enoch 2. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Otto, E. 2007. “Die Rechtshermeneutik im Pentateuch und in der Tempelrolle.” In R.  Achenbach, M.  Arneth, and E.  Otto, Tora in der Hebräischen Bibel: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte und synchronen Logik diachroner Transformationen, 72–121. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Pakkala, J. 2011. “The Quotations and References of the Pentateuchal Laws in Ezra–Nehemiah.” In Changes in Scripture. Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, edited by H. von Weissenberg, J. Pakkala, and M. Marttila, 193–221. BZAW 419. Berlin: de Gruyter. Popović, M. 2010. “Prophet, Books and Texts: Ezekiel, Pseudo-Ezekiel, and the Authoritativeness of Ezekiel Traditions in Early Judaism.” In Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism, edited by M. Popović, 227–251. Leiden: Brill. van Ruiten, J. 2012. Abraham in the Book of Jubilees. Leiden: Brill. Sanders, S. L. 2015. “What if There Aren’t Any Empirical Models for Pentateuchal Criticism?” In Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, edited by B. Schmidt, 281–304. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Sanders, S.  L. 2016. “Introduction: How to Build a Sacred Text in the Ancient Near East.” JANER 15:113–120. Segal, M. 2005. “Between Bible and Rewritten Bible.” In Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, edited by M. Henze, 10–28. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Stackert, J. 2011. “Distinguishing Inner Biblical Exegesis from Pentateuchal Redaction: Leviticus 26 as a Test Case.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 369–386. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Stackert, J. 2013. “Before and After Scripture: Narrative Chronology in the Revision of Torah Texts.” JAJ 4:168–185. Stackert, J. 2014. A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. Stuckenbruck, L. 2014. The Myth of Rebellious Angels. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Talmon, S. 1975. “The Old Testament Text.” In Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text, edited by F. M. Cross and S. Talmon, 1–41. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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94   Molly M. Zahn Teeter, D.  A. 2013a. “The Hebrew Bible and/as Second Temple Literature: Methodological Reflections.” DSD 20:349–377. Teeter, D. A. 2013b. “Torah, Wisdom, and the Composition of Rewritten Scripture: Jubilees and 11QPsa in Comparative Perspective.” In Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, edited by B. Schipper and D. A. Teeter, 233–272. Leiden: Brill. Teeter, D. A. 2014. Scribal Laws: Exegetical Variation in the Textual Transmission of Biblical Law in the Late Second Temple Period. FAT 92. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tervanotko, H. 2014. “A Trilogy of Testaments? The Status of the Testament of Qahat Versus Texts Attributed to Levi and Amram.” In Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures, edited by E. Tigchelaar, 41–59. Leuven: Peeters. Tov, E. 2012. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd ed. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Ulrich, E. 2002. “The Text of the Hebrew Scriptures at the Time of Hillel and Jesus.” In Congress Volume Basel 2001, edited by A. Lemaire, 85–108. Leiden: Brill. Ulrich, E. 2015. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible. Leiden: Brill. VanderKam, J. 2002. “Jubilees’ Exegetical Creation of Levi the Priest.” In From Revelation to Canon, 545–561. Leiden: Brill. Wright, B. 2013. “Tora and Sapiential Pedagogy in the Book of Ben Sira.” In Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, edited by B. Schipper and D. A. Teeter, 157–186. Leiden: Brill. Zahn, M. 2005. “New Voices, Ancient Words: The Temple Scroll’s Reuse of the Bible.” In Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel, edited by J. Day, 435–458. London: T&T Clark. Zahn, M. 2010. “Rewritten Scripture.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by J. Collins and T. Lim, 323–336. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zahn, M. 2011a. Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts. Leiden: Brill. Zahn, M. 2011b. “Talking about Rewritten Texts: Some Reflections on Terminology.” In Changes in Scripture. Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, edited by H. von Weissenberg, J. Pakkala, and M. Marttila, 93–119. BZAW 419. Berlin: de Gruyter. Zahn, M. 2013. “Torah for ‘The Age of Wickedness’: The Authority of the Damascus and Serekh Texts in Light of Biblical and Rewritten Traditions.” DSD 20:410–432. Zahn, M. 2014. “‘Editing’ and the Composition of Scripture: The Significance of the Qumran Evidence.” HBAI 3:298–316. Zahn, M. 2015. “The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Scribal Culture of Second Temple Judaism.” JSJ 46:285–313. Zahn, M. 2016. “Scribal Revision and the Composition of the Pentateuch—Methodological Issues.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by K. Schmid et al., 491–500. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Zahn, M. 2020. Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism: Scribal Composition and Transmission. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Chapter 6

The Pen tateuch a n d the Sa m a r ita ns Magnar Kartveit

The Samaritans are now a community of about 800 members, living on Mount Gerizim in the West Bank and in Ḥolon by Tel Aviv. Their history goes back more than 2,200 years, and for most of this period they have had their own version of the Pentateuch. The scholarly interest in the Samaritan Pentateuch, abbreviated SP, has increased from its first publication in Europe in the seventeenth century until the present, where it plays an important role in pentateuchal studies. This chapter will follow the development in the study of the SP in the West from its start until today. The presentation will give priority to available data, which consists pri­ marily of manuscripts, but also of inscriptions and of suggestions based on arch­aeo­ logic­al efforts. The recent reconstructions of the emergence of the Pentateuch in the Persian and Hellenistic periods will be discussed at the end of the chapter.

The Manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch In the beginning, there was one manuscript. This one manuscript was bought by Pietro della Valle in Damascus in 1616 and brought to Paris. Dating from 1345/6 ce, it was the first Samaritan manuscript to reach Europe, and it immediately caught the interest of scholars. After being published in the Paris Polyglot of 1632 (Morinus 1632) it was used as a base text for the London Polyglot of 1654–58 (Walton 1654–58). A good century later, the London Polyglot’s presentation of the Samaritan Pentateuch in turn became the source for Kennicott’s edition (1776) and for Blayney’s edition, which appeared in 1790. Pietro della Valle’s manuscript therefore experienced a wide circulation. It is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris (No. 2 in the catalogue of Hebrew and Samaritan manuscripts of 1866).

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96   Magnar Kartveit After the appearance of this one manuscript in Europe, the number of known ­ anuscripts increased steadily over the centuries. At the time of Kennicott and Blayney, m seven­teen further manuscripts were known to scholars. When August Freiherr von Gall published his edition of the SP in 1914–18, he knew of around eighty manuscripts, including fragments, none of them earlier than the twelfth century ce. In 2001, Alan D. Crown stated, “It is estimated that there are at least 750 complete Pentateuch manuscripts in existence” (Crown 2001, 13). In addition, there are many fragments with texts. The manuscripts and fragments are kept in the Samaritan synagogue in Nablus and in libraries and private collections in many countries. Most of them have not been published, but there are two notable exceptions: the supposed oldest part of the Abisha Scroll (Pérez Castro 1959), and Shechem MS 6 (Tal 1994). They are not the oldest: the Abisha Scroll was produced from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries ce, and Shechem MS 6 was copied in 1204 ce (Crown 1992, 5; Tal 1994, v). Stefan Schorch in his editio maior is now publishing the manuscript Dublin Chester Beatty Library 751 as the text of SP, dated to the early thirteenth century ce, with variants noted in the apparatuses from an additional twenty-­five manuscripts, dated to the elev­ enth to fourteenth centuries. The volume with Leviticus has appeared (Schorch 2018). At present, the total number of known manuscripts still is around 750, with fragments of manuscripts forming another source for scholarship. All known SP manuscripts date from the eleventh to the twentieth centuries ce. The first fact about our manuscript base for the SP is that it comes from the second millennium ce.

Editions of the Samaritan Pentateuch For many years the polyglots and Kennicott’s and Blayney’s editions served as the main sources for scholars who wanted to work with the SP. During the First World War, August Freiherr von Gall published his Der hebräische Pentateuch der Samaritaner (von Gall 1914–18). Von Gall’s edition of the SP was for a long time the most comprehen­ sive. It is eclectic, prefers scriptio defectiva, follows the rules of MT Hebrew grammar, and prefers older to younger forms. Von Gall printed the text in square characters, reconstructed the text on the basis of the manuscripts, and added three apparatuses. His principles are contested, and the use of the edition requires some effort. Von Gall’s edition is available in BibleWorks. As mentioned, the supposedly oldest part of the Abisha Scroll has been published (Pérez Castro 1959), presenting Num 35:1–Deut 34:12 with apparatus, introduction, and facsimiles. In the years 1961–6, Avraham and Ratson Sadaqa published the Jewish and Samaritan text in square script printed in parallel columns for easy comparison (Sadaqa and Sadaqa 1961–6). The first four books of the Pentateuch are based on an old Samaritan manuscript from the eleventh century, and Deuteronomy is based on the Abisha Scroll.

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The Pentateuch and the Samaritans   97 Luis-­Fernando Giron Blanc’s publication (Giron Blanc 1976) is an edition of Genesis according to Cambridge MS 1846, with variants from fourteen sources. In 1994 Abraham Tal published one important manuscript (Tal  1994). It is a ­diplomatic edition of manuscript no. 6 of the Shechem synagogue, printed with square characters, supplemented with other old manuscripts at the beginning and end, and in lacunae of MS 6. Tal’s edition is accessible in Accordance, where differences between MT and SP are automatically indicated (as are differences based on the Samaritan oral tradition). This edition was improved and used in Abraham Tal and Moshe Florentin’s publica­ tion of the Samaritan and the Masoretic versions (Tal and Florentin 2010). The texts are presented in parallel columns. The only vocalized edition of the SP was presented by I. Tsedaka (1998/2000). Mark Shoulson has published another comparison of the two texts in square characters (Shoulson 2008). He used the University of Michigan’s edition of the Leningrad Codex, and Tal’s edition of SP from 1994. B. Tsedaka and S. J. Sullivan’s edition (Tsedaka and Sullivan 2013) is a fresh English translation of the SP compared to the NJPS translation. It also has marginal notes based on Samaritan tradition and theology. Stefan Schorch’s critical editio maior (Schorch 2018) is an important achievement (see above), and constitutes a primary tool for researchers. The Samaritan Targum is available in Abraham Tal’s edition (Tal 1980, 1981).

The Character of the Samaritan Pentateuch If the first remarkable feature of the Samaritan manuscripts is their late date (second millennium ce), the second is their diversity. This becomes apparent when we compare them with the Masoretic manuscripts. The latter present us with one major feature: the accuracy of the tradition. The MT was transmitted with extremely little variation from the first century ce, or even earlier, to the major manuscripts of the Aleppo Codex, 925 ce, and the Leningrad Codex, 1009 ce. In contrast, typical of the Samaritan Pentateuchal manuscripts is their textual variation. Stefan Schorch has addressed this phenomenon (Schorch 2017). He first presents the textual variation found in the SP manuscripts, and then evaluates if and how the Targum material shows traces of a corresponding variation. Schorch shows that some of the text­ ual variants in the SP manuscripts correspond to similar variants in the Targum manu­ scripts. In some instances, Targum manuscripts display readings that seem to be translations of different SP readings, witnessed to by different SP manuscripts, and not translational variations. In other words, some of the SP manuscripts we have reflect text­ ual traditions that seem to have been the bases, the Vorlagen, of extant Targum manu­ scripts. This again indicates that textual variation was a characteristic of the Samaritan Pentateuch’s transmission from an early period.

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98   Magnar Kartveit When Brian Walton published the London Polyglot (Walton 1654–58), he, together with Edmund Castell and John Lightfoot, presented the SP variant readings compared to the MT and the LXX (appendix 4 in the sixth volume of Walton 1654–58, 19–34). On this basis it was calculated that there were 6,000 SP-­variants compared to the MT, of which 1,900 were common to the SP and the LXX against the MT. Many of them are cases of scriptio plena or scriptio defectiva, an almost irrelevant phenomenon when we know that the reading tradition of the SP is stable, and laryngals and matres play a role in this tradition that is different from the written texts. There have been several attempts at counting the differences over the past two centuries, but the count is unclear. As Reinhard Pummer concluded, we do not know the number of actual differences between the MT and the SP (Pummer 2007, 243 with reference to Tal). Because it was assumed that the SP agreed with LXX in some 1,900 cases, scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries discussed whether the SP witnessed to a re­li­ able tradition. Many Catholic scholars supported this idea, whereas Protestant scholars held the MT to be superior. These discussions ended when Wilhelm Gesenius presented his study of the text in 1815. He demonstrated that the SP in most of its variants is a wit­ ness to Samaritan reworking, language, and tenets, and in only a few cases contains vari­ ants more ancient that those of the LXX and MT. Gesenius studied the particular readings of the SP and placed them in eight cat­egor­ ies: (1) Readings that have been adjusted according to the grammatical norm; (2) Interpretations or glosses received into the text; (3) Conjectural emendations; (4) Readings corrected or added on the basis of parallel passages; (5) Large additions inter­ polated from parallel passages; (6) Emendations of passages that present difficulties in subject matter, mostly of a historical type; (7) Morphological adjustments to the Samaritan dialect; and (8) Passages adapted to Samaritan particulars in theology and hermeneutics. The names of the categories are telling: they imply that the SP contains mainly secondary readings in relation to the MT. Gesenius’s conclusion is well known: only in four instances is the SP to be considered an older text: Gen 4:8 (Cain said to his brother, “Let us go out to the field” [MT: nil]); Gen 14:14 (Abram counted [MT: armed] his followers in order to free Lot); Gen 22:13 (Abraham saw one [MT: behind] ram); Gen 49:14 (Issachar is a bony, i.e. strong, donkey [MT: donkey of bones, i.e. of strength]) (Gesenius 1815, 61–64). In other cases he found the text to be inferior to the MT, but reckoned with the possibility of there being other instances of priority in addition to the four mentioned (Gesenius 1815, 64).

Scholarly Assessments of the Character of the Samaritan Pentateuch The variation among Samaritan manuscripts together with their differences from the other textual witnesses laid the foundation for the thesis advocated by Paul Kahle, Gillis

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The Pentateuch and the Samaritans   99 Gerleman, and Shmaryahu Talmon (Kahle 1915; Gerleman 1948; Talmon 1950–1). They held that the SP constitutes a vulgar version compared to the standard text of the Masoretes. “S[P] is originally a vulgar version of the Torah in which popular trends were systematised and which, at the crucial point of its history, was provided with a ‘typical Samaritan’ superstructure” (Talmon  1950–1, 150). Talmon here takes issue with Gerleman and refines the studies by Kahle. “Vulgar” refers to a text that is smooth and reworked to suit popular needs for understanding the text. A shift from Gesenius is evident here. Gesenius considered the Samaritans to be ­critics, scholars who worked on the text to make it acceptable to a critical mind of their day. This idea was followed up by Bruce K. Waltke (1970), even though both he and Gesenius supposed that the MT was the more original text, and therefore to be preferred. The idea of the SP as a vulgar text is a different approach. It relegates the SP to the status of interesting and old, but, for its quality, long superseded as a textual witness. All previous observations lie behind F. M. Cross’s hypothesis of textual families. SP was seen as a Palestinian text, the LXX as an Egyptian or even specifically Alexandrian text, and the MT as a Babylonian text (Cross 1972). The geographical distance would explain the textual distance, and the import of texts into Palestine would explain the similarities.

The Pre-­S amaritan Manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls In 1955 a Qumran discovery was announced that opened a new area of investigation into the SP. Patrick  W.  Skehan presented a “Samaritan” scroll from Qumran that in one respect was a “surprise,” but in other ways confirmed Gesenius’s appraisal of the SP from 1815. Skehan’s article announced that among the Qumran texts there was a scroll of Exodus with features that were previously known only from the SP. The scroll later became known as 4QpaleoExodm. “The script cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called Samaritan . . . Neither is the orthography Samaritan” (Skehan 1955, 182–183). Skehan’s “surprise” was therefore that “the Samaritan recension . . . is shown by this scroll to have been preserved with a measure of fidelity . . . that compares not unfavourably with the fidelity of transmission of MT itself ” (183). On the assumption that the text in significant respects was the “Samaritan recension,” he concluded that this recension had been preserved well over the ages. Later, the label for this manuscript was changed to “pre-­Samaritan” rather than “Samaritan.” With all the Dead Sea manuscripts now published, we are able to work with this ma­ter­ial on a broader basis. There is no doubt that the SP has predecessors in Qumran, not only in 4QpaleoExodm but in several manuscripts now called pre-­Samaritan. They constitute some 6.5 percent of the total of pentateuchal texts from the Dead Sea. The main texts are 4QpaleoExodm (4Q22, dated 100–25 bce), introduced by Skehan;

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100   Magnar Kartveit 4QExod-­Levf (4Q17, mid-­third century bce); 4QNumb (4Q27, late first century bce); and RP (abbreviation for Reworked Pentateuch: 4Q158, 4Q364, 4Q365, 4Q366, 4Q367, 75–25 bce). 4QTest (4Q175, dated to the beginning of the first century bce) and 4Q368 (the latter half of the first century bce) are also often included in the discussion. Focus has been on the harmonizing feature of the pre-­Samaritan texts and the SP. Harmonizing is a narrow category, but even this expression has been used more widely, to include coordination and assimilation as well (Carr 2011, 90–98, who refers to other scholars with a similarly wide understanding of the expression). In distinction to such approaches, Emanuel Tov defines harmonization as “the change, addition or omission of a detail in a manuscript in accordance with another verse in the same source or with another manuscript of the same composition. . . . The idea behind harmonizing al­ter­ ations (additions and changes) is the sometimes-­unconscious inclination of scribes to create greater internal consistency in the text” (Tov 2008a, 271; 2018, 31–56). With this definition of harmonization, we can see strong similarities between the SP and the pre-­Samaritan manuscripts. However, this is only one step on the way to find possible predecessors of the SP, since there are more wide-­ranging similarities than their harmonization in this narrow sense. Tov also speaks of “content rewriting” or “content editing” as a major characteristic of the pre-­Samaritan texts and the SP—against all other textual witnesses (Tov 2008b: 61). This means that we should look for harmoniza­ tion in the narrow sense as well as content rewriting or editing if we want to trace the parent text type of the SP. If we start with the oldest, 4Q17/4QExod-­Levf, this manuscript presents us with one addition in Exod 39:21, preceding v. 22: “and he made Urim and [Tummim as the Lord had commanded] Moses.” The addition is taken from Exod 28:30 and adapted, resulting in a harmonization of the command about Urim and Tummim for the priestly garment in chapter 28 with the execution of the command in chapter 39. This addition is com­ mon to 4QExod-­Levf and SP, and not found in MT or in LXX. On the other hand, an expansion in 4QExod-­Levf, “a[s] the Lor[d] had commanded Mos[es]” (Exod 39:21) is not found in the SP, MT, or LXX. The sentence in 40:11 accord­ ing to the MT and SP, “You shall also anoint the basin with its stand, and consecrate it,” is extant in 4QExod-­Levf but not in the LXX. It may be a harmonizing addition in 4QExod-­Levf, MT, and SP. 4Q17/4QExod-­Levf shares three readings with SP and MT against LXX (plus one reconstructed), four readings with SP and LXX against MT, two with SP against MT and LXX, and two with LXX against MT and SP. It has twelve unique readings and two reconstructed unique readings, meaning that the affiliation to the Samaritan group is clear. Yet even as the Samaritan text belongs in a family with 4QExod-­Levf, it does not share all its genes. 4Q22/4QpaleoExodm dates from 100–25 bce. It has no expansions with non-­biblical text of the type found in 4QRP, only expansions copied from the Pentateuch of the type found in SP. It has sixteen larger expansions and transpositions, extant or reconstructed. This number includes the expansion that mentions a future prophet like Moses in Exod 20:21, extant in the SP. It consists of text from Deut 5:28–29, 18:18–22, and 5:30–31. Judith

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The Pentateuch and the Samaritans   101 Sanderson argues that the scroll contained this expansion based on the calculation of lines and the arrangement of the text in columns XXI and XXII. One fragment from col­ umn XXI contains parts of three letters from Exod 20:18 and eleven letters from Deut 5:24, thus making it certain that the expansion based on Deut 5:24–27 was present in the scroll. This expansion is found in Exod 20:18 SP, and it was present in column XXI. Line counting suggests that the expansion based on Deut 5:28–29, 18:18–22, and 5:30–31 was also present in the scroll, even if in column XXII only the bottom lines are preserved (Sanderson 1992, 101–102, pl. XVII, top). From 75–25 bce also is RP. It is represented by manuscripts supposed to have been copied from one pentateuchal scroll, 22–27 m long, covering the whole Pentateuch (Tov 2008c, 21). “4QRP agrees with [MT] in 27 cases while disagreeing 35 times. It agrees with [SP] in 40 instances (especially in 4Q364) while disagreeing 17 times. . . . The amount of agreement with [SP] is thus probably even greater than can be expressed by statistics. It is particularly significant to note that 4QRP agrees exclusively with [MT] against [SP] in only two instances, while it agrees exclusively with [SP] against [MT] in seventeen instances” (Tov 1994, 195). There is no doubt that the group of manuscripts reflecting RP belongs to the pre-­Samaritan texts. On this background, it is interesting to note the five larger expansions in RP that are not found in the SP. Firstly, 4Q364 3 ii lines 7–8 contain text from Gen 28:6, where Esau realizes that Isaac has blessed Jacob and sent him to Paddan-­aram to find a wife there. Before this text there is an addition not known from other sources:

1. him you shall see [ 2. you shall see in peace [ 3. your death, and to your eyes [. . . lest I be deprived of even] 4. the two of you. And [Isaac] called [to Rebecca his wife and he told] 5. her all [these] wor[ds 6. after Jacob her son[ and she cried

The italicized reconstruction in line 3 is created on the basis of Gen 27:45 and parallel matter in Jub 27:14, 17. The text in lines 1–6 is not found in MT, LXX, or SP. It “seems to contain material relating to Rebecca’s address to the departing Jacob . . . and Isaac’s con­ solation of her” (Tov 1994, 207). Secondly, 4Q364 14, lines 1–2 may be reconstructed as a combination of elements from Exod 19:17 and Exod 24:12–14 (Tov and White 1994, 221–222). If this reconstruction is correct, here is an addition not found in MT, LXX, or SP. The reconstructed text may have to do with Moses being commanded to ascend the mountain with the people remaining at the foot of the mountain. There is no trace of this textual combination in SP. Thirdly, 4Q364 15, lines 3–4, presents text from Exod 24:18 and 25:1–2, plus an add­ ition in between with text not found elsewhere, but it is difficult to reconstruct. The editors mention possibly parallel material in Jub 1:4–6, referring to God’s revelation to Moses during the forty days and forty nights he spent on the mountain (Tov and White 1994, 222–223).

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102   Magnar Kartveit Fourthly, 4Q365 6a ii and c in lines 1–7 contains text not known from other sources:

1. you despised (?) [ 2. for the majesty of [ 3. You are great, a deliverer (?) [ 4. the hope of the enemy has perished, and he is for[gotten] (or: has cea[sed]) [ 5. they perished in the mighty waters, the enemy (or ‘enemies’) [ 6. Extol the one who raises up, [a r]ansom . . . you gave (?) [ 7. [the one who do]es gloriously [

Lines 8–15 follow the received text of Exod 15:22–26. The editors suggest that the add­ ition before Exod 15:22 may represent an expanded version of the verse preceding Exod 15:22, viz. the Song of Miriam in v. 21 (Tov and White 1994, 270). The Song of Miriam in MT and SP repeats the first line of the Song of Moses, vv. 2–18/19, with one small adjust­ ment, and the expansion in 4Q365 uses some words from this poem. The intention of the addition may have been to supply Miriam with an appropriate hymn of her own, paral­ leling the Song of Moses. The supposed hymn of Miriam does not represent text quoted from another pentateuchal text, and there is no “vacuum” in the text demanding to be filled. The reworking here represents a different logic: it adds material that the scribe thought fit for the occasion. Fifthly, 4Q 365 23 presents text from Lev 23:42–24:2, the end of the law for Sukkot and the beginning of the law for the olive oil for the lamp stand in the temple, and then in lines 4–11 continues with an otherwise unknown text:

4. (Command the Israelites, Lev 24:2aα) [author’s addition] saying, when you come to the land which 5. I am giving to you for an inheritance, and you dwell upon it securely, you will bring wood for a burnt offering and for all the wo[r]k of 6. [the H]ouse which you will build for me in the land, to arrange it upon the altar of burnt-­offering, and the calv[es 7. ] for passover sacrifices and for whole burnt-­offerings and for thank offerings and for free-­will offerings and for burnt-­offerings, daily [ 8. ] and for the doors and for all the work of the House the[y] (or: he) will bring 9. ] the [fe]stival (or: appointed time) of fresh oil. They will bring wood two [ 10. ] the ones who bring on the fir[st] day, Levi [ 11. Reu]ben and Simeon [and on t]he fou[rth] day [

This addition mentions in line 9 a Festival of Fresh Oil, known from 11QTa, and a wood offering, which is also found in Neh 10:35; 13:31; Meg. Ta’an. 4.5; Josephus, Jewish War 2.17.6 § 425; Jub. 21. None of these laws is found in the Pentateuch, but 4Q365 grants these two festivals Mosaic authority. This text is not found in the SP; one may assume that it did not fit the logic of the SP text type (Tov and White 1994, 292).

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The Pentateuch and the Samaritans   103 There is one case that is encountered also in the SP: 4Q364 4b–e ii, lines 21–26, an addition to Gen 30:26–33. This text is included from Gen 31:11–13. In this way, a back­ ground is created in chapter 30 for Jacob’s telling of his dream to Rachel and Leah in chapter 31. This addition is not found in MT or LXX. In a number of cases pericopes and verses are rearranged in RP, and the same re­arrange­ment is found in SP (Tov 2008c, 22). On this background, Emanuel Tov asserts that “the text of 4QRP follows the textual tradition of the SP and the Qumran manu­ scripts related to it” (Tov 2008c, 22). This is seen in some phenomena, but in the cases of substantial exegetical additions mentioned above, five out of six are not found in the SP. Only the addition using pentateuchal text is also found in the SP. 4Q27/4QNumb is from the latter part of the first century bce. It has ten cases of expanded text, either extant or reconstructed, that are also found in the SP (Kartveit 2009, 310–312). Nathan Jastram has reconstructed col. XXXII of 4QNumb with a conflation of the laws for the inheritance of the daughters of Zelophehad in Num 27:2–11; 36:1–12 (Jastram  2004, 262–264). It can be noted that these laws were not reworked or harmonized in SP. From the beginning of the first century bce comes 4Q175/4QTest. It is a compilation of quotations from Deut 5:28–29; 18:18–19; Num 24:15–17; Deut 33:8–11; and Josh 6:26, with introductions to the quotations and an application at the end. The sequence Deut 5:28–29 followed by 18:18–19 is also known from the SP and has been reconstructed for 4Q22/4QpaleoExodm (see above), but the rest of 4Q175/4QTest is unique. The ending of 4QTest is also found in 4QApocryphon of Joshuab (4Q379) 22 1–15, which shows that this text was part of a different tradition than that of harmonizing and editing biblical manuscripts. 4QTest was probably compiled for a special purpose, but it is unclear what this occasion or purpose was. George Brooke has suggested that the first three quotations point to divinely blessed persons (the prophet-­like Moses, the priestly and the kingly messiahs, and the trust­ worthy priest). They also elicit curses on their enemies. These parts correspond to the fourth part, which pronounces a curse on the person or persons who rebuild “this city” (Brooke 2006, 311–314). “This city” in the context of the book of Joshua is Jericho, as is precisely defined in the gloss “Jericho” in Josh 6:26 MT, not found in the LXX. At the end of 4Q379/4QApocryphon of Joshuab and 4Q175/4QTest, the cursed persons shed blood in Zion/Jerusalem. This fourth testimonium may deal with Jerusalem. The four Testimonia in 4Q175/4QTest may apply to contemporary persons and situations or “the cast for the eschatological struggle” (Brooke  2006, 318). 4Q175/4QTest is not a pre-­ Samaritan text, but it witnesses to the combination of Deut 5:28–29 and 18:18–19 found in the SP and reconstructed for 4Q22/4QpaleoExodm. 4Q368/4QApocryphal Pentateuch A was probably copied in the period 50–1 bce (VanderKam and Brady 2001, 133). It “belongs to the group of texts from Qumran that centre around or are otherwise directly related to Moses” (133). The manuscript frag­ ments contain near-­quotations from Exod 33:11–13 and 34:11–24 and relate to Exod 34:29–35. Numbers 20 may also have been used. Some of the material is not as closely

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104   Magnar Kartveit tied to any one text from the Torah, although the language “sounds Deuteronomic in places” (VanderKam and Brady  2001, 134). The editors consider that it formally resembles 1Q22/1QWords of Moses, but less closely the RP (134). Accordingly, it is not a pre-­Samaritan text, but belongs in the wider circle of texts that uses and reshapes parts of the Torah. Molly Zahn has analyzed the textual phenomena discussed here (Zahn 2015), and widens the discussion to include some cases in Hebrew and Greek biblical evidence of reworking not found in the SP. She also refers to Greek scholars’ textual work on the Iliad and the Odyssey. She emphasizes the wider context of the text type of the SP. On the background of the pre-­Samaritan manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls we are now able to see more clearly the Samaritan elements in the SP. They are primarily three elements. The first is the tenth commandment, to build an altar on Mount Gerizim, found in Exod 20 and Deut 5. Then, there are twenty-­one cases in Deuteronomy with “the place that the Lord has chosen” in SP, against MT’s “the place that the Lord will choose.” Thirdly, the altar commandment in Exod 20:24 (SP: v. 21) has a special form, ‫במקום אשר אזכרתי את שמי‬, “in the place where I have caused my name to be remembered”, instead of MT’s ‫ת־שׁ ִמי‬ ְ ‫ל־ה ָמּקֹום ֲא ֶשׁר אַזְ כִּ יר ֶא‬ ַ ָ‫בּכ‬,ְ “in every place where I cause my name to be remembered” (Knoppers 2019). These Samaritan readings have to do with the altar or temple on Mount Gerisim. They were made after the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but no unanimity has been reached on the date. The ancestors and predecessors of the SP can be found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the earliest, 4Q17/4QExod-­Levf, dates to the mid-­third century bce. This manu­ scripts shows that the phenomena of harmonization and “content rewriting” or “content editing” were used at that time. Such textual phenomena may have their roots in habits of the scribes in the Persian and Hellenistic periods and thus may not constitute a spe­ cific pre-­Samaritan trait. However, the SP was the main receptor and transmitter of these phenomena, which again means that the persons who took this text-­type to the emerging Samaritan community were not opposed to such phenomena. On the con­ trary, when the Samaritan tenth commandment was created, the technique employed was exactly the same as that used for producing the promise for a prophet or prophets like Moses, Exod 20:21b SP, to combine Deut 5:28–29, 18:18–22, and 5:30–31. The tenth commandment in the SP is composed of a citation from Deut 27:2b–7 (minus v. 3b) embedded between Deut 11:29a and Deut 11:30 and inserted after Exod 20:17 and after Deut 5:18. The combination of Deut 5:28–29 and 18:18–19 constitute the first testimo­ nium of 4Q174/4QTest, which indicates that these two texts were associated with each other in the first century bce. Inside the pre-­Samaritan group there is one manuscript that most closely resem­ bles the SP: 4QpaleoExodm. It has no expansions with non-­biblical text of the type found in 4QRP, only expansions copied from the Pentateuch of the type found in SP. This is not to say that 4QpaleoExodm is a Samaritan text; on this question, the first judgment by Skehan was unfounded. This manuscript probably did not contain the Samaritan tenth commandment, to build an altar on Mount Gerizim, because there is no room for it in column XXI; therefore it should not be characterized as a

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The Pentateuch and the Samaritans   105 Samaritan manuscript (Sanderson 1986, 317; 1992, 102). Apart from that, its characteristics are the same as those of the SP. The SP seems to be a continuation of a specific text type found in the pre-­Samaritan texts from Qumran and situated inside a wider milieu of reworking of the Pentateuch. It took up the technique for textual emendation from these predecessors, and it is the only version of the Pentateuch where this character is prominent.

Did the Samarians/Samaritans Influence or Partake in the Final Version of the Pentateuch? The study of the SP has received new impetus from another important discovery in the second half of the twentieth century: the city on Mount Gerizim. Excavations have revealed the remains of a city that flourished around 200 bce and inscriptions from the same period (Magen 2008). Two inscriptions discovered in 1984 on the Aegean island Delos are also relevant (Bruneau  1982). The new material dates to the Persian and Hellenistic periods. With an overlap in time of the last stages of work on the Pentateuch and of the Mount Gerizim city with its inscriptions, plus the Delos inscriptions, scholars from both areas of study realize that new perspectives are necessary. During the excavations on the summit of Mount Gerizim 395 inscriptions and frag­ ments of inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic were found (Kartveit 2014). In addition, a number of inscriptions in Greek were secured. No images were uncovered, but many animal bones were—all this in addition to the buildings and construction units that came to light. Only some of the Greek inscriptions have been made available (Di Segni  1990), but the Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions were published in Magen, Misgav, and Tsfania (2004). The publishers date the inscriptions to the Persian and Hellenistic periods, and Jan Dušek narrows the time frame to the first part of the second century bce (Dušek 2012). In the present context, inscription no. 147 is of special interest. It is incised on an intact 202 cm × 36.5 cm × 55 cm stone and stretches over the full length of the stone. Dušek describes its script as “cursive” (Dušek 2012, 10). ‫ די הקרב דליה בר שמעון עלוהי ועל בנוהי אבנ[א דה ל]דכרנ טב קדמ אלהא באתרא דנה‬1 1 This is [the stone] that Delayah, son of Shim‛on, dedicated for himself and his children/sons, [this] ston[e for] good remembrance before God in this place.

The phrase “in this place,” ‫באתרא דנה‬, is complete or restored in fourteen or fifteen inscriptions. The Gerizim inscriptions have been compared to contemporary inscrip­ tions from Assur, Hatra (Iraq), Jebel Ramm (Jordan), Sumatar Harabesi (Turkey), Palmyra (Syria), and synagogue inscriptions (Gudme 2013). On this background, and

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106   Magnar Kartveit also if one widens the comparative material to inscriptions from Sinai and Dura Europos, the phrase is conspicuous (Kartveit 2014). The phrase resembles the similar phrase in the centralization command in twenty-­one places in Deuteronomy, “the place that the Lord will choose”, ‫ר־יִב ַחר יְ הוָ ה‬ ְ ‫ה ָמּקֹום ֲא ֶשׁ‬.ַ In Deut 12:18 MT has “These you must consume before the LORD (‫ )לִ ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה‬your God in the place that the LORD your God will choose,” and a similar combination of “this place” and “before God/the Lord” is found in Deut 12:7, 12; 14:23, 26; 15:20; 16:11. Inscription no. 147 is thus an example of inscriptions with text similar to that in the Pentateuch. According to the editors of the Gerizim inscriptions, “This phrase has a different task: to emphasize the sanctity of Mt. Gerizim as opposed to that of Jerusalem” (Magen, Misgav, and Tsfania 2004, 19). If so, the cult on Mount Gerizim would be polemical. Christophe Nihan and Hervé Gonzalez have pointed to another expression, in inscription no. 199, “the house of sacrifice”, ‫בית דבחה‬. This corresponds to a similar phrase in the memorandum to Elephantine from Bagohi and Delaya in 407 bce. In light of this parlance they interpret 2 Chron 7:12 as an invitation to the Northerners to participate in the cult in Jerusalem (Nihan and Gonzalez 2018, 96–98). Hugh Williamson also has suggested a similar purpose for the entire book of Chronicles (Williamson 1977, 140), a point which has been elaborated by Gary Knoppers (2013, 71–101). Nihan and Gonzalez, however, also discuss Zech 11:14, a text which demonstrates how the positive attitude in some circles in Jerusalem toward the North declined (2018, 100–114). The Pentateuch as Torah appeared in 2007, edited by Gary Knoppers and Bernard Levinson (Knoppers and Levinson  2007), containing presentations at a congress in Edinburgh the preceding year. Several of the chapters in the book deal with the ­emergence of the Pentateuch as Torah viewed against the background of two con­tem­ por­an­eous temples, one in Jerusalem and one on Mount Gerizim. James Watts speaks of Judeans and Samarians and their priesthoods; Reinhard Kratz suggests that the Pentateuch was first considered fundamental to temple worship by the Samaritans, then by the Judeans; Reinhard Pummer suggests that the Northerners took part in the growth of the Pentateuch. Christophe Nihan in this book discusses most extensively how the process possibly went. Like Eckhart Otto and Reinhard Achenbach he works with the hypothesis that the Hexateuch was formed first, before the book of Joshua was separated from the books of Moses and the Pentateuch came into being. According to Nihan, both the Hexateuch and the Pentateuch were conceived as an invitation to the Northerners. Joshua 24 was created and placed at the end of the Hexateuch because of its all-­Israel perspective and the new covenant in Shechem. Even if the Hexateuch was edited in Jerusalem, its scribes/ editors/redactors wanted to invite the Northerners, whose center was Shechem. This was done through a careful creation of the text that ends in a new covenant in Shechem, based on the common Torah. It happened when both Judah and Samaria had lost their kings; the separation described in 2 Kings 12 was thus history. A new, common begin­ ning from the common Torah was envisaged by the author of Joshua 24, who worked around 445 bce.

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The Pentateuch and the Samaritans   107 When the book of Joshua was severed from the preceding books, Deuteronomy 27 was reworked. Verses 1–3, 9–10 were added to the chapter, and vv. 4–8 were added subsequently. According to vv. 4–8 an altar should be built on Mount Gerizim (which was the original reading in v. 4). This addition was made after the appearance of Nehemiah in Jerusalem after 445, around the time of Ezra in 398. The altar text was created on the basis of Exod 20:24–25, leaving the centralization command in Deuteronomy 12 open to interpretation. In Jerusalem the former and latter prophetic books identified the “place that the Lord will choose” with Jerusalem, whereas the Samarians/Samaritans would consider Mount Gerizim as “the place that the Lord has chosen.” At this stage, the Pentateuch would be open to both communities. In the two textual traditions that later emerged, the two forms of the verb (‫יבחר‬/‫ )בחר‬became signals for the two communities. In a later change, the MT received “Mount Ebal” instead of “Mount Gerizim” in Deut 27:4, and the altar text in Joshua 8 was edited appropriately (Nihan 2007). In his book on Jews and Samaritans from 2013, Gary Knoppers deals extensively with the formation of the Pentateuch. From the common interests displayed in the Pentateuch, he proposes that “considerable cooperation between at least some elite members of each group has to be assumed” (Knoppers 2013, 192). This stance is adopted by Zahn (2015, 304–307) and Pummer (2016, 207). This line of thinking is also evident in Walter Houston’s work. He suggests that the Pentateuch was formed as a “common enterprise” (Houston 2014, 312) between scribes in Jerusalem and in Samaria. He points to the following features to support such an idea: “P cannot represent a purely Jerusalemite source of tradition” (327); Gen 14:18–20 (Salem)—in symmetry with Deut 27:4 (Gerizim)—hints at the sanctuary in Jerusalem, “a deliberate compromise of the kind that one might expect if scribes from both sides were involved in the production of the text” (329). In a similar vein, Benedikt Hensel speaks of a “Common Torah” that was “formulated in such a way that each group can find their interests represented, by leaving gaps when it comes to specific cultic issues” (Hensel 2021). He bases his suggestions on the late Persian additions in Deut 11:29–30 and Deut 27* and late Priestly texts. For further development of these recent theories, one might incorporate the pre-­ Samaritan texts in the discussion. From the middle of the third century bce a reworking of the Pentateuch took place, and the SP took over this text-­type. The net result of the development of the Pentateuch was not one unified text, but several. The polemical traits in the MT and the SP might come from a period when relations had exacerbated, but this development was no novelty. The theories of the Pentateuch as a common enterprise between Jerusalem and Samaria presuppose that there mostly was a harmonious, linear history of the text’s development. The case of the Essenes with their library and study center at Qumran (Crawford 2019) is a reminder that the situation could change and groups could emerge that were not necessarily an intuitive consequence of the past. There is the possibility of a similar background for the Samaritans.

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108   Magnar Kartveit

Suggested reading For the SP text consult Schorch (2018), Tal (1994) and von Gall (1914–18). For a ­comparison of the SP with the MT, Tal and Florentin (2010) can be used, and an English translation of the SP is available in Tsedaka and Sullivan (2013). The study by Gesenius (1815) is still fundamental for understanding the character of the SP, and Tov (2008b) is basic for the relation between ­pre-­Samaritan texts and the SP; Zahn (2015) presents this relation within a wider context. The origin of the Samaritans is discussed by Kartveit (2009), Knoppers (2013), and Pummer (2016). Magen, Misgav, and Tsfania (2004), Dušek (2012), Gudme (2013) and Kartveit (2014) discuss the inscriptions from Mount Gerizim and Delos. Suggestions concerning a possible cooperation between Jerusalem and Gerizim in the formation of the Pentateuch are presented by Nihan (2007), Knoppers (2013), Houston (2014), and Hensel (2021).

Works Cited Blayney, B. 1790. Pentateuchus Hebraeo-Samaritanus charactere Hebraeo-Chaldaico editus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bruneau, P. 1982. “‘Les Israélites de Délos’, et la juiverie délienne.” BCH 106:465–504. Brooke, G. 2006. Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in Its Jewish Context. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. (Orig. pub. 1985.) Carr, D. M. 2011. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crawford, S. W. 2019. Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Cross, F.  M. 1972. “The Evolution of a Theory of Local Texts.” In Septuagint and Cognate Studies, ed. R. A. Craft, vol. 2:108–126. Missoula, MT: SBL. Crown, A.  D. 1992. “Abisha Scroll.” In A Companion to Samaritan Studies, edited by A. D. Crown, R. Pummer, and A. Tal, 4–6. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Crown, A. D. 2001. Samaritan Scribes and Manuscripts. TSAJ 80. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Di Segni, L. 1990. “The Church of Mary Theotokos on Mount Gerizim: The Inscriptions.” In Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land: New Discoveries. Essays in Honour of Virgilio  C.  Corbo, OFM, edited by G.  C.  Bottini, L.  Di Segni, and E.  Alliata, 343–350. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press. Dušek, J. 2012. Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III the Great and Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Leiden: Brill. Gerleman, G. 1948. Synoptic Studies in the Old Testament. Lund universitets årsskrift, N. F. Avd.1, 44:5. Lund: Gleerup. Gesenius, W. 1815. De Pentateuchi samaritani origine, indole et auctoritate: Commentatio ­philologico-critica. Halle: Rengeriana. Giron Blanc, L.-F. 1976. Pentateuco Hebreo-Samaritano: Genesis. Textos y Estudios “Cardenal Cisneros” 15. Madrid: SCIC. Gudme, A. K. D. H. 2013. Before the God in this Place for Good Remembrance: A Comparative Analysis of the Aramaic Votive Inscriptions from Mount Gerizim. BZAW 441. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hensel, B. 2021. “Debating Temple and Torah in the Second Temple Period: Theological and Political Aspects of the Final Redaction(s) of the Pentateuch.” In Torah, Temple, Land: Constructions of Judaism in Antiquity, edited by J. Schröter, M. Witte, and V. Lepper, 000–00. TSAJ. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Houston, W. 2014, “Between Salem and Mount Gerizim: The Context and the Formation of the Torah Reconsidered.” JAJ 5:311–334.

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The Pentateuch and the Samaritans   109 Jastram, N. 2004. “4QNumb.” In Qumran Cave 4 VII, edited by Eugene Ulrich et al., 205–267. DJD 12. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kartveit, M. 2009. The Origin of the Samaritans. VTSup 128. Leiden: Brill. Kartveit, M., 2014. “Samaritan Self-Consciousness in the First Half of the Second Century B.C.E. in Light of the Inscriptions from Mount Gerizim and Delos.” JSJ 45:449–470. Kennicott, B., ed. 1776. Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum, cum variis lectionibus. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kahle, P. 1915. “Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Pentateuchtextes.” TSK 38:399–439. Knoppers, G. N. 2013. Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Knoppers, G. N. 2019. “The Samaritan Tenth Commandment: Origins, Content, and Context.” In Judah and Samaria in Postmonarchic Times: Essays on Their Histories and Literatures, edited by G. N. Knoppers, 275–299. FAT 129. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Knoppers, G.  N., and B.  M.  Levinson, eds. 2007. The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Magen, Y. 2008. Mount Gerizim Excavations. Vol. 2, A Temple City. Judea and Samaria Publications 8. Staff Officer of Archaeology—Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority. Magen, Y., H. Misgav, and L. Tsfania. 2004. Mount Gerizim Excavations. Vol. 1, The Aramaic, Hebrew and Samaritan Inscriptions. Judea and Samaria Publications 2. Jerusalem: Staff Officer of Archaeology—Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority. Morinus, J., ed. 1632. Biblia Hebraica, Samaritana, Chaldaica, Graeca, Syriaca, Latina, Arabica, quibus textus originales totius Scripturae Sacrae . . . Vol. 6. Paris: Vitré & Gallicanus. Nihan, C. 2007. “The Torah between Samaria and Judah: Schechem and Gerizim in Deuteronomium and Joshua.” In The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance. Edited by G.  N.  Knoppers and B.  M.  Levinson, 187–223. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Nihan, C., and H. Gonzalez. 2018. “Competing Attitudes toward Samaria in Chronicles and Second Zechariah.” In The Bible, Qumran, and the Samaritans, edited by M. Kartveit and G. N. Knoppers, 93–114. Studia Samaritana 10/Studia Judaica 104. Berlin: de Gruyter. Pérez Castro, F. 1959. Séfer Abišaʻ: Edición del fragment antiguo del rollo sagrado del Pentateuco hebreo samaritano de Nablus: Estudio, transcripción, aparato crítico y facsimiles. Textos y estudios del Seminario Filológico “Cardenal Cisneros” 2. Madrid: SCIC. Pummer, R. 2007. “The Samaritans and Their Pentateuch.” In The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance, edited by G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levinson, 237–269. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Pummer, R. 2016. The Samaritans: A Profile. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Sadaqa, A., and R. Sadaqa. 1961–6. Jewish Version—Samaritan Version of the Pentateuch: With Particular Stress on the Differences between Both Texts. Tel Aviv: Rubin Mass. Sanderson, J.  E. 1986. An Exodus Scroll from Qumran: 4QpaleoExodm and the Samaritan Tradition. HSM 30. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Sanderson, J. E. 1992. “4QpaleoExodm.” In Qumran Cave 4 IV: Paleo-Hebrew and Greek Biblical Manuscripts, edited by P. W. Skehan, E. Ulrich, and J. E. Sanderson, 53–103. DJD 9. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schorch, S. 2017. The Early Textual History of the Samaritan Pentateuch. Paper presented at the Enoch Seminar, Camaldoli, Italy, June 19, 2017. Schorch, S. 2018. The Samaritan Pentateuch: A Critical Editio Maior. Vol. 3, Leviticus. Berlin: de Gruyter.

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110   Magnar Kartveit Shoulson, M. 2008. The Torah: Jewish and Samaritan Versions Compared: A Side-by-Side Comparison of the Two Versions with Differences Highlighted. Westport, Ireland: Evertype. Skehan, P. W. 1955. “Exodus in the Samaritan Recension from Qumran.” JBL 74:182–187. Tal, A. 1980. The Samaritan Targum of the Pentateuch: A Critical Edition. Part 1, Genesis, Exodus. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press. Tal, A. 1981. The Samaritan Targum of the Pentateuch: A Critical Edition. Part 2, Leviticus, Numeri, Deuteronomium. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press. Tal, A. 1994. The Samaritan Pentateuch: Edited According to Ms 6 (C) of the Shekhem Synagogue. Text and Studies in the Hebrew Language and Related Subjects 8. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. Tal, A., and M.  Florentin. 2010. The Pentateuch: The Samaritan Version and the Masoretic Version. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. Talmon, S. 1950–1. “The Samaritan Pentateuch.” JJS 2:144–150. Tov, E. 1994. “4QReworked Pentateuchb-e: Introduction.” In Qumran Cave 4 VIII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 1, edited by Harold D. Attridge et al., 187–210. DJD 13. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tov, E. 2008a. “Textual Harmonization in the Ancient Texts of Deuteronomy.” In E.  Tov, Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and Qumran, 271–282. TSAJ 121. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tov, E. 2008b. “Rewritten Bible Compositions and Biblical Manuscripts, with Special Attention Paid to the Samaritan Pentateuch.” In E. Tov, Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and Qumran, 57–70. TSAJ 121. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tov, E. 2008c. “4QReworked Pentateuch: A Synopsis of Its Contents.” In E. Tov, Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and Qumran, 21-26. TSAJ 121. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tov, E. 2018. “Textual Harmonization in the Five Books of the Torah: A Summary.” In The Bible, Qumran, and the Samaritans, edited by M. Kartveit and G. Knoppers, 31–56. Studia Samaritana 10/Studia Judaica 104. Berlin: de Gruyter. Tov, E., and S. White. 1994. “Reworked Pentateuch.” In Qumran Cave 4 VIII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 1, in Harold D. Attridge et al., 187–352. DJD 13. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tsedaka, B., and S. J. Sullivan. 2013. The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Tsedaka, I. 1998/2000. ha-Torah ha-Qedošah. Ḥolon: A.B. Institute of Samaritan Studies. VanderKam, J., and M. Brady. 2001. “4QApocrypal Pentateuch A.” In Wadi Daliyeh II: The Samaria Papyri from Wadi Daliyeh. Qumran Cave 4 - XXVIII, Miscellanea, Part 2, edited by D. Gropp et al., 131–149. DJD 28. Oxford: Clarendon Press. von Gall, A. F. 1914–18. Der hebräische Pentateuch der Samaritaner. Giessen: Töpelmann. Waltke, B. K. 1970. “The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Text of the Old Testament.” In New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed. J. B. Payne, 212–239. Symposium Series, Evangelical Theological Society 3. Waco, TX: Word. Walton, B. 1654–58. Biblia Sacra Polyglotta Complectentia Textus Originales Hebraicum, cum Pentateucho Samaritano etc. London: Thomas Roycroft. Photomechanischer Nachdruck Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1963–65. Williamson, H. G. M. 1977. Israel in the Books of Chronicles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zahn, M. 2015. “The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Scribal Culture of Second Temple Judaism.” JSJ 46:285–313.

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Chapter 7

The Gr eek Tr a nsl ation of the Pen tateuch Cécile Dogniez

Introduction Philo of Alexandria, writing in the first century bce, considered that the Greek version of Moses’s traditions was a gift of the Jews to the Hellenized world (Mos. 2.41). Today, the Greek Pentateuch, or Septuagint (LXX), which was translated in Alexandria in the first half of the third century bce, is regarded as a linguistic and cultural phenomenon unprecedented in the Western world. This translation into Greek is the oldest version of the five books of Moses, as well as the most important corpus among the Greek Jewish literature of the Hellenistic period. This Greek version, which was gradually amplified in the following centuries with the translation of the other books of the Hebrew Bible, was a reference for other Jewish translations and writings. It also became the only Bible of the Christians at the beginning of Christianity. The Greek Pentateuch thus played a major role in the cultural history of both Judaism and Christianity. In effect, the Greek Pentateuch comprises the earliest available interpretation of the Torah, reflecting the cultural and religious context in which it emerged—Hellenistic Judaism. As such, the Pentateuch of the Septuagint is the first recorded encounter, mediated through Greek language, between Judaism and Hellenism. Rather than speaking of “Hellenization” or even “acculturation”—because these processes often imply a fusion of cultures and the loss of one’s identity—it is better to regard this enterprise as a form of “cultural transfer.” Jews in Egypt adopted Greek language as well as a number of Greek customs, but they remained nevertheless closely related to their national laws, the Torah (Mélèze Modrzejewski 2006, 117–118; 1999, 133–134; 1997).

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112   Cécile Dogniez

The Pentateuch The name of the Pentateuch, which in a technical sense denotes originally the Greek translation of the five books of the Torah, deserves a brief comment. The term is used for the first time in the second century ce by the gnostic writer Ptolemy, in a letter addressed to a woman Flora who had asked him questions regarding the law of Moses. Yet the word could be older. It is seldom used by the church fathers, who more commonly resort to the designation “the Law” or “the law of Moses.” The Greek word πεντάτευχος is formed by the terms πέντε, “five” and τεῦχος, which denotes initially the “box” or the “case” containing scrolls and subsequently, by metonymy, the contents of the scroll itself. Adopted by Christians, the term “Pentateuch” could be the Greek equivalent of the traditional Hebrew designation for the Torah in Judaism, ḥamîshâ ḥumshê hattôrâh, “the five fifths of the Torah,” which may denote itself the five cases containing the five first scrolls of the Bible. Yet we may also ask whether the term “Pentateuch” denotes a scroll comprising five books, or a collection of five scrolls. According to rabbinic tradition, the five books of the Torah would be contained on a single scroll, even of substantial size (TB Menahot 30a). For the Greek text, papyrus Fouad inv. 266, written in Egypt around the middle of the first century bce, preserves substantial fragments of Genesis and Deuteronomy, written on separate scrolls (Dunand 1966; Aly and Koenen 1980). As a matter of fact, the Greek text was arguably at least twice as long as the unpointed Hebrew original (Bickerman 1976, 138; see also Skeat 1982), meaning that it was necessarily kept on several scrolls, some of which could be of significant size. We may therefore assume that the Greek name “Pentateuch” refers to a collection of five scrolls, some of which were perhaps of exceptional dimensions (Dorival  2001, 35–37; Harl, Dorival, and Munnich 1988, 64).

The Septuagint The name “Septuagint” initially referred to the Greek translation of the five first books of the Hebrew Bible exclusively. The term comes from Latin septuaginta, which translates the Greek ἑβδομήκοντα, meaning “seventy,” LXX in Roman numerals. The name itself refers to the seventy, or more precisely seventy-­two, translators who would have been responsible for the translation of the Torah into Greek (Dorival  1991). In the Jewish Greek-­speaking tradition, the term “Septuagint” exclusively denotes the translation of the Pentateuch; for Christian writers since the second century ce, the term was used more broadly to denote the entire Old Testament. It is important to emphasize that “The Old Greek version of the Torah was a Jewish enterprise. It is probably necessary to stress this fact since several centuries later, the LXX was considered to be a Christian literature” (Tov 2005, 387). Nowadays, the designation “Septuagint” is used, rather inaccurately, to

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   113 denote not only all the Hebrew books translated into Greek but also deuterocanonical writings either directly written in Greek or translated from books written in Hebrew or Aramaic but not preserved in the Jewish canon (Bickerman 1976, 137–138; Harl, Dorival, and Munnich 1988, 39; Dines 2005, 1–2; Aitken 2015, 1).

The Origins of the Greek Pentateuch “La première des énigmes du Pentateuque grec est celle de son apparition” (Léonas 2007, 9). Yet, as noted above, this is an important document: in particular, it is the first translation into Greek of this size, and there is no comparable Jewish corpus translated in the language of Homer. But we do not know precisely where, when, and above all why the Pentateuch was translated into Greek. Various explanations have been put forward, already in antiquity, yet the debate remains open.

The Letter of Aristeas Yet we have an ancient document which contains substantial information about the origins of the Greek Pentateuch: the pseudepigraphic writing called Letter of Aristeas to Philocratos (Pelletier 1962), which is dated to the second half of the second century bce. The author of the Letter presents himself as a worshipper of Zeus, who narrates to his brother Philocratos the account of the embassy to the high priest of the Jews, Eleazar, that King Ptolemy entrusted to him. According to the account, the head of the royal library, Demetrios of Phalera, had suggested to the king to have the laws of the Jews translated to keep them in the library, as the latter was expected to acquire all the books in the world. To this end, competent Jewish translators, capable of rendering the Hebrew Torah into Greek, must be brought to Alexandria. The Letter carefully describes the temple of Jerusalem, its cult, the city and its surroundings. The seventy-­two translators selected by the high priest Eleazar—six for each tribe of Israel—are “masters in Jewish letters” but also “seriously versed in the Hellenistic culture” (§121). In Alexandria, they are welcomed by the king and invited to a banquet. There follows the account of the translation of the Law itself, which is actually rather briefly described (§301–321). According to this account, the translation itself is done in seventy-­two days in a secluded place on an island—Philo later mentions the island of Pharos (Mos. 2.25–44), but Aristeas does not have this information. Demetrios reads the translation of the Law before the Jewish community assembled, which gives its assent to the text. The whole translation is then read to the king, who manifests his admiration for “the genius of the lawgiver” (§312) (Fernández Marcos 2001, 35–52; Wasserstein and Wasserstein 2006, 19–26).

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114   Cécile Dogniez The term “Pentateuch” does not occur in the Letter itself; there is only mention of the Law, the five first books of the Bible, even though at that time other biblical books from the Prophets and the Writings had already been translated, as is indicated by the Greek translator of the book of Sirach in the prologue to his translation dated c.132 bce. It is clear that the account written by the author of the Letter is quite legendary, and seeks to elevate the translation itself. Consequently, the historical value of this document, written one century after the Septuagint, has long been questioned by scholars. Nonetheless, some of the information it preserves arguably contains historical elements. This concerns, for example, the notion that the Greek Pentateuch originated in Alexandria. On the other hand, the author of the Letter is not a Hellene but an Alexandrian Jew, who writes a piece of propaganda. This propaganda may be intended for a Greek audience, in which case it was meant to show to non-­Jewish readers that the Law of the Jews was held in high esteem at the court of the Ptolemies, and that the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures was from the beginning an event of considerable significance. Or it was intended for Palestinian Jews, and was meant in this case to defend the work of Alexandrian Judaism and affirm the value of the Septuagint, for example, against contemporary revisions taking place at this time in the homeland, or perhaps against a rival translation undertaken under the patronage of Onias IV in Leontopolis (Van der Kooij 2008, 182–184). The idea that the Greek translation of the Pentateuch goes back to a royal initiative remains a possible explanation for the origins of this translation, although some historical adjustments are required. In this case, the Egyptian king responsible for this initiative should arguably be identified with Ptolemy II Philadelphos (282–246 bce), who banished Demetrios of Phalera as the head of the library shortly after his arrival on the throne (Harl, Dorival, and Munnich 1988, 57–58). The author of the Letter is clearly not a contemporary of Ptolemy II Philadelphos, but must be situated in a later period, presumably between 200 and 100 bce (Rajak 2008, 177).

Modern Theories Indeed, some modern theories explain the origins of the Greek Pentateuch by the notion that the first Hellenistic rulers would have shown an interest in foreign wisdoms (Collins 2000; Honigman 2003). Thus, the Greek Pentateuch would have been made because Ptolemy II wanted to complement his library; or, alternatively, because he wanted to have access to the legislation of the Jews in order to integrate it into the judicial system of the Ptolemaic kingdom (Mélèze Modrzejewski 1985, 26). Whether for cultural or legal needs, the initiative of the translation would go back to the king. Yet other explanations have been offered. Rather than assuming an external factor, such as a royal decision, some scholars have proposed to explain the origins of the Greek Pentateuch as a local initiative of Alexandrian Jews, who were willing to make this document accessible in Greek to fellow Jews who were no longer in command of Hebrew, be it as a liturgical or a didactic goal.

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   115 Two very early papyri of the Pentateuch, P. Rylands Gk. 458, from the first half of the second century bce, which contains eight small fragments of Deuteronomy, and P. Fouad, from the first century bce, with fragments from Genesis and Deuteronomy, show that the Greek version of the Pentateuch was indeed known in various places in Egypt, although we do not know whether it was already used at that time in religious contexts (Tov 2010, 432). Jews had been living in Egypt for a long time, before the founding of the city of Alexandria in 331 bce (see Mélèze-­Modrzejewski 1985). We also know that these Jews, while forming a diaspora more or less integrated into the Greek-­ Macedonian world, kept close relations with Jerusalem. Other scholars have seen in the translation of the Pentateuch a prestige operation. In this view, Alexandrian Jews, strongly influenced by the work of critical scholarship undertaken at the library of Alexandria on the text of Homer and other classical authors, sought to avail themselves of an authoritative version of the Law in Greek (Honigman 2003). Another approach has been to suggest that the Greek translation of the Pentateuch was the product of a collaboration between the Ptolemaic court and the Jews of Jerusalem, especially priests and scribes (Van der Kooij 2012a, 2013). Such collaboration would not have been for the purpose of religion, liturgy, or prestige, but as a way to respond to “scholarly interests within the framework of the cultural policy of the time in Alexandria” (Van der Kooij 2007, 299). Finally, contrary to legendary history and many explanations, it has been suggested that the Torah was translated into Greek as “a light for the nations” in accordance with Deut 4:6–8 (Schenker 2007). All in all, the legend of the sudden and miraculous birth of the Greek Pentateuch, such as it is transmitted by Aristeas and Philo mainly, is a mythical construct, which attests to the esteem in which Jews held the LXX, but which also serves to claim the adequacy between the Hebrew original and its Greek translation (Léonas 2007, 39–40). In the cultural context of the time, it seems plausible to assume that such an enterprise of translation was “une opération locale, motivée par le besoin ou le désir de rendre un texte hébreu accessible à une population hellénophone. Mais s’adresse-­t-­elle aux Juifs hellénisés, réservée à un usage interne? ou aux Grecs de la Cour et de l’administration, dans un processus patronné par le roi?” (Baslez 2016, 100). Yet it may be difficult to neatly delineate between the political and cultural nature of the context that saw the emergence of the Greek Pentateuch. The recent publication of twenty papyri from Herakleopolis could however back the assumption of a political or legal-­judicial origin of the Greek Pentateuch, since one of these papyri, which concerns a matter of divorce in the Jewish community in Egypt, shows that the Torah translated into Greek was actually used in judicial procedures. Although the name of King Ptolemy does not figure in these papyri, in the Ptolemaic judiciary the initiative of writing legal codes in Greek goes back to the king (Dorival 2009, 79). One must also note that, in the explanations surveyed here, the text of the Greek Pentateuch exists as a text for itself, read independently from the Hebrew text. However, an alternative hypothesis is that of an “interlinear” Pentateuch, originating in a school context as a help for the reading of the Hebrew text (Pietersma 2002; Pietersma and

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116   Cécile Dogniez Wright 2007, 10). In this case, the Greek text of the Pentateuch remains subordinated to the Hebrew and does not have an autonomous existence (Dines 2004, 52–54; Joosten 2008). In the end, the correct explanation arguably lies in a combination of the various factors that have been advanced by scholars. On the one hand, the creation of the Greek Pentateuch would never have been possible without some sort of official endorsement, either from Egypt or from Israel; on the other hand, this Jewish enterprise was presumably motivated by the needs of the Jewish Egyptian diaspora or, at least, was able to satisfy those needs.

The Five Books of the Greek Pentateuch In the Hebrew tradition, the title of the five books of the Torah corresponds to one of the first word(s) of each book: Berèshit, “In the beginning”; Shemot, “Names”; Vayyikra, “And he called”; Bemidbar, “In the wilderness”; and Debarim, “Words.” In the LXX, the titles given to these books are different, and correspond to a significant part of their contents. Genesis denotes the generation of the world and the patriarchs; Exodos, “Exit,” corresponds to the departure of the Israelites from Egypt; Levitikon, “Leviticus,” denotes the cult of the priests, from the tribe of Levi; Arithmoi, “Numbers,” refers to the census of the people in the wilderness; whereas Deuteronomion, “Deuteronomy,” refers to the second law or, rather, a copy of the law. It is generally admitted that the five books in Greek were treated as a unit, although they were not translated by the same translator, but more likely by five different translators, who may or may not have belonged to the same group (Kim 2006). It is also commonly assumed that these books were translated sequentially, with Genesis first and Deuteronomy last. But it is also entirely possible that Genesis was in fact not translated first, since the translation of this book is distinguished by its well-­rounded literary character (Tov 2010, 21). Others have also proposed that Deuteronomy was translated after Exodus but before Leviticus (Den Hertog 2014). At any rate, each book presents distinctive features, specific to each translator (more on this below). Nonetheless, the language used for all these books is Koine Greek, the Greek language spoken in Hellenistic times. More precisely, the language of the Pentateuch is at the level of “good Koine Greek” (Thackeray 1978, 13), like the Greek of Joshua or Isaiah, and differently from other books translated later in a more literal and stereotypical way, such as Ecclesiastes or Song of Songs. To be sure, the Greek of the Pentateuch is not at the level of classical Greek, but each translator has used the classical, in some cases even archaic, base in Greek language, while also renewing the meaning and/or the form of terms and expressions. Yet despite this linguistic unity, as well as common vocabulary, especially for some key terms, the five books of the Greek Pentateuch offer a great variety of style and lexicon.

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   117

Genesis It is largely acknowledged that the translator of Genesis is well familiar with the language of Hellenistic Koine. He occasionally resorts to perfectly idiomatic expressions. In some instances, he even manages to render the Hebrew original into Greek with expressions of a high level in Greek and characterized by a stylistic concern. In other instances, the translator follows very closely the Hebrew text that he translates (the Vorlage), to the point of contravening some grammatical rules (Aitken 2015, 18; Muraoka  2012, 201; Sollamo 2005; Dines 2004, 14; Harl 1986).

Exodus Of all Greek translators, the translator of Exodus is the one who is the most attentive to the requirements of Greek language. When he deviates from the Hebrew original, he tries nonetheless to remain close to the meaning, while observing the idiomatic expression in Greek. He privileges as much as possible syntactic features that conform to Greek usage, rather than reproducing Hebrew constructions. Scholars generally assume that the translator of Exodus was well versed in both Hebrew and Greek, and that he may be “characterized as a competent translator, mindful of genuine Greek expressions, free in his relationship to the original, but still exact in reproducing his original relatively faithfully” (Aejmelaeus  1993a, 100; see also Le Boulluec and Sandevoir 1989). A break can be observed following the translation of Genesis and Exodus: “The sharp divergence in the use of δέ and in the omission of the apodotic conjunction between the first and the latter part of the Greek Pentateuch points to a fundamental change of translation technique in the middle of the Pentateuch” (Aejmelaeus 1982, 183).

Leviticus The Greek version of Leviticus is with little doubt the book manifesting the greatest fidelity to its Hebrew model. Yet despite its great degree of literality, it also contains some free translations. With regard to the cultic legislation comprising the book, the Greek translator does not hesitate to vary the translation of the same Hebrew word or, on the contrary, to use only one Greek word to translate several Hebrew terms. Because of the connections between Exodus and Leviticus, the Greek translator of Leviticus tends to maintain those lexical choices already made in the Greek Exodus, for instance in the context of sacrificial rituals (ὁλοκαύτωμα, κάρπωμα). At the same time, he is also able to provide stable translations for technical cultic terms in Hebrew, which will be later taken up in Numbers, for example with the use of θυσία, “offering” (Harlé and Pralon 1988, 35, 36, 39; Aitken 2015, 45).

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Numbers The Septuagint of Numbers has been regarded as “the weakest volume in the Greek Pentateuch” (Wevers 1998, ix). The translation is rather literal and contains errors of translation or of syntax, which would betray a certain incompetence on the side of the translator (Dines 2004, 15). Yet the translator has a concern to take up the cultic lexicon used by other translators, and often takes the liberty to refer to other passages of previous books of the Torah. Such instances of intertextuality in the Greek translation of Numbers point to the willingness to root the stories of Numbers in the past account of Israel (Dorival 1995, 1994).

Deuteronomy The translator of Deuteronomy was often faced with very repetitive formulations, and opted accordingly for a literalism even greater than in the case of Leviticus LXX. His work is characterized by great attention to the Hebrew text, as well as the order and the construction of Hebrew terms. As a result, Hebraisms tend to be more abundant than in other translations. This situation may also explain why very little of the environment of the Greek translator of Deuteronomy, who lived in Alexandria in the first half of the third century bce, is reflected in his translation (Wevers  1997, 83; Dogniez and Harl 1992). All in all, the five first books of the LXX exhibit less freedom, from a philological perspective, than translations of other biblical books. This is apparently because the translators of the Greek Pentateuch were very careful regarding both the Hebrew text which they translated and the Greek version which they were proposing to the members of the Jewish community in Egypt.

The Language of the Greek Pentateuch Because of the strong Semitic character of the LXX, earlier authors often considered that the language of LXX was not really Greek but rather a kind of Judeo-­Greek dialect spoken by the Jewish community in Alexandria (Gehman 1951; Turner 1955). This theory was subsequently rejected, and today scholars assume that the translators of the Pentateuch used the Greek language spoken in their own time in Egypt, that is, the Koine of the Hellenistic period. This language is mainly known from inscriptions and papyri, and new discoveries of these materials corroborate the view that the translators used the language of their time. Indeed, there is a significant correspondence between the lexicon of the LXX and of the papyri (Lee 1983; Horsley 1989; Dines 2004, 110–115).

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   119

Greek Language at the Time of the LXX For example, the translators of the Pentateuch transposed the realities of the biblical world in the Greek culture with which they are familiar. The LXX of Numbers thus uses technical terms like δῆμος, “deme”, and φυλή, “tribe”, which refer to the civic sedentary organization of some famous cities in the Hellenistic period, like Alexandria, Athens, or Rhodes, to describe a people wandering in the wilderness (Dorival 2016b, 342–343). The vocabulary used for divine prescriptions in the Pentateuch borrows from the language used in the judiciary of Ptolemaic Egypt: for instance, δικαιώματα, the evidence presented by claimants during a process, and προστάγματα, the ordinances originating from the king (Cadell 1995; Dogniez 2016, 352–353). The verb συντάσσω, which is frequently used in the Pentateuch with the meaning “to give an order,” was actually also a common term in Ptolemaic Egypt at the time of the translators (Lee 2003). The use of ὑποζύγιον, alongside ὄνος, to denote the donkey corresponds to a practice well ­documented in papyri from Ptolemaic Egypt in the third century bce. Some terms are even directly borrowed from Egyptian language: ἄχει in Gen 41:2 is an Egyptian word for reeds; θῖβις in Exod 2:3, which denotes the basket or the chest in which Moses is placed, is the Greek transcription of an Egyptian word meaning “chest, box” (Le Boulluec and Sandevoir 1989, 80; Aitken 2016), and οἰφί in Lev 5:11 is the Egyptian name for a unit of measure. Often these words translate Hebrew terms with similar sonorities (Joosten 2012, 189; Aitken 2016, 172).

