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

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

T H E PE N TAT EUC H

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The Oxford Handbook of

THE PENTATEUCH Edited by

JOEL S. BADEN and

JEFFREY STACKERT

1

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

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Acknowledgments

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

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Contents

Abbreviationsxi List of Contributorsxv

1. Introduction: Convergences and Divergences in Contemporary Pentateuchal Research

1

Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert

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

23

Olivier Artus

3. The Text of the Pentateuch

41

Sidnie White Crawford

4. The Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism

61

John J. Collins

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

79

Molly M. Zahn

6. The Pentateuch and the Samaritans

95

Magnar Kartveit

7. The Greek Translation of the Pentateuch

111

Cécile Dogniez

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

135

Jean-Louis Ska

9. The Graf–Kuenen–Wellhausen School Rudolf Smend

143

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viii   contents

10. The Documentary Hypothesis

165

Baruch J. Schwartz

11. Form and Tradition Criticism

188

Thomas B. Dozeman

12. Defining and Identifying Secondary Layers

208

Reinhard G. Kratz

13. Positions on Redaction

237

Reinhard Müller

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

255

Jakob Wöhrle

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

276

Udo Rüterswörden

16. The Relationship of the Legal Codes

297

Jeffrey Stackert

17. The Identification of Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch

315

Frank Polak

18. The Identification of Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch

345

Rainer Albertz

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

363

Angela Roskop Erisman

20. Ancient Near Eastern Literature and the Pentateuch

379

David P. Wright

21. The Pentateuch: Archaeology and History

399

Israel Finkelstein

22. Pentateuchal and Ancient Near Eastern Ritual Yitzhaq Feder

421

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contents   ix

23. The Imperial Context of the Pentateuch

443

Mark G. Brett

24. The Pentateuch Outside the Pentateuch

463

Reinhard Achenbach

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

484

Ehud Ben Zvi

26. The Pentateuch as “Torah”

506

James W. Watts

Reference Index Subject Index

525 555

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Abbreviations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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xiv   abbreviations SC SemeiaSt SSN STDJ StPB TA TAD

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

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List of Contributors

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

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

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Chapter 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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8   Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert

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

The Pentateuch in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context Some scholarship of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries intentionally eschewed comparison of the Pentateuch with other ancient Near Eastern literature (Machinist 2009, 497–504). More recent research, however, has recognized the shortcomings of this approach and the ideological underpinnings that sometimes attended it. Contemporary scholars thus regularly seek to situate p