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

Citation preview

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

The Oxford Handbook of

THE PENTATEUCH Edited by

JOEL S. BADEN and

JEFFREY STACKERT

1

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.”

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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-

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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 ­

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Pa rt I

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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:

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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)

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism   67

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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)

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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)

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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:

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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;

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

118   Cécile Dogniez

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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;

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch: Greek Translation   123

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

126   Cécile Dogniez

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Pa rt I I

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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),

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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.”

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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;

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/24/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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)

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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;

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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”)

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.”

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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:

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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:

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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:

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

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 various literary ties, including specific cross-­references, between them. For example, the laws concerning sacrifice in Lev 17 build upon a periodization of history developed across the pentateuchal Priestly source. According to Gen 1:29–30, God first directed humans and animals to eat only vegetation. Yet their desire for meat was so intense that they began to kill and eat each other (Gen 6:11; cf. 9:1–6), prompting the deity to send the flood. After the flood, God established rules for secular meat eating and proper disposal of blood (Gen 9:3–4). God also explicitly outlawed killing and consumption of humans (Gen 9:5–6). Sacrificial slaughter and consumption only began much later, once God gave the laws for sacrifice to the Israelites at Sinai (Lev 1–7). Lev 17 builds upon this schematization of history and decrees that, having received the sacrificial laws, the Israelites must first offer all sacrificeable animals as a sacrifice to Yahweh at his sanctuary if they are to eat such animals (17:3–4). Failure to do so is tantamount to worship of other gods (17:5–7). Israelites may still slaughter and consume non-­sacrificeable animals, but they must dispose of the blood as required in Gen 9:4 (17:13–14). Because

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Relationship of the Legal Codes   307 Lev 17 presumes the priestly narrative’s contents, it likely never existed apart from this larger narrative source (Nihan 2007, 395–401). Such inseparability from its accompanying narrative also characterizes much of the rest of pentateuchal Priestly law. Instances of legal revision that draw upon both pentateuchal law and narrative also suggest that their sources comprised both legal and narrative material. For example, the manumission laws in Deut 15:12–18 employ both the law (BC) and the narrative of the Elohistic source of the Pentateuch. Deut 15:12–13 states: If your brother sells himself to you—a Hebrew man or woman—he shall work for you for six years, and in the seventh year, you shall set him free from under your authority. 13And when you set him free from under your authority, you shall not send him away empty-­handed. 14You shall surely lavish a gift upon him from your sheep, your threshing floor, and your wine vat; from that with which Yahweh your god has blessed you, you shall give to him. 12

Verse 15 gives the specific rationale for the generosity required of the Israelite master: You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that Yahweh your god redeemed you. Therefore I am giving you this command today.

DL’s slavery laws draw upon and revise BC’s slavery laws in Exod 21:2–11. Exod 21:2–4 states: When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall work for six years, but in the seventh year he shall go free, without obligation. 3If he came in by himself, he shall depart by himself. If he was the husband of a wife, his wife shall depart with him. 4If his master gave him a wife and she bore him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to the master, and he shall depart alone. 2

Verses 7–11 prescribe a different, less generous procedure for the manumission of female slaves. Verse 7 states, When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not depart as male slaves do.

The close connection between the BC and DL slavery laws is evident in their close content similarities and their specific language parallels. Yet it is likely that Deut 15:13–15 also draws upon the Elohistic narrative in Exod 3:21. Describing the Israelites’ departure from Egypt, Yahweh promises to favorably dispose the Egyptians toward the departing Israelites, who will despoil their masters: I will place favor for this people in the eyes of the Egypt, and when you depart, you will not depart empty-­handed.

DL’s use of the rare term “empty-­handed” (rêqām), coupled with its rationale for the parting gift that it requires Israelite masters to provide to departing slaves—“remember

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

308   Jeffrey Stackert that you were slaves in Egypt”—strongly suggests that DL employed the Elohistic narrative from Exod 3 alongside the BC law in its composition of Deut 15:13–15. If this is correct, it is likely that Exod 3:21 and 21:2–11—narrative and law—belonged to the same source text that DL borrowed from and revised.

Legal Revision in the Pentateuchal Codes Most scholars, whether endorsing a juridical or a literary approach to biblical law, identify instances of direct borrowing among the pentateuchal legal codes. Examples of borrowing are most clearly observable in DL’s revision of BC: DL regularly redeploys specific words and phrases from BC in its own legislation, sometimes in ways that diverge from BC in significant ways. This revisionary method, termed “lemmatic cit­ ation” (Levinson 1997, 5–6), highlights the scribal nature of pentateuchal legal com­pos­ ition and revision. The slavery laws in Deut 15 and Exod 21, reviewed above, illustrate DL’s method of citing specific lemmata from BC in the process of revising its laws. They also exemplify the kinds of interpretation and revision that DL performs on its source material, including clarifying, updating, augmenting, regrounding, and otherwise altering legal form and content. Like DL’s slavery legislation, DL’s laws on seventh-­year debt release (Deut 15:1–11) are also revisionary compositions. BC’s seventh year agricultural law (Exod 23:10–11) requires landowners to provide charity by donating the produce from each field once every seven years: Six years you shall sow your field and gather its produce, 11but in the seventh year, you shall strip off the produce and leave it behind so that the poor of your people may eat, and what they leave behind the beasts of the field may eat. Thus shall you do for your vineyard and for your olive grove.

10

While retaining these laws’ positive regard for the poor, Deut 15:1–3 dissociates the release (šǝmit ̣t ̣â) from agriculture and applies it instead to debt: At the end of seven years you shall enact a release, 2and this shall be the procedures for the release: every debtholder shall release the debt he holds against his neighbor. He shall not oppress his neighbor—the one who is his brother—for Yahweh’s release is proclaimed. 3You may oppress the foreigner, but what is owed you by your brother you must release. 1

DL’s revision here takes advantage of the polyvalent semantics of the verb ‫שמט‬: BC’s “stripping off ” becomes “releasing/letting go” in DL. These different connotations for ‫ שמט‬each reflect the basic downward motion associated with this verb (Stackert 2007, 129–141).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Relationship of the Legal Codes   309 H’s seventh-­year agricultural laws (Lev 25:2–7) introduce further revisions to the seventh-­year laws in BC and DL. Lev 25:3 draws from Exod 23:10–11, even reproducing a portion of the BC text verbatim (underscored portion): Lev 25:3: Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall tend your vineyard and gather its produce. Yet H conceptualizes the seventh year not as a release (šǝmit ̣t ̣â) performed by the landowner but as a cessation (šabbātôn) carried out by the land itself. H’s introduction of Sabbath ideology may be inspired by Exod 23:12, BC’s Sabbath law, which follows immediately after BC’s seventh-­year laws (Stackert 2007, 115–128). Another example of revision that is closely guided by the language of the legal patrimony is DL’s asylum legislation. Deut 19:1–13 legislates the establishment and procedure of asylum cities for manslayers. In so doing, these verses employ and recast BC’s altar asylum laws (Exod 21:12–14): One who strikes a person, who then dies, shall surely be put to death. 13But he who did not lie in wait, but rather God moved his hand—I will set up a place for you to which he may flee. 14But if a man plots against his neighbor to kill him craftily, you shall take him from my altar to die. 12

In its revision of these laws, DL creatively exploits the ambiguity of the term māqôm (“place”) in Exod 21:13—a term that can mean either “sanctuary site” or “city” (cf. Deut 21:19)—and thereby finds in its source a basis for city asylum. The other innovations in DL’s asylum laws flow smoothly from this reconceptualization. For instance, DL clarifies the adjudication of the asylum seeker’s case by introducing the city elders, for whom the city (gate) is the natural judicial context. Moreover, while BC leaves the fate of the ­unintentional killer undefined, DL’s asylum cities serve as a potentially permanent safe haven for the manslayer. Revisionary authors of pentateuchal legal material sometimes acknowledge that their laws are innovative. However, in acknowledging their novelty, these laws do not identify previous legal stipulations or remedies that they have altered. They instead index their commands to prior practices, which they characterize as lawless or illicit, even when the laws that they are recasting permit such practices. These points may be illustrated by returning to the sacrificial laws in Deut 12 and Lev 17. In its advocacy for centralized worship, Deut 12 modifies the altar law in Exod 20:24, a text that permits multiple worship sites: You shall make for me an earthen altar, and you shall sacrifice upon it your burnt offerings and your wellbeing offerings, your sheep and your cattle. In every place where you call upon my name I will come to you and bless you.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

310   Jeffrey Stackert Describing previous Israelite worship at multiple sites and contrasting that practice with the new requirement to worship in a single place, Deut 12:8–11 states: Do not act as we do here today, each man doing what is right in his own eyes, 9for we have not yet come to the resting place and inheritance that Yahweh your god is giving you. 10When you cross the Jordan and dwell in the land that Yahweh your god is bestowing upon you, and when he gives you rest from all of your enemies around you and you dwell in security, 11then you shall bring all that I am commanding you— your burnt offerings, your wellbeing offerings, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, and all the choice vows that you make to Yahweh—to the place where Yahweh your god will choose to place his name. 8

These verses characterize their legal innovation in terms of chronology and geog­raphy and, in so doing, offer a somewhat self-­contradictory assessment. On the one hand, they denigrate prior Israelite practice (“each man doing what is right in his own eyes”); on the other hand, they state explicitly that centralization only applies once Israel settles in the land. Lev 17:5–7 similarly contrasts its commands concerning sacrifice with prior Israelite practice, which it maligns: In order that the Israelites will bring their sacrifices that they are offering in the open field to Yahweh at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to the priest and sacrifice them as wellbeing offerings. 6The priest shall dash the blood against Yahweh’s altar at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and turn the fat into smoke as a pleasing aroma for Yahweh. 7They shall thus no longer make their sacrifices to the goatdemons after which they have been whoring. This shall be a perpetual statute for them for their generations. 5

Like Deut 12:8–11, these verses characterize their centralization innovation in terms of chronology, but they do not make a geographical distinction. Verse 7 polemicizes against previous practice, characterizing it as illicit worship of other gods (the enigmatic “goat-demons”). Verse 5, by contrast, seems to represent past Israelite worship without prejudice, though it may advocate a change in sacrificial procedure (“bring their sacrifices . . . as wellbeing offerings”). Though not acknowledged explicitly, the lemmatic style of revisionary composition in the pentateuchal codes creates a clear link between new laws and their legal pre­ cursors. The question is thus raised: what purpose does this style of revision serve? One possibility is that laws that address the same issue are meant to stand side by side and thereby inform each other. New laws thus serve as supplements to the laws that they revise. Though not necessarily harmonistic in the style of premodern interpretation, this approach endorses a theory of pentateuchal composition that understands revising authors to be writing addenda to existing works rather than stand-­alone compositions. To return to the case of BC and DL, according to this view DL is not an external challenge

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Relationship of the Legal Codes   311 to BC. It is instead a revision from within—one that provides a lens through which to read the whole that comprises BC+DL. For example, Otto states: The concept of “revision” does not entail the abolition of the revised laws. Such a view would lead to the difficulty that the part of the Covenant code which was subject to a process of revision became invalid, while the part which was not subject to such a process remained valid. Rather, the process of revision maintained the validity of the revised laws within the horizon of the revising laws.  (Otto 1996, 116)

As hinted at in this statement, even in the history of its scribal revision, Otto maintains for biblical legislation a status as real, practiced law, which he argues is its origin (Otto 1993, 16–21). The question of relations among laws—and their possible overlap and divergence—thus relates to their valid implementation. Otto exemplifies his argument through reference to the seventh-­year and asylum laws and suggests that BC’s laws remained valid for the author of DL, who simply supplemented them. Otto elsewhere turns to the non-­legal portions of Deuteronomy to buttress his claim. He suggests that the use of the verb ‫ באר‬in Deut 1:5 (‫הואיל משה באר את התורה הזאת‬, “Moses began to expound this teaching”) indicates that already during the period of the Torah’s composition Moses was understood to be a scribal commentator on BC (= “this teaching”). DL, voiced by Moses, thus occupied a subordinate position to BC’s divinely voiced laws (Otto 2005). Several scholars have challenged this understanding of Deut 1:5, the verb ‫באר‬, the anaphoric interpretation of “this teaching,” and DL more broadly (Schaper 2007; Stackert 2009). An alternative to the supplementary theory is to view revisionary laws in the Pentateuch as replacements for their legal forebears. Bernard M. Levinson (1997) argues for such a replacement theory within the juridical framework described above. In his view, DL’s revision of BC is a subversive response to authoritative law. It is for this reason that DL employs its method of lemmatic citation: concealing its innovations in BC’s cloak, DL is able to borrow its source’s prestige even as it undermines BC’s legal contents. DL was thus originally composed as an independent work, and its significant legal differences from BC can be understood in this context. It was only the subsequent com­ bin­ation of DL with BC that occasioned attempts to read these law collections as parts of a single text. Scholars have also argued for the replacement theory from a literary perspective, especially in light of the narratives that accompany the pentateuchal law codes. The differing accounts of the Horeb lawgiving in Exod 19–20* and 24* and its renarration in Deut 5 illustrate how pentateuchal narratives contribute to the replacement theory. According to Deut 5:22, the Israelites heard only the Decalogue at Horeb: These words (i.e., what immediately precedes this verse = the Decalogue) Yahweh spoke to all of your assembly on the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the dark cloud with a great voice, but he did not continue. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

312   Jeffrey Stackert Moses then recounts that Yahweh gave him the rest of the laws in private (5:30–31), but he did not immediately relate these laws to the Israelites. Moses instead waited until the Israelites were in the plains of Moab, on the cusp of their entry into the land of Canaan, to convey the laws to the people. Deut 5 thus claims that the events narrated in Exod 24:3–8—namely, Moses’s communication of the laws that he received from Yahweh when he returned from Mount Horeb—never occurred. If read in the context of the entire Pentateuch, Deut 5 suggests that the Israelites never received any of the laws that dominate the second half of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers—neither BC nor PL. These exclusivist claims suggest that the Deuteronomic narrative does not intend for DL to stand alongside BC or any other laws as a complement to them. The Deuteronomic source, including its narrative and its laws, appears instead to be an independent work, an alternative rather than a supplement to BC and the larger Elohistic source (Stackert 2009). Because it does not posit the authoritative legal status of BC, the literary approach is able to envision DL as a nonsubversive replacement to its source. Rather than undermining the Elohistic work, the Deuteronomic work’s lemmatic style in its reformulation of this source may be understood as an attempt to rehabilitate the Horeb covenant trad­ ition that, in its Elohistic form, the Deuteronomic author deemed untenable. According to this view, though still an exclusive alternative to BC, DL was composed as an irenic revision and update rather than an ambitious competitor to its source (Stackert 2014, 32, 165–167).

Suggested Reading For a concise treatment of different approaches to analyzing biblical laws and their possible relationships, see Wells  2008. Fishbane  1985, Levinson  1997, and Stackert  2007 give special attention to revisionary composition amongst pentateuchal laws. Malul  1990 establishes methodological controls for assessing potential relationships between biblical and other ancient Near Eastern legal materials. Wright  2009 makes an extended argument for the dependence of the Covenant Code upon the Laws of Hammurabi.

Works Cited Alt, A. 1967. “The Origins of Israelite Law.” In Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, translated by R. Wilson, 103–171. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Bottéro, J. 1992. “The ‘Code’ of Ḫammurabi.” In Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, translated by Z. Bahrani and M. Van De Mieroop, 156–184. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chavel, S., 2011. “The Legal Literature of the Hebrew Bible.” In The Literature of the Hebrew Bible: Introductions and Studies, edited by Z. Talshir, 1:227–272. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak BenZvi (Hebrew). de Wette, W. M. 1830. “Dissertatio Critica qua a prioribus Deuteronomium Pentateuchi libris diversum alius cuiusdam recentioris auctoris opus esse monstratur.” In Opuscula Theologica, 149–168. 2nd ed. Berlin: Reimer.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Relationship of the Legal Codes   313 Dobbs-Allsopp, F.  W. 1994. “The Genre of the Meṣad Ḥ ashavyahu Ostracon.” BASOR 295:49–55. Fishbane, M. 1985. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fitzpatrick-McKinley, A. 1999. The Transformation of Torah from Scribal Advice to Law. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Jackson, B. S. 2006. Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Knight, D. A. 2011. Law, Power, and Justice in Ancient Israel. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Knohl, I. 1995. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Translated by J. Feldman and P. Rodman. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. 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: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Festschrift for Devorah Dimant, edited by M.  Bar-Asher and E.  Tov, *57–*80. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. Kugel, J. 1997. The Bible As It Was. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. LeFebvre, M. 2006. Collections, Codes, and Torah: The Re-characterization of Israel’s Written Law. New York: T & T Clark. Levinson, B.  M. 1997. Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Malul, M. 1990. The Comparative Method in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Nihan, C. 2007. From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of Leviticus. FAT/II 25. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Otto, E. 1988. Wandel der Rechtsbegründungen in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte des antiken Israel: eine Rechtsgeschichte des “Bundesbuches” Ex XX 22–XXIII 13. Leiden: Brill. Otto, E. 1993. “Town and Rural Countryside in Ancient Israelite Law: Reception and Redaction in Cuneiform and Israelite Law.” JSOT 57:3–22. Otto, E. 1996. Kontinuum und Proprium: Studien zur Sozial- und Rechtsgeschichte des Alten Orients und des Alten Testaments. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Otto, E. 2005. “Mose, der erste Schriftgelehrte: Deuteronomium 1,5 in der Fabel des Pentateuch.” In L’Écrit et l’esprit: Études d’histoire du texte et de théologie biblique en hommage à Adrian Schenker, edited by D. Boehler, I. Himbaza, and P. Hugo, 273–284. Fribourg: Presses universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Patrick, D. 1985. Old Testament Law, Atlanta, GA: John Knox. Schaper, J. 2007. “The ‘Publication’ of Legal Texts in Ancient Judah.” In The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance, edited by G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levinson, 225–236. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Stackert, J. 2007. Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation. FAT 52 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. Baden, 187–204. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Stackert, J. 2011. “The Cultic Status of the Levites in the Temple Scroll: Between History and Hermeneutics.” In Levites and Priests in Biblical History and Tradition, edited by M. A. Leuchter and J. M. Hutton, 197–212. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

314   Jeffrey Stackert Stackert, J. 2014. A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy and Law in Israelite Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. Van Seters, J. 2002. A Law Book for the Diaspora: Revision in the Study of the Covenant Code. New York: Oxford University Press. Wellhausen, J. 1957. Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel. Translated by J. S. Black and A. Menzies. New York: Meridian Books. Wells, B. 2004. The Law of Testimony in the Pentateuchal Codes. BZABR 4. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Wells, B. 2008. “What is Biblical Law?: A Look at Pentateuchal Rules and Near Eastern Practice.” CBQ 70:223–243. Westbrook, R. 1985. “Biblical and Cuneiform Law Codes.” RB 92:247–264. Westbrook, R. 1989. “Cuneiform Laws and the Origin of Legislation.” ZA 79:201–222. Westbrook, R. 2008. “The Laws of Biblical Israel.” In The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship, edited by F. E. Greenspahn, 99–119. New York: New York University Press. 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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

chapter 17

The Iden tification of Pr eex ilic M ater i a l i n the Pen tateuch Frank Polak

Stratification and Periodization: The Problems In classical documentary, form, and redaction criticism, the periodization of pentateuchal literature was largely agreed upon. In more recent scholarship, however, only exilic/postexilic “priestly” texts are generally recognized, in complicated and controversial relationships with non-­priestly strata (Albertz 2018), although the existence of preexilic P traditions is often still admitted (Römer 2014). These new models are based on exegetical interpretation (Gertz  2000) rather than on strict philological data, even though the last seventy-­five years have witnessed immense progress in linguistic and literary method and theory, with striking advances in the research of the ancient Near Eastern, Hebrew, Canaanite, and Aramaic language and literature. The present chapter will provide a survey of this evidence, and suggest a more integrative model for the dating of the pentateuchal materials. This model will be based on the convergence between the findings in various different fields (Zevit 1982; Schmid 2018), in particular regarding cultural circumstances and language usage, and supported by allusions to pentateuchal texts in other parts of biblical literature, scribal practices, and sociopolitical con­sid­er­ ations. This approach envisions a broad (and complex) sociocultural context of pentateuchal literature. Hence the first subject to discuss is the cultural background of this complex corpus.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

316   Frank Polak

Theological Tendencies and Mythical Residues As de Wette points out, the features that set Deuteronomy apart from other pentateuchal texts concern both cultic practice and religious ideas. Deuteronomy often adopts a more rational tone, while the narratives concerning the patriarchs and Moses may reveal mythical-­magic accents that at times are close to the Ugaritic texts. These differences, though often a matter of nuance, are accompanied by contrasting attitudes toward the location of the worship.

Local Sanctuaries, Altars, and Holy Trees The central demand of Deuteronomy, turned into royal policy by Josiah (Albertz 2005), is the centralization of the worship in a single place and the demolition of other shrines (Deut 12:2–3, 11–14), such as Bethel (2 Kings 23:15). A markedly different attitude is implied by the patriarchal narratives: Bethel is the scene of the divine revelation to Jacob, who recognizes its holiness and erects a maṣṣēbāh (Gen 28:17–18). The māqôm, “locus,” at Shechem is the first place in Canaan mentioned in the Abraham narrative, and the location of his first altar (Gen 12:6–7; so also at Bethel, 12:8; 13:3–4; the “terebinths of Mamre,” 13:18; and the tamarisk at Beer-­sheba, 21:33; with Isaac’s altar, 26:25). The building of an altar near Shechem is likewise attributed to Jacob (33:20). These descriptions run counter to the Deuteronomic command and the destruction of the peripheral shrines, and specifically of Bethel, ascribed to Josiah. The altar near “the oak of Moreh” at Shechem (12:6–7; 35:4; Josh 24:26; contrast Deut 11:30) gives the tree a role in the openair sanctuary (Keel 1998), in blatant violation of the ban on the planting of “an ’aš̌ ērāh or any tree” near the altar (Deut 16:21). A divine meal held under the tree at the “terebinths of Mamre” (Gen 18:1, 8) prefigures a cultic practice that is vehemently criticized in Hos 4:13. The distance between the realities implied by these passages and the Deuteronomic demands is most easily explained by the assumption that these passages reflect the period before the Josianic reform, and defies explanation if this assumption is rejected. The thesis that the Deuteronomic command and the Josiah narrative are pseudepigraphic back-projections from the exilic/postexilic period (Hoelscher  1922, 225–255; Pakkala 2009) fails to explain why the late redaction would authorize cult places and practices forbidden by the back projection. Although none of these passages contains a description of actual sacrifices (Edelman  2010, 83), it remains difficult to understand why the invocation of the divine name would necessitate the introduction of a decried meal or a forbidden altar. Hence it seems preferable to ground the cultic tales and notes from Abraham to Jacob, although heavily stylized (Stavrakopoulou  2010, 50), in the sociocultural context of

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   317 ­ re-­Josianic Israel/Judah. Extremely convoluted arguments would be required to explain p their function in a society adhering to a cult centralized in Jerusalem (or Shechem).

Mythical Themes and Their Mitigation Biblical poetry contains some rare mythical residues, such as the themes related to the fight between the Storm God (Baal/Addu) and the Sea/Yam (Exod 15:3–11). The Song of Moses (Deut 32:8–9) describes Elyon, known from the Aramaic Sefire treaty and Philo of Byblos (KAI 222 A 11; Smith 2001; Baumgarten 1981), endowing seventy deities with various population groups, not unlike Nintur/Ninḫursag in the Sumerian flood tale, Marduk in the Enmesharra myth, and Kronos/El in the description of Philo (Civil 1969; Jacobsen 1981; Lambert 2013; Baumgarten 1981). This passage represents the “deities” as bĕnê hā’elohîm (4QDeutj/4Q37 and LXX), an expression comparable to “the sons of Ilu” in Ugaritic; according to Gen 6:1–4, these figures were the progenitors of the heroes of old (Hendel 2004; Day 2012). Not a few non-­Deuteronomic texts describe concrete means of divine intervention in the human world, unlike the more abstract and distant representation in the Deuteronomic context (de Wette 1806, 1:275–280; Weinfeld 1972). If myth is involved in the description of the ark journeying before the Israelites (Num 10:33b), and being invoked by Moses to put the enemy to flight (vv. 35–36; 14:44), in the Deuteronomic rationalization the ark is to serve as container for the two tablets of the covenant (Deut 10:2–5) and is to be carried by the Levites (10:8; 31:9, 25). The description of the divine march (Exod 13:21–22) includes theophanic images and the annihilation of Pharaoh’s army (14:24), whereas Deuteronomic references to this theme are devoid of such features (Deut 1:30; 20:4; 23:15; 31:6, 8; but note 1:33, and contrast 2 Sam 5:24). The praise of the “bronze serpent,” which served to cure the victims of the “poisonous serpents” (Num 21:9), is annulled by the Deuteronomistic denunciation of its worship as “Nehushtan” (2 Kgs 18:4; Spieckermann 1982). The tale of Eldad and Medad places the appointment of the elders in the sacral sphere, as they are imbued with divine inspiration that impels them to ecstatic behavior (Num 11:16–17, 25; Levine 1993; Blum 1990). By contrast, the Deuteronomic version has Moses choose and instruct “wise and reputable individuals” who are to act upon their best judgment (Deut 1:9–18; Exod 18:15–22 replaces the sacral sphere by a moral characterization, v. 21). The Deuteronomic description of the events at Mount Sinai refers to a fiery the­ ophany (4:11; 5:4, 22–24), but highlights the speaking voice, and clarifies that no shape was perceived (4:11, 15; Krüger 2000). This distant reference contrasts sharply with the hefty description of the theophany in Exodus 19–20 featuring a divine thunder, heavy numinous smoke and fire, and the trembling of the mountain (Exod 19:16, 18–19; 20:18). The theme of the shaking of the mountain at the appearance of the deity is matched by Ugaritic and Akkadian texts (for example, Smith  1997, 136–137: 1.4 VII.27–35; Loewenstamm 1980). In strong contrast with the Deuteronomic picture, the seventy elders meeting the deity in his abode (Exod 24:10–11) actually view the divine overlord,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

318   Frank Polak eating and drinking in his presence, and perceive the radiation of the floor under his feet (Polak 2004; Smith 2015; differently Perlitt 1969). The flaming theophany is akin to the divine flare in the burning bush (Exod 3:2), the fire accompanying the hail (9:24), and the “pillar of fire” causing “panic” among the Egyptians (14:24; Lewis 2013). Thus, the Deuteronomic version of the theophany is but a feeble shadow of the powerful mythical picture of the Sinai narrative. The mythical features are largely preserved in the priestly notion of the kāḇōḏ covering Mount Sinai as a clouded flame (Exod 24:17; similarly 33:18–20; 40:34–35, 38; Num 9:15–16; Weinfeld  1995; Podella  1996; Sommer  2009; Aster 2012). Still, these mythical residues are characterized by non-­explicit representations that facilitate the adjustment of these themes to the Yahwistic worldview. Thus, emergent monotheistic insights prefiguring prophetic and Deuteronomic idea complexes interact with a residual mythical worldview, still harboring polytheistic ideas, in a characteristic cultural hybridity (Ackermann 2012). Such cultural hybridity is exemplified by the oath between Laban and Jacob, sworn by “the God of Abraham and the god of Nahor—their ancestral deities” and the “Fear/Thigh/Kin of his father Isaac” (Gen 31:53; Malul 1985). A characteristic example is the tale of Abraham hosting the three heavenly wayfarers. The tale is located at the terebinths of Mamre, contains reminiscences of tree worship (Genesis 18:8), and centers on the mythic theme of the meal offered to the divine guests. Although Gunkel (1997) matched this narrative with a late version of the myth of Hyrieus and Orion (Wehrli 1939; Muth 1968), one notes the Ugaritic parallel in the myth of Danʾilu and ʾAqhat, as the divine craftsman Koṯar wa-­Ḫ āsis visits Danʾilu and his wife in order to present the newborn ʾAqhat with a bow and arrows (Parker 1997, 58–59: 1.17 V.2–39). Like the tale of Mamre, this scene is connected to the birth theme and highlights the role of the woman in the preparation of the meal (Avishur 1999). While Sarah and Abraham are rewarded with the promise of a son, in the ʾAqhat tale the son receives a bow and arrows. Still, the mythic character of the Mamre tale is attenuated by the concealment of the identity of Abraham’s guests. Although the deity is indicated as speaker (v. 13), the divine presence is asserted only when “Abraham was still standing before Yahweh” (v. 22). This structuration implies a profoundly hybrid literary culture, also exemplified by, for instance, the tale of the primeval garden in Eden, the flood narrative (Gen 8:21), and the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah. Of particular importance is the scene of Jacob’s struggle with the divine being, perceived, as through Jacob’s eyes, as a “man” (32:25), but in the end identified as a “divine being” (v. 29; Geller 1982). Yet his identity is not disclosed: although he is divine, he is not to be invoked. The mythic element is mitigated but not obliterated. The theme of struggle between human and divine being culminates in the tale of the divine attack of Moses and its resolution by magic (Exod 4:24–26; Avishur 1999). It is a common notion in epic literature, from the attack Gilgamesh and Enkidu staged at Huwawa (Al-­Rawi and George 2014) to Anat’s battling (Smith 1997, 107–108: 1.3 II.3–30) and the Iliadic fights of Diomedes with Aphrodite and Ares (Ilias 5.121–132, 329–351, 825–863). A complex

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   319 balancing act is achieved in the tale of the “covenant between the pieces” (Gen 15), which minimalizes the mythical connotation of this act of divine self-­obligation (neglected by Gertz  2002; Köckert  2013) by means of symbols that evoke the theophany without embodying a divine presence. The hybridity of mythical residues, then, is foundational for Genesis–Numbers, and is best viewed as a pre-­Josianic residuum, received by Deuteronomy and the pentateuchal redaction as hallowed patrimony. More comprehensive indications of pre-­Josianic culture are supplied by various features of language usage. This is the subject of the next sections.

Classical Hebrew Prose Versus Exilic/Postexilic Language In general, the language of the Pentateuch largely fits the profile of the texts from Kuntillet ’Ajrud and Judahite administrative texts (Schüle 2000). In spite of some differences in phonology, the syntactical and lexical usage of the Mesha stela (around 830 bce) is very similar to that of biblical narrative (Eskhult 1990).

The Distinctions between Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew For the periodization of biblical texts in general it is important to note characteristic features of the language usage of texts from the Persian era and later (Esther; EzraNehemiah; 1–2 Chronicles; Daniel), setting postexilic Biblical Hebrew apart from the Classical Biblical Hebrew language usage (CBH) found in the main strata of biblical prose/poetry (Driver 1914). The linguistic picture has been refined by the methodological demand (Hurvitz 1972) that the classification of a text as Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH) is to be based on a trio of factors: namely, the contrast between a possible LBH lexical or grammatical item and a clas­ sic­al item with the same meaning; the correspondence of a possible LBH feature with features in the Aramaic texts from Elephantine and Biblical or Middle Aramaic (excluding ancient poetic language), Ben Sira, the texts from the Judaean Desert, or rabbinic Hebrew; and the cumulation of significant LBH markers. This method enabled Hurvitz to prove the LBH character of Ps 151, and of various biblical Psalms (Hurvitz 1967; 1972; Talshir and Talshir 2002; against Römer 2016). Arguing that the language of Ezekiel represents a transition to LBH, not reflected by the priestly corpus, Hurvitz (1974, 1982, 1988, 2000b) places the latter in the preexilic period. A similar conclusion was reached by the syntactic analysis of Polzin (1976) regarding the basic stratum of P (PG), whereas a secondary layer (PS) contains some LBH elements. One of the characteristic LBH features is the much-­reduced frequency of such basic verbs as hālaḵ, “to go” and lāqaḥ, “to take” (Polak 2009).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

320   Frank Polak According to recent research, LBH surfaces around 520 bce with Haggai and Zechariah, and is prefigured in Deutero-­ Isaiah (Shin  2007;  2016; Paul  2012; Polak 2009; 2016b). The tendency to place the main strata of pentateuchal narrative in the exilic/postexilic period is not confirmed by linguistic analysis (Hurvitz 1997; 2000a; Joosten 2005; 2006; 2012a; 2016a; 2016b; Carr 2016; Hendel and Joosten 2018).

Linguistic Distinctions and Sociopolitical Conditions The rise of LBH cannot be separated from the sociocultural situation of Judah under Babylonian/Persian predomination (Schniedewind 2013; Hendel and Joosten 2018, 24). Under the Judean monarchy the professional scribe functioned within, or in interaction with, the royal bureaucracy, and received his education within this framework. But after 586 he had to serve an administration that was dominated by official Aramaic, and thus required proficiency in Aramaic rather than in Hebrew (Polak 2006c). Consequently, the maintenance of Hebrew suffered a severe setback. The Aramaic prestige language was very much on the mind of the professional scribe (bilingualism/diglossia), as indicated by several LBH administrative terms. The lack of an official Hebrew framework furthered the adoption of colloquial elements (Polak 2006c), such as the conjunction -‫ ֶׁש‬for ‫א ֶׁשר‬.ֲ

Criticism of the Linguistic Distinctions The CBH/LBH distinction has been met by heavy criticism (Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvärd 2008), since Qumran Hebrew can be as classical as any CBH text; classical language features continue to be used in Persian era texts; and late copying and redaction may have led to the introduction of late features (Carr 2011). Although these arguments seem strong, they have been criticized severely (Joosten 2012b; Hornkohl 2014; Hendel and Joosten 2018, 135–144) because of vague argumentation in detail, and weak spots in the analysis of classical and Qumran Hebrew (Rendsburg 2015; Polak 2016b). One often argues that bilingual literati would have no difficulty in writing perfect CBH (Blum 2016). However, linguistic research of bilingualism points to significant difficulty in the mastery and use of a second language, both in lexical choice and in syntactic structure (Bialystock 2009; Odlin 2013): perfect mastery of CBH is hardly expectable in an environment in which literary Hebrew is not promoted by the authorities (Polak 2012a). The argument that in the Babylonian/Persian era the conservative learned scribe would be immersed in classical Hebrew (Blum 2016) presumes the existence of a considerable preexilic corpus, contrary to the thesis that the presupposed classical texts are largely exilic/postexilic. These considerations raise the question how to deal with contradictions between the conclusions of linguistic analysis and those of non-­linguistic exegetical approaches (Schmid 2018). Actually, this issue is entirely dependent on the nature of the non-­linguistic approach at hand. If its rationale is based on solid factual data the question demands careful weighing. But if the non-­linguistic argument consists

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   321 entirely of interpretation, its results cannot hold against serious linguistic analysis. Moreover, purely interpretational reasoning can always be countered by exegetical arguments to the contrary, which often have already been voiced during the history of exegesis. The CBH/LBH distinction is continued and refined by an overall analysis of syntactic structure.

Syntactic-­S tylistic Analysis Parameters for a Syntactic-­Stylistic Analysis Systematic analysis of the syntactic structure of biblical texts points to a distinction between a style that reflects the scribal expertise of the official chancery and a diction that is close to spoken discourse. This analysis is based on three parameters (Polak 2006a, 2012a): (1) The number of explicit syntactic constituents that are dependent immediately on the predicate: subject, direct/indirect object(s), modifiers (explicit lexicalized constituent, ELC), such as, for example: ‫ וַ יִּ ְשׁ ָתּחוּ‬/‫אַרצָ ה‬ ְ ‫ וַ יִּ קֹּד‬/‫וַ יְ ַמ ֵהר מ ֶֹשׁה‬ And Moses hastened, bowed toward the earth, and worshiped (Exod 34:8) This verse includes three clauses, of which the first contains an explicit subject (‫)מ ֶֹשׁה‬, and the second an indication of the goal (‫)אַרצָ ה‬, ְ whereas the third consists of predicate only (with implied subject, ‫)וַ יִּ ְשׁ ָתּחוּ‬. (2) The number of subordinate clauses: ‫ֹלהיָך ַבּ ִמּ ְד ָבּר‬ ֶ ‫ר־ה ְקצַ ְפ ָתּ ֶאת־יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬ ִ ‫א ֶשׁ‬ֲ ‫אַל־תּ ְשׁכַּ ח ֵאת‬ ִ Do not forget how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness (Deut 9:7a) The clause opening with ‫ ֲא ֶשׁר‬is an object clause, dependent on ‫אַל־תּ ְשׁכַּ ח‬. ִ ‫ד־ה ָמּקֹום ַהזֶּ ה‬ ַ ַ‫עַ ד־בּ ֲֹאכֶ ם ע‬- ‫את ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ ִמצְ ַריִ ם‬ ָ ָ‫א ֶשׁר־יָ צ‬ֲ ‫ן־היֹּום‬ ַ ‫לְ ִמ‬ ‫ַמ ְמ ִרים ֱהיִ ֶיתם עִ ם־יְ הוָ ה‬ From the day on which you came out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh (9:7b) The time sequence is indicated by two clauses: the ‫ אשר‬clause, dependent on ‫היום‬, and an infinitive clause opened by ‫עד באכם‬. (3) The number and length of the noun groups, such as, in 9:7a, ‫ֹלהיָך‬ ֶ ‫יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬, and, in 9:7b, ‫ ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ ִמצְ ַריִ ם‬and ‫ה ָמּקֹום ַהזֶּ ה‬.ַ Noun groups can be extremely long, such as the junction, ‫ל־הגְּ ָבעֹות וְ ַת ַחת כָּ ל־עֵ ץ ַרעֲ נָ ן‬ ַ ַ‫ל־ה ָה ִרים ָה ָר ִמים וְ ע‬ ֶ ַ‫ע‬ on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree (12:2).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

322   Frank Polak These categories enable us to establish, in every text of at least thirty clauses, the number of: (1) Short independent clauses, containing predicate only (with implicit subject, and object suffix), or predicate with one additional ELC, as in Exod 34:8; or, e.g. Gen 18:4: ‫ וְ ִה ָשּׁעֲ נוּ ַתּ ַחת ָהעֵ ץ‬/‫ וְ ַר ֲחצוּ ַרגְ לֵ יכֶ ם‬/‫ט־מיִ ם‬ ַ ַ‫יֻ ַקּח־נָ א ְמע‬ Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. (2) Independent clauses with two, three or more ELCs: ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫כַּ ֲא ֶשׁר צִ וָּ ה אֹתֹו ֱא‬- ‫ן־שׁמֹנַ ת יָ ִמים‬ ְ ‫אַב ָר ָהם ֶאת־יִ צְ ָחק ְבּנֹו ֶבּ‬ ְ ‫וַ יָּ ָמל‬ And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac (when he was) eight days old, as God had commanded him. (Gen 21:4; four ELCs). (3) Subordinate clauses, as in the excerpts from Deut 9:7, or, in Gen 21:4, the specification ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫“( כַּ ֲא ֶשׁר צִ וָּ ה אֹתֹו ֱא‬as God had commanded him”). (4) Grouped nouns, counted as noun pairs, as in Gen 21:4, with two noun pairs, ‫;יִ צְ ָחק ְבּנֹו‬ and the triad, ‫ן־שׁמֹנַ ת יָ ִמים‬ ְ ‫בּ‬,ֶ together five grouped nouns, counted as 2.5 “mean noun pairs” (MNP); Deut 9:7 (3 MNP); 12:2 (3.5 MNP). A relative clause is counted as one elem­ent in the noun phrase to which it belongs (as in Deut 9:7, ‫את ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ ִמצְ ַריִ ם‬ ָ ָ‫)היֹּום ֲא ֶשׁר־יָ צ‬. ַ By means of this count it is possible to establish the frequency of each class in a given segment. The percentages of classes 1–3 have to add up to 100 percent. The percentage for the “mean noun pairs” gives the frequency of noun groups per clause. If every clause includes one noun pair, the frequency of such pairs equals 100 percent. If the quantity of noun pairs per clause exceeds this number, we obtain a ratio higher than 100 percent (for Exod 35: 1–36:7, for example, we have 113.44 percent for 108.5 MNP’s in ninety-­three clauses). Two categories (subclasses of classes 2 and 3) serve for fine tuning: (5) complex subordination, indicating clauses that are dependent on subordinate clauses, as in Deut 12:11: ‫לְ ַשׁכֵּ ן ְשׁמֹו ָשׁם‬- ‫ֹלהיכֶ ם בֹּו‬ ֵ ‫ר־יִב ַחר יְ הוָ ה ֱא‬ ְ ‫ַה ָמּקֹום ֲא ֶשׁ‬ the place that Yhwh your God will choose -to let his name dwell there The final/infinitive clause ‫ לְ ַשׁכֵּ ן ְשׁמֹו ָשׁם‬is embedded within the relative ‫ ֲא ֶשׁר‬clause, in complex subordination. This class also includes subordinate clauses with two ELCs or more, such as ‫ֹלהים‬ ִ ‫“( כַּ ֲא ֶשׁר צִ וָּ ה אֹתֹו ֱא‬as God had commanded him,” Gen 21:4), and sub­ or­din­ate clauses that include a noun pair, such as ‫“( ְבּ ִהוָּ לֶ ד לֹו ֵאת יִ צְ ָחק ְבּנֹו‬when his son Isaac was born to him,” v. 5). (6) elaborate clauses with three or more ELCs, such as Gen 21:4, quoted above.

Two Styles in Biblical Prose Analysis of more than three hundred excerpts, containing at least thirty but mostly around sixty clauses, indicates a distinction between two classes.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   323 The first class is characterized by a strong predominance of extremely short independent, paratactic clauses (predicate only or predicate with one additional constituent, 0–1 ELC), often more than 50 percent of all clauses, a relatively low percentage of sub­or­din­ ate clauses (10–15 percent) and of noun groups (at most around 50 percent of all clauses), with very low figures for elaborate clauses and complex subordination. This is the voiced, lean, brisk style (VoLBS), which shares many features with the cross-­cultural and ­cross-­linguistic characteristics of spontaneous spoken discourse (Miller and Weinert 1998; Biber and Conrad 2009; Polak 2013), and thus seems close to the visual/aural performance of oral narrative and poetry. This style is exemplified by the excerpts from Gen 18:4; Exod 34:8 (pp. 321–322 above; further examples: Polak 2010, 39–41, 48–54; 2012a, 308). A very different picture presents itself in a second group of texts, characterized as it is by far lower figures for short independent clauses (around 30–35 percent 0–1 ELC), accompanied by significantly higher figures for syntactic subordination (around 30 percent) and noun groups (with in the mean a noun group in almost every clause). The figures for elaborate clauses and complex subordination often range from 10 to 20 percent. This is the intricate, elaborate style (IES), illustrated by the excerpts from Gen 21:4; Deut 9:7; 12:2, 11; 34:5 (p. 321 above; further examples: Polak 2010, 42–47; 2012a, 309). The intricacies of the sentence structure and the long noun groups dovetail with the cross-­cultural, cross-­linguistic characteristics of written discourse (Miller and Weinert 1998).

The Sociocultural Background and Socio-­Historical Implications of Language Usage The massive distinction between the VoLBS and the IES demands explanation. Language usage is conditioned by one’s language abilities, is to a large extent dependent on one’s education, has a sociocultural context (Coupland 2007), and is related to social status (Bourdieu 1991). One notes the classical/neoclassicist snub of the “humble” style of the Christian Bible (Auerbach 1952) and popular ballad poetry (Miles 1964). Thus, it is crucial to note that the IES demands significant scribal skills, and in particular the ability to plan complex sentences, to reread them and to correct them where necessary (Halliday 1989), and thus presupposes a scribal education (Veldhuis 2011). In ancient Israelite context an education of this kind is implied by the scribal norms evidenced by the epigraphic remains of ancient Hebrew (Rollston  2010;  2015;  2016; Schniedewind 2013). Consequently, the socio-­historical context of the IES can be identified as the welldeveloped royal bureaucracy of the seventh and early sixth century (but one notes the Kuntillet ’Ajrud texts around 800 bce: Ahituv, Eshel, and Meshel 2012). The aniconic seals in vogue in this period (Avigad and Sass 1997) indicate that even low-­ranking officials were able to read the names of the principals on the seals on letters. By contrast, the syntactic-­stylistic profile of the VoLBS is far from the scribal ex­pert­ ise of the chancery. The striking frequency of short, paratactic clauses (including circumstantial and wayhi clauses, Joosten  2009; Polak  2014;  2016b), and the relatively restricted use of syntactic subordination and long noun groups are close to spontaneous spoken discourse (Miller and Weinert  1998). Scribes using this style adhere to the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

324   Frank Polak ­ ab­itus of the oral performance rather than to the norms of the chancery and demonh strate significant expertise in the art of the “Singer of Tales” with all its complexities (Dégh 1989; Finnegan 1970; Henssen 1951). This is hardly a matter of mere taste and rhet­ oric­al preference, but of social norm, status (Bourdieu 1991), and social identity construction (Coupland  2007). When orality is considered appropriate for the literary representation of revered ancestors and cultural memory, the narrator associates himself with the oral performer (Miller 2015) rather than with the arts of the chancery, or with their status and the connotation of governmental power. Such a high prestige of, and expertise in orality points to a period in which the art of complex and sophisticated writing (full-­fledged, educated literacy) is not necessarily at the disposal of the leading classes. In view of these considerations, it seems preferable to attribute the VoLBS to the period preceding the emergence of a well-­developed bureaucracy, or, in other words, preceding the closure of the eighth century, the period in which seals are never aniconic and often are constricted to pictorial representation (Reich, Shukron and Lernau 2007). The VoLBS dominates the prose tales in Amos 7; Hosea 1–3; Isa 6; in Jeremian prose, by contrast, one encounters traces only (Jer 1:4–19; 13:1–11), with significant IES interference. Although Mesopotamian culture is dominated by writing, orality is well attested in Egypt (Redford 2000). The Hittite-­Hurrian “Song of Release” reveals an oral context (Neu 1996, 227, 272; similarly Archi 2007; 2009). In the Sumerian tale of “Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven” a central role is attributed to the singer (Gadotti 2006). The Ugaritic epic is characterized by a rich repertoire of epic formulae (Aitken 1989). Thus, we have seen the sociocultural and socio-­historical context of the lean, brisk style and its intricate counterpart. How does this issue affect the periodization of pentateuchal narrative and legislation?

Language Usage around Deuteronomy and the Priestly Strata In the textual world of Deuteronomy, literary culture occupies an important place (Sonnet  1997; Schniedewind 2004): witness the writing of the copy of the law by the authority of the “Levitical priests” (Deut 17:18), of Moses’s song (Deut 31:19), and of the Torah instructions (Deut 27:3, 8). In the cultic setting, one notes the writing on the doorpost of the house (Deut 11:20), and in legal context the penning of a divorce deed (24:1, 3).

Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic Texts Like Deuteronomistic historiography (Polak 2010), Deuteronomy is characterized by the IES. In the narrative sections (thirteen samples) one notes relatively high figures for syntactic subordination, mostly hovering around 32 percent, but at times 50 percent or higher. For noun groups the figures are relatively high, mostly around 60 percent, meaning that in the mean almost two-­thirds of the clauses contain a noun pair. The figures for short clauses

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   325 mostly hover around 30 percent of the text. The figures for complex hypotaxis mostly lie around 20 percent, with extremely high figures for Deut 4:9–20 and 8:2–5, 7–18. Similar data are found for the law collection, although in some sections the figures for short clauses are slightly higher (for example 13:1–19; 15:1–18; 17:8–20; 19:11–20; 28:15–42). Five sections come close to the VoLBS (21:10–23; 22:1–12, 13–29; 24:1–7, 10–22; 25:1–16), possibly pointing to a pre-­Deuteronomic inheritance (Rofé 2002; Otto 2012, 102–105).

The Priestly Work The cultic prescriptions and narrative sections attributed to the priestly work reveal much variation, but the IES is predominant (Polak 2017). Some of these passages stand out by relatively low figures for syntactic subordination, for instance Lev 1:1–4:21; 8; 16. In narrative, in the section of the tabernacle and the ritual/legal collections the dom­ in­ant style is the IES, with a range of 65–76 percent for noun groups. In many sections, however, the intricate character of the style is far more extreme than in most sections of Deuteronomy, with the figures for short clauses in the 12–19 percent range (Exod 34:­­29–35; 35:1–36:7), and for noun groups around 115 percent in Exod 35:1–36:7. The figures for hypotaxis mostly hover around 23 percent, with higher data for Exod 34:9–36:7 (41–49 percent). If the IES is the rule, some sections are close to the VoLBS, with high figures for short clauses and low figures for hypotaxis (Gen 17:1–8, 15–22; Lev 9–10; similarly Gen 1:1–19), but a high percentage of noun phrases (Gen 9). The profile of many of the sections in Numbers resembles that of Leviticus 1–16, but more than a few narratives and ritual/legal sections are characterized by a profile that is very similar to Chronicles and the book of Ezra, with high figures for hypotaxis (35–40 percent) and noun phrases (100–163 percent, including, for example, Num 1–3; 6; 8–9; 15:2–26; 19; 28–29; 31; 36); possibly pointing to exilic or postexilic supplementation. The “Holiness Code” includes a series of segments that fit the profile of Leviticus 1–16 (Lev 17; 22; 24; 26:34–45), whereas the festal calendar (Lev 23 in all its sections; similarly, Lev 14) resembles the late class of Numbers. By contrast, a number of units are couched in the VoLBS (Lev 18–21; 25; 26:1–33; 27; similarly 11:2–23; 13), reflecting the early preexilic era.

Language Usage from the Primeval Garden to the Moses Tales Patriarchal Narrative The narratives of Abraham and Jacob contain a long series of pericopes in the VoLBS. Some examples include Gen 12:1–9, 10–20; 15:1–12, 17–18; 18:1–15, 16–33; 19:1–22; 20; ­21:7-­21; 22; 24:22–67; 25:29–34; 26; 27; 28:10–30:31; 32–33 (Polak 2015, 2016b). Segments in the intricate style are less frequent: Gen 13:1–17; 14; 21:22–32; 23; 24:1-­21; 30:32–43; 34:1–31; all representing the chancery hand. The Joseph story is to a large extent

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

326   Frank Polak dominated by the VoLBS (for instance, in Gen 37–38; 40:1–41:25). Lower figures for short clauses are found in Gen 39; 43:1–23, whereas a full-­fledged intricate style is evident in the narratives of Pharaoh’s dreams (41:26–57), Joseph’s enslavement of the Egyptians (47:13–26), and the narrative of the reconciliation with Joseph and his death and burial (50:1-­26). The basic strata of patriarchal narrative, then, reveal strong versatility in the arts of the oral performance, as “oral derived” narrative (Foley 1995; Niditch 1996). The convergence between the predominance of this style and the cultic/mythic backdrop of, for instance, Gen 12:7; 18:1–15; 28:10–22; 32:25–32, points to their grounding in the early preexilic period. The IES sections in these tales indicate gradual, stage-­by-­stage supplementation and redaction, mostly in the late Judean monarchy (Gen 13; 24:1–21; 34), although a segment like the tale of Pharaoh’s dreams (41:26–57) may reflect the court style, and the tale of Abraham and the four kings (Gen 14), which attributes a predominant role to the king of Elam/Persia, seems postexilic. These considerations dovetail with the social focus of the VoLBS sections. Even “international” agreements and marriage contracts remain unwritten (Gen 29:18–27; 31:44–55); and in Exodus, writing is always ascribed to, or inspired by, the deity (Exod 17:14, 16; 24:4; 31:18; 34:27–28; see Polak 2012a). The only person with royal capabilities is Esau who is able to raise four hundred followers (Gen 32:7). The narrative focuses on the worries of the commoner’s struggle to maintain himself and his household in such adverse circumstances as a famine (Polak 2015); hostile threats are met by ruse and diplomacy (Gen 32–33); Joseph is portrayed as a royal official rather than a viceroy (apart from Gen 47:6–26). Thus, the narrator identifies himself with “the man in the field” rather than with the royal officials or the court, much unlike Deut 16–18. The same focus is revealed by the description of the slaves’ workload (Exod 1–5), and the dangers of hunger and thirst in the desert.

Exodus, Covenant and Aftermath The VoLBS is likewise characteristic for the narratives of the exodus and the covenant at Mount Sinai, including the tales about the enslavement (Exod 1:1–22), Moses’s birth, flight and call (2:1–3:16; 4:1–23), most sections in the plagues narrative, from the announcement of the blood plague (7:14–18) until the final plague (12:21–23, 25, 29–34), the trek to Mount Sinai (Exodus 14 partly; 15:22–27; 16 partly; 17:1–7, 8–16); and the the­ ophany and conclusion of the covenant (19:3–19; 20:18–21; 24:1–11); parts of the Book of the Covenant (21:1–22:30; 23:20–33); the narrative of the golden calf, Moses’ intercession and the second revelation (32–33; 34:5–10; Polak 2016a, 456–458). In the desert tales one notes Num 10:29–12:16; 13:17b–23, 26–33; 20:14–21; 21:21–26 (contrasting with Deut 2:26–3:7). The IES characterizes, apart from the P sections, the following segments: Exod 12:­42–13:22; 18; 19:20–25; 20:23–29; 23:1–19; 34 partly; Num 14 partly; Num 16 partly.

The Primeval History In the Primeval History the lean, brisk style is found in few samples: Gen 4:1–16; 9:20–27. The tale of the primeval garden manifests a mixture of the intricate style (2:4b–10, 15–25;

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   327 3:22–24), and the VoLBS (3:1–21). The flood narrative is couched in the IES in all its ­segments, including non-­P.

Epic-­Formulaic Language The tales of the patriarchs are permeated by epic formulae. These formulae can be defined as frequently repeated, traditional phrases that are matched by, or are cognate with, fixed phrases in Ugaritic/Akkadian poetry, and are related to the prosody of ­parallelism. Hence such phrases derive from the ancient Northwest Semitic poetic repertoire (Cassuto 1973–5, 2:16–26; Polak 2006b; 20016b; Avishur 1999). A characteristic example is the phrase, ‫וַ יִּ ָשּׂא עֵ ינָ יו וַ יַּ ְרא‬, “he lifted his eyes and saw,” in its various grammatical forms, matched by similar phrases in Akkadian (once) and Ugaritic. In the Abraham tales this phrase occurs with hinnê (Gen 18:2; 22:13; 24:63) and a direct object (13:10, 14; 22:4; 24:64). In the chapters in which this formula appears its frequency relative to rā’â and nāśā’ is significant. By the same token one notes the phrase ְ‫“( וַ ִתּ ָשּׂא ֶאת־קֹלָ הּ וַ ֵתּ ְבךּ‬she raised her voice and wept,” 21:16) with cognates in Ugaritic. This is the only instance of bākâ in the Abraham narrative (with six cases of qôl). In total, this narrative includes thirteen different types of formulaic phrases with fifty-­three instances. The Jacob narrative (Gen 25:29–34; 27:1–33:17) includes fifteen types of formulaic phrases with forty instances, including, ‫וַ יִּ ָשּׂא‬ ‫עֵ ינָיו וַ יַּ ְרא‬, “he lifted his eyes and saw” (31:10. 12; 33:1, 5); ְ‫וַ ּיִ ָשּׂא ֶאת־קֹלֹו וַ ְּיֵבךּ‬, “he raised his voice and wept” (27:38; 29:11), and, for example, ‫ֹאמר‬ ֶ ‫וַ יַּ עַ ן וַ יּ‬, “he spoke up and said” (27:37, 39; 31:14, 31, 36, 43; cf. 18:27; 24:50; 34:13–14); ‫וַ ַיִּקּח וַ יָּ ֶשׂם‬, “he took and placed” (28:11, 18; 31:34; cf. 21:14; 22:6; 24:22 in the SP; see Polak 2016b). In a number of passages, formulaic language is highly frequent (Gen 18; 21–22; 24; 27; 33). This diction is rare or unattested in other strata, with secondary echoes in Deuteronomic rhetoric and prophetic poetry (Polak 2016b).

Ancient Near Eastern Context Since George Smith’s uncovering of the Babylonian flood tale and of the myth of cre­ation, the ancient Near Eastern context has played an increasingly important role in the study of the Bible (Hallo 2003a, 2003b). The discovery of the El Amarna tablets and of the Ugaritic texts has revolutionized our understanding of the history of Hebrew and biblical poetry. Sociocultural aspects of writing and literary composition were placed in context by the discovery of such texts as the Moabite, Phoenician, Aramaic, and Ammonite royal inscriptions (Lemaire 2015; Whisenant 2015; Rollston 2016). The ancient Hebrew ostraca, from Samaria and Jerusalem to Lachish and Arad (Ahituv 2008), shed much light on administrative usage and the spread of literacy in Israel and Judah.

Epigraphic Material The early alphabetic texts from the southern Levant indicate a certain level of literacy around 1100–900 bce (Lemaire 2015), but their ethnic origins often are unclear. One of

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

328   Frank Polak the Lachish ostraca contains the reply of a highly placed army commander protesting that he is not unable to read (KAI 193, 4–10; Ahituv 2008, 64–69). This would imply that around 586 bce an army commander could be considered nonliterate, but also that a reproach of this kind was perceived as an insult (Schniedewind 2013). Biblical passages are partly matched by two silver plates from the burial cave at Ketef Ḥinnom, the precise date of which is however uncertain and debated (beginning sixth century: Barkay 1992; Barkay et al. 2004; Yardeni 1991; late sixth/fifth century: Renz 1995, 1:447–456; Berlejung 2008). These plates contain protective blessings that closely resemble the priestly blessing (Num 6:24–26; Ahituv 2008, 49–56; cf. Kuntillet ’Ajrud, 3.6, ll. 7–9a, around 800 bce; Ahituv, Eshel, and Meshel 2012); they could therefore have served as amulets. Plate A includes in lines 4–6 an invocation of Yahweh containing the phrase ‫ ;הברית ו[ה]חסד לאהב[ו‬this phrase is reminiscent of the designation of Yahweh as the one who “keeps the covenant faithfully for those who are loyal to him” (‫)שׁ ֵֹמר ַה ְבּ ִרית וְ ַה ֶח ֶסד לְ א ֲֹה ָביו‬, in Deut 7:9 (further Dan 9:8; Neh 1:5; and see Yardeni 1991, 178). The Metzad Hashavyahu ostracon (KAI 200; Ahituv 2008, 156–163; late seventh century) testifies to the practice of taking a person’s garment as security (Exod 22:25–26; Deut 24:17). The epithet ‫אָרץ‬ ֶ ָ‫קֹנֵ ה ָשׁ ַמיִ ם ו‬, “creator of heaven and earth” attached to El Elyon (Gen 14:19, 22) is partly paralleled by the phrase ‫קנארץ‬, “the creator of the earth” in a seventh-­century ostracon found in Jerusalem (Ahituv 2008, 40–42; also Phoenician, KAI 26 A III 18, and Neo-­Punic, KAI 129:1). The term ‫ערכך‬, “equivalent,” considered “Priestly” (Holzinger 1893) has been found in a late seventh-­century “payment document” (Eshel 2003; Ahituv 2008, 190–194). The reverse word order of the numerals, by which the “hundreds” precede the “thousands,” considered to be characteristic of P (Holzinger 1893; GKC 434i), is found already in the Siloam inscription (KAI 189, 5).

The Ancient Near Eastern Environment It is a truism to state that ancient Israel was part of the ancient Near East (ANE) in all its diversity. Many a biblical passage is matched by an ANE text, or illustrated by iconographic material (Keel  1998), by way of typological similarity in general, by cultural influence (Malul 1990), or as part of the Levantine cultural heritage, such as the characteristics of the storm-­god attributed to Yahweh (Smith 2002; Day 2000). Critics of the comparative approach argue that biblical literature should primarily be studied from within since the culture it represents differs from, for instance, the cultures of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant (Talmon 1978; Perlitt 1969). However, this thesis disregards the crucial question of how to establish the criteria to be used in such an intracultural discussion (Wright 1987, 7–9). The historical-­critical approach proceeds on the basis of aesthetic assumptions that are rooted in Western Neoclassicist conceptions, as exemplified by the understanding of repetition as a literary blemish, and the judgment that the use of two names for one and the same deity is “bizarre” (Astruc 1753, 13, 431). These judgments are invalidated by the widespread use of repetition in Ugaritic,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   329 Akkadian, Sumerian, and Hittite literary texts (Cassuto 1973–5, 2:29–33; Westermann 1984, 582–583); as well as by the use of two names/epithets for Ba‘al/Hadad (Gordon 1949; Polak 2012b; Westermann 1984, 578–580), Bēl/Marduk, and the moongod Nanna-­Suen (double name). Thus, ANE comparisons are not only helpful but positively of vital importance in order to put the biblical text in its proper context, to indicate its place in ancient Near Eastern culture, and to illuminate specific themes or concerns in a given text. Comparative study often provides evidence that can confirm or challenge the presuppositions involved in scholarly judgment on matters such as basic religious concepts, or the way a text should look. A case in point is the meaning of the Yom Kippur ceremonies (Lev 16; 23:27–32; Num 29:7–10), which were often regarded as a ritual expression of “the leaden pressure of sin and wrath” of the exilic/postexilic era (Wellhausen  1885; criticized by Elliger  1966; Weinfeld 2004). This notion, actually a back projection of the Yom Kippur of Judaism, disregards the role of this ritual as Temple purification before the great autumn festival (Lev 23:39; Num 29:12), as well as the important role of such ceremonies in Hurro-­Hittite and Babylonian worship (Weinfeld 2004; Wright 1987; Milgrom 1991: 1067–1079); it also fails to take into account the biblical meaning of kippēr, “purge” (Akkadian kuppuru; Milgrom 1991, 1079–1084; Wright 1987; criticized by Feder 2010). Thus, the Yom Kippur ritual fits the Temple cult as such, rather than a presumed exilic or postexilic mentality. Another case in point is the notion of covenant. Although this legal metaphor was viewed as a late notion, rooted in the Deuteronomic reform (Wellhausen 1885; Perlitt 1969), details of the formulation of this notion in the Pentateuch were found to have an analogy in Hittite international and vassal treaties (Weinfeld 1972; McCarthy 1978; Weeks 2004; Hahn 2005). This analogy has drawn heavy criticism, because of a lack of continuity between the Hittite Empire and ancient Israel, the tension between the theological concept and the realpolitik, and the lack of formal references to the bĕrît in Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah 1–32 (Perlitt 1969). However, the post-­Hittite kingdoms in north Syria, immediate neighbors of ancient Israel, preserve significant remnants of the Hittite Empire (Bryce 2012; Simon 2013, 29–30; Balza and Mora 2015); the “covenant” idea can be described as a metaphor by which the relationship between God and Israel is conceptualized; and the theological aspects of the Hittite treaty pattern are not to be overlooked (Christiansen and Devecchi 2013). The duality of the legal notions of “agreement,” “obligation,” or “commitment” is common to Hebrew bĕrīt and Hittite išḫiul (Taggar-­Cohen 2011). The texts of international agreements are well attested from the Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian periods to the Neo-­Assyrian period (Eidem 1991; Durand 1991; Heintz 2015, 285–334; Charpin 2019), and include the Aramaic eighthcentury Sefire treaty (Morrow 2001; Ramos 2016). The oaths of absolute, exclusive loyalty to the overlord described in Mari letters form almost exact parallels to the opening commandments of the Decalogue (Exod 20:2–3; Polak 2004). The Mari texts provide us with clear analogies for the ceremonies at Mount Sinai, including the blood rite, the meal, and the dual location (Charpin and Durand 1997, 387–388; Charpin 2010), with one ceremony at the “dwelling” of the first party (Exod 24:3–8) and one at the “residence” of the second party (vv. 9–11; Polak 2004). The argument that prophetic texts should

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

330   Frank Polak contain exact terms for this idea complex if the prophet was aware of it (Perlitt 1969) seems misguided. Poetry is built upon imagery, connotation, and allusion, rather than upon legal and conceptual exactitude. The threat “there I disown them” (‫אתים‬ ִ ֵ‫שׂנ‬, ְ Hos 9:15, continuing the covenantal proclamation of v. 10) is followed by “I will no more be committed to them” (‫אַה ָב ָתם‬ ֲ ‫אֹוסף‬ ֵ ‫ ;ל ֹא‬Lohfink 1963; Nicholson 1986, 81–82), a phrase in which the verb ʾāhaḇ represents both the personal sentiment and the covenant idea. The succession treaty of Esarhaddon (Parpola and Watanabe 1988) provides legal and terminological analogies for the Deuteronomic legislation (Weinfeld  1972; Steymans 1995; Radner 2006; Carr 2011, 304–308). The discovery of a copy of this treaty in North Syrian Kunalua/Kalnoh (Lauinger 2012) leads to the conclusion that this text was likewise known in Judah (Levinson and Stackert 2012 and 2013; differently Crouch 2014) around 670 bce, fitting Steuernagel’s (1899/1900) dating of a Urdeuteronomium. In a presumed Babylonian/Persian setting (Pakkala 2009), the Deuteronomic use of such Neo-­Assyrian phraseology would lack a sociopolitical context (Römer 2016). If  one ascribes the Deuteronomic legislation to the exilic/postexilic period, this ­terminology would be comprehensible only as an inner-­Judahite i­nheritance; hence this assumption would imply a Judahite prototype associated with religious values, not unlike Urdeuteronomium. The Covenant Code (Exod 21–22) shares features with the Old Babylonian Eshnunna Code (§53 // Exod 21:35); with Codex Hammurabi (§117 // Exod 21:2–4); with the Hittite Laws (§105–6/107 // Exod 22:4–5; Wright 2009; Wells 2006), and with legal deeds from Late Bronze Emar (Wells 2008). Such shared features are probably grounded in the Syro-­Canaanite sphere, at the  fringes of Mesopotamian and Hittite legal and literary tradition (Paul  1970; Westbrook 2009).

Allusive Intertextuality Intertextuality is a complex notion, implying that a text (A) always is part of, and in dialogue with, an encompassing cultural and literary context. A specific interaction between text A and text B can be signaled by a specific allusion (M) in A, which thus refers A to B, with A being the “alluding” text and B the text alluded to (Ben Porat 1976; Worton and Still 1990; Sommer 1996; Meek 2014). The allusion M suggests that passage A should be read in the light of text B, like for instance the allusion to “the waters of Noah” and the eternal divine promise in Isa 54:9, which alludes to Genesis 9. Allusive intertextuality involves complex interpretation, and thus can hardly be regarded as an objective criterion for the establishment of a literary historical time sequence. The construction of such a dyad, of allusive markers and text alluded to, necessarily involves the question of whether or not the allusion points to a text that is definitely known, such as the manumission laws in Deut 15:12–18 and Exod 21:2–6 (Levinson 2006). The alluding text A can serve as terminus ad quem for the evoked text B only when the place of A on

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   331 the timeline is known. But often there is no certainty whether allusive markers point to a specific biblical text, or to a broader text-­base with similar phraseology and structure but different from the text known to us. It is difficult to disprove the possibility that the correspondences shared by Ezekiel 34–37 and Lev 26 (Nihan  2016) reflect common dependence on a third text-­base or inherited phraseology. The exegetical problems are demonstrated by the allusions to the promise to Abraham (Ezek 33:24) and to Sarah (Isaiah 51:1–2). For Van Seters (1992; similarly Blum 1984) these allusions justify the conclusion that the Abraham narrative was created in the exilic period. However, the communicative situation and the nature of the allusion to Sarah’s fertility problems imply that the text-­base of this narrative was part and parcel of ancient Judahite cultural memory (Polak 2016b). By the same token, the allusion to the opening of the Decalogue in Ps 81:10–11 echoes a tradition that is similar to Exodus 20/ Deut 5, but does not justify the inference that the poet had knowledge of exactly one of these passages. The poetic version of the plagues in Ps 78:43–49 largely parallels the Exodus narrative/Ps 105, but has the pestilence as seventh plague (Ps 78:50, cf. Exod 9:15), followed immediately by the death of the firstborn (Ps 78:51). Such allusions imply a complex interplay of traditional narratives rather than precise textual prototypes.

Scribal Practices It is difficult to assess the way scribal practice affects the dating of a given text. A few of the most ancient biblical manuscripts from the Judean Desert contain lexical and orthographic variants that seem primary vis-­à-­vis the MT and thus suggest that the transmission process behind the MT includes substitution, expansion, and reduction of certain elements of the hypothetical anterior text state (Polak 2010; Müller, Pakkala, and ter Haar Romeny 2014). The orthography of epigraphic Hebrew differs from the biblical practice (Tov 2012, 218–222). In the epigraphic texts one finds only few cases of matres lectionis within the word: ‫( איש‬Arad 40:7, 8; Lachish 3:9, as against ‫אש‬, Siloam 2, 4); [‫צר‬/‫האו]פים‬, Ahituv 2008, 39–40; 2012). These texts differ from masoretic biblical Hebrew in the use of word di­viders, as still found in the Samaritan Pentateuch and paleo-­Hebrew texts such as 4QpaleoExodm (Ulrich 2010, 39–104; Tov 2012, 208–209); the suffix of the third-­person masculine singular, “his” or “him,” is indicated by the he: ‫עבדה‬/ʿabdô “his servant” (Metzad Hashavyahu 2); ‫לקחה‬/lĕqāhô “took him” (KAI 194:6). In biblical Hebrew, this he is only rarely preserved (note 4QSamb for 1 Sam 20:38), while the word divider is not in use. Not less problematic is the issue of writing materials, for ephemeral writing ostraca were much in use. The use of papyrus, like in Egypt, is evidenced by Jer 36; 51:63 (Haran  1982). In Egypt leather was likewise used (Lichtheim  1973–80, 1:115, 2:33; Janssen 1962); it is not impossible that certain ancient Israelite texts were preserved on leather for durability.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

332   Frank Polak

Possible Allusions to Sociopolitical Conditions In literary history the establishment of the historical context in which a text was created is crucial, since this is the only way to assess the complex ways in which the literary text interacts with its social, cultural, and political environment. However, when the context is not known independently, the reconstruction of historical allusion by means of the literary text involves interpretation of the textual allusion, of the supposed historical context, and of their interconnection, and thus always remains extremely problematic (Sommer 2011). Descriptions of adverse historical circumstances may refer to different periods: they may indicate the exilic condition or the Babylonian occupation; but they may also point to the assaults of the Neo-­Assyrian Empire, beginning with TiglathPileser III (745–727); or even earlier, to the wars with the Arameans under Hazael advancing as far as Tell es-­Safi (2 Kings 12:18; 13:22; Maeir 2012). Thus, only the most precise data can serve to date a certain text, such as the passages concerning the fate of the exiles (Lev 26:34–45). Appeal to cultural conditions must be based on explicit statements in the biblical text, such as the Deuteronomic demands and prescriptions. The geopolitical context of the pentateuchal narrative is mostly vague, but one notes the passage concerning the border with the Aramean kingdom of Damascus at Mizpeh Gilead (Gen 31:49), in a narrative that reflects the enmity between Israel and Aram (Rom-­Shiloni 2012). The other side of this complex relationship is represented by the stipulation of a shared lineage and the friendly tone concerning Aram (Gen 24:4–60; 27:43–44). The use of the term “Aram Naharaim” (24:10) reflects the era or the memory of the Aramaic/post-­Hittite independence of Naharina/Bīt Adini (Younger 2016) before its conquest by Shalmanasar III (856–855). If one considers a memory of two or three generations, this means that the tales at stake are grounded in the reality of the late ninth or early eighth century bce, squaring with the stylistics of the Mesha stele (Eskhult 1990).

Concluding Considerations The aim of this chapter was to indicate the convergence of the linguistic data and the sociocultural background for many segments in the narratives of the patriarchs and the Exodus. I thus noted the cultural hybridity of these narratives and their predominant oral background. Some of the allusions to sociopolitical and geopolitical context dovetail with some of the periods of the Israelite/Judahite monarchy. Against these features I  pointed to the congruence of the language use of Deuteronomy and the priestly strata and their place in the royal/temple administration. This dialectic interplay of cultural and linguistic contrasts and convergences indicates four main formative stages/strata for pentateuchal literature:

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   333 (1) An oral/written stratum (mostly from the ninth or early eighth century bce), as the continuation or textualization of ancient oral and epic narratives: this stratum includes the main strands of the patriarchal narrative; the Joseph narrative and the exodus–Sinai-­desert cycle; as well as some sections of the Primeval History; (2) the persistence of this stratum in the later Israelite and Judahite kingdoms (eighth–seventh century); (3) the development of creative/redactional stages during the late Judean monarchy (mainly priestly/Deuteronomic strata); (4) their continuation in the Babylonian/Persian/early Hellenistic era; a largely s­ table text is implied by the books of Enoch and Ben Sira even though they represent very different theologies and arose in very different textual communities.

Suggested Reading The basic problems of pentateuchal theory are discussed by Westermann 1984; Whybray 1987; Albertz  2018; Hendel and Joosten  2018. For epic strata in pentateuchal narrative see Hendel  1987; Polak  2015. For the difference between Deuteronomic and pre-­Josianic texts (including the priestly corpus) see Weinfeld  1972,  2004. On the peri­od­iza­tion of biblical Hebrew prose see Driver 1914; Hurvitz 1982; 1997; 2000a; Joosten 2012a, 2016a,b; the studies collected by Miller-­Naudé and Zevit  2012; and the crit­ic­al review by Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvärd 2008, for which see Joosten 2012b. On syntactic-­stylistic aspects see Eskhult 1990; Polak 2006ab, 2009, 2012a. On the “social history” of Hebrew see Schniedewind 2013; Polak 2006c. On orality and its afterlife in general see Foley 1995; for biblical orality see Niditch 1996; Polak 2013. For the oral/written distinction/continuum see Niditch 1996; Halliday 1989; Miller and Weinert 1998; Biber and Conrad 2009. On Deuteronomic language usage see Weinfeld 1972; Polak 2010; on the Priestly style see Hurvitz 1982, 2000b; Zevit 1982; Milgrom 1991; Polak 2017. On ancient literacy see Rollston 2010, 2016; and the studies collected in Schmidt 2015. For the ancient Near Eastern context see Hallo 2003a,b; Smith 2001, 2002; Milgrom 1991; Weinfeld 2004; Wright  2009; Wells  2006,  2008. For the covenant idea see Weeks  2004; Hahn  2005; Levinson 2010; Levinson and Stackert 2012. On intertextuality see Sommer 1996; Meek 2014. For scribal practice see Rollston 2015; Tov 2012; Ulrich 2010.