Resorting to Archaic Greek Although they use contemporary Hellenistic Greek also documented in papyri, the translators of the Pentateuch are nonetheless heirs to the Greek of the Classical period, whose influence is reflected both in common vocabulary and in more technical ones, such as medicinal, military, agricultural or judicial registers. The translators also draw from the Archaic Greek of Homer and the Tragedians for several poetic words such as ἄβυσσος, “abyss”; κῆτος, “sea monster”; φλιαί, “doorposts”; μῶμος, “blame” (Casevitz 2001, 77–79); or the verb ὕω, “to make rain fall,” instead of the usual verb βρέχω (Aitken 2013, 14).

Semantic Neologisms Nonetheless, in order to render as closely as possible Hebrew notions with no equivalent in the Greek world, the translators of the Pentateuch sometimes forged semantic neologisms, giving new meanings to Greek terms already present in Classical Greek. Thus, διαθήκη, which is only attested in Classical Greek with the meaning of “disposition,” especially “testamentary disposition,” takes the meaning “covenant” as the result of a semantic shift imposed to this term to translate Hebrew ‫( ברית‬Harl 1986, 55–56;

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120   Cécile Dogniez Joosten 2016, 252–253). The term ἀνάθεμα, “anathema,” is used in Greek poetic language to denote a dedicated object, but with no sacral connotation; in the Pentateuch, where it translates Hebrew ‫חרם‬, it takes the meaning of “thing placed under the ban,” that is, intended to be destroyed or sacralized, in any event removed from common usage (Harlé and Pralon 1988, 214). The verb εὐλογέω, which means in Classical Greek “to speak well of someone,” acquires the specific meaning of “to bless,” corresponding to Hebrew ‫ברך‬, especially in contexts where God blesses humans (Joosten 2015a, 2015b, 2011). Likewise, the Greek term νόμος, “law,” was chosen as the Greek equivalent for Hebrew ‫תורה‬, although the latter term means specifically “instruction” (Dogniez 2016). For each of the terms surveyed here, and others as well, we may ask whether the semantic shift is a deliberate choice of the translator, which was later adopted by other translators of the LXX, or whether the equivalence proposed between a Greek term and its Hebrew correspondent reflects the usage prevalent in the Greek language spoken by the Jewish community in Alexandria. It is also possible that in some cases this semantic shift actually reflects a larger development of Greek language at that time. In some instances, the epigraphic evidence allows us to decide between these different options (see e.g. Joosten 2016; Aitken 2015b, 66–68).

Terms Not Attested Before the LXX On the other hand, some terms used in the Greek Pentateuch appear to be authentic creations by the translators or, at least, terms not attested before the LXX. For example, ὁλοκαύτωμα, translating Hebrew ‫עלה‬, “that which goes into smoke,” is a technical term to denote the holocaust, that is, the complete destruction of the victim through fire. Θυσιαστήριον designates the altar on which the offerings for God are placed, in contrast to the altar for pagan cults, which is designated with the usual term βωμός. The term ἀκροβυστία, which denotes the foreskin, is also a neologism, like the term διασπορά, a substantive formed on the verb διασπείρω, “to scatter, disperse” (Mélèze-­Modrzejewski 1999, 135–139). It seems, however, that the term προσήλυτος, “resident alien,” which appears for the first time in the LXX in Exod 12:48, is not a new term coined by the translators of the Pentateuch, since an attestation of this term has been found in a papyrus dated to the third century bce (Butera and Moffitt 2011).

Hebraisms Above all, however, the language of LXX is characterized by the presence of Hebraisms, which inform this language with foreign, unusual features, especially in the domain of religion. Because they cannot find strict equivalents to render various terms or expressions, which—while not necessarily difficult to understand—are distinctive of the Hebrew world, translators of the Pentateuch often opt for a calque of those terms and expressions in Greek. In some cases, they merely transcribe Hebrew words, sometimes

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   121 in their Aramaic form: πάσχα, “passover”; μάννα, “manna”; σάββατα, “sabbath”; γειώρας, “proselyte”; or σίκερα, “fermented drink” (Joosten 2010). Yet such transcriptions remain rare in the Pentateuch. It is also important to specify that several Greek words have been seen as lexical Hebraisms, whereas their usage is in fact documented in Greek. For instance, in Gen 11:1, 6, 9 the term χεῖλος, “lip,” with the meaning “language” is not a usage specific to the LXX and borrowed from the Hebrew. In and of itself the Greek word suggests the meaning “language”; Hebrew derivation is not required for this. Similarly, the use of the Greek word στόμα to name the “mouth” of a sword is not a calque of the Hebrew; one only needs to refer to Homer (Iliad 15.389) to realize that the tip of a weapon can be ­designated with στόμα in Greek. A good number of the alleged lexical Hebraisms ­actually belong to the Greek lexicon. There are instances, however, where the translators of the Pentateuch maintain very carefully the idiomatic turn of a Hebrew expression, which they reproduce literally in their translation. For example, in Exod 6:9 and Num 21:4, they use the substantive ὀλιγοψυχία and the verb ὀλιγοψυχέω to denote the discouragement of the Israelites— who are literally “short of soul”; in this case, the translators produce a calque of the Hebrew with a semantic innovation which is simultaneously etymologically literal and semantically exact (see Le Boulluec and Sandevoir 1989, 113). In Deut 8:14, the LXX reproduces the Hebrew literally: μὴ . . . ὑψωθῇς τῇ καρδίᾳ, “do not raise in your heart,” meaning “do not be prideful.” In Exod 33:3, 5; 34:9 and then in Deut 9:6, 13, the Greek neologism σκληροτράχηλος, “stiff neck,” in reference to the people of Israel, is a calque of the Hebrew image used to denote stubbornness. In Exod 28:41, the translator resorts to the Semitism ἐμπιπλάναι τὰς χεῖρας, “to fill the hands,” with the meaning “to consecrate” in the context of the investiture of the priests (Dorival 2016a, 287–288; Le Boulluec and Sandevoir 1989, 44). Such idiomatic calques, while they were at first sight unintelligible barbarisms for a Greek reader, were nonetheless familiar to Greek-­speaking Jews who used them regularly. They arguably reflect the respect that Greek translators had for the Hebrew text, which they regarded as sacred, as well as their concern to render this model as faithfully as possible. Additionally, the more the Greek reader progressed in his reading of the Pentateuch, the more he became accustomed to these idiomatic turns, reducing the strangeness of Hebraicized language. It is also important to keep in mind that dans la littérature grecque, dès l’origine homérique, des formes et des tournures hétéroclites se juxtaposent dans ce qu’on a coutume d’appeler un “mélange de dialectes”. En effet, avant la réaction atticisante des débuts de l’Empire romain, aucune façon de dire ne s’impose comme langue ou style de référence. Aucune hiérarchie ne classe entre eux les différents parlers, ni ne place au-­dessus et à part un style noble.”  (Harlé and Pralon 1988, 51)

Likewise, the flexibility of Greek language has facilitated the formation of new words as well as the integration of syntactic turns, lexicons, and figures based on the Hebrew.

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122   Cécile Dogniez This linguistic adaptability of the Greek may explain why this Greek Pentateuch, despite the critiques to which the language of this translation has been subjected, was not rejected but, on the contrary, enjoyed immense notoriety.

Stylistic Features of the Pentateuch Although it has often been characterized as “barbaric gibberish,” “poor Greek,” or “Greek of soldiers,” the language of LXX evinces nonetheless real stylistic qualities. As a matter of fact, while Koine Greek is a rather popular kind of Greek, we find in many instances a real concern in it for literary quality. While the narrative style of the Hebrew is faithfully reproduced—for instance through the use of the paratactic καί to render the waw of Hebrew, or the use of the narrative formula καὶ ἐγένετο to render the expression ‫ יהיו‬in Hebrew—the translators of the Pentateuch have also been able to create their own stylistic effects. Sensitive to the stylistic features they found in poetic portions of the Pentateuch, such as lexical variations, repetitions, chiasms, or parallels, the translators did not merely reproduce those features but also introduced new stylistic or rhetorical markers in their own version of the Pentateuch. Such literary improvements in the Greek Pentateuch, for instance in passages about God, are indisputable markers of the search for a high level of language (Dines 2016; Léonas 2016; Aitken 2013; 2011; Van der Kooij  2012b, 61; Fernández Marcos  2009; Gera  2007; Harlé and Pralon  1988, 47–81; Harl 1986, 71–82).

The Greek Pentateuch Compared to Its Hebrew Original While faithful to its Hebrew original, whether with regard to the number of words, their order, or more generally the meaning of the Torah, the Greek Pentateuch presents nonetheless differences when compared with the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT). Overall, and apart from some well-­known exceptions, we may begin by recalling that the majority of the books in the Greek Pentateuch were translated from a pre-­masoretic Hebrew text which must not have differed too significantly from the Hebrew consonantal text later standardized by the Masoretes, even though there existed at the time of this translation other types of Hebrew texts. Because the Greek translators of the Pentateuch tend to follow their base-­text (Vorlage) fairly closely, extra attention must therefore be devoted to deviations between MT and LXX. While they have long been used exclusively to improve the MT when its Hebrew text was considered difficult, those differences between the two texts reflect the originality and literary independence of the LXX, but also the interpretation of the first five books of the Law that took place in Alexandria three centuries before the turn of the era.

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Differences in Chapters and Verses One of the well-­known particularities of the Greek Pentateuch concerns the organization of Exodus 35–40, describing the carrying out of the plans for the Tent of Meeting. The order and the contents of these final chapters of the book are quite distinct from what we read in MT, and LXX provides a shorter version of the building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness; in particular, the description of the framework is omitted (Exod 36:20–34 MT), as is also the case for the altar of perfumes (Exod 37:25–28 MT). We may ask whether such differences comprise deliberate changes by the translator of Exodus, or whether they reflect a Hebrew base distinct from MT. Despite various studies on this passage, the situation remains complex. It may be argued that the twofold transmission of the text preserved in MT and LXX attests to the existence of two editions of the Hebrew text. Unfortunately, extant fragments from Qumran do not confirm the existence of a Hebrew text distinct from MT. Nonetheless, one Qumran fragment, 4QExod-­Levf (4Q17), which agrees with LXX against MT in Exod 40:17, 20, 22, appears to confirm the existence of a Hebrew Vorlage for the LXX in these verses. Additionally, it has also been argued that LXX Exodus 35–40 was revised by a second translator (see Wade 2003; Bogaert 1996; Aejmelaeus 1993b; Le Boulluec and Sandevoir 1989, 61–67). In some instances, it is the order of verses that differs between LXX and MT. Thus, at the end of chapter 31 of Genesis LXX, verses 46–52 do not correspond exactly to those verses in MT. In Deut 5:17–19, the order in which the prohibitions of the Decalogue are listed—adultery, murder, and theft (also reflected in Philo of Alexandria, Decal. 51)— does not correspond to the order in MT—murder, adultery, and theft (which is also attested by Josephus, Ant. 3.92). Moreover, Papyrus Nash, a Hebrew papyrus dated to the second century bce, agrees with LXX; apparently, therefore, in the Jewish Egyptian milieu of that time, adultery was regarded as more severe than murder (Himbaza 2004, 66; Le Boulluec and Sandevoir 1989, 209; Burkitt 1903, 405).

Quantitative Differences Besides such differences of order, the books of the Greek Pentateuch also contain quantitative differences: “minuses” but also, more rarely, “plusses” that could be ­ intended to make the text clearer and more coherent, even though we do not find in the LXX the kind of explicative glosses or additional narratives that we find in the Targums. Overall, the Greek text of the Pentateuch is equivalent to the Hebrew version: it corresponds to the latter almost word for word. There are nevertheless exceptions to this rule: the previous discussion has mentioned omissions in the Greek text of Exod 35–40, which is significantly shorter than MT. We may also mention some important plusses, which are arguably not due to the translator since they are attested in other textual traditions. In Gen 4:8 LXX, Cain’s request to his brother Abel, “Let us go to the plain,” Διέλθωμεν εἰς τὸ πεδίον, is missing from MT. We may be dealing here not so much with a plus from LXX as a minus from

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124   Cécile Dogniez MT, which does not specify Cain’s words to Abel. Other textual witnesses, like the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Peshitta, and the Targums, confirm this textual variant of the Greek (Tov 2001, 236–237; 2016, 288). Before the Shema‘, which begins in Deut 6:4, the Greek text adds a sentence taken from Deut 4:45, which associates this prayer to the Decalogue: “And here are all the rules . . . that . . .” (Καὶ ταῦτα τὰ δικαιώματα . . . ὅσα…). In light of the closeness of the Greek translation of Deuteronomy to its Hebrew original, there is every reason to believe that this plus was already present in the translator’s base-­text. This textual variant is also reflected in the Nash papyrus (Dogniez and Harl 1992, 154). Likewise, the Greek version of the Song of Moses in Deut 32:43 includes four more stichs than MT. One fragment of Qumran that preserves the corresponding passage, 4QDeutq, partly represents the Hebrew text underlying the LXX, which “gives a polytheistic flavor to the song” (Tov 2012, 7), with the mention of the “sons of God” and of the “angels of God” (see Wevers 1995, 533–535; Van der Kooij 1994; Dogniez and Harl 1992, 340; Bogaert 1985).

Qualitative Differences The comparison between the Masoretic Text and the Greek text of the Pentateuch also highlights important qualitative differences between these texts. Yet those differences, where the meaning in Greek is not identical with the meaning in MT, are not always easy to explain: we may have to do with a different base-­text (Vorlage) than the one later fixed by the Masoretes; a mistake or a misunderstanding by the translator, or a reading of the Hebrew consonantal text different from the reading preserved in MT; or a deliberate change by the translator, or the sign of another reading tradition inherited from the cultural milieu of the translator; or even an error of the copyists in the transmission of the manuscripts, whether in Hebrew or in Greek.

Evidence for another reading tradition We may mention here some differences between the MT and LXX that do not appear to reflect either the incompetence of the translator or his fantasy. In Gen 2:2, the Greek reads: “and God completed in the sixth day his works,” συνετέλεσεν ὁ θεὸς ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἕκτῃ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ, whereas in the MT we read about the completion of creation: “and God completed in the seventh day his works.” Unless we postulate a distinct Vorlage for the Greek with the word “sixth,” we may at first identify here a deliberate change introduced by the translator. Yet this variant rather points to a distinct reading tradition, which is concerned to preserve the institution of sabbath as a day where God does not act. As a matter of fact, this exegetical tradition about sabbath is present not only in LXX but is also attested in the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Peshitta, and other ancient versions (Harl 1986, 98–99; Tov 1981, 128). The genealogies in Gen 5 and 11 present important differences in Greek and Hebrew: according to Gen 5:3 LXX Adam fathered Seth when he was 230 years and lived 700

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   125 more years; in the MT Adam begot Seth when he was 130 and lived for another 800 years. Also, LXX has Mathusalem live 969 years, but if we follow the computation of LXX in Gen 5:25–28, which is distinct from MT, he dies fourteen years after the flood, which apparently contradicts the account of Gen 7:7, where Mathusalem is not included among those who went into Noah’s ark. In Gen 11:12–13, the LXX mentions the name of Kainan, which is absent from MT. In all these cases, it is difficult to know which text is older. According to E. Tov, these variants in Gen 5 and 11 LXX “should not be ascribed to the translator, but to his Hebrew Vorlage” (Tov 2015, 221). Moreover, for these genealogies we know that the LXX shows in part affinities with other ancient witnesses, like the Samaritan Pentateuch, the book of Jubilees, as well as Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities (1.83–88) (Hendel 1998, 68). Overall, the qualitative differences discussed above, for which agreements with other ancient witnesses are documented, demonstrate that what could be viewed at first as initiatives of the translator are in fact more likely to be careful translations of the Hebrew base-­text that this translator had before him.

Differences in the reading of the consonantal text Differences between MT and LXX may occasionally proceed from different readings of the Hebrew consonantal text. In Gen 26:32 LXX, Isaac’s servants tell their master about the wells they dug: “We did not find water,” Οὐχ εὕρομεν ὕδωρ, whereas MT has: “Isaac’s servants . . . told him: ‘We found water.’” The contradiction between the two texts may be explained here by a different reading of the Hebrew, namely, a confusion between the personal pronoun ‫ לו‬and the negation ‫לא‬, presumably due to the absence of graphy for the final alef (Harl, Dorival, and Munnich 1988, 206). In Gen 47:31, the Greek understands the consonantal text to mean that Jacob takes hold on “the extremity of his staff,” ἐπὶ τὸ ἄκρον τῆς ῥάβδου αὐτοῦ, rather than on “the head of his bed,” as in MT. This can be explained by the fact that the Hebrew at the time of the translators was not vocalized. Alternatively, the Greek translator may have misunderstood the meaning of the rare Hebrew term mit ̣t ̣āh, “bed,” and identified it as mat ̣t ̣ēh, “staff.” In Num 3:9 LXX, the Levites are given as a gift to the Lord: δόμα δεδομένοι οὗτοί μοί εἰσιν; in the MT, they are given to “Aaron.” This divergence in the recipient of the gift of the Levites has been taken to reflect a reading of Hebrew ‫“( לי‬to me”) instead of ‫“( לו‬to him”). Yet this reading is also attested in the Samaritan Pentateuch. In fact, the reading of LXX may reflect a harmonization with Num 8:16, where both MT and LXX state that the Levites are a gift for Yahweh. Thus, this difference may well point to distinct textual traditions rather than reflect a reading mistake or the freedom of the translator (Dorival 1994, 113). In other instances the mistake may also come from the Hebrew. Thus, in Gen 7:11 LXX the flood begins and ends (see Gen 8:14) on “the twenty-­seventh of the month,” ἑβδόμῃ καὶ εἰκάδι τοῦ μηνός, with no mention of the word for “day,” whereas in the MT it begins “on the seventeenth day.” It is easier to explain this difference by assuming “a scribal error in the Hebrew—misreading ‫ עשר יום‬for ‫ ”עשרים‬rather than to assume “two unmotivated departures by the Gen-­LXX translator” (Hendel 1999, 34).

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Cultural adaptations Occasionally, the translator deviates from his model in order to adapt to the cultural context of his readers, who might not understand some formulations. For example, in Gen 22:17 MT God makes the following promise to Abraham: “Your offspring shall possess the gates of their enemies.” The translator interprets the stylistic figure in Hebrew, in this case metonymy, by replacing “gates” with “cities” (τὰς πόλεις τῶν ὑπεναντίων), the latter being better adapted to the Greek audience. In Gen 24:22, concerning the presents that Abraham’s servant gives to Rebekah, the translator speaks not of a “ring in the nose,” as in MT, but of “pendants” for ears (ἐνώτια); consequently, in v. 47 he also omits the mention of the nostrils where these pendants are set, presumably because the implied custom would have been overly odd in Greek (Harl 1986, 203). In Deut 5:30 Moses’s order to the Israelites to “go back to their tents” becomes in LXX an order to “go back to your houses,” ᾿Αποστράφητε ὑμεῖς εἰς τοὺς οἴκους ὑμῶν. In this instance, the translator omits the reference to the semi-­nomad life of the Hebrews, presumably because it would have been anachronistic to Alexandrian Jews, and suggests instead a more urban settlement.

Deliberate interpretations In yet other cases, we arguably encounter deliberate interpretations by the translator. For example, in Gen 1:2 the translator intentionally produces a clearer text than the allegedly obscure words of Hebrew ‫תהו ובהו‬, “emptiness and nothingness,” which defines the universe at the beginning of creation. The expression used in Greek, ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος, “the earth was invisible and unorganized,” is more explicit (Wevers 1996, 100). Such a translation may have been influenced by Greek cosmogony as it is described in Plato’s Timeus (Harl 1986, 87). In Gen 15:15 the translator does not mention Abraham’s burial, contrary to MT, but merely states that he “lived” to a good old age, with the reading τράφεις, used here metaphorically (in keeping with all the manuscripts of LXX, against the reading ταφείς, “buried,” which was chosen by the editors of LXX because it conforms to MT; see Harl 1986, 165). In Deut 17:14, 15; 28:36; and 33:5, the translator opts for the term ἄρχων, “chief,” for the king of Israel, corresponding to Hebrew ‫מלך‬, “king.” We may presume that this choice by the translator is intentional, in order to avoid the term βασιλεύς, a title reserved for God as king of Israel. But it is also possible that this choice reflects in fact a later revision in the Greek to align with a theological revision at work in the Hebrew model, which would already have used ‫ נשיא‬instead of ‫ מלך‬in order to emphasize the exclusive kingship of Yahweh. Alternatively, the avoidance of the term βασιλεύς for the king of Israel in Greek could also be explained as a form of deference to the Ptolemaic kings; or maybe, even more simply, because the Hellenistic language is used to speaking of “chiefs” more than of “monarchs” (Pearce 2007, 172–175). In Deut 30:3, the translator does not render literally the Hebrew phrase “Yahweh will lead back your captivity” but gives “the Lord will heal your sins,” ἰάσεται κύριος τὰς

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   127 ἁμαρτίας σου. This original reading of LXX, which probably reflects the fact that the return from captivity was irrelevant at the time of LXX, may nonetheless be compared with the interpretation of the Targum, which reads here: “the word of Yahweh will welcome your repentance” (Dogniez and Harl 1992, 306). We can see here that LXX, far from being faulty, actually fully belongs to the interpretive tradition of post-­biblical Judaism.

Conclusion The Greek Pentateuch represents an outstanding work in many respects. This oldest preserved version of the Torah gives us access to an equally early state of the Hebrew text. It demonstrates the great stability of the consonantal Hebrew text, even as in a number of places it also attests a Vorlage distinct from MT—a Vorlage that is sometimes corroborated by other ancient witnesses, including some of the documents found in Qumran. Both the changes made in this Jewish translation as well as the linguistic choices retained may be understood to reflect the interpretation that Jewish translators in Alexandria gave of the Torah in the Hellenistic period. Moreover, the Greek Pentateuch, as the oldest and most famous representative of the Jewish-­Alexandrian literature, comprises not only an invaluable corpus for our knowledge of Greek Koine language, but also a foundational document for scholars interested in processes of translation and cultural transfers in antiquity. Finally, with regard to its reception in both the Jewish milieu—one may think, in particular, of the allegorical and philosophical interpretation of Philo of Alexandria—and early Christian communities, this first translation of Moses’s law represents a truly autonomous work, with its own literary, stylistic, and hermeneutical features. But, like the rest of the Greek version of the Bible, the Greek Pentateuch ceased to be used by a good number of Jews once the young Christian sect appropriated it for its doctrines.

Suggested Reading For general informations on the Greek Pentateuch, see Aitken (2015a), Dines (2004), Van der Kooij (2012b). On the multiple authorship of the Septuagint Pentateuch, see Kim (2006). On the Greek Pentateuch and its Alexandrian milieu, see Fernández Marcos (2009). On the language of the Greek Pentateuch, its rhetoric and stylistic aspects, see Aitken (2013, 2011), Dines (2016). On the Pentateuch lexicon, see Lee (1983).

Works Cited Aejmelaeus, A. 1982. Parataxis in the Septuagint: A Study of the Renderings of the Hebrew Coordinate Clauses in the Greek Pentateuch. AASF. Dissertationes Humanarum Litterarum 31. Helsinki: Suomalainen tiedeakatemia.

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128   Cécile Dogniez Aejmelaeus, A. 1993a. “What Can We Know About the Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint?” In On the Trail of the Septuagint Translators: Collected Essays, 77–115. Kampen: Kok Pharos. Aejmelaeus, A. 1993b. “Septuagintal Translation Techniques—a Solution to the Problem of the Tabernacle Account?” In On the Trail of the Septuagint Translators: Collected Essays, 116–130. Kampen: Kok Pharos, 116–130. Aitken, J. K. 2011. “The Significance of Rhetoric in the Greek Pentateuch.” In On Stone and Scroll: Essays in Honour of Graham Ivor Davies, edited by J.  K.  Aitken, K.  J.  Dell, and B. A. Mastin, 507–521. BZAW 420. Berlin: de Gruyter. Aitken, J.  K. 2013. “The Characterization of Speech in the Septuagint Pentateuch.” In The Reception of the Hebrew Bible in the Septuagint and in the New Testament. Essays in Memory of Aileen Guilding, edited by D. J. A. Clines and J. C. Exum, 9–31. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. Aitken, J. K., ed. 2015a. The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Aitken, J. K. 2015b. “Jewish Worship amid Greeks: The Lexical Context of the Old Greek Psalter.” In The Temple in Text and Tradition, edited by R. T. McLay, 48–70. London: T&T Clark. Aitken, J. K. 2016. “Moses’s θίβις.” In Die Septuaginta – Orte und Intentionen, 5. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 24.-27. Juli 2014, edited by S. Kreuzer, M. Meiser, and M. Sigismund, 169–185. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Aly, Z., and L. Koenen. 1980. Three Rolls of the Early Septuagint, Genesis and Deuteronomy. A Photographic Edition. Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 27. Bonn: Rudolf Habelt. Baslez, M.-F. 2016. “La traduction en grec des Sagesses barbares: Une politique de médiation culturelle ?” In Alexandrie la Divine: Sagesses barbares, edited by S.  H.  Aufrère, 79–108. Geneva: La Baconnière. Bickerman, E. 1976. “Some Notes on the Transmission of the Septuagint.” In Studies in Jewish and Christian History, pt 1, pp. 137–166. Leiden: Brill. Bogaert, P.  M. 1985. “Les trois rédactions conservées et la forme originale de l’envoi du Cantique de Moïse (DT 32, 43).” In Das Deuteronomium, Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft, edited by N. Lohfink, 329–340. BETL 68. Leuven: University Press. Bogaert, P. M. 1996. “L’importance de la Septante et du ‘Monacensis’ de la Vetus Latina pour l’exégèse du livre de l’Exode (chap. 35–40).” In Studies in the Book of Exodus—Redaction— Reception—Interpretation, edited by M. Vervenne, 399–427. BETL 126. Leuven: Peeters. Burkitt, F. C. 1903. “The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments.” JQR 15:392–408. Butera, C. J., and D. M. Moffitt. 2011. “P.Duk.inv.727: A Dispute with ‘Proselytes’ in Egypt.” ZPE 177:201–206. Cadell, H. 1995. “Vocabulaire de la législation ptolémaïque: Problème du sens de dikaiôma dans le Pentateuque.” In “Selon les Septante” Hommage à Marguerite Harl, edited by G. Dorival and O. Munnich, 207–221. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Casevitz, M. 2001. “D’Homère aux historiens modernes: Le grec du Pentateuque Alexandrin.” In Le Pentateuque d’Alexandrie, edited by C. Dogniez and M. Harl, 77–85. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Collins, N. 2000. The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek. Leiden: Brill. Den Hertog, C. G. 2004. “Erwägungen zur relativen Chronologie der Bücher Levitikus und Deuteronomium innerhalb der Pentateuchübersetzung.” In Im Brennpunkt: Die Septuaginta – Studien zur Entstehung und Bedeutung der Grieschischen Bibel 2, edited by S. Kreuzer and J. P. Lesch, 216–228. BWA(N)T 161. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Dines, J. 2004. The Septuagint. London: T & T Clark.

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   129 Dines, J. 2016. “Stylistic Features of the Septuagint.” In Handbuch zur Septuaginta. Handbook of the Sepuagint. LXX.H. vol. 3. Die Sprache der Septuaginta. The Language of the Septuagint, edited by E. Bons and J. Joosten, 375–385. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Dogniez, C. 2016. “Le vocabulaire de la loi dans la Septante.” In Handbuch zur Septuaginta / Handbook of the Sepuagint. LXX.H. vol. 3. Die Sprache der Septuaginta / The Language of the Septuagint, edited by E. Bons and J. Joosten, 350–354. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Dogniez, C., and M. Harl. 1992. Le Deutéronome. La Bible d’Alexandrie 5. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Dorival, G. 1991. “La Bible des Septante: 70 ou 72 traducteurs.” In Tradition of the Text. Studies Offered to Dominique Barthélemy in Celebration of his 70th Birthday, edited by G. J. Norton and S. Pisano, 45–62. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Dorival, G. 1994. Les Nombres. La Bible d’Alexandrie 4. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Dorival, G. 1995. “Les phénomènes d’intertextualité dans le livre grec des Nombres.” In “Selon les Septante”: Hommage à Marguerite Harl, edited by G. Dorival and O. Munnich, 253–285. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Dorival, G. 2001. “La traduction de la Torah en grec.” In Le Pentateuque d’Alexandrie: La Bible des Septante, texte grec et traduction, edited by C. Dogniez and M. Harl, 31–49. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Dorival, G. 2009. “De nouvelles données sur l’origine de la Septante?” Semitica & Classica 2:73–79. Dorival, G. 2016a. “La lexicographie de la Septante.” In Handbuch zur Septuaginta. Handbook of the Septuagint. LXX.H. vol. 3, Die Sprache der Septuaginta. The Language of the Septuagint, edited by E. Bons and J. Joosten, 271–305. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Dorival, G. 2016b. “Le lexique de l’administration et de la politique.” In Handbuch zur Septuaginta. Handbook of the Sepuagint. LXX.H. vol. 3. Die Sprache der Septuaginta. The Language of the Septuagint, edited by E. Bons and J. Joosten, 340–349. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Dunand, F. 1966. Papyrus grecs bibliques (Pap. F.  Inv. 266): Volumina de la Genèse et du Deutéronome. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale. Fernández Marcos, N. 2001. The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Version of the Bible. Translated by W. G. E. Watson. Leiden: Brill. Fernández Marcos, N. 2009. “The Greek Pentateuch and the Scholarly Milieu of Alexandria.” Semitica & Classica 2:81–89. Gehman, H. S. 1951. “The Hebraic Character of Septuagint Greek.” VT 1:81–90. Gera, D.  L. 2007. “Translating Hebrew Poetry into Greek Poetry: The Case of Exodus 15.” BIOSCS 40:107–120. Harl, M. 1986. La Genèse. La Bible d’Alexandrie 1. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Harl, M., G. Dorival, and O. Munnich. 1988. La Bible grecque des Septante: Du judaïsme hellénistique au christianisme ancien. Paris: Éditions du Cerf / Éditions du CNRS. Harlé, P., and D. Pralon. 1988. Le Lévitique. La Bible d’Alexandrie 3. Paris: Éditions du Cerf. Hendel, R. S. 1998. The Text of Genesis 1–11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Hendel, R.  S. 1999. “On the Text-Critical Value of Septuagint Genesis: A Reply to Rösel.” BIOSCS 32:31–34. Himbaza, I. 2004. Le Décalogue et l’histoire du texte: Études des formes textuelles du Décalogue et leurs implications dans l’histoire du texte de l’Ancien Testament. Fribourg: Academic Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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130   Cécile Dogniez Honigman, S. 2003. The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria. London: Routledge. Horsley, G. 1989. “The Fiction of ‘Jewish Greek.’” In New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 5–40. Sydney: McQuarie University. Joosten, J. 2008. “Reflections on the ‘Interlinear Paradigm’ in Septuagint Studies.” In Scripture in Transition. Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo, edited by A. Voitila and J. Jokiranta, 163–178. Leiden: Brill. Joosten, J. 2010. “The Aramaic Background of the Seventy: Language, Culture and History.” BIOSCS 43:53–72. Joosten, J. 2011. “Le vocabulaire de la Septante et la question du sociolecte des Juifs a­ lexandrins: Le cas du verbe εὐλογέω, ‘bénir’.” In Septuagint Vocabulary: Pre-History, Usage, Reception, edited by E. Bons and J. Joosten, 13–23. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Joosten, J. 2012. “Language as Symptom: Linguistic Clues to the Social Background of the Seventy.” Text 23, 2007, 69–80 = Collected Studies on the Septuagint, FAT 83. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 185–194. Joosten, J. 2015a. “Jewish Greek in the Septuagint: On Eὐλογέω ‘to Praise’ with Datif.” In Biblical Greek in Context. Essays in Honour of John A. L. Lee, edited by J. K. Aitken and T. V. Evans, 137–144. Biblical Tools and Studies 22. Leuven: Peeters. Joosten, J. 2015b. “The Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint: A Sample Entry— εὐλογέω.” In XIV Congress of the IOSCS. Helsinki, 2010, edited by M. K. H. Peters, 347–355. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Joosten, J. 2016. “Septuagint Greek and the Jewish Sociolect in Egypt.” In E. Bons and J. Joosten Handbuch zur Septuaginta: Handbook of the Sepuagint. LXX.H.  vol. 3. Die Sprache der Septuaginta. The Language of the Septuagint, edited by Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 246–256. Kim, H. 2006. “Multiple Authorship of the Septuagint Pentateuch.” PhD diss. Jerusalem. Le Boulluec, A., and P. Sandevoir. 1989. L’Exode. La Bible d’Alexandrie 2. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Lee, J. A. L. 1983. A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch. SBLSCS 14. Chico: Scholars Press. Léonas, A. 2007. L’Aube des traducteurs. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Léonas, A. 2016. “The Language of the Septuagint between Greek and Hebrew.” In Handbuch zur Septuaginta. Handbook of the Septuagint, LXX.H. vol. 3. Die Sprache der Septuaginta. The Language of the Septuagint, edited by E.  Bons and J.  Joosten, 357–374. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Mélèze Modrzejewski, J. 1985. “Splendeurs grecques et misères romaines: Les Juifs d’Égypte dans l’Antiquité.” In Juifs du Nil, edited by J. Hassoun, 17–48, 237–245. Paris: Le Sycomore. Mélèze Modrzejewski, J. 1997. “La Septante comme nomos: Comment la Torah est devenue une loi civique pour les Juifs d’Égypte.” Annali di scienze religiose 2:143–158. Mélèze Modrzejewski, J. 1999. “Espérances et illusions du judaïsme alexandrin.” In Alexandrie, une mégapole cosmopolite: Actes du 9ème colloque de la Villa Kérylos à Beaulieu-sur-Mer les 2 & 3 octobre 1998, edited by J. Leclant, 129–144. Cahiers de la Villa Kérylos 9. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Mélèze Modrzejewski, J. 2006. “La fiancée adultère: A propos de la pratique matrimoniale du judaïsme hellénisé à la lumière du dossier du politeuma juif d’Hérakléopolis (144/3-133/2 av. J. C.).” In Transferts culturels et politiques dans le monde hellénistique: Actes de la table ronde sur les identités collectives (Sorbonne, 7 février 2004), edited by J. C. Couvenhes and B. Legras, 103–118. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.

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The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   131 Muraoka, T. 2012. “Syntax of the participle in the Septuagint books of Genesis and Isaiah.” In Die Septuaginta—Entstehung, Sprache, Geschichte, edited by S.  Kreuser, M.  Meiser, and M. Sigismund, 185–202. WUNT 286. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Pearce, S. 2007. “Translating for Ptolemy: Patriotism and Politics in the Greek Pentateuch?” In Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers, edited by T. Rajak, S. Pearce, J. Aitken, and J. Dines, 165–189. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pelletier, A. 1962. Lettre d’Aristée à Philocrate, texte critique, traduction et notes. SC 89. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Pietersma, A. 2002. “A New Paradigm for Addressing Old Questions: The Relevance of the Interlinear Model for the Study of the Septuaginta.” In Bible and Computer: The Stellenbosch AIBI-6 Conference, edited by J. Cook, 337–364. Leiden: Brill. Pietersma, A., and B. G. Wright. 2007. A New English Translation of the Septuagint. New York: Oxford University Press. Rajak, T. 2008. “The Septuagint for Ptolemy’s Library: Myth and History.” In Die Septuaginta— Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten, edited by M. Karrer and W. Kraus, 176–193. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schenker, A. 2007. “Wurde die Tora wegen ihrer einzigartigen Weisheit auf Griechisch übersetzt? Die Bedeutung der Torah für die Nationen in Dt 4:6-8 als Ursache der Septuaginta.” FZPhTh 54:327–347. Skeat, T. C. 1982. “The Length of the Standard Papyrus Roll and the Cost-Advantage of the Codex.” ZPE 45:169–175. Sollamo, R. 2005. “Repetitions of Prepositions in the Septuagint of Genesis.” In Interpreting Translation: Studies on the LXX and Ezekiel in Honour of Johan Lust, edited by F. García Martínez and M. Vervenne, 371–384. BETL 117. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Thackeray, H. St J. 1978. A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek: According to the Septuagint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tov, E. 1981. Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research. Jerusalem: Simor. Tov, E. 2001. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press; Assen: Royal Van Gorcum. Tov, E. 2005. “The Evaluation of the Greek Scripture Translations in Rabbinic Sources.” In Interpreting Translation. Studies on the LXX and Ezekiel in Honour of Johan Lust, edited by F. García Martínez and M. Vervenne, 385–399. BETL 117. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Tov, E. 2010. “Reflections on the Septuagint with Special Attention Paid to the PostPentateuchal Translations.” In Die Septuaginta—Texte, Theologien, Einflüsse, 3–22. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Reprinted in Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint, Collected Essays, 3:429–448, edited by W. Kraus and M. Karrer. VTSup 167, Leiden: Brill, 2015. Tov, E. 2012. “The Qumran Hebrew Texts and the Septuagint—An Overview”. In Die Septuaginta—Entstehung, Sprache, Geschichte, edited by S.  Kreuzer, M.  Meiser, and M. Sigismund. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tov, E. 2015. “Genealogical Lists in Genesis 5 and 11 in Three Different Versions.” In Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint. Collected Essays, 3:221–238. VTSup 167. Leiden: Brill. Tov, E. 2016. “The Shared Tradition of the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch.” In Die Septuaginta—Orte und Intentionen, 5. Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 24.-27. Juli 2014, edited by S.  Kreuzer, M.  Meiser, and M. Sigismund, 277–293. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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132   Cécile Dogniez Turner N. 1955. “The Unique Character of Biblical Greek.” VT 5:208–213. Van der Kooij, A. 1994. “The Ending of the Song of Moses: On the Pre-Masoretic Version of Deut 32:43.” In Studies in Deuteronomy in Honour of C.J. Labushagne on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, edited by F. García Martínez et al., 93–100. VTSup 53. Leiden: Brill. Van der Kooij, A. 2003. “A Lexical Study Thirty Years on, with Observations on ‘Order’ Words in the LXX Pentateuch.” In Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov, edited by S. M. Paul et al., 513–524. Leiden: Brill. Van der Kooij, A. 2007. “The Septuagint of the Pentateuch and Ptolemaic Rule”. In The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance, edited by G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levinson, 289–300. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Van der Kooij, A. 2008. “The Promulgation of the Pentateuch in Greek according to the Letter of Aristeas.” In Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo, edited by A. Voitila and J. Jokiranta, 179–191. Leiden: Brill. Van der Kooij, A. 2012a. “The Pentateuch in Greek and the Authorities of the Jews.” In TextCritical and Hermeneutical Studies in the Septuagint, edited by J. Cook and H.-J. Stipp, 3–20. Leiden: Brill. Van der Kooij, A. 2012b. “The Septuagint of the Pentateuch.” In Law, Prophets, and Wisdom: On the Provenance of Translators and Their Books in the Septuagint Version, edited by J. Cook and A. van der Kooij, 15–62. CBET 68. Leuven: Peeters. Van der Kooij, A. 2013. “The Septuagint and Scribal Culture.” In XIV Congress of the IOSCS: Helsinki, 2010, edited by M. K. H. Peters, 33–39. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Wade, M. 2003. Consistency of Translation Techniques in the Tabernacle Accounts of Exodus in the Old Greek. SBLSCS 49. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Wasserstein, A., and D.  J.  Wasserstein. 2006. The Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical Antiquity to Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wevers, J. W. 1995. Notes on the Greek Text of Deuteronomy. Atlanta, GA: Scholar Press. Wevers, J. W. 1996. “The Interpretative Character and Significance of the Septuagint Version.” In Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation I /1 Antiquity, edited by M. Sæbo, 84–107. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wevers, J.  W. 1997. “The LXX Translator of Deuteronomy.” In IX Congress of the IOSCS, Cambridge, 1995, edited by B. A. Taylor, 57–89. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Wevers, J. W. 1998. Notes on the Greek Text of Numbers, Atlanta, GA: Scholar Press.

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Pa rt I I

T H E FOR M AT ION OF T H E PE N TAT EUC H

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Chapter 8

The Begi n n i ngs of a Cr itica l R e a di ng of the Pen tateuch Jean-­L ouis Ska

Critical reading of literature began in the Western world with Greece, especially with Plato and Aristotle. In the Bible, as in ancient Near Eastern literature generally, we find writings that develop critical readings, but the topics addressed are more of a social, political, and religious nature than literature or history. For example, prophets in the Hebrew Bible criticize political decisions taken by kings, social injustice, or cultic ­ceremonies detached from righteous behavior. A first interesting dispute concerning the Pentateuch takes place among the so-­called Tannaim, the second generation of rabbis interpreting the Hebrew Bible. According to R. Akiba (50–137 ce) and his school, nothing is superfluous in the Scriptures and one can deduce a new law even from the repetition of a word. His adversary, R. Ishmael (90–135 ce), retorted that the Torah speaks the language of the “sons of Adam,” i.e., humankind (Sifre Bemidbar 112: ‫ ;)דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם‬accordingly, he interpreted re­pe­ ti­tions as common figures of style. We find here a first controversy, which is less about the divine origin of the Scriptures than about the interpretation of the language used by the biblical writings. R. Akiba and his disciples consider that every single detail of the inspired text is meaningful. R. Ishmael and his school prefer to interpret texts according to the conventions of human language. Some other indications for a critical reading are to be found in the Talmud and in the church fathers. Among the church fathers, the first name to be mentioned is that of Origen, who was born in Alexandria around 185 ce, and died in Tyre or Caesarea around 253 (see Paget 1996). Origen came from one of the main centers of Hellenistic culture, the homeland of a school of Homeric studies and the seat of a famous library, and was therefore well prepared for his role as exegete. Three of his works deserve brief attention. First, in his treatise De Principiis (On Principles) Origen underlined that some texts cannot be read literally (Origen 1973).

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136   Jean-Louis Ska Among others, he quotes Gen 1:3, “And God said: ‘Let there be light,’” saying that it is not possible to have light if there is no sky and no sun. Somewhat similarly, concerning Gen 2–3 he affirms that the narrative cannot be interpreted ad litteram since it is not possible to acquire knowledge merely from chewing a fruit. What goes against reason and ex­peri­ence requires a different kind of interpretation (De Principiis, 4.17). The second work deserving mention is known as the Hexapla (c.240), a pioneering study on textual criticism in which the text of the Hebrew Bible is organized according in six columns: (1) the Hebrew text; (2) a transliteration of the Hebrew into Greek characters; (3) the translation of Aquila of Sinope; (4) the translation of Symmachus the Ebionite; (5) a recension of the Septuagint (LXX), marked with asterisks to indicate where the Hebrew is not represented in the LXX and with signs called obeloi to indicate the pluses in the LXX with respect to the Hebrew; (6) the translation of Theodotion. Unfortunately, this immense work survived only in fragments (Albrecht 2015). In the same field, Origen’s third important work, his Letter to Africanus, gives a summary of what is partly found in the fifth column of the Hexapla, namely, a list of the texts present in the Septuagint and absent from the Hebrew, beginning with the book of Daniel. Actually, the Letter of Africanus to Origen is a first example of so-­called “higher” criticism, since Africanus challenges the authenticity of the story of Susanna (preserved in Dan 13 in LXX and Theodotion). His reasons are two. First, the text is not present in the Hebrew version of Daniel; second, some wordplays work only in Greek, and not in Hebrew. Therefore, Africanus reasons, the story of Susanna cannot be the translation of a Hebrew text into Greek. Origen’s response is complex. He affirms that the Greek Scriptures are the Scriptures of the Church and that it would be demeaning for Christians to solicit Jews for trustworthy Scriptures. Nonetheless, a comparison between Greek and Hebrew Scriptures is always fruitful. Everything is “providential,” according to Origen, and this rationale applies to both the gift of the LXX to the Christian Church and to the differences between the Hebrew and the Greek text, which provide grist to the mill of exegesis. We may feel here a tension between Origen’s loyalty to his church trad­ ition and his own personal inclination as a learned scholar. To sum up, Origen was aware of two main kinds of problems when commenting the Bible. First, there is a multiplicity of texts and manuscripts, with sometimes important differences between them. In this regard, Origen is a precursor of recent studies on the differences between the MT and the LXX (Tov 2015). Second, he understood that some affirmations of the Scriptures were difficult to reconcile with reason and experience. In these cases, interpretation becomes indispensable. More than any other Christian exegete, Origen felt the necessity to consult Jewish rabbis on important matters, especially during his stay in Caesarea (Paget 1996). In Jewish tradition, some early critical remarks appear in the Talmud, most famously perhaps in b. Baba Batra 14b. The treatise discusses the sacred character of the biblical books and their authorship, two questions which were interrelated at that time. The latter question is raised about the attribution to Moses of the account of his own death in Deuteronomy 34. Several solutions are proposed, among which are the attribution of the

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Beginnings of a Critical Reading   137 chapter to Joshua and the idea that God himself dictated this chapter to Moses, who was weeping when writing. Other passages of the Talmud indicate that Moses’s authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole could be felt to be problematic. Examples of such an attitude are found, for instance, in the Jerusalem Talmud (y. Sanh. 10:1), where it is said that the first critic of Moses’s authority was Korach, who claimed that “the Torah was not from heaven” (see Num 16:3). Within the Western tradition of Christianity, two names in particular are worth mentioning: namely, Augustine of Hippo (354–430 ce) and Jerome (347–420). The most influential manual of exegesis in the Western (and Latin) world for this period is Augustine’s De doctrina christiana (Doctr. chr.). The title should be translated as “On Christian Instruction” rather than “On Christian Doctrine” (Wright 1996). Although the book’s purpose is first of all theological, it contains several seminal ideas for the future of critical exegesis. Most of these ideas go back to Origen, whom Augustine knew through the teaching of his master and mentor Ambrose of Milan (337–97). Let us mention three of them. First, Augustine insists on the importance of languages, Hebrew and Greek, in order to establish the correct version of the Bible in Latin. Augustine himself, however, knew little Greek and even less Hebrew (Doctr. chr. 2.11.16–13.19). Secondly, in addition to the knowledge of the original languages, familiarity with history and geog­ raphy is also useful. In this context, Augustine uses the image, popular in patristic literature, of the “spoiling of the Egyptians” (see Exod 3:21–22; 11:2–3; 12:35–36). Christians are allowed to collect knowledge from pagan authors just as the Hebrews despoiled the Egyptians of their riches when leaving Egypt. Nevertheless, Augustine remains wary of the use of nonbiblical literature, which does not benefit in his view from biblical in­err­ ancy (Doctr. chr. 2.42.63). Thirdly, for Augustine, as for Origen, the LXX is inspired, even in its additions and its omissions, since all is the work of the Spirit (Doctr. chr. 2.15.22; and see further on this theme Schulz-­Flügel 1996; Wright 1996). Let us add that, for this generation, textual difficulties are theologically challenging and intellectually exciting; and Augustine, like other Fathers of the Church, revels in proposing ingenious and sometimes convoluted solutions. Jerome, for his part, tends to favor a more critical reading of the Bible than Augustine, and perhaps also more faithful to Origen (Schulz-­Flügel 1996). Jerome’s commentary on Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth) is the first Latin commentary that takes into account the Hebrew text as well. Contrary to Augustine, however, Jerome never wrote a systematic treatise laying out his hermeneutical method. Jerome’s major work is his translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew into Latin (Kieffer 1996; Schulz-­Flügel 1996). He is the first among the Fathers of the Church looking for the so-­called hebraica veritas, the Hebrew text being for him the only means to decide which biblical version, either Greek or Latin, was authentic. Jerome went to Bethlehem and learned Hebrew, most probably with the help of local rabbis. Nevertheless, the actual extent of his knowledge of Hebrew has been called into question by several scholars. In any case, the principles of his translation move between two main tendencies. Jerome usually tends to translate word for word (verbum de verbo); at

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138   Jean-Louis Ska the same time, however, he also affirms that one does not translate the words, but the meaning (sensus de sensu). According to this second conception, the message in not in the words but in the meaning. In his commentary on the book of Daniel, Jerome follows the Hebrew (and Aramaic) text. In his prologue, he claims to have used all the pieces of information he could collect from Greek and Latin historians he mentions by name. But his commentary is not quoting all of them. Jerome is mainly interested in the original language as well as in his­tor­ ic­al and geographical details. In this respect, he quotes non-­biblical authors such as Philo, Josephus, Plato, Hippocrates, Cicero, and Virgil more frequently, and more willingly, than Augustine (Kieffer 1996). His interpretation is often literal, without neglecting the spiritual or Christological dimension of the biblical text. In the ninth century, in Persia, a certain Chivi Al Balkhi noticed some serious difficulties with the interpretation of a few important biblical passages. The text was found among the fragments discovered in Cairo’s Geniza and contains mostly a list of ­contradictions between the laws of the Pentateuch and those of the so-­called Torah of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40–48). There are many incongruities between the instructions about the organization of the cult and the priesthood in these two sets of inspired texts (Shechter 1901). In the Middle Ages, and mainly in Spain, the critical reading of the Bible underwent further important steps. Rabbi Isaac ibn Yashush, also known by his Arabic name Isaac Abu Ibrahim (who died in 1056 in Denia, Costa Brava, Spain), acknowledged that Moses could not speak of Edomite kings as reigning before any king ruled over the Israelites (Gen 36:31–39), since he could not have known that Israel would have kings one day. For Isaac ibn Yashush, Hadad of Gen 36:35 must be identified with Hadad the Edomite of 1 Kgs 11:14, and Mehetabel of Gen 36:39 is in fact the sister of Tahpenes of 1 Kgs 11:19 (Delgado 2010). The most important name, however, is that of Abraham Ibn Ezra ben Meir, who was born in Tudela in 1089, and died in Calahorra in 1167 (Simon 1996; Lancaster 2003). His riddles about the Pentateuch, mentioned at the beginning of his commentary on the book of Deuteronomy, are well known: “If you can grasp the mystery behind the ­problematic following passages: (1) [The final twelve verses of this book, Deut 34:1–12]; (2) ‘Moshe wrote [. . .]’ [Deut 31:22; cf. also 27:8; 31:9, 24]; (3) ‘At that time, the Canaanites dwelt in the land’ [Gen 12:6]; (4) ‘[. . .] In the mountain of God, He will appear’ [Gen 22:14]; (5) ‘[. . .] behold, his bed is a bed of iron [. . .]’ [Deut 3:11] you will then understand the truth.” Ibn Ezra pinpoints what we would call anachronisms and tensions when reading the Pentateuch as Moses’s work. In Moses’s time, there were still Canaanites in the land (Gen 12:6); the temple was not yet built (Gen 22:14); Og’s iron bed is a curiosity for the actual reader of Deuteronomy, not for Moses; Moses could hardly have written all the words of Deuteronomy in the last hours of his life; and, as the Talmud already remarked (see above), it is difficult to imagine Moses writing himself the notice of his death. More important, it seems, are the principles of Ibn Ezra’s exegesis. In a short poem at the beginning of his commentary of the Pentateuch he states, “This is the Book of the

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Beginnings of a Critical Reading   139 straight path by the poet, Abraham. Bound by cords of true grammar. To be deemed fit by the eyes of knowing judgement.” “Grammar” and “knowing judgement” (“reason”) are the main criteria of Ibn Ezra’s exegesis, and we may remember that they were already Origen’s leading values. In other words, exegesis makes progress as soon as scholars inquire about the human background of the Scriptures. Ibn Ezra’s commentary is sensitive to anachronisms, and he pins down several of them in the book of Genesis. He notices, for instance, that Terah was still alive when Abraham left Haran for the promised land (Gen 11:32 and 12:4). He also notices that Abraham was still alive when Esau and Jacob were born (Gen 25), that Isaac was living when Joseph was sold by his brothers (Gen 37), and that the story of Judah and Tamar (Gen 38) must have taken place before Joseph was sold (or stolen) in Gen 37. Ibn Ezra’s commentary was much less popular than that of Rashi among Jews, just like Origen was much less popular than Augustine among Christians. The literal and grammatical interpretation of the Scriptures was not particularly fashionable during the Middle Ages. Among the few exceptions, two names deserve a special mention. The first is that of Andrew of St Victor (d. 1175), originally from England, but active in Paris (McKane 1989). He commented exclusively upon the Old Testament, insisting on the literal sense of the text in a very personal way and with an independent mind in spite of his intellectual surrounding. His knowledge of Hebrew and Greek was perhaps limited, but he frequently conversed with Jewish colleagues in French about the original text of the Scriptures. His Bible was Jerome’s Vulgate, and we can say that he followed his master in his pursuit of the hebraica veritas. His exegesis of the Old Testament is characterized by its attention to the historical context of the texts, and is often surprisingly free from specifically Christian themes and concerns. As such, his work paves the way to a more critical reading of the Scriptures in the Christian Church. The second name is that Nicholas of Lyra (c.1270–1349) (Smith 2008). His major work is entitled Postillae, a commentary on the entire Bible which became a reference volume for several centuries. This work was the first commentary on the Bible to be printed, starting with a Roman edition in five volumes in 1471–2. Often read, but not always followed because of its complexity, this commentary was instrumental to the Reformation: it was on Martin Luther’s desk. According to an old Latin saying, Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset—“If Lyra had not played the harp, Luther would never have danced.” His contributions to a more rigorous biblical exegesis are two. On the one hand, he constantly consulted Jewish exegetes, especially Rashi. On the other hand, he was more concerned than many other exegetes of his time with the literal and historical sense of the biblical texts. This concern for the human side of Scriptures, for its human authors and its historical context, is partly due to his Franciscan spirituality and the latter’s insistence on the human message of the Gospels. Yet it also witnesses to the emergence at that time of a new intellectual trend, born in the urban culture and society of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The painting of Giotto (1266–1337), the poetry of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and of Petrarch (1304–74), and others as well, are all testimonies of this change of mentality.

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140   Jean-Louis Ska A last name to be mentioned is Baruch Spinoza, who was born in Amsterdam in 1632, and died in The Hague in 1677. In many respects, Spinoza can be regarded as Ibn Ezra’s ­worthy heir, but also as a genuine son of the humanist culture of his time (Nadler  2008; Frampton  2006). Descending from a family of Jews expelled from Portugal, Spinoza was a disciple of Descartes (1596–1650), whose cogito, ergo sum— “I think, therefore I am”—is one of the main tenets of modern thought. The focus of research for Spinoza was no longer God or the supernatural world, but rather the human way of reasoning. Spinoza was also a son of his time, and he knew how damaging religious intolerance could be. He himself was expelled from the synagogue because of his alleged heretical opinions. This is one of the reasons why he strongly opposed any form of religion based solely on authority and favored instead a religion based on reason (Preus 2001). “Religion divides, reason unites,” a sentence sometimes attributed to him, encapsulates the gist of his philosophy. For him, Scriptures are a human work, written by human authors in historical circumstances. His secular reading of the Bible scandalized many, but his experience proved that the belief in the divine origin of all Scriptures could often justify the unjustifiable. This was for him the best reason for choosing a different kind of opinion in this matter. In his Tractatus theologico-­politicus, he therefore distinguishes sharply between “meaning” (mens in Latin) and “truth” (veritas in Latin). (For a modern critical edition of this treatise, see Spinoza 2007.) “Meaning” is the natural and historical significance of a text in its historical context, uncovered by a critical reading of the Scriptures. “Truth” is not to be found as such in the Scriptures, but must be elaborated by rational interpretation, illuminated by natural light bestowed on all human beings (lumen naturale omnibus commune—“natural light common to all”). As is known, Spinoza picks up Ibn Ezra’s enigmas and solves all of them, demonstrating that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch. For him, the author of the Pentateuch and of all the historical books was Ezra. But Spinoza’s main contribution to modern critical exe­ gesis is his conviction that “truth” cannot be found in the text itself, in its literality, but requires an active and sensible intervention of the interpreter. This would have been the best antidote to all fundamentalist readings of the Bible.

Suggested reading On the way Genesis was interpreted in the course of time, see the excellent treatment by Hendel (2013); see also Provan (2016). As for the different methods in studying Genesis, see Hendel (2010). Evans (2012) provides a choices of articles on the main aspects of Genesis and its exegesis. For the reception of Genesis in Jewish, Christian and Islamic milieus, see Römer (2014). The relationship between Jewish and Christian exe­gesis of Genesis in late antiquity is explored by Grypeou and Spurling (2013). Schroeder (2015) offers an interesting description of Genesis in medieval exegesis. For the critical reading of Genesis and the Bible in modern times, see Morrow (2016). McDonald et al. (2012) treats the problems of Genesis and Christian Theology. A Cambridge Companion to Genesis is in preparation.

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Beginnings of a Critical Reading   141

Works cited Albrecht, F. 2015. “Hexapla of Origen.” In Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, edited by Hans-Josef Klauck et al., 11:1000–1002 Berlin – New York: Walter de Gruyter. Delgado, J. M. 2010. “Ibn Yashsūsh, Isaac (Abū Ibrāhīm) Ibn Qast ̣ār.” In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, edited by Norman A. Stillman, Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill. Evans, C.  A., J.  N.  Lohr and D.  L.  Petersen, eds. (2012). The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation. VTS 152. Leiden: Brill. Frampton, T. L. 2006. Spinoza and the Rise of Historical Criticism of the Bible. London: T&T Clark. Grypeou, E. and H. Spurling, 2013. The Book of Genesis in Late Antiquity: Encounters between Jewish and Christian Exegesis. Jewish and Christian Perspectives 24. Leiden: Brill. Hendel, R. ed. (2010). Reading Genesis: Ten Methods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hendel, R., 2013. The Book of Genesis: A Biography. Lives of Great Religious Books. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kieffer, A. 1996. “Jerome: His Exegesis and Hermeneutics.” In Hebrew Bible. Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol. 1, pt. 1, Antiquity, edited by M.  Sæbø, 663–681. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Lancaster, I. 2003. Deconstructing the Bible: Abraham ibn Ezra’s Introduction to the Torah. Routledge Curzon Jewish Philosophy Series. London: RoutledgeCurzon. MacDonald, N., M. W. Elliott and G. Macaskill, eds. (2012). Genesis and Christian Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. McKane, W. 1989. “Andrew of St Victor.” In Selected Christian Hebraists, 42–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrow, J. L., 2016. Three Skeptics and the Bible: La Peyrère, Hobbes, Spinoza, and the Reception of Modern Biblical Criticism. Eugene, OR: Pickwick. Nadler, S. 2008. “The Bible Hermeneutics of Baruch de Spinoza.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol. 2, From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, edited by M. Sæbø, 827–836. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Origen. 1973. On First Principles. Translated by G. W. Butterworth. Gloucester: Peter Smith. Paget, J.  N.  B.  C. 1996. “Origen as Exegete of the Old Testament.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol. 1, pt. 1, Antiquity, edited by M. Sæbø, 499–534. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Preus, J.  S., 2001. Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Provan, I. 2016. Discovering Genesis: Content, Interpretation, Reception. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Römer, T. R. et al., 2014. “Genesis, Book of.” In: Encycopledia of the Bible and Its Reception. Edited by H.-J. Klauck et al., Vol. 9, 1147-97. Berlin and Boston, MA: Walter de Gruyter. Shechter, S., 1901. “Geniza Specimens—The Oldest Collection of Bible Difficulties by a Jew.” JQR 13:345–374. Schroeder, J. A. 2015. The Book of Genesis. The Bible in Medieval Tradition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Schulz-Flügel, E., 1996. “The Latin Old Testament Tradition.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol. 1, pt. 1, Antiquity, edited by M.  Sæbø, 642–662. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.

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142   Jean-Louis Ska Simon, U., 1996. “Abraham Ibn Ezra.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol. 1, pt. 1, Antiquity, edited by M.  Sæbø, 376–387. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Smith, L., 2008. “Nicholas of Lyra and Old Testament Interpretation.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol. 2, From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, edited by M. Sæbø, 49–63. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Spinoza, B., 2007. Theologico-Political Treatise. Translated by M.  Silverthorne and J.  Israel. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Tov, E., 2015. The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Wright, D.  F., 1996. “Augustine: His Exegesis and Hermeneutics.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol. 1, pt. 1, Antiquity, edited by M. Sæbø, 701–730. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.

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Chapter 9

The Gr a f–K u en en– W el lh ausen School Rudolf Smend

A School? The trio of Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen does not designate a school in the precise sense of the word. None of the three scholars was the academic teacher or student of any of the others, and Karl Heinrich Graf (1815–69) probably met neither Abraham Kuenen (1828–91) nor Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918), although in 1866 he exchanged letters of unique importance with Kuenen. Kuenen and Wellhausen perceived independently of one another—and more clearly than Graf himself—the significance of the “Graf Hypothesis,” and separately and together they did more than anyone else to establish it in the scholarly world. The relationship between the two scholars began in 1874, initially by letter, and from 1878 onward in the context of a personal friendship. The difference between Kuenen and Wellhausen has been characterized as that between “grave didacticism” and “brilliant poignancy” respectively (Rofé 1993, 105).

Kuenen, 1861 Kuenen was professor in Leiden from 1852 onward. His textbook of 1861 was a summary of the contemporary state of pentateuchal or hexateuchal criticism, while ­simultaneously pointing the way forward. Around 1860 there was still as little general consensus as ever in this field, but there was nevertheless something resembling a majority view, which can be represented by the names of Ewald, Bleek, Tuch, and de Wette. According to this general opinion, the Hexateuch was given its present form in the seventh century bce by

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144   Rudolf Smend “the Deuteronomist,” who had at his disposal the work of the “Yehovist” (later called “Yahwist”). The Yehovist, for his part, wrote in the eighth century, and had as his literary basis an earlier work, dating from the early period of the monarchy and written by a priest or Levite, which was initially called the “Book of Origins” or the Grundschrift (“basic writing”; it would later come to be known as the Priestly Code or priestly writing). The Yehovist had augmented this Grundschrift with a wealth of other material, while the Deuteronomist had added Deuteronomy (his own work), as well as related fragments. This hypothesis, which was supported by the aforementioned scholars in differing variations, was called “the Supplementary Hypothesis” (Ergänzungshypothese). At first glance, Kuenen’s account of 1861 looks very similar to this conception. But a closer look reveals important differences (cf. especially Kuenen 1861–5, I:105–112). On the one hand, for Kuenen the Yehovist/Yahwist (in 1861, transitionally, “Yahvhist”) did not merely supplement or edit the Grundschrift; he was the author of an initially independent work, which was united with the Grundschrift by a third ­person—it was this third person who first acted as editor or redactor. This was no longer the Supplementary Hypothesis; it was now “the Documentary Hypothesis” (Urkundenhypothese). Kuenen did not initiate this model; he took it over—if we may here leave aside its earlier history, as represented by the names Astruc, Eichhorn, and Ilgen—from Hermann Hupfeld’s Die Quellen der Genesis of 1853. An even more important development is that the Grundschrift itself now took on a different aspect in Kuenen’s presentation. In the first place—incidentally, also following Hupfeld—a further writing was split off from it, one that until then had not usually been distinguishable because, like the Grundschrift, it too uses the designation Elohim instead of Yahweh in Genesis. This writing was initially called the “second” or “younger Elohist,” and was afterwards designated by the letter E. With this hypothesis, Kuenen maintained already in 1861 the “four-­source theory” or “the newer Documentary Hypothesis.” But above all, Kuenen subjected what remained of the Grundschrift to closer examination, and acquired the impression that its legislative components could hardly all derive from the early period of the monarchy; indeed, that some of them are even later than Deuteronomy. This meant, therefore, that Deuteronomy was not, as had previously been believed, the latest component of the Hexateuch, and its author was not the redactor or editor of the whole. It seemed, rather, that the redaction of the Hexateuch was carried out in line with the the perspective of the Grundschrift, which thus seemed oddly to encompass the whole, being represented in both the earliest and latest phases of the composition. In 1861 Kuenen went no further than this—and later shook his head over it: how could he have stopped only at this point? Especially since a generation earlier several scholars (George, Vatke, Reuss) had already maintained that Deuteronomy was ­earlier than the priestly laws, even though their theory had not won acceptance. Looking back, Kuenen called his position of 1861 “a humiliating proof of the tyranny which the opinions we have once accepted often exercise over us” (Kuenen 1886, xiv). It was the work of three outsiders who confirmed Kuenen in his doubts with regard to the Grundschrift.

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   145 The first to be mentioned was John William Colenso, the Anglican bishop of Natal, with his seven increasingly bulky volumes entitled The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua critically examined (Colenso 1862–79; on the relationship between Kuenen and Colenso, cf. Rogerson 1993, 91–98). Kuenen was most impressed by the first volume, for it emerged from this (even without Colenso seemingly being aware of it) that the narratives and lists of the Grundschrift especially, which were held to be the oldest because they purport to be so precise and documentary, most blatantly contradict the laws of historical probability. The second outsider was the Jewish scholar Julius Popper. In 1862, he published a book entitled Der biblische Bericht über die Stiftshütte, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Komposition und Diaskeue des Pentateuchs (The Biblical Account of the Tabernacle: A Contribution to the History of the Composition and Literary Development of the Pentateuch). In this study he showed that the detailed description of the building of the tabernacle in Exodus 35–40 does not belong to the same literary stratum as the equally detailed instructions for its building in Exodus 25–31, but that it is later and was fixed only long after the Babylonian exile, being one component in an ongoing literary development or, as Popper put it and after him Kuenen, a diaskeue, which must be distinguished from the composition that preceded it.

Graf–Kuenen, 1866–1869 The third author who must be mentioned here, and the most important, was Karl Heinrich Graf. Graf came from Alsace, taught in Meißen in Saxony, and was the pupil and friend of Eduard Reuss in Strasbourg, who passed on to Graf “his conviction about the late date of the priestly laws”—a conviction that he had maintained as early as the 1830s but had not published (Conrad 2011, 13). In his famous book Die geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Testaments (The Historical Books of the Old Testament, 1866), Graf started from the Deuteronomic Law, which came into being at the time of Josiah, in the seventh century bce, and compared it point for point with the other laws, concluding that the Book of the Covenant (Exod 21–23) was earlier than Deuteronomy, whereas the “priestly” laws were later. Otherwise he abided by the hitherto accepted sequence—that is to say, that the Grundschrift was prior to everything else. Kuenen, who was surprised by Graf ’s book while he was again working through the Hexateuch, recognized at first glance that what thereafter came to be called “the Graf Hypothesis” still had an Achilles heel: the splitting of the Grundschrift into narrative and law. Of course Graf had noticed this separation, and indeed had accepted it, thereby falling victim to the same “tyranny” as Kuenen in 1861: he explained the striking linguistic similarity between the priestly laws and the narrative in the Grundschrift by saying that it was the result of imitation, introduced centuries later. For Kuenen, it became “clearer every day” that this was impossible, and he therefore wrote to Graf on 4 September 1866 (the letter is unfortunately not extant), suggesting to

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146   Rudolf Smend him that the narrative and the law in the Grundschrift should again be put together, and both of them assigned to the post-­Deuteronomic—i.e., exilic—period. Graf responded affirmatively, first in a letter written in French on 12 November 1866 (verbatim, Kuenen 1886, xxiii–xxiv), and then, shortly before his death in 1869, publicly as well. From that time on, the theory should more accurately have been called “the Graf–Kuenen Hypothesis.” Wellhausen remarked that the ancient Hebrews would call Kuenen “Graf ’s Goel” (Wellhausen 1878, 11n1).

Kuenen, 1869–1870 The best test of an analysis is the synthesis—and indeed in some sense the synthesis is also the actual goal. No sooner had Kuenen become clear about the sequence of the Pentateuch sources than he went to work, and in 1869–70 brought out his second magnum opus, in two opulently printed volumes, comprising more than 1,000 pages, with the title De Godsdienst van Israel. This then is religious, not secular, history, in keeping with the literary sources and the determining role of religion in the history of this people. It was not by chance that the first history of ancient Israel to incorporate a late dating of the “priestly laws,” Wilhelm Vatke’s torso of a “biblical theology” (Vatke 1835), was a history of ancient Israelite religion. What in Vatke still remained almost impenetrably obscure for lay readers (not least because of his engagement with Hegelian philosophy of history) was in Kuenen “clear as glass,” according to the characterization of one of his pupils (Oort 1893, 535). Even the structure of Kuenen’s study already illustrates what was novel in the whole conception. The account does not begin with Moses, or even with the patriarchs; it starts with the eighth century, the period of the first literary prophets. It is here for the first time that the sources permit an assured knowledge about conditions and events. From this point Kuenen feels his way cautiously into the past, suddenly drained of content through the displacement of the Grundschrift—Israel’s early history was now an era of polytheism and much else that was later condemned. At the same time, in Kuenen’s eyes it was still Moses who planted the seed for all else that was to come: he may not have written the great law books, but the Decalogue was left to him for the time being. The prophets are seen as Moses’s successors, their “ethical monotheism” the climax of the whole religious development. Israel’s religious periods are reflected in the phases of the Pentateuch’s development: first the prophetic era, with the Yahwist and Elohist, then the Deuteronomic, and finally the priestly, law-­bound stage. The book is written with Kuenen’s characteristic detail and thoroughness. For example, a long excursus informs his readers about the content of the Graf Hypothesis (Kuenen 1869–70, 2:96–102). Kuenen went further, accompanying the publication of the second volume with an article on “Die priesterlichen Bestandteile von Pentateuch und Josua” (The Priestly Components of the Pentateuch and Joshua). This essay has two parts: a history of the problem from 1861 to 1869 (Kuenen 1867–76, V:369–426) and a

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   147 discussion of the main problems of the priestly components of the Hexateuch (487–526), now that the Graf Hypothesis could be considered to have been proved: “This result is a considerable advance. But many questions still remain open—more than can be simply answered for the time being” (487). Starting from Lev 1–7, Kuenen shows that the priestly texts are not a literary unit but that they came into being successively; he therefore to a great extent endorses the theory Popper propounded in 1862 (489–511). Moreover, the priestly elements came into being not as additions to already existing writings but as an independent work (511–519). Finally, Kuenen ventures to present a chronological outline in five periods:

1. Preexilic oral tradition, individual notes; 2. Exilic material, including under Ezekiel’s influence the first systematic definitions, such as Lev 18–26, and perhaps other material in Leviticus as well; 3. After the return from exile, the historical-­legal writing which with Ewald we may call the “Book of Origins,” and which corresponds more or less to Wellhausen’s Q or P; 4. Through Ezra, the amalgamation of the priestly with the Yahwistic–Deuteronomic writing, which had been in existence since the final years of the monarchy; 5. After Ezra, what Popper called the “continued diaskeue,” or literary development, of the Pentateuch: “The law edited by Ezra is here and there supplemented and expanded, rounded off and polished” (520; the more detailed exposition on ­521–526 is important).

