Hurvitz on the Dating of the Priestly Source
I have just finished reading Avi Hurvitz’s A linguistic study of the relationship between the priestly source and the Book of Ezekiel: A new approach to an old problem. This is not a new book, of course, having been published in 1982, but I had some trouble getting a hold of it. As always, this review — as well as my other reviews — can be found by accessing the library page link at the top of the left sidebar or the “Currently Reading” section at the bottom of the right sidebar.
Hurvitz compares the priestly layer in the Pentateuch with the book of Ezekiel on a liguistic level, examining both the similarities and differences in the grammar and the lexicon. These two works have frequently been noted as having great similarities, which is not surprising since Ezekiel was a priest and used a great deal of cultic terminology. According the Hurvitz, the evidence shows that the priestly source is linguistically earlier than the book of Ezekiel.
While it is possible to take issue with several of his individual points, especially in cases where he cites only one occurrance of a word in each corpus, overall his argument is convincing. One of the strenghths is that he does not limit himself to the biblical texts but includes linguistic examples from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Talmud, and other Second Temple texts. Changes that begin in Ezekiel, for example, are often only the start of a trend that continues in later material, but are completely lacking in P.
The results, however, are not as clear cut as some would like them to be. Milgrom, for instance, in his review of the book, states:
[I]t is no longer possible to argue a postexilic date for P. Rather, P’s doctrine of repentance and its socio-political instutitions reflect an even earlier period — prior to classical prophecy and the monarchy (emphasis mine).1
While Hurvitz may have shown that P is pre-exilic, he certainly has not show P to be prior to the monarchy, and Hurvitz does not draw this conclusion himself. At best, he has demonstrated that it probably comes from the 8th-6th centuries BCE.
In addition, it could be argued that P and Ezekiel are more or less contemporary, but that P represents a more conservative form of the language while Ezekiel is writing in a more up to date vernacular. This would be expected, since Ezekiel is writing a new work while P is drawing on a more established tradition. But although some point out that we do not know when the change from BH to LBH and see this as a weakness of Hurvitz’s argument,2 Hurvitz himself is only concerned with the relative dating of the two and does not deal with the question of BH or LBH.
Hurvitz does not make a distinction between P and H, since he was writing before Knohl published The Sanctuary of Silence. If one does make that distinction (as I do), the situation becomes somewhat more complex. All of Hurvitiz’s conclusions hold for both P and H, as the linguistic elements he points out are spread across both layers. Because Milgrom and Knohl have shown that P is prior to H, if we conclude that H is contemporary or slightly later than Ezekiel, this would mean that P must be even earlier. Since Ezekiel is probably written prior to 550 BCE, I would place H sometime in the (late?) exilic period and P in the pre-exilic period. The reinforces my conclusion that the correct ordering of the Pentateuchal sources is PDJH.
I would love to hear any responses that other bibliobloggers have to this, especially those who are more engaged in linguistic study than I am.
On July 1st, 2006 at 1:57 pm
[…] Gregory Mobley’s The Empty Men does not include Charles Halton, Kevin Wilson debates Hurvitz concerning the ABCs of P and H, and Chris Spinks endorses A Beginner’s Guide to NT Exegesis by Richard Erickson. […]
On October 10th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
What is then difficult for me to understand (assuming a pre-exilic P that pre-dates D) is why, e.g., the post-exilic Neh. 8 doesn’t seem to mention Yom Kippur (or, arguably, Yom Teruah as Yom Teruah) in a place where it would seem to be demanded if they knew of it; or why (the supposed later) Deut. 16 doesn’t mention either Yom Teruah or YK.
On December 3rd, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Deut. 16 is about pilgrimage holidays only.
Neh. 8 - it may be that Yom Kippur was “important” enough that it was not forgotten, unlike Sukkot which had to be “reinstituted”. There is a precedent, so to speak, in the observance patterns of many modern Jews…
On August 27th, 2009 at 1:21 am
If P was written by several different authors over a number of centuries, some of it may well have been written prior to Ezekiel and some of it after Ezekiel.
it might well be asked why Ezekiel let his failed “prophecies” regarding Tyre and Egypt stand. it is possible that he was not prophesying but, rather, was praising or encouraging Nebucchadnezzar by predicting his victories on several ventures Ezekiel knew were favorite projects–and that, by so doing, was buying Nebucchadnezzar’s favor for himself and for his fellow exiles.
As for Ezekiel’s opening vision, it is likely that what he was describing was one of the sandstorms that occur every July, even to this day. The sand is very fine and glitters and it is possible that one could see mirages in them.
It is further possible that Ezekiel’s detailed knowledge of Tyre’s international trading partners was gained from the House of Murashu whose headquarters were on the Chebar Canal.
It is difficult to imagine that Yahweh thought that he was communicating effectively using the means which Ezekiel describes. If Yahweh intended for the Bible to inform humans, chosen or otherwise, as to which courses of action He desired them to take, the means of communication He chose seem peculiarly poorly suited to the task–not to mention His often abysmal choice of representatives to relay His messages.
It would be absurd to say that an omnipotent and omniscient God could have been “too busy” to speak directly to those whose behavior he wished to direct.