Works Cited GKC = Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by E. Kautzsch. Translated by A. E. Cowley. 2d. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910 KAI = H. Donner and W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften. 3 Vols. 2d edition. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 1966–1969. Ackermann, A. 2012. “Cultural Hybridity: Between Metaphor and Empiricism.” In Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization: A Transdisciplinary Approach, edited by P. W. Stockhammer, 5–25. Berlin: Springer. Ahituv, S. 2008. Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period. Translated by A. F. Rainey. Jerusalem: Carta.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

334   Frank Polak Ahituv, S. 2012. “A Rejoinder to Nadav Na’aman’s ‘A New Apppraisal of the Silver Amulets from Ketef Hinnom.’” IEJ 62:223–232. Ahituv, S., E.  Eshel, and Z.  Meshel. 2012. “The Inscriptions.” In Kuntillet ʿAjrud (Ḥorvat Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border, edited by Z. Meshel, 73–142. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Aitken, K. T. 1989. “Oral Formulaic Composition in the Aqhat Narrative.” UF 21:1–16. Albertz, R. 2005. “Why a Reform like Josiah’s must have Happened.” In Good Kings and Bad Kings, edited by L. L. Grabbe, 27–46. LHBOTS 393. London: T&T Clark. Albertz, R. 2018. “The Recent Discussion on the Formation of the Pentateuch/Hexateuch.” HS 59:65–92. Al-Rawi, F. N. H., and A. R. George. 2014. “Back to the Cedar Forest: The Beginning and End of Tablet V of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.” JCS 66:69–90. Andersen, F. I. 1966. “Moabite Syntax.” Orientalia 35:81–120. Archi, A. 2007. “Transmission of Recitative Literature by the Hittites.” AoF 34:185–203. Archi, A. 2009. “Orality, Direct Speech and the Kumarbi Cycle.” AoF 36:209–229. Aster, S. Z. 2012. The Unbeatable Light: Melammu and Its Biblical Parallels. AOAT 384. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. Astruc, J. 1753. Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il paroit que Moyse s’est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse, Brussels: Fricx. Auerbach, E. 1952. “Sermo Humilis.” Romanische Forschungen 64:304–364. Avigad, N., and B. Sass. 1997. Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Israel Exploration Society, Institute of Archaeology–Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Avishur, Y. 1977. “The Forms of Repetition of Numbers indicating Wholeness (3, 7, 10)—in the Bible and in Ancient Semitic Literature.” Beer-Sheva 1:1–55 (Hebrew with summary in English). Avishur, Y. 1999. Studies in Biblical Narrative: Style, Structure and the Ancient Near Eastern Literary Background. Tel Aviv-Jafo: Archeological Center Publication. Bachvarova, M. R. 2005. “The Eastern Mediterranean Epic Tradition from Bilgames and Akka to the Song of Release to Homer’s Iliad.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 45:131–153. Baltzer, K. 1960. Das Bundesformular. WMANT 4. Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag. Balza, M. E., and C. Mora. 2015. “Memory and Tradition of the Hittite Empire in the PostHittite Period.” In Tradition and Innovation in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 57th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Rome 4–8 July 2011, edited by A. Archi, 427–437. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Barkay, G. 1992. “The Priestly Benediction on Silver Plaques from Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem.” Tel Aviv 19:139–192. Barkay, G., et al. 2004. “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation.” BASOR 334:41–71. Barr, J. 1989. The Variable Spellings of the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baumgarten, A. I. 1981. The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos: A Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Ben Porat, Z. 1976. “The Poetics of Literary Allusion.” PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics 1:105–128. Berlejung, A. 2008. “Ein Programm fürs Leben: Theologisches Wort und anthropologischer Ort der Silberamulette von Ketef Hinnom.” ZAW 120:204–230. Bialystock, E. 2009. “Bilingualism: The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12:3–11.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   335 Biber, D., and S. Conrad. 2009. Register, Genre and Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Black, J., et al. 2004. The Literature of Ancient Sumer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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. 2016. “The Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts—An Approach with Methodological Limitations.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 303–336. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Bourdieu, P. 1980. “The Aristocracy of Culture.” Media, Culture & Society 2:225–254. Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by R. Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bryce, T. 2012. The World of the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Canaan, T. 1924. “Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine.” JPOS 4:1–84, 163–204. Carr, D. M. 2011. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press. Carr, D. M. 2016. “Data to Inform Ongoing Debates about the Formation of the Pentateuch: From Documented Cases of Transmission History to a Survey of Rabbinic Exegesis.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 87–106. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Cassuto, U. 1973–5. Biblical and Oriental Studies. 2 vols. Translated by I. Abrahams. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Charpin, D. 2010. Writing, Law and Kingship in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia. Translated by J. M. Todd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Charpin, D. 2019. “Tu es de mon sang”: Les Alliances dans le Proche-Orient ancien. Paris: Collège de France–Les Belles Lettres. Charpin, D., and J.-M. Durand, 1997. “Aššur avant l’Assyrie.” MARI 8:367–391. Charpin, D., and F. Joannès, eds. 1991. Marchands, Diplomates et Empéreurs: Études sur la civ­il­ isa­tion mésopotamienne offertes à Paul Garelli, Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les civilisations. Christiansen, B., and E. Devecchi. 2013. “Die hethitischen Vasallenverträge und die biblische Bundeskonzeption.” BN 156:65–87. Civil, M. 1969. “The Sumerian Flood Story.” In W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, 138–143, 167–172. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Coupland, N. 2007. Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crouch, C. L. 2014. Israel and the Assyrians: Deuteronomy, the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon, and the Nature of Subversion. Ancient Near Eastern Monographs 8. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Culley, R.  C. 1967. Oral Formulaic Language in the Biblical Psalms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Curtis, S. I. 1902. Primitive Semitic Religion To-Day: A Record of Researches, Discoveries and Studies in Syria, Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula. Chicago: Revell. Day, J. 2000. Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. JSOTSup 265. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Day, J. 2012. “The Sons of God and Daughters of Men and the Giants: Disputed Points in the Interpretation of Genesis 6:1–4.” HBAI 1:427–447.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

336   Frank Polak de Wette, W.  M.  L. 1806–7. Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament. 2 vols. Halle: Schimmelpfennig. Dégh, L. 1989. Folktales & Society: Story-Telling in a Hungarian Peasant Community. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Driver, S. R. 1914. An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. New ed. New York: Scribner’s. Durand, J.-M. 1991. “Précurseurs syriens aux protocoles néo-Assyriens.” In Marchands, diplomates et empéreurs: Études sur la civilisation mésopotamienne offertes à Paul Garelli, edited by D. Charpin and F. Joannès, 13–71. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les civilisations. Edelman, D. V. 2010. “Cultic Sites and Complexes beyond the Jerusalem Temple.” In Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah, edited by F. Stavrakopoulou and J. Barton, 82–103. London: T&T Clark. Eidem, J. 1991. “An Old Assyrian Treaty from Tell Leilan.” In Marchands, diplomates et empéreurs: Études sur la civilisation mésopotamienne offertes à Paul Garelli, edited by D. Charpin and F. Joannès, 185–207. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les civilisations. Elliger, K. 1966. Leviticus. HAT 4. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Embry, B. 2010. “The Endangerment of Moses: Towards a New Reading of Exodus 4:24–26.” VT 60:177–196. Eshel, E. 2003. “A Late Iron Age Ostracon Featuring the Term ‫לערכך‬.” IEJ 53:151–163. Eskhult, M. 1990. Studies in Verbal Aspect and Narrative Technique in Biblical Hebrew Prose. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Fassberg, S., and A.  Hurvitz, eds. 2006. Biblical Hebrew in its Northwest Semitic Setting. Jerusalem: Magnes Press; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Feder, Y. 2010. “On kuppuru, kippēr, and Etymological Sins that Cannot be Wiped Away.” VT 60:535–545. Finnegan, R. 1970. Oral Literature in Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Foley, J.  M. 1995. The Singer of Tales in Performance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gadotti, A. 2006. “Gilgameš, Gudam and the Singer in Sumerian Literature.” In Approaches to Sumerian Literature: Studies in Honor of Stip (H. L. J. Vanstiphout), edited by P. Michalowski and N. Veldhuis, 67–83. Leiden: Brill. Geller, S. A. 1982. “The Struggle at the Jabbok.” JANESCU 14:37–60. Geller, S. A. 1994. “Fiery Wisdom: Logos and Lexis in Deuteronomy 4.” Prooftexts 14:103–139. Gertz, J.  C. 2000. Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch. FRLANT 186. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Gertz, J. C. 2002. “Abraham, Mose und der Exodus: Beobachtungen zur Redaktionsgeschichte von Gen 15.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuchs in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J. C. Gertz, K. Schmid, and M. Witte, 63–81. BZAW 315. Berlin: de Gruyter. Gertz, J. C., et al., 2016. The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Gordon, C. H. 1949. Ugaritic Literature: A Comprehensive Translation of the Poetic and Prose Texts. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. Gunkel, H. 1997. Genesis Translated and Interpreted. Translated by M. E. Biddle. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Hahn, S. 2005. “Covenant in the Old and New Testaments: Some Current Research (1994–2004).” CBR 3:263–292.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   337 Halliday, M.  A.  K. 1989. Spoken and Written Language. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hallo, W.  W. 2003a. “Introduction: Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Their Relevance for Biblical Exegesis.” In The Context of Scripture, volume 1, Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, edited by W. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger, xxiii–xxviii. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Hallo, W. W. 2003b. “Introduction: The Bible and the Monuments.” In The Context of Scripture, volume 2, Monumental Compositions from the Biblical World, edited by W. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger, xxi–xxvi. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Haran, M. 1982. “Book-Scrolls in Israel in Pre-Exilic Times.” JJS 33:161–173. Heintz, J.-G. 2015. Prophétisme et Alliance: Des Archives royales de Mari à la Bible hébraïque. OBO 271. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Hendel, R. 1987. The Epic of the Patriarch: The Jacob Cycle and the Narrative Traditions of Canaan and Israel. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Hendel, R. 1997. “The Poetics of Myth in Genesis.” In The Seductiveness of Jewish Myth: Challenge or Response?, edited by S. D. Breslauer, 157–170. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Hendel, R. 2004. “The Nephilim were on the Earth: Genesis 6:1–4 and Its Ancient Near Eastern Context.” In The Fall of the Angels, edited by C. Auffahrt and L.T. Stuckenbruck, 11–34. Themes in Biblical Narrative 6. Leiden: Brill. Hendel  R., and J.  Joosten. 2018. How Old Is the Hebrew Bible? A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study. New Haven: Yale University Press. Henssen, G. 1951. Überlieferung und Persönlichkeit: Die Erzählungen und Lieder des Egbert Gerrits. Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Hieke, T. 2014. Levitikus. 2 vols. HTKAT. Freiburg: Herder. Hoelscher, G. 1922. “Komposition und Ursprung des Deuteronomiums.” ZAW 40:161–255. Holzinger, H. 1893, Einleitung in den Hexateuch. Freiburg i.B.: Mohr. Hornkohl, A. D. 2014. Ancient Hebrew Periodization and the Language of the Book of Jeremiah: The Case for a Sixth-Century Date of Composition. Leiden: Brill. Hurvitz, A. 1967. “The Language and Date of Psalm 151 from Qumran.” ErIsr 8:82–87 (Hebrew; summary in English: 70*–71*). Hurvitz, A. 1972. The Transition Period in Biblical Hebrew: A Study of Post-Exilic Hebrew and Its Implications for the Dating of Psalms. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik (Hebrew). Hurvitz, A. 1974. “The Evidence of Language in Dating the Priestly Code.” RB 81:24–56. Hurvitz, A. 1982. A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel. CahRB 20. Paris: Gabalda. Hurvitz, A. 1988. “Dating the Priestly Source in Light of the Historical Study of Biblical Hebrew: A Century after Wellhausen.” ZAW 100:88–100. Hurvitz, A. 1997. “‘The Historical Quest for ‘Ancient Israel’ and the Linguistic Evidence of the Hebrew Bible: Some Methodological Observations.” VT 47:301–315. Hurvitz, A. 2000a. “Can Biblical Texts Be Dated Linguistically? Chronological Perspectives in the Historical Study of Biblical Hebrew.” In Congress Volume Oslo 1998, edited by A. Lemaire and M. Saebø, 143–160. VTSup 80. Leiden: Brill. Hurvitz, A. 2000b. “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. Jacobsen, Th. 1981. “The Eridu Genesis.” JBL 100:513–529. Janssen, J. M. A. 1962. Hiërogliefen: Over Lezen en Schrijven in Oud-Egypte. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Joosten, J. 2005. “The Distinction between Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew as Reflected in Syntax.” HS 46:327–339.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

338   Frank Polak Joosten, J. 2006. “The Disappearance of Iterative WEQATAL in the Biblical Hebrew Verbal System.” In Biblical Hebrew in its Northwest Semitic Setting, edited by S.  Fassberg and A. Hurvitz, 135–147. Jerusalem: Magnes Press; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Joosten, J. 2009. “Diachronic Aspects of Narrative wayhi in Biblical Hebrew.” JNSL 35:43–61. Joosten, J. 2012a. “The Evolution of Literary Hebrew in Classical Times.” In Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, edited by C. L. Miller-Naudé and Z. Zevit, 281–292. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Joosten, J. 2012b. Review of I.  Young, R.  Rezetko, with the assistance of M.  Ehrensvärd, Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts: An Introduction to Approaches and Problems. Bibel und Babel 6:535–542. Joosten, J. 2016a. “Diachronic Linguistics and the Date 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., 327–344. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Joosten, J. 2016b. “Pseudo-Classicisms in Late Biblical Hebrew.” ZAW 128:16–29. Keel, O. 1998. Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh. Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible. JSOTSup 261. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Köckert, M. 2013. “Gen 15: Vom ‘Urgestein’ der Väterüberliefering zum ‘theologischen Programmtext’ der späten Perserzeit.” ZAW 125:25–48. Krüger, T. 2000. “Zur Interpretation der Sinai/Horeb-Theophanie in Dtn 4,10–14.” In Schriftauslegung in der Schrift: Festschrift fur Odil Hannes Steck zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, edited by R. G. Kratz, T. Krüger, and K. Schmid, 85–93. BZAW 300. Berlin: de Gruyter. Lambert, W. G. 2013. Babylonian Creation Myths, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Lafont, B. 2001, “Rélations internationales, alliances et diplomatie au temps des royaumes amorrites: Essai de synthèse.” In Amurru 2. Mari, Ébla et les Hourrites. Dix ans de travaux. Deuxième partie, edited by D. Charpin and J.-M. Durand, 213–328. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les civilisations. Lauinger, J. 2012. “Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty at Tell Tayinat: Text and Commentary.” JCS 64:87–123. Lemaire, A. 2015. “Levantine Literacy ca. 1000–750 BCE.” In Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, edited by B.  Schmidt, 11–45. SBLAIL 22. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Levine, B. A. 1993. Numbers 1–20. Anchor Bible 4. New York: Doubleday. Levinson, B. M. 2006. “The Manumission of Hermeneutics: The Slave Laws of the Pentateuch as a Challenge to Contemporary Pentateuchal Theory.” In Congress Volume Leiden 2004, edited by A. Lemaire, 281–324. VTSup 109. Leiden: Brill. Levinson, B. M. 2010. “Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty as the Source for the Canon Formula in Deuteronomy 13:1.” JAOS 130:337–347. Levinson, B. M. 2013. A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll, Winona Lake, IN; Eisenbrauns. Levinson, B.  M., and J.  Stackert. 2012. “Between the Covenant Code and Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty: Deuteronomy 13 and the Composition of Deuteronomy.” JAJ 3:123–140. 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. Lewin, T. J., 2013. “Divine Fire in Deuteronomy 33:2.” JBL 132:791–803. Lichtheim, M. 1973–80. Ancient Egyptian Literature. 3 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Loewenstamm, S. E. 1980. “The Trembling of Nature during the Theophany.” In Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures, 173–189. AOAT 204. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   339 Lohfink, N. 1963. “Hate and Love in Osee 9, 15.” CBQ 25:417. Lohfink, N. 1996. “Fortschreibung? Zur Technik von Rechtsrevisionen im deuteronomistischen Bereich, erörtert an Deuteronomium 12, Ex 21,2–11 und Dtn, 12–18.” In Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen, edited by T.  Veijola, 127–171. Helsinki: Finnische Exegetische Gesellschaft; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. MacDonald, N. 2010. “Issues in the Dating of Deuteronomy: A Response to Juha Pakkala.” ZAW 122:431–435. Maeir, A.  M. 2012. “The Tell-es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project 1996–2010: Introduction, Overview and Synopsis of Results.” In Tell-es-Safi/Gath I: The 1996–2005 Seasons, edited by A. M. Maeir, 1–88. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz. Malul, M. 1985. “More on Paḥad Yiṣḥāq (Genesis xxxi 42, 53) and the Oath by the Thigh.” VT 35:192–200. Malul, M. 1990. The Comparative Method in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies. AOAT 227. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. McCarthy, D. J. 1978. Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament, 2nd ed. AnBib 21A. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. Meek, R.  L. 2014. “Intertextuality, Inner-Biblical Exegesis, and Inner-Biblical Allusion: The Ethics of a Methodology.” Bib 95:280–291. Miles, J. 1964. Eras and Modes in English Poetry. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Milgrom, J. 1991. Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 3. New York: Doubleday. Miller, R. D. 2015. “The Performance of Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel.” In Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, edited by B. Schmidt, 175–196. SBLAIL 22. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Miller, J.  M. and R.  Weinert, 1998. Spontaneous Spoken Language: Syntax and Discourse. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Miller-Naudé, C. L., and Z. Zevit, eds. 2012. Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Morrow, W. S., 2001. “The Sefire Treaty Stipulations and the Mesopotamian Treaty Tradition.” In The World of the Aramaeans: Studies in Language and Literature in Honour of PaulEugene Dion, edited by P.M. Daviau, J. W. Wevers and M. Weigl. 3 Vols. 3.83–99. JSOTSup 326. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Müller, R., J.  Pakkala, and B.  ter Haar Romeny, eds. 2014. Evidence of Editing: Growth and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible. SBLRBS 75. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Muth, R. 1968. “Urin.” In Paulys Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Supplementsband Vol. XI, edited by K. Ziegler, 1292–1303. Stuttgart: Druckenmüller Neu, E. 1996. Das Hurritische Epos der Freilassung, I. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 32. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz. Nicholson, E.  R. 1986. God and His People: Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Niditch, S. 1996. Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press. Nihan, C. 2016. “Ezekiel and the Holiness Legislation—A Plea for Nonlinear Models.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 1015–1039. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Odlin, T. 2013. “Crosslinguistic Influence in Second Language Acquisition.” In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, edited by C. A. Chapelle, 1562–1568. Oxford: Blackwell.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

340   Frank Polak Olmo Lete, G. del. 1981. Mitos y Leyendas de Canaan segun la Tradicion de Ugarit. Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad. Otto, E. 2012. Deuteronomium 1‑11. Erster Teilband: 1,1–4,43. HTKAT. Freiburg i.B.: Herder. Ovidius. 1931. Ovid’s Fasti. With an English translation by J. G. Frazer. London: Heinemann. Pakkala, J. 2006. “Die literar- und religionsgeschichtliche Ort von Deuteronomium 13.” In Die deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke: Redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven zur ‘Deuteronomismus’-Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten, edited by M. Witte et al., 125–137. BZAW 365. Berlin: de Gruyter. Pakkala, J. 2009. “The Date of the Oldest Edition of Deuteronomy.” ZAW 121:388–401. Parker, S. B. 1997. “Aqhat.” In Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, edited by S. B. Parker, 49–80. SBLWAW 9. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Parpola, S., and K. Watanabe. 1988. Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths. SAA 2. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Paul, S. M. 1970. Studies in the Book of the Covenant in the Light of Cuneiform and Biblical Law. VTSup 18. Leiden: Brill. Paul, S.  M. 2012. “Signs of Late Biblical Hebrew in Isaiah 40–66.” In Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, edited by C. Miller-Naudé and Z. Zevit, 293–299. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Perlitt, L. 1969. Bundestheologie im Alten Testament. WMANT 36. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Peursen, W. Th. van. 2004. The Verbal System in the Hebrew Text of Ben Sira. Leiden: Brill. Podella, T. 1996. Das Lichtkleid Gottes: Untersuchungen zur Gestalthaftigkeit Gottes im Alten Testament und seiner altorientalischen Umwelt. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Polak, F. H. 2004. “The Covenant at Mount Sinai in the Light of Texts from Mari.” In Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran and Post-Biblical Judaism, edited by Ch. Cohen, A. Hurvitz, and Sh. Paul, 119–134. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Polak, F.  H. 2006a. “Sociolinguistics, a Key to the Typology and the Social Background of Biblical Hebrew.” HS 47:115–162. Polak, F. H. 2006b. “Linguistic and Stylistic Aspects of Epic Formulae in Ancient Semitic Poetry and Biblical Narrative.” In Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting, edited by S. Fassberg and A. Hurvitz, 285–304. Jerusalem: Magnes Press; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Polak, F. H. 2006c. “Sociolinguistics and the Judean Speech Community in the Achaemenid Empire.” In Judah and Judaeans in the Persian Period, edited by O. Lipschits and M. Oeming, 589–628. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Polak, F. H. 2009. “Verbs of Motion in Biblical Hebrew: Lexical Shifts and Syntactic Structure.” In A Palimpsest: Rhetoric, Ideology, Stylistics, and Language Relating to Persian Israel, edited by E. Ben-Zvi, D. Edelman, and F. H. Polak, 161–197. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. Polak, F. H. 2010. "The Book of Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Syntactic-Stylistic Analysis.” In Die Samuelbücher und die Deuteronomisten, edited by C. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, 34–73. BWANT 188. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Polak, F.  H. 2012a. “Language Variation, Discourse Typology, and the Socio-Cultural Background of Biblical Narrative.” In Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, edited by C.  MillerNaudé and Z. Zevit, 301–338. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Polak, F.  H. 2012b. “Divine Names, Sociolinguistics and the Pragmatics of Pentateuchal Narrative.” In Words, Ideas, Worlds: Biblical Essays in Honour of Yairah Amit, edited by A. Brenner and F. H. Polak, 159–178. Sheffield, Sheffield Phoenix Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   341 Polak, F.  H. 2013. “Orality: Biblical Hebrew.” In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, edited by G. Khan et al., 2.930–937. Leiden: Brill. Polak, F. H. 2014. “The Circumstantial Clause as Trigger: From Syntax to Discourse and Plot Structure in Biblical Narrative.” In Strategies in Clause Linking in Semitic Languages, edited by B. Isaksson and M. Persson, 191–203. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz. Polak, F.  H. 2015. “Oral Substratum, Stylistic-Syntactic Profile and Thematic Flow in the Abraham-Jacob Narrative.” In Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, edited by B. Schmidt, 217–238. SBLAIL 22. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Polak, F. H. 2016a. “Story Telling and Redaction: Varieties of Language Usage in the Exodus Narrative.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 443–475. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Polak, F. H. 2016b. “Oral Platform and Language Usage in the Abraham Narrative.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 405–441. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Polak, F. H. 2017. “Syntactic-Stylistic Aspects of the So-Called ‘Priestly’ Work in the Torah.” In Le-Ma‘an Ziony: Studies in Honor of Ziony Zevit, edited by F.  Greenspahn and G. A. Rendsburg, 345–382. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Polzin, R. 1976. Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose. HSM 12. Missoula, MO: Scholars Press. Radner, K. 2006. “Assyrische t ̣uppi adê als Vorbild für Deuteronomium 28, 20-44?” In Die deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke: Redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven zur ‘Deuteronomismus’-Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten, edited by M.  Witte et al., 351–378. BZAW 365. Berlin: de Gruyter. Radner, K., and E. Robson. 2011. The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ramos, M. 2016. “A Northwest Semitic Curse Formula: The Sefire Treaty and Deuteronomy 28.” ZAW 128:205–220. Redford, D. B. 2000. “Scribe and Speaker.” In Writings and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy, edited by E. Ben Zvi and M. H. Floyd, 145–218. SBLSymS 10. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Reich, R., E. Shukron and O. Lernau. 2007. “Recent Discoveries in the City of David, Jerusalem.” IEJ 57:153-169. Rendsburg, G.  A. 2015. “The Nature of Qumran Hebrew as Revealed through Pesher Habakkuk.” In Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period: Proceedings of a Sixth International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira, edited by E. Tigchelaer and P. van Hecke, 132–159. STDJ 114. Leiden: Brill. Renz, J. 1995. Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik. 3 vols. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Robson, E. 2011. “The Production and Dissemination of Scholarly Knowledge.” In The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, edited by K.  Radner and E.  Robson, 557–576. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rofé, A. 2002. Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Rollston, C. A. 2010. Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age. SBLABS 11. Atlanta, GA: SBL.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

342   Frank Polak Rollston, C. A. 2015. “Scribal Curriculum during the First Temple Period: Epigraphic Hebrew and Biblical Evidence.” In Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, edited by B. Schmidt, 71–101. SBLAIL 22. Atlanta: SBL. Rollston, C. A. 2016. “Inscriptional Evidence for the Writing of the Earliest Texts of the Bible— Intellectual Infrastructure in Tenth- and Ninth-Century Israel, Judah, and the Southern Levant.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J.  C.  Gertz et al., 15–45. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Römer, T. 2011, “Quand les dieux rendent visite aux hommes (Gen 18–19).” In Dans le laboratoire de l’historien des religions: Mélanges offerts à Philippe Borgeaud, edited by F. Prescendi and Y. Volokhine, 615–626. Geneva: Labor et Fides. Römer, T. 2014. “Der Pentateuch.” In Die Entstehung des Alten Testaments, edited by R. Smend et al., 65–89. Neuausgabe, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Römer, T. 2016. “How to Date Pentateuchal Texts: Some Case Studies.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 357–370. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Rom-Shiloni, D. 2012. “When an Explicit Polemic Initiates a Hidden One: Jacob’s Aramaean Identity.” In Words, Ideas, Worlds: Biblical Essays in Honor of Yairah Amit, edited by A. Brenner and F.H. Polak, 206–235. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. Roth, M.  T. 1997. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. 2nd ed. SBLWAW 6. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Schleppegrell, M. J. 2008. “Grammar, the Sentence and Traditions of Linguistic Analysis.” In Handbook of Research on Writing. History, Society, School, Individual, Text, edited by C. Bazerman, 549–564. New York: Erlbaum. Schmid, K., 2018, “How to Date the Book of Jeremiah: Combining and Modifying Linguistic and Profile-based Approaches,” VT 68:444–462. Schmidt, B. B., ed. 2015. Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production. SBLAIL 22. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Schniedewind, W. M. 2004. “The Textualization of Torah in the Deuteronomic Tradition.” In Das Deuteronomium zwischen Pentateuch und Deuteronomistischem Geschichtswerk, edited by E. Otto and R. Achenbach, 153–167. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. Schniedewind, W. M. 2013. A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins through the Rabbinic Period. New Haven: Yale University Press. Schüle, A. 2000. Die Syntax der althebräischen Inschriften: Ein Beitrag zur historischen Grammatik des Hebräischen. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. Shin, S.-Y. 2007. “A Lexical Study of Haggai-Zechariah-Malachi and Its Place in the History of Biblical Hebrew.” PhD diss. Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Shin, S.-Y. 2016. “A Diachronic Study of the Language of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.” JBL 135:265–281. Simon, Z. 2013. “Die angenommenen hethitisch-biblischen kulturellen Parallelen: Das Problem der Vermittlung.” BN 156:17–38. Smith, M. S. 1997. “The Baal Cycle.” In Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, edited by S. B. Parker, 81–180. SBLWAW 9. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Smith, M. S. 2001. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, M. S. 2002. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Harper.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch   343 Smith, M. S. 2015. “The Three Bodies of God in the Hebrew Bible.” JBL 134:471–488. Sommer, B. D. 1996. “Exegesis, Allusion and Intertextuality in the Hebrew Bible: A Response to Lyle Eslinger.” VT 46:479–489. Sommer, B. D. 2009. The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sommer, B. D. 2011. “Dating Pentateuchal Texts and the Perils of Pseudo-Historicism.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T.  B.  Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 85–108. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Sonnet, J.-P. 1997. The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy. Biblical Interpretation Series 14. Leiden: Brill. Spieckermann, H. 1982 Juda unter Assur in der Sargonidenzeit. FRLANT 129. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Stavrakopoulou, F. 2010. “‘Popular’ Religion and ‘Official’ Religion: Practice, Perception, Portrayal.” In Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah, edited by F. Stavrakopoulou and J. Barton, 37–58. London: T&T Clark. Steymans, H. U. 1995. Deuteronomium 28 und die adê zur Thronfolgeregelung Asarhaddons: Segen und Fluch im Alten Orient und in Israel. OBO 145. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Taggar-Cohen, A. 2011. “Biblical Covenant and Hittite Išḫiul Reexamined.” VT 61:461–488. Talmon, S. 1978. “The ‘Comparative Method’ in Biblical Interpretation—Principles and Problems.” In Congress Volume Göttingen 1977, edited by J. A. Emerton, 320–356. VTSup 29. Leiden: Brill. Talshir, Z., and D. Talshir. 2004. “Review of Charlesworth, J.H. and Rietz, H.W.L., The Dead Sea Scrolls, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, Vol. 4A: Pseudepigraphic and Non-Masoretic Psalms and Prayers. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck— Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.” IEJ 54:105–109. Tov, E. 2012. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Ulrich, E. 2010. The Biblical Qumran Scrolls. Transcriptions and Textual Variants. VTSup 134. Leiden: Brill. Van Seters, J. 1992. Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Veldhuis, 2011. “Levels of Literacy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, edited by K. Radner and E. Robson, 68–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weeks, N. 2004. Admonition and Curse: The Ancient Near Eastern Treaty/Covenant Form as a Problem in Inter-Cultural Relationships. JSOTSup 407. London: T&T Clark. Wehrli, F. 1939. “Orion.” In Paulys Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Vol. XXXV, edited by W. Kroll and K. Mittelhaus, 1065–1082. Stuttgart: Metzler. Weinfeld, M. 1972. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Weinfeld, M. 1995. “‫ּכָ בֹוד‬, kāḇôḏ.” TDOT 7:22–38. Weinfeld, M. 2004. The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel. VTSup 100. Leiden: Brill. Wellhausen, J. 1885. Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Translated by J.  S.  Black and A. Menzies. Edinburgh: Black. Wells, B. 2006. “The Covenant Code and Near Eastern Legal Traditions: A Response to David P. Wright.” Maarav 13:85–118. Wells, B. 2008. “What Is Biblical Law? A Look at Pentateuchal Rules and Near Eastern Practice.” CBQ 70:223–243.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

344   Frank Polak Westbrook, R. E. 2009. “The Laws of Biblical Israel.” In Law from the Tigris to the Tiber: The Writings of Raymond Westbrook, edited by B. Wells and F. R. Magdalene, 2.317–340. 2 vols. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Westermann, C. 1980. The Promises to the Fathers. Translated by D. E. Green, Philadelphia: Fortress. Westermann, C. 1984. Genesis 1–11: A Commentary. Translated by J. J. Scullion. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg. Whisenant, J. 2015. “Let the Stones Speak! Document Production by Iron Age West Semitic Scribal Institutions and the Question of Biblical Sources.” In Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, edited by B. Schmidt, 133–160. SBLAIL 22. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Whybray, R.  N. 1987. The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study. JSOTSup 53. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Witte, M. et al., eds., 2006. Die deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke: Redaktions- und religions­ geschichtliche Perspektiven zur "Deuteronomismus"-Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten. BZAW 365. Berlin: de Gruyter. Worton, M., and J. Still. 1990. “Introduction.” In Intertextuality: Theories and Practices, edited by M. Worton and J. Still, 1–44. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Wright, D. P. 1987. The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature. SBLDS 101. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Wright, D. P. 2009. Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yardeni, A. 1991. “Remarks on the Priestly Blessing on Two Ancient Amulets from Jerusalem.” VT 41:176–185. Young, I., R.  Rezetko, and M.  Ehrensvärd. 2008. Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts: An Introduction to Approaches and Problems. 2 vols. London: Equinox. Younger, K. L. 2016. A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities. SBLABS 13. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Zevit, Z. 1982. “Converging Lines of Evidence Bearing on the Date of P.” ZAW 94: 481–511.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

chapter 18

The Iden tification of Postex ilic M ater i a l i n the Pen tateuch Rainer Albertz

Among the usual methods for dating literary texts of antiquity—namely, the archaeological, paleographical, historical, linguistical, and literary-­historical—the first two, which are the most objective, cannot be used for identifying postexilic material within the Pentateuch or Hexateuch. For the majority of the postexilic period, from the late sixth to the third century bce, no original text of the Pentateuch has been excavated which could be dated with the help of archaeological methods (stratigraphy, carbon analysis, etc.). The considerable number of pentateuchal manuscripts that were found at Qumran, dating from the second century bce to the first century ce, merely attest to the fact that the Pentateuch had already achieved a high level of authority during this period, but they do not tell us anything about its origin or subsequent formation. For similar reasons, the paleographic method, which dates manuscripts along a typology of script, cannot be used because we possess the text of the Pentateuch not in an original, but only from a series of later copies, most of which come from the Middle Ages.

Historical dating Since the Pentateuch deals with Israel’s prehistory without clear references to datable events, the possibility of a historical dating is rather restricted. It is possible only to collect as many references to a former or contemporary reality as possible and to evaluate their most probable historical background. The results, however, will remain more or less ambiguous.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

346   Rainer Albertz

The historical scale In Ezra 7 it is told that the priest and scribe Ezra was sent to Judah in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, in order to promulgate in the western provinces of the Persian empire, especially in Judah and Samaria (vv. 25–26), a textual corpus called “Law of the God of Heaven” (v. 12: ‫)דתא די אלה ׁשמיא‬. The identity of that corpus is disputed, but since Ezra is characterized as an expert in the “Law of Moses” (v. 6: ‫)תורת מׁשה‬, a term which had designated in older times the Book of Deuteronomy (Josh 23:6; 2 Kgs 23:25) but in later periods included the other four books (Ezra 3:2; Neh 8:1; 2 Chr 23:18; Mal 3:22), the entire Pentateuch probably is meant (so already Wellhausen 1927:407). The date of the event is likewise disputed: either the seventh year of Artaxerxes I (458 bce) or of Artaxerxes II (398 bce) could be denoted. Since Ezra is regarded as a contemporary of the high priest Jehohanan (Ezra 10:6), the son or, more likely, the grandson of Elyashib (Neh 12:22), the high priest under Nehemiah and Artaxerxes I (13:6–7), whom we also know from the Elephantine papyri from the year 407 bce (TAD A4.7:18; A4.8:17), the later date is more probable (see already Rowley 1965). Thus, on the basis of Ezra 7 there is some historical evidence that the Pentateuch was promulgated and achieved its more or less final form not before the beginning of the fourth century bce. It seems reasonable to suggest, therefore, that it should include postexilic material, too: there was a space of more than a century for producing it.

Postexilic cultic innovations Within the priestly texts conceptualizing the tabernacle (Exod 25–31), which resembles the temple of Jerusalem in many respects, several objects and rites are described that constitute an innovation with regard to preexilic conditions. In Exod 25:17–22 Moses is ordered to create a golden top of the Ark, called kappōret (‫)כפרת‬, where two golden cherub figures should be seated face to face. Measures are not given, but due to the small size of the ark (ca. 125 × 75 × 75 cm) the assemblage could not be higher than 60 cm. In the Jerusalem temple, a huge wooden throne stood in the Holy of the Holies (ca. 500 cm3), consisting of two large gold-­plated cherub figures standing side by side. Their outer wings formed the armrests, their inner wings the seat covering the small ark below (1 Kgs 6:23–28; 8:7). Such types of thrones are archaeologically recorded (Keel 2007, I: 300–301). The cherub throne has a clear cultic symbolism: it alludes to an enthroned deity (8:13), reflecting the old divine epithet, “who is enthroned upon the Cherubim” (1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15; cf. Isa 6:1). In contrast, the installation of the kappōret looks artificial and has no parallel in ancient Near Eastern art. Drastically reducing the size of the cherubim and turning each of them ninety degrees, the priestly author intends to deny deliberately the concept of a divine throne, abstracting the divine presence from any human concept (Exod 25:22). This ­counter-­concept probably presupposes the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, and

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch   347 thus should be dated some time from the sixth century bce onwards. Since the kappōret installation seems never to have been realized in the Second Temple, perhaps due to the fact that the ark was lost during the exile (Jer 3:16), it was probably conceptualized in the last third of the sixth century, before the reconstruction of the Jerusalem temple was finished (515 bce). In contrast to the kappōret, the seven-­branched candelabrum (‫ )מנורה‬ordered in Exod 25:31–40 was indeed introduced into the Second Temple, as is verified by 1 Macc 1:21–23; 4:49 (cf. Sir 26:17 and the Arch of Titus). In the main room of the Solomonic temple, ten single lamp stands (‫ )מנרות‬were situated, five at each side (1 Kgs 7:49; Jer 52:19). Thus, the seven-­branched candelabrum clearly constitutes a postexilic innovation. The passage where it is conceptualized in the Pentateuch can be dated between the sixth and the second centuries bce. This wide range, however, can probably be reduced by the fact that the books of Chronicles, although they generally follow the view that the First Temple was furnished with a plurality of ten lamp stands (1 Chr 28:15; 2 Chr 4:7, 20), also refer to a single ‫( מנורה‬13:11), which may reflect the reality of the Second Temple. Thus the ter­ minus ad quem would be the late fourth century bce. With historical methods alone, however, a more exact postexilic dating of Exod 25:31–40 would not be possible. A more exact dating is possible concerning Exod 29:38–42, in which the permanent daily offering (‫ )תמיד‬is regulated. During the preexilic period the tāmîd consisted of a burnt offering in the morning and a meal offering in the evening (2 Kgs 16:15). In contrast to this older praxis, Exod 29:38–42 orders two burnt offerings, one in the morning and one in the evening, each of them accompanied by a meal offering and a libation. This innovation is already presupposed in Neh 10:34, a self-­commitment by the Judean community following the period of Nehemiah (445–433 bce); the same is true for Chronicles from the late fourth century (2 Chr 13:11). Thus, the pentateuchal passage can probably be dated to the first half of the fifth century bce. Apart from the Tabernacle texts, the circumcision of infants is ordered in the priestly passages Gen 17:9–14 and Lev 12:3 (cf. Gen 21:4). During most of the preexilic period the circumcision of young men seems to have been a common praxis performed by the Judeans and most of their neighbors (Jer 9:24–25). From the seventh century onward, however, three or four seals attest the personal name ‫( מליהו‬malyāhû), which can be translated as “YHWH has circumcised,” and which would refer to the circumcision of newborns (cf. Albertz & Schmitt 2012:292–93, 598). As only a few of these names are epigraphically attested, this praxis seems to have been rather rare among the Judean population. Nevertheless, the deportation of many Judeans to Babylonia, an area where circumcision was not practiced, was the precondition for the circumcision of infants becoming an identity marker for Judaism. Thus, those passages which generally ordered circumcision on the eighth day (Lev 12:3) or even make it the sign of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 17:9–14, 23–27; 21:4), probably stem from the late sixth or early fifth centuries bce. And the same may be true for most of the priestly Sabbath material (Gen 2:2–3; Exod 16:11–30; 20:8–11, etc.), the Sabbath finally becoming the sign of YHWH’s covenant with Israel (Exod 31:12–17).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

348   Rainer Albertz

Postexilic institutional innovations One institutional innovation that became very important during the entire postexilic period is the office of the high priest (‫)הכהן הגדול‬, which is often mentioned (Hag 1:1, 12, 14; 2:2, 4; Zech 3:1, 8; 6:11; Neh 3:1, 20; 13:28; Sir 50:1–15; 1 Macc 7:1; 14:47; 2 Macc 3:1; 4:7, etc.). For the preexilic period, this title is only scattered over a few texts (2 Kgs 12:11; 22:4, 8; 23:4); the leading Jerusalem priest seems to have been called merely ‫( הכהן‬1 Kgs 2:26; 4:2; 2 Kgs 12:8) or ‫( כהן הראׁש‬2 Kgs 25:18; Jer 52:24). The priestly texts Exod 28–29; 39:1–26; Lev 8 describe the regalia and the installment of Aaron, representing the high priest, in a very detailed way. Since he should be adorned with a diadem like a king (Exod 29:6; cf. 2 Sam 1:10; Ps 132:18) and be anointed like a king (Exod 29:7; cf. 1 Kgs 1:34, 39, 45, etc.), the new office is conceptualized as a kind of substitute for kingship and thus probably presupposes the decline of the Judean monarchy. Thus, this innovation seems to come from the late sixth century (cf. Hag 1:1; Zech 3:1) and became even more important after the last Davidide, Zerubbabel, had disappeared. Lev 16:32 already envisions a succession of high priests. In other priestly passages, the office is already common (Lev 21:10; Num 35:25, 28). The regulation of Num 18:21–24, according to which the tithe of corn, wine and oil should be given to the Levites, is clearly presupposed by the Judean self-­commitment recorded in Neh 10:38–40, from the late fifth century bce. Nehemiah already knew about it during his second stay in Jerusalem (433 bce), but still had to fight for its compliance (13:10–14). Since the regulation differs from the late preexilic order of distributing the tithe of every third year among the poor people scattered throughout the land, including the Levites (Deut 14:28–29), it seems to be of postexilic origin, probably from the middle of the fifth century bce. An even later institutional innovation seems to be represented by the temple tax, which is first levied in Exod 30:11–16 and first spent in 38:21–31 for the construction of the wilderness Tabernacle. The terminus a quo is set by the self-­commitment of the postexilic Judean community of paying a tax of a third of a shekel of silver every year for running the temple worship and for maintaining the temple building (Neh 10:33–34). This suggests the second half of the fifth century bce. In preexilic times the silver offerings (‫ )כסף הקדׁשים‬to the temple of Jerusalem were voluntary donations (2 Kgs 12:5–16; 22). Since the pentateuchal legislation increases the temple tax to half a shekel, includes all Israelites outside the province of Yehud, and claims for that even divine authority; thus, it seems to react to a financial crisis. Alexander Fantalkin and Oren Tal (2012:­15–17) refer to the stronger political and financial pressure to which the Persian government subjected their southwestern provinces when Egypt fought for its independence from the Persian empire during the last decade of the fifth century bce. The public money that was now needed for “investment in building operations, conscription and garrisoning” (Fantalkin & Tal 2012:15), was no longer available for the needs of the temple. Perhaps the primary reason for increasing the temple tax was a punitive tax which the Persian governor Bagoses (Bagohi), according to Josephus (Ant. 11:297–301), imposed on every temple offering during a seven-­year period in order to punish the murder of his Judean

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch   349 friend by his high priestly brother. This severe monetary crisis can be dated to the years 407–401 bce (Albertz 2011c:492–497). Although the temple tax is not literarily attested before the Roman period (Ant. 18:312–13; Mt 17:24–27, etc.), the considerable number of small coins found from fourth-­century bce Judah and which show a high silver content (Fantalkin & Tal 2012:14–16) provide some archaeological evidence for its earlier ­existence. Thus the priestly passages Exod 30:11–16 and 38:21–31 probably belong to the end of the fifth century bce.

Outlooks on a postexilic future Although the Pentateuch generally deals with Israel’s paradigmatic past, some texts show a perspective oriented toward the future, that is, to the present in which the authors and their addressees live. In a few cases, this “present” can be historically dated. If Lev 16:32 refers to the future sons of Aaron who will be anointed and will perform the rites of the Day of Atonement, it implies the reality of a postexilic audience, because in the preexilic period neither the high priests nor such an annual festival existed (see above, and compare the festival calendars in Exod 23:14–19 and Deut 16:1–17 with that of Lev 23:26–32). The postexilic reality becomes even more apparent through the conditional announcement of salvation and doom at the end of the Holiness Code in Lev 26. When the Exodus generation is confronted with the announcement that YHWH will punish the Israelites, in the case of repeated disobedience, with the destruction of their country and their deportation into the countries of their enemies (vv. 27–38), the addressees’ own traumatic experience of the Babylonian exile is evoked. These curses are to be understood as a vaticinium ex eventu. Because the land’s devastation and the people’s expulsion is regarded as limited (vv. 34–35) and YHWH’s faithfulness to his covenants is stated (vv. 39–45), however, the addressees’ experience of a new beginning after the exile is already alluded to in the text. The text’s intention to bridge the temporal gap between the Mosaic past and the present of its postexilic audience can be seen from the fact that it calls the Exodus generation “ancestors” (v. 45: ‫( )ראׁשנים‬cf. Nihan 2007:541–45).

Contemporary allusions Since it has be shown that a considerable number of priestly passages in the Pentateuch can be dated from the late sixth century up to the end of the fifth century bce, individual terms and motifs used in these texts can be historically classified. Only two examples will be mentioned here: First, the town from which Abraham started his journey to Canaan is called Ur-­Kasdim (‫ )אור כׂשדים‬in Gen 11:28, 31. The place name is astonishing, because the Semitic tribe of the Kasdaeans, or in later spelling Chaldaeans, did not settle in southern Babylonia, where the old Sumerian city of Ur was located, before the eighth century bce, much later than Abraham is situated in the biblical account of Israel’s early history. Moreover, these Chaldaeans did not enter the Israelite political horizon before

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

350   Rainer Albertz the late seventh century, when they became the strongest power in Mesopotamia, defeated the Assyrians, and founded the Neo-­Babylonian empire (2 Kgs 24:2; 25:4–5, etc.). Thus the place name reflects the political conditions of the late seventh and sixth centuries bce. This historical insight can be easily reconciled with the literary history, if one accepts the result of Jakob Wöhrle’s study (2012:24–30), which suggests that the entirety of Gen 11:27–32 was composed by a priestly writer familiar with the history of the early sixth century. This priestly editor, who deliberately concealed the ­Neo-­Babylonians in his table of nations (perhaps behind the name Arpachshad in 10:22), alluded to them by taking up the place name Ur-­Kasdim in order to present the patriarch Abraham as a prominent model for re-­migration out of the Babylonian exile. Second, the priestly editor did not mention the Persians in his table of nations (Gen 10:1–6). This might be used as an argument against the exilic or postexilic dating of his work. Among the sons of Japheth, however, he mentioned the Medes (‫מדי‬, v. 2), the older relatives of the Persians, who were well known since the days of the Assyrians (2 Kgs 17:6). Presumably, the editor intended to avoid an obvious anachronism in his primeval history. In any case, his concept of presenting all of the northern neighbors of Israel as a bulk of related people, reaching from the Medes in the east to the Greeks in the west, may reflect the political situation after the battles between Cyrus and Croesus in ­547–546 bce, when the Persians conquered vast areas of Asia Minor, including many Greek colonies. From a historical point of view, the priestly passages of the Pentateuch cover a lengthy period of more than a hundred years, from the late sixth to the end of the fifth century.

Linguistic dating Like all languages, Hebrew underwent a development over the centuries. Therefore, the change of morphological, syntactical, phraseological, and lexical features observed in biblical and extra-­biblical Hebrew texts may provide us with some additional arguments for identifying postexilic material in the Pentateuch. In this field, the work of Avi Hurvitz has become most influential. Strictly distinguishing between two stages of development, Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH) and Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH), Hurvitz (2014) identified about 80 lexical features typical for LBH, as exemplified by the postexilic books of Ezra–Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel: for example, Aramaic, Babylonian, or Persian loanwords and phraseology. Many of these features continued in the texts from Qumran and the literature of Early Judaism (the Mishna, et al.). Hurvitz situated the turning point between the two stages during the Babylonian exile, since the Book of Ezekiel, entirely dated by him to the sixth century bce, already begins to show some features of LBH. Since the priestly texts of the Pentateuch seem to reflect an earlier stage of linguistic development than Ezekiel (1982:143–62), and lack some typical LBH expressions known from late postexilic books like Chronicles or Esther (for example, the use of ‫ׁשׁש‬, Exod 25:4; 26:1 and passim; cf. Gen

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch   351 41:42, instead of ‫בוץ‬, 1 Chr 15:27; 2 Chr 2:13; Est 8:2, etc. for “fine linen”), Hurvitz ­concluded that even the latest strata of P belong to EBH and must be of preexilic­ ­origin (1974:26–49). This result would contradict the result of dating carried out in light of his­tor­ic­al considerations as shown above, but would concur with the view of those scholars who date P—in opposition to Julius Wellhausen—in the preexilic period, somewhere between the tenth and the eighth centuries (Krapf 1992:267–77, referring to Y. Kaufmann; Haran 1981; Zevit 1982; Milgrom 1991:3–35, et al.). According to Knohl (2007:40–44, 199–222), however, the Holiness School developed from the eighth century onward until the postexilic period (for more details see Young, Rezetko & Ehrensvärd 2008 2:11–17, among others). Here is not the place for discussing the religious-­historical reasons for a preexilic dating of the priestly passages of the Pentateuch. Probably there is some older ritual ma­ter­ ial included that may come from the preexilic period, but the main argument, whether P presupposes the late seventh-­century Deuteronomic concept of cultic centralization (Deut 12) (so Wellhausen) or not (so Kaufmann) remains ambiguous, as Menahem Haran (1981:326, 332) himself pointed out. Although some scholars claim a higher degree of objectivity for linguistic dating, it has to cope with several material and methodological difficulties. Since we have only meager external epigraphical evidence from the eighth to the early sixth centuries, on the one hand, and a bit more from the second and first centuries bce, we do not know exactly how the Hebrew language developed during the long period in between (cf. Young 2003:278). We especially do not know when the major shifts from EBH to LBH really happened. William M. Schniedewind (2013:135–37), for example, suggests that the scribal schools of the monarchic period did not totally dissolve with the beginning of the Babylonian exile; he thus prolongs the transition from EBH to LBH over the entire sixth century, regarding the early LBH features in Ezekiel as “idiosyncratic aspects to the linguistic register . . . rather than diachronic development” (2013:136). By including the possibility of concurrent dialectical variants in his scheme, Schniedewind has less difficulty explaining why prophetic books from the end of the sixth century (Haggai, Zechariah, Deutero-­Isaiah) could be written in a register that is virtually indistinguishable from EBH. This solution would also open the possibility of dating the origin of the earliest P layer to the late sixth century. Schniedewind, however, still denies the possibility that any variety of EBH could be written during the fifth century bce. Because of the poverty of material resources (2004:167–72) and the scarcity of Hebrew inscriptions during the early Persian period, he sees “a gap in the scribal tradition” in this century, in which only the copying and editing of older texts was undertaken, but no new literature was created (2013:147–48). The fact that no literary epigraphical Hebrew texts but almost exclusively Aramaic inscriptions were found in the early postexilic period, however, does not exclude the possibility of literary production in Hebrew during the Persian period. Apart from a few small pieces from Ketef Hinnom and Deir ʿAlla, we do not possess any literary epigraphical Hebrew text for the later preexilic period either, where Schniedewind suggests a high degree of scribal activity. Literary texts in ancient Israel were almost exclusively written on papyri sheets, which did not survive due to the rather

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

352   Rainer Albertz wet climate in Palestine, apart from a few extreme dry locations as the Daliyeh or the Qumran caves. A famous counter-­example for the creation of Hebrew literature during the fifth century is the Nehemiah memoir (Neh 1:1–7:4; 13:4–31), clearly datable after the 32nd year of Artaxerxes I (433/2 bce; cf. Neh 13:6). It exhibits a register of Hebrew which includes several Aramaic, Babylonian, or Persian terms and phrases (15 of Hurvitz’s 80 LBH features), but uses a syntax which still exhibits many similarities to EBH; for example, a considerable rate of wayyiqtol verbs (162 in 148 verses) and a high number of ‫ ויהי‬+ ‫כאׁשר‬ temporal constructions (Neh 3:33; 4:1, 6, 9; 6:1, 16; 7:1; 13:3), which appear in many preexilic Hebrew stories (Gen 12:11; 27:30; 29:10; Judg 11:5; 1 Sam 24:2, etc.). Likewise, the Hebrew used in the priestly texts of the Pentateuch shows, in addition to many EBH features, a considerable number of LBH characteristics; for example, a higher rate of proclitic ‫ ב‬+ ‫ ו‬+ inf.cs.- than of ‫ויהי‬/‫ והיה‬+ ‫כ‬/‫ ב‬+ inf.cs.-constructions (Exod 30:8; 40:36; Lev 12:6; 19:9; 23:22; Num 1:51; 7:83; 10:7 compared with Gen 35:22; Exod 16:10; Num 15:19; 17:7) as noted by Dong-­Hyuk Kim (2013:114–115). Similarly, in P we find the exclusive use of the personal pronoun ‫ אני‬instead of ‫אנכי‬, as Robert Polzin (1976:127) and others have pointed out (cf. the linguistic criteria listed by Young, Rezetko & Ehrensvärd 2008, 2: 160–214; Schniedewind 2013:161–63, among others). Different narrative styles within the P material, which can be attributed either to the late monarchic or to the Persian period, have been detected by Frank Polak (2006:162). The idea that conservative priests intending to write an ancient history of Israel were much more eager to avoid modern loanwords than Nehemiah, a Diaspora Jew in Persian office, should not be difficult to accept. Thus, the phase of transition from EBH to LBH seems to have continued during the fifth century bce (cf. Knauf 2006:309–11). Because of the uncertain length of the EBH–LBH transition, the method of linguistic dating should be used only in connection with historical and literary-­historical arguments (cf. Kim 2013:157). What Hurvitz and others have confirmed is the insight that the priestly texts of the Pentateuch predate the books of Chronicles from the late fourth or early third centuries bce.

Literary historical dating Historical and linguistic dating has made it possible to determine a wider or narrower frame of absolute dates within the extended postexilic period in which a certain passage was probably created. In contrast, literary-­historical dating enables us to establish a more detailed relative chronological order of those different textual layers, which can be distinguished by style, content, textual links, and compositional markers. Although often ­disputed because of its dependence on more complex exegetical observations and ­decisions, the latter method is an indispensable complement to the first two. For identifying postexilic material, of course, only the later literary layers of the Pentateuch are at stake. When examining a given text of the Pentateuch, one can often clearly discern in which sequence different passages were connected, because a passage that interrupts the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch   353 textual coherence of its context can be assumed to have been inserted later. If a distinct redactor was presumed as done by the Classical Source Theory, the date of insertion of the passage can differ widely from the date of origin of the inserted material itself. Thus, in Gen 1–11 it seems likely that a post-­priestly redactor inserted into the priestly pri­ meval history some non-­priestly stories (2:4b–4:24, et al.) which may be older than the priestly context in which they were subsequently embedded. In this case, the date of the inserted text can be determined only by internal data, which are often disputed (for recent discussion, see Bührer 2014). The primeval history, however, seems to be a special case, in which the textual work of a distinct redactor can be really observed (Gen 2:4a; 4:25–26; 7:7–10, etc.). In the patriarchal history (Gen 12–50), no distinct redactor can be noticed; here the priestly author himself probably worked as an editor of the preexisting non-­priestly texts (see Wöhrle 2012:163–64). In this case, the observation that, for ex­ample, the priestly passage Gen 27:46–28:9 interrupts the flow of the non-­priestly Jacob-­Esau narrative points in favor of its later origin. Thus, on the basis of a supplementary theory a much more unambiguous literary-­ historical dating becomes ­possible. According to my own investigations, the supplementary theory offers a better and sufficient model for explaining the formation of the books of Exodus and Numbers, as well (cf. Albertz 2011a, 2012, 2013, 2015). For elaborating the late redactional supplements or layers of the Pentateuch, such a methodological choice is widely accepted. According to my view, one can distinguish at least five priestly and three non-­priestly redactional l­ayers that seem to have emerged during the first 150 years of the Persian period.

Distinguishing the priestly layers In the past, it was often conceded that the first priestly composition was later amplified several times, but the different additions were not clearly distinguished. For example, Knohl (2007) rightly pointed out that the original P—called by him “Priestly Torah (PT)”—was later supplemented and edited by the “Holiness School (HS),” but he did not make an attempt to distinguish the dates of those passages that this Holiness school contributed to PT over a period of three hundred years (according to Knohl, during the eighth to the fifth centuries bce). The terminus a quo for all later priestly additions is the date of the original priestly composition (Pg), which I call PB1 (for “erste priesterliche Bearbeitung”). In my opinion it consists of Gen 1:1–Lev 16:34a* (cf. Nihan 2007:379–401). In light of the several his­tor­ ic­al considerations with regard to Gen 10:2; 11:28, 31; Exod 25:17–22, 31–40; 28–29*; Lev 16:32 mentioned above, PB1 was probably composed during the last third of the sixth century bce, that is, in the late exilic or the very early postexilic period. Such a dating would even not be excluded by the version of linguistic dating developed by Schniedewind (2013:135–37). On the contrary, the prominent use of the verb ‫ ברא‬in PB1 (Gen 1:1; 2:3; 5:2, et al.) and Deutero-­Isaiah (Isa 40:26, 28; 42:5, et al.), confirms such a late exilic dating (see among others Zenger 1995:167–68).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

354   Rainer Albertz The priestly author who added the Holiness Code (Lev 17–26) to the first priestly composition already looked back to the Babylonian exile and the possibility of a res­tor­ ation, as is evident from Lev 26:39–45 (see above). Knohl labeled this author HS; I would like to call him PB2. He must be dated after PB1, as is evident from the fact that the regulation for the tāmîd offering in Exod 29:38–42 interrupts the stipulations for consecrating the altar (vv. 36–37) and YHWH’s promise to meet Israel at that very place (vv. 43–46; the local adverb ‫ ׁשמה‬of v. 43 refers directly to the altar in v. 37; cf. Lev 9:24–25), which clearly belong to PB1. Other ritual insertions of PB2 into a PB1 context can be observed in Gen 17:9–14, 23–27 (cf. Wöhrle 2012:45–50); Exod 12:43–51; 31:12–17; 35:1b–4a. Thus, the literary-­historical dating corroborates the historical conclusion that these redactional insertions can be attributed best to the first half of the fifth century. Since the PB2 re­dact­or created a compositional conclusion in Lev 26 that spoke to the situation of his postexilic present, his work seems to have comprised the entire range of Gen 1–Lev 26*, probably already including the older non-­priestly texts of Genesis and Exodus (cf. the references to the non-­priestly covenant at Sinai in Exod 31:16 and Lev 26:45). At the end of the Book of Exodus we find a reflection on how the divine glory above the tabernacle would function for Israel’s wanderings (Exod 40:36–38). The passage refers back to the preceding scene, in which the divine glory had inhabited the newly built sanctuary (vv. 34–35). Nevertheless, it interrupts the syntactical connection between the settlement (Exod 40:35) and the speech of the divine glory from the Tabernacle, which is introduced in Lev 1:1 without naming the subject again. The indwelling of the divine glory and the speech of Lev 1:1 clearly belong to PB1. Since the inserted passage in Exod 40:36–38 functions as a compositional link to Num 9:15–23 and 10:11–13, where Israel is prepared for the departure from Mount Sinai, it must come from a later priestly redactor, who intended to extend the priestly composition beyond the limits of PB2 (Lev 26). Therefore I call this figure PB3, responsible for creating the first priestly layer of the Book of Numbers. As Nehemiah (see Neh 13:10–14) already knew his regulation about the tithe for the Levites (Num 18:21–24), but did not mention the tithe of the tithe that the Levites are to pay to the priests (Num 18:25–31), PB3 seems to have been a contemporary of Nehemiah and might have been still at work shortly after the end of his mandate (433/2 bce). In the communal self-­commitment of Neh 10:38–39, which seems to come from a somewhat later time, both parts of the tithe regulation are accepted. Both passages about the temple tax (Exod 30:11–16 and 38:21–31) are clearly insertions into PB1’s report about the revelation and the construction of the Tabernacle. They strictly contradict his concept that Israel should give the material for the Tabernacle voluntarily (25:1–9; 35:1–36:7*). The former passage interrupts the cultic regulations of chapter 30; the latter comes too early, before all the material is used up. The insertions not only presuppose the PB1 context (cf. the term ‫ כפר‬in 30:10, 12, 15), but also the census of Num 1, which was conceptualized by PB3 (note the same number of counted adult men in Num 1:46 and Exod 38:26). As the idea that a national census could provoke the divine wrath and must be atoned for by means of a monetary payment is not present in Num 1, and as Exod 38:21–31 suggests that a census took place even before the Tabernacle was finished, contradicting the dating of Num 1:1, the priestly authors of these passages

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch   355 cannot be identical. It is more probable that a later priestly redactor, whom I call PB4, borrowed the militia Dei concept from PB3, but further developed it. Presumably it is the same redactor who inserted a similar payment with regard to the Levites in Num 3:11–13, 40–51. The literary-­historical result that PB4 must have followed PB3, from the era of Nehemiah, concurs with the historical considerations that the claim for an increased temple tax can be best dated during the political and financial crisis in the last decade of the fifth century bce. The fact that the Aaronide genealogy, including its frame (Exod 6:13–30), constitutes an insertion into the narration of PB1 (6:2–12; 7:1–13) is generally accepted (note the resumptive repetition of 6:12 in v. 30). It presupposes the introduction of Aaron in Exod 4:14–17, 27–31, which will be shown below to belong to a late deuteronomistic redactor, and has a close parallel in the second census of Num 26:57–61. As I have argued elsewhere (Albertz 2013), the second census belongs to a very late priestly addition to the Book of Numbers (Num 25–36), which focuses on a just distribution of the promised land among the tribes (26:54–56; 33:50–56) under the leadership of the high priest Eleazar (34:13–29). These chapters already presuppose the Hexateuch redaction from the second half of the fifth century BCE, which seems to have introduced the Bileam story into the Book of Numbers (see the secondary introduction of the Midianites of Num 25:6–18 already in 22:4, 7, and Bileam’s new role as an instigator of apostasy in 31:16; cf. Albertz 2011a:340–44). Num 25–36 can best be understood to function as a substitute for the Book of Joshua, added when the decision in favor for the Pentateuch and against the Hexateuch was made. Their author can be characterized as a priestly pentateuchal redactor, whom I call PB5, and would belong probably to the beginning of the fourth century, when the Pentateuch was promulgated by Ezra. The genealogy of Exod 6:13–30 as well as that of Gen 46:8–28 were, it seems, intended to provide the Pentateuch with better compositional and “historical” coherence.

Elaborating the late non-­priestly layers While the fundamental difference between the priestly and non-­priestly passages in the Pentateuch is still almost universally accepted, the dating of the latter has become controversial. Under the aegis of the classical source theory, it was commonly held that the non-­priestly texts – generally attributed to the sources J, E, or JE – should generally be considered to be of pre-­priestly origin. Thus, even Erhard Blum (1990:101–218), who redefined many of the former JE passages as parts of a late deuteronomistic composition (KD) and moved their origin into the early postexilic period, still regarded them as being earlier than the priestly composition (KP). Other scholars, however, noticed that several passages of this late deuteronomistic layer, which I simply call D, already presuppose priestly texts. For example, Jan Christian Gertz (2000:312–21) has argued that Exod ­4:1–17, an important passage which gives the reasons for Moses’ outstanding revelatory and magic authority, even above Aaron, alludes to the priestly version of the plague ­narrative (7:19) in 4:9 and reinterprets in 4:15–16 Aaron’s function as presented in Pg

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

356   Rainer Albertz (7:1–2). Another example is Gen 15, the non-­priestly report about YHWH’s covenant with Abraham. Already John Van Seters (1975:263–67) argued that the divine ­self-­predication in v. 7, “I am YHWH who brought you from Ur-­Kasdim,” which alludes to the Exodus predication of the Decalogue (Exod 20:2), points to an exilic background. If the reference to Ur-­Kasdim in Gen 11:28, 31 can be attributed to PB1 as argued above, the post-­priestly origin of Gen 15* can be supported. Finally, it can be shown that the report about the non-­priestly Tent of Meeting in Exod 33:7–11, which secures Moses’ extraordinary revelatory authority even far away from Mount Sinai and constitutes a cornerstone for the D composition (cf. Num 11:14–17, 24b–30; 12:1–10; Deut 31:14–15, 23; 34:10), already presupposes the priestly Tabernacle texts using the same designation (Exod 29:4, 10, 11, and passim; cf. Albertz  2011b). Thus, PB1 seems to constitute the ­terminus a quo for the D redaction. For determining the terminus ad quem, the observation is decisive that PB3 presupposes not only D’s concept of the Tent of Meeting (Num 16:18–19; 17:7–8; 20:6), but also the motif of faith (Num 20:12), which has permeated D’s work (Gen 15:6; Exod 4:1, 8, 9, 31; 14:31; 19:9; Num 14:11). Thus, the D redactor can be situated in the first half of the fifth century bce. As he extended the PB1-PB2 composition beyond its limits (Gen 1–Lev 26) towards Numbers and Deuteronomy, D seems to already presuppose PB2; he therefore belongs close to the middle of the fifth century. Within the manna story of PB1 (Exod 16*), the non-­priestly passages, vv. 4–5, 28–29, can be understood as later additions. They introduce the new topic of testing Israel’s observance, which is added to the preceding material (15:25b–26), into the manna story (16:4), and make more rigorous the priestly Sabbath commandment (v. 29) given in v. 26. Already Blum (1990:365–78) attributed these verses to the so-­called Mal’ak redaction (MalR), because it conceptualized the motif of a heavenly messenger who accompanied and admonished Israel during its wanderings (see Exod 14:19a; 15:25b–26; 23:23–33; 32:34aβ; 33:2; 34:11–27; Judg 2:1–5). Since this redactional layer strictly prohibits mixed marriages (Exod 34:15–16), it seems to belong to the later period of Nehemiah (cf. Neh 13:23–29). As its extension into the book of Judges shows, the Pentateuch was still not separated from the DtrH during this redactor’s time. The MalR therefore probably preceded the Hexateuch redaction. Within the D report about YHWH’s covenant with Abraham (Gen 15*), the patriarch is informed about the future history of his descendants, their oppression in a foreign country, their liberation, and their return home (vv. 13–17a). This short preview of the entire hexateuchal salvation history interrupts the covenant ceremony (vv. 7–12, 17b–18), and is a secondary insertion, as the resumptive repetition of v. 12a in v.17a shows. This is the best evidence for a late non-­priestly redactional layer, which not only differs from the D redaction but also postdates it. It can be shown that the passage belong to a comprehensive redaction (see Albertz 2016), which provided the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua with narrative anticipations (Gen 15:13–17a; Exod 13:17–19; 15:13–18) and retrospectives (Exod 15:1–12; 18:1–12; Num 20:14–21; Deut 23:5b–6; Josh 2:9aβ–11; 24:1–13) in order to strengthen their coherence and structure their salvation history. As it includes the book of Joshua, provided it with a new conclusion, and separated it from the rest of DtrH (24:1–32), this layer can be characterized as a

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch   357 “Hexateuch redaction.” Since it tells in Josh 24:25–26 how the entire literary unit comprising Genesis to Joshua with all its statutes and ordinances was written down by Joshua and named ‫ספר תורת אלהים‬, the six books even claim a special authority as an alternative to the ‫ספר תורת מׁשה‬, which denoted Deuteronomy, and, later, the Pentateuch (Josh 1:8; 23:6; Neh 8:1; cf. Deut 31:9–13). The conclusion that a Hexateuch redaction (HexR) took place before the decision to create a Pentateuch was finally made is accepted by several scholars (Blum 1990:363–65; 2010:396–404; Schmid  1999:210–11; Römer & Brettler  2000; Otto  2002:139–48; Achenbach 2005). The extent and date of HexR, however, are still disputed. While Eckart Otto dated it rather early, when the (enlarged) priestly source Gen 1–Lev 16 and the deuteronomistic books Deut–Josh were connected (somewhere in the middle of the fifth century bce), Blum moved it nearer to the end of the formation process. Inasmuch as HexR postdates PB1, both positions are possible. The new transition from the era of the patriarchs to the period of the exodus in Gen 50:24–26; Exod 1:1b, 5b, 6, 8 created by HexR clearly presupposes the older priestly transition, the enumeration of the sons of Jacob (Exod 1a, 2–5a) who came to Egypt, and the report about their enormous increase (v. 7). Likewise, the story about Jethro’s visit (Exod 18), through which HexR created a retrospective on the exodus events (vv. 1–12) and a preparation for the Sinai theophany (vv. 13–27), interrupts the priestly itinerary of Exod 17:1a; 19:1. The literary record of Gen 15, however, as argued above, already moves the terminus a quo further, to the middle of the fifth century bce. The decision is grounded in the literary conditions of Num 20: First, the non-­priestly story about Israel’s request for passing through Edom’s territory (vv. 14–21) interrupts the priestly story about Moses’ and Aaron’s failure in Kadesh (vv. 1–13) and Aaron’s death on Mount Hor (vv. 22–29). Second, the strange location of these places “at the border of Edom” firmly anchored in the non-­priestly story (v. 16b) is secondarily inserted into the priestly one (v. 23b). Therefore, the non-­priestly story clearly presupposes the priestly one (for more details see Albertz 2011a:175–79). The priestly story can be attributed to the first priestly edition of the Book of Numbers, that is, PB3. The non-­priestly story can be attributed to HexR, because of its retrospective in vv. 14–16 and its use of the rare term ‫ תלאה‬in Num 20:14, which also occurs in Exod 18:8, a retrospective attributable to the same redactor. Since PB3 is coterminous with or even later than the time of Nehemiah, HexR probably belong to the decades after his mandate, from 430 bce onward. This literary-­historical result concurs with the historical observation that the high priest Joiada had opposed Nehemiah’s policy of dissociation from the north when he married his son with a daughter of Sanaballat, the governor of Samaria (Neh 13:28). This new policy of reconciliation even made possible the foundation of a sanctuary on Mount Gerizim, as the archaeological records now show (perhaps about 425 bce; cf. Magen 2007:176–83). Since the HexR shows some sympathy for the Samarians, locating the last gathering of the people at Shechem (Josh 24:1), it would fit perfectly the period between 430 and 410, until the High Priest Jehohanan, as we know from the Elephantine letters (TAD A.7–9), again started a more exclusive Judean policy. The terminus ad quem for HexR is surely the work of the Pentateuchal Redactor (PB5), and probably that of PB4, as well.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

358   Rainer Albertz Therefore, no less than eight redactional layers of the Pentateuch/Hexateuch can be distinguished, all of which belong to the Persian period. Listed in their probable chronological order they are: PB1 from the last third of the sixth century, PB2 from the first half of the fifth century, D from the middle of the fifth century, PB3 from the time of Nehemiah (445–433 bce), MalR still from the time of this governor, HexR from the second half of the fifth century (430–410 bce), PB4 from the last decade of the fifth century, and PentR (PB5) at the beginning of the fourth century bce. Thus, the Pentateuch contains a significant amount of postexilic material. In this light, the original priestly work is no longer situated near the end but in the middle of the Pentateuch’s formation process.

Suggested Reading The discussion of linguistic dating is well represented by Hurvitz 1982; Polzin 1976; and Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvärd 2008 (full references in the bibliography below). On the formation of the Pentateuch, see generally Albertz, R., 2018, Pentateuchstudien, FAT 117, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Works cited Achenbach, R., 2005, ‘Pentateuch, Hexateuch und Enneateuch: Eine Verhältnisbestimmung’, ZABR 11, 122–54. Albertz, R., 2011a, ‘Das Numeribuch jenseits der Quellentheorie: Eine Redaktionsgeschichte von Num 20–24’, ZAW 123, 171–83, 336–47. Albertz, R., 2011b, ‘Ex 33,7–11, ein Schlüsseltext für die Rekonstruktion der Redaktionsgeschichte des Pentateuch’, BN 149, 13–43. Albertz, R., 2011c, ‘The Controversy about Judean versus Israelite Identity and the Persian Government: A New Interpretation of the Bagoses Story (Jewish Antiquities XI.297–301)’, in O.  Lipschits, G.N.  Knoppers and M.  Oeming (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 483–504. Albertz, R., 2012, Exodus 1–18, ZBK 2/1, Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Albertz, R., 2013, ‘A Pentateuchal Redaction in the Book of Numbers?: The Late Priestly Layers of Num 25–36’, ZAW 125, 220–33. Albertz, R., 2015, Exodus 19–40, ZBK 2/2, Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Albertz, R., 2016, ‘The Formative Impact of the Hexateuch Redaction: An Interim Result’, in F.  Giuntoli and K.  Schmid (eds.), The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles, FAT 101, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 53–74. Albertz, R., and R.  Schmitt, 2012, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Blum, E., 1990, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, BZAW 180, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. Blum, E., 2010, ‘Pentateuch – Hexateuch – Enneateuch? oder: Woran erkennt man ein literarisches Werk in der hebräischen Bibel?’, in Textgestalt und Komposition: Exegetische Beiträge zu Tora und Vordere Propheten, FAT 69, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 375–404.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch   359 Bührer, W., 2014, Am Anfang. . . : Untersuchungen zur Textgenese und zur relativ-chronologischen Einordnung von Gen 1–3, FRLANT 256, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Fantalkin. A., and O. Tal, 2012, ‘The Canonization of the Pentateuch: When and Why?’, 2 parts, ZAW 124, 1–28, 201–12. Gertz, J.C., 2000, Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung. Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch, FRLANT 186, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Haran, M., 1981, ‘Behind the Scenes of History: Determining the Date of the Priestly Source’, JBL 100, 321–33. Hurvitz, A., 1974, ‘The Evidence of Language in Dating of the Priestly Code. A Linguistic Study in Technical Idioms and Terminology’, RB 81, 24–56. Hurvitz, A., 1982, A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel: A New Approach to an Old Problem, CahRB 20, Paris: Gabalda. Hurvitz, A., 2014, A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic Innovations in the Writings of the Second Temple Period, VTSup 160, Leiden: Brill. Keel, O., 2007, Die Geschichte Jerusalems und die Entstehung des Monotheismus, 2 vols., Orte und Landschaften der Bibel 4/1–2, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Kim, D.-H., 2013, Early Biblical Hebrew, Late Biblical Hebrew, and Linguistic Variability: A Sociolinguistic Dating of Biblical Texts, VTSup 156, Leiden: Brill. Knauf, E.A., 2006, ‘Bethel: The Israelite Impact on Judean Language and Literature’, in O. Lipschits and M. Oeming (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 291–349. Knohl, I., 2007, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns (first print: Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1985). Krapf, T.M., 1992, Die Priesterschrift und die vorexilische Zeit: Yehezkel Kaufmanns vernachläs­ sigter Beitrag zur Geschichte der biblischen Religion, OBO 119, Fribourg: Presses Universitaires and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Magen, Y., 2007, ‘The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in the Light of Archaeological Evidence’, in O. Lipschits, G.N. Knoppers, and R. Albertz (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century  B.C.E., Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 157–222. Milgrom, J., 1991, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3, New York: Doubleday. Nihan, C., 2007, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book Leviticus, FAT 2/25, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Otto, E., 2002, ‘Forschungen zum nachpriesterlichen Hexateuch’, TRu 67, 125–55. Polak, F., 2006, ‘Sociolinguistics: A Key to the Typology and the Social Background of Biblical Hebrew’, HS 47, 115–62. Polzin, R., 1976, Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose, HSM 12, Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Römer, T.C. and M. Z. Brettler, 2000, ‘Deuteronomy 34 and the Case for the Persian Hexateuch’, JBL 119, 401–19. Rowley, H.H., 1965, ‘The Chronology of Ezra and Nehemiah’, in The Servant and the Lord and other Essays, Oxford: Blackwell, 135–65. 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. Schniedewind, W.M., 2004, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

360   Rainer Albertz Schniedewind, W.M., 2013, A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through Rabbinic Period, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Van Seters, J., 1975, Abraham in History and Tradition, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Wellhausen, J., 1927, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, 6th ed., Berlin: de Gruyter (repr., Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2001). Wöhrle, J., 2012, Fremdlinge im eigenen Land: Zur Entstehung und Intention der priesterlichen Passagen der Vätergeschichte, FRLANT 246, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Young, I., 2003, ‘Late Biblical Hebrew and Hebrew Inscriptions’, in I.  Young (ed.), Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology, JSOTSup 369, London: T&T Clark, 276–311. Young, I., Rezetko, R. and Ehrensvärd, M., 2008, Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts, 2 vols., London: Equinox. Zenger, E. (ed.), 1995, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 5th ed., Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Zevit, Z., 1982, ‘Converging Lines of Evidence Bearing on the Date of P’, ZAW 94, 481–511.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

pa rt I I I

THE PE N TAT EUC H I N ITS SOCIAL WOR L D

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

chapter 19

The Gen r e s of th e Pen tateuch a n d Th eir Soci a l Set ti ngs Angela Roskop Erisman

When Hermann Gunkel began his career in the waning years of the nineteenth century, biblical scholarship was dominated by the historicism of the Graf–Wellhausen school (see the essay by Rudolf Smend in this volume). Literary criticism was a means to an end, a tool for isolating within the Pentateuch the “distinctive styles of individual ­writers” (Tucker 1971, 5) that would allow scholars to delineate and sequence the sources they could then use to write the religious and legal history of ancient Israel. Gunkel acknowledged the importance of delineating the literary sources and took the chronological sequence established by Wellhausen as a “point of departure” (Gunkel 2003, 28), yet he found missing in the standard treatments an appreciation not only for the connection between Israelite literature and culture, but also for Israelite literature as literature rather than as a tool for writing history. His exposure to comparative literature from ancient Near Eastern cultures taught him that source criticism did not cast its net broadly enough and, consequently, produced a literary history that isolated ancient Israelite literature too much from that of Israel’s neighbors. His appreciation for the creative and artistic appropriation of traditional genres in Greek and Roman literature left him unsatisfied with the lack of attention to the aesthetics of Israelite literature. And his study of German folklore suggested to him that the Graf–Wellhausen model had produced a literary history that was not yet complex enough to do justice to ancient Israelite literature because it had not yet been sufficiently related to Israel’s social life (see Buss 1999, 226–262 for the context of Gunkel’s work). Gunkel sought to remedy this lack of social, cultural, and aesthetic depth by focusing on genre. Traditional genres (Gattungen) that had been collected and creatively appropriated in Israelite literary sources could still be identified at the intersection of a typical form, mood, and Sitz im Leben (or “setting in life”), enabling us to trace their history through the literature. This idea became the basis for the form-­critical method as it was

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

364   Angela Roskop Erisman practiced throughout the twentieth century, which had scholars identify the genre and Sitz im Leben of a usually small, well-­defined unit of text before turning to tradition history, source criticism, or redaction criticism to trace its history through the written literature (Hayes and Holladay 1987, 84–85). Over a century later, a significant element of Gunkel’s legacy remains an appreciation for the rich generic diversity of the Pentateuch.

The Genres of the Pentateuch “If ‘Pentateuch’ is a term for this unit of the Bible that reflects its [five-­book] structure, then ‘Torah’ is a term for the same unit that denotes its genre and intention” (Coats 1983, 24). We must be more hesitant than George W. Coats to understand torah (“instruction”) as a genre, at least as the term is applied to the Pentateuch as a whole. Genre involves that which is typical, and our knowledge of genre influences how we write and read texts. There is no other work of literature like the Pentateuch from the ancient world, which makes it impossible to see what might be typical about it or how it established a set of expectations that influenced the creation of other texts. But the Pentateuch is what Gérard Genette called an architext, shaped by a complex blend of other genres (Genette 2000), and its purpose is, broadly speaking, to instruct. Every book of the Pentateuch except Genesis centers on a body of law. Individual laws take two forms: Apodictic laws are framed as universal and absolute commands, such as the positive commands (“You shall have no other gods besides me”) and prohibitions (“You shall not murder”) of the Decalogue (Exod 20:1–14 and Deut 5:6–18). Casuistic laws are framed with a protasis (“if ” or “when”) that identifies a situation and an apo­ dosis (“then”) that articulates its legal resolution, as in the case of the goring ox: “When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, (then) the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is not to be punished” (Exod 21:28). Casuistic law is by far the more common type both in the Pentateuch and in the rich corpus of legal literature from the ancient Near East, and it is found in law collections in both contexts. The Pentateuch contains three law collections, traditionally called the Covenant Code (20:19–23:33), the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26), and the Deuteronomic Code (Deuteronomy 12–26), although it is important to differentiate between a law code and a law collection. A law code is legislated and meant to be systematic and binding in court. Ancient Near Eastern and pentateuchal law collections, while they are certainly products of legal culture, function as royal propaganda or constitute scholastic efforts to collect and organize knowledge (Roth  1997, 5; Sparks  2005, 417–434). Biblical law collections also contain ritual instruction, including temple rituals; ritual calendars; ordination ceremonies; scapegoat rituals; and instructions for how to handle blood, bodily fluids, death, and impurity. Across the ancient Near East, these genres are typ­ ical­ly found in sources other than law collections (Sparks 2005, 144–215), which lets us understand that the pentateuchal law collections blend genres from different

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Genres and Social Settings   365 ­ ackgrounds. This is especially true of the Holiness collection, where crimes are often b framed as violations of sancta (Knohl 1995, 178). The boundary between legal and narrative genres in the Pentateuch is fuzzy. A number of scholars, inspired by the law-­as-­literature school of legal theory, advocate reading biblical law with the tools of literary theory (e.g., Watts 1999 and especially Bartor 2010). Legal thought in ancient Israel also seems to have given rise to a narrative genre, ad hoc legal exegesis (also called oracular novella), where the need for a new ruling would generate a brief narrative that fit loosely within the storyline of the Pentateuch; examples include the case of the blasphemer (Lev 24:10–13), corpse contamination (Num 9:6–14), gathering on Shabbat (Num 15:32–36), and female inheritance (Num 27:1–11) (Fishbane 1988, 98–104; Chavel 2014). Pentateuchal narrative is also profoundly influenced by the treaty genre. A treaty is a document that structures the legal and political relationship between two individuals and the polities they represent, whether two kings of equal stature or a king and his vassal. Treaties have a typical structure, including a preamble identifying the parties, a historical prologue outlining the course of their previous relationship, stipulations, a set of blessings and curses, a list of divine witnesses, and a statement about the deposition of the tablet on which the treaty is written (Sparks 2005, 435–448). Deuteronomy, although ostensibly a farewell address given by Moses, is structured like a treaty, and we also see reflexes of the treaty genre in the blessings and curses that conclude the Holiness collection in Leviticus (Lev 26). Other types of narrative in the Pentateuch are distinct from legal genres. Reports or anecdotes, like the death of Aaron (Num 20:23–29), make note of a single event with no plot or character development. On the other end of the spectrum is the novella, exemplified in the Pentateuch by the Joseph story (Genesis 37, 39–50), and by a rich body of ancient Near Eastern examples (Sparks 2005, 252–270). Novellas tend to have complex plots that develop and resolve tension through multiple scenes, as well as subtle character development; they are designed to entertain as well as instruct, and they are fictional yet involve a high degree of verisimilitude. Scholars often differentiate between saga and legend, both of which deal with a culture’s paradigmatic figures, although the distinction is often blurred (Tucker 1971, 38). Coats distinguishes between family sagas (or legends), which focus on the patriarchal ancestors, and heroic sagas (or legends), which focus on the exploits of a national leader; tales like the sister/wife stories (Genesis 12, 20, 26) are among the family legends of the Israelite patriarchs. Epic in the ancient Near East can be understood to overlap with legend, albeit expressed in verse rather than narrative (Sparks 2005, 271). As such, the Pentateuch contains no epic, even as some have posited that it may have had epic origins (Cross 1973). As the character and composition history of the Gilgamesh epic demonstrates, epics and legends tend to be episodic, crafted out of shorter folk tales, which involve simple plot and characterization and may have circulated independently (Tigay 1982). The Pentateuch contains a number of etiologies, which explain the origin of an im­port­ant situation or a name. The complaint episodes in Exodus and Numbers often conclude with an etiology, such as “The place was named Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and because they tried Yahweh, saying, ‘Is Yahweh present

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

366   Angela Roskop Erisman among us or not?’” at the conclusion of the first rock/water episode (Exod 17:7). There is some question about whether etiologies such as these originated independently or were simply composed as part of the narrative (Long 1968), but there is no question that many kinds of narrative in the Pentateuch are etiological in character, including myths. Myth tends to be defined in terms of its main subject matter—deities and their exploits—or its function to explain and legitimize ideas about the human condition or social institutions. Biblical scholars long tended to downplay the role of myth in the Pentateuch because it was viewed as a primitive mode of thought characteristic only of polytheistic peoples (e.g., Childs 1960), but we now understand mythmaking to be a “learned and literary act” (Fishbane 2003, 20) and can see that narratives like creation (Genesis 1), the flood story (Genesis 6–9), and the sea crossing (Exodus 14) engage myth and other ­genres—including law—in profoundly creative and productive ways and constitute some of the most sophisticated and beautiful literature in the Hebrew Bible (Erisman 2014a, 2014b). Genealogies and itineraries are the glue that holds the Pentateuch together, but they also influence how we read the material they structure. Genesis is loosely structured by genealogies, which trace a family line through multiple generations; genealogies can also be used as an ideological tool to articulate relationships among distinct people groups (Wilson 1977). Linear genealogies go deep, listing only one person in a generation and function in the Pentateuch to connect one section of material to another; the genealogy in Genesis 11, for example, connects the primeval narratives with the patriarchal narratives (Gen 11:10–32). Segmented genealogies like Genesis 36 go broad, listing a number of individuals in a given generation. Genealogies are closely related in structure to the king list genre, which involves a chronological list of kings with the lengths of their reigns. Genesis 5 combines the two genres in part to set up the royal characterization of Noah in the flood story (Erisman 2014b, 104–108) and, consequently, make a statement about the ideal character of humanity. An itinerary is a highly formulaic string of notices that articulates travel from one place to another along a route. The itinerary genre is related to Assyrian annals and other types of military narrative that use it, and it is through use of the annals genre that the narratives and laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers come to be structured by itineraries and read as the Israelites’ triumphant march through the desert led by Yahweh. Use of this genre brings a degree of formal and ideological coherence to a collection of literature that otherwise can seem disjointed (Roskop 2011).

Beyond Form Criticism to Genre Theory While form criticism gave us this appreciation for the generic diversity of the Pentateuch, how well it actually helps us use genre as an interpretive tool remains a significant question. Gunkel’s essentialist view of genre set the tone for form criticism through much of the twentieth century, and scholars in his wake have typically operated on the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Genres and Social Settings   367 a­ ssumption “that there is a single correct or ‘natural’ classification for literary texts” (Buss 1993, 73; see also Sparks 2010, 58–59) that can be determined based on a strong and inflexible network of relationships among form, mood, and Sitz im Leben (Sparks 2005, 6)—in other words, between the genres of the Pentateuch and their social settings. On the surface of it, this theory of genre works reasonably well to deal with genres like the itinerary, which are highly formulaic and whose Sitzen im Leben can be identified with relative ease based on extant comparative evidence (Davies 1974). But biblical scholars have slowly come to realize not only that Gunkel asserted the connection between form, mood, and Sitz im Leben too strongly (Buss 1993, 73), but also that “linguistic processes are vastly more complex than the apparent choice to pour language into reasonably ­stable forms” (Green 2014, 78). We find within the Pentateuch texts where a single form evokes characteristics of multiple genres simultaneously, such as the genealogy/king list in Genesis 5. We also find atypical uses of genre. The itinerary genre is typically administrative, but it is used in Exodus and Numbers to give literary and ideological shape to a narrative whose main characters are a deity and his people and whose temporal framework follows the ritual calendar (Roskop 2011, 149–174). How do we classify these texts? And how do we assess the genre of larger units within the Pentateuch such as the wilderness narrative, or even of the Pentateuch itself, and still do justice to the rich generic diversity? One tendency is toward reductionistic analysis. Because the wilderness narrative— which spans a significant portion of the Pentateuch, from the Israelites’ departure from Egypt at the beginning of Exodus to their arrival at the edge of Canaan at the end of Numbers—is emplotted like an annal, it has many history-­like features such as dates and place names. The itinerary notices, because they evoke reports and military narratives, imply a degree of verisimilitude that we have come to associate with history. It can be tempting, then, to speak of this section of the Pentateuch as a history. History in the ancient Near East involved a diverse array of genres, from chronicles and annals to the court narratives, battle accounts, and prophetic legends in Samuel–Kings (Van Seters 1997; Sparks 2005, 361–416). History in the ancient Near East, although it sometimes involved a demonstrable impulse to report as well as emplot (Roskop 2011, 83–135; on emplotment, see White 1973, 1978), did not necessarily involve the same set of features that can be traced from the Classical world forward (Breisach 1994). So we must be careful lest we impose an anachronistic set of assumptions that may harm more than help our ability to read this section of the Pentateuch well, especially because many of the ­genres used in the material structured by the itinerary notices are fictional. We are better served to ask what significance the history-­like features have for meaning (Frei 1974). A second tendency is to slip from assessment of genre into discussion of form. Form criticism has often been described as the analysis of patterns shared across texts (e.g., Buss 1993, 70). In his 1968 presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature, James Muilenburg argued that our focus on these shared patterns had led us to neglect the fact that they are often “employed with considerable fluidity, versatility, and, if one may venture the term, artistry” (Muilenburg 1969, 7). Although he advocated that we remedy this problem by supplementing form criticism with rhetorical criticism (18), we ended up replacing it with varieties of literary criticism—formalism, structuralism, poetics,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

368   Angela Roskop Erisman reader-­response criticism—that did not include genre theory (House 1992). Increased attention to the aesthetics of Israelite literature was a welcome development. But the tendency toward formalism left us with no means of relating literature to culture (Green 2014, 80–81), and lack of clarity about what a genre is left us unable to pay sufficient attention to the difference between a genre and the form of an individual text (Rösel 2003, 107–108). Rolf P. Knierim understood this twofold problem in form criticism—lack of clarity about what a genre is, and failure to explain why a genre takes different form in different texts—and sought to resolve it with a definition of genre as a “prerational structure of the mind” (Knierim 1973, 438). The limits of this definition are evident in his analysis (with Coats) of the genre of the wilderness narrative as a saga of a migrating sanctuary campaign (Knierim and Coats 2005, 17–19, 34–35, 37–38). This so-­called genre does not have any parallel in Israelite, ancient Near Eastern, or Classical literature that would let us understand what is typical about its form or social context. It is ultimately an odd mash-­up of genres we can recognize as such (saga, annal) and the literary goals of the wilderness narrative (to narrate the migration of the Israelites through the wilderness with their mobile sanctuary). The relatively recent tendency in biblical studies to suspect that form criticism does not do justice to the aesthetics of individual texts has a parallel in Benedetto Croce’s famous repudiation of genre as a valuable tool in the study of aesthetics (Croce 2000). Croce argued that genre does not help us understand literature but serves only to “impoverish artistic creation and criticism alike, inhibiting originality, setting up erroneous standards of judgement, and betraying the tendency of true art to break rules and violate norms” (Duff 2000, 25). He was arguably right if one assumes, as he did, the neoclassical idea that genres are logical categories whose forms are pure and unchanging. But Croce is missing—and biblical form criticism has had a tenuous grasp on—two important ideas: first, that even artistic genius is historically and socially situated and, second, that “there is no act of verbal communication that is not related to a general, socially or situationally conditioned norm or convention” (Jauss  1982, 79). Gunkel understood both of these things, evident in the importance of Sitz im Leben in his def­in­ ition of genre and in the emphasis he placed on creative use of genres as a key element of writing a history of Israelite literature. His definition of genre, while certainly riddled with its own set of well-­known problems (see further on this the essay by Thomas Dozeman in this volume), does get a lot right and, as Erhard Blum has suggested, “may provide something like the ‘raw material’ for appropriate genre analysis” (Blum 2003, 43). Gunkel understood genre to consist of the relationships among form, mood, and Sitz im Leben in an “inseparable package,” no element of which can be isolated from the other (Knight 1974, 114; see also Blum 2003, 41). His work preceded the advent of cognitive linguistics, which has radically overturned “our understanding of how mental cat­ egor­ies are formed and function” (Newsom 2007, 24), but his emphasis on the network of relationships among typical elements is something we see again in cognitive theories of genre. When we judge a text to be a novella or an itinerary, we are not comparing it to other texts but using knowledge we have acquired about novellas and itineraries and

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Genres and Social Settings   369 stored in our brains, in what linguists call an idealized cognitive model. Knierim was on to something when he sought to place genre in the brain, but the patterns are learned rather than received as part of “the collective consciousness on its prelinguistic level” (Knierim 1973, 440). Cognitive models are acquired through exposure to texts and the media they are written on, as well as how they are used and in what context(s). In an­tiquity, genres may have been learned in school: one back corner of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and a tiny Old Babylonian tablet containing an itinerary excerpt likely functioned as school exercises in the itinerary genre (Roskop 2011, 52, 79–80). But knowledge could also have been acquired informally through exposure to texts. A cognitive model for a novella or an itinerary does not match any particular novella or itinerary but is abstracted (or idealized) as a network of relationships among various elements that typically occur. We turn to knowledge stored in our idealized cognitive model when we want to write a saga or an itinerary or read a new text that contains elements of the genre (Lakoff 1987a; 1987b; Sinding 2002; 2005). Idealized cognitive models are formed by individuals, but one can say that a genre is cultural or social to the extent that a critical mass of individuals share more or less the same idealized cognitive model and are able to use it to communicate meaningfully with one another. That said, a shared environment simply provides the potential for shared models and is no guarantee that every individual will have the same one (Sperber and Wilson 1995, 41). We as modern readers of the Pentateuch do not even have that ready potential. Kenton Sparks suggests that our “common human experience in the same world” gets us fairly far in our ability to read ancient literature (Sparks 2005, 9), but in fact we often have to work quite hard to overcome alterity, especially when genres with which we are familiar—such as history—had a different set of dynamics in antiquity. The broad use of comparative ancient Near Eastern data advocated by Gunkel is thus essential if we are to gain the knowledge of genre that will allow us to read ancient texts as competently as possible. Recent studies show the rich possibilities of comparative study for understanding the primary social contexts in which a genre is used, the range of typical features a genre may include, and how similar genres are related to one another (see especially Rösel 2003; Nissinen 2003; and Roskop 2011). Comparing similarities and differences (Sparks 2010, 63–64) is not enough; similarities, for example, could indicate direct borrowing (see Newsom  2007, 23–24 for a critique of intertextuality as a means of acquiring genre competence). Rather, we should analyze comparative literature specifically with the goal of building an idealized cognitive model. The results will be limited by factors like small sample, poor preservation quality, and lack of prov­en­ ance for many texts. Yet we can often learn enough to overcome alterity at least to a useful extent. Understanding genre as a cognitive model can help us keep straight the distinction between form and genre, which has so often been blurred in form-­critical studies of biblical literature (Blum 2003, 33). A genre is not a pattern in texts, even as it is learned from patterns in texts. A genre is a pattern, or network of relationships, carried in the brain. A genre is not a verbal artifact (Van Leeuwen 2003, 82); it is knowledge we use to create and interpret verbal artifacts. Form, on the other hand, refers to the way language is

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

370   Angela Roskop Erisman organized in a particular text: vocabulary, syntax, meter (or lack of it), and soundplay as well as theme and content (Frow 2006, 9, 74). The form of a text can be shaped by one or more genres but does not, in itself, constitute a genre. Gene Tucker noted that “some confusion has resulted from the tendency to use the term form to mean both structure and genre. If the term form is used in reference to a genre or Gattung, it should be made clear that the word has taken on a secondary connotation” (Tucker 1971, 12). But in light of what we learn about genre from cognitive linguistics, we should not use the term “form” in reference to genre at all. A cognitive model contains much more than information about formal features. Situation of address involves the social roles of the author and audience, the social context in which they play those roles, and information about aspects of their relationship such as power dynamics and degree of solidarity. Rhetorical function involves a text’s purpose, whether to report, to convince, to teach, or to entertain. The itinerary genre, for example, is typically written by bureaucrats in a limited range of administrative ­situ­ations—military, commercial, or civic—to report to a superior official, provide instructions, or create a record. Structure of implication refers to “assumptions involved in communication that are not directly expressed in the text but nonetheless generate meaning” (Roskop 2011, 26); for example, we generally expect itineraries to be accurate (Frow  2006, 9–10, 73–74; Roskop  2011, 81–82; on implicature, see Sperber and Wilson 1995, 2012). While Gunkel did not have access to the insights of modern genre theory and pragmatics, he did articulate the central questions they are equipped to answer—“To understand the genres we must in each case have the whole situation clearly before us and ask ourselves: Who is speaking? Who is the audience? What is the setting in life? What is the intention?” (Gunkel 2001, 33–34)—and this set of concepts maps onto his model of genre as involving typical Sitz im Leben and mood (or intention) as well as typical formal features (Blum 2003, 35, 43). Rarely are any of these elements expressed directly in a text. Even letters presume a lot: the sender and recipient may be named, but interpreting the letter relies on know­ ledge about their relationship implied by subtle cues in the text and gained from other sources, where possible. Douglas Knight noted that our only access to the cultural matrix that constitutes a Sitz im Leben is “the linguistic structure of the received texts” (Knight 1974, 112). A cognitive theory of genre helps us understand how this is so. When we learn a genre, we learn not just its formal features but also the social settings in which it is typically used, who typically uses it and why, and what assumptions they typically make about it when they write and read it; all of these elements become part of the idealized cognitive model (Roskop 2011, 26). When we see an array of formal features in a text that invokes our cognitive model for a genre, all of the knowledge in that model is brought into play as potentially relevant for interpretation. This understanding of how social knowledge is implicated in genre serves as a corrective to the widely criticized tendency in form criticism to artificially relate a text to a Sitz im Leben—understood as a specific and clearly definable social institution—that we have reconstructed with greater confidence than the evidence allows. Relating texts to institutions like the cult or the family tends to produce wooden exegesis, whereas considering how typical author,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Genres and Social Settings   371 audience, and social situations are implied in the text keeps us focused on the data we have and enables a potentially sensitive analysis of how social information may contribute to meaning. Gunkel understood genre as a way to get at presumed early oral stages in the development of biblical literature, and he understood form, mood, and Sitz im Leben (and the relationships among them) to be fixed, enabling us to get at those early stages with confidence (for a presentation and a critique of this approach, see the essay by Thomas Dozeman in this volume). Form criticism remained focused on a presumed pre-­literary stage because other methods—source and redaction criticism—were designed to deal with the written texts. We now recognize that the relationship between oral and written is much more complex, that genre comes into play at all stages of literary history, and that genre is not fixed as Gunkel presumed (e.g., Buss 1993, 73–75). But we have not quite moved beyond viewing genre as a classification tool. “Classification, no matter how nuanced, tends toward a binary logic. Does a text belong or not belong? Does it belong to this genre or to that one?” (Newsom 2007, 26). Classification becomes particularly problematic when it comes to grappling with literary artistry, especially in generically complex texts that resist classification. Yet it is problematic even when dealing with texts we might judge to be the most prototypical instances of a genre, because even here we often see variation, which tends to produce an array of sub-­classifications that are hardly meaningful for interpreting texts (Roskop 2011, 67–68). We are better able to account for the variation, as well as the stability that allows us to recognize a genre, if we think of the genre not as a set of fixed features, but as a range of typical features that exist in an idealized cognitive model and can be used to make judgments about the prototypicality of a given text (see Lakoff 1987b; 1987a, 40–46 on prototype effects). Formally, a list of place names is typically combined with one or more of a variety of other features—prepositions, repetition, temporal expressions, or verbs for movement—in order to constitute an itinerary. The situation of address is administrative, but any one of a range of scen­ arios is in the bounds of what is typical. And the rhetorical function typically involves reporting, instruction, or record-­keeping. A variety of combinations within this range of formal features, situations of address, and rhetorical functions are likely to be judged prototypical. Genres are not classification systems but tools for writing and interpreting texts, as they create possibilities for and place constraints on meaning (Frow 2006, 10). Variation in how a genre is instantiated from one text to another can result from a variety of factors, but most important among them is use. The communication needs of a given situ­ ation may make one combination more effective than another, even in prototypical uses of the genre (Roskop 2011, 50–82). How much the more so when a genre is used cre­ ative­ly in atypical situations and for atypical purposes, which allows more latitude for extension of its features and combination with other genres and elements of literary repertoire. The sea-­crossing narrative in Exod 14, for example, combines the itinerary genre with the salvation oracle, the complaint motif, the divine combat motif, and elements of prophetic imagery and Deuteronomistic war ideology. If we think classification is the goal

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

372   Angela Roskop Erisman of genre analysis, we are likely to decompose the narrative into sources and redactions in a way that destroys its fabric, and to misinterpret its place in Israelite literary history. If, on the other hand, we recognize that genre creates possibilities for and places constraints on meaning, and that a text can evoke multiple genres simultaneously to those ends, we will be able to see how all of these elements work together to develop an array of intertwined themes—fear of Yahweh, salvation, trust in Moses, and judgment against Egypt—in a highly skilled and creative example of mythmaking (Erisman  2014a). Likewise, if we try to classify, the itinerary notices that structure the wilderness narrative can be nothing other than the account of an actual journey, taken from an administrative document. But if we use genre as an interpretive tool, and if we take into account a genre’s history, we can see that the itinerary notices are one result of an effort to emplot the wilderness narrative like an Assyrian annal. But the wilderness narrative is no typ­ ical annal. The genre is used to craft a narrative about the Israelites marching through the desert with their portable sanctuary, not about a king leading his army on campaign, and the wilderness narrative is not royal ideology but an effort to depict the Israelites’ triumphant return to Zion after the exile to re-­establish worship of Yahweh in its former place (Roskop 2011, 136–184). Form criticism has heightened our awareness of the importance of genre and given us the means to identify genres. We have recognized for some time that there is not a single correct genre classification for a text, that an often complex set of factors allows a text to be classified in more than one way, and that different readers may classify differently (Buss 1993, 75; Sparks 2005, 7–11). Although it is widely agreed that identifying the genre of a text is important for interpreting it, classification is not interpretation, and form criticism has not adequately given us a means to understand how we move from identifying the genre(s) at work in a text to a point where we can articulate how they contribute to meaning. A combination of cognitive genre theory and pragmatics does. When we recognize a genre(s) in a text, we start to engage with the typical features—or set of expectations—associated with that genre in our idealized cognitive model, both formal and social. We can then study how these expectations are used to develop theme or character, how they influence our sense of the text’s reality status, or even how they may leave traces of the text’s development over time (Roskop 2011, 190–191).