With Kuenen’s study, the Graf Hypothesis can be considered firmly established. Wellhausen, who continued Kuenen’s work, viewed this essay in particular as fundamental: he took over its first part, in German translation, in his new edition of F. Bleek’s “Introduction” (Bleek and Wellhausen 1878, 153–169) and, because of its second part, set it as a positive motto at the head of his own investigation of the literary relationships within the Priestly Code (Wellhausen 1876–7, 22:408).

Wellhausen, 1867–1871 Wellhausen, sixteen years younger than Kuenen, arrived at the Graf Hypothesis at almost the same time, but in a characteristically different way. Looking back, he later described this as follows: In my early student days I was attracted by the stories of Saul and David, Ahab and Elijah; the discourses of Amos and Isaiah laid strong hold on me, and I read myself well into the prophetic and historical books of the Old Testament. Thanks to such aids as were accessible to me, I even considered that I understood them tolerably, but at the same time was troubled with a bad conscience, as if I were beginning with

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148   Rudolf Smend the roof instead of the foundation; for I had no thorough acquaintance with the Law, of which I was accustomed to be told that it was the basis and postulate of the whole literature. At last I took courage and made my way through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and even through Knobel’s Commentary to these books. But it was in vain that I looked for the light which was to be shed from this source on the historical and prophetical books. On the contrary, my enjoyment of the latter was marred by the Law; it did not bring them any nearer me, but intruded itself uneasily, like a ghost that makes a noise indeed, but is not visible and really effects nothing. Even where there were points of contact between it and them, differences also made themselves felt, and I found it impossible to give a candid decision in favor of the priority of the Law. Dimly I began to perceive that throughout there was between them all the difference that separates two wholly distinct worlds. Yet, so far from attaining clear conceptions, I only fell into deeper confusion, which was worse confounded by the explanations of Ewald in the second volume of his History of Israel. At last, in the course of a casual visit in Göttingen in the summer of 1867, I learned through Ritschl that Karl Heinrich Graf placed the Law later than the Prophets, and, almost without knowing his reasons for the hypothesis, I was prepared to accept it: I readily acknowledged to myself the possibility of understanding Hebrew antiquity without the book of the Torah.  (Wellhausen 1885a, 3–4)

The trying and testing of this “possibility” undergirded all of Wellhausen’s work ­ uring the following ten years—from 1868 to 1872 as assistant in Göttingen, and d ­afterwards as professor of theology in Greifswald. He was initially still very hesitant about committing himself to any precise statements about the Pentateuch and pentateuchal criticism. In 1871, when he was working on the text of the books of Samuel, in the second version of the narrative about the genesis of the monarchy (1 Sam 7; 8; 10:8, 17–27; 11:12–14; 13:8–15) he detected an expansion of the earlier version which had been written from the very outset in relation to this version, not originally independent of it and united with it only by a redactional hand. This conclusion provided the occasion for the general comment which he added to an initial statement about the Pentateuch: The historical books of the Old Testament in general did not come into being in so mechanical a manner as—contrary to Ewald—is generally imagined. In the Pentateuch too, there are not two or several great historical complexes with the same subject, originally written independently of each other, in such a way that the later one takes no account of the one written earlier. It is rather that sometimes smaller blocks were joined to a single core (note: or were probably also assimilated into it), as Gen 4 is joined to Gen 2; 3; into this for the first time the individual stories which until then had existed in oral or written form were fitted . . . the whole ­sometimes being newly worked over as a fresh complex, perhaps in such a way that from the beginning its essential content continued to be incorporated after the new revision, or in such a way that only the bare outlines of its plan determined this ­revision, thus making it possible for a later redactor to combine the old and the new—there is much to be said in favor of both possibilities. At all events, ­modifications of the original core and the revision of shorter passages, changes in individual words, and minor interpolations (Gen 3:20) are indissolubly bound up

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   149 with the way in which the historical books developed, and it is difficult to find the dividing line where literary criticism ceases and textual criticism begins. (Wellhausen 1871, x–xi)

“[D]id not come into being in so mechanical a manner . . .”! That was for Wellhausen himself extremely characteristic. He tried to grasp texts not on the basis of abstract rules and principles, but in light of their real-­life context, naturally and historically. It was as a means of reconstructing these contexts that for him the texts were mainly interesting. In this respect he saw himself as standing in opposition to many of his fellow scholars, viewing himself as being the pupil of Heinrich Ewald especially. From that standpoint, he could not support a pure Documentary Hypothesis any more than could Ewald. Ewald’s opinion about the growth of the Pentateuch, as he finally developed it in his Geschichte des Volkes Israel (cf. Holzinger 1893, 59–60), has been described as a “crystallization hypothesis” (Delitzsch  1852, 29). This description is not unduly wide of the mark, and it also fits quite well with Wellhausen’s indications of his own view, as he put them forward in 1871. There, of the three classic hypotheses, the Supplementary Hypothesis is at first sight dominant; but the Documentary Hypothesis and the “Fragmentary” Hypothesis (Fragmentenhypothese) are not wholly dismissed. Thus we see the best-­established Pentateuch critic as having by no means arrived at a final view, but as being already engaged in a reflective examination of the possibilities that were under discussion at the time; and we find him, above all, already fixed in his distaste for anything “mechanical”—a stance which for him, as Ewald’s heir, was more important than all the hypotheses. When, soon afterwards, Wellhausen turned to his own analysis, it was Hupfeld from whom he “in every respect started”—that is to say, from the Documentary Hypothesis. But at the provisional end of the work he could add that he had learned not only from Hupfeld but from all his predecessors (Wellhausen 1876–7, 22:479; cf. 1878, 169–177), and that in itself saved him from too strict a fixation on the Documentary Hypothesis. He was very much aware of the largely experimental and provisional character of his work, in this sector especially, where he had to pursue “often untrodden paths;” and he hoped that his “rough investigations” would be followed by others “much more exact and detailed” which would “confirm, rectify, and overturn” their results (Wellhausen 1876–7, 22:479).

Wellhausen, 1876–1877 Being fully aware of the difficulties of the task, Wellhausen initially hesitated to make a start. He certainly “had the Pentateuch in mind,” he wrote to Göttingen at the beginning of his time in Greifswald, but in mind only it would have to remain “for some ­considerable time” (Wellhausen 2013, 17). However, in the context of his teaching during the winter of 1872–3 he did work out an analysis of Genesis, and in the winter of 1874–5

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150   Rudolf Smend an analysis of the rest of the Pentateuch followed, although he put both of these to the side until some new publications (Kayser 1874; Dillmann 1875) made the immediate ­relevance of the subject unmistakably clear. Afraid that his friend B. Duhm (who shared his basic view: Duhm  1875) might anticipate him, he finally put pen to paper and ­published his analyses, although (probably out of haste) not as a book but as a series of three periodical articles (Wellhausen 1876–7; cf. Wellhausen 2013, 34). Wellhausen’s procedure (and indirectly Kuenen’s too) was competently described at close range as follows: There had long been talk about the Yahwist and the Elohist, the Deuteronomic redaction and a Grundschrift. The old Fragmentary and Supplementary Hypothesis had largely been laid aside. But never before had the analytical investigation been applied to and carried out on the living text itself as it was here, with the sole ­methods on which it could be properly based, undertaken, and carried through. Every analysis is bound to reconstruct, and is hence in danger of attempting to establish too much of the original and of putting too little down to the editors. With the instinct of a genius, Wellhausen continually avoids these hazards: he extracts the essential which can be proved, and leaves the rest, which is initially not important, to those who have the patience and confidence to torment themselves with it. Thus what emerges for him in the Pentateuch are the three great strata, and in the other books the simpler or more complicated revision, without the separation becoming too fine-­drawn and thereby indistinct and dubious. He effortlessly masters the ­difficulty of the presentation, a difficulty which only the person who has attempted analyses of this kind can adequately appreciate. The discussion necessarily leaps from one point to another, yet never irritates on the reader but rewards him directly by bringing out clearly the precise lines and fresh colors of a seemingly confused text. It is seldom that treatises of this kind, accessible only to philologists and ­philologically trained dilettantes, have had to be reprinted four times. (Schwartz 1919, 15)

Wellhausen’s investigation is presented in two successive stages: first the narrative (Wellhausen 1876–7, 21), and then the law, the latter being more closely defined as follows: “The great bodies of the law in the Pentateuch in respect of their inner structure and their connection with the Narrative” (Wellhausen 1876–7, 22:407). For the sources and the final editor as conceived along the lines of the “newer Documentary Hypothesis,” Dillmann had recently used the sigla A (the Grundschrift, the “earlier” Elohist), B (the “younger” Elohist), and C (the Yahwist), with R for the final editor (Dillmann  1875, XI–XIII). In order to avoid from the outset any inherent prejudgment about the temporal sequence, Wellhausen initially called the Grundschrift Q (liber quattuor foederum, “four-­treaty book”), later P (i.e., Priestly Code or Priestly Document), calling the non-­ priestly narrative material JE (Yehovist), from the components J (Yahwist) and E (Elohist) (Wellhausen 1876–7, 21:392). In the whole of the Pentateuch, what can be most easily separated from the rest is the Grundschrift, Basic Document (A/Q), or Priestly Code (P). Here Wellhausen could claim the support of Nöldeke, who had almost solved this problem a few years before in his own “Composition” (Nöldeke 1869).

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   151 The complex entity JE is more difficult, as can already be seen in the primeval history (Gen 1–11). Here P emerges quite clearly, but the Elohistic elements in JE are missing, and the Yahwistic part has already behind it a history which proceeded in several stages and was the outcome of an extensive written process. Ch. 2; 3; 4:16–24; 11:1–9 may be viewed as its original core. The story of the flood in chs. 6–10 was then amalgamated with this by a reviser who probably had the story in front of him in written form—possibly, but not very probably, in the context of a more extensive historical work. It is to this reviser that we must also ascribe the incorporation of some of the shorter passages, which never existed in literary independence but always only like parasites on an alien stem; this, at least, may be said of 4:25–26; 5:29; 4:1–15; 10:16–18a. We have no reason either to ascribe to him or to deny him other “additions”; these may have been incorporated at other times by other hands. The details cannot be discerned, but the main point is clear: this was not merely an amalgamation of greater complexes, but in the process, either before or after their amalgamation or at the same time, shorter non-­independent passages were incorporated, some of them more learned and theoretical, but others popular in origin. For after the oral tradition had been committed to writing it did not suddenly come to a halt; it continued to develop, from now on in interaction with the scripture, and in addition incorporated wholly new material from outside, which was then again “fixed” in the literary sense for the first time.  (Wellhausen 1876, 21:404)

This viewpoint closely resembles the statement of 1871 cited above, and was indeed formulated not very long afterward. It remains valid—indeed it acquires validity to the fullest degree only—in the story of the patriarchs and in the Mosaic history, where the E source has been added throughout to the J source, and the two have been joined together (and generally very firmly so) by an initial editor, the “Jehovist” (before being united with P by an additional editor). Wellhausen ascribes to this “Jehovist” redactor “a spiritual kinship” with Deuteronomy, “unless we have to assume the existence of another Deuteronomist in addition”; the identification of the redactor with the Deuteronomist is “not entirely baseless although it is incorrect.” The tentative mode of expression is significant. The editor generally withdraws behind the sources; but at a prominent point— namely in the passage about the giving of the law on Sinai—is more than a redactor, and can in fact be accounted the real author (Wellhausen  1876–7, 21:564; 22:477n1). Characteristic of this redactor are brief additions, which more closely combine J and E or which shed a theological light on the context (Gen 16:8–10; 22:15–18, etc.; Wellhausen 1876–7, 21:409). All in all, it is more difficult to trace the division between J and E than that between JE and P. This Wellhausen never denies; but it does not keep him from indefatigably making the attempt. Thus in the Joseph story (which in this regard is one of the most difficult texts) he risks committing himself to the statement: “We may presume that here, as elsewhere too, this work is an amalgamation of J and E; our earlier findings strongly support this assumption, and would fall to the ground if it could not be proved” (Wellhausen 1876–7, 21:442). One important interpolation in J is Abraham’s conversation with Yahweh, Gen 18:22b–33a (Wellhausen 1876–7, 21:415–416),

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152   Rudolf Smend whereas Gen 14, on the other hand, is “a narrative without any connection either with what precedes it or with what follows”; it has been interpolated by the final editor, who put JE and P together (Wellhausen 1876–7, 21:414–415). In the “great bodies of the law” the relationships differ, both with each other and also in relation to the narratives that have for the most part preceded them. There are two such bodies, the Priestly Code in “the central Pentateuch,” and Deuteronomy. The Priestly Code is “a conglomerate in which various strata have been joined to an original core (= Q or P) in a similar form of crystallization.” Before Wellhausen sets about tracing the literary process “through which the stratification of the bodies of the law in the central Pentateuch came into being,” he appeals as guarantors to two of the great authorities of his own century: W.  M.  L.  de Wette, who in his Kritik der mosaischen Geschichte (Criticism of the Mosaic History, part I of de Wette 1807) realized in the course of his analysis of Leviticus that “one suspicion nurtures the other: one thing that proves not to be genuine suggests the existence of other cases”; and A. Kuenen, who, in 1870, on the basis of the Graf Hypothesis, described the successive development of the priestly components of the Hexateuch (see above). Wellhausen’s exceedingly thorough investigation draws on that of Kuenen and on other preliminary studies, not least that of Graf, and, while following them closely in part, largely follows its own paths (cf. here and elsewhere the tables in the appendix to Holzinger 1893). The most interesting pericope in the confusing legal material is undoubtedly Lev 17–26, which ever since Klostermann’s contemporary but totally different investigation (Klostermann 1877) has been generally known as the Holiness Code. Wellhausen facilitates the reading of his discussion by setting out its conclusion at the very beginning: The chapters Lev 17–26 certainly do not belong to the Yahwistic history; according to their main tenor, they belong to the Priestly Code. But in comparison with Q and the dependent novellae, nevertheless possess characteristics, some more pronounced others less so, which bring them into proximity with Deuteronomy and Ezekiel. Here an earlier independent law collection does seem to have been absorbed into the Priestly Code, although in places it has been considerably revised in the process, and in content has generally speaking been expanded. A collection, not individual passages. For a somewhat mannered religious parenetic style, which is not at all in accord with P, runs through the whole, finding expression particularly in the final speech in ch. 26. The author of the little compilation has to some extent worked on the basis of earlier models.  (Wellhausen 1876–7, 22:422)

The result of the investigation of the whole Priestly Code endorses the initial thesis: its center “is Q, but this center has often been expanded, in an organic but hypertrophic way as it were, inasmuch as the expansions everywhere link on to the center where their trends, concepts, formulas, and style are to be found. The foundation—that is, the age and the groups from which Q and the secondary or tertiary offspring derive—is the same” (Wellhausen  1876–7, 22:455). The same is also true of the narrative parts, as

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   153 Wellhausen shows in exemplary fashion regarding the addition of the six-­day pattern to the creation story (456–458). In the case of Deuteronomy, Wellhausen’s literary criticism is concerned with two fundamental questions. What was the extent of the Urdeuteronomium—the book, that is, which formed the basis of Josiah’s reform? Was Deuteronomy (as had hitherto been assumed) absorbed into the already existing composite narrative of JEQ, or was it absorbed into that of JE? Wellhausen concluded that Deuteronomy initially comprised chapters 12–26, was then given two mutually independent augmented forms (chs. 1–4; 12–26; 27 and 5–11; 12–26; 28–30) and, after the unification of these two forms, was incorporated in JE, before the addition of Q (Wellhausen 1876–7, 22:464).

Wellhausen, 1878 After (provisionally) completing his analysis, Wellhausen wrote to Kuenen in February 1878: “The whole critical analysis actually gives me no pleasure at all; you will hardly believe this, but it is true” (Wellhausen 2013, 476). He would write in a similar tenor on other occasions—for example in 1882 to W. Robertson Smith: “There are few people in Germany who understand that I really have more positive things in mind than Pentateuchal criticism” (101). Even less than Kuenen did Wellhausen understand literary critical analysis as an end in itself; for him, it was a means by which to reconstruct the history. Here Graf had hardly made a beginning: “My procedure has intentionally differed from Graf ’s in this respect. He brought forward his arguments somewhat unconnectedly, not seeking to change the generally prevailing view of the history of Israel. For that reason he made no impression on the majority of those who study these subjects; they did not see into the root of the matter, they could still regard the system as unshaken, and the numerous attacks on details of it as unimportant” (Wellhausen 1883, 368). Wellhausen wanted to do better than that, and thus, as with Kuenen, the preparation for the synthesis went hand in hand with the analysis; and in 1878 the Composition of 1876–7 was followed by the famous Prolegomena. This was initially entitled the first volume of a history of Israel; it was the second edition that was renamed Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, and in this form was translated into English. All this was a preparation for the Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte (Israelite and Jewish History), one of the great historical works of the nineteenth century, which, strangely enough, has never, down to the present day, appeared in any other language (Wellhausen 1878, 1883,  1885a, 1894). “In the following pages,” states the introductory sentence, “it is proposed to discuss the place in history of the ‘law of Moses’; more precisely, the question to be considered is whether that law is the starting-­point for the history of ancient Israel, or not rather for that of Judaism, i.e., of the religious communion which survived the destruction of the nation by the Assyrians and Chaldeans” (Wellhausen 1885a, 1). We know that in 1867 the

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154   Rudolf Smend young Wellhausen had been won over to the second possibility; and that he had spent the previous ten years gathering the scholarly proof required. The sharply formulated alternative leads us to expect a treatment in the style of a court proceeding, and it is consequently no wonder that the book is a gripping read. The argument rests on the insight that the strata in the biblical historiography that can be elucidated by literary criticism represent stages in the history of ancient Israel. The first part of the book presents a history of the cult according to the different forms it took in the pre- and postexilic periods. In the early period, sacrifice was practiced in many places, and to this neither the prophets nor the historiographical narrative presents any objection. This changes after the exile, when the temple in Jerusalem is the sole place of worship. This situation is presupposed by the Priestly Code and is shifted back to the Mosaic period. The transition from the early practice (to which the Yahwist and the Elohist testify) is made by Deuteronomy, with its demand for the centralization of the cult. Where sacrifice, the festivals, and the priesthood were concerned, matters were similar. It emerges everywhere that it was only postexilic Judaism for which the Priestly Code’s “Mosaic law” came to be fundamental. What is shown by the history of the cult is endorsed by the history of tradition. Chronicles recasts the ancient tradition in such a way that the history aligns with the demands of the Priestly Code; for example, it makes King David a servant of the cult and a pattern of piety. But in this respect it was already preceded to a certain point by the Deuteronomistic revision of the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings. This revision did not recast the earlier history quite so ruthlessly as did Chronicles, but it did judge in accordance with the Deuteronomic norm—and for the most part condemn—the cultic practice of the Israelites and their kings. Finally, a significant distinction appears also in the stories about the primeval period: the Yahwist and the Elohist present the ancient folk saga material in all its freshness and naturalness, while the Priestly Code is a new, artificial construction which has lost its ties with the origins of the tradition. Wellhausen’s conclusion is that we have to distinguish more clearly between Israel and Judaism. Israel knew no written law: its “Torah” was the oral instruction of the priests and prophets. The law in its proper sense, as the foundation of the biblical canon, came to exist for the first time only with Deuteronomy, and in its most complete form with the Priestly Code. The concept of the covenant between God and the people did not belong to the early period either, and theocracy as a religious institution, as a hierarchy, is entirely a product of Judaism—or rather is identical with Judaism itself. It too had a positive function, inasmuch as it preserved the inheritance of the early period as if in a rigid shell, out of which it could one day emerge once more in living form. The main purpose of Wellhausen’s book was to separate the precious early content from its later deformations. Wellhausen headed the second chapter “The History of Tradition,” with a quotation from Hesiod: πλέον ἥμισυ παντός—“The half is more than the whole”— meaning that the preexilic tradition is more than the whole canonical history ­determined by the late redactions of Priestly Code and Chronicles. It was with this “half ” that his sympathies lay, which meant with the patriarchs, kings, and prophets, acting as living people according to the impulse of their nature and their circumstances,

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   155 governed neither by the force of cultic institutions nor by the pattern of theological ­conceptuality. With this, literary-­critical investigation discovered an ancient world in a new way; and its brilliant presentation brought it almost palpably close to the modern reader. Wellhausen did not fall victim to the illusion that his argumentation would be everywhere accepted, or would simply be greeted with understanding. So at the beginning of 1878 he countered one misunderstanding proactively, so to speak, by writing elsewhere: “The fear lest an end to the written cultic laws would mean an end to the cult itself as ancient practice is entirely superfluous. Legem non habentes natura faciunt legis opera. It was undoubtedly the case, however, that because nature became law a qualitative distinction also developed between the ancient Israelite and the Mosaic [i.e., Jewish] cult” (Wellhausen 1878, 178). It was certainly true that the reactions very soon demonstrated that this fear, and the misunderstanding resulting from it, were not without foundation. Other misunderstandings were added, and soon a violent dispute was under way, a dispute of which Wellhausen himself gives a witty polemical account in his preface to the second edition of the Prolegomena, a report which brings out clearly his awareness of his superiority compared with his opponents (Wellhausen 1883, iii–x). What was bound to be most important for him was of course Kuenen’s reaction to his book. In later retrospect, Kuenen described this reaction as follows: I can hardly describe the delight with which I first read it—a delight such as seldom indeed meets one on the path of learning. At one with the writer a priori, not only in principles but in general results, I was able to follow him from beginning to end with almost unbroken assent, and at the same time to learn more than I can say from every part of his work. Now and then my pleasure was—shall I say tempered or increased?—when I noted that Wellhausen had got the start of me as to this or that point that I had expected to indicate for the first time in my own forthcoming work. But I could not wish that I had been sooner on the field, for in that case I should have missed all the other points which I had not anticipated and by which I could now profit.  (Kuenen 1886, xxxix)

Kuenen–Wellhausen, 1877–1889 Kuenen’s enthusiasm over the Prolegomena will no doubt have given Wellhausen ­pleasure, but it will not have been the “discussion and contradiction” that, according to the end of the Composition, he had hoped for as a reward for his “laborious and thankless work” (Wellhausen 1876–7, 22:479). But this too he was to receive in full measure, from Kuenen as well, and from him for the Composition especially. In a letter to Kuenen of January 1877, Wellhausen said that as he wrote he had had Kuenen in mind more than anyone else, and had continually imagined him as being the reader—other than Kuenen there was really only Duhm (Wellhausen 2013, 36). His hope was not a vain one. Kuenen

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156   Rudolf Smend took the three essays Wellhausen had successively sent to him and had them bound together in cloth, every alternate leaf being left blank. On several of these blank leaves he wrote his own individual notes, which Kuenen followed up in 1877–84 in the course of ten articles in the Theologisch Tijdschrift entitled “Bijdragen tot de critiek van Pentateuch en Josua,” these being a continuation of the ten “Critische bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van den Israelitischen godsdienst” (1867–76), in which in 1870 and 1875 he had already discussed the priestly components of the Pentateuch and Joshua (see above). It is worth mentioning that his great conservative adversary Franz Delitzsch followed in his footsteps, so to speak, with his own two series of articles on the Pentateuch (Delitzsch 1880, 1882). The first two of the ten articles of 1877–84 were already written without any ­knowledge of Wellhausen’s Composition, but Kuenen was able to change to Wellhausen’s sigla and to preface them with an indication of Wellhausen’s opinion about the material to be treated (Kuenen 1877–84, I:465–466). Of course the ten articles are not confined to a discussion with Wellhausen. They take their bearings primarily from the selected biblical texts treated. But in a secondary sense they are nevertheless orientated towards Wellhausen, and Wellhausen took attentive account of them. The fact that down to the present day most of them have been available only in Dutch is a great loss for our field. Two, though only two, have at least been translated into German (by Budde, in Kuenen  1894, ­255–294); not a single one has ever appeared in English. And yet they could have saved pentateuchal research from following many a false track. It was not perhaps pure chance that kept them from being translated, for, according to the scholar who performed the service of making them available to scholarship in the twentieth century, at least by way of a detailed review, “these articles are the driest and most difficult to follow of Kuenen’s writings, as his own friends admitted” (de Vries 1963, 48n47). In view of the importance of their content, this is still a desideratum today, and perhaps today more than ever. What is the point at issue? At the conclusion of his Composition, Wellhausen was clear that “the literary process,” which he had described essentially on the basis of the Documentary Hypothesis designated by the sigla JEDP (or Q), “was often in reality more complicated, and that the so-­called Supplementary Hypothesis is still applicable in a subordinate sense” (Wellhausen 1876–7, 22:478); it was surely not least along these lines that he hoped for “discussion and contradiction,” from Kuenen’s side more than from anyone else. The way in which Kuenen fulfilled this hope may be indicated by reference to his two “Bijdragen” of 1880, Nos. VI and VII, the only ones to have been translated. One deals with Gen 34, the story about the violation of Dinah and the bloodbath in Shechem. In his Godsdienst van Israel, Kuenen, in a dispute about the chapter with his Leiden colleague Oort, developed two somewhat negative statements: one, that the story was certainly not old, and the other, that complete consistency must not be expected in a story like this (Kuenen 1869–70, 1:478–479). In 1875 and 1876 Dillmann (1875, 383–389) and Wellhausen (1876–7, 21:35–438) put forward two contradictory analyses. Of these Kuenen in 1880 favored Wellhausen’s (Kuenen  1877–84, VI:257–281; Kuenen  1894, 255–276), according to which the chapter was put together from two

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   157 ­ arratives: one of them surviving only in fragmentary form, and having a more private n character, with Simeon and Levi as the main actors; the other having to do with Israel as a whole, exclusively in which the circumcision of the Shechemites is demanded and carried out. The first story is Yahwistic. Wellhausen denies that the second—which he sees as the later—originates in the Priestly Document; but because of the language he is unable to decide definitely in favor of the seemingly obvious Elohist. In Kuenen’s eyes, the language speaks in favor of the Priestly Document, but the content, apart from the circumcision, is against it, since the Priestly Document otherwise tells the story of the patriarchs quite differently, that is to say, in a “sober and edifying” style—“without a trace of feud, jealousy or violence” (Kuenen 1877–84, VI:277; 1894, 272). Kuenen’s general conclusion is that this second narrative does not derive from an independent source but is the work of a redactor who was writing under the influence of the Priestly Document and fragmentarily drew on the Yahwist. Kuenen’s general summation is as follows: “The dividing line between the composition of the Hexateuch and its editing exists only in our imagination. The latest authors were at the same time editors, and vice versa. The greater the progress we make in the critical investigation, the more clearly we can see the proportions of what Popper called the ‘fortgesetzte diaskeue’—the continuous literary development” (Kuenen 1877–84, VI:281; 1894, 276). The second “Bijdrag” of 1880 (Kuenen 1877–84, VII:281–302; 1894, 276–294) has to do with Exod 16, the story about the manna and the quails. That the greater part of this chapter derives from the Priestly Document is undisputed, but not its entirety; here Kuenen follows August Kayser (1874, 50–54) and Wellhausen (1876–7, 21:547–549), in opposition to Nöldeke (1869, 48–49). Wellhausen had described the material that does not derive from the Priestly Document in only general terms as JE, and “did not dare to define it.” Kuenen does so dare, and here too arrives at the conclusion that this is not an early source but the work of a redactor; the chapter “derives from P, but owes its present form to the later literary development” (Kuenen 1877–84, VII:295; 1894, 288). In 1889, in his Nachträgen to the new edition of the Composition des Hexateuchs, Wellhausen agreed with Kuenen in both cases, although he considers the foregoing history to be more complicated than does Kuenen, inasmuch as in both cases, according to his view, the editor already had before him a composite Vorlage—in Gen 34 drawn from the Yahwist and the Elohist with Deuteronomistic redaction, and in Exod 16 from JE with P (Wellhausen 1889, 314–319, 323–327). But what is more important is nevertheless the agreement with the basic thesis, which Wellhausen even accentuates in order to avoid any misunderstanding: in 1889 he talks, in connection with Exod 16, about the “Kuenen’schen Diaskeuasten” or editor, while in the edition of 1899 he improves and emphasizes this, now speaking of “the diaskeuast whom Kuenen rightly assumes existed” (Wellhausen 1889, 327; 1899, 329). Concerning the main issue, Wellhausen had already reacted with complete agreement to Kuenen’s first “Bijdragen” (Wellhausen 1876–7, 21:545–566): “Your essay on Num 13; 14 convinced me completely; the more extensive role you assign to the redactors especially chimes in with my own view, which at times I merely failed to formulate fully. We are still very much in the initial stages, but stimuli have been given” (letter of 13

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158   Rudolf Smend February 1878, Wellhausen 2013, 44). The fact that it was only in 1889 that he then turned to Kuenen’s “Bijdragen” is not surprising. In the 1880s he was absorbed in Arabic studies, and privately he had long since expressed his views not only to Kuenen but to others as well. In 1880, for example—the year of the two Bijdragen” Nos. VI and VII—he wrote in a letter to Adolf Jülicher: “Kuenen’s essays correct me in a way that concurs with my own concerns; in this respect I admit everything, even what he did not as yet say.” “In this respect” refers to the “principle” formulated immediately beforehand by Wellhausen, that “apart from the main sources there were all kinds of excrescences, that the Supplementary Hypothesis had a certain justification, and that the Mechanical Mosaic Hypothesis is absurd” (Wellhausen 2013, 78). We can hardly doubt that when the two met in Leiden during the same year Kuenen and Wellhausen discussed the Pentateuch; at all events Wellhausen reported from there to Robertson Smith: “Kuenen is making important discoveries with regard to certain passages in the Pentateuch which have hitherto been assigned to E; he has not yet arrived at a conclusion, and is hence postponing the urgently required second edition of the Hist. krit. Onderzoek” ­ (Wellhausen 2013, 69). E, the Elohist, soon crops up again in Wellhausen’s initial reaction to Kuenen’s “Bijdragen,” in the Prolegomena of 1883, where, in connection with the reactions to the Composition des Hexateuch, he writes: Hitherto the only important corrections I have received have been those of Kuenen . . .; but these are altogether welcome, inasmuch as they only free my own fundamental view from some relics of the old leaven of a mechanical separation of sources which had continued to adhere to it. For what Kuenen points out is, that certain elements assigned by me to the Elohist are not fragments of a once independent whole, but interpolated and parasitic additions. What effect this demonstration may have on the judgment we form of the Elohist himself is as yet uncertain.  (Wellhausen 1883, 8n2; 1885a, 8n2)

The last sentence makes the reader prick up his ears: are the challengers of the Elohist—Volz and Rudolph and their successors—already waiting in the wings here (cf. Volz and Rudolph  1933; Rudolph  1938)? But it was only in the next edition that Wellhausen repeated the remark; in the edition that followed, he left it out (Wellhausen 1886, 8n2; 1895b, 8n2). With regard to the main point at issue, there is little point in conceding precedence to either Kuenen or Wellhausen. From the very beginning, neither of them closed their eyes. Kuenen took over the term Diaskeue (reworking) from Julius Popper (see above) and worked with it from then on; in 1870 he prophesied that Popper’s 1862 book was destined “to continue to exercise a considerable influence” (Kuenen 1869–70, 2:402; Bleek and Wellhausen 1878, 156). As far as the book itself is concerned, this never happened; to take only one example, Popper’s name is not mentioned even in O. Eißfeldt’s voluminous and representative Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1976). But the point itself never disappeared completely from the agenda and is still prominent, especially as in

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   159 1969 W.  Zimmerli gave it the new name Fortschreibung (Zimmerli  1969, 106, cf. Levin 2013, VII); indeed in certain quarters it has become positively fashionable. As far as Wellhausen was concerned, at the beginning of his discussion with Kuenen’s “Bijdragen” in the addenda to his Composition he offered a retrospect of the path he had taken, thereby picking up his initial statement of 1871 (see the section Wellhausen, 1867–1871): I was led from textual criticism to literary criticism because it emerged that it was sometimes impossible to determine the line between the two—the point at which the glossarist’s work stopped and the work of the literary critic began. This being so, I early on came to mistrust the method whereby the Hebrew history books were viewed as a pure mosaic, and I already expressed this mistrust in my preface to the Text der Bücher Samuelis. In investigating the composition of the Hexateuch, it then became clear to me, however, that here there were indeed three independent narrative threads, but that these great complexes had not been merely cut to size and loosely sewn together, but that before, after and during their unification (which did not immediately take place) they had been considerably augmented and revised. That in other words, the literary process through which the Hexateuch came into being was highly complicated, and that the so-­called Supplementary Hypothesis is still in fact applicable, although in another sense than the one in which it was originally put forward. However, I failed to appreciate adequately the ultimate sediment which overlies the whole drift superficially, at least in the narrative sections, and especially in places where it is noticeably prominent. Here, as I have gratefully acknowledged in another place, Kuenen freed me from the still remaining residue of the old leaven of a mechanical separation of sources. My acknowledgment of the fact that he pointed in the right direction is undiminished by the fact that I am not always at one with him in my assessment of the extent to which the latest diaskeue intervenes.  (Wellhausen 1889, 313–314)

Through the liberation from that “residue,” Graf ’s goel (see the section Graf– Kuenen,  1866–1869) became to some extent Wellhausen’s too. This indeed he had already long been in another sense—if Wellhausen was not exaggerating when he acknowledged that whenever he read one of Kuenen’s essays he was divested of part of the old sophist which still clung to him (5 January, 1877; Wellhausen 2013, 37). However, pentateuchal research today could well make use of both together as goalim. Once Kuenen was dead and Wellhausen had finally turned to other things, the “Mechanical Mosaic Hypothesis” again acquired the upper hand. Although its advocates made many acute observations which have today been unjustly forgotten, what all too often receded into the background was what in 1880 Wellhausen had described to a particularly promising young colleague (who then unfortunately deserted to New Testament studies) as the primary task: “to grasp principles and impulses, to understand how literary growth can be observed, and not to pursue the matter as if it were a game of skittles” (letter to A. Jülicher; Wellhausen 2013, 78; see above). By failing to pursue their work along these lines, the followers of Kuenen and Wellhausen threatened to bring

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160   Rudolf Smend literary criticism of the Pentateuch into discredit, especially among the more talented young Old Testament scholars; and in so doing they made themselves partly responsible for many a questionable development endured by the Pentateuch in scholarship of the twentieth century. Today Kuenen and Wellhausen can encourage us and point in the right direction—not towards a belated Kuenen and Wellhausen orthodoxy (for any kind of orthodoxy, both of them were as ill-­suited as possible) but nevertheless towards a literary criticism which does not proceed along rigid and schematic lines, but flexibly and imaginatively, and which is not committed to a monistic method of whatever kind. For today that means, for example, that the person who has discovered redaction history and pursues it, should not close his eyes to the fact that there were also—and indeed there were as a general rule—the great consecutive narratives. For what Wellhausen called “the ultimate sediment which overlies the whole drift,” and which, according to what he himself said in response to Kuenen’s criticism, “he had insufficiently appreciated, at least in the narrative parts” (Wellhausen 1899, 314), has its status and value not in itself but as a Fortschreibung, a continuation of those earlier texts, a rereading which illuminates them in their original form as clearly as possible. To do this was not the least of what we owe to our exegetical forefathers. But they saw the other side as well! In closing, another recommendation which Wellhausen passed on to the burgeoning pentateuchal research of his time and which may still be appropriate today: In spite of the justifiable interest which Pentateuch research encounters today, it would nevertheless be desirable for this interest not to be limited and grimly confined to that. There is a tendency to return again and again to the old questions, with the resulting danger of a relapse into prejudice and boredom. Old Testament studies would do well to expand their scope, so as to take up new tasks, of which there is no lack, so as to avoid becoming fruitful through isolation and boredom. Nor would it be necessary continually to perpetuate the work in the form of commentaries, or to allow studies wherever possible to swell into massive books. What is urgently required is more stringency and a greater degree of resignation. (Bleek and Wellhausen 1886, 629)

Suggested Reading For the important positions of Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen, see their various works cited in the bibliography. For Wellhausen’s correspondence, see Wellhausen  2013. For critical assessments of late nineteenth century pentateuchal scholarship, see esp. the essays in Sæbø, ed. 2013.

Works Cited Bleek, F., and J.  Wellhausen. 1878. Einleitung in das Alte Testament, edited by J.  Bleek. A. Kamphausen, and J. Wellhausen. 4th ed. Berlin: Reimer.

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   161 Colenso, J. W. 1862–79. The Pentateuch and Joshua Critically Examined. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Conrad, J. 2011. Karl Heinrich Grafs Arbeit am Alten Testament: Studien zu einer wissenschaftlichen Biographie, ed. U. Becker. BZAW 425. Berlin: de Gruyter. Delitzsch, F. 1852. Die Genesis. Leipzig: Dörfling und Franke. Delitzsch, F. 1880. “Pentateuchkritische Studien I–XII.” ZKWL 1: 3–10, 57–66, 113–121, 173–183, 223–234, 279–289, 337–347, 393–399, 445–448, 503–509, 559–589, 617–626. Delitzsch, F. 1882. “Urmosaisches im Pentateuch.” ZKWL 3: 113–136, 225–235, 281–299, 337–347, 449–457, 561–73. de Vries, S. J. 1963. “The Hexateuchal Criticism of Abraham Kuenen.” JBL 82: 31–57. de Wette, W. M. L. 1807. Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament. Vol. 2, Kritik der israelitischen Geschichte. Halle: Schimmelpfennig. Dillmann, A. 1875. Die Genesis. KHAT 11. Leipzig: S. Hirzel. Dirksen, P.  B., and A.  van der Kooij, eds. 1993. Abraham Kuenen (1828–1891): His Major Contributions to the Study of the Old Testament: A Collection of Old Testament Studies Published on the Occasion of the Centenary of Abraham Kuenens Death, with contributions of M. J. Mulder, J. A. Emerton, C. Houtman, A. van der Kooij, J. W. Rogerson, A. Rofé, et al. OtSt 29. Leiden: Brill. Duhm, B. 1875. Die Theologie der Propheten als Grundlage für die innere Entwicklungsgeschichte der israelitischen Religion. Bonn: Marcus. Eissfeldt, O. 1976. Einleitung in das Alte Testament: Unter Einschluß der Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen sowie der Apokryphen- und pseudepigraphenartigen Qumran-Schriften. Entstehungsgeschichte des Alten Testaments. 4th ed. Tübingen: Mohr. Ewald, H. 1864. Geschichte des Volkes Israel. 3rd ed. Göttingen: Dieterich. Graf, K.  H. 1866. Die geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Testaments: Zwei historisch-kritische Untersuchungen. Leipzig: Weigel. Holzinger, H. 1893. Einleitung in den Hexateuch. Freiburg i.B.: Mohr. Hupfeld, H. 1853. Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung. Berlin: Wiegandt und Grieben. Kayser, A. 1874. Das vorexilische Buch der Urgeschichte Israels und seine Erweiterungen: Ein Beitrag zur Pentateuch-Kritik. Straßburg: Schmidt. Klostermann, A. 1887. Die Bücher Samuelis und der Könige: Kurzgefaßter Kommentar zu den heiligen Schriften Alten und Neuen Testamentes sowie zu den Apokryphen Abt. III. Nördlingen: Beck. Kuenen, A. 1861–5. Historisch-kritisch onderzoek naar het antstaan en de verzameling van de boeken des Ouden Verbonds. Leiden: P. Engels: I. Het ontstaan van de Historische boeken des Ouden Verbonds. 1861. II. Het ontstaan van de Prophetische boeken des Ouden Verbonds. 1863. III. Het ontstaan van de Poëtische boeken des Ouden Verbonds. De verzameling van de boeken des Ouden Verbonds. 1865. Kuenen, A. 1865. The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined. Edited by J. C. Matthes. ET: Translated by J. W. Colenso. London: Longman, Green. Kuenen, A. 1867–76. “Critische bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van den Israëlitischen godsdienst” [Critical Contributions to the History of Israelite Worship]: “I. De integriteit van Exod. 13,11–16” [The Integrity of Exod 13:11–16]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 1 (1867): 53–72. “II. Kanaänieten en Israëlieten” [Canaanites and Israelites]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 1 (1867): 690–706.

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162   Rudolf Smend “III. Jahveh en Molech” [Yahweh and Moloch]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 2 (1868): 559–598. “IV. Zadok en de Zadokieten” [Zadok and the Zadokites]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 3 (1869): 463–509. “V. De priesterlijke bestanddeelen van Pentateuch en Jozua” [The Priestly Elements of the Pentateuch and Joshua]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 4 (1870): 391–426, 487–526. “VI. De stamvaders van het Israëlietische volk” [The Ancestors of the Israelite People]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 5 (1870): 255–312. “VII. De stam Levi” [The Tribe of Levi]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 6 (1872): 628–672. “VIII. Job en de lijdende knecht van Jahveh” [Job and the Suffering Servant of Yahweh]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 7 (1873): 492–542. “IX. Nog eens de priesterlijke bestanddeelen van Pentateuch en Jozua” [Again: The Priestly Elements of the Pentateuch and Joshua]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 9 (1875): 512–536. “X.  Overlevering of historische ontwikkeling?” [Tradition or Historical Development?]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 10 (1876): 549–576. Kuenen, A. 1869–70. De Godsdienst van Israël tot den Ondergang van den Joodschen Staat. 2 vols. Haarlem: Kruseman. Kuenen, A. 1877–84. “Bijdragen tot de critiek van Pentateuch en Jozua” [Contributions to the Criticism of the Pentateuch and Joshua]: “I. De aanwijzing der vrijsteden in Joz. XX” [Instructions concerning the Cities of Refuge in Josh. 20], and “II. De stam Manasse” [The Tribe of Manasseh]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 11 (1877): 465–496. “III. De uitzending der verspieders” [The Sending of the Spies]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 11 (1877): 545–566. “IV. De opstand van Korach, Dathan en Abiram, Num. XVI” [The Uprising of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Num 16]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 12 (1878): 139–162. “V.  De godsdienstige vergadering bij Ebal en Gerizim (Deut. XI,29.30; XXVII; Joz. VIII,­30–35)” [The Worship Assembly at Mt. Ebal and Mt. Garizim (Deut 11:29–30; 32; Josh 8:30–35)]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 12 (1878): 297–324. “VI. Dina en Sichem (Gen. XXXIV)” [Dinah and Shechem (Gen 34)], and “VII. Manna en kwakkelen (Exod. XVI)” [Manna and Quails (Exod 16)]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 14 (1880): 257–302. “VIII. Israël bij den Sinai” [Israel at Mount Sinai]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 15 (1881): 164–223. “IX. De geboortegeschiedenis van Gen. I–XI” [The Development History of Gen 1–11]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 18 (1884): 121–71. “X. Bileam” [Balaam]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 18 (1884): 497–540. Kuenen, A. 1885. “De critiek van den Hexateuch en de geschiedenis van Israël”s godsdienst” [Criticism of the Hexateuch and of the History of Israel’s Worship]. Theologisch Tijdschrift 19:491–530. Kuenen, A. 1885–93. Historisch-kritisch onderzoek naar het antstaan en de verzameling van de boeken des Ouden Verbonds. 2nd reworked ed.:

I/1 1885. I/2 1887. II 1889. III/1 1893.

Kuenen, A. 1886. An Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch (Pentateuch and Book of Joshua). Translated by P. H. Wicksteed. London: Macmillan.

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The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School   163 Kuenen, A. 1894. Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur biblischen Wissenschaft. Edited by K. Budde. Freiburg i.B.: Mohr. Levin, C. 2003. Fortschreibungen: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament. BZAW 316. Berlin: de Gruyter. Levin, C. 2013. Verheißung und Rechtfertigung: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament II. BZAW 431. Berlin: de Gruyter. Nöldeke, T. 1869. Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments. Kiel: Schwers. Oort, H. 1893. “Kuenen als Goldgeleerde.” De Gids 57:509–565. Popper, J. 1862. Der biblische Bericht über die Stiftshütte: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Composition und Diaskeue des Pentateuch. Leipzig: Hunger. Rofé, A. 1993. “Abraham Kuenen’s Contribution to the Study of the Pentateuch.” In Abraham Kuenen (1828–1891): His Major Contributions to the Study of the Old Testament: A Collection of Old Testament Studies Published on the Occasion of the Centenary of Abraham Kuenens Death, edited by P. B. Dirksen and A. van der Kooij, 105–112. OtSt 29. Leiden: Brill. Rogerson, J. 1993. “British Responses to Kuenens Pentateuchal Studies.” In Abraham Kuenen (1828–1891): His Major Contributions to the Study of the Old Testament: A Collection of Old Testament Studies Published on the Occasion of the Centenary of Abraham Kuenens Death, edited by P. B. Dirksen and A. van der Kooij, 91–104. OtSt 29. Leiden: Brill. Rudolph, W. 1938. Der “Elohist” von Exodus bis Josua. BZAW 68. Berlin: Töpelmann. Sæbø, M., ed. 2013. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. Vol. 3, From Modernism to Post-Modernism (The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Part 1, The Nineteenth Century—A Century of Modernism and Historicism. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Schwartz, E. 1918. “Julius Wellhausen.” NGWG Geschäftliche Mitteilungen, 43–73. Repr. in Vergangene Gegenwärtigkeiten: Gesammelte Schriften 2, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1938; 2nd ed. 1963, 326–361. Smend, R. 2007. From Astruc to Zimmerli: Old Testament Scholarship in Three Centuries. Translated by M. Kohl. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Smend, R. 2013a. “15. The Work of Abraham Kuenen and Julius Wellhausen.” In Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. Vol. 3, From Modernism to Post-Modernism (The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Part 1, The Nineteenth Century—A Century of Modernism and Historicism, ed. M. Sæbø, 424–453. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Smend, R. 2013b. “17. In the Wake of Wellhausen: The Growth of a Literary-critical School and Its Varied Influence.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. Vol. 3, From Modernism to Post-Modernism (The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Part 1, The Nineteenth Century—A Century of Modernism and Historicism, ed. M. Sæbø, 472–493. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Smend, R. 2013c. “18. A Conservative Approach in Opposition to a Historical-critical Interpretation: E. W. Hengstenberg and Franz Delitzsch.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. Vol. 3, From Modernism to Post-Modernism (The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Part 1, The Nineteenth Century—A Century of Modernism and Historicism, ed. M. Sæbø, 494–520. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Vatke, W. 1835. Die Religion des Alten Testaments aus den kanonischen Büchern entwickelt. Berlin: Bethge. Volz, P., and W. Rudolph. 1933. Der Elohist als Erzähler: Ein Irrweg der Pentateuchkritik? An der Genesis erläutert. BZAW 63. Gießen: Töpelmann.

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164   Rudolf Smend Wellhausen, J. 1871. Der Text der Bücher Samuelis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wellhausen, J. 1876–7. “Die Composition des Hexateuchs.” Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie 21 (1876): 392–450, 531–602; 22 (1877): 407–479. Wellhausen, J. 1878. Geschichte Israels. Volume 1. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1883. Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 2nd ed. [of Wellhausen 1878]. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1885a. Prolegomena to the History of Israel with a reprint of the article “Israel” from the EBrit. Translated from the 2nd ed., with preface by W. R. Smith. Edinburgh: A. & C: Black. Repr. Cleveland: Meridian Books, World Publishing Company, 1957; Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1994. Wellhausen, J. 1885b. Die Composition des Hexateuchs. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1886. Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 3rd ed. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1889. Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments. With addenda. 2nd ed. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1894. Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1895a. Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte. 2nd ed. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1895b. Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 4th ed. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1899. Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 5th ed. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 2013. Briefe. Edited by R. Smend. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Zimmerli, W. 1969. Ezechiel 1–24. BKAT 13/1. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener.

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chapter 10

The Docum en ta ry H y poth e sis Baruch J. Schwartz

This chapter deals with the theory that four pre-existing, independent literary works, referred to as sources or documents, were combined to form the canonical Torah: the theory known as the Documentary Hypothesis. The discussion is confined to the literary evidence leading to the realization that the Torah is the work of more than one author, the grounds for the four-source hypothesis, the overall character of the sources themselves, and the manner in which they appear to have been combined. How the sources came into existence and the historical circumstances that gave rise to their ul­tim­ate­ly being combined are not discussed, nor is a detailed description of each source provided. The role of the Documentary Hypothesis within Biblical scholarship and the different forms it has assumed over the centuries are also beyond the scope of the discussion.1 The Documentary Hypothesis, long considered to be the standard explanation for the formation of the Torah and still accepted by many scholars, is grounded not in any scholarly desire to discover multiple sources in the text, but on the existence of literary phenomena for which the most economical and convincing explanation is that the Torah is not a unified text, but is rather the product of multiple authorial and editorial hands. The indications that the Torah is a composite literary work may be classified into four types: redundancy, contradiction, discontinuity, and inconsistency of terminology and style. Three of these—redundancy, contradiction and linguistic inconsistency—are found both in the narrative and in the legal portions of the Torah; the fourth, discon­ tinuity, is found principally in the narrative sections. As one might expect, there is some overlap between these categories, and in many cases a single discrepancy may fall into This chapter is adapted from chapters 9­–11 of The Pentateuch and Its Documents (Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible; University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, forthcoming). It is a pleasure to thank Yedidya Naveh for his diligent efforts in producing the English text of this chapter and Maya Rosen for her expert editing and proofreading, and to acknowledge the kind assistance provided by the editors of this volume. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1838/14).

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166   Baruch J. Schwartz more than one of them. Still it is essential to distinguish the four phenomena from one another in order to gain a proper understanding of their contours and their import.

Redundancy A case of redundancy in the Torah is essentially an instance of unexplained and unwarranted repetition of what has already been said. In the narrative portions of the Torah, redundancy is present whenever each of two or more passages purports to provide the one and only account of an event that can logically have occurred only once. In the legal sections of the Torah, redundancy is a case in which two or more passages purport to provide the legal stipulation that is to be fulfilled in a given, uniquely defined situation. This phenomenon is extremely widespread. The creation of the cosmos, of humans, and of animals is described twice (Gen 1:1–2:4a and 2:4b–25); the establishment of the covenant with Abraham is recounted twice (Gen 15:1–21 and 17:1–27); the changing of Jacob’s name to Israel is related twice (Gen 32:28–29 and 35:9–10); the divine name, Yahweh, is revealed to Moses twice (Exod 3:13–15 and 6:2–9), among many others. Redundancy is also rife within individual narratives. For example, in the course of the story of the flood (Gen 6:5–9:17), the narrator twice describes the evil that spurred Yahweh’s decision to bring about the flood (Gen 6:5–6 and 6:11–12); we read twice that Yahweh informed Noah of his decision (6:17 and 7:4); twice we learn that he conveyed his instructions to Noah (6:18–21 and 7:1–3), and more. In the course of the account of Moses’s commissioning (Exod 3:1–4:17), Yahweh twice mentions that he has seen the affliction of his people and has decided to act (3:7–8 and 3:9); Moses twice expresses his objections to having the task imposed upon him (3:11, 13 and 4:1, 10, 13); twice Yahweh responds to his reservations (3:12, 14–15 and 4:2–9, 11–12, 14–16), and so forth. In all these cases and innumerable others, the individual passages provide no recognition that the event itself has already transpired or that it might not be the only such event. Every such narrative, and every similarly duplicated subsection of a repetitive narrative text, presents itself as the one and only account of the event described, as does its counterpart. Turning to the legal portions of the Torah: twice the Israelites are commanded with regard to permitted and forbidden foods (Lev 11 and Deut 14:3–21), the prohibition of usury (Lev 25:35–37 and Deut 23:20–21), the sustenance of the poor from the produce of one’s field and vineyard (Lev 19:9–10 and Deut 24:19–21), the sabbatical year (Exod 23:10–11 and Lev 25:1–7, 20–22), and more. Three times they are given the laws pertaining to the manumission of slaves (Exod 21:1–11, Lev 25:39–46 and Deut 15:12–18), talionic restitution (Exod 21:22–25, Lev 24:17–22, and Deut 19:21), murder, manslaughter and asylum (Exod 21:12–13, Num 35:9–34, and Deut 19:1–13), and more. They are commanded with regard to the annual festivals four times (Exod 23:14–19, Exod 34:18–26, Lev 23:1–44, Deut 16:1–17; an additional section in Num 28–29, dedicated to the unique sacrifices offered on each festival day, complements the law in Lev 23). Just as in the narrative portions of the Torah, each of these passages is always presented as the sole and complete

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The Documentary Hypothesis   167 account of the legislation that it claims to convey, never as an addendum, continuation, or even emphatic reiteration of one or more of its counterparts. They thus compete with one another for the status of the authoritative promulgation of the command in question (see Deut 4:2, 13:1). Furthermore, these competing passages appear in completely different places in the Torah—a fact that cannot be explained reasonably under the assumption that the Torah is a unified work. Not every case of formal or substantive similarity should be mistaken for redundancy. A single storyteller may recount two similar episodes, if he maintains that they both occurred and there is no categorical impossibility for this to have been so. For ex­ample, even if Abram’s wife Sarai was abducted by Pharaoh (Gen 12:10–20), she may also have been abducted later by Abimelech (Gen 20:1–18), and Isaac’s wife Rebecca may have subsequently been abducted by Abimelech as well (26:6–11) since, despite the similarity, the three accounts do not purport to be reports of a single event. Only mutually exclusive competition between two accounts constitutes redundancy. The most conspicuous and serious instance of redundancy is not limited to two or three competing passages but is woven through the entire Torah. This is the account of how Israel received its laws. The story of the proclamation of the Decalogue and the establishment of a covenant at Horeb (Exod 19:2b–9a, 16aα2–17, 19; 20—23; 24:3–8, 11bβ–15a; 32:1–8, 10–25, 30–35; 33:6–11; 34:1, 4, 28) relates that the laws were written down and that the covenant that Yahweh made with the Israelites was concluded “on the basis of these words” (Exod 24:8), i.e. the written text of the laws. With regard to these laws the people said: “All that Yahweh has spoken (i.e. Exod 20:19–23:33) we will faithfully do” (Exod 24:7), and the story concludes with no expectation of additional laws to be given at some future time. This account thus purports to be the sole report of the lawgiving. Nonetheless, the reader is also presented with a second story of a covenant made at the same time, in the course of which Moses ascended a mountain—Sinai, according to this account—to hear the attributes of Yahweh’s mercy (Exod 19:9b–16aα1, 18, 20–25; 24:1–2, 9–11bα; 32:9, 26–29; 33:1–5, 12–23; 34:2–3, 5–27). Here too, a corpus of laws is given to Moses (Exod 34:11–26), he is commanded to record them in writing, and it is they that are referred to in the statement: “In accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel” (Exod 34:27). This second account shows no signs of continuing, adding to, affirming, replacing, or denying the first; it too is presented as the one and only story of the conclusion of a covenant between Yahweh and Israel, in the course of which Yahweh conveyed his laws to Moses. Interspersed between these two stories and extending over the long text that follows, a third account emerges, according to which Moses is told that the lawgiving will commence only after Yahweh’s portable dwelling, the tabernacle, has been constructed at the foot of Mount Sinai. Only then, by means of divine speech emanating from between the cherubim on the cover of the ark, will Yahweh communicate to Moses “all that I will command you concerning the Israelite people” (Exod 25:22). This plan too is then carried out exactly as promised (see Schwartz 1996a). Just as neither of the other two stories offers any intimation that the legislation it contains is only part of a larger body of laws and that more legislation will follow, this third story contains no indication that the

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168   Baruch J. Schwartz le­gis­la­tion it contains (which extends throughout Leviticus and Numbers) is intended to supplement what preceded. All three accounts ignore each other’s existence entirely, and the author of one cannot be the author of either of the other two. The same goes for the account of the lawgiving given in Moses’s second valedictory oration. Moses affirms (Deut 5:19–6:3) that the full body of Yahweh’s commandments was given to him at Horeb “on the day of the Assembly” (Deut 9:10; 10:4; 18:16), that is, on the same day that the Decalogue was proclaimed for the entire Israelite people to hear, but he goes on to relate that he did not convey this legislation to the people at the time but has rather kept it to himself until the present, four decades later (see Weinfeld 1991, 236–327; Nelson 2002, 73–85; Vogt 2006, 113–159). This thus constitutes a fourth independent and complete report of how and when Yahweh’s laws were conveyed to the Israelites. Not only do we possess four independent accounts of the time, manner, and location of the lawgiving, each alleging to be the only such account, but each of the four also includes its own version of the laws themselves, each version purporting to be the laws and statutes commanded by Yahweh through the agency of Moses. The existence of four mutually ignorant legal corpora on the one hand, and of four mutually exclusive stories functioning as distinct narrative frameworks for them on the other, is incontrovertible evidence that the writings of several authors have been incorporated in the Torah.

Contradictions Competing reports of a single event that cannot logically be deemed to have occurred more than once should not be understood as the work of a single author precisely because they are set side by side in a single literary work without explanation; so too the numerous contradictions that appear in the Torah cannot be the work of a single hand. Defined precisely, a contradiction in the narrative portion of the Torah is an instance in which incompatible factual claims are made with regard to an event that can only have occurred once. For instance, it emerges from several passages in the story of Abraham that the patriarch’s birthplace is Aram-naharaim (Gen 24:4, 10). Yet in other equally explicit passages, it is asserted that he originated from Ur of the Chaldeans (e.g. Gen 15:7). These are not two names for one place, and one person cannot have two countries of origin; this is therefore a blatant contradiction. Similarly, in the story of the men sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan (Num 13–14), it is expressly stated that Caleb was the only one of the scouts to dissent from the negative report given by the rest of the dele­ga­tion (13:30; cf. 14:24), but it is stated no less explicitly that both Caleb and Joshua dissented (14:6–9). These two claims are irreconcilable. Was Noah commanded to take two of each animal aboard the ark, or only two of each impure animal and seven pairs of each pure species? Taken at its word, the Torah provides no unequivocal answer to this question, since both claims are made unambiguously (Gen 6:19–20; 7:9 vs. 7:2–3, 8; see Schwartz 2007, 147).

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The Documentary Hypothesis   169 In a certain sense, all instances of redundancy in the Torah are also contradictions, since whenever we encounter two or more reports of a single event there are also ir­re­ con­cil­able discrepancies between them. Was the human race created “male and female” simultaneously and at the end of the process of creation, as stated in the first account of Creation (Gen 1:27; 5:2), or was woman created after man, from one of his ribs, at the beginning of the process, as related in the second story (2:21–25)? Here too the Torah relates two contradictory events and makes no effort to resolve them. Another example: when Moses received the laws from Yahweh, did he present them to the people immediately, as stated in the account of the covenant at Horeb (Exod 24:3)? Or did he keep them to himself for forty years and disclose them to the Israelites only just prior to his death, as he claims in Deuteronomy (Deut 4:14; 5:19–6:3; 11:32–12:1)? In these instances and in many others (see e.g. Schwartz  2012), repetition and contradiction intersect. The ­contra­dic­tions are to be found in the particulars of the repeated accounts, so that two competing narratives serving only one narrative purpose contradict each other at every turn. One particularly well-known example of contradiction in the narrative portion of the Torah is that concerning the name of Israel’s deity, Yahweh. When biblical scholarship was still in its infancy, early critics noticed that among the many events that are in­ex­plic­ ably reported twice are several in which the two reports refer to the deity differently, both in the quoted speech of the characters and in the narrator’s own words, with one version using the generic noun Elohim (“god” or “God”), with or without the definite article, and the other using the tetragrammaton, Yahweh. At first, some critics imagined that this issue was simply a matter of differing style, and as such could be used, like other stylistic peculiarities, to distinguish between two different narrators, with each presumed to have had a preference for one or another of the two divine appellations. Occasionally even later critics have continued, erroneously, to assume this. However, as has become abundantly clear over time, these separate sets of narratives differ not on a matter of nomenclature or terminology but rather on a point of historical fact: the twofold question of when in history the tetragrammaton was revealed and to whom. One set of stories maintains unambiguously that the name Yahweh was known to all of humanity and was in common use throughout humankind since the beginning of time (Gen 4:1, 26), while according to another it is equally undisputed that this name was completely unknown until the lifetime of Moses, when it was first revealed, and even then only to him, and through him, to the Israelites (Exod 3:13–15; 6:1–3). This is no stylistic inconsistency; it too, like the examples above, is a substantive contradiction in the story­line itself. In this case, the contradiction is not localized within two identifiable, conflicting passages, but is rather spread out over numerous episodes, where entire narrative threads reflect conflicting historical assumptions. The contradictions in the legal portion of the Torah are just as numerous and just as irreconcilable. The following are but a few examples. The command in Exodus states emphatically that the pesaḥ ritual must be performed with a sheep or a goat and that the animal’s flesh must be roasted rather than boiled or eaten uncooked (Exod 12:3–5, 8–9), but the corresponding command in Deuteronomy includes cattle among the

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170   Baruch J. Schwartz animals that may be sacrificed and specifies that the flesh is in fact to be boiled (Deut 16:2, 7). Two legal passages mandate that Hebrew slaves be freed after six years of service (Exod 21:2; Deut 15:12–18), while a third stipulates that they be freed only in the Jubilee year (Lev 25:39–43). In Deuteronomy we read that the harvest pilgrimage, sukkôt, lasts only seven days (Deut 16:13–15); Leviticus and Numbers mandate an eighth day (Lev 23:33–36; Num 29:35–38). The law in Leviticus permits the slaughter of sheep and cattle for sacrificial offerings only, ruling out the non-sacrificial consumption of the flesh of these quadrupeds as an eternal, unchanging statute (Lev 17:3–7); Deuteronomy stipulates that after reaching Canaan, the Israelites will be permitted to slaughter sheep and cattle non-sacrificially and consume their flesh with impunity (Deut 12:15, 20–22; see Schwartz 1996b; Chavel 2012). In the most blatant case of contradiction in the narrative portion of the Torah, which is of course the aforementioned existence of mutually exclusive and conflicting accounts of how Israel received Yahweh’s laws, with each account enumerating the laws that its author maintains were given, narrative and legal inconsistency reach their crucial point of intersection. Each narrator claims that the laws that he cites, and they alone, constitute the legislation imparted by Yahweh to Israel through Moses. It follows that every case of contradiction between laws is also a narrative contradiction, with one narrator claiming that, in the course of historical time, Yahweh commanded something, with another claiming that he commanded precisely the opposite.

Discontinuity Although the question of literary flow is at times significant even in legal passages, discontinuity is most apparent in the narrative portions of the Torah. Yet it should be stressed from the outset that even in narrative, not every digression from the main plotline constitutes evidence of multiple authorship. Literary techniques such as par­en­ thesis, flashback, tangential expansion, internal monologue, simultaneity, summary, recapitulation, editorializing, cross-reference, elaboration, and resumptive repetition (Kuhl 1952; Talmon 1978), which can be found in all literature, are among the recognized hallmarks of biblical prose and do not serve as indications of multiple authorship or strata of redaction. In fact, as the most basic tools of the biblical narrator, they can and should be seen as evidence of literary unity. They embody authorial planning, logic, and intentionality; they can be discerned with common literary-critical tools and their ­function in crafting the story’s form and meaning is apparent to the trained reader. The discontinuities that serve as evidence for the composite nature of the Torah are of an entirely different sort. They are cases in which the thread of narration is first cut off, as if in mid-air, and what follows appears to be unconnected, often contradicting or needlessly repeating what preceded it, reporting another event whose relationship to the first is unclear, drawing on assumptions that are at odds with those of the initial story and incomprehensible as its natural continuation, and then, at some later point in the text, the thread of the first narrative picks up exactly where it left off.

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The Documentary Hypothesis   171 The phenomenon can be illustrated through an attempt to make sense of the account of the plague of blood reported to have struck the Egyptians (Exod 7:14–25; for the ana­ lysis, cf. Greenberg 1972, 65–75). The story begins with Yahweh’s instructions to Moses: And Yahweh said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is heavy; he has refused to let the people go. 15Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is coming out to the water, and station yourself before him at the edge of the Nile, taking with you the rod that turned into a snake. 16Say to him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, “Let My people go that they may worship Me in the wilderness,” but you have paid no heed until now. 17Thus says Yahweh, “By this you shall know that I am Yahweh.” See, I shall strike the water in the Nile with the rod that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood, 18and the fish in the Nile will die. The Nile will stink so that the Egyptians will find it impossible to drink the water of the Nile.’ ” 14

With these instructions given clearly and unambiguously, it stands to reason that the reader will next be informed of their prompt implementation. However, at this point, inexplicably, we are met by another set of instructions, clearly and unambiguously contra­dict­ing the first: And Yahweh said to Moses, “Say to Aaron: Take your rod and hold out your arm over the waters of Egypt—its rivers, its canals, its ponds, all its bodies of water—that they may become blood; there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and stone.” 19

According to these new instructions, Moses is not to confront Pharaoh or to threaten him with the approaching plague. Rather, Aaron is to be ordered to bring about the plague with his own rod, not Moses with his, whereupon not only the water in the Nile but all of the water in Egypt, including that stored in vessels (see Targum Onqelos, Rashi, and ibn Ezra), will become blood. Did Yahweh change his mind? If so, why? If not, what is the purpose of the second set of instructions, and why is it not stated in the text? The Torah passes over these questions in silence. After the two sets of instructions, we read of their implementation: Moses and Aaron did so, just as Yahweh commanded.

21aα1

But Yahweh issued two contradictory commands. Which did they follow? He lifted up the rod and struck the water in the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood, 21aand the fish in the Nile died. The Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. 21aα2–b

How is one to explain the transition from the first part of verse 20, which speaks in the plural of Moses and Aaron, and the remainder, which speaks in the singular (“he lifted up”)? Who is the subject of the second part of the verse, carrying out the instructions? Apparently Moses, because it seems to be the initial instructions, in which he was told to

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172   Baruch J. Schwartz lift his own rod, that are being carried out. The precise phrasing of the initial instructions is even echoed in this report of what transpired. But if so, what of the second instructions? Why were they issued? Furthermore, how did Moses and Aaron know which of the two sets of directives to carry out? The text of the Torah answers none of these questions, but it does state the outcome of the event: The blood was throughout the land of Egypt.

21b

This statement conforms to the second set of instructions, but has nothing to do with the first. If there was indeed blood “throughout the land of Egypt,” exactly as predicted in the second set of instructions, why does the beginning of the verse single out the water in the Nile? Here is a case of discontinuity within a single verse. This problem too is left unaddressed. The Torah describes Pharaoh’s reaction to the plague thus: Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he did not heed them, as Yahweh had spoken.

22b

As set forth in the prologue to the plague story (Exod 7:1–7), Yahweh resolved in advance that, in order to maximize the number of signs and wonders in his impending display of might, he would “harden Pharaoh’s heart” (7:3), that is, embolden him, so that he would overcome his dread (cf. Deut 2:30) and refuse to submit to Moses’s and Aaron’s demand to free the Israelites. As the story develops, and as is repeated in its concluding summary (11:9–10), this intent is carried out to the letter, and the description of Pharaoh’s reaction to the blood here is fully consistent with the plan. Pharaoh becomes over-confident, his impaired judgment inducing him to pay no heed to Moses and Aaron, precisely as was announced in advance and just as he does repeatedly throughout the story (8:15; 9:12, 35; 10:20, 27). However, immediately following this statement, we hear of another response to the plague of blood, first on the part of Pharaoh and then on the part of the populace. Pharaoh turned and went into his palace, paying no regard even to this. 24And all the Egyptians had to dig round about the Nile for drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the Nile.

23

This passage proceeds from the assumption that only in the Nile has the water turned to blood while the water found elsewhere in Egypt has remained potable. The Egyptians therefore dig in surrounding areas, where they indeed find drinking water. As for Pharaoh himself, he is utterly unaffected; he simply returns home where, presumably, he has drinking water stored away or will have it brought to him by his courtiers from locations other than the Nile. This clearly reflects the plague of blood as it was foretold in vv. 17–18 and as it is said to have transpired in vv. 20aα2–21a: only the water in the Nile has turned to blood. But it is quite the opposite of what was announced in v. 19 and described in v. 21b, according to which all of the water in Egypt—including any water

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The Documentary Hypothesis   173 one may have stored away—was turned to blood. Moreover it is incompatible with the preceding v. 22b—yet another example of discontinuity between immediately adjacent verses—since it relates that Pharaoh’s behavior, rather than being the work of Yahweh, is the result of conscious, deliberate, and impeccable reasoning on his own part. Pharaoh here is sovereign, autonomous, and eminently logical; it is he who decides to pay no mind to what has occurred, since there is other potable water nearby and his servants will surely obtain it for him. How can one harmonize these two mutually exclusive reactions to the bloodied waters? The text, again, is silent. Finally, how did the plague of blood finally come to an end? The first answer is implied in what precedes the notice of Pharaoh’s reaction: The Egyptian magicians did the same with their spells.

