Ezekiel and Levites
Today was my last day at Virginia Theological Seminary. Tomorrow I will be heading to Baltimore for two days at the Johns Hopkins library.
For these last two nights I am staying with Steve Cook, a friends and fellow Old Testament scholar. We were discussing the Holiness layer in the Pentateuch last night. He has written a good deal in Ezekiel, so we were discussing where Ezekiel stood with relationship to H. Steve agrees that H is pre-exilic, while I think it is post-exilic. He pointed me to Ezekiel 44, which has connections with priestly writings in general and Numbers 16-18 in particular.
In reading those chapters in tandem last night, a great idea occurred to me, so I wrote down some notes on it. When I went to research it today, it turns out the same idea had occurred to Wellhausen in the 19th century, so at least I am in good company. I then read an article by Steve that disproves it. 1
One of the next topics I may research is the place of Ezekiel with respect to P and H. Since my last paper shows that P is pre-exilic and H is post-exilic, Ezekiel should fall in between. It should be possible to show a development from P –> Ezekiel –> H in respects to several aspects of law and theology. Or, if Steve is correct, then such a straight line would not be seen, and I would need to reconsider.
- Stephen Cook, “Innerbiblical Interpretation in Ezekiel 44 and the History of Israel’s Priesthood,” JBL 114 (1995):193-208. [back]
On June 27th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Hi there Kevin; More bad news!
Check out n. 12, p. 161 of Levitt Kohn’s piece in my _Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World_ volume. The Propp article in _VT_ that she mentions might well be worth your looking at, because both Exod 6:8 and Num 14:30 are from the HS source. Sorry! :-0
On June 28th, 2006 at 11:54 am
I am on the road now, so I don’t have access to those articles, but I have ordered your book.
On first glance, I don’t see what Exod.6:8 and Num.14:30 have to do with either the dating or the Levites, but I am sure it will become clear when I get a hold of the VT article.
Thanks.