Genre and Literary History Revisited Gunkel studied genre not for its own sake but with a greater goal in mind—namely, to write a history of Israel’s literature that would be rooted in Israel’s history as a people. He envisioned that literary history as a history of genres. To write it would involve not only identifying the genres but also studying how they were collected and arranged in the literature as well as how they were adapted and transformed—and with how much skill and artistry—in each period of Israel’s history. Gunkel’s vision was not without its problems. He sketched out a trajectory for this history that involved an evolution from pure

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Genres and Social Settings   373 oral genres that were close to the social life of the people, through a classical period of artistic genius as genres were used with great creativity, to a period of ossification and decline as literary activity involved redaction and the imitation of genres (Gunkel 2001, 33–37). The notion that genres are pure and the notion that written literature was preceded by an oral phase of tradition have both been roundly debunked, and the evolutionary trajectory imposes an order on history that it will never fit. But other ideas remain extremely valuable: the notion that scribes could use genre in literature with more or less skill and artistry, and especially the notion that genre is a way to overcome the foreignness and get at the socially situated character of Israel’s literature, the latter arguably Gunkel’s “most important contribution” to study of the Bible (Buss 1978, 157). The turn to literary theory in biblical studies in the 1970s and 1980s brought us a long way toward the aesthetic, but we are still struggling to integrate the aesthetic with the historical, social, and cultural. Gunkel’s insistence on a clearly defined institutional setting for genres was too artificial to be useful for that purpose (Buss  1978, 165; Van Leeuwen  2003, 82). But the principle of relating literature to the social and cultural dynamics of human life is key to a more organic connection between history and literature, along the lines envisioned by New Historicism (Dobbs-­Allsopp 1999; Erisman 2014c). Hans Robert Jauss found inspiration in Gunkel’s work for his own effort to transcend the problems facing the discipline of Literaturgeschichte in the 1970s (Jauss 1982, 100–101; see Jauss 1982, 4–18 and Schmid 2012, 9 for contextualization), and we may be able to reconnect with Gunkel’s vision by viewing it through Jauss’s eyes. Jauss argued that we would be able to write literary history if we started from the understanding that aesthetic norms are received and transformed, and that this happens in particular his­tor­ ic­ al, social, and cultural contexts: “The historicity of literature as well as its communicative character presupposes a dialogical and at once processlike relationship between work, audience, and new work” (Jauss 1982, 19). The aesthetic and the his­tor­ ic­al—their split a casualty of the divorce between Marxism, which tended to reduce literature to social process, and Formalism, which tended to detach literature from history—can be remarried in reception history (9–18). Reception history is fundamentally “a process of founding and altering of horizons,” as genres are “reproduced” through prototypical uses, and especially as they are used creatively and transformed (88, see also 20–45). Knowledge of the typical and an ability to analyze how it is put to work to create possibilities for and place constraints on meaning in both prototypical and atypical situations has the potential not only to help us interpret individual texts but also to contextualize them in a literary history. The kind of literary history Jauss proposes is dialogical in character, connecting past and present. We do not come preprogrammed with the horizon of expectations needed to interpret and appreciate pentateuchal literature but must acquire knowledge of it through the broad study of ancient texts and culture Gunkel advocated (Jauss 1982, 108). Some theories of genre, in an effort to overcome the generic realism of the past, over­ empha­size the role of the reader in determining genre, but that effectively encourages us to hit the Charybdis in order to avoid the Scylla. We as interpreters are responsible for assessing genre in a text and may indeed do so differently than an ancient reader would

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

374   Angela Roskop Erisman or than an ancient scribe intended. But we navigate best with knowledge of ancient ­genres—ancient horizons of expectations—on board, whose possibilities and constraints guide our way. Literature is neither locked in the past nor subject to the whims of modern taste but freed to be a medium of communication across time and culture, even in spite of the limitations such distance necessarily imposes. Sometimes our genre competence is weak, thanks to insufficient extant data, and we cannot recognize what genres may be at work in a text or how strong their constraints might be. But sometimes—as is the case for the itinerary genre—we have a range of texts sufficient to let us establish a fairly strong sense of what is typical, as well as texts that give us a meaningful window onto its history of use (Roskop 2011). Both are important elements of a horizon of expectations for situating the wilderness narrative in a history of literature, appreciating its aesthetics, and grasping its meaning. While dialogical in character, literary history of the sort Jauss proposes does not have a particular trajectory. We should expect to see arcs of rise and decline, as scribes experiment with the possibilities of a genre, as innovative uses emerge and become standard, and as ossification and overuse make them trite and valuable only as consumables (Jauss 1982, 88–100). But we should not expect literary history to be linear. Experimentation will involve false starts and mediocrity as well as genius, and not every experiment will produce fruit. Typical uses of a genre can continue to occur alongside innovative uses. There is no reason to think that the need for merchants to report their travel to their superiors ceased when scribes started using itineraries to shape military narratives that functioned as royal propaganda, or even when military narrative was used to emplot the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness to the promised land. And we certainly should not expect literary history to be teleological (33). Innovation and change is prompted by the intersection of social and historical circumstances, on the one hand, and scribes with mastery of a rich cultural and literary heritage and the skill to employ it creatively, on the other, and is more likely to be emergent than predictable (on emergence, see Aaron 2013, 454–455). Consequently, we should let an effort to write literary history take us where it will, rather than trying to marry it with other methods that tend to come prepackaged with their own models of composition history. For much of its history, form criticism was limited to helping us see the “vertical life” of Israelite literature (the underlying sociological dynamics), while the historical-­critical methods of source and redaction criticism elucidated its “linear life,” or chronological development (Hayes and Holladay 1987, 86). But this limits the possibilities. Although genre analysis is not “directed per se at problems of text formation” (Blum 2003, 37), it may turn out to have implications for the diachronic development of a text; as Anthony Campbell notes, “[i]f, out of the shape and structure of the text, diachronic or growth issues force themselves on an interpreter, they need to be investigated with all the insights available to scholarship” (Campbell  2003, 31). The stereotypical character of the itinerary genre, for example, establishes a high expectation of formal consistency in a chain of itinerary notices. That consistency is interrupted at a number of critical points in the chain that spans the wilderness narrative. These may be best explained as points at which revisions to the wilderness narrative were accommodated to the previously existing text, and the resulting

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Genres and Social Settings   375 composition history differs in several respects from what one tends to find in source- and redaction-­critical studies (Roskop 2011, 185–232). We would miss such insights were we to take the results of source or redaction criticism as a fixed point of departure. Konrad Schmid has suggested that literary history inevitably involves discussion of intellectual or social trends at the expense of individual works (Schmid 2012, 1). Yet literary history of the sort Jauss envisions can be written only with detailed attention to the artistry of individual works and openness about its implications for composition history, as it is otherwise impossible to see the use and transformation of genre. There is much more at stake in the genres of the Pentateuch and their social settings, then, than form criticism has often allowed. Campbell notes that we have become as alienated from form criticism as Gunkel was from source criticism (Campbell 2003, 23). Form criticism became limited to elucidating a pre-­written stage of the development of Israelite traditions that we now know was a chimera, and too many form-­critical studies have treated the method like a recipe to be followed step by step, with impoverished yield for exegesis thanks to the focus on classification. I am inclined to join the chorus of voices who suggest we ought to leave form criticism behind in favor of genre theory (Knight 1974, 115–116; Blum 2003, 35; Green 2014, 80)—especially genre theory as it has been informed by cognitive linguistics and pragmatics—as it can give us a set of exe­get­ ic­al tools that has the power to realize the vision Gunkel set for articulating the aesthetic as well as the social and cultural depth of pentateuchal literature. Genre thus becomes so much more than a means of getting at early oral stages of the literature or of breaking it down into its constituent parts. It becomes a powerful tool for deepening our understanding of what we read when we read the Pentateuch, for connecting literature to history and to Israel’s social life in an organic rather than an artificial way, and for appreciating the skill and creativity of the scribes who wrote it.

Suggested Reading For more on specific genres used within the Pentateuch, see the broad comparative overview in Sparks (2005), as well as Wilson (1977), Van Seters (1997), Bartor (2010), Chavel (2014), and Roskop (2011). Critiques of classical form criticism can be found in Muilenberg (1969), Buss (1978), Blum (2003), Campbell (2003), Newsom (2007), and Green (2014). For discussions of what genre is and how it works, see the collected essays in Duff (2000), as well as Frow (206) and Sinding (2002, 2005). The work of White (1973, 1978) is essential for thinking about creative uses of genre to achieve literary and ideological goals, especially in narrative. On the relationship between literature and culture, see Iser (1978), Sperber and Wilson (1995, 2006, 2012), Aaron (2013), and Erisman (2014c).

Works Cited Aaron, D. H. 2013. “Reflections on a Cognitive Theory of Culture and a Theory of Formalized Language for Late Biblical Studies.” In Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination, edited by D.V.  Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 451–473. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

376   Angela Roskop Erisman Bartor, A. 2010. Reading Law as Narrative: A Study in the Casuistic Laws of the Pentateuch. SBLAIL 5. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Blum, E. 2003. “Formgeschichte—A Misleading Category? Some Critical Remarks.” In The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, edited by M. A. Sweeney and E. Ben Zvi, 32–46. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Boer, R., ed. 2007. Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies. SemeiaSt 63. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Breisach, E. 1994. Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, & Modern. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Buss, M. J. 1978. “The Idea of Sitz im Leben—History and Critique”. ZAW 90:157–170. Buss, M. J. 1993. “Form Criticism.” In To Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Application, edited by S.  R.  Haynes and S.  L.  McKenzie, 69–85. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Buss, M. J. 1999. Biblical Form Criticism in Its Context. JSOTSup 274. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Campbell, A. F. 2003. “Form Criticism’s Future.” In The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, edited by M. A. Sweeney and E. Ben Zvi, 15–31. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Chavel, S. 2014. Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah. FAT II.71. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Childs, B. S. 1960. Myth and Reality in the Old Testament. Naperville, IL: Allenson. Coats, G. W. 1983. Genesis, with an Introduction to Narrative Literature. FOTL. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Croce, B. 2000. “Criticism of the Theory of Artistic and Literary Kinds.” In Modern Genre Theory, edited by D.  Duff, 25–28. Longman Critical Readers. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Cross, F. M. 1973. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Davies, G. I. 1974. “The Wilderness Itineraries: A Comparative Study.” TynBul 25:46–81. Dobbs-Allsopp, F. W. 1999. “Rethinking Historical Criticism.” BibInt 7, no. 3, 235–271. Duff, D., ed. 2000. Modern Genre Theory. Longman Critical Readers. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Erisman, A.  R. 2014a. “Literary Theory and Composition History of the Torah: The Sea Crossing (Exod 14:1–31) as a Test Case.” In Approaches to Literary Readings of Ancient Jewish Writings, edited by K. Smelik and K. Vermeulen, 53–76. SSN 62. Leiden: Brill. Erisman, A. R. 2014b. “Mythologizing Exile: Life, Law, and Justice after the Flood.” In Windows to the Ancient World of the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honor of Samuel Greengus, edited by B. T. Arnold, N. L. Erickson, and J. H. Walton, 95–110. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Erisman, A. R. 2014c. “New Historicism, Historical Criticism, and Reading the Pentateuch.” Religion Compass 83:71–80. DOI: 10.1111/rec3.12099. Fishbane, M. 1988. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fishbane, M. 2003. Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frei, H. W. 1974. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale University Press. Frow, J. 2006. Genre. The New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge. Genette, G. 2000. “The Architext.” In Modern Genre Theory, ed. D. Duff, 210–218. Longman Critical Readers. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

Genres and Social Settings   377 Green, B. 2014. “Pigeonholes, Pigeon Choices, Pigeon Handlers: Form, Rhetoric, and Genre in Biblical Studies.” In Reading a Tendentious Bible: Essays in Honor of Richard B. Coote, edited by M. L. Chaney, U. Y. Kim, and A. Schellenberg, 76–86. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix. Gunkel, H. 2001. Water for a Thirsty Land. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Gunkel, H. 2003. “The Literature of Ancient Israel by Hermann Gunkel.” Translated by A. Siedlicki. In Relating to the Text: Interdisciplinary and Form-Critical Insights on the Bible, edited by T. J. Sandoval, C. Mandolfo, and M. J. Buss, 26–83. JSOTSup 384. London: T&T Clark. Hayes, J.  H., and C.  R.  Holladay. 1987. Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner’s Handbook. Rev. ed. Atlanta, GA: John Knox. House, P. R. 1992. Beyond Form Criticism: Essays in Old Testament Literary Criticism. Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 2. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Iser, W. 1978. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Jauss, H. R. 1982. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Translated by T. Bahti. Theory and History of Literature 2. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Knierim, R. P. 1973. “Old Testament Form Criticism Reconsidered.” Int 27:435–468. Knierim, R. P., and G. W. Coats. 2005. Numbers. FOTL 4. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Knight, D. A. 1974. “The Understanding of ‘Sitz im Leben’ in Form Criticism.” In Society of Biblical Literature 1974 Seminar Papers: One Hundred Tenth Annual Meeting, 24–27 October 1974, Washington Hilton, Washington, D.C., edited by G. MacRae, 1:105–125. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Knohl, I. 1995. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Translated by J. Feldman and P. Rodman. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Lakoff, G. 1987a. “Cognitive Models and Prototype Theory.” In Concepts and Conceptual Development: Ecological and Intellectual Factors in Categorization, edited by U.  Neisser, 63–100. Emory Symposia in Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, G. 1987b. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Long, B. O. 1968. The Problem of Etiological Narrative in the Old Testament. BZAW 108. Berlin: Töpelmann. Muilenburg, J. 1969. “Form Criticism and Beyond.” JBL 88:1–18. Newsom, C. A. 2007. “Spying Out the Land: A Report from Genology.” In Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies, edited by R. Boer, 19–30. SemeiaSt 63. Atlanta: SBL Press. Nissinen, M. 2003. “Fear Not: A Study on an Ancient Near Eastern Phrase.” In The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, edited by M. A. Sweeney and E. Ben Zvi, 122–161. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Rösel, M. 2003. “Inscriptional Evidence and the Question of Genre.” In The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, edited by M.  A.  Sweeney and E.  Ben Zvi, ­107–121. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Roskop, A. R. 2011. The Wilderness Itineraries: Genre, Geography, and the Growth of Torah. HACL 3. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Roth, M.  T. 1997, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. 2nd ed. SBLWAW 6. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Schmid, K. 2012. The Old Testament: A Literary History. Translated by L.  M.  Maloney. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

378   Angela Roskop Erisman Sinding, M. 2002. “After Definitions: Genre, Categories, and Cognitive Science.” Genre 35:181–220. Sinding, M. 2005. “Genera Mixta: Conceptual Blending and Mixed Genres in Ulysses.” New Literary History 36:589–619. Sparks, K. L. 2005. Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible: A Guide to the Background Literature. Peabody: Hendrickson. Sparks, K. L. 2010. “Genre Criticism.” In Methods for Exodus, edited by T. B. Dozeman, 55–94. Methods in Biblical Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sperber, D., and D. Wilson. 1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Sperber, D., and D. Wilson. 2006. “Pragmatics.” In The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy, edited by F. Jackson and M. Smith, 468–501. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sperber, D., and D. Wilson. 2012. Meaning and Relevance. 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. Tigay, J. H. 1982. The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Tucker, G. M. 1971. Form Criticism of the Old Testament. Guides to Biblical Scholarship. Old Testament Series. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Van Leeuwen, R. C., 2003. “Form Criticism, Wisdom, and Psalms 111–112.” In The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, edited by M. A. Sweeney and E. Ben Zvi, 65–84. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Van Seters, J. 1997. In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Watts, J. W. 1999. Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. White, H. 1973. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. White, H. 1978. “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact.” In Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, 81–100. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wilson, R. 1977. Genealogy and History in the Biblical World. New Haven: Yale University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

chapter 20

A ncien t N ea r E aster n Liter atu r e a n d the Pen tateuch David P. Wright

Background Modern academic biblical scholarship has observed a range of correlations between biblical texts and other texts from the larger ancient Near Eastern world, especially as archaeology over the last 150 or more years has brought to light new documentary dis­ coveries. The collections of texts in the older Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET) and the more recent Context of Scripture (COS), as well as the editions of texts published in the Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World series (SBLWAW) (e.g. Parker 1997; Roth 1997) and the two series of the Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments (TUAT), point to the broad range of materials that scholars have brought into dialogue with the Hebrew Bible. Sparks’s recent detailed guide, Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible (Sparks 2005), and Hays’s textbook, Hidden Riches (Hays 2014), also provide summaries and discussions of many cor­rel­ ations that have been observed. As these various works show, the correspondences are found throughout a range of literary genres, cultural phenomena or motifs, and texts from different places and times. The Pentateuch is particularly rich in its associations with broader Near Eastern literature (for surveys, see Sparks 2005, 144–215, 252–360, 417–448, and its index; Hays 2014, 39–189). The observed correspondences have been used phenomenologically and in­ter­pret­ ive­ly to raise questions for investigation and offer insights for understanding the biblical texts, especially by contrasts between the texts. A more dynamic and controversial mode of comparative analysis, the focus of this survey, is to ask whether similarities point to a genetic relationship between cultures with the goal of historical reconstruction and

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

380   David P. Wright placing the Hebrew biblical texts and ideas in their Near Eastern context. This approach requires more rigor. To help provide this, scholars have developed criteria to ascertain if a claim of a genealogical connection is compelling or reasonable. These arise from the study of different types of textual dependence, from passing allusion within the biblical corpus (cf. Leonard 2008; Zevit 2017) to interaction with texts from the larger Near East (cf. Malul  1990; Morrow  2013; Wells  2006). The proposed criteria usually set down quantitative and qualitative requirements, including a density of correlations, on both the phrase and broader organizational levels, and uniqueness of correlations, including especially the appearance of a blind motif, an unusual element in the target text that is hard to explain in its context and makes better sense as a motif retained from using the presumed source. A complication in using these statistical measures is the possibility of hermeneutical innovation in a target text (Levinson 2008). Generally, differences between texts are viewed as a measure of chronological and cultural distance, but they may also come from direct engagement with a text by revision or rewriting. Some points of disparity can actually become evidence of a connection between texts when a compelling ex­plan­ ation of how the divergences arose can be proffered. Comparative analysis of texts for purposes of historical reconstruction has other issues to wrestle with. One is the problem of directionality, i.e., which text is the source and which the target. If not clear from external considerations (e.g., dating based on other evidence or cultural dominance), the nature of the correlations, including the logic of hermeneutical development, may provide a solution. Another problem is opportunity: whether chronological, geographical, and cultural-­historical evidence supports a claim for textual or cultural dependence. The pattern of transmission, too, must be considered: whether it is linear, from source to target, or whether the compared texts stem from a common parent. The medium of transmission requires explanation: incidental or substantial oral tradition, contemporary word-­of-­mouth transmission, or use of a written text. Differences in language must be accounted for. The investigation also has to be developed against the backdrop of what is known about the history of Israelite and larger Near Eastern scribal culture as well as theories of orality. Analysis also has to engage what has been proposed about the redactional histories of the texts being compared. These various requirements make historical comparative study precarious. Nevertheless, sometimes the observed similarities are so striking and the web of cor­rel­ations so intricate that they point to some type of dependence. This justifies working toward solutions even if all the problems cannot be fully resolved.

Models of Transmission The rest of this essay looks at several of the foregoing issues in studying the Pentateuch in its Near Eastern literary context. To allow for discussion, it samples correlations in four cases: between (1) the patriarchal stories in Genesis and the Ugaritic father tales

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   381 (Kirta, Aqhat), (2) the laws of the Covenant Code (hereafter CC) and the Laws of Hammurabi (LH), (3) laws on loyalty to Yahweh and covenant curses in Deuteronomy (D) and Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty, and (4) the non-­P (i.e., J) primordial history in Gen 1–11 and the Gilgamesh Epic. These examples have been chosen in particular to highlight the question of the av­enue for Israel’s and Judah’s reception and knowledge of ideas attested in comparative ­literature, especially the problem of similarity with Mesopotamian literary traditions. Two basic models are possible: a vertical, western-­traditions model and a horizontal, contemporary-­influence model. The vertical, western-­traditions model posits that traditions (or perhaps even texts in some cases) stemming from second millennium bce Syria-­Canaan were passed along and eventually inherited by the first millennium Hebrew scribes that produced the bib­ lical texts. Some of these traditions, the model argues, were derived from Mesopotamian cultural influence in the second millennium or were at least similar to Mesopotamian ideas in that period. The horizontal, contemporary-­ influence model posits that similarities with Mesopotamian texts are the result of cultural influence during the period of Mesopotamian political domination, starting with the late Neo-­Assyrian period (c.740–620 bce), fol­ lowed by the Neo-­Babylonian period (c.610–540 bce), and perhaps into the Persian period (c.540–330 bce). Both models have problems in explaining Mesopotamian influences (cf. Morrow 2013). The vertical model has to account ultimately for how traditions, ori­gin­ al­ly formulated in Akkadian, were translated to West Semitic idiom to survive the col­ lapse of Akkadian scribal schools in Syria-­Canaan about 1200 bce and then, after some time, passed to a Hebrew scribal cultural context. This model becomes more difficult to sustain when there are intricate correlations between the compared texts. The horizon­ tal model has difficulties in explaining the specific process of transmission. Proposals include the use of Akkadian texts, use of Aramaic translations of Akkadian texts, or oral conveyance by Mesopotamian scribes or officials. The evidence for any of these mech­ an­isms is mostly circumstantial, and a solution is usually proposed after elimination of less likely possibilities. The choice of examples explored, below, has another purpose. They, and many others that might be adduced, indicate that scribes that produced the pentateuchal texts— sources or strata— employed motifs and materials from foreign literature to aid in con­ structing their story or stories of national origins. Historical comparative study, therefore, can contribute to clarifying the nature and purpose of pentateuchal texts.

The Patriarchal Tales of Genesis The stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and his sons in Genesis 12–50 have broad and specific correlations with the Kirta and Aqhat tales from Ugarit dating to the four­ teenth century bce (respectively cited here as KTU 1.14–16 and KTU 1.17–19; for

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

382   David P. Wright t­ ranslations, see Parker 1997; COS 1:333–356; for bibliography see Sparks 2005, 293–296). If questions about pentateuchal sources or redactional development can be left aside for the moment (see below), the patriarchal tales in Genesis display a number of broad simi­lar­ities with these Ugaritic father tales in terms of plot development. The biblical and Ugaritic stories concern a father, portrayed as pious or favored by the god(s), who lacks an heir or a wife. The deity or deities promise the father that he will have offspring to carry on the line, but this promise is compromised in some manner. The challenge is remedied, although in some cases the expected heir fails to qualify or does not survive to inherit, and a younger or socially liminal (female in the Ugaritic texts) family member either inherits or comes to the aid of the father’s interests. Within this framework of general correlations, the biblical stories contain specific motifs similar to those found in the Ugaritic tales. These include the portrayal of the de­ities appearing or speaking to and acting on the same stage with human characters (e.g. Gen 18:1–16; 32:23–31; KTU 1.14 i 35–iii 51; 1.16 v 10–vi 14; 1.17 i 1–ii 24; v 2–vi 46); providing a hospitality meal for guests, including having the wife aid in preparations (Gen 18:3–8 [cf. Gen 19:1–22]; KTU 1.15 iv 1–16; vi 1–5 [cf. 1.16 15–24]; 1.17 v 14–33); the deity’s making promises in the context of offerings or ritual slaughter (Gen 12:7; 15:9–21; 22:1–19; KTU 1.14 ii 6–26; iii 55–8; iv 37–43; 1.15 ii 1–iii 25; 1.17 i 1–ii 24); “joy” or “laugh­ ing,” described with the verb ṣḥq, upon hearing a child will be born (Gen 18:12–15; KTU 1.17 ii 10–11; but see the idiom in KTU 1.3 ii 25; 1.4 v 25–26; 1.18 i 22–23); a child’s acquiring hunted food for the father, a type of filial duty (Gen 27:1–40; KTU 1.17 v 33–39); travel to another city or region to acquire a wife (Gen 24:1–67; KTU 1.14 ii 30–iii 44; iv 8–1.15 i 8); the death or threat to the life of the heir or the father (Gen 22:1–19; 32:4–13, 14–33; 33:1–15; in Kirta, see KTU 1.15 iii 26–30 followed thematically by v 11–23; 1.16 i 1–vi 14; in Aqhat see 1.17 vi–18 iv); trickery, including use of disguises (Gen 25:21–33; 27:1–41; 29:24–30; 30:25–43; 31:19–35; KTU 1.19 iv 33–63); rebellion or impiety by the heir or child (Gen 27:30–45; 35:22; 37:1–36; KTU 1.16 vi 25–59; 1.17 vi 11–47; cf. Gen 4:1–16); a father’s bless­ ing or cursing his children (Gen 27:25–29, 38–40; 48:8–20; 49:1–27, 28; KTU 1.16 vi 55–59; 1.19 iv 29–41; cf. Gen 9:20–27). The overall range of similarities is such to allow for positing a cultural affinity between the two bodies of literature, especially given the geographical, linguistic, and general chronological proximity of the biblical texts to Ugarit. There are hints of ­first-­millennium knowledge and creative adaptation of tales like this in Israel and Judah. The book of Ezekiel makes reference to a figure Daniel (Ezek 14:14, 20; 28:3), who is not the character of the book of Daniel, but a paradigmatically wise traditional figure, similar to Job and Noah. Because Daniel was Aqhat’s father in the Ugaritic tale, the Ezekiel verses may indicate that a version of this tale was known in middle of the first millennium. Some passages outside the Pentateuch show a familiarity with the deliberations of the divine council similar to El’s consultation of the gods for help in curing sick Kirta (1 Kings 22:19–23; Isa 6:8–12; KTU 1.16 v 10–vi 14). Other biblical passages indicate that Hebrew scribes were familiar with aspects of Canaanite lore (Isa 27:1; 51:9; Ps 74:13–14; Job 26:12; 40:25). The use of Canaanite myth in the condemnation of the king of Babylon in Isa 14:4–21 shows the contemporary life of such material and that an author could

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   383 c­reatively transform such to work in an Israelite theological context. Further, ­father-­tale motifs are blended into J’s primordial history (Gen 4:1–16; 9:20–27). That this text is perhaps influenced by Mesopotamian literature in the first millennium (see below) suggests this as a formative period for aspects of the Pentateuch’s patriarchal tales more broadly. It is possible, then, that some contemporary first millennium ­non-­Israelite ­stories, similar to Kirta and Aqhat, fed into the telling of the biblical patriarchal tales. Nevertheless, the theory that suggests itself—in view of the lack of clear evidence other­wise—is that the biblical patriarchal tales evolved from a genre of story extant in the late second millennium bce, to which Ugaritic tales also belong. The biblical and Ugaritic stories are thus be independent, parallel exemplars. The biblical stories in par­ ticular grew from this genre as it was maintained from the second millennium into the first millennium. A significant difference in the biblical tales is they are not delimited stories about pious individuals and their relationship with the deity, as is the case in their Ugaritic cousins, but are complexly concatenated to construct a genealogical prelude to the birth of the nation. The motif of promise, which is central to the Ugaritic stories and hence fundamental to the genre that inspires the biblical tales, appears to have been a catalyst for this linking of the patriarchal stories. In the Ugaritic stories, the promises are directed to the immediate needs of the father. In Aqhat, Daniel petitions the deities. Baal observes that Daniel has no son and informs the high god El. El then blesses Daniel (KTU 1.17 i 34–43): El took [the cup] servant, he blessed [Danie]l, . . . he invigorated the hero . . .: “By my life, may Daniel . . . live, . . . he shall mount his bed [and lie do]wn, by kissing his wife [there will be conception], by embracing her there will be pregnancy. . . . Let there be a son [in (his) house], a scion in the midst of his palace.”

El’s blessing of Kirta has a broader scope. It promises multiple children, including a dynastic heir, Yassib (KTU 1.15 ii 16–28): [El] took (his) cup [in] (his) hand. . . . He blessed [his servant], El blessed Kirta [the magnificent, he invigo]rated the grac[ious one] . . . (saying): “The w[ife that you have married, Kirta, the wife you have taken into your house, the lass you have brought into your court, she will bear seven sons for you, even eight she will prod­ uce for you. She will bear the boy Yassib, who will suck the milk of Athtart, draw on the breast of maiden [Anat], the wet nurses [of the gods].”

The various pentateuchal sources or strata have promises about the son who will be the immediate heir. They expand the promises in two ways: they guarantee numerous descendants in the future and a land in which they will live (see Baden 2013, for detail on the promises in the sources). The promises to Abraham can be taken as an example. Scholarship broadly agrees that Gen 17 belongs to P. This complex story of the deity

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

384   David P. Wright making a covenant with Abraham begins with the promise of numerous descendants followed by the promise of the land (vv. 2–8): I will establish my covenant between me and you. I will make you very numerous. . . . . . . You will be a father of a throng of nations. . . . 7I will preserve my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. . . . 8 I will give you and your descendants after you the land to which you have immigrated. . . . 2

4

P fills the logical gap between the extended promise and Abraham’s lack of an apparent heir by announcing the birth of Isaac in v. 19. The non-­P promises in Gen 12–13, 16, and 18 cohere and belong, it can be argued, to the J documentary source. They are integral to that independent story. Early on Abraham is promised numerous posterity and renown (12:2–3). I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your fame great—you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you and curse the one who curses you. All the clans of the land will be blessed by virtue of you. . . .

2

As Abraham begins his travels in Canaan the promise of the land is added (12:7), and the full promise is prominently stated in 13:14–17 as he tours the land: All the land which you see I will give you and your descendants forever. 16I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, such that if one could count the dust of the land, so shall your descendants be numbered.

15

After it is made clear that Abraham’s son by Hagar is not in line to inherit this promise (16:4–14), the promise of the true and immediate heir is given in the story of Gen 18 (vv. 9–15). The promises in Gen 15 are not at home in the surrounding P or J material. While it could be argued that these are additions to the J text or a combined P and J text, they resonate with themes in the body and context of CC in Exodus 20–23. The promise in Gen 15:13–16 reflects a combination of elements from thematically prom­ inent laws in CC: from the first casuistic law, on debt-­slavery (Exod 21:2), and from the first laws in the two parallel passages of CC’s final apodictic laws (Exod 22:20, 22; 23:9; Wright 2009, 52–56). Gen 15 and CC’s narrative also describe the performance of a covenant ceremony (Gen 15:9–18; Exod 24:3–8). These passages share a similar outline and the rites feature unusual procedures using animal parts or products (see further below on CC). Another correlation is the self-­identification of the deity in Gen 15:7, similar to that at the beginning of the Decalogue (Exod 20:2), which is part of CC’s narrative context (see below). Thus Gen 15 belongs to CC’s narrative. In classical documentary analysis this may be identified as E (see Baden  2013, ­ 188–191n100).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   385 Gen 15 begins with an announcement of an immediate heir (vv. 1–4) followed by a promise of numerous descendants (v. 5). The deity says: 4 That one shall not be your heir but rather one that comes from your own body shall be your heir. 5Look up to the sky and count the stars if you can count them . . . thus will be your offspring!

Abraham is later promised the land (v. 7), which is guaranteed by performance of the covenant ceremony, where the deity puts himself under covenant obligation to fulfill the promise (vv. 8–17): He (the deity) said to him: “I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans [perhaps read here: your father’s house, cf. 20:13], to give you this land as an ­inheritance.” . . . 13He said to Abram: “Know that your descendants will be immi­ grants in a land not theirs, and they will be enslaved and afflicted four hundred years. 14But the nation for which they will labor I will judge, after which they will go free with great wealth. . . . 16(In) the fourth generation they shall return here, because the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet come to term. . . .” 18At that time Yahweh made a covenant with Abraham as follows: “I hereby have given this land to your descendants, . . .” 7

Though these promises and the larger passage exhibit some redactional expansion, some of their complexity derives from a simultaneous interweaving of thematic elem­ ents from the context of CC and maybe even sources that influenced CC (note the release of slaves in fourth year in LH 117, the presumed basis for Exod 21:2). A question that remains for comparative analysis of the Genesis stories—whether viewed as blended documentary sources or a redactionally expanded text—is whether they independently draw from the Syro-­Canaanite father-­tale genre or whether later pentateuchal documents or strata build on earlier ones, though still perhaps supple­ mented by motifs from the non-­biblical father-­tale genre (for considerations, see Baden 2012a, 188–192; Wright 2015).

The Covenant Code The Covenant Code (Exod 20:23–23:19), in contrast to the patriarchal tales, provides a case where correlations with Near Eastern literature are more exact, dense, and intricate and also point to a specific chronology. A number of its laws are close to those found in the Laws of Hammurabi (for translations, see Roth 1997, 71–142; for the casuistic laws see COS 2:335–353). CC also shares other themes and organizational patterning with that text, and CC’s contextualizing narrative has echoes with Mesopotamian literature and customs. While some studies limit the observable similarities between CC and LH and

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

386   David P. Wright adopt a traditions or even an independent-­origins model for CC (cf. Otto  2010; Wells 2006), the broader evidence points to dependence on LH and other Mesopotamian literature and ideas in the late Neo-­Assyrian period (Wright 2009). The densest correlations between CC and LH are in the assault and homicide laws of Exod 21:18–32 and LH 196–201, 206–210, 250–252. In a review of the evidence, Morrow (2013) says it is reasonable to claim that at least these verses in CC are dependent in some way on LH. These verses appear to have recast the laws through a process of her­men­eut­ic­al innovation, and this points to an intimate knowledge of the source text. The laws on mis­ carriage and talion (21:22–27) at the heart of this passage in CC provides an in­struct­ive example. CC’s miscarriage laws (vv. 22–25) parallel the two laws of LH 209–210 (­similar wording and concepts between the various passages as discussed below are emphasized). Exod 21:22–25: If men struggle and they knock a pregnant woman and her fetus comes out but there is no calamity, he shall be fined as the husband of the woman exacts from him and he shall pay bpllm [read perhaps bnplm, “for the fetus”].

22

If there is calamity, you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, arm for arm, leg for leg, 25 burn for burn, injury for injury, wound for wound. 23

LH 209–210: If a man strikes a daughter of a man (mārat awīlim) and he causes her to miscarry her fetus, he shall weigh out ten shekels of silver for her fetus. 209

210

If that woman dies, they shall kill his daughter.

CC’s major change was eliminating the penalty of vicarious punishment in LH 210 and replacing it with a summary of Hammurabi’s nearby talion laws (LH 196–201): 196 If an awīlum (a free man) blinds the eye of a member of the awīlum class, they shall blind his eye.

If he breaks the bone of an awīlum, they shall break his bone.

197

198 If he blinds the eye of a commoner or breaks the bone of a commoner, he shall weigh out one mina (sixty shekels) of silver.

If he blinds the eye of an awīlum’s slave or breaks the bone of an awīlum’s slave, he shall weigh out half of his value. 199

If an awīlum knocks out the tooth of an awīlum of the same rank, they shall knock out his tooth.

200

If he knocks out the tooth of a commoner, he shall weigh out one third mina (twenty shekels) of silver.

201

CC changed the modality of intentional assault implicit in LH 209–210 into inadvertent assault by adding the motif of fighting in v. 22. This motif was taken from the laws on

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   387 inadvertent assault in LH 206–208, which immediately precede Hammurabi’s miscar­ riage laws: “If a man strikes another man in a fight . . .” (LH 206). This allowed CC to write the talion addendum in vv. 23b–25 with an additional goal in mind, to serve as a general law applying to all cases of homicide and injury. This fleshed out the homicide law of 21:12–14, which was left incomplete. It prescribes capital punishment for inten­ tional homicide, but says nothing about the obligation an unintentional killer has. CC’s talion law, following the precedent of LH 206–207, provided that an inadvertent killer or injurer must pay indemnification. That this refers to payment is indicated by the root ntn “to give,” which is used for payment in the companion law of 21:22 as well as in 21:19, 30, 32. Giving a life for a life, eye for an eye, and so forth allows the payment amount to vary depending on context (similar to the variable fines in 21:22, 30). CC, however, retained full casuistic formulation for its laws on talion injuries pertain­ ing to slaves that immediately follow in vv. 26–27, which parallel LH 199, 201 (cited above): If a man strikes the eye of his male slave or the eye of his female slave and destroys it, he shall send him away free for his eye. 26

And if he knocks out the tooth of his male slave or the tooth of his female slave, he shall send him away free for his tooth.

27

These laws, dealing with members of a lower social class, presume a set up by laws about similar injuries to free persons. The makeshift talion list in vv. 23b–25 pertains to free persons, and so provides that setup. That the slave laws in vv. 26–27 continue the context of vv. 23b–25, but have nothing to do with miscarriage, is further proof that vv. 23b–25 also operate as a general law for all cases of homicide and injury. If the substantial block of assault and homicide laws (21:18–32) in the heart of CC’s casuistic legislation depends on LH, as the foregoing sample shows, then it is reasonable to conclude that other casuistic laws in CC that have correlations with LH are also dependent on LH. These include laws on debt-­slavery (Exod 21:2–11; LH 117, 148–149, 154–156, 282), various capital crimes (Exod 21:12–17; LH 14, 192–195, 207), animal theft (Exod 21:37–22:3; LH 253–266), animal grazing (Exod 22:4; LH 57–58), deposit (Exod 22:6–8; LH 122–126), animal predation (Exod 22:9–12; LH 266–267), and animal rental (Exod 22:13–14; LH 244–249, 268–271). Some of these cases show complexity in appar­ ently using sources in addition to LH. Nevertheless, they all point to the fact that CC has used sources, primarily LH. The argument may be extended further. If the majority of CC’s casuistic laws are thus broadly dependent on LH, then the similarities that CC’s apodictic laws have with LH may also have been driven by that source. These similarities include the placement of the apodictic laws (20:24–21:1 and 22:20–23:19) around the casuistic laws (21:2–22:19) as bookends. This matches the ABA pattern of Hammurabi’s larger text: prologue–­casuistic laws–epilogue. The thematic structure of the initial and particularly the final apodictic laws also correlates with a section of exhortations in Hammurabi’s epilogue on the t­ opics of caring for the weak members of society, speaking about sovereigns, the cult, and

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

388   David P. Wright j­ustice (cols. 47:59–48:94). The injunctive formulation of the apodictic laws broadly matches the injunctive style of the exhortations in the epilogue. Furthermore, the outer sections of both texts are the places where the personalities of the deities are on full dis­ play, in contrast to the limited appearance of deities in the casuistic laws. It is in these parts of the text where CC manifests its primary contextual hermeneutical trans­form­ ation: the replacement of the Mesopotamian king with Israel’s deity as lawgiver. The contrasting theological perspectives in the two genres of CC is not due to redactional growth, but from the imitation of its source. That CC is dependent on LH is buttressed by evidence from Exod 23:20–33, the appendix to CC, which concludes the law revelation to Moses (Wright 2016). This pas­ sage fits like a puzzle piece in the thematic exposition of Hammurabi’s epilogue, begun in CC’s final apodictic laws. The blessings that the appendix holds out for the people as they conquer their land correlate inversely with several of the curses in Hammurabi’s concluding maledictions. At the same time, the appendix reflects themes found in Assyrian royal inscriptions, including the deity or his avatar going before the people or army, the shocking effect of the divine presence, and conquest of foreign land. The rea­ son why royal inscriptions could be tapped to help construct the appendix is that LH itself is a royal inscription. These inscriptions often end with the same thematic elements found in the epilogue: counsel to a future ruler, blessings for obedience, and curses for disobedience. The structure and themes of LH presumably opened the door for CC’s formulators to bring in political and military themes from royal inscriptions. This appendix, along with motifs in the apodictic laws that refer to narrative events, indicate that CC was composed in connection with a narrative. In the immediate con­ text of CC, this included a story about a theophany at the mountain (presumably 19:­2b–9a, 16aβγb, 18aβ*bβ, 17, 19), the revelation of the Decalogue (20:1–17), the people’s reaction of fear (20:18–22a), CC itself (20:22b–23:19), its appendix (20:20–23:33), and a subse­ quent covenant ceremony (24:3–8, 11bβ). As discussed above, the portrayal of covenant and other themes in Gen 15 relates to CC and its narrative, thus making Gen 15 a candi­ date for inclusion in the CC narrative. The descriptions of the two covenant ceremonies feature symbolic acts performed with slaughtered animals and may be inspired by Mesopotamian custom. Indirect descriptions of Neo-­Assyrian treaty ceremony in the eighth and seventh centuries bce include the mutilation of animal carcasses to symbol­ ize analogically the penalty for treaty violation (Ashurnirari V and Mati’ilu Treaty i 10–35 [Parpola and Watanabe 1988, 8–9, text 2; ANET 532–533]; Sefire Inscription I A 35–42 [COS 2:214; ANET 660]; Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty §§69–70 [Parpola and Watanabe 1988, 52; ANET 539]). This type of symbolism also appears in the covenant ceremony of Jer 34:18–20. Gen 15 inverts the symbolism, not unlike how CC replaces Hammurabi with Yahweh, by having the deity enact the penalty. This rhetorically emphasizes the guarantee of the promise. The sprinkling of blood on the people in Exod 24:3–8, a unique performance in biblical sacrificial practice, may also analogically illus­ trate the penalty for covenant violation. The foregoing evidence indicates that CC and its associated narrative was broadly and significantly influenced by Mesopotamian literature and practices, specifically

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   389 those associated with Mesopotamian royal power and its legacy: the Laws of Hammurabi, royal inscriptions, and treaty ritual. The story about Moses’s birth and rescue in a basket on the Nile (Exod 2:1–10) may be patterned after the story of Sargon of Agade (cf. Otto  2000; COS 1:461) and may be part of CC’s narrative (cf. Baden  2012b). This would provide another example of the integration of Mesopotamian royal motifs. These various source influences plus the dependence of D on CC (D belongs to the mid- to latter half of the seventh century bce; see below) point to a date for CC in the range of 710–650 bce. The use of motifs from Assyrian royal inscriptions in First Isaiah supports this chronology (Aster  2012, 204–256; Berlejung 2012, 31–33; Machinist 1983). The fragments of tablets with laws written in Akkadian from Hazor from the Middle Bronze period (Horowitz, Oshima, and Vukosavoviċ 2012), which might point to CC’s use of legal t­ raditions from second mil­ lennium Syria-­Canaan, do not have specific correlations with LH or CC and cannot account for the detail of correlations with LH or other Mesopotamian sources and customs.

Deuteronomy Most of Deuteronomy’s laws build on or respond in some way to sources, local and international. As noted earlier, it recasts some of the laws from CC (e.g. Levinson 1998; Wright 2009, 506–507, see also 110–115). Another source that D used was Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty (EST; for a translation see Parpola and Watanabe 1988, 28–58). Though some analyses are hesitant about this connection (see Quick 2017 and Crouch and Hutton 2019), the correlations are significant and point to textual dependence (for discussion and bibliography, see Levinson and Stackert 2012, 2013). The chief cor­rel­ ations are found in D’s laws on loyalty to Yahweh in Deut 13 and a section of curses in Deut 28. Two of the three cases of apostasy described in Deut 13 correlate with obligations of loyalty in EST. Deuteronomy 13: If there arises in your midst a prophet or dream-­dreamer . . . 3. . . saying “Let us follow after other gods . . .,” 4do not listen to words of that prophet or ­dream-­dreamer. . . . 5You shall follow after Yahweh your God. . . . 6That prophet or dream-­dreamer shall be put to death because he spoke rebellion against Yahweh your God. . . . 7 If your brother, son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife of your lap, or your fellow of equal status incites you secretly saying, “Let us go and worship other gods . . .,” 9you shall not agree with him or listen to him. Do not show him pity or compassion and do not conceal the matter for him. 10You shall slay him. . . . 2

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

390   David P. Wright Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty (Parpola and Watanabe 1988, 33–34): §10 If you hear any evil, improper, ugly word which is not seemly nor good to Assurbanipal . . . from the mouth of your brothers, your sons, your daughters, or from the mouth of a prophet, ecstatic, an inquirer of oracles, or from the mouth of any human being at all, you shall not conceal it but come and report it to Assurbanipal. §12 If anyone should speak to you of rebellion and insurrection (with the purpose) of ki[lling], assassinating, and eliminating Assurbanipal . . . or if you should hear it from the mouth of anyone, you shall seize the perpetrators of insurrection, and bring them before Assurbanipal. . .. If you are able to seize them and put them to death, then you shall destroy their name and their seed from the land.

D’s major hermeneutical ploy was to shift obligations of loyalty from the human king to the deity. The correlations between Deut 28 and EST are mainly in the curses of vv. 20–44. The correlations between Deut 28:26–33 and EST §§39–42, shown below, are particularly noteworthy because they follow almost the same sequence. Deut 28:26–30, 33: Your carcasses will be food for all the fowl of the sky and animals of the earth . . . Yahweh will strike you with the rot of Egypt, boils, leprosy, and itching from which you cannot recover. 28 Yahweh will strike you with madness, blindness, and disorientation, 29such that you will grope around at noonday just as a blind person gropes around in the dark . . . 30 You will betroth a woman but another man will copulate with her, you will build a house but not dwell in it . . . 33A people whom you do not know will eat the fruit of your land and all your produce. . . . 26 27

EST §§41– 42: §39 May Sin, the brightness of heaven and earth, clothe you with leprosy and forbid your entering into the presence of the gods or king. . . . §40 May Shamash...remove your eyesight. Walk about in darkness! §41 May Ninurta . . . fill the plain with your blood and feed your flesh to the eagle and the vultures. §42 May Venus . . . before your eyes make your wives lie in the lap of your enemy; may your sons not take possession of your house, but (let) a strange enemy divide your goods.

The order of the paragraphs in EST follows the hierarchy and grouping of Mesopotamian gods with their associated curses (Weinfeld 1972, 116–129; Levinson and Stackert 2012,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   391 129–130). D has erased the Mesopotamian gods or converted their agency to Yahweh, such that the curses appear to have a random order. Other correspondences between the curses of D and EST reinforce the argument for textual dependence: Deut 28:20//EST §37 (short life); v. 21//§49 (plague); v. 23–24//§63–64 (drought with iron land and copper sky); v. 25//§48 (military defeat); v. 35//§52 (incurable sores); vv. 38, 42//§47, 85 (locusts); v. 53//§47 (eating one’s children). D’s use of EST shows that it is closely related to CC’s scribal school and probably to be seen as its successor. D’s main connection to CC is demonstrated in its using CC as a major source. D’s use of EST also employs the methods and perspectives that CC used in its formulation. D continued CC’s strategy of taking up Mesopotamian texts that reflect royal interests to create Israelite legislation. In doing this it maintained CC’s her­men­eut­ic of replacing the Mesopotamian king with Yahweh. Thus D could reorient obligations of loyalty to Israel’s God. D’s interest in treaty for legal formula­ tion also followed the precedent of CC, especially to contextualize the nation’s ­commitment to law as based on covenant (e.g., Deut 28 and the form of D as a whole). D went further, however, by using treaty obligations as the basis of specific laws (Deut 13). D was also interested in Mesopotamian royal curse formulary, though its focus was on the curses in treaty, while CC’s attention was on the curses in the epilogue of LH, which it conceptually inverted to chart blessings for the people as they conquer their land. D’s use of EST postdates 672 bce, the date of EST, but most reasonably occurred still within the period that the Neo-­Assyrian Empire exerted dominance, until about 630 bce. The recent find of a copy of EST at Tell Tayinat (modern southeast Turkey; Lauinger 2012), which in antiquity was put on display in a temple, shows that the text was known in the western domain of Assyrian power and had public political signifi­ cance. If a copy was not similarly displayed in Jerusalem, one may have been exhibited and its obligations articulated at the administrative center to which Judean officials brought tribute, thus providing an opportunity for learning of the document’s content (Levinson and Stackert 2013, 320–323). The positions of the main passages based on EST (Deut 13 and 28:20–44) within the larger context of D make them appear to be somewhat secondary. At the same time, while these passages do not use CC as a source, they employ the scribal perspectives and techniques of CC, as noted above. Therefore, they belong to the process whereby D cre­ ated new laws based on CC and belong to the basic fabric of D. The date of CC, which seems to be about 710–650 bce based on data apart from D, along with the proximity and affinity of D and the CC scribal schools, also support dating D’s laws based on CC to somewhere in the mid-­seventh century. That D may incorporate treaty motifs attested in other older Near Eastern documents does not alter this basic chronological picture. The CC scribal school already provided a precedent for working with and thinking about treaty traditions predating EST. Thus CC (and its larger narrative) and D, as a temporally adjacent and scribal-­culturally interlocked pair of documents which both fit securely in a Neo-­Assyrian context, provide

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

392   David P. Wright a backbone for pentateuchal chronology. Their use of texts and customs associated with Mesopotamian royal power, furthermore, is part of a common pattern and strategy to enunciate national identity in the face of international power.

J’s Primordial History Gen 1–11 consists of P and non-­P (the latter identifiable as J) materials, both of which have resonances with Near Eastern and in particular Mesopotamian literature (see Hendel  2005; Hess and Tsumura  1994; Rendsburg  2007; Sparks  2005, 339–341; Hays 2014, 41–96). Of the two blocks, J has the more immediately visible correlations with Mesopotamian literature, and the focus here will be on these. These are generally explained as coming from traditions from second millennium Syria-­Canaan, as out­ lined above for traditions that informed the patriarchal tales. However, first-­millennium contemporary influence from Mesopotamian literature and culture on CC, its narrative, and D suggests that a similar solution might operate in the case of J’s primordial history. This example is raised primarily as an open-­ended test case to highlight some of the comparative evidence that requires more complete examination. J’s main correlations are with the Standard Babylonian (SB) version of the Gilgamesh Epic (for translations, see George 2003, 1:531–741 [see also his commentary 1:508–28]; Dalley 1989, 39–135). These are clearest between J’s flood story (Gen 6:1–8; 7:1–4, [5?], 7:8abα [a verb governing the list here is to be restored, e.g., “he took for himself ”], 10, 12, 16b, 17a, 23; 8:2b, 3a, 6, 8–12, 13b, 20–22; the other material in Gen 6:1–9:17 is P; see Wright  2015) and tablet XI of SB Gilgamesh, in which the Mesopotamian Noah, ­Uta-­napishti, recounts the story of the flood to Gilgamesh. J’s correlations include abnormal population growth (Gen 6:1–4, cf. v. 5; SB Gilgamesh XI 188–195), inflicting a penalty like the flood on one who is guilty (6:5–7; XI 183–186), the piety and obedience of the Noah figure (6:8; 7:1, 5; XI 32–33), taking family and ­animals on the ark (7:1–4; XI 27, 84–86), a command to board the ark (7:1; XI 89), a seven-­day wait for the flood (7:4, 10; XI 48–97; see George 2003, 1:514), rain as the source of flood (7:4, 12; XI 43–47, 88, 91, 98–113, 128–129), a delimited period for the length of flood (forty days in 7:4, 12, 17; 8:6; a week in XI 128–133; see George 2003, 1:515–516), opening a hatch at the end of the flood (8:6; XI 137), sending out three sorties of birds, where the first returns and the last does not (8:8–12; XI 148–156), a concluding offering to the gods (8:20–22; XI 157–163), and a promise by the deity (8:21b–22; XI 167). ­Uta-­napishti’s speech relates the last several motifs, as follows (from George 2003, 1:713–715): (147–67) When the seventh day arrived—I brought out a dove, setting it free . . . no perch was available . . . and it came back. . . . I brought out a swallow. . . . No perch was available . . . and it came back. . . . I brought out a raven . . . , it saw the waters receding . . . , it did not come back to me. I brought out an offering and sacrificed. . . . The gods smelled the savour, . . . the sweet savour . . ., the gods gathered like flies around the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   393 sacrificer. As soon as Bēlet-­ilī arrived she lifted aloft the great flies [a necklace] . . . (and said) “O gods, let these be lapis lazuli (beads) around my neck so that I remember these days and never forget them!”

A reason for thinking the Gilgamesh Epic is the primary influence, and not another text such as Atrahasis, which also contains a version of the flood story (translations in Lambert and Millard 1969; Dalley 1989, 1–38), is that J has other resonances with the Gilgamesh Epic. These are found mainly between its stories about the creation of humans and the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:4b–3:24) and the creation and taming of Enkidu (SB Gilgamesh I). In the latter, the gods instruct Aruru to create Enkidu, to counter the boisterous arrogance of Gilgamesh (George 2003, 1:545). (101–110) Aruru washed her hands, she took a pinch of clay, she threw it down in the wild. In the wild she created Enkidu, . . . All his body is matted with hair . . . he knows not at all a people nor even a country. He was . . . feeding on grass with the very gazelles.

A hunter complains to Gilgamesh that Enkidu’s behavior is spoiling his livelihood. Gilgamesh tells him to take the harlot Shamhat out to him to seduce the wild man. The hunter does so, whereupon Shamhat engages Enkidu sexually for six days and seven nights. The text then explains (George 2003, 1:549–551): (195–210) After he was sated with her delights, he turned his face toward his herd. The gazelles saw Enkidu and they started running, the animals of the wild moved away from his person. Enkidu had defiled his body so pure. . . . Enkidu was dimin­ ished, but he had reason, he [was] wide of understanding. He came back and sat down at the feet of the harlot. . . . (She) said to him . . . “You are handsome, Enkidu, you are just like a god. . . .”

In the Enkidu episode broadly J’s correlations include creation of the man from the ground (Gen 2:7; 3:19; Gilgamesh I 102); the initial association of the created man with the animals (2:18–23; I 109–160), sexual activity (2:25; 3:5–8, 11; I 162–166, 180–194; sym­ bolically and circumstantially alluded to in the biblical text), civilizing through eating (3:1–7; II 36–51), postcoital estrangement from the animals (2:23; 3:6–7; I 162, 187, ­195–200), an increase of wisdom and knowledge (3:5–7; I 201–202; II 32, 59), becoming “like the god(s)” (3:5, 22; I 207), and clothing after sex (3:7, 21; II 34–35). It is also significant that Enkidu is created to be a companion to Gilgamesh, and is compared to being a wife in dream symbolism by his mother (I 246–73; confirmed by a parallel second dream in I 273a–98; George 2003, 1:555): (263–272) The stars of heaven [appeared] before you (Gilgameš), [like a] lump of rock from the sky one fell toward you. . . . You picked it up and set it down at my feet, and I, I made it your equal, you loved it like a wife, caressing and embracing it. A mighty companion will come to you. . . . You will love him like a wife, caressing and embrac­ ing him.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

394   David P. Wright J’s story mirrors this in describing the first woman as a counterpart and actual sexual partner of the first man (2:18, 20, 21–23). J’s Eden tale has further correlations with the narrative following Uta-­napishti’s account of the flood to Gilgamesh. After the flood the hero and his wife are blessed with immortality and, as such, are described by Enlil as being “like us, the gods” (SB Gilgamesh XI 199–204). In J, while the couple become like the gods in knowledge, the deity prevents them from becoming more fully divine by obtaining immortality (Gen 3:22–24). After being given immortality, Uta-­napishti and his wife are relocated to a far away place “at the mouth of the rivers” (XI 205–206). In J the man, while not yet liable to death (cf. 2:17), is placed in the garden in Eden, whence the world rivers originate (2:9–16). Both stories also describe plants of immortality. In Gilgamesh, Uta-­napishti tells the hero about an aquatic plant whose ingestion grants life (XI 279–307). In J’s story eating of the Tree of Life potentially provides immortality (3:22, 24). A snake appears in con­ nection with the vegetation of the two stories. After Gilgamesh gets the plant of immor­ tality, a snake steals it and rejuvenates by molting (XI 305–306). In J the snake appears as advocate of eating the pleasing fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (3:1–5). That the snake is the wisest of all animals (v. 1) and can give testimony about the effects of the fruit (vv. 4–5) perhaps hints that the narrative presumes the snake had himself already ingested it. Though the main correlations are with Gilgamesh, J has resonances with other Mesopotamian texts or perspectives. The method of creating the first man also has par­ allels in Atrahasis (I 203–58), the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish (VI 1–36; Lambert 2013, 110–113, and see 221–224, 455–456, 504–506; Dalley 1989, 228–277), and the Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninmah (I 24–32; Lambert 2013, 336–337), where the first humans are made from clay infused with divine flesh and blood to enliven it or from just divine flesh and blood (cf. Gen 2:7). The purpose for creating the man and woman in J is to work for the deity (Gen 2:15), the purpose for the creation of humans in Mesopotamian texts (Atrahasis I 190–197, 240–241, 339; Enuma Elish VI 7–8, 34, 36; Enki and Ninmah I 23, 30–31). The rivers of Eden, which include the Tigris and Euphrates (2:11–14), associate the story with a Mesopotamian context. J’s genealogies include Mesopotamian locales as an early location of civilization (10:8–12). The story of the Tower of Babel at the end of J’s primordial history (11:1–9) explicitly reflects Mesopotamian motifs. Besides being located in the land of Babylonia (=Babel), the tower is generally seen as reflecting a Mesopotamian ziggurat or temple tower. This story also has a correlation in the SB Gilgamesh Epic. The very beginning and end of the main work celebrate Gilgamesh’s grand building project, the wall of Uruk, which is described in relation to the larger architectural design of the city, including the temple of Ishtar (I 11–28; XI 322–328). This is described as built with brick work (libittu) of kiln fired clay bricks (agurru; I 20; XI 325). This is precisely the building material for J’s tower (Gen 11:3). This rough cast of the evidence suggests that the J stories are primarily related to the Gilgamesh Epic, though other elements from Mesopotamian literature and culture were also incorporated. That these motifs derive from traditions going back to second

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   395 ­ illennium Syria-­Canaan may find support in the existence of versions and paraphrases m of Gilgamesh and related texts from the second millennium in Syria-­Canaan (see George 2003, 1:24–27, 306–347; cf. Lambert and Millard 1969, 131–133). This sort of the­ ory would allow for positing a very complex and perhaps unrecoverable development of the motifs in J and even in Gilgamesh (cf. Abusch 2005), whereby J, by an independent path, ends up with a number of correlations with the Gilgamesh Epic. But the likely influence of Mesopotamian sources and ideas on CC and D shows that a model of influence during a time of Mesopotamia political influence in the first millen­ nium should also be considered. Preoccupation with Mesopotamia as a cradle of civ­il­ iza­tion in J’s Gen 1–11 makes sense as a reflex of Mesopotamian domination. In addition, J’s correlations, as noted, are mainly with the Standard Babylonian version of Gilgamesh Epic. This version added the flood story and framed the whole work with description of the walls of Uruk. Though likely created about the thirteenth century bce, it is mainly and well attested in manuscripts from the Neo-­Assyrian period onward (George 2003, 1:23–33, 509; esp. pp. 25, 32, 509 for the flood story; Abusch 2001, 615n3, 617–618). It can be speculated that, to create its story, J in some cases paraphrased from the Epic (e.g. for the flood story). In other cases, J blended motifs from the Epic with other traditions. For example, it may have infused a local or western creation-­Eden story, perhaps similar to that in in Ezek 28:11–19 and which lacks clear correlations with Gilgamesh, with motifs from the Enkidu and Uta-­napishti episodes of tablets I and XI. Overall, J may have sought to mimic the Epic broadly, telling a story about the creation of man and his female companion, their relation to the animal world, original immortality in the land of the rivers, eventual mortality, the flood, and the folly of human architectural projects in Mesopotamia. The purpose may have been to create a counter-­cultural prelude to its story of national origins.

Conclusion Scholarship has tended to adopt a traditions model to explain correlations found between the Pentateuch and Near Eastern literature, including those with Mesopotamian litera­ ture. The reasons for this include: 1.   A judgment that the correlations are not close enough to indicate direct borrowing. 2.   The many differences between the compared texts. These are taken as an index of chronological distance and intervening development. 3.  A judgment that a contemporary influence model is too simplistic. It cannot be assumed that we happen to have in our possession the particular documents that influenced biblical texts. 4.  Dating of pentateuchal texts prior to the Neo-­Assyrian period on the basis of other evidence. This requires similarities with Mesopotamian texts to be explained

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

396   David P. Wright by going back to the next latest period when Mesopotamian culture could have been influential, i.e., before c.1200 bce. 5. Correlations of a passage or corpus with a variety of non-­biblical texts along with the complexity of the pentateuchal passages and texts. This makes the simi­lar­ities appear to be the result of a confluence of developing traditions. 6. Correlations of pentateuchal texts with non-­biblical texts attested only in the sec­ ond millennium. This suggests that the point of originating contact is in that early period. 7.  Traditional influence from the second millennium in other areas, such as ­maintenance of Syro-­Canaanite religious ideas and genres. 8. The ease of adopting a traditions model. It generally does not require rigorous proof and is used as an explanation of first resort until compelling evidence appears otherwise. The examples discussed above, however, indicate there is strong evidence pointing to contemporary cultural and textual influence. This includes the specific correlations between particular texts, as in CC’s miscarriage and talion laws, and the larger common tendencies, such as the hermeneutical techniques shared by the CC and D scribal schools or the adoption by various sources or strata of motifs from international litera­ ture to construct stories of Israel’s origins. Though evidence for transmission in a con­ temporary influence model is circumstantial (e.g. Wright  2009, 16–28, 91–120), a traditions model to be equally powerful ultimately needs to be fleshed out to explain the details of the observed correlations and the specifics of transmission over a number of centuries and across ethnic and linguistic barriers. It also has to address the problem of coincidence: that second millennium traditions, similar to those in some of the great documents of ancient Mesopotamia, were independently passed on and set down in texts just before or during a time of political domination by Mesopotamia in the middle of the first millennium and in a form that happens to look like, in several cases, a reflex of Mesopotamian hegemony and influence.

Suggested Reading For methodology in determining textual relationships and dependence, see Hays (2014); Leonard (2008); Malul (1990); Sparks (2005); Wells (2006); Zevit (2017), Wright (2009). For hermeneutical innovation in dependent texts, see Levinson (1998, 2008), Wright (2009). For different views about Near Eastern influences on the Covenant Code, see Hays (2014: 212–145); Malul (1990); Morrow (2013); Otto (2010); Wright (2009, 2016). For Deuteronomy’s d ­ ependence on the Covenant Code see Levinson (1998) and for Deuteronomy’s dependence on Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty see the distinctive views of Levinson and Stackert (2012, 2013) versus Crouch and Hutton 2019 and Quick 2017. For similarities of Genesis 1–11 with the Gilgamesh Epic, see Hendel (2005); Hays (2014: 75–96); Hess and Tsumura (1994); Rendsburg (2007). For influences of Neo-­Assyrian royal inscriptions and related literature on biblical literature, see Aster (2012); Berjelung (2012); Machinist (1983); Otto (2010); Wright (2016).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Literature   397

Works Cited Abusch, T. 2001. “The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An Interpretive Essay.” JAOS 121:614–622. Abusch, T. 2005. “The Courtesan, The Wild Man and The Hunter: Studies in the Literary History of the Epic of Gilgamesh.” In An Experienced Scribe Who Neglects Nothing: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Jacob Klein, edited by Y. Sefati, 413–433. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Aster, S. Z. 2012. The Unbeatable Light: Melammu and Its Biblical Parallels. AOAT 384. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Baden, J. S. 2012a. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. New Haven: Yale University Press. Baden, J. S. 2012b. “From Joseph to Moses: The Narratives of Exodus 1–2.” VT 62:133–158. Baden, J. S. 2013. The Promise to the Patriarchs. New York: Oxford University Press. Berlejung, A. 2012. “The Assyrians in the West: Assyrianization, Colonialism, Indifference, or Development Policy?” In Congress Volume, Helsinki, 2010, edited by M. Nissinen, 21–60. Leiden: Brill. Crouch, C. L and Hutton, J. M. 2019. Translating Empire: Tell Fekheriyeh, Deuteronomy, and the Akkadian Treaty Tradition. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Dalley, S. 1989. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press. George, A.  R. 2003. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hays, C. B. 2014. Hidden Riches: A Sourcebook for the Comparative Study of the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Hendel, R. 2005. “Genesis 1–11 and Its Mesopotamian Problem.” In Cultural Borrowings and Ethnic Appropriations in Antiquity, edited by E. S. Gruen, 23–36. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Hess, R. S., and D. T. Tsumura, eds. 1994. “I Studied Inscriptions from before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis 1– 11. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Horowitz, W., T. Oshima, and F. Vukosavoviċ. 2012. “Hazor 18: Fragments of a Cuneiform Law Collection from Hazor.” IEJ 62:158–176. Lambert, W. G. 2013. Babylonian Creation Myths. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Lambert, W. G., and A. R. Millard. 1969. Atraḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lauinger, J. 2012. “Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty at Tell Tayinat: Text and Commentary.” JCS 64:87–123. Leonard, J. M. 2008. “Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions: Psalm 78.” JBL 127:241–265. Levinson, B.  M. 1998. Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Levinson, B.  M. 2008. Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, B.  M., and J.  Stackert. 2012. “Between the Covenant Code and Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty: Deuteronomy 13 and the Composition of Deuteronomy.” JAJ 3:123–140. 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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/16/2021, SPi

398   David P. Wright Machinist, P. 1983. “Assyria and Its Image in the First Isaiah.” JAOS 103:719–737. Malul, M. 1990. The Comparative Method in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies. Kevelaer: Butzon and Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Morrow, W. 2013. “Legal Interactions: The Mišpāt ̣îm and the Laws of Hammurabi.” BO 70:309–331. Otto, E. 2000. “Political Theology in Judah and Assyria: The Beginning of the Hebrew Bible as Literature.” Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 65:59–76. Otto, E. 2010. “Das Bundesbuch und der ‘Kodex’ Hammurapi: Das biblische Recht zwischen positiver und subversiver Rezeption von Keilschriftrecht.” ZABR 16:1–26. Parker, S. B. 1997. Ugaritic Narrative Poetry. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Parpola, S., and K.  Watanabe. 1998. Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Quick, L. 2017. Deuteronomy 28 and the Aramaic Curse Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rendsburg, G. A. 2007. “The Biblical Flood Story in the Light of the Gilgamesh Flood Account.” In Gilgamesh and the World of Assyria: Proceedings of the Conference Held at Mandelbaum House, The University of Sydney, 21– 23 July 2004, edited by J. Azize and N. Weeks, 115–127. Leuven: Peeters. Roth, M. 1997. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. 2nd ed. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Sparks, K. L. 2005. Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible: A Guide to the Background Literature. Peabody: Hendrickson. Weinfeld, M. 1972. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wells, B. 2006. “The Covenant Code and Near Eastern Legal Traditions: A Response to David P. Wright.” Maarav 13 no. 1, 85–118. 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. Wright, D. P. 2015. “Profane Versus Sacrificial Slaughter: The Priestly Recasting of the Yahwist Flood Story.” In Current Issues in Priestly and Related Literature: The Legacy of Jacob Milgrom and Beyond, edited by R. E. Gane and A. Taggar-Cohen, 125–154. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Wright, D. P. 2016. “The Covenant Code Appendix (Exod 23:20–33), Neo-Assyrian Sources, and Implications for Pentateuchal Study.” In The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, edited by J. C. Gertz et al., 47–84. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Zevit, Z., ed. 2017. Subtle Citation, Allusion, and Translation in the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield: Equinox.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

chapter 21

The Pen tateuch: A rch a eol ogy a n d History Israel Finkelstein

Introduction This chapter deals with the archaeological and extrabiblical textual clues that are relevant for identifying the historical realities that may lie behind pentateuchal texts. Because of space limitations, I will concentrate on the most thoroughly discussed pentateuchal narrative complexes, namely, the patriarchs and the exodus and desert wandering, as it is easier to identify historical reality when dealing with narratives than with legal and ritual texts. A word of caution regarding the archaeological data is necessary: while for the Iron Age we have access to numerous archaeological finds regarding both material culture and settlement patterns, evidence for the Babylonian, Persian, and early Hellenistic periods is, by contrast, relatively limited. Consequently, there is more archaeological data available regarding the earlier layers of the relevant biblical texts. This creates a certain “bias”—in the sense that this essay puts special emphasis on late monarchic times. Still, the dearth of data for the post-­586 bce period(s) cannot be dismissed as either accidental or irrelevant. This essay is divided into the following sections: History of Research: The Case of the “Age of the Patriarchs”; Preliminaries (regarding archaeological data that have implications for reconstructing historical realities behind pentateuchal texts); Case Studies (discussion of the Jacob cycle, the Abraham narrative, and the desert wandering and evolution of the exodus tradition); Conclusions.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

400   Israel Finkelstein

History of Research: The Case of the “Age of Patriarchs” A survey of scholarly attempts to identify an “Age of the Patriarchs” provides a fitting illustration of earlier approaches to Bible and archaeology, as well as of their shortcomings. In the early decades of the twentieth century, discoveries in Mesopotamia and the intensification of archaeological activity in Palestine led many biblical historians and archaeologists to suggest that the patriarchal stories could be treated as historical accounts. Adhering to the sequential history of ancient Israel, as described in the “historical” books of the Bible, they argued that the patriarchal narratives, even if literarily compiled during the period of the monarchy, preserve an authentic historical reality of the Bronze Age. But there was no consensus regarding when in the Bronze Age this occurred—scholars proposed almost every period from the second half of the third millennium to the late second millennium bce. What follows is a short summary (listed chronologically) of the rise and fall of these theories from the perspectives of the archaeology of the Levant and history of the ancient Near East, that is, independently of advances in biblical scholarship. Let me start with what can now be described as an anecdotal approach, which exemplifies the search for the “Age of the Patriarchs.” The discovery in the 1970s of the ­third-­millennium bce Ebla tablets caused great excitement and inspired a few scholars to identify in them potential references to places mentioned in the Abraham narrative in Genesis (Freedman 1978). This theory quickly collapsed when it became apparent that the Ebla tablets had no bearing on biblical history. More enduring was the “Amorite Hypothesis.” Since the stories in Genesis depict pastoral people moving with their flocks along the spine of the central hill country, William Foxwell Albright (1961) hypothesized a pastoral phase in the history of the region, focusing on the Intermediate Bronze Age, then considered to correlate with a broad shift to a pastoral nomadic lifestyle. Albright and others argued that the collapse of the Early Bronze urban culture was the result of an invasion of pastoral nomads—the Amorites— from the fringe of the desert in the northeast. Adding a link to the d ­ onkey-­caravan trade of the nineteenth century, as indicated in the Karum Kanesh (Anatolian) texts, Albright argued that Abraham was an Amorite, “a caravaneer of high repute,” who migrated in the nineteenth century bce (for him still in the Intermediate Bronze Age) from the north and moved along the central ridge and the Negev. Nelson Glueck (1960) supplied the missing link in this theory, namely, evidence for strong Intermediate Bronze Age activity in southern Transjordan and the Negev—which provided the ostensible background, for example, for the story about the destruction of the cities of the plain. Yet the Amorite Hypothesis soon crumbled as a result of changes in the way scholars viewed the demographic history of Canaan. Most significantly, the oscillations in Canaan from urban life in the Early Bronze to a more agro-­pastoral society in the Intermediate Bronze and back to urban life in the Middle Bronze have come to be

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   401 understood as phases in local, ages-­long cycles of urban growth, collapse, and regrowth. Further, biblical sites mentioned in the Abraham stories—such as Shechem, B ­ eer-­Sheba, and Hebron—yielded no finds from the Intermediate Bronze Age. And from the ­chronological perspective, there is no way to lower the end of the Intermediate Bronze Age to c.1800 bce, as required by Albright’s theory. Finally, it is evident that the term “Amorite” in ancient Near Eastern texts is not restricted to pastoral people (on much of this, see already Thomspon 1974; Van Seters 1975). Almost in parallel, other scholars, such as Roland de Vaux (1978, 161–287), proposed identifying the “Age of the Patriarchs” in the Middle Bronze Age, the peak of urban life in the first half of the second millennium bce. They pointed to the fact that the patriarchs are regularly depicted as living in tents next to cities. Archaeologically, all the major sites mentioned in Genesis—Shechem, Bethel, and Hebron—were fortified strongholds in the Middle Bronze Age; textually, this tent–city relationship is attested in the contemporary Mari tablets (Dever and Clark  1977). Cyrus Gordon (1964) and Ephraim Speiser (1964) referred to similarities between social and legal practices in the biblical description of the patriarchs and in second millennium bce Near Eastern texts, specifically in the Nuzi tablets from northern Iraq, which date to the early phase of the Late Bronze Age. The Middle Bronze/Nuzi (Late Bronze) solution also disintegrated. The phenomenon of nomads living near city-­dwellers was not restricted to the Middle Bronze, and later studies have proven that social and legal practices similar to those in the biblical narratives were common in the ancient Near East throughout the second and first millennia bce (e.g. Eichler 1989). Benjamin Mazar (1969) used archaeological data to reinforce: the late nineteenth-­ century Wellhausenian idea that the description of the patriarchs should be studied against the background of the period of the monarchy. Mazar focused on “ana­chron­ isms” in the patriarchal stories, such as the mention of a Philistine king of Gerar or the presence of Arameans in the Jacob cycle. He argued that the text reflects an intimate knowledge of the Iron I Philistine city-­states and that the description of the Arameans as pastoral ­people represents an early phase in their history, before the rise of their first kingdoms. In addition, he argued that the account of patriarchs wandering in the central hill ­country fits the settlement patterns in this region in the Iron Age  I.  Kyle McCarter (1999) saw different layers in the patriarchal narratives and argued that some may go back to the Bronze Age. But the special place given to Judah in the stories—the prominence attributed to the figure of Abraham and to the tombs of the patriarchs in Hebron—could best be understood against the background of the establishment of the monarchy under David. Mazar and McCarter were both right and wrong: right in their assertion that the reality behind the stories in Genesis cannot be understood against the backdrop of the Bronze Age; wrong because they regarded many of the traditions as being uniform and opted for a far too early date in the Iron Age. Recent studies have suggested that this entire line of research is futile. Beyond details, the theories described above erred on several basic methodological issues. First, they

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

402   Israel Finkelstein maintained that the stories in Genesis depict a single period, while it is clear from bib­ lical exegesis (and other related disciplines) that the patriarchal traditions are layered and represent a centuries-­long compositional process, which continued as late as the Persian and possibly even Hellenistic periods. Second, the researchers who proposed these theories mistakenly read a geographical unity into the patriarchal stories and failed to acknowledge the local nature of the heroes. Third, they accepted the historiographical logic of the biblical authors: the sequential history of Israel from the patriarchs to Egypt, exodus and wandering in the desert, the conquest of Canaan, the period of the judges, and the establishment of the monarchy; this order should be understood as an ideological-­theological construct of the authors. Fourth, accepting that the patriarchal stories were not put in writing before the tenth century, these scholars never fully explained how ancient traditions were passed on orally for centuries without being altered. Similar attempts were made to identify the exodus at a given moment in the Late Bronze Age (e.g. Kitchen 1998; Hoffmeier 1997; 2005). For comparable reasons, these theories, too, cannot be accepted (Redford 1992, 409–422; for different views on exodus, see Levy, Schneider, and Propp 2015). Even so, the pentateuchal narratives should not be viewed as a “glorified mirage” (Wellhausen 1927, 316). Rather, they must be investigated differently—by peeling them back layer by layer and seeking historical realities behind the different strata.

Preliminaries The themes examined in this section are essential for dealing with the historical realities behind the pentateuchal narratives and hence will be in the background of the discussion in the Case Studies section of this essay.

Israel and Judah It is broadly accepted that the book of Genesis (as well as other parts of the Bible) includes northern traditions; still, the final product of the patriarchal narrative reflects a southern perspective. This includes the arrangement of the book of Genesis: the story opens with the southern Abraham, who is construed as the first patriarch and the grandfather of the northern Jacob. This seems to have been done in order to promote the idea of the dominance of Judah over Israel; in fact, to subordinate Israel to Judah at a time when the northern kingdom no longer existed and Judah (and later Yehud and Judea) stood as the only heir to the ancient traditions of the Hebrew people. This southern ideol­ogy was largely inherited by biblical and historical scholarship. Yet extrabiblical texts and archaeology both demonstrate that, historically, Israel was the leading force of the Hebrew kingdoms. Israel was demographically and eco­nom­ic­ al­ly developed long before Judah (Finkelstein  2013). The northern territories in the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   403 c­ entral highlands and the Gilead had already been densely settled in the Iron I, when the marginal Judean Highlands were still depleted demographically—at that time the population ratio between the highlands parts of Israel and Judah can be estimated at 25:1! Judah began to develop in a significant way in the end-­phase of the late Iron IIA (late ninth century; Fantalkin 2008; Sergi 2013), and reached a real peak of prosperity only in the Iron IIB–C in the late eighth and seventh centuries bce (Finkelstein and Silberman 2006). But even in the mid-­eighth century (that is, before the takeover of the Gilead by Damascus), the demographic ratio between Israel and Judah can be estimated at 3:1 or 4:1 (Broshi and Finkelstein 1992). Population translates directly to military and economic strength: the power of Israel in the days of the Omrides is clearly depicted in the Shalmaneser III list of participants in the Battle of Qarqar in 853 bce and hinted at in the Tel Dan and Mesha inscriptions; it is also portrayed in biblical references to both the reign of the Omrides (e.g. 2 Kings 8:28–29) and the somewhat later days of Joash and Jeroboam II (e.g. 2 Kings 14:8–14). Israel controlled more fertile regions, such as the Jezreel Valley, and trade routes, such as the international highway along the coast and northern valleys, as well as the King’s Highway in Transjordan. It was also better connected to the coast and other neighboring regions. All this promoted its agricultural output and revenues from trade. In short, Israel was the dominant power during most of the period when the two Hebrew kingdoms existed side by side.

Settlement and Demography in Judah-­Yehud-­Judea and Jerusalem 750–200 bce Here I wish to look at the details for the periods considered for the compilation of pentateuchal texts: mainly on settlement and demographic data, as well as evidence for scribal activity.

The Iron IIB–C The peak prosperity of Judah began in the Iron IIB in the late eighth century, and con­ tinued in the Iron IIC in the second half of the seventh century bce, with a large number of sites and dense population in the entire area. The Shephelah, which suffered a major blow from Sennacherib’s 701 bce campaign, partially recovered in the Iron IIC, though on a smaller scale and in a different pattern than previously. The Beer-­Sheba Valley also reached a settlement peak in the Iron IIB–C. Further to the south, until the withdrawal of Assyria from the region in c.630–625 bce, Judahites probably served in ­Assyrian-­dominated strongholds along desert routes such as En Hazeva and Kadesh-­Barnea. Archaeological finds, especially at Kadesh-­Barnea (Cohen and Bernick-­Greenberg 2007), show that Judah and Judahites continued to be present in the arid areas south of the Beer-­Sheba Valley after the retreat of Assyria from the region. Regarding Jerusalem, the core of the ancient city was probably located under the Temple Mount (Knauf 2000; Finkelstein, Koch, and Lipschits 2011). This idea resolves

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

404   Israel Finkelstein some of the most tantalizing problems in the archaeology and history of Jerusalem: first and foremost the lack of evidence for activity in the “City of David” ridge in periods for which habitation in Jerusalem is securely attested in textual evidence, such as the Late Bronze Age (Na’aman  1996). Accordingly, the “mound on the Mount” was the only inhabited part of Jerusalem of the Bronze Age and the early phases of the Iron Age, and again in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods. The city started expanding to the south, to the northern sector of the “City of David” ridge in an advanced stage of the late Iron IIA, that is, the late ninth century bce (Finkelstein 2015). The “Great Leap Forward” in Jerusalem took place in a relatively short period of time in the late eighth century bce, when it grew to cover the entire area of the “City of David” ridge as well as the Western Hill (Geva 2003; Reich and Shukron 2003). This means growth from c.8.5 hectares to over 60 hectares in a matter of several decades. This happened again in the late Hellenistic period, the days of the Hasmoneans. It should come as no surprise that demographic expansion in the Iron IIB–C and the late Hellenistic period was ac­com­ pan­ied by public works and evidence for advanced administration, including the pro­lif­ er­ation of scribal activity, as attested in different writing media (see below).

The Babylonian, Persian, and Early Hellenistic Periods The archaeology of the Babylonian period is difficult to detect, due to its short duration and because the finds cannot be easily distinguished from those of the earlier Iron IIC and the later Persian period. Still, there are several issues that should be put forward in regard to the present discussion. First, regarding the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 bce: destruction by fire is evident only in areas close to the Temple Mount and the Gihon Spring (Barkay 2003, 27). Rural sites in the vicinity of Jerusalem also show no signs of major destruction. Though it is clear that the city was devastated, as most of its sectors feature a long occupational gap, there are clues in some places of meager activity immediately after 586 bce (Barkay 2003, 27). Another piece of evidence for continuity of certain activity after Nebuchadnezzar’s assault is the mwsh and lion seal impressions found in Jerusalem. These types provide the link in the bureaucratic sequence of Judah-­Yehud between the Iron Age rosette impressions and the Persian-­period early Yehud impressions; hence they probably represent the administration of the province after 586 bce (Lipschits 2005, 149–152). The “City of David” ridge features several mwsh impressions and a large number of lion impressions. Since not a single Babylonian-­period building was found here, activity at that time must have focused on the core of the city: the Temple Mount. Turning to the Persian period: in Jerusalem evidence for activity comes mainly from the central sector of the “City of David” ridge, above the Gihon Spring. It is characterized by a relatively large number of early Yehud seal impressions, most of which come from fills. Not a single Persian-­period building has ever been found there, or in any other place in ancient Jerusalem (Finkelstein 2008). The early Hellenistic period seems to present a similar picture. The combination of these data—an abundance of Yehud impressions with no architectural remains—must mean that in this period too the focus of activity was in the old core of the city on the Temple Mount. Yet, even here

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   405 intensity of settlement activity must have been low, as only a limited number of ­Persian-­period sherds were found in the vicinity of the Temple Mount: in the sifting of debris from the area of the al-­Aqsa Mosque (Barkay and Zweig 2006); on the eastern slope of the Temple Mount (Dvira, Zigdon, and Shilov 2011); and in the “Ophel” excavations south of the Temple Mount (Eilat Mazar, personal communication). The territory of Persian-­period Yehud has traditionally been reconstructed according to the references to subdistricts of the province in Nehemiah 3 (e.g. Carter 1999, 79–80; Lipschits  2005, 168–174). This approach, however, may entail a circular argument, because the background and date of this list are far from assured (Finkelstein 2008). An independent way to study the territorial extent of the province is to plot the distribution of the early Yehud seal impressions. Indeed, the map does not fit the territory described in Neh 3. Yehud seems to have extended from Mizpah in the north to Ramat Rahel in the south (possibly slightly further south, though Beth-­Zur probably was not included); and from Jericho and En-­Gedi in the east to the border of the Shephelah in the west. The population in this territory can be estimated at the modest number of c.12,000 people (Finkelstein 2010)—about half of the lowest numbers proposed previously (e.g. Carter 1999, 195–205; Lipschits 2003, 364). This means a dramatic settlement and demographic decline as compared to the situation in the Iron IIC, a conclusion that challenges those scholars who tend to belittle the scope of the catastrophe that befell Judah in 586 bce; it also supports the notion that the “return” to Yehud was more a trickle than a flood. As for the south beyond the border of Yehud, Ofer (1994, 106) reported that in the Persian period the settlement system south of Hebron almost died out. The Beer-­Sheba Valley is almost devoid of evidence of habitation at that time.