22a

If Pharaoh’s magicians were able precisely to replicate the action performed by Moses and Aaron, that is, to turn the water to blood, it follows that the blood must have turned back to water in the meantime. The miraculous event was of momentary duration: Moses and Aaron transformed the water to blood; it soon became water again. Afterward, the magicians performed exactly the same feat, and the water again returned to its normal state. This picture is belied, however, by the concluding verse of the passage, which leads directly to the account of the next plague, that of frogs: When seven days had passed after Yahweh struck the Nile…

25

Here it would seem that after a week had elapsed from the moment the Nile—and only the Nile—was turned to blood, the next plague simply commenced, without any specific action being taken to repair the state of the Nile. Evidently the natural flow of the great waterway gradually replaced all the blood with fresh water, and this brought the episode to its close. After a week, all was forgotten, necessitating the infliction of another plague. The contradiction between these two distinct denouements is unmistakable; one or the other may be said to have occurred, but not both. More important, each separate denouement aligns with the assumptions of one or another description of the plague itself. The narrator who confined the blood to the Nile relates that the bloody water was gradually washed away and that meanwhile it was necessary, and possible, to obtain water elsewhere, and the narrator who maintained that all the water in Egypt became undrinkable indicates that the plague lasted only a short while, which is why the Egyptians did not perish of thirst.

Terminology and Style These twelve verses illustrate all of the three phenomena discussed above: repetition, contradiction, and discontinuity. In the course of examining them, a fourth phe­nom­enon surfaces as well: unexplained variations in vocabulary and usage. Two different verbs are

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174   Baruch J. Schwartz used to express what was done with the rod: “stretch out” (‫—נטה‬v. 19) and “lift up” (‫—וירם‬v. 20a1b); two distinct phrases refer to the action of turning the water into blood: “strike” (‫מכה‬, ‫ויך‬, ‫—הכות‬vv. 17, 20a1b, 25) and “do so” (‫—ויעשו כן‬vv. 20a1a, 22); two separate idioms express Pharaoh’s intransigence: his heart was “stiffened” (‫—ויחזק‬v. 22), which means he recklessly imperiled himself and his people, and his heart was “heavy” (‫—כבד‬v. 14), i.e. he willfully refused; two different terms are used for what actually happened to the water: it “turned into” blood (‫ויהפכו‬, ‫—ונהפכו‬vv. 17, 20) and it “became” blood (‫—והיה‬v. 19); there are two different uses of the word ‫יאור‬: to refer to the Nile (vv. 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25) and to refer to any one of an unspecified number of streams or channels (v. 19). These stylistic inconsistencies do not render the text unintelligible as do the others, but their existence calls for explanation.

The Solution The brief but baffling account of the plague of blood was introduced as a convenient means of illustrating the phenomenon of narrative discontinuity, but it has shown itself to exhibit each of the other literary indications of multiple authorship as well: competing, functionally equivalent components; mutually exclusive, contradictory reports of events and seemingly random terminological variation. A closer look at these irreconcilable discrepancies reveals precisely how they have arisen. The explanation emerges when the passages that compete with and contradict each other are viewed in separate columns. First, the two sets of instructions: Yahweh said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is heavy; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is coming out to the water, and station yourself before him at the edge of the Nile, taking with you the rod that turned into a snake. Say to him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, “Let My people go that they may worship Me in the wilderness,” but you have paid no heed until now. Thus says Yahweh, “By this you shall know that I am Yahweh.” See, I shall strike the water in the Nile with the rod that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood, and the fish in the Nile will die. The Nile will stink so that the Egyptians will find it impossible to drink the water of the Nile.’ ”

Yahweh said to Moses, “Say to Aaron: Take your rod and hold out your arm over the waters of Egypt—its rivers, its canals, its ponds, all its bodies of water—so that they may become blood; there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and stone.”

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The Documentary Hypothesis   175 On one side, in roman, we have Moses alone, who is told to threaten Pharaoh that he will strike the Nile only, with his own rod, and to accuse him of having paid no heed thus far. On the other side, in italics, we have Moses and Aaron, who are told to issue no threat but simply to act, using Aaron’s rod and affecting Egypt’s entire water supply. Next, the two reports of the implementation of the instructions: He lifted up the rod and struck the water in the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood, and the fish in the Nile died. The Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile.

Moses and Aaron did just as Yahweh commanded. The blood was throughout the land of Egypt.

It is immediately apparent that the roman section not only corresponds to the roman section that precedes it; it is in fact its direct continuation. Moses lifts his rod and strikes the Nile only—note the verbal correspondences between command and fulfillment. And the same is true on the italic side: the implementation section is the direct continuation of the command section, echoing it fully. Placing side by side the two competing reports of Pharaoh’s reaction to the blood and of the eventual outcome of the episode, we obtain identical results: Pharaoh turned and went into his palace, paying no regard even to this. And the Egyptians had to dig round about the Nile for drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the Nile. When seven days had passed after Yahweh struck the Nile…

The Egyptian magicians did the same with their spells. Pharaoh's heart stiffened and he did not heed them—as Yahweh had spoken.

On the roman side, where Pharaoh is said simply to have withdrawn to his palace and both he and his subjects obtain water from sources other than the Nile, after which the plague gradually disappears, the text is without any doubt the direct sequel to the two roman sections preceding. On the italic side as well, where the magicians replicate Yahweh’s ominous act but Pharaoh is unable to respond rationally because Yahweh has instilled him with false courage, the words of the text follow directly upon the preceding italic section.

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176   Baruch J. Schwartz The moment the competing and contradicting passages are disentangled in their entirety, we have before us not one but two self-contained narratives: Yahweh said to Moses, “Pharaoh is stubborn; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is coming out to the water, and station yourself before him at the edge of the Nile, taking with you the rod that turned into a snake. Say to him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, “Let My people go that they may worship Me in the wilderness,” but you have paid no heed until now. Thus says Yahweh, “By this you shall know that I am Yahweh.” See, I shall strike the water in the Nile with the rod that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood, and the fish in the Nile will die. The Nile will stink so that the Egyptians will find it impossible to drink the water of the Nile.’ ” He lifted up the rod and struck the water in the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood, and the fish in the Nile died. The Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. Pharaoh turned and went into his palace, paying no regard even to this. And all the Egyptians had to dig round about the Nile for drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the Nile. When seven days had passed after Yahweh struck the Nile…

Yahweh said to Moses, “Say to Aaron: Take your rod and hold out your arm over the waters of Egypt—its rivers, its canals, its ponds, all its bodies of water—that they may become blood; there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and stone.” Moses and Aaron did just as Yahweh commanded; the blood was throughout the land of Egypt. The Egyptian magicians did the same with their spells. Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he did not heed them, as Yahweh had spoken.

Each of the two is a complete, continuous, internally consistent and literarily smooth account. Each is also consistent in its style and usage. While both tell of the miraculous transformation of the water to blood in the course of Moses’s confrontation with Pharaoh, and are therefore essentially two accounts of a single event, they differ greatly, not only in their form but in the specifics of the occurrences that they relate and in their theological and thematic content as well. The conclusion is inescapable. The reason the account of the blood appearing in the canonical Torah is rife with contradictions, redundancies, and discontinuities is that it is

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The Documentary Hypothesis   177 in fact a combination of two accounts, a passage compiled from two texts that were ­ori­gin­al­ly independent and were ultimately fused into one—in the following manner: Yahweh said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is heavy; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is coming out to the water, and station yourself before him at the edge of the Nile, taking with you the rod that turned into a snake. 16Say to him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, “Let My people go that they may worship Me in the wilderness,” but you have paid no heed until now. 17Thus says Yahweh, “By this you shall know that I am Yahweh.” See, I shall strike the water in the Nile with the rod that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood; 18and the fish in the Nile will die. The Nile will stink so that the Egyptians will find it impossible to drink the water of the Nile.’ ” 19Yahweh said to Moses, “Say to Aaron: Take your rod and hold out your arm over the waters of Egypt—its rivers, its canals, its ponds, all its bodies of water—that they may become blood; there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and stone.” 20Moses and Aaron did just as Yahweh commanded; he lifted up the rod and struck the water in the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood, 21and the fish in the Nile died. The Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. The blood was throughout the land of Egypt. 22 But when the Egyptian magicians did the same with their spells, Pharaoh’s heart stiffened and he did not heed them, as Yahweh had spoken. 23Pharaoh turned and went into his palace, paying no regard even to this. 24And all the Egyptians had to dig round about the Nile for drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the Nile. 25When seven days had passed after Yahweh struck the Nile… 14 15

The two have been woven together meticulously, strictly according to the dictates of chronology and logic. For instance, not only are the two sets of instructions placed first and only thereafter the two accounts of their implementation, the instructions that include the order that Moses “go to Pharaoh” and announce the impending plague before its onset precede those that begin with the command to instruct Aaron to perform the act immediately. Most important, it appears that the compiled text rigidly preserves all of the words of each of the two accounts, in their original order, and without addition.

The Documentary Hypothesis The results of this analysis of the account of the plague of blood are not the exception but the rule. When the same method is applied throughout the narrative portion of the Torah, time and again similar results are obtained. Whether within relatively brief passages such as this one or in passages extending over many chapters, it repeatedly becomes clear that independent narrative texts—not oral traditions, but complete written documents—have intentionally and ingeniously been woven together. This discovery is the key to understanding how the Torah was compiled, for pursuant to these

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178   Baruch J. Schwartz findings it emerges that the same narrative threads are present over the course of the entire Torah; that is, the threads that may be detected within a given passage are in fact the continuations of threads that are already intertwined prior to it. Each of the two accounts of the plague of blood, to return to the example presented above, is the continuation of a narrative thread that earlier told of the enslavement and oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, each of which in turn continues a narrative thread that recounted the descent of Jacob and his family into Egypt. Each of these is the continuation of one of the threads discernible in the accounts of creation, the flood, the lives of the patriarchs, and the exploits of Jacob and his children. After telling its version of the plague of blood, each thread continues immediately to tell of the remaining plagues inflicted on the Egyptians, each according to its own version of the story, and each of these in turn continues with its own account of the exodus from Egypt, the miracle at the sea, and the journey through the wilderness. These narrative threads thus once constituted separate, con­ tinu­ous, and coherent literary sources, which were subsequently combined, from beginning to end, in the way demonstrated by the brief example above: by painstakingly alternating from one document to another, faithfully preserving the precise text and order of each source to the fullest extent achievable, and with as little interference on the part of the compiler as possible. While the text examined above resolved itself into precisely two narrative threads, the total number of sources interwoven throughout the Torah is not two or even three but four. Not all four are detectable at every point in the Torah, however, because the four sources do not relate all of the same events. A large number of events are told by one source only (e.g. the Tower of Babel, Gen 11:1–9, from J; the near-sacrifice of Isaac, Gen 22:1–13, from E; the building of the tabernacle, Exod 35–40, from P); when this is the case, the passage appearing in the Torah is remarkably coherent, free of internal contradiction, redundancy, and discontinuity. This is not surprising, since it is composed entirely of the words of a single narrator. Other events, described by two of the four sources, result either in doublets or in unintelligible passages like the one above, in which two differing accounts of a single event have been combined and in which literary chaos consequently reigns. There are also instances in which accounts from three of the sources have been combined in a single passage. These, however, are rare, since relatively few events are related by more than two of the Torah’s sources. The lengthier the section of text being examined, the more likely it is that a third source will eventually come into view. There are almost no passages that include all four sources, for the simple reason that one source, unlike the other three, does not appear intermittently throughout the Torah but is entirely contiguous, introduced in its entirety near the end of the other three interwoven threads, as we shall see. This realization enables us to formulate a host of other questions. What is the nature of these four sources? When did they come into existence, and who created them? Exactly how, when, and why were they combined? Biblical scholarship has devoted itself to the study of these issues since they first presented themselves. The discovery of the precise number of sources—four, their disentanglement from one another and the concomitant reconstruction of each source or what remains of it, the appreciation of the

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The Documentary Hypothesis   179 unique version of Israel’s pre-history told by each one, and the characterization of each source’s unique content, language, worldview, and historical background has been a complex process. It began toward the end of the eighteenth century, reached a peak at the end of the nineteenth, and became increasingly refined in the first half of the twentieth. The stages of this process and its central findings and accomplishments have been studied by many scholars and have been presented in great detail numerous times, and for that reason we will not review them again here (see Nicholson 1998; Arnold 2003; Baker 2003). Nevertheless, two factors that played a central role in the discovery process do require elaboration. The first is the question of the use of the name Yahweh, the tetragrammaton, to refer to the Israelite deity. As noted, according to one entire group of narratives in the Torah, the name Yahweh was known to all of humankind from the very beginning of time, while according to another group of narratives, it was revealed only in the time of Moses, and even then, at first, only to the Israelites. When, with the advent of modern scholarship, it was first suggested that the texts in each of the two groups combine to form separate narrative sequences (Astruc 1753), this was one of the first in­tim­ ations that the Torah in its entirety might have been compiled from preexisting literary sources of considerable scope and completeness. But biblical scholarship did not arrive at this conclusion in one leap. At first, critics assumed that since the Torah reflects two opposing views regarding the tetragrammaton, the Torah must be comprised of two sources, one “Yahwistic,” after its widespread use of the name Yahweh when referring to Israel’s deity, and thus designated by scholars as “J” in keeping with the German spelling “Jahwe,” and one “Elohistic” for its use of the general term for God, Elohim, when relating events that occurred, according to this source’s reconstruction of history, before the name Yahweh was disclosed, and designated in scholarship as “E.” Only much later was it realized that while the Yahwistic stories do indeed merge into what appears to have been a generally coherent, sequential narrative, all of the rest, the narratives that refrain from using the tetragrammaton before the time of Moses and their logical sequels that continue the same plot lines, still exhibit the features that indicate multiple authorship: redundancies (most notably two separate accounts of the revelation of the name Yahweh to Moses! Exod 3:11–15; 6:2–9), contradictions, discontinuities, and stylistic and conceptual inconsistencies beyond what would be expected in a work by a single author. Only at this stage was it discovered that the many passages initially classified as E actually comprise two interwoven narrative threads, one of them long, exquisitely structured, intricately detailed, and literarily and conceptually consistent beyond any other narrative source in the Bible, and the other modest in its scope, fragmentary in several places, and literarily and conceptually less complex (see Seidel 1993; Baden 2009, 11–19). One cannot overestimate the importance of this discovery: it enabled scholarship to recognize the existence of the three separate narrative sources that compose the greater part of Torah, three sources distinct from one another in numerous and readily apparent ways. This discovery also led to the realization that the fact that two of the sources share a single historical assumption with regard to the revelation of the tetragrammaton was essentially a coincidence of minor import. The disclosure of the name Yahweh, for all its significance, is not the central question on which the sources differ with one another;

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180   Baruch J. Schwartz indeed very few of the differences between the sources stem from this issue. Still, this feature was canonized in scholarly terminology, and to this day biblical scholarship has retained the designations J and E. For a time, the two seemingly Elohistic sources were even designated as E1 and E2, but this classification fell out of favor, as the larger, more structured and consistent of the two (E1) began increasingly to be viewed as a sort of infrastructure for the other sources. It was hypothesized that this source, so broad in its scope and so detailed in all its particulars—including a precise and consistent chron­ology—must have served as the Torah’s framework, a literary receptacle into which the other sources were inserted. In keeping with the evolutionary approach to historical phenomena that dominated the humanities during the period that these discoveries were made, many claimed—with a certain naiveté, as it turned out—that this was also the most ancient of the four sources. It was therefore termed the Grundschrift or Foundational Text, and it received the designation G (Ewald 1831)—but this too was not to last. The role played by the Torah’s legal passages in the process of identifying the sources was no less important than that played by its narratives. In fact, even before biblical scholarship discovered that the narrative portion of the Torah was woven from separate threads that can be disentangled, earlier critics had noted that the legislation in the Torah readily divides into distinct, self-contained legal corpora. When the Enlightenment dawned in Western Europe and commentators began to abandon midrashic, homiletic, and allegorical methods of reconciling the interminable discrepancies between one law in the Torah and another, they realized that when each text is taken at its word rather than being forced into artificial harmony with the others, these inconsistencies indicate that each legal corpus is the work of a different legislator. Here too, owing to the impact of the newly ascendant historical sciences, the differences between the separate legal codes were viewed as evidence of different stages in ancient Israel’s legal and cultic development. It became only natural to regard each code of legislation as a link in the chain of historical progress in Israelite belief and religious practice. The attempt to reconstruct the history of ancient Israelite religion by comparing and contrasting the different codes of law in the Torah was originally undertaken completely apart from the dissection of the threads that comprise the Torah’s narrative. For the most part, attention was initially focused on the laws of the Sabbath and festivals, as well as those of the sacrificial cult, the temple, and the priesthood, both because commands pertaining to these matters appear in each of the codes, providing an abundance of material for comparison, and because the development of these laws, which deal with the main practical manifestations of Israel’s religious faith, were thought to provide the best indication of the development of Israel’s faith itself. A truly epoch-making finding in this connection concerned the unique character of the corpus of laws appearing within the framework of Moses’s parting orations, all of which are contained in the canonical book of Deuteronomy (Deut 12–26). The dis­tinct­ ive character of these laws enabled early critics to posit with rare unanimity that at least the greater part of the book of Deuteronomy constitutes an independent literary source and is not the continuation of the four preceding books. A number of unique

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The Documentary Hypothesis   181 characteristics typify this “Deuteronomic” law code. Its quintessential feature is the repeated demand to centralize Israel’s religious life, as well as aspects of its monarchic regime and the administration of justice, around a sacrificial cult practiced in a single, central temple—“the site that Yahweh will choose,” in the language of Deuteronomy (Deut 12:5 and passim)—and utterly to eradicate all localized places of worship, along with anything that might facilitate the practice of sacrificial worship “inside your gates” (Deut 12:17, et al.), which Deuteronomy’s law code views as tantamount to idolatry (Deut 11:31–12:8, 29–13:1). To this unique characteristic of Deuteronomy may be added two more. Firstly, of all the law codes in the Torah, only the code appearing in Deuteronomy is said to have been written down in the form of a sēfer or “book,” that is, a scroll, to be transmitted for use by later generations; secondly, only in Deuteronomy is there any mention of such a thing as sēfer ha-tôrâ—“the scroll of the torah,” which is the term used by Deuteronomy to refer to the book in which the laws were written (Deut 28:61; 29:20; 30:10; 31:24, 26; see Haran 2003, 35). These realizations regarding Deuteronomy inevitably led scholars to address the question of a possible connection between the Deuteronomic legislation and the events reported to have taken place during the reign of King Josiah of Judah. According to the account in the book of Kings (2 Kgs 22–23), in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, 622 bce, a scroll referred to as “the scroll of the torah” was found in the house of Yahweh— the Jerusalem temple—the contents of which impelled Josiah immediately to initiate a comprehensive religious reform throughout the entire kingdom of Judah. The main objective of the reform, implemented by royal decree, was to rid Judah of all local cultic installations, repeatedly referred to in the book of Kings as the “high places”—‫—במות‬ along with their cultic functionaries and furnishings, and to centralize the worship of Yahweh, thoroughly cleansed of all foreign influences, in the Jerusalem temple. The fact that the three components of Josiah’s reform—a long-lost scroll of legislation said to be from the time of Moses suddenly discovered in the temple, the name of this scroll, sēfer ha-tôrâ, and the nature of the religious reform carried out in accordance with its contents, namely the purification of worship and its centralization in the royal temple city— correspond fully to the three outstanding characteristics of the Deuteronomic law code cannot be mere coincidence. Already in late antiquity, a few of the church fathers held the opinion that the scroll found in the temple during the reign of Josiah was none other than the book of Deuteronomy. In the Middle Ages, an anonymous Jewish commentator whose commentary on Chronicles came erroneously to be attributed to Rashi arrived at the same conclusion (Viezel 2007). These early speculations were forgotten over time, however, and only in 1805 did the German scholar Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette raise the possibility anew. De Wette went beyond his premodern predecessors, arriving at the inescapable historical implication of their suggestion, so inconceivable to them, namely that the scroll of Torah said to have been found in the temple during the reign of Josiah was in fact written at that time, in order to provide Mosaic—i.e. divine— authority for the religious reform undertaken by Josiah and his followers. The distinctive character of the Deuteronomic source, which was thenceforth labeled “D” even though its contents do not comprise the whole of the book of Deuteronomy,

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182   Baruch J. Schwartz was thus first recognized in its unique laws, specifically its cultic legislation. This new awareness led directly to an appreciation of the decisive role that this document played in Israelite history, as the “scroll of torah” whose provisions the religious reform undertaken in the latter days of the kingdom of Judah sought to implement. These findings soon became axiomatic within critical scholarship. For over two centuries they have served as the basis for dating the other documents of the Torah and other biblical texts as well, and they remain the starting point for all discussion of the history of Israelite religion and the literary components of the Torah. The second corpus of legislation whose unique character became apparent in the early days of biblical criticism, once again independently of the analysis of the narrative portion of the Torah, is the detailed series of commands occupying most of the central portion of the Torah and said to have been communicated orally to Moses in the tabernacle during the Israelites’ stay at Mount Sinai and thereafter. These laws deal at length and in precise detail with the sacrificial cult, the tabernacle and its accoutrements, the uninterrupted regimen of statutory worship conducted within its confines, the types of ritual impurity and the means of their eradication, permitted and forbidden foods, priests, Levites, and their respective functions, the Sabbath and festivals, the Sabbatical Year, the Jubilee, and related topics. Moreover even those laws said to have been given to Moses in the tabernacle and appearing to address secular issues such as sexual behavior, slavery, theft, jurisprudence, land tenure, and homicide do so from a decidedly sacral perspective, viewing all such matters through the lens of their impact on the cult and ritual purity. It became self-evident that this corpus of legislation, all of which displays a unique and readily identifiable style and all of whose provisions express a cult-focused ideology, is the work of a priestly school of scribal activity, most likely the priesthood of the Jerusalem temple. Scholarly recognition of the priestly provenance of this legislation began to coalesce well before its place among the narrative threads was recognized, and it was unanimously assigned the title Priesterkodex or “Priestly Code.” Classical pentateuchal criticism reached its maturity when it finally arrived at an appreciation of the nature of the relationship between the separate legal corpora contained in the Torah and the independent threads interwoven in the narrative. This awareness too proceeded in stages. Early critics, heavily influenced both by the specific evolutionary model of Israel’s religious history prevalent at the time and by the dom­in­ ant Protestant theology widespread among so many of them, assumed that the relationship between law and narrative is a chronological one. It seemed obvious that the authentic, ancient biblical tradition must have consisted of the tales of the Israelites and their ancestors, while the interminable lists of commandments, laws, and statutes presumably reflected a later development, wherein Israel’s natural, popular faith was transformed into an orderly, established religion, decaying into a pedantic, “Jewish” legalism (Baden 2009, 19–43). This bipartite classification of the Torah literature became un­ten­ able, however, when it was realized that the Priestly law code was of a single piece with the detailed narrative thread then known as G. For once these two components had been discerned and isolated, it was impossible to ignore the thoroughgoing literary cor­ rel­ation between the two. Everything in the “G” narrative, from the first creation story

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The Documentary Hypothesis   183 on, is directed toward the erection of the tabernacle in the wilderness, the establishment of the sacrificial cult of Yahweh practiced therein, and the series of meetings between Yahweh and Moses that took place there, in the course of which all of Yahweh’s commands—the contents of the Priestly Code, all focused on the worship of Yahweh in the tabernacle and prescribing the measures needed to ensure his continued presence in his earthly abode—were imparted to Moses. A single literary style, a single terminology, a single religious outlook, a single chronology, and a single set of concepts and historical assumptions characterize both the continuous “G” narrative and the corpus of “Priestly” legislation, and the legislation is smoothly and flawlessly incorporated within G’s narrative thread. Once it was acknowledged that a single literary source clearly contained both a complete, sustained narrative thread and a detailed, comprehensive corpus of laws, it became impossible to uphold the theory of an “original,” early narrative to which the laws were a late accretion. Moreover, the two components not only exist side by side within a single literary source; they are entirely interdependent. The Priestly legislation is part of the historical narrative of G, while G’s narrative exists for the sake of the laws it relates and for their sake alone. The designations E1 and G were thus consigned to the dustbin of history, and scholars came to refer to this literary source as a whole—with both its components, the narrative and the laws, comprising one continuous strand—as the Priestly document, or P. It also became apparent that the basic format observable in the Priestly document, that of a continuous historical narrative containing a legal corpus, is observable in the other sources as well. Like P, each of the two non-priestly narrative strands, one of which retained its original designation, J, and the other called simply E (the designation E2 having become superfluous as E1 came to be known first as G and finally as P), tells of the patriarchs and their descendants, of the oppression in Egypt and the Exodus. Similarly, each narrative, again like P, goes on to tell of a defining, transformational encounter with Yahweh that occurred shortly after the Exodus at the foot of a certain mountain in the wilderness—Mount Sinai in J, Mount Horeb in E—at which time Yahweh made a cov­en­ ant with the Israelite people, stipulating its terms in the form of laws and commandments imparted to them through the agency of Moses. When each of these two narratives arrives, in the course of its account, at the moment at which Yahweh actually speaks his laws to Moses, it provides, just as P does, its own version of the laws themselves, one self-contained legal corpus appearing in each of the two narratives. Finally, just as with P, internal connections between the narrative and the code of laws in both J and E seem to indicate that in both cases, the two components, narrative and law, are authentic and integral parts of a single literary work. The narrative threads in these three sources, J, E, and P, after alternating and intersect­ing throughout the entire length of the Torah, ultimately reach the period toward the end of Moses’s lifetime when, after years of journeying in the wilderness, the Israelites are finally encamped on the Jordan in preparation for their conquest of Canaan. At this point, and before the events of Moses’s final days and his death in Moab are recounted, J, E, and P break off, and the fourth literary source appears. This source—D, the existence of which was originally established, as explained above, through its distinctive laws—also

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184   Baruch J. Schwartz consists of two elements, a self-contained code of legislation and a narrative expressly designed to provide a historical context for the laws. The main narrative of D is actually very brief. It reports only that shortly before his death, Moses assembled the Israelites, delivered to them a series of parting orations, committed them to writing, and entrusted “this scroll of the torah” (Deut 31:26) to “the priests, sons of Levi” (v. 9)—after which he took his leave of them and died. Almost all of the rest of D consists of the orations themselves, presented verbatim as the direct speech of Moses. These discourses are often referred to as historical surveys, but this is not strictly the case. While Moses does make frequent reference to past events, the orations attributed to him in D are essentially words of reproach and castigation, exhortation and encouragement, blessing and curse. No comprehensive and continuous historical account of the patriarchal period and the Exodus, analogous to those found in J, E, and P, can be detected, nor does D’s conception of Moses’s parting words call for one. Just as the laws are the raison d’être of the narrative in the other sources, so too in D; the entire function of the orations is to impress upon the listener the dire necessity of adhering to all the commands of the torah contained within them. Thus, D’s code of laws on the one hand, and the rhetorical setting in which it is presented, together with the external narrative framework, on the other, comprise a single literary unity; the Deuteronomic source is inconceivable without its two inter­ related, interacting components. We noted above that the most glaring contradictions in the Torah occur in the account of the lawgiving and in the specific provisions of the laws themselves. The Torah presents four different stories, each of which professes to provide the sole and exclusive account of the events surrounding the promulgation of Yahweh’s commands to Israel, and each of which ignores and contradicts the other three. The Torah also contains four bodies of legislation, each of which is an inseparable part of one of these four stories, each of which claims to be the sole and unique formulation of Yahweh’s commands given to Israel through Moses, and each of which ignores and contradicts the other three. The moment the literary problem of the Torah is formulated in this manner, it becomes evident that the problem holds the key to its own solution. The number of independent narrative threads that make up the Torah is equal to the number of law codes it contains—four—with each narrative thread containing its own independent code of legislation. The problem of the composition of the Torah is thus solved comprehensively and economically. The theory that gradually evolved in biblical scholarship on the basis of all of the above is that the canonical Torah is a compilation of four literary sources. The three sources with lengthy narrative portions, J, E, and P, each of which tells its own version of Israel’s prehistory from its origins until the death of Moses, and each of which includes the laws that, in its view, Israel was commanded to obey, appear first, interwoven strictly according to chronological lines from the beginning of the Torah until the end of Numbers. Near the end of this composition, the fourth source, D, is inserted—in its entirety, since D’s frame narrative begins just prior to the end of Moses’s life and tells only of his parting convocation of the Israelites and of his valedictory addresses to them, one of which contains the Deuteronomic code of laws. Following this, the three other

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The Documentary Hypothesis   185 sources resurface, intertwined and alternating as before, and reach their accounts of Moses’s final actions and his death, and with this the Torah concludes. When the four interwoven threads are disentangled and considered separately, all of them exhibit—albeit to varying degrees—remarkable narrative contiguity, legislative completeness, and internal consistency. It is readily apparent that each was, at least ori­ gin­al­ly, a work of considerable scope, having its own distinctive structure, historical content, religious and conceptual outlook, and style. It is equally apparent that the combination of these four sources was undertaken with the express aim of preserving intact the precise verbal form of each one to the greatest extent possible and intervening— altering, adding, deleting, or rearranging (see Baden  2010)—only when absolutely unavoidable. This theory is known as the Documentary Hypothesis. The term “documentary” is intended to convey that the Torah was created through the amalgamation of independent written texts, each of which was already a complete and self-contained work, a ­document, by the time it was incorporated in the Torah. Each document, the theory claims, already included both an account of the prehistory of Israel and a version of Yahweh’s laws. The term “documentary” is also employed to the exclusion of competing hy­poth­eses offered before and even after this one was formulated. It implies that the Torah is neither an anthology of oral traditions nor a patchwork of unrelated written passages sewn together associatively. Nor is it a collection of fragments of lore and information assembled either randomly or by design. The theory of interwoven documents rejects as well the idea that there was once an “original” Torah into which other texts were interpolated or to which they were appended, and it similarly denies that the Torah underwent a long and gradual process of editorial stratification. It also diverges entirely from the notion that the Torah is a systematic reworking of existing texts, be they few or many, in order to stamp the whole with a consistent ideological or theological imprint. The Documentary Hypothesis proffers an alternative explanation to all of the above, claiming that the Torah was compiled from three preexisting, written narrative works which extend throughout its entire length, and a fourth preexisting, written narrative work inserted near the end of the composition, and it seeks to demonstrate that in this conception lies the resolution of the contradictions, redundancies, discontinuities, and differences of terminology, style, and outlook that make the canonical Torah unintelligible.

Suggested Reading Baden, J. S. 2012. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. New Haven: Yale University Press. Baden, J. S. 2013. The Promise to the Patriarchs. Oxford: University Press. Campbell, A. F. and O’Brien, M. A. 1993. Sources of the Pentateuch. Minneapolis: Fortress. Friedman, R. E. 1992. “Torah (Pentateuch),” ABD 6:605–621. Friedman, R. E. 2003. The Bible With Sources Revealed. San Francisco: Harper. Friedman, R. E. and Dolansky Overton, S. 2007. “Pentateuch,” EJ2 15:730–751.

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186   Baruch J. Schwartz Rofé, A. 1999. Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Rogerson, J. W. 1985. Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany. London: SPCK. Schwartz, B.J. 2011. “Does Recent Scholarship’s Critique of the Documentary Hypothesis Constitute Grounds for its Rejection?” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman et al., 3–16. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schwartz, B.  J. 2016. “The Pentateuchal Sources and the Former Prophets: A NeoDocumentarian’s Perspective.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Discourses of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz, et. al., 783–793. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Stackert, J. 2014. A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion. Oxford: University Press. Yoreh, T. L. 2010. The First Book of God. BZAW 402. New York: De Gruyter.

Works Cited Arnold, W. T. 2003. “Pentateuchal Criticism, History of.” In Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, edited by T.  D.  Alexander and D.  W.  Baker, 622–631. Downers Grove: InterVarsity. Astruc, J. 1753. Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il paroit que Moyse s’est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse: Avec des remarques qui appuient ou qui éclaircissent ces ­conjectures. Brussels: Fricx. Baden, J. S. 2009. J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch. FAT 68. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Baden, J. S. 2010. “The Original Place of the Priestly Manna Story in Exodus 16.” ZAW 122: 491–504. Baker, D. W. 2003. “Source Criticism.” In Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, edited by T. D. Alexander and D. W. Baker, 798–805. Downers Grove: InterVarsity. Chavel, S. 2011. “The Literary Development of Deuteronomy 12: Between Religious Ideal and Social Reality.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman, et al., 303–326. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Ewald, H. 1831. “Review of J.  Stähelin, Kritische Untersuchungen über die Genesis.” TSK 4:596–606. Greenberg, M. 1972. “Narrative and Redactional Art in the Plagues Pericope (Exod 7–11).” In Bible and Jewish History, edited by B.  Uffenheimer, 65–75. Tel Aviv: University Press (Hebrew). Haran, M. 2003. The Biblical Collection. Vol. 2. Jerusalem: Magnes (Hebrew). Kuhl, C. 1952. “Die Wiederaufnahme: Ein literarkritisches Prinzip?” ZAW 64: 1–11. Nelson, R. D. 2002. Deuteronomy: A Commentary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Nicholson, E. 1998. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Paran, M. 1989. The Forms of the Priestly Style in the Pentateuch: Patterns, Linguistic Usages, Syntactic Structures. Jerusalem: Magnes (Hebrew). Schwartz, B.  J. 1996a. “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai.” In Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, edited by M. V. Fox et al., 103–134. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

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The Documentary Hypothesis   187 Schwartz, B. J. 1996b. “ ‘Profane’ Slaughter and the Integrity of the Priestly Code.” HUCA 67: 15–42. Schwartz, B. J. 2007. “The Flood Narratives in the Torah and the Question of Where History Begins.” In Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Language, edited by M. Bar Asher et al., 139–154. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute (Hebrew). Schwartz, B.  J. 2012. “How the Compiler of the Pentateuch Worked: The Composition of Genesis 37.” In The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, edited by C. A. Evans et al., 263–278. Leiden: Brill. Seidel, B. 1993. Karl David Ilgen und die Pentateuchforschung im Umkreis der sogenannten älteren Urkundenhypothese: Studien zur Geschichte der exegetischen Hermeneutik in der Späten Aufklärung. Berlin: de Gruyter. Talmon, S. 1978. “The Presentation of Synchroneity and Simultaneity in Biblical Narrative.” In Studies in Hebrew Narrative Art Throughout the Ages, edited by J. Heinemann and S. Werses, 9–26. Jerusalem: Magnes. Viezel, E. 2007. “A Medieval Jewish Precedent for De Wette: The Scroll Found by Hilkiah in the Temple in Pseudo-Rashi's Commentary on Chronicles.” SHNATON 17: 103–112 (Hebrew). Vogt, P. T. 2006. Deuteronomic Theology and the Significance of Torah: A Reappraisal. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Weinfeld, M. 1969. “Theological Currents in Pentateuchal Literature.” PAAJR 37: 117–139. Weinfeld, M. 1991. Deuteronomy 1–11. AB 5. New York: Doubleday.

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Chapter 11

For m a n d Tr a dition Cr iticism Thomas B. Dozeman

The methods of form and tradition criticism emerged from the new Documentary Hypothesis that was solidified at the end of the nineteenth century. In the new Documentary Hypothesis, Wellhausen synthesized nearly two centuries of research on the composition of the Pentateuch. The focus during this period was on authors and lit­ era­ture. The separation of the sources, J, E, D, and P, clarified the different literary com­ positions, allowing for the identification of the source authors with their distinct concepts of religion. Wellhausen idealized the earliest authors, J and E, who wrote dur­ ing the monarchic period. These authors represented the most dynamic form of ancient Israelite religion, when worship was tied to agriculture and free of legal restrictions. Wellhausen did not incorporate the role of oral tradition in his analysis of the source documents. Although he acknowledged oral tradition as a potentially dynamic force, he proceeded in his research as though the act of writing was the origin of a source document. A new generation of scholars sought an even earlier stage of Israelite religion than that represented by the authors of the sources J and E. The researchers named their new quest the history of religions school, and they would expand the significance of oral trad­ition and qualify the creative role of literary authors that was assumed in the new documentary hypothesis. The discovery of mythological and legal texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt provided a new window onto the influence of ancient cultures on the Pentateuch; it suggested that the stories of creation and the ancestors were older than their written versions in the sources. As a consequence, scholars working in the history of religions school wished to push the study of ancient Israelite religion further back in time by recovering the oral stories and the tradents who preserved and handed them on. The assumption was that Israelite religion took shape through ancient oral sto­ ries, whose meaning arose from the concrete life experience of the Israelite ancestors and tribes. The proximity of the lived experience of the storytellers to the oral stories

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Form and Tradition Criticism   189 represented an even more dynamic form of religion than that which was represented by the authors of the written sources. The tradents of oral tradition were judged to be the real shapers of the tradition of the Pentateuch, long before the source authors ever wrote their compositions. This chapter will trace the influence of the history of religions school on the in­ter­pret­ ation of the Pentateuch in two important areas of research: (1) the identification of indi­ vidual oral stories in form criticism; and (2) the attempt to trace the formation of oral stories into larger collections in tradition history. It will also discuss the main method­ ological issues raised by the various approaches surveyed in this chapter.

Form Criticism The emergence of form criticism in the study of the Pentateuch is closely associated with the career of Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932). Gunkel wrote his 1888 dissertation on the New Testament at the University of Göttingen, the same university where Wellhausen taught at the end of his career. The topic of research was the popular view of the work of Holy Spirit in the earliest period of the church. The emphasis on the psychological effects of the Holy Spirit foreshadowed a lifelong interest in uncovering the immediate power of religion in the lived experience of ancient people.

Comparative Mythology and Oral Tradition Gunkel’s first book on the Pentateuch, Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton (1895) compared the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish to Gen 1 and Rev 12. The discovery of the Babylonian myth, in which creation was described as a conflict with the primordial water-­dragon Tiamat, provided a window into p ­ re-­Israelite trad­ ition. The influence of the myth in the Hebrew Bible was evident in the sea monster Rahab (Isa 51:9); the dragon Leviathan (Ps 74:14); the beast Behemoth (Job 40); and the watery deep Tehom (Job 41:25). Gunkel identified similar motifs from the Babylonian creation myth in Gen 1, including the presence of darkness before creation; the brooding spirit; the watery deep Tehom; the rule of luminaries; and the structure of seven days. The different forms of the motif of the sea monster indicated that the Babylonian myth informed the Hebrew Bible in general and Gen 1 in particular. But there were also differences. Gunkel noted, for example, a tendency in Israelite tradition to subordinate the motif of the dragon to the sea, which for him argued against direct literary dependency (Gunkel 2006, 74). This was also the case with Gen 1: it reflected the astral religion of the Babylonian myth and shared a similar view of the earth bringing forth plants and trees. Yet Gen 1 departed in many ways from the Babylonian account of creation: it too subordinated the dragon to the sea, and it emphasized creation by divine word. Gunkel

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190   Thomas B. Dozeman favored the indirect influence of the Babylonian myth on Gen 1. He suggested that ­isolated features of the myth became part of the long history of religions in the ancient Near East and that they infiltrated Israelite tradition through oral transmission, as “echoes” of the original mythology. The vast age of the oral tradition, with its many transformations in the history of religions, allowed for the persistence of motifs from the Babylonian myth and the variety of interpretations that were evident in the Hebrew Bible. The hypothesis of a dynamic and creative oral tradition in ancient Israel revolution­ ized the source-­critical interpretation of the Pentateuch. Wellhausen had limited the study of Gen 1 to the literature of the Hebrew Bible and focused in particular on its com­ position, especially the isolation of its language from other texts in the Hebrew Bible. Examples from Gen 1:1 to 1:6 included the phrase “in the beginning,” the verb “to create,” the unique expression “formless void,” the additional verb “to divide,” and the cosmo­ logical term “firmament.” The use of this unique language was attributed to the author; it provided a basis for identifying Gen 1 as a late, postexilic composition by the priestly author. The appearance of similar terms in Second Isaiah reinforced the notion that Gen 1 was a late composition (Wellhausen 1957, 386–391). The broader study of comparative literature led Gunkel to a radically different conclusion. He no longer focused on the creativity of the author or even on the literary composition of Gen 1. Instead, the creative formation of Gen 1 took place in its pre-­literary development. He wrote: “Genesis 1 is not the composition of an author, but rather the written deposit of a tradition” that goes back to Babylon (Gunkel 2006, 11–12). Thus, for Gunkel, Gen 1 could not be interpreted properly without first recovering the oral tradition.

Recovery of Oral Stories Gunkel turned his attention more directly to the recovery of the oral stories of the Pentateuch in his commentary on Genesis (originally published in German in 1901, 3rd ed 1910). But he lacked a methodology. Source critics had identified distinct authors on the basis of repetitions in the literature, but no one had yet sought to recover oral stories from the larger literary documents. Gunkel was aided in this task by the similar quest to recover the oral history of German literature. Literary theorists, such as Wilhelm Scherer (1841–66), provided guidelines for recovering the “spirit” (Geist) of the German people in the history of their literature. Central to the theory was the belief that early oral stories arose organically from shared communal experience; they were not the result of individual creativity. The form (or genre) of oral stories tended to be simple in structure and short in length; they became more complex in form as the communal nature of society changed, giving way to individual achievement associated with literary authors. The theory resulted in a view of the history of literature, as a development from simple oral stories to complex literary compositions. The goal of the interpreter of the history of German literature was to recover the oral stories in order to participate in the same communal experience as the original story­ tellers. The shared experience through language created national identity. The interest in

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Form and Tradition Criticism   191 the fairy tales of the Grimm brothers in the nineteenth century provided an example, as these stories were thought to capture the unique spirit of the German people. Gunkel embraced the romantic vision of reconstructing the spirit of a people through their lit­ era­ture, but he shifted the focus to the history of Israelite literature; he sought to share in the communal religious experience of ancient Israel by recovering the original oral sto­ ries in Genesis. Gunkel’s methodology of form criticism may be summarized in three related hypoth­ eses. First, he argued that the oldest genre in Genesis originated in the oral tradition of Israel and was written down only later. He identified the genre as the saga (German Sage). Gunkel defined the saga as an independent unit of approximately ten verses. It lacked ornamentation; it was limited in motifs; and it tended to focus on the action of two typical characters, who functioned in opposition. The subject matter of sagas often mixed popular and religious themes about primeval history, the ancestors, or folk heroes, such as Moses or Joshua. Second, Gunkel agreed with the prevailing view of the time that the history of lit­era­ ture evolved from simple to complex structures. When a saga was passed on to later generations, its pure form was lost as different motifs were added to address the contem­ porary situation of the later tradents or authors. Over time, the individual sagas were collected with others into cycles, until they were finally incorporated into the written sources of the book of Genesis. Third, Gunkel assumed that the earliest oral sagas arose directly out of the ­lived-­experience of the community, which he described as the Sitz im Leben, “the setting in life.” The setting in life infused the saga with a mixture of communal and religious ex­peri­ence. But the organic relationship between story and setting was lost when the isolated oral story became an episode within a larger body of literature, which could exist independently from the original setting in life. The goal of interpretation was to recover the lived experience that animated the original saga. The original setting in life of the saga could be uncovered by asking: Who is the speaker? Who is the audience? What is being said? What is the mood of the situation? And, what is the purpose of the story? The careful pursuit of these questions would reveal to the sensitive interpreter the essence of ancient Israelite communal and religious experience. The three stories of Abraham (Gen 12 and 20) and Isaac (Gen 26) falsely presenting their wives as sisters to foreign kings illustrate Gunkel’s use of form criticism to recover oral stories, while also providing a contrast to the source criticism of Wellhausen. Table 11.1 illustrates the central features of the three stories. Gunkel envisioned form criticism to be a supplement to source criticism. Throughout the commentary on Genesis, Gunkel provided a source-­critical analysis of the text as the starting point for recovering the oral form of the stories. Yet a comparison of the in­ter­ pret­ations of Wellhausen and Gunkel illustrates how uneasily the two methodologies relate. Wellhausen anchored his analysis of Gen 12, 20, and 26 in the study of the lan­ guage. The divine names Yahweh and Elohim were important. The use of Elohim identi­ fied Gen 20 as a composition in the E source; Yahweh in Gen 12 and 26 placed these episodes in the J source. The double version of the story in J meant that one episode was

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192   Thomas B. Dozeman

Table 11.1  Features of Genesis 12  

Gen 12:10–20

Gen 20

Gen 26

Characters

Abraham, clever Sarah, beautiful Pharaoh

Abraham, prophet Sarah, sister Abimelech

Isaac, fearful Rebekah, beautiful Abimelech

Deity

Yahweh

Elohim

Yahweh

Deception

Lie

Mental Reservation

Lie

Adultery

Takes place

Prevented at the last minute

Potential danger

Wealth

Abram becomes Abraham acquires wealth after wealthy from the lie the event to reconcile and to honor Sarah

Isaac acquires wealth because Yahweh blesses his land

Plague

To make Pharaoh aware of the sin

No plague is necessary

Result/ Treatment

Abraham is expelled Abraham is allowed to live in the Isaac is expelled from the from Egypt land land over envy because of his wealth

To warn Abimelech of the potential for sin

a later addition. Wellhausen judged the story of Isaac in Gen 26 to be original to J; the parallel account of Abraham in Gen 12:10–20 was a free literary creation added later to J, since the focus on Abraham alone disrupted the narrative context, where Abraham and Lot were together (Wellhausen 1899, 16–31). Gunkel followed Wellhausen in interpret­ ing Gen 20 as E, and Gen 12 and 26 as J. But when Gunkel shifted from source to form criticism, he introduced a whole new set of interpretive tools and aesthetic criteria for evaluating Gen 12, 20, and 26. He concluded that the repetition of the story indicated how beloved the tale was among the Israelites. He paid little or no attention to the divine names, Yahweh and Elohim. Instead, he focused on the differences in the literary style, aesthetic outlook, and religious perspective to recover the earliest version of the tale, which he determined was the version of Gen 12, just the reverse of Wellhausen (Gunkel 1997, 168–173, 225–226). Gen 12 was an oral saga from the earliest time of ancient Israelite religion; it transmitted the communal experience of this period and was not a free literary creation, as Wellhausen had argued. The evidence for Gunkel’s form-­critical interpretation was to be found in the aesthetic style and outline of Gen 12. The saga is presented in a naïve manner: the style of the tale contains minimal details, yet the structure is clear, with two characters, Abraham and Pharaoh, functioning over against each other. The physical and economic welfare of the hero, Abraham, and religion are intermixed, so that the faithfulness of God and the bene­fits that come to Abraham stand side by side in the saga. The morality of the lie of Abraham and the adultery between Pharaoh and Sarah is not explored. Abraham acquires wealth from his deception, and the intervention of God through a plague allows for the return of Sarah. The perspective of the oral saga is one in which “all’s well

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Form and Tradition Criticism   193 that ends well” for the clever hero. Gunkel added that the original story likely contained the motif of Pharaoh’s discovery of Sarah in the harem, since such an action is a typical feature of the saga. The naïve presentation of the saga without the overlay of a more dog­ matic morality to justify Abraham allowed Gunkel to share directly in the experience of the storyteller, who is taking pleasure in praising the cleverness of Abraham, the beauty of Sarah, and the faithfulness of God. Gen 20 and 26 were understood as later versions of Gen 12. The character of the narra­ tives provided the essential insight for Gunkel: he concluded that the directness and candor of Gen 12 became offensive to later storytellers. Gen 20 and 26 transform the saga of Gen 12 in different directions: Gen 20 represents a theological and moral trans­ formation of the saga into a legend; Gen 26 transforms the saga in the opposite direc­ tion, into a narrative of history. Through the process of transformation, both Gen 20 and 26 detach the saga from its bawdy original life setting. Gen 20 removed the profane motifs of Abraham’s cleverness and of Sarah’s beauty and featured, instead, the action of God. The economical style of the saga gives way to extended speeches between charac­ ters in the legend, which provide theological commentary intended to make Gen 20 a more appropriate moral and religious story. Gen 26 transforms the saga in the opposite direction, into an account of history, where the focus is exclusively on a profane adven­ ture. The encounter between Abimelech and God is removed; the motif of divine protec­ tion of the ancestor is no longer prominent; and, in its place, Abimelech realizes by coincidence that Rebecca is Isaac’s wife.

Summary of Form Criticism The history of religions school dominated the study of the Pentateuch in the first half of the twentieth century. The focus on comparative literature placed the Pentateuch in the broad cultural and religious context of the ancient Near East. The development of form criticism provided agreed-­upon criteria to recover oral sagas from literary documents. The romantic understanding of the setting in life allowed the interpreter to recover the earliest form of Israelite religion, not within organized worship, but in the informal set­ ting of the family: “In the leisure of a winter evening the family sits about the hearth; the grown people, but more especially the children, listen intently to the beautiful old sto­ ries of the dawn of the world, which they have heard so often yet never tire of hearing repeated” (Gunkel 1997, 41). Form criticism also introduced new problems in the study of the Pentateuch. Three stand out. First, the relationship between the methodologies of form criticism and source criticism was not clarified. Although Gunkel employed source criticism as the initial step in the interpretation of the oral sagas in Genesis, the two methodologies rep­ resent different theories of literature and of religion. Form criticism used aesthetic cri­ teria to trace the dependence between Gen 12, 20, and 26. The saga of Gen 12 gave rise to the legend in Gen 20 and the historical narrative in Gen 26, revealing a development in religion and culture. The J and E authors, in this model, became collectors of tradition at

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194   Thomas B. Dozeman an even later stage in the development of Israelite religion. Source criticism emphasized instead the creativity of the J and E authors; it did not view the multiple versions of the story as being interdependent in any way, nor did it view literary formation to be a ­process of supplementation or reinterpretation. The stories were instead independent compositions by separate authors. Second, the different views of the literary process raised an additional question about religion and tradition: Was the creative period of ancient Israelite religion in the com­ munal experience of oral story telling among tribal families, or was it in the literary cre­ ativ­ity of the individual J and E authors during the monarchic period? Form criticism idealized the communal religious experience of tribal Israel; source criticism high­ lighted the creativity of the individual J and E authors. Third, form criticism did not adequately describe the larger structure of the Pentateuch. Its goal was to recover the oldest individual oral sagas in the Pentateuch in order to retrieve the taproot of religious experience. The Pentateuch as a whole was not interpreted. The lack of focus on the formation of the Pentateuch gave rise to the meth­ odology of tradition history.

Tradition History Tradition history developed from form criticism. Both methods investigate the dynamic role of oral tradition in the formation of the Pentateuch, but the focus of study is differ­ ent. The concentration in form criticism on individual sagas narrated by storytellers is broadened in tradition history to include creedal statements and larger units of trad­ ition that were part of the earliest cultic worship in ancient Israel. The change in focus gives rise to the different aims of the two methodologies. Form criticism moves away from the present form of the Pentateuch in order to recover the earliest individual oral stories embedded in the text. Tradition history moves in the other direction: it identifies the structure of the earliest oral creeds and the larger units of tradition as a means to understand the formation of the Pentateuch. The development of tradition history is attributed to Gerhard von Rad (1901–71) and Martin Noth (1902–68), both of whom were students of Albrecht Alt (1883–1956), who taught at the University of Leipzig from 1923 to 1956. The research of Noth and Rad on the Pentateuch intersects throughout their careers. The two scholars shared the same goal of broadening the focus of form criticism on individual sagas to include larger com­ plexes of tradition; both sought to interpret the formation of the Pentateuch.

Gerhard von Rad Form criticism—the recovery of individual oral sagas and the identification of their ­setting in life within the lived-­experience of tribal Israel became the central approach for

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Form and Tradition Criticism   195 the interpretation—came to dominate the interpretation of the Pentateuch in the early twentieth century. In addition to Hermann Gunkel’s research on Genesis, Hugo Gressmann (1877–1927) recovered sagas associated with the Exodus and the wilderness stories of Moses, while Albrecht Alt (1883–1956) identified the original oral sagas in the book of Joshua. But the prominence of form criticism reached an inevitable “stalemate,” according to Gerhard von Rad, because interpretation became so predictable. The prob­ lem was not simply the uniformity of research among scholars, it was also the fragmen­ tation of the “final form of the text as we have it” because of the focus on individual sagas. Rad wrote: “On almost all sides the final form of the Hexateuch has come to be regarded as a starting-­point barely worthy of discussion, from which the debate should move away as rapidly as possible in order to reach the real problems underlying it” (1966, 1). In view of this, Rad raised a new question: Could form criticism be redefined so that the study of oral tradition would provide insight into the form of the Hexateuch? Rad shifted study from the individual oral sagas that had been the focus in classical form criticism to ancient tribal liturgies that were believed to influence the structure of the Hexateuch. The structure of the Hexateuch may be summarized as the sequence of six central themes: (1) creation; (2) promise to the ancestors; (3) Exodus from Egypt; (4) revelation at Sinai; (5) wilderness wandering; and (6) land. Rad began his research by identifying three ancient oral creeds, which included many of the central themes of the Hexateuch: Deut 6:20–24; 26:5b–9; and Josh 24:2b–13. The prime example was the creedal confession associated with the liturgy of first fruits in Deut 26:5b–9. The creed in Deut 26:5b–9 represented the earliest oral genre of the Hexateuch, according to Rad. The same oral genre was evident in Deut 6:20–24 and Josh 24:2b–13. These historical credos “follow a canonical pattern” and even represent “a Hexateuch in miniature” (Rad 1966, 8). The identification of a new oral genre, “the historical credo,” also required a distinct setting in life from the saga. Gunkel had placed the life setting of

Table 11.2  Traditions in Deut 26:5b–9 (1) Creation

Absent

(2) Ancestors

5

(3) Exodus

6

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7we cried to Yahweh, the God of our ancestors; Yahweh heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an out stretched arm, with terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders;

(4) Sinai

Absent

(5) Wilderness Wandering

9

(6) Land

and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

and he brought us into this place

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196   Thomas B. Dozeman sagas in the context of personal piety and the family. Rad disagreed: “It is evident that such material does not exist in some nebulous sphere of piety, nor is it the creation of a more or less personal religiosity; it belongs to the official worship and is in fact funda­ mental to the worshipping community. Its function therefore is to be sought in the pub­ lic religious activity of the community, that is to say, in the cultus” (21). He concluded: “[T]he creed as we have it in Deut 26 is the cult legend of the Feast of Weeks,” which took place yearly during the tribal period at Gilgal and celebrated the divine gift of the land to the tribes (43). The absence of certain hexateuchal themes from the historical credo provided further insight into the early history of Israelite religion and the oral traditions of the tribes. The absence of creation indicated to Rad that early Israel lacked a theology of creation, favor­ ing instead the themes surrounding the Exodus and the settlement of the land. Equally significant was the absence of the revelation at Sinai (Exod 19–34) in the historical credo. Rad concluded from this that the revelation at Sinai was an oral tradition separate from the historical credo. The historical credo focused on the leading of God and the wander­ ing of the people; the tradition of Sinai focused instead on the coming of God to the people, theophany and the making of covenant. It contained its own fixed pattern of four themes: (1) the exhortation and the historical recital of the events of Sinai (Exod 19); (2) the reading of law (the Decalogue in Exod 20 and the Book of the Covenant in Exod 21–22); (3) the promise of blessing (Exod 23); and (4) the sealing of the covenant (Exod 24). Here was a cultic legend independent from the celebration of the Exodus and the settlement during the Feast of Weeks at Gilgal. The essential element of the Sinai trad­ ition, according to Rad, was the proclamation of God’s righteous purpose through the ritual giving of commandments that took place in a covenant renewal festival at Shechem. Rad hoped to overcome the fragmentation of the Pentateuch in classical form criti­ cism, with its focus on individual sagas. His solution was to study the tradition-­historical development of the creedal form into its more elaborate presentation in the Hexateuch. He concluded that the Hexateuch represented the merging of the Sinai tradition into the framework of the historical credo. Such a combination was possible only after the ancient traditions were detached from their original cultic settings at Gilgal and Shechem sometime during the monarchic period, which allowed them to become spiri­ tualized as resource material for an author (Rad 1966, 48). The author who merged the Sinai tradition into the historical credo was the Yahwist, writing in the early period of the monarchy (50–74). The tension between the revelation of law (Sinai) and the narrative of redemption (historical credo), which forms the core of the Hexateuch, is the result of the creative lit­ erary work of the Yahwist. Thus, the Yahwist was not a mere collector of tradition, as Gunkel had argued, but a creative author, who shaped the oral traditions into a unique theology of the settlement to support the power of the monarchy. The Yahwist accom­ plished this goal in a number of ways: by merging the Sinai tradition and the historical credo; adding the theme of creation in the primeval history in order to place the Israelite story of salvation in a universal context (Gen 2–11); and emphasizing the theme of the

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Form and Tradition Criticism   197 promise of the land throughout the ancestral stories (Gen 12–50). By these means the Yahwist brought the oral traditions of tribal Israel into literary form to create the Hexateuch. By contrast, the further literary development of the sources E and P add nothing new to the discussion of the tradition-­historical development of the Hexateuch: “their writings are no more than variations upon the massive theme of the Yahwist’s conception” (Rad 1966,74). The book of Deuteronomy was outside of the structure of the Yahwist; it represented a later development of the tradition of Sinai, in which the ori­ gin­al four-­part structure of the cultic liturgy was expanded and reinterpreted for a con­ temporary audience (26–33).

Martin Noth During the same year in which Rad published The Form-­Critical Problem of the Hexateuch, Martin Noth completed the first edition of his commentary on Joshua (1938). Even though the commentary was on a book in the Former Prophets, it was cen­ tral to Noth’s interpretation of the formation of the Pentateuch, which would not appear for an additional ten years in The History of Pentateuchal Traditions (1948). The problem with the past interpretation of Joshua, according to Noth, was that it was viewed as ­completing the storyline of the Pentateuch, which gave rise to the literary theory of the Hexateuch. This was the view of source-­critics like Wellhausen, who identified the sources, J, E, and P in Joshua, and it remained the interpretation of Rad in The ­Form-­Critical Problem of the Hexateuch. Noth argued that the material in Joshua was not related to the Pentateuch and that the book should be interpreted independently from this literature. In so arguing, Noth rejected the literary category of the Hexateuch that had dominated source criticism for over two centuries. Noth’s interpretation of Joshua followed the form-­critical research of his teacher, Albrecht Alt. Like Alt, Noth initiated the research by recovering a series of oral sagas about Joshua’s local leadership in the tribal area of Benjamin and Ephraim. The sagas included etiological tales such as Rahab (Josh 2); the stones that mark the crossing of the Jordan River (Josh 3–4); the circumcision at Gilgal (Josh 5); the destruction of Jericho (Josh 6); the ruins of Ai (Josh 8); and the covenant with the Gibeonites (Josh 9). These individual sagas were eventually brought together into an oral collection (Josh 2–9) before they were incorporated into the composition of the book of Joshua. Noth’s interpretation of Joshua becomes innovative in his identification of the author of the book. In place of the source authors J, E, and P, Noth identified a new author, the Deuteronomist. The name, Deuteronomist, underscored the influence of the book of Deuteronomy on the author of Joshua, especially the emphasis on obeying the law as a means for religious and political health. Noth cited the emphasis on obedience to the law in the divine commission of Joshua at the outset of the book (Josh 1) and again at the conclusion (Josh 23), when Joshua repeats the same legal instruction to the tribes. Source critics, such as Wellhausen, had long recognized Deuteronomistic composition in the book of Joshua, especially in the insertion of the motif of the law. But these

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198   Thomas B. Dozeman interpreters limited the influence of the Deuteronomist to late editorial additions, which lay outside of their primary concern to identify the conclusion of the pentateuchal sources in Joshua. Noth transformed the discussion of composition with the elimination of the pentateuchal sources in favor of the Deuteronomist as the author of Joshua. Rad challenged the radical character of Noth’s proposal already in the conclusion to The Form-­Critical Problem of the Hexateuch: “What we must protest against is the isolation of the literary problems of the Book of Joshua from the overall problem of the Hexateuch, whose sources present one single whole from the point of view of form” (Rad 1966, 76). Noth drew out the implications of his commentary on Joshua in his book Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament (1948), a portion of which has been translated as The Deuteronomistic History (1981). Noth argued that the author identified in Joshua composed a larger his­ tory, which included Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings, a literary work he described as the Deuteronomistic History. The author wrote sometime in the middle of the exilic period (587–535 bce). The notice of the release of Jehoiachin in 2 Kgs 25 under the rule of the Babylonian king, Amel-­Marduk (562–560 bce), provided the date. The aim of the history was to provide a theological account of the fall of the king­ dom of Judah and the subsequent Babylonian exile. The law in Deuteronomy provided the theological standard for tracing the moral and pol­it­ical decline of Israel from the period of the tribes (Joshua and Judges) through the monarchy (1–2 Samuel; 1–2 Kings), thus accounting for the loss of the kingdom and the exile. The Deuteronomistic author incorporated divergent traditional sources in writing the history, such as the collection of sagas in Josh 2–9. The creativity of the author in organizing the array of traditional material was evident when interpretation focused on the entire Deuteronomistic History. The literary unity of the divergent traditions was achieved through the insertion of speeches by leading characters at important junctures in the story: Moses in Deut 1–3; Joshua in Josh 1, 23; Samuel in 1 Sam 12; and Solomon in 1 Kgs 8. The speeches repeat important themes from Deuteronomy, such as the need to observe the law (Deut 4:1, 5; Josh 1:7–9; 23:6), the warning not to rebel against the voice of God (1 Sam 12) or to forget the law (Deut 4:9), the threat of punishment (Deut 4:25–31; 1 Kgs 8:35–36), and the promise of divine forgiveness if the people repent (1 Kgs 8:46–53). The speeches are complemented by summary statements, such as the list of conquered nations in Josh 12; the failure of the tribes to conquer the land in Judg 2:11–23 and the fall of the northern kingdom in 2 Kgs 17:7–18. The speeches and summary statements share similarities in language, style, and content that are unique to this body of literature, fur­ ther reinforcing the literary unity of the Deuteronomistic History in spite of the diver­ sity of the source material. The identification of the Deuteronomistic History set the stage for Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (1948), translated as History of Pentateuchal Traditions (1972); it clarified that there never was a Hexateuch, or even a Pentateuch. There was only a Tetrateuch, consisting of the four books Genesis–Numbers; and, in view of this, Noth informed the reader: “the designation ‘Pentateuch’ will be used in this limited sense” (Noth 1972, 6). But when Noth turned his focus from the present struc­

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Form and Tradition Criticism   199 ture of the Tetrateuch (Gen–Num) and the Deuteronomistic History (Deut–2 Kgs) to the oral tradition, he agreed with Rad that the cultic confessions “constituted the roots from which . . . the Pentateuch grew” (46). The problem, according to Noth, was that Rad had identified a later point of development in the oral tradition, when the themes of the historical credo were already combined. Noth sought an even earlier stage in the for­ mation of the Pentateuch, when the themes of the historical credo were not yet com­ bined. He isolated five themes: (1) “guidance out of Egypt”; (2) “guidance into the arable land”; (3) “promise to the patriarchs”; (4) “guidance into the wilderness”; and (5) “revela­ tion at Sinai.” Rad had clarified that the revelation at Sinai was independent from the historical credo, with its own cultic setting in the tribal period. Noth took the insight one step further, arguing that the other four themes of the historical credo could also be separated. In this way, Noth sought to identify older cultic celebrations of tribal Israel and to trace the tradition-­historical development of each theme into its inclusion in the historical credo. The oldest theme in the Pentateuch, according to Noth, was the “guidance out of Egypt,” the core confession of which was the destruction of the Egyptians in the sea. This theme was distributed broadly throughout the Hebrew Bible, in old narratives (e.g., Josh 2:10), in the prophetic literature (e.g., Hos 11:1), in the Deuteronomistic History (e.g., Deut 7:8), in the Holiness Code (e.g., Lev 25:42), and in hymns (e.g., Ps 114). The an­tiquity of the theme was evident in its ability to stand alone, independently from the other themes of the Pentateuch. The poetic couplet in Exod 15:21b provided illustration: Sing to Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously Horse and rider he has thrown into the sea

Here was the “kernel of the whole subsequent Pentateuchal tradition,” according to Noth, a “primary confession” that may even reach back to the “bedrock of an historical occurrence.” It was so ancient that it resisted a particular setting in life. “This confession was so universally relevant,” according to Noth, “that it could have and must have been recited at any cultic occasion which called for a hymn” (1972, 50). Noth was unable to trace the independent use of the theme “guidance into the arable land.” There was no historical event of an “all Israelite” occupation of the land to allow for the independent identification of this theme. In view of this, he raised the question of where the theme might have originated. Whatever its roots, the theme “guidance into the arable land” became attached to the confession of the exodus early in the traditional historical process. Noth speculated that the theme may have become attached to the exodus in the Feast of Firstfruits, which Rad had already identified in Deut 26:1–11. Whatever the tradition-­historical process, the evidence of the secondary attachment of the theme of land with the exodus was evident in the pentateuchal tradition, where there was not a smooth connection between the two themes. The tradition never clarified how the exodus from Egypt ended up in southern Transjordan or why the Israelites detoured around Edom to enter the land. Noth concluded that the complicated and unrealistic geography of the pentateuchal story was not history; it was fashioned, rather, by the

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200   Thomas B. Dozeman need to combine two themes, the exodus from Egypt and the occupation of the land, which were originally separate (Noth 1972, 54). The theme of the promise to the patriarchs originally consisted of localized traditions of single ancestors, who functioned as cult founders and represented a form of religion, in which the father had a personal relationship with the deity. The tradition-­historical process in the expansion of the theme most likely started with Jacob, as was evident in the liturgy of firstfruits in Deut 26:1–11; but it expanded to include southern traditions of Isaac and then Abraham. The stories of Joseph are very late additions to provide a link to the theme of the exodus. The theme of the guidance into the wilderness is also a very late development in the tradition-­historical process. Evidence for this is the inability for this theme to function independently; it presupposes in every respect the other themes of the exodus and the land. The merging of the themes of the exodus, land, promise to the patriarchs, and guid­ ance in the wilderness brought the study of the pentateuchal traditions back to the his­ torical credo, identified originally by Rad. Noth followed Rad at this point in proposing that the covenant renewal festival associated with the revelation at Sinai was absorbed into the historical credo, where it receded into the background behind the exodus. But Noth departed from Rad by attributing the creative formation of the Pentateuch to the oral stage of development, rather than to the Yahwist author. The five central themes were filled out at the oral stage of development with a host of traditions that arose from tribal life in the land; these explore the relationship between people (e.g., Caleb at Hebron; the Midianites; the Edomites); the contrast between agricultural and Bedouin society (e.g., the Passover); imaginative stories about customs and universal human experience (e.g., thirst and hunger in the wilderness; murmuring of the people); and war (e.g., Sihon). Genealogies, travel notices, and geography linked the five themes and the supplemental material into an ever-­larger oral tradition, so that the shape of the Pentateuch was achieved prior to the composition of the literary sources. The literary stage of composition of the J and E sources took place in the monarchic period, and the P source in the exile. The act of composition detached the oral traditions from the sphere of the cult and brought them instead into the “theological sphere of reflection and a synoptic view of the whole” (Noth 1972, 228). The authors provided dis­ tinct points of view. The author of J expanded the oral tradition by prefixing the pri­ meval history to the promise to the patriarch, thus placing the history of Israel within the universal context of creation and the nations. The E author explored the role of God in history from the migration of Abraham to the tribal occupations. The P author reaf­ firmed the power of the cult, without extending the story into an account of the occupa­ tion of the land (236–247). Noth did not view the formation of the pentateuchal narrative as a whole to be a creative undertaking; the work of redactors was a mechanical ­two-­stage process. The J source was the framework for the combination of J and E, which resulted in the limited amount of E literature that remained. The P source became the framework for the formation of JE and P, which accounted for the absence of the occu­ pation of the land in the present form of the Tetrateuch (248–259). The process resulted in two voices dominating the present form of the text: the Tetrateuch (Gen–Num)

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Form and Tradition Criticism   201 represents the priestly theology of the cult, and the law in Deuteronomy is the theology of the Deuteronomistic History (Deut–2 Kgs).

The Uppsala School For all the differences between them noted above, Rad and Noth viewed their research in tradition history as being somehow complementary. Each emphasized the formative role of oral tradition, while also allowing for the influence of literary authors in the cre­ ation of the Pentateuch. Both applied the methodology of tradition history to trace the development of Israelite religion from its earliest oral form in pre-­monarchic Israel to its later postexilic construction. The themes of Noth and the historical credo of Rad anchored the origin of pentateuchal tradition in tribal worship, while Noth’s Deuteronomist and Rad’s Yahwist demonstrated the creative influence of authors in shaping and transforming oral tradition into literature through the period of the mon­ archy and into the exilic and postexilic periods. The combined research of Rad and Noth formed the center of pentateuchal studies in the twentieth century. Many sought to refine the traditional-­historical methodology by focusing on particular oral traditions or by refining the literary works of the Yahwist or the Deuteronomistic historian. Others criticized the synthesis. North American inter­ preters, especially the Albright school, argued that the tradition-­historical analysis of Rad and Noth overly emphasized oral tradition and combined it with a developmental view of religion that was too subjective. A group of Scandinavian scholars took precisely the reverse angle: they rejected the role of literary criticism in pentateuchal studies and the influence that it had in the tradition-­historical work of Rad and Noth. They judged the methodology of literary criticism to be too Western in its conception of oriental cul­ ture. They rejected the evolutionary view of religion in source criticism and in the tradition-­historical study of Rad and Noth as being too simple and too linear in its view of religious development. They also criticized the focus on oral creeds or themes as iso­ lating Israelite religion from its roots in the larger ancient Near Eastern culture of which it was a part. The combination of these criticisms fueled a reevaluation of oral tradition and the cultic life of ancient Israel with a focus on the relationship between myth and ritual. Johannes Pedersen (1883–1977), from the University of Copenhagen, provided an early counter-­theory of oral tradition in his study of the Passover (1934). The study was more a critique of classical form criticism, in which individual sagas were isolated and interpreted within the setting in life of the family; but his interpretation also laid the groundwork for later criticism of the tradition-­historical research of Rad and Noth. Pedersen argued that Exodus 1–15 as a whole represented a sacred oral liturgy (hieros logos) for the cultic festival of Passover. This oral legend was the center of the Pentateuch. The legend was meant to support a nocturnal ritual that began at evening and ended at dawn. The night of watching represented a mythic story of conflict between Yahweh and Pharaoh, in which the events surrounding the Passover were relived through the ritual.

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202   Thomas B. Dozeman The legend contained early material from the nomadic period; the spirit of legend from the royal temple in Zion; and the role of the high priest Aaron from the postexilic period. These features from different times in the history of Israel were intermixed and could not be separated into distinct sources. As a result, it was not possible to divide the legend into pre- and postexilic material, as was the practice in literary criticism. Pedersen’s interpretation of the Passover legend resulted in a view of oral tradition, cultic legend, and literary composition different from the evolutionary methodologies of source criti­ cism (Wellhausen), form criticism (Gunkel), and tradition history (Rad and Noth). Ivan Engnell (1906–64), from the University of Uppsala, extended the critique of the “evolutionary doctrinarianism” represented by Wellhausen, Gunkel, Rad, and Noth. He provided a counter-­view of tradition history that came to be characterized as the “Uppsala School,” a loose coalition of researchers including Sigmund Mowinckel (1884–1965), Henrik Samuel Nyberg (1889–1974), Arvid S. Kapelrud (1912–94), Helmer Ringgren (1917–2012), Gösta W. Ahlström (1918–92), and Eduard Nielsen (1923–  ). Engnell repeated the criticism of Pedersen that the focus on the development of lit­ era­ture in the Pentateuch was anachronistic, and that it prevented the researcher from understanding the nature of oral tradition in the ancient Near East; he characterized the problem as a Eurocentric (interpretatio europaeica moderna) “book view” of the ancient Near East. Oral tradition was the primary means of transmission; it was conservative and stable through time, and thus reliable as a resource for recovering the most ancient traditions. Engnell also argued that oral tradition could not be limited to small units or sagas, as Gunkel argued, but that its scope was large; so large that it could account for the formation of the entire Pentateuch, while the late writing down of the material in the exilic and postexilic periods added nothing new (Engnell 1969, 3–11). The study of oral tradition was understood as being part of the “science of religion” (Engnell 1969, 12–34). Central to this science was a broad comparison within a history of religions perspective, especially aimed at Canaanite culture and religion; but it could also be extended to cultures as distant as Indian and Iranian traditions. The comparison was not restricted to content, as had been the case with Gunkel; it included also form and style. Broad comparison would reveal patterns that provided insight into the soci­ ology and psychology of ancient people, including their culture, mentality, and religious outlook. It would also reveal patterns, techniques, and laws that govern the form of oral tradition and folklore in general. In this regard, Engnell referred approvingly to Axel Olrik’s identification of “Epic Laws of Folk Narrative” (1965), which limited the freedom of oral storytellers. The laws included the need for sagas to begin and close in expected ways; the central role of repetition to fill out the content of a saga; the emphasis on the number three; and the focus on two central characters. Epic laws applied to all genres; thus all oral tradition produced patterns that ensured stability and reliability, rather than innovation and change. Engnell applied the science of religion to the Pentateuch (Engnell 1969, 50–67). At the outset of his study, Engnell rejected a central axiom in the study of the Pentateuch since de Wette: that a form of Deuteronomy fueled the centralization of the cult during the Josianic reform. This hypothesis provided a key to the development of Israelite religion

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Form and Tradition Criticism   203 in classical source criticism and it continued to influence the tradition history of Rad and Noth. Engnell countered that different views of cult centralization could be held simultaneously, so that the pairing of Deuteronomy and the Josianic reform provided no insight into the historical development of Israelite religion. In fact, pentateuchal trad­ition did not allow for the recovery of any development of religion. The better way to begin the tradition-­historical study was to focus on the present form of the Pentateuch and to examine the structure of the tradition. This starting point clarified two circles of tradition: the “P work” (Gen–Num) and the “D work” (Deut–2 Kgs). Both were formed in oral tradition over the long history of ancient Israelite cultic practice from a variety of materials, including poetry, songs, blessings, narrative, and law. The different genres were fused together throughout the oral process of transmission and written down in the exilic or postexilic periods. The P work included ancient material associated with the tabernacle that reflected a pro-­Jerusalem point of view. The P circle of tradents was conservative in the transmis­ sion of tradition from the earliest time in ancient Israel, though the monarchic period and into the postexilic period. The tradition-­historical process likely included a com­ bin­ation of the writing of legal material and the oral transmission of narrative. But the conservative nature of oral transmission and the constant mixing of tradition did not allow for the separation of the P work into stages of development. Engnell acknowledged that oral strata similar to J and E likely existed at one time in the tradition process, but they were fused together in transmission and no longer distin­ guishable. In view of this, the best way to proceed in the application of tradition history was to focus on the present organization of the Tetrateuch in the P work and to examine the entire text from a form-­critical perspective. The structure revealed that the P circle of tradents had an antiquarian interest in genealogy; they focused on sacral institutions and cultic rituals; they did not advocate cult centralization. The Passover was at the cen­ ter of the tradition and it represented the historicizing of an original cultic myth that was tied to an annual festival and ritual; the wilderness journey stories also emerged from the same cultic festival as stages in a ritual procession, while Moses, the leader, was ide­ alized in royal categories. The formation of the D work was similar to that of the P work. Old and new content was placed together side by side. The process of formation likely included a combination of written legal material and the oral transmission of narrative. The D circle of tradents combined a pro-­Jerusalem point of view with a conservative attitude toward the traditional material. The date of formation was 562–561 bce in the exile (2 Kgs 25).

Summary and Evaluation The twentieth century witnessed a revolution in the study of the Pentateuch. The emer­ gence of legal and mythological texts from surrounding cultures placed the study of the Pentateuch in the larger world of ancient Near Eastern religion and law. The antiquity of

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204   Thomas B. Dozeman these traditions pulled scholars back in time, prompting them to move behind the work of authors and written sources in the monarchy period in order to probe more deeply into the oral roots of the Pentateuch during the tribal period. The goal was to recover the earliest oral forms of pentateuchal tradition and to identify their function in ancient Israelite religion. Form criticism paved the way: it provided agreed-­upon criteria to recover individual oral sagas from literary documents, which opened a window into early family religion. Tradition history refashioned form criticism: it sought to under­ stand larger structures of oral tradition that provided better insight into the formation of the Pentateuch within the cultic life of tribal Israel. The quest to recover the earliest traditions of the Pentateuch led to divergent theories of archaic tradition, such as individual sagas (Gunkel); creeds (vRad); themes (Noth); and oral versions of the entire Pentateuch (Engnell). The different reconstructions of tradition were also placed in distinct settings, such as the family (Gunkel); the Feast of Firstfruits at Gilgal (Rad); a covenant festival at Shechem (Rad); the ubiquitous celebra­ tion of the exodus (Noth) and so forth. In spite of these significant disagreements, what unified interpreters was confidence in the ability to identify the earliest forms of the pentateuchal tradition and to recover the original cultic setting of the material, whether in the family or in the corporate worship life of tribal Israel. These points of agreement focused pentateuchal research throughout the twentieth century on ancient traditions in the pre-­monarchical period as the creative time in the formation of the Pentateuch. Several areas of research combined to erode the shared confidence among interpret­ ers that the original oral traditions of the Pentateuch could be recovered and that they could be anchored in the early cultic life of tribal Israel. First, the methodology of trad­ ition history developed in tandem with the emergence of archaeological research in the early twentieth century. The initial results of archaeology promised to recover the his­ tory of the tribes and to support the recovery of the earliest oral traditions of tribal Israel. Noth was confident that the theme of the exodus from Egypt went back to an experience of liberation from Egypt, and Alt identified tribal stories from the period of Israel’s earli­ est time in the land. But the optimism that archaeology would support the historicity of the content of the pentateuchal traditions broke down in the mid-­twentieth century, raising questions about the recovery of tribal cultic tradition (Finkelstein 1988, 1994). Second, the attempts of interpreters to recover the history of tribal Israel were gener­ ally accompanied by detailed reconstructions of the social structure of the tribes. For example, Noth proposed that tribal Israel was organized as an amphictyony, in which independent groups created loose leagues or confederations around religious sites. An example of an amphictyony was ancient Greek tribes, who maintained a religious asso­ ciation around cultic sites. Noth argued that the same religious confederation occurred among the Israelite tribes, who came together at shared worship sites. This social model supported the reconstruction of the early traditions of the Pentateuch as cultic legends at such sites as Shechem or Gilgal. But the refinement in anthropological methodology and comparative historiography (Van Seters 1975) raised questions about the theory of tribal Israel as an amphictyony with shared worship sites. As a result, interpreters began to question the reliability of the extravagant cultic reconstructions at Gilgal or Shechem,

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Form and Tradition Criticism   205 which were required to be the transmitters of ancient oral pentateuchal tradition during the tribal period. Third, tradition history arose from the assumption that the Pentateuch contained ancient oral creeds. This was central to the research of Rad, who identified the historical credo of Deut 26 as such an oral confession. Noth agreed with Rad and pushed his research even further back in time to recover the remnants of older oral creeds, in which the themes of the historical credo were separate. Further literary study of the historical credos, by L. Rost (1965), for example, eroded the presuppositions of tradition history, since this research suggested that the credos were literary compositions in Deuteronomic tradition, thus challenging the original tradition-­historical assumption of Rad about the oral origin of the Hexateuch. Fourth, the conflict in the methodological presuppositions of source and form-­ tradition criticisms came under close scrutiny in the research of Rolf Rendtorff. Gunkel, Rad, and Noth viewed the growth of pentateuchal tradition as a process of expansion and reinterpretation from small units, like sagas, to larger complexes of tradition, such as collections of sagas organized around a central theme, while source criticism started with the present form of the text to identify problems of literary unity in order to iden­ tify independent parallel sources of the entire hexateuchal story. The result of the uneasy alliance of tradition history and source criticism, according to Rendtorff, was that the process of reinterpretation, which characterized the oral stage of tradition history, was never carried through the literary development of the larger complexes of tradition as a process of redaction criticism rather than source composition (Rendtorff 1990, 170–175). The growing questions about ancient tradition, oral transmission, the nature of tribal worship, and the literary production of the Pentateuch coalesced in the late twentieth century, prompting interpreters to reevaluate form criticism and tradition history. In their place, researchers returned to the literary study of the Pentateuch, focusing espe­ cially on the late stages of its composition, in the exilic and postexilic periods.*

Suggested Reading For the formative research on form criticism see Gunkel (1895; 1910 3rd ed); Gressmann (1913); on tradition history see Noth (1938; 1972; 1981)); Rad (1966); on the Scandinavian development of oral tradition and tradition history see Engnell (1969); Nielsen (1984); Olrik (1965); and Pedersen (1934); on the reassessment of tradition history see Rendtorff (1990). For critical evaluation of form criticism see Koch (1969); Sparks (2010); Sweeney and Ben Zvi (2003); and for tradition history see Knight (2006); McKenzie and Graham (1994).

Works cited Engnell, I. 1969. A Rigid Scrutiny: Critical Essays in the Old Testament. Translated by J. T. Willis. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Finkelstein, I. 1988. The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.

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206   Thomas B. Dozeman Finkelstein, I. 1994. “The Emergence of Israel: A Phase in the Cyclic History of Canaan in the Third and Second Millennia BCE.” In From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel, edited by I. Finkelstein and N. Na’aman, 150–178. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Gressmann, H. 1913. Mose und seine Zeit: Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-Sagen. FRLANT 18. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Gunkel, H. 1906. “Die Israelitische Literatur.” In Die Kultur der Gegenwart: Ihre Entwicklung und ihre Ziele. Vol. 7, Die Orientalischen Literaturen, edited by P. Hinneburg, 51–102. Berlin: Teubner. Gunkel, H. 1913. Reden und Aufsätze. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Gunkel, H. 1997. Genesis. Translated by M. E. Biddle. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Originally published in German (1901). Gunkel, H. 2006. Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: A Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12. Translated by K. W. Whitney Jr. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Originally published in German (1895). Gunkel, H. 2009. Israel and Babylon: The Babylonian Influence on Israelite Religion. Translated and edited by K. C. Hanson. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. Originally published in German (1903). Klatt, W. 1974. Hermann Gunkel: Zu seiner Theologie der Religionsgeschichte und zur Entstehung der Formgeschichtlichen Methode. FRLANT 100. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Koch, K. 1969. The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method. New York: Scribner’s Sons. Knight, D. A. 2006. Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel. Studies in Biblical Literature 16. 3rd ed. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Kraus, H. J. 1969. Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments. 2nd ed. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. McKenzie, S. L., and M. P. Graham. 1994. The History of Israel’s Traditions: The Heritage of Martin Noth. JSOTSup 182. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Muilenburg, J. 1969. “Form Criticism and Beyond.” JBL 88:1–18. Niditch, S. 1996. Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature. Library of Ancient Israel 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Nielsen, E. 1984. “The Traditio-Historical Study of the Pentateuch since 1945, with special Emphasis on Scandinavia.” In The Productions of Time: Tradition History in Old Testament Scholarship, edited by K. Jeppesen and B. Otzen, translated by F. H. Cryer, 11–28. Sheffield: Almond Press. Noth, M. 1938. Das Buch Josua. HAT 1/7. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Noth, M. 1972. A History of Pentateuchal Traditions. Translated by B. W. Anderson. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Originally published in German (1948). Noth, M. 1981. The Deuteronomistic History. Translated by J. Doull et al. JSOTSup 15. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Originally published in German (1943). Olrik, A. 1965. “Epic Laws of Folk Narrative.” In The Study of Folklore, edited by A. Dundes. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Originally published in German (1909). Pedersen, J. 1934. “Passahfest und Passahlegende.” ZAW 52:161–175. Noth, M. 1940. Israel: Its Life and Culture. Vols. 3–4. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rad, G.v. 1966. “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch.” In The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, translated by E. W. T. Dicken, 1–78. New York: McGraw-Hill. Originally published in German (1938).

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Form and Tradition Criticism   207 Rendtorff, R. 1990. The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch. Translated by J. J. Scullion. JSOTSup 89. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Originally published in German as Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch, BZAW 147 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1976). Reventlow, H. G. 2010. History of Biblical Interpretation. Vol. 4, From the Enlightenment to the Twentieth Century. Translated by L. G. Perdue. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Rost, L. 1965. “Das kleine geschichtliche Credo.” In Das kleine Credo und andere Studien zum Alten Testament, 11–25. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer. Smend, R. 2007. From Astruc to Zimmerli: Old Testament Scholarship in Three Centuries. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Sparks, K. L. 2010. “Genre Criticism.” In Methods for Exodus, edited by T. B. Dozeman. 55–94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sweeney, M.  A., and E.  Ben Zvi, eds. 2003. The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Van Seters, J. 1975. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wellhausen, J. 1899. Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der Historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments. 3rd ed. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1957. Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Translated by J.  S.  Black and A. Menzies. New York: Meridian Books.

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chapter 12

Defi n i ng a n d Iden tif y i ng Secon da ry L ay ers Reinhard G. Kratz

The External Evidence Observation and Explanation The starting point for defining and identifying secondary layers is the final form of the Pentateuch; or, more correctly, the various forms of the pentateuchal text that have come down to us. For it is well known that the Pentateuch is preserved in not only one version, but in several: the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Greek translation (Septuagint) and other ancient versions, as well as the manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Lange 2009, 35–183). These various versions are the subject of literary analysis, which comprises two steps: observation and interpretation. After more than 2,000 years of pre-­critical study of the biblical text, and a 250-­year history of critical analysis, we are in the fortunate position of not having to start from scratch (see, for further details, Kratz 2016a). Our first task therefore is to collect and examine older observations and add our own new ones. Such observations include information regarding the transmission of the text in different literary versions, which include variants in wording, structure and genre, grammar, vocabulary, semantics and stylistics, the conceptual, and in particular the narrative logic, ideological (political, social, religious, theological) nature and tendency, and references to historically verifiable facts and events. Taken by themselves, these observations say nothing about the possible integrity or layering of a text, its origin or dating. Only the references to historically verifiable historical facts are meaningful, and then only to a certain degree. They, too, say nothing about the dating of the Pentateuch as a whole or its individual parts, and

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Identifying Secondary Layers   209 merely provide an indication of the terminus a quo (or post quem) of the passage in which they are encountered. The observations are nothing more than indicators, which require further explanation. The second step of the critical analysis is the explanation of the observations. This is where interpretation begins, using the tools that scholarship has developed over the course of its more than 2,000-­year history. The pre-­critical analysis of the Bible remained at the level of biblical tradition and adopted an “emic” (Jewish or Christian) perspective. It produced the text-­critical approach as well as the study of historical realia. The historical-­critical scholarship of the past 250 years declared the biblical text to be the observer’s object, and took an “etic” perspective (Kratz 2015b). It developed the methods that are together known as “higher criticism,” which deconstructs the tradition in order to be able to reconstruct its emergence and to classify it historically. Higher criticism includes (1) literary and redaction criticism, which determines historical developments on the literary level; (2) form and tradition criticism, which investigates the possible stages of tradition in the preliterate, oral area; and (3) historical reconstruction, which seeks to date the biblical text and classify its formative stages on the basis of nonbiblical (archaeological, epigraphic, or other literary) sources and analogies (Becker 2015). All these methods serve to explain the observations and evidence in the text, which were collected in the first step. When such investigation is undertaken, we see that the transitions between textual and literary history, and between literary and pre-­literary tradition, are fluid and not always clear. The fluidity of the material produces some of the differing opinions in scholarship. Agreement is reached when arguments are reasonable and explain the textual phenomena adequately, not when a consensus of a majority of scholars is reached. On the whole, the procedure has proved successful to trace our way back gradually, layer by layer, from the more recent versions, which have been handed down to us, to the older layers, and to the oldest literary form and possible literary or pre-­literary traditions that can be reached. This approach can be called the “method of subtraction.” The degree of probability decreases from layer to layer: the further we go back into history, the greater the uncertainty of the analysis. This, however, must not, nor should it, be a reason to abandon the attempt completely or (following Carr 2011, 147–148) to resort to a “middle way” that enjoys less evidentiary support than more determined positions.

Different Versions The safest starting point for defining and identifying secondary layers is the existence of different versions of the text. In comparing the Masoretic and Samaritan versions of the Pentateuch—especially in the Sinai pericope and Deuteronomy—we can recognize ­secondary additions and layers in the Samaritan tradition that serve to harmonize the text and have the intention of locating the central cult place on Mount Gerizim. The adaptations that lie behind these layers can be traced back to a pre-­Samaritan text form

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210   Reinhard G. Kratz witnessed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The discussion regarding the central cult place also goes back to pre-­Christian times (Kratz 2007). With regard to the question of different textual versions, the manuscripts of the so-­called “Reworked Pentateuch” (4Q158 and 4Q364–367) occupy a unique and significant position, for scholars have long debated their basic classification, vacillating between biblical text and reworking (Kratz 2016b). A comparison of the Masoretic Text with the Septuagint, for instance in Exod 25–40, also shows that the text of the Pentateuch has been edited. The Septuagint may preserve an earlier version of the Pentateuch, one which is probably presupposed in the Temple Scroll from Qumran (Brooke 1992). Moreover, the Temple Scroll (11Q19–20; 4Q524) is an example of how the text of Deuteronomy, which was probably adopted in several literary steps, has undergone changes in the course of its reproduction and reception and has been enriched by modifications, omissions, and additions (Kratz 2015c, 2018). Another example is the book of Jubilees, a rewriting of Gen 1–Exod 15 from the perspective of Exod 19–24 (Berner 2006; Segal 2007; Kugel 2012). This is no longer a copy of a biblical manuscript, but—as with the Temple Scroll—a separate work, a reworking which in part reflects its (biblical) Vorlage, and in part has been reworked. Both works, the Temple Scroll and the book of Jubilees, are related to their pentateuchal Vorlage in the same way as the books of Chronicles are to Samuel–Kings. Like Chronicles, these writings belong to the literary genre of rewritten Scripture. But they, too, indicate the compositional techniques and scenarios that can help distinguish between “primary” (relatively older) and “secondary” (relatively recent) literary layers. In order to explain these literary phenomena, it is necessary to look beyond the Pentateuch, and to consider all the other cases of biblical and parabiblical literature for which various versions are preserved, as well as ancient Near Eastern analogies (Carr 2011, 11–149; Kratz 2013a, 126–156; 2018; Müller, Pakkala, and ter Haar Romeny 2014; Müller and Pakkala 2017; 2021 in print). This material shows that we can expect a wide variety of means of text production, and must therefore also consider a variety of explanatory models. We need to clarify whether text production has occurred in the pre-­literary and oral domain or in the literary domain, or in both (sequentially or simultaneously). Furthermore, we need to investigate the relationship of Vorlage and adaptation, revision, and reworking. We have to ask if there is a direct or indirect dependence, and where the material that we find in the secondary layers might come from. Many different sources are possible: intermediate stages between Vorlage and revision, as documented between the Masoretic and Samaritan Pentateuch by the pre-­ Samaritan manuscripts from Qumran (Kratz 2016b); separate written or oral units or fragments, as is usually assumed for the Temple Scroll (Kratz 2018) or the book of Jubilees (Segal 2007); or supplementations (Fortschreibungen), which do not rule out intermediate stages or additional material from elsewhere, but seem usually to be written specifically for the context of the composition in question. In the case of the Pentateuch and its diverse versions, we appear to be dealing with different editions, where there may have been some intermediate stages, but which emerged in the literary domain and are—more or less directly—interdependent. The

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Identifying Secondary Layers   211 further a reproduction distances itself from its Vorlage, the more we can expect ­additional material. But even in the case of the Temple Scroll (Kratz 2018) or the book of Jubilees (Berner 2006; Kugel 2012), arguments for supplementation are just as cogent as arguments for several separate sources or fragments from elsewhere. In each case, the evidence suggests that we are dealing with more than one literary layer in the various versions of a text. Identifying the layers is accomplished by comparing the different versions; defining them as “primary” (older) or “secondary” (younger) is achieved through the usual criteria of textual and literary criticism. It is important to clarify the direction of dependence, which is established by means of language and/or content. The version from which the other can be explained is the older, more original text; the other, which can be derived from the former, is the younger, secondary layer. As the above examples of the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, the Reworked Pentateuch, the Temple Scroll, and the book of Jubilees show, the boundaries between copy and reworking (or rewriting) of a text are fluid. Textual tradition, reworking, and translation into another ancient language provide evidence of a lively, dynamic process of text production, which, apart from scribal errors and specific translation techniques, is always also a process of interpretation. Since we are dealing with “biblical” texts, this process constitutes a sort of “innerbiblical exegesis” (Kratz 2013a, 126–156). The hermeneutics that underlie this dynamic process aim for identity of text, time, and divine inspiration in both Vorlage and its reproduction, and thus for the identity of God and the people of Israel through the times and various versions of the text. The hermeneutics determine the relationship between Vorlage and adaptation, and include all the changes in the various editions. Furthermore, there are reasons to consider that, in general, the reworking of a text and every further edition of it do not seek to replace its Vorlage, but rather to confirm and interpret it (Kratz 2013a, 126–156, 157–180). Finally, it should be stated explicitly that in all of the Pentateuch-­related materials from the versions or other biblical reworkings we do not find any evidence of parallel versions of the same material that can be said to have originated separately. On the contrary, all the examples provide evidence of versions or editions that are in a relationship of more or less direct literary dependence with each other. The most reasonable explanation for this evidence is the Supplementary Hypothesis (Fortschreibungshypothese), or, in some cases, perhaps even the Fragmentary Hypothesis (Fragmentenhypothese). To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single example in the empirical evidence of the tradition that supports the classical Documentary or Source Hypothesis (Quellen- or Dokumentenhypothese).

Doublets and Rewriting within the Pentateuch Apart from different versions of the entire Pentateuch or some of its individual parts we find various versions of the same material also within the Pentateuch itself. The most common example is the doublet of the Decalogue in Exod 20 and Deut 5. The ­relationship between the two variants is controversial in scholarship, but a literary dependence is very likely, whether both variants are dependent on a common Vorlage or

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212   Reinhard G. Kratz one version is dependent on the other. The latter seems to me to be the more plausible explanation. There are several indications that the Decalogue is derived from the Covenant Code in Exod 21–23 and was created specifically for its present context in the book of Exodus (Kratz 1994). This, along with a synoptic comparison, leads to the conclusion that Exod 20 formed the Vorlage for the text in Deut 5 (Kratz 2005a). Once these two versions were included in the Pentateuch, a process of harmonization started, which operated in both directions and eventually entailed the changes in 4Q158 and in the Samaritan Pentateuch (Kratz 2016b). The insertion of the Decalogue was preceded by a process of rewriting in the Pentateuch. As is generally acknowledged today, the book of Deuteronomy at its core is a rewriting of the Covenant Code. The motivation and purpose of this rewriting consist in the introduction of the program of cultic centralization (Deut 12), which restricted the practice of sacrifices and festivals at regional altars (Exod 20:24) to a single cultic place chosen by Yhwh (Levinson 1997; Kratz 2010; 2013c). However, the two legal corpora are not mutually exclusive, but relate to each other in the manner of text and commentary, and introduce the “Mosaic discourse” in the Pentateuch (Najman 2003). A narrative connection is created by the historical fiction that Moses, when in the land of Moab, shortly before his death and before the people entered the land, repeated and publicly proclaimed to the Israelites the divine revelation that he had received at Mount Sinai or Horeb respectively (Kratz 2000, 2002, 2005a, 2012). This triggered a history of supplementation, which continued in the other legal corpora, found in the priestly writing and the Holiness School, as well as beyond the Pentateuch in the Temple Scroll and the rule texts of the community in Qumran. This history of continuous, gradual supplementation and interpretation can be traced from the larger compositions (Kratz 2011a, 2013b, 2015c, and 2018) down to individual variants in the text (Teeter 2014). The transitions between doublets and supplementation are again fluid. We can observe these transitions in the example of the narrative of the “endangered ancestress” in the book of Genesis (Gen 12:10–20; 20:1–18; 26:1–11). The relationship of the three versions is controversial (Kratz 2009). A starting point for clarification is provided by the Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran, which is an Aramaic rewriting of Genesis. Here instead of working from a single account, the two versions of Gen 12 and 20 are summarized in such a way that the version of Gen 12 is copied almost line by line into Aramaic and padded out with information from Gen 20 and additional legendary material. The situation in the book of Genesis itself is slightly different. But even here the three versions of the narrative are interconnected and related to each other. Gen 20:13 refers to the story in Gen 12. Similarly, Gen 26:1 establishes a narrative connection with Gen 12, so that the three versions fit organically into the flow of the patriarchal narrative. This means that we are not really dealing with doublets, but with a motif that appears in three places, narratively structured for replication: in his justification in front of Abimelech in Gen 20:13 Abraham himself speaks of “all places” when, in fact, there are only two places where Abraham maintains that Sarah is his sister; Isaac and Rebecca also have to resort to this subterfuge when a second famine leads them to a strange land, this time not to Egypt, but to Abimelech of Gerar.

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Identifying Secondary Layers   213 Another question is whether the three versions of the narrative in Genesis belong to one and the same layer, or whether it is possible to identify distinct layers. The Genesis Apocryphon, again, is very helpful here, because it sheds light on the version in Gen 20. Just as the Genesis Apocryphon intertwines the versions of Gen 12 and 20 and introduces additional topics, Gen 20 combines features of Gen 12 (Abraham and Sarah) and Gen 26 (Isaac and Rebecca) and also introduces some new topics and emphases. This suggests a rewriting and editing of Gen 12 and 26 specifically for the context of the preexisting patriarchal narrative, to which Gen 20:13 makes reference. Here also, therefore, a supplementary approach seems to make better sense of the evidence than documentary or fragmentary interpretations of these materials postulating independent traditions or literary contexts. As the narrative cross reference in Gen 26:1 shows, the two versions in Gen 12 and 26 also did not emerge independently. Of course, it has still not been decided whether the dependence proceeded in the same direction as the narrative reference, such that the version in Gen 26 was formed following the example of Gen 12, or vice versa. In my opinion, the decisive factor is the wordplay involving the name “Isaac” in Gen 26:1–11. The wordplay is constitutive of the story and therefore was most likely there from the beginning (Kratz  2005b, 267). In addition, transferring a motif originally connected with Isaac and Rebecca to Abraham and Sarah is easier to explain than the reverse: what the later patriarchs have experienced should also have been experienced by Abraham, the founding father. Moreover, the narrative in Genesis 26 belongs to the material of the Isaac tradition, while the story in Gen 12 appears to be an addendum, interrupting the older context of Gen 12:9 and 13:2, 5 and letting Abraham make a detour into Egypt. This is seen in the resumptive repetition (Wiederaufnahme) of Gen 12:9 in 13:1. The thematic setting of the texts also favours this direction of dependence: while Gen 26 remains within the horizon of the Isaac narrative, Gen 12 is formulated as an “anticipation” of the exodus (Blum 1984, 307–311) and anchors Israel’s later experience in its founding ancestral figures Abraham and Sarah. The empirical evidence suggests that not only various versions of the Pentateuch but also doublets, or, more correctly, repetitions and reworkings, may entail several “primary” (relatively older) and “secondary” (relatively recent) textual layers in the Pentateuch. The last example, concerning the history of the “endangered ancestress,” has already led us from empirical to internal evidence, to which we will now turn our attention.

Internal Evidence Empirical and Internal Evidence The empirical evidence in the various manuscripts and versions gives us insight into the plethora of ways in which a text may be created through editorial processes. Identifying and defining the different (primary or secondary) layers is possible here by comparing

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214   Reinhard G. Kratz the different versions. Empirical evidence, however, is available only for relatively late stages of text formation. For the earlier stages we are dependent upon internal evidence, which comprises linguistic, grammatical, narratological, and ideological (political, social, religious, theological) data. These data have to be examined to determine whether they exhibit any evidence of editorial changes and therefore indicate the presence of secondary layers. Such data could also include references to historical facts and events, and to different times. However, we need to avoid the danger of identifying the narrated time as the time of the narrator and of reading narrated time along with our own historical speculations into the text, and then using both as arguments for the analysis. Yet even though we have only the internal evidence, it is likely that the Pentateuch in its earlier stages was formed according to the same principles as in the later stages for which we do have an external evidence. There is no reason for a metabasis eis allo genos when it comes to the earlier phases of the text production, i.e. to use a different methodological paradigm and postulate that the formation of earlier stages of the Pentateuch followed entirely different principles. Specifically, there is no textual evidence that would force us to assume that we need another, substantially distinct, explanatory model in order to account for the production of these early layers. Applying the insights and criteria that we obtain by means of empirical evidence to the analysis of a text without such evidence poses, however, a substantial challenge (Kratz 2013a, 150–156). When we compare different versions of a text we can recognize additions as well as omissions, fidelity to the wording as well as changes, overwriting and rearrangement of entire sections. But to discover all this, we need at least two versions for comparison. If, however, only one version is available and the analysis is based solely on internal evidence, then it is no longer possible to identify all the changes with the same degree of certainty. Depending on how well the editorial changes have been made, they may be overlooked by even a trained eye. In particular, omissions and overwrites will remain hidden if they are thorough and done well (Pakkala 2014). With only one version available for study, even additions cannot be determined with the same degree of reliability as when comparing two or more witnesses of a text. Moreover, the classification of a given passage as an addition brings its own problems. Even if the materials (as in the case of Gen 12:10–20 or Gen 16 between Gen 13 and 18) are commonly regarded as later additions, it is by no means clear at which stage this addition entered the textual record. We only need to recall the example of the Samaritan Pentateuch: it contains many deviations from the Masoretic Text that, before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, were attributed to the Samaritan editors. This view turned out later to be wrong. Many of these changes (and several more that did not enter the Samaritan Pentateuch) had already been made in the earlier pre-­Samaritan text, which appears to have been disseminated prior to the so-­called Samaritan “schism,” i.e. the destruction of the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim under the Hasmoneans and the hostility and separation between the Judean and Samaritan communities. Because there is no empirical evidence available to identify primary (relatively older) and secondary (relatively recent) layers for the early stages of the formation of the Pentateuch, we must necessarily build on scholarly hypotheses. The step from empirical

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Identifying Secondary Layers   215 to internal evidence is associated with a decline of completeness and certainty, which increases the further we try to penetrate the Pentateuch’s prehistory. The construction of a hypothesis can therefore achieve only an approximation of the complex literary history of the Pentateuch. We have to accept that many developments—such as omissions, overwrites, or shifts (Pakkala 2014)—will be missed. On the other hand, based on the empirical evidence for the later stages of text production, we can observe that biblical tradition, on the whole, has maintained a great fidelity to the text and is more likely to preserve and supplement it rather than change or obliterate it. Despite all these reservations, however, there is no reason for resignation. In particular, there is no reason to adhere to an explanatory model that significantly deviates from the empirical evidence—such as the purely quantitative “middle way” of a “methodologically modest form of transmission history” proposed by Carr (2011, ­145–147), or one that ignores the empirical evidence for its methodology—such as the mechanical variant of the Documentary Hypothesis advocated and practised by scholars who label themselves “Neo-­Documentarians” (Baden  2009,  2012,  2013). On the contrary, and based on the methodological principles explained above, empirical evidence, and the criteria that can be gleaned from this evidence, should be applied in order to construe a model for the analysis of the internal evidence. This means that for the earlier stages of the formation of the Pentateuch we have to expect word variations, supplementations, omissions, rearrangements, reworking, and rewriting—with various degrees of literary dependence—even if not every possible phenomenon is actually documented by internal evidence, or can be identified by the analysis.

The Promises to the Patriarchs as a Test Case As a test case for defining and identifying layers on the basis of the internal evidence I have chosen the promises to the patriarchs, which play a key role in the scholarly discussion and represent at least three different literary strata (or layers) in the Pentateuch. Almost all hypotheses refer to them: the Documentary or Source Hypothesis in all its different variants—literary-­historical (Wellhausen 1899), t­ raditio-­historical (Noth 1948), redactional-­historical (Levin 1993), historiographical (Van Seters 1992, 1994), or the more recent narratological variant (Baden 2013)—as well as the many alternatives, which work more with the Fragmentary and Supplementary Hypotheses on the basis of the distinction between the priestly (P) and non-­priestly (classically JE) texts (Rendtorff  1976; Blum 1984; Köckert 1988; 2014; Otto 2000). The literary strata are distributed accordingly by some scholars to the three sources J, E, and P, and by others to various stages of composition and revision. Using the promises to the patriarchs as an example, we can discuss whether we are dealing with three independent variants of separate and simultaneously written sources (Baden 2012, 246–249; see Kratz 2015a, 96–97n12), or whether the promises represent different, interdependent literary layers, and how, if necessary, “primary” (older) and “secondary” (younger) layers can be identified and differentiated.

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216   Reinhard G. Kratz Methodologically, I think it is advisable not to start the analysis from a specific model for the composition of the Pentateuch, or even from hypothetical entities such as the Yahwist, the Elohist, the “Yehowist,” the priestly writing, Blum’s D or P Komposition or the Münster school’s Jerusalemer Geschichtswerk. Rather, we should start with the ­present text and observations of scholars who do not presuppose a previous model in their analysis and remove the layers one by one (Kratz 2005b). Whether the layers will ultimately yield written sources, literary supplements, or pre-­compositional (oral or literary) individual traditions (or “fragments”) can be proven only at the end of the analysis. The central question is how to group the promises to the patriarchs, and how they relate to each other. In his pioneering work, Jacob Hoftijzer, disregarding earlier models for the composition of these texts, suggested the identification of two groups: the ­El-­Shaddai group (identical to the priestly promises) and a Gen 15 group (Hoftijzer 1956). The latter (non-­priestly) group was differentiated further by scholarship, in particular by Erhard Blum and Matthias Köckert (Blum 1984; Köckert 1988; in his own way also Levin 1993; 2015). The identification and differentiation of these groups—in principle— do not follow a specific model of the composition of the Pentateuch but are based on cumulative evidence involving different features of the texts: the wording, the narrative position and function in the context, and the ideological perspective. These criteria have recently undergone a radical critique (Baden 2013, 26–56 and passim) but are still valid and in some cases are used also by their critics. From a survey of scholarship it is clear that there is wide agreement with regard to the identification of the priestly promises. The problem, however, is the classification of the non-­priestly promises, their relationship to each other, and their relation to the priestly promises. This parallels the situation of the Pentateuch in general. Here, on the identification of the priestly writing (or priestly layer) and on the book of Deuteronomy as a separate unity—despite disputes regarding details of their analysis—there is consensus, whereas the explanation of the non-­priestly text in Gen–Num and its relationship to the priestly writing and Deuteronomy is the major issue of pentateuchal scholarship which, up to now, has remained unsolved (see Kratz 2011b). For this reason, I will begin with Genesis 17, then turn to Gen 12 and, finally, to Gen 15.

Genesis 17 and the Priestly Writing The identification of Gen 17 as part of a distinct layer within the Pentateuch is ­uncontroversial. The text describes God making a covenant with Abram, who is renamed here Abraham. As part of this covenant Abraham first receives a blessing of many descendants (vv. 4–5): he will be the ancestor of nations and kings. Then he and his descendants are promised an “everlasting covenant” (that God will be their god) and the land of Canaan as an “everlasting possession” (vv. 7–8). As part of the covenant, ­circumcision becomes a sign of the covenant in the flesh (vv. 9–14). Even Sarai is renamed Sarah and receives the blessing of numerous descendants, though, in contrast

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Identifying Secondary Layers   217 to Abraham, this is only through her son, Isaac (vv. 15–16). After Abraham’s laughter, which in Hebrew anticipates Isaac’s name, and Abraham’s plea, which brings Ishmael into play, God makes it clear that Ishmael also will receive the blessing, bring forth princes, and become a “great nation”—one of the numerous nations descended from Abraham. But the covenant establishing that God will be their god and that they will have ownership of the land remains reserved for Isaac, the promised son of Sarah (vv. 17–21). Genesis 17—together with 35:9–13 and the references to the promise in Gen 28:3–4; 48:3–4—belongs to Hoftijzer’s El-­Shaddai group and is unanimously assigned to P (Kratz  2005b, 240–243). Some scholars suggest a literary stratification of the text (Köckert 2004, 77–88; revoked in Köckert 2015a), but we can disregard this question here. In general, scholars are agreed that Gen 17 belongs to a different layer or source than Gen 12 and 15, but the reasons for this conclusion require discussion. Usually the distinction is justified with linguistic and conceptual criteria. If, however, we were to use narrative coherence as the primary, or even only, criterion for divisions within the text of the Pentateuch (Baden 2013, 7–25), it is not clear why Gen 17 should belong to a different literary layer or source than Gen 12 or Gen 15. When Abraham departs from Haran, he is 75 years old (Gen 12:4b). The scene of Gen 17 occurs much later since Abraham is there 99 years old. So why—after the basic promises in Gen 12–13, affirmed in Gen 15 by a covenant and the birth of Ishmael in Gen 16—should God not have turned again to Abraham to assure him that the rightful heir was not Ishmael, but the anticipated Isaac? Contrary to the general consensus, which is mostly presupposed but not justified (Wöhrle 2012, 45–50), there is actually no argument to separate the chapter from its context in terms of narrative coherence. Even the fact that Gen 17 repeats the covenantal theme after Gen 15 cannot be viewed as a definitive argument for assigning these texts to discrete layers according to the criterion of narrative coherence. For the covenant in Gen 17 is neither a doublet nor a contradiction of Gen 15. On the contrary, in the flow of the narrative Gen 17 specifies the promised offspring in Gen 12 and 15 as “nations and kings,” explains the land possession sealed in the covenant of Gen 15 as an “everlasting possession,” and adds a new e­ lement— that of being God for Abraham and his descendants—whether it is thinking of one and the same covenant in Gen 15 and Gen 17, or of several. And so Gen 17 continues the narrative of the promises in Gen 12–16 and prepares for the narrative of Isaac’s birth in Gen 18–21. Gen 17 also shows a particular connection to Gen 12:1–3. This connection exists not only in terms of narrative coherence, but is also revealed by a literary quotation, that has, surprisingly, received little attention in scholarship. In Gen 17 the blessing of increase for all humankind, known from Gen 1 and 9, is applied to Abraham, Sarah, and Ishmael. In v. 20, with Ishmael, this blessing is provided with the addition that he “should become a great nation.” Anyone who knows the preceding context cannot avoid thinking of the promise made to Abraham in Gen 12:1–3 (“I will make you into a great nation”), which is taken up here and applied to Ishmael. Of course we could say that “great nation” (gwy gdwl) is a common expression, which occurs in other places in the Hebrew Bible. However, in connection with the root brk “to bless” and in relation to Abraham’s

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218   Reinhard G. Kratz descendants it seems to me that the expression is significant and the literary relationship is evident (see also Gen 18:18; 46:3 as well as Gen 21:13, 18 referring back to Gen 17:20; and Deut 26:5 combining Gen 12:2; Exod 1:9, and Gen 10:10). The quotation says that Ishmael, like all the descendants of Abraham, and like the clans of the land (so Gen ­12:1–3), indeed, like the whole of humankind (according to Gen 1 and 9), receives the “blessings,” i.e. fertility and offspring; the “great nation” in Gen 12:2 becomes, in Gen 17, the “multitude of nations and kings,” descending from Abraham and Sarah. But the covenant, i.e. the relationship with God and the possession of the land of Canaan, applies solely to Isaac, the son originating from Sarah. Gen 17 thus fits seamlessly into the composition of the Pentateuch and indeed, it also makes explicit literary reference to the opening of the patriarchal narrative. But this in no way means that the text was an original part of the composition. It simply shows that the criterion of narrative coherence alone remains insufficient to identify and classify layers within the Pentateuch. Instead, we need to include other, additional criteria in order to identify a literary layer. In particular, as scholars have long observed, both the language and the concepts used in Gen 17 show several distinctive features, which differentiate this chapter from Gen 12 and 15; it is these features, not the narrative logic, which lead to the conclusion that Gen 17 and the other promises in the priestly writing cannot come from the same hand as the promises in the non-­priestly texts in Gen 12–13 and 15. However, with regard to the narrative and literary references, Gen 17 implies knowledge of the non-­priestly text. How can we explain this evidence? It means that Gen 17 cannot come from an independent older tradition, nor can it have originated independently from the context of the non-­priestly narrative of the patriarchs. On the contrary, Gen 17 presupposes the Abraham narrative of the non-­priestly text, including Gen 12:1–3, whether the priestly writing was written as a separate work with knowledge of the older narrative, or as a literary layer or supplementation to the non-­priestly text. On occasion, I have compared P to Chronicles and proposed the model of rewritten Scripture as an explanation (Kratz 2005b, 232, 245, 320; 2011b, 36–37; 2013a,177); but other scenarios are also conceivable to explain the evidence. Whatever the case may be, Gen 17 and other promises of the priestly writing can be clearly identified as forming a discrete layer within the Pentateuch on linguistic and conceptual grounds. This layer, however, is dependent on its non-­priestly Vorlage and seeks to reinterpret it. Gen 17 by no means overrides the older promise in Gen 12:1–3, which it quotes in v. 20, but rather confirms it and offers necessary clarification in light of the birth of Ishmael in Gen 16, which is subsequently taken up in Gen 21 (vv. 12–13, 18). This quotation makes it clear that Gen 17 does not have a covenant with the “oecumene” in mind, as is sometimes claimed (Schmid 2009, 2011); rather, the definition of the main genealogical line (namely, Isaac) excludes all other branches (Kratz 2005b, 239, 245; Köckert 2015a). The impression of a covenant for the oecumene arises because Gen 17 incorporates the promise to Abraham from Gen 12 in the priestly “blessing” which applies to all humankind (Gen 1 and 9), but further specifies it. Genesis 17 is about limiting the span of the “oecumene” to Isaac; Ishmael and all of humankind thus participate

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Identifying Secondary Layers   219 in the promise to Abraham in Gen 12:1–3, but the covenant is passed down only to Isaac, the son of Sarah, and through him to Jacob/Israel. Furthermore, Gen 17 and the priestly writing introduce a new and individual understanding of the covenant that differs significantly from the covenant in Gen 15 and the Deuteronomic-­Deuteronomistic tradition. The promise to Abraham explicitly introduces the theme of “being God for Israel” as part of the “everlasting covenant.” Thus, like the repetition of this theme in Exod 6, the text looks forward to the Sinai pericope of the priestly writing in Exod 25–40 and the establishment of the sanctuary. There, in the cult, the covenant’s commitment that God will be the God of Israel and Israel will be the people of Yhwh is fulfilled (Exod 29:45–46). This concept of covenant is associated with the definition of the main genealogical line of Israel. While the whole of humankind (including other kin of Abraham) participates in the blessing of creation and Abraham’s blessing in Gen 12, in the line of Isaac as descended from Abraham and Sarah the “Israel” that permanently experiences the presence of God in the sanctuary established at Sinai is already present.

Genesis 12 and the Pre-­Priestly Pentateuch If we set aside Gen 17 and the priestly writing, then we are left with the non-­priestly Pentateuch. In scholarship this material is either assigned to different “sources” or “documents” (J, E, or JE), or older traditions (also called “sources,” or “fragments”) among which pre- and post-­priestly layers may be distinguished. Depending on the explanatory model, the non-­priestly promises in Gen 12 and Gen 15 are assigned either to the “sources” J and E or to different literary layers. In the following I will again opt for a different approach and start from the distinction between priestly and non-­priestly texts in Genesis. From the viewpoint of narrative logic the entire composition of the patriarchal narrative hangs on the opening in Gen 12:1–3: “The Lord had said to Abram: Go from your country,” etc. The departure of Abraham in v. 4 explicitly refers to this command: “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.” Although the subsequent v. 5, which is usually assigned to P, can also be seen as a (possibly autonomous) notice of departure, it reads in the present text as the specification of v. 4: Abraham follows God’s command, taking with him his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the others. If we follow the criterion of narrative coherence, there is no reason to assign vv. 1–4a and vv. 4b, 5 to two literary ­layers or separate sources (Wöhrle 2012, 30–38). On the contrary: without vv. 1–4 we would not know why Abraham, after the death of his father Terah in Haran (Gen 11:32), sets off with his wife and the whole clan; and without v. 5 it remains unclear at first whom Abraham takes with him, and to which country Yhwh leads him. Thus, we can conclude: Gen 12:1–4a constitutes the indispensable beginning of a narrative that can be continued either with v. 4b, 5, or otherwise. Verses 4b, 5 (P) are not a beginning, but require God’s previous command or another context in which the narrative can begin. But Gen 12:1–3 is not only the beginning of the Abraham narrative; it is also the hinge that connects the primeval history and the patriarchal narrative (Kratz 2005b, 261–265;

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220   Reinhard G. Kratz contra Blum 1984, 359–360; for the discussion, see Crüsemann 1981; Hendel 2011). The text is an essential, but not an absolute, beginning, since it presupposes the primeval history. The promise of the blessing, which is intended to benefit Abraham, and through him all the families of the earth, is the counterpoint to the curse of humankind on earth. The blessing involves two things: land and descendants. In Gen 3 the curses on Adam and Eve apply to both hardship in land cultivation and pain in childbirth; in Gen 4 and 9 the curses on Cain and Canaan are also against peoples. The curses are not reversed in Gen 12, but complemented by a blessing for Abraham. This blessing consists of linguistic and thematic links to the primeval history: the land that God will show Abraham is the counterpoint to the wanderings (Gen 4) and the scattering of humankind (Gen 11) after the expulsion from paradise; the “great nation” replaces the “one people” after scattering (Gen 11:6, 8); the “great name,” which may have already been alluded to in the name of “Shem” and his line, replaces the dubious fame of the heroes in the antediluvian period (Gen 6:4) and the destroyed “name” of the “one people” in Gen 11:4; the comprehensive “blessings” awarded to Abraham himself, and through him to all the other clans, replace the “curses” in Gen 3:4 and 9 (contra Rendtorff 1961, who sees the end of the primeval history and its curses in Gen 8:21). However, the text does not just look back; it also looks forward. Again the linguistic and thematic links point out the central role of Gen 12:1–3 in the composition of the patriarchal narrative: All of the blessings that Abraham and also Lot (Gen 13:2, 5; 24:35), Isaac (Gen 26:12–16, 22, 28–29), and Jacob (Gen 27:27–29; 30:27, 29–30; 32:5–6) experience can be traced back to God’s blessing on Abraham (Wolff 1964). This divine blessing is passed on to all three patriarchs and put into practice. In this respect, all the texts about the promises in Genesis and beyond depend on the beginning in Gen 12:1–3, whether they lie on the same literary level or are an imitation of and, thus, a later addition to, Gen 12:1–3. Insofar as these texts lie on one level, we can speak of a “Genesis 12 group.” Which texts belong to this group is controversial and depends on the assessment of linguistic, conceptual, and narratological connections. I myself include Gen 28:13–15 as a second text meant to bridge the non-­priestly Genesis account after 12:1–3. I am, however, uncertain with regard to Gen 12:7 (see Blum 1984, 283–383; Köckert 2014, 49) and Gen 13:13–17 (see Wellhausen  1899, 23–24; Levin  1993, 145–146; Kratz  2005b, 260–261, 271). Linguistically and conceptually, both passages are connected with Gen 12:1–3 and 28:13–15; in terms of narrative coherence, however, they interrupt the narrative flow in Gen 12–13 + 18–21 and, therefore, seem to be secondary. All the other non-­priestly promises (Gen 15; 16:10; 18:18–19; 21:12–13, 17–18; 22:15–18; 24:7; 26:2–5, 24; 46:2–4) and priestly promises (Gen 17; 35:9–13; further 28:3–4; 48:3–4) are dependent on the two keystones in Gen 12:1–3 and 28:13–15 as well as on Gen 12:7; 13:14–17, and are certainly later (Köckert 1988, 313–323). To summarize, Gen 12:1–3 lays out the program that holds the (non-­priestly) patriarchal narrative together both genealogically and geographically. The text contains the­ driving motif that continues the genealogical line in the Isaac and Jacob narratives, and, mediated by the story of Joseph (esp. Gen 46:2–4), ultimately guides the linking of the patriarchal narrative with the exodus-­conquest narrative in the books of Exodus

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Identifying Secondary Layers   221 through Joshua. However, both elements of the promise—land and descendants—were already fulfilled for the first time within the patriarchal narrative itself. The expressions “great nation” and “great name” can refer only to Israel. With the twelve sons and the renaming of Jacob (Gen 29–30 and 32), “Israel” is present in the land to which God has led Abraham. In light of this programmatic and compositional function, the promise in Gen 12:1–3 can neither be a separate earlier tradition (Alt 1929; Westermann 1976) nor a later addition, but is rather constitutive for the composition of the (non-­priestly) primeval-­patriarchal narrative before and after its connection with the exodus-­conquest narrative within the Pentateuch. Next, the question arises: on which literary level is Gen 12:1–3 positioned: J, E, JE, D-­Komposition, Pentateuch- or Hexateuch-­redaction? To answer this question, we have to realize that without the hinge piece of Gen 12:1–3 the entire patriarchal narrative, and in particular the Abraham narrative, lacks a beginning. This is true both for the present form of the book of Genesis as well as for any (hypothetical) precursors: Gen 12:1–3 is presupposed not only by the earliest narrative presenting the connection between the primeval story in Gen 1–11 and the patriarchal narratives in Gen 12–35, but also by the earliest version of the Abraham account which can be reconstructed (Kratz 2005b, 270–272). The simplest explanation of this fact is that the programmatic text Gen 12:1–3 represents the editorial level that is responsible for connecting the formerly independent traditions of primeval history and patriarchal narrative, and consequently is responsible also for the ethnographical and genealogical linking of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-­Israel within the (oldest) composition of the patriarchal narrative. However, this conclusion is not shared by all scholars in current research. The reason for this lies in the differing assessments of the difficult question of how we can distinguish between the oldest retrievable literary form of the (primeval-)patriarchal narrative, possible older traditions, and subsequent literary layers in the non-­priestly text of Genesis. Thus, from Julius Wellhausen, Hermann Gunkel, and Martin Noth onward there has been agreement in principle that the primeval history and the patriarchal narratives are based on older individual traditions, dealing with the beginning of humankind and with individual patriarchs as eponyms for various groups in the area of Israel and Judah, and originally having no pan-­Israelite significance. However, this classical reconstruction faces a significant difficulty, because in the earliest form of the ­primeval-­patriarchal narrative (the pre-­priestly Grundschrift of Genesis) that can be reconstructed the underlying traditions are already so closely intertwined that they can hardly be separated from their context. For this reason it is not easy to decide which elements belong to the literary prehistory of Genesis and which ones belong to the ­composition centered on Gen 12:1–3. In this regard, a prevalent view was established by Erhard Blum and Matthias Köckert: in the patriarchal narrative they identify the Abraham–Lot–Isaac cycle in Gen 12–13 + 18–19 + 21 and the Isaac–Jacob–Esau–Laban cycle in Gen 25 + 27–35 (Blum also adds the Isaac cycle in Gen 26) as formerly independent traditions. Only in a second stage— prominently featuring the promises in Gen 12–13; 26 and 28 (for Blum, originally

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222   Reinhard G. Kratz ­ ithout 12:1–3!)—were these traditions put together to produce the patriarchal narraw tive and then expanded and supplemented in further steps (Blum 1984; differently, 1990, 214; Köckert 1988; 2014). However, this reconstruction is highly hypothetical and based on a methodologically problematic procedure. Thus, parts of the literary composition (and its subsequent history) are claimed to belong to the text’s prehistory, while precise criteria for distinguishing between older individual traditions and later compositional elements are not defined. Key texts like Gen 12:1–3 are omitted from the reconstruction of earlier traditions, even though these traditions presuppose these texts for their narrative arrangement and share several important features with them (such as e.g. a pan-­Israelite perspective). As a result, the reconstructed older traditions usually have neither an independent beginning nor an end, and much is missing in-­between them. Hence what remains as older individual traditions are more or less extensive torsos. All this may be true or false, but it can be neither verified nor accounted for by the text. Furthermore, on closer examination many of the gaps characterizing the individual traditions reconstructed are caused by the fact that the corresponding compositional components, such as the introduction in Gen 12:1–3, are bracketed out as being redactional or secondary. Conversely, the reconstructed fragments contain narrative features that are characteristic, if not constitutive, of the composition of the patriarchal narrative. Thus, for instance, the Abraham–Lot cycle (Gen 12–13 + 18–19 + 21) and the­ ­Jacob–Esau–Laban–Esau cycle (Gen 25 + 27–33) already contain the genealogical link with Isaac, which connects them both and constitutes the pan-­Israelite perspective (Blum 1984: 479–492; De Pury 2006; Köckert 2014, 43–44, 47–48). This is particularly difficult to understand, when, at the same time, it is assumed that the birth of Isaac in Gen 21 has not been preserved in its entirety (Blum 1984, 279) and that the Isaac tradition is supposed to have been inserted or even composed later in Gen 26—during the linking of the two narrative cycles (Köckert 2014, 50–51) or afterwards (Blum 1984, 301–307, 339). What remains unexplained is where the genealogical link and the ­associated ­pan-­Israelite perspective originate. Conversely, Thomas Römer argues that the supplements in Gen 12:10–20 and Gen 16, which resonate with the exodus and presuppose the connection of the patriarchal narrative with the exodus-­conquest narrative, were already inserted during the prehistory of the still-­independent Abraham–Lot–Isaac cycle in Gen 12–13 + 18–19 + 21 (Römer 2018). Elsewhere, Römer is of the opinion that only the priestly writing is responsible for the connection of patriarchs and exodus. This understanding of the situation, however, would rather seem to support the view of Albert de Pury, who declares the entire Abraham tradition to be post-­priestly (De Pury 2010). The inconsistencies of this kind of tradition-­historical reconstructions have been rightly criticized by Joel Baden (2013: 25–56). In contrast, Christoph Levin proceeds in a more transparent and methodically controlled manner by systematically distinguishing older traditions (in his terminology, “pre-­ Yahwistic sources”), composition (“Yahwistic redaction”) and supplements (“­post-­Yahwistic supplements,” “final redaction,” “post-­final-­redaction supplements”)

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Identifying Secondary Layers   223 in the text, justifying this on the basis of detailed literary criticism (Levin 1993, 2015). But Levin also reckons with loose fragments in his “pre-­Yahwistic sources” that already contain nuances of an outline of the composition of the patriarchal narrative. These fragments already presume or anticipate in substance the level of “Yahwistic redaction,” which is identical with the level of the composition of the primeval-­patriarchal narrative and its pan-­Israelite perspective (Levin 1993, 189–198). A separation of older traditions and composition therefore seems rather artificial in many places and barely transparent. None of the above solutions explains the origins of the historiographical outline and the pan-­Israelite perspective that shapes it. For this reason it seems to me that a more cautious, restrained approach is required (Kratz 2005b, 260–274). The emergence of the biblical texts was probably much more complicated than we can imagine. We can penetrate only as far into its prehistory as the circumstances of tradition allow us, and therefore in reconstruction we should limit ourselves to what lies within the realms of possibility. This involves first of all identifying the oldest retrievable literary form of the non-­priestly text that remains after extracting those parts belonging to P. In order to reach this basic literary form, we must first differentiate between primary (relatively older) and secondary (relatively younger) text components within the non-­priestly text, which is unproblematic in cases of later texts that interrupt the older narrative flow (such as in Gen 14–15; 18:22–33; 20–22; 34), but difficult in cases that are arguably constitutive for the basic literary layer and therefore open to debate (such as Gen 12:1–3). When talking of the oldest retrievable form of the primeval history and patriarchal narrative I am referring to the oldest retrievable version of the (non- and presumably also pre-­priestly) composition: the entire narrative context, not simply compositional elements or individual traditions. As soon as we try to reconstruct earlier stages, ­predating a text like Gen 12:1–3 which, as shown above, is constitutive for this composition, we are in the area of reconstructing pre-­compositional sources. For this, however, weighty, convincing grounds must exist and, conversely, evidence must be provided that the separated parts really do represent independent, viable text units or traditions. Otherwise we produce just literary fragments or fragmented traditions which remain very vague. Therefore, it seems to me that only when we reach the oldest retrievable literary form of the primeval-­patriarchal narrative is the field sufficiently prepared for us to go cautiously behind the text that has been handed down, and to inquire after possibly older, formerly independent traditions that may have been integrated into the non-­priestly composition. Among such older traditions I would include—with all due caution—the Isaac–Rebecca tradition in the core of Gen 26; its extension in the Isaac–Esau narrative in Gen 26–27 (still without Jacob); the Jacob–Laban narrative in Gen 29–32; and the connection between the two narratives to form a united Isaac–Esau–Jacob–Laban narrative in Gen 26–35 (Kratz 2005b, 266–270). The last item is already coming very close to the composition of the patriarchal narrative, but it lacks the portal of the Abraham–Lot tradition. Here, perhaps an older, formerly independent tradition can be detected in the narrative of Lot and Sodom in Gen

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224   Reinhard G. Kratz 19, from which Gen 18 is derived. At best we can conjecture an older tradition for Abraham–Lot in Gen 12–13 + 18–19 + 21, but this is even less certain since, on the one hand, the text depends narratively on the hinge piece in Gen 12:1–3 and, on the other, already targets the genealogical connection with Isaac (Gen 21) and Jacob. The secondary insertion of Gen 12:10–20 and Gen 16 into the Abraham–Lot narrative already presupposes and requires the composition of the patriarchal narrative and the connection to the exodus narrative and cannot therefore have been part of the prehistory. It must rather have been added later in the context of the composition (Kratz 2005b, 270–272). The two most important criteria on which this reconstruction of possible older traditions is based, are as follows. Firstly, we must be able to observe significant differences in language, compositional features, and content from the composition of the patriarchal narrative in its earliest retrievable literary form, enabling a differentiation of older ­tradition (Vorlagen) and composition (redaction). This includes not least that the ­pan-­Israelite perspective, characteristic of the overarching composition, is missing in the older traditions. Secondly, it seems to me, given the already very high number of assumptions, that there is a strong demand for methodological transparency: namely, scholars should identify earlier traditions only in cases where the earlier traditions posited are substantially complete, coherent, and independent units. It is debatable, of course, whether these criteria are actually fulfilled for the potential older traditions mentioned above. Furthermore, it is clear that these criteria are too narrow to cover all of the older traditions that have been included in the composition. But, as yet, I cannot see any other way of pushing further into the prehistory of the oldest reachable literary stratum of the composition. Whether the older Vorlagen were transmitted orally or literarily is hard to say. Both are possibilities. For the literary form we have to imagine scribal schools or families that were responsible for both the administrative, cultic, legal, and political writing and individual pieces of narrative and other literature that would have served mainly educational purposes. For the latter we have only little material evidence, such as the Gilgamesh-­fragment from Megiddo (from the Late Bronze Age), the Balaam-­Inscription from Deir ‘Alla, the description of a theophany among the inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, the Siloam Inscription, or—as an example of a bigger piece containing a story as well as proverbs—the Ahiqar Papyrus from Elephantine. However, clear limits to our reconstruction are set by the tradition. For this reason, I do not believe it is a suitable alternative to fill the gaps in our knowledge by prising out, as we think best, fragments in the composition that are completely interwoven and not viable on their own, and then declare these to be older traditions. De facto we are still on the level of the composition. Texts that bear the hallmark of the composition or presuppose its knowledge, but are not integral to it, like the promises in Gen 15; 22:15–18; or 17, do not belong in the prehistory, but rather in the subsequent history of the oldest retrievable literary composition. Older traditions may also underlie the supplements. But these traditions can be just as difficult to identify and isolate as are the many traditions that have entered the oldest reachable composition of the primeval-­patriarchal narrative, but have been completely overwritten in the context of the composition.

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Identifying Secondary Layers   225 After the differentiation of literary layers—i.e. older individual traditions, the basic l­ iterary composition, and later addtions—has been carried out, and the relative chronology in the non-­priestly texts has been clarified, we can finally turn our attention to the more difficult task of absolute dating. There are no clear indications such as hints to historical events or other data that would allow an exact dating or at least the definition of a ­terminus a quo or terminus ad quem of the composition. Even the method of “linguistic dating” does not provide clear results (Samuel, forthcoming). We are thus dependent on the literary stratigraphy and conceptual differences for our conjectures about the dating. As I see it, one point of reference is the program of the national identity of “Israel” that is expressed in Gen 12:1–3 and executed in the first composition of the primeval-­patriarchal narrative. The families of the patriarchs and their extended kinsfolk represent the Syrian-­Palestinian microstates: Jacob is Israel and the father of Judah; Moab and Ammon are the sons of Lot; Esau represents Edom; Laban, the Syrians; and Ishmael, the Arabs. In addition, we are also dealing with the Philistines and other tribes in the midst of this world of city states and territorial states on the cultivated Palestinian land. Thus, the states, in the midst of which Israel and Judah are living, literally “fraternized” with each other. Yhwh, the god of the kingdoms and nations of Israel and Judah, assumes the role of family and regional god of all, is worshiped at various locations in the land, and bestows his blessing on Abraham and through him on all clans of the earth. The cursed history of humankind, which is scattered by clan, language, country, and nation, continues in the beneficent history of “Israel.” This ideal, of a family of nations and their national family deity, does not represent the usual self-­image of Syrian-­Palestinian microstates and their traditional religions (Kratz 2015a; 2015d, ­260–276). It also does not match the self-­image of the separate monarchies of Israel and Judah, even though (like the Arameans) they had the same dynastic and regional deity in various local manifestations. Rather, it is a constructed identity, which is explained most ­naturally as emerging from the historical situation in the time between the fall of Samaria around 720 and the destruction of Judah in 597/587 bce, a time in which there was no kingdom, but a people of Israel that existed near and partly in the still-­existing kingdom of Judah (Blum 1984, 289–297, 479–491; Kratz 2005b, 264–265). Others date Gen 12:1–3 and the oldest retrievable composition in the exilic or postexilic periods (Blum 1984, 297–361; 1990, 214–35; Köckert 1988, 248–299; 2014: 61–66; Ska 2009, 46–66). However, since the ­patriarchal narrative does not represent the identity of Judah, but rather an attempt to establish a new identity for “Israel,” including Judah and the Judeans, I do not believe this suggests a dating after 587 bce. And if I am not mistaken, nothing ­linguistically ­indicates the exilic and postexilic period; at least, I am unable to find ­anything that is ­specifically Deuteronomic-­Deuteronomistic or specifically priestly in Gen 12:1–3 (Kratz 2011b, 51–52n65; Köckert 2014, 52n47, 63n93). Regardless of the dating, the loss of kingship (720 or 587 bce) and the traditional identities of Israel and Judah that are rooted in it, must have been the trigger that led the authors of the biblical tradition to establish a “sacred history” for the people of Israel, which also included Judah. However, for the “blessing” on the people, it seems to me that the traditional and religious-­historical background is not so much royal ideology,

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226   Reinhard G. Kratz but rather Exod 20:24 and the preexilic theology of blessing, manifested in the ­inscriptions of Khirbet el-­Qom and Kuntillet ‘Ajrud. The linking of primeval history and patriarchal narrative in Gen 12:1–3 reads as a founding legend of the states of Israel and Judah in a “non-­stately” guise, which confers a new national identity to the lost Israel, with the inclusion of Judah, and which gives to the shared god Yhwh, whose downfall accompanied that of Israel, a new legitimacy. Both the dating between 722–597/587 bce advocated here and the exilic or postexilic dating of Gen 12:1–3 are based on historical conjecture. The relative chronology therefore is all the more important. The quotation of Gen 12:1–3 in Gen 17:20 proves that Gen 12 and the oldest retrievable composition of the primeval-­patriarchal narrative cannot be post-­priestly. Unlike the priestly writing, Gen 12:1–3 does not necessarily point to a connection of the two—previously most likely to have been independent—origin legends of Israel, the primeval-­patriarchal narrative in Genesis on the one hand and the exodus-­conquest narrative in Exodus–Joshua on the other (e.g. Schmid 2010). Rather, Gen 12:1–3 is focused on the context of the primeval-­patriarchal narrative (Köckert 2014, 63). This also distinguishes Gen 12:1–3 from other non-­priestly promises such as Gen 15 or Gen 46:2–4, which likewise draw on Gen 12:1–3 but explicitly produce a connection between the patriarchs and the exodus (Blum 1984, 247n21; differently 2002, 132–133; Köckert 2014, 59, 63n94). It is only this connection that places Gen 12:1–3 in the wider context of the Hexateuch’s “sacred history” in Genesis–Joshua. We cannot, nor do we need to, delve further into the problem of the connection of the two legends about the origin of Israel here. Still, a few methodological issues that are sometimes confused in the scholarly literature may be briefly addressed at this point. One is the question of the literary level at which the connection between patriarchs and exodus took place for the first time: in the pre-­priestly writings (classical J, E, JE, D-­Komposition, pre-­priestly Hexateuch or Enneateuch), in the priestly writing (P), or in a post-­priestly Pentateuch- or Hexateuch-­redaction respectively? Personally, I still tend toward the first option (Kratz 2005b, 280–281, 293–294, 307; see also Blum 1990, 190–191; 2002, 148–149n137; Levin 1993, 313–314; 2006; Carr 2006; Berner 2010, 10–48). However, many today concur with Rolf Rendtorff ’s implicit position that the connection first occurred in the Priestly writing and was implemented in the non- and ­post-­priestly texts in the course of connecting the pre-­priestly material with the priestly writing (Rendtorff 1976, 160–163; for others, see Kratz 2011b, 38–39n21). However, in Gen 50 we cannot find a convincing conclusion to an autonomous patriarchal narrative (contra Schmid 2002, 103–106; 2006, 32–33; 2010, 52–53; Gertz 2006); furthermore, in the ­pre-­priestly text of Exod 1 we would have to reckon with breaks in the text (Blum 2002, 148–149; Gertz 2015). This means that the thesis is based on a postulated gap in the text, which was created by a bold literary-­critical operation. However, the  (secondary) connection of the two origin legends can indeed be shown at the ­transition from Gen 50 to Exod 1 in the preserved non- and pre-­priestly text (Blum 2002, 148–149n137; Levin 1993, ­313–314; 2006; Berner 2010, 10–48). Another methodological issue is the question of whether the two legends about the origin of Israel originally constituted two separate, even competing designs or whether

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Identifying Secondary Layers   227 they—like the Iliad and Odyssey (ignoring the differences of genre)—have always been correlated with each another, and also formed an ongoing narrative consisting of the primeval history, the patriarchs, exodus, and conquest independently of the literary connection (Blum 2002, 122–123 and passim). The same question arises for older individual traditions, such as the traditions about the patriarchs or the tradition of a victory of Yhwh against an anonymous enemy at “the sea” (Exod 15:21), which were adopted in the two origin legends, and connected here to form a continuous story. If the individual traditions had circulated separately and yet had always been correlated with each other “cognitively” (E. Blum), then we would have to determine whether they were the same traditions which are available to us, or were rather some other parallel traditions of the same “story,” which is being alluded to in the individual traditions. Ultimately, we are dealing here with the making of the biblical “history of salvation” (or “sacred history”) and the fundamental question of whether this “history” can be presupposed for the origin and gradual growth of the tradition (thus Rad 1938; Noth 1948; Baden 2013), or whether it has emerged only in the course of tradition making. With the second possibility, the formation of the historiographical outlines coincides with the literary development of the tradition. The other, first possibility, does not explain where the strange, artificial outline of the biblical “sacred history” comes from; it also opens the way to speculations about the history of tradition and religion that are ultimately drawn from later literary traditions and, in this respect, goes round in circles (see Kratz 2011b, 51n63, 55–61). Such speculation may be legitimate and stimulating, but it raises the question of how much is gained and what place it should have in scholarly discussion.