Israelites in Judah Scholars have suggested that the sudden, dramatic population growth in Jerusalem in particular and in Judah in general in the second half of the eighth century and early seventh century bce was the result of the migration of Israelites to Judah after 720 bce (Broshi  1974; Schniedewind  2004; Van der Toorn  1996, 339–372; Finkelstein and Silberman 2006; for an opposing view, see Na’aman 2014a). This demographic reconstruction, which is also supported by the appearance of northern items of material culture in Judah (Finkelstein 2015), is crucial for biblical research, including the study of the emergence of the Pentateuch, as it may explain how and why texts of northern origin were incorporated in the Judahite-­centered Bible. It is reasonable to suggest that those who came to Judah included many of the literati, who feared deportation. In other words, it is difficult to understand the Bible including the Pentateuch, without ac­know­ ledg­ing that late monarchic Judah comprised a mix of Judahites and Israelites. The number of Israelites in Judah was probably large enough to force biblical authors to be mindful of the north’s most important foundation myths and at least some of their royal traditions. Needless to say, some of these traditions could also have reached Judah in somewhat later times (e.g. Knauf 2006).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

406   Israel Finkelstein

Evidence for Literacy and Scribal Activity For revealing the historical background of pentateuchal texts it is crucial to review the expansion of writing. This is done by studying the alphabetic Hebrew (and other) inscriptions, with an emphasis on the stratigraphy and relative chronology of the archaeological contexts in which they were found, and by translating this data into absolute chronology based on the massive information available from recent radiocarbon studies. Such analysis reveals that there are no Hebrew inscriptions in the territories of Israel and Judah before c. 800 BCE (Finkelstein and Sass 2013; in press). Writing spread in the Hebrew kingdoms only in the eighth century—in the first half in Israel (e.g., the Samaria ostraca and Kuntillet ‘Ajrud inscriptions) and in the second half in Judah. Complex literary works appear for the first time in ancient Israel in the early eighth ­century—in the north—at Deir Alla and Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (for the latter see recently Ahituv, Eshel, and Meshel 2012). Therefore, the early phase of the Iron IIB in the first half of the eighth century seems to be the earliest possible period in which we might expect to see the compilation of those northern literary texts that found their way into the Pentateuch and other biblical works. In Judah, the main expansion of scribal activity and literacy occurred in the seventh century bce. Most corpora of ostraca—Arad, Lachish, Uza, Malhata, Kadesh-­Barnea— belong to this period (see e.g. Ahituv 2008; for details see Finkelstein 2020). Most significant, the spread of literacy is also attested in the proliferation of seals, seal impressions, and bullae. And it is noteworthy that the many bullae from the area of the Gihon Spring in Jerusalem, dated slightly earlier, to c.800 bce, are not inscribed (Reich, Shukron and Lernau 2007). The seventh century bce is therefore the moment when Judah becomes a “writing society,” beyond the Jerusalemite circles of temple and palace. This was probably an outcome of the century (c.730–630 bce) when Judah was dom­in­ ated by Assyria and was incorporated into the sphere of Assyrian administration, global economy, and culture. New evidence for the scope of literacy in the closing years of the Iron Age has emerged from interdisciplinary research on digital methods for comparing handwriting in ostraca. Work on sixteen Arad inscriptions has revealed a minimum of six authors (Faigenbaum-­Golovin et al. 2016; more according to Shaus et al. 2020). The contents of the examined ostraca reveal that literacy had spread to the smallest forts in the Beer-­Sheba Valley and all the way down the bureaucratic ladder to the second-­in-­command in the Arad storehouse. This kind of proliferation of scribal activity is unattested in the Babylonian and Persian periods, when the southern highlands show almost no evidence of Hebrew inscriptions. In fact, beyond the possibility that the Ketef Hinnom silver plates date from after 586 bce (Na’aman 2011a), the only (meager) evidence comes from the few Yehud coins, which date to the fourth century bce, and coins can hardly attest to genuine scribal activity. This means that (again, apart possibly from Ketef Hinnom) not a single inscription has been found for the period between 586 and c.350 bce; not an ostracon, not a seal, not a seal impression, not a bulla. This does not mean that the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   407 knowledge of writing Hebrew disappeared, but scribal activity must have declined— and significantly. This should come as no surprise: the destruction of Judah brought about the collapse of the kingdom’s bureaucracy and the deportation of many of the educated intelligentsia, the literati. The reduced population in the remaining villages (see above) was hardly capable of producing a massive number of literary works. Of course, there must have been some continuity in the production of literary works in Yehud and early Judea; one can imagine, for instance, a secluded educated priestly group near the temple. Even so, however, activity on the Temple Mount appears to have remained limited, and one wonders why writing did not trickle into daily life (ostraca, bullae, etc.). As of today, then, the archaeological evidence seems to challenge the tendency to place the compilation of much biblical material in Yehud-­Judea of the Persian and early Hellenistic periods. It seems to me safer to take a different, twofold approach: first, to try date as much material as possible to periods in Judah/Judea that evince widespread scribal activity and literacy in all media and all forms of inscriptions—that is, the latest phase of the Iron Age and the Late Hellenistic period after c.200 bce. The latter date raises a question: is it possible that material was added to the Pentateuch as late as the second century bce? The answer seems to be positive for minor revisions (Finkelstein and Römer 2014a) but negative for major literary works. Second, for the Babylonian and Persian periods, it is advisable to place the compilation of as much material as possible in Babylonia (see e.g. Albertz 2003).

Bethel The archaeology of Bethel is of considerable significance for the discussion here, because some scholars see it as the place where many of the northern biblical texts were ori­gin­ al­ly authored (e.g. Knauf 2006; Davies 2007). A study of the finds retrieved from this site (Finkelstein and Singer-­Avitz 2009) indicated that the settlement history of Bethel was not continuous, as maintained by the excavators. Rather, it was characterized by settle­ ment oscillations, with three phases of strong activity (in the Iron I, Iron IIB, and Hellenistic periods); two periods of decline (in the late Iron IIA and the Iron IIC); and two periods of probable abandonment (in the early Iron IIA and—most significantly— in the Babylonian and Persian periods). This evidence cannot be brushed aside as stemming from excavations of limited scope, as significant sectors of the small mound—larger than may appear at first glance—were excavated. These data are of crucial importance. They seem to reject the possibility of the transmission of northern texts to Yehud after 586. They strengthen the likelihood that the northern literary works were brought to Judah after 720 bce, and that the intermingling of northern and southern texts in Jerusalem could have taken place as early as the seventh century bce, as part of an effort to construct an identity for the mixed population of a “United” Judahite–Israelite monarchy within Judah.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

408   Israel Finkelstein

Case Studies In what follows, I will illustrate the implications of the foregoing comments for the reconstruction of potential historical realities behind various layers in the pentateuchal narratives. I do this acknowledging the very different natures of the patriarchal and exodus narratives: that they represent different traditions; that they were combined by a priestly author at a relatively late date; and that even the early “layers” must have been influenced by late additions, omissions, and redactions. For all three cases below the scope of this essay is too limited to cover the entire sequence of literary-­historical strata. Hence I wish to focus on two questions: (1) how archaeological and historical con­sid­er­ ations can help identify the Iron Age layer(s) in the Jacob and Abraham narratives (see Finkelstein and Römer 2014a, 2014b); (2) the possible origin of the desert itineraries and how the exodus tradition “migrated” to the north.

The Early Jacob Layers Albert de Pury (2001) and Erhard Blum (2012) proposed that the Jacob story conserves an old tradition that reflects realities from the end of the second millennium bce, and that the first written Jacob narrative would have been composed in the eighth century bce. Indeed, the Jacob narrative seems to include two layers from the Iron Age: one written in the first half of the eighth century bce, and one that is older which was transmitted orally (Finkelstein and Römer 2014b). To start with the old tradition: the treaty between Jacob and Laban (Gen 31:45–54) locates the border between them in the northeastern sector of the Israelite Gilead; the “Land of Kedem” (people of the east) is to be identified there. The references to Haran in the story are probably later insertions, reflecting the period of prosperity there in the sixth century (Na’aman 2014b). The account of the heap of stones (galed) built by Jacob (Gen 31:48) is apparently an etiological story aimed at explaining a geographical feature in the Gilead, and was connected to the reality of the border between Israelites and Arameans who lived in proximity to each other in northern Transjordan. Locating the geographical arena of this narrative is central to understanding its background. A place named Mizpah, apparently located near the galed, or accommodating it, plays an im­port­ant role in the story. It should probably be identified in or near Tell el-­Masfa, which overlooks the upper Jabbok Valley. The small site, which may preserve the ancient name, is located in a commanding spot—one of the highest mounds in the Levant. This fits the name (a place overlooking its surroundings) as well as the idea of a place which can be seen from afar and hence serves as a territorial marker. This Mizpah seems to be the easternmost Israelite place in the Gilead, bordering on the territory of Aramean Lidbir, probably to be identified with el-­Husn, south of Irbid. The other important identifiable site mentioned in the Jacob cycle is Penuel, located in the lower ravine of the Jabbok. The tradition regarding the foundation of the temple at

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   409 Penuel—a small site (Tell edh-­Dhahab esh-­Sharqi) which seems to feature an elevated rectangular podium (built to support a temple, the migdal of Judges 8:9.17?)—seems to belong to this oldest layer of the Jacob tradition; perhaps also Succoth (Gen 33:17) and the nucleus of the reference to Mahanaim. All this seems to show that the earliest Jacob traditions were local to the Israelite territory in Transjordan, possibly to the early core area of the territory named (the) Gilead: in the Jabbok basin and south of it, an area that covers no more than c.500 sq. km. The stories related to this “patriarch” and his territory were probably first memorized and venerated at the sanctuary of El at Penuel. The realities depicted in this earliest layer in the Jacob tradition should be dated to the Iron Age, possibly when the settlement and political boundaries between Israelites and Arameans in this region were formed. This seems to best fit the late Iron I or early Iron IIA, that is, the tenth century bce. The clash over Ramoth-­Gilead in the later days of the Omrides and the fact that in the time of Jeroboam II Lidbir was considered a ­well-­established non-­Israelite city (Amos 6:11–14) seem indeed to show that the border in the Gilead had been stabilized before the ninth century bce. In this early phase the Jacob tradition would not yet have existed in a written form. The Bethel tradition may date to the first half of the eighth century bce, when the town served as the location of a highly-­important northern kingdom temple (Amos 7:13). This is hinted at in the archaeology of Beitin, which enjoyed great prosperity in the Iron IIB but weak activity before and after—and no activity in the Babylonian and Persian periods. Although the possibility that a Jacob–Bethel tradition also originated in an earlier period cannot be brushed aside (the connection between the areas of the Jabbok and Bethel is deeply rooted in the tradition about the territory ruled by the House of Saul and in the Sheshonq I list), it seems that the institutionalization of the Jacob–Bethel connection better fits the days of Jeroboam II (788–747 bce). In his time, as part of the reorganization of the cult of the kingdom, the old Jacob tradition could have been “imported” to Bethel, or (in the case that it was already known west of the Jordan) promoted there. 1 Kings 12:29 dates the construction of the shrines in Bethel and Dan to the days of Jeroboam  I.  Yet the archaeological evidence from both Dan and Bethel locates the reality behind this verse in the days of Jeroboam II. Both sites were uninhabited in the early Iron IIA—the days of Jeroboam I—and Dan was probably not ruled by Israel until c.800 bce (for Dan, see Arie 2008; for the expansion of the northern kingdom, Finkelstein 2013). Indeed, Jacob’s vision in Bethel (Gen 28) is compatible with Assyrian-­Babylonian religious concepts (Hurowitz 2006), which supports the proposed date in the Iron IIB. An unresolved problem in the Jacob cycle is the relationship between Jacob and Esau/ Edom. If Esau was a personification of Edom/Seir from the outset, then there are three possible settings for the association of Edom and Jacob. According to the first, the difficult relationship between Edom and Israel would presuppose the theological concept of Israel after the Jacob traditions had arrived in Judah. In this case the Jacob/Esau stories would have been added to the Jacob story at the very earliest in the late seventh century, or even better in the sixth century, before or after the fall of Jerusalem; note the animosity to Edom in Judah in late monarchic and later times. A second possibility would be to

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

410   Israel Finkelstein relate the conflict with the Edomites to an earlier period of the Jacob tradition, focusing on the observation that Yahweh was originally a southern or even an Edomite deity (Bartlett 1989). A third option is presented by the Kuntillet ‘Ajrud inscriptions, which date to the first half of the eighth century bce. At this site Yahweh was addressed as “Yahweh of Samaria” and “Yahweh of Teman,” and thus a relationship between Jacob and Esau/Edom (Teman) would make sense also in this context. In any event, the discussion above and the evidence for the earliest literary texts in the north (Deir Alla and Kuntillet ‘Ajrud) all suggest that the first recording of the Jacob foundation myth in writing was undertaken during the reign of Jeroboam II in the eighth century, at Bethel and possibly at Penuel as well. Of course, the Jacob traditions continued to expand and be reworked in later centuries (Finkelstein and Römer 2014b).

The Early Abraham Layer As with Bethel and Penuel in the northern kingdom, it is reasonable to assume that the population of the southern hill country had at least one central shrine and eponymous ancestor stories. If the initial Jacob traditions come from relatively early in the Iron Age and were written down in the early eighth century, it is difficult to imagine that there were no competing southern traditions for several centuries thereafter. In other words, it is improbable that the south—with a dense population beginning in the Iron IIB—did not develop tradition(s) about eponymous ancestor(s). It is logical to assume that the original tradition regarding Abram/Abraham comes from a cult place at the holy Oak of Mamre. Mamre may have been a shrine connected to a sacred tree and/or a grove near Hebron in the heartland of the Judean hill country. And it is plausible that there was a burial tradition of Abraham in the area of Hebron already in monarchic times: the location at which an ancestor was memorialized was in many cases a shrine related to his grave. The reference to Abraham’s burial in Machpelah, “overlooking Mamre” (’ašer ‘al-­ penê Mamre), occurs exclusively in priestly and post-­ ­ priestly texts; it presumably reflects the situation of the Persian (and early Hellenistic?) period, when the original cult place (possibly together with its sacred tomb) was located outside of the borders of the province of Yehud/Judea. The monarchic origin of the oldest Abraham tradition can be supported by several geographical and historical elements in the narratives. The mocking of Ammon and Moab (Gen 19:30–37), as well as the recognition that they are related to Abraham, makes good sense in the Iron Age. What would be the point of these etiological narratives in post-­Iron Age times, when Moab and Ammon no longer existed? Related to the figure of Lot is the etiological story of the cities of the plain. In the late Iron Age, Judah had a significant presence on the western shore of the Dead Sea, the Judean Desert, the eastern Arad Valley, and south of the Dead Sea; in the Persian period the only Yehudite settle­ ment close to this area was En Gedi. Gerar is mentioned in two versions of the wife-­of-­the-­ancestor stories in Gen 20 and 26. In both, Abraham and Isaac sojourn in the territory of Abimelech, a positively depicted Philistine king. In recent research these tales are considered to be late

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   411 c­ om­pos­itions. Yet, historically, the mention of Gerar fits better in an earlier period, since both narratives seem to address the issue of the western border of Judah. The story in Genesis 26—recounting a dispute over land and wells near Gerar, not far from Ziklag, which “belonged to the kings of Judah to this day” (1 Sam 27:6)—may have been related to the need to legitimize the claim of Judah over these territories; again, this cannot be interpreted against a Persian period background. Therefore, the two tales might contain a seventh-­century bce kernel, which was later reworked (in the Hellenistic period?). A seventh-­century context is also plausible in light of the possible relation between Abimelech, king of Gerar in Genesis (otherwise unknown) and Ahimilki, king of Ashdod, who paid tribute to Assyria in the days of both Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal (Naveh 1998). The results of excavations at Tel Haror, most probably the location of bib­ lical Gerar, indicate the special importance of the site in the later part of the Iron Age as a fortified Assyrian administration center (Oren 1993). Axel Knauf (1989, 1–16, 25–55) convincingly demonstrated that Ishmael in Genesis 16 should be viewed in relation to the tribal confederation Shumu’il, mentioned in Assyrian sources. The attempt to make Ishmael the son of Abraham would thus reflect the southern expansion of Judah under Assyrian hegemony. Amos 7:9, 16 seems to attest to the existence of an ancestor named Isaac, who was important enough to represent the south. And if the Isaac tradition indeed comes from the Beer-­Sheba Valley (Noth 1972), it must have originated in the Iron Age, because after 586 bce the area was sparsely inhabited and far from Yehud/early Judea. It is therefore plausible that a second ancestor figure in the south was venerated in a sanctuary in ­Beer-­Sheba. In the seventh century, then, Abraham probably had two “sons”: Isaac in the Beer-­Sheba Valley and Ishmael in the areas further to the south. This may represent realities of the time: Judahite settlement in the Beer-­Sheba Valley peaked in the late eighth century and later; activity further south also characterizes the “Assyrian Century,” when Judahites served in Kadesh-­Barnea and probably also in other Assyrian forts along the Arabian trade routes (Na’aman 2001). Judahite presence in the southern desert con­ tinued in the decades following the withdrawal of Assyria, as seemingly demonstrated by the Hebrew ostraca found at Kadesh-­Barnea. All in all, the origins of the early Abraham stories probably cover a lengthy period, starting no later than the major demographic expansion in the southern highlands in the late eight century bce. In this case, like that for Jacob, the earliest traditions were transmitted orally; it is reasonable to locate the first written texts in the (late?) seventh century bce, when literacy in Judah expanded. Needless to say, the Abraham stories were elaborated and expanded upon in later centuries (Finkelstein and Römer 2014a).

The Merging of the Jacob and Abraham Stories Historical considerations put the merging of the Jacob and Abraham stories between 720 and 586 bce—possibly in line with a “pan-­Israelite” ideology regarding territory and people that seems to have been advanced at that time in the south. There is a significant

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

412   Israel Finkelstein consensus regarding the idea that the early Jacob traditions were brought to the south only after the takeover of Samaria. It is only from this point on that they could have been combined with the stories about the southern patriarch Abraham. The new demographic situation in Judah—now a nation composed of mixed southern and northern groups—made it necessary to strengthen the coherence of this “united” monarchy by creating one story that combined southern and northern traditions. The merging of the traditions was accomplished from the beginning in written form, since it was a deliberate attempt to impose a new “official,” overarching patriarchal history. Indeed, the ­post-­720 bce years in Judah—and especially the late seventh and early sixth centuries— were already characterized by the widespread use of writing as a medium of administration and communication (Jamieson-­Drake 1991; Faigenbaum-­Golovin et al. 2016). In this new patriarchal “history,” the reality on the ground—the dominance of Israel over Judah during the time of their existence—was reversed. Judah (Abraham and Isaac) was put in the lead of the unified tradition, and Jacob was placed last. The goal was to subordinate the Jacob stories to those of Abraham—in essence, to subordinate Israel (which was no more) to Judah. This merging of the traditions must have been a lengthy process, one that probably started in the seventh century but con­ tinued later.

The Desert Itineraries The origin of the exodus tradition—initially another northern foundation myth (e.g. Van der Toorn 1996)—has also been debated by scholars. There are those who have tried to identify behind it a single reality in Late Bronze Age Egypt (Kitchen  1998; Hoffmeier  1997;  2005) and those who have acknowledged the existence of multiple ­layers in the tradition, some of which may depict cultural memories that come from the second millennium, but others of which may also include later realities, such as those of the Saite period in Egypt (Redford 1987). From the perspective of Egypt, the difficulty in identifying a historical setting for the story is that places there may represent lengthy periods of activity—sometimes in both the second and first millennia, and the same holds true for other Egyptian characteristics in the narrative. Hence the geographical and archaeological realities in Canaan/Israel are essential: they enable the delimitation of possibilities for identifying the historical background behind a tale. This leads me to start with the desert itineraries. I will not deal with geographical identifications; assuming that the lists are not invented (that is, that they mention real places), the question is what, when, and how could biblical authors know about the places mentioned in them. The following analysis goes from late to early. Let me open with the period of the latest redaction(s) of the text by priestly or ­post-­priestly scribes in the Persian period. The sparsely settled and demographically depleted province of Yehud stretched no further than Beth-­Zur in the south (above). There was no Jewish presence at that time in the southern Hebron hills or the B ­ eer-­Sheba Valley. And though several Persian-­period sites have been recorded in the Negev

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   413 Highlands (Cohen and Cohen-­Amin 2004, 159–201), activity at the key sites in the south was weak, and some were abandoned altogether. Under these circumstances, priestly knowledge of the southern desert must have been fragmentary at best. The toponyms that appear in the priestly wandering narrative and itineraries can hardly represent Persian-­period realities. This suggests that the itinerary lists are based on sources which reflect earlier realities. In the closing decades of its history, after the Assyrian withdrawal from the region, Judah was still strongly present in the Beer-­Sheba Valley, as well as at Kadesh-­Barnea in the deeper desert. This means that Judahites were well acquainted with the desert until the destruction of the kingdom. The importance of Judah as a participant in the Arabian trade network is manifested in the recently published c.600 bce Sabaean inscription that refers to “the towns of Judah” (Lemaire 2012). The “Assyrian Century” (c.730–630 bce) evidenced the strongest Judahite activity in the southern desert. The main Arabian trade route passed along the south Transjordan plateau and the Beer-­Sheba Valley, which were dominated by the vassal kingdoms of Edom and Judah. This was the time of peak prosperity in the Beer-­Sheba Valley. The towns and forts there, and especially markets and khans such as Aroer, were places where Judahite merchants and administrators met Edomites and Arabs from the desert (Thareani 2011). Information about the south could also have been transmitted by Arab merchants who visited Jerusalem (Lemaire 2012). Beyond the Beer-­Sheba Valley, the Assyrians controlled the desert trade routes from several pivotal strongholds, which were probably manned by local people—Edomites, Arabs, and Judahites (Na’aman 2001, 267–268). In at least some of these fortresses, such as Kadesh-­Barnea and En Hazeva, Judahites could meet locals and collect information about places and routes in the deeper desert. This knowledge of the desert finds expression in a variety of biblical references. Including Genesis 14. This chapter comprises several layers and much of it is late, ­pos­sibly as late as the Hellenistic period (e.g. Granerød 2010). But the military campaign itinerary, which mentions El-­ Paran (Eilat), En-­ Mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and ­Hazazon-­Tamar (vv. 6–7), is apparently based on the Assyrian-­dominated strongholds in the south. The story about the refusal of the king of Edom to let the Israelites cross his territory (Num 20:14–21) is also anchored in the Iron IIB–C—the only time in the Iron Age and Persian period that features a wave of settlement (and a kingdom) in this area. This brings me to the years prior to 720 bce and to the tantalizing question of the origin of the strong exodus-­desert tradition in the northern kingdom, as expressed in Hosea and Amos. The key site for addressing this issue is Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, where finds indicate that in the first half of the eighth century Israel dominated the desert trade route in northeastern Sinai. Inscriptions (Na’aman  2012) and drawings (Ornan  2015) unearthed at the site point to the strong involvement there of an Israelite monarch, most probably Jeroboam II. Regardless of the nature of activity at the site, for the sake of this discussion the most important issue is the mention in the inscriptions of Yahweh of Teman and Yahweh of Samaria. The cult at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud seems to have been devoted to Yahweh of Teman, that is, Yahweh of the southern arid zones; Yahweh of Samaria

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

414   Israel Finkelstein should probably be understood as the protecting deity of the capital of the northern kingdom. The inscription may, in fact, refer to a temple of Yahweh at Samaria (Keel and Uehlinger 1998, 228). The northern kingdom had two foundation myths—the Jacob cycle and the exodus-­wandering narrative (e.g., Van der Toorn  1996, 287–315). The early layer of the Jacob stories was evidently promoted at Bethel and Penuel (see above). The exodus-­wandering tradition could have been venerated at Samaria. The strong connection of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud to the king of Israel seems to support this possibility. Against this background, it is clear that people from the northern kingdom, including Samaria officials and merchants, frequented the site of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud in particular and the desert routes in general. There they must have met local nomads involved in the southern trade. From their own experience and from these contacts those Israelites must have learned about places and routes in the “deep” desert, mainly those located between the head of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Mediterranean coast. Hence, though the itineraries are embedded in late texts, their origin may be found in centuries-­older realities.

A Note on the Evolution of the Exodus Tradition in the Northern Kingdom Assuming that Hosea and Amos depict Iron Age realities, and that they did not “invent” the exodus-­desert stories, what was the pre-­eighth-­century bce source of this tradition in the northern kingdom? Attempts to isolate a “moment in Egypt” in the thirteenth century bce to fit the exodus narrative are doomed to fail, so a more nuanced ex­plan­ ation must be sought. With no clear evidence, either in the biblical text or in Egyptian sources or in archaeology, one is forced to step into the territory of historical speculation. Redford (1987, 150–151) suggested that the exodus tradition may have originated in a memory of the expulsion of Canaanites from the Nile Delta in the sixteenth century bce. Na’aman (2011b; following Hendel 2001) proposed that the biblical story preserves a memory of oppression inflicted on the people of Canaan by the Egyptian administration in the Late Bronze. Other scholars too looked for the roots of the exodus–Moses tradition in the Late Bronze Age (e.g. Bietak 1987). But why was the memory preserved and promoted specifically in the northern kingdom? The southern lowlands—the Shephelah and southern coastal plain—would be a more reasonable place. The reminiscence of an expulsion from the Delta at the end of the Middle Bronze should have been maintained in the southern coastal plain and the area of the Besor; hieratic inscriptions and other archaeological finds hint that economic oppression in the twelfth century bce was most severe in the southern lowlands. As for the north, Egyptian rule should have been strongly felt mainly in the valleys, around Beth-­Shean (the main Egyptian stronghold in the area), Megiddo, and royal estates in their vicinity, not in the highlands. The weak possession of the highlands by Egypt is demonstrated by the maneuvers of

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   415 Shechem’s Labayu and his sons in the Amarna period; there is no hint of Egyptian economic pressure in this region. In fact, the highlands. Including the northern Samaria hills, were sparsely settled at that time. Hence, one needs to look for a memory that is connected specifically to the northern highlands and its population, and that is pref­er­ ably closer in time to the days of Hosea and Amos. Noteworthy is the role of Egypt’s 22nd dynasty, and more specifically Pharaoh Sheshonq I’s campaign, during the decline of the first north Israelite territorial entity of the late Iron I, which was centered in the area of Gibeon-­Gibeah to the north of Jerusalem (Finkelstein 2006). The Gibeon-­Gibeah polity was replaced by the northern kingdom, which was centered in the area of Shechem-­Tirzah. The rise of this entity may also have been related to the campaign of Sheshonq I (Finkelstein 2012). Van der Toorn (1996: 287–315) and Albertz (2001) pointed to the possible function of the exodus narrative as a charter myth or thanksgiving story in the early days of the northern kingdom. Memories of these events could have been preserved in the areas of both Bethel and Shechem; and they could have been embedded in earlier salvation-­from-­Egypt traditions, which were “imported” from the lowlands into the highlands when Israel expanded into the northern valleys in the tenth century bce (Finkelstein 2013). The tradition about deliverance from Egypt thus became one of the two founding myths of Israel. In the early days of the northern kingdom it was still an oral tradition. There is no way to know if in this formative phase it included a component about wandering in the wilderness; still, knowledge of the desert was already possible in the early eighth century bce.

Conclusions This essay has proposed the following basic framework for understanding the relationship between archaeology and history and the Pentateuchal traditions: • Complex narratives such as the Jacob and Abraham cycles and exodus and desert wanderings materials are layered; they include texts and therefore “cultural memories” (e.g. Hendel  2005) from different periods; archaeological, historical, and exegetical considerations can help to identify and date them. • The early layer(s) come from the Iron Age, while the latest can be dated to the late Persian and seemingly Hellenistic periods. • The early layers represent different geographies in both the north and the south. Different traditions may have been promoted originally at local shrines, such as Penuel, Bethel and Samaria in the north and Mamre in the south. • There is no evidence of a capability to compose complex literary texts in ancient Israel before the first half of the eighth century—c.800 bce at the earliest—meaning that stories that reflect older realities must have first been transmitted orally. The chronological distance between the origin of a tale and the moment when it

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

416   Israel Finkelstein was put in writing is an important (but not the only) factor in assessing whether it contains a historical kernel. • There are reasons to suggest that northern traditions were put in writing in the first half of the eighth century bce, possibly as part of reorganization of the kingdom in the days of Jeroboam II. • Written northern traditions reached Judah after 720 bce. The northern and southern ancestral tales were merged into a Judah-­oriented patriarchal narrative starting in the seventh century bce. • The scope of literacy in late monarchic Israel and Judah as revealed by archaeology presents a suitable setting for the early phases of the compilation of pentateuchal texts. The poor settlement activity and dearth of Hebrew inscriptions in Jerusalem in particular and in Yehud/early Judea in general must be taken into consideration when proposing to situate any significant proportion of the compilation of Pentateuchal texts in these periods and places.

Suggested Reading On the patriarchal traditions see Finkelstein and Romer 2014a; 2014b and references to previous studies therein; for the exodus tradition see different chapters in Levy, Schneider, and Propp 2015.

Works Cited Ahituv, S. 2008. Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period. Jerusalem: Carta. Ahituv, S., E.  Eshel, and Z.  Meshel. 2012. “The Inscriptions.” In Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (Horvat Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border, edited by Z. Meshel, 73–142. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Albertz, R. 2001. “Exodus: Liberation History Against Charter Myths.” In Religious Identity and the Invention of Tradition: Papers Read at a NOSTER Conference in Soesterberg, January 4–6, 1999, edited by J. W. van Henten and A. W. Hautepe, 128–143. Assen: Van Gorcum. Albertz, R. 2003. Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Albright, W. F. 1961. “Abraham the Hebrew: A New Archaeological Interpretation.” BASOR 163:36–54. Arie, E. 2008. “Reconstructing the Iron Age II Strata at Tel Dan: Archaeological and Historical Implications.” TA 35:6–64. Barkay, G. 2003. “The King’s Palace and ‘The House of the People’ in Jerusalem at the Time of the Babylonian Conquest.” New Studies on Jerusalem 9:21–28 (Hebrew). Barkay, G., and Z. Zweig. 2006. “The Project of Sifting Soil from the Temple Mount—Preliminary Report.” New Studies on Jerusalem 11:213–237 (Hebrew). Bartlett, J. R. 1989. Edom and the Edomites, Sheffield: JSOT Press. Bietak, M. 1987. “Comments on the ‘Exodus.’” In Egypt, Israel, Sinai: Archaeological and Historical Relationships in the Biblical Period, edited by A. F. Rainey, 163–171. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   417 Blum, E. 2012. “The Jacob Tradition.” In The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, edited by C. A. Evans, J. N. Lohr, and D. L. Petersen, 181–211. VTSup 152. Leiden: Brill. Broshi, M. 1974. “The Expansion of Jerusalem in the Reigns of Hezekiah and Manasseh.” IEJ 24:21–26. Broshi, M., and I.  Finkelstein. 1992. “The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II.” BASOR 287:47–60. Carter, C. E. 1999. The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Cohen, R., and H. Bernick-Greenberg. 2007. Excavations at Kadesh Barnea (Tell el-Qudeirat) 1976–1982. 2 vols. IAA Reports 34. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority. Cohen, R., and R. Cohen-Amin. 2004. Ancient Settlement of the Negev Highlands. Volume II: The Iron Age and the Persian Period. IAA Reports 20. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority. Davies, P.  R. 2007. “The Trouble with Benjamin.” In Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, edited by R. Rezetko, T. H. Lim, and W. B. Aucker, 93–111. Leiden: Brill. De Pury, A. 2001. “Situer le cycle de Jacob: Quelques réflexions, vingt-cinq ans plus tard.” In Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History, edited by A.  Wénin, ­213–241. BETL 155. Leuven: Leuven University Press and Peeters. De Vaux, R. 1978. The Early History of Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster. Dever, W.  G., and M.  W.  Clark. 1977. “The Patriarchal Traditions.” In Israelite and Judaean History, edited by J. H. Hayes and M. J. Miller, 70–148. London: SCM. Dvira [Zweig], Z., G. Zigdon, and L. Shilov. 2011. “Secondary Refuse Aggregates from the First and Second Temple Periods on the Eastern Slope of the Temple Mount.” New Studies on Jerusalem 17:63–106 (Hebrew). Edelstein, G. 2000. “A Terraced Farm at Er-Ras.” Atiqot 40:39–63. Eichler, B. L. 1989. “Nuzi and the Bible: A Retrospective.” In Dumu-E2-Dub-Ba-A: Studies in Honor of Ake  W.  Sjoberg, edited by H.  Behrens, D.  Loding, and M.  T.  Roth, 107–119. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Faigenbaum-Golovin, S., et al. 2016. “Algorithmic Handwriting Analysis of Judah’s Military Correspondence Sheds Light on Composition of Biblical Texts.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113 no. 17:4664–4669. Fantalkin, A. 2008. “The Appearance of Rock-Cut Bench Tombs in Iron Age Judah as a Reflection of State Formation.” In Bene Israel: Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and the Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages in Honour of Israel Finkelstein, edited by A. Fantalkin and A. Yassur-Landau, 17–44. CHANE 31. Leiden: Brill. Fantalkin, A., and I. Finkelstein. 2006. “The Sheshonq I Campaign and the 8th-century BCE Earthquake—More on the Archaeology and History of the South in the Iron I–IIA.” TA 33:18–42. Faust, A. 2012. Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Finkelstein, I. 2006. “The Last Labayu: King Saul and the Expansion of the First North Israelite Territorial Entity”. In Essays on Ancient Israel in its Near Eastern Context: A Tribute to Nadav Na’aman, edited by Y. Amit et al., 171–177. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Finkelstein, I. 2008. “Jerusalem in the Persian (and Early Hellenistic) Period and the Wall of Nehemiah.” JSOT 32:501–520. Finkelstein, I. 2010. “The Territorial Extent and Demography of Yehud/Judea in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods.” RB 117:39–54. Finkelstein, I. 2012. “Tell el-Farah (Tirzah) and the Early Days of the Northern Kingdom.” RB 119:331–346.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

418   Israel Finkelstein Finkelstein, I. 2013. The Forgotten Kingdom: The Archaeology and History of Northern Israel. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Finkelstein, I. 2015. “Migration of Israelites into Judah after 720 BCE: An Answer and an Update.” ZAW 127:188–206. Finkelstein, I. 2020. "The Emergence and Dissemination of Writing in Judah." Semitica and Classica 13:269-282. Finkelstein, I., I. Koch, and O. Lipschits. 2011. “The Mound on the Mount: A Possible Solution to the ‘Problem with Jerusalem.’” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 11/12:2–24. DOI:10.5508/ jhs.2011.v11.a12. Finkelstein, I., I.  Koch, and O.  Lipschits. 2012. “The Biblical Gilead: Observations on Identifications, Geographic Divisions and Territorial History.” UF 43:131–159. Finkelstein, I., and T.  C.  Römer. 2014a. “Comments on the Historical Background of the Abraham Narrative: Between ‘Realia’ and Exegetica.” HBAI 3:3–23. Finkelstein, I., and T. C. Römer. 2014b. “Comments on the Historical Background of the Jacob Narrative in Genesis.” ZAW 126:317–338. Finkelstein, I., and B. Sass. 2013. “The West Semitic Alphabet from the Late Bronze to the Iron IIA Examined from an Archaeological Starting Point.” HBAI 2:149–220. Finkelstein, I., and B. Sass. In press. “The Exceptional Concentration of Alphabetic Iron IIA Inscriptions at Gath and Rehob and the Emergence of the Hebrew Alphabetic Variant.” In Oral et écrit dans le Proche-Orient ancien: les processus de rédaction et d’édition, edited by T. Römer, H. Gonzalez & L. Marti. Leuven: Peeters. Finkelstein, I., and N. A. Silberman. 2001. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Free Press. Finkelstein, I., and N. A. Silberman. 2006. “Temple and Dynasty: Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah and the Rise of the Pan-Israelite Ideology.” JSOT 30:259–285. Finkelstein, I., and L. Singer-Avitz. 2009. “Reevaluating Bethel.” ZDPV 125:33–48. Freedman, D. N. 1978. “The Real Story of the Ebla Tablets: Ebla and the Cities of the Plain.” BA 41:143–164. Geva, H. 2003. “Western Jerusalem at the End of the First Temple Period in Light of the Excavations in the Jewish Quarter.” In Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology: The First Temple Period, edited by A. Vaughn and A. E. Killebrew, 183–208. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Glueck, N. 1960. Rivers in the Desert: A History of the Negev. 2nd ed. New York: Grove Press. Gordon, C. H. 1964. “Biblical Customs and the Nuzu Tablets”. In The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, edited by E. F. Campbell and D. N. Freedman, 2:21–33. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Granerød, G. 2010. Abraham and Melchizedek: Scribal Activity of Second Temple Times in Genesis 14 and Psalms 10. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hendel, R. 2001. “The Exodus in Biblical Memory.” JBL 120:601–622. Hendel, R. 2005. Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible. New York: Oxford University Press. Hoffmeier, J. K. 1997. Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press. Hoffmeier, J. K. 2005. Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hurowitz, V.  A. 2006. “Babylon in Bethel—New Light on Jacob’s Dream”. In Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible, edited by S. W. Holloway, 436–448. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix. Jamieson-Drake, D. W. 1991. Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah. Sheffield: Almond Press. Keel, O., and C.  Uehlinger. 1998. Gods, Goddesses and Images of Gods in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Archaeology and History   419 Kelso, J. L. 1968. The Excavation of Bethel (1934–1960). AASOR 39. Cambridge: ASOR. Kitchen, K. A. 1998. “Egyptians and Hebrews, from Raamses to Jericho”. In The Origin of Early Israel—Current Debate, Biblical, Historical, and Archaeological Perspectives, edited by S. Ahituv and E. D. Oren, 65–131. Beer-Sheva 12. Jerusalem: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press. Knauf, E. A. 1989. Ismael: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Palästinas und Nordarabiens im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. 2nd ed. Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 7. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Knauf, E. A. 2000. “Jerusalem in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages: A Proposal.” TA 27:75–90. Knauf, E. A. 2006. “Bethel: The Israelite impact on Judean Language and Literature”. In Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by O.  Lipschits and M.  Oeming, 291–349. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Lemaire, A. 2012. “New Perspectives on the Trade Between Judah and South Arabia”. In New Inscriptions and Seals Relating to the Biblical World, edited by M. Lubetski, 93–110. Atlanta: SBL Press. Levy, T. E., T. Schneider, and W. H. Propp. 2015. Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective. New York: Springer. Lipschits, O. 2003. “Demographic Changes in Judah Between the Seventh and the Fifth Centuries  B.C.E.”. In Judah and the Judeans in the New-Babylonian Period, edited by O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp, 323–376. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Lipschits, O. 2005. The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Mazar, B. 1969. “The Historical Background of the Book of Genesis.” JNES 28:73–83. McCarter, P. K. 1999. “The Patriarchal Age: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”. In Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple, edited by H. Shanks, 1–31. Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society. Na’aman, N. 1996. “The Contribution of the Amarna Letters to the Debate on Jerusalem’s Political Position in the Tenth Century B.C.E.” BASOR 304:17–27. Na’aman, N. 2001. “An Assyrian residency at Ramat Rahel?” TA 28:260–280. Na’aman, N. 2011a. “A New Appraisal of the Silver Amulets from Ketef Hinnom.” IEJ 61:184–195. Na’aman, N. 2011b. “The Exodus Story: Between Historical Memory and Historiographical Composition.” JANER 11:39–69. Na’aman, N. 2012. “The Inscriptions of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud Through the Lens of Historical Research.” UF 43:1–43. Na’aman, N. 2014a. “Dismissing the Myth of a Flood of Israelite Refugees in the Late Eight Century BCE.” ZAW 126:1–14. Na’aman, N. 2014b. “The Jacob Story and the Formation of Biblical Israel.” TA 41:95–125. Naveh, J. 1998. “Achish-Ikausu in the Light of the Ekron Dedication.” BASOR 310:35–37. Noth, M. 1972. A History of Pentateuchal Traditions. Trans. B. W. Anderson. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Ofer, A. 1994. “‘All the Hill Country of Judah’: From Settlement Fringe to a Prosperous Monarchy.” In From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel, edited by I. Finkelstein and N. Na’aman, 92–121. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and Israel Exploration Society. Oren, E. D. 1993. “Haror, Tel.” In The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 2:580–584. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, Ornan, T. 2015. “The Drawings from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud Reconsidered”. In To Yahweh Teiman and His Ashera: The Inscriptions and Drawings from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (“Horvat Teman”) in Sinai, edited by S. Ahituv et al., 44–68. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi (Hebrew).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

420   Israel Finkelstein Redford, D. B. 1987. “An Egyptological Perspective on the Exodus Narrative.” In Egypt, Israel, Sinai: Archaeological and Historical Relationships in the Biblical Period, edited by A. F. Rainey, 137–161. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press. Redford, D.  B. 1992. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Reich, R., E.  Shukron, and O.  Lernau. 2007. “Recent Discoveries in the City of David, Jerusalem.” IEJ 57:153–169. Reich, R., and E.  Shukron. 2003. “The Urban Development of Jerusalem in the Late Eight Century B.C.E.” In Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology: The First Temple Period, edited by A. Vaughn and A. E. Killebrew, 209–218. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Römer, T. C. 2007. “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, T. Lim, and W. B. Aucker, 419–445. Leiden: Brill. Schmid, K. 2010. Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schniedewind, W. M. 2004. How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sergi, O. 2013. “Judah’s Expansion in Historical Context.” TA 40:226–246. Shaus, A., Y. Gerber, S. Faigenbaum-Golovin, B. Sober, E. Piasetzky and I. Finkelstein. 2020. "Forensic Document Examination and Algorithmic Handwriting Analysis of Judahite Biblical Period Inscriptions Reveal Significant Literacy Level." Plos One September 9, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237962. Speiser, E. A. 1964. Genesis: Introduction, Translation and Notes. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Thareani, Y. 2011. Tel ‘Aroer: The Iron Age II Caravan Town and the Hellenistic-Early Roman Settlement—The Avraham Biran (1975–1982) and Rudolf Cohen (1975–1976) Excavations. Jerusalem: Hebrew Union College Press. Thompson, T. L. 1974. The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham. BZAW 133. Berlin: de Gruyter. Van der Toorn, K. 1996. Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life. Leiden: Brill. Van Seters, J. 1975. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wellhausen, J. 1927. Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. Berlin: de Gruyter. Zorn, J., J.  Yelin, and J.  H.  Hayes. 1994. “The m(w)sh Stamp Impressions and the NeoBabylonian Period.” IEJ 44:161–183.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Chapter 22

Pen tateuch a l a n d A ncien t N e a r Easter n R it ua l Yitzhaq Feder

Introduction The recognition that biblical rituals bear close similarities to those found in other cultures—ancient and modern—has a long pedigree in biblical scholarship. Already in the late twelfth/early thirteenth century ce, the Jewish legalist and philosopher Moses Maimonides used Babylonian customs as a basis for his historicistic approach to the biblical cult (e.g. Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed 3.29). The comparative enterprise has taken up new momentum since the decipherment of cuneiform in the ­mid-­nineteenth century, revealing an abundant textual record of Near Eastern ritual practices, unknown for millennia, which bear a geographical and cultural proximity to biblical Israel. Not surprisingly, these textual materials have served as a powerful catalyst for modern biblical research, serving as a basis both for interpretations of the bib­ lical ritual texts and for reconstructions of their historical contexts. This chapter will discuss recent developments in the comparative study of biblical ritual, focusing specifically on the Priestly (P) source of the Pentateuch. The first section, Definitions, introduces some basic problems with defining “ritual” and addresses the relationship between ritual practice and ritual text. The second section, Theoretical Approaches to Ritual Interpretation, provides a brief overview of some theoretical developments in the study of ritual, discussing both prospects and pitfalls with regard to their incorporation into biblical studies. The third section, Parallels and the Problem of Dating P, will focus on the identification and significance of extrabiblical parallels for the dating and interpretation of P texts. The fourth section will examine the contribution of

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

422   Yitzhaq Feder these materials for understanding the textualization of Priestly ritual. The Conclusion will return to the question of ritual text and practice, as these relate to the study of ancient Near Eastern and biblical evidence.

Definitions The problem of defining ritual has been widely discussed (e.g. Klingbeil 2007, 14–18), leading some prominent scholars to question the proposition altogether (Goody 1977). One problem, as Jan Snoek, points out, is that it seems that almost everyone who has proposed a definition of “ritual” assumes that it has to be of the classical form: “Something is a ritual if and only if it has all of the characteristics A, B, and C.” . . . However, analysis of an arbitrary selection of the available definitions soon reveals that a characteristic regarded as obligatory by one scholar is rejected by another, usually because the material with which the first one is familiar happens to be homogeneous with respect to this particular characteristic, whereas the material with which the second scholar works shows one or more examples that lack it.  (Snoek 2006, 3)

On the other hand, attempts to include heterogeneous sets of material, especially religious and secular rituals and ceremonies, under one definition, yield an overly general category of questionable utility. For example, in an oft-­quoted definition, Victor Turner defined ritual as “formal behavior prescribed for occasions not given over to technological routine that have reference to beliefs in mystical beings or powers” (Turner 1967, 19). This definition combines an appreciation for the instrumental nature of the African rituals that Turner was analyzing and the recognition of their reliance on a culture-­specific metaphysical framework (as opposed to pure physical, or “technological,” causality). While I would view this definition as appropriate for most ancient Near Eastern rituals, it has been frequently criticized by more recent theorists. One reviewer complains: “Turner’s def­in­ ition makes all ritual religious. But is a parade ritual? A courtroom trial? A graduation ceremony? . . . [D]oes a bar mitzvah require ‘belief in mystical beings’?” (Stephenson 2015, 72). This type of exchange shows how a particular theorist’s choice regarding how to circumscribe the category of “ritual” has important implications, with a more inclusive definition resulting in a more diluted analytic concept. For our purposes, a more narrow definition closer to Turner’s, which is unapologetic about the specifically religious premises of ritual efficacy, may be more productive in reconstructing the ­ontological framework(s) upon which ancient Near Eastern ritual systems were predicated (see further below). Of course, a more solid point of departure would be to follow native terminology. Indeed, there are clearly terms in ancient Near Eastern languages which approximate

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   423 the usage of “ritual” in reference, if not in semantics (see the insightful discussion of Strausberg  2006, followed by a cross-­cultural lexicographic survey which includes Akkadian and Hittite). Just as the modern analytic concept of “ritual” is an expression of a meta-­discourse about ritual (and not part of the activity itself), it is not coincidental that the Near Eastern terms for ritual are closely associated with ritual texts. For ex­ample, while no biblical term parallels the modern concept, the Priestly usage of the term tôrāh, literally “instruction,” designates the textual genre which outlines the pro­ ced­ural requirements of divinely mandated practice (e.g. Lev 6:2, 7, 18; 7:1, 11, 37, 46; 12:7; 14:2, 54). Likewise, the Akkadian term nēpešu designates ritual procedures, as well as tablets which outline such procedures (CAD N/2:168–170; for additional Sumerian and Akkadian terms, see Sallaberger 2012, 421). The Hittite archives distinguish between “festivals” (EZEN4) and “ritual” texts (SISKUR/ SÍSKUR). Gary Beckman elucidates this difference as follows: Modern scholars have observed that, with rare exceptions, festivals are ceremonies of the state cult, to be performed periodically—monthly, yearly, or on the occasion of particular recurrent natural events . . . or agricultural activities. In contrast, rituals are to be carried out only in response to special crises affecting an individual or group—impotence, miscarriage, strife within a family, a lost battle, and so on. (Beckman 2014, 1)

This typology is widely applicable to the Near Eastern textual evidence. However, regarding the biblical evidence, I would suggest substituting the designation “cultic” for “festival,” to designate both the instructions for regular offerings of the official cult (e.g. Lev 1–3) as well as festival instructions, strictly defined (Lev 23; Num 28–29; see Babcock 2014, 21–41). The designation “(instrumental) ritual” can be applied to irregular offerings such as those for expiation (e.g. Lev 4–5) and purification rites (Lev 12–15), including those for unique circumstances, such as those for the suspected adulteress (Num 5:11–31) or the Nazirite (Num 6:1–21). These terminological parallels are not mere exercises in classification for its own sake, but rather invite more sustained cross-­cultural comparisons with important implications for the meaning and historical background of P’s ritual practices. Whereas cultic practices focus on paying homage to a given deity and ensuring the continuance of divine favor, rituals usually attend to emergent situations that are of dire concern to the patron(s). These distinct functions find expression in formal differences between these genres. For example, while the ritual texts are usually introduced with casuistic formulas, cultic texts are generally introduced by reference to the calendric date(s) or season(s) of their performance (Schwemer 2016). While this distinction between festivals and rit­uals is crucial for understanding the ancient evidence, the present essay will employ the term “ritual” as an inclusive analytic category which encompasses these two types, consistent with its use in modern academic discourse. When necessary to distinguish subgenres, the designation “instrumental ­rituals” will be used.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

424   Yitzhaq Feder

Theoretical Approaches to Ritual Interpretation The 1970s through 1990s saw the emergence of a new discipline, ritual studies, with the purpose of developing a cross-­cultural theoretical framework for studying ritual. This new discipline has already made a significant impact on biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies. Unfortunately, these attempts at interdisciplinarity often fall short of a full dialogue between the modern theoretical frameworks and the ancient textual evidence. Not only do the theoretical frameworks demand refinements when applied to ancient Near Eastern cultures, the ancient Near Eastern evidence could provide the basis for a comprehensive critique of several dominant ritual theories, regarding central topics such as the meaning, efficacy, and even the definition of “ritual.” Without attempting such a comprehensive treatment here, the present discussion will emphasize the ­far-­reaching implications of applying particular theoretical frameworks (as opposed to others) in interpreting the biblical and ancient Near Eastern evidence. A fundamental question of ritual studies, related to the definition of “ritual,” is its differentiation from other types of behavior. Scholars who take an instrumentalist view of ritual would attribute the difference to the types of force (physical versus metaphysical) used to achieve one’s pragmatic aims. Others, who deny the instrumentality of ritual, tend to classify it as symbolic/ expressive behavior (see review in Bell  1992, 70–71). Clearly, one’s position on this question is inextricably tied to the question of what behaviors are included in the category “ritual.” As noted, the ancient Near Eastern evidence is largely consistent with an instrumentalist account, addressing concerns such as sickness, plague, and warfare. A related problem pertains to the question of ritual efficacy. For scholars who focus on the expressive nature of ritual, the focus on efficacy is misplaced (Sax 2010). When dealing with instrumental ritual, however, it seems rather incongruous to deny that rit­ uals were expected to have real effects (Ahern 1979). Of course, this point is based on the assumption that participants believe their rituals to be efficacious. Along these lines, Edward Shils commented that “beliefs could exist without rituals; rituals, however, cannot exist without beliefs” (Shils 1968, 736). Though this statement has been criticized for perpetuating a thought/action dichotomy (Bell  1992,19–66), one cannot dismiss the obvious fact that (religious) ritual activities are based on ontological assumptions which lend ritual activities efficacy. Here one may introduce an important distinction between non-­reflective and re­flect­ ive beliefs. The former is embedded in action (e.g. the “belief ” in gravity is embedded in the throwing of a ball), whereas the latter is usually mediated by language (for the important distinction between non-­reflective and reflective beliefs, see Sperber 1997; Barrett and Lanman 2008; applied to the notion of “pollution,” t ̣umʾāh, in Feder 2016, 1572). While both types of belief are fundamental to ritual action, a recognition of ­non-­reflective beliefs, enacted through embodied activity, offers a compelling ­resolution

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   425 to the thought/action dichotomy, since conscious reflection (thought) is no longer the sine qua non for discussing rituals’ presupposition of beliefs (contra Staal 1979). Once the principal of efficacy has been established, the interpretation of ritual acts may then address the question of why rites were believed to be appropriate for their function. On the one hand, within the context of therapeutic rituals, different types of plants, animals and other substances were treated as materia magica, understood to possess unique properties often in shared traditions which span from Mesopotamia through the Mediterranean (Haas 2003a). On the other hand, in the context of the cult, the choice of one animal as opposed to another can be largely attributed to its economic value, consistent with the “gift theory” of offerings (see Modéus  2005, ­160–171). For example, the use of birds in chthonic sacrifices appears to be due to their lower value (contra Minunno 2013). Not only can this be shown from a comparison with the biblical concession for indigents (Lev 5:7; 12:8; 14:22), it is explicitly stated in a Hittite ritual for purifying a house (Catalogue des textes hittites (CTH) 446). Upon offering two birds to the underworld deities and one to the pit (api), the priest declares: “For you, O Primordial Deities, cattle and sheep will not be forthcoming. When the Stormgod drove you down to the Dark Underworld, he established for you this offering” (translation in Collins 2003, 170). Here we find an explicit statement that the use of birds in this context stems from their inferior status. In short, the ­appreciation for the instrumentality of ancient Near Eastern ritual and their presumed efficacy opens the door to understanding the conceptual frameworks which lend these rites their efficacy. Recently, scholars have become more reflexive regarding the interpretive assumptions involved in the determination of these “why”s. In fact, some scholars have expressed the skeptical position that the search for such “meanings” to ritual is misguided; for example, in Fritz Staal’s provocative article “The Meaninglessness of Ritual” (1979). Among his arguments, Staal pointed out that the practitioners of rituals often show little interest in the meaning of ritual and focus almost exclusively on the technical details of correct performance. Though this position is certainly not beyond critique (Penner  1985; Feder  2011, ­148–165; Meshel  2014, 187–195), this greater skepticism towards ritual meanings has given birth to two new fruitful lines of inquiry in ritual studies. The first of these, designated ritual syntax, focuses on the formal aspects of ritual, largely independent of questions of meaning (Michaels 2010; Meshel 2014). A second tendency moves attention from what ritual means to what ritual does. A cogent summary of this position has been provided by Saul M. Olyan: “Rites shape reality for participants; they do not simply reflect some preexisting set of social arrangements brought into being elsewhere” (Olyan 2000, 4). Drawing on a synthesis of ritual and literary theory, Olyan’s student, William Gilders (2004, 2006), has called attention to the role of gap-­filling in interpreting ritual texts. Leaving aside speculative inquiries into the meaning of ritual acts, he shows how blood serves as an index to focus attention and establish status in biblical ritual. (This use of indexicality draws on the work of Charles S. Peirce, who defined the index as “really affected” by its referential object and focuses the interpreter’s attention

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

426   Yitzhaq Feder on the object; e.g. a weathercock indicates the direction of the wind; smoke indicates fire; Peirce 1965:§248; cf. §§283–290, 305–306.) A related development is Catherine Bell’s appeal to move the focus from the “what” of ritual (i.e. formal definitions) or the “why” (questions of function/meaning) to the “how.” Developing her teacher Jonathan Z. Smith’s assertion that “[r]itual is, above all, an assertion of difference,” Bell introduces the notion of “ritualization,” defined as “a matter of various culturally specific strategies for setting some activities off from others, for creating and privileging a qualitative distinction between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’, and for ascribing such distinctions to realities thought to transcend the powers of human actors” (Bell 1992, 74). Without dismissing the analytic usefulness of Bell’s notion of ritualization, it is important to recognize that it is based in part on a pervasive misconception of the ­so-­called “arbitrariness” of ritual. Probably the most adamant spokesman for this ­position was Smith himself, who expressed such a view in relation to the ancient Jewish view of temple purity as follows: The actions within the Temple consisted of a series of hierarchal and hieratic transactions concerning pure/impure. This is, above all, a matter of difference. The ritual elements in the Temple functioned much as do the phonemes within Roman Jakobson’s linguistic theory, as “purely differential and contentless signs” forming a system “composed of elements which are signifiers and yet, at the same time, signify nothing.” That is to say, despite ingenious attempts, there is no possibility of decoding the meaning of the causes of impurity—they signify sheer difference (Smith 1987, 85; see also Watts  2013. For the fallacy of this point regarding impurity, see Feder 2013, 2016).

In a similar vein, Nancy Jay claims: “A greater difficulty follows from the arbitrary and conventional nature of relations between symbols and their referents. This means that unless these conventional and arbitrary meanings of ritual are already known, there is no way to understand them” (Jay 1992, 5). Such widespread generalizations are easily refuted by the ritual evidence from the ancient Near East. Firstly, a clear relationship between the form of ritual acts and their function, that is to say their motivation, is often easily detectable, not requiring rigorous work to decipher. For example, it is hardly accidental that ritual purifications take the form of physical washing. As has been shown by advocates of practice theory (Bourdieu 1977; Bell 1992, 94–117), as well as the more recent wave of cognitive scientific research on embodied cognition (see Rohrer 2007), the motivation of ritual actions is derived from concrete experience, whether from physiological necessity or from the contingent habitus of a specific culture. Indeed, the existence of typological parallels in historically disconnected cultures is incontrovertible evidence for the non-­arbitrariness of ritual forms (see the Parallels and the Problem of Dating P section). The ritual use of blood may serve as a brief illustration of how these new theoretical developments can interact with more traditional philological research. The laconic ­evidence of ancient Near Eastern sacrificial procedures is hardly sufficient for a

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   427 c­ omprehensive reconstruction of ritual syntax, comparable to what has been attempted on Vedic or biblical ritual. Here we will content ourselves with a partial formal analysis of sacrificial procedure based on a scattering of explicit statements and terminological analysis. No less an authority than Wilfred G. Lambert has claimed that “there was no Kosher killing in ancient Babylonia” (Lambert 1993, 194). Nevertheless, there are sufficient indications that sacrificial offerings were killed by the slitting the throat and draining of the blood, as implied by t ̣abāḫu (CAD Ṭ:1–4), the Akkadian cognate of Hebrew z-­b-­ḥ (Milgrom  1976). Interestingly, the primary terms for sacrifice in Akkadian (verb: naqû/noun: nīqu) and Hittite (šipanti) refer literally to libations. In other words, these terms underwent the following semantic transition: “libation” > “offering” (including animal sacrifice). Accordingly, some scholars have suggested that this semantic development reflects the custom of pouring blood on the altar (Kühne 1986, 115–116; cf. 1993, 227n4; Lebrun  1993). However, as has been widely recognized, Mesopotamian and Hittite texts do not thematize blood manipulations in any way comparable to the bib­ lical texts (Goetze 1971; Linssen 2004, 158). When blood is mentioned in sacrificial contexts, it usually involves offerings to chthonic deities (Mayer and Sallaberger 2003, 97; see below). An alternative solution for the parallel semantic developments (“libation” > “offering”) in Akkadian and Hittite, one which finds stronger support in the lexical evidence, is that these terms indeed referred to wine libations, but that this usage was extended to include other types of offering that please the gods (McCarthy 1969, 167; Lambert  1993, 195). If this explanation is correct, it would challenge the widespread assumption that animal sacrifice is the quintessential form of offering and suggest a possible contrast with P, where libations are treated as ancillary offerings (see on this the discussion of “jugation” in Meshel 2014, 63–103). As can be seen even from this very brief discussion, the formal analysis of praxis is inextricably tied to questions of meaning (Meshel 2014, 191–195). A similar point can be made regarding the syntax of biblical blood rites, though here one can take advantage of a much more systematic catalog of explicit and detailed prescriptions of how blood is manipulated for each type of offering (Gilders 2004, 25–28; Meshel 2014, 147–153). Perhaps the most frequent manipulation is the requirement to pour the blood on/around the altar (e.g., Lev 1:5, 11; 3:2, 8, 13), which appears for burnt, well-­being, guilt, and ordination offerings. Though the rabbinic interpretation of this phrase, that the blood was spilled on the walls of the altar, has become a near consensus opinion in modern scholarship, Naphtali S. Meshel (2013) has shown that it is more likely that the expression refers to pouring the blood on the upper surface of the altar. It would seem, therefore, that the blood would serve as a blood offering to the deity, as explicitly stated by Ezekiel (44:7, 15). As such, it would appear that the biblical evidence would recognize an up–down dichotomy of blood libations comparable to the ancient Greek evidence, whereby upwards slaughter was directed to Olympian gods and downwards slaughter to chthonic deities (Grintz 1972). Drawing on embodiment theory, one may point out that this dichotomy is built not only on the homology UP IS GOOD (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 14–21), but also that UP IS DOMINANCE: i.e., to come out

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

428   Yitzhaq Feder “on top” means to be in the dominant position. In other words, the mythological ­distinction between heavenly and chthonic deities, whereby the former dominate the latter, as well as ritual actions based on this distinction are rooted in embodied meanings. Significantly, this example shows how the topography of praxis has important implications for the interpretation of the rite, aside from any verbalized rationale that the text may provide. One may even ask whether the priestly authors were comfortable with the implications of this accepted practice (Meshel 2013, 289). Moreover, aside from implicit rationales embodied in descriptions of praxis, the ­bib­lical evidence offers explicit rationales to guide the interpretation of blood rites. Turning to the expiatory offerings, the question of the meaning of these rites has received attention already since late antiquity. The point of departure for most ­interpretations is the explicit association of blood with the vital spirit (nepeš, usually imprecisely translated as “life”). However, aside from Lev 17:11, where this “axiom” is explicitly applied to sacrifice, this equation of blood with spirit appears only as a rationale for the prohibition of consuming blood (Gen 9:4; Lev 17:11, 14; Deut 12:23; Feder 2011, 196–207). Fundamentally, Gilders has pointed out that the multivocality of ritual symbols demands a more con­text­ual­ized approach to interpretation (Gilders 2004, 12–25, ­158–180). This theoretical point is corroborated by the ancient Near Eastern evidence, where blood serves multiple functions (e.g., as libations to chthonic deities, as salves for epileptics, in expiatory rites), such that each use may potentially derive from a distinct rationale (Feder 2011, 2­ 09–229). Taking a more agnostic approach to the meaning of these rites, Gilders demonstrates how they serve as indices for hierarchal relations shaping cultic space and the status relations between the high priest, priests, and laity. Yet it is a mistake to draw the conclusion that the various uses of blood in biblical ritual are arbitrary. The disparate uses of blood derive their significance to some degree from the indexical relationship between blood and vital spirit, as universally recognized by the ancients and reflected linguistically: “blood-­shed” equals death. In the aforementioned ritual types, this association of blood has different implications. It is used as an offering for chthonic deities who are thirsty for blood (and the vital force contained therein), and also as a means of luring out demonic forces from epileptic patients. In a more associative connection, reflected in the association of blood and the root k-­p-­r in the Hebrew Bible, its use in expiatory offerings appears to derive from the notion of blood as payment in the context of homicide retribution (Feder 2011, 167–207). As such, the approach advocated here is diametrically opposed to that of Smith: “Here (in the world) blood is a major source of impurity; there (in ritual space) blood removes im­pur­ ity. Here (in the world) water is the central agent by which impurity is transmitted (sic); there (in ritual) washing with water carries away impurity. Neither the blood nor the water has changed; what has changed is their location” (Smith 1987, 110). On the contrary: the multiple uses of blood and water in ritual are inextricably tied to their significance (albeit multifarious) in everyday activity. The ritual space is not a cultural invention de novo, detached from reality. It is an outgrowth of the world of embodied meanings.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   429

Parallels and the Problem of Dating P Turning to issues which have more traditionally engaged biblical scholarship, a crucial methodological distinction must be made when comparing biblical rituals with parallels from other cultures (For more recent discussion of the comparative method, especially as it relates to ritual, see Klingbeil 2007, 61–65; Babcock 2014, 2–19). In discussing the comparative method, Meir Malul (1990) distinguished between “typological” parallels, attested also in cultures that are chronologically and geographically distant from one another, and “historical” parallels, which are limited to cultures that may plausibly have had some form of contact with each other. These distinct types of parallel, both amply attested in biblical research, have very different implications. A typological parallel is found in cultures which had no conceivable contact with ancient Israel (e.g. Native Americans, East Asians). While these similarities are entirely irrelevant for historical research, they may provide a fertile comparative basis for ana­lysis of the meaning of ritual procedures, via methods developed in ­cross-­cultural dis­cip­lines such as ritual studies and the cognitive science of religion. In particular, as noted above, the theory of embodied cognition can help account for universal or near-­universal recurrence of ritual behaviors. This cognitive process, whereby concrete ex­peri­ence serves as the basis for shared patterns of conceptualization and communication of abstract religious intuitions and ideals cross-­culturally (Feder  2013), brings to mind Carlo Tagliavini’s remark regarding semantic parallels, that “distant nations have occasionally met on the identical roads of human imagination” (ET in Blank 2003, 52–53). Too frequently, scholars have attempted to explain a biblical practice—e.g., the need for purification after sexual relations—in terms of specifically biblical theological ideals (Milgrom 1991–2001, 1:1000–1004). Yet the scope of an interpretation must fit the scope of the phenomenon. If a practice is universal, or at least widespread, a cogent in­ter­pret­ ation must explain why the practice was meaningful to humans in diverse s­ ocio-­religious contexts. The understanding of these practices will certainly be of crucial import for understanding ancient Israelite religion, but their study can be adequately addressed only by employing a cross-­cultural perspective and methodology. In contrast, historical parallels pertain to phenomena that are distinctive to one or several cultures adjacent to biblical Israel. The types of intercultural connections implied by these shared ritual behaviors vary widely. Despite the hope that such parallels may help reveal the time and place of composition of Priestly materials, only a relatively small subset of evidence can shed any light on such issues. Often cases of “influence” are used to determine whether a certain ritual concept or practice was transmitted in a process of linear transmission to Israel in the period of Assyrian domination, the Babylonian exile, or the Persian period (Pongratz-­Leisten 2011, 2–5). Even if a given parallel is historical, one must reckon with the possibility that Israelite ritual behaviors are a

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

430   Yitzhaq Feder localized manifestation of a network of ritual traditions which can be traced to the Late Bronze Age Levant, if not earlier. More specifically, it is possible to identify a ritual koine connecting Anatolian, Hurrian, Semitic, and Mediterranean peoples of the region (Gilan 2004). In particular, Late Bronze Age Syria can be identified as a vibrant hub of ritual technologies, in which Mediterranean, Anatolian, West Semitic, and Mesopotamian traditions were readily exchanged. This situation is amply attested in the multilingual textual evidence from Ugarit, Emar, and Kizzuwatna in Southern Anatolia (Janowski, Koch, and Wilhelm 1993; del Olmo Lete 2008). To name just a few examples, these include: installation rites for royalty and the cult (Fleming 1992; 1998; Klingbeil 1998; Yakubovich 2005), evil eye incantations (Ford 1998), standing stone worship (Hutter 1993; Mettinger 1995; Michel 2014), the fixed ritual combination of burnt and well-­being offerings (Schwemer 1995), expiation and purification with blood (Feder 2011) and scapegoat rites (Zatelli 1998; Bremmer 2001; Haas 2003b). Despite the commendable efforts of scholars, it is often impossible to determine the cultural origins of a particular religious tradition (Trémouille 1999). Clearly, this situation has far-­reaching implications for biblical research, which is too frequently preoccupied with the complicated and often futile search for the “origins” of a ritual practice, based on the assumption that these issues will somehow resolve the vexed issue of dating the Priestly materials. Scholarly discussion of the dating of P has been afflicted by paradox and prejudice. Paradoxically, P is the only source (or layer) in the Tetrateuch that has enjoyed anything close to unanimity in its delineation; yet behind this ostensible consensus lurk fundamental disagreements regarding the compositional history of P and even its very def­in­ ition. Points of contention have included: the antiquity of P (particularly in relation to D), the relationship between narrative and “law” (ritual instructions) in this source, and the relationship between P and H. Beginning with Julius Wellhausen’s assumed spon­ tan­eity of the early Israelite cult as contrasted with the legalism of late Priestly authors, the assumption of the relative lateness of ritual materials in P has characterized much of European scholarship throughout the twentieth century, expressed as the priority of the narrative Grundschrift (Pg) to the legal supplements (Ps). These prejudices have caused even Wellhausen’s critics to play by the same rules, for example defenders of the an­tiquity of P in all-­ or-­ nothing fashion (such as Yehezkel Kaufmann and his followers). Meanwhile, the playing field has changed almost beyond recognition, characterized by the new consensus surrounding the relative lateness of H vis-­à-­vis P and the more general appreciation for the stratification of P (Nihan 2007, 1–18; Shectman and Baden 2009). Another important development is the growing consensus regarding the relative lateness of much of the Priestly texts in Numbers compared with the earlier tabernacle narrative (Frevel, Pola, and Schart 2013). The ramifications of these developments for ­re-­evaluating traditional questions have not been fully recognized. Here it is important to address the mixed legacy of form-­critical analysis of Priestly ritual texts. Focusing on the biblical evidence, Rendtorff ([1954] 1967) and Koch (1959) sought to isolate a distinct “ritual” genre, based primarily on verbal tense. Interestingly, whereas Rendtorff followed the traditional assumption of the lateness of the ritual texts

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   431 (as supplements to the P narrative), Koch suggested that the ritual materials were in fact older than the narrative. These studies were soon followed by comparative studies of “prescriptive” versus “descriptive” rituals which noted generic similarities to Mesopotamian, Hittite, and Ugaritic texts (Levine 1963; 1965; Rainey 1970). While these form-­critical studies have made a positive contribution by establishing a common ground with comparable ancient Near Eastern documents, they have not been without fundamental problems. Rendtorff ’s and Koch’s initial concept of a “ritual” genre with strict syntactical characteristics was overly rigid (Nihan 2007, 215–219), and especially ill-­suited for application to Lev 1–7 (Watts  2007, 37–62). Yet this criticism need not require an abandonment of this genre altogether (cf. Knierim 1992, 106–111), but rather advises that it be more loosely defined, with greater weight given to considerations of content and function. Levine’s notion of “descriptive” ritual was initially employed to establish that the bib­ lical examples of this genre were based on archival documents, yet the existence of “descriptive” rituals has been questioned (Pardee 2002, 25), and even Levine himself has backtracked from his initial claims (Levine 1983, 469; see Clemens 2001, 104–105). Yet this issue of definition is secondary to the more fundamental point that the similarities of the biblical ritual texts to prescriptive rituals from Ugarit and Hatti, in particular, call into question the traditional view of the P rituals as being later than the P narrative. As scholars have begun to recognize, it is more likely that the Priestly source has reworked earlier ritual instructions in the formation of its broader narrative (Baden 2009). While these observations obviously undermine Wellhausen’s a priori late dating of Priestly ritual texts, they also show that it is not possible to demonstrate the antiquity of P as a literary composition merely on the basis of the language, ritual practices, and institutions reflected therein (as attempted by Weinfeld 1983). Indeed, it would appear that there is validity in the positions of Wellhausen and Kaufmann; hence it is no surprise that they both find contemporary advocates. Further progress will be made only by acknowledging that the literary evidence is more complex than was appreciated in the early twentieth century, requiring that the questions be fundamentally reframed. A useful beginning is Rendtorff ’s own compromise position: “Therefore ‘P’ as a cultic trad­ ition can be old, even if it might have undergone several changes. But the narrative parts of ‘P’ are late, so that ‘P’ as a source or layer of the Pentateuch is late but containing old cultic material” (Rendtorff 1993, 80). Despite the plausibility of the assumption that the Priestly rituals of the Pentateuch originated as independent instruction texts comparable to those found in neighboring cultures, the fact remains that this reconstruction is inevitably speculative. These rituals are not embedded in the P narrative in a merely superficial manner (Nihan  2007, ­198–207); rather, their fundamental concepts are drawn from the narrative framework, making the ritual into an inextricable part of the narrative (Bibb  2009; see also the Textualization of Priestly Ritual section). The resulting text is nearly entirely opaque to attempts to discern its prehistory. Hence, attempts to identify the sociohistorical context underlying the Priestly materials based on the mention of the “chieftain” (nāśī’) in Lev 4:22, for example, are of questionable value (cf. Duguid 1994, 11–18; Feder 2011, 41–42),

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

432   Yitzhaq Feder since they can also be explained as part of the narrative framework (Nihan 2007, 166). In this case, it may be only the predisposition of the scholar which determines whether the term is taken as reflecting a pre-­P ritual source indicative of an early socio-­historical context or as an integral part of the later narrative composition. In general, the editor(s) of P (including H and later revisions) have quite comprehensively and successfully disguised their own historical setting (cf. Joosten 1996, 203–207), resulting in an inverse correlation between the abundance of modern speculations regarding the historical background of P and the scarcity of concrete data on which to base them. The upshot of this state of affairs is as follows: once the fluidity of the biblical text is granted, it can be seen that the assumptions of the preexilic (and even pre-­monarchic) antiquity of Priestly traditions and the Persian-­period redaction of these materials are not mutually exclusive positions. In fact, a similar conclusion emerges from a con­sid­er­ ation of the textualization of ritual in the ancient Near East more generally, which suggests that viewing P as the result of a longue durée process is consistent with the scribal practices involved in the transmission of the ritual corpora of Israel’s neighbors.

Textualization of Priestly Ritual Though the potential contribution of comparative materials to the question of dating P is limited, a more substantial use of these comparisons is to understand the scribal processes underlying the composition of ritual texts. While much more work needs to be done in this area, recent years have seen a growing interest both in the general phenomenon of “scribal culture” (Carr 2005; 2011; van der Toorn 2007), as well as detailed investigations of how ritual texts evolve. Biblical scholars seeking to reconstruct the prehistory of the Priestly ritual texts must base themselves for the most part on internal inconsistencies in the text itself. Whereas inter-­biblical comparisons (e.g. Ex 29/Lev 8) and ancient manuscript evidence may occasionally reveal traces of earlier formative stages of these traditions, these cases are rare and usually of questionable import. In comparison, the textual evidence preserved in ancient Near Eastern archives provides a much richer corpus of data, preserving mul­ tiple exemplars of a single ritual composition. The study of variants between these copies promises a much clearer picture of the underlying processes by which these textual traditions were formed and transmitted (for an extended treatment of this topic, see Feder, forthcoming). In recent decades, the field of Hittitology in particular has seen a upsurge of interest in the textualization of ritual. (To my knowledge, the concern with this topic has been more limited in Assyriology, although important contributions include Abusch 2002 and Hobson  2012, but the recent wave of meticulous synoptic editions of ritual and incantation texts [e.g. Maul 1994; Abusch and Schwemer 2011; Abusch 2016; Abusch et al. 2016] will certainly facilitate further work in this domain.) The comparison of mul­ tiple exemplars of specific ritual compositions reveals both minor and major variants.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   433 Minor variations require attention to paleography (sign forms) and orthography (“­spelling”). These characteristics can be used for dating tablets, determining genetic relationships in manuscript traditions, and identifying idiosyncrasies of particular scribes and scribal circles (Gordin 2015, 83–94). Major variants include the existence or absence of entire sections of a ritual tradition, discrepancies regarding the number of ritual patrons and the identity of the patrons, specifically whether the patrons are named personalities (of the Hittite royal court) or generic (Christiansen 2007; Torri  2007; Collins 2013; 2014). The examination of these types of variation has served as a springboard for addressing more fundamental questions regarding the origin, modes of transmission, authorship, and authority of these texts (e.g. Miller 2004; Christiansen 2006; Marcuson and van den Hout 2015). Of particular interest is the Hittite scribal tendency to attribute ritual texts to a specific expert. For example, a typical incipit for a ritual text reads: “Thus (speaks) Maštigga, woman of Kizzuwatna: When a father and a son, or a man and his wife, or a brother and sister quarrel, then I treat them thus. I take the following” (Miller 2004, 61–62, slightly adapted). These named attributions distinguish the Hittite ritual traditions not only from their Mesopotamian counterparts, but even from Hittite festival traditions, which are not attributed to a specialist (Hecker  1977). Here the fundamental distinction between cultic and (instrumental) ritual texts is most apparent, as the attribution formulas serve to substantiate the efficacy of the rituals, an issue which is not pertinent for regular festival offerings. The question which has been addressed in recent Hittitological studies is whether there is any authentic basis to these designations (Miller  2004; Christiansen 2006). On one hand, the formulaic nature of the first-­person attributions in incipits and colophons, as also copied in the shelf-­lists used as archive catalogs (Dardano 2006), might suggest that these were scribal constructs. On the other hand, certain characteristics, such as evidence for language interference stemming from translation from Luwian or Hurrian, could suggest that these traditions did originate from North Syrian ritual experts (Taracha  2011; Rieken  2014). While the current state of research precludes a definitive conclusion and requires that each tradition be evaluated on an individual basis, it seems advisable to accept an intermediate position between credulity and skepticism. In particular, we must reckon with the possibility, even prob­ abil­ity, that many of these ritual traditions have a long pedigree going back to North Syrian ritual specialists, but also recognizing that scribal involvement with the text has increased in relation to the length of its transmission history (Gordin 2015, 115). An additional question which has been raised pertains to the function of these ritual texts. Modern scholars have posited several possible reasons for formulating ritual texts, including as memory-­aids to assist ritual performance, as a means to preserve trad­ itions, and as a means for maintaining royal or priestly hegemony over ritual practice. Surveying the biblical and extrabiblical evidence, it would appear that all of these functions are attested. In fact, a single textual tradition may even serve these various functions over the course of its transmission. Nonetheless, it appears that the initial impetus for the textualization of ritual in most cases was to facilitate the “correct” performance of the ritual itself.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

434   Yitzhaq Feder In particular, the use of deity lists as ancillaries to sacrificial texts has been found within the Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Hittite corpora. To take an Ugaritic example, the deity list RS 24.264+ (KTU 1:118; for the text, see Pardee 2000, 291–319; 2002, 11–16) corresponds to the sacrificial text RS 24.643 (KTU 1:148; Pardee 2000, 779–806; 2002, 44–49). This correspondence shows that the function of the deity lists was to ensure that each deity received his due, as indicated by the check marks on the left margins of RS 24.264+ (Pardee 2002, 11–13; Korpel 2005). A similar function is filled by the kaluti-lists in Hittite rituals, where the brief sacrificial instructions which occasionally accompany the lists show clearly that these lists had a practical function in ritual performance (Strauß 2006, 159–165; Giorgieri, Murat, and Süel 2013, 174). Likewise, the laconic nature of these ritual texts suggests their role as memory aids for officiants. For example, Jared L. Miller notes regarding the Ritual for Expanding the Night Goddess’ Cult (CTH 481): “Indeed, it is striking that hardly any description of the ritual performances is to be found in the entire composition, in stark contrast to the sometimes voluminous lists” (Miller 2004, 402). The simplest explanation for this tendency is the assumption that the ritual practitioners were fully cognizant of how to perform the different rites, needing only reminders for their sequence and the materials needed for a particular ritual. As such, the ritual texts served not as a script but as memory aids (Pardee 2002, 2, 26). Another potential function of ritual texts is to preserve ritual traditions for posterity. This function would be particularly appropriate for periods of sociopolitical upheaval that disrupt regular cultic routines. Indeed, Wellhausen presumed an exilic context for P, since “the temple was now destroyed and the worship interrupted, and the practice of past times had to be written down if it was not to be lost” (Wellhausen 1885, 404). Such a situation is attested explicitly in the colophon of a Hittite festival text KUB 28.80: “Tablet of the recitation of the regular festival of Nerik. (This is) now a new tablet. When in the years of w[a]r they started to perform the festival of Nerik in Ḫakmiš, the man of the Stormgod (and) the GUDU-­priest . . . came from Nerik and they took this re[cit]ation from those (refugee priests)” (rev. IV 1’–9’; Waal 2010, 293). Another function for ritual texts is to define legitimate practice, as determined by either royal or cultic authority. A salient example is the Hittite king Muršil II’s enactment in KUB 32.133 which sought to nullify the changes of the local priests and scribes of Šamuḫa to the Night Goddess’s cult: Thus (says) His Majesty, Muršili, Great King, son of Šuppiluliuma, Great King, Hero: When my forefather, Tudhaliya, the Great King, split the Night Goddess from the temple of the Night Goddess in Kizzuwatna and worshipped her separately in a temple in Šamuha, those rituals and obligations that he ordained for the temple of the Night Goddess, the clerks and the temple personnel came and began to incessantly alter them. I, Muršili, Great King, have reedited them from the tablets. Whenever in the future, in the temple of the Night Goddess of Šamuha, either the king, the queen, prince or princess come to the temple of the Night Goddess of Šamuha, these shall be the rituals (Miller 2004, 312–313, with adaptations).

Another example is Tudḫaliya IV’s edict regarding the cult of Nerik, which includes detailed instructions for ritual performance (Součková 2010). Finally, the authority of

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   435 ritual texts can be seen in their use to implement Hittite hegemony in thirteenth-­century bce Emar (Cohen 2011). The legitimizing function of ritual texts raises an additional question pertaining to the relationship between ritual text and practice. Here the question of “which came first” has interesting implications. For example, according to the view that takes the ritual text to be the progenitor of ritual practice, one might understand the above-­cited evidence for ritual texts being used to impose royal authority over the cult as implying that the monarch has “authored” the ritual, or at least that the ritual derives its initial authority from the royal enactment. However, in most cases, as argued above, ritual texts were ancillaries to already existing ritual practice. Hence, one may contrast two schemes for reconstructing the source of authority of ritual texts: (1) Royal/priestly authority > text > practice (2) Practice > text > royal/priestly authorization A recognition of the greater appropriateness of the second model (in most cases) en­ables a refined appreciation for the functions of ritual texts as texts. Specifically, an important role is the function of the text as a “filter” through which authoritative practice is ­distinguished from related customs, as can be seen from Muršili II’s enactment. A ­similar role might be posited for Priestly ritual texts vis-­à-­vis popular Israelite customs, as I have argued elsewhere (Feder 2015). In recent Pentateuchal research, attention to the textualization of Priestly ritual has led to a focus on the rhetorical features of these texts, especially in the work of James W. Watts (2007, 2013). While the immediate focus of such studies is the rhetorical aims and intended audience of the Priestly texts, even here comparisons with ancient Near Eastern ritual corpora play a key role. Indeed, the question of P’s rhetorical thrust takes on particular urgency once one acknowledges the striking anomalies which distinguish P from comparable extrabiblical documents. For instance, though comparisons with various genres have been suggested for Lev 1–7, its detailed prescriptions for sacrificial performance find no obvious parallel in the ancient Near East (Watts 2007, 37–62). More generally, the comprehensive narrativization of Priestly ritual—in which all of the instructions are situated in the wilderness context, including the tabernacle, Aaronide priesthood, and Mosaic revelation—also defies a simple comparison with Near Eastern ritual corpora and calls attention to the textualization of Priestly ritual. No less dramatic is the fact that Leviticus addresses the Israelite nation, not just the ritual specialists, as the audience for this collection of instructions and laws (Noth 1965, 20), which is to be contrasted with the limited address and even secrecy surrounding the ritual literature of neighboring cultures (Lenzi 2008). At the same time, it should be pointed out that attention to ritual rhetoric needs not always point to the material and political interests of the Aaronide priesthood (for this approach, see e.g. Gerstenberger  1996, 183–184, 192; Watts  2013, 98–99 and passim), since analysis of P and its editorial supplements suggest that the authors were no less concerned with the propriety of ritual practice, including its social and theological ramifications. For example, supplementary clauses dealing with the destitute (Lev 5:7–13;

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

436   Yitzhaq Feder 12:8; cf. also 1:14–17) reflect a desire for greater inclusiveness in cult participation (Nihan 2007, 244). A more theological tendency may underlie the unusual treatment of disease and pollution in Lev 13–15, which may reflect an attempt to delegitimize apotropaic rites (Feder 2015). In other words, the growing awareness of the rhetorical nature of the Priestly texts—as texts—does not a priori dictate what were the interests which governed the composition and editing of these texts, and as such, further research in this domain will be welcome. In summary, the comparison with Near Eastern ritual texts suggests that many Priestly ritual texts have a prehistory as ritual instructions or memory aids for priests in ritual performance, preceding their incorporation in the framework of the P narrative. Nevertheless, this hypothesis is insufficient in itself to account for the text in its present transmitted form. The comparison with other ancient Near Eastern ritual corpora accentuates the distinctiveness of the Priestly literature. Accordingly, the temptation to reconstruct ancient Israelite ritual practice from these texts should be tempered by an appreciation for the comprehensive literary and ideological shaping of their content.

Conclusion For the most part, this essay has treated ritual action and ritual texts as distinct phenomena. Yet, as intimated already in the discussion of the terminology for “ritual” in the ancient Near East, the form and function of ritual texts are closely tied to their content, linking them to actual practice. In particular, they indicate the need to record and reproduce the precise procedure to be carried out. Hence, the authority of the ritual text is rooted in a conservatism found throughout the ancient Near Eastern ritual corpora, a conservatism which reflects the concern to perform ritual and cultic acts according to ancient tradition (Schwemer 2016). This background can help us elucidate numerous seeming peculiarities of the Priestly composition. For example, P’s view that there was no sacrifice before Sinai is due not only to the absence of the appropriate personnel and sacred place (Gilders 2009, 57–58), but even more fundamentally to the absence of divinely revealed instructions governing ritual performance. The centrality of this view is represented not only in the repeated formula that the tabernacle was made “as Yhwh commanded Moses” (e.g. Ex 39; Lev 8); it is represented in the assertion that the tabernacle was created according to the “model” (tabnīt) shown to Moses (Ex 25:9, 40; 26:30). Divine revelation of a temple plan is an ancient Near Eastern motif that can be traced back to the third-­millennium Gudea inscriptions and continued until the Neo-­Babylonian period (Hurowitz 1992, 168–170 and passim). Nevertheless, it is clear that rituals as objectified in texts take on a life of their own. Especially after the destruction of the Second Temple, P’s ritual instructions became subject to the exegetical imaginations of Jewish and Christian scholars, serving as the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   437 basis for symbolic and allegoric interpretations. The ritualized text would facilitate the transition of authority from cult officiant to textual expositor (Bell 1992, 138), as intellectual engagement with the text would become the focus of religious experience.

Suggested Reading Klingbeil (2007) provides an accessible survey of different approaches to interpreting ritual as they apply to the Hebrew Bible. For the question of ritual parallels between bib­lical and ANE ritual traditions, see Babcock (2014: 2–18). For a balanced and comprehensive discussion of the textual history of the Priestly Source, see Nihan (2007). The use of ANE ritual texts for understanding the textualization of biblical ritual is discussed in detail in Feder (forthcoming).