Genesis 15 and the Post-­Priestly Pentateuch After Gen 12 and 17, we finally come to the promise in Gen 15. We will first consider it in the context of the present composition of the Pentateuch. The promise in Gen 15 has many features in common with both Gen 12 and Gen 17. It shares the themes of land and offspring with Gen 12, which—following Gen 12:1–3, 7 and 13:14–17—are treated again under different conditions. With Gen 17 it also shares the “covenant,” which in Gen 15 concentrates on land ownership, and is concluded by means of a proper ceremony. At the same time, the terminological and conceptual differences with the other two promises cannot be overlooked. Instead of the “blessing” in Gen 12:1–3 we have the martial commitment: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield,” coupled with the prospect of “very great rewards”; instead of the “great nation” and the “great name,” in which all clans of the cultivated land desire to be blessed, the ownership of the land is at stake because Abraham lacks offspring: “And Abram said: You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” With this background, Abraham is (again) promised descendants as numerous “as the stars of heaven,” a promise that he can only believe and by so doing is declared to be righteous (vv. 4–6). Furthermore, in a seemingly antiquated covenant ceremony he is assured of the ownership of the land for the generation after the exodus and at the exclusion of the land’s inhabitants (vv. 7–21). The

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228   Reinhard G. Kratz special relationship with God that distinguishes the covenant in Gen 17 from Gen 15 and beyond, and the explicit exclusion of Ishmael, who is not born until Gen 16, is not mentioned in Gen 15. Similarities and differences between Gen 15 and the other two promise texts in Gen 12 and Gen 17 indicate a different tendency regarding the definition of the national identity of Israel. Unlike Gen 12:1–3, which functions as a hinge between the primeval history and the patriarchal narrative and as the program for the genealogical and geographical linking of the patriarchs, Gen 15 is not satisfied that “Israel” came into being in the land at some time in the past, and lived together with the other clans or nations under Yhwh’s blessing. National identity is defined by the possession of land (yrš) and the demarcation from the other peoples in the country. There can be only one legitimate line that completely owns the land. According to Gen 15, this will not occur, however, in the time of Abraham and the patriarchs, but applies to the people of Israel, whom Yhwh leads out of Egypt and to whom he gives the law at Sinai. That is why the promise is entrusted to the faith and righteousness of Abraham and sealed in a “covenant.” This pledge points beyond Abraham, and in him beyond all of Abraham’s descendants, and has validity for them, whenever and wherever they live. Because of the specific wording, the conceptual differences, and the particular problematic situation reflected in Gen 15, scholars today widely agree that the text in its present form is a late literary construct that draws on different contexts and presupposes both Deuteronomy and the priestly writing (Köckert 2012; 2013; for the discussion, see Blum  1984, 362–383, 389–390; Köckert  1988, 201–247; Ha  1989; Römer  1989/90; Blum 2002, 142–145; Gertz 2002; Ska 2009, 67–81; Schmid 2010, 158–171; Levin 2013). This also applies if one disregards vv. 13–17 and/or vv. 19–21, which are usually bracketed out as secondary. Not only these verses, but also the whole text—indicated by literary references—exists as a typological prolepsis in the life of Abraham of the exodus (v. 7) and the Sinai covenant (vv. 17–18). Whether it is possible to reach a core prior to the priestly writing by literary-­critical differentiation (Gertz 2002) is highly questionable, if not to say virtually impossible, in view of the parallels between v. 7 and Gen 11:31 (Ur Kasdim). The derivation of Gen 11:31 from Gen 15, suggested by Gertz, is much more difficult to justify than the reverse relationship of dependency. The concept of “covenant” in Gen 15 is especially revealing for the definition and identification of a different layer and its relationship to the other two texts dealing with the divine promise to Abraham in Gen 12 and 17. In contrast to Gen 17, which relativizes land ownership by the motif of “alien status,” and—via a successive story of revelation to Abraham (Gen 17), Jacob (Gen 35), and Moses (Exod 6)—targets the divine presence in the Sinai sanctuary (Exod 25–40), Gen 15 also incorporates the ownership of the land— temporally and factually beyond the status of being aliens in (Canaan and) Egypt—in a covenant. In this way, the promise to Abraham in view of the particular problematic ­situation—that Abraham still has no legitimate heir and does not own the land (vv. 2–3), and thus is “alien” in his own country—is put into the broader context of the “sacred history” for the people of Israel. Furthermore, it is affirmed both by a recognition of Abraham’s righteousness because of his faith and by a covenant. After all this, it makes

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Identifying Secondary Layers   229 sense that the majority of scholars (whether following the Documentary Hypothesis or another hypothesis)—in opposition to Hoftijzer—concludes that the promise in Gen 15 not only lies on a different (and more recent) literary level than Gen 17 and the ­El-­Shaddai group, but also than Gen 12:1–3 and the Gen 12 group. Besides, or rather instead of, the linguistic and conceptual differences, the issue of narrative coherence is used by some scholars as a criterion for separating Gen 15 from its context and claiming it for one of the classical sources (Baden  2013, 22–25, 65–66, 78–100, 119–126). However, in this case it is precisely narrative coherence that does not speak for, but on the contrary against, the literary-­critical separation of the chapter from the present context. For the promise is by no means disclosed for the first time in Gen 15 (Baden 2013, 79), but occurs very specifically and explicitly following the pre-­context in Gen 12–14. There are several indications that Gen 15 continues, and builds upon, the earlier narrative found in Gen 12–14. This is already clear from the opening words of ch. 15: “After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.” Abraham does not enter the country for the first time; he has already arrived and gone the way God has assigned him. The text says this explicitly in v. 7 with reference to the transition in Gen 11–12, and in a formulation that is reminiscent of the Decalogue: “He also said to him: I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abraham still does not have descendants, and the land still does not belong to him. The lamentation in vv. 2–3 reveals that he was promised something, which has not yet occurred. After Abraham enters the country, surrenders a part to Lot, and, lastly, forgoes his rightful booty after the battle against the Canaanite kings, the “reward” is missing: the heir to the ownership of the land. This is the reason for the promise: “Do not be afraid, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.” The pledge of descendants and land in Gen 15, which focuses on Abraham’s faith and righteousness, and which takes the form of the covenant, does not occur for the first time, but is confirming and reaffirming the commitments of Gen 12–13. Confirmation is required not only because of the delay that has occurred through Lot and the war against the kings of the land (Gen 14), but also in view of the narrative’s continuation: the barrenness of Sarah, noted in Gen 16:1, as well as the birth of Ishmael, who, as Gen 17 and 21 make clear, is not the legitimate heir. Even the “alien status” in Gen 17 must have been a reason to entrust the promise of the inheritance to the faith of Abraham and his ­righteousness, and to confirm the possession of the land in the form of a covenant ­ceremony—against all appearances and for the descendants (whenever this may occur, and even if only for the period after the “alien status” in Egypt and the exodus!). And so the problematic situation of the patriarch in Gen 15 makes sense only in the context of the current composition (including the priestly text). Joel Baden asks why Abraham’s doubts had not already been expressed and dismissed in Gen 12 (Baden 2013, 22, 79), and concludes that Gen 15 does not fit into its context: it must therefore belong to a different literary layer or “source.” But why should the promise be doubted when it was first given? On the contrary: in terms of the narrative and its logic, these doubts make sense only when Gen 15 is read after Gen 12–13 and the late insertion of Gen 14

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230   Reinhard G. Kratz (Granerød 2010). The text is neither a doublet, nor does it contradict its narrative context. Rather, it solves the problems raised by its literary context. Conceptually, Gen 15 presupposes Gen 12:1–3; on the lexical and topical levels, the chapter also comprises several links to the non-­priestly narratives regarding the patriarchs and the exodus, the priestly writing, and Deuteronomy, and consequently presupposes the connection between the primeval-­patriarchal narrative and the exodus-­conquest narrative. Gen 15 does not constitute the link between patriarchs and exodus; rather it builds upon this connection, not only making it explicit but reinterpreting it in a new perspective. Both linguistic and conceptual features link the text to other promises that do not all lie on one literary level, but which can be defined as comprising something like a “Genesis 15 group.” Related to Gen 15 are the following texts: Gen 16:10; 18:18–19; ­21:12–13, 17–18; 22:15–18; 24:7; 26:2–5, 24; 46:2–4 (see Köckert  1988, 168–198, 321–323; on Gen 20–22 Köckert  2015b; Kratz  2005b, 260–261, 267 with n. 28, 270–272, 277; likewise Levin 2015; Blum 1984, 297–361, 362–419; differently 2002). In contrast to the Gen 12 group (12:1–3; 28:13–15, possibly also 12:7; 13:14–17) and the Gen 17 group (17:1–22; 2­ 8:3–4; 35:9–13; 48:3–4), the Gen 15 group is concerned not only about the content but also about the threats to, and the conditions of, the promise. The promise has become problematic, is linked to Abraham’s behaviour, and is extended in time. Not only will the patriarchs themselves benefit, but also their children and grandchildren, especially the exodus generation (Gen 15; 46:3–4; 50:24; Exod 3:7–8) and, insofar as it concerns the increase of descendants and the benevolence of Yhwh, in Gen 17 the branch lines of Ishmael as well (16:10; 21:12–13, 17–18). Other related texts within the Hexateuch (such as Exod 3–4; 32–34; Jos 23–24) rely partly on the explicit promises (Kratz 2011b: 46–49, 54).

Conclusion External evidence provides us with data on the various possibilities of the literary revision of older material in the Pentateuch, with the Supplementary Hypothesis as a suitable explanatory model, and, in some cases perhaps also the Fragmentary Hypothesis. Evidence supporting the Documentary Hypothesis has not been found. Following the example of external evidence we can also look in the present text of the Pentateuch to find indicators for defining and identifying different (“primary” or “secondary”) literary layers of the older stages of tradition, for which different versions have not been preserved. As is the case with external evidence, it is also advisable to distinguish between the observation and the explanation of such indicators in the internal evidence. Indicators include linguistic, conceptual, and narratological features. A key criterion for the reconstruction of different literary strata (layers or “sources”) is narrative coherence, but only in conjunction with linguistic and conceptual features. The various features do not exclude, but complement each other. The example of the three basic promise texts in Gen 12:1–3; 15; and 17 has shown that we can distinguish in this way between a priestly (Gen 17) and a non-­priestly stratum

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Identifying Secondary Layers   231 (Gen 12 and 15). In the non-­priestly text we can again distinguish between a pre-­priestly (Gen 12) and a post-­priestly layer (Gen 15). All literary layers have intertextual connections, showing that the texts were more or less directly dependent on each other. Gen 12:1–3 is the literary and programmatic hinge that connects the primeval history and the patriarchal narrative in Gen 2–35, and represents the oldest retrievable literary stratum of the composition; Gen 17 is part of the priestly writing, which emerged with recognition of the non-­priestly composition and represents a kind of rewritten Scripture; Gen 15 requires both Gen 12 and Gen 17 and the connection of non-­priestly and priestly texts, and represents a post-­priestly supplement. The most appropriate explanatory model for this evidence seems—at least to me—to be the Supplementary Hypothesis. Older traditions or “sources” lying behind the oldest retrievable non-­priestly composition or the priestly writing can be reconstructed only with extreme caution and restraint. For them, the Fragmentary Hypothesis presents itself as an explanatory model. For the distinction between the pre-­priestly composition and the priestly writing, the Documentary Hypothesis is still a valid explanatory model, albeit in the sense that the “sources” are dependent on each other, one rewriting the other (comparable to the relationship between Samuel–Kings and Chronicles;­ Genesis–Exodus and Jubilees; etc). The postulate of separate versions of the same ­construction of the “history” of the origins of Israel, which have emerged independently, cannot be verified in the text of the Pentateuch that has been handed down and, given the external evidence, is rather unlikely.

Suggested Reading On the the methodology and current research see Kratz (2011b;  2016a); on the external ­evidence for the reworking of biblical writings in the versions and rewritten Scripture as starting point for identifying literary layers see Carr (2011), Kratz (2013a, 126–156;  2013b; 2015c; 2016b; 2018), Pakkala (2014), Müller / Pakkala / ter Haar Romeny (2014); Müller / Pakkala (2017; 2021 in print); on so-­called doublets and rewriting within the Pentateuch see Kratz (2009; 2013b); on the promises to patriarchs as test-­case see Hoftijzer (1956), Blum (1984), Köckert (1988;  2004, 77–88;  2013;  2014;  2015a), Levin (1993;  2013;  2015), Kratz (2005b), Baden (2015).

Works Cited Alt, A. 1929. Der Gott der Väter Väter: Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der israelitischen Religion. BWA(N)T 48. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Reprinted in Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel 1, 1–78. Munich: Beck, 1953. Baden, J.  S. 2009. J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch. FAT 68. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Baden, J. S. 2012. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, New Haven: Yale University Press. Baden, J. S. 2013. The Promise to the Patriarchs, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Becker, U. 2015. Exegese des Alten Testaments. 4th ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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232   Reinhard G. Kratz Berner, C. 2006. Jahre, Jahrwochen und Jubiläen: Heptadische Geschichtskonzeptionen im Antiken Judentum. BZAW 363. Berlin: De Gruyter. Berner, C. 2010. Die Exoduserzählung: Das literarische Werden einer Ursprungslegende Israels. FAT 73. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Blum, E. 1984. Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte. WMANT 57. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Blum, E. 1990. Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch. BZAW 189. Berlin: De Gruyter. Blum, E. 2002. “Die literarische Verbindung von Erzvätern und Exodus: Ein Gespräch mit neueren Endredaktionshypothesen.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, ed. J.  C.  Gertz, K.  Schmid, and M.  Witte, 119 156. BZAW 315. Berlin: De Gruyter. Reprinted in E.  Blum, Textgestalt und Komposition: Exegetische Beiträge zu Tora und Vordere Propheten, edited by W. Osswald, 85–121. FAT 69. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Brooke, G.  J. 1992. “The Temple Scroll and LXX Exodus 35–40.” In Septuagint, Scrolls and Cognate Writings, Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Septuagint and Its relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Writings (Manchester, 1990), ed. G. J. Brooke and B. Lindars, 81–106. SBLSCS 33. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Carr, D. M. 2006. “What is Required to Identify Pre-Priestly Narrative Connections between Genesis and Exodus?: Some General Reflections and Specific Cases.” In A Farewell to the Yahwist?: The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation, edited by T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid, 159–180. SBLSymS 34. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Carr, D. M. 2011. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crüsemann, F. 1981. “Die Eigenständigkeit der Urgeschichte: Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion um den ‘Jahwisten.’” In Die Botschaft und die Boten Boten: Festschrift für Hans Walter Wolff zum 70, edited by J. Jeremias and L. Perlitt, 11–29. Geburtstag, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. De Pury, A. 2006. “The Jacob Story and the Beginning of the Formation of the Pentateuch.” In A Farewell to the Yahwist?: The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation, edited by T.  B.  Dozeman and K.  Schmid, 51–72. SBLSymS 34. Atlanta, GA: SBL. De Pury, A. 2010. “Pg as the Absolute Beginning.” In Die Patriarchen und die Priesterschrift/Les Patriarches et le document sacerdotal: Gesammelte Studien zu seinem 70. Geburtstag/Recueil d’articles, à l’occasion de son 70e anniversaire, 13–42. ATANT 99. Zurich: TVZ. Gertz, J. C. 2002. “Abraham, Mose und der Exodus: Beobachtungen zur Redaktionsgeschichte von Gen 15.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 63–81. Berlin: De Gruyter. Gertz, J. C. 2006. “The Transition between the Books of Genesis and Exodus.” In A Farewell to the Yahwist?: The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation, edited by T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid, 72–87. SBLSymS 34. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Gertz, J. C. 2015. “Zusammenhang, Trennung und Selbständigkeit der Bücher Genesis und Exodus im priesterlichen und nachpriesterlichen Pentateuch.” In The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles, edited by F. Giuntoli and K. Schmid, 233–251. FAT 101. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Granerød, G. 2010. Abraham and Melchizedek: Scribal Activity of Second Temple Times in Henesis 14 and Psalm 110. BZAW 406. Berlin: De Gruyter. Gunkel, H. 1910. Genesis übersetzt und erklärt. HAT 1. 3rd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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Identifying Secondary Layers   233 Ha, J. 1989. Genesis 15: A Theological Compendium of Pentateuchal History. BZAW 181. Berlin: De Gruyter. Hendel, R. 2011. “Is the ‘J’ Primeval Narrative an Independent Composition? A Critique of Crüsemann’s ‘Die Eigenständigkeit der Urgeschichte.’” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman et al., 181–205. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hoftijzer, J. 1956. Die Verheissungen an die drei Erzväter. Leiden: Brill. Köckert, M. 1988. Vätergott und Väterverheißungen: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Albrecht Alt und seinen Erben. FRLANT 142. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Köckert, M. 2004. Leben in Gottes Gegenwart: Studien zum Verständnis des Gesetzes im Alten Testament. FAT 43. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Köckert, M. 2012. “‘Glaube’ und ‘Gerechtigkeit’ in Gen 15,6.” ZTK 109:415–444. Köckert, M. 2013. “Gen 15: Vom ‘Urgestein’ der Väterüberlieferung zum ‘theologischen Programmtext’ der späten Perserzeit.” ZAW 125:25–48. Köckert, M. 2014. “Wie wurden Abraham und Jakobüberlieferung zu einer ‘Vätergeschichte’ verbunden?” HBAI 3:43–66. Köckert, M. 2015a. “Gottes ‘Bund’ mit Abraham und die ‘Erwählung’ Israels in Genesis 17.” In Covenant and Election in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism: Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism Vol.V, edited by N.  MacDonald, 1–28. FAT II/79. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Köckert, M. 2015b. “Gen 20–22 als nach-priesterliche Erweiterung der Vätergeschichte.” In The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles, edited by F. Giuntoli and K. Schmid, 157–176. FAT 101. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kratz, R. G. 1994. “Der Dekalog im Exodusbuch.” VT 44:205–238. Kratz, R. G. 2000. “Der literarische Ort des Deuteronomiums.” In Liebe und Gebot: Studien zum Deuteronomium, edited by R. G. Kratz and H. Spieckermann, 101–120. FRLANT 190. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Kratz, R. G. 2002. “Der vor- und der nachpriesterschriftliche Hexateuch.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 295–323. BZAW 315. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kratz, R. G. 2005a. “‘Höre Israel’ und Dekalog.” In Die Zehn Worte: Der Dekalog als Testfall der Pentateuchkritik, edited by C. Frevel et al., 77–86. QD 212. Freiburg: Herder. Kratz, R. G. 2005b. The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament. Translated by J. S. Bowden. London: T&T Clark/Continuum. Originally published in German (2000). Kratz, R. G. 2007. “‘The place which He has chosen’: The Identification of the Cult Place of Deut. 12 and Lev. 17 in 4QMMT.” In Meghillot V–VI (FS Devorah Dimant), edited by M. BarAsher and E. Tov, 57–80. Haifa: University of Haifa; Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute. Kratz, R.  G. 2009. “Friend of God, Brother of Sarah, and Father of Isaac: Abraham in the Hebrew Bible and in Qumran.” In The Dynamics of Language and Exegesis at Qumran, edited by D. Dimant and R. G. Kratz, 79–105. FAT II/35, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kratz, R. G. 2010. “The Idea of Cultic Centralization and Its Supposed Ancient Near Eastern Analogies.” In One God—One Cult—One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives, edited by R. G. Kratz and H. Spieckermann, 121–144. BZAW 405, Berlin: De Gruyter. Kratz, R.  G. 2011a. “Der ‘Penal Code’ und das Verhältnis von Serekh ha-Yachad (S) und Damaskusschrift (D).” RevQ 25:199–227. Kratz, R.  G. 2011b. “The Pentateuch in Current Research: Consensus and Debate.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman et al., 31–61. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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234   Reinhard G. Kratz Kratz, R.  G. 2012. “The Headings of The Book of Deuteronomy.” In Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch, Hexateuch, and the Deuteronomistic History, edited by K.  Schmid and R. F. Person Jr., 31–46. FAT II/56. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kratz, R. G. 2013a. Das Judentum im Zeitalter des Zweiten Tempels: Kleine Schriften I. 2nd ed. FAT 42. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. First published 2004. Kratz, R. G. 2013b. “Rewriting Torah in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of “Torah” in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, edited by B. U. Schipper and D. A. Teeter, 273–292. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 163. Leiden: Brill. Kratz, R. G. 2013c. “‘The peg in the wall’: Cultic Centralization Revisted.” In Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Antiquity to Early Islam, edited by A. C. Hagedorn and R. G. Kratz, 251–285. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kratz, R. G. 2015a. Historical & Biblical Israel: The History, Tradition, and Archives of Israel and Judah. Trans. P. M. Kurtz. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Originally published in German (2013); 2nd enlarged edition (2017). Kratz, R. G. 2015b. “Historia sacra and historical criticism in biblical scholarship.” In History and Religion: Narrating A Religious Past, edited by B.-C. Otto, S. Rau, and J. Rüpke, 407–418. Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 68. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kratz, R.  G. 2015c. “Law and Narrative in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll.” In The Reception of Biblical War Legislation in Narrative Contexts: Proceedings of the EABS Research Group Law and Narrative, edited by C. Berner and H. Samuel, 109–122. BZAW 46. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kratz, R. G. 2015d. Mythos und Geschichte: Kleine Schriften III. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kratz, R.  G. 2016a. “The Analysis of the Pentateuch: An Attempt to Overcome Barriers of Thinking.” ZAW 128:529–561. Kratz, R. G. 2016b. “Reworked Pentateuch and Pentateuchal Theory.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz, B. M. Levinson, D. Rom-Shiloni, and K. Schmid, 501–524. FAT 111. Tübingen: Siebeck Mohr. Kratz, R. G. 2018. “Sources, Fragments, and Additions: Biblical Criticism and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Study of the Humanities, Method, Theory, Meaning: Proceedings of the Eighth Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, edited by P. B. Hartog, A. Schofield and S. I. Thomas, 1–27. Leiden: Brill. Kugel, J. L. 2012. A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of its Creation. Supplements to the JSJ 156. Leiden: Brill. Lange, A. 2009. Die Handschriften biblischer Bücher von Qumran und den anderen Fundorten: Handbuch der Textfunde vom Toten Meer 1. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Levin, C. 1993. Der Jahwist. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Levin, C. 2006. “The Yahwist and the Redactional Link between Genesis and Exodus.” In A Farewell to the Yahwist?: The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation, edited by T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid, 131–141. SBLSymS 34. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Levin, C. 2013. “Jahwe und Abraham im Dialog: Genesis 15.” In Verheißung und Rechtfertigung: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament II, 80–102. BZAW 431. Berlin: De Gruyter. Levin, C. 2015. “Die Väterverheißungen: Eine Bestandsaufnahme.” In The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles, edited by F. Giuntoli and K. Schmid, 125–143. FAT 101. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Levinson, B.  M. 1997. Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Identifying Secondary Layers   235 Müller, R., and J. Pakkala. 2017. Insights into Editing in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East: What Does Documented Evidence Tell Us about the Transmission of Authoritative Texts? CBET 84. Leuven: Peeters. Müller, R., and J. Pakkala. 2021 (in print). Editorial Techniques in the Hebrew Bible, SBLRBS, Atlanta, GA: SBL. Müller, R. J. Pakkala, and B. ter Haar Romeny. 2014. Evidence of Editing: Growth and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible. SBLRBS 75. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Najman, H. 2003. Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism. Supplement to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77. Brill: Leiden. Noth, M. 1948. Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Otto, E. 2000. Das Deuteronomium im Pentateuch und Hexateuch: Studien zur Literaturgeschichte von Pentateuch und Hexateuch im Lichte des Deuteronomiumrahmens. FAT 30. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Pakkala, J. 2014. God’s Word Omitted: Omissions in the Transmission of the Hebrew Bible. FRLANT 251. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht. Rad, G.  von 1938. Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuchs. BWANT 78. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Reprinted in G. von Rad, Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, 9–86. TB 8. Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1958. Rendtorff, R. 1961. “Gen 8,21 und die Urgeschichte des Jahwisten.” KuD 7:69–78. Reprinted in R.  Rendtorff, Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, 188–197. TB 57. Munich: Kaiser, 1975. Rendtorff, R. 1976. Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch. BZAW 147. Berlin: De Gruyter. Römer, T. 1989/90. “Genesis 15 und Genesis 17: Beobachtungen und Anfragen zu einem Dogma der ‘neueren’ und ‘neuesten’ Pentateuchkritik.” DBAT 26:32–47. Römer, T. 2018. “Die politische Funktion der vorpriesterlichen Abrahamtexte.” In The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12–36, edited by M. G. Brett and J. Wöhrle in collaboration with F. Neumann, 35–66. FAT 124, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Samuel, H. Forthcoming. “Linguistic Dating”: Fallstudien zu einer umstrittenen Methode. Schmid, K. 2002. “Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 83-118. BZAW 315. Berlin: De Gruyter. Schmid, K. 2006. “The So-Called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus.” In A Farewell to the Yahwist?: The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation, edited by T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid, 29–50. SBLSymS 34. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Schmid, K. 2009. “Gibt es eine ‘abrahamitische Ökumene’ im Alten Testament? Überlegungen zur religionspolitischen Theologie der Priesterschrift in Genesis 17.” In Die Erzväter in der biblischen Tradition: Festschrift für Matthias Köckert, edited by A.  C.  Hagedorn and H. Pfeiffer, 67–92. BZAW 400. Berlin: De Gruyter. Schmid, K. 2010. Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible. Translated by J. D. Nogalski. Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures 3. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Originally published in German (1999). Schmid, K. 2011. “Judean Identity and Ecumenicity: The Political Theology of the Priestly Document.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, edited by O. Lipschits et al., 3–26. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Segal, M. 2007. The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 117. Leiden: Brill.

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236   Reinhard G. Kratz Ska, J.-L. 2009. The Exegesis of the Pentateuch: Exegetical Studies and Basic Questions. FAT 66. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Teeter, D. A. 2014. Scribal Laws: Exegetical Variation in the Textual Transmission of Biblical Law in the Late Second Temple Period. FAT 92. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Van Seters, J. 1992. Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press. Van Seters, J. 1994. The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus-Numbers. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press. Wellhausen, J. 1899. Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (1876–77). 3rd ed. Berlin: Reimer. Reprinted Berlin: De Gruyter, 1963. Wellhausen, J. 1905. Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 6th ed. Berlin: Georg Reimer. Westermann, C. 1976. Die Verheißungen an die Väter: Studien zur Vätergeschichte. FRLANT 116. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wöhrle, J. 2012. Fremdlinge im eigenen Land: Zur Entstehung und Intention der priesterlichen Passagen der Vätergeschichte. FRLANT 246. Göttingen: Vandenhock & Ruprecht. Wolff, H.  W. 1964. “Das Kerygma des Jahwisten.” EvT 24:73–98. Reprinted in H.  W.  Wolff, Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, 345–373.TB 22. Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1973.

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chapter 13

Positions on R edaction Reinhard Müller

Positions on redaction play a decisive role in historical criticism of the Pentateuch, but the precise meaning of this term is conceptualized rather differently in the various models of the Pentateuch’s literary history. Furthermore, outside of the scholarly discus­ sion on the history of the Pentateuch, one repeatedly notes a certain reservedness towards the phenomenon of “redaction,” from both aesthetic and theological perspec­ tives. For example, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who did not participate in the early criti­ cal debates on the origins of the Pentateuch (an exception is Goethe  1896, 181–186; see Wellhausen  1899, 330 and Smend  2009, 38–39), complained about the “highly deplorable and incomprehensible redaction” (eine höchst traurige und unbe­ greifliche Redaktion) which made the four final books of the Pentateuch “completely unpalatable” (ganz ungenießbar)—namely by interpolating uncountable laws and cere­ monial instructions, thus destroying the narrative coherence (Goethe  1888, 158; see Wellhausen 1899, 81). This aesthetic judgment implies a certain technical understanding of “redaction,” according to which this term means interpolating legal material into an older continuous narration—material that seems foreign to the narrative itself. Another outsider to critical research, Franz Rosenzweig, took a somewhat friendlier view of the phenomenon when calling, half in earnest, half in jest, the editor “R” (abbreviated from German Redaktor), who combined the pentateuchal sources according to the then widely accepted Documentary Hypothesis, “Rabbenu” (our rabbi) instead (Buber 1936, 322). In this perspective, the final text, which may have resulted from the “redaction” of earlier sources, is for exegesis much more important than its original components in their hypothetical separate form. In the beginnings and early phases of critical scholarship, the focus was mainly on sorting out the different sources and/or fragments of which the Pentateuch seems to be composed. That a “redaction” (in German research usually personalized as ein/der Redaktor) combined the sources and fragments was widely presupposed, but the literary phenomenon as such was usually not investigated in detail, at least not primarily.

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238   Reinhard Müller However, when the models of literary development became more differentiated, particu­ larly in the context of the newer documentary hypothesis, the phenomenon of redaction gained increasing attention. The rise of redaction criticism, particularly in the wake of Martin Noth’s influential model of a Deuteronomistic History (Noth 1943; 2nd ed. 1957), had growing impact on critical research of the Pentateuch, and the question of Deuteronomistic redaction in the Tetrateuch (Genesis–Numbers) came increasingly to the fore. This development merged with the dissolution of the classic documentary hypothesis, which had begun already before Noth’s contribution. The creation of new models of the literary history of the Pentateuch since the 1970s coincided with new conceptualizations of “redaction,” concerning particularly the need to distinguish redaction from edition(s). Finally, recent critical scholarship, following much older leads, has gradually turned to “empirical” evidence of literary historical phenomena, as it is documented in ancient textual transmission; in light of such evidence, models of source and redaction criticism need to be critically evaluated.

Concepts of Redaction in the First Phase of Critical Research up to the Newer Documentary Hypothesis After initial critical considerations on the history of the Pentateuch had been brought forth in the seventeenth century, the first comprehensive models of the Pentateuch’s lit­ erary history that were based on observations of its composite nature began to appear in the eighteenth century (Smend  1991, 13–18). Scholars who made such attempts tried mostly to justify why the Pentateuch could not have been written by a single author, and to demarcate which parts must have originated under different circumstances. Most famously, Jean Astruc in his Conjectures sur les memoires originaux: Dont il paroit que Moyse s’est servi pour composer le Livre de la Genese of 1753 hypothesized that Moses, when composing the book of Genesis, incorporated earlier written material comprising two parallel sources and additional fragments. Astruc displayed the text of Genesis 1 to Exodus 2 in three columns, thus implicitly demonstrating how Moses worked when putting the different material together (Astruc  1753, 25–280). Moses’s compositional work in Astruc’s imagination thus largely corresponds to what has been later conceptu­ alized as the “redaction” that combined the pentateuchal sources, but it is noteworthy that Astruc did not ascribe to Moses himself any further addition that may have harmo­ nized the different material or smoothed the literary seams between the combined ver­ sions. In other words, Astruc’s Moses refrained from adding editorial comments and, by retaining the precise wording of the older material in his composition, treated it with utmost respect. For example, Astruc regarded Gen 2:3 as the concluding verse of the first creation account according to his version “A” and Gen 2:4 as the opening verse of version

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Positions on Redaction   239 “B” (Astruc 1753, 30), and he therefore implied that Moses simply placed the two narra­ tives side by side after each other without further connecting them. Along such lines of reasoning the documentary hypothesis emerged. Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, one of the first who—in the footsteps of Astruc—developed this hypothesis comprehensively, proposed that the book of Genesis basically consists of two parallel sources, supplemented with additional material. He described some principles according to which the sources were put together (Eichhorn 1823, 93–100). The scribe who combined them—Eichhorn, unlike Astruc, did not primarily think of Moses ­himself—did not touch their transmitted wording and refrained from harmonizing the differences; only in rare cases did he add a single word or adapt a phrase to the combined text. A remarkable exception pertains to the ‫ תודלות‬formula in Gen 6:9; 11:27; 25:19; etc. which Eichhorn supposed may have been added by the Zusammenordner, the collector of the sources (Eichhorn 1823, 95, etc.). Karl David Ilgen—the first who modified the source model by differentiating between two ‘Elohistic’ sources—spoke similarly about the “collector” (Sammler); since, in Ilgen’s view, the collector mostly cut his sources into pieces and rarely left something of his source material aside, Ilgen was convinced that the factual text of the sources is to a large extent preserved within the Pentateuch (Ilgen 1798, 344–345, see also 498, etc.). For the contemporary fragment hypothesis, proposed by Alexander Geddes and Johann Severin Vater (Geddes 1792; Vater 1805), the question of how the various frag­ ments were combined to form a continuous narrative became even more crucial. Vater held that the fragments were put together by a “collector” (Sammler), who intended to give a comprehensive history of his people including its prehistory since the creation of the world. Contrary to the early proponents of the source model, Vater did not exclude the possibility that some pieces of the Pentateuch may have been written by the collector himself, and he discussed some possible cases (e.g. some verses of Deut 31 that connect the chapter with the song of Moses in ch. 32), although he conceded that it remains diffi­ cult to prove such an origin for a passage, except for some explanatory glosses such as the words ‫“ הוּא ֶח ְרמֹון‬that is, Hermon” in Deut 4:48. An interesting aspect is that Vater compared the method of the collector with the “redactor” (Redacteur) of the Samaritan Pentateuch, who, in Vater’s view, seems to have worked, at least in part, like the collector of the pentateuchal material (Vater 1805, 504–515). The supplementary hypothesis, developed first by Martin Wilhelm Leberecht de Wette, is a combination of the source and the fragment model, as it postulates a basic continuous source beginning with Gen 1—in de Wette’s terms, “the epic of Hebrew theo­ cracy” (das Epos der hebräischen Theokratie)—into which various fragments of different origins were interpolated. De Wette attributed the act of interpolating these fragments to a “collector” (Sammler) but seems to have been skeptical about saying much more on this kind of redactional activity (de Wette 1807, 21–26). When the model of three continuous sources, the so-­called newer documentary hypothesis, gained common acceptance and was expanded to the Pentateuch as a whole, or better, to the Tetrateuch apart from Deuteronomy—the separate nature of the latter had been established by de Wette’s dissertation of 1805 (Mathys 2008)—the way in

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240   Reinhard Müller which the sources had been compiled started to attract more attention. In particular, the classic contribution by Hermann Hupfeld dedicated a short but concise paragraph to the “redactor” (Redactor) and his work (Hupfeld 1853, 195–203). According to Hupfeld, the redactor, whose work can be compared with harmonies of the gospels, was rather successful in disguising the different origins of his material, although modern critics are able to discern them. In Hupfeld’s view, the redactor, on the one hand, dealt in strict faithfulness with his sources and kept their wording as completely as possible; on the other, he was attentive to the overall coherence of the narrative and constructed the whole according to a well-­thought-­out plan—a plan which he could deduce partly from his sources. As a consequence of the second principle, Hupfeld proposed that the redac­ tor in some cases modified the transmitted wording of his sources, such as by continu­ ously referring to Abram and Sarai prior to Gen 17 instead of Abraham and Sarah, or by using the pronoun ‫ הוא‬and the noun ‫ נער‬for both genders throughout the Pentateuch; sometimes he also added a comment or a gloss for combining the source material—for example, the apparent commentary in Gen 20:18, the ‫“ ֵׁשנִ ית‬a second time” in Gen 22:15, or the ‫“ עֹוד‬again” in Gen 35:9 (Hupfeld 1853, 198–199, 202–203). This idea of a single main redaction by which the pentateuchal sources were combined was adopted particularly by August Dillmann in his commentaries on the Hexateuch (see Dillmann 1886, XVII–XIX). Conceptualizing the phenomenon of redaction within the literary history of the Pentateuch became increasingly complicated in the wake of the late dating of the Priestly Code—a model particularly connected with the names of Karl Heinrich Graf and Julius Wellhausen (Graf 1866; Wellhausen 1878, 1883, and 1885). In the context of such models, it turned out to be difficult to argue for only a single redaction by which the pentateuchal sources had been compiled. On the one hand, Wellhausen built on Hupfeld’s model and identified a main “redactor” (Redactor) who inserted the “JE” material, i.e. the com­ bined Yahwistic and Elohistic sources, into the Priestly Code. Similarly to Hupfeld, Wellhausen held that this redactor usually left the transmitted wording of his sources intact and only in some cases omitted something, mostly of the JE material; rarely, he made a short addition to connect the different pieces and to cover a literary seam, such as in Gen 7:6–9 (Wellhausen 1899, 1–3). On the other hand, Wellhausen regarded the “Jehovist,” that is, the one who combined the Yahwistic and Elohistic sources prior to their incorporation into the Priestly Code, in some passages as the true author of the narration since he arranged the source material creatively according to his own plans, such as in the Sinai pericope. Notably, Wellhausen admitted that in these passages it gets difficult to clearly distinguish the two sources from each other. In addition, Wellhausen postulated also a Deuteronomistic “redaction” (Redaction) of the JE material in the hexateuchal narration that must have taken place when Deuteronomy was incorporated into this material, and before JED was incorporated into P. Furthermore, following a theory proposed by Julius Popper and taken up by Abraham Kuenen (Popper  1862; Kuenen 1886), Wellhausen assumed a late priestly Diaskeuast who edited the combined JEDP material and contributed substantially to the final form of the Hexateuch (Wellhausen 1899, 329). Kuenen himself described in extensive detail the redactional

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Positions on Redaction   241 activity that can be observed in Genesis to Joshua (Kuenen 1886, 313–342). Most remark­ ably, he substantially questioned the unity of the redaction (see Schmid 2016, 589–593): The redaction of the Hexateuch . . . assumes the form of a continuous diaskeue or diorthosis, and the redactor becomes a collective body headed by the scribe who united the two works . . . [i.e. DJE and P] into a single whole, but also including the whole series of his more or less independent followers. It is only in exceptional cases, however, that the original redactor can be distinguished with certainty from those who continued his work. (Kuenen 1886, 315)

According to Kuenen, already “the union of J and E” was achieved by “a redactor or har­ monist” (Kuenen suggested the siglum “Rj”), and the same holds true for the ­combination of JE and D (“Rd”). The redactor who combined JED with P (“Rp”) worked “in the spirit and in the interest of P” (Kuenen 1886, 317), and this work was followed by a supplementation of the priestly laws, on the one hand, and by a continuous harmonizing editing which was “gradually ebbing” and is partially attested in the textual history, on the other (307–308, 316–317). A final step in this process was the separation of the Pentateuch from Joshua and the internal division of the five pentateuchal books (340–342).

The Impact of Redaction History and the Dissolution of the Source Model While in pentateuchal research the concept of redaction first developed in relation to the question how the different sources and/or fragments were combined with each other, the terms ‘redaction’ and ‘redactor’ were conceptualized slightly differently in other books, particularly in the Former Prophets. A case in point is the commentary on Judges by Gottlieb Ludwig Studer from 1835—a groundbreaking contribution to the critical investigation of this book. Studer used the terms “redaction” (Redaction) and “redactor” (Redactor) to designate the creation of the continuous storyline in the main part of the book (Judg 2:6–16:31), and he attributed particularly its programmatic open­ ing in Judg 2:6–3:8 to the hand of the redactor (Studer 1835, 437–438). In other words, Studer ascribed substantial parts of the text of Judges to the redactor. This approach con­ trasts with the hesitance of classic pentateuchal research, particularly in the context of the documentary hypothesis prior to Wellhausen, to attribute more than single words to the redactor who combined the different material, as illustrated by Hupfeld’s description of the redactional activity. On the other hand, conceptualizing redaction similarly to Studer’s idea of the redaction in Judges started to impact pentateuchal research as well. An example is Wellhausen’s idea of the “Jehovist,” the compiler of the sources J and E. Wellhausen postulated that this compiler not only combined the two sources but in some passages also edited the received material substantially; for example, a typical addition by the hand of Wellhausen’s “Jehovist” is the second speech of the divine

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242   Reinhard Müller messenger in Gen 22:15–18, and in the non-­priestly Sinai pericope the “Jehovist” can even be seen as the factual author and not only as the one who mechanically combined the two sources (Wellhausen 1899, 18 and 94). This authorial “redactor” was, according to Wellhausen, influenced by Deuteronomy, and his work may have underwent a further Deuteronomistic redaction (94n2). The conceptualization of redaction in the Pentateuch therefore had started to change, a­ nd—contrary to the early phases of penta­ teuchal research up to the classic form of the documentary hypothesis by Hupfeld and Dillmann—more and more passages of the Pentateuch were attributed to redactional and editorial activity. The modified newer documentary hypothesis that was based on observations by Graf, Wellhausen, Kuenen, and others—the JEDP model—gained wide acceptance and for decades remained largely unquestioned. However, there was among this model’s ­adherents remarkable variation in their conceptualization of redaction. In Otto Eißfeldt’s synopsis of the Hexateuch from 1922, the impact of redaction on the texts, compared with the models of Wellhausen and Kuenen, appears surprisingly limited, although ­Eißfeldt—­following particularly Rudolf Smend (see Smend  1912, 30)—discerned four stages of “redaction” (Redaktion), which in his opinion, like in the classic models, primarily meant stages of compilation (Eißfeldt 1922, 86). Yet Eißfeldt’s synopsis unwittingly dis­ played the mechanical nature and the circularity of the source model, which later on became a main reason for abandoning it. A first serious challenge for the documentary hypothesis was posed by Paul Volz and Wilhelm Rudolph in 1933, who questioned from different angles the existence of an orig­ inally independent Elohistic source. They did not abandon the source model as such but pointed at the apparent discontinuity of the alleged E pieces in the book of Genesis (Volz and Rudolph 1933, 13–25 and 145–151). Initially, their critique of the E model did not gain much acceptance, but in the long run it became highly influential. Based on the form-­critical approach, developed primarily by Hermann Gunkel in his commentary on Genesis (Gunkel 1901), new questions on the formation of the narrative cycles of the Pentateuch emerged—questions that eventually developed into further challenges for the documentary hypothesis. Gerhard von Rad’s  1938 study on the “­form-­critical problem of the Hexateuch” (Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch) became influential in pentateuchal research after the Second World War and since the 1970s has inspired theories that modified or questioned substantial parts of the source model. On the one hand, von Rad deduced the combined larger narrative arcs of the Hexateuch, namely the stories about the patriarchs, the exodus, and the conquest, from the “brief historical credo” (das kleine geschichtliche Credo), a form exemplified by Deut 26:5–9 and, according to von Rad, older than the composition of the Hexateuch (von Rad 1965, 11–20). On the other hand, based on the observation that Sinai is not mentioned in several attestations and modifications of this form (Deut 26:5–9; 6:20–24; Josh 24:2–13; Ps 136; Exod 15), he concluded that the tradition of the Sinaitic revelation had a different ori­ gin than the traditions that are mentioned in the credo. He also postulated the separate origins of the primeval history, the various patriarchal cycles, the Joseph novella, and the stories of the exodus and the conquest. This various narrative material was first

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Positions on Redaction   243 combined by the Yahwist, and was subsequently taken up with much the same overall shape by both the Elohist (with the exception that this source cannot be found before Gen 15) and the Priestly Code (von Rad 1965, 58–85). The phenomenon of redaction seems to have been of only marginal interest for von Rad, who in passing mentioned that the final form of the Hexateuch seems to be the work of redactors (85). Martin Noth followed a similar approach and tried to differentiate between the vari­ ous topics of the pentateuchal narrative (Noth 1948). However, he combined this with his famous model of a Deuteronomistic History, published first during the war in 1943 (2nd ed. Noth 1957; English trans., Noth 1981). Noth proposed that the large composi­ tion of Deut 1 to 2 Kgs 25 goes back to the hand of a single author who incorporated in this work various materials of different origins. At the same time, this author harmo­ nized and unified these materials by means of added commentaries, often in the form of longer speeches put in the mouth of central narrative characters such as Joshua or Samuel. Although Noth usually called the Deuteronomist an author and only in passing “redactor” (Redaktor; Noth 1957, 91n1), his approach opened a new perspective: by tak­ ing up earlier theories on Deuteronomistic redactions in the Former Prophets and mod­ ifying them, he combined various observations on redactional elements in Deuteronomy to Kings with the question of how the literary continuity of this large his­ torical narration is to be explained. The fact that Deuteronomy is an integral part of Noth’s Deuteronomistic History had the consequence that this model impacted his view of the Pentateuch as well. Noth, who used the term “Hexateuch” only with quotation marks, denied that such a literary composition ever existed as an independent unit; rather, he held that the Pentateuch was combined with the Deuteronomistic History only at a late stage, that is, after the basic “redaction” of the Pentateuch that combined the Priestly Code with the material of the other pentateuchal sources. Traces of this late compositional activity—in this context Noth avoided the term ‘redaction’—can be found in the latter parts of Numbers, mostly in Num 32–36, and the concluding chapters of Deuteronomy (Noth 1957, 211–216). Noth’s idea of a single Deuteronomistic author or redactor who composed the con­ tinuous historical narration from Deut 1 to 2 Kgs 25 has increasingly encountered chal­ lenges, up to and including recent models that deny a coherent Deuteronomistic redaction altogether. Frank Moore Cross and his students developed a model of a late preexilic Deuteronomistic redaction ending in 2 Kgs 23, supplemented by a second, exilic, Deuteronomistic redaction (Cross 1973; Nelson 1981), while Rudolf Smend and his students postulated a first Deuteronomistic thread continuously running from Deuteronomy to the end of Kings and further redactional layers (Smend 1971, 2002; Dietrich 1972; Veijola 1975, 1977, and 2004). Following this discussion, the basic unity of the Deuteronomistic redaction(s) was questioned from various angles (see esp. the the­ ory of an original opening of the Deuteronomistic history in 1 Sam 1; Provan 1988, 164; Kratz 2005, 209; Aurelius 2003, 93–94; Schmid 2012, 72–78). In pentateuchal research, the situation has become increasingly complex, especially since the last third of the twentieth century, and it is difficult to give a fair and compre­ hensive overview of the development. Any summary is to a certain extent arbitrary and

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244   Reinhard Müller subjective. One may discern two trends that have become more and more prominent and that have led to consequential modifications of the classic theories or to their complete abandonment. Both take up tendencies of earlier research that are connected particularly with the contributions of von Rad and Noth, although the results look rather different than both may have imagined. First, following von Rad’s suggestions about the origins of the various narrative materials of the Pentateuch, several models have emphasized the separate literary character of the pentateuchal narrative cycles. In other words, while von Rad—and likewise Noth—traced the origins of the narrative cycles back to separate narrative traditions, which they thought had been primarily transmitted orally, since the 1970s several scholars have reconstructed cycles that were originally independent from each other on the literary level, particularly in Genesis and Exodus. Such models inevita­ bly raised the question of how the various literary cycles were combined, and on which literary historical level they were combined, to form the overarching continuous narra­ tive of the Pentateuch. Second, the classic concepts of the pentateuchal sources were sometimes changed in ways that recall Noth’s conception of the Deuteronomist as an author or redactor. In other words, a ‘redaction historical’ perspective began to be applied to the Tetrateuch as well, which led to increasing modifications of the source model, until a growing number of scholars abandoned it, either partially or completely. When John van Seters postulated an exilic date for the Yahwist, and at the same time abandoned the model of a continuous Elohistic document, he also theorized that the priestly material was incorporated into the Yahwistic work by means of supple­ mentation (van Seters 1975). Later, he specified his model of the Yahwistic history by postulating that this work was conceived by a single author as an introduction or overture for the Deuteronomistic History. In this context he denied the existence of  several pre-­Deuteronomic redactions, as had become necessary to claim in the ­context of the classic source model (van Seters  1994). With a similar dating but a somewhat different view of the texts themselves, Hans Heinrich Schmid observed the closeness of the Yahwistic material to Deuteronomy and to crucial Deuteronomistic passages, thus assimilating the Yahwistic elements to the phenomenon of Deuteronomistic redaction and speaking explicitly of a Yahwistic “redaction” of the pentateuchal traditions (Schmid 1976). Rolf Rendtorff went a step further by ­decidedly rejecting the theory of continuous pentateuchal sources and postulating larger, ­originally separate units instead. According to Rendtorff, it was a Deuteronomic or Deuteronomistic “redaction” that combined these units, and the composite work that resulted from this process underwent a partial priestly redaction—or better, “edition” (Bearbeitung), which placed the primeval history in its opening and added some theologically weighty texts, such as Gen 17, up to Exod 6, but not beyond. In this con­ text Rendtorff stressed that it does not seem appropriate to treat the books of the Deuteronomistic History and the Pentateuch methodologically in such different ways as Noth and his immediate followers did (Rendtorff 1977). Rendtorff ’s model there­ fore exemplifies how the redaction critical approach that had emerged because of Noth’s model of a Deuteronomistic History rebounded on the reconstruction of the Pentateuch and changed its basic coordinates.

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Positions on Redaction   245 Rendtorff ’s student Erhard Blum deepened this approach by developing a similar model in two influential studies from the 1980s (Blum 1984, 1990). Blum discerned two “composition layers” (Kompositionsschichten), a Deuteronomistic “KD” composition, followed by a priestly “KP” composition. He saw these layers neither as sources nor redactions—namely redactions in the sense of the classic source model; by designating them as “compositions” instead, Blum indicated that he attributed to these layers the formation of the larger narrative sequences of the Pentateuch by combining its origi­ nally independent narrative cycles. According to Blum’s later model, which evolved after some modifications of his own theories (Blum 2002), the KD composition expanded an originally independent Exodus-­narrative with theologically crucial texts like Exod 3 and combined it with the end of Deuteronomy, thus creating a kind of overture to the Deuteronomistic History, which Blum conceptualized along the lines of Noth’s theory (Blum 2011). According to Blum’s modified model, it was only the KP composition that created the literary bridge from Genesis to Exodus and added further material, namely those texts that were traditionally attributed to the Priestly Code. Although Blum did not call the KP composition “redaction,” he stressed that functionally it corresponds to the classic model of a redaction that combined the Pentateuchal sources by incorporating the non-­P material into the Priestly Code (Blum 1990, 287). When further material was added to the combined KD and KP layers—Blum particularly attributed some texts to a “Hexateuch redaction” (notably labeled in German Hexateuch-­Bearbeitung) spanning until Josh 24 (Blum 2002, 153, 156)—this did not change the general narrative outline of the Pentateuch, an outline that was basically created by the KP composition. In a somewhat different way, the questions and perspectives of redaction history impacted Christoph Levin’s model of the Yahwist (Levin 1993). Levin reconstructed this pentateuchal document as the work of a “redactor” sensu stricto, namely by attributing to the Yahwist, whom he dated to the early exilic period, the first composition of the overarching pentateuchal narration. “Redaction” in this sense exclusively means com­ bining earlier source materials, which were unconnected with each other (“JQ,” i.e. the sources of the Yahwist), and creating a continuous narrative work (“JR,” i.e. the ele­ ments of the Yahwistic redaction). Since Levin also held on to the concept of an inde­ pendent priestly document, he postulated a further “redaction” that combined the priestly and Yahwistic documents into a single literary sequence. Compared with the Yahwistic “redaction,” Levin conceptualized this second “redaction” rather differ­ ently, although he calls them both “redactions,” since both aimed at creating new lit­ erary units. Consequently, Levin described the profile of this latter “RJP” redaction along similar lines as the classic source model. He held that this redaction treated its two sources with utmost respect, trying to avoid larger omissions of the source material and refraining from adding more than some connecting phrases (see also Levin  2013). The further literary history of the Pentateuch, according to Levin, unfolded, by contrast, mainly in a complex sequence of subsequent “editions” but no comprehensive “redactions.” In other words, Levin strictly differentiated between these two  phenomena by defining “edition” as a supplementation of an already existing ­literary unit (Levin 2016).

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246   Reinhard Müller A number of other studies, partly inspired by Rendtorff and in discussion with Blum, coincided in their claim that the narratives about the patriarchs and the exodus were composed and transmitted separately before they were combined at a relatively advanced stage of the literary development (Römer 1990; Schmid 1999; Gertz 2000). In this context, the Priestly Code could be conceptualized either as an independent source or as a redaction, while consequentially a non-­priestly continuous narrative from Genesis to Exodus had to be denied. The theory that the priestly material goes back to “redactional” or “compository” activity could also be modified into a model of several subsequent priestly “editions” (Bearbeitungen) and further “redactions” in the context of the Hexateuch and Pentateuch (Albertz 2012, 2015). Other scholars, however, rejected the idea of an exclusively priestly bridge from Genesis to Exodus, retaining instead vari­ ous arguments for a pre-­priestly transition between these books or narrative arcs (Kratz  2005; Carr  2006; Berner  2010). The literary historical relationship between Genesis and Exodus therefore has become a focal point of the debate, and a wide range of theories can be found on the question of which elements in Gen 50 to Exod 1 can be attributed either to a “composition” or to one or more “redactional” layers (see the con­ tributions in Berner and Samuel 2018). Corresponding models according to which the primeval history also originated separately and was combined with the ensuing patriar­ chal narratives only by priestly or even post-­priestly hands have been discussed since the 1980s (see e.g. Crüsemann 1981; Witte 1998; Gertz 2018). Along similar lines but based on a detailed analysis of Deuteronomy, Eckart Otto developed a comprehensive model of the literary history of the Pentateuch that is simi­ lar in part to the theories of Rendtorff and Blum. According to Otto, it was the Priestly Code that first combined the primeval history with the narratives about the patriarchs and the exodus; however, Otto saw the decisive step in the formation of the later Pentateuch in the combination of the Priestly Code with an earlier composition com­ prising Deuteronomy and Joshua—a combination achieved by the “Hexateuch redac­ tion,” and followed by a “Pentateuch redaction” that separated Joshua from Deuteronomy. Since Otto attributed decisive steps in the formation of the Pentateuch to Deuteronomy and related Deuteronomistic redactions of Deuteronomy, such as the “DtrD” and “DtrL” redactions, he held that it was Deuteronomy that eventually became the “cradle” of the Pentateuch—while at the same time rejecting the theory of a Deuteronomistic History (Otto 2000). Otto’s student Reinhard Achenbach developed this redaction critical perspective further by differentiating from the Hexateuch and Pentateuch redactions a later threefold “theocratic edition” (Theokratische Bearbeitung) that left its traces especially in the late priestly sections of Numbers (Achenbach 2003). From this perspective, a substantial amount of the pentateuchal text goes back to “redac­ tional” and “editorial” activity, and to a certain extent the ideas of a continuous priestly diaskeue of the Pentateuch that had been raised by Popper and Kuenen in the nineteenth century (see the section Concepts of Redaction in the First Phase of Critical Research up to the Newer Documentary Hypothesis) are revived within a new frame. In the most recent history of research, one of the most consequential applications of the redaction critical perspective on the Pentateuch can be found in the work of

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Positions on Redaction   247 Christoph Berner, who reconstructed in the exodus narrative a highly differentiated but continuous sequence of successive “editions” (Bearbeitungen). According to Berner, the literary history of Exodus began with an originally independent exodus narrative with which the following conquest narrative of Josh 2–12* was connected (see Kratz 2005). In a second step, still prior to the incorporation of the priestly material, the Joseph story was connected with the exodus narrative, and the exodus narrative was supplemented with further elements such as the oldest plague narratives. Berner held that the texts that were classically attributed to the Priestly Code mostly go back to another “phase of edit­ ing” (priesterschriftliche Bearbeitungsphase), followed by various further late and postpriestly editing, the latter showing marked influence from Deuteronomistic style and theology. In this view, the literary history of this crucial narrative section of the Pentateuch results entirely from successive editing that took place by means of supple­ mentation or Fortschreibung. In other words, Berner revives the classic supplementary hypothesis in a modified form. Notably, many of the additions that Berner postulates concern only limited sections of the text; they show an internal logic that is related to the respective contexts but cannot be conceptualized as comprehensive and continuous “redactions.” Finally, in the recent history of research, the Documentary hypothesis of the nine­ teenth century has been revived. For example, Joel Baden, a leading advocate of the “Neo-­Documentarian” school, not only returns to postulating the existence of four orig­ inally independent documents in the Pentateuch, but also claims that their compilation was not done by several redactors, as was argued by Wellhausen and Kuenen, but by a single redactor in a single step. As implied in the earliest stages of critical research, this redactor, according to Baden, aimed at preserving the four documents as completely as possible. Baden thus calls him a “preservationist.” Baden contends that the redactor lim­ ited himself to very few interventions into the text of the four documents, namely by interpolating brief phrases copied from another source, but he did so only where the logical problems of the combined sources were too obvious. “The wide conceptual gap between this silent compiler and the active theological redactors of the European approach is worth noting” (Baden 2012, 224). Baden seems to perceive the development of attributing more and more texts to the hands of “redactors”—a development that mainly began with the late dating of the Priestly Code in the late nineteenth century (see the section Concepts of Redaction in the First Phase of Critical Research up to the Newer Documentary Hypothesis)—as a form of degeneration, a process Baden particu­ larly connects with the name of Wellhausen. To conclude this section, it turns out that in all these debates the term “redaction” is often used differently. Sometimes it is understood according to a (revived or modified) documentary hypothesis; in other cases it is conceptualized as an edition or a bunch of editions of a prior existing coherent text, as in the widely discussed models of a “Hexateuch” and “Pentateuch redaction”; and in yet other instances, as in the model proposed by Blum, “redactions” or “editions” are postulated to have followed earlier “compositions.” It would certainly help for future debates to define the term “redaction” as precisely as possible—for example, by using the term only for a literary activity that

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248   Reinhard Müller created new sequences of older material that was originally unconnected with other material. All further literary activity that enriched existing sequences without changing their basic structure could be called an “edition” instead.

Thinking of Redaction in Light of Empirical Evidence The Pentateuch is an extremely complex document, and its literary character is certainly singular in world literature. Its various literary inconsistencies and logical problems sparked critical research, and every new hypothesis contributed to enrich the percep­ tion of its literary complexity. In the initial stage of research, the phenomenon of redac­ tion did not receive much attention, but, as shown above, this has changed step by step. However, up to the present day, research has reached little or no consensus on the liter­ ary history of the Pentateuch, and in view of the extremely wide range of different posi­ tions it may be utopian to expect such consensus for the future. A decisive reason for this situation is that there exists very little evidence outside of the Pentateuch that leads to unambiguous conclusions on its origins and history. From early on, critical research was aware of the hypothetical nature of its consider­ ations and therefore kept a lookout for comparative models and empirical evidence. When Astruc postulated that Moses had arranged his sources in columns before com­ piling them, he compared this method with harmonies of the four gospels (Astruc 1753, 434)—a comparison that was repeated by many of Astruc’s followers. However, gospel harmonies such as Tatian’s Diatessaron have rarely been systematically investigated as comparative material for the literary character of the Pentateuch. Notable exceptions are a short but detailed study of some sample passages by George Foot Moore (Moore 1895) and Herbert Donner’s insightful comments on the working methods and hermeneutics the supposed redactor of the Pentateuch may have shared with the “redactors” of gospel harmonies (Donner 1980). A much more important angle for understanding the literary nature of the Pentateuch is provided by textual history. The Greek transmission, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the textual transmission in the Dead Sea Scrolls give insights into the final stages of the literary history of the Pentateuch and shed at least indirect light on editorial and poten­ tially also redactional phenomena. Although the textual transmission of the Pentateuch, apart from so-­called rewritten Bible compositions such as Jubilees or the Temple Scroll, seems to have been much more stable than in books such as Joshua, Kings, or Jeremiah, there is nevertheless variation in many places, and there are numerous cases where a variant seems related to the literary historical development. From early on, scholarship was aware of this potential avenue of research, although the hypothetical reconstructions of the Pentateuch’s original components always received much more attention. Seminal

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Positions on Redaction   249 attempts at investigating the textual transmission of the Hebrew Bible for the purpose of understanding its literary development were made by Abraham Geiger (1857) and, partly inspired by Geiger, albeit with a somewhat different method, by Julius Wellhausen in his studies of the text of Samuel (Wellhausen  1871). As for the Pentateuch, Julius Popper was one of the first who decisively used both the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint for understanding its “redaction history” (Redactionsgeschichte), and on this basis he comprehensively analyzed the extremely complex pericope about the tent of meeting in Exodus (Popper 1862). Popper claimed that textual history gives insights into redaction history, with the term “redaction” primarily referring to the late priestly diaskeue that is found in the middle books of the Torah. He stressed that only on this basis could the earlier “composition history” (Compositionsgeschichte) be illuminated. Graf and Kuenen referenced this approach positively (Graf 1866, 86–87; Kuenen 1886, xviii, etc.; see also Wellhausen 1899, 144–147), though they did not pursue further meth­ odological investigations into the relationship between textual and literary history. The Qumran findings sparked off new interest in the textual transmission of the Hebrew Bible, from which also the study of the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch eventually benefitted, but it took decades until the investigation of the Scrolls started to impact the methodology of literary historical reconstruction. In Jeffrey Tigay’s influen­ tial collected volume Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, the editor himself studied “Conflation as a Redactional Technique,” adducing cases from the so-­called biblical Qumran scrolls and comparing them with samples from the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch (Tigay  1985). Thirty years later, the Qumran scholar Eugene Ulrich presented a comprehensive overview of the most important areas where the Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on literary historical phenomena of those Jewish writings that eventually became canonized as the Hebrew Bible. Ulrich paid special attention to the Pentateuch and, in particular, the relationship between the so-­called Reworked Pentateuch manuscripts and the Samaritan textual tradition (Ulrich 2015). The most recent methodological studies aim to close the gap between textual and literary history and try to describe comprehensively what can—and cannot—be learned from the tex­ tual transmission about editorial and redactional phenomena in the biblical texts (Carr  2011; Müller, Pakkala, and ter Haar Romeny  2014; Person and Rezetko  2016; Müller and Pakkala 2021). Studies of individual phenomena of the textual transmission give specific insights into techniques and hermeneutics of the ancient editors (e.g. Schorch 2019). However, scholarship has only begun to investigate the Pentateuch systematically from this perspective. To be sure, it is likely that the decisive “compositional” or “redac­ tional” layers lie far beyond the final literary-­historical stages that are illuminated by the ancient and medieval textual transmission, for these decisive layers originated much earlier. It seems that the documented textual transmission mainly sheds light on various unsystematic and unrelated “editorial” interventions, not on systematic and continuous “redactions” (Müller and Pakkala 2021). On the other hand, as Popper had claimed, the study of the textually documented stages of the text’s literary development should in any

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250   Reinhard Müller case be the first step of investigation, before generating hypothetical reconstructions of the preceding stages. When beginning with these later stages, it is also possible to shed light upon earlier stages of the text’s redaction.

Suggested Reading Kratz, R. G. 2015. Historical and Biblical Israel: The History, Tradition, and Archives of Israel and Judah. Translated by P. M. Kurtz. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levin, C. 2005. The Old Testament: A Brief Introduction. Translated by M. Kohl. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Smend, R. 2017. Kritiker und Exegeten: Portraitskizzen zu vier Jahrhunderten alttestamentlicher Wissenschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Works Cited Achenbach, R. 2003. Die Vollendung der Tora: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Pentateuch. BZABR 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Albertz, R. 2012. Exodus 1–18. ZBK. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag. Albertz, R. 2015. Exodus 19–40. ZBK. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag. Astruc, J. 1753. Conjectures sur les memoires originaux: Dont il paroit que Moyse s’est servi pour composer le livre de la Genese. Brussels: Fricx. Aurelius, E. 2003. Zukunft jenseits des Gerichts: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Studie zum Enneateuch. BZAW 319. Berlin: De Gruyter. Baden, J. S. 2009. J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch. FAT 68. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Baden, J. S. 2012. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. ABRL. New Haven: Yale University Press. Berner, C. 2010. Die Exoduserzählung: Das literarische Werden einer Ursprungslegende Israels. FAT 73. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Berner, C., and H.  Samuel. 2018. Book-Seams in the Hexateuch I: The Literary Transitions between the Books of Genesis/Exodus and Joshua/Judges. FAT 120. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Blum, E. 1984. Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte. WMANT 57. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Blum, E. 1990. Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch. BZAW 189. Berlin: de Gruyter. Blum, E. 2002. “Die literarische Verbindung von Erzvätern und Exodus: Ein Gespräch mit neueren Endredaktionshypothesen.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J.-C.  Gertz, K.  Schmid, and M.  Witte, ­118–156. BZAW 315. Berlin: de Gruyter. Blum, E. 2011. “Das exilische deuteronomistische Geschichtswerk.” In Das deuteronomistische Geschichtswerk, edited by H.-J. Stipp, 269–295. ÖBS 39. Frankfurt a.M.: Lang. Blum, E. 2015. “Noch einmal: Das literargeschichtliche Profil der P-Überlieferung.” In Abschied von der Priesterschrift? Zum Stand der Pentateuchdebatte, edited by F.  Hartenstein and K. Schmid, 32–64. Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie 40. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. Buber, M. 1936. “Aus den Anfängen unserer Schriftübertragung.” In Die Schrift und ihre Verdeutschung, edited by M. Buber and F. Rosenzweig, 316–329. Berlin: Schocken.

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Positions on Redaction   251 Carr, D. M. 2006. “What Is Required to Identify Pre-Priestly Narrative Connections between Genesis and Exodus? Some General Reflections and Specific Cases.” In A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation, edited by T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid, 159–180. SBLSymS 34. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Carr, D. M. 2011. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cross, F. M. 1973. “The Themes of the Book of Kings and the Structure of the Deuteronomistic History.” In Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel, 274–289. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Crüsemann, F. 1981. “Die Eigenständigkeit der Urgeschichte: Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion um den ‘Jahwisten’.” In Die Botschaft und die Boten: Festschrift für H. W. Wolff zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by J. Jeremias and L. Perlitt, 11–29. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. de Wette, W.  M.  L. 1807. Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament. Vol. 2.1, Kritik der Mosaischen Geschichte. Halle: Schimmelpfennig. Dietrich, W. 1972. Prophetie und Geschichte: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk. FRLANT 108. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Dillmann, A. 1886. Die Genesis. 5th ed. Leipzig: Hirzel. Donner, H. 1980. “Der Redaktor: Überlegungen zum vorkritischen Umgang mit der Heiligen Schrift.” Hen 2:1–29. Eichhorn, J. G. 1823. Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 4th ed. Vol. 3. Göttingen: Rosenbusch. Eißfeldt, O. 1922. Hexateuch-Synopse: Die Erzählung der fünf Bücher Mose und des Buches Josua mit dem Anfange des Richterbuches in ihre vier Quellen zerlegt und in deutscher Übersetzung dargeboten samt einer in Einleitung und Anmerkungen gegebenen Begründung. Leipzig: Hinrichs. Geddes, A. 1792. The Holy Bible or the Books Accounted Sacred by Jews and Christians. Vol. 1. London: Davis. Geiger, A. 1857. Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel: in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der innern Entwickelung des Judenthums. Breslau: Hainauer. Gertz, J.  C. 2000. Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch. FRLANT 186. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Gertz, J. C. 2018. “The Relative Independence of the Books of Genesis and Exodus.” In BookSeams in the Hexateuch I: The Literary Transitions between the Books of Genesis/Exodus and Joshua/Judges, edited by C. Berner and H. Samuel, 55–72. FAT 120. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Goethe, J. W. 1888. “Noten und Abhandlungen zu besserem Verständniß des West-östlichen Divans.” In Goethes Werke: Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen, 7:1–259. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger. Goethe, J.  W. 1896. “Zwo wichtige bisher unerörterte Biblische Fragen zum erstenmal gründlich beantwortet, von einem Landgeistlichen in Schwaben.” In Goethes Werke: Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen, 37:175–190. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger. Graf, K.  H. 1866. Die geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Testaments: Zwei historisch-kritische Untersuchungen. Leipzig: Weigel. Gunkel, H. 1901. Genesis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Hupfeld, H. 1853. Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung. Berlin: Wiegandt und Grieben. Ilgen, K. D. 1798. Die Urkunden des Jerusalemischen Tempelarchivs in ihrer Urgestalt. Vol. 1. Halle: Hemmerde und Schwerschke.