Works Cited Abusch, T. 2002. Mesopotamian Witchcraft: Toward a History and Understanding of Babylonian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature. Leiden: Brill. Abusch, T. 2016. The Magical Ceremony Maqlû: A Critical Edition. Leiden: Brill. Abusch, T., and D. Schwemer. 2011. Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals. Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill. Abusch, T., et al. 2016. Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals. Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill. Ahern, E. M. 1979. “The Problem of Efficacy: Strong and Weak Illocutionary Acts.” Man 14:1–17. Babcock, B. C. 2014. Sacred Ritual: A Study of the West Semitic Ritual Calendars in Leviticus 23 and Akkadian Text Emar 446. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Baden, J. 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. Baden, 13–29. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Barrett, J. L., and J. A. Lanman. 2008. “The Science of Religious Beliefs.” Religion 38:109–124. Beckman, G. M. 2014. The babilili-Ritual from Hattusa. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Bell, C. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press. Bibb, B. B. 2009. Ritual Words and Narrative Worlds in the Book of Leviticus. New York: T&T Clark. Blank, A. 2003. “Words and Concepts in Time: Towards Diachronic Cognitive Onomasiology.” In Words in Time: Diachronic Semantics from Different Points of View, edited by R. Eckardt, K. V. Heusinger, and C. Schwarze, 37–65. Berlin: de Gruyter. Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by R. Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bremmer, J. 2001. “The Scapegoat between Hittites, Greeks, Israelites and Christians.” In Kult, Konflikt, und Versöhnung, edited by R. Albertz, 2:175–186. AOAT 285. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Carr, D. M. 2005. Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. Carr, D. M. 2011. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press. Christiansen, B. 2006. Die Ritualtradition der Ambazzi: Eine philologische Bearbeitung und entstehungsgeschichtliche Analyse der Ritualtexte CTH 391, CTH 429 und CTH 463. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 48. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

438   Yitzhaq Feder Christiansen, B. 2007. “Ein Entsühnungsritual für Tutḫaliya und Nikalmati? Betrachtungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte von KBo 15.10+.” Studi micenei ed egeo-anatolici 49:93–107. Clemens, D.  M. 2001. Sources for Ugaritic Ritual and Sacrifice. Vol. 1, Ugaritic and Ugarit Akkadian Texts. AOAT 284/1. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Cohen, Y. 2011. “The Administration of Cult in Hittite Emar.” AoF 38:145–157. Collins, B.  J. 2003. “Purifying a House: A Ritual for the Infernal Deities.” In Contexts of Scripture, edited by W. W. Hallo, 1:168–171. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Collins, B. J. 2013. “The Place of KBo 13.145 in the Hantitaššu Text Tradition.” In Beyond Hatti: A Tribute to Gary Beckman, edited by B. J. Collins and P. Michalowski, 63–74. Atlanta, GA: Lockwood. Collins, B. J. 2014. “Royal Co-option of a Popular Ritual: The Case of Hantitassu.” In Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Hittitology, Warsaw, 5–9 September 2011, edited by P. Taracha and M. Kapełus, 185–201. Warsaw: Agade. Dardano, P. 2006. Die hethitischen Tontafelkataloge aus Ḫattuša (CTH 276–82). Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 47. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. del Olmo Lete, G., ed. 2008. Mythologie et religion des sémites occidentaux. OLA 162. Leuven: Peeters. Duguid, I. M. 1994. Ezekiel and the Leaders of Israel. Leiden: Brill. Emmanuel Laroche, Catalogue des textes hittites (Paris 1966, Reprint 1971); premier supplément, RHA 30, 1972, S. 94–133. Feder, Y. 2011. Blood Expiation in Hittite and Biblical Ritual: Origins, Context and Meaning. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Feder, Y. 2013. “Contagion and Cognition: Bodily Experience and the Conceptualization of Pollution (t ̣um’ah) in the Hebrew Bible.” JNES 72:151–167. Feder, Y. 2014. “The Wilderness Camp Paradigm in the Holiness Source and the Temple Scroll: From Purity Laws to Cult Politics.” JAJ 5:290–310. Feder, Y. 2015. “Behind the Scenes of a Priestly Polemic: Leviticus 14 and Its Extra-Biblical Parallels.” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 15:1–26. DOI:10.5508/jhs.2015.v15.a4. Feder, Y. 2016. “Contamination Appraisals, Pollution Beliefs and the Role of Cultural Inheritance in Shaping Disease Avoidance Behavior.” Cognitive Science 40, no. 6: 1561–1585. DOI:10.1111/cogs.12293. Feder, Y. Forthcoming. “The Textualization of Priestly Ritual in Light of West Asian Sources.” In Ritual and Text in the Pentateuch, edited by C. Nihan and J. Rhyder. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Fleming, D. 1992. The Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar. HSS 42. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Fleming, D. 1998. “The Biblical Tradition of Anointing Priests.” JBL 117:401–414. Fleming, D. 2000. Time at Emar: The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Diviner’s House. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Ford, J. N. 1998. “Ninety-Nine by the Evil Eye and One from Natural Causes: KTU2 1.96 in Its Near Eastern Context.” UF 30:201–278. Frevel, C., T. Pola, and A. Schart. 2013. Torah and the Book of Numbers. FAT/II 62. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Gerstenberger, E. 1996. Leviticus: A Commentary. Translated by D. W. Stott. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Gilan, A. 2004. “Überlegungen zu ‘Kultur’ und ‘Außenwirkung.’” In Die Außenwirkung des späthethitischen Kulturraumes: Güteraustausch—Kulturkontakt—Kulturtransfer, edited by M. Novák, F. Prayon, and A.-M. Wittke, 9–28. AOAT 323. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   439 Gilders, W. K. 2004. Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible. Meaning and Power. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gilders, W. K. 2006. “Why Does Eleazar Sprinkle the Red Cow Blood? Making Sense of a Biblical Ritual.” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 6:2–16. DOI:10.5508/jhs.2006.v6.a9. 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. Baden, 57–72. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Giorgieri, M., L. Murat, and A. Süel. 2013. “The Kaluti-List pf the Storm-God of Šapinuwa from Ortaköy (Or. 90/175) and Its Parallels from Boğazköy.” Kaskal 10:169–183. Goetze, A. 1971. “Hittite šipant-.” JCS 23:77–94. Goody, J. 1977. “Against ‘Ritual’: Loosely Structured Thoughts on a Loosely Defined Topic”. In Secular Ritual, edited by S. F. Moore and B. G. Myerhoff, 25–35. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum. Gordin, S. 2015. Hittite Scribal Circles: Scholarly Tradition and Writing Habits. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 59. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Grintz, J. M. 1972. “Do Not Eat on the Blood (Lev. 19, 26).” Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute 8:78–105. Haas, V. 2003a. Materia magica et medica hethitica: Ein Beitrag zur Heilkunde im Alten Orient. Berlin: de Gruyter. Haas, V. 2003b. “Betrachtungen zur Traditionsgeschichte hethitischer Rituale am Beispiel des ‘Sündenbock’-Motivs.” In Hittite Studies in Honor of H.A. Hoffner Jr. on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, edited by G. Beckman, R. Beal, and G. McMahon, 131–141. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Hecker, K. 1977. “Tradition und Originalität in der altorientalischen Literatur.” ArOr 45:245–258. Hobson, R. 2012. Transforming Literature into Scripture: Texts as Cult Objects in Nineveh and Qumran. Sheffield: Equinox. Hurowitz, V. A. 1992. I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings. JSOTSup 115. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Hutter, M. 1993. “Kultstelen und Baityloi: Die Ausstrahlung eines syrischen religiösen Phänomens nach Kleinasien und Israel.” In Religiongeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Kleinasien, Nordsyrien und dem Alten Testament, edited by B. Janowski, K. Koch, and G. Wilhelm, 87–108. OBO 129. Fribourg: Presses universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Janowski, B., K. Koch, and G. Wilhelm, eds. 1993. Religiongeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Kleinasien, Nordsyrien und dem Alten Testament. OBO 129. Fribourg: Presses universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Jay, N. 1992. Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 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. Klingbeil, G. A. 1998. A Comparative Study of the Ritual of Ordination as Found in Leviticus 8 and in Emar 369. Lewiston, NY: Mellen. Klingbeil, G. A. 2007. Bridging the Gap: Ritual and Ritual Texts in the Bible. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Knierim, R. P. 1992. Text and Concept in Leviticus 1:1–9. FAT 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Koch, K. 1959. Die Priesterschrift von Exodus 25 bis Leviticus 16: Eine überlieferungsgeschichtliche und literarkritische Untersuchung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Koch, K. 1990. “Alttestamentliche und altorientalische Rituale.” In Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte: Festschrift für Rolf Rendtorff zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

440   Yitzhaq Feder E.  Blum, C.  Macholz, and E.W.  Stegemann, 75–85. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Korpel, M. C. 2005. “Unit Delimitation in Ugaritic Cultic Texts and Some Babylonian and Hebrew Parallels.” In Layout Markers in Biblical Manuscripts and Ugaritic Tablets, edited by M. C. Korpel and J. M. Oesch, 141–160. Assen:‎‪ Van Gorcum. Kreinath, J., J. Snoek, and M. Strausberg. 2006. Theorizing Ritual: Issues, Topics, Approaches, Concepts. Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill. Kühne, C. 1986. “Hethitisch auli-und einige Aspekte altanatolischer Opferpraxis.” ZA 76: 85–117. 1993. “Zum Vor-Opfer im alten Anatolien.” In Religionsgeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Kleinasien, Nordsyrien und dem Alten Testament, edited by B.  Janowski, K.  Koch and G. Wilhelm, 225–283. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag. Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago. Lambert, W. G. 1993. “Donations of Food and Drink to the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia.” In Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East, edited by J.  Quaegebeur, 191–202. Leuven: Peeters. Lebrun, R. 1993. “Aspects particuliers du sacrifice dans le monde hittite.” in Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East, edited by J. Quaegebeur, 225–233. Leuven: Peeters. Lenzi, A. 2008. Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel. SAAS 19. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Levine, B. A. 1963. “Ugaritic Descriptive Rituals.” JCS 17:105–111. Levine, B. A. 1965. “The Descriptive Tabernacle Texts of the Pentateuch.” JAOS 85:307–318. Levine, B. A. 1983. “The Descriptive Ritual Texts from Ugarit: Some Formal and Functional Features of the Genre.” In The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of his Sixtieth Birthday, edited by C.  L.  Meyers and M. O’Connor, 467–475. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Linssen, M. J. 2004. The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as Evidence for Hellenistic Cult Practice. Leiden: Brill. Malul, M. 1990. The Comparative Method in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies. AOAT 227. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker. Marcuson, H., and T. van den Hout. 2015. “Memorization and Hittite Ritual: New Perspectives on the Transmission of Hittite Ritual Texts.” JANER 15:143–168. Maul, S. M. 1994. Zukunftsbewältigung. Baghdader Forschungen 18. Mainz: Zabern. Mayer, W., and W. Sallaberger. 2003. “Opfer. A. I. Nach schriftlichen Quellen. Mesopotamien.” RlA 10. Berlin: de Gruyter, 93–102. McCarthy, D. J. 1979. “The Symbolism of Blood and Sacrifice.” JBL 88:166–176. Meshel, N. S. 2013. “The Form and Function of a Biblical Blood Ritual.” VT 63:276–289. Meshel, N. S. 2014. The “Grammar” of Sacrifice: A Generativist Study of the Israelite Sacrificial System in the Priestly Writings with A “Grammar” of Σ. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mettinger, T.  N. 1995. No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Michaels, A. 2010. “The Grammar of Rituals”. In Grammars and Morphologies of Ritual Practices in Asia, edited by A. Michaels et al., 7–28. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Michel, P. M. 2014. Le Culte des pierres à Emar à l’époque hittite. OBO 266. Fribourg: Presses universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Milgrom, J. 1976. “Profane Slaughter and a Formulaic Key to the Composition of Deuteronomy.” HUCA 47:1–17.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Ancient Near Eastern Ritual   441 Milgrom, J. 1991–2001. Leviticus. 3 vols. AB 3, 3A, 3B. New York: Doubleday. Miller, J. L. 2004. Studies in the Origins, Development and Interpretation of the Kizzuwatna Rituals. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 46. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Minunno, G. 2013. Ritual Employs of Birds in Ancient Syria-Palestine. AOAT 402. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Modéus, M. 2005. Sacrifice and Symbol: Biblical Šĕlāmîm in a Ritual Perspective. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Nihan, C. 2007. From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus. FAT/II 25. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Noth, M. 1965. Leviticus: A Commentary. Translated by J. E. Anderson. OTL. London: SCM. Olyan, S. M., 2000. Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pardee, D. 2000. Les Textes rituels. Ras Shamra-Ougarit 12. Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les civilisations. Pardee, D. 2002. Ritual and Cult at Ugarit. SBLWAW 10. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Peirce, C. S. 1965. Collected Papers. Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Penner, H. H. 1985. “Language, Ritual and Meaning.” Numen 32:1–16. Pongratz-Leisten, B. 2011. “A New Agenda for the Study of the Rise of Monotheism.” In Reconsidering the Concept of Revolutionary Monotheism, edited by B.  Pongratz-Leisten, 1–38. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Quaegebeur, J., ed. 1993. Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East. Leuven: Peeters. Rainey, A. F. 1970. “The Order of Sacrifices in Old Testament Ritual Texts.” Bib 51:485–498. Rendtorff, R. [1954] 1967. Studien zur Geschichte des Opfers im Alten Israel. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Rendtorff, R. 1993. “Two Kinds of P? Some Reflections on the Occasion of the Publishing of Jacob Milgrom’s Commentary on Leviticus 1–16.” JSOT 60:75–81. Rieken, E. 2014. “Sprachliche Merkmale religiöser Textsorten im Hethitischen.” WO 44:162–173. Rohrer, T. 2007. “The Body in Space: Dimensions of Embodiment.” In Body, Language and Mind, edited by T. Ziemke, J. Zlatev, and R. M. Frank, vol. 1, Embodiment, 348–359. Berlin: de Gruyter. Sallaberger, W. 2012. “Ritual. A. in Mesopotamien.” RlA 11. Berlin: de Gruyter, 421–430. Schwemer, D. 1995. “Das alttestamentliche Doppelritual ‘alwt wšlmym im Horizont der hurritischen Opfertermini ambašši und keldi.” In Edith Porada Memorial Volume, edited by D. I. Owen and G. Wilhelm, 81–116. Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 7. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schwemer, D. 2016. “Quality Assurance Managers at Work: The Hittite Festival Tradition.” In Liturgie oder Literatur: Die Kultrituale der Hethiter im transkulturellen Vergleich, edited by G. G. Müller, 1–29. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 60. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz. Sax, W. S. 2010. “Ritual and the Problem of Efficacy.” In The Problem of Ritual Efficacy, edited by W. S. Sax et al., 3–16. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shectman, S., and J. Baden, eds. 2009. The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions. ATANT 95. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich. Shils, E. 1968. “Ritual and Crisis.” In The Religious Situation: 1968, edited by D. Cutler, 733–748. Boston: Beacon. Slingerland, E. 2008. What Science Offers the Humanities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

442   Yitzhaq Feder Smith, J. Z. 1987. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Snoek, J. 2006. “Defining ‘Rituals.’” In Theorizing Ritual: Issues, Topics, Approaches, Concepts, edited by J. Kreinath, J. Snoek, and M. Strausberg, 1:3–14. Leiden: Brill. Součková, J. 2010. “Edikt von Tutḫaliii̯a IV. zugunsten des Kults des Wettergottes von Nerik.” In Investigationes Anatolicae: Gedenkschrift für Erich Neu, edited by J. Klinger, E. Rieken, and C. Rüster, 279–300. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten 52. Wiesbaden. Sperber, D. 1997. “Intuitive and Reflective Beliefs.” Mind and Language 12:67–83. Staal, F. 1979. “The Meaninglessness of Ritual.” Numen 26:2–22. Stephenson, B. 2015. Ritual: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strausberg, M., ed. 2006. “‘Ritual’: A Lexicographic Survey of Some Related Terms from an Emic Perspective.” In Theorizing Ritual: Issues, Topics, Approaches, Concepts, edited by J. Kreinath, J. Snoek, and M. Strausberg, 1:51–98. Leiden: Brill. Strauß, R. 2006. Reinigungsrituale aus Kizzuwatna. Berlin: de Gruyter. Taracha, P. 2011. “Hittite Rituals as Literary Texts: What Do We Know about Their Original Editions?” In Hethitische Literatur: Überlieferungsprozesse, Textstrukturen, Ausdrucksformen und Nachwirken: Akten des Symposiums vom 18. bis 20. Februar 2010 in Bonn, edited by M. Hutter and S. Hutter-Braunsar, 275–283. AOAT 391. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Torri, G. 2007. “Subject Shifting in Hittite Magical Rituals.” In Tabularia Hethaeorum: Hethitologische Beiträge: Silvin Košak zum 65 Geburtstag, edited by D.  Groddek and M. Zorman, 671–680. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Trémouille, M.-C. 1999. “La Religion des Hourrites: État actuel de nos connaissances.” In Nuzi at Seventy-Five, edited by D. I. Owen and G. Wilhelm, 277–291. Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians 10. Bethesda, MD: CDL. Turner, V. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. van der Toorn, K. 2007. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Waal, W. 2010. “The Source as Object. Studies in Hittite Diplomatics.” PhD diss. Leiden University. Watts, J. W. 2007. Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watts, J.  W. 2013. Leviticus 1–10. Historical Commentary on the Old Testament. Leuven: Peeters. Weinfeld, M. 1983. “Social and Cultic Institutions in the Priestly Source against their Ancient Near Eastern Background.” In Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 16–21, 1981: Panel Sessions, Bible Studies, and Hebrew Language. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 95–129. Weinfeld, M. 1993. “Traces of Hittite Cult in Shiloh, Bethel and in Jerusalem.” In Religiongeschichtliche Beziehungen zwischen Kleinasien, Nordsyrien und dem Alten Testament, edited by B. Janowski, K. Koch, and G. Wilhelm, 455–472. OBO 129. Fribourg: Presses universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Wellhausen, J. 1885. Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Translated by A.  S.  Black and A. Menzies. Edinburgh: Black. Yakubovich, I. 2005. “Were Hittite Kings Divinely Anointed? A Palaic Invocation to the SunGod and Its Significance for Hittite Religion.” JANER 5:107–137. Zatelli, I. 1998. “The Origin of the Biblical Scapegoat Ritual: The Evidence of Two Eblaite Texts.” VT 48:254–265.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

chapter 23

The Imper i a l Con text of the Pen tateuch Mark G. Brett

The central plot of the Pentateuch might be summarized in very simple terms. An Aramean refugee takes his family to Egypt to escape the ravages of a famine, but his numerous descendants suffer oppression there and, with divine assistance, they flee eastwards into the desert. The leader of the liberation struggle receives from their divinity the law that is to shape their future society, but the desert generation never reaches the homeland of their dreaming; that denouement is left to the book of Joshua. When Deut 26:5–11 recounts this founding narrative, however, it does conclude with possession of the land, as does Josh 24. Neither of these pithy summaries of Israel’s founding story mention law-­giving in the desert, and indeed in Josh 24:25–26 the leader of the conquest makes his own law. On the face of it, Egypt provides the imperial context of the Pentateuch’s story, but the attentive reader is left with a number of perplexing questions. Where does this central plot have its beginning? Why, as closer inspection reveals, do the legal traditions disagree with each other on some key issues? Why do the ancestral traditions hold conflicting views about the name of the divinity? And above all, why does the Pentateuch end before the land is taken into Israel’s possession? Answers to these basic questions may be related to the imperial contexts within which the biblical texts were shaped. Historical scholarship suggests that the Egyptian, Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires all left their mark on the Pentateuch. But religious traditions and historical research converge on the view that the establishment of these first five books as the “Torah of Moses” can be linked in some way with the character of Ezra from the time of the Persian Empire, and so our discussion will necessarily gravitate to the late fifth and early fourth centuries bce. According to Ezra 7, King Artaxerxes authorized Ezra to undertake a specifically legal role in the western region of the empire, in the satrapy that included both Judah and Samaria. The king’s agent is described as “the scribe of the law of God of heaven”—a phrase that adopts a Persian loanword for law and a generic name

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

444   Mark G. Brett for the divinity (Ezra 7:12, 21). Historians continue to debate whether Ezra 7 actually incorporates an official edict, and if so, how such an edict would have been understood within the context of Persian law (Wiesehöfer 2013). But the book of Ezra certainly lays claim to an imperial authorization—and in a stronger sense than we find in the Letter of Aristeas, which suggests that Ptolemy II (285–246 bce) requested a translation of the Hebrew Law into Greek. The present chapter explores the variety of ways in which the Persian imperial context may have helped to shape, directly or indirectly, the authority and the content of the Torah as the five books of Moses. An older theory which suggests that the Pentateuch was officially authorized by the Persians will be critically evaluated, along with the more recent proposals for understanding the pentateuchal traditions through the lens of postcolonial studies.

From Hexateuch to Pentateuch The book of Ezra refers only twice to Israel’s law as the “Torah of Moses,” using the Hebrew expression tôrat mōšeh in Ezra 3:2 and 7:6. This expression is far less common than one might expect, being used only a few times in the book of Joshua, a few times in Kings, and never in the Pentateuch itself. While the words of Moses are frequently referred to in Joshua (but, significantly, never in Samuel), these commands are not often seen as a single collection of instructions. Ezra 6:18 adopts the term sǝpar mōšeh, “scroll of Moses,” which implicitly raises the question of whether the Mosaic commands were at some point written on a single scroll during the Persian period. There is no direct evidence for this in ancient manuscripts, but even the most cautious historians are inclined to accept that a Torah of Moses was established by the end of the Persian period (e.g. Grabbe 2001). On the other hand, there are many good reasons to think that this Torah was not established at the beginning of the Persian period. In the fifth century BCE, it was apparently still unclear whether the foundational narrative should conclude with the death of Moses (the “pentateuchal” framing), or with the possession of the land (a “hexateuchal” framing). When Neh 8 depicts the first public reading of the Torah after the exile, it is named the “Torah of Moses” in the opening verse (8:1), but thereafter the law book is called tôrat hā’ĕlōhîm (“Torah of God” in Neh 8:8, 18; cf. Neh 10:28–29; cf. tôrat yhwh in Ezra 7:10). One need not imagine that such variations point consistently to specific collections of literature circulating during the Persian period, but the differences between pentateuchal and hexateuchal imaginaries may well have left their textual footprint here and there. The closest parallel for tôrat hā’ĕlōhîm is in a remarkable text that concludes the book of Joshua, and, among other considerations, this textual connection with Josh 24 has moved some commentators to wonder whether the reading of the law in Neh 8 implies the existence of an earlier version of the Torah that includes Joshua’s conquest of the land as its denouement (notably Römer and Brettler  2000). Josh 24 might be

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   445 regarded as a “Hexateuch in miniature,” as von Rad suggested long ago (von Rad 1938); it begins with Abraham’s origins “beyond the river” and comes to a resounding conclusion in Joshua’s covenant and his writing of the tôrat ’ĕlōhîm on a standing stone in Shechem (Josh 24:25–26). The failure to acknowledge Moses as the lawgiver in this covenant ceremony suggests that Joshua’s “Torah of God” is here an older form of Mosaic law, which is still available for expansion by Joshua himself (Blum 2006, 98–101; Rofé 1991). A connection between Joshua’s tôrat ’ĕlōhîm and Neh 8 may help to explain the otherwise puzzling reference to Joshua in Neh 8:17 when describing a celebration of the Festival of Booths after the reading of the law: And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in them—for from the days of Joshua son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so—and there was very great rejoicing.

Among the chronological problems at issue here, we may wonder why Neh 8:17 shows no awareness of the Festival of Booths already described in Ezra 3:4. In short, Ezra 3 was most likely written later, and this explanation is certainly more plausible than an alternative scenario in which Ezra 3:4 is being actively ignored or undermined in Neh 8— diminishing the significance of the first Festival of Booths, or even forgetting it entirely. Accordingly, references to the “Torah of God” in Neh 8 should not be immediately identified with the content of the “Torah of Moses” established at the end of the Persian period. What, then, can we know about the content of the older Torah? Several scholars have advocated the view that a “hexateuchal” or six-­book form of the Torah tradition stems from Nehemiah’s tenure as governor (c.445–432), and that it was only in subsequent decades that this was reduced to the five books of Moses (especially Otto 2000a; Römer and Brettler 2000; and the overview in Albertz 2015). The naming of those five books as the tôrat mōšeh apparently reflects the outcome of that development. The distinctive phrase “this is a statute of the Torah” in Num 19:2 and 31:21 (zo’t ḥuqqat hattôrâ, instead of the more common formulation ḥuqqat ’ōlām) may also reflect the development of a Pentateuch consciousness within Numbers, most likely within the latest layers of the Torah’s editing process (Frevel 2013, 22–24). Of particular significance is the conception of Mosaic authority evidenced in Deut 34:10–12. This closing portion of the Torah no longer sees Moses simply as the first in the legitimate succession of the prophets, as Deut 18:15 had suggested: “Yhwh your God will raise up (yqm) for you a prophet like me.” Rather, Moses is now seen as the prophet who enjoyed a unique intimacy with Yhwh, so in claiming that “Never again has there arisen (qm) in Israel a prophet like Moses,” 34:10 strikingly inverts the terminology in Deut 18:15. The verbal aspect in 34:10 (qwm in the perfect) reveals the late historical perspective of the author, who by implication is in a position to assess the work of Israel’s ­prophets retrospectively over the centuries (pace Stackert 2014, 117–125). This author’s claim to Moses’s uniqueness appears to be a distinctive feature of the “pentateuchal” redaction, and it is carefully positioned at the end the Torah along with a number of other distinctive themes (Schmid 2007a). Num 12:6–8 may belong to the same school of

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

446   Mark G. Brett thought, since it sets the subsequent legitimate prophets apart on the grounds that they are given visions and dreams, whereas Yhwh speaks to Moses “mouth to mouth” (Achenbach 2003, 281–285, 290–301). While Eckart Otto rejects the view that the “Pentateuch redactions” are in any way connected with Persian imperial pressure, his view that the hexateuchal Torah gave way to a pentateuchal Torah around the end of the fifth century has recently been supported by fresh archaeological and political arguments advanced by Alexander Fantalkin and Oren Tal. They suggest that this development corresponds to the increased level of se­cur­ity around Yehud’s borders when the Persians lost control of Egypt, and that the formation of the pentateuchal Torah should be considered “a conscious response by Judahite priestly circles (most probably under the guidance of Ezra) to a new geo­pol­it­ ical reality” (Fantalkin and Tal 2012, 173). There was a greater degree of self-­organization permitted in Yehud during the fifth century, but around 400 bce the evidence points to “a period of consolidated imperial rule in the Fifth Satrapy following the Persian withdrawal from Egypt,” and in this context “the story of military conquest by the Israelites would have met with disapprobation on the side of the imperial authorities.” An antiEgyptian exodus narrative would have been more congenial than Joshua’s conquest (Fantalkin and Tal 2012, 175–178). Such arguments for a transition from Hexateuch to Pentateuch move well beyond the relevant archaeological evidence, but Fantalkin and Tal’s view cannot be dismissed simply because it is hypothetical. It is at least consistent with a number of more basic con­sid­ er­ations. First, we must acknowledge the seemingly intractable debate concerning the ambiguity of Ezra 7:7—whether Ezra arrived during the “seventh year” of Artaxerxes I or of Artaxerxes II. In the earlier scenario, Ezra would have been in Jerusalem in 458 bce, while the second alternative suggests 398. If he arrived some thirteen years before Nehemiah, who is said to have arrived in “the twentieth year of Artaxerxes” (Neh 2:1), it would be difficult to explain why it took so long for the Torah to be publicly proclaimed. If Ezra arrived in 398, on the other hand, that particular difficulty would evaporate. But then we would need to ask how it is that Neh 8:1 comes to refer to a tôrat mōšeh, and Neh 13:1 manages to adduce a law from the “scroll of Moses” before Ezra had established it in Jerusalem. This question, among other considerations, make it likely that Neh 13:1–3 was a later addition to the book (Pakkala 2004, 212–224; Polaski 2012). The reference to the Torah of Moses in Neh 8:1, on the other hand, would seem to require a different kind of explanation. To begin with, the events described in Neh 8 do not cohere with any of the ritual calendars of the received Pentateuch. Neh 8:1 suggests that when the people assemble and request a reading of the Torah of Moses, Ezra begins to read on the “first day of the seventh month” and the Festival of Booths (Sukkot) began “on the second day” of the Torah reading (Neh 8:13–15). But according to the Holiness Code (the legislation in Lev 17–26) this festival should not take place until the fifteenth day of the month (Lev 23:34). If Ezra were reading from Lev 23 as we now have it, he should have acknowledged the Day of Atonement, or Day of Purgation, which is required on the tenth day of the month (23:27). Neh 8:15 also makes reference to palm leaves, and this terminology is found only in Lev 23:40, so perhaps Neh 8 invokes an

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   447 earl­ier version of the Holiness Code’s calendar, before the dates of the Day of Purgation and Sukkot had been fixed. In any case, the failure to acknowledge the Day of Atonement is a telling omission from Neh 8, and we can be sure that the laws continued to be edited after the time of Nehemiah. A key question emerging in recent research is how to understand the place of the Holiness corpus (H) within the Pentateuch. This question is significant not just because some recent theories see H as the work of editors who produced the first edition of the Pentateuch (e.g. Knohl  2011; Otto  2009, 139–50), but also because H seems to be so overtly at odds with the exclusivism in the book of Ezra. The Ezra traditions do not fit well with the tenor of H, so how could an historical Ezra have sponsored the laws found in Exodus-­Leviticus? Lev 24:22, for example, asserts with a startling boldness that “one law (mišpat ̣) shall you have for native and stranger alike,” and this corresponds quite clearly with Exod 12:48–49 (most likely H material), which explicitly allows these ­strangers or immigrants (gērîm) to participate in the Passover on the basis of that same vision of society: “One law (tôrâ) shall you have for the native and for the stranger.” The assertion of “one law” does not in fact cover all laws relating to the gērîm, but it does include the cultic law in the immediate context of Exod 12. Similarly, when the annual date of the Day of Purgation (or Atonement) is clarified in Lev 16:29–30 as the “tenth day of seventh month” (this date being still unknown in Neh 8), the resident strangers are included in the same clause: This shall be a statute to you forever: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall deny yourselves, and shall do no work, neither the native nor the immigrant (gēr) who resides among you. For on this day atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins you shall be clean before Yhwh.

According to the Holiness material, the gērîm apparently have a role to play in maintaining the purity of the land, and at the very least, their presence in the community is no impediment to the performance of purity obligations. This may suggest not just that the calendrical innovation requiring observance of the Day of Purgation in the seventh month arose “post Nehemiah” (so Nihan 2007a, 569–70; 613), but in addition, that H’s explicit inclusion of strangers (gērîm) arose as a critique of Nehemiah’s more exclusivist account of Judean identity (Rendtorff  1996, 86–87; Brett  2014a). It is important to acknowledge the complete lack of references to gērîm in Ezra–Nehemiah, and instead, a pattern of antagonism towards strangers that is contrary to the requirements of H (Olyan 2000, 81–90). If the Ezra tradition makes use of some terminology from the Holiness Code, it is not because these texts have emerged from the same priestly circles. Rather, the book of Ezra offers a particular interpretation of priestly traditions, which— unlike the Holiness Code—is clearly focused on Jerusalem as the centre of cultic trad­ itions (Heckl 2018). A number of questions arise from this disparity between H and Ezra–Nehemiah, and one of them relates particularly to the crescendo of hexateuchal tradition in Josh 24. While the terminology “Torah of God” in Josh 24:25–26 might well relate in some way to

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

448   Mark G. Brett the Torah in Neh 8:8, 18, as already indicated, the location of Joshua’s covenant in Shechem is hardly compatible with Ezra–Nehemiah’s negative orientation to the north. Instead, H’s social inclusiveness is more compatible with the hexateuchal narrative of origins that sets key episodes in Samaria. Whether or not any particular hypotheses concerning “hexateuchal” or “Holiness School” redactions in the Torah are finally convincing, there is a summary narrative in Josh 24 that covers the first six books of the Hebrew Bible and finds fulfilment in Israel’s possession of northern land. This summary stretches its narrative arc from the Shechemite oak tree beside which Abram builds his first altar in Gen 12:6–7 to the same tree, in effect, in Josh 24:25–27 (Brett, 2018). Numerous indications in the narrative of Josh 24 point to adaptations of both D and P ideas and terminology, and therefore this concluding chapter in Joshua is likely to be a late composition that incorporates older elements (see especially Anbar 1992). Among the implications of the narrative arc that joins Genesis to Joshua would be that northerners are free to choose Yhwh (Josh 24:15), to have their own sacred site of Yhwh, and to memorialize their own ancestors buried in Ephraimite country—Joshua, Joseph, and Eleazar the son of Aaron (Josh 24:29–33). The social vision is pan-­Israelite. Why, then, is the Samaritan Torah nevertheless a Pentateuch and not a hexateuchal “Torah of God” that comes to a stirring conclusion in the Samaritans’ very own territory? In spite of the Samaritan textual peculiarities, there is no reason to doubt that Judah and Samaria shared a Pentateuch in the fourth century (Tov  2001, 84–97; Pummer 2016, 195–218). The Samaritans preserved at least two versions of the book of Joshua, but these are later traditions that depart substantially from the biblical editions of Joshua (Pummer 2007, 239–240). Nevertheless, affirmations of northern cultic trad­ ition are contained in Deuteronomy itself (Deut 11:26–30 and 27:1–26), bracketing the central law code (Knoppers 2015; with “Gerizim” instead of “Ebal” in earlier textual versions of Deut 27:4, as argued by Dušek 2014, among others). The puzzling episode in Josh 8:30–35 (MT) only heightens the question of how to read northern orientated traditions. Although these verses contain an allusion to an altar on Mount Ebal, and no acknowledgment of Jerusalem’s centrality, it is the “Torah of Moses” that is inscribed on the altar (see Nihan 2007b; Knoppers 2013, 135–216). Josh 8:33 suggests that all the people, “immigrant and native” alike (gēr and ’ezrāḥ), participated in Joshua’s ceremony with “half of them facing Mount Ebal, and half of them facing Mount Gerizim.” This suggestion stands out as a glaring anachronism in the narrative context, since Israel can hardly be termed “native citizens” (’ezrāḥîm) during the conquest, and nor is this term used in the whole of the Former Prophets. All of these peculiarities are accounted for, however, if the narrative portion in Josh 8:30–35 is a late insertion created in connection with a “canonical” Pentateuch, and in particular, with the distinctive legal principle of equity for strangers developed in the Holiness Code (Albertz 2007). If this is indeed a plausible explanation for the puzzling episode in Josh 8:30–35, however, the question raised above now returns with renewed force: Why did the Samarians accept a Pentateuch as the authoritative Torah of Moses, rather than a Hexateuch, when a reduction from six to five books appears to be so contrary to their own interests? What

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   449 would have motivated the apparent compromise between priestly groups of Samaria and Judah (Knoppers 2013, 212; Pummer 2016, 207)? The answer is most likely connected in some way to the imperial context.

The Imperial Authorization Thesis Building on some older suggestions, Peter Frei proposed in 1986 that it was the Achaemenid imperial government who authorized a common law for the districts of Yehud and Samaria. On analogy with modern federalist governments, Frei described a version of legal pluralism in the Persian Empire within which the Great King could authorize local law, with Ezra’s Torah being one such instance. While the theory appealed to a range of documents for support, perhaps the closest analogy is the collection of Egyptian law that apparently took place under Darius I between 519 and 503, a process that is outlined in the so-­called Demotic Chronicle, and described through a Hellenistic lens by Diodorus Siculus (Hist. 1.94.2–95.4). The consultation with “war­ riors, priests, and scribes” and subsequent translation of the collection into imperial Aramaic is not to be construed as a “codification” (Redford 2001; contra Frei 1996, 16–18, 47), but the outcome would nevertheless have provided the Achaemenid administrators with an authoritative set of documents through which they could access the accumulated customs, and thereby the resources, of Egyptian society. Frei’s theory flourished for a decade before encountering waves of opposition from historians and biblical scholars, although many of the objections were directed against his more ambitious, and sometimes ambiguous, claims in the first edition of his work. He did not, for example, envisage a centralized archive of law codes that were drawn from the Persian satrapies. A second edition of Reichsidee and Reichsorganisation im Perserreich (1996) addressed some objections, as did the English summary of Frei’s argument presented in the collection of essays Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (Frei 2001, 5–40). While many scholars reject the theory entirely, Erhard Blum, Frank Crüsemann, and David Carr, among others, have presented modifications of it, proposing a scenario in which Persian political pressure provides the best explanation for the compromises embodied in the Pentateuch—not least the peculiar combination of P and non-­P ma­ter­ ials (Blum 1990, 333–338, 345–360; Crüsemann 1996, 334–339, 349–351). These “com­ prom­ise” theories are not so dependent on the exegesis of particular Persian documents and proceed more on the basis of inference to suggest that imperial pressure provides the best explanation for the complexities and contradictions within the Pentateuch (e.g. Carr 1996, 330–331). Konrad Schmid (2007b) also called for a more nuanced appreciation of Frei’s claims regarding “fictional” biblical texts. For example, even if no Persian document can demonstrate that Achaemenid kings adopted local codes as the official law of a satrapy, we would still need to explain the claim in Ezra 7 that this particular scribe enjoyed imperial

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

450   Mark G. Brett authorization (Frei 1996, 21, 54–60; Carr 2011, 217–224). Instead of dismissing that claim as simply a matter of wishful thinking, some other possibilities are worthy of con­sid­er­ ation, for example, whether the rhetoric or mimicry of imperial recognition functioned as a catalyst for the rise of Mosaic Torah in late Persian and early Hellenistic times (Lee 2011, 266; Fried 2014, 170), or perhaps whether such rhetoric played a role in le­git­ im­at­ing Ezra’s exclusivist party within the wider polities of Judaism at the time (Becking 2011). While I have suggested that the “compromise” theories are not intrinsically wedded to all the details of Frei’s account of Persian imperial administration, it is worth noting that some of the most significant evidence claimed for the imperial authorization model points to local tensions being resolved by an imperial decree. In these cases, it would be misleading to suggest that local norms were merely “adopted” by the king or his satrap. The evidence might however suggest that an imperial decision was handed down after some local investigation or consultation. This seems to be the scenario assumed in the so-­called Passover Letter from 419 bce (Porten and Yardeni 1986–99, A4.1), which invokes the authority of King Darius. The king is said to have communicated with the Egyptian satrap Arsames regarding the matters of Jewish religious observance on the island of Elephantine. The letter comes from a certain Hananiah in Jerusalem and is addressed to the Jewish community on Yeb, as Elephantine was known at the time. Hananiah clarifies the dates for observing the Festival of Unleavened Bread, specifically, from the fifteenth to the twenty-­first of Nisan. The letter may also refer to the Passover, although the document is fragmentary. The dates coincide with the Holiness Code’s liturgical calendar in Lev 23:5–6, rather than with the less specific rubric in Deut 16:1–8. If Ezra’s Torah had been established in 458 bce—the earlier of the two scenarios mentioned above—it is worth noting that the so-­called Passover Letter in 419 does not refer to that Torah’s authority. Instead, the matters are dealt with by invoking a fresh imperial decision. Nevertheless, there is an implicit allusion to the Holiness Code’s festival calendar, along with instructions that deal with the local conflict in Elephantine. The os­ten­ sibly imperial instructions in the letter do not appear to have resolved those local tensions, however, since the temple of YHW was destroyed by the priests of Khnum in 410, and further correspondence from the Persian governor in Jerusalem was required in order to authorize the temple’s rebuilding. When the permission to rebuild the temple was finally secured in 407, the official letter prescribes only meal offerings and incense on the altar, rather than sacrifice of animals (Porten and Yardeni 1986–99, A4.9). Interestingly, although the initial correspondence from Elephantine was addressed to leaders in Jerusalem (both to the governor Bagohi and to the high priest Johanan), the final reply came from Bagohi and Delaiah—the Persian governor and a Samarian leader. The outcome for the Jews in Elephantine may therefore reflect a confluence of interests between the temples of Jerusalem and Gerizim, along with an imperial concern to dampen the Egyptian–Jewish conflict on Yeb. It is also possible that the Jerusalem high priest was sidelined in this decision (Albertz 2011). Either way, while we cannot describe the Elephantine correspondence

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   451 in terms of imperial authorization of local norms, let alone legal pluralism, these letters at the end of the fifth century do nevertheless provide evidence of a complex process of negotiation followed by a final ruling delivered by a combination of temple and imperial authorities (with no reference to a Torah of Moses). This kind of complexity may also be identified in the so-­called Xanthus inscription from the fourth century, in which the satrap Pixodarus authorized a new Carion cult on the Lycian peninsula in Asia Minor. The text was inscribed in three languages on a stele—in Lycian, Greek, and Aramaic—and it devotes considerable attention to the tax bene­fits associated with the decree (Frei 1996, 39–44; Briant 2002, 707–709). The intervention of the satrap in this context cannot be understood as an example of a general Persian policy of affirming all foreign cults within the empire, although there is certainly evidence that particular cults were supported in various ways. Rather, the trilingual inscription supports the Carian colonists who were strangers to Lycian society, and this intervention may in part be attributed to the fact that the satrap himself was Carian (Fried 2004, 140–155). The Jewish colony on Elephantine was in a similarly precarious position in the Egyptian context, and this seems to be one of the reasons why they sought official support from their neighboring satrapy. As in the case of Udjahorresnet in Egypt, who secured special favors for the temple at Neith (Blenkinsopp 1987), particular figures seem to have been successful in negotiating their desired outcomes in local contexts wherever the imperial interests continued to be served. Collaborators like Udjahorresnet were rewarded, and on the other hand, revolts were put down harshly (Fried 2004, 119; Lee 2011, 129–130). Between these two extremes, however, we find examples like Elephantine where the outcomes formed a kind of compromise. Accordingly, it does not seem necessary to choose between only two basic models of Persian administration, as Lisbeth Fried proposes in her comprehensive critique of the imperial authorization theory, The Priest and the Great King (2004). Her inquiry is burdened from the outset with an overly sharp distinction between two main alternatives: “self-­governance” (as presented by Frei, or more broadly by Dandamayev  1999) or “bureaucratic empire” (as presented by Eisenstadt 1963). Fried argues that Eisenstadt’s model offers a better account of the evidence (Fried 2004, 2–5), but I would suggest that there are subtler conceptual tools available for understanding a middle option, between the imposition of imperial power and the exercise of local agency (cf. Frevel 2019). Regarding the depiction of imperial authorization in Ezra 7, critics of Frei have argued that this text is a wholly Hellenistic fiction (notably Grätz 2004; cf. the response from Schmid 2007b, 31–33). Fried assumes that most of the text was written in Hellenistic times, but she identifies some core material in 7:12–16 as initially authored in the Persian period and updated inconsistently with Hellenistic linguistic forms (cf. Grabbe 2006, 556–563; Pakkala  2004, 49–53; Schwiderski  2000, 342–382). Debates about the diachronic development of the Aramaic language are ongoing, but the linguistic inconsistencies in Ezra 7 might be taken as evidence for the authenticity of an underlying text from the Persian period, especially since the earlier forms in Ezra 7:12–16 do not occur in Hellenistic Aramaic (Williamson 2008; cf. Pakkala 2004, 22–23).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

452   Mark G. Brett According to the wording of Artaxerxes’s letter in 7:14, Ezra’s role description is to act as a visiting commissioner according to “the dat of your God” (cf. Steiner 2001). This stands in contrast with the Hebrew introduction to the letter where we find that Ezra “had set his heart to study the Torah of Yhwh” and to “teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). Fried severs any connection between these intersecting legal discourses of Persia and Israel, and concludes that the historical Ezra was a Persian official appointed by Artaxerxes II, and that the rest of the Ezra story is biblical accretion (Fried 2014, 8–27). In this scenario, Ezra was authorized with imperial power, but not to impose the Torah of Moses. Interestingly, the model of administration suggested by Jethro to Moses in Exod 18:13–26 may provide a relevant comparison with Ezra 7:12–26, not least because both of these texts lack any reference to traditional authorities in Israel, or any endorsement of the Levitical legal authority mentioned in Deuteronomy 17 (see Russell 2015, suggesting an analogy between Jethro and Artaxerxes). Again, the question arises whether native officials in Yehud could mediate between the interests of empire and local agencies in more subtle ways.

Postcolonial Perspectives Postcolonial studies have focused attention on the kind of cultural hybridity that often arises where imperial cultures come into contact with minority or “subaltern” groups (e.g. Young 1995; Morrow 2010), although the cultural mixing evidenced in these contact zones has of course been illuminated via other theories, such as “elite emulation” or “intercultural translation” (e.g. Smith 2010). Nevertheless, within pentateuchal studies, postcolonial approaches have begun to highlight the subtle blending of mimicry and resistance within which the appearance of loyal assimilation to the empire may at some points contest the claims of imperial ideology. Gale Yee, for example, has speculated that the narratives in Exod 1–2 could in some ways have satisfied Persian interests by ridiculing the Egyptians; the audiences in the Persian period are implicitly invited to consider the manifest differences between the oppression of an Egyptian imperial administration and the benefits of the Achaemenids. But it is also possible to see in these narratives a mixture of “mimicry and mockery” that simultaneously reflects a measure of cultural resistance to Persian rule (Yee 2010, 214–222; cf. Bhabha 1994, 23). It is likely that the cultural memory of Moses mutated in response to the tides of empire over several centuries, and if, for example, an older Moses narrative was crafted in the seventh century in ways that subverted the Sargon legend (Otto 2000b, 71–75), it is nevertheless also possible to see resonances in the Moses story with particular themes from the biography of King Cyrus (Zlotnick-­Sivan 2004). Such resonances may well have been perceived by audiences in the Persian period, whether or not particular texts in Exodus were first authored at that late stage. Postcolonial biblical studies have posited a confusing variety of contradictory mo­tiv­ ations in attempting to explain the complexity of the Torah’s traditions, sometimes sug-

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   453 gesting that biblical texts conform to imperial interests and sometimes finding evidence of resistance (e.g. Smith-­ Christopher  2002, 15–25, 34–45; Hagedorn  2007; cf. Polaski 2012). Yee explores a range of possibilities, asserting, for example, that the exodus and conquest story—including Joshua—was adopted by the returning exiles in their “appropriation of the natives’ farmlands as a new conquest.” At the same time, she is able to suggest that Joshua was excised from the Pentateuch when the Former Prophets wanted to explain why Israel was no longer capable of asserting its own sovereignty and must therefore submit to Persia (Yee 2010, 229–231; Berquist 1996, 26). It seems difficult to hold both views at the same time, especially if the separation of the Former Prophets (Joshua through Kings) was the result of a deliberate attempt to remove the conquest narratives from the Pentateuch, as Fantalkin and Tal have argued (2012, 175–178). The Pentateuch may then represent a deliberate attempt to minimize the significance of the conquest in Israel’s founding narrative. If so, the continuing presence of conquest legislation within the truncated Torah presents its own set of questions, even if the laws of warfare stem from earlier periods. Persian administrators could hardly have been offended by a set of ancestral laws promulgated by Moses in the desert, without the benefit of monarch or territory, but how would these officials have interpreted the conquest laws in Deuteronomy 7 and 20? JeanLouis Ska has raised these very pertinent questions in his rejection of Frei’s imperial authorization theory (Ska 2001, 168–169). Perhaps such elements were overshadowed by the Pentateuch’s “essentially anti-­Egyptian stance” (e.g. Greifenhagen 2002, 266–267), but in some respects Ska answers his own questions regarding Deuteronomy’s conquest legislation by observing that the Pentateuch was not translated into Imperial Aramaic, as apparently Darius I required in the case of Egyptian law. There is in fact no evidence that Persian administrators ever troubled themselves with the actual content or enforcement of Ezra’s Torah (Lee 2011, 251, 258). Nevertheless, the Golah community as it is presented in the Ezra–Nehemiah trad­ itions does lay claim to imperial support, and in this respect the returning exiles appear to be “Persia’s loyal Yahwists” (Kessler 2006, 91–122). This same separatist group also placed considerable emphasis on the national traditions of Deuteronomy (Japhet 2006; cf. Rom-­Shiloni 2013). To be sure, we do not find in Ezra–Nehemiah a renewed conquest of the land, within which indigenous populations are destined for extermination. Rather, the old conquest law is reinterpreted as a vocation to eschew foreign marriages. This seems also the best approach to interpreting Deut 7:3–4, since in its literary context, the prohibition of intermarriage makes little sense; there would be no temptation to marry the dead. On the other hand, the verses make good sense as a hermeneutical expansion addressing Persian times (Römer 2005, 170). As in Pericles’s Athens around the same time, the conception of citizenship took a strongly ethnocentric turn (Koch 1996, 265–267; Eskenazi 2006). We are compelled, therefore, to return to the dilemma outlined above. The pattern of antagonism towards strangers in Ezra migh fit with D’s national imagination, but such antagonism seems contrary both to the ethical requirements of the Holiness material and to the Samarian sympathies of the hexateuchal Torah. Moreover, priestly theology

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

454   Mark G. Brett can be distinguished from the intolerant monolatry of Deuteronomy (Weinfeld 2004, 75–94). Above all, in P we find an inclusive monotheism within which the Creator is named Elohim, the descendants of Abraham know this same God as El Shaddai, and the inner circle of Israel’s cult knows God under the name of Yhwh (Schmid 2011). These divine names are conceived in P as a series of concentric circles, all ultimately referring to the same God, such that it was not even necessary for the ancestors to know the name of Yhwh (Exod 6:2–3). In the non-­P traditions, on the other hand, the ancestors freely use the name of Yhwh, and in this respect they are unapologetic founders of a national tradition, yet later editors have combined the two alternative views of divine naming without explanation. Whether the ethical and theological tensions between the major traditions of the Pentateuch can finally be accounted for under a single explanatory paradigm may be doubted. For example, it is difficult to follow Anselm Hagedorn’s attempt to invoke the notion of a “harmony ideology” within his postcolonial account of the rise of the Torah. He suggests that “the authors of the Pentateuch create a narrative that confers identity and seems to ignore the political surroundings, and doing so, submits itself to external pressure,” creating an ideology of harmony and “avoiding open resistance” to Persian rule (Hagedorn 2007, 74–76). But postcolonial theory would leave open the possibility that the mere appearance of social harmony is often misleading. Moreover, the openness to the integration of strangers in the Holiness tradition does not “confer identity” in the same way that Deuteronomy does (cf. Olyan 2000; Wöhrle 2011). The notion of “submission” to external imperial pressure needs careful qualification. The various ideas of covenant, for example, were most likely shaped in opposition to both Assyrian and Persian imperial ideologies (Parpola 2003; Wöhrle 2015). Admittedly, some scholars suggest that Deuteronomy’s interaction with Assyrian literary models in the seventh century has been over-­interpreted, and that the veiled biblical allusions to Assyrian sovereignty were incidental (Levinson and Stackert 2012, 137; Crouch 2014). But as numerous postcolonial studies have shown, the realia of imperial power are usually not a matter of indifference, even when the dominant culture is ostensibly being ignored, or treated with “sly civility” (Bhabha 1994). Within the Torah, we find a pattern of resistance to imperial impositions, even if this resistance is partly veiled at times and discerned only through the complexity of internal Israelite debates, including priestly critiques of a Deuteronomic national ideal (Brett 2014b). Neither the Deuteronomistic nor the priestly streams of tradition advocate violent revolution against the Persian overlords, but their ostensible submission to the new geo­ pol­it­ical reality is configured in quite different ways. Perhaps the references to the generic “God of Heaven” in Ezra and in the Elephantine letters present the clearest attempts to avoid conflict with Achaemenid administrators (Bolin 1996). But the im­per­ ial mimicry in the priestly tradition, beginning with the multinational rhetoric in Gen 17:4, implicitly contests the ultimate ground of sovereignty. No longer is Abram the father of a single “great nation,” as suggested in Gen 12:2 (cf. Deut 4:7–8; 26:5). Along with the name change to Abraham comes a divine promise of imperial plenitude: “this is my covenant with you: You shall be the father of a multitude of nations” (Gen 17:4; Gen

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   455 35:11; cf. Jer 50:9). In this respect, the priestly tradition in Genesis has no “gentleman’s agreement” with the empire (contra de Pury 2007, 125). It seems that the priestly vision of “many nations” has been reduced by a late Pentateuch redactor to a single priestly kingdom in Exod 19:6 (Ska  2009, 139–164; Achenbach 2003, 55–58). Whether Abraham is seen as the father of many nations or only of one “holy nation,” the synthesis of these different traditions provided a social vision that endured beyond the mutating fortunes of ancient empires and colonies. A single extended family of priests could serve Israel’s complex society, from her trad­ ition­al territories to her distant diasporas (Watts  2007). As Anthony Smith puts it, “What is crucial for ethnicity is not the possession of a homeland, but the sense of mutual belonging, even from afar” (Smith 1993, 51). Within Deuteronomy, there is an older and exclusive claim on the homeland, connected more with the heritage of Jacob than with Abraham (Deut 26:5). It is also in Deuteronomy that we find the vision of a single “great nation” living within its own territory according to the dictates of its own law (Deut 4:7–8, cf. the gôy gādôl in Gen 12:2). This national vision is set apart from the priestly events at Sinai and in the desert. The “second law,” as it was called in the Septuagint, was delivered in Moab, at the very edge of the nation’s own territory, and it looks forward to a centralized cult in the context of statehood. And in this older national imaginary, the possession of land requires warfare. Accordingly, Deuteronomy’s national imagination stands in contrast with the migratory and diaspora perspectives that inform P and H, with their moving tabernacle and celebration of festivals “in all your settlements” (Exod 12:20; Lev 23:3, 14, 21, 31). H does contain some evidence of a “centralizing” vision as well, but it is one that studiously avoids giving priority either to Jerusalem or to Gerizim (Rhyder 2019). The final construction of the Mosaic Torah, if viewed synchronically, is stretched between the Abrahamic “internationalism” of the priestly conversation in Genesis, on the one hand, and the “nationalism” of Deuteronomy, on the other. A Pentateuch re­dact­or has tied the two social visions together with a single land promise, sworn on oath to “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”—the distinctive terminology found in Gen 50:24, Exod 32:13, 33:1, Num 32:11, and Deut 34:4 (Schmid 2007a, 242–244). This formula is not found in Leviticus, however, which instead has a quite different statement of land the­ ology and multiple ancestral covenants in Lev 26:42. This H synthesis of the covenants is likely to be earlier than the “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” rubric, and if H editors were the makers of the Pentateuch, Lev 26:42 would stand out as a strange anomaly. These and other complexities suggest that a “proto-­Pentateuch” was the outcome of a complex series of compromises—between priestly literature and D compositions, as well as between the temple in Jerusalem and the temple on Mt. Gerizim—negotiated in the wider context of imperial pressure. These compromises apparently gave way to expansions in Numbers that tilted more towards a theocratic vision in the national mode, and by implication, away from Abraham’s internationalism. Numbers allows for warfare guided by priests (Pola 1995, 56–99; Achenbach 2012), whereas the Holiness Code distances itself from D’s conception of conquest (Schwartz 2004). Along with the sudden appearance of Levites—who have no cultic roles in Exodus and Leviticus—

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

456   Mark G. Brett Numbers also proposes a new “eternal covenant” with Phineas that is clearly aligned with the exclusivist policies of Ezra (Nihan 2009, 116–126). This development is found especially in Num 25:6–15, which borrows the distinctive priestly terminology of “eternal covenant” from Gen 9 and 17 in order to establish the Aaronite priesthood on the basis of violent opposition to foreigners, even though the Aaronites had already received an “eternal priesthood” according to Exod 40:15. In short, the Ezra traditions cohere more with Numbers than with H editing in Exodus-­Leviticus, and in contrast with the Pentateuch as a whole, the book of Ezra awards a clear priority to Jerusalem over Gerizim (Heckl 2018). Recent arguments suggest that much of Numbers was composed between 400 and 350 bce, the period during which the earlier Ezra traditions rose to prominence (Achenbach 2003, 130–140; Nihan 2009; cf. Albertz 2013). Many scholars have argued that Ezra 1–6 seem to have been formed even later. With the addition to the Pentateuch of the distinctive material in Numbers, which corresponds with the ethos of the book of Ezra, the “ecumenical” and internationalizing features of the priestly traditions were eclipsed by pentateuchal redaction. The triad of “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” founded only a national imaginary (cf. Ben Zvi 2013, 11). If this complex unfolding conversation among Israel’s traditions amounts to little more than submission to Persian authority, as Berquist and Hagedorn seem to agree, it was nevertheless a synthesis that could preserve Jewish identities against cultural and religious assimilation. Even the irenic narratives of Genesis are still very clear about the location of ultimate sovereignty in Yhwh-­Elohim’s jurisdiction (cf. Fried 2014, 169). For example, the mimicry of empire in Gen 15:18 that imagines a promised land stretching from “the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” encompasses a plenitude of territory that was never held by Israel — although 2 Kgs 24:7 asserts that it was held by the king of Babylon (Wazana 2013, 289–294, 301). This expansive imperial domain also corresponds to the Persian satrapy “Beyond the River” at the time when Judeans lived from Elephantine in the Nile Delta to Āl Yāhūdu in Babylon. In Gen 15:18, that empire is viewed from the west rather than from the eastern metropoles of Susa or Persepolis. The classic Deuteronomistic list of seven nations in Gen 15:20–21 is preceded by three add­ ition­al nations who appear to be potential allies (Römer 2011, 100–101). The late material in Gen 15, which was most likely crafted with a hexateuchal vision (Brett 2018), can be taken as an enduring theological claim that Yhwh is sovereign wherever Israel may live. There is no final submission to Persian or subsequent empires.

Conclusion The peculiar ecumenical dissonance achieved by the Pentateuch served the common interests of Yehud, Samaria, and the Diaspora. The Torah wove its connections to an identity-­forming territory with the golden thread of land promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If, as suggested by the hexateuchal tradition, this connection to the land had

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   457 been secured by Joshua, the past fulfillment of promises may not have served later ­readers so well (Ben Zvi 2013, 10). Neither Jerusalem nor Samaria retained exclusive rights to a sacred center in Yhwh’s imagined empire, but in the Law and the Prophets the divine empire remained more fundamentally real than its Persian or Hellenistic competitors. According to the Torah of Moses, life before God required neither a monarch nor territorial control—although a desire for both was never entirely relinquished. In this complex sense, the Torah of Moses can be thought of as resistance literature, responding to the tides of empire, debating the shape of a divinely constituted homeland.1

Suggested Reading On the nature of law within the Persian Empire, see especially Wiesehöffer (2013), and for a nuanced account of legal motifs in Ezra, Schmid (2007b). Russell (2015) offers finely tuned observations on administrative models in the Pentateuch, and Yee (2010) helpfully introduces postcolonial studies. Nihan (2007b), Becking (2011) and Heckl (2018) provide lucid expositions of the religious politics of the temples in Yehud and Samaria.

Works Cited Achenbach, R. 2003. Die Vollendung der Tora: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Pentateuch. BZABR 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Achenbach, R. 2012. “Divine Warfare and Yhwh’s Wars: Religious Ideologies of War in the Ancient Near East and in the Old Testament.” In The Ancient Near East in the 12th–10th Centuries BCE: Culture and History, edited by G. Galil et al., 1–26. AOAT 392. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Albertz, R. 2007. “The Canonical Alignment of the Book of Joshua.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century, edited by O.  Lipschits, G.  N.  Knoppers, and R.  Albertz, 287–303. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Albertz, R. 2011. “The Controversy about Judean versus Israelite Identity and the Persian Government: A New Interpretation of the Bagoses Story (Jewish Antiquities XI.297–301).” In Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, edited by O. Lipschits, G. N. Knoppers, and M. Oeming, 483–504. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Albertz, R. 2013. “A Pentateuchal Redaction in the Book of Numbers? The Late Priestly Layers of Num 25–36.” ZAW 125:220–233. Albertz, R. 2015. “The Formative Impact of the Hexateuchal Redaction: An Interim Result.” In The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on Its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles, edited by F. Giuntoli and K. Schmid, 53–74. FAT 10. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

1  Another version of this chapter appears as “Legal Compromises” in Mark G. Brett, Locations of God: Political Theology in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 98–120.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

458   Mark G. Brett Anbar, M. 1992. Josué et l’alliance de Sichem (Josué 24:1–28). BBET 25. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Becking, B. 2011. Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Construction of Early Jewish Identity. FAT 80. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Ben Zvi, E. 2013. “The Memory of Abraham in Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Yehud/Judah.” In Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 3–37. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berquist, J. 1996. “Postcolonialism and Imperial Motives for Canonization.” Semeia 75:15–35. Bhabha, H. K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Blenkinsopp, J. 1987. “The Mission of Udjahorresnet and those of Ezra and Nehemiah.” JBL 106:409–421. Blum, E. 1990. Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch. BZAW 189. Berlin: de Gruyter. Blum, E. 2006. “The Literary Connection between the Books of Genesis and Exodus and the End of the Book of Joshua.” In A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation, edited by T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid, 89–106. SymS 34. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Bolin, T. 1996. “The Temple of ‫ יהו‬at Elephantine and Persian Religious Policy.” In The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms, edited by D. V. Edelman, 127–142. Kampen: Kok Pharos. Brett, M. G. 2014a. “Natives and Immigrants in the Social Imagination of the Holiness School.” In Imagining the Other and Constructing Israelite Identity in the Early Second Temple Period, edited by E. Ben Zvi and D.V. Edelman, 89–104. LHBOTS 456. London: Bloomsbury. Brett, M. G. 2014b. “The Priestly Dissemination of Abraham.” HeBAI 3:87–107. Brett, M. G. 2018. “Yhwh among the Nations: The Politics of Divine Names in Genesis 15 and 24.” In The Politics of the Ancestors: Exegetical and Historical Perspectives on Genesis 12–36, edited by M. G. Brett and J. Wöhrle, 113–130. FAT 124. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Briant, P. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Translated by P. T. Daniels. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. 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. New York: Oxford University Press. Crouch, C. L. 2014. Israel and the Assyrians: Deuteronomy, the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon, and the Nature of Subversion. ANEM 8. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Crüsemann, F. 1996. The Torah: Theology and Social History of Old Testament Law. Translated by A. W. Mahnke. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Dandamayev, M. 1999. “Achaemenid Imperial Policies and Provincial Governments.” Iranica Antiqua 34:269–282. Dušek, J. 2014. “Mt. Gerizim Sanctuary, Its History and Enigma of Origin.” HeBAI 3:111–133. Eisenstadt, S. N. 1963. The Political Systems of Empires. New York: Free Press. Eskenazi, T. C. 2006. “The Missions of Ezra and Nehemiah.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by O.  Lipschits and M.  Oeming, 509–529. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Fantalkin, A., and O. Tal. 2012. “Judah and its Neighbors in the Fourth Century bce: A Time of Major Transformation.” In From Judah to Judaea: Socio-Economic Structures and Processes in the Persian Period, edited by J. U. Ro, 133–196. Hebrew Bible Monographs 43. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   459 Frei, P. 1996. “Zentralgewalt und Lokalautonomie im Achämenidenreich.” In Reichsidee und Reichsorganisation im Perserreich, edited by P. Frei and K. Koch, 8–131. OBO 55. 2nd ed. Fribourg: Presses universitaires. Frei, P. 2001. “Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary.” In Persia and Torah: The Theory of Persian Imperial Authorization, edited by J. W. Watts, 5–40. SBLSymS 17. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. 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, T. Pola, and A. Schart, 1–37. FAT/II 62. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Frevel, C. 2019. “Reichsinteresse und Lokalpolitik in der Levante im Spiegel der materiellen Kultur.” In Persische Reichspolitik und lokale Heiligtümer, edited by R. Achenbach, 209–255. BZAR 25; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Fried, L. S. 2004. The Priest and the Great King: Temple–Palace Relations in the Persian Empire. BJS 10. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Fried, L. S. 2014. Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Grabbe, L. 2001. “The Law of Moses in the Ezra Tradition: More Virtual than Real?” In Persia and Torah: The Theory of Persian Imperial Authorization, edited by J.  W.  Watts, 91–113. SBLSymS 17. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Grabbe, L. 2006. “The ‘Persian Documents’ in the Book of Ezra: Are They Authentic?” In Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by O. Lipschits and M. Oeming, 531–570. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Greifenhagen, F.  V. 2002. Egypt on the Pentateuch’s Ideological Map: Constructing Biblical Israel’s Identity. JSOTSup 361. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Grätz, S. 2004. Das Edikt des Artaxerxes: Eine Untersuchung zum religionspolitischen und historischen Umfeld von Esra 7,12–26. BZAW 337. Berlin: de Gruyter. Hagedorn, A. C. 2007. “Local Law in an Imperial Context: The Role of Torah in the (Imagined) Persian Period.” In The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance, edited by G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levinson, 57–76. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Heckl, R. 2018. “The Composition of Ezra-Nehemiah as a Testimony for the Competition Between the Temples in Jerusalem and on Mt. Gerizim in the Early Years of the Seleucid Rule over Judah.” In The Bible, Qumran and the Samaritans, edited by M.  Kartveit and G. N. Knoppers, 115–132. Studia Samaritana 10. Berlin: de Gruyter. Japhet, S. 2006. “Periodization between History and Ideology II: Chronology and Ideology in Ezra–Nehemiah.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by O. Lipschits and M. Oeming, 491–508. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Kessler, J. 2006. “Persia’s Loyal Yahwists: Power, Identity and Ethnicity in Achaemenid Yehud.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by O.  Lipschits and M.  Oeming, 91–121. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. 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, 265–267. OBO 55. 2nd ed. Fribourg: Presses universitaires. Knohl, I. 2011. “Who Edited the Pentateuch?” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 359–367. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Knoppers, G. N. 2013. Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of their Early Relations. New York: Oxford University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

460   Mark G. Brett Knoppers, G.  N. 2015. “The Northern Context of the Law-Code in Deuteronomy”. HeBAI 4:162–183. Lee, K.-J. 2011. The Authority and Authorization of Torah in the Persian Period. CBET 64. Leuven: Peeters. Levinson, B.  M., and J.  Stackert. 2012. “Between the Covenant Code and Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty: Deuteronomy 13 and the Composition of Deuteronomy.” JAJ 3:123–140. Morrow, W. 2010. “‘To Set the Name’ in the Deuteronomic Centralization Formula: A Case of Cultural Hybridity.” JSS 55:365–383. Nihan, C. 2007a. From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus. FAT/II 25. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Nihan, C. 2007b. “The Torah between Samaria and Judah: Shechem and Gerizim in Deuteronomy 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. 2009. “The Priestly Covenant, Its Reinterpretation 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: Theologisher Verlag Zürich. Olyan, S. M. 2000. Rites and Rank: Hierarchy of Biblical Representations of the Cult. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Otto, E. 2000a. Das Deuteronomium im Pentateuch und Hexateuch: Studien zur Literaturgeschichte von Pentateuch und Hexateuch im Lichte des Deuteronomium-Rahmens. FAT 30. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Otto, E. 2000b. “Political Theology in Judah and Assyria: The Beginning of the Hebrew Bible as Literature.” Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 65:59–76. 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. Pakkala, J. 2004. Ezra the Scribe: The Development of Ezra 7–10 and Nehemiah 8. BZAW 347. Berlin: de Gruyter. Parpola, S. 2003. “Assyria’s Expansion in the 8th and 7th Centuries and its Long-Term Repercussions in the West.” In Symbiosis, Symbolism and the Power of the Past, edited by W. G. Dever and S. Gitin, 99–111. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Pola, T. 1995. Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift. Beobachtungen zur Literarkritik und Traditionsgeschichte von Pg. WMANT 70. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Polaski, D. 2012. “Nehemiah: Subject of the Empire, Subject of Writing.” In New Perspectives on Ezra–Nehemiah: History and Historiography, Text, Literature, and Interpretation, edited by I. Kalimi, 37–59. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Porten, B., and A. Yardeni. 1986–99. Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt: Newly Copied, Edited and Translated into Hebrew and English. 4 vols. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. 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. 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: Leuven University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Imperial Context   461 Rad, G.  von. 1938. Das Formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuchs. BWANT 4. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Redford, D. B. 2001. “The So-Called ‘Codification’ of Egyptian Law under Darius I.” In Persia and Torah: The Theory of Persian Imperial Authorization, edited by J.  W.  Watts, 135–159. SBLSymS 17. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Rendtorff, R. 1996. “The Gēr in the Priestly Laws of the Pentateuch.” In Ethnicity and the Bible, edited by M. G. Brett, 77–87. Biblical Interpretation Series 19. Leiden: Brill. Rhyder, J. 2019. Centralizing the Cult: The Holiness Legislation in Leviticus 17-26. FAT 134. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Rofé, A. 1991. “Ephraimite versus Deuteronomistic History.” In Storia e tradizioni di Israele: Scritti in onore di J.  Alberto Soggin, edited by D.  Garrone and F.  Israel, 221–235. Brescia: Paideia. Rom-Shiloni, D. 2013. Exclusive Inclusivity: Identity Conflicts Between the Exiles and the People Who Remained (6th–5th Centuries BCE). LHBOTS 543. New York: T&T Clark. Römer, T.  C. 2005. The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction. London: T&T Clark. Römer, T.  C. 2011. “Abraham and ‘The Law’ and ‘The Prophets’.” In The Reception and Remembrance of Abraham, edited by P. Carstens and N. P. Lemche, 87–101. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias. Römer, T. C., and M. Z. Brettler. 2000. “Deuteronomy 34 and the Case for a Persian Hexateuch.” JBL 119:401–419. Russell, S. 2015. “The Structure of Legal Administration in the Moses Story.” In Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture and Geoscience, edited by T. E. Levy, T. Schneider, and W. H. Propp, 317–329. Cham: Springer. Schmid, K. 2007a. “The Late Persian Formation of the Torah: Observations on Deuteronomy 34.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century  B.C.E. edited by O.  Lipschits, G. N. Knoppers, and R. Albertz, 236–245. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schmid, K. 2007b. “The Persian Imperial Authorization as a Historical Problem and as a Biblical Contstruct: A Plea for Distinctions.” In The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance, edited by G.  N.  Knoppers and B. M. Levinson, 23–38. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schmid, K. 2011. “Judean Identity and Ecumenicity: The Political Theology of the Priestly Document.” In Judah and Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context, edited by O.  Lispschits, G.  N.  Knoppers, and M.  Oeming 3–26. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schwartz, B. J. 2004. “Reexamining the Fate of the ‘Canaanites’ in the Torah Traditions.” In Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume, edited by C.  Cohen, A.  Hurvitz, and S. M. Paul, 151–170. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schwiderski, D.  2000. Handbuch des nordwestsemitischen Briefformulars: Ein Beitrag zur Echtheitsfrage der aramäischen Briefe des Esrabuches. BZAW 295. Berlin: de Gruyter. Ska, J. L. 2001. “Persian Imperial Authorization: Some Question Marks.” In Persia and Torah: The Theory of Persian Imperial Authorization, edited by J. W. Watts, 161–182. SBLSymS 17. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Ska, J. L. 2009. The Exegesis of the Pentateuch: Exegetical Studies and Basic Questions. FAT 66. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Smith, A. D. 1993. “The Ethnic Sources of Nationalism.” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 35:48–62.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

462   Mark G. Brett Smith, M. 2010. God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Smith-Christopher, D. 2002. A Biblical Theology of Exile. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Stackert, J. 2014. A Prophet like Moses: Prophecy, Law and Israelite Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. 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. Tov, E. 2001. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Watts, J. W. 2007. “The Torah as the Rhetoric of Priesthood.” In The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance, edited by G. N. Knoppers and B. M. Levinson, 319–331. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Wazana, N. 2013. All the Boundaries of the Land: The Promised Land in Biblical Thought in Light of the Ancient Near East. Translated by L. Qeren, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Weinfeld, M. 2004. The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel. VTSup 100. Leiden: Brill. Wiesehöfer, J. 2013. “Law and Religion in Achaemenid Iran.” In Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Antiquity to Early Islam, edited by A. C. Hagedorn and R. G. Kratz, 41–57. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williamson, H. G. 2008. “The Aramaic Documents in Ezra Revisited.” JTS 59:41–62. Wöhrle, J. 2011. “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. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 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. Yee, G. 2010. “Postcolonial Biblical Criticism.” In Methods for Exodus, edited by T. B. Dozeman, 193–233. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Young, R. J. 1995. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London: Routledge. Zlotnick-Sivan, H. 2004. “Moses the Persian? Exodus 2, the ‘Other’ and Biblical ‘Mnemohistory’.” ZAW 116:189–205.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

chapter 24

The Pen tateuch Ou tside th e Pen tateuch Reinhard Achenbach

The Pentateuch in its final form is the result of a complex process of scribal com­pos­ ition, reworking, and editing during the Second Temple period. Its formative phases occurred during the Persian period (Kratz 2000). It contains earlier segments from pre­ exilic times, including parts of the Covenant Code in Exod 20:22–23:19; the core of Deuteronomic legislation (Deut 6:4–5*; 12–26*; 28*); portions of the narratives about Israel’s ancestors; as well as some materials from the exodus, Sinai, and wilderness nar­ ratives. Attempts to reconstruct preexilic sources have resulted in various documentary and fragment hypotheses. However, the final composition rests on the late exilic Deuteronomistic account of Moses and the conquest of the promised land, combined with a priestly narrative about creation, the ancestors, and the exodus with the revela­ tion at Mount Sinai and the building of the tabernacle. These Deuteronomistic and priestly frameworks were both completed with non-­priestly and non-­Deuteronomistic narratives from earlier eras, and further revised and supplemented into the late Persian and (perhaps) even the early Hellenistic period. Overall, the different origins of the materials collected in the Pentateuch impact the way in which these materials are reflected in the other Scriptures of the Hebrew Bible. A comprehensive examination of the topic of “the Pentateuch outside the Pentateuch” must therefore also consider issues of relative chronology.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

464   Reinhard Achenbach

The Themes of the Pentateuch in Preexilic Literature The Ancestors Narrative The preexilic prophets—as far as it is possible to reconstruct their oracles—rarely men­ tion isolated traditions from the pentateuchal narrative. The collection of the Hosea or­acles seems to attest an ancient reference to the Jacob narrative in Hos 12:3b–5, and 13 [ET: 12:2b–4, and 12]: [Yahweh] will punish Jacob according to his ways, and according to his deeds he will repay him. 4In the womb he tried to supplant his brother [ASV: “took his brother by the heel”, cf. Gen 25:26], grown to manhood he strove with a divine being [ASV: “God”; cf. Gen 32:29], 5he strove with an angel, and prevailed, and the other had to weep and implore him [cf. Gen 32:27]! In Beth-­El he found him, and there he spoke with him [MT = with us] [cf. Gen 28:15; 35:3]. . . . 13And Jacob fled to the field of Aram [Gen 27:43; 28:6], and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he had to guard sheep [Gen 29:15–30] (see Blum 2009).

The text is now interwoven with a prophetic teaching that selects and interprets ma­ter­ ial from the perspective of a particular form of the Jacob narrative. The ancient saga functions as a mirror for the people of the northern kingdom, of Israel, and of the tribe of Ephraim (Hos 12:1–2 and 8–9), and calls the people to “return to your God” (v. 7). The identification of the people of Israel as “the House of Jacob” seems to refer to the ancient northern tradition. According to Amos, the crisis of the eighth century bce revealed Jacob’s moral and political weakness (cf. Amos 7:2, 5); the northern kingdom’s decline is interpreted as a judgement from the Jerusalemite Yahweh Zebaoth (Amos 6:8; Hos 12:6). After Samaria’s downfall in 722 bce the heritage of the Israelite tradition transferred to Judah, and thus the fall of Jerusalem and Judah in the Neo-­Babylonian period was paralleled with the decline of Israel in the scribal rewritings of the Prophets, cf. Hos 12:3: Yahweh has a lawsuit with Judah, thus he will punish Jacob according to his ways!

Second Isaiah addresses the exilic community that originated from Judah as Jacob/ Israel. For Second Isaiah, it is a community rooted in “Abraham’s seed,” which served Yahweh as his chosen servant (Isa 40:27; 41:8). These texts attest Abraham and Sarah, integrating the Jacob tradition genealogically and regard—as does the priestly account—the multitude of Israelites as the result of God’s unique blessing for Abraham (Isa 51:2; cf. Gen 17:3–8; Exod 1:7; Gen 12:2; Ezek 33:24; Isa 29:22). Nonetheless, no preex­ ilic texts outside of the Pentateuch, particularly prophetic texts, mention either

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   465 Abraham or Isaac (Köckert 2006; Römer 2012). In the book of Amos 5:6, 15; and 6:6.8 the prophet is depicted in the line of 1 Kgs 17:13–16 by the scribal redactors as sent by God to warn the people of Israel as descendants of Jacob (Amos 6:8), but also as a house of Joseph, that means the northern kingdom with respect to the areas of Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh only (Amos 5:6, 15), foreseeing their ruin (Amos 6:6). The pas­ sages already presuppose the late integration of the Joseph novella into the composition of ancestors narrative in Genesis by postexilic scribes (Schmid 2002), but at least Amos 6:6 may refer to an older, preexilic tradition. The texts stand at the beginning of a long process of textual transmission, reception, and interpretation that continued through­ out late antiquity (Evans, Lohr, and Petersen 2012).

The Exodus Story In the same way we find references to the exodus narrative (Gertz 2000). The exodus is described as an ideal period of intimate relation between God and God’s elected people (Hos 11:1): When Israel was still a child, I fell in love with him, and I have called him as my son out of Egypt.

This view is connected with allusions to the narrative about the desert wanderings (Hos 2:16, 17b; 9:10a; 12:10; and 13:4–5), and to the tradition of the entrance into the promised land (Hos 2:17a, cf. Jos 15:7; Hos 9:10b, cf. Num 25:3). In Jer 2:2 the original relation between God and his people is described idealized in the metaphor of the love of a bride following her spouse in confidence even through the wilderness. The text does not liter­ ally refer to narratives in Exodus or Numbers. The preexilic dating of all these passages is under debate among scholars.

Legal Traditions The prophetic critique against the ethical decline of Israelite society names a series of transgressions reflecting legal teachings similar to the Decalogue, cf. Hos 4:2: False swearing, dishonesty, and murder, and theft and adultery are rife; crime fol­ lows upon crime!

(Cf. Exod 20:7, 13–15; Deut 5:17–19; Jer 7:9.) Some scholars argue that prophetic ­woe-­oracles against Israel from the eighth century bce, especially the critique and con­ demnation of abuses and violations of legal procedures that cause the detriment of the poor (cf. Amos 5:10–11; 2:6–8), seem to provide the background for the social and legal in­nov­ations in the Covenant Code (cf. Exod 22:20–26; 23:1–9; see Albertz 1992). The

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

466   Reinhard Achenbach complaint of a servant against a creditor who had taken his garment as a pledge, attested by an ostracon from Mesad Hashavyahu from the second half of the seventh century bce (HAHE I:315–329), illustrates the need to make legal distinctions about the issue as attested in Exod 22:26 and Deut 24:13. Ethical measures instructing people to respect the dignity and the rights of the poor, as well as widows, orphans, foreigners, and people in acute economic distress, can be traced back far, even in Egyptian and early Israelite wis­ dom teachings (Otto 1994). Casuistic laws have a long ancient Near Eastern tradition; parallels have been observed since the cuneiform texts were discovered in the nine­ teenth century (Levinson 1994).

Priestly Theology and Theology of Creation The literary form of the texts connected with the so-­called Priestly Code took shape in late exilic and postexilic periods. Yet the Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls dated to the early sixth century bce (Barkay et al. 2004) provide evidence for a tradition comparable to the priestly blessing preserved in Num 6:24–26 (cf. Ketef Hinnom [KH] 2.5–12: “May bless you Yahweh, keep you, make shine Yahweh his face upon you and grant you peace”*), together with a formula found in Deut 7:9; Exod 20:6 (cf. KH 1.1–6: “Yahweh . . . who keeps the covenant and graciousness towards those who love him and . . . those who keep h[is commandments]”). These texts provide evidence that traditional priestly formulaic material preserved in postexilic parts of the Pentateuch has its roots in preexilic times. The same must be assumed for rules about cultic rituals and purity. Texts from preexilic times illustrate that people were aware of the need for ritual purity and the requirements for pure food (cf. Isa 6:5; Ezek 3:14, and compare with Lev 11; Deut 14). Although there are indications that a theology of creation existed in preexilic Israel (cf. an inscription on a seventh-­century bce jar from Jerusalem, referring to El as qn’ ’rṣ, or “creator of the earth,” Avigad 1972), the priestly and non-­priestly narratives in Gen 1–11 cannot be dated earlier than the exilic period (see Witte 1998; Schmid 2012). However, some psalms attest that Yahweh was worshiped in the theology of the temple not only as a weather deity as in the account of the theophany in Ex 19:16, 18 (cf. Ps 18:8–16*; 29:3–9), as Yahweh Zebaoth, leading divine wars, and as divine king (Ps 24:7–10; 98:4–9), but also as the source of blessing and fruitfulness, as well as the origin of life (Ps 37:7–10; Ps 104*; Müller 2008). Ancient mythical elements in Gen 2 and in the flood story Gen 6–8* give reason to assume that myths about the creation and the deluge were known in Israel in preexilic times. The priestly myth recounting the creation of the cosmos and humanity in Gen 1 already establishes the connection of monotheism and the theology of creation. Second Isaiah developed this idea intensely (Isa 45:5–7) and extended it to Israel: Yahweh is the “maker” and the “creator” of Israel, who “formed” his people (Isa 43:15, 21; 44:1). An extensive series of postexilic texts attest the theology of creation, which had an impact on the reworking of texts as in Ps 8; 104:­ 5–9.12.16–19.24–29; 139.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   467

The Composition of the Pentateuch during the Early Second Temple Period All theories regarding the reception of the Pentateuch in texts outside the Pentateuch depend on the literary-­historical concept and reconstruction of its emergence and for­ mation. Recent discussion has shown that great diversity still remains among biblical exegetes in this field. It is therefore important to render an account of the concept repre­ sented in this essay. There seems to be at least a basic consensus that we find old parts of narrative cycles about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Genesis; pre-­priestly accounts about Moses, exodus, the theophany at the mountain of God, and the wilderness wan­ dering in Exodus; and some remnants of a spy and a conquest story in Num 13–14 and 20–21. Even the oldest shape of the Covenant Code and of the Deuteronomic Law are sources that emerged before the fall of the kingdom of Judah. The Deuteronomistic covenant theology brought forth the idea that the laws of the Decalogue, the Covenant Code, and Deuteronomy were revealed by God on Mount Horeb/Sinai, and the composition of Deuteronomy in connection with Joshua–Kings originated the concept that the possession of the land was dependent on the observance of the law. In connection with the Priestly Code and the pre-­priestly narratives, the books of Genesis through Joshua formed a salvation history of Israel’s origins. This development generated a series of liturgical or catechetical texts or creeds that could be memorized and repeated in public recitation (cf. Deut 26:5–10) or familiar religious instruction (Deut 6:6–9, 20–25; Exod 13:14–16). In Josh 24:3–13, this commemorative creed already reflects a composition that refers to texts from all basic narrative layers in the Pentateuch. The selection of segments is not strictly bound by the sequence of the narrative composition in Genesis–Joshua, but may select specific elements for parae­ netic reasons. It serves the continuous kerygmatic message to revere Yahweh only and to dismiss all other gods (Josh 24:14ff.). Together with the epics of Judges and S­ amuel–Kings that end up in the narrative about the disaster of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the Pentateuch (the “Five-­Book”) appears now as part of a collection of diverse literary works, an Enneateuch (the “Nine-­Book”). The memorial texts included the com­mem­ or­ation of Israel’s history as a story of sin, rebellion against God, and divine punishment. Deuteronomistic paraenetic texts reflected it as a history of disaster (cf. Deut 9:7, 22–23; 1 Sam 12:5–24; 2 Kgs 17:7–23). The pentateuchal narrative, connected with the DtrH, thus allowed the composition of prayers and hymns in memory of Israel’s divine salvation: hymns of thanksgiving and praise (Ps 78; 105; 106; 136), admonition in situations of covenant renewal (Josh 24), as well as penitential prayers in situations of repentance and conversion (Neh 9; Daniel 9:4–19). These texts read Israel’s history in the light of the Pentateuch and the Enneateuch, including prophetic scribal teachings, and inter­ pret the various traditions through a theology of divine providence and discipline (Ramond 2014).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

468   Reinhard Achenbach For an example of the poetic complementary reading of the narratives and traditions one may consider the way Psalm 78 combines several traditions: vv. 1–4: Introduction of the teaching; 5–8: cf. Deut 6:4–9, 20–25; 9:7ff.; 9–11: cf. Judg 12:1–87 and Hos 7:16; 12: cf. Exod 7–11; Num 13:22; Isa 19:11, 13; 30:4 and 14; 13: cf. Exod 14:21–22; 15:8; 14: cf. Exod 13:21; 15–16: cf. Exod 17:1–7; Num 20:2–13; Ps 105:41; 114:8; Isa 48:21; 17–18: cf. Exod 16:3, 8; Num 11:4–6, 13; Deut 6:16; 20–22: cf. Num 11:1, 10; 23–25: cf. Exod 16:4, 13–15, 31; Num 11:9; 26–31: Num 11:33–34; 32–33: Num 14:11, 22–23; 34: cf. Judg 2:10–3:11; Isa 26:16; Hos 5:15; 38: Num 14:11–20; Deut 9:1–7, 28; Exod 32:11; Ezek 20:9; Ps 85:4; 41: cf. Exod 17:2, 7; Num 14:22; 42: Deut 9:7, 27; 24:9, 18, 22; 25:17 and Deut 4:9, 23, 31; 6:12; 8:11, 14, 19; Ps 105:27-­37; Ps 106:21 etc.; 44–51: Exod 7:14–9:35; 11:4–8; 12:29; 52–53: cf. Exod 12:37; 13:21; 14–15, etc. During the recent period of research scholars have tended to asume that the com­pos­ ition of the Pentateuch was expanded by priestly accounts in Lev 8–9, 10, and 16, by the Holiness Code (Lev 17–26/27), and priestly torot on sacrifices and purity (Lev 1–7, 11–15) at a secondary stage (Nihan 2007). Successive priestly reworkings in late postexilic times added Num 1–10, 15, 17–19, 26–36*. They share a tradition with priestly scribes of the circle that produced the book of Ezekiel. References to these texts can be traced in the books of Chronicles, Nehemiah, and Ezra.

The Torah and the Prophets Former Prophets The early Dtr narrative stressed that the reasons for the permanent destruction of Israel and Judah were the ignorance of Yahweh’s deeds after Joshua’s death and the worship of foreign deities (Judg 2:10–13). After Dtr scribes had claimed that Deuteronomic Law originated with a divine covenant between God and Israel at the time of Moses (Deut 5:3), the theory was expanded: Israel’s ignorance included even their forgetting the Torah and the laws of Moses. Instead, they followed the laws of foreign nations (2 Kgs

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   469 17:7–12). In this perspective, Joshua (Josh 1:7; 8:31, 34) and Josiah (2 Kgs 23:25) were the only leaders of Israel who ever acted fully according to the Torah of Moses, referring to Deut 17:18–19; 31:12. According to this theory, the prophets warned Israel not to leave Yahweh and sought to bring Israel back to the commandments and the Torah of Yahweh (2 Kgs 17:13–23). In addition, the prohibition against non-­prophetic divination in Deut 18:10–11* was expanded by the commandment to avoid foreign religious customs (vv. 9, 12–14). In further reworkings scribes added another etiology: God not only revealed the law at Mount Horeb (cf. Deut 5:23–33), but also promised to send a prophet as Moses’s successor and to put divine words into this prophet’s mouth (Deut 18:15–23). Several places in the book of Jeremiah reflect on this text (cf. v. 15//Jer 1:9; v. 20//Jer 23:31; v. 22//Jer 28:9). Postexilic scribes thus connected the editing of prophetic Scriptures to the pentateuchal narrative about the Torah as revealed to Moses. The prophets could be understood as reminding the people of the law, especially of the Decalogue (Jer 11:1-­5; Hos 4).