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252   Reinhard Müller Kratz, R. G. 2005. The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament. Translated by J. Bowden. London: T & T Clark. Kuenen, A. 1886. An Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch. Translated by P. H. Wicksteed. London: Macmillan and Co. Levin, C. 1993. Der Jahwist. FRLANT 157. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Levin  C. 2013. “Die Redaktion RJP in der Urgeschichte.” In Verheißung und Rechtfertigung: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament II, 59–79. BZAW 431. Berlin: de Gruyter. Levin, C. 2016. “The Pentateuch: A Compilation by Redactors.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, 579–587. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Mathys, H.-P. 2008. “Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wettes Dissertatio critico-exegetica von 1805.” In Biblische Theologie und historisches Denken: Wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Studien, edited by M. Keßler and M. Wallraf, 171–211. Basel: Schwabe. Moore, G. F. 1895. “Tatian’s Diatessaron and the Analysis of the Pentateuch.” JBL 9:201–215. Müller, R., J. Pakkala, and B. ter Haar Romeny. 2014. Evidence of Editing: Growth and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible. SBLRBS 75. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Müller, R., and J. Pakkala. 2021. Editorial Techniques in the Hebrew Bible: Reconstructing the Literary History of the Hebrew Bible. SBLRBS. Atlanta: SBL. Nelson, R. D. 1981. The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History. JSOTSup 18. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Noth, M. 1948. Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Noth, M. 1943. Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament. Halle (Saale): Niemeyer. Noth, M. 1957. Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament. 2d ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Noth, M. 1981. The Deuteronomistic History. JSOTSup 15. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Nöldeke, T. 1869. “Die s. g. Grundschrift des Pentateuchs.” In Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments, 1–144. Kiel: Schwers’sche Buchhandlung. Otto, E. 2000. Das Deuteronomium im Pentateuch und Hexateuch: Studien zur Literargeschichte von Pentateuch und Hexateuch im Lichte des Deuteronomiumrahmens. FAT 309. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Person, R.  F., and R.  Rezetko, eds. 2016. Empirical Models Challenging Biblical Criticism. SBLAIL 25. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Popper, J. 1862. Der biblische Bericht über die Stiftshütte: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Composition und Diaskeue des Pentateuch. Leipzig: Hunger. Provan, I. W. 1988. Hezekiah and the Book of Kings: A Contribution to the Debate about the Composition of the Deuteronomistic History. BZAW 172. Berlin: de Gruyter. Rad, G.  v. 1938. Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch. BWA(N)T 26. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Rad, G. v. 1995. “Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch.” In Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament. 1–144. TB 8. München: Kaiser. Rendtorff, R. 1977. Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch. BZAW 147. Berlin: de Gruyter. Römer, T. 1990. Israels Väter: Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition. OBO 99. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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Positions on Redaction   253 Schmid, H. H. 1976. Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag. Schmid, K. 1999. Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testaments. WMANT 81. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Schmid, K. 2012. The Old Testament: A Literary History. Translated by L.  M.  Maloney. Minneapolis: Fortress. Schmid, K. 2016. “Post-Priestly Additions in the Pentateuch.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz, B. M. Levinson, D. Rom-Shiloni, and K. Schmid, 589–604. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schorch, S. 2019. “The So-Called Gerizim Commandment in the Samaritan Pentateuch.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Samaritan Pentateuch, edited by M. Langlois, 77–97. CBET 94. Leuven: Peeters. Smend, R. 1912. Die Erzählung des Hexateuch: auf ihre Quellen untersucht. Berlin: Reimer. Smend, R. 1991. “Über die Epochen der Bibelkritik.” In Epochen der Bibelkritik: Gesammelte Studien Band 3, 11–32. Munich: Kaiser. Smend, R. 1971. “Das Gesetz und die Völker: Ein Beitrag zur deuteronomistischen Redaktionsgeschichte.” In Probleme biblischer Theologie: Gerhard v. Rad zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by H. W. Wolff, 494–509. Munich: Kaiser. Smend, R. 2002. “Das Gesetz und die Völker: Ein Beitrag zur deuteronomistischen Redaktionsgeschichte.” In Die Mitte des Alten Testaments: Exegetische Aufsätze, 148–161. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Smend, R. 2009. “Die Zehn Gebote.” In Zwischen Mose und Karl Barth: Akademische Vorträge, 26–46. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Studer, G. L. 1835. Das Buch der Richter: Grammatisch und historisch erklärt. Bern: Dalp. Tigay, J. H. 1985. “Conflation as A Redactional Technique.” In Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, edited by J. H. Tigay, 53–96. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ulrich, E. 2015. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible. VTSup 169. Leiden: Brill. Vater, J. S. 1805. Commentar über den Pentateuch. Vol. 3. Halle: Waisenhaus-Buchhandlung. Van Seters, J. 1975. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Van Seters, J. 1994. The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus–Numbers. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Veijola, T. 1975. Die ewige Dynastie: David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie nach der deuter­ onomistischen Darstellung. AASF 193. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. Veijola, T. 1977. Das Königtum in der Beurteilung der deuteronomistischen Historiographie: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung. AASF 198. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. Veijola, T. 2004. Das 5. Buch Mose Deuteronomium: Kapitel 1,1–16,17. ATD 8.1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Volz, P., and W. Rudolph. 1933. Der Elohist als Erzähler: Ein Irrweg der Pentateuchkritik, an der Genesis erläutert. BZAW 63. Gießen: Töpelmann. Wellhausen, J. 1871. Der Text der Bücher Samuelis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wellhausen, J. 1878. Geschichte Israels. Vol. 1. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen, J. 1883. Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, 2d ed. of Geschichte Israels, vol. 1. Berlin: Reimer.

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254   Reinhard Müller Wellhausen, J. 1885. Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel. Translated by J. S. Black and A. Menzies. Edinburgh: A. & C. Black. Wellhausen, J. 1899. Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments. 3d ed. Berlin: Reimer. Witte, M. 1998. Die biblische Urgeschichte: Redaktions- und theologiegeschichtliche Beobachtungen zu Genesis 1,1–11,26. BZAW 265. Berlin: de Gruyter.

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chapter 14

The Pr ie stly W r iti ng(s): Scope a n d Natu r e Jakob Wöhrle

The existence of the so-­called priestly writing is one of the most important theories in the research on the formation of the Pentateuch. Since the first approaches by Henning Bernhard Witter (1711) and Jean Astruc (1753), up to the present, the distinction between at least two literary layers within the Pentateuch, a priestly layer and a non-­priestly layer, is the fundament of all pentateuchal research. In fact, this basic distinction between a priestly and a non-­priestly layer is the only real point of consensus in the current debate about the formation of the Pentateuch. The broad agreement regarding a priestly layer of texts within the Pentateuch may be due to the fact that the texts attributed to this layer exhibit some very specific features. Beginning with the creation account in Gen 1:1–2:4a, the priestly texts exhibit characteristic ideas, recurring motifs, and particular words and phrases. The blessing of fruitfulness and multiplication (Gen 1:28; 9:1; 17:20; Exod 1:7; Lev 26:9; etc.), the concept of an everlasting covenant (Gen 9:16; 17:7, 13, 19; Exod 31:16; Lev 24:8), the promise that God will be the God of his people (Gen 17:7–8; Exod 6:7; 29:45; Lev 11:45; 26:12; etc.), the dating of certain events by the age of the protagonists (Gen 5:3–32; 9:28–29; 12:4; 16:3; 17:1; 25:26; 41:46; Exod 7:7; 12:40; etc.) or the designation of Canaan as the “land of strangeness” (Gen 17:8; 28:4; 36:7; 37:1; Exod 6:4)—all these are characteristic features of the priestly texts and speak to their close connection. However, in current research, only the mere existence of a priestly stratum of texts within the Pentateuch is uncontroversial. Many aspects regarding the formation and intention of these texts, by contrast, are highly disputed. The following essay will discuss the five most important aspects of the current debate about the priestly writing. It will address the literary character of the priestly passages, the original end of the priestly writing, the formation of the Holiness Code, the date of the priestly writing, and the overall intention of this corpus.

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256   Jakob Wöhrle

The Literary Character of the Priestly Passages At the beginning of the critical investigation of the Pentateuch, it was an unquestioned ­presupposition that the priestly passages could be attributed to an originally independent source. Moreover, in the early approaches to the formation of the Pentateuch scholars thought that the priestly passages represented the oldest source and, thus, the literary foundation of the Pentateuch. This presupposition determined the work of Theodor Nöldeke (1869), who for the first time comprehensively defined the extent of the priestly texts and whose delimitations formed the basis of all further research on these texts. Nöldeke aimed at elaborating the Grundschrift of the Pentateuch. That the priestly passages derived from a once-­independently transmitted source was the premise and not the result of his work. After Julius Wellhausen and others had redefined the chronological sequence of the pentateuchal sources—with the priestly texts now being held as the youngest instead of the oldest layer—the basic assumption that the priestly passages were parts of an older self-­standing source was not really questioned. Early critical voices against this approach, like Bernardus Dirk Eerdmans (1908) or Paul Volz (1933), remained unheard. But as with many assumptions allegedly taken for granted in the older research on the Pentateuch, the literary character of the priestly passages also became the subject of intensive scholarly debate, beginning especially in the 1970s. Scholars like Frank Moore Cross (1973, 301–321), John Van Seters (1975, 279–287), Rolf Rendtorff (1977, 112–146), and Erhard Blum (1984, 420–458; 1990, 229–285) challenged the common assumption that the priestly passages are parts of a formerly independent source. Instead, according to their view, these passages should be understood as a redactional layer, which was written from the outset as a literary expansion of older, non-­priestly texts. The supporters of this redaction hypothesis point mainly to the ostensible narrative gaps within the priestly stratum. Compared to the non-­priestly stratum, the priestly texts lack several important details. For example, the priestly passages do not provide any information about Jacob’s stay with his uncle Laban or Joseph’s promotion to the court of Pharaoh, nor do they provide a formal introduction to the character of Moses. Furthermore, the individual passages attributed to the priestly stratum often seem to connect poorly with each other. Finally, according to the proponents of the redaction hypothesis, the contents of the priestly passages often presuppose, and are thus written for, their non-­priestly context. In recent research, a smaller number of scholars has taken up and further elaborated the redaction hypothesis (Vervenne  1990; Albertz  1997, 495–535;  2011;  2018b; Oswald 2009, 185–203; Berner 2010). However, many scholars—both proponents of the documentary hypothesis and supporters of alternative models—continue to adhere to the classical theory, according to which the priestly passages are to be understood as parts of a formerly independent source (Koch 1987; Carr 1996, 114–120; 2011, 292–297; Kratz 2000, 247; Römer 2004, 291–292; Baden 2012, 177–188).

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The Priestly Writing(s)   257 For this conclusion they point mainly to the many doublets between the priestly and the non-­priestly texts, such as the two creation accounts in Gen 1:1–2:4a and Gen ­2:4b–25, the two nearly complete versions of the flood story, which can be reconstructed out of Gen 6–9, the two variants of God’s covenant with Abraham in Gen 15 and Gen 17, the two strata of the plague stories in Exod 7–12, or within the story about the crossing of the sea in Exod 14. Additionally, the proponents of the source theory argue that the priestly passages can, at least in large parts, be read as a discrete and continuous entity. The narrative gaps within the priestly layer they explain as the result of the process of compiling the different sources. In this process, according to their view, it was often impossible to preserve the sources in all of their respective details, and thus parts of them had to be omitted. Considering the debate about the literary character of the priestly passages, two points deserve attention. First, the proponents of both models, the source and the redaction hypothesis, draw their conclusions from rather global observations. As noted above, they refer to the doublets between the priestly and the non-­priestly texts or to the narrative gaps within the priestly layer. Second, the observations to which the proponents of the two hypotheses refer stem from different parts of the Pentateuch. Major doublets between the priestly and the non-­priestly texts are found mainly within the primeval history and the exodus account. The narrative gaps within the priestly layer exist primarily in the context of the ancestral narratives. Thus, going beyond previous research, the literary character of the priestly texts should be defined by detailed analyses that take into account the different findings within the individual parts of the Pentateuch (cf. for the following Wöhrle 2012, 2016). In the primeval history, it is indeed possible to reconstruct two complete—or at least nearly complete—narrative strands, a priestly and a non-­priestly. It begins with two independent and self-­standing creation accounts in Gen 1:1–2:4a (P) and Gen 2:4b–25 (non-­P). In the flood story, in which the priestly and the non-­priestly texts are intertwined, most parts of the narrative are given twice, such as God’s announcement of the flood (7:4 [non-­P]; 6:17 [P]), his command to enter the ark (6:18b–21 [P]; 7:1–3 [­ ­non-­P]), the beginning of the flood (7:6, 11 [P]; 7:10, 12 [non-­P]) or the end of the flood (8:1–2a, 3b–5 [P]; 8:2b–3a, 6–12, 13b [non-­P]). Moreover, even smallest narrative details, like the notice that Noah obeyed God’s command (6:22 [P]; 7:5 [non-­P]) or that he and his family entered the ark (7:13 [P]; 7:7 [non-­P]), are told twice. Additionally, in the flood story one finds small redactional notices added in order to balance the two narrative strands. For example, Gen 7:8–9 says that Noah took one pair of all clean and unclean animals, which can be seen as a secondary combination of the non-­priestly account, according to which Noah took seven pairs of the clean and one pair of the unclean animals, and the priestly account, according to which he took one pair of every kind of animal. Comparable is the evidence within the exodus story. At least from Exod 6 on, it is possible to reconstruct two nearly complete narrative strands, a priestly and a n ­ on-­priestly. Again, one finds doublets of even smallest narrative details. And again it is possible to detect redactional notices balancing the two accounts (cf. Gertz 2000).

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258   Jakob Wöhrle The juxtaposition of two nearly complete narrative strands with doublets of the smallest narrative details, as well as the redactional notices balancing the two strands—all this is best explained by the assumption that the priestly and the ­non-­priestly texts of the primeval history and the exodus story trace back to two originally independent and self-­standing corpora. Here, the priestly passages indeed should be taken as parts of an independently transmitted source, which was compiled directly with the non-­priestly source(s). Compared to the primeval history or the later exodus story, the evidence of the ancestral narratives appears quite different. First, in this part of the Pentateuch there are indeed considerably broad narrative gaps between the priestly texts. For example, the priestly passage Gen 27:46–28:9 mentions Jacob’s departure to his eastern relatives, and the priestly verse Gen 31:18 notes his journey back to the land. But between these two texts the priestly passages lack any notice about the events that occurred during Jacob’s stay with his relatives. As mentioned above, proponents of the source theory explain such narrative gaps in the priestly stratum by assuming that the redactors responsible for the compilation of the priestly and the non-­priestly sources could not preserve every piece of both sources, in order to avoid too many doublets. However, it does not seem plausible that one and the same redactors, who in the primeval history and in the exodus story preserved even smallest narrative details, should have been willing to omit whole blocks of material in the ancestral narratives. Additionally, it is noteworthy that some texts of the ancestral narratives that are commonly attributed to the priestly stratum do not bear any specific priestly features. This is true, for example, for the short notice about Sarah’s maid in Gen 16:1b, the birth notice for Ishmael in 16:15, or the comparable notice for Isaac in 21:1b–3. These texts seem to be counted among the priestly stratum solely in order to reconstruct an at least partly continuous and self-­consistent source (note that the early scholars, who attributed these verses to the priestly stratum, were trying to reconstruct the Grundschrift of the Pentateuch). Taking an impartial view, these verses should rather be attributed to the non-­priestly stratum. But without these texts the fragmentary character of the priestly ancestral narratives becomes even more obvious. Moreover, on closer inspection, those texts of the ancestral narratives which are undoubtedly parts of the priestly stratum often do not connect with each other, but rather presuppose their non-­priestly context. For example, it is generally assumed that within an originally independent priestly source Gen 12:5 and Gen 13:6 followed upon each other. According to Gen 12:5, Abraham, his wife Sarah, his brother Lot, and all the people of his house departed and came to the land of Canaan. Gen 13:6 says that the land could not support “them” so that “they” could not live together in this land. Thus, read after Gen 12:5, the plural forms of 13:6 ought to be related to Abraham, Sarah, Lot, and the people of his house. This, however, can hardly be the case. As the subsequent narrative (the priestly as well as the non-­priestly) shows, Gen 13:6 describes a conflict between only Abraham and Lot. Gen 13:6 thus cannot be read as the original continuation of 12:5, but rather ­presupposes the preceding non-­priestly verse, Gen 13:5, mentioning Abraham and Lot.

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The Priestly Writing(s)   259 The story about the conflict between Jacob and Esau in Gen 26:34–28:9 is also remarkable. According to the general view, Gen 26:34–35 and 27:46–28:9 belong to the priestly stratum of the Pentateuch and once directly followed upon each other; Gen 27:1–45 are attributed to the non-­priestly stratum. Moreover, since both the non-­priestly narrative about Jacob’s stealing Esau’s blessing in 27:1–45 and the priestly narrative about Isaac’s sending Jacob to his eastern relatives in 27:46–28:9 give alternative explanations for why Jacob left the land, these two texts are often seen as doublets and are thus taken as an important argument that the priestly texts are part of a formerly independent source (Carr 1996, 85–99; Baden 2012, 178). However, the priestly texts Gen 26:34–35 and 27:46–28:9 again do not really connect with each other. Gen 26:34–35 ends with the statement that Isaac and Rebekah were concerned about the mixed marriages of Esau. Gen 27:46–28:9, however, begins with a note that Rebekah confronts Isaac with her grief over the foreign women. Read after Gen 26:34–35, according to which both parents suffer from Esau’s behavior, it is not really understandable why in 27:46 Rebekah should unilaterally remind her husband of her grief. But read after Gen 27:1–45, the priestly verse 27:46 is easy to understand. The non-­priestly story ends in Gen 27:42–45 with Rebekah’s command to Jacob that he should flee to her relatives. It is therefore rather fitting that Rebekah should then, according to Gen 27:46, remind her husband of the foreign women and thus give him a reason to send his son away. Additionally, it is noteworthy that the priestly verse Gen 28:7 says that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother. This verse thus presupposes not only the priestly verse 28:1, according to which Isaac requests Jacob to leave the land, but also the preceding non-­priestly text, 27:42–45, according to which Rebekah sends her son away. Thus, the literary shape of the priestly passages in the ancestral narratives seems substantially different from that of the priestly passages in the primeval history or the exodus account. Here the priestly passages show broad narrative gaps, often do not connect particularly well with each other, and often presuppose their non-­priestly narrative context. Consequently, the priestly passages of the ancestral narratives cannot be understood as parts of a once-­independent source. They should, rather, be considered a redactional layer written for the context of older non-­priestly material. The juxtaposition of priestly and non-­priestly texts thus has to be explained differently for the different parts of the Pentateuch. In the primeval history as well as in the exodus story, it has to be explained as a compilation of once independently transmitted texts. In the ancestral narratives, however, the priestly passages have to be explained as a redactional layer written from the outset as supplements to older ­non-­priestly texts. That means that the priestly authors at first wrote their own self-­consistent primeval history. For the ancestral narratives and the beginning of the exodus story they took up and reworked older non-­priestly traditions. Finally, probably from Exod 6 on (cf. Wöhrle 2012, 153–158), they formulated their own independent exodus story. Later redactors then integrated the previously independent non-­priestly primeval history and the previously independent non-­priestly exodus story into this work. These considerations have far-­reaching consequences regarding the formation of the Pentateuch. They confirm the assumption, often proposed in current research, that the

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260   Jakob Wöhrle tripartite concept of the Pentateuch, with the sequence of primeval history, ancestral narratives, and exodus story, is a priestly concept (cf. Schmid 1999, 358–359; Gertz 2000, 380–388; Blum 2002). It was not an early Yahwist, but rather priestly authors who compiled for the first time the formerly independent traditions of the primeval history, the ancestral narratives, and the exodus story into a common work. Beyond current research, however, the compilation of the priestly and the non-­priestly texts has to be explained not by one and the same approach for all parts of the Pentateuch but rather by a differentiated model, which takes into account the different shape of the various parts of the Pentateuch.

The End of the Priestly Writing Aside from the literary character of the priestly passages of the Pentateuch, there is an ongoing scholarly debate about the original end of these passages. The range of proposals stretches from the book of Exodus up to the book of Joshua. In the beginning of the critical work on the Pentateuch, scholars like Nöldeke (1869, 94–108) or Wellhausen (1899, 116–134) presumed that the end of the priestly writing had to be sought within the book of Joshua. This proposal, advocated by a minority of ­scholars up to the present (Blenkinsopp  1976, 287–291; Knauf  2000, 113–116; Oswald  2009, ­185–187), is based mainly upon the assumption that the priestly promise of land requires a matching story about the conquest of the land. Thus, the short note in Josh 18:1 that the land had been subdued before the Israelites, or the notice in Josh 19:51 that the distribution of the land was finished, is seen as the original end of the priestly writing. However, it has long been recognized that the allegedly priestly passages of the book of Joshua do not really connect with each other and exhibit some important differences with the priestly texts of the preceding books. These passages are thus more likely late redactional additions to the book of Joshua that were inspired by the priestly passages of the Pentateuch (Noth 1957, 182–190; Albertz 2007). Following a suggestion of Martin Noth (1948, 16), it has long been the majority view among scholars that Deut 34:1a*, 7–9 was the original end of P (cf. with differences regarding the details, Cross 1973, 320; Frevel 2000; Blum 2009, 41). The narrative of the priestly writing would thus have reached to the border of the promised land and ended with a short note about the death of Moses. However, in a seminal article, Lothar Perlitt (1988) opposed this view. According to Perlitt, Deut 34:1a*, 7–9 does not exhibit distinct priestly language, but rather a mixture of priestly and Deuteronomistic features. Additionally, the death of Moses is not mentioned in Deut 34:1a*, 7–9, but in the non-­priestly verse 34:5. The allegedly priestly text thus presupposes its non-­priestly context and can, at the minimum, not be taken as the completely preserved ending of the priestly writing. After Perlitt’s critique, scholars tend to move the original end of P further and further back to the preceding books. Jean Louis Ska (2006, 147–151), for example, sees the

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The Priestly Writing(s)   261 original end of the priestly writing in Num 27, and thus in the wilderness narratives. According to Christophe Nihan (2007), the priestly writing ended with the Day of Atonement in Lev 16, and according to Erich Zenger (1997, 438–439), with the story about the first offering in Lev 9. Thomas Pola (1995) sees Exod 40:33 and, thus, the end of the report about the building of the tabernacle, as the original conclusion to P. Even more radical is the solution of Eckart Otto (1997, 24–27), according to whom the priestly writing ended with the instruction to build the sanctuary in Exod 29:45–46. The different assumptions regarding the original end of the priestly writing need not be mutually exclusive. Already Wellhausen (1899, 134–135) had recognized that the priestly texts of the Pentateuch have their own literary history. One must differentiate between a first edition of the priestly writing and later reworkings of this corpus. At least some of the aforementioned proposals for the original end of P could thus be taken as successive stages of a growing priestly corpus. The assessment of the original end of the priestly writing then strongly depends upon the more general evaluation of the literary arrangement of the original version of P. In this regard, the juxtaposition of narrative and law within the priestly corpus is of special importance. At several places in the books of Genesis and Exodus, legal traditions are integrated into the priestly narrative, such as the law of circumcision in Gen 17:9–14, or the Passover legislation in Exod 12:1–20, 43–49. From Exod 25 on, legal materials even dominate the priestly stratum of the Pentateuch, for example the regulations for the sanctuary in Exod 25–31, the laws about sacrifice in Lev 1–7, the laws about impurity in Lev 11–15, the holiness legislation in Lev 17–26, as well as several further legal texts in the book of Numbers. Already the first of these legal texts, the law of circumcision in Gen 17:9–14, may be recognized as a later addition to the surrounding narrative about God’s covenant with Abraham (cf. Wöhrle 2011a, 74–78; 2012, 45–50). The law of circumcision in Gen 17:9–14 sets the previously unconditional Abrahamic covenant of 17:2–8—or rather the individual acquisition of this covenant—under the condition of circumcision. Additionally, since the law of circumcision requires the circumcision of the slaves of the house, and thus gives also the slaves a share in the covenant, it broadens the scope of the Abrahamic covenant, which according to 17:2–8 is attached exclusively to Abraham and his descendants (cf., however, the opposite view of Krause 2020, 61–81). Like the law of circumcision in Gen 17:9–14, so too the Passover legislation in Exod 12:1–20, 43–49 is a secondary addition to the priestly narrative (Ska  1979, 30–34; Levin 1993, 336; Kratz 2000, 244). This finding, together with differences regarding style and content between the priestly narrative in the books of Genesis and Exodus and the priestly legislation in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, leads to the conclusion that the original version of P was—as already proposed by Noth (1948, 7–9)—a narrative. The priestly legal material is altogether the product of later redactional reworkings of the priestly corpus. Moreover, without legal traditions like the law of circumcision in Gen 17:9–14 and the Passover legislation in Exod 12:1–20, 43–49, the priestly narrative within the books of Genesis and Exodus is not concerned with ritual and cultic matters. Together with

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262   Jakob Wöhrle stylistic differences, this speaks for the assumption that not only the priestly legal material, but also the priestly narrative texts of the books of Leviticus and Numbers, which are mainly oriented toward ritual and cultic issues, trace back to later redactional processes. The first edition of the priestly writing, therefore, seems not to have reached beyond the book of Exodus. The original end of P could well be seen in Exod 40, as, in the wake of Pola, several scholars have proposed (Kratz  2000, 246; de Pury  2007, 107–108; Gertz 2010, 237). Even more plausible seems the solution of Otto, according to whom the original end of the priestly writing is to be found in Exod 29:45–46. These two verses take up and combine several important elements of the preceding priestly narrative, such as God’s promise to dwell among his people (Exod 25:8), his promise to be their God (Gen 17:7, 8; Exod 6:7), as well as his promise that the people will know him as God (Exod 6:7; 7:5; 14:4, 18; 16:12). Exod 29:45–46 could thus well be taken as the climax of the original priestly writing. This first version of the priestly writing was reworked and expanded several times. In the course of these redactional processes, the legal material as well as additional narrative texts were added. A first major reworking of the priestly writing ended, in all likelihood, in Lev 16. A later version of the priestly corpus ended in Lev 26 (see below). The even later priestly texts of the book of Numbers seem to already presuppose the compilation of the priestly corpus with the book of Deuteronomy (Achenbach 2003, 629–633). The so-­called priestly writing is thus a complex literary entity with a lengthy history of formation. A first edition ranging from Gen 1 to Exod 29 was reworked and enlarged several times by further narrative and legal traditions. Thus, in fact, several priestly writings, representing successive stages of a growing priestly corpus, have to be distinguished.

The Holiness Code and the Holiness School In current research on the priestly writing, the legal material in Lev 17–26, for which August Klostermann (1893) coined the term Heiligkeitsgesetz, “Holiness Code,” is of special interest. Since the beginning of critical research on the Pentateuch, scholars have recognized that the legal traditions collected in this passage differ from the rest of the priestly material in terms of style and content. However, the provenance of these traditions and their relationship to the priestly as well as to the non-­priestly writings continues to be highly disputed (cf. Nihan 2004). Early critics like August Knobel (1857, 494–581), Karl Heinrich Graf (1866, 75–83), Abraham Kuenen (1886, 87–88), and Julius Wellhausen (1899, 149–172) presumed that Lev 17–26 constituted a once-­independently transmitted law code. According to their view, the Holiness Code is a pre-­priestly collection, which—either by the priestly authors themselves or by a later scribe—was secondarily integrated into the priestly

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The Priestly Writing(s)   263 writing. In more recent research, scholars like Jan Joosten (1996, 5–7) and Klaus Grünwaldt (1999) still adhere to this assumption. Karl Elliger (1966a, 14–20), however, opposed the thesis of an originally independent Holiness Code. According to Elliger, the Holiness Code was written from the first for the context of the priestly writing. It is an early addition to the P source. In current research, more scholars have taken up and further elaborated this view. Of major importance is the work of Isaac Knohl (1995). Like Elliger, Knohl regards the Holiness Code as a later addition to the priestly work. However, for Knohl the Holiness Code is part of a larger redactional process. Knohl speaks of a Holiness School, which he sees as responsible not only for the Holiness Code, but for several late additions across all parts of the Pentateuch. For example, in his view the Holiness School added texts like the last verse of the law of circumcision in Gen 17:14, the Passover legislation in Exod 12:1–20, 43–49, the Sabbath legislation in Exod 31:12–17, the prohibition of fat and blood in Lev 7:22–27, and the laws about sacrifices in Num 15. Moreover, according to Knohl, the Holiness School worked over an extended period of time and is, in the end, even responsible for the compilation of the priestly and the non-­priestly sources, and thus for the final editing of the Torah. Going beyond Knohl, Otto (1994, 1999, 2009) and Nihan (2007) have examined the relationship between the Holiness Code and the other law codes of the Pentateuch. In the wake of an earlier study by Alfred Cholewiński (1976), Otto and Nihan point out that the Holiness Code consistently draws upon Deuteronomy, but also upon the Covenant Code and the Decalogue. This observation leads them to the far-­reaching conclusion that the Holiness Code was written not just for the context of the priestly writing, but for the context of a later precursor of the Pentateuch, in which priestly and non-­priestly traditions, especially the priestly writing and the book of Deuteronomy, had already been compiled. According to Otto and Nihan, the Holiness Code is part of a larger redactional reworking of the Pentateuch, a Pentateuchredaktion (Otto), which aims at balancing and harmonizing the different traditions of the older legal material. In contrast to this major trend in current research, some scholars like Volker Wagner (1974), Blum (1990, 318–329;  2009), and Andreas Ruwe (1999, 27–33) object to the assumption that the Holiness Code should be seen as a later addition, whether to the priestly writing or to the growing Pentateuch. According to their view, due to significant similarities, the Holiness Code was rather an integral part of the priestly passages of the Pentateuch from the beginning. Regarding the formation of the Holiness Code, first, the old assumption according to which the Holiness Code was a once-­independently transmitted law collection should be abandoned. The Holiness Code presupposes its current narrative setting within the Sinai pericope. According to the introductory verses, the laws of the Holiness Code are given to Moses (Lev 17:1; 18:1; 19:1; etc.). But not only these introductory notes, but also the laws themselves, presuppose the specific setting of the Sinai pericope. For example, they refer to the tent of meeting (Lev 17:4–6, 9; 19:21; 24:3) or to the future entrance into the land (Lev 18:3; 19:23; 20:22; 23:10; 25:2). That all these references to the present narrative context of the Holiness Code should be later additions to this collection, as

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264   Jakob Wöhrle Grünwaldt (1999) and others suppose, seems to be unfounded and grounded in the a priori assumption that the Holiness Code was an originally independent text. Equally unconvincing is the assumption that the Holiness Code was originally an integral part of the priestly writing. Remarkable differences in terms of style and content speak against this. For example, the term “holy” (qādôš), which is found several times in the Holiness Code (Lev 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:6–8; 24:9) and gave this collection its name, is nowhere used in the first edition of the priestly writing. Additionally, the prohibition of profane slaughter in Lev 17:1–9 contradicts the general permission for the consumption of meat in Gen 9:3. Finally, and most remarkably, in Lev 26 the Holiness Code binds God’s covenant with his people to the observance of the law, which strongly contradicts the unconditional priestly covenant in Gen 17 (cf. Lohfink 1973; Nihan 2009, 104–115). Thus, as is often proposed in current research, the Holiness Code is almost certainly a later addition to the growing Pentateuch. Moreover, following Knohl, the addition of the Holiness Code seems to be part of a larger reworking of the priestly writing. It is indeed probable that a kind of late-­priestly Holiness School reedited and reshaped the priestly writing by adding several further texts, in particular texts concerned with cultic and ritual matters, such as the Passover legislation in Exod 12:1–20* or the prohibition of fat and blood in Lev 7:22–27. However, not all of the texts that show stylistic similarities with the Holiness Code, and are thus attributed by Knohl and others to the Holiness School, are necessarily on the same redactional level. Rather, an inner differentiation of these texts seems to be appropriate. Such an inner differentiation of the work of the Holiness School was already envisaged by Knohl when he declared that this school was responsible not only for a one-­time redaction but rather for a long-­term redactional process. Thus, for example, the texts concerned with the integration of resident aliens, such as the law of circumcision in Gen 17:9–14 or the addition to the Passover legislation in Exod 12:43–49, seem to belong to a later redaction influenced by the style and content of the Holiness Code. In all likelihood, this late redaction also revised the Holiness Code itself by adding several short notes that broaden the scope of these laws to the resident alien (Lev 17:8*, 10*, 12*, 13*, 15*; 18:26b; 19:34*; 20:2*; 22:18*; 24:16b, 22). Additionally, against Otto or Nihan, it seems rather unlikely that the work of the Holiness School should be understood as a pentateuchal redaction, one that presupposes the compilation of the priestly tradition with the non-­priestly tradition, especially with the book of Deuteronomy, and aims at balancing and harmonizing these different traditions (cf. Stackert 2009). Otto and Nihan rightly observe that the Holiness Code strongly draws upon the book of Deuteronomy. However, the laws of the Holiness Code not only balance the laws of Deuteronomy with other legal traditions; in some parts they strongly contradict the Deuteronomic laws. For example, the strict prohibition of profane slaughter in Lev 17:1–9 can be understood only as a rejection of Deut 12:15. The Holiness Code thus presents a kind of alternative concept to the book of Deuteronomy (Rhyder 2019); as such it seems more likely that the work of the Holiness School was restricted to a still-­independent version of the priestly writing, to a priestly Triteuch, now ranging from Gen 1 to Lev 26 (Römer 2002, 220–224; Albertz 2012, 21–23).

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The Priestly Writing(s)   265 The Holiness Code is thus best understood as a late addition, written for the context of the growing priestly writing. The integration of the Holiness Code was the work of a late-­priestly Holiness School, which also re-­edited the preceding parts of the priestly writing. The result of the work of this Holiness School was a new edition of the growing priestly corpus, a Triteuch, which now ended in Lev 26.

The Date of the Priestly Writing A further debate regarding the priestly passages of the Pentateuch concerns their date. Scholarly opinions range from the time of the early monarchy up to the postexilic period. In early research, when the priestly writing was still held to be the oldest layer, the Grundschrift, of the Pentateuch, scholars commonly dated this corpus to the early monarchic period. For example, Nöldeke (1869, 138–143) proposed that the priestly writing stemmed from the tenth or ninth century bce. However, the insights of Wellhausen (1927, 34–52) and others led to a fundamental change. Wellhausen argued that the priestly writing already presupposed the centralization of the cult as it is demanded in the book of Deuteronomy. According to his view, the priestly writing, especially in the tabernacle texts (Exod 25–40), takes for granted the limitation of the cult to only one legitimate sanctuary, the Jerusalem temple. The priestly texts are therefore later than the book of Deuteronomy, which Wilhelm de Wette (1806, 168–179) linked to the Josianic Reform in the late seventh century. Thus, according to Wellhausen, the priestly writing could not trace back to the early monarchic time, but must rather be a product of the exilic period. In the wake of Wellhausen, the post-­Deuteronomic dating of the priestly writing has been widely accepted. More recently, however, a group of scholars has re-­argued the early monarchic dating of P (Kaufmann  1930;  1960, 175–200; Haran  1962;  1981; Hurvitz 1988; 2000; Knohl 1995, 199–224; Milgrom 1999; Faust 2019). According to their view, Wellhausen’s assumption is based upon an argument from silence: that the priestly texts mention just one sanctuary does not mean that they presuppose the centralization of the cult and thus the Josianic reform. This phenomenon could also be explained by the narrative arrangement of P: the priestly texts describe the building of the tabernacle— the desert sanctuary—which cannot simply be identified with the later Jerusalem temple. Additionally, according to these scholars, linguistic considerations also speak against the late dating of the priestly writing. Despite these objections, the main line of current research follows Wellhausen’s ­post-­Deuteronomic dating of P.  Disputed, however, is whether the priestly writing indeed belongs to the time of the exile (Elliger  1966b, 196–198; Carr  1996, 133–140; Frevel  2000, 382–383; Ska  2006, 161), or if an even later, postexilic date should be ­preferred (Blum 1990, 357; Kratz 2000, 248; Gertz 2010, 236–237). In this debate, the exilic dating of P remains the majority view. The proponents of this view argue that for

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266   Jakob Wöhrle the priestly writing—as the promise of land shows—the people’s return to the land is still an unfulfilled event. In contrast, the proponents of the postexilic dating argue that the priestly passages presuppose—for example with their presentation of the ancestors’ life in the land of Canaan—the people’s return to the land. Regarding the date of the priestly writing, several pieces of evidence speak for a late and, in all likelihood, postexilic date of P. As argued above, the priestly passages take up and enlarge an older, non-­priestly version of the ancestral narratives. According to current trends in pentateuchal research, this pre-­priestly version of the ancestral narratives itself already stems from the time of the exile (Blum 1990, 214; Albertz 2001, 191–204). If this dating of the non-­priestly material is accepted, the priestly re-­editing of the ancestral narratives thus could not be earlier than the exile. Additionally, the brief narrative in Gen 11:27–32, which belongs entirely to the priestly stratum (Wöhrle 2012, 25–27), describes how Abraham and his family emigrated from “Ur of the Chaldeans” to the land of Canaan. This portrayal is noteworthy in several respects. In the first place, the strange term “Ur of the Chaldeans” seems to presuppose not only the appearance of the Chaldean people in the ninth century but also their rise to become the leading power in Babylonia at the end of the seventh century. Moreover, the city of Ur belongs to the region in which the members of the Babylonian Golah lived. Thus, the priestly text Gen 11:27–32 presents Abraham as a kind of exemplary exile, who emigrates from Babylonia to the land of Canaan; the subsequent Abraham account then illustrates the fate of such an exile after his return to the land. The term “Ur of the Chaldeans” and the depiction of Abraham as exemplary returnee thus strongly speak for a postexilic date of P. Finally, the thematic outline of the first edition of the priestly writing seems to be strongly influenced by the Persian royal ideology (see below). This corroborates the late, postexilic dating of P. The priestly writing is thus most likely a product of the early postexilic period. The later reworkings of this corpus, such as the work of the Holiness School and subsequent late-­priestly redactions, would therefore have occurred during the later Persian period.

The Intention of the Priestly Writing One last point of debate regarding the priestly writing concerns the intention of this work. It is disputed whether the establishment of the cult at Mount Sinai or, by contrast, the promise of the land is the thematic center of the priestly corpus. In older research, Wellhausen (1927, 293–360) referred to the priestly writing as “book of the four covenants” (liber quatuor foederum). According to his view, the priestly writing presents a sequence of four successive covenants—a covenant with Adam, a covenant with Noah, a covenant with Abraham, and finally the Sinai covenant. In this sequence, he understood the first three covenants as precursors of the last and central covenant at

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The Priestly Writing(s)   267 Sinai. Thus Wellhausen supposed that the Sinaitic traditions, with the foundation of the sanctuary and the establishment of the cult, were the climax of the priestly work. Although Wellhausen’s thesis of a “book of the four covenants” was untenable, since the priestly passages include neither a covenant with Adam nor a covenant at Mount Sinai, his basic assumption that the Sinaitic tradition should be the thematic center of P influenced subsequent research. Noth (1948, 259–267), for example, was also convinced that the priestly work culminated in the Sinai pericope, with the constitution of Israel as a religious and cultic community and the installation of the sanctuary as the place of God’s presence among this community. Moreover, Noth assumed that the pre-­Sinai narratives in the priestly work—the primeval history, the ancestral narratives, and the story about the people’s oppression in Egypt—were presented by the priestly authors only because these traditions had already been part of the pentateuchal concept within the older sources. In more recent times, it is still common to see the Sinaitic tradition as the center and climax of the priestly work. However, recent research has tried to connect the priestly Sinai pericope more thoroughly with the preceding priestly work (Zenger 1983, 170–175; Blum  1990, 287–332; Ska  2006, 153–159; Nihan  2007, 54–55; Gertz  2010, 237–238). Scholars now point to cross-­references between the Sinai pericope and the priestly creation account in Gen 1:1–2:4a. For example, Exod 24:16 takes up the concept of a seven days’ work; in Exod 39:43 the building of the sanctuary, like the creation in Gen 2:3, ends with a blessing. Due to these and other cross-­references, the foundation of the sanctuary and the installation of the cult within the priestly Sinai pericope appear as the completion of creation. Against this major trend of current research, some scholars propose that not the installation of the cult but the promise of the land is the thematic center of the priestly writing (Elliger 1966b; Brueggemann 1972; Frevel 2000, 382–386). They argue that the promise of the land is the essential content of the priestly Abrahamic covenant in Gen 17, as well as of further priestly texts like Gen 28:3–4; 35:11–12; 48:3–4. Additionally, the possession of the land is the necessary precondition for the foundation of the sanctuary and the installation of the cult. Thus, according to this view, the land is the central topic of the priestly writing, upon which everything else depends. When evaluating the debate regarding the intention of the priestly writing, it is noteworthy that the two major approaches refer to different parts of the priestly corpus. The older approaches, which saw the installation of the cult as thematic center of P, refer mainly to the Sinai pericope. In these approaches, the preceding narratives become a mere prologue to this last and central part of the priestly writing. In more recent times, scholars have tended to connect the Sinai pericope more closely to the primeval history. But in this approach, the ancestral narratives are still merely a kind of linking passage between the primeval history and the exodus story. The proponents of the alternative approach, according to which the land is the central topic of P, in contrast, refer mainly to the ancestral narratives. In this approach, however, the primeval history and the ­exodus account tend to remain disregarded.

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268   Jakob Wöhrle If we grant that it was the priestly authors who for the first time connected the ­ reviously independent traditions of the primeval history, the ancestral narratives, and p the exodus story, then the interpretation of the priestly writing should take into account all parts of this work. On this basis, the central focus of the priestly writing can be defined as the God-­given order of the world and the place of God’s people within this order (cf. for the following, Wöhrle 2014, 2015). The priestly writing begins in Gen 1:1–2:4a with the creation of the world. The creation account describes how God transforms the world into an inhabitable place. Before God’s act of creation, the earth has been tōhû wābōhû and thus barren and uninhabitable. Out of this uninhabitable place, in his six days’ work, God creates an inhabitable place (cf. Wöhrle 2009). On the first three days, he establishes orders of time and space. He differentiates between day and night, he separates the upper waters and the lower waters, and he separates sea and dry land. With these orders, God prepares the basis for life on earth. On the subsequent three days, God creates in the same sequence the entities associated with the orders of the first three days. He creates heavenly bodies, animals of the air and sea, animals of the land, and humanity. At the end of the creation account God blesses humanity: according to Gen 1:28, they shall be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Humanity shall take the earth, which is now an inhabitable place, and they shall fill this place with life. The subsequent priestly flood story describes how God, because of the corruption of the earth, reverses his acts of creation. According to Gen 7:11, he opens the fountains of the great deep and the windows of heaven, undoing the separation of the upper and the lower waters and thus undoing the order of creation through which the earth had been transformed from an uninhabitable to an inhabitable place. At the end of the flood story, in Gen 9:8–17, God makes a covenant with Noah. This covenant, designated in Gen 9:12, 16 as an “everlasting covenant,” entails the inviolable promise that no flood shall ever again come on the earth and destroy all living beings. The earth shall now forever be, and remain, an inhabitable place. Thus, according to the priestly stories about creation and flood, all humanity lives under the inviolable promise that the earth will be and remain an inhabitable place in which they can blossom and develop. At this point, however, how humanity shall inhabit the earth remains open. Especially uncertain is how the members of the different nations will coinhabit the earth. And this is precisely the subject of the subsequent priestly writing. After the flood story, the table of nations in Gen 10:1–32* describes how the three sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japhet—divide into the nations of the earth. Within the priestly parts of the table of nations, the list of every son ends with the phrase “these are the sons of NN, according to their clans, their languages, by their lands and their nations” (Gen 10:5, 20, 31). According to these notes the individual nations have their own language and, remarkably, they live in their own countries. The priestly writing thus shows a kind of creation order, according to which every nation has its own territory.

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The Priestly Writing(s)   269 The subsequent ancestral narratives define the place of God’s people within this order. Based upon the pre-­priestly tradition, which is taken up and further developed by the priestly authors, the ancestral narratives describe the relationship between the later Israelite people and the neighboring nations, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, and the Ishmaelites. Of special importance is the priestly version of God’s covenant with Abraham in Gen 17 (cf. Wöhrle 2011a, 2011b). The central promise of this covenant stands in 17:7–8. According to this passage, God promises that he will be the God of Abraham and his descendants, and that he will give them the land of Canaan as their everlasting possession. Additionally, in Gen 17:19–21 the priestly narration defines the relationship between the two sons of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, the ancestors of the later Israelite and Ishmaelite people. It declares that God will establish his covenant only with Isaac and his descendants. Thus, only Isaac and his descendants are under the promise that God will be their God and that God will give them the land of Canaan. Ishmael is not part of this covenant, and thus he has neither a share in the special relationship with the God of Abraham nor any right to the land of Canaan. This does not mean, however, that the priestly version of Abraham’s covenant depicts Ishmael in a strictly negative light. On the contrary, Gen 17:20 promises that Ishmael shall be fruitful and multiply, that he will beget twelve princes and become a great nation. Thus, through the person of Ishmael, the priestly writing legitimizes not only the existence but also the prosperity and the political integrity of the later Ishmaelite people. Against this background, it is remarkable that, within the subsequent priestly passages of the ancestral narratives, Gen 25:12–18a mentions the descendants of Ishmael. It refers to twelve sons of Ishmael, who are designated as twelve princes. Additionally, it gives the dwelling place of Ishmael and his descendants: the region “from Hawilah to Shur, east of Egypt.” Gen 25:12–18a thus states that Ishmael and his descendants settled beyond the land of Canaan. This means that they accepted the exclusive right of Isaac and his descendants to live in this land. There, in their own land, the promise given to Ishmael in Gen 17 came true. There, Ishmael was fruitful and multiplied; there, he begot twelve princes and became a nation. In the ancestral narratives, the priestly writing thus specifies the world order presented in the primeval history. It points out that within the earth, which was created as an inhabitable place for all humanity, the land of Canaan is designated only for the patriarchs, Israel’s ancestors, and their descendants. The neighboring nations, in contrast, shall retreat and restrict themselves to their own territories, where they live under the promise that the God of the ancestors will preserve and multiply them. The priestly exodus story takes a new perspective. Compared to the ancestral narratives, it begins with a different situation. The ancestors’ descendants now have become the people of Israel and live in the foreign land of Egypt. About this people in Egypt, the first verse of the priestly layer within the Exodus account, Exod 1:7, says that they were fruitful and multiplied so that the land of Egypt was filled with them. The priestly version of the exodus story thus states that the blessing of fruitfulness and multiplication

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270   Jakob Wöhrle given in Gen 1:28 to all humanity has had an impact on the people of Israel. With this note, the priestly authors give a new reason for the subsequent conflict between the Egyptians and the Israelites. They even objectify this conflict: it is the impact of the—in itself positive—blessing for the creation that leads to the growth of the Israelites and thus prevents the peaceful coexistence with the Egyptians. In the subsequent priestly exodus story, Exod 2:23–25* states that God heard the groaning of the Israelites and remembered his covenant with the ancestors. According to Exod 6:2–8, God turns to Moses and promises that he will bring the Israelites to the land of their ancestors and give it to them as a possession. The priestly exodus story thus presents the land of Canaan as the solution for the conflict between the Israelites and the Egyptians. It describes the repatriation of the Israelites into their own land and, with this, the separation of the Egyptians and the Israelites as the appropriate consequence of this conflict. Thus, like the priestly texts of the ancestral narratives, the priestly version of the exodus story is determined by the idea that the members of different nations cannot live in one and the same territory. The priestly exodus story hence again pursues the concept of a world order, according to which the individual nations live in their own territories and restrict themselves to these territories. However, in contrast to the ancestral narratives, it is now the people of Israel that lives in a foreign land and comes into conflict with the local population. The priestly version of the exodus story shows that the people of Israel, too, cannot permanently stay in a foreign country. In the priestly exodus story, it is thus the people of Israel that has to retreat and restrict itself to its own territories. The rest of the priestly exodus story then describes the implementation of this ­God-­given world order (cf. Wöhrle  2014). It shows how God forces the Egyptian Pharaoh to send the Israelites people back to their country. And it shows how God, against all resistance, brings his people out of Egypt and leads them to their own land. The priestly work ends with the promise that there, in their own land, God will dwell among them and be their God (Exod 29:45–46). The priestly writing, with its tripartite sequence of primeval history, ancestral narratives, and exodus story, thus pursues a highly political concept. It presents a world order according to which, in a world created as an inhabitable place for all humanity, every nation has its own territory. It shows that within this world order the place of the Israelite people is the land of Canaan. And it demands that the individual nations, including the Israelites, separate themselves from other nations and restrict themselves to their own territories. With this concept, the priestly writing shows close affinities to Persian imperial ­ideology (Wöhrle 2014, 2015). As the Persian royal inscriptions reveal (cf. Ahn 1992, ­255–277; Koch 1996; Kuhrt 2007, 469–476), the Persian rulers saw their empire as an entity structured by individual nations with their respective countries. They regarded this world order as the basis and condition for the peaceful coexistence of the nations. The authors of the priestly writing took up this Persian concept and developed out of it their own prospect of a world order and Israel’s place within this order.

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The Priestly Writing(s)   271 Further priestly and non-­priestly scribes enhanced this concept of the first edition of the priestly writing. Late priestly redactors added, for example, legal material such as the laws about sacrifice (Lev 1–7), the laws about impurity (Lev 11–15), or the Holiness Code (Lev 17–26). With this, they gave instructions for the cultic as well as the social life of the people. Even later redactors added further, already extant, traditions like the n ­ on-­priestly primeval history, the non-­priestly exodus story, or the book of Deuteronomy. But after all these redactional processes, the basic concept of the first edition of the priestly writing still determines the outline of the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch, with its tripartite ­structure of primeval history, ancestral narratives and exodus story, still reflects the order of the world and Israel’s place in it.

Suggested Reading A good overview over current trends in pentateuchal research with its different approaches to the formation of the priestly writing is provided by Albertz (2018a). For the debate about the literary character of the priestly writings, see Baden (2017, 177–188); Wöhrle (2012,  2016); Albertz (2018b). On the end of the priestly writing, see Pola (1995); Otto (1997, 24–27); Frevel (2000); Nihan (2007). On the holiness code and holiness school, see Knohl (1995); Nihan (2007); Rhyder (2019). On the date of the priestly writing, see Hurvitz (2000); Wöhrle (2012, 160–163); Faust (2019). For different approaches to the intention of the priestly writing, see Zenger (1983); Frevel (2000); Nihan (2007); Wöhrle (2012, 2014, 2015).

Works Cited Achenbach, R. 2003. Die Vollendung der Tora: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Pentateuch. BZABR 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Ahn, G. 1992. Religiöse Herrscherlegitimation im achämenidischen Iran: Die Voraussetzungen und die Struktur ihrer Argumentation. Acta Iranica 31. Leiden: Brill. Albertz, R. 1997. Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit. 2 vols. GAT 8. 2nd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Albertz, R. 2001. Die Exilszeit: 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Biblische Enzyklopädie 7. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Albertz, R. 2007. “Die kanonische Anpassung des Josuabuches: Eine Neubewertung seiner sogenannten ‘priesterschriftlichen Texte’.” In Les dernières rédactions du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Ennéateuque, edited by T. C. Römer and K. Schmid, 199–216. BETL 203. Leuven: Peeters. Albertz, R. 2011. “Der Beginn der vorpriesterlichen Exoduskomposition (KEX): Eine Kompositions- und Redaktionsgeschichte von Ex 1–5.” TZ 67:223–262. Albertz, R. 2012. Exodus 1–18. ZBK. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Albertz, R. 2018a. “Die neue Debatte über die Entstehung von Pentateuch und Hexateuch.” In Pentateuchstudien, written by idem; edited by J. Wöhrle, 7–29. FAT 117. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Albertz, R. 2018b. “Der Verfasser der Priestergrundschrift—sein eigener Redaktor? Zum Streit um den literarischen Charakter der frühesten priesterlichen Texte im Pentateuch.”

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272   Jakob Wöhrle In Pentateuchstudien, written by idem; edited by J. Wöhrle, 255–276. FAT 117. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Astruc, J. 1753. Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il paroit que Moyse s’est servi pour composer le Livre de la Genese. Brussels: Fricx. Baden, J. S. 2012. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. ABRL. New Haven: Yale University Press. Berner, C. 2010. Die Exoduserzählung: Das literarische Werden einer Ursprungslegende Israels. FAT 73. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Blenkinsopp, J. 1976. “The Structure of P.” CBQ 38:275–292. Blum, E. 1984. Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte. WMANT 57. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Blum, E. 1990. Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch. BZAW 189. Berlin: de Gruyter. Blum, E. 2002. “Die literarische Verbindung von Erzvätern und Exodus: Ein Gespräch mit neueren Endredaktionshypothesen.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J.  C.  Gertz, K.  Schmid, and M.  Witte, ­119–156. BZAW 315. Berlin: de Gruyter. Blum, E. 2009. “Issues and Problems in the Contemporary Debate Regarding the Priestly Writings.” In The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, edited by S.  Shectman and J.  Baden, 31–44. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Brueggemann, W. 1972. “The Kerygma of the Priestly Writers.” ZAW 84:397–414. Carr, D.  M. 1996. Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Carr, D. M. 2011. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cholewiński, A. 1976. Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium: Eine vergleichende Studie. AnBib 66. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. Cross, F. M. 1973. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. de Pury, A. 2007. “PG as the Absolute Beginning.” In Les dernières rédactions du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Ennéateuque, edited by T. C. Römer and K. Schmid, 99–128. BETL 203. Leuven: Peeters. de Wette, W.  M. 1806. Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament. Vol. 1. Halle: Schimmelpfennig. Eerdmans, B. D. 1908. Alttestamentliche Studien. Vol. 1, Die Komposition der Genesis. Giessen: Töpelmann. Elliger, K. 1966a. Leviticus. HAT 4. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Elliger, K. 1966b. “Sinn und Ursprung der priesterlichen Geschichtserzählung.” In Kleine Schriften zum Alten Testament, 174–198. TB 32. Munich: Kaiser. Faust, A. 2019. “The World of P: The Material Realm of Priestly Writings.” ZAW 69:173–218. Frevel, C. 2000. Mit Blick auf das Land die Schöpfung erinnern: Zum Ende der Priestergrundschrift. HBS 23. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. Gertz, J.  C. 2000. Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch. FRLANT 186. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Gertz, J. C. 2010. “Tora und Vordere Propheten.” In Grundinformation Altes Testament: Eine Einführung in Literatur, Religion und Geschichte des Alten Testaments, edited by J. C. Gertz, 193–311. 4th ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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The Priestly Writing(s)   273 Graf, K.  H. 1866. Die geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Testaments: Zwei historisch-kritische Untersuchungen. Leipzig: Weigel. Grünwaldt, K. 1999. Das Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26: Ursprüngliche Gestalt, Tradition und Theologie. BZAW 271. Berlin: de Gruyter. Haran, M. 1962. “Shiloh and Jerusalem: The Origin of the Priestly Tradition in the Pentateuch.” JBL 81:14–24. Haran, M. 1981. “Behind the Scenes of History: Determining the Date of the Priestly Source.” JBL 100:321–333. Hurvitz, A. 1988. “Dating the Priestly Source in Light of the Historical Study of Biblical Hebrew a Century after Wellhausen.” ZAW 100 Suppl.:88–100. Hurvitz, A. 2000. “Once Again: The Linguistic Profile of the Priestly Material in the Pentateuch and Its Historical Age: A Response to J. Blenkinsopp.” ZAW 112:180–191. Joosten, J. 1996. People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17–26. VTSup 67. Leiden: Brill. Kaufmann, Y. 1930. “Probleme der israelitisch-jüdischen Religionsgeschichte.” ZAW 48:23–43. Kaufmann, Y. 1960. The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile. Translated and abridged by M. Greenberg. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Klostermann, A. 1893. “Ezechiel und das Heiligkeitsgesetz.” In Der Pentateuch: Beiträge zu seinem Verständnis und seiner Entstehungsgeschichte, 368–418. Leipzig: Deichert. Knauf, E.  A. 2000. “Die Priesterschrift und die Geschichten der Deuteronomisten”. In The Future of the Deuteronomistic History, edited by T. C. Römer, 101–118. BETL 147. Leuven: Peeters. Knobel, A. 1857. Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus. EHAT 12. Leipzig: Hirzel. Knohl, I. 1995. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Translated by J. Feldman and P. Rodman. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Koch, K. 1987. “P—Kein Redaktor!” VT 37:446–467. Koch, K. 1996. “Weltordnung und Reichsidee im alten Iran und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Provinz Jehud.” In Reichsidee und Reichsorganisation im Perserreich, edited by P. Frei and K. Koch. 133–205. OBO 55. 2nd ed. Fribourg: Presses universitaires. Kratz, R. G. 2000. Die Komposition der erzählenden Bücher des Alten Testaments: Grundwissen der Bibelkritik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Krause, J. J. 2020. Die Bedingungen des Bundes: Studien zur konditionalen Struktur alttestamentlicher Bundeskonzeptionen. FAT 140. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kuenen, A. 1886. An Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch. London: Macmillan. Kuhrt, A. 2007. The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. 2 vols. London: Routledge. Levin, C. 1993. Der Jahwist. FRLANT 157. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Lohfink, N. 1973. “Die Abänderung der Theologie des priesterlichen Geschichtswerks im Segen des Heiligkeitsgesetzes: Zu Lev. 26,9.11–13.” In Wort und Geschichte: Festschrift für Karl Elliger zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by H.  Gese and H.  P.  Krüger, 129–136. AOAT 18. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker. Milgrom, J. 1999. “The Antiquity of the Priestly Source: A Reply to Joseph Blenkinsopp.” ZAW 111:10–22. Nihan, C. 2004. “The Holiness Code between D and P: Some Comments on the Function and Significance of Leviticus 17–26 in the Composition of the Torah.” In Das Deuteronomium

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274   Jakob Wöhrle zwischen Pentateuch und Deuteronomistischem Geschichtswerk, edited by E.  Otto and R. Achenbach, 81–122. FRLANT 206. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Nihan, C. 2007. From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus. FAT 2/25. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Nihan, C. 2009. “The Priestly Covenant, Its Reinterpretations, and the Composition of ‘P’.” In The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, edited by S. Shectman and J. Baden, 87–134. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Nöldeke, T. 1869. Untersuchungen zur Kritik des Alten Testaments. Kiel: Schwers. Noth, M. 1948. Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Noth, M. 1957. Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament. 2nd ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Oswald, W. 2009. Staatstheorie im Alten Israel: Der politische Diskurs im Pentateuch und in den Geschichtsbüchern des Alten Testaments. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Otto, E. 1994. “Das Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26 in der Pentateuchredaktion.” In Altes Testament: Forschung und Wirkung, edited by P. Mommer and W. Thiel, 65–80. Festschrift für Henning Graf Reventlow. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Otto, E. 1997. “Forschungen zur Priesterschrift.” TRu 62:1–50. Otto, E. 1999. “Innerbiblische Exegese im Heiligkeitsgesetz Levitikus 17–26.” In Levitikus als Buch, edited by H.-J. Fabry and H.-W. Jüngling, 125–196. BBB 119. Berlin: Philo. Otto, E. 2009. “The Holiness Code in Diachrony and Synchrony in the Legal Hermeneutics of the Pentateuch.” In The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, edited by S. Shectman and J. Baden, 135–156. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Perlitt, L. 1988. “Priesterschrift im Deuteronomium?” ZAW 100:65–88. Pola, T. 1995. Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift: Beobachtungen zur Literarkritik und Traditionsgeschichte von Pg. WMANT 70. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Rendtorff, R. 1977. Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch. BZAW 147. Berlin: de Gruyter. Rhyder, J. 2019. Centralizing the Cult: The Holiness Legislation in Leviticus 17–26. FAT 134. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Römer, T.  C. 2002. “Das Buch Numeri und das Ende des Jahwisten: Anfragen zur ‘Quellenscheidung’ im vierten Buch des Pentateuch.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J. C. Gertz, K. Schmid, and M. Witte, 215–231. BZAW 315. Berlin: de Gruyter. Römer, T. C. 2004. “Hauptprobleme der gegenwärtigen Pentateuchforschung.” TZ 60:289–307. Ruwe, A. 1999. “Heiligkeitsgesetz” und “Priesterschrift”: Literaturgeschichtliche und rechtssystematische Untersuchungen zu Leviticus 17,1–26,2. FAT 26. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schmid, K. 1999. Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testaments. WMANT 81. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Ska, J. L. 1979. “Les Plaies d’Égypte dans le récit sacerdotal (Pg).” Bib 60:23–35. Ska, J. L. 2006. Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Stackert, J. 2009. “The Holiness Legislation and Its Pentateuchal Sources: Revision, Supplements, and Replacement.” In The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, edited by S. Shectman and J. Baden, 185–204. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Van Seters, J. 1975. Abraham in History and Tradition, New Haven: Yale University Press.

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The Priestly Writing(s)   275 Vervenne, M. 1990. “The ‘P’ Tradition in the Pentateuch: Document and/or Redaction? The ‘Sea Narrative’ (Ex 13,17–14,31) as a Test Case.” In Pentateuchal and Deuteronomistic Studies: Papers Read at the XIIIth IOSOT Congress Leuven 1989, edited by C. Brekelmans and J. Lust, 67–90. BETL 94. Leuven: Peeters. Volz, P. 1933. “P ist kein Erzähler.” In Der Elohist als Erzähler: Ein Irrweg der Pentateuchkritik: An der Genesis erläutert, edited by P. Volz and W. Rudolph, 135–142. BZAW 63. Giessen: Töpelmann. Wagner, V. 1974. “Zur Existenz des sogenannten ‘Heiligkeitsgesetzes’.” ZAW 86:307–316. Wellhausen, J. 1899. Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments. 3rd ed. Berlin: Reimer. Wellhausen. J. 1927. Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. 6th ed. Berlin: de Gruyter. Witter, H. B. 1711. Jura Israelitarum in Palaestinam terram Chananaem. Hildesheim: Schröder. Wöhrle, J. 2009. “dominium terrae: Exegetische und religionsgeschichtliche Überlegungen zum Herrschaftsauftrag in Gen 1,26–28.” ZAW 121:171–188. Wöhrle, J. 2011a. “The Integrative Function of the Law of Circumcision.” In The Foreigner and the Law: Perspectives from the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, edited by R. Achenbach, R. Albertz, and J. Wöhrle. 71–87. BZAR 16. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Wöhrle, J. 2011b. “Isaak und Ismael: Zum Verhältnis der beiden Abrahamsöhne nach Genesis 17 und Galater 4,21–31.” EvT 71:115–132. Wöhrle, J. 2012. Fremdlinge im eigenen Land: Zur Entstehung und Intention der priesterlichen Passagen der Vätergeschichte. FRLANT 246. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wöhrle, J. 2014. “Frieden durch Trennung: Die priesterliche Darstellung des Exodus und die persische Reichsideologie.” In Wege der Freiheit: Zur Entstehung und Theologie des Exodusbuches: Die Beiträge eines Symposions zum 70. Geburtstag von Rainer Albertz, edited by R.  Achenbach, R.  Ebach, and J.  Wöhrle, 87–111. ATANT 104. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Wöhrle, J. 2015. “Abraham amidst the Nations: The Priestly Concept of Covenant and the Persian Imperial Ideology.” In Covenant in the Persian Period: From Genesis to Chronicles, edited by R. J. Bautch and G. N. Knoppers, 23–39. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Wöhrle, J. 2016. “There’s no Master Key! The Literary Character of the Priestly Stratum and the Formation of the Pentateuch.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 391–403. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Zenger, E. 1983. Gottes Bogen in den Wolken: Untersuchungen zu Komposition und Theologie der priesterschriftlichen Urgeschichte. SBS 112. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk. Zenger, E. 1997. “Priesterschrift.” TRE 27:435–446.

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chapter 15

The Pl ace of Deu teronom y i n the For m ation of the Pen tateuch Udo Rüterswörden

The Name of the Book Following the usual convention in the Jewish tradition, the fifth book of the Torah received its name from its initial word, ‫דברים‬. The Septuagint and the Vulgate, which ­followed the Greek at this point, are based on Deut 17:18. The king is commanded to ­procure a “copy of the Torah,” ‫משנה התורה‬, from the Levitical priests, and to immerse himself in a lifelong study of this document. The Septuagint translates the Hebrew phrase with δευτερονόμιον, the Vulgate with deuteronomium. The Greek word can also be taken to mean a “repetition” of the law, an understandable meaning since the laws of Covenant Code are taken up again in Deuteronomy. This chapter addresses six key issues with regard to Deuteronomy and its place in the formation of the Pentateuch: the place of Deuteronomy in the pentateuchal narrative; Deuteronomy as a “reworked Tetrateuch”; redactional layers in Deuteronomy; the date of the book; the concept of “covenant” in Deuteronomy and its relationship to the treaty traditions in the ancient Near East; and, finally, the connection between Deuteronomy and “Deuteronomism” in the Hebrew Bible.

Deuteronomy in the Narrative of the Pentateuch Numbers 32 reports on the tribal allocation of land in the territory east of the Jordan River. Num 33:1–49 follows by looking back at the stations of the wandering in the desert

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   277 after the Exodus. Num 33:50–34:29, in turn, looks forward, providing instructions for the now-imminent distribution of land in the territory west of the Jordan. In Numbers 35, the theme of the land continues with provisions for the Levitical cities and cities of refuge. Num 36:1–12, finally, complements the law of Num 27:1–12 by providing further instruction for securing the land among the Israelite tribes. The concluding remark in Num 36:13—“These are the commandments and the ordinances that the Lord commanded through Moses to the Israelites in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho”— creates the impression that the conquest of the territory west of the Jordan will start immediately. The opening words of Deuteronomy, Deut 1:1–5—“These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan—in the wilderness, on the plain opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab”—appear to be both a continuation of and a variation on Num 36:13 (Otto 2012, 302). Deuteronomy, with its thirtyfour chapters, comes just before the account of the conquest of the land in the book of Joshua. It is a digression in terms of the mass of the written material, but not with regard to timing: Deuteronomy contains the final address of Moses, delivered before Israel on the last day of his life. The whole book focuses on this last day: time stands still (Seebass 2007, 464; Otto 2012, 258–282). Moses’s final address looks back at the departure from Horeb and recounts the narrative up to the present, that is, to Moses’s last day. The law is directed towards the future life in the promised land. The living conditions (sedentary life, house and property) as well as the institutions (judiciary, priesthood, kingship, prophecy) of the Deuteronomic Law (Deuteronomy 12–26) presuppose the completion of the acquisition of the land. In those verses that mention it (e.g. Deut 12:1; Rüterswörden 2011, 6), the giving of the land is described as forthcoming in the future. In this way, Deuteronomy is given a strong forward-looking character: it shows how Israel should live in the promised land. The various commands for the life in the land that are provided in Deuteronomy are programmatic, not practical. Two examples may demonstrate this. First, there is the relief of debts in Deut 15:1–11, which takes place as part of a seven-year cycle. Who would want to lend under these circumstances—especially if the year of release is imminent, and the lender will incur inevitable loss? To counter this hard economic reality, Deuteronomy provides only the true-hearted encouragement of 15:10: “Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so.” Nevertheless, counteracting poverty is a communal objective that will never end—“since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth” (15:11). Everyone has to contribute to the cause, despite potential financial loss. Second, the rules for waging war according to Deut 20 would hardly be successful in the battlefield. In the field, before the enemy, exemptions from military service are granted: anybody who has recently built a house, planted a vineyard, or become engaged—or anyone who is afraid—may go home. The resulting army therefore consists of older men; the War Scroll from Qumran (1QM 7.1) calls for active soldiers to be 40–50 years old. The king is not the chief commander of the army; war is not a means of royal power politics. In addition, a ius in bello is formulated that, at least in part, has persisted as a standard even until the present. It includes the obligation to first negotiate the surrender of a city before besieging it (20:10–11), as well as the prohibition against scorched-earth

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278   Udo Rüterswörden tactics (20:19–20). This is in express contrast to the Assyrian war practice and its ancient Near Eastern predecessors. A program directed to the future, whose features cannot be realized in the immediate present, can be described as utopian. Moses is not its author (see below), but rather ­writers from the end of the Judean monarchy. In this respect, Deuteronomy would be a retrospective utopia, a “look back” to the future. Deuteronomy has Moses describe how Israel was supposed to live. As noted above, the beginning of Deuteronomy in 1:1–5 is linked to Num 36:13, but it also marks a break. As with a prophetic book, words (‫ )דברים‬of the protagonist are mentioned, along with a date and a description of the area of prophetic activity (Otto 2012, 274–280). Moses recapitulates the departure from Horeb and the incidents in the desert (Deut 1–3). In Deut 5, and again in 9–10, the events at the mountain of God are rehearsed. In Deut 5, the Decalogue is communicated again, though the version in Deut 5 differs in some respects from Exod 20 (Hossfeld 1982; Graupner 2001). The Decalogue was proclaimed to the assembly of the people by Yahweh himself. The presence of God provoked the fear of death (5:22), so that Moses was asked to mediate. He received commandments, which he announced to the people only some time later—now, on the last day of his life (on the relationship between the Decalogue and the laws of Deuteronomy, see Rüterswörden 2005; Finsterbusch 2011). In this historical and ideological scheme the re-promulgation of laws finds its place just before the conquest. The character of this re-promulgation is a decisive point in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy research. According to Deut 1:5, Moses begins to interpret the Torah (‫)באר‬ (Rüterswörden 2007; Otto 2012, 303–304). The verb may be understood in multiple ways (proclaim, explain, interpret, etc.). Is Deuteronomy Moses’s interpretation of the Torah, and the original Torah thus hidden behind a curtain (Sonnet 1997)?