Deuteronomistic Redaction of Prophetic Writings Many scholars have thus observed that there was a Deuteronomistically influenced redaction of prophetic books, and indeed the books of Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Proto-­Isaiah, and Jeremiah evince the influence of this post-­Dtr phraseology and the­ ology. J. Wöhrle (2006) has shown that Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah under­ went an overarching redactional reworking strongly influenced by 2 Kgs 17 and the perspective of DtrH in 2 Kgs 18–25. Additionally, there is also evidence that this compre­ hensive revision of the Minor Prophets reflects the connection between the DtrH and the Hexateuch. The scribal arrangement of the collections reflects the way in which the prophets are incorporated into the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (Hos 1:1; Amos 1:1; Mic 1:1; Zeph 1:1; Isa 1:1; Jer 1:1–3), and the message of the prophets is inter­ preted as a reminder of the first commandment of the Decalogue not to worship “for­ eign gods” (Hebrew: ‫אלהים אחרים‬, Exod 20:3/Deut 5:7, cf. 2 Kgs 17:35; Hos 3:1; Jer 7:6, 9; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11, 13, etc.) or idols (Exod 20:4/Deut 5:8; Exod 32:8; 34:17; cf. 2 Kgs 17:16; Hos 8:4b–6; 13:2; Mic 1:5b–7; Isa 30:1; 42:17), especially in Bethel (1 Kgs 12:28–29; Amos 3:14; 4:4; 5:5; 7:10, 13). The decline of Israel and Judah appears as a consequence of repeated disobedience (Amos 2:9–12) and the rejection of the law of God (Deut 28:58; 30:10; 2 Kgs 17:13, 34, 37; cf. Hos 4:6; 8:1; Amos 2:4–5; Isa 5:24; 30:9; Jer 6:19; 9:12; 26:4). The destruction of Jerusalem and Judah is a punishment for syncretism and idolatry (Mic 5:9–13; Zeph 1:4–6) and a consequence for rejecting true prophets and listening to false prophets (cf. Deut 13; 18:9–22; Amos 7:10–17; Mic 3:11; Zeph 3:1–4; Jer 23:9–40; 28). This theory becomes one of the leading concepts in the postexilic period, espe­ cially in the book of Jeremiah (cf. 2 Kgs 17:13–20; Jer 7:25–34; 11:6–12; 25:3–8; 29:17–19; 44:4–6). The paraenesis of the Deuteronomistic Moses tradition is transferred into prophetic speeches, and as a result the picture of the prophets as teachers of Torah is further devel­ oped. Mic 6:4 reminds the audience of the exodus, Aaron, and Miriam; Mic 6:5 refers

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

470   Reinhard Achenbach back to the Balaam story (Num 22–24). Yet, Mic 6:6–7 criticizes a cultic ritual with the traditional kerygma: Shall I approach Him (Yahweh) with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Would Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriads of streams of oil? Shall I give my first-­born for my transgression . . .? He has told you, mortal, what is good, and what Yahweh requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God.

The text not only advocates the primacy of morality over sacrifice (cf. 1 Sam 15:22; Prov 21:3) and criticizes the discrepancy between cultic oberservance and social behavior (cf. also Amos 2:6–8; Exod 22:25), but also takes a critical position towards the increasing influence of priestly theology on the formation of the Pentateuch. This the­ology regards the exile as punishment for neglecting cultic and ritual law (Lev 26). By contrast, this scribal prophetic sermon in Micah 6 appears to be critical of the growing obligation imposed by several priestly texts (e.g. Lev 17:3–8; 23:12, 18, 37) toward the central sanctuary.

Jeremiah as Torah Teacher Based on the collections of prophetic oracles, later scribes developed rewritten proph­ ecies that described prophets as teachers of Torah (see Meier 2002; Rom-­Shiloni 2005; 2007; Otto 2007a; Achenbach 2007). This development is particularly well illustrated in the book of Jeremiah. Already the biographic introduction of the prophet in Jer 1:4–19 refers to the promise of a prophet “like Moses” in Deut 18:18. Jeremiah himself is a prom­ ised prophet; Yahweh puts his words into his mouth (Jer 1:9) so that he must speak what­ ever God has commanded (Jer 1:7). His sermons take up the message of Moses: Israel has forgotten the history of their salvation in the exodus (Deut 6:12/Jer 2:6a), the divine protection during the desert wandering (Deut 8:2, 15/Jer 2:6b), and how God brought them into the fruitful land (Deut 8:7–11*/Jer 2:7a). Jerusalem and Judah were called to mend their ways and enforce justice (cf. Deut 10:18/Jer 7:5), not to oppress the stranger, orphan, and the widow (Exod 22:20–22; Deut 24:14, 17–18; Jer 7:6a); shed the blood of the innocent (Deut 19:10; 21:8/Jer 7:6); worship other gods (Deut 5:7/Jer 7:6b); or steal, murder, commit adultery, and swear falsely (Deut 5:11.17-­20/Jer 7:9). Otherwise they could no longer dwell at the (chosen) place and in the land God had given to their ances­ tors (Deut 26:9/Jer 7:7). In this context we also find the rejection of the priestly theory about the revelation of leges sacrae in the desert, cf. Jer 7:22–23: . . . when I freed your fathers from the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offerings or sacrifice, 23but this is what I com­ manded them: “ listen unto my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people!” [Cf. Exod 19:5; Deut 26:16–19; 28:1–2.]

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   471 Jer 34:8–22 presents Jeremiah as a prophet who reminds Israel of the Torah of Moses (Achenbach 2011; 2015a). The account says that Zedekiah made a covenant with the citi­ zens of Jerusalem to proclaim an amnesty and free the Hebrew slaves. However, after the people had followed the king’s edict of manumission (‫רורד‬, cf. Jer 34:8, 14, 17), they with­ drew their decision. God reminds the prophet of Deut 15:1–3, 12 (cf. Jer 34:13–14) and the Mosaic covenant (Deut 28:69), and declares that the conquest of Jerusalem is a punish­ ment because of the violation of this covenantal obligation. A historical account in Neh 5:1–13 illustrates that the problem of manumission was debated in the postexilic period, when it is reported that even at the time of Nehemiah the peḥāh still had to enact manumission to resolve an economic crisis. Nehemiah’s memorial could refer to Exod 21:7–11 and Deut 15. Yet one cannot see that there was a valid regulation at his time that required a recurring manumission or even a jubilee as mandated in Lev 25. Even Isa 61 imagines the charismatic figure representing the com­ munity of Zion announcing a manumission, but there is no connection with the law in Lev 25:10. Only in the late priestly programmatic text of Ezek 46:16–17 does the author reckon with a “year of release” (Hebr.: ‫ )ׁשנת הדרור‬and thus approach the conception of Lev 25:10 (“You shall hallow the fiftieth year, you shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants”). The narrative about the words of the covenant written on stone tablets (Exod 24:12; 32:15; 34:4, 28) was altered in the Jeremianic retelling: the ark of the covenant will not be renewed (Jer 3:16), the new covenant will consist of words that will be written on the tab­ lets of the people’s hearts (Jer 31:31–34), the covenant with Israel will be everlasting, so will be the eternal covenant with David and Levi (Jer 33:19–26 MT). The scribal wisdom of those priestly scribes who completed the Moses narrative by the introduction of priestly law is emphatically rejected (Jer 8:8). From the perspective of Jeremiah, the teachings contained in the prophetic Torah even complement the Torah of Moses. The prohibition to lay heavy burdens on animals or servants on the seventh day (Exod 22:12), identified with the Sabbath (Deut 5:13–15), is explained in a prophetic sermon as a commandment not to bear burdens on the Sabbath in Jerusalem (Jer 17:21–23) (Achenbach 2016). This commandment was implemented as a public obligation through a covenant of the citizens of Judah and Jerusalem at the time of Nehemiah. It did not permit merchandise in Jerusalem on the holy day (Neh 10:32a), and the Nehemiah memorial says that trade and transport of burdens on the Sabbath was heavily disputed at that time (Neh 13:15, 19). Even the scribal reworking of a sermon of Amos treats this problem (cf. Amos 8:4–7). It seems obvious that at that time the Pentateuch did not yet contain a lex sacra that demanded the death sentence for anyone who violated the Sabbath commandment (Exod 31:12–17; Num 15:32–36). The Dtr the­ ology of covenant in 2 Kgs 22–23 and in the prophetic oracle of Huldah (2 Kgs 22:14–20; 2 Chr 34:22–28) finds further, expanded explanation in the sermon on Judah’s broken covenant with God in Jer 11; the chapter conceives of the prophet as someone who repeats Moses’s promulgation of the covenant as explained in Deuteronomy and announces God’s punishment according to the terms of the covenant (Deut 28). Different from Moses (Exod 32:9–14; Deut 9:18–20, 25–29), Jeremiah’s attempt to pray

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

472   Reinhard Achenbach for his people is rejected (Jer 7:16; 11:14), so he ends up lamenting the disaster of Israel (Jer 11:18–23 etc.). Finally, another motif in that post-­Dtr theology of the prophetic office is the rejection and even persecution of the prophets (2 Kgs 17:13–14; cf. Jer 18:11; Jer 26; cf. Amos 7:10–13; Hos 9:7; Mic 3:12 + Jer 26:18–19). The conflict with false prophecy is discussed (cf. Deut 18:22; Jer 23:9–14; 28:9). Even Isaiah’s prophetic undertakings are connected to, and thus inscribed in, the Deuteronomistic notion of Israel’s history (cf. Isa 36–39//2 Kgs 18–20).

Ezekiel as Torah Teacher The book of Ezekiel provides a different picture of prophetic Torah-­ teaching (Greenberg 2001; 2005; Pohlmann 2008). The book describes how the Golah’s elders require instruction from the prophetic and priestly authorities (Ezek 14:1). In general the prophetic message is combined with priestly teaching. The criticism of false proph­ ecy reflects not only the Dtr tradition (Deut 18:10–14, 21–22; cf. Ezek 13:1–16), but also Priestly Torah about divination (Lev 19:26, 31; cf. Ezek 13:17–23); those who consult div­ in­ation from foreign deities will be punished (Ezek 14:1–11). In a series of chapters, the book discusses the relation between the collective disaster, Israel’s punishment, and individual justice and personal responsibility. In its exegesis of the priestly deluge account (Gen 6:9), Ezek 14:14 stresses that Noah as a single righteous man could pre­ serve only his own (and his family’s) life from the judgment; that the righteous will live because of their individual righteousness; and that the unjust will suffer punishment for their individual iniquity (Ezek 18). Ezek 18:5–9 presents a Torah with a definition of righteousness that clearly parallels the distinctions and measures of the Holiness Code, but also reveals an idiosyncratic priestly linguistic style that alludes to other scribalprophetic Torah texts. Ezek 18:5–9: Thus, if a man is righteous and does what is just and right: 6If he has not eaten on the mountains [cf. Deut 12:2; Hos 4:13] or raised his eyes to the fetishes of the House of Israel [cf. Lev 26:30; Ps 121:1]; if he has not defiled another man’s wife [cf. Lev 18:20] or approached a menstruating woman [Lev 18:19]; 7if he has not wronged anyone [cf. Lev 19:13aa]; if he has returned robbery [Lev 19:13aβ]; if he has given bread to the hungry and clothed the naked [Lev 19:13b; Deut 15:7; Lev 25:35; Isa 58:7]; 8 if he has not lent at advance interest or exacted accrued interest [Lev 25:36]; if he has abstained from wrongdoing and executed true justice between man and man [Lev 19:15, 35; Zach 7:9]; 9 if he has followed my laws and kept my rules and acted honestly—he is righteous. Such a man shall live—declares the Lord God. [Lev 18: 4-­5; Hab 2:4]. 5

The series of Ezekiel’s teachings includes an alternate narrative to the pentateuchal ­composition in Ezek 20 (see Krüger 1989; Ohnesorge 1991; Pola 1995). According to this version, Moses did not proclaim Israel’s election in Moab (Deut 7:6) or at Mount Sinai

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   473 (Exod 19:6); rather they had already been chosen in Egypt (Ezek 20:5; cf. 6:2–8). The divine promise of the land was not revealed by oath to the ancestors (Gen 24:7; Exod 13:5; 32:13; Deut 1:8), but proclaimed to the Israelites in Egypt (Ezek 20:6). The com­ mandment to follow Yahweh alone and consequently to cast away the ancient Egyptian idols was given in Egypt already, but the Israelites kept to these idols and did not obey God (Ezek 20:7–8; cf. Josh 24:14; just as they also worshipped Babylonian gods, cf. Amos 5:26). They already provoked divine wrath in Egypt, where God forgave their sin for the sake of God’s divine name (Ezek 20:8b), and not only at Mount Sinai, when they were saved by Moses’s intercessory prayer (Exod 32:9–14). The exodus and the desert wander­ ings are known, but the text does not refer to Mount Sinai. The laws were revealed in the wilderness, and their pursuit shall lead to life (cf. Lev 18:4–5; Deut 8:3). The core of the divine law is the demand to observe the Sabbath, Ezek 20:12 (‫ׁשבתות‬, Lev 19:3, 30; 23:3; 25; Exod 16). The main reason the Israelites incurred divine wrath in the desert and throughout their history was—according to this sermon—the desecration of the Sabbath (Ezek 20:13, 16, 20, 21). The period of the Golah was already predicted in the desert because God saw that this people would desecrate the Sabbath (Ezek 20:24; cf. Lev 26:34–35!). One of Israel’s punishments was that God gave them laws and rules, “by which they could not live” (Ezek 20:25). The text seems to suggest that the law to conse­ crate firstborn sons (Exod 22:28b) was connected with a rite to burn children (cf. Jer 7:31). The whole text shows that the author had some knowledge of another form of the exodus narrative, but the chapter deliberately constructs an alternative reading of that tradition, even with polemics against the other focus. Another variation of the motif of covenant, breaking of the covenant, and covenant renewal is applied to the historical connection between God and Jerusalem in the alle­ goric figure of a young Canaanite woman (Ezek 16:8, 59, 60–63). The texts in Ezekiel present important evidence that the narratives of Israel’s origins as given in the Pentateuch could have existed in various different versions and that during the early Second Temple period the pentateuchal version was far from canonical, at least for parts of the Jewish community in the diaspora. The prophet Ezekiel was not merely one prophet among many others; rather, his role is seen as an appointed sentinel over Israel (Ezek 33) (Tooman and Barter 2017). The book’s appendix (Ezek 40–48) explicates a visionary concept of the form and the order of the Second Temple that to some extent formulates an alternative to the institu­ tional system favored in the early postexilic stages of the Pentateuch composition (Rudnig 2000). The preexilic Deuteronomic Laws recognize the institutions of judges and scribes (Deut 16:18), elders (Deut 21:2), and priests (Deut 18:3–5). The formerly rural clerics were the local Levites (cf. Deut 18:6–8). The Priestly Code entrusts only Aaron, his sons, and their lineage with the responsibility of sacrificing (Exod 28–29). When the non-­P narratives, P, and Deuteronomy were combined in a first basic Pentateuch com­ pos­ition, the legend that Moses had installed the Levites as priests of the central cult of Israel was introduced (Deut 10:8–10; Exod 32:26–28). Consequently the central priestly institution authorized and instructed to keep the Torah (i.e., the laws of the Covenant Code, the Decalogue, and Deuteronomy) is identified as the “Levitical priests”

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

474   Reinhard Achenbach (‫הכהנים בני לוי‬, ‫הכהנים הלוים‬, cf. Deut 17:9, 18; 18:1; 31:9). Consequently the rule acknowledged that all priests in Israel must be descendants of Levi, and it was thus proposed that they once had formed a tribe (‫ׁשבט לוי‬, Deut 18:1). The preexilic, Deuteronomistic, and early priestly tradition did not know this theory. However, the scribal tradition behind Ezek 44 accepted it as legitimate. But the authors make an important distinction between Levitical groups: the text blames those Levites who allowed syncretism among the Israelites (Ezek 44:9–10) and therefore degrades them to lower temple service, whereas it exclusively permits the lineage of Levitical priests with Zadokite ancestry to perform the sacrificial cult (Ezek 44:15–16; cf. 1 Kgs 1:39; 4:2). It is their privilege to teach the dis­ tinction between holy and profane, between pure and impure, and to take the highest judicial position as the central court in jurisprudence and ordeals (Ezek 44:23–24). In the Pentateuch those rules were introduced in a secondary formative phase. Some of them were part of the Holiness Code (cf. Ezek 44:20 / Lev 19:27; 21:5, 10; Ezek 44:22/ Lev 21:7, 13–14; Ezek 44:25/Lev 21:1–4 etc.), whereas others were introduced in the le­gends connecting the Holiness Code with the former priestly account (cf. Ezek 44:21/ Lev 10:9; Ezek 44:23/Lev 10:10). The genealogy leading from Levi through Aaron and Eleazar to Zadok was established in Exod 6:16–23; Lev 10:12; Num 20:28; 1 Chr 5:27–34. Additionally, the obligations for priestly service in the Holiness Code (Lev 21) were supplemented by regulations for subordinate Levitical services (Num 4; 18). At the same time, scribes added the legend about Korah’s rebellion (Num 16) to curtail Levitical claims to priestly competence. A central critique of Ezek 44 directed against non-­Zadokite Levitical priests was that they admitted “aliens, uncircumcised of spirit, and uncircumcised of flesh” to take part in the sacrificial rituals at the temple (Ezek 44:6); the text states that this was an offence against the divine covenant (v. 7). Indeed, the early form of the pentateuchal com­pos­ ition contained traces of a tendency justifying the admission of foreigners to the cov­en­ ant­al and sacrificial community (cf. Exod 12:38; 18:9–12; Deut 29:10 etc.). Exod 12:48 rules that those foreigners in Egypt who wanted to take part in the Passover ritual had to be circumcised and that there should only be one Torah for the foreigner and the Israelite alike (cf. Exod 12:49; Lev 24:22; Num 9:14; 15:14–16, 29). The commandment to circumcise Abraham’s male descendants (Gen 17:12, 14) includes all foreigners and slaves in Israelite households (Gen 17:13). Jewish halakah even identifies the gêr (stranger) as a proselyte (Mek. Pisha 14).

Isaiah and the Torah Some scholars assume an impact of Isaiah’s prophetic social critique on the formation of the Covenant Code, as mentioned above. In the exilic part in Deutero-­Isaiah, the appeal to leave Babylon and return to Zion alludes to the exodus motif, citing the miracle at the Sea of Reeds (Isa 43:16–17, cf. Exod 14:22, 26, and 28), and to the desert wanderings, men­ tioning divine providence providing water (Isa 43:20; cf. Exod 15:25, 27), thus referring to pentateuchal traditions.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   475 The history of Israel is interpreted in the light of the Jacob/Israel legend: as Jacob had to leave his home and when returning found his new identity as “Israel” (Gen 32:29), the people is addressed as “Jacob/Israel”: The Israelites had been delivered to punishment and exile and they are now addressed as a chosen descendant of Abraham (Isa 41:8), reprieved and released from their sins to be God’s witnesses and servants (Isa 43:10; 44:1). The figure of a Servant of Yahweh appears with a message of the Torah for the nations (Isa 42:4; 51:4). The concept that Israel’s history of salvation will be a witness for God among the nations (Isa 49:7; Isa 51:4) in light of monotheism is shared by late texts in the Pentateuch (Deut 32). Trito-­Isaiah, according to Gen 2:1–3, says that all mankind, Judeans and foreigners, will come come close to salvation when they keep the Sabbath and avoid evildoing according to the law of the covenant (Isa 56:1–8). In the Second Temple period, following the torah of the Pentateuch, foreigner’s offerings were accepted at the temple (Lev 22:18–25; Num 15:14–16). However, there was also a debate about the question of whether castrated persons could be accepted (cf. Isa 56:5–6; Lev 21:16–23; Deut 23:2). The whole scroll of Isaiah could be read as a complementary teaching together with the Pentateuch. In the final shape of the book, consisting of Proto-, Deutero-, and Trito-­Isaiah (Berges 1998), Isaiah is depicted as a warning prophet who compares Jerusalem with Sodom and Gomorrah (Isa 1:9–10; Gen 19:24–25). He demands to obey the Torah of God (Isa 1:10b), because all sacrifices will not be accepted if the people is impure through offending the law, not supporting the personae miserae (Isa 1:17; cf. Exod 22:20–26). Moses’ Torah becomes relevant for all nations (Deut 4:6–8); the book of Isaiah as a whole prepares the idea of proselytism (Isa 56; cf. Exod 12:49) and of a Torah for all nations from Zion (Isa 2:3) that reflects the universal impact of the Pentateuch (Gen 1; 9) as well as of the prophetic message (Fischer 1995).

Priestly Torah and the Prophets Other prophetic texts provide additional examples of priestly Torah. This includes Hag 2:10–19 (touching holy offerings will not transfer holiness, but interaction with dead and impure things contaminates; cf. Num 19:11–13; Lev 11:31–40); Zech 7 (on the con­tinu­ ation and ending of fasting and mourning rituals after the exile, not mentioned in the Pentateuch); Mal 1:6–14 (a prophetic critique directed against those priests who offered improper sacrifices; cf. Lev 21:6; 22:17–25); as well as Mal 2:1–9 (an admonition to main­ tain the proper teaching of Torah in order not to defile the covenant with Levi; cf. Deut 33:10; Lev 10:10–11). Jeremiah 8:8 even rejects tendencies to formulate more exclusive concepts of the Israelite community in connection with the scrolls of the Mosaic Torah. As the demand to make Sabbath observance a distinguishing feature became accepted as part of Israel’s covenantal obligations, even foreigners who decided to adopt the Israelite religion had to follow Sabbath legislation; the scribal school of Trito-­Isaiah criticized (Isa 56:2–7) the introduction of a Qahal-order excluding certain groups of foreigners (Deut 23:2–8). These texts reflect a scribal discussion before the background of the expansion of the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

476   Reinhard Achenbach Pentateuch composition by H and late priestly torôt. This might have been the reason why the theological concept regarding the prophetic writings as Moses’s successors according to Deut 18:15–18 was interrupted by the final statement in Deut 34:10: “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom Yahweh singled out, face to face!” (cf. Exod 33:11; Num 12:7–8). The text draws a line between scribal prophetic trad­ ition and the Pentateuch. Only Aaron was acknowledged as the “mouth” of Moses and God (Exod 4:15), as were those who followed him as legitimate high priests.

Rewritten Torah: Chronicles, Wisdom Teachers, Qumran, Temple Scroll, and Jubilees Priestly Theology and Wisdom The continuous processes of rewriting and reformulating pentateuchal texts originated in the scholastic scribal legal and epic traditions already in the preexilic period. The hypertextual rewritten Torah texts (Brooke 2013) participate in their authority. These rewritten Torah texts were not always designed to replace their Vorlagen, but rather inte­ grated their Vorlagen in continuing discussions and debates, securing and affirming their relevance for successive generations. With the compositional integration of the Priestly Code, the theology of creation was developed in a monotheistic horizon. Thus Israel’s role among the nations gained an universal dimension in a particular religious sense, according to which Israel—elected as a “holy nation”—serves exemplarily among the multitude of peoples (cf. Exod 19:6; Deut 4:4–8; 7:6; 32:8–9). Further scribal discourse described Yahweh not only as the God of Israel but also as the creator of the world, the universal God. Successive steps of exegetical reflection expanded P’s primordial cosmogony. Gen 1:1–3 says: When God began to create heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—God said, “Let there be light!”—and there was light.

Deutero-­Isaiah describes God’s work in history as creative (cf. Isa 43:16–21; 44:23) and thereby extends the meaning of Gen 1; cf. Isa 45:6b–7: I am Yahweh and there is none else, I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe—I, Yahweh, do all these things!

The theory that wisdom was the first, primordial creation precludes the separation of philosophy and theology; cf. Prov 8:22–23, 27, and 30:

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   477 Yahweh created me at the beginning of his course as the first of his works of old. In the distant past I was fashioned, at the beginning, at the origin of earth. . . . I was there when he set the heavens into place . . . I was with him as a confidant, a source of delight every day, rejoicing before him at all times . . .

Further treatment of creation theology can be observed in the wisdom (Job 38–41; Eccl) and apocalyptic literature (4 Ezra; 2 Bar).

Chronicles and Pentateuch 1 Chronicles 1:1–23 describes the history of humankind according to the genealogies of Gen 5 and 10. The description of Israel’s origins in 1 Chr 1:24–27 follows Gen 11:10–26; 1 Chr 1:27–54 resembles material from the genealogies of Abraham, Ishmael, and Esau (cf. Gen 25 and 36). The list of Judah’s lineage (1 Chr 2 and 4; cf. Gen 38* and 46*) offers a lot of additional material, including David’s ancestry (1 Chr 3). Even the family trees of the other tribes, including the priestly tribe of Levi (1 Chr 5–9), proffer far more information than those recorded in the Pentateuch (Gen 46; Exod 6:13–27; Num 3). Only a portion of this data was derived from further sections of the Enneateuch (Knoppers 2003, 2004). Chronicles presupposes the idealized picture of the Israelite assembly following the divine cloud, the tabernacle, and the divine rules—as explained by the late priestly texts in Num 1–10; 15–19; and 26–36, but only partially reflected in additions to Josh–2 Kgs. New episodes about further regulations concerning the religious rituals and orders were contrived. Thus Chronicles results in a form of “rewritten history” (Kalimi  2005; Willi 2009; Maskow 2019). The scribal prophetic tradition transitioned into newly developed schools, where the scribes became pupils of priestly scribes and teachers of Torah. An important example from the beginning of second century bce is the wisdom of Ben Sira (LXX: Sirach) (Ziegler 1980; Beentjes 2006; Segal 2007). With the “scribe’s wisdom” (Sir 38:24), he refers to “the Law and the Prophets” (Prologue to Sir, v. 1); a sage “thinks about the Law of the Most High” and “seeks out the wisdom of all the ancients” (Sir 38:34; 39:1). Parts of the ancient Hebrew version are attested in manuscripts from Qumran and Masada. In a “Hymn to the Ancestors” (Sir 44–50) the writing praises the righteousness of ancestors from Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Sir 44:16–27) to Moses, Aaron, and Phineas (Sir 45), and even to Shimon bar Onias (Sir 50). The hymn offers an in­ter­pret­ ation of the ancestors’ importance, significance, and merit, e.g. saying about Abraham (Sir 44:19–21): Abraham was a great father of a multitude of nations, and no blemish was found on his glory, who kept the law of the Most High, and he entered in a covenant with him; in his flesh he established a covenant, and in a trial he was found faithful. Therefore He estab­ lished by means of an oath with him that nations would be blessed by his seed, that he would multiply him as the dust of the earth and like the stars to exalt his seed and to give them an inheritance from sea to sea and from the river to the end of the earth.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

478   Reinhard Achenbach

Rewritten Pentateuch in Qumran Further rewriting processes, observed in the Qumran literature, include theories of a “primordial writing” (Najman 2003; Crawford 2008). In the Pentateuch, Moses’s writing (Exod 17:14; 24:4; 34:27; Deut 31:9; [17:18]) and his oral teaching (Exod 15:25; Deut 32:­ 44–47; 33) originate from divine teachings, oral and written (Exod 24:12b; 31:18; 32:15; Deut 5:22), which could be transmitted through successive priestly intermediation (Exod 4:11–16). Even from the primordial period, men could hear the voice of God (Gen 2:15–17), and so Noah or Abraham could already achieve righteousness by following his laws and teachings (Gen 6:9; 15:6; 26:5). Beyond the considerable amount (about 83–86 fragments) of the Pentateuch (Ulrich 2010) found at Qumran, rewritten Torah was found in 4Q158 and 4Q364–367. 4Q158 adapted texts from Gen 32:25–33*; Exod 3:12; 24:4–6; 19:17–23; 20:12–17, 19–26; 21:1–22:13*, and others as well. 4Q364–367 even is a fragment of a unique edition of the Pentateuch (Zahn 2011). Phylacteries of tefillin found in Qumran containing small writ­ ten pieces of texts from Deut 6:4–9; 11:13–21; and Exod 13:1–16 are the oldest pieces of evidence that Jews of the first century bce interpreted the commandment of Deut 6:8 literally. Scribal changes in the text of biblical laws reveal a plurality of interpretive scrip­ tural encounters and mirror social history and halakic diversity within Judaism of the period (Teeter 2014). A remarkable example for a new composition of Torah material from Exod–Deut and non-­biblical Second Temple texts is the so-­called Temple Scroll (11Q19; 11Q20; 11Q21; 4Q524; Yadin  1983; Maier  1985;  1997; Qimron  1996). The text is connected with the account of the revelation at Mount Sinai (col. II//Exod 34:11–16*) and offers a descrip­ tion of an idealized temple plan (col. 3–47) with a huge outer court for the camp of the (pure) congregation of the twelve tribes (according to Num 1–4), a middle court (the size of the outer court in Ezekiel’s vision, Ezek 40–48) for the Levites, and an inner court for the tabernacle and the divine dwelling place. It includes the regulations for sacrifices (col. 11–30*). The laws on festivals and rules for offerings were derived from Lev 23; Num 28–29; and Deut 16, in addition to an annual festival for the ordination of priests and four festivals of the firstfruits. The regulations for temple service were composed on the basis of priestly and Deuteronomic materials in Exod 25–Deut 23, demanding purity (col. 48–51; cf. Lev 11–15; Num 19; and Deut 14) with additional strict demands to protect the whole area’s holiness. The law about the organization of justice at the central sanctuary had to be observed in the sanctuary (col 51:11–16; cf. Deut 16:18–20; col 56:8b–11; cf. Deut 17:12–13), and idolatry had to be punished (col 54:8–55:21; cf. Deut 13:2–18; 17:2–5). The law of the king was expanded with distinctions about the sacral rules for warfare (col 56–59; cf. Deut 17:14–20; Num 27:17, 21; 31; etc.). 4Q19 col. 60–66 added regulations on the rights of priests and Levites and a selection of legal cases according to Deut 18–22 (Otto 2007b; Paganini 2009), concluding with a reformula­ tion of incest and sexual taboos (col. 66; cf. Lev 18:7–15; 20:11–22; Deut 23:1; 27:­20–22). The versions used by the scribes demonstrate distinct proximity to the Vorlage of LXX versions.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   479

Hellenistic Jewish Literature The book of Jubilees (VanderKam 1989; 2001; Oegema 2005; Segal 2007), of which four­ teen Hebrew fragments were found among the Qumran texts (the complete version is attested in the Ethiopic translation), even claims to represent texts from heavenly tab­ lets. The narrative starts with the scene of Exod 24:12. Moses receives the divine teach­ ing, which already foresees the Israel’s coming history, the exile, the return (cf. Lev 26:45–46), and the temple’s renewal. The angel from the face of God reveals creation’s primordial order to Moses. The Sabbath rule was part of a cosmic order, including an extended dualistic angelology and demonology. God’s wrath resulted from the neglect­ ing of the holy calendar and the Sabbath. Therefore one of Israel’s primary tasks is living in the rhythm of the Jubilees and keeping the Sabbath (the year consists of 52 weeks, 7 × 7 years make a jubilee [Jub 6:29–32]). God’s eternal plan and the end of world history in the fiftieth jubilee are already predetermined at creation (Berner 2006). The stories of creation, Adam, Eve, Seth, Enoch, and Noah are retold (Jub 2–10), then the stories of Abraham (Jub 11–23), Jacob (Jub 24–45), and Moses (Jub 46–50). This recounting implies an instruction to reread Genesis. According to Jubilees, the ancestors already knew important Torah commandments, such as the Sabbath regulations (Jub 2:17–33), purifi­ cation after childbirth (3:8–14), the commandment to cover one’s nakedness (3:26–31), the prohibition of murder (4:1–6), the prohibition of eating blood (6:4–16), the rules for the calendar (6:32–38), regulations for the firstfruits (7:34–39), Shavuot (6:17–31; 15:1–16; 22:1–9; 44:1–4), Sukkot (16:20–31), and Passover (49:1–23). The book ends with a parae­ netic sermon to keep the Sabbath according to the heavenly tablets (Jub 50). The inten­ tion of this haggadic and halakic rewriting is to prevent Israel’s Hellenization (cf. Jub 15:11–14). The authors seem to have a priestly background, and their writing can be dated between 164 and 150 bce (Albani, Frey, and Lange 1997). The phenomenon of “rewritten Bible” finds its continuation in haggadic literature (Vermes 1961). Both the ancestors’ story and the exodus narrative found broad reception in Second Temple literature. Abraham is described as “Friend of God” in the Damascus Document (CD III:2–3), in 4Q176, and in 4Q252 (Kratz 2009). The Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen ar = 1Q20) attests early examples of legends developed beyond the penta­ teuchal narrative, including narratives about Noah’s miraculous birth and Enoch’s in­ter­ pret­ation of omens, dreams, and Abraham’s vision, and the promise of the Holy Land to Shem’s son, Arpachshad (Fitzmyer 2004; Ziemer 2008). Other haggadic expansions of the Genesis narrative can be found in the novel on Joseph and Aseneth (Burchard 2003) or in the Hellenistic Jewish text of the “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs” (later sup­ plemented with Christian revisions), which was inspired by Gen 49–50 and Deut 33 (Becker 1980; Kugel 2012), as well as in Bar 1:15–3:8; 1 En. 85–90; 4 Ezra; 2 Bar 53–74, and among Jewish, Samaritan, and Gentile historians and in the New Testament (Schmid 1999). Even in the ancient Jewish historical writings of Josephus and in the philosophical treatments of Philo scholars have encountered and analyzed the phenom­ enon of rewritten Bible that reflects on the Pentateuch (Feldman 1998; Feldman, Kugel, and Schiffman 2012; Runia 2012).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

480   Reinhard Achenbach

Suggested Reading Gertz, Jan C. / Levinson, B.M. / Rom-­Shiloni, D. / Schmid, K. (eds.) 2016. The Formation of the Pentateuch. Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, FAT 111, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2016 (Part eight: Do the Pentateuchal Sources Extend into the Former Prophets?, p. 777–827; Part Nine: Rethinking the Relationship between the Law and the Prophets, p. 892-­1084)

Works Cited Achenbach, R. 2007. “The Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Torah in the 5th and 4th Century B.C.E.” In Judah and Judeans in the Fourth Century B.C.E., edited by R. Albertz, G. N. Knoppers, and O. Lipschits, 247–280. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Achenbach, R. 2011. “ ‘A Prophet like Moses’ (Deut 18:15)—‘No Prophet like Moses’ (Deut 34:10): Some Observations on the Relation between the Pentateuch and the Latter Prophets.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz , 435–458. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Achenbach, R. 2015. “ ‘The Unwritten Text of the Covenant’: Torah in the Mouth of the Prophets.” In Covenant in the Persian Period: From Genesis to Chronicles, edited by R. J. Bautch and G. N. Knoppers, 94–108. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Achenbach, R. 2016. “The Sermon on the Sabbath in Jeremiah 17:19–27 and the Torah.” 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. FAT 111. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Albani, M., J. Frey, and A. Lange, eds. 1997. Studies in the Book of Jubilees, TSAJ 65. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Albertz, R. 1992. Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit. 2 vols. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck. Barkay, G., A. G. Vaughan, M. J. Lundberg, and B. Zuckerman. 2004. “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation.” BASOR 334:41–71. Becker, J. 1980. Die Testamente der zwölf Patriarchen. JSHRZ III/1. 2nd ed. Gütersloh: Mohn, 1–162. Beentjes, P.  C. 2006. The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew: A Text Edition of all Extant Hebrew Manuscripts and a Synopsis of all Parallel Hebrew Ben Sira Texts. Atlanta, GA: SBL. First published 1997. Berges, U. 1998. Das Buch Jesaja: Komposition und Endgestalt. HBS 16. Freiburg: Herder Verlag. Berner, C. 2006. Jahre, Jahrwochen und Jubiläen: Heptadische Geschichtskonzeptionen im Antiken Judentum. BZAW 363. Berlin: de Gruyter. Blum, E. 2009. “Hosea 12 und die Pentateuchüberlieferungen.” In Die Erzväter in der biblischen Tradition: Festschrift für Matthias Köckert, edited by A. C. Hagedorn and H. Pfeiffer, 291–322. BZAW 400. Berlin: de Gruyter. Brooke, G. J. 2013. Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method. SBLEJL 39. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Burchard, C. 2003. Joseph und Aseneth: Kritisch herausgegeben. PVTG 5. Leiden: Brill. Crawford, S.  W. 2008. Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   481 Evans, C.  A., J.  N.  Lohr, and D.  L.  Petersen, eds. 2012. The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation. VTSup 152. Leiden: Brill. Feldman, L. H. 1998. Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 58. Atlanta, GA: SBL. Feldman, L.  H., J.  L.  Kugel, and L.  H.  Schiffman. 2012. Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture. 3 vols. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Fischer, I. 1995. Tora für Israel—Tora für die Völker: Das Konzept des Jesajabuches. SBS 164. Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk. Fitzmyer, J. A. 2004. The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1 (1Q20): A Commentary. BibOr 18B. 3rd edn. Rome: Editrice Pontificio istituto biblico. Gertz, J.  C. 2000. Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch. FRLANT 186. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Greenberg, M. 2001. Ezechiel 1–20. HThKAT. Freiburg – Basel – Wien: Herder. Greenberg, M. 2005. Ezechiel 21–37. HThKAT. Freiburg – Basel – Wien: Herder. Kalimi, I. 2005. The Reshaping of Ancient Israelite History in Chronicles. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Knoppers, G. N. 2003. 1 Chronicles 1-9. AB 12. New York: Doubleday. Knoppers, G. N. 2004. 1 Chronicles 10-29. AB 12A. New York: Doubleday. Kratz, R. G. 2000. The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament. London: T&T Clark. Kratz, R. G. 2009. “ ‘Abraham, mein Freund’: Das Verhältnis von inner- und außerbiblischer Schriftauslegung.” In Die Erzväter in der biblischen Tradition: Festschrift für Matthias Köckert, edited by A. C. Hagedorn and H. Pfeiffer, 115–136. BZAW 400. Berlin: de Gruyter. Krüger, T. 1989. Geschichtskonzepte im Ezechielbuch. BZAW 180. Berlin: de Gruyter. Kugel, J. L. 2012. “The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.” In Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, edited by L. H. Feldman, J. L. Kugel, and L. H. Schiffman. 3 vols. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Levinson, B.  M., ed. 1994. Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation and Development. JSOTSup 181. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Maier, J. 1985. The Temple Scroll: An Introduction, Translation and Commentary. JSOTSup 34. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Maier, J. 1997. Die Tempelrolle vom Toten Meer und das “Neue Jerusalem”. 3rd ed. Munich: Reinhardt. Maskow, L. 2019. Tora in der Chronik. Studien zur Rezeption des Pentateuchs in den Chronikbüchern. FRLANT 274. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Meier, C. 2002. Jeremia als Lehrer der Tora. FRLANT 196. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck. Müller, R. 2008. Jahwe als Wettergott. Studien zur althebräischen Kultlyrik anhand ausgewählter Psalmen. BZAW 387. Berlin: de Gruyter. Najman, H. 2003. Second Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77. Leiden: Brill. Nihan, C. 2007. From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus. FAT/II 25. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Oegema, G. S. 2005. Das Buch der Jubiläen. JSHRZ II/3,4. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 78–96. Ohnesorge, S. 1991. Jahwe gestaltet sein Volk neu: Zur Sicht der Zukunft Israels nach Ez 11,14-21; 20,1-44; 36,16-38; 37,1-14.15-28. FB 64. Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 78–202.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

482   Reinhard Achenbach Otto, E. 1994. Theologische Ethik des Alten Testaments, Theologische Wissenschaft 3,2. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Eng. trans. Nashville, 2003. Otto, E. 2007a. “Jeremia und die Tora: Ein nachexilischer Diskurs.” In Tora in der Hebräischen Bibel: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte und synchronen Logik diachroner Transformationen, edited by R. L. H. Feldman, J. L. Kugel, and L. H. Schiffman, 134–182. BZAR 7. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Otto, E. 2007b. “Rechtshermeneutik im Pentateuch und in der Tempelrolle.” In Tora in der Hebräischen Bibel. Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte und synchronen Logik diachroner Transformationen, edited by R.  Achenbach, M.  Arneth, and E.  Otto, 72–121. BZAR 7. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Paganini, S. 2009. “Nicht darfst du zu diesen Wörtern etwas hinzufügen”: Die Rezeption des Duteronomiums in der Tempelrolle: Sprache, Autoren, Hermeneutik. BZAR 11. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Pohlmann, Karl-Friedrich 2008. Ezechiel. Der Stand der theologischen Diskussion. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Pola, T. 1995. Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift: Beobachtungen zur Literarkritik und Traditionsgeschichte von Pg. WMANT 70. Neukirchen Vl: Neukirchener Verlag. Qimron, E. 1996. The Temple Scroll: A Critical Edition with Extensive Reconstructions. Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Ramond, S. 2014. Les Leçons et les énigmes du passé: Une exégèse intra-biblique des psaumes historiques. BZAW 459. Berlin: de Gruyter. Renz, J., and Röllig, W. 2016. Handbuch der Althebräischen Epigraphik I: Die althebräischen Inschriften – Text und Kommentar (HAHE). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Römer, T. 2012. “Abraham Traditions in the Hebrew Bible Outside the Book of Genesis.” In The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, edited by C.  A.  Evans, J. N. Lohr, and D. L. Petersen, 159–180. VTSup 152. Leiden: Brill. Rom-Shiloni, D. 2005. “Facing Destruction and Exile: Inner-Biblical Exegesis in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.” ZAW 117:189–205. Rom-Shiloni, D. 2007. “The Torah in Jeremiah: Interpretive Techniques and the Ideological Perspectives.” Shanton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 5:43–87. Rudnig, T. A. 2000. Heilig und Profan: Redaktionskritische Studien zu Ez 40-48. BZAW 287. Berlin: de Gruyter. Runia, D. T. 2012. “The Writings of Philo.” In Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, edited by L. Feldman, J. Kugel, and L. Schiffman, 3 vols. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Schmid, K. 1999. Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testaments. WMANT 81. Neukirchen Vl: Neukirchener Verlag. Schmid, K. 2002. “Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch.” In Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, edited by J. C. Gertz, K. Schmid, and M. Witte, 83–118. BZAW 315. Berlin: de Gruyter. Schmid, K. 2012. “Schöpfung im Alten Testament.” In K. Schmid, Schöpfung, 70–120. Themen der Theologie 4. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 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. 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.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch   483 Tooman, W. A., and Barter, P. 2017. Ezekiel: Current Debates and Future Directions. FAT 112, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Ulrich, E. 2010. The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: Transcriptions and Textual Variants. VTSup 134. Leiden: Brill. VanderKam, J. C. 1989. The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text. CSCO 510. Scriptores Aethiopici 87. 2 vols. Leuven: Peeters. VanderKam, J. C. 2001. The Book of Jubilees. Guides to the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Willi, T. 2009. Chronik: 1 Chr 1–10. BKAT XXIV/1. Neukirchen Vl: Neukirchener Verlag. Witte, M. 1998. Die Biblische Urgeschichte. Redaktions- und theologiegeschichtliche Beobachtungen zu Genesis 1,1–11,26. BZAW 265. Berlin: de Gruyter. Wöhrle, J. 2006. Die frühen Sammlungen des Zwölfprophetenbuches: Entstehung und Komposition. BZAW 360. Berlin: de Gruyter. Yadin, Y. 1983. Megillat ham-miqdash—The Temple Scroll. 3 vols. + suppl. Rev. ed. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. First published 1977. Zahn, M.  M. 2011. Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4 Q Reworked Pentateuch Manuscripts. STDJ 95. Leiden: Brill. Ziegler, J. 1980. Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach. Septuaginta XII,2. 2nd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Ziemer, B. 2008. Genesis Apokryphon. Article, WiBiLex, .

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

chapter 25

The Pen tateuch as (/a n d) Soci a l M emory of “Isr a el” i n th e L ate Persi a n Per iod Ehud Ben Zvi

Introduction The editors of this volume have tasked me to write the essay on the Pentateuch as (/and) ancient Israelite Social Memory. On the surface, this might seem to be one of the easiest writing tasks I have been given in my entire academic career. There can be no doubt that reading and rereading the Pentateuch involved evoking memories of a past Israel and, for that matter, foundational memories of the Israel with whom the literati of the late Persian (or early Hellenistic) period in Yehud/Judah identified and whom they construed, in part, through their shared memory of its past and future (see prophetic literature). Reading the Pentateuch in the late Persian/early Hellenistic period obviously shaped images of the past and thus contributed to the creation of social memory among the readers and rereaders of the collection, namely, the literati. Moreover, given that these memories dealt with the foundational period and that the Pentateuch was considered tôrâ, and the book of Yahweh's/Moses's tôrâ was associated with the Pentateuch (see below), it is to be expected that the memories shaped, reflected, embodied, and evoked by these texts would include central sites of memory for the community. (One may compare in this regard the case of the New Testament, which em­bodied and evoked central social memories for the early Christian communities.) It suffices, for the present purposes, to mention that the Pentateuch includes, inter alia, references to central mnemonic nodes, such as Exodus and Sinai—archetypal deliverance and paradigmatic divine instruction—and that it constructs them as closely interrelated with central mnemonic figures of the past, such as Moses and Aaron (the main and unique lawgiver who provides for the continuity of Israel through tôrâ and Mosaic prophets, and the archetypal priest who provides for the “eternal” continuity of the cult

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   485 and thus order in the cosmos), the ancestors of Israel, Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac, and with core concepts such as the original promise of the land. In addition, because these are central sites of (social) memory, they are strongly connective and connected within the memory landscape of the community, which is just another way of saying that they were involved in the shaping of multiple mnemonic trajectories and inform multiple memories and sites of memories. In this context, one may mention, for instance, matters such as the first and second exodus; the recurrent construction of Yahweh as a deity frequently remembered as the one who brought out Israel from Egypt; the trajectory intertwining the tabernacle and the temple; or the multiple evocations and references to the tôrâ of Moses/Yahweh within this memory landscape. The task, therefore, seems easy, because the essay will then conclude its introduction with something along the lines of “a comprehensive study of all these instances is impossible in the present format,” and then move to the main body of the essay, which will comprise an up-­to-­date annotated summary of selected studies on a few central sites of memory evoked in the Pentateuch (see e.g. the essays by Ben Zvi, Heckl, Guillaume, and Römer in Edelman and Ben Zvi  2013; and from a different theoretical perspective, Hendel  2005 or Leveen  2008), and some comments or new observations on these selected studies. This path would lead to matters that are close to my heart and which have been at the center of my research for the last ten years or so. Moreover, it would easily showcase the contribution that approaches informed by memory studies may make to the understanding of social memory in ancient Israel, in itself an issue to which I have devoted much of my recent work. Yet such an approach, as laudable and relevant to my own research as it is, would have failed to properly address the task at hand, namely to explore the Pentateuch as/and social memory, in contradistinction from exploring sites of memory such as Moses, Abraham, Aaron, or Sinai as evoked by the reading and rereading of particular pentateuchal texts. To be sure, there is much to do about the latter—and I and many others will continue to contribute to that effort—but in the present essay I will focus on eight different “windows” that might shed light on what an approach informed by memory studies may contribute to current discussions on the Pentateuch as a collection and the types of issues, questions or “angles” within existing questions that such an approach may raise. In other words, these “windows” serve as potential responses to the basic question: what is the heuristic potential of such an approach for the study of the Pentateuch as such?

The Matter of the Pentateuch as Shared Foundational “National” or “Group” Memory of Not One but Two Distinctive “Groups” The Pentateuch is one of a number of cases in which one text or collection of authoritative texts embodies as it were the foundational, “national” collective memory of two groups,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

486   Ehud Ben Zvi not one. Usually, such cases are the consequences of some later split in an ori­gin­al group. Moreover, often in such instances the post-­split groups each tend to claim that they (but not the other) represent the proper continuation of the pre-­split group and frequently— though not always— express a hope for a future reunification, at which time the “wrong” side will recant and be reincorporated into the “proper” group. (Compare the case of Christianity and Judaism sharing the Old Testament/Miqra as a collection embodying the memory of “Israel.” Examples may be easily multiplied and involve various types of groups: see e.g. the case of Western and Eastern Germany, North and South Vietnam; or compare with the dispute over who is “true” to the Constitution in the process leading to, and even during, the American Civil War.) Significantly, this general, cross-­cultural tendency is well embedded and at work within the memory of “Israel” held by the Jerusalemite-­centered literati who read the Pentateuch. Within the world portrayed in these books and remembered by the community, any event reported in the Pentateuch existed well before the much later division of the kingdom. The temporal line of social memory fits exactly the “standard” mnemonic preference for such cases. Moreover, since the Persian-­era literati read the Pentateuch within their ideological horizon and their world of knowledge, including their knowledge of other authoritative books in their repertoire, one cannot but conclude that their readings followed the “expected” paths. In this context it is worth stressing that as the Yehudite literati read the Pentateuch they could not forget that they are the proper “Israel” to which Samaria and the Samarians will/may one day return. This hope is expressed time and again in prophetic literature (e.g. Isa 11:10–16; Jer 3:17–18; 31:31–34; 50:4–5; Ezek 37:15–28; 47–48; Hos 3:5) and outside of it, e.g., in Chronicles (compare e.g. the references to people from Ephraim and Manasseh in the reconstituted Jerusalem in 1 Chr 9:3, the paradigmatic speech of Abijah in 2 Chr 13, or the multiple references to Northerners joining the “proper Israel” in different times of the remembered past—i.e. in the days of Rehoboam, Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah). Likewise, they are to remember that in their own version of the history, and thus from their perspective, the “true” version, Jerusalem is identified with Mount Moriah (see 2 Chr 3:1), whereas later Samaritan texts consistently associated Mount Moriah with Mount Gerizim (on the struggle over the memory of Mount Moriah and of Abram/Abraham, see Kalimi 2002. Clarification note: the term Samaritan is used here in reference to post-­“Jewish-Samaritan-split” texts and peoples/communities; thus, for instance, whereas there existed a historically shared ‘Judean-­Samarian’ Pentateuch, there was no shared ‘Jewish-­Samaritan’ Pentateuch. This terminology is widely used in the field, see e.g. Ulrich 2015). In addition, the most memorable sin of the period of the “Wanderings” was the “golden calf.” The episode reported in Exod 32 served for the Yehudite literati as a type and an allusion to the “sin of Jeroboam” (1 Kgs 12:25–30 and the frequent references in the subsequent royal assessments, 1 Kgs 13:33; 14:16; etc.). Similarly, the divinely executed sons of Aaron, Nadav, and Abihu were for them a type for and an allusion to the fate of the house of Jeroboam (see Lev 10:1–2; Num 3:2–4; 26:60–61; 1 Chr 24:2 and cf. 1 Kgs 14:1, 20; 15: 25–31), while at the same time carefully avoiding making Aaron a type for

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   487 Jeroboam: after all, he, unlike Jeroboam, confessed and repented (cf., from a mnemonic viewpoint, the role of Aaron in Lev 16), returned to the proper path, and listened to Moses and Yahweh. Aaron’s main fault was not, as for Jeroboam, a desire to cause others to sin, but a failure in terms of strength of character. In fact, one may say that for them Aaron was a kind of antitype of Jeroboam, and a type for a future Samaria that would rejoin proper Jerusalem-­centered Israel and its Aaronide priests, and which would then be included into an Israel of priests—but of priests who follow “Mosaic” prophets, and thus Yahweh (compare also on this the comments by Milgrom 1991, 1012). In sum, the world constructed through social memory follows some common social mnemonic tendencies. In other words, socially memory processes “standarized” this historically unusual case (see below). (Significantly, the same may be said of the Samaritan tradition, in which the split was construed and remembered as post-­Moses, though, of course, not in the way accepted in Yehud. Later Samaritan traditions seem to construe the beginning of the split in Eli’s (illegal) establishment of the sanctuary in Shilo. The “strange” and explicit reference to Eli as the direct successor appointed by Phineas in Liber antiquitatum biblicarum (Pseudo-­Philo) (LAB) 50:3, 52:2, and im­pli­ cit­ly in 48:2, may be an echo of some earlier mnemonic struggles over Eli and his role.) These observations are significant, because they show that at times—and, perhaps, even frequently—constructed worlds of shared social imagination and memory that clearly lack any historical referent (as this case is; see below) may (at times even more than “actual” worlds) be consistent with expectations arising from cross-­cultural socialanthropological approaches, and thus may be “explained,” as it were, by them. Conversely, the fact that a social-­anthropological approach may “explain” a constructed world does not signify that such a world must bear “historicity,” at least in the narrow sense of the term, as commonly used among historians (for further considerations on this issue, see Ben Zvi 2016a; 2019, 655–673). While the narrated/remembered world of the Yehudite literati follows these tendencies, unlike the usual cases, the text embodying and evoking the foundational mem­or­ ies, i.e. the Pentateuch, was not composed prior to the split. The very emergence of a mnemonically foundational text in two different groups is in comparative terms a substantially odd phenomenon from a social, historical, and social memory perspective and represents an odd case of constructing and shaping foundational memory. As such it cannot but raise significant questions. Before addressing these questions, it is worth stressing that the aforementioned sharing existed within limits. The existence of a shared text does not necessarily imply shared memories. In fact, the memories evoked by reading the Pentateuch in Samaria had to be different from those evoked by reading the Pentateuch in Yehud, because it is the read text as such that evokes memories, and texts were read within different worlds of know­ ledge, including collections of authoritative books, and different ideological approaches in Yehud and in Samaria. It is not the same to read, for instance, the Pentateuch in a way informed by the books of Kings, Chronicles, or Hosea for that matter as it is to read it within a conceptual world in which all these books are not only non-­authoritative, but also profoundly, ideologically, and factually incorrect and misleading. Moreover, an

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

488   Ehud Ben Zvi approach informed by cross-­cultural memory studies not only draws attention to the existence of a counter-, unshared set of pentateuchal memories in historical Samaria, but also might help us discern some trends about what these memories might have been (see below). An approach informed by cross-­cultural memory studies cannot help but draw awareness to the fact that the production of the shared text well after, rather than before, the split—if there was ever a “historical” rather than a solely “mnemonic” split to begin with—is not a minor issue which can be “safely” ignored, or marginalized, but a central issue that any proposal about the emergence of such a text has to address. It is indeed a rare event and can be the outcome only of social/cultural processes that required the investment of substantial resources. How did this sharing come to be and why? Social memory studies may, in principle, suggest three main potential ways of explaining how this sharing came to be. According to the first, the foundational, mnemonic text originated solely in Yehud (and Jerusalem). If this is the case, then one would have to assume that the historical sharing of this foundational text/memory was due to a kind of “colonial” imposition or reshaping of local memories at the hands of some outside group, in this case either Yehudite or Achaemenid. The case would have been, not an impossible, but still a very rare historical instance of successful imposition/transfer of the central cultural text shaped by a small and less powerful group (Yehud) and their slim number of literati over the more powerful one (Samaria); that is, a kind of “cultural colonization/ imperialism” going the reverse of the expected direction. Within this scen­ario, local Samarian readings of this shared central text would be a kind of resistance memory/ literature and the situation would be explainable only if one assumes that the literati of Yehud had much more cultural and symbolic capital that those in Samaria. (Note that, while there are some cases in which groups that had less political, economic, or military capital than others managed to hold substantial cultural and symbolic cap­ital, matters are usually more complex. Compare, e.g., the case of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the construction of a memory of Greek culture in Rome, as discussed by Wiater 2011.) To be sure, the Yehudite literati allocated for themselves within their own discourse much cultural capital—after all, they imagined themselves as the only group with direct access to the “true” teachings of Yahweh, as well as “true” knowledge (and memory) of the past and far future of “Israel” and of the “nations” other than “Israel,” as well as to the “cosmic center” of the world which they associated uniquely with their temple in Jerusalem. But why would the Samarians (or the nations other than “Israel”) accept such discourse and self-­representation and who would impose it upon them? A second potential way of explaining how this sharing came to be involves assuming that the Pentateuch indeed emerged in Yehud only and became accepted in Samaria in the early Hellenistic period, after the destruction of the Samarian elite—along with some Samarian settlements—in 331 bce, in response to the murder of Andromachus. According to this proposal, during the Persian period Samaria, seemingly like Elephantine, would not have had a Pentateuch. Only later, at some point in the Ptolemaic period, when the Jerusalemite elite might have developed relatively more social and cultural capital and, if we were to accept a historical kernel about Joseph’s (the son of Tobias)

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   489 control of taxes in Samaria (see Ant. 12.160–224, esp. 12.168, 175, 224), even some financial control as well, the Pentateuch would have begun a fast process of diffusion and adoption in Samaria. But still, how likely it is, from a historical perspective, that Ptolemaic Judah could have been able to impose its over Ptolemaic Samaria? (One has also to keep in mind too that although the main period of activity at the temple in Mount Gerizim was after the annexation of Palestine to the Seleucid kingdom by Antiochus III, it existed before that time.) Moreover, since the Pentateuch emerged out of a long redactional process, the careful absence of any material that would have made it unacceptable for Samarians would still require an explanation. How reasonable is to assume a general, long-­term, systemic preference among Yehudite literati in the Achaemenid, whose aim was to facilitate the later adoption of the text by the Samarians? After all, when the literati of the Persian period imagined types of the future reunification of Israel, these did not involve anything but a strong ideological Yehudization of the northerners (e.g. 2 Chr 30:1–31:1). The third potential explanation is that the production of the shared Pentateuch is to be explained in terms of a shared mnemonic enterprise that carefully constructed a text that allowed it to serve both groups. This approach finds support in the lack of explicit textual references to core issues in which Yehudites and Samarians disagreed. For instance, the Pentateuch does not explicitly specify the location of “Yahweh’s chosen place”, lacks direct, unequivocal references to Jerusalem, and does not even allude to the central place of a royal Davidic dynasty in Yahweh’s long-­term plan for Israel. Likewise, texts such as the Samaritan Tenth Commandment that clearly spell out the primacy of Mount Gerizim are absent from the Yehudite-­Samarian shared text. (The shift between MT “would/will choose” and SP ‫“ בחר‬has chosen” in texts such as Deut 12:5, 11, and 14 is usually mentioned in this context, but questions linger; on this and related matters, see Knoppers 2013, 184–191; Ulrich 2015, 219–220 and bibliography.) The question that at least some approaches informed by recent memory studies would raise within this more likely scenario is: who were these shared “memory entrepreneurs” (Fine 2001, 2012) who shaped these memories? Or to use a slightly different approach, which social agents, existing in both groups at more or less the same time, could have shaped and imposed such a work of (potential) collective memory on two distinct groups, more or less simultaneously? This is not the place to critically assess which group or groups could have fulfilled that role. (Aaronide priests and the literati working with and influenced by them come to mind as a substantial possibility—these literati, to be sure, may have included Aaronide priests, but were not necessarily restricted to them.) For the present purposes, it is more important to notice that if such social agents successfully worked together in these two social groups, it would mean that there existed a substantial shared, in-­between social, ideological, educational, and mnemonic realm linking Yehudites and Samarians; or, in other words, that boundaries between them were porous and could and were successfully crossed by social ideological/mnemonic agents, whose very work both required and reinforced close links not only between Yehudites and Samarians, but also between their literati and the core institutions in each province that supported them.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

490   Ehud Ben Zvi In any event the aforementioned sharing required an important, continuous investment of social (and symbolic) resources over a substantial period by the relevant so­ci­ eties. This being the case, one cannot but assume that sharing the Pentateuch between Samaria and Yehud, including and reinforcing the story about an original unity, was considered a very substantial good by these societies or their elites. Given the nature of the Pentateuch, most likely they considered this sharing a core social, ideological, and symbolic good, at least, for their respective societies or elites, both of which identified themselves as “Israel.” Of course, this implies the existence of powerful social, cultural, ideological, and even symbolic links between Yehud and Samaria during the Achaemenid period. The social memory approach taken has raised the question of the very unusual case of the Pentateuch as shared memory and the basic question: through which social and political mechanism could the mentioned transfer/imposition have taken place? Approaches informed by cross-­cultural social memory studies cannot answer that question alone (historical considerations must be taken into account as shown above), but they do emphatically raise it and suggest paths for historical analysis. (Although not using approaches informed by memory studies, Gary Knoppers raises similar issues and draws similar conclusions to those that can only be summarily and in very broad strokes be advanced here; see, especially, Knoppers 2011 and 2013. The fact that an approach informed by memory studies and whose point of departure is different than Knopper’s tends to draw attention to similar issues and essentially converges with his position is significant, particularly against the background of the general tendency to explain the emergence of the Pentateuch, and of its conceptualization as tôrâ, as a solely or mainly internal Yehudite affair—though at times in the context of some external/imperial pressures; see Fantalkin and Tal 2012; but see also Nihan 2007.)

Memory and Matters of Endings “National” memories, and memories in general, tend to be structured and communicated through implicit or explicit mnemonic narratives (in fact, one may say that socially shared memories tend to take the form of explicit or implicit narratives). Of course, narratives have plotlines, and the latter have beginnings and ends. Social processes of negotiating a starting and end point, or points, for “historical” or foundational mnemonic narratives often deal with contested matters within the mnemonic communities or central markers about the nature or some important features of its self-­understanding. In our case, and turning to end points, it matters, for instance, whether the main foundational narrative of the literati concluded with the death of Moses (Deut 34) or that of Joshua (Josh 24:29–31); still outside the land or in the land (on Deut 34 as the end of the Pentateuch/Torah, see e.g. Schmid 2007). The fact that the Pentateuch as a central text embodying the foundational mnemonic narrative of Israel closes with Moses not only reflects but also contributes to the shaping

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   491 and communicating of particular views about Israel, of what is essential for it, and for the socialization of the remembering community into these views. For the present purposes it is worth stressing that concluding with Moses carried, among others, the following implications. First, this ending carried an emphasis on the construction of Moses as the most central Israelite personage, and of his death as the main marker for a temporal periodization separating the (construed to be) necessarily unique and unrepeatable, original “foundational” period from the “rest” of Israel’s past or future. Second, it carried a closely related strong stress on the centrality of the concept of Yahweh’s tôrâ, the related concept of the book of Yahweh’s tôrâ by the hand of Moses—a term understood, most likely, as the Pentateuch in the late Persian/early Hellenistic period; see 2 Chr 34:14 and its context in Chronicles—and above all the necessary character of tôrâ for Israel’s existence. Third, since Moses stood not only for the ideal, foundational “lawgiver” but also for the ideal, foundational “prophet,” the ending of the Pentateuch carried as well a strong emphasis on the necessity of prophets teaching tôrâ and warning Israel. Although these prophets will never be equal to Moses or carry his authority, they must always be “Mosaic” and thus they and their teachings must be based on and consistent with tôrâ, as understood by the group (cf. Ben Zvi 2013b). Fourth, since Moses was never in the land, the end of the Pentateuch carried a strong message that not only can Israel live, but it can also emerge (like tôrâ), in “exile.” The entire life of the paradigmatic ideal Israelite, i.e. Moses, was in “exile.” At the same time, the very tôrâ associated with being outside the land carried not only regulations to live in the land but also the promise of the land as prominent motifs. The memories evoked by reading the Pentateuch led to a prioritization of memories of the promise of the land, and of a future life in the land governed by tôrâ, over memories of possession of the land. The prioritization of the concept of the promise (over actual possession) was performed time and again, as the land was remembered as the land Yahweh promised to the ancestors, rather than the land conquered by Joshua (compare and contrast the situation concerning the latter with the conceptual imagery evoked by the term “the city of David”). To be sure, the literati certainly remembered that the land was conquered and Israel settled in it as well. However, the very same tôrâ placed these memories in proportion. Time and again it reminded them that Moses was fully aware that the land, later conquered by Joshua and settled by Israel, will be lost and Israel will be sent into exile (see Deut 30:1–5; 32:19–25 and the pragmatic message of texts such as Deut 28:15–68; 29:13–27; 30:17–19; 31:19–22 to the Yehudite literati of the late Persian period); but nevertheless Yahweh will then reconcile with Israel and bring it back to the land. Within this ideological world, the land might and will be gained and lost, but not so the promise. (On the ideological and mnemonic priority of the promise, see Ben Zvi 2013a. The construction of the “promise of the land” as constant and unbreakable, outside the vicissitudes of time, and partially embodied in Yahweh’s character, arguably stands in contrast, and deliberately so, with the experience of “possession” that the literati of the Persian period had themselves.)

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

492   Ehud Ben Zvi The essential centrality of tôrâ and of memories of Moses as a lawgiver likely suited the historical discourse of Yehud as well as that of Samaria. The centrality of memories of Moses as prophet may at least theoretically suit the discourses of both Samaria and Yehud, although we have no information about constructions of prophets and prophetic books in late Persian/early Hellenistic Samaria. The prioritization of “promise” over “possession” is particularly consistent with the well-­known, most prominent grand metanarrative of Yehudite memory. This narrative, which governed the production of all their historical and prophetic books and their comprehensive plot for the monarchic period, and even before, moved from repeated and grave sin to justified divine judgment involving exile and then to a utopian future restoration that goes well beyond the pre-­judgment circumstances. Moreover, through the construction of a helical time, much of this narrative was interwoven with memories and narratives evoked by the Pentateuch. (Note that great social, mnemonic narratives typically tend to structure time helically rather than cyc­lic­ al­ly: even a “restarting” point is not and cannot be equated with a “starting point.” Helical time deeply intertwines elements of linear and cyclical time, and ends up creating its own texture that is neither cyclical nor linear.) Thus, the partial return from Babylon that led to a resettlement was construed, partially—note the emphasis on helicality, not circularity—as a second Exodus; Abraham’s powerlessness in the land was associated with that of postexilic Israel; and so on. It is not difficult to understand why narratives of calamity, exile, and utopian future were so prevalent in Yehud and especially in Jerusalem, where the literati could easily discern the footprint left by the large, now-­destroyed monarchic city and in which there was a small city temple, which they believe would, one day, become the central place in the world. Living among ruins is highly compatible with these types of mnemonic preference (see on this, Ben Zvi 2014a). But what about Samaria? If the Pentateuch was, as most likely, a shared project, rather than an external one that was transferred or imposed as a foundational text, should we not assume that similar discourses existed among Samarians? But if so, why? Samaria was not Yehud and the calamity brought by the Neo-­Babylonian campaign and its aftermath did not take place in Samaria (on the situation in Judah at the time, see e.g. Lipschits 2003; 2005, 258–271). Although Samaria suffered much during the Assyrian campaigns and there was an exile of northern Israelites, the land was not as underpopulated as Yehud nor were Samarians living among “ruins” like the Jerusalem literati. If Yehud and Samaria shared this narrative, then social memory in Samaria most likely reflected and constructed a strong association between the Persian-­period Samarian population and that of the northern kingdom—and still mourned for it, while using its fate as a strong socializing point, in ways comparable to those in which memories of the fall of monarchic Judah functioned in Yehud. Moreover, given the element of hope so present in the Pentateuch, one may reasonably assume that a hope for a utopian future couched in the language of “return” existed there as well. But return to what? Another crucial memory evoked by reading the Pentateuch may contain a possible clue as to how to answer this question. There can be no doubt that the construed and remembered Israel with which the readers of the Pentateuch in the late Persian period identified consisted of twelve tribes and the land that Yahweh promised them included both Samaria and Yehud, as well as some additional territories. Within the world of the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   493 Yehudite literati, such emphasis on “all” Israel led to social memories of a future in­corp­ or­ation/appropriation of the North/Samaria to the Israel with whom the literati in Yehud identified. Thus, utopian futures involving the reunification of Israel were im­agined, and in them the Samarians would reject their ways and accept the Jerusalemcentered discourse of the Yehudite literati (including its emphasis on David), for only this Jerusalem-­centered discourse was consistent with Yahweh’s tôrâ. Rejecting it was tantamount to rejecting Yahweh, from their perspective, and no utopian future reunification could be grounded in rejecting Yahweh. But if this held true for Yehudite literati and their discourse, it is reasonable to assume the existence of a Samarian discourse and related Samarian memories, strongly grounded in their memories of the twelve tribes and the land of “all” the children of Israel, within which neither Jerusalem, nor David, nor Judah had the exclusive and exclusivist central ideological and mnemonic role they had in Judah, and which they (i.e., the Samarians) would have understood as completely inconsistent with tôrâ (as they understood it to be) and with their pentateuchal memories. But if they had it right and the Yehudite literati had it wrong, would the ideal future Israel not include the ­people in Yehud, once they forsook their particular ways and turned towards tôrâ, as understood by the Samarians? Answering the preceding rhetorical question in the affirmative leaves open, and actually draws attention to, an important issue: did the tôrâ as understood by the Samarians advocate a return to an “all” Israel that enacts the world construed and remembered through readings of, for instance, Deuteronomy 27 and in which multiple places of worship may be considered proper, or was it shaped more like the later Samaritan understanding of Mount Gerizin as the only place chosen by Yahweh, and therefore as a mirror-­discourse to that held in Jerusalem? The response from Samaria’s leadership to the request from the “Judahite” community in Elephantine, the very existence of several Yahwistic temples in the late Persian period (including the one in the South, the one in Elephantine, and perhaps others inside or outside the “land”) may suggest that the former was more likely during the Persian period. (Note, in this regard, that there may well have been a substantial shift between Samarian and later Samaritan—i.e. late Second Temple and beyond—discourses on the matter. An examination of this issue stands, however, beyond the scope of this essay.)

Memory and Matters of Multiple Collections, Multiple Endings, and Multiple Foundational Mnemonic Plots in Yehud As mentioned above, the mnemonic narrative encoded in the Pentateuch ends with Moses, tôrâ, and exile, and for a reason. But the books from Genesis to Deuteronomy were read not only as part of the pentateuchal collection. This is particularly worth

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

494   Ehud Ben Zvi stressing, because communities never read books in a vacuum. When the remembering community read the Pentateuch, they did so informed by their ideological viewpoints, social attitudes, and their world of knowledge, which included the other modes of reading the very same text. Moreover, as that shared text becomes both a site of memory and a site shaping memories for the reading/remembering community, it becomes an important node in which multiple memories interact, complement, and shed light on each other (cf. Ben Zvi 2014b). For one, although the Yehudite literati approached the Pentateuch as a self-­contained collection, they also read it as an integral part of a second past-­shaping collection, namely Genesis–2 Kings or the Primary History Collection (hereafter, PHC), as demonstrated, inter alia, by the very existence of Chronicles, which partially “parallels” this collection, rather than the Deuteronomistic Historical Collection (hereafter, DHC). Moreover, there are plenty of textually inscribed markers and allusions that strongly associate the pentateuchal story with Joshua–Kings: e.g. the very opening of Joshua, the references to the building of the temple “in the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kgs 6:1), the construction of the temple as a type of and proper successor of the old tabernacle, the relation between the sin of the golden calf and that of Jeroboam. Significantly, the main mnemonic narrative encoded in and evoked by the PHC concludes also with exile and, from the perspective of the Yehudite readers, with the exile prefigured and announced already by Moses (see above). But the PHC’s mnemonic plot is one in which the focus shifts to the exile of Jerusalem and Judah, and to the failure of the Davidic line in monarchic times. Reading the Pentateuch in a way informed by memories evoked by readings of the PHC not only reinforces some of the messages communicated by the end of the pentateuchal mnemonic narrative, but also reshapes them by integrating them into the ideological discourse of Yehud. To some extent, reading the Pentateuch in such a manner represents a way of appropriating and Yehudizing the Pentateuch, and thus turning it into a non-­shareable Yehudite perspective, which— precisely because of this non-­shared and non-­shareable nature—could serve as a necessary component of the foundational great mnemonic narrative of the literati in Yehud. In other words, the ability to read the Pentateuch as an integral part of the PHC—in addition, not instead of, reading it as a self-­contained collection—was a requirement for the (shared) Pentateuch to become tôrâ in Yehud and embody Yehud’s tôrâ (cf. also Ben Zvi 2009). Reading Deuteronomy only, rather than the entire Pentateuch, as the first volume of a collection of books that continues in Joshua–2 Kings shaped a different collective assemblage of books with a clear beginning and ending and telling a particular mnemonic story, namely the DHC, whose existence has been widely recognized in research. Significantly, the very same point advanced above in relation to the PHC can be made for the DHC, despite all the differences between the two. The DHC certainly emphasizes tôrâ and Moses as a lawgiver and moves Jerusalem (and Judah) and their exile to the center. It also stresses Moses as the prophet who embodies the ideal exemplar of all the future Mosaic prophets, who within the Yehudite discourse included the fifteen godly

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   495 prophets of memory associated each with one book in Yehud’s Prophetic Book Collection (i.e. Isaiah–Malachi). Moreover, as Mosaic prophets, these fifteen figures of memory served to shape an image of what the successors of Moses were, and thus in­dir­ ect­ly contributed to the shaping of the character Moses in Yehud. To be sure, the ­prophets mentioned in Joshua–2 Kings also contributed to this project and “appropriated” Moses for Yehud. (Note also, in this context, the use of “Deuteronomistic” phraseology in Josh–2 Kings and in some of these prophets (esp. Jeremiah), which contributed to the appropriation of the—seemingly shared—Moses of the Pentateuch and thus allowed for the existence of a shared Pentateuch; on the Dtr diction and the pragmatic messages it conveyed in Yehud, see Ben Zvi 2010; 2019, 304–316). Moreover, since the books from Joshua to 2 Kings become, within the DHC, a long and elaborate fulfillment of Moses’s statements about Israel’s future in Deuteronomy, the long and well-­remembered Jerusalem-­centered narrative about the fulfillment of this prophecy also shaped, even if indirectly, the image of Moses. Most significantly, this also meant construing and making memorable within the community a “historical” plotline that led directly to the fulfillment of Deut 30:2–10 (and cf. Deut 32:26–43; see Ben Zvi 2013b). Thus construed, the DHC ends with a clear hopeful note, which is again consistent with the main message of the Pentateuch, but in a very explicitly and solely Yehudite manner, and shapes an exclusively Yehudite Moses of memory. (As a side note, the emphasis on hope carried by constructing the long and memorable narrative of Israel’s march towards calamity/stern divine judgment reported in the DHC as the fulfillment of Moses’s prophecies of doom, and thus suggesting that just as those were fulfilled so too will the ones of restoration, could not but inform the way in which the literati would read and understand the final and highly multivalent postscript to end of the DHC in 2 Kgs 25:27–30; on this postscript, see Wilson 2014 and the literature cited there). To be sure, one may say, and with good reason, something similar about reading Deuteronomy as the prophetic book of Moses in Yehud (for this concept, see Ben Zvi 2013b), and thus as informing (and being informed by) the Yehudite Prophetic Book Collection. None of this is surprising, since the social mindscape of the literati in Yehud was not dependent on a particular book or literary genre. It is this social mindscape (not a particular text) that governs the production of an underlying grammar of preferences and dispreferences that regulates the production of readings and social memory within the group. The literati in Yehud read Gen–Deut also as part of the Hexateuch. (Genesis– Deuteronomy was connected to the book of Joshua, by, inter alia, clear textually inscribed markers [see e.g. Josh 1:1 and 24:32–33], by providing the expected narrative continuity to the story in Deuteronomy and thus to the great mnemonic narrative of the readers, and by its multiple references to Moses and tôrâ; note also the references to the patriarchs and the memories encoded and communicated by Genesis as well in Josh 24.) When they did so their story ended with Joshua and Israel in the land (or most of it, if their reading of the text activated the kind of images of the past encoded in and evoked by Judges 1 and cf. Josh 13:1–6). Even Joseph returns to the land. To be sure, in this

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

496   Ehud Ben Zvi reading, whereas Moses dies and is buried in exile/outside the line, Joshua (and Joseph) are buried in the land. But on the other hand, not only is Moses still a far more important site of memory than Joshua (see Josh 1:1), but also Joshua and Joseph are buried in a land that the readers know that will be lost, and for which reason it will be lost (e.g. Josh 23:15–16). Memories keep balancing each other. In addition, there is a kind of postscript to the book of Joshua (Josh 24:32–33). On the one hand, this postscript served to remind the readers of Joshua to read it in a way informed by the memories evoked by reading the Pentateuch—note the reference to Joseph’s bones and to the actions of the priestly dynasty in the Pentateuch—but on the other it also served to somewhat balance the type of leadership exemplified by Joshua. At the end of Joshua, and thus at the end of the Hexateuch, stands no warrior or even a tôrâ student like the Joshua of Josh 1:8 (i.e. a literatus), but rather the proper priest, who, of course, implements the ritual desired by Yahweh, as expressed in Yahweh’s tôrâ. The end of Joshua in that sense reinforces a strong message of the Pentateuch: Moses required Aaron. Whereas there will not be, and there cannot be another lawgiver as Moses, there will be proper priests in Israel in the future. (Note, additionally, that the figure of the priest plays an important role in the book of Joshua: see Josh 14:1; 17:4; 19:51; 20:6; and 21–22). While the book of Joshua and the memories it evoked construed Joshua’s type of leadership as appropriate for a particular time and not as a permanent type in terms of the long trajectory of Israel, the same certainly does not hold true for that of the priest. (To be sure, there is another ending to Joshua, namely in the LXX. The ending in the LXX has an additional postscript [vv. 33a and 33b] that draws attention to Israel’s tendency to sin in the land and creates a bridge to Judges 3:12 and the story of the judge Ehud [and indirectly to the DHC]. The existence of two different postscripts indicates that endings did matter and that there was a long and sustained negotiation on these matters. On the ending of Joshua in the LXX, compare the views advanced by Rofé 1982 and Tov 1999.) The Hexateuch, and in particular the ways in which it informed memories and ideological motifs evoked and communicated by the Pentateuch, including the matters communicated by the ending/s of the book, could have been shared by Yehud and Samaria. Since Joshua was also read as part of the DHC in Yehud, Joshua became the best exemplar of a judge for them. As such, his rule and along with it the predominance of his region (i.e. northern Israel) were construed and remembered as only temporary. Once one judge dies, another will appear and in a different area. Moreover, in terms of construction and memories of space, one cannot but notice that the city in which Joshua is buried, Shechem, becomes the center of the first failed attempt at kingship in Israel in Judges (Judg 9; and cf. 1 Kgs 12). When read in a way informed by Judges and the rest of the DHC, Joshua and the Hexateuch (and thus the pentateuchal books when read in that context) become fully consistent and supportive of Yehudite ideological discourses. To be sure Samarian readings of Joshua would have been different. The lack of Samarian material comparable and contemporaneous to the Yehudite DHC makes difficult to reconstruct such readings. (The Samaritan Book of Joshua is a much later composition and the same holds true for the Chronicles of Abu ’l-­Fatḥ, a Samaritan book that

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   497 also  ­construes and communicates images of Joshua. On Samaritan Joshua(s), see Farber 2016, 223–274.)

Memories and Matters of Beginnings: Prequels, Introductions, and Construed  Helical Time The Pentateuch is divided in two main sections, Genesis on the one hand and Exodus– Deuteronomy on the other. The division is formally marked by the set of similar endings linking the four books from Exodus to Deuteronomy (Ben Zvi 1992), and supported in terms of contents by the fact that these four books embody and communicate the story of Moses (and of the original Mosaic period), whereas Genesis construes a pre-­Moses period. While the narrative in Exodus–Numbers requires some knowledge of Genesis, and thus Genesis may well be considered a necessary preface to the story of the Moses of Exodus–Numbers, it is worth keeping in mind that much of the world of Genesis may serve well as a prequel to a different though complementary story, as the case of Chronicles clearly shows. These stories were complementary in Yehud because they drew attention and memory to two crucial important mnemonic trajectories: the first, from the beginning of the world to Moses and tôrâ, and the second, from the beginning of the world to David, Jerusalem, and the temple. Within a community that read both the Pentateuch and Chronicles, the latter informed the memory evoked by the former and shaped a general social memory in which figures like those of Moses and David are brought together, as are the temple and Tabernacle (see de Vries 1988; Kleinig 1993; Ben Zvi 2016b). Moreover, Chronicles and the Pentateuch, as well as their implied authors and figures of the past such as Moses (and Yahweh), were all thus construed as “agents” shaping the mnemonic landscape of the Yehudite literati. The historical “agents” were, of course, the self-­effacing literati themselves who, by reading and rereading these books, voiced the voices of the “agents” they themselves construed and with whom they identified. To be sure, these represent additional excellent examples of resignifying the shared memories of the Pentateuch so as to Yehudize it. But there is much more to Genesis than simply functioning as the preamble within the Pentateuch. As mentioned above, beginnings are important, and the very beginning of Exodus–Numbers has Israel in Egypt, outside of the land and about to be persecuted and then delivered. This is consistent with the general outlook discussed above. The Pentateuch, however, does not begin with Israel, but with the creation of an at least seemingly utopian world infused with divine blessing but which moves into calamity, which, in turn, leads to a renewed divine blessing. Thus, for instance, the increase of population, which is due to divine blessing (Gen 1:28; 5:2) leads to an explosion of

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

498   Ehud Ben Zvi wicked­ness in the world (Gen 6:1–6), which in turn leads to the flood, to be followed by a renewed blessing (Gen 8:21–9:1) associated with a ‫ ברית‬and with some “laws” (Gen 9). Clearly this basic pattern is at work elsewhere in the Pentateuch (cf. Kratz 2013), and, for that matter, in the Yehudite discourse in general. Moreover, the flood not only serves “as a preamble to the lives of the patriarchs” (Kratz 2013, 135), but also brings forward an explanation for the seemingly odd sequence of blessing-­wickedness and sets a safe background from which an exploration of these matters may be carried out, within a context in which the continuity of the human group is assured, despite everything. The ex­plan­ ation is that humans tend by nature to sin and thus sooner or later they will do so—and this is confirmed by memories of cases in which they sinned soon after a great blessing; see the case of the delivered but also “murmuring” generation taken out of Egypt). (On all these matters, see Kratz 2013, 135–139). The explanation for wickedness is grounded in some texts as some evil inclination in the human mind, or more generally in a social mindscape that included a clear idea of what we may call “social entropy.” (See on this, Ben Zvi 2003. Significantly, this concept requires the existence of divine teachings and teachers. Remembering Noah as receiving some divine teachings is tantamount within the relevant context to remembering him as teaching them to his descendants, a point that, of course, is much further developed in the late Second Temple period.) In other words, the preamble turns into an introduction in which many of the basic mnemonic sequences embodied and communicated in Genesis are remembered to have taken place. A sense of temporal helicality, grounded in human nature—and thus relevant to Israelites as well as to non-­Israelites—is conveyed and conversely, a temporal helical grammar of preference is at work through the historical process of producing and reproducing narrative texts and memories.

About Main Sites of Memory Mnemonic narratives that serve as central “national” histories tend to produce core sites of memory for the “nation.” The same holds true for other social groups. These core sites of memory tend to draw much mindshare from within the group and serve as nodes of memory, embodying matters that are central to the group and serving as grounds on which core issues are explored. The exodus, is of course, an excellent example of such sites of memory. Social memory studies have shown a transcultural (and cognitive-­based) tendency to narrow the number of such central sites as much as it is feasible, and preferably to only one (on this phenomenon, see Schwartz 2009 and the bibliography there). At times, this tendency cannot lead to a single site, but still leads to a condensation of sites that to a large extent complement each other. (Examples include, for instance, Pearl Harbor and D-­Day as main sites of memory for World War II in America; Sir John A. Macdonald [Conservative] and Sir Wilfrid Laurier [Liberal] as main founding figures of today’s Canada.) Thus, we have exodus and Sinai: deliverance and tôrâ. And both, exodus and

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   499 Sinai, become core sites of memory to which many other memories are connected and by which they are informed within the world of the late Persian/early Hellenistic literati. Thus we have also Moses and Aaron: the main and unique lawgiver who provides to the continuity of Israel through tôrâ, and the priest who provides for the “eternal” continuity of the cult, with continuities overcoming “minor” periods of discontinuity (see discussion above). The patriarchs (and Genesis) are necessary to balance and deeply interrelate the two myths of origin of Israel, that of Israel as a tôrâ-centered community and that of Israel as a kinship group. (Similar combinations existed in other ancient cultures. Many Greek cities were understood as communities/polities grounded in kinship as well as in a code of laws or traditions, e.g. Sparta.) Moreover, central sites of social memory tend to relate one to the other. The patriarchs cannot be Moses, but their promised land is the same. Further, these foundational central sites of memory tend to become intertwined with other core sites of memory associated with later periods within the past remembered by the group. For instance, Augustus is linked to Aeneas and Romulus in Rome, whereas in Yehud, David is linked to Abraham (and in the world of Chronicles to Moses). In add­ ition, in Yehud, all proper priests are associated with Aaron while in a different manner, all prophets are connected to the image of Moses, and moving outside the realm of sites of memory embodied in particular individuals, the second ‘exodus’ is conceptually interwoven with the first. Of course, through this process, memories evoked by the Pentateuch become Yehudized. (It is worth stressing that when Augustus becomes, to some extent, (a new) Aeneas and (a new) Romulus, in addition to being (a new) Caesar, Augustus is alive or recently dead. He and his supporters are the ‘memory entrepreneurs’ shaping this memory and, inter alia, for obvious political reasons. In Yehud, all the mentioned characters are well in the past and the literati are ‘memory agents’ shaping a past that suits their own social mindscape, with ‘political reasons’ (at least in the sense used above in relation to Augustus), nowhere near the top of their agenda.) And yet, at some important level, the main mnemonic story of the Pentateuch is not about Moses, or Aaron, or Abraham, but about transtemporal Israel and Yahweh. The concluding words of four of the pentateuchal books (Exod 40:38; Lev 27:34; Num 36:13; Deut 34:12), which together comprise a reference to the people of “Israel” as a whole (see on this, Ben Zvi 1992) draw significant attention to that point and are proof positive of the workings of the aforementioned grammar of preferences and dispreferences. Moreover, the concluding note in Genesis does not draw attention to Joseph’s death and embalming in itself, but as the high point of Israel’s sojourn to Egypt (Gen 50:26).

Memory and Matters of Villains Memory studies, especially some of Gary Alan Fine’s works (see Fine 2001, 2012), have emphasized that memories of villains and villains as sites of memory are as important as those of heroes. Although there are a number of villains within the world of the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

500   Ehud Ben Zvi Pentateuch, such as Cain and Amalek, not much narrative space is allocated to them in the story. The main villain in the story as a whole is actually Israel and in the preamble, its counterpart, humanity in general. This is a major point: the villain is the hero and vice versa. It is this duality that is perhaps one of the main underlying ideological points not only explored by remembering the Pentateuchal stories but also governing the production and reproduction of memories among these literati. Of course, this is not to deny that choices such as those of Amalek or Zimri son of Salu (Num 25:14) are important or that their choice as villains is related to what they embody, but they are still secondary to the main and comprehensive villain. (It goes without ­saying that both Amalek and Zimri played important roles as sites of memory in the late Second Temple and beyond, but the matter is beyond the scope of this essay.)

Memory and Matters of Multiplicity of Voices Remembering Zimri (and his mnemonic counterpart and more important figure, the priest Phineas) drew the attention of the literati to the matter of rejection of “inter”marriages, but their reading of the Pentateuch evoked multiple memories of “intermarriage,” including very successful ones, as did their readings of other past-­shaping books in Yehud as well (e.g. Chronicles, Ruth). Remembering Moses was remembering that he had multiple voices (including “Deuteronomistic” and “priestly” voices), and that multiple teachings, at times in tension with each other, were associated with him. Remembering Abraham was remembering in the main that he was powerless in the land and thus a figure with whom the “Israel” of the literati in Yehud could identify, but it was also remembering, a bit, even if as a minority voice, that he was a mighty military leader. Remembering the world of Genesis was remembering fuzziness, or at least “flexibility” (Ben Zvi 2013b; see also Ben Zvi 2011a), a point that is absolutely ­crucial for understanding of the world of ideas of the remembering community, its social mindscape as well as its historical context, and above all, both the role of the memories evoked by the Pentateuch in shaping it and conversely and complementarily the role of a mnemonic generative grammar in which preference is given to multivocality over univocality. In turn, the existence of such preferences sheds light on the social mindscape of the community. For one, it is unlikely that communities in which there is a high level of ex­ist­en­tial anxiety would tend to show this system of preferences. In addition, preferences towards (limited, of course) multivocality tend to appear in communities that value social cohesion over ideological “purity.” This is, in the main, characteristic of the literati of the late Persian/early Hellenistic Yehud, but again, given that the Pentateuch was shared with Samaria, most likely among the literati of the latter. In fact, one may surmise that such a preference would have been a kind of requirement for the project of developing a shared Pentateuch.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   501

Memory and Matters of Narrative and Laws Finally, reading the Pentateuch meant that laws were remembered as narrativized and that the narrative was remembered as an integral part of tôrâ. In fact, reading the Pentateuch is constantly remembering that narrative is tôrâ. One may compare the simi­ lar process governing the characterization of memories of prophets of old as Yahweh’s word (see Hos 1:1; Isa 1:1). Again, this is not surprising, because both the PBC and the Pentateuch emerge within the same social mindscape and in accordance with a strong grammar of preference that existed in the late Persia period in Yehud, but, given that the Pentateuch was shared, not only in Yehud. In any event, the fact that laws were remembered as narrativized meant that they were remembered as associated with both the foundational moment of the construed and remembered past, and also with narrow historical circumstances and thus, potentially as of temporary validity. Thus for instance, the laws for the first Passover in Egypt may remain authoritative but not operational for later Passovers, and the same holds true for pentateuchal prescriptions such as the 30-­year-­old minimum age for a Levite to be counted as a full adult (Num 4:3), which according to Chronicles David reduced to 20 years old (1 Chr 23:24–27), which, in turn, seems to be the implied standard age for assuming full adulthood responsibilities in Chronicles (Ben Zvi 2011b). Moreover, this approach facilitated the production and reproduction of memories of complementary laws remembered as proclaimed in post-­pentateuchal periods (see, e.g., 2 Ch 23:18) and therefore, included in the divine instruction accepted by the community, but not in the Pentateuch.

Instead of a Conclusion The present essay as a whole, and each of its eight “windows” have shown that much may be gained by looking at the Pentateuch through the lenses of social memory and as a social memory historical artifact. This is not yet a common way of approaching the Pentateuch, but it has much potential to contribute, along with other approaches, to the study of the Pentateuch in the late Persian or early Hellenistic period and to the study of the societies whose memory was shaped by reading it at that time. Much more, however, needs to be done.

Suggested Readings On social memory and ancient Israel, see e.g. Edelman and Ben Zvi 2013; Wilson, 2017; Ben Zvi 2019 and the works mentioned there. For the scholarly discussion surrounding the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

502   Ehud Ben Zvi composition of the Pentateuch in the Persian/early Hellenistic period, see Knoppers and Levinson 2007; Dozeman, Schmid, and Schwartz 2011; Dozeman, Römer and Schmid 2011; as well Edelman et al.  2012, 11–50. On Samaria in the Hellenistic period in general, see e.g. Dušek 2011, 2012.

Works Cited Albertz, R. 1994. A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. Vol. 2, From the Exile to the Maccabees. OTL. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Ben Zvi, E. 1992. “The Closing Words of the Pentateuchal Books: A Clue for the Historical Status of the Book of Genesis within the Pentateuch.” BN 62:7–10. Ben Zvi, E. 2003. “Analogical Thinking and Ancient Israel Intellectual History: The Case for an ‘Entropy Model’ in the Study of Israelite Thought.” In Relating to the Text: Interdisciplinary and Form-Critical Insights on the Bible, edited by T. J. Sandoval and C. Mandolfo, 321–332. JSOTSup 384. London: T&T Clark. Ben Zvi, E. 2006. “Revisiting ‘Boiling in Fire’ in 2 Chron. 35.13 and Related Passover Questions: Text, Exegetical Needs, Concerns, and General Implications.” In Biblical Interpretation in Judaism and Christianity, edited by I. Kalimi and P. J. Haas, 238–250. LHBOTS 439. London: T&T Clark. Ben Zvi, E. 2009. “Towards an Integrative Study of the Production of Authoritative Books in Ancient Israel.” In The Production of Prophecy: Constructing Prophecy and Prophets in Yehud, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 15–28. London: Equinox. Ben Zvi, E. 2010. “On the Term Deuteronomistic in Relation to Joshua–Kings in the Persian Period.” In Raising Up a Faithful Exegete: Essays in Honor of Richard D. Nelson, edited by K. L. Noll and B. Schramm, 61–71. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Ben Zvi, E. 2011a. “On Social Memory and Identity Formation in Late Persian Yehud: A Historian’s Viewpoint with a Focus on Prophetic Literature, Chronicles and the Dtr. Historical Collection.” In Texts, Contexts and Readings in Postexilic Literature: Explorations into Historiography and Identity Negotiation in Hebrew Bible and Related Texts, edited by L. Jonker, 95–148. FAT/II 53. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Ben Zvi, E. 2011b. “One Size Does Not Fit All: Observations on the Different Ways That Chronicles Dealt with the Authoritative Literature of Its Time.” In What Was Authoritative for Chronicles?, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 13–35. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Ben Zvi, E. 2012. “Remembering the Prophets through the Reading and Rereading of a Collection of Prophetic Books in Yehud: Methodological Considerations and Explorations.” In Remembering and Forgetting in Early Second Temple Judah, edited by E.  Ben Zvi and C. Levin, 17–44. FAT 85. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Ben Zvi, E. 2013a. “The Memory of Abraham in Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Yehud/Judah.” In Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 3–37. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ben Zvi, E. 2013b. “Exploring the Memory of Moses ‘The Prophet’ in Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Yehud/Judah.” In Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 335–364. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   503 Ben Zvi, E. 2014a. “Exploring Jerusalem as a Site of Memory in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Period.” In Memory and the City in Ancient Israel, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 197–217. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Ben Zvi, E. 2014b. “Chronicles and Samuel–Kings: Two Interacting Aspects of one Memory System in the Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Period.” In Rereading the Relecture? The Question of (Post)chronistic Influence in the Latest Redactions of the Books of Samuel, edited by U. Becker and H. Bezzel, 41–56. FAT/II 66. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Ben Zvi, E. 2016a. “Re-negotiating a Putative Utopia and the Stories of the Rejection of Foreign Wives in Ezra–Nehemiah.” In Worlds that Could Not Be: Utopia in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, edited by S. J. Schweitzer and F. Uhlenbruch, 105–128. LHBOTS 620. London: T&T Clark. Ben Zvi, E. 2016b. “Late Historical Books and Rewritten History.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, edited by S. B. Chapman and M. A. Sweeney, 292–313. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ben Zvi, E. 2019. Social Memory Among the Literati of Yehud. BZAW 509. Berlin: de Gruyter. De Vries, S. J. 1988. “Moses and David as Cult Founders in Chronicles.” JBL 107:619–639. Dozeman, T.  B., T.  C.  Römer, and K.  Schmid. 2011. Pentateuch, Hexateuch or Enneateuch? Identifying Literary Works in Genesis through Kings. SBLAIL 8. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Dozeman, T. B., K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz. 2011. The Pentateuch: International Perspectives in Current Research. FAT 79. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Dušek, J. 2011. “Administration of Samaria in the Hellenistic Period.” In Samaria, Samarians, Samaritans: Studies on Bible, History and Linguistics, edited by J. Zsengellér, 71–88. Berlin: de Gruyter. Dušek, J. 2012. Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III and Antiochus IV Epiphanes. CHANE 54. Leiden: Brill. Edelman, D. V., and E. Ben Zvi. 2013. Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edelman, D. V., P. R. Davies, C. Nihan, and T. C. Römer. 2012. Opening the Books of Moses. Bible World. London: Equinox. Fantalkin, A., and O. Tal. 2012. “The Canonization of the Pentateuch: When and Why? (Part I).” ZAW 124:1–18. Farber, Z. 2016. Images of Joshua in the Bible and Their Reception. BZAW 457. Berlin: de Gruyter. Fine, G. A. 2001. Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept and Controversial. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fine, G. A. 2012. Sticky Reputations: The Politics of Collective Memory in Midcentury America. New York: Routledge. Guillaume, P. 2013. “Exploring the Memory of Aaron in Late Persian/Early Hellenist Period Judah.” In Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 95–105. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heckl, R. 2013. “Remembering Jacob in the Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Era.” In Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 38–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hendel, R. 2005. Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory and History in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

504   Ehud Ben Zvi Kalimi, I. 2002. Early Jewish Exegesis and Theological Controversy: Studies in Scriptures in the Shadow of Internal and External Controversies. Assen: Van Gorcum. Kammen, M.  G. 2006. A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Kleinig, J. W. 1993. The Lord’s Song: The Basis, Function, and Significance of Choral Music in Chronicles. JSOTSup 156. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Knoppers, G. N. 2011. “Parallel Torahs and Inner-Scriptural Interpretation: The Jewish and Samaritan Pentateuchs in Historical Perspective.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives in Current Research, edited by T. B. Dozeman, K. Schmid, and B. J. Schwartz, 507–531. FAT 79. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Knoppers, G. N. 2013. Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations. New York: Oxford University Press. Knoppers, G.  N., and B.  M.  Levinson. 2007. The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Kratz, R.  G. 2013. “The Flood as a Preamble to the Lives of the Patriarchs: The Biblical Perspective.” In Rewriting and Interpreting the Hebrew Bible, edited by D.  Dimant and R. G. Kratz, 135–145. BZAW 439. Berlin: de Gruyter. Leveen, A. 2008. Memory and Tradition in the Book of Numbers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lipschits, O. 2003. “Demographic Changes in Judah between the Seventh and the Fifth Centuries bce.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp, 323–376. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Lipschits, O. 2005. The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Milgrom, J. 1991. Leviticus 1–16. AB 3. New York: Doubleday. Nihan, C. 2007. “The Torah between Samaria and Judah: Shechem and Gerizim in Deuteronomy 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. Nodet, É. 1997. A Search for the Origins of Judaism: From Joshua to the Mishnah. JSOTSup 248. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Peters, D. M. 2008. Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conversations and Controversies of Antiquity. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Rigney, D. 2010. The Matthew Effect: How Advantage Begets Further Advantage. New York: Columbia University Press. Rofé, A. 1982. “The End of the Book of Joshua according to the Septuagint.” Hen 4:17–35. Römer, T. C. 2013. “Moses, the Lawgiver.” In Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination, edited by D. V. Edelman and E. Ben Zvi, 81–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schmid, K. 2007. “The Late Persian Formation of the Torah: Observations on Deuteronomy 34.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century  b.c.e., edited by O.  Lipschits, G. N. Knoppers, and R. Albertz, 237–251. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schwartz, B. 2009. “Collective Forgetting and the Symbolic Power of Oneness: The Strange Apotheosis of Rosa Parks.” Social Psychology Quarterly 72:123–142. Steins, G. 1996. “Torabindung und Kanonabschluß: Zur Entstehung und kanonischen Funktion der Chronikbücher.” In Die Tora als Kanon für Juden und Christen, edited by E. Zenger, 213–256. Freiburg: Herder.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Social Memory of “Israel”   505 Stone, M., A. Amihay, and V. Hillel. 2010. Noah and His Book(s). Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. Tov, E. 1999. “The Growth of the Book of Joshua in Light of the Evidence of the Septuagint.” In The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on the Septuagint, 385–396. VTSup 72. Leiden: Brill. Ulrich, E. 2015. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible. VTSup 169. Leiden: Brill. Wiater, N. 2011. “Writing Roman History—Shaping Greek Identity: The Ideology of Historiography in Dionysius of Halicarnassus.” In The Struggle for Identity: Greeks and their Past in the First Century bce, edited by T. A. Schmitz and N. Wiater, 61–91. Stuttgart: Steiner. Wilson, I. D. 2014. “Joseph, Jehoiachin, and Cyrus: On Book Endings, Exoduses and Exiles, and Yehudite/Judean Social Remembering.” ZAW 126:521–534. Wilson, I. D. 2017. Kingship and Memory in Ancient Judah. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

chapter 26

The Pen tateuch as “Tor a h” James W. Watts

The phrase “the Torah” indicates that the first five books of the Bible play a distinctly different function in Jewish tradition than in Christian tradition. Despite the fact that the scriptures of both religions reproduce or translate the same Hebrew text of these books, they publish it in different material forms. They also differ in how they name it, how they read it liturgically and devotionally, and how they interpret it. Jews usually refer to the first five books of the Bible as “the Torah.” That term refers to the literature’s instructional and legal contents as the source of Jewish practice and identity. It also names the iconic status of handwritten Torah scrolls as the most sacred objects in the religion, and invokes the liturgical tradition of reading the entire Hebrew Torah through every year at the heart of synagogue services. On the other hand, Christians rarely refer to these books as “the Torah” or even, any more, as “the Law.” They instead call the same five books “the Pentateuch” or, much more frequently, refer to them individually by their Greek names. Since antiquity, they have read translations of them bound together with other books of scripture. Christian liturgy calls attention to parts of the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, while ignoring Leviticus and Numbers almost entirely. Technological developments in book production over the centuries have reduced some of the differences between the religions’ publication practices. The engagement of Jewish and Christian scholars together in academic biblical scholarship since the middle of the twentieth century has reduced some of the differences in interpretation. Nevertheless, the continuing distinctiveness of the Torah’s and Pentateuch’s material forms and religious uses raises the question whether, in Judaism and Christianity, this text is the same thing at all. This state of affairs is the result of developments in ancient scripturalization associated with four figures: the priest and scribe Ezra, the priest and warlord Judah Maccabee,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   507 the rabbi and patriarch Judah haNasi, and the bishop Irenaeus. The four pivotal moments linked to these people changed not only the shape of scripture but also religious hierarchies and identities to the point of differentiating Jews from Samaritans and both groups from Christians.

The Meaning of Torah The name “Torah” for the Pentateuch emphasizes the religions’ different evaluations and uses of this text. The word tôrâ (‫ )תורה‬appears in the Hebrew Bible frequently to refer to specific instructions (e.g., Lev 6:2, 7). It may also refer to sets of instructions (Lev 7:37) and, together with mišpāṭ îm “commandments” and ḥuqqîm “statutes,” to all the stipulations of God’s covenant with Israel (Exod 24:12; Lev 26:46; Ps 105:45; Jer 44:23; Neh 9:14). By itself, the word tôrâ often refers specifically to priestly instruction (Deut 33:10; Hos 4:6; Zeph 3:4; Hag 2:11; Mal 2:6–9), because teaching Torah was one of the priests’ major responsibilities (Lev 10:10–11; Deut 17:11, 18; Ezek 22:26). Torah has traditionally been translated as “law,” as the ancient Septuagint did already with the Greek word nomos. Many interpreters find this translation too restrictive, because tôrâ carries connotations of instruction that evoke the spheres of advice and direction as much as legal mandate. Furthermore, ancient Near Eastern law collections do not seem to have functioned as normative legislation. Nomos, however, frequently described correct performance of Greek temple rituals (Kleinknecht  1967) just as priestly tôrâ does in the Hebrew Bible. Throughout the ancient world, in fact, written ritual instructions seem to have functioned as normative written texts long before civil and criminal legislation did so, and may have been the model for the gradual development of normative written law (Watts 2005). Deuteronomy uses tôrâ most often to refer to itself as containing all the stipulations of the covenant (Deut 1:5; 4:44; 27:3, 26) in a written Torah scroll (Deut 28:58, 61; 29:20; 30:10; 31:26; cf. 2 Kgs 22:8, 11). Other books of the Hebrew Bible identify this book of Torah as “the book of the law of Moses” (Josh 8:31; 23:6; 1 Kgs 2:3; 2 Kgs 14:6; 23:25; Dan 9:13; Ezra 3:2; 7:6; Neh 8:1; 2 Chr 23:18; 25:4; 30:16; 34:14). Though these different references may refer to smaller or larger collections, the references in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles make it clear that, by the fourth century bce at the latest, “the Torah” had come to refer to a text with contents similar if not identical to the Pentateuch we have today. Early Christian writers called the collection ho nomos “the Law,” often together with “the prophets” to refer to the entire scripture (e.g., Matt 7:12; Luke 16:16). The Greek name pentateuchos “Pentateuch” means “five cases” and refers to the five-­part work. It appears first in second- and third-­century ce Christian sources such as Origen and Tertullian (Ska 2006, 2), and probably reflects Hebrew or Aramaic descriptions of the five books, like the rabbinic references to “the five books of the Torah” (y. Sot ̣. 5:6) and

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

508   James W. Watts “the five fifths of the Torah” (b. Meg. 15a). That fivefold division is first explicitly mentioned in the first century ce by Philo (Abr. 1) and Josephus (Ag. Ap. 1:8), and perhaps in a Dead Sea Scroll fragment (1Q30), though the refrains at the beginnings and ends of the Pentateuch’s individual books show that editors already shaped the Torah’s division into five books (Zenger 1999, 53). Over time, Christian unease with the theological status of law led to an increasing preference for using the name “Pentateuch.” Critical historical study of the Bible became institutionalized first among Protestants and inherited this tendency from them. So this Handbook is typical of scholarship today in using the name “Pentateuch” for the collection of five books itself while reserving “the Torah” to refer to its scriptural function in Judaism. There is no equivalent name for the Pentateuch’s function as Christian scripture, except to say that it is “part of the Bible.” This essay on “The Pentateuch as ‘Torah’” describes the scripturalization of the Pentateuch in the Second Temple and Late Antique periods. The status of the Pentateuch as scripture developed slowly over a long period of time and changed course on at least four occasions. The terminology of tôrâ helps track its rising prestige but does not explain how and why it became scripture. To do that, we must examine how the Pentateuch began to be ritualized, and by whom.

The Torah as Script and as Icon The Pentateuch commands its own ritualization as a script for oral performance and as an icon for veneration. Deut 31:10–11 requires that “Every seventh year . . . you shall read this Torah in the presence of all Israel.” The ritual nature of this activity is clearly marked by the designation of the participants inclusively as men, women, and children (v. 12); by the performance’s frequency; and by its setting during Sukkot, the Festival of Tabernacles (v. 10). Ritual performance here aims explicitly for instructional goals, “so that they may hear and learn” (vv. 12, 13). Most other accounts of reading in the Hebrew Bible also describe such scenes of public Torah readings. The command of Deuteronomy is anticipated in Exodus where Moses reads a covenant scroll containing the words of God to the Israelites as part of the ritual to ratify the covenant at Mount Sinai (Exod 24:4–7). Other biblical books depict that commandment being fulfilled on three later occasions. The warlord Joshua read the Torah aloud to all the Israelites to ratify the covenant in the land (Josh 8:34–35). King Josiah read the recently rediscovered Torah scroll to all the people during Passover (2 Kgs 23:1–3). The priest and scribe Ezra read aloud the Torah scroll that he brought from Babylon to the gathered people during Sukkot (Neh 8). Each of these ritual readings supported efforts to change or reform religious practices (Watts 1999, 16-­20; Watts 2005, 405–­8).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   509 Deut 31 also orders the Levites to deposit the Torah scroll written by Moses next to the ark of the covenant (Deut 31:24–26). Other pentateuchal passages require that the tablets of the commandments presented by God to Moses be deposited inside this same ark (Exod 25:16; Deut 10:2). The ark therefore functioned as a reliquary box for the tablets and the scroll. In traditions about Israel’s early history in the land, the ark represents God’s presence with Israel (e.g. Josh 6; 1 Sam 4–6; 2 Sam 6). By associating the Torah scroll with tablets and with the ark, the Pentateuch presents the Torah as an icon of God’s presence with Israel (Toorn 1997). In this way, the Pentateuch anticipates or reflects the situation after the ark and tablets disappeared, when Torah scrolls remained the only divine icons in Israel (Watts 2016). Deut 6 calls on the people of Israel to “bind [these words] as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut 6:8–9). Since antiquity, many Jews have observed these commands by wearing small boxes (tefillin) containing Torah extracts during prayer and attaching similar boxes (mezuzot) to their doors and gates. The discovery of cases and tiny scrolls of pentateuchal quotations among the Dead Sea Scrolls shows that the Qumran sectarians were already using tefillin and, probably, mezuzot in the first century bce (Cohn 2008). Deuteronomy’s commands should also be interpreted metaphorically to refer to learning, even memorizing, Torah. They are the Pentateuch’s most explicit requirements to ritualize the semantic dimension of the Torah through learning and teaching, though that is implied by Deuteronomy’s pervasive rhetoric to “hear” and “observe” and by the lists of commandments throughout the Pentateuch. Nevertheless, it is notable that the Pentateuch is more explicit about ritualizing the physical tablets and scrolls and the Torah’s public readings than about its semantic interpretation. Thus the writers of Exodus and Deuteronomy, or at least some of them, already intended that Torah scrolls be venerated in ways that are typical of later scriptures. Comparative study of religious scriptures shows that religious communities ritualize their written scriptures in three different dimensions. They ritualize the semantic dimension through interpretation, commentary, and preaching. They ritualize the expressive dimension through personal memorization and public readings, and through song, art, and theatrical performances. They ritualize the iconic dimension through public display, manipulation, decoration of the book of scriptures, and deposit in reliquaries and shrines. Ritualization in all three textual dimensions distinguishes scriptures functionally from other kinds of important texts that get ritualized in one or two, but almost never three, dimensions (Watts 2006). The Torah explicitly commands its own veneration in iconic and expressive dimensions, and presupposes its ritualization in the semantic dimension through study and performance of its instructions. Therefore the ritualization of the Torah did not begin with interpretation and study and then add expressive and iconic rituals only later. The text of the Pentateuch already requires its own ritualization as Torah in all three dimensions.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

510   James W. Watts

Scripturalizing Torah The stories of Josiah’s and Ezra’s Torah readings emphasize that the Torah had not been read regularly as Deuteronomy requires. Both 2 Kings and Nehemiah state that the public readings prompted the assembled people to celebrate a festival mandated in the Torah, which had not happened for many centuries: “no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel” (2 Kgs 23:22; similarly, 2 Chr 35:18), and “from the days of Joshua son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so” (Neh 8:17). These statements may express a typical rhetoric of ritual reform that emphasizes current fidelity by exaggerating former laxity, rather than historical knowledge or even literary consistency (cf. 2 Chr 30:1; Ezra 3:4). Nevertheless, they contribute to the Deuteronomistic claim that Torah observance was not common in monarchic Israel. Even Josiah’s famous reforms did not outlive him: 2 Kings condemns each of his successors as doing “evil in the sight of Yahweh” (23:32, 37; 24:9). Neh 8 portrays Ezra’s reading of Torah differently. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah do not focus on cycles of sin and punishment like the Deuteronomistic History, except when reflecting on the monarchic past. They instead emphasize the struggle to establish the Jerusalem community on a firm religious and political basis. In this context, Ezra reads the Torah as the foundation for proper celebration of Sukkot and also to prepare the people to rededicate themselves to the covenant found in that Torah, including regu­ lar offerings in the Jerusalem temple (Neh 10:30, 36–40; Eng. 10:29, 35–39). This cov­en­ ant established Jerusalem as a temple community like others in the Persian and Hellenistic empires (Fried 2004). By reading the Torah, Ezra behaves less like the warlords and kings of other biblical depictions of Torah readings than like the priests, rabbis, and ministers of later Jewish and Christian traditions. When he displays the scroll to the assembly, they stand up; when he voices a blessing over the scroll, they respond “Amen” and prostrate themselves (Neh 8:5–6). Ezra reads from an elevated platform and the leaders of the community stand in ranks on either side to emphasize the importance of the reading (8:4). Then the Levites translate or explain the reading to the people (8:7–8). Neh 8 portrays a scene that would become standard in later Jewish and Christian religious services in which the scriptures are displayed, read aloud, and then interpreted, that is, ritualized in the iconic, expressive, and semantic dimensions. For the first time, Ezra’s reading exemplifies all these practices. Unfortunately, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah provide only snapshots of conditions in Jerusalem during the Persian period, which is poorly documented. Neither these books nor any other sources provide enough information about Judea in the fifth and fourth centuries bce for us to be able to judge how unusual Ezra’s reading of the Torah may have been or whether the story is historically accurate (Fried 2004, for example, argues it is not). What we do know is that, starting in the late fourth and third centuries, an ever-­increasing number of sources attest to the fact that the Torah was being ritu­al­

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   511 ized in all three dimensions. The Torah was beginning to function as a scripture like the scriptures of many later religions. Let me review the ancient evidence for the Torah’s ritualization as scripture in all three textual dimensions. Because most of it comes from other ancient texts, they nat­ur­ al­ly provide the most evidence for ritualizing the Torah’s semantic dimension through their allusions to it and interpretations of its stories and commandments. In Jewish literature from the fourth and third centuries, Chronicles contributes a story about a royal commission traveling around Judah to teach Torah under King Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 17:7–9). Ezra, 2 Chronicles, and Malachi refer to the Torah or some of its specific provisions (Ezra 3:2; 7:6, 12, 14, 21, 25, 26; 9:10, 14; 10:3 and parallels in 1 Esdras; 2 Chr 23:18; 25:4; 30:16; 34:14; Mal 1:6–14; 3:7, 10, 22; similarly, in the second century, Dan 9:13). The Pentateuch was translated into Greek (the Septuagint) in the third century. This material manifestation of the Torah’s semantic interpretation was probably also intended to fa­cili­tate its expressive ritualization by being read aloud in Greek-­speaking Jewish communities. In the following century, the Letter of Aristeas describes the creation of the Septuagint in lavish detail. It goes to especially great lengths to emphasize the scholarship, wisdom, and piety of the translators so as to transfer the authority of the Hebrew Torah through their authoritative expertise to the new translation. By this time, Torah scrolls were being consulted as divinatory objects before battle on explicit analogy to the way non-­Jews used cult images (1 Macc 3:48). By the last centuries of the Second Temple period, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and the huge library of Dead Sea Scrolls attest to the Torah’s dominance over Jewish historical and religious imaginations. Their texts frequently paraphrase the Pentateuch’s stories and they debate how to apply pentateuchal laws. At Qumran, the sectarians reproduced and archived many copies of the Torah on multiple scrolls (Tov 2001, 104–105). All these textual artifacts point to regu­lar and extensive ritualization of the Torah’s semantic dimension. There is less evidence for ritualizing the expressive dimension, as one would expect of ephemeral oral performances. The Letter of Aristeas reports that the Septuagint translation’s accuracy had to be confirmed by reading the entire text publicly both to the Egyptian Jewish community and to the Egyptian Ptolemaic king (Let. Aris. 308, 312). The Qumran sectarians read Torah aloud regularly (1QS VI 7–8, 4Q266 5 II 1–3 and parallels), especially on the Sabbath (4Q251 I 5), and expected public Torah readings in the world to come (1QSa I 4–5). Second Maccabees claims that the armies of Judah Maccabee marched into battle to the sound of Torah being read aloud (2 Macc 8:23). By the first century ce, Philo (Somn. 2.127; Hypoth. 7.12–13; Prob. 81–82), Josephus (AJ 16:43; Ag. Ap. 2.175), and the New Testament (Luke 4:16–17; Acts 13:13–15) refer to public readings of Torah and other scriptures, while the dedicatory inscription of Theodotus in Jerusalem proclaims that the purpose of a new synagogue is “for the reading of Law and teaching the commandments.” According to the Mishnah, temple priests and Hasmonean kings read Torah portions aloud in the Temple at Yom Kippur and Sukkot (m. Yoma 7:1; m. Sot ̣. 7:7–8). Late Antique synagogues gave great attention to Torah readings in various languages, according to rabbinic literature (e.g., m. Meg. 3–4; see Smelik  2007). Archaeology has confirmed these accounts by exposing reading

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

512   James W. Watts ­platforms (bimahs) in synagogues of the second century ce and later (Meyers 1999, 210–214; Levine 2005, 343–346). So from at least the Hellenistic period on, the Torah’s expressive dimension was being ritualized by an ever-­widening spectrum of Jewish society. For ritualizing the iconic dimension, the Letter of Aristeas again provides our first evidence after Neh 8. Aristeas labels the Hebrew Torah scrolls sent to Egypt as hagnos “holy” and theios “divine,” and describes their gold lettering and fine parchments with fascination. They are received with obeisance by the king himself, as is the Greek translation once it is finished (Let. Aris. 177, 317). Though Aristeas’s account may well be fictionalized, it shows how this second-­century bce author thought the material Torah should be venerated. Iconic ritualization is also evident from the fact that, according to 1 Macc 1:56–57, Seleucid troops destroyed Torah scrolls in their attempts to suppress Jewish religious practices. The scrolls had become emblematic of Jewish identity to Jews and non-­Jews alike (Collins 2017, 15, 44–61). Josephus claimed that Roman emperors and governors issued and enforced laws punishing the desecration of Torah scrolls (Ant. 16:164; 20:115). Many of the pentateuchal Dead Sea Scrolls were written in paleo-­Hebrew script to give them a distinctive look and status. The tefillin scrolls and boxes found at Qumran provide further evidence of late Second Temple era ritualization of the Torah’s iconic dimension. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, Late Antique synagogues contained shrines or niches to house portable Torah arks (Meyers  1999, 201–223), and the Mishnah proclaimed that the holiness of Torah scrolls is contagious to the cabinets and buildings that house them (m. Meg. 3:1). The Torah had become the holiest object in Judaism. (See further discussion of all this evidence in Watts  2011, Watts 2017.) The time of Ezra, then, marks a turning point in the ritualization of the Pentateuch. Whether or not Ezra himself brought about these changes or even performed the ceremony as described in Neh 8, this story about Ezra’s Torah reading exemplifies a new understanding of how Torah ought to be used. As we have seen, these expectations were grounded in Deuteronomy and may therefore be older than Ezra’s time. Only after his time, however, do we have evidence that they were regularly being implemented to ritu­ al­ize the Torah in all three dimensions. Therefore, Ezra’s story marks a turning point in the scripturalization of the Pentateuch. It points to the Persian period as the time when the Torah began to be ritualized as a scripture in Judaism.

Torah and Priesthood The fame of Ezra’s Torah reading has emphasized his role as scribe, as do the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. But these books also describe Ezra as a priest, a descendant of Aaron, and a relative of the priests who controlled Jewish temples throughout the Second Temple period, at least in Jerusalem, Samaria, and Leontopolis. Two priestly families were particularly powerful. The Oniad dynasty descended from the first high priest after the exile, Joshua son of Jozadak. His family monopolized the high priesthood in Jerusalem for 350 years and then founded another Jewish temple at

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   513 Leontopolis in Egypt that operated for two centuries more (VanderKam  2004). In Jerusalem, they were displaced by the Hasmonean priestly family. These “Maccabees” led a rebellion that gained autonomy and eventually independence for Judea under their rule, and they usurped the high priesthood for themselves. The temple in Samaria was also governed by Aaronide priests related by marriage to the Oniads (Ezra 10:18–23; Neh 13:28; Josephus, Ant. 11:302–303, 321–324). Despite the destruction of that temple by the Hasmonean John Hyrcanus, Aaronide priests have continued to lead the Samaritan community over the millennia and do so still today. Therefore, the story in Neh 8 does not reflect the political forces most likely to have driven the scripturalization of the Pentateuch in the Second Temple period. It depicts Ezra working outside the temple, only grudgingly supported by its hierarchy and assisted primarily by Levites recruited from Mesopotamia (Wright 2007). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah emphasize the Jerusalem community rather than the temple. They focus on imperial agents and governors like Ezra and Nehemiah rather than priestly hierarchies. By contrast, the Pentateuch’s contents do not focus on Jerusalem or advance the interests of scribes and non-­priestly Levites, at least explicitly. They do not even offer much support for Ezra’s famous insistence on endogamous marriages (Ezra 9). Instead, at the center of the Pentateuch’s rhetoric lies an endorsement of the Aaronide monopoly over Israel’s offerings (Exod 28; Lev 6–8; Num 16–18) and their interpretive authority over Torah (Lev 10:9–11; Watts 2013a, 107–111, 517–520). The Pentateuch, which is notable for ignoring royal or civic institutions almost entirely, makes the Aaronide high priest the head of the only hierarchy that it endorses in Israelite society. The evidence that points to a Persian-­period date for the scripturalization of Torah matches the ideological commitments of its contents to the political situation that prevailed during much of this time, rather than to the political and religious agenda of Ezra (Watts 2001; Leuchter 2010). Though Neh 8 provides almost the only evidence for the influence of Torah in the middle of the Persian period, the interests of Ezra and Nehemiah, and of the books that bear their names, ironically do not correspond with those of the Pentateuch or its priestly sponsors (Watts 2013b). The bias of these books presented enough problems for priests that someone rewrote them. The Greek book of 1 Esdras, probably composed in Egypt in the third century bce, combines the end of 2 Chronicles with Ezra, but omits Nehemiah and his criticisms of the priests’ marriages. It rearranges Ezra’s story to conclude with his reading of the Torah to a unified and purified community (Wright 2007; Fried 2014). Neither does the Pentateuch’s vision of Israelite society correspond to the Bible’s description of Israel and Judah prior to the Babylonian Exile, when priests served at the whim of warlords and kings. In the Second Temple period, however, the high priest of the Jerusalem temple gradually emerged as the preeminent Jewish leader. The high priests of the Hellenistic period governed Judea and negotiated with ­foreign kings. Some later rulers of the Hasmonean priestly dynasty even claimed the title “king.” It is not surprising, therefore, that a Pentateuch that endorses Aaronide priestly supremacy began to be scripturalized in the Second Temple period, when Aaronide

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

514   James W. Watts dynasties were growing in power. The Pentateuch does not claim political rule for the priests, which probably reflects Persian-­period conditions in Jerusalem and Samaria, when high priests shared local leadership with Persian-­appointed governors. By portraying Israel worshipping under priestly direction in a portable shrine in the wilderness, the Pentateuch avoids describing claims to sovereignty and territorial wars that might trouble an imperial overlord. The Pentateuch, however, does not acknowledge the supremacy of a separate tem­ poral authority either. The Pentateuch’s scripturalization in the Persian period laid the ideological basis for high priests to claim broader authority once the Persian Empire and its governors disappeared. The Pentateuch emphasizes who must officiate over Israel’s worship more than where it must occur. It never mentions Jerusalem, though historians have made much of Deuteronomy’s emphasis on “the place where [God] causes his name to dwell” (e.g. Deut 12:11; 16:6) as a cipher for Jerusalem (for recent discussions of cult centralization, see Kratz & Spieckermann 2010). Related Aaronide families governed temples in both Jerusalem and Samaria during the Persian period and seem to have collaborated in scripturalizing the Pentateuch and perhaps in editing it (Schorch 2009). That would account for why Jews and Samaritans both venerate the Torah, despite divisions that date back to at least the beginning of the first century bce. Most likely, the Pentateuch functioned as temple law wherever Aaronide families presided over temples in the Persian period. This connection between temple rituals, Aaronide priests, and the Pentateuch was the original source of the Torah’s authority (Watts 2005). The displacement of the Oniads by the Hasmoneans in the second century bce set Judea on a path toward more independence vis-­à-­vis the Hellenistic empires. The new high priests claimed traditional Israelite as well as Judean lands and raised armies to assert those claims. In this political context, the history of the old kingdoms of Israel and Judah gained new importance. Hasmonean interests drove the scripturalization of books like Joshua, Samuel, and Proverbs in order to enculturate an ethnic Judean identity into non-­priestly elites. The Hasmoneans limited the collection to texts written in Hebrew to demonstrate Israel’s venerable heritage over against Greek literature and Hellenistic culture (Carr 2005, 253–275). They established a national literature to assert the antiquity and legitimacy of their religious and political claims. The brief story of Judah Maccabee collecting scattered or damaged books in Jerusalem (2 Macc 2:13–15) therefore serves, like the story of Ezra’s Torah reading, to mark a turning point in the development of Jewish scriptures. Though the details are vague and the account may be entirely fictional, this first-­century story attests to the perception that the Hasmoneans used a broader collection of books to establish a distinctive Jewish heri­tage (Lim 2013, 117). Their innovation is highlighted by the fact that Samaritans did not adopt a larger canon: the five books of the Torah remain the only Samaritan scripture. Hasmonean policies therefore set the Jewish scriptures on the road toward a larger Tanakh in which many other books accompany the Torah that still legitimized their authority over the temple and its hierarchy. Their policies also probably solidified Samaritan dedication to the Torah alone in resistance to Judean imperialism.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   515 The scripturalization of Torah and Tanakh thus grew out of the needs and a­ spirations of Second Temple-­period communities and those leading them. After generations of disruption due to war and exile, Judean and Samaritan identities ­coalesced around their respective temples. The Torah legitimized the temples and the Aaronide priests who presided over them on the basis of divine ritual instructions given to Moses a thousand years earlier. Under the rule of Persian and Hellenistic kings, Jews and Samaritans increasingly looked to high priests as their leaders and rulers. The authority of Torah and Tanakh grew along with the influence of these Aaronide dynasties.

The Torah in Heaven The Torah nevertheless remained preeminent in Jewish as well as Samaritan culture. In fact, its prestige grew: the Torah was increasingly mythologized as the incarnation of divine wisdom. To the best of our knowledge, this theme first appeared in the early second century bce, when Jesus Ben Sira rewrote Prov 8’s celebration of divine wisdom. He began, like Proverbs, by emphasizing wisdom’s heavenly origins and universality, but then added: “All this is the book of the covenant of the Most High God, the law that Moses commanded us as an inheritance for the congregations of Jacob” (Sir 24:23 NRSV). Ben Sira asserted that the mind of God is incarnate in the material scroll of Torah. Later in the second century, the Letter of Aristeas’ description of the Torah as “holy” and “divine” may reflect a similar estimation. Jubilees depicted an angel dictating to Moses the history of the world from heavenly tablets, thus validating the divine in­spir­ation of Genesis and Exodus as well as of Jubilees itself (Jub. 1:29; see García Martínez 1997; Najman 1999). These Jewish writers adopted older Near Eastern myths of heavenly tablets and books to legitimize the Torah and to validate their reinterpretations of it (Parmenter 2009). By the first century ce, the view had become common among Jews that the Torah originated in heaven (Acts 7:53; m. Avot 3:14; 5:6; Gen. Rab. 1:1). The book of Baruch glossed Prov 8 with Deut 30:10–14 to make an exclusive claim to divine wisdom in the form of this book: Who has gone up into heaven, and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds?. . . No one knows the way to her, . . . [but] she appeared upon earth, and lived among men. She is the book of the commandments of God, and the law that endures forever. All who hold her fast will live, and those who forsake her will die. (Bar 3:29–4:1 NRSV)

By the time John’s Gospel transferred this motif from the law of Moses to Jesus (John 1:14, 17), it had become conventional to imagine the incarnation of divine wisdom in the Torah scroll.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

516   James W. Watts Each of these authors employed the theme of the heavenly Torah to engage struggles over religious authority, which Jewish scripturalization of Torah now defined as interpretive authority over scriptural texts. That development is typical of religious communities that venerate written scriptures. They ritualize the semantic dimension of sacred texts in order to redefine conflicts within the community as questions of textual in­ter­ pret­ation. The issues can then be adjudicated by a small cadre of scribal experts whose authority this process reinforces (Watts  2017, 176-­85). The writers of these Second Temple texts emphasized their own scribal authority by raising the status of Torah to heaven. On the basis of a preexisting heavenly Torah, Ben Sira repositioned his wisdom tradition in line with Torah, Aristeas aligned the authority of the Septuagint with the Hebrew Torah, Jubilees harmonized its ritual calendar with that of the Torah, Baruch defended God’s omniscient sovereignty despite the destruction of Herod’s temple, Acts validated Christian criticism of Jewish practices, John transferred divine ­wisdom from Torah to Christ, and Avot emphasized Israel’s unique and privileged status. The in­ter­pret­ation of the Pentateuch and the claims made for the preexistence of the Torah provided a means for negotiating the conflicting claims of different ­religious authorities.

Torah, Mishnah, and Gospels Aaronide priests lost authority in Judaism after their temples were destroyed in the first century ce. Their demotion must have been caused by more than the destruction of the temples, since Samaritan priests retained preeminent religious authority despite their temple’s destruction. In Jewish communities, however, rabbinic scholars gradually displaced priests as religious authorities and political leaders (Schwartz 1990). Hereditary priests retained positions of honor in synagogues, but interpretive authority shifted to scholarly rabbis. This development took place over many centuries, from the development of the oral law among late Second Temple Pharisees to the editing of the Babylonian Talmud more than six hundred years later. It reached a turning point around 200 ce when Judah haNasi (135–220 ce) edited the oral law in written form as the Mishnah. Judah succeeded his father as leader (ha-­nāśîʾ) of the rabbinic assembly with authority over Galilee and Judea. His leadership and diplomacy smoothed relations with Roman rulers and enabled Jews to rebuild their society and economy after the cataclysmic wars against Rome in 70 and 135 ce. Judah’s fame in subsequent Judaism, however, arises from the fact that he edited the Mishnah. The Oral Torah had begun to be written down after the wars against Rome. Judah edited various collections of legal disputes and rulings together (Wald 2007). The Mishnah is not a commentary on biblical laws, but rather takes up legal issues topically. So from the third century on, the interpretive ritualization of the Torah’s semantic dimension had to engage two authoritative texts, and soon many more

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   517 (commentaries, midrashim, etc.) that explain the relationship between Torah and Mishnah (Neusner 1994). The Mishnah also models how to think through issues that arise when trying to observe Torah. This discipline requires a lifelong dedication to studying the entire tradition of rabbinic interpretation. Thus Judah established a rabbinic aristocracy of learning that privileged scholars as both spiritual and political leaders (Fraade 1999). His dominant influence established the Mishnah as the authoritative basis for Jewish law and religious practice. Rabbinic synagogues continued to venerate the Pentateuch as Torah by ritualizing its iconic and expressive dimension, but they circumscribed its semantic authority by ritualizing its interpretation within the framework of Mishnaic and eventually Talmudic texts, somewhat like the priests who retained honor while losing authority. All subsequent rabbinic literature shows the Mishnah’s normative influence. As a result, in much of subsequent Judaism, the meaning of the written Torah and of the rest of the Tanakh became what the Mishnah, and the rabbis who interpreted the Mishnah, said it means. The Torah scroll remained the central icon of Jewish devotion, and the Torah scroll and prayer book together exemplified scripture’s expressive dimension. But from the time of Judah haNasi, the Mishnah and Talmuds dominated the semantic dimension of legal interpretation and textual commentary. One of Judah’s contemporaries played a key role in the Christian transformation of scripture. During the second century ce, Christian leaders and communities differed about how to utilize the scriptures they inherited from Jews and about which accounts of Jesus’s life, or “gospels,” they should read in worship. In the face of these controversies, Irenaeus (c.140–201 ce), the bishop of Lyons, defended Christian use of Jewish scriptures, because New Testament books cite them as authoritative. Following the lead of the Gospel of Luke (24:26–27, 44–47), however, he maintained that the Old Testament must be interpreted only through the Christian belief that Jesus is the Christ (Adversus haereses 4.26.1; Bokedal 2014, 289–291). Irenaeus also insisted that only gospels written by apostles or associates of apostles can be believed, and he argued that only four works qualify. He interpreted Ezekiel’s vision of God’s throne (Ezek 1:5, 10) to provide mythic justification for four and only four true gospels: For the cherubim have four faces, and their faces are images of the activity of the Son of God. . . . Now the Gospels, in which Christ is enthroned, are like these. . . . For the living creatures were quadriform, and the gospel and the activity of the Lord is fourfold. (Adversus haereses 3.11.8; trans. Roberts & Rambaut 1868)

Christian art has, ever since, depicted the cherubim dictating the contents of the four New Testament Gospels to their writers from heavenly scrolls or codices. In this way, Irenaeus and his successor supplanted the myth of a heavenly Torah with a myth of heavenly Gospels. In the second century ce, the Gospels and Paul’s letters were already being collected and bound together in books (codices) to be read aloud in the churches (Hurtado 2006).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

518   James W. Watts By the following century, gospels were being paraded in church processions and dec­or­ ated with elaborate bindings. Irenaeus’ arguments therefore provided a theological rationalization for Gospels taking the place of Torah as the scripture that Christians ritu­al­ize most in the semantic, expressive, and iconic dimensions. In Christian in­ter­ pret­ation, the Pentateuch became a supplemental support to the primacy of the Gospels or of the whole New Testament, similar to how the Prophets and Writings supplement and support the Torah in Jewish interpretation. Irenaeus insisted that only the successors to the apostles have authority to interpret the Gospels and other scriptures correctly. His arguments laid the groundwork for catholic Christianity to gather influence and power over the following centuries. Controversies over doctrines, practices, and authority continued, not least over the exact list of books that comprise the Christian Bible. But Irenaeus secured the place of the four Gospels and Paul’s letters as touchstones of Christian worship and doctrine, and the authority of apostolic bishops to interpret them. So around the year 200 ce, Jewish and Christian scriptures reached separate turning points that decisively shaped the two traditions for the following millennia. In both religions, the authority of Torah was relativized by ritualizing new texts, though in very different ways. Publishing the Mishnah as normative led Jewish synagogues to constrain the semantic meaning of the Torah to the dictates of rabbinic authority, while expanding the Torah’s preeminent ritualization in the expressive and iconic dimensions. Specifying Christian scripture as four Gospels and apostolic letters that constrain the in­ter­pret­ ation of the Old Testament to focus on Christ led Christians to ritualize and mythologize the Gospels, later the entire New Testament, as preeminent. As a result, prophetic books like Isaiah and Micah became more prominent in Christian imagination than most of the books of the Pentateuch. The work of Judah haNasi and Irenaeus and their colleagues resulted not only in displacing the primacy of the Pentateuch in both religions’ traditions of semantic in­ter­pret­ ation, but also in empowering new hierarchies of religious leaders. The Pentateuch explicitly endorses Aaronide priests as the supreme religious authorities over ritual and interpretation (Lev 10:8–11). Through their oral law transmitted from Moses through a succession of sages (m. Avot 1) to its inscription in the Mishnah and related literature, scholarly rabbis displaced hereditary priests from their positions of interpretive authority while preserving their honorary positions in the synagogue. By ritualizing Gospels instead of Torah, bishops replaced Aaronide priests with the priesthood of Jesus Christ (so already Heb 5–9) embodied in themselves. Both Jewish and Christian traditions cast these developments as historically in­ev­it­ able, as do many modern historians (criticized by Davies 1997). However, they were in fact the consequences of actions by groups of people who chose to change the scriptures and their ways of ritualizing them in these particular ways. That they could have done otherwise is proven by the example of the third religious tradition that venerates the Torah as scripture. The Samaritans did not expand their scriptures beyond the five books of the Pentateuch. Neither did they displace Aaronide priests from their positions of religious preeminence. The history of the Pentateuch as scripture is therefore

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   519 i­n­ex­tric­ably tied to the history of priesthood in all three religions. This point was ­recognized already in the first century by the Letter to the Hebrews: “When there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well” (Heb 7:12 NRSV).

Four Turning Points in Ancient Scripturalization Most discussions of the scripturalization of ancient Jewish and Christian texts focus on “canonization,” the history of debates over which books count as scripture in different traditions and at various times. The word “canon” was used by Christian theologians in the fourth century to refer to lists of scriptural books. Modern histories of canonization (e.g., Lim 2013; Bokedal 2014) usually discuss a broader range of phenomena, including references to categories of texts, such as “the Law and the Prophets” in Ben Sira and the New Testament, and to criteria for distinguishing scriptural books from non-­scriptural, such as the Hasmonean limitation to books written in Hebrew prior to “the end of prophecy” and the rabbinic discussions of books that “render the hands unclean.” They also include the influence of scriptural books on other texts, such as using pentateuchal texts in the Prophets and the Writings (e.g., Choi 2010), and citing and rewriting Jewish scriptures in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, with attention to whether the citations and allusions invoke scriptural authority or not (see Najman 2012, who distances herself from discussions of canon). Only recently have discussions of canonization begun to consider non-­semantic issues, such as the material form of scriptural books and how they were ritualized (Bokedal 2014, 83–156). This article has not engaged discussions of canonization, because lists of canonical books are after-­the-­fact rationalizations for ritualizing some books as scripture rather than others. Ancient lists and categories of scriptural books, and criteria for including some books and not others, provide excellent evidence that Jewish and Christian communities were in fact ritualizing some books as scripture and recognizing their scriptural status. They do not explain why these communities ritualized books as scriptures in the first place or why these particular books began to be used in that way. These questions must be answered by analyzing the social functions of ritualizing scriptures in general and these books in particular, and the historical impact of doing so. Whereas scholarship on canonization focuses on the end of the process of scripturalization, research on the ritualization of books asks how and why it began. The topic of biblical scripturalization also requires attention to questions of how to define the category of scripture and what must happen to a text to turn it into a scripture. Here biblical studies can benefit from attention to the comparative study of religions, especially the comparative study of scriptures. The social functions of scriptures can best be studied in contemporary religious communities where the evidence is abundant and well documented. Such studies usually conclude that the concept of “scripture”

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

520   James W. Watts cannot designate any particular genres of literature because the generic diversity of religious scriptures is unbounded. “Scripture” can only have cross-­cultural meaning as a description of the relationship between a community and its texts. Comparisons of religions shows, in the words of William A. Graham, that “‘Scripture’ is not a literary genre but a religio-­historical one” (Graham 2005, 8195). All the available evidence points to the fact that it was the Pentateuch that first began to be ritualized as scripture, that is, as Torah, by Jews and Samaritans in the Persian period. Its ritualization legitimized their temple rituals and their priesthoods within their communities, and probably also for many outsiders in Persian and Hellenistic imperial contexts. The Hasmonean priest-­kings expanded Jewish scriptures to justify their independent policies and territorial ambitions, while retaining the preeminence of the Torah that legitimized their family as Aaronide priests. The ancient rabbis displaced the Pentateuch and the Aaronide priests by circumscribing their semantic authority with rabbinic tradition, while elevating the Torah’s expressive and iconic dimensions as the ritual focus of Jewish worship. Proto-­catholic Christians ritually replaced the Torah by ritualizing the four Gospels in all three dimensions, while retaining the Old Testament as an interpretive supplement to the evolving New Testament. They also substituted an apostolic for an Aaronide priesthood. By contrast, the Samaritans retained the preeminence of Torah together with the leadership of Aaronide priests. The proof that these choices could have been otherwise lies in the fact that other communities did, in fact, do otherwise. Other ancient religious traditions in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome did not ritualize texts in all three dimensions in order to create a scripture like the Torah. The Samaritans did not expand their scriptures like the Hasmoneans. Neither did they circumscribe Torah with a Mishnah like the rabbis, or replace it with Gospels like the Christians. And, of course, Jewish and Christian communities took very different paths to displacing the Aaronide priesthood and its pentateuchal justification. The names linked to these developments—Ezra, Judah Maccabee, Judah haNasi, and Irenaeus—illustrate the human choices that directed the scripturalization of the Pentateuch at these turning points, whether or not these specific people in fact exerted much influence on the process. Associating their names with these four crucial turning points emphasizes that these developments were not natural or inevitable. They were each the product of choices made over several generations, and significantly influenced the subsequent histories of the Torah/Pentateuch, of scriptures, and of religion.

Suggested Reading For Ezra and the Torah in the Persian period, see the essays in Watts (2001), and Wright (2007), Fried (2014). On scripturalization of Torah and Tanakh in the Hellenistic period and its connection to developments in Jewish identity, see Carr (2005) and Collins (2017). On Jewish priests in the Second Temple period, see VanderKam (2004). For the Torah and priests in Rabbinic Judaism, see Neusner (1994), Fraade (1999), and Levine (2005). For the Pentateuch in early Christianity, see Bokedal (2014). On ritualizing the Pentateuch in three dimensions,

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   521 see Watts (2017), Watts (2020); on ritualizing Christian scriptures, see Parmenter (2009), Parmenter (2020); and on comparisons with ritualizing other scriptures and other kinds of writings, see Graham (2005), Watts (2019).

Works Cited Bokedal, T. 2014. The Formation and Significance of the Christian Biblical Canon: A Study in Text, Ritual and Interpretation. London: T&T Clark. Carr, D. M. 2005. Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. Choi, J. H. 2010. Traditions at Odds: The Reception of the Pentateuch in Biblical and Second Temple Period Literature. LHBOTS 518. London: T&T Clark. Cohn, Y. B. 2008. Tangled Up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies. Collins, J. 2017. The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul. Berkeley: University of California Press. Davies, P. R. 1997. “Loose Canons: Reflections on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible.” JHS 1. doi:10.5508/jhs.1997.v1.a5. Fraade, S. D. 1999. “Shifting from Priestly to Non-Priestly Legal Authority: A Comparison of the Damascus Document and the Midrash Sifra.” DSD 6, no. 2:109–125. Fried, L. S. 2004. The Priest and the Great King: Temple–Palace Relations in the Persian Empire. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Fried, L. S. 2014. Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press. García Martínez, F. 1997. “The Heavenly Tablets in the Book of Jubilees.” In Studies in the Book of Jubilees, edited by M. Albani, J. Frey, and A. Lange, 243–260. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Graham, W. A. 2005. “Scripture.” ER 12:8194–8205. Hurtado, L. 2006. The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Kleinknecht, H. 1967. “νόμος.” TDNT 4:1024–1035. Kratz, R. G., and H. Spieckermann, eds. 2010. One God—One Cult—One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives. BZAW 405. Berlin: de Gruyter. Leuchter, M. A. 2010. “The Politics of Ritual Rhetoric: A Proposed Sociopolitical Context for the Redaction of Leviticus 1–16.” VT 60:345–365. Levine, L. I. 2005. The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lim, T. 2013. The Formation of the Jewish Canon. New Haven: Yale University Press. Meyers, E. M. 1999. “The Torah Shrine in the Ancient Synagogue.” In Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction during the Greco-Roman Period, edited by S. Fine, 201–223. New York: Routledge. Najman, H. 1999. “Interpretation as Primordial Writing: Jubilees and Its Authority Conferring Strategies.” JSJ 30:379–410. Najman, H. 2012. “The Vitality of Scripture Within and Beyond the ‘Canon.’” JSJ 43:497–518. Neusner, J. 1994. The Judaism Behind the Texts: The Generative Premises of Rabbinic Literature. 3 vols. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

522   James W. Watts Parmenter, D. M. 2009. “The Bible as Icon: Myths of the Divine Origins of Scripture.” In Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon, edited by C. A. Evans and H. D. Zacharias, 298–310. London: T&T Clark. Parmenter, D. M. 2020. “Ritualizing Christian Iconic Texts.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Samuel E. Balentine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190222116.013.14 Roberts, A., and W.  H.  Rambaut, trans. 1868. The Writings of Irenæus. Vol. 1. Ante-Nicene Christian Library 5. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Schorch, S. 2009. “Communio lectorum: Die Rolle des Lesens für die Textualisierung der israelitischen Religion.” In Die Textualisierung der Religion, edited by J. Schaper, 167–184. FAT 62. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schwartz, S. 1990. Josephus and Judean Politics. Leiden: Brill. Ska, J. L. 2006. Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch. Translated by P. Dominique. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Originally published in Italian (1998). Smelik, W. 2007. “Code-Switching: The Public Reading of the Bible.” In Was ist ein Text? Alttestamentliche, ägyptologische und altorientalische Perspektiven, edited by L. Morenz and S. Schorch, 123–151. BZAW 362. Berlin: de Gruyter. Toorn, K. van der. 1997. “The Iconic Book: Analogies between the Babylonian Cult of Images and the Veneration of the Torah.” In The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East, edited by K. van der Toorn, 229–248. Leuven: Peeters. Tov, E. 2001. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. Assen: Van Gorcum. VanderKam, J. 2004. From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests After the Exile, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Wald, S. G. 2007. “Judah Ha-Nasi.” EncJud, 11:501–505. Watts, J. W. 1999. Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch. The Biblical Seminar 59. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Watts, J. W., ed. 2001. Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch. SBL Symposium Series. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Watts, J. W. 2005. “Ritual Legitimacy and Scriptural Authority.” JBL 124:401–417. Watts, J.  W. 2006. “The Three Dimensions of Scriptures.” Postscripts 2, nos. 2–3:135–159. Revised and reprinted in Watts 2019, 7-29. doi:10.1558/post.v2i2.135. Watts, J. W. 2011. “Using Ezra’s Time as a Methodological Pivot for Understanding the Rhetoric and Functions of the Pentateuch.” In The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, edited by T.  B.  Dozeman, K.  Schmid, and B.  J.  Schwarz, 489–506. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Watts, J.  W. 2013a. Leviticus 1–10. Historical Commentary on the Old Testament. Leuven: Peeters. Watts, J. W. 2013b. “Scripturalization and the Aaronide Dynasties.” JHS 13, no. 6. doi:10.5508/ jhs.2013.v13.a6. Watts, J. W. 2016. “From Ark of the Covenant to Torah Scroll: Ritualizing Israel’s Iconic Texts.” In Ritual Innovation in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism, edited by N. MacDonald, 21–34. BZAW 468. Berlin: de Gruyter. Watts, J. W. 2017. Understanding the Pentateuch as a Scripture. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Watts, J. W. 2019. How and Why Books Matter: Essays on the Social Function of Iconic Texts. Sheffield: Equinox, 2019.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

The Pentateuch as “Torah”   523 Watts, J. W. 2020. “Ritualizing Iconic Jewish Texts.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Samuel  E.  Balentine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190222116.013.16. Wright, J. L. 2007. “Writing the Restoration: Compositional Agenda and the Role of Ezra in Nehemiah 8.” JHS 7:19–29. doi:10.5508/jhs.2007.v7.a10. Zenger, E. 1999. “Das Buch Levitikus als Teiltext der Tora/des Pentateuch.” In Levitikus als Buch, edited by H.-J. Fabry and H.-W. Jüngling, 47–83. BBB 119. Berlin: Philo.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

R eference Index

For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Hebrew Bible GENESIS 1  189–90, 217–18, 239, 292, 466, 475–6 1–11  32, 35, 61–2, 86, 151, 221, 352–3, 380–1, 392, 395, 466 1–Exod 2  238–9 1–Exod 15  210 1–Exod 18:27  33 1–Exod 19  71 1–Exod 29  262 1–Lev 16  357 1–Lev 26  354–6 1–Josh 24  283–4 1:1 353 1:1–2:4a  166, 255, 257, 267–8 1:1–3 476 1:1–6 190 1:1–19 325 1:2 126 1:3 135–6 1:5 47 1:14–27 31–2 1:22 34 1:27 169 1:28  34, 255, 268–70, 497–8 1:29–30 306–7 2  25, 148–9, 151, 466 2–3 135–6 2–11 196–7 2–35 230–1 2:1–3 475 2:2 124 2:2–3 347 2:3  238–9, 267, 353

2:4  35, 238–9 2:4a 352–3 2:4b–3:24 393 2:4b–4:24 352–3 2:4b–10 326–7 2:4b–25  166, 257 2:7 393–4 2:9–16 394 2:11–14 394 2:15 394 2:15–17 478 2:15–25 326–7 2:17 394 2:18 394 2:18–23 393 2:21–25 168 2:23 393 2:25 393 3  148–9, 151, 219–20 3:1 394 3:1–5 394 3:1–7 393 3:4 219–20 3:4–5 394 3:5 393 3:5–7 393 3:5–8 393 3:6–7 393 3:7 393 3:9 219–20 3:11 393 3:19 393 3:20 148–9 3:21  393

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

526   reference index GENESIS (cont.) 3:22 393–4 3:22–24  326–7, 394 3:24 394 4  148–9, 219–20 4:1 169 4:1–15 151 4:1–16  326–7, 382–3 4:8  98, 123–4 4:16–24 151 4:25–26  151, 352–3 4:26 169 5  24, 45–7, 49, 54, 56–7, 124–5, 366–7, 477 5:1 35 5:2  169, 353, 497–8 5:3 124–5 5:3–32 255 5:25–28 124–5 5:29 151 6–8 466 6–9  257, 365–6 6–10 151 6:1–4  86–8, 317, 392 6:1–6 497–8 6:1–8 392 6:1–9:17 392 6:3  30, 32 6:4 219–20 6:5 392 6:5–7 392 6:5–9:17 166 6:5–6 166 6:8 392 6:9  35, 239, 472, 478 6:11 306–7 6:11–12 166 6:17  166, 257 6:18–21 166 6:19–20 168 6:22 257 7 42 7:1 392 7:1–3 166 7:1–4 392 7:2–3 168 7:4  166, 257, 392 7:5  257, 392

7:6 257 7:6–9 240–1 7:7  124–5, 257 7:7–10 352–3 7:8 168 7:8abα 392 7:8–9 257 7:9 168 7:10  257, 392 7:11  125, 257, 268 7:12  257, 392 7:13 257 7:16b 392 7:17 392 7:17a 392 7:23 392 8 56 8:1–2a 257 8:2b–3a  257, 392 8:3b–5 257 8:6 392 8:6–12 257 8:8–12 392 8:13b  257, 392 8:14 125 8:20–22 392 8:21  219–20, 318 8:21–9:1 497–8 8:21b–22 392 9  42, 217–20, 325, 330–1, 455–6, 475, 497–8 9:1 255 9:1–6 306–7 9:3 264 9:3–4 306–7 9:4  306–7, 428 9:5–6 306–7 9:6 255 9:8–17 268 9:12 268 9:16 268 9:20–27  326–7, 382–3 9:28–29 255 10 477 10:1 35 10:1–6 350 10:1–32 268 10:2  350, 353

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   527 10:8–12 394 10:10 217–18 10:16–18a 151 11  24, 42, 46–7, 49, 54, 56–7, 124–5, 219–20, 366 11–12 229 11:1 121 11:1–9  151, 178, 394 11:4 219–20 11:6  121, 219–20 11:8 219–20 11:9 121 11:10 35 11:10–26 477 11:10–32 366 11:12–13 124–5 11:27  35, 239 11:27–32  266, 349–50 11:28  349–50, 353, 355–6 11:31  228, 349–50, 353, 355–6 11:32  138–9, 219 12  191–4, 212–13, 216–31, 365 12–13  217–18, 220–4, 229–30, 384 12–14 229 12–16 217 12–35 221 12–50  32, 37, 196–7, 352–3 12:1–3 217–31 12:1–4 219 12:1–4a 219 12:1–9 325 12:2  217–18, 454–5, 464–5 12:4  138–9, 219, 255 12:4–6 227–8 12:4b–5 219 12:5  219, 258 12:6 138 12:6–7 316 12:7  30, 37, 220, 227, 230, 326, 382, 384 12:7–21 227–8 12:8 316 12:9 213 12:10–20  86, 167, 192, 212, 214, 222–4, 325 12:11 352 13  214, 326 13–16 42 13:1 213

13:1–17 325–6 13:2  213, 220 13:3–4 316 13:5  213, 220, 258 13:6 258 13:10 327 13:10–15 30 13:13–17 220 13:14 327 13:14–17  220, 227, 230, 384 13:15–17 384 13:18 316 14  151–2, 229–30, 325–6, 413 14–15 223 14:6–7 413 14:14 98 14:18–20 107 14:19 328 14:22 328 15  31–2, 216–20, 224, 226–31, 242–3, 257, 318–19, 355–7, 384, 388, 456 15:1 31 15:1–4 385 15:1–12 325 15:1–21 166 15:2–3 228–9 15:4–5 385 15:5 385 15:6  31, 355–6, 478 15:7  31, 168, 228–9, 355–6, 384–5 15:7–12 356–7 15:8–17 385 15:9–18 384 15:9–21 382 15:12a 356–7 15:13 385 15:13–16 384 15:13–17 228 15:13–17a 356–7 15:14 385 15:15 126 15:16 385 15:17–18  228, 325 15:17a 356–7 15:17b–18 356–7 15:18  385, 456 15:19–21 228

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

528   reference index GENESIS (cont.) 15:20–21 456 16  214, 217–19, 222–4, 227–8, 384, 410–11 16:1 229 16:1b 258 16:3 255 16:4–14 384 16:8–10 151–2 16:10  220, 230 16:15 258 17  28, 216–20, 224, 227–31, 239–40, 257, 264, 267, 269, 383–4, 455–6 17–Exod 6  244 17:1 255 17:1–8 325 17:1–22 230 17:1–27 166 17:2–8  261, 383–4 17:3 47 17:3–8 464–5 17:4 454–5 17:4–5 216–17 17:7  255, 262 17:7–8  216–17, 255, 269 17:8  255, 262 17:9–14  216–17, 261–2, 264, 347, 354 17:12 474 17:13  255, 474 17:14  263, 474 17:15–16 216–17 17:15–22 325 17:17–21 216–17 17:19  255, 384 17:19–21 269 17:20  217–19, 226, 255, 269 17:23–27  347, 354 18  214, 327, 384 18–19 221–4 18–21  217, 220 18:1 316 18:1–15 325–6 18:1–16 382 18:2 327 18:3–8 382 18:4 322–3 18:8  316, 318 18:9–15 384

18:12–15 382 18:13 318 18:16–33 325 18:18 217–18 18:18–19  220, 230 18:22 318 18:22–33 223 18:22b–33a 151–2 18:27 327 19 223–4 19:1–22 382 19:24–25 475 19:30–37 410 20  42, 191–4, 212–13, 365, 410–11 20–22 223 20:1–18  167, 212 20:13 212–13 20:18 239–40 21  218–19, 221–4, 229 21–22 327 21:1b–3 258 21:4  322–3, 347 21:5 322 21:7–21 325 21:12–13  218–20, 230 21:13 217–18 21:14 327 21:16 327 21:17–18  220, 230 21:18 217–19 21:22–32 325–6 21:33 316 22 325 22:1–9 382 22:1–13 178 22:1–19 382 22:4 327 22:6 327 22:13  98, 327 22:14 138 22:15 239–40 22:15–18  151–2, 220, 224, 230, 241–2 22:17 126 23 325–6 24 327 24:1–21 325–6 24:1–67 382

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   529 24:4 168 24:4–60 332 24:7  220, 230, 472–3 24:10  168, 332 24:22  126, 327 24:22–67 325 24:35 220 24:47 126 24:50 327 24:63 327 24:64 327 25  138–9, 221–2, 477 25:12 35 25:12–18a 269 25:19  35, 239 25:21–33 382 25:26  255, 464 25:29–34  325, 327 26  191–4, 213, 221–3, 325, 365, 410–11 26–27 223 26–35 223 26:1 212–13 26:1–11 212–13 26:2–5  220, 230 26:3 37 26:5 478 26:6–11 167 26:12–16 220 26:22 220 26:24  220, 230 26:25 316 26:28–29 220 26:32 125 26:34–35 259 26:34–28:9 259 27  325, 327 27–33 222 27–35 221–2 27:1–40 382 27:1–41 382 27:1–45 259 27:1–33:17 327 27:25–29 382 27:27–29 220 27:30 352 27:37 327 27:38 327

27:38–40 382 27:39 327 27:42–45 259 27:43 464 27:43–44 332 27:45 101 27:46 259 27:46–28:9  258–9, 352–3 28 221–2 28:1 259 28:3–4  217, 220, 230, 267 28:4 255 28:6  101, 464 28:7 259 28:10–22 326 28:10–30:31 325 28:11 327 28:13–15  220, 230 28:15 464 28:17–18 316 28:18 327 29–30 220–1 29–32 223 29:10 352 29:11 327 29:15–30 464 29:18–27 326 29:24–30 382 30:25–43 382 30:26–33 103 30:36 49–50 30:27 220 30:29–30 220 30:32–43 325–6 31 123 31:10 327 31:11–13  49–50, 103 31:12 327 31:14 327 31:18 258 31:19–35 382 31:31 327 31:34 327 31:36 327 31:43 327 31:44–55 326 31:45–54 408

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

530   reference index GENESIS (cont.) 31:46–52 47 31:48 408 31:49 332 31:53 318 32  84, 220–1 32–33 325–6 32:4–13 382 32:5–6 220 32:7 326 32:8 47 32:14–33 382 32:23–31 382 32:25 318 32:25–32 326 32:25–33 478 32:27 464 32:28–29 166 32:29  318, 464, 475 33 327 33:1 327 33:1–15 382 33:5 327 33:17 408–9 33:20 316 34  156–7, 223, 326 34:1–31 325–6 34:13–14 327 35 228–9 35:3 464 35:4 316 35:9 239–40 35:9–10 166 35:9–13  217, 220, 230 35:11 454–5 35:11–12 267 35:22 352 36  366, 477 36:1 35 36:7 255 36:31–39 138 36:35 138 36:39 138 37  138–9, 365 37–38 325–6 37:1 255 37:2 35

38  138–9, 477 39 325–6 39–50 365 40:1–41:25 325–6 41:2 119 41:26–57 325–6 41:42 350–1 41:46 255 42:16 49–50 43:1–23 325–6 46 477 46:2–4  220–1, 226, 230 46:3 217–18 46:3–4 230 46:8–28 355 47:5–11 45–6 47:6–26 326 47:13–26 325–6 47:31 125 48:3–4  217, 220, 230, 267 48:4 37 48:8–20 382 49  32, 37 49–50 479 49:1–27 382 49:14 98 49:28 382 49:28–29 37 49:29–33 37 50  14–15, 226 50–Exod 1  246 50:1–26 325–6 50:24  30, 230, 455 50:24–25 34 50:24–26  37, 357 50:25 37 50:26  32, 499 EXODUS 1 226 1–2 452 1–5 326 1–15 201–2 1–18  35, 62 1–24 56–7 1:1–7 34 1:1–22 326 1:1–15:21 32

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   531 1:1a 357 1:1b 357 1:2–5a 357 1:5b 357 1:6 357 1:7  34, 255, 269–70, 357, 464–5 1:8  34, 357 1:9 217–18 2 31–2 2–Jos 12  25 2:1–10 31 2:1–3:16 326 2:3 119 2:23–25 270 3  11, 245, 307–8 3–4  31–2, 230 3:1 293 3:1–4:17  31–2, 166 3:2 317–18 3:7–8  166, 230 3:8 293 3:9 166 3:11 166 3:11–15 178–9 3:12  166, 478 3:13 166 3:13–15  166, 169 3:18 293 3:21 307–8 3:21–22 137 4:1  166, 355–6 4:1–17 355–6 4:1–23 326 4:2–9 166 4:8 355–6 4:9 355–6 4:10 166 4:11–12 166 4:11–16 478 4:13 166 4:14 31–2 4:14–16 166 4:14–17 355 4:15 475–6 4:15–16 355–6 4:18 31–2 4:24–26 318

4:27–31 355 4:31 355–6 6  219, 228–9, 257, 259 6:1–3 169 6:2 28 6:2–3 453 6:2–5 28 6:2–8 270 6:2–9  166, 178–9 6:2–12 355 6:4 255 6:7  255, 262 6:9 121 6:12 355 6:13–27 477 6:13–30 355 6:16–23 474 6:30 355 7–11  49, 468 7–12 257 7:1–7 172 7:1–2 355–6 7:1–13 355 7:3 172 7:5 262 7:7  173–4, 255 7:14–18 326 7:14–28 171 7:14–25 170–7 7:14–9:35 468 7:15 173–4 7:17 173–4 7:17–18 172–4 7:18 49 7:19  171–4, 355–6 7:20 171–4 7:20a1a  171, 173–4 7:20a1b 173–4 7:20a1b–b–21a 171–3 7:21 173–4 7:21b 172–3 7:22 173–4 7:22a 173 7:22b 172–3 7:23–24 172 7:24 173–4 7:25 173–4

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

532   reference index EXODUS (cont.) 7:29 49 8:15 172 8:19 49 9:5 49 9:12 172 9:15 331 9:19 49 9:24 317–18 9:35 172 10:3 49 10:20 172 10:27 172 11:2–3 137 11:4 49 11:4–8 468 11:9–10 172 12  299, 447 12:1–14 33–4 12:1–20 261–4 12:3–5 169–70 12:8–9 169–70 12:9 298–9 12:20 455 12:21–23 326 12:25 326 12:29 468 12:29–34 326 12:35–36 137 12:37 468 12:38 474 12:40 255 12:42–13:22 326 12:43–49 261–4 12:43–51 354 12:48  120, 474 12:48–49 447 12:49 474–5 13 14–15 13:1–16 478 13:5 472–3 13:14–16 467 13:17–19 356–7 13:21 468 13:21–22 317 14  37, 257, 326, 365–6, 371–2, 478 14–15  166, 468

14:4 262 14:10 55–6 14:18  55–6, 262 14:19a 356 14:21–22 468 14:22 474 14:24 317–18 14:26 474 14:28 474 14:31  31, 355–6 15 242–3 15:1–12 356–7 15:2–19 102 15:3–11 317 15:8 468 15:13–18 356–7 15:21  55–6, 102 15:21b 199 15:22  81, 102 15:22–26 102 15:22–27  37, 326 15:22–18:27 32 15:25  474, 478 15:25b–26 356 15:27 474 16  37, 157, 298, 326, 356, 472–3 16:3 468 16:4  355–6, 468 16:4–5 356 16:8 468 16:10 352 16:11–30 347 16:12 262 16:13–15 468 16:26 356 16:28–29 356 16:29 356 16:31 468 17:1a 357 17:1–7  37, 326, 468 17:2 468 17:4 63 17:7  365–6, 468 17:8–16  37, 326 17:14  326, 478 17:16 326 18  326, 357

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   533 18:1–2 356–7 18:1–12 357 18:8 357 18:9–12 474 18:13–14 37 18:13–26  82–3, 452 18:13–27  34, 357 18:15–22 317 18:21 317 19  62, 196 19–20  311, 317–18 19–24 210 19–34 196 19:1 357 19:1–Num 10:10  30 19:1–Num 10:35  32 19:2b–9a  167, 388 19:3–19 326 19:5 470 19:6  455, 472–3, 476 19:8 7 19:9 355–6 19:9b–16a1a 167 19:18 167 19:16  317–18, 466 19:16a1b–17 167 19:16aßγb 388 19:17  101, 388 19:17–23 478 19:18 466 19:18aß*bß 388 19:18–19 317–18 19:19  167, 388 19:20–25  167, 326 20  5–6, 48–9, 104, 196, 211–12, 278, 298, 331 20–23  167, 384 20:1–14 364–5 20:2  355–6, 384 20:2–3 329–30 20:2–17  5–6, 33 20:3 469 20:4 469 20:6 466 20:7 465–6 20:8–11 347 20:12–17 478 20:13–15 465–6

20:17 104 20:18  100–1, 317–18 20:18–21 326 20:19 49 20:19–26 478 20:19–23:33  167, 364–5 20:20–23:33 388 20:21  49, 100–1 20:21b 104 20:22–23:19  5–6, 463 20:22b–23:19 388 20:23–23:19  297, 385–6 20:23–29 326 20:24  5–6, 104, 212, 225–6, 279–80, 309 20:24–21:1 387–8 20:24b 280 20:24–25 107 20:24–26 279 21 281 21–22  196, 330 21–23  62, 145, 211–12 21:1–11 166–7 21:1–22:13 478 21:1 297 21:1–10 388–9 21:1–22:30 326 21:2  169–70, 384–5 21:2–4  307, 330 21:2–6 330–1 21:2–11  5–6, 282, 307–8, 387 21:2–22:16 297 21:2–22:19 387–8 21:4 281 21:6 281 21:7 307 21:7–11  307, 471 21:12 297 21:12–13 166–7 21:12–17 387 21:13 309 21:12–14  5–6, 309, 386–7 21:15–17 297 21:18–32 386–7 21:19 386–7 21:22 386–7 21:22–25 386 21:22–27  166–7, 386

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

534   reference index EXODUS (cont.) 21:23–25 386 21:23b–25 386–7 21:26 387 21:26–27 387 21:27 387 21:28 364–5 21:30 386–7 21:32 386–7 21:35  304, 330 21:37–22:3 387 22:4 387 22:4–5 330 22:6–8 387 22:9–12 387 22:12 471–2 22:13–14 387 22:20 384 22:20–22 470 22:20–26  465–6, 475 22:20–23:19 387–8 22:22 384 22:25 470 22:25–26  304–5, 328 22:26 465–6 22:28b 472–3 23  196, 298 23:1–9 465–6 23:1–19 326 23:9 384 23:10–11  5–6, 166–7, 308–9 23:10–12 282 23:12  7, 309 23:14–17 82–3 23:14–19  5–7, 166–7, 349 23:20–33  326, 388 23:23–33 356 24  196, 311 24:1–2 167 24:1–11 326 24:3 169 24:3–8  167, 312, 329–30, 384, 388 24:4   31, 326, 478 24:4–6 478 24:4–7 508 24:7  31, 167 24:8 167

24:9–11 329–30 24:9–11b1 167 24:10–11 317–18 24:11bß 388 24:12  471, 479, 507 24:12b 478 24:12–14 101 24:16 267 24:17 317–18 24:18  86, 101 25 261 25–31  145, 261 25–40  210, 219, 228–9, 265 25–Deut 23  478 25:1–2 101 25:1–9 354–5 25:4 350–1 25:8 262 25:9 436 25:16 509 25:17–22  346–7, 353 25:22 167 25:31 346–7 25:31–40  347, 353 25:40 436 26:1 350–1 26:30 436 26:35 55–6 28 513 28–29  348, 353, 473–4 28:30 100 28:41 121 29  15, 432 29:4 355–6 29:6 348 29:7 348 29:10 355–6 29:11 355–6 29:21 55–6 29:26 27–8 29:36–37 354 29:37 354 29:38–42  347, 354 29:43 354 29:43–46 354 29:45 255 29:45–46  219, 260–2, 270

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   535 30:8 352 30:10 354–5 30:11–16  348–9, 354–5 30:12 354–5 30:13 65 30:15 354–5 31 298 31:12–17  263, 347, 354, 471–2 31:16  255, 354 31:17 7 31:18  326, 478 32–33 326 32–34 230 32:1–8 167 32:8 469 32:9 167 32:9–14 471–3 32:10–25 167 32:11 468 32:11–14 31 32:13  30, 455, 472–3 32:15  471, 478 32:26–28 473–4 32:26–29 167 32:30–35 167 32:34aß 356 33:1  30, 455 33:1–5 167 33:2 356 33:3 121 33:5 121 33:6–11 167 33:7–11 355–6 33:11 475–6 33:11–13 103–4 33:12–16 31 33:12–23 167 33:18–20 317–18 34  85, 326 34:1 167 34:2–3 167 34:4  167, 471 34:5–10 326 34:5–27 167 34:6 321–3 34:9 121 34:9–36:7 325

34:10–26 283–4 34:11–16 478 34:11–24 103–4 34:11–26  82–4, 167 34:11–27 356 34:15–16 356 34:17 469 34:18–26  7, 166–7 34:24 63 34:27  167, 478 34:27–28 326 34:28  63, 167, 471 34:29–35  103–4, 325 35–40  45–7, 53–4, 57, 68, 123, 145, 178 35:1–36:7  322, 325, 354–5 35:1b–4a 354 36:20–34 123 37:25–28 123 38:21–31  348–9, 354–5 38:26 354–5 39 436 39:1–26 348 39:6–7 55–6 39:21 100 39:22 100 39:43 267 40  27–8, 33, 262 40:15 455–6 40:17 123 40:20 123 40:22 123 40:33  33–4, 260–1 40:34–35  33–4, 317–18, 354 40:35 354 40:36 352 40:36–38 354 40:38 499 LEVITICUS 1–3 423 1–7  261, 271, 306–7, 430–1, 435, 468 1–16  27–8, 35–6, 325 1:1  34–6, 354 1:1–4:21 325 1:5 427–8 1:11 427–8 1:14–17 435–6 3:2 427–8

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

536   reference index LEVITICUS (cont.) 3:8 427–8 3:13 427–8 4–5 423 4:22 431–2 5:7 425 5:7–13 435–6 5:11 119 6–8 513 6:2  422–3, 507 6:7  422–3, 507 6:18 422–3 7:1 422–3 7:11 422–3 7:22–27 263–4 7:37  422–3, 507 7:46 422–3 8  325, 348, 432, 436 8–9 468 9  33, 260–1 9–10 325 9:23–24  27–8, 33 9:24–25 354 10  38, 468 10:1–2 486–7 10:8–11 518 10:9 474 10:9–11 513 10:10 474 10:10–11  475, 507 10:12 474 11  166–7, 466 11–15  261, 271, 468, 478 11:2–23 325 11:9 55–6 11:31–40 475 11:45 255 12  43, 71–2 12–15 423 12:3 347 12:6 352 12:7 422–3 12:8  425, 435–6 13 325 13–15 435–6 14 325 14:2 422–3

14:22 425 14:54 422–3 16  27–8, 35–6, 260–2, 325, 329, 468, 486–7 16:29–30 447 16:32  348–9, 353 17  280, 299, 306–7, 309, 325, 468 17–26  35–6, 152, 261–3, 271, 354, 364–5, 446–7 17–27  297, 468 17:1 263–4 17:1–9 264 17:3–4  299, 306–7 17:3–5 279–80 17:3–7 169–70 17:3–8 470 17:4–6 263–4 17:5 310 17:5–7  306–7, 310 17:6 299 17:7  298, 310 17:8 264 17:9  263–4, 299 17:10 264 17:11 428 17:12 264 17:13  70, 264 17:13–14 306–7 17:14 428 17:15 264 18–21 325 18–26 147 18:1 263–4 18:3 263–4 18:4–5 472–3 18:7–15 478 18:19 472 18:20 472 18:26b 264 19:1 263–4 19:2 264 19:3 472–3 19:9 352 19:9–10 166–7 19:13aa 472 19:13aß 472 19:13b 472

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   537 19:15 472 19:21 263–4 19:23 263–4 19:26 472 19:27 474 19:30 472–3 19:31 472 19:34 264 19:35 472 20:2 264 20:7 264 20:11–22 478 20:22 263–4 20:26 264 21 474 21:1–4 474 21:5 474 21:6 475 21:6–8 264 21:7 474 21:10  348, 474 21:13–14 474 21:16–23 475 22 325 22:17–25 475 22:18 264 22:18–25 475 23  166–7, 325, 423, 446–7, 478 23:1–44 166–7 23:3  455, 472–3 23:5–6 450 23:10 263–4 23:12 470 23:14 455 23:18 470 23:21 455 23:22 352 23:26–32 349 23:27 446–7 23:27–32 329 23:31 455 23:33–36 169–70 23:34 446–7 23:37 470 23:39 329 23:40 446–7 23:42 66

23:42–24:2 102 24  57, 325 24:1 81 24:2 55–6 24:2aa 102 24:3 263–4 24:8 255 24:9 264 24:10–13 365 24:16b 264 24:17–22 166–7 24:22  264, 447, 474 25  325, 471–3 25:1–7 166–7 25:1–12 38 25:2 263–4 25:2–7 309 25:3 309 25:3–4 6 25:10 471 25:20–22 166–7 25:35 472 25:35–37 166–7 25:36 472 25:38 38 25:39–43 169–70 25:39–46 166–7 25:42 199 25:55 38 26  33, 152, 262, 264–5, 330–1, 349, 354, 365, 470 26:1–33 325 26:9 255 26:12 255 26:27–38 349 26:30 472 26:34–35  349, 472–3 26:34–45  325, 332 26:39–45  349, 354 26:42  30, 455 26:45  349, 354 26:45–46 479 26:46  34, 507 27 325 27:11 55–6 27:34  33–6, 55–6, 499 36:1–2 55–6

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

538   reference index NUMBERS 1  47, 354–5 1–2 36 1–3 325 1–4 478 1–10  32–4, 36, 468, 477 1:1  33–4, 354–5 1:46 354–5 1:51 352 3 477 3–4 36 3:2–4 486–7 3:9 125 3:11–13 354–5 3:40–51 354–5 4 474 4:3 501 4–6 55–6 4:14 49–50 5–6 36 5:11–31 423 6  43, 325 6:1–21 423 6:24–26  42, 328, 466 7–8 36 7:83 352 8–9 325 8:16 125 9:1–14 33–4 9:6–14 365 9:14 474 9:15–16 317–18 9:15–23 354 9:22–23 47 10:7 352 10:11–13 354 10:29–12:16 326 10:33b 317 10:34–36 45–7 10:35–36 317 11 37 11–12 36–7 11–21 32–3 11:1 468 11:4–6 468 11:9 468 11:10 468

11:11–30 82–3 11:13 468 11:14–17 355–6 11:16–17 317 11:24b–30 355–6 11:25 317 11:33–34 468 12:1–10 355–6 12:6–8 445–6 12:7–8 475–6 12:8 31 13 157–8 13–14  34, 168, 467 13:12–16 55–6 13:17b–23 326 13:22 468 13:26–33 326 13:30 168 14  37, 157–8, 326 14:6–9 168 14:11  355–6, 468 14:11–20 468 14:13–19 31 14:13–20 36 14:22 468 14:22–23 468 14:24 168 14:39–45 37 14:44 317 15  36, 263, 468 15–19 477 15:2–26 325 15:14–16 474–5 15:19 352 15:29 474 15:32–36  365, 471–2 16  326, 474 16–18 513 16:18–19 355–6 17–19 468 17:7 352 17:7–8 355–6 18  300, 474 18:1–2 300 18:13–26 34 18:21–24  348, 354 18:25–31 354

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   539 19  36, 325, 478 19:2 445 19:11–13 475 20  49–50, 103–4, 357 20–21 467 20:1–13  34, 37, 357 20:2–13 468 20:6 355–6 20:12  31, 355–6 20:14 357 20:14–16 357 20:14–21  326, 356–7, 413 20:16b 357 20:22–29 357 20:23–29 365 20:23b 357 20:28 474 21 34 21:4 121 21:9 317 21:13 49 21:21–26 326 22–24 469–70 22–26 32 22–36 37 22:4 355 22:7 355 23 36 24:15–17 103 25 37 25–36 355 25:3 465 25:6–15 455–6 25:6–18 355 25:14 500 26 47 26–36  468, 477 26:9–10 33 26:54–56 355 26:57–61 355 26:60–61 486–7 26:64–65  33, 37 27 260–1 27:1–11  36, 56, 365 27:1–12 276–7 27:2–11 103 27:12–23  37, 292

27:12–33 27–8 27:17 478 27:21 478 27:31 37 28–29  36, 166–7, 325, 423, 478 29:7–10 329 29:12 329 29:35–38 169–70 31  325, 478 31:16 355 31:21 445 32  34, 276–7 32–36 243 32:6–15  33, 37 32:7–15 7 32:11  30, 455 33 49–50 33:1–49 276–7 33:2 63 33:50–56 355 33:50–34:29 276–7 34:13–29 355 35 276–7 35:1–Deut 34:12  96 35:9–34 166–7 35:25 348 35:28 348 36  36, 56, 325 36:1–2 103 36:1–12 276–7 36:13  34, 276–8, 499 DEUTERONOMY 1 83–4 1–3  34, 49, 283–4, 287, 292 1–4 153 1–6 283 1–Josh 23  26 1–2 Kings 25  243, 285 1:1–5 277–8 1:3 293 1:5  34, 278, 311, 507 1:8  37, 472–3 1:9–18  34, 82–3, 317 1:19–46 34 1:30 317 1:33 317 2  34, 55–6

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

540   reference index DEUTERONOMY (cont.) 2:7  49–50, 56 2:17–19 49 2:26–3:7 326 2:30 172 3 34 3:11 138 4  31–2, 283 4:1 198 4:2 166–7 4:4–8 476 4:5 198 4:6–8 475 4:7–8 454–5 4:9  198, 468 4:9–20 324–5 4:11 317 4:14 169 4:15 317–18 4:16b–19a 31–2 4:23 468 4:25–31 198 4:31 468 4:44 507 4:45 124 4:45–28:68 283–4 4:48 239 5  5–6, 48, 104, 211–12, 278, 287, 311–12, 331 5–11 153 5:3  5, 468–9 5:4 317–18 5:6–18 364–5 5:6–21 5–6 5:7 469–70 5:8 469 5:11 470 5:13–15 471–2 5:17–19  123, 465–6 5:17–20 470 5:18 104 5:18+ 48 5:18–15:8 67 5:19–6:3 168–9 5:22  278, 311, 478 5:22–24 317 5:23–33 468–9 5:24 100–1