Deuteronomy as a Reworked Tetrateuch: Cult Centralization and Other Legal Revisions At the beginning of the Deuteronomic legal corpus, we find in Deut 12 the law regarding the centralization of the cult. The idea of worshipping Yahweh at only one site may correspond to the commitment to mono-Yahwism in Deut 6:4. As the findings at Kuntillet ’Ajrud from the early eighth century show, in some circles there probably existed the idea that Yahweh was connected to specific places where he was worshiped (Aḥituv et al. 2012). In the Kuntillet ’Ajrud inscriptions, this notion is expressed through the references to ‫( יהוה שמרן‬Yahweh of Samaria) and to ‫( יהוה תמן‬Yahweh of Teman). With the term ‫ אחד‬in Deut 6:4, a conscious tendency against the fragmentation of Yahweh into local manifestations can be seen (compare, e.g. the use of the plural “gods,” ‫אלהים‬, in 1 Kgs

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   279 12:28; for a contrary view, see Veijola 1992). Consequently, the “one Yahweh” should then be worshiped in one place. Nevertheless, one should note that there is no explicit connection between Deut 12 and Deut 6:4 (Rüterswörden 2011, 49), which complicates the relationship between the command to worship Yahweh as “one” God and cult cen­tral­ iza­tion in Deuteronomy. Different explanations for Deuteronomy’s trend toward the centralization of the cult have continued to be offered, often focused on the period of Assyrian westward expansion. In order to resist the Assyrian attack, it has been suggested, Hezekiah contracted the population into fortresses and had to abandon the outlying places of worship (Otto  1999, 365–366). Alternatively, one might draw an analogy with the cult of the Assyrian god Ashur, who could be worshipped only in the city of Ashur (74–75). The centralization of the cult in “the place the Lord will choose” is an innovation of Deuteronomy the impact of which cannot be understated, because of the way in which it highlights the role of Jerusalem and its temple. Deuteronomy, of course, does not mention Jerusalem, but leaves the precise location open. The Masoretic and Samaritan traditions differ in the way they refer to the place for Yahweh’s worship: MT consistently uses the yiqtol (‫ )יבחר‬with a future sense (i.e. the place Yahweh will choose), whereas the Samaritan tradition (SP) resorts to the qatal (‫ )בחר‬with a past sense (the place Yahweh has chosen). It is likely that the latter formulation is intended to legitimate the sanctuary’s location on Mount Gerizim (Schorch 2009; Rüterswörden 2011, 14–15). Notwithstanding this difference between MT and SP, the centralization of the cult is a central point in Deuteronomy and the cultic legislation of the Tetrateuch. This is not self-evident, because the altar law in Exod 20:24–26 implies a plurality of altars. B. M. Levinson has addressed the well-known problematic relationship between Exod 20:24–26 and Deuteronomy 12 in terms of reinterpretation and legal innovation. In his view, the way Deuteronomy handles its precursors in the Tetrateuch has analogies with the way that Qumran texts deal with biblical antecedents. Exod 20:24 reads: “You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.” Levinson writes: “The authors of Deut 12:13–15 appropriate this lemma to serve their own very different agenda. They deftly rework it to command the distinctive in­nov­ ations of Deuteronomy—both cultic centralization and local, secular slaughter” (Levinson 1997, 32). The laws that are formulated in terms of the centralization of the cult extend to Deuteronomy 19. They include everything that has to do with the sanctuary: tithing (Deut 14:22–29), the law of the firstborn (Deut 15:19–23), and the three yearly festivals (Deut 16:1–17). The functions of the former local shrines are redefined. This includes the sacrifice of animals, which can be carried out only at the central sanctuary. In order to enable the consumption of meat in the villages, Deuteronomy introduces non-sacrificial (profane) slaughter, that is, the permission to slaughter animals outside of the cult. In the Holiness Code, centralization is accepted, but profane slaughter is not approved

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280   Udo Rüterswörden Exod 20:24b

in every [the] place

Deut 12:13–15 prohibited

in every place

v.13

required

in the place

v.14

permitted

in all your city-gates v.15

Figure 15.1  The development of the altar law After Levinson (1997, 32).

(Lev 17:3–5). Deut 12:20–28 tries to mediate between these two views, as noted by M. Fishbane: What is, however, particularly striking about this fourth unit [namely, Deut 12:20–28] is the fact that a new exegetical distinction is drawn and the Israelites are told that when the borders will be expanded as promised then the rules of centralization and the permissibility of private slaughter will be in effect “as I commanded you” (v. 21aβ). However, no such prior commandment was given. Presumably, this remarkable pseudo-ascription was introduced to legitimate the ensuing harmonization between unit (3) [12:13–19], which enjoined private slaughter in the sacred land, and Lev. 17, which did not. The new exegetical solution was thus that private slaughter was prohibited within the original boundaries but permitted in the promised new territories.  (Fishbane 1985, 533–534)

Let us look more closely now at the way in which centralization is implemented in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 12, the main law with regard to centralization, consists of several units which attest to a lengthy process of development. The core component can be found in vv. 13–19. In it, the altar law of Exod 20:24 is reformulated. Deut 12:20–28, on the other hand, addresses the opposition against these rules found in Lev 17, as noted above. Therefore this passage has to be dated much later than the core of the unit (Rüterswörden 2011, 58–72). Levinson describes the method of reinterpretation in this way: Employing the technique of lemmatic citation and transformation, Deuteronomy’s authors harness the lexemes of older texts, wherever possible, to formulate their own religious and legal agenda. . . . Deuteronomy, in other words, is a deliberate literary pseudepigraph, designed to belie literary history by locating the innovative force of the new composition in an authoritative past. . . . Looking at the material this way suggests that familiar postbiblical and Second Temple techniques of sectarian literary activity find a precedent in Deuteronomy. These include pseudepigraphy, exegesis as a technique of textual transformation, and the phenomenon of the “rewritten Bible.”  (Levinson 1997, 33–34)

As noted above, several other laws in Deuteronomy are related to the concept of a centralized cult and sanctuary. Anyone who wants to practice non-sacrificial slaughter must know which animals are permitted for human consumption. Accordingly, this

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   281 information is provided in Deut 14:3–21. The social institutions of Israel, according to Deut 16:18–18:22, are located at the central site (i.e. the priest, the king, and the prophet); alternatively, these institutions are shared between the towns and the administrative center, as in the case of judges (see Deut 16:18–20; 17:8–13). In other cases, the concept of centralization implied that some of the traditional functions and competences of the sanctuary had to be given over to other places and institutions. For instance, one of the traditional functions of sanctuaries in antiquity was to provide asylum; in particular, following a death, it allowed for the postponement of the killer’s punishment in order to clarify whether this was the result of an accident or of a crime. This notion is retained in Deuteronomy, but because a single sanctuary would not be sufficient for the whole country, the country is now divided into three districts, each of which contains a town where the killer can seek refuge (Deut 19:1–13). The same observation applies in the case of the slave law of Exod 21. The action portrayed in Exod 21:6 is imagined as taking place at the local sanctuary: if a Hebrew debt-slave wants to stay permanently with his master, his status is marked by a rite of passage in which his earlobe is pierced against the door of the sanctuary. In Deuteronomy, this process is not transferred to the central sanctuary, but completed at the door of the owner (Deut 15:16–17). This is not the only area where Deuteronomy revises the slave legislation of the Covenant Code (Rüterswörden 2009). The Covenant Code refers to both the male and the female slave. The latter is intended for marriage, either for the owner or his son. This is not the case in Deuteronomy, in which marriages with female slaves are not permitted. A free man must marry a free woman. The same principle applies to yet another aspect of the slave legislation in the Covenant Code. According to Exod 21:4, the owner can allocate a wife to his slave. The wife and the children belong to the owner so that, when he is eventually freed, the male slave finds himself in a conflict between his personal freedom, on the one hand, and his familial bond, on the other. This situation could lead him to give up the release he had earned after working off his debt, and to choose instead permanent slavery. This type of transaction was quite common, as a document from Emar shows (Tropper and Vita 2004, 147–148), and it probably often served as a provision for one’s old age: an elderly couple obtains a male debt slave, weds a female slave to him, and soon the house would be filled with the couple’s children. Deuteronomy refuses to take pleasure in such an idyll. It rejects marriages between slaves and slaves, their children born, as it were, in chains. Deuteronomy’s goal is freedom, and therefore it requires that the owner provides the slave with the initial capital to resume his independent existence (Deut 15:14). Overall, as the previous examples make clear, Deuteronomy is a revision of the Covenant Code, carried out in light of various concerns. Prime among these concerns is Deuteronomy’s concept of cult centralization, but other issues were at work in this process as well, such as matters of matrimonial law and respect for freedom of the individual. This conclusion leads to a more general question regarding the rewriting of the Covenant Code in Deuteronomy: Is the Covenant Code still considered by the authors of Deuteronomy to be valid (Otto 1999, 308–311)? Perhaps this is a modern question— although the text is rewritten, the original is nevertheless preserved.

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282   Udo Rüterswörden Another issue of method was raised by N. Lohfink (2000). If the law in Deut 15:12–18 is a reformulation of Exod 21:2–11, would it then be possible to reconstruct the original text with the usual means of literary and redaction criticism? In other words, could we reconstruct the Vorlage of Deut 15:12–18 if we did not have Exod 21:2–11? The answer is a negative one. This conclusion also applies, more generally, to the larger literary works in which these individual laws are found. In the Book of the Covenant, the laws regarding the Hebrew slaves and the sabbatical year in Exod 21:2–11 and 23:10–12 form an inner frame. They are based on a period of six years, with the seventh as the final one. What constitutes a frame in the Covenant Code has been contracted in Deuteronomy, where the law of the sabbatical year comes before the law regarding the release of the Hebrew slaves (Otto  1999, 303–323; Rüterswörden  2006, 96–104). Anyone who knew only Deuteronomy would never come to the conclusion that the Covenant Code had arranged the laws differently.

Redactional layers in Deuteronomy In Deuteronomy the number of the addressees changes frequently between the singular and the plural (the so-called Numeruswechsel). This phenomenon is quite common in treaty texts, as for example in the Sefire inscriptions (KAI 222 B), in which an individual is addressed in the singular, a group or collective in the plural (Fitzmyer 1995, 46–53). In some parts of Deuteronomy, however, the language is used differently, since a group can be addressed in the singular; this is the case, for example, in Deut 6:4–9, the Shema: “Hear (sg.), O Israel, Yahweh is our God, etc.” The chapter on the centralization of the cult in Deuteronomy 12, by contrast, begins in v. 1 with the plural form of address: “These are the statutes and ordinances that you (pl.) must diligently observe, etc.” Various observations have led scholars to assume that the passages of Deuteronomy in which a group is addressed in the plural derive from a Deuteronomistic hand, at work in the Former Prophets (Deuteronomistic History, from Deuteronomy to Kings). For instance, the promise of peace that is found in vv. 9–12, with an address in the plural, is literarily fulfilled in the era of Solomon; compare with 1Kgs 5:18. In Deut 12:13–19 the address is mainly in the singular form; the addressee is both a group (v. 15) and an individual (v. 18). In this singular layer the question of whether an individual or a collective is addressed can be decided only by the context. Following a common rule of thumb, it is assumed that we have to do here with an older layer of Deuteronomy. The later text of Deut 12:20–28 (see above) is also formulated as a singular address, which would seem at first glance to be a problem for the use of the Numeruswechsel as redaction-critical criterion. However, there may be a simple ex­plan­ ation for this: having been originally written with a singular addressee, Deuteronomy was then revised with a layer using the plural address. Subsequent writers, like the ones responsible for Deut 12:20–28, had in front of them a text with mixed addressees, and

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   283 they felt free to formulate their own additions using a plural or a singular address, or even a combination of both. In addition to the Numeruswechsel, one has to look for other criteria in order to reconstruct the literary layers of Deuteronomy. A model for identifying and reconstructing the book’s main layers was already presented in a concise form by Steuernagel (1923), but several more models have been offered since then, which can be only briefly summarized here. (In his commentary, Otto provides an excellent overview of Deuteronomy research in the last three centuries; see Otto 2012, 62–230.) The so-called “block” model, represented by Lohfink (1976) and Braulik (2004), advances a division of the book into centralization laws, Deut 12–16:17; the laws regarding social institutions, Deut 16:18–18:22; and civil laws, Deut 19–26. Here the Numeruswechsel is classified more or less as a stylistic feature, with no prominent relevance for literary-critical decisions. The question of whether the textual growth in Deuteronomy follows a reasonably recognizable scheme (as the model by Lohfink and Braulik tends to assume), or whether it should be assessed as a more random process, cannot be answered easily. In his commentary, M. Rose argues for a consistent sequence of four layers. The starting point is the analysis of Deuteronomy 12 (Rose 1994, 9–26), which he divides into four short sermons. The oldest is found in vv. 13–19, and belongs to the “Deuteronomic Collection,” which Rose dates to the time of Hezekiah. A determining factor in this dating is the sparing of Jerusalem during the siege by Sennacherib, on the basis of which, he argues, the idea of the chosen city was founded. The second short sermon includes vv. 20–27. This passage reinterprets the first short sermon and focuses on the cult. This layer is called the “Deuteronomic School” by Rose. He dates it to the time of Josiah, whose cult reform correlates with the centralization of the cult in Deuteronomy. Specifically, the expansion of the territory mentioned in Deut 12:20 can be connected, in Rose’s view, to Josiah’s attempt to expand the Judean territory by seizing the former territory of the northern kingdom, or portions thereof (2 Kgs 23:15–20). The third short sermon, in vv. 8–12, speaks to the audience in the plural and prepares for the subsequent history told later in the Former Prophets (Joshua to Kings) by referring to the conquest of the land and the building of the sanctuary. According to Rose, it belongs to the “older Deuteronomistic layer.” At this stage of the tradition, Deuteronomy belongs to the Deuteronomistic History (see below). The fourth short sermon can be found in vv. 2–7 and 29–31. It is characterized by the contrast between Yahweh and the gods of the nations, and belongs to the younger Deuteronomistic layer. Its historical setting is the Persian Empire, with its rule over a multitude of nations. In his commentary on Deuteronomy 1–6, Perlitt focused on chapters 1–3 and 4, which introduce Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History. The connection to the book of Joshua is evident. According to Perlitt, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History were connected by a rather early Deuteronomistic author (Perlitt 2013, 26–34). To E. Otto we owe the recognition of the close relationship between Deut 13 and §10 of the Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon (Otto 1999, 1–90). Together with Deut 28, a text that is

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284   Udo Rüterswörden based on the curse section of this treaty, Deut 13 would thus comprise the oldest stratum of Deuteronomy (on the relationship between Deuteronomy and Esarhaddon’s Vassal Treaty, see also the detailed and thorough analysis by Steymans 1995; and see further below). Besides the stratum comprising Deut 13 and 28 and going back to Esarhaddon’s Vassal Treaty, the order of the religious festivals in Exod 34:10–26*, the Covenant Code, as well as various provisions for family laws would have provided the foundations for the “Deuteronomic Deuteronomy” preserved in Deut 6:4–5; 12:13–28:44*. At a later stage, this first layer of Deuteronomy was supplemented by the work of the main Deuteronomistic redactor, DtrD, resulting in a composition that extends from Deut 4:45 to 28:68*. In this new layer, Deuteronomy is now promulgated by Moses and connected to the theophany at Horeb. The “Deuteronomistic” editing of Deuteronomy (DtrD) was then completed by three more layers: “DtrL” (for Landnahme, or “conquest”), which introduces Deut 1–3 and 29–30 and connects Deuteronomy with the book of Joshua; the “Hexateuch” redaction, which inserts Deuteronomy into a larger literary composition extending from Gen 1 to Josh 24; and finally, the “Pentateuch” redaction, which revised Deuteronomy at the time when the Pentateuch was created (see, e.g. Otto 2000; 2012, 231–257).

The Date of Deuteronomy 2 Kgs 22 tells that a book was found during repair works at the temple. Its contents terrified the king, so much so that he rent his garments. The identification of this book with Deuteronomy (or an earlier version of it) is credited to W. M. L. de Wette, although one should note that this idea is merely found in a footnote to de Wette’s work: This custom of making sacrifices on the high places was considered sacrilegious at a later time, but the practice had become so ingrained that Josiah was able to thoroughly eliminate it [2 Kgs 23], as admonished by Deuteronomy—this [book] having been discovered in the temple at the time that the code of laws found by the priest Hilkia (2 Kgs 22) was our Deuteronomy one may conclude by a far from improbable conjecture.  (Harvey and Halpern 2008, 82)

This view, first found in de Wette’s dissertation of sixteen pages (!), without any further elaboration, became established as the generally accepted theory for nearly two centuries. Its importance was evident: it was now possible to precisely date one of the books of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy, or at least a significant portion of the present book, must already have existed as a scroll in the eighteenth year of King Josiah. This allowed for a further argument regarding the other sources of the Pentateuch. If it could be proved that they were composed prior to Deuteronomy, they must therefore be older. In the sequence of the sources J–E–D–P as reconstructed by the modern Documentary Hypothesis, the dating of Deuteronomy consequently became the “Archimedean” point for the dating of the entire Pentateuch (Eissfeldt 1976, 227).

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   285 The parallels between Deuteronomy and the measures taken by King Josiah are not to be overlooked. The cult, according to Deuteronomy 12, has to be centralized in one place—this is carried out in 2 Kings 23. Foreign cult objects have to be destroyed, according to Deut 12:3 (cf. 16:21); Josiah acts according to this command, in 2 Kgs 23:4–7, 12–14. Astral cults are to be banned, per Deut 17:2–7 (see 17:3). and are effectively abolished in 2 Kgs 23:4, 11. Qedeshim are prohibited by Deut 23:18, a law followed by Josiah in 2 Kgs 23:7. According to Deut 18:6, the Levite has the right to officiate at the central sanctuary, and they are taken from their local sanctuaries in 2 Kgs 23:8 (Rüterswörden 1987). When the king rends his clothes after reading the book (2 Kgs 22:11), this motif could be based on the curses in Deut 28. Finally, Josiah’s sending of a delegation to the prophetess Huldah presents a general connection with Deuteronomy, insofar as it is the only legislation that dedicates a section to prophecy (Deut 18:9–22). De Wette’s insight was eventually called into question by an in-depth look into the origins of the book of Kings. The latter book was understood to belong to a larger context, ranging from Deuteronomy 1–3 until the end of 2 Kings, a literary work for which Noth coined the term “Deuteronomistic History” (Noth 1967; on this topic, see also Frevel  2004). This work takes Deuteronomy as the primary criterion for assessing Israel’s history, especially in the case of its kings. This finding, in turn, led to new questions regarding the historicity of Josiah’s reform: Could it be that the tale of the discovery of Deuteronomy was a literary creation, with no basis in historical reality? A prominent representative of this view is E. Würthwein, according to whom only 2 Kgs 23,11–12* goes back to a pre-Deuteronomistic tradition. Regarding the historical circumstances of Josiah’s reforms, Würthwein observes: If the vassal status under Assur came with cultic obligations, these became automatically void with the disintegration of the Assyrian dominion. In this way, Josiah could remove from the temple of Jerusalem everything that recalled the ignominious humiliation under Assur. . . . For this, there was no need of a decided will for a political or cultic reform—what remained in Jerusalem from the Assyrian period had become obsolete. From this perspective, the elimination of Assyrian cultic installments does not allow us to conclude that there was an active anti-Assyrian policy by Josiah. Rather, this process had fulfilled itself on its own. (Eng. trans. of Würthwein 1984, 445–446)

According to Würthwein, therefore, there was a “cleanup” under Josiah, in which the king removed the symbols and insignia of a past empire, since they no longer ­cor­res­pond­ed to the current state of world affairs. In this reconstruction the socalled “reform” of Josiah vanishes, and also thus the basis for that reform, namely Deuteronomy. M. Pietsch tried to show that we have a story in 2 Kgs 22:1–23:30* that breathes the spirit of the late Judahite kingdom and forms the climax as well as the conclusion of a late preexilic historical work (Pietsch 2013, 472). In this model, however, Deuteronomy is not a blueprint for Josiah’s reform (482). Rather, according to Pietsch: “Josiah’s cult reform can thus be described as the result of a process of religious-political differentiation,

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286   Udo Rüterswörden in which deuteronomic, priestly, and prophetic traditions were combined, and which— in interaction with religious currents (Strömungen) of the neighboring cultures—led to a reorganization of the ‘official religion’ in Judah and Jerusalem” (487 (Eng. trans.); emphasis in the original). If there was a cult reform of Josiah, it should be possible to verify the drastic measures taken by the king by means of archaeology. In this regard, two localities have been the focus of the discussion: Arad and Tell es-Seba‘. In Arad, a fort was excavated in which a garrison was stationed. It contained a sanctuary that was decommissioned in a later stratum. In his instructive article, Y. Aharoni writes: The temple at Arad, a royal Israel citadel, was the first Israelite temple discovered in an archaeological excavation. It remained in use until stratum VII, with small modifications introduced at various times in strata X through VII. Under Hezekiah (stratum VIII), the sacrificial altar went out of use, but the hall and the holy of holies remained; they, too, were buried by the debris of the incense altars, probably following the religious reforms instituted by Hezekiah (2Kg. 18:4, 18:22). (Aharoni 1993, 83)

The place of worship was abandoned for good in the course of the reform of Josiah. With a date for the decommissioning of the sanctuary in the days of Hezekiah, we would not have to suppose any impact from Josiah’s reform but we could get an indication for the date of the centralization of worship as prescribed in Deut 12. There are, however, several problems with this reconstruction of the evidence. Currently, no complete excavation report has been published. One contentious issue is the chronology: it varies between the publications of the first excavators and the new team that has taken on the publication. In addition, the data itself is in doubt. N. Na’aman has addressed this problem: The excavator is no longer with us and those who later discussed the archaeology and history of the temple, including the members of the Arad publication team, did not participate in its excavation. The tell, including the area of the sanctuary, was fully excavated, so that it is impossible to re-examine the stratigraphy suggested by Aharoni. All that remains for the discussion of the temple are preliminary reports, field registrations, photos and artifacts, many of them still unpublished. In these circumstances, any suggested reconstruction of the sanctuary must be considered tentative.  (Na’aman 2002, 593)

According to Na’aman, the sanctuary was destroyed in the course of Sennacherib’s campaign and was not rebuilt later. The findings, therefore, cannot testify to the cult reform of Josiah; any connection with a purported cult reform under Hezekiah is even less possible to demonstrate. In Tell es-Seba‘, stone fragments found in a secondary installation can be reconstituted as part of a horned altar. Herzog writes with some caution:

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   287 Well-dressed stones, originally part of a horned altar (1.6 by 1.6m), were found incorporated into one of the storehouse walls. According to Aharoni, the altar’s presence attests to a temple in the city. In his opinion, the temple was dismantled as a result of the cultic reform carried out by Hezekiah, king of Judah, as was seen in the discontinued of the horned altar in the Arad fortress. Yadin suggested that the altar was the remnant of a high place, or bamah, which he believed had stood at the city gate.  (Herzog 1993, 172)

Na’aman summarizes his considerations with the sentence: “The historical background of the altar’s dismantling is not known.” On the other hand, we have arch­aeo­logic­al evidence that some sanctuaries were decommissioned—without any correlating evidence in the Hebrew Bible (Na’aman 2002, 595–596; Pietsch 2013, 334–339).

The Concept of Covenant The Hebrew word for “covenant” is ‫ברית‬. The term refers also to treaties. There is some evidence indicating a relationship between covenant in the Hebrew Bible and treaties in the ancient Near East. An early comparative analysis was done by K. Baltzer (1964), who referred mainly to the Hittite treaties. In his commentary, G. von Rad mentioned a number of key features relating Deuteronomy to ancient Near Eastern treaties (Rad 1968, 15): the preamble and history (Deut 1–3); policy statements (Deut 5 and 6:4–5); individual provisions (Deut 12–26); the invocation of gods as witnesses (Deut 30:19); as well as blessings and curses (Deut 28). Baltzer’s insights were subsequently integrated into a research paradigm according to which covenant theology was a cornerstone of ancient Israelite tradition, manifested in worship and rituals and firmly anchored in the early institutions, such as that of the amphictyony. With his seminal work on covenant theology, L. Perlitt (1969) deconstructed this research paradigm. His most important observation is that the prophetic traditions of the eighth century do not appear to know any covenant theology, the instances of ‫ ברית‬in the corresponding prophetic books being all secondary. According to Perlitt (1969, 71), the origin of covenant theology is to be found in Deuteronomy, as can be seen in Deut 7. The essential problem lies in the relationship between covenant and law, since there is no original connection between them. Following Perlitt, ‫ ברית‬in the basic layer of Deut 7 refers neither to Sinai nor to any kind of a formal covenant. The covenant was sworn to the fathers (‫ שבע‬niphal). The connection of covenant with the commandments is not original to the concept, but is achieved through a new use of the concept in Deut 7:11, 12b (Deut 7:12a is a later in­ter­ pol­ation). These verses are connected by the keyword ‫שמר‬, “to keep.” But even in this new application the two defining features—compliance with the commandments, on the one hand, and the validity of the oath to the fathers, on the other—do not stand in a

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288   Udo Rüterswörden conditional, but rather in a reciprocal, relationship. So “covenant” is a cipher not for the law, but for God’s promise. Perlitt located the oldest layer of Deut 7 in the decades after Hezekiah. With Perlitt’s work, further questions arose. In this reconstruction, covenant the­ology no longer has a place in the early traditions of Israel; rather, it should be located in the period when Deuteronomy, or a first version thereof, was composed. Further trends in research moved this development even later, into the exilic period. Moreover, if cov­en­ ant and law do not belong together, what is the character of Deuteronomy: a covenant (or treaty) document, or a collection of laws? In the ancient Near East, laws and treaties are both matters of justice; however, they are very different in content and form. The question was raised anew through consideration of the so-called Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon. These texts were unearthed in 1955 at Tell Nimrud by Sir M. E. L. Mallowan (known to a wider audience as the husband of Agatha Christie). The corpus consists of nine large tablets, containing the obligations of nine different (Median) princes concerning the succession of the Assyrian king. Although in a fragmentary state, they all have the same contents, the sole variation being the name of the addressee. Given the fact that some of the addressees had entered recently into Assyrian vassalage, the term “Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon,” abbreviated as VTE, became common in English. The problem of this term lies in the fact that the treaties do not set up a vassal relationship; rather, the kings, together with their subjects, swear a loyalty oath to both potential successors to the throne of the king Esarhaddon. The discovery of the texts, which were immediately published, caused a sensation, because in the curse section of the treaties formulations were found that were parallel to Deut 28; in addition, formulations in §10 of the VTE come close to the first and second textual units of Deut 13. H. U. Steymans has dedicated an extensive study to the parallels between Deut 28 and the curse chapters of the VTE. The parallels can be listed as in Figure 15.2 (Steymans 1995, 300). Based on his study, Steymans came to the following conclusions in particular: The sequence of themes [scil. in VTE and Deut 28] is similar to a degree that has no parallel in the ancient Near Eastern material known to us or in the Bible. . . . The similarity between VTE § 56 and Deut 28:20–44 can be assessed as a unique feature (Einzigartigkeit), which signals literary dependence. VTE § 56 has been shown to be the literary creation, structured as a palindrome, of the Assyrian royal chancellery. (Eng. trans. of Steymans 1995, 309)

And later on: The passage [scil. Deut 28*] cannot have been composed before 672 bce. On the other hand, the Assyrian template cannot have served much longer after the fall of Nineveh (612 bce) or the adê of Nebuchanedzar with Zedeqiah (597 bce). In order to push back the dating of this text to the exilic or postexilic period, at a time when the VTE had become politically completely meaningless, only a literary concern could be considered—assuming that the VTE was still available after the destruction

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   289 VTE § 56

Theme

Dtn 28

472 – 475

curse in general

20a

476 – 479

sphere of death and placelessness

20b.21

479 – 481

(famine) and illnes

22.(23f.)

481– 483

theme: war/defeat

25a

483 – 484

beasts eating dead bodies

26 (27)

485 – 486

darkness and lawlessness

28.29a

487

misery

29b

488

invasion of enemies

30 – 32

(summary; first verse of the futility curses)

33a

489

misery

33b

490

illness

34f.

490

food

38

491

beverages

39

491

ointment

40

492

clothing children

41

summary; second verse of the futility curses 493

strangers in the space to live

43f.

Figure 15.2  Parallels between Deut 28 and VTE Steymans (1995, 300).

of 587 bce. In Nineveh, the VTE tablets were at that time already a pile of shards. Deut 28:20–44* should therefore come from the seventh century. (Eng. trans. of Steymans 1995, 377)

While it is clear that Deut 28* presupposes familiarity with the VTE, it does not, however, slavishly copy it; in particular, a an apparently newly-coined palindromic structure is found in Deut 28:22-29 (Rüterswörden 2006, 178–179). As mentioned above, another intensively discussed parallel is between VTE §10 and Deuteronomy 13. Deuteronomy 13 deals with the activity of various agents leading the community away from the worship of Yahweh (whereas Deut 17, by contrast, deals with men and women who turn away from Yahweh on their own initiative). Specifically,

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290   Udo Rüterswörden Deuteronomy 13 addresses three cases in which the community may be led away from Yahweh: (1) by a prophet or dream seer, Deut 13:2–6; (2) by a member of the family or a close friend, Deut 13:7–12; and (3) by a group, with the consequence that a whole town may turn away from Yahweh, Deut 13:13–19. VTE §10 reads: If you hear an evil, improper, ugly word which is not seemly nor good to Assurbanipal, the great crown prince designate, son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, your lord, either from the mouth of his ally, or from the mouth of his brothers or from the mouth of his uncles, his cousins, his family, members of his father’s line, or from the mouth of your brothers, your sons, your daughters, or from the mouth of a prophet. An ecstatic, an inquirer of oracles, or from the mouth of a human being at all, you shall not conceal it but come and report it to Assurbanipal, the great crown prince, son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria. (translation from Parpola and Watanabe 1988, 33)

The analogy to the first and second cases in Deuteronomy 13 is noteworthy. However, the temptation by prophets and mantics and by relatives is treated in a single section in the VTE. Furthermore, it is striking that we do not find any analogy with the motif of an entire city turning to idolatry. Comparable material can be found in the Sefire inscriptions (KAI 224 12–13) as well as in a Hittite treaty, CTH 133 25–26: “If in the midst of my country any city sins, then you people of Ismerika shall enter it, and strike [that city] including the men. You shall bring the conquered civil folk before His Majesty; however, [you take] the cattle and the sheep” (Berman 2011, 30). Berman’s position, that Deuteronomy is primarily indebted to Late Bronze Age Hittite vassal treaties, evokes the older research paradigm that was represented by Baltzer and Rad, and faces some methodological problems. Hittite was not familiar to the authors of the Hebrew Bible; in addition, there is a significant temporal gap. However, we have to take into account the possibility that the author of Deuteronomy 13 drew from a number of traditions: “In theory, we could even admit the Hittite parallels without changing the overall analysis. Granted, since we are arguing that the core section of Deuteronomy is the result of a single compositional event with the extensive use of multiple sources, including some from the seventh century, any Hittite influence would almost certainly have to be a tradition or text that survived to the seventh ­century” (Levinson and Stackert 2013, 325). The reference to the Aramaic treaties of Sefire, which stand in the tradition of the Hittite vassal treaty, is noteworthy in this context. The apodosis of the stipulations can start with an emphatic infinitive construction, as is also the case in Deut 13:10 (Morrow 2001; Koch 2008, 148–151). We can reconstruct the origin of Deuteronomy 13 not only by means of literary criticism, but also with tradition history, despite the fact that the latter approach sometimes seems to go out of fashion. The connections with the VTE are intensely discussed because they allow for the possibility of dating a layer of Deuteronomy without resorting to the debated issue of Josiah’s reform. Meanwhile, however, some counterarguments have arisen:

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   291 1. A one-to-one relation to the VTE cannot be maintained, as Deuteronomy 13 ­contains elements that do not occur in the VTE (Zehnder 2009, 348–351; and see the remarks on this above). This primarily concerns the third case, the destruction of an entire city, for which there is no analogy in the VTE. Otto (1999, 45–50) explained the passage in question in Deuteronomy 13 as later addition, a view that is itself not without its problems. 2. Deuteronomy 13 is based on a Mesopotamian treaty tradition, of which the VTE is only one example (Pakkala 1999, 43). The relevant forms range in time beyond the Assyrian expansion to the west, making it possible to date Deuteronomy 13 in exilic/postexilic times. A variant of this view is the assumption that a covenant concept was established by the VTE, and with its formulations and ideas in mind the author of Deuteronomy 13 wrote his text in a later time (Koch 2008, 270–293). 3. The VTE involves treaties concluded with Median notables and refers to the bodyguard of the Assyrian king. The center of the empire, the palace, is the focus, rather than the periphery, the geographically distant vassals (Zehnder  2009, 359–368). It is therefore questionable whether a Judahite version of the succession treaty—if it ever existed—had the same wording. Koch (2008, 82–85) has challenged such an objection; in particular, the discovery of copies of the VTE in Assur and Tell Tainat speaks against it (Steymans 2013). It is best to start from the model that Levinson has developed, that of “legal in­nov­ ation.” The process may be illustrated by the scheme in Figure 15.3. VTE

Deuteronomy 13 Building a relation by common elements

Two kinds of prophecy

Prophet and seer of dreams

Seduction by relatives

Seduction by family

dabāb surrāti

Transformation of Elements King

Yahweh

Vassal

Israel

Other kings

Other Gods

Treaty

Covenant (cf. Dtn 17:2)

Exclusive loyality

Exclusive worship to Yahweh

death penalty without trial

death penalty without trial

Figure 15.3  The relationship between Deut 13 and VTE

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292   Udo Rüterswörden Thus Deuteronomy 13 is not a translation—even in a broad sense—of VTE, but a re­inter­pret­ation. Perhaps it has something of a subversive character: Yahweh should be followed, not the Assyrian king (Otto 2016, 1270–1272).

Deuteronomy and Deuteronomism In Genesis 1 a grand narrative starts. The omniscient narrator is present until the end of the book of Kings. Nevertheless, seams cannot be overlooked. One of these concerns the division of this grand narrative in Genesis to Kings into two discrete parts of the canon— the Torah and the Former Prophets—with the result that the Pentateuch became an entity of its own. This is particularly striking because the promises of land to the patriarchs are not fulfilled within the limits of the Pentateuch, but only in the book of Joshua. Furthermore, the book of Joshua itself is closely linked to Deuteronomy, as Deuteronomy again (see Num 27:12–23) introduces Joshua as the successor of Moses. This makes such a division even more surprising. According to Noth’s view, the Deuteronomistic History starts with Deuteronomy 1–3. This means that the Tetrateuch stands outside of the Deuteronomistic History and, consequently, of the book of Deuteronomy itself. Are there redactional links between the Tetrateuch, Deuteronomy, and the Deuteronomistic History (cf. Otto 2012)? Especially for Kings, Deuteronomy provides the criteria by which the kings are judged. This is reflected in the assessments of the kings, which follow a regular scheme (Weippert 1972; Timm 1982, 28–40). The negative judgment ‫( עשה הרע בעיני יהוה‬1 Kgs 15:26, etc.) is taken from Deut 17:2, and it corresponds to the transgression of the first commandment as well as, more generally, the breaking of the covenant. The correlation suggests that the phrase in Deuteronomy comes from a Deuteronomistic hand. In any case, the legal principle is clear: nulla poena sine lege. Even the law regarding prophecy, Deut 18:9–22, serves as a basis for the narrative in Kings. In a difficult situation, Hezekiah and Josiah turn to a prophet (Isaiah) or a prophetess (Hulda) and thus adhere to the law; Manasseh, however, dedicates himself to practices that the law expressly prohibits. A number of problems are connected with the deuteronomistic historical work: 1. Its existence is controversial (Kratz 2000, 161; Frevel 2004, 79–80). 2. Its formation may extend over several phases, the oldest of which may be preexilic (Nelson 1981). 3. We may have to reckon with later revisions by nomistic (DtrN) and prophetic (DtrP) editors (Dietrich 2014). This scholarly discussion is also reflected in the case of Deuteronomy, for instance when a preexilic Deuteronomistic layer is identified in Deuteronomy 13 (Dion 1991,

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   293 192–196), or when the presence of a DtrN layer is assumed in Deuteronomy (Veijola 2004, 221–241). Although Deuteronomy stands apart from the Tetrateuch, some formulations function as a link. The dating in Deut 1:3, for example, is formulated in the style of the Priestly Document. Other examples are Deut 32:48–52 and the account of the death of Moses in Deut 34, which would make a good conclusion for both P and for Deuteronomy as a final speech on the last day of his life. Since the death of a character cannot be reported twice, it stands to reason that the threads of P and Deuteronomy are woven together, so that they can no longer be safely assigned to either of these two documents (Frevel 2000, 211–348). By contrast, Perlitt (1994) argued that all these passages go back to a late redaction writing in the style of P. Linguistic peculiarities that characterize Deuteronomy have left their traces in the Tetrateuch. This point has been argued, for instance, for the name “Horeb” in Exod 3:1; for the description of the land in Exod 3:8; or for the list of nations in Exod 3:18 (Schmidt  1988). While in these examples the connections remain limited to specific motifs, other scholars have argued for a more general influence of Deuteronomy over the Tetrateuch. According to E. Zenger, for instance, Deuteronomic covenant theology has left its impression in the Sinai pericope. Specifically, a “deuteronomistic” redaction would be responsible for inserting into the Sinai account the older “Book of the Covenant” (Bundesbuch), as a concrete illustration of the treaty between Yahweh and Israel (Vertragsdokument), and would also be responsible for reworking that document and giving it its final shape (Zenger 1982, 154 and passim). It is notable, however, that in every analysis of Deuteronomic influence on the Pentateuch that has been proposed, even in Blum’s “D-Komposition” (Blum  1990, 166–172), the language and imagery of Deuteronomy is not received in the same ­comprehensive way as it is in the book of Kings.

Suggested Reading The commentary of E. Otto in 4 volumes is a mine of information and a work of erudition. For the concept of re-interpretation and legal innovation see the works of B.M. Levinson.

Works Cited Aharoni, M. 1993. “Arad: The Israelite Citadels.” In The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, edited by E. Stern, 82–87. Jerusalem: Carta. Aḥituv, S. et al. 2012. “The Inscriptions.” In Kuntillet ’Ajrud (Ḥ orvat Teman): An Iron-Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border, edited by Z. Meshel, 87–100, 105–107. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Baltzer, K. 1964. Das Bundesformular. WMANT 4. 2nd ed. Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag. Berman, J. 2011. “CTH 133 and the Hittite Provenance of Deuteronomy 13.” JBL 130:25–44. Blum, E. 1990. Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch. BZAW 189. Berlin: de Gruyter.

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294   Udo Rüterswörden Braulik, G. 2004. “Das Buch Deuteronomium.” In Einleitung in das Alte Testament, edited by E. Zenger et al., 136–155. 5th ed. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Dietrich, W. 2014. “Die Vorderen Propheten.” In Die Entstehung des Alten Testaments, edited by W. Dietrich et al., 171–192. Theologische Wissenschaft 1. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Dion, P. E. 1991. “Deuteronomy 13: The Suppression of Alien Religious Propaganda in Israel during the Late Monarchic Era.” In Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel, edited by B. Halpern and D. W. Dobson, 147–206. JSOTSup 124. Sheffield: JSOT. Eissfeldt, O. 1976. Einleitung in das Alte Testament. 4th ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Finsterbusch, K. 2011. “Die Dekalog-Ausrichtung des deuteronomischen Gesetzes: Ein neuer Ansatz.” In Deuteronomium: Tora für eine neue Generation, edited by G. Fischer, D. Markl, and S. Paganini, 123–146. BZABR 17. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Fishbane, M. 1985. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fitzmyer, J. A. 1995. The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire. Rev. ed. BibOr 19/A. Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico. Frevel, C. 2000. Mit Blick auf das Land die Schöpfung erinnern: Zum Ende der Priestergrundschrift. HBS 23. Freiburg: Herder. Frevel, C. 2004. “Deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk oder Geschichtswerke? Die These Martin Noths zwischen Tetrateuch, Hexateuch und Enneatuch.” In Martin Noth—aus der Sicht der heutigen Forschung, edited by U.  Rüterswörden, 60–95. Biblisch-Theologische Studien 58. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Graupner, A. 2001. “Vom Sinai zum Horeb oder vom Horeb zum Sinai? Zur Intention der Doppelüberlieferung des Dekalogs.” In Verbindungslinien, edited by A.  Graupner, H. Delkurt, and A. B. Ernst, 85–101. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Harvey, Jr. P. B., and B. Halpern. 2008. “W. M. L. de Wette’s ‘Dissertatio Critica . . .’: Context and Translation.” ZABR 14:47–85. Herzog, Z. 1993. “Beersheva.” In The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, edited by E. Stern, 167–173. Jerusalem: Carta. Hossfeld, F.-L. 1982. Der Dekalog: Seine späte Fassung, die originale Komposition und seine Vorstufen. OBO 35. Fribourg: Vandenhoeck. Koch, C. 2008. Vertrag, Treueid und Bund: Studien zur Rezeption des altorientalischen Vertragsrechts im Deuteronomium und zur Ausbildung der Bundestheologie im Alten Testament. BZAW 383. Berlin: de Gruyter. Kratz, R. G. 2000. Die Komposition der erzählenden Bücher des Alten Testaments: Grundwissen der Bibelkritik. UTB 2157. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Levinson, B.  M. 1997. Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Levinson, B. M. 2008. “The Right Chorale” Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation. FAT 54. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Levinson, B. M., and J. Stackert. 2013. “The Limitations of ‘Resonance’: A Response to Joshua Berman on Historical and Comparative Method.” JAJ 4:310–333. Lohfink, N. 1976. “Deuteronomy.” In The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume, edited by K. Crim, 229–232. Nashville: Abingdon. Lohfink, N. 2000. “Fortschreibung? Zur Technik von Rechtsrevisionen im deuteronomischen Bereich, erörtet an Deuteronomium 12, Ex 21,2–11 und Dtn 15,12–18.” In Studien zum Deuteronomium und zur deuteronomistischen Literatur IV, 163–204. SBAB 21. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk.

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Deuteronomy in the Pentateuch   295 Morrow, W. S. 2001. “The Sefire Treaty Stipulations and the Mesopotamian Treaty Traditions.” In The World of the Arameans III: Studies in Language and Literature, edited by P. M. Michèle Daviau et al., 83–89. JSOTSup 326. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Na’aman, N. 2002. “The Abandonment of Cult Places in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah as Acts of Cult Reform.” UF 34:585–602. Nelson, R. D. 1981. The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History. JSOTSup 18. Sheffield: JSOT. Noth, M. 1967. Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament. 3rd ed. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Otto, E. 1999. Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie und Rechtsreform in Juda und Assyrien. BZAW 284. Berlin: de Gruyter. Otto, E., 2000., Das Deuteronomium in Pentateuch und Hexateuch, FAT 30. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Otto, E., 2012. Deuteronomium 1-11. Vol. 1, Deuteronomium 1,1–4,43. HTKAT. Freiburg, Basel, Wien: Herder. Otto, E., 2016. Deuteronomium 12,1–23,15. HTKAT. Freiburg: Herder. Pakkala, J. 1999. Intolerant Monolatry in the Deuteronomistic History. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 76. Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Parpola, S., and K. Watanabe. 1988. Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths. SAA 2. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Perlitt, L. 1969. Bundestheologie im Alten Testament. WMANT 36. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Perlitt, L. 1994. “Priesterschrift im Deuteronomium?” In Deuteronomium-Studien, edited by L Perlitt, 123–143. FAT 8. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Perlitt, L. 2013. Deuteronomium 1–6*. BKAT V/1. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlagsgesellschaft. Pietsch, M. 2013. Die Kultreform Josias: Studien zur Religionsgeschichte Israels in der späten Königszeit. FAT 86. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Rad, G.v. 1968. Das fünfte Buch Mose. Deuteronomium. ATD 8. 2nd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Rose, M. 1994. 4. Mose Teilband I: 5. Mose 12–25. Einführung und Gesetze. Zürcher Bibelkommentare 5.1. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Rüterswörden, U. 1987. Von der politischen Gemeinde zur Gemeinschaft. Studien zu Dt 16,18–18,22. BBB 65. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum. Rüterswörden, U. 2005. “Die Dekalogstruktur des Deuteronomiums—Fragen an eine alte Annahme.” In Die Zehn Worte: Der Dekalog as Testfall der Pentateuchkritik, edited by C. Frevel, M. Konkel, and J. Schnocks, 109–121. QD 212. Freiburg: Herder. Rüterswörden, U. 2006. Das Buch Deuteronomium. Neuer Stuttgarter Kommentar Altes Testament 4. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk. Rüterswörden, U. 2007. “Moses’ Last Day.” In Moses in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Traditions, edited by A. Graupner and M. Wolter, 51–59. BZAW 372. Berlin: de Gruyter. Rüterswörden, U., 2009. “Das Deuteronomium als Reformprogramm?” In Reformen im Alten Orient und der Antike: Programme, Darstellungen und Deutungen, edited by E.-J. Waschke, 115–123. Orientalische Religionen in Der Antike 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Rüterswörden, U. 2011. Deuteronomium. BKAT V/3, 1. Neukirchen: Neukirchen Verlag.

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296   Udo Rüterswörden Schmidt, W. H. 1988. Exodus 1. Teilband Exodus 1–6. BK II/1. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Schorch, S. 2009. “Communio Lectorum: Die Rolle des Lesens für die Textualisierung der israelitischen Religion.” In Die Textualisierung der Religion, edited by J. Schapter, 167–185. FAT 62. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Seebass, H. 2007. Numeri Kapitel 22,2–36,13. BK IV/3. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Sonnet, J.-P. 1997. The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy. Biblical Interpretation Series 14. Leiden: Brill. Steuernagel, C. 1923. Das Deuteronomium. HK  I.3/1. 2nd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Steymans, H.-U. 1995. Deuteronomium 28 und die adê zur Thronflogereglung Asarhaddons: Segen und Fluch im Alten Orient und in Israel. OBO 145. Freiburg/Schweiz: Universitätsverlag Freiburg/Schweiz; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Steymans, H.-U., 2013. “Deuteronomy 28 and Tell Tayinat.” Verbum et Ecclesia 34, 1–13. Timm, S. 1982. Die Dynastie Omiri: Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Israels im 9. Jahrhundert vor Christus. FRLANT 124. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Tropper, J., and J.-P. Vita. 2004. “Texte aus Emar.” In Texte zum Rechts- und Wirtschaftsleben, edited by B.  Janowski and G.  Wilhelm, 146–162. TUAT NF 1. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus. Veijola, T. 1992. “Höre Israel! Der Sinn und Hintergrund von Deuteronomium vi 4–9.” VT 42:528–541. Veijola, T., 2004. Das 5. Buch Mose. Deuteronomium Kapitel 1,1–16,17. ATD 8,1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Weippert, H. 1972. “Die ‘deuteronomistichen’ Beurteilungen der Könige von Israel und Juda und das Problem der Redaktion der Königsbücher.” Bib 53:301–339. Würthwein, E. 1984. Die Bücher der Könige 1. Kön 17–2 Kön 25. ATD 11,2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Zehnder, M. 2009. “Building on Stone? Deuteronomy and Esarhaddon’s Loyalty Oaths (Part 1): Some Preliminary Observations.” BBR 19:341–374. Zenger, E. 1982. Israel am Sinai: Analysen und Interpretationen zu Exodus 17–34. Altenberge: CIS-Verlag.

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Chapter 16

The R el ationship of the Lega l Code s Jeffrey Stackert

There are three major legal collections in the Pentateuch: the Book of the Covenant (BC: Exod 20:23–23:19, also sometimes called the Covenant Code), the Priestly Laws (PL: portions of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers), and the Deuteronomic Laws (DL: Deut 12–26). They are distinguishable from each other and identified as groupings on the basis of their discrete textual boundaries (e.g., BC is textually separated from DL while all of its laws are immediately contiguous with each other); their presentation within the accompanying narrative as self-­contained legal collections; and/or their internal literary connections. Critical scholars have also identified further subdivisions within them, primarily on the basis of form and content. For example, some isolate the mišpāṭîm (Exod 21:2–22:16, so called on the basis of Exod 21:1) within BC on the basis of their casuistic formulation. Some have also posited an originally distinct participial legal source that has been integrated into BC (Exod 21:12, 15–17). In the case of the Priestly Laws, scholars have identified several strata. Not least of these is the Holiness Code (H, Lev 17–26/27), which was long understood to be a collection of Priestly laws that antedated the other major collection of Priestly laws (P) with which it was later integrated. More recent scholarship has reversed the chronological relationship between the P and H strata of PL, viewing H as a supplement to P that likely never had an independent existence (Knohl 1995). Similar stratification has been proposed for DL. With its focus on the relationships among the pentateuchal legal codes, this essay will concentrate in the main on the legal collections as larger, compiled units rather than on their individual compositional histories. Such a focus does not, however, deny possible com­pos­itional complexities within them.

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298   Jeffrey Stackert

Corresponding Laws with Differing Details Posited relationships among the pentateuchal legal codes in most instances stem from the recognition that several of the same legal topics are treated in these codes but with differing details. Perceived since antiquity, such differences have been deemed problematic for two, partially related reasons. First, legal discrepancies challenge, at least in part, the plot and characterization of the compiled Pentateuch’s narrative as well as ad­jur­ ations that accompany some laws therein. The pentateuchal narrative claims that the same deity (Yahweh) revealed each of the legal codes to the same people (Israel) in approximately the same historical moment and location (in the wilderness during the Exodus from Egypt, though sometimes at observably different moments during this period). Yet there is no acknowledgment in the Pentateuch of its discrepant legislation or this legislation’s repeated treatment of the same topics. For example, the Sabbath is addressed and legislated in Exod 16, 20, and 23. Yet Exod 31 introduces the Sabbath as if for the first time, legislates its observance in distinctive ways, and offers no acknowledgment of the other Sabbath laws. A similar issue arises in relation to the adjuration “an eternal statute for your generations,” which accompanies some laws in H. This ad­jur­ ation makes no allowance for subsequent, divergent legislation on the same topic. Thus, Lev 17:7, which states that the foregoing rule outlawing any non-­sacrificial slaughter of a sacrificeable animal is to persist in perpetuity, is, on its face, incompatible with the rule in Deut 12:15–16, 21–25, which permits non-­sacrificial slaughter of sacrificeable animals, even if these two laws are understood as sequentially enforceable according to their appearance in the compiled Pentateuch or its fabula. Second, legal discrepancies in the Pentateuch present a challenge to some views of this text as Scripture. As James Kugel has argued, Jewish readers in antiquity who treated the Bible as Scripture confronted problematic issues in the text, including conflicting legal details, by mobilizing four interpretive assumptions. In their view, the Bible was fundamentally cryptic, relevant, perfect and perfectly harmonious, and divine in all of its parts (Kugel  1997, 17–23). With such operative assumptions, discrepancies among the pentateuchal codes could prompt several different interpretive responses, from distinguishing each law’s distinctive contribution—but in a manner that ultimately finds concordance among them—to smoothing differences to denying legal disagreements altogether. Tracing the origins of harmonistic interpretation of the pentateuchal laws requires turning from postbiblical literature to the Hebrew Bible itself, for the earliest instances of such interpretation appear in the biblical text. For example, in his description of Josiah’s Passover observance, the Chronicler famously attempts to harmonize pentateuchal rules for preparing the Passover sacrifice by combining the disparate rules in Deut 16:7a and Exod 12:9 (Fishbane 1985, 134–136). The corresponding elements in both the source and revisionary texts are marked:

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The Relationship of the Legal Codes   299 Deut 16:7a: You shall boil it and eat it in the place that Yahweh, your god, will choose. Exod 12:9: Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but rather fire roasted, its head along with its legs and innards. 2 Chr 35:13a:

They boiled the Passover sacrifice in fire, according to the rule.

Beyond employing specific language from each of these pentateuchal laws in order to combine them, the Chronicler buttresses his amalgamation by claiming that the Passover celebration that Josiah initiated was done according to the rule (kammišpāt ̣). Both the Chronicler and other biblical authors employ this locution to signal fastidious compliance with a single or consistent pentateuchal prescription (e.g., Neh 8:18; 1 Chr 15:13; 2 Chr 4:20). In 2 Chr 35:13a, however, kammišpāt ̣ refers not to a single law but to two separate, conflicting laws. By virtue of the singularity of kammišpāt ̣ (according to the [one] rule) in 2 Chr 35:13a, the Chronicler underscores his intent in reusing language from both Exod 12 and Deut 16: he seeks to combine the conflicting pentateuchal instructions into a single rule. Examples of such legal harmonization proliferate in postbiblical texts. For example, the Qumran text 4QMMT, a compendium of halakic perspectives, consciously har­mon­ izes the laws regarding the place of sacrifice in Lev 17 and Deut 12. It also updates and specifies their geographical claim in light of its contemporary context. Lev 17 and Deut 12 agree that there should be a single location for Israelite sacrifice, but they refer to this location in different ways. Lev 17 refers to the place of sacrifice as the Tent of Meeting within the Israelite camp (vv. 3–4, 6, 9). Deut 12, by contrast, refers to “the place that Yahweh (your god) will choose (from among all your tribes) to set his name” (vv. 5, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26). Neither text offers a specific location for its cultic site (and in the case of Leviticus, the camp and sanctuary are intentionally mobile). 4QMMT equates “the place that Yahweh will choose” in Deut 12 with the Israelite camp in Lev 17 and identifies these locations as Jerusalem (B 27–35, 58–62). It further clarifies that the “Tent of Meeting” in Lev 17 refers to the Jerusalem temple (Kratz 2007). With this harmonization, any potential discrepancy between these texts’ views of the proper cult site is set aside. They are also made relevant to the interpreter’s con­tem­por­ ary context. A second early Jewish example of harmonization is found in the Qumran Temple Scroll’s treatment of discrepant pentateuchal laws concerning the Levites. According to Deut 18:1–8, every Levite is qualified to serve as a priest. Deut 18:6–7 states: If a Levite should come from one of your towns anywhere in Israel, where he resides, coming of his own desire to the place that Yahweh will choose, 7he may serve the name of Yahweh his god like all of his brothers, the Levites presiding there before Yahweh. 6

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300   Jeffrey Stackert According to Num 18, however, it is only the family of Aaron that has access to the priesthood. The other Levites are to serve as second-­rank cultic functionaries, sub­or­ din­ate to the Aaronid priests. Num 18:1–2 states: Yahweh said to Aaron, “You and your sons and the house of your father with you shall bear responsibility for the sanctuary, but you and your sons with you shall bear responsibility for your priesthood. 2And your brethren, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, you shall bring near with you so that they may join with you and serve you. But it is you and your sons with you who will be before the tent of the ʿēdût.” 1

The Temple Scroll attempts to reconcile the disagreement between these texts by ­subtly rewriting Deut 18:7. Specifically, it reorders the words in this verse so that the Levites are portrayed as serving the priests, as they do in Num 18. Temple Scroll (11Q19) LX, 12–14 states, Now if a Levite from one of your towns in all of Israel who 13is sojourning there comes of his own desire to the place where I will choose to place 14my name, he, like all of his brothers, the Levites, shall serve the ones presiding there. 12

In Deut 18:7, “the ones presiding there”—i.e., those presiding as priests—are Levites. They are further identified as the Levite’s brothers, and they serve the name of Yahweh. In Temple Scroll LX, 14, “the ones presiding there”—the priests—are distinguished from the Levites, and the Levites are to serve them, the priests, rather than Yahweh. With minimal intervention, the Temple Scroll harmonizes Deut 18 and Num 18 and, in so doing, champions the view of Num 18 at the expense of Deut 18’s perspective (Stackert 2011). With their focus on thematic discrepancies like the place of sacrifice and the relationship between priests and Levites, early Jewish interpreters of Scripture oftentimes ignored or denied problematic issues in pentateuchal plot and characterization like those described above. This thematic approach, with its disregard for the pentateuchal plot, continued over time and even grew in prominence. In fact, in response to issues like legal discrepancies among the law codes, disregard for the chronology of the pentateuchal plot became a principle of rabbinic interpretation: ‫אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה‬, “There is no chronological order in the Torah” (b. Pesaḥ. 6b; Mek. Besh. 7; Sipre Num. 64; Eccl. Rab. 1:12). Subsequent interpreters of the Pentateuch as Scripture have operated with similar assumptions and techniques. Their interpretive processes and conclusions thus in many instances resemble those of early Jewish exegetes. Modern critical scholars usually explain the discrepancies among the pentateuchal legal codes by attributing the codes to different authors. Yet in so doing, the question of the relationship of the legal codes is not settled but reframed and raised anew. How can one account for the similarities among the legal collections alongside of their differences? Are the codes products of a common legal practice? Or do they represent scribal

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The Relationship of the Legal Codes   301 activity substantially divorced from real legal practice but otherwise related? Did the author of one text know one or more of the other legal collections and use these preexisting texts as sources for a new composition? If so, which laws serve as parent texts and which laws are derivative? And what is the intent of the author who borrows from and revises an earlier law collection? Is the intent of the revisionary author to supplement his sources, or does he mean to displace them? In the following discussion, I will explore the major approaches that modern scholars have taken to explain the relationships among the pentateuchal legal codes, how they have answered the questions posed here, and some strengths and weaknesses of these explanations.

The Juridical Approach: Pentateuchal Laws and Israelite Legal Practice Theories about the relationship of the pentateuchal legal codes are closely related to theories about what the texts themselves are; in other words, the identification of genre, which includes determining the textual boundaries of the works under consideration, is fundamental to scholars’ views of relations among them. With variations within each category, scholars have developed two major approaches to the genre of the pentateuchal codes. The first, longstanding approach has been to identify the pentateuchal laws as real, practiced law and to claim that conflicting laws reflect the religio-­legal practice at different moments in Israel’s history or in different segments of its society. Perhaps the most prominent proponent of this juridical approach was the nineteenth-­century German scholar Julius Wellhausen, whose Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel had a considerable impact on subsequent pentateuchal research. Wellhausen argued for a periodization of Israelite history that moved from a substantially non-­legal, prophetic style of religion to stages of increasing legalism and cultic stricture. Having separated the pentateuchal sources (according to the trad­ ition­al monikers of the Documentary Hypothesis: J, E, D, P), Wellhausen highlighted the increasing quantitative weight placed upon legislation in the sources when they were ordered JE (Wellhausen’s early combination of J and E, which he termed the Jehovist)–D–P. Thus, what was spon­tan­eous, lively, and prophetic in JE was sacrificed in D for legalism, which came to full bloom in P. In Wellhausen’s words, “The consequences which lie dormant in the Deuteronomic law are fully developed in the Priestly Code” (Wellhausen 1957, 77). To make these claims, it was necessary for Wellhausen to address two major issues that impact any consideration of the relationship of the pentateuchal legal codes: the relationship between the laws and the narratives that frame them in the Pentateuch; and the question of pentateuchal laws as a reflection of real legal practice in ancient Israel. For Wellhausen, these two issues were closely related. In the developmental historical

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302   Jeffrey Stackert schema that he advanced, Wellhausen was forced to downplay the importance of the legal portions of JE, namely BC. He stated: The Jehovist history-­book . . . is essentially of a narrative character, and sets forth with full sympathy and enjoyment the materials handed down by tradition. The story of the patriarchs, which belongs to this document almost entirely, is what best marks its character; that story is not here dealt with merely as a summary introduction to something of greater importance which is to follow, but as a subject of primary importance, deserving the fullest treatment possible. Legislative elements have been taken into it only at one point, where they fit into the historical connection, namely, when the giving of the Law at Sinai is spoken of (Exod. xx.–xxiii., xxxiv.)  (Wellhausen 1957, 7)

Wellhausen contrasted the fundamentally narrative nature of JE with what he viewed as the essentially legal nature of D: “As the Jehovistic work was originally a pure history-­book, so Deuteronomy, when it was first discovered, was a pure law-­book” (Wellhausen  1957, 345). The caveat offered here—“when it was first discovered”—is important for understanding the distinction that Wellhausen made. Following the claims of Wilhelm M. de Wette (1830), Wellhausen argued that the laws in Deuteronomy (Deut 12–26) constituted the lawbook discovered during the reign of Josiah (2 Kgs 22:8). As such, he effectively set aside the Mosaic framing of the Deuteronomic legal speeches, including the paranetic material that accompanies D’s laws. Wellhausen’s marginalization of DL’s accompanying (and internally interspersed) literary fiction emphasizes the break that he sought to make between narrative and law in the Pentateuch. As an outgrowth of this contrast between narrative and law in JE and D, Wellhausen denigrated what he understood as the subsequent combination of narrative and law in P: This combination of Deuteronomy with the Jehovist was the beginning of the com­bin­ation of narrative and law; and the fact that this precedent was before the author of the Priestly Code explains how, though his concern was with the Torah alone, he yet went to work from the very outset and comprised in his work the history of cre­ation, as if it also belonged to the Torah. This manner of setting forth the Torah in the form of a history-­book is not in the least involved in the nature of the case; on the contrary, it introduces the greatest amount of awkwardness. How it came about can only be explained in the way above described; an antecedent process of the same nature in literary history led the way and made the suggestion. (Wellhausen 1957, 345)

In other words, P learned to combine narrative and law from the idiosyncratic com­ bin­ation of JE with D, and what began as an editorial faux pas became a programmatic Irrweg. Wellhausen’s view of narrative and law as properly distinct literarily and thus also compositionally accords well with his view of pentateuchal legislation as real, practiced

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The Relationship of the Legal Codes   303 law. Addressing the possibility that pentateuchal legislation may not reflect actual judicial practice, he stated, “It is, moreover, rarely the case with laws that they are theory and nothing more: the possibility that a thing may be mere theory is not to be asserted generally, but only in particular cases” (Wellhausen  1957, 355). Such a conclusion, of course, is necessary for Wellhausen in light of his larger historical argument concerning the development (devolution) of Israelite religion. It also finds compelling support (in his view) in the apparent historicity of Josiah’s reform and the parallels he observed between Priestly laws and later rabbinic Jewish practice. Much subsequent scholarship has followed the Wellhausenian differentiation between narrative and law in the Pentateuch, as well as his approach to pentateuchal legislation as real, practiced law. In so doing, it has sometimes sought to reground, buttress, expand, and correct existing theses with different and/or additional evidence, not least by countering Wellhausen’s devolutionary view of Israelite history and religio-­legal practice (at times with new developmental theories). Particularly significant were advances in form criticism of the Hebrew Bible beginning in the early twentieth century. Form-­critical observations offered a firmer basis for differentiating between pentateuchal narrative and law, for identifying discrete units within these narratives and legal collections, and for correlating laws with specific social contexts. In his influential essay, “The Origins of Israelite Law” (1967; originally published in 1934), Albrecht Alt noted the difference between casuistic and apodictic formulation in biblical law and posited separate origins for these legal forms (even as he also recognized that many biblical laws exhibit a mixed form). This differentiation, and the possibility that it presented for sep­ ar­ate traditional and/or compositional origins for laws of distinct forms, has been highly influential in subsequent research. For example, shorn of their narrative framing and further differentiated according to legal form, Eckart Otto has argued that the laws of BC originated in diverse, non-­religious contexts (private, local dispute settlement; the family). In his view, developments in ancient Israelite society and, in particular, the centralizing forces of the state, occasioned the eventual recasting of BC’s laws in explicitly religious terms, a coloring especially prominent in the (deuteronomistic) narrative that now accompanies BC (Otto 1988, 69–75). Scholars have also applied contemporary legal theory and increasingly sophisticated sociohistorical models to biblical law in an attempt to demonstrate its viability as practiced law or its potential reflection of real legal practice. For example, Bernard S. Jackson has argued that the mišpāt ̣îm section of BC is a compilation and expansion of originally oral, customary rules from ancient Israel that were, in their original context of private dispute resolution, self-­executing. In his view, they functioned by expressing and drawing upon certain values and norms of the social context in which they were situated. As such, they did not require strict enforcement of their semantics (Jackson 2006, 23–39). Douglas A. Knight has examined archaeological evidence from ancient Israel in order to reconstruct the various social structures that existed and, on the basis of comparative anthropological and sociological data, the legal structures that likely attended them. Though no extrabiblical record of ancient Israelite judicial practice is preserved, Knight (2011) argues on the basis of this analysis that some biblical laws

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304   Jeffrey Stackert reflect the sociological realities of ancient Israel and thus could preserve real Israelite legal practice. These developments in the study of biblical law have tracked closely and are in some instances integrally related to the study of the cuneiform law collections discovered in  Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, including the Laws of Hammurabi, the Laws of Eshnunna, the Middle Assyrian Laws, and the Hittite Laws. These legal collections attest a predominantly casuistic legal formulation that closely parallels pentateuchal legal formulation, particularly in BC. There are also extensive thematic and even sequential simi­lar­ities between these legal collections and pentateuchal laws. The closest parallel between and a biblical law and a cuneiform law is between Exod 21:35 and paragraph 53 of the Laws of Eshnunna: Exod 21:35: If the ox of a man knocks the ox of his neighbor and it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide the resulting silver, and also divide the dead ox. Eshnunna §53: If an ox gores another ox and kills it, both ox owners shall divide the price of the live ox and the carcass of the dead ox. The near verbatim correspondence between these laws suggests that the author of Exod 21:35 used the Laws of Eshnunna (or another law that was virtually identical to it) as a source for his law (Malul 1990, 141–142; cf. Westbrook 1985, 257). The cuneiform legal collections therefore shed considerable light on the pentateuchal legal codes and present a challenge to claims that these texts reflect only or primarily Israelite/Judean perspectives. There are several significant challenges to claims that the pentateuchal laws served as prescriptive law in ancient Israel or reflect its real legal practice. First among them is the evidentiary problem noted already: there are no documents of judicial practice preserved from ancient Israel. The closest approximation is the Meṣad Ḥ ashavyahu Ostracon, a late seventh-­century extrajudicial petition that describes a legal situation comparable to that treated in Exod 22:25–26 and Deut 24:12–13 (Dobbs-­Allsopp 1994; cf. 2 Sam 14:2–22). This situation distinguishes Israel from ancient Mesopotamia, where significant trial records and other legal documents were preserved and rediscovered over the last 150 years. There is thus no direct, positive evidence of the Israelite judiciary against which the pentateuchal laws may be measured. Second, the close and extensive parallels between biblical and cuneiform legal collections noted above tend to undermine the claim that the biblical laws should be understood as real, practiced law. The Laws of Hammurabi are a particularly instructive example. Noting the incomplete content of these laws, their transmission history, their impracticability, their internal contra­dic­tions, the absence of citations of them in documents of real judicial practice from Mesopotamia, and the correspondence of their literary form with other genres (specifically, scientific lists), Jean Bottéro (1992) argued that the Laws of Hammurabi cannot be understood as a functioning legal “code.” Bottéro further observed that these

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The Relationship of the Legal Codes   305 laws are accompanied by a propagandistic prologue and epilogue, and this framing, which is well integrated with and buttressed by the scientific listing of laws within it, reveals the text’s purpose. Given the likely non-­legal character of the Laws of Hammurabi and the strong formal, thematic, and structural parallels between them and the biblical laws, there is good reason to question claims that the pentateuchal laws functioned as a legal code or set of codes in ancient Israel. Averting the problems encountered in straightforward comparisons between biblical and cuneiform legal collections, some scholars have appealed to the Mesopotamian documents of real legal practice (contracts, trials records) to buttress claims that pentateuchal laws reflect the real legal practice of ancient Israel and Judah. For example, Bruce Wells has argued that the legal topics, reasoning, and procedure in the Mesopotamian trial records (especially Neo-­Babylonian court records) are similar to those in the laws of both the cuneiform legal collections and the pentateuchal codes. Based on this cor­ res­pond­ence with actual contemporary or nearly contemporary Mesopotamian judicial practices, Wells suggests that biblical laws likely reflect, at least in part, the real legal practice of ancient Israel (Wells 2004, 13–15, 166–167; 2008). This approach introduces an important distinction between descriptive and ­prescriptive law not attested in earlier assertions concerning the authoritative status of pentateuchal law. As such, it recognizes the apparently non-­legal status of the cuneiform law collections and leaves room for alternative and/or attendant views of pentateuchal law as primarily scholarly or literary in nature. In so doing, it overlaps in part with the literary approach discussed below. The appeal to Mesopotamian trial records alongside the cuneiform legal codes also builds upon and extends the view that ancient Near Eastern societies shared a stream of legal tradition in both practice and literary formulation (Westbrook 1985, 1989). According to this view, the correspondences among the cuneiform and biblical law codes are oftentimes real but indirect. The law collections’ resemblances do not necessarily attest direct, textual interaction but instead reflect local judicial practices that were similar to each other. These traditions were then written down according to a shared convention but in many instances without direct recourse to other such written legal collections (Wells 2008, 231–243; Westbrook 2008).

The Literary Approach: Pentateuchal Law Codes as Literary Compositions The second major scholarly approach to the pentateuchal law codes considers these texts to be fundamentally scribal, literary compositions. According to this view, rather than functioning as documents of real ancient Israelite legal practice the pentateuchal laws codes reflect specific social and religious motivations. The laws themselves may at times reflect real legal practice and reasoning from ancient Israel (again, compare the

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306   Jeffrey Stackert Meṣad Ḥ ashavyahu Ostracon), but they may also at times creatively depart from such judicial norms. Such partial correspondence with real ancient Israelite law is hardly ­surprising, for the pentateuchal codes are fictive descriptions of law in literature (Chavel 2011). The primary question posed to the text in the literary approach is thus no longer, “What legal reality do these texts reflect?”, as it is in the juridical approach. It is instead, “What is the argument of the literary work and how does its articulation of laws contribute to it?” The literary approach to the pentateuchal law codes, like the juridical approach, thus first understands these texts and the relations among them in terms of genre, and the strong similarities between cuneiform legal codes and pentateuchal law serves as a starting point for exploring the non-­legislative function of the biblical exemplars. Yet this starting point quickly gives way to a range of proposals. Arguing that the pentateuchal laws originated in elite, scribal settings, Anne Fitzpatrick-­McKinley contends that these texts constituted a sort of moral wisdom or advice rather than authoritative law. Only later, by virtue of its writtenness and under Hellenistic influence, did this moral advice come to be treated as law (Fitzpatrick-­McKinley 1999, 21–22; cf. LeFebvre 2006). Dale Patrick emphasizes the religious focus of the pentateuchal law codes and argues that these texts are substantially theoretical. They mimic legal thinking but are not themselves law. He also identifies a limited narrative that originally accompanied them (Patrick 1985, 64–65). David P. Wright presents a somewhat different view, arguing that BC was a literary, scribal creation that borrowed from and revised the Laws of Hammurabi (and other cuneiform sources) in response to Neo-­Assyrian hegemony in Israel and Judah in the eighth–seventh centuries. Wright thus focuses especially on the possibility of literary reuse and revision in the composition of pentateuchal law, a special interest of the literary approach. He also sees evidence within BC of an ac­com­ pany­ing narrative and tentatively reconstructs its contours in relation to the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt (Wright 2009, 332–352). As the arguments of Patrick and Wright suggest, the literary approach allows for ser­ ious consideration of pentateuchal narratives as parts of the same literary works as the law codes. Recommending such a connection between pentateuchal law and narrative are the vario