5:24–27  49, 100–1 5:28–29  100–1, 103–4 5:28b–29 49 5:30 126 5:30–31  49, 100–1, 104, 312 6:4  124, 278–9 6:4–5  283–4, 287, 463 6:4–9  282, 468, 478 6:6–9 467 6:8 478 6:8–9 509 6:12  468, 470 6:16 468 6:20–24  195–6, 242–3 6:20–25 467–8 6:21 47 7 287–8 7:1–3 66 7:3–4 453 7:6 476 7:8  47, 199 7:9  328, 466 7:11 287–8 7:12a 287–8 7:12b 287–8 8:2 470 8:2–5 324–5 8:3 472–3 8:7–11 470 8:7–18 324–5 8:11 468 8:14  121, 468 8:15 470 8:19 468 9–10 278 9:1–7 468 9:6  47, 121 9:7  322–3, 467–8 9:7a 321 9:7b 321 9:10 168 9:13 121 9:18–20 471–2 9:22–23 467 9:25–29 471–2 9:27 468 9:28 468

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   541 10:2 509 10:2–5 317 10:4 168 10:6  49–50, 56 10:8 317 10:8–10 473–4 10:18 470 11:13–21 478 11:20 324 11:26–30 448 11:29 50 11:29a 104 11:29–30 107 11:30  104, 316 11:31–12:8 180–1 11:32–12:1 169 12  5–6, 26, 107, 212, 278–80, 282–3, 285–6, 299, 309, 351 12–16:17 283 12–26  153, 180–1, 277, 287, 297, 302, 364–5, 463 12:1  277, 282 12:2  321–3, 472 12:2–3 316 12:2–7 283 12:3 285 12:5  50, 180–1, 299, 489 12:6 322–3 12:7 105–6 12:8–11 310 12:9–12 282 12:11  299, 489, 514 12:11–14 316 12:12 105–6 12:13–15 280 12:13–19  280, 282–3 12:13–28:44 283–4 12:14  299, 489 12:15  169–70, 264, 282–3 12:15–16 298 12:17 180–1 12:18  105–6, 282–3, 299 12:20 283 12:20–22 169–70 12:20–27 283 12:20–28  279–80, 282–3 12:21 299

12:21–25 298 12:21aß 280 12:23 428 12:26 299 12:29–31 283 12:29–13:1 180–1 13  26, 283–4, 288–93, 389, 391, 469 13–15 279 13:1  70, 166–7 13:1–19 325 13:2–6  289–90, 389 13:2–18 478 13:7 389 13:7–12 289–90 13:9–10 389 13:10 290 13:13–19 289–90 14  62, 466 14:1–21 166–7 14:3–21 280–1 14:22–29 279–80 14:23 105–6 14:26 105–6 14:28–29 348 15  308, 471 15:1–3  308, 471 15:1–11  5–6, 277, 308 15:1–18 325 15:7 472 15:10 277 15:11 277 15:12 471 15:12–13 307 15:12–14 307 15:12–18  5–6, 166–7, 169–70, 282, 307, 330–1 15:13–15 307–8 15:14 281 15:15 307 15:16–17 281 15:19–23 279–80 15:20 105–6 16  299, 478 16:1–8 450 16:1–17  5–6, 166–7, 279–80, 349 16:2 169–70 16:6 514 16:7 169–70

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

542   reference index DEUTERONOMY (cont.) 16:7a 298–9 16:11 105–6 16:13–15 169–70 16:18 473–4 16:18–20  82–3, 280–1, 478 16:18–18:22  280–1, 283 16:21  285, 316 17  289–90, 452 17:2 292 17:2–5 478 17:2–7 285 17:3 285 17:8–13 280–1 17:8–20 325 17:9 473–4 17:11 507 17:12–13 478 17:14  86–7, 126 17:14–20 478 17:15 126 17:18  276, 324, 473–4, 478, 507 17:18–19  36, 468–9 18 300 18–22 478 18:1–8  299, 473–4 18:3–5 473–4 18:4 317 18:6 285 18:6–7 299 18:6–8 473–4 18:7 300 18:9 468–9 18:9–22  285, 292, 469 18:10–11 468–9 18:10–14 472 18:12–14 468–9 18:15  445–6, 468–9 18:15–18  30–1, 475–6 18:15–23 468–9 18:16 168 18:18 470 18:18–19 103–4 18:18–22  49, 100–1, 104 18:20 468–9 18:20–22 82–3 18:21–22 472

18:22  468–9, 471–2 19 279–80 19–26 283 19:1–13  5–6, 166–7, 281, 309 19:10 470 19:11–20 325 19:21 166–7 20 277–8 20:4 317 20:10–11 277–8 20:19–20 277–8 21:2 473–4 21:8 470 21:10–23 325 21:19 309 22:1–12 325 22:6 73 22:13–29 325 23:1 478 23:2 475 23:2–8 475–6 23:4–6 65 23:4–9 66 23:5b–6 356–7 23:15 317 23:18 285 23:20–21 166–7 24 70 24:1 324 24:1–7 325 24:3 324 24:9 468 24:10–22 325 24:12–13 304–5 24:13 465–6 24:14 470 24:17 328 24:17–18 470 24:18 468 24:19–21 166–7 24:22 468 25:1–16 325 25:17 468 26 205 26:1–11 199–200 26:5  217–18, 454–5 26:5–9 242–3

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   543 26:5–10 467 26:5–11 443 26:5b–9 195–6 26:9 470 26:16–19 470 27  107, 153, 493 27:1–3 107 27:1–26 448 27:2b–7 104 27:3  324, 507 27:4  45–6, 48, 50, 54, 107, 448 27:4–8 107 27:8  138, 324 27:9–10 107 27:12–13 50 27:20–22 478 27:26 507 28  26, 283–5, 287–9, 389–91, 463, 471–2 28–30 153 28:1–2 470 28:15–42 325 28:15–68 491 28:20 390–1 28:20–44  288–9, 390–1 28:21 390–1 28:22–29 289 28:23–24 390–1 28:25 390–1 28:26 390 28:26–30 390 28:26–33 390 28:27 390 28:28–29 390 28:30 390 28:33 390 28:35 390–1 28:36 126 28:38 390–1 28:42 390–1 28:53 390–1 28:58  469, 507 28:61  180–1, 507 28:69 471 29–30 283–4 29:10 474 29:13–27 491 29:20  180–1, 507

30:1–5 491 30:2–10 495 30:3 126–7 30:10  89, 180–1, 469, 507 30:10–14 515 30:17–19 491 30:19 287 31 239 31:6 317 31:8 317 31:9  31, 63, 138, 183–4, 317, 473–4, 478 31:9–13 356–7 31:10 508 31:10–11 508 31:12  468–9, 508 31:13 508 31:14–15 355–6 31:19  63, 324 31:19–22 491 31:22 138 31:23 355–6 31:24  31, 138, 180–1 31:24–26 509 31:25 317 31:26  180–1, 183–4, 507 31:34 63 32  47, 63, 239, 475 32:8 45–6 32:8–9  317, 476 32:19–25 491 32:26–43 495 32:43  45–6, 124 32:44–47 478 32:48–52 293 33  32, 37, 478–9 33:5 126 33:8–11 103 33:10  475, 507 34  14–15, 30–1, 136–7, 293, 490 34:1–12 138 34:1a 260 34:4  30, 37, 455 34:5  260, 323 34:5–6  31, 37 34:7  30, 32 34:7–9  27–8, 260 34:8–9 31

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

544   reference index DEUTERONOMY (cont.) 34:10  30–1, 355–6, 445–6, 475–6 34:10–12  30–1, 34, 445–6 34:11–12 30–1 34:12 499 JOSHUA 1 197–8 1:1 495–6 1:7 468–9 1:7–9 198 1:8  356–7, 496 2 197 2–9 197–8 2–12 246–7 2:9aß–11 356–7 2:10 199 3–4 197 5 197 6  197, 509 6:26 103 8  107, 197 8:21 62–3 8:30–31 62–3 8:30–35 448–9 8:31  468–9, 507 8:33 448 8:34 468–9 8:34–35 508 9 197 12 198 13:1–6 495–6 14:1 496 15:7 465 17:4 496 18:1  27–8, 260 19:51  27–8, 260, 496 20:6 496 21–22 496 23 197–8 23–24 230 23:6  62–3, 198, 245, 346, 356–7, 507 23:15–16 495–6 24  14–15, 106, 443–5, 447–8, 467, 495–6 24:1 357 24:1–13 356–7

24:1–32 356–7 24:2–13 242–3 24:2b–13 195–6 24:3–13 467 24:14 472–3 24:14ff. 467 24:15 448 24:25–26  356–7, 443–5, 447–8 24:25–27 448 24:26 316 24:29–31 490 24:29–33 448 24:32–33 495–6 JUDGES 1 495–6 2:6–3:8 241–2 2:6–16:31 241–2 2:10–13 468–9 2:10–3:11 468 2:11–23 198 3:12 496 8:9 408–9 8:17 408–9 9 496–7 11:5 352 12:1–87 468 1 SAMUEL 1:15–22 470 4–6 509 4:4 346–7 7 148 8 148 10:8 148 10:17–27 148 11:12–14 148 12 198 12:5–24 467 13:8–15 148 20:38 331 24:2 352 27:6 410–11 2 SAMUEL 1:10 348 5:24  317

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   545 6 509 6:2 346–7 14:2–22 304–5 1 KINGS 1:34 348 1:39  348, 473–4 1:45 348 2:1–5 356 2:3 507 2:26 348 4:2  348, 473–4 5:18 282 6:1 494 6:23–28 346–7 7:49 347 8:7 346–7 8:13 346–7 8:35–36 198 8:46–53 198 11:14 138 11:19 138 12 496–7 12:25–30 486–7 12:28 278–9 12:28–29 469 12:29 409 13:33 486–7 14:1 486–7 14:16 486–7 14:20 486–7 15:25–31 486–7 15:26 292 17:13–16 464–5 22:19–23 382–3 2 KINGS 8:28–29 402–3 11–12 285 12 106 12:5–16 348–9 12:8 348 12:11 348 12:18 332 12:22 348–9 14:6 62–3, 507

14:8–14 402–3 14:25 332 16:15 347 17 469 17:6 350 17:7–12 468–9 17:7–18 198 17:7–23 467 17:13 469 17:13–14 471–2 17:13–20 469 17:13–23 468–9 17:16 469 17:34 469 17:35 469 17:37 469 18–20 471–2 18–25 469 18:4 286 18:22 286 19:15 346–7 22 284 22–23  62–3, 181, 471–2 22:1–23:30 285–6 22:4 348 22:8 348 22:8  302, 507 22:11  285, 507 22:14–20 471–2 23  243, 284–5 23:1–3 508 23:4  285, 348 23:4–7 285 23:7 285 23:8 285 23:11 285 23:12–14 285 23:15 316 23:15–20 283 23:22 510 23:25  346, 468–9, 507 23:32 510 23:37 510 24:2 349–50 24:7 456

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

546   reference index 2 KINGS (cont.) 24:9 510 25  198, 203 25:4–5 349–50 25:18 348 25:27–30 495 ISAIAH 1–32 329–30 1:1  469, 501 1:9–10 475 1:10b 475 1:17 475 2:3 475 5:24 469 6 324 6:1 346–7 6:5 466 6:8–12 382–3 11:10–16 486 14:4–21 382–3 19:11 468 19:13 468 26:16 468 27:1 382–3 29:22 464–5 30:1 469 30:4 468 30:9 469 30:14 468 36–39 471–2 40:26 353 40:27 464–5 40:28 353 41:8  464–5, 475 42:4 475 42:5 353 42:17 469 43:10 475 43:15 466 43:16–17 474 43:16–21 476 43:20 474 43:21 466 44:1  466, 475 44:23 476 45:5–7 466

45:6b–7 476 48:21 468 49:7 475 51:1–2 331 51:2 464–5 51:4 475 51:9  189, 382–3 54:9 330–1 56 475 56:1–8 475 56:2–7 475–6 56:5–6 475 58:7 472 61 471 JEREMIAH 1:1–3 469 1:4–19  324, 470 1:7 470 1:9 468–70 2:2 465 2:6a 470 2:6b 470 2:7a 470 3:16  346–7, 471 3:17–18 486 6:19 469 7:5 470 7:6 469–70 7:6a 470 7:6b 470 7:7 470 7:9  465–6, 469–70 7:16 471–2 7:22–23 470 7:25–34 469 7:31 472–3 8:8  471, 475–6 9:12 469 9:24–25 347 11 471–2 11:1–5 468–9 11:6–12 469 11:10 469 11:14 471–2 11:18–23 471–2 13:1–11 324

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   547 13:10 469 16:11 469 16:13 469 17:21–22 66 17:21–23 471–2 18:11 471–2 23:9–14 471–2 23:9–40 469 23:31 468–9 25:3–8 469 26 471–2 26:4 469 26:18–19 471–2 28 469 28:9  468–9, 471–2 29:17–19 469 31:31–34  471, 486 33:19–26 471 34:8 471 34:8–22 471 34:13–14 471 34:14 471 34:17 471 34:18–20 388 36 331 44:4–6 469 44:23 507 50:4–5 486 50:9 454–5 51:63 331 52:19 347 52:24 348 EZEKIEL 1:5 517 1:10 517 3:14 466 6:2–8 472–3 13:1–16 472 13:17–23 472 14:1 472 14:1–11 472 14:14  382–3, 472 14:20 382–3 16:8 473 16:59 473 16:60–63 473

18 472 18:5–9 472 20 472–3 20:5 472–3 20:7–8 472–3 20:8b 472–3 20:9 468 20:13 472–3 20:16 472–3 20:20 472–3 20:21 472–3 20:24 472–3 20:25 472–3 22:26 507 28:3 382–3 28:11–19 395 33 473 33:24  331, 464–5 34–37 330–1 37:15–28 486 40–48  138, 473–4, 478 44 473–4 44:6 474 44:7  427–8, 474 44:9–10 473–4 44:15 427–8 44:15–16 473–4 44:20 474 44:21 474 44:22 474 44:23 474 44:23–24 473–4 44:25 474 46:16–17 471 47–48 486 HOSEA 1–3 324 1:1  469, 501 2:16 465 2:17a 465 2:17b 465 3:1 469 3:5 486 4 468–9 4:2 465 4:6  469, 507

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

548   reference index HOSEA (cont.) 4:13  316, 472 5:15 468 7:16 468 8:1 469 8:4b–6 469 9:7 471–2 9:10 329–30 9:10a 465 9:10b 465 9:15 329–30 11:1  199, 465 12 26 12:1–2 464 12:3 464 12:3b–5 464 12:6 464 12:7 464 12:8–9 464 12:10 465 13 464 13:2 469 13:4–5 465 AMOS 1:1 469 2:4–5 469 2:6–8  465–6, 470 2:9–12 469 3:14 469 4:4 469 5:5 469 5:6 464–5 5:10–11 465–6 5:15 464–5 5:26 472–3 6:11–14 409 6:6 464–5 6:6, 8  464–5 6:8 464–5 7 324 7:2 464 7:5 464 7:9 411 7:10 469 7:10–13 471–2 7:10–17 469 7:13  409, 469

7:16 411 8:4–7 471–2 MICAH 1:1 469 1:5b–7 469 3:11 469 3:12 471–2 5:9–13 469 6 470 6:4 469–70 6:5 469–70 6:6–7 469–70 HABBAKUK 2:4 472 ZEPHANIAH 1:1 469 1:4–6 469 3:1–4 469 3:4 507 HAGGAI 1:1 348 1:12 348 1:14 348 2:2 348 2:4 348 2:10–19 475 2:11 507 ZECHARIAH 3:1 348 6:11 348 7 475 7:9 472 11:14 106 MALAKI 1:6–14  475, 511 2:1–9 475 2:6–9 507 3:7 511 3:10 511 3:22  346, 511 PSALMS 8 466 18:8–16 466 19 67 24:7–10 466

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   549 29:3–9 466 37:7–10 466 74:13–14 382–3 74:14 189 78  12, 467–8 78:1–4 468 78:5–8 468 78:9–11 468 78:12 468 78:13 468 78:14 468 78:15–16 468 78:17–18 468 78: 20–22  468 78:23–25 468 78:26–31 468 78:32–33 468 78:34 468 78:38 468 78:41 468 78:42 468 78:44–51 468 78:52–53 468 78:43–49 331 78:50 331 78:51 331 81:10–11 331 85:4 468 98:4–9 466 104 466 104:5–9, 12, 16–19, 24–29  466 105  12, 331, 467 105:27–37 468 105:41 468 105:45 507 106 467 106:21 468 114 199 114:8 468 119 67 121:1 472 132:18 348 136  242–3, 467 139 466 151 319 JOB 26:12 382–3 38–41 477

40 189 40:25 382–3 41:25 189 PROVERBS 8 515 8:22–23 476 8:27 476 8:30 476 21:3 470 ESTHER 8:2 350–1 DANIEL 9:4–19 467 9:8 328 9:13  507, 511 13 136 EZRA 1–6 456 3  63, 445 3:2  63, 89, 346, 444, 507, 511 3:4  63, 445, 510 6:18  89, 444 7  65, 346, 443–4, 449–51, 7:3 63–4 7:6  346, 444, 507, 511 7:7 446 7:10  444–5, 452 7:12  346, 443–4, 511 7:12–16 451 7:12–26 452 7:14  452, 511 7:21  443–4, 511 7:25  65, 511 7:25–26 346 7:26 511 9 513 9:10 511 9:14 511 10:1 65 10:3 511 10:3–4 89 10:6 346 10:18–23 512–13 NEHEMIAH 1:1–7:4 352 1:5 328

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

550   reference index NEHEMIAH (cont.) 2:1 446 3 405 3:1 348 3:20 348 3:33 352 4:1 352 4:6 352 4:9 352 5:1–13 471 6:1 352 6:16 352 7:1 352 8  66, 444–7, 508, 510, 512–13 8:1  346, 356–7, 444–7, 507 8:1–3 89 8:4 510 8:5–6 510 8:7–8 510 8:8  66, 444–5, 447–8 8:13–15 446–7 8:13–18 65 8:14  63, 66 8:15 446–7 8:17  445, 510 8:18  299, 444–5, 447–8 9 467 9:3 89 9:6–31 24 9:14 507 10 65 10:28–29 444–5 10:30 510 10:32 65 10:33–34 348–9 10:34 347 10:35 102 10:36–40 510 10:38–39 354 10:38–40 348 12:22 346 13:1 446 13:1–2 65 13:1–3 446 13:3 352 13:4–31 352 13:6–7 346

13:10–14  348, 354 13:15 471–2 13:17 471–2 13:23–29 356 13:28  348, 357, 512–13 13:31 102 1 CHRONICLES 1:1–23 477 1:24–27 477 1:27–54 477 2 477 3 477 4 477 5–9 477 5:27–34 474 9:3 486 15:13 299 15:27 350–1 23:24–27 501 24:2 486–7 28:15 347 2 CHRONICLES 2:13 350–1 3:1 486 4:7 347 4:20  299, 347 7:12 106 13 486 13:11 347 17:7–9 511 17:9  63, 89 23:18  501, 507, 511 23:28 346 25:4  507, 511 30:1 510 30:1–31:1 489 30:16  507, 511 34:14  491, 507, 511 34:14–15 89 34:22–28 471–2 35:13a 299 35:18 510 Apocrypha BARUCH 1:15–3:8 479 3:29–4:1 515

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   551 2 (SYRIAC) BARUCH 53–74 479 85:3 74 BEN SIRA 1:1 477 24:23  90, 515 26:17 347 38:24 477 38:34 477 39:1 477 44–50 477 44:16–27 477 44:19–21 477 45 477 50 477 50:1–15 348 1 ENOCH 6–11 87–8 72–82 87–8 85–90 479 JUBILEES 1:1–32 86 1:4–6 101 1:26 89–90 1:26–29 86 2 71–2 2–10 479 2:17–33 479 3:8–13 71–2 3:8–14 479 3:10 71 3:26–31 479 3:31 71–2 4:1–6 479 4:5 71 4:32 71 6:4–16 479 6:17–31 479 6:29–32 479 6:32–38  71–2, 479 7:34–39 479 11–23 479 11:15–12:14 86 15:1 86 15:1–16 479 15:11–14 479

16:20–31 479 16:21 86 18:18 86 20–22  71–2, 86 21 102 21:14 101 21:17 101 22:1–9 479 24–45 479 38 71 44:1–4 479 46–50 479 49:1–23 479 50  71–2, 479 1 MACCABEES 1:21–23 347 1:56–57 512 2:27 69 2:44–47 69 3:48 511 4:41–52 69 4:49 347 7:1 348 14:47 348 2 MACCABEES 2:13–15 514 3:1 348 4:7 348 8:23 511–12 Dead Sea Scrolls CD 3:2–3  479 CD 15:2  90 CD 15:13–154  90 CD 16:2  90 CD 16:3–4  71 1Q3 (1QpaleoLev)  43, 45 1Q3 (1QpaleoNum)  43 1QapGen ar (Genesis Apocryphon)  86 1Q21 (TLevi ar)  86 1Q22 (DM / Words of Moses)  87, 103–4 1QM (War Scroll) 7.1 277–8 1QS 5 84 5:8 90

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

552   reference index Dead Sea Scrolls (cont.) 5:8–9 90 VI 7–8  511–12 1Q28a (1QSa) I 4–5  511–12 1Q29 (Apocryphon of Moses)  87 1Q30–31 (Liturgical Text A and B)  61, 507–8 2Q5 (2QpaleoLev)  43 4Q1 (4QGen–Exoda)  23, 42–3, 45 4Q 2 (4QGenb) 45 4Q 4 (4QGend) 44 4Q 6 (4QGenf ) 44 4Q11 (4QpaleoGen–Exod1)  23, 42–3, 45 4Q 12 (4QpaleoGenm) 42 4Q13 (4QExodb)  47, 53, 55 4Q15 (4QExodd) 42 4Q16 (4QExode) 44 4Q17 (4QExod–Levf )  23, 42–3, 49, 51, 99–100, 104, 123 4Q22 (4QpaleoExodm)  42–3, 48–9, 53, 55, 99–101, 331 XXI 104–5 XXI–XXII  100–1, 103–5 4Q23 (4QLev–Numa)  23, 43, 45 4Q26 (4QLevd) 47 4Q27 (4QNumb)  47–9, 53, 55–7, 99–100, 103 12:16 56 20:13 56 21:12 56 21:22 56 21:13 56 21:20 56 21:23 56 27:33 56 31:20 56 XXXII 103 4Q30 (4QDeutc)  53, 55 7:4 55 10:2 55 16:8 55 27:1 55 28:1 55 29:19 55 31:17 55 31:18 55

4Q32 (4QDeute) 45 4Q34 (4QDeutg) 45 4Q35 (4QDeuth)  53, 55 4Q37 (4QDeutj)  42–4, 47, 53, 317 4Q38 (4QDeutk1)  44, 53 4Q41 (4QDeutn)  44, 53 4Q44 (4QDeutq)  44, 124 4Q45 (4QpaleoDeutr) 43 4Q46 (4QpaleoDeuts) 42–3 4Q51 (4QSama) 44 4Q52 (4QSamb) 331 4Q119 (4QLXXLeva)  43, 46 4Q120 (4QpapLXXLevb)  43, 46 4Q121 (4QLXXNum)  43, 46 4Q122 (4QLXXDeut)  43, 46 4Q 156 (4QtgLev)  43, 45 4Q158 (4QReworked Pentateuch, 4QRPa)  4, 43–4, 53, 70, 81–4, 99–101, 103–4, 209–12, 478 4Q364 (4QRP A)  42–4, 49, 81, 99–101, 209–10, 478 3 ii 1  101 3 ii 2  101 3 ii 3  101 3 ii 4  101 3 ii 5  101 3 ii 6  101 4b–e ii 21–26  103 14:1-2 101 15: 3-4  101 4Q365 (4QRP B)  42–4, 49–50, 53, 55, 81, 99–100, 102, 209–10, 478 6a ii and c 1–7  102 6a ii and c 1  102 6a ii and c 2  102 6a ii and c 3  102 6a ii and c 4  102 6a ii and c 5  102 6a ii and c 6  102 6a ii and c 7  102 6a ii and c 8–15  102 23 4–11  102 23 4  102 23 5  102 23 6  102 23 7  102 23 8  102

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

reference index   553 23 9  102 23 10  102 23 11  102 4Q366 (4QRP C)  42–4, 49, 53, 55–7, 81, 99–100, 209–10, 478 Frag. 23  57 Frag. 37  55–6 4Q367 (4QRP D)  42–4, 81, 99–100, 209–10, 478 4QRP E  44 4Q175 (4QTest; 4QTestimonia)  49, 99–100, 103–4 4Q176 (4QTanh)  479 4Q213 (Aramaic Levi / 4QLevia ar)  86 4Q214 (Aramaic Levi / 4QLevib ar)  86 4Q216 (4QJuba) 71 4Q249j (4Qpap cryptA Levh?) 43 4Q251 (4QHalakha A) I 5  511–12 4Q252 (4QCommGen A)  479 4Q255 (4QSb) 84 9:7–8 90 4Q258 (4QSd) 84 1:6–7 90 4Q266 (4QDa) 5 II 1–3  511–12 4Q368 (4QApocryphal Pentateuch A / 4QapocrPent. A)  87, 99–100, 103–4 4Q370 (4QAdmonFlood)  86 4Q375 (Apocryphon of Moses / 4QapocrMosesa) 87 4Q376 (Apocryphon of Moses / 4QapocrMosesb) 87 4Q377 (Apocryphal Pentateuch B / 4QapocrPent. B)  87 4Q379 (4Q Apocryphon of Joshuab) 22 1–15  103 4Q408(Apocryphon of Moses / 4QapocrMosesc) 87 4Q524 (4Q Tb)  70–1, 210, 478 4Q534 (Birth of Noaha ar)  86 4Q535 (Birth of Noahb ar)  86 4Q536 (Birth of Noahc ar)  86 4Q542 (The Testament of Qahat / 4QTKohath (TQahat) ar)  86 4Q543 (Visions of Amrama ar)  86

4Q544 (Visions of Amramb ar)  86 4Q545 (Visions of Amramc ar)  86 4Q546 (Visions of Amramd ar)  86 4Q547 (Visions of Amrame ar)  86 4Q548 (Visions of Amramf ar)  86 4Q549 (Visions of Amramg ar)  86 4QMMT (“Some of the Works of the Law)  72, 299 4QPsuedo–Ezekiel 88 5Q1 (5QDeut)  44 6Q1 (6QpaleoGen)  42 6Q2 (6QpaleoLev)  42–3 7Q1 (7QpapLXXExod)  42–3, 46 11Q1 (11QpaeloLeva)  43, 53, 55 11Q19 (11QTa; The Temple Scroll; TS)  82–3, 102, 210, 478 II  86–7, 478 2:1–13:8 70 3–47 478 11–30 478 12–14 300 13:9–30:2 70 14 300 30:3–47:18 70 44:5 70 48–51 478 48:1–51:10 70 50:5–9 70 50:17 70 51:6 70 51:7 86–7 51:11–16 478 51:11–56:21 70 53:4–8 70 54:5–7 70 54:8–55:21 478 56–59 478 56:8b–11 478 56:12 86–7 56:21 89–90 56:20–21 70 57–59 70 57:1 89 59–66 70 59:7–10 70–1 59:10 89 60–66 478

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/12/2021, SPi

554   reference index Dead Sea Scrolls (cont.) 60:1–66:17 70 66 478 11Q20 (1QapGen ar)  210, 478–9 11Q21 (11QTc) 478 New Testament MATTHEW 7:12 507 LUKE 4:16–17 511–12 16:16 507–8

JOHN 1:14 515 1:17 515 HEBREWS 5–9 518 7:12 518–19 ACTS 7:53 515 13:13–15 511–12 REVELATION 12 189

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

Subject Index

For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages.

A

Aaron  11, 31–3, 36–7, 42, 49, 70, 125, 171–7, 201–2, 300, 348–9, 355–7, 365, 448, 469–70, 473–7, 484–7, 496, 498–9 Aaronide (Aaronite) Priesthood  300, 355, 411, 413, 486–7, 489, 512–16, 518–20 Abel 123–4 Abihu 486–7 Abijah 486 Abimelech  167, 192–3, 212, 410–11 Abisha Scroll, The  96 Abraham  26, 28, 30–1, 35, 47, 49, 54, 57, 61–2, 71–2, 86, 98, 126, 138–9, 151–2, 166, 168, 191–3, 200–1, 212–13, 216–22, 225, 227–30, 239–40, 258, 266, 269, 316–18, 322, 325–7, 331, 349–50, 355–6, 381–5, 399–402, 408, 410–12, 415, 444–5, 453–7, 464–5, 467, 474–5, 477–9, 484–6, 492, 499–500 Abram  61–2, 67, 98, 167, 192, 219, 227–9, 239–40, 385, 410, 448, 454–5, 486 Acculturation 111 Achaemenid Empire (See Persian Empire)  449–52, 454–5, 488–90 Achenbach, R.  28–31, 106, 246 Adam  61–2, 71–2, 124–5, 219–20, 267, 479 Adultery  72, 123, 192–3, 465, 470 Aeneas 500 Ahab 147–8 Aharoni, Y.  286 Ahimilki 410–11 Ahlström, G.W.  202 Ai, The Ruins of  197 Akiba, R.  135 Al–Aqsa Mosque, The  404–5

Albertz, R.  27, 415 Albright, W.F.  51–2, 422 Albright School, The  201 Aleppo Codex  44–5, 97 Alexandria  29–30, 68, 113–15, 118–19, 122, 135 Alexandrian Texts  99 Alt, A.  194–5, 197, 204, 303 Amalek  63, 499–500 Ambrose of Milan  137 Amel–Marduk 198 Ammon(ites)  66, 225, 269, 327, 410 Amorites 422 “Amorite Hypothesis”  422–3 Amphictyony  204–5, 287 Amram 88 Anatolia  328–9, 430 Anatolian Texts  400 Ancestral Law  67–72 Ancient Israelite Script  42–3 Ancient Near Eastern Socio-Historical Context  8–9, 83, 135, 189–90, 193, 201–4, 210, 277–8, 305, 315, 324, 327–30, 379, 401, 421 Assyria(ns)  153–4, 277–9, 285, 288–92, 306, 329–30, 332, 349–50, 391, 403, 406, 409–11, 413, 429–30, 443–4, 454, 492 Hittite  329–30, 434–5, 443–4 Hurrian 430 Mediterranean 430 Mesopotamian  349–50, 387–8, 391–2, 395–6, 400, 402–3, 407, 410, 422, 425, 513, 520 Philistine  225, 401, 410–11 Semitic 430 Syrian  225, 329–30, 430, 433 West Semitic  430

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

556   subject index Ancient Near Eastern Treaties  276 Esarhaddon Succession Treaty  380–1, 389–92 Hittite Treaties  287, 290 Mesopotamian Treaties  291 Neo–Assyrian Treaty Ceremony  388 Sefire Inscriptions  282, 290, 317 Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon  283–4, 287–92, 330 Ancient Near Eastern Law  364–5, 465–6, 507 Emar 330 Eshnunna Code  304, 330 Hammurabi  304–6, 330, 380–1, 385–9, 391 Hittite  304, 330 Meṣad (Metzad) Ḥ ashavyahu Ostracon  304–6, 328, 465–6 Mesopotamian  188–9, 304–5 Middle Assyrian  304 Ancient Near Eastern Language, and Literature  363, 379, 421 Arad Ostraca  406 Akkadian  317–18, 327–9, 381, 388–9, 422–3, 427 Assyrian 454 Assyrian Loyalty Oaths  26 Assyrian Royal Inscription  388–9 Atrahasis 393–4 Babylonian  51–2, 99, 350–2 Babylonian Astronomical Book, The  87 Gilgamesh (Babylonian Flood Tale)  224, 318–19, 324, 327, 365, 380–1, 392–5 Ebla Tablets  422 Eldad and Medad Tale  317 Enmesharra Myth  317 Enuma Elish  189, 394 Emar  430, 434–5 Gudea Inscriptions  436 Hatti 431 Hittite  422–3, 425, 427, 430–1, 434 Hittite–Hurrian  324, 328–9 Hurrian 433 Kadesh–Barnea Ostraca  406 Karum Kanish (Anatolian)  422 Kizzuwatna 430 Lachish Ostraca  406 Luwian 433 Malhata Ostraca  406

Mari Letters (Tablets)  329–30, 401 Mesopotamian  324, 328–30, 381–3, 385–6, 388–9, 391–2, 394–6, 405, 408, 410–11, 427, 430–1, 434 Myths of Heavenly Tablets  515 Neo–Babylonian Court Records  305 Nizzi Tablets  401 Phoenician Texts  327 Sabean Inscription  413 Samaria Ostraca  406 Sumerian  317, 328–9, 422–3 Sumerian Myth of Enki and Ninmah  394 Teberinths of Mamre  318 Ugaritic  316–18, 324, 327–9, 382–3, 430–1, 434 Kirta and Aqhat  380–3 Uza Ostraca  406 Andrew of St Victor  139 Andromachus 488–9 Angel of the Presence, The  86, 88 Antediluvian Period  45–7, 49, 54, 57, 86, 219–20 Antiochus III  67, 488–9 Antiochus IV Epiphanes  69 Antique Period  508, 511–12 Arabia(ns)  225, 413 Arabic Studies  157–8 Arad (Valley)  286, 327, 410 Aram–naharaim  168, 332 Aramaic  64, 67–8, 86, 105, 112–13, 120–1, 138, 212, 290, 315, 319–20, 327, 332, 350–2, 381, 451, 507–8 Arameans  332, 401, 408, 443 Archimedian Period  284 Aristeas 115 Aristotle 135 Aristobulus 69 Ark of the Covenant, The  167–8, 317, 346–7, 471, 509 Armana Period, The  414–15 Arpachshad  349–50, 479 Artaxerxes  63–5, 346, 443–4, 452 I  63–4, 346, 352, 446 II  63–4, 346, 446, 452 Asa 486 Asher, The Cult of  279 Ashdod 410–11

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

subject index   557 Ashurbanipal 410–11 Assur  105–6, 285, 291 “Assyrian Century”  411, 413 Assyriology 432–3 Astral Religion  189–90, 285 Astronomical Book, The  87–8 Astruc, J.  144, 238–9, 248, 255 Asylum  5–6, 166–7, 281, 309 Athens 119 Augustine of Hippo  137–9 De doctrina christiana (Doct. Ch.) 137 Augustus 499

B

b. Baba Batra 14B 136–7 Babel, The Tower of  61–2, 178, 394 Babylon(ian) Empire / Period  45, 64, 190, 266, 320–1, 330, 332–3, 347, 349–50, 382–3, 394, 399, 404, 406–7, 409, 421, 443–4, 456, 474, 492, 508 Baden, J.S.  84–5, 222, 229–30, 247 Balaam  62, 469–70 Baltzer, K.  287, 290 Bar Kochba Period  74 Barton, J.  10 Baruch Spinoza  140 Tractatus theologico–politicus 140 Beckman, G.  423 Beer–Sheba (Valley)  316, 403, 405–6, 411–13, 422 Behemoth 189 Beitin 409 Ben Sira  67, 319, 333, 513, 515, 519 Bell, C.  426 Benjamin 197 Berman, J.  290 Berner, C.  246–7 Berquist, J.  456 Besor 414–15 Beth–Shean 414–15 Beth–Zur 412–13 Bethel  10, 12–13, 316, 407–8, 410, 413–15, 422–3, 469 Bethlehem 137 Biblical Narrator, The  166, 170, 173, 178, 213–14, 292, 326 Blanc, L.F.G.  97

Blayney, B.  95–6 Bleek, F.  143–4, 147, 160 Blenkinsopp, J.  65 Blum, E.  6–7, 10, 12–13, 27–8, 35–6, 216, 221–2, 226–7, 245–8, 256, 263, 293, 355–7, 368, 408, 449 Book of Giants, The  86 Bottéro, J.  304–5 Braulik, G.  283 Bronze Age, The  400–1, 422 Early 400–1 Intermediate 400–1 Middle  388–9, 400–1, 414–15 Late  224, 290, 330, 401–4, 412, 414–15, 429–30 Brooke, G.  103

C

Caesar 499 Caesarea 135–6 Cain  98, 123–4, 219–20, 499–500 Caleb  36–7, 168, 200 Calendar  36, 66, 70–2, 325, 366–7, 423, 446–7, 450, 479 Seven Day Structure  189 Campbell, A.  374–5 Canaan(ites)  5, 25, 32, 48, 71–2, 138, 168–70, 216–20, 228–9, 255, 258, 265–6, 269–70, 312, 316, 349–50, 367, 384, 400–1, 412, 414–15, 422, 473 Socio-Historical Context  202, 412, 414–15 Language and Literature  315, 382–3 Canon  23, 79–81, 87–9, 154–5, 292, 519 Jewish  79, 112 Samaritan  47–8, 514 Castell, E.  98 Carion Cult, The  451 Carr, D.M.  83–5, 449 Centralization of the Cult  154, 180–1, 202–3, 209–10, 212, 265, 278–83, 285–6, 309–10, 316–17, 351, 455, 473–4 Chaldeans, The  153–4 Chavel, S.  6–7 Cholewiński, A.  263 Chronicler, The  298–9 Chronicles, The Book of  63, 89, 106, 154–5, 181, 210, 218, 319, 325, 347, 350–2

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

558   subject index Cicero 138 Circumcision  67, 71–2, 197, 261–4, 347, 474 Coats, G.W.  364–5 Codex A (Alexandrinus)  46 B (Vaticanus)  46 B.M.Or4445 44–5 C3 44–5 Jerusalem24o5702 44–5 Lugdunensis  50, 54 Monacensis 54 S (‫א‬, Sinaiticus)  46 Cognitive (Linguistics) Model  368–72 Colenso, J.W.  145 Commandments  48, 70–2, 89, 104–5, 168, 182–3, 196, 276–8, 280, 287–8, 292, 329–30, 356, 466, 468–9, 471–4, 478–9, 489, 507–9, 511–12, 515 Samaritan  48, 104–5 Community Rule  69–70 Comparative Mythology  189–90 Compiler, The (i.e.“Redactor,” “Collector”)  13, 83–5, 237, 239, 247, 352–3, 357 Conquest, The  14–15, 26, 28, 34–5, 62, 220–2, 226–7, 229–30, 242–3, 246–7, 260, 276–8, 283–4, 443–5, 448, 452–3, 455–6, 463, 467, 471, 491 Canaan  25, 37, 183–4, 401–2 of Exodus  229–30 of Idumea  71 Covenant Adam 266–7 Ancestral  28, 166, 216–19, 227–9, 257, 261, 264, 266–7, 269–70, 347, 355–7 According to Ben Sira  67 Ceremony 384–5 Concept of  69, 89, 154–5, 217, 219, 228–9, 276, 287–93, 317–19, 326, 329–30, 349, 466–9, 471–5, 507–8, 515 Horeb, At  5, 167, 169, 183, 467 Gibeonite 197 Holiness Code, The  264, 455 Joshua  444–5, 447–8 Levi 475 Moses 471 Noah 266–8 Oecumene, For The  218–19

Phineas  37, 455–6, 477, 487, 500 Semantics of  119–20 Sinai, At  31, 33, 63, 167, 183, 196, 219, 228, 266–7, 287–8, 354, 467, 508 Violations 388 Zedekiah 471 Covenant, The Book of The  145, 196, 282, 293, 297, 326 Covenant Code  5–7, 26, 211–12, 263, 276, 281–4, 297, 330, 364–5, 380–1, 384–9, 391–2, 395–6, 463, 465–7, 474 Covenant Renewal  106, 196, 200, 204, 467 Creation  31–2, 38, 61, 71–2, 86, 126, 166, 169, 182–3, 188–9, 195–7, 255, 257, 267–8, 365–6, 463, 466–7, 476, 479 Myths  327, 395 Creed (Historical Credo)  194–201, 204–5, 242–3 Croce, B.  368 Croesus 350 Cross, F.M.  45, 51–2, 99, 243, 256 Crown, A.D.  96 Crüsemann, F.  35–6, 449 Cryptic A Script  43 Crystallization Hypothesis, The  149 Cultural Memory  331–2, 452, 484 Curses  33, 50, 103, 183–4, 219–20, 283–5, 287–9, 349, 365, 380–1, 384, 388–91 Cyrus  350, 452

D

Daliyeh 351–2 Damascus  95, 332 Damascus Document  69–71, 90, 479 Daniel, The Character of  382–3 Darius 450 I  64, 449 II 65 Dating of the Pentateuch  181–2, 208–9, 225–6, 284, 315, 321, 345, 395–6, 465 David(ic Line)  147–8, 154, 401, 477, 488–9, 492–4, 497, 499, 501 City of  403–5, 491 Decalogue, The  5–6, 33, 42, 48, 123, 146, 167–8, 196, 211–12, 229, 263, 278, 311, 329–31, 355–6, 384, 388, 465, 467–9

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

subject index   559 Deir ‘Alla  351–2, 406, 410 Balaam Inscription  224 Deities (ANE / Foreign)  390–1, 434, 467–70 Anat 318–19 Aphrodite 318–19 Ares 318–19 Ashur 257 Babylonian 472–3 Chthonic (Underworld)  425, 427–8 El  317, 382–3, 408–9, 466 Elyon 317 Heavenly 427–8 Kronos 317 Ilu 317 Olympian 427–8 Mesopotamian 390–1 Marduk 317 Nintur/Ninḫursag 317 Sea (Yam)  317 Storm God (Baal/Addu)  317, 328, 383 de Lagarde, P.A.  51 Delitzsch, F.  155–6 della Valle, Pietro  95 Delos (The Aegan Island)  105 Demetrius of Phalera  46, 113–14 Demetrius the Chronographer  68 Fragment 6, Clement Strom 1.141.8 Demotic Chronicle, The  64, 449 de Pury, A.  222, 408 de Rossi, J.B.  51 Descartes 140 Desert Wandering (See Wilderness) 399, 401–2, 413–14, 465, 470, 474, 486–7 Deutero–Isaiah 320 Deuteronomistic Historical Collection (DHC) 494–7 Deuteronomistic History  15, 28–9, 34, 62, 198–201, 238, 243–6, 282–3, 285, 292, 510 Deuteronomic Law  5–7, 26, 65, 82–3, 116, 145, 180–1, 184–5, 198, 200–1, 264, 277–82, 297, 364–5, 448, 463, 467–9, 473–4 Dating of  391 De Vaux, R.  422–3 de Wette, W.M.  143–4, 152, 181, 202–3, 239–40, 265, 284–5, 302, 316 Diaskeue  145, 147, 156–9, 241, 246, 248–9

Diaspora  2, 72–4, 115, 352, 455–7, 473 Jewish Egyptian  116 Hellenistic 68 Dillmann, A.  150, 241–2 Dinah 156–7 Diodorus 64 Diodorus Siculus  449 Dionysius of Halicarnassus  488 Divine Names  28, 144, 169, 178–9, 191–2, 453–4, 456 Documentary Hypothesis, The (See also  Neo–Documentary Hypothesis, Source Criticism)  1–4, 6–7, 10–13, 27, 56–7, 84–5, 143, 165, 211, 213, 215, 228–31, 237–48, 256, 284, 301, 315, 352–3, 384–5, 463 Donner, H.  248 Dozeman, T.  371 Duhm, B.  149–50, 155–6 Dura Europos  105–6 Dušek, J.  105

E

editio major 96–7 Edom(ites)  71, 138, 199–200, 225, 269, 357, 409–10, 413 Eerdmans, B.D.  256 Egypt Biblical  12, 33, 35, 61–2, 66, 86, 116, 137, 171–8, 192, 195, 198–200, 204, 212–13, 228–9, 269–70, 298, 306–7, 317–18, 321, 325–6, 357, 367, 371–2, 390, 401–2, 415, 443, 446, 452–3, 456, 465, 470, 472–4, 485, 494, 497–9 Law  64, 74, 188–9, 449, 453, 501 Oppression in (See also Slavery)  177–8, 183, 195, 267, 307–8, 356–7, 414–15, 443, 452 Pharaoh  35, 167, 171–3, 192–3, 201–2, 256, 270, 317, 325–6 Amisis 64 Sheshonq I  415 Socio–Historical and Religious Context  29, 74, 111, 114–16, 118, 123, 348–9, 412, 414–15, 443–4, 446, 449–51, 511–13, 520 Texts and Language  42, 46, 51–2, 55, 99, 112, 119, 188–9, 324, 331, 414, 465–6, 513

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

560   subject index Ehud 496 Eißfeldt, O.  158–9, 242 Eichhorn, J.  144, 239 Eisenstadt, S.N.  451 El–Husn 408 El-Shaddai 453–4 El–Paran (Eliat)  413 Elephantine  65, 106, 319, 346, 357, 450–1, 454–6, 488–9, 493 Ahiqar Papyrus  224 Siloam Inscription  224 Eli 487 Elijah 147–8 Elliger, K.  35–6, 263 Elyashib 346 Embodied Cognitive Theory  426–9 “Empirical Models”  82–5, 90 En–Gedi  405, 410 En Hazeva  403, 413 En–Mishpat (Kadesh)  413 Engnell, I.  202–4 Enlightenment  9–10, 179–80 Enneateuch  14–15, 24–5, 27, 29–30, 62, 226, 467, 477 Enoch  88, 333, 477, 479 Ephraim  197, 448, 464–5, 486 Epigraphy  120, 209, 323, 327–8, 331, 347, 351–2 Alphabetic Texts  327–8 Esarhaddon 410–11 Esau  12–13, 101, 225, 259, 326, 352–3, 409–10, 477 Eschatology 103 Essene  72, 107 Esther, The Book of  319, 350–1 Eve  71–2, 219–20, 479 Ewald, H.  143–4, 147–9 Geschichte des Volkes Israel 149 Exile, The  5, 36, 145, 154, 198, 200–1, 346–7, 349, 351–2, 354, 429–30, 444–5, 493–4, 513, 515 Exodus, The  26, 28, 38, 62, 86–7, 183, 194–6, 199–200, 204, 222, 226–9, 242–3, 246–7, 257–9, 267–71, 298, 306–7, 321, 326, 331–3, 349, 365–7, 371–2, 399, 402, 408, 412–15, 463, 465, 467, 469–70, 484–5, 498–9 Second Exodus  485, 492, 499

Ezekiel the Tragedian  68 Ezekiel, The Character of  472–4 Ezra, The Character of  63–5, 107, 346, 355, 443–4, 446, 506–8, 510, 512–14, 520

F

Famine  212, 289, 443 Fantalkin, A.  348–9, 446, 452–3 Fayyum 42 Festivals  5–6, 70–2, 102, 154, 180, 182, 212, 279–80, 283–4, 423, 455, 478, 510 Annual  166–7, 203, 349 Festival of Booths (Tabernacles)  63, 65, 86, 445–7 Festival of Gentiles  71–2 Festivals of the Seventh Month  66 Festivals of Weeks, Firstfruits  86, 195–6, 199–200, 204, 478–9 Festival of Fresh Oil  102 Ordination of Priests  478 Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement / Purgation)  66, 260–1, 329, 349, 446–7, 511–12 Fine, G.A.  499–500 Firstborn, law of the  279–80 Fishbane, M.  66, 279–80 Fitzpatrick–Mckinley, A.  306 Flood, The  9–11, 47, 49, 54, 57, 86, 124–5, 151, 177–8, 257, 268, 306–7, 318, 365–6, 392–5, 466, 498 Florentin, M.  97 Form Criticism  3–4, 10–11, 188, 209, 242–3, 303, 315, 363, 430–1 Formalism 373 Fortschreibung  13, 83–4, 210, 246–7 Fragmentary Hypothesis, The  149–50, 211, 215, 230–1, 239, 463 Frei, P.  64, 449–51 Fried, L.  451–2

G

Galilee 516 Garden of Eden, The  318, 393–4 Myths 395 Geddes, A.  239 Geiger, A.  248–9 Gender Studies  2

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

subject index   561 Genealogy  35, 54, 57, 124–5, 200, 218–19, 221–2, 228, 355, 464–5, 474, 477 Genette, G.  364 Genre (Gattungen)  8, 191, 195–6, 208–9, 297, 379, 423, 495, 519–20 ad hoc legal exegesis (oracular novella) 365 Apodictic Law  364–5 Assyrian Annals  366, 368, 371–2 Casuistic Law  364–5, 384 Epic  365, 476 Etiology  197, 365–6, 408, 468–9 Genealogy 366–7 Greek and Roman  363 Itinerary  366–9, 371–2, 374–5 King List  366–7 Legend 365 Myth 365–6 Novella  365, 368–9 Pentateuchal Codes  301 Ritual 430–1 “Descriptive Ritual”  431 “Instrumental Ritual”  423 Reports (Anecdotes)  365 Rewritten Scripture (Bible)  4, 210, 218, 230–1, 280, 479 Saga  191–8, 201–2, 204–5, 365, 368, 464 Torah 364 Treaty 365 George, J.F.L.  144 Gerar  212, 410–11 Gerleman, G.  98–9 Gertz, J.C.  228, 355–6 Gesenius, W.  98–9 Gesundheit, S.  7 Gibeon–Gibeah 415 Gibeonites, The  197 Gihon Spring, The  404–6 Gilders, W.K.  425–6, 428 Gilead  402–3, 408–9 Gilgal  195–7, 204–5 Glueck, N.  422 Goethe, J.W.  237 Golah, The  266, 453, 472–3 Golden Calf, The  326, 486–7, 494 Goldman, Liora  87 Gonzalez, H.  106

Gordon, C.  401 Gospels, The  139, 239–40, 248 Graf Hypothesis, The  145–6 Graf, K.H.  143, 240–2, 262–3, 363 Graham, W.A.  519–20 Greek Language and Literature  451, 514, 520 Archaic Greek  116, 119 Classical Greek  116, 119–20 Koiné Greek  116–18, 122, 127 Greek Pentateuch  23, 46, 111 Gressmann, H.  194–5 Grundschrift  143–6, 150, 178–9, 221, 256, 258, 265, 430 Grünwaldt, K.  262–4 Gulf of Aqaba  414 Gunkel, H.  189–97, 201–2, 204–5, 221, 242–3, 363–4, 366–9, 371–5

H

Hadad 138 Hagai 63 Hagar  258, 384 Hagedorn, A.  454, 456 Haggai 320 Halakah (See Halakic) Halakic  69–74, 299, 474, 478–9 Ham 268 Haran  138–9, 217, 219, 408 Haran, M.  351 Harmonization  7, 43–50, 52, 55–6, 70, 100, 103–4, 125, 172–3, 180, 209–12, 238–41, 243, 248, 263–4, 280, 298–300, 310–11, 516 Harmony, Social Ideology of  454 Hasmonean Period  69–72, 74–5, 214, 403–4, 511–14, 520 Alexander Jannaeus, King  72 Hatra 105–6 Hays, C.B.  379 Hazazon–Tamar 413 Hazor 388–9 Hebraica veritas 137–9 Hebrew Consonantal Text  44–5, 49, 56, 81–2, 122, 124–5, 127 Hebron  200, 401, 405, 410, 412–13, 422–3 Hecataeus Abdera apud Diodorus Siculus, Hist 67

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

562   subject index Hegelian Philosophy  146 Hellenistic Period  7, 23, 63, 67, 72, 95, 104–5, 111, 116, 118–19, 127, 333, 399, 401–4, 407, 410–11, 413, 415, 449–50, 463, 484, 510–12 Amphorae 69 Language & Literature  8–9, 64, 68, 73, 117, 119, 126, 306, 451, 479–80 Socio–Historical Context  74, 113–14, 135, 456–7, 513–15, 520 Hensel, B.  107 Herakleopolis 115 Herod  69, 516 Herodian Period  45 Herzog, Z.  286–7 Hesiod 154–5 Hexapla 135–6 Hexateuch  14–15, 24–5, 27–30, 36, 62, 106, 143–7, 152, 156–7, 159, 194–9, 205, 226, 230, 239–43, 246, 345, 444–9, 453–4, 456–7, 469, 495–7 Hezekiah  279, 283, 286–8, 292, 486 High Priesthood  37, 72, 87, 348–9, 406, 450–1, 475–6, 512–15 Aaron  201–2, 348, 513 Eleazar  37, 113, 355, 448, 474 Phineas 37 Jehohanan (Johanan)  346, 357, 450–1 Joida 357 Menelaus 69 “Higher” Criticism  81–2, 136, 209 Hilkia 284 Hippocrates 138 Historical Reconstruction  209, 222, 379–80 Historiography  25–6, 154, 204–5, 215, 227, 324–5, 401–2 History of Religions School  188 Hittitology 432–3 Hoftijzer, J.  216, 228–9 Holiness Code, The  38, 152, 199, 255, 262–5, 271, 279–80, 297, 325, 349, 354, 364–5, 446–8, 450, 455–6, 468, 472, 474 Ḥ olon 95 Homer  113, 115, 119, 121, 135 Iliad, The  104, 121, 226–7, 318–19 Horeb  6–7, 168, 183, 212, 277–8, 283–4, 293, 311–12, 383, 467–9 Houston, W.  107

Humanism 140 Hupfeld, H.  144, 149, 239–42 Hurvitz, A.  319, 350–2

I

Ibn Ezra, Abraham  138–40, 171 Idolatry  71–2, 180–1, 290, 469, 472–3, 478 Idumeans  69, 71 Ilgen, K.D.  144, 239 Intermarriage  65–6, 453, 500 Irenaeus  506–7, 517–18, 520 Adversus haereses 517 Iron Age, The  8–9, 399, 401–4, 406–11, 413–15 I  401, 407, 409, 415 IIA  407, 409 IIB–C  403–7, 409–10, 413 Isaac  47, 61–2, 101, 125, 167, 178, 191–3, 200, 212–13, 216–24, 258, 269, 316, 322, 384, 410–11, 455–7, 464–7, 477, 484–5 Isaiah, The Prophet  292, 474–5 Ishmael(ites)  216–19, 225, 227–30, 258, 269, 384, 411, 477 Ishmael, R.  135 Issachar 98 Ituraeans 69

J

Jabbok Valley, The  408–9 Jackson, B.S.  303–4 Jacob  10, 12–13, 26, 34–5, 37, 47, 49–50, 61–2, 81, 84, 101, 103, 125, 166, 177–8, 200, 218–21, 223–5, 228–9, 256, 258–9, 316–19, 327, 352–3, 357, 402, 408–12, 455–7, 464–7, 475, 477, 479, 484–5, 515 Japhet(h)  268, 350 Jastram, N.  103 Jauss, H.R.  373–5 Jay, N.  426 Jebel Ramm  105–6 Jehoiachin 198 Jeremiah, The Character of  470–2 Jericho  103, 276–7, 405 Destruction of  197 Jeroboam  486–7, 494 I 409 II  402–3, 409, 413–14, 416 Jerome  45, 137–9

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

subject index   563 Jerusalem  5, 25, 45–6, 50, 63–5, 67, 69, 74, 103, 105–7, 113, 115, 136–7, 154, 181–2, 203, 216, 265, 279, 283, 285–6, 299, 316–17, 327, 346–9, 391, 403–7, 409–10, 413, 415–16, 446–8, 450–1, 455–7, 464, 466, 469–73, 475, 486–9, 492–5, 497, 510–14 Jesus  515, 517–18 Jesus Ben Sira (See Ben Sira) Jethro  357, 452 Jezreel Valley  402–3 Joash 402–3 Job, The Character of  382–3 John Hyrcanus  48, 69–71, 512–13 Joosten, J.  262–3 Jordan  62, 105–6, 183–4, 197, 276–7 Joseph  14–15, 32, 34, 37, 138–9, 151–2, 200, 220–1, 242–3, 246–7, 256, 325–6, 333, 365, 464–5, 488–9, 495–6, 499 Bones  14–15, 496 Joseph and Aseneth  68, 479 Josephus  69, 72–4, 80–1, 138, 479, 511–12 Ag. Ap.  61, 72, 507–8, 511–12 AJ 511–12 Ant.  69, 72, 123, 348–9, 512–13 Jewish Antiquities 124–5 Jewish War  102 Joshua (character)  62–3, 136–7, 168, 191, 197, 243, 292, 444–5, 448, 468–9, 490–1, 495–7, 508 Joshua Son of Jozadak  512–13 Josiah  63, 145, 153, 181, 283–5, 292, 298–9, 302, 316, 486, 508, 510 Josianic Reform  202–3, 265, 285–6, 290, 302–3, 316, 510 Jubilee Year, The  169–70, 182 Judah (character)  138–9, 225 Judah haNasi  506–7, 516–18, 520 Judah Maccabee  506–7, 511–12, 514, 520 Judaism  79, 111–12, 153–5, 347, 350–1, 478, 485–6, 516–17 Alexandrian  114–15, 118, 120, 126–7 Hellenistic  72–3, 111, 113, 121, 449–50 Palestinian 114 Persian (Late)  449–50, 512 Post–Biblical 126–7 Postexilic 154 Second Temple  61, 79

Judas 69 Judean Desert  4, 42–6, 51, 53–4, 74, 79–80, 319, 331, 410 Jülicher, A.  157–8

K

Kadesh, The Pericope of  36–7, 357 Kadesh–Barnea  403, 411, 413 Kahle, P.  51, 98–9 Kainan 124–5 Kapelrud, A.S.  202 Kaufman, S.  84 Kaufman, Y.  351, 431 Kayser, A.  157 Kennicott, B.  51, 95–6 Kessler, R.  3–4 Ketef Ḥ innom  42, 328, 351–2, 406–7, 466 Ketiv–Qere 45 Khirbet el–Qom  225–6 Khnum 443–4 Kim, D.H.  352 Klostermann, A.  262 Knauf, A.  411 Knierim, R.P.  368–9 Knight, D.A.  303–4, 370–1 Knobel, A.  147–8, 262–3 Knohl, I.  35–6, 263–4, 350–1, 353–4 Knoppers, G.  106–7, 490 Koch, C.  291 Koch, K.  430–1 Köckert, M.  216, 221–2 Korac 136–7 Korah Rebellion  474 Kratz, R.  25, 29, 83, 106 Kuenen, A.  13, 143, 240–2, 246–7, 262–3 Kugel, J.  71, 298 Kuntillet ‘Arjud  225–6, 278–9, 319, 323, 406, 409–10, 413–14 Mesha Stela  319, 332, 402–3 Theophany Inscription  224

L

Laban  225, 256, 318, 408 Labayu 414–15 Lachish 327–8 Lambert, W.G.  427 Lange, A.  54

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

564   subject index Leah  49–50, 103 LeFabvre, M.  66 Leningrad Codex  44–5, 97 Lentopolis 114 Leontopolis 512–13 Letter of Aristeas, The  46, 68, 113–14, 443–4, 511–12, 515–16 Levant, The  327–9, 400, 408 Levi  86, 88, 102, 156–7 Levites  36, 66, 86, 116, 125, 143–4, 182–4, 276, 285, 299–300, 317, 324, 348, 455–6, 473–4, 477–8, 501, 509–10, 513 Leviathan 189 Levin, C.  222, 245 Levine, B.A.  431 Levinson, B.M.  106, 279–80, 291, 311 Lidbar 409 Lightfoot, J.  98 Literary Criticism  2, 148–9, 159–60, 170, 190, 201–2, 209, 211, 215, 222–3, 226, 228, 282–3, 290, 305–8, 363, 365, 367–8, 425–6 Literati  371, 405, 407 of Yehud (Late Persian/Early Hellenistic)  484, 486–500 Lohfink, N.  282–3 Lot  191–2, 219–20, 223–5, 229, 258, 410 “Lower” Criticism  81–2 Lycian Language  451 Lyon 517

M

Maccabees 512–13 Maccabean Reconstruction  24 Maccabean Revolt  67, 69 MacDonald, N.  5 Machpelah 410 Magen 105 Magicians 173 Mahanaim 408–9 Maimonides, M.  421 Mallowan, M.E.L.  288 Malul, M.  429 Mamre  410, 415 Manasseh  292, 464–5, 486 Marquis (Feldman), Liane  7 Marriage  73, 281

Marxism 373 Masada 45 Martin Luther  139 Masoretes, The  45–6, 122, 124 Mathusalem 124–5 Mattathias 69 Mazar, B .  401 McCarter, K.  401 Mechanical Mosaic Hypothesis  157–60 Medes 350 Megiddo 414–15 Megitto 224 Mehetabel 138 Memory Studies  2, 484 Mendels, D.  71 Meshel, N.S.  427–8 “Method of Subtraction”  209 Mezuzot  53, 509 Micah 329–30 Middle Ages, The  138–9, 181, 345 Midianites  200, 355 Milgrom, J.  35–6 Miller, J.L.  434 Miriam  102, 469–70 Misgav 105 Mishnah  511–12, 516–20 Mizpah  405, 408 Mizpeh Gilead  332 Moab(ites)  15, 34–5, 37, 66, 183–4, 212, 225, 269, 276–7, 312, 327, 410, 455, 472–3 Modrezjewski, M.  74 Monarchy  5, 143–4, 148, 180–1, 196–8, 201, 278, 320, 326, 333, 348, 401–2, 411–14, 456–7 Monarchic Period  144, 147, 180–1, 188, 194, 196, 200–1, 203–4, 265, 351–2, 409–10, 416, 510 Monotheism  68, 146, 278–9, 318, 453–4, 466, 476 Moore, G.F.  248 Moses Authorship, Authority, and Torah of  9–10, 51, 62–3, 65–8, 73–4, 79, 102, 106, 111–12, 127, 136–8, 140, 153–4, 238–9, 248, 278, 346, 443–52, 455–7, 468–9, 471–2, 475–6, 478, 484–5, 495, 507, 515

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

subject index   565 Character of  11–12, 14–15, 26, 28, 31–3, 36, 49, 67, 70, 79, 100, 103–4, 111, 119, 126, 138, 146, 165, 191, 194–5, 198, 203, 212, 256, 278, 283–4, 292, 311–12, 316–19, 321, 325–7, 346–7, 355–7, 371–2, 414–15, 445–6, 452–3, 463, 467–74, 477, 479, 484–7, 490–500, 509, 515, 518 Birth of  31, 326, 388–9 Blessing of  37 Death of  15, 30, 32, 36–7, 61–2, 136–7, 260, 270, 277, 293, 490, 495–6 Orations  6, 15, 32–3, 36, 49–50, 87, 276–7, 365, 472–3, 508 Prophet  30–1, 100–1, 103–4, 445–6, 470, 475–6, 484–7, 494–5 Revelation  11, 35–6, 71–2, 101, 166–71, 228–9, 263–4, 326, 388, 435–6, 445–6, 479 Status of  14–15, 31 Mount Ebal  50, 448 Mount Gerizim  48, 50, 95, 104–7, 209–10, 214, 279, 357, 448, 450–1, 455–6, 486, 488–9, 493 Mount Hor  357 Mount Moriah  486 Mount Sinai  27–8, 33–6, 38, 62, 70, 79–80, 88–90, 105–6, 151–2, 167, 182–3, 195–6, 198–200, 212, 219, 228–9, 242–3, 266, 317–18, 326, 354, 413, 436, 463, 472–3, 484–5, 498–9 Mowinckel, S.  202 Muilenburg, J.  367–8 “Münster” Model  25, 216 Murder  123, 166–7, 182, 348–9, 387, 428, 470

N

Na’aman, N.  286–7 Nabatea 74 Nablus 96 Nadav 486–7 Naḥ al Ḥ ever 45 Najman, H.  89 Nash Papyrus  42, 44, 47, 53, 123–4 Nebuchadnezzar  288–9, 404 Negev, The  412–13, 422 Nehemiah, The Character of  65, 107, 346, 348, 357, 445, 513

Neith 451 Neo–Assyrian Period  306, 329–30, 332, 381, 385–6, 391–2, 395–6 Neo–Babylonian Period  8–9, 349–50, 381, 436, 464, 492 Neo–Documentary Hypothesis (See also See also Documentary Hypothesis, Source Criticism)  1–2, 11–15, 29–30, 83–4, 143, 165, 188–9, 215, 237–48, 379 New Historicism  372–3 New Testament  80–1, 159–60, 189, 479, 484–5, 511–12, 517–20 Newsom, C.A.  89–90 Nicholas of Lyra  139 Postillae 139 Nielsen, E.  202 Nihan, C.  33–6, 106, 260–1, 263–4 Ninevah 288–9 Noah  9–10, 47, 57, 67, 86, 124–5, 166, 168, 257, 266–8, 330–1, 366, 382–3, 477–9 Nöldeke, T.  150, 157, 256, 260, 265 Northern Kingdom  25 Noth, M.  12, 62, 194, 197–205, 221, 238, 243–5, 260, 285, 292 Numbers 23–5 Nyberg, H.S.  202

O

Octateuch 14–15 Odyssey, The  104, 226–7 offerings 513 Burnt offering  48, 63, 102, 347, 427–8, 430 Expiatory offering  428 Free–will offering  102 Guilt offering  62–3, 427–8 Meal offering  347, 450–1 Ordination offering  427–8 Thank offerings  102 Well–Being offering  427–8, 430 Wood offering  65, 81, 102 Old Greek  46, 53, 112–13 Old Latin  54 Olrick, A.  202 Olyan, S.M.  425–6 Omrides, The  402–3, 409 Oniad Dynasty, The  512–14 Onias IV  114

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

566   subject index Oort, H.  156–7 Orality  12–13, 42, 97, 147–9, 151, 154–5, 177–8, 182, 185, 188, 209–10, 216, 224, 243–4, 303–4, 323–4, 326, 332–3, 371–3, 375, 380–1, 401–2, 408, 411, 415–16, 449, 478, 508, 516, 518 Origen  135–9, 243–4, 507–8 De Principiis 135–6 Letter to Africanus  136 Orthography  47–8, 99, 331, 432–3 Otto, E.  5, 26, 28–31, 35–6, 106, 246, 260–4, 283–4, 291, 303, 310–11, 446

P

P. Rylands Gk.  115 Paddan–Aram  81, 101 Pakkala, J.  5, 65 Paleography  42, 45, 55–6, 432–3 Paleo–Hebrew Script  42–3, 48–9 Palestine Socio–Historical Context  114, 351–2, 400, 488–9 Syrian–Palestinian Context  225 Texts  45, 49, 51–2, 55, 99 Palmyra 105–6 Pan–Israelite Perspective  221–4, 448 Papyrus Giessen 19  50, 54 Papyrus Fouad  112, 115 Parthian Period  64 Passover (Pesah)  33–4, 65, 86, 102, 120–1, 169–70, 200–3, 261–4, 298–9, 447, 450, 474, 479, 501, 508, 510 Passover Papyrus (Letter)  65, 450 Patriarchal Cycles, The  242–3, 411–12, 467 Abraham–Lot Cycle  222–4 Abraham–Lot–Isaac Cycle  221–2 Abram Cycle  67 Isaac–Jacob–Esau–Laban Cycle  221–3 Jacob Cycle  399, 401, 408–12, 415 Jacob–Esau–Laban–Esau Cycle  222 Patriarchs, The  8, 11–12, 14–15, 25–6, 28, 30–3, 35, 47, 49, 54, 61–2, 86, 116, 146, 151–2, 154–5, 177–8, 183, 200, 218–30, 242–3, 246, 268–71, 292, 326–7, 332, 352–3, 365, 380–3, 385–6, 399–402, 408–9, 411–12, 463–7, 472–3, 477, 484–5, 498–9 Patrick, D.  306–7

Paul, Letters of  517–18 Pederson, J.  201–2 Peirce, C.S.  425–6 Penitential Prayer  467 Penuel  408–10, 413–15 Pericle’s Athens  453 Perlitt, L.  260–1, 283, 287–8, 293 Persepolis 456 Persian Empire (Period)  7–9, 23, 29, 63–7, 95, 104–5, 107, 138, 266, 283, 319–21, 326, 330, 333, 346, 348–53, 381, 399, 401–4, 406–7, 409–13, 415, 429–30, 432, 443–6, 449–56, 463, 484, 510–15, 520 Imperial Ideology  266, 270, 443 Law  443–4, 449 Text and Language  270, 350–2, 443–4, 449–50 Peshitta  45, 123–4 Post-Colonial Studies  444, 452–6 Pharisees  72, 516 Pharos, The Island of  113 Philo  68, 72–4, 111, 113, 115, 127, 138, 479 Abr. 507–8 Aet 61 Decal. 123 Hypothetica  72–3, 511–12 Opif. 3 73 Prob. 511–12 Somn. 511–12 Philo of Alexandria  511 Philo of Byblos  317 Philocrates 113 Pietsch, M.  285–6 Piety 195–6 Plagues, The  12, 246–7, 257, 326, 331, 355–6, 424 Blood, The  170–85, 326 Death of the Firstborn  331 Pestilence 331 Plato  135, 138 Timeus 126 Pola, T.  27–8, 260–2 Polak, F.  352 Political Allegory  4–5 Polytheism 146 Polzin, R.  352 Popović, Mladen  88 Popper, J.  145–7, 156–9, 240–1, 246, 248–50

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

subject index   567 Practice Theory  426 Pre–Samaritan Texts  45–6, 48–50, 53, 99–105, 214 Primary History Collection (PHC; Gen – 2 Kings) 494–5 Primeval History  15, 61–2, 86, 154, 196–7, 219–21, 223–30, 242–4, 246, 257–60, 267–71, 350, 352–3 Priestly Code, The  89, 143–4, 147, 150, 152–5, 182–3, 240–3, 245–7, 301–2, 466–7, 473–4, 476 Dating of  240–1, 247 Primordial History  87–8, 380–3, 392–5, 476, 478 Prophecy  88, 100–1, 154–5 Prophetess Huldah  285, 292, 471–2 Prophets  30–1, 62, 74, 114, 135, 146–8, 154, 199, 278, 285–7, 456–7, 464, 468–76, 484–5, 491–2, 517–18 False 472 Former, The  29, 32, 107, 197, 241–3, 282–3, 292, 448, 452–3, 468–9 Latter, The  107 Proto–Masoretic Text  44–5, 55 Proto–Pentateuch  24–5, 84, 455–6 Proverbs 62–3 Psalms  24, 35, 61, 319 Pseudepigraphy  113, 280, 316 Psuedo-Philo 487 Ptolemies, The  114–15, 119, 126, 488–9, 511–12 Ptolemy 112–15 Letters to Flora  61 Ptolemy II Philadelphus  68, 114, 443–4 Ptolemy IV  68 Puech, É.  70–1 Pummer, R.  98, 106–7 Purity  69–70, 72

Q

Qarqar, The Battle of  402–3 Qumran 67–8

R

Rabbi Isaac ibn Yashush (Isaac Abu Ibrahim) 138 Rachel  49–50, 103 Rahab  189, 197

Ramoth–Gilead 409 Rajak, T.  68 Ramat Rahel  405 Rashi  139, 171, 181 Rebekah  101, 126, 167, 193, 212–13, 223, 258 Reception History  1, 87, 373 Redaction  28, 157–8, 200–1, 208, 237, 257, 259, 354, 356–7, 387–8, 412–13, 432, 464–5 Global 31 of Deuteronomy  30, 36, 150, 157, 238, 240–1, 243, 246, 276, 282–4, 292–3, 333, 355–6 of the Hexateuch  30–1, 106, 144, 221, 226, 241, 245–8, 283–4, 355–8 of Jubilees  71 of the Priestly Material  255–75, 333 of the Pentateuch  10–14, 31, 36, 83, 85, 88–9, 151–2, 170, 226, 263, 283–4, 358, 446, 448, 455 of the Prophetic Writings  469–70 of the Samaritan Pentateuch  239 Redaction Criticism  1, 27, 83–5, 143, 205, 209, 215, 237, 282, 315, 363–4, 371–2, 374–5 Redford, D.B.  414–15 Rehoboam 486 Rendtorff, R.  3–4, 10–12, 205, 226, 244–6, 256, 430–1 Reuben 102 Reuss, E.  144–5 Revelation  31–2, 35–6, 62–3, 70–2, 86–91, 101 Rhetoric  5, 327 Rhetorical Criticism  367–8 Rhind Mathematical Papyrus  368–9 Rhodes 119 Ringgren, H.  202 Ritual Studies  2, 421 Ritualization  426, 436–7, 508–12, 516–20 Roman Period, The  348–9, 520 Administration  512, 516 Early  72, 74 Römer, T.  23–5, 28–31, 222 Romulus 499 Rose, M.  283 Rosenzweig, F.  237 Rost, L.  205 Rudolph, W.  158, 242 Ruwe, A.  263

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

568   subject index

S

Sabbath  7, 66–7, 69, 71–2, 124, 180, 182, 263, 298, 309, 347, 356, 471–3, 475, 479, 511–12 Sabbatical Year, The  166–7, 182, 282 Sadaqa, A. and R.  96 Sadducees 72 Salome Alexandra  72 Salvation 37–8 Samaria(ns)  29, 68, 105–8, 225, 278–9, 327, 346, 357, 411–15, 443–4, 447–51, 453–4, 456–7, 486–90, 492–3, 496–7, 500, 512–14 Samaritan Pentateuch (SP)  8–9, 41, 70, 80–2, 95, 123–5, 208–12, 214, 248–9, 279, 331, 448, 486, 489 Samaritans, The  41, 80–1, 95, 214, 279, 448, 479, 486–7, 493, 506–7, 512–16, 518–20 Samaritan Book of Joshua  496–7 Samaritan Tenth Commandment  104–5, 489 Chronicles of Abu ‘l-Fatḥ 496–7 Samuel, The Character of  198, 243 Sanaballat 357 Sanctuary (See Temple, Tent of Meeting, Tabernacle, Centralization of the Cult)  27–8, 33–4, 36, 48, 50, 70, 107, 219, 228–9, 260–1, 265–7, 279–81, 283, 285–6, 299–300, 306–7, 309, 316–17, 354, 357, 368, 371–2, 408–9, 411, 470, 478, 487 Sanders, S.L.  83–4 Sanderson, Judith  100–1 Sarah  86, 192–3, 212–13, 216–19, 229, 239–40, 258, 318, 331, 464–5 Sarai  167, 216–17, 219, 239–40 Sargon of Agade  388–9 Satrapy  64–5, 443–4, 446, 449–51, 456 Arsames 450 Pixodarus 451 Saul  147–8, 409 Sayings of Pseudo–Phocylides 73 Schaper, J.  65–6 Schenker, A.  50 Scherer, W.  190 Schiffman, L.  72 Schmid, H.H.  244 Schmid, K.  29–30, 374–5, 449–50

Schniedewind, W.M.  351–2 Schorch, Stefan  96–7 Scribal Activity  8–9, 24–5, 42, 47–57, 64, 100, 102, 106, 116–18, 124–5, 211, 239, 241, 262–3, 271, 300–1, 305–6, 308, 311, 315, 320–1, 323–4, 331–2, 351–2, 373–5, 381, 391–2, 396, 403, 449, 463–5, 467–74, 476–8, 516 Akkadian 381 Biblical Scribe  443–4, 449–50, 513 Babylonian 406–7 Covenant Code School  391–2, 396 Deuteronomic School  391–2, 396, 468–70 Hebrew 381–3 Hellenistic Period  104, 320–1, 403–4, 407 Hittite 433–4 Iron Age  403–4, 407 Jerusalem  106–7, 115 Jewish 80–1 Judean  64, 406 Mesopotamian 381 Monarchic Period Schools  351–2 Near Eastern  380 Persian Period  104, 320–1, 406–7, 412–13 Priestly  182, 432–6, 468, 471, 477 Samarian 107 Scribal Schools (Other)  224 Second Temple  82–5, 88–9, 91 Trito–Isaiah 475–6 scriptio defective 98 scriptio plena 98 Scripturalization  485, 508, 510–16, 519–20 Sea Monster Motif  189–90 Sea of Reeds  474 Serekh ha–Yahud 90 Second Isaiah  190 Second Temple, The  347, 436–7, 473–5, 478, 512–14 Period  43, 79, 463, 467–8, 473, 475, 493, 498, 500, 508, 511, 513–16 Literature  50–1, 53, 84, 280, 478–9, 516 Segal, M.  71 Seleucids  69, 488–9, 512 Sennacherib  283, 286, 330, 403 Septuagint, The (LXX)  8–9, 41, 61, 68–9, 80–2, 98–100, 103, 111, 135–7, 208, 210–11, 248–9, 276, 443–4, 455, 478, 496, 507, 511–12, 516

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

subject index   569 Seth  124–5, 479 Seventh–Year Release  5–6 Sexual Behavior  68, 72–3, 182 Sh’ma  42, 124, 282 Shabbat  120–1, 365 Shalmaneser III  402–3 Shechem  71–2, 106, 156–7, 196, 204–5, 316, 357, 414–15, 422–3, 447–8, 496–7 Shechem MS 6  96–7 Shechem–Tirzah 415 Shem  268, 479 Shephelah, The  403, 405, 414–15 Sheshonq I List  409 Shilo 487 Shils, E.  424 Shimon bar Onias  477 Shoulson, M.  97 Shumu’il 411 Sihon 200 Simeon  102, 156–7 Sin  29, 32–3, 192, 329, 390, 467, 472–3, 486–7, 492, 494, 496, 498, 510 Sinai Pericope, The  30–3, 35, 86, 196–7, 209–10, 219, 240–2, 263–4, 266–7, 293, 333 Sirach, the Book of  114 Sitz im Leben (Life Setting)  191, 193, 195–6, 363 Sister–Wife Stories  191–2, 365, 410–11 Ska, J.L.  260–1 Skehan, P.W.  99–100, 104–5 Slavery and Manumission (See also: Oppression in Egypt)  5–6, 166–7, 169–70, 177–8, 182, 261, 281–2, 307–8, 325–6, 384–7, 471, 474 Smend, R.  242–3, 363 Smith, A.  455 Smith, G.  327 Smith, J.Z.  426, 428 Smith, W.R.  153, 157–8 Snoek, J.  422 Sodom 223–4 Sodom and Gomorrah  318, 475 Solomon  198, 282, 347 Song of Miriam, The  55–6, 81, 102 Song of Moses, The  102, 124, 317, 324 Song of Songs  116, 350–1

Source Criticism  27, 83–5, 143, 165, 190–4, 197–8, 201–3, 205, 219, 238, 241–8, 352–3, 363–4, 371–2 Source Hypothesis, The (See Documentary Hypothesis, Neo–Documentary Hypothesis, Source Criticism) Source Sigla (A, C, Q, Rj, DtrD, etc.)  150–3, 156–7, 179–80, 182–3, 241, 245, 319, 353, 355–7, 430, 467–9 Sources, The  143, 381, 385 Deuteronomic Source (D)  1, 9, 14–15, 26, 32, 56–7, 143, 165, 188, 197–8, 201–3, 221, 226, 240–5, 276, 301–2, 312, 355–8, 380–1, 388–92, 395–6, 430, 448, 453–6 Dating of  283–90, 293, 355–8, 391 Elohistic Source, The (E)  1, 9, 11–15, 56–7, 143, 165, 188–9, 191–4, 196–8, 200–1, 203, 215–16, 219, 221, 226, 239–44, 284, 301, 307–8, 312, 355–6, 384 Dating of  355–8 Holiness Legislation (School) (H)  6–9, 13–14, 35–6, 65, 212, 261–6, 297, 350–1, 353, 365, 430–2, 447–8, 453–6, 475–6 Priestly Source, The (P)  1, 8–9, 12–15, 27–8, 32, 35–6, 56–7, 65, 143, 165, 188, 190, 196–8, 200–3, 215–19, 223, 226, 240–1, 245–7, 255–75, 284, 293, 297, 301–2, 306–7, 319, 326, 328, 350–3, 383–4, 392, 421, 448–9, 453–5, 473–6 Dating of  5, 146, 265–6, 350–5, 421–2, 429–36 Yahwistic Source, The (J)  1, 9, 11–15, 56–7, 143, 165, 188–9, 191–4, 196–8, 200–1, 203, 215–16, 219, 221, 226, 240–5, 259–60, 284, 301, 318, 355–6, 380–1, 384, 392–5 Dating of  244, 355–8 Yehowist Source (JE), The  143–4, 150–3, 157, 200–1, 215–16, 219, 221, 226, 240–2, 301–2, 355–6 Dating of  355–8 Sparks, K.  369 Speiser, E.  401 Spy Stories, The  467 St Petersburg Codex  44–5

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

570   subject index Stackert, J.  82–4 Staal, F.  425 Steck, O.  89–90 Sterlig, G.  73 Steuernagel, C.  283, 330 Steymans, H.U.  280, 288–9 Story of Susanna, The  136 Studer, G.L.  241–2 Commentary of Judges  241–2 Sukkot (See Festival of Booths)  102, 169–70, 508, 510–12 Sullivan, S.J.  97 Sumatar Harabesi  105–6 Supplementary Hypothesis, The  143–4, 149–50, 156–9, 211, 215, 230–1, 239, 244, 246–7, 311 Susa 456 Sussman, J.  72 Synagogue  140, 516, 518 Karaite 44–5 Late Antique Period  511–12 Rabbinic 517 Services 506 Samaritan 96 Shechem 97 Synagogue Inscriptions  105–6 Syncretism 473–4 Syro/Syria–Canaan  330, 381, 385, 388–9, 392, 394–6

T

Tabernacle, The (See Temple, Tent of Meeting)  49–50, 54, 57, 123, 145, 167–8, 178, 182, 203, 260–1, 265, 325, 346–9, 354–6, 430, 435–6, 455, 463, 477–8, 485, 494, 497 Tagliavini, C.  429 Tahpenes 138 Tal, A.  97 Tal, O.  348–9, 446, 452–3 Talmon, S.  51–2, 98–9 Talmud  135–7, 517 Babylonian 516 Tamar 138–9 Pseudo–Jonathan 45 Samaritan 97

Tanakh  514–15, 517 Tannaim 135 Targum  97, 123–4, 126–7 Aramaic  43, 45 Cairo Genizah  45, 138 Fragment 45 Neophyti 45 Onkelos  45, 171 Tatian Diatessaron 248 Tcherikover, V.  74 Teffilin  53, 478, 509, 512 Tel Aviv  95 Tel Dan  402–3, 409 Tel Haror  410–11 Tell Nimrud  288 Tell el–Masfa  408 Tell es–Seba  286, 332 Tell Tayinat  291, 391 Teman 278–9 Temple, The  5, 24, 45, 69, 72–3, 102, 104, 106, 113, 138, 154, 180–2, 204–5, 214, 265, 279, 284–7, 299, 329, 332, 346–9, 364–5, 391, 406–9, 413–14, 426, 434, 436, 450–1, 455–6, 466, 473–4, 485, 488–9, 492, 494, 497, 510–14, 520 Greek 507 Herod 516 Hittite 434 Ishtar 394 Mesopotamian Ziggurat (Temple Tower) 394 Temple Mount, The  403–5, 407 Temple Tax  348–9, 354–5 Tent of Meeting, The  34–5, 123, 248–9, 263–4, 299, 310, 355–6 Teeter, D.A.  82, 89–90 Terah  138–9, 219 Tertullian 507–8 Testament of Qahat, The  86 Tetrateuch  33–4, 62, 198–201, 203, 238–40, 243–4, 276, 278–82, 292–3, 430 Textual Authority  24–5, 27, 30–3, 35–6, 63–4, 66, 79–80, 85–9, 432–3, 448–50, 485–8, 514, 516–17

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

subject index   571 Textual Criticism  1, 41, 81, 135–6, 148–9, 159, 209, 211 Theocracy 154–5 Theodotus 511–12 Tiamat 189 Tigay, J.H.  8–9, 249 Tithing  72, 279, 348 Topography 35–6 Tov, Emanuel  45–6, 51, 53–4, 99–100, 103, 124–5 Tradition Criticism  3–4, 10–11, 188, 209, 215, 363–4 Transjordan  34, 199–200, 400, 402–3, 408–9, 413 Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil  394 Triteuch 264–5 Trito–Isaiah 63 Tsedaka, B.  97 Tsedaka, I.  97 Tsfania 105 Tuch, F.  143–4 Tucker, G.  369–70 Turner, V.  422 Tyre 135

U

Udjahorresnet 451 Ulrich, E.  51–3, 249 Uppsala School, The  201–3 Ur  86, 266, 349–50 of the Chaldeans  168, 229, 266, 349–50 Ur–Deuteronomy 26 Ur Kasdim  228, 349–50, 355–6 VanderKam, J.  71 Van der Toorn  415 Van Seters, J.  244, 330–1, 355–6 Vater, J.S.  239 Vatke, W.  144, 146 Veijola, T.  26 Virgil 138 Volz, P.  158, 242, 256 von Gall, A.F.  96 von Rad, Gerhard  62, 194–205, 242–3, 287, 290, 444–5 Vorlage  44, 46–7, 52, 55, 97, 117, 122–5, 127, 157, 210–12, 218–19, 224, 282, 476, 478 Vulgate, The  45, 139, 276

W

Wadi Murabba’at  42, 45 Wagner, V.  263 Waltke, B.K.  99 Walton, B.  98 Watchers Book of, The  67 Myth of  86–7 Watts, J.W.  64, 106, 435 Wellhausen, J.  13, 51, 143, 188–92, 197–8, 201–2, 221, 240–2, 247–9, 256, 260–3, 265–7, 301–3, 350–1, 363, 401, 430–1, 434 Wells, B.  305 West Bank, The  95 Wiederaufnahme  84, 213 Wilderness, The  12, 15, 35–7, 62, 87, 116, 119, 123, 182–3, 194–5, 200, 203, 260–1, 277, 298, 321, 348–9, 367–8, 371–2, 374–5, 463, 465, 467, 472–3 Williamson, H.  106 Wisdom  62–3, 67–8, 465–6, 476–80 Witter, H.B.  255 Wöhrle, J.  349–50, 469 Words of Moses (Scroll)  87 Wright, D.P.  6–7, 306–7 Würthwein, E.  285

X

Xanthus Inscription  451

Y

Yahweh  7, 25, 28, 31–2, 86–8, 125–7, 144, 151–2, 166–84, 191–2, 195, 199, 201–2, 212, 219, 225–6, 228, 230, 278–9, 282–3, 289–93, 298–300, 306–7, 310–12, 318, 321–2, 328, 347, 349, 354–6, 365–6, 371–2, 380–1, 385, 388–91, 409–10, 413–14, 436, 444–8, 450, 452–4, 456–7, 464–70, 472–3, 475–7, 485–8, 491–3, 496–7, 499, 510 of Samaria  278–9, 409–10, 413–14 of Teman  278–9, 409–10, 413–14 Zebaoth  464, 466 Yeb 450–1 Yee, G.  452–3

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 03/15/2021, SPi

572   subject index

Z

Zadok(ites) 473–4 Zahn, M.  104, 107 Zechariah  63, 320 Zelophehad 55–6 Zenger, E.  25, 29, 260–1, 293

Zerubbabel  63, 348 Zeus 113 Ziklag 410–11 Zimri son of Salu  500 Zimmerli, W.  158–9 Zion  103, 201–2, 371–2, 471, 474