Blue Cord

The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen by Ernest Nicholson is probably the best contemporary defense of the Documentary Hypothesis.  It does an excellent job of covering not only the history of the hypothesis but also the current challenges to it.

The first section of the book is devoted to a history of the development of the theory in the 19th century.  Although any number of introductions to the Old Testament present such a summary, Nicholson’s treatment is much more in-depth, making it a good introduction to the history of scholarship on this subject.

The second — and longer — part of the book deals with modern alternatives to the theory in the wake of the break down of the consensus concerning the Documentary Hypothesis.  It begins with the challenge to the theory by Rolf Rendtorff in the 1970s and moves through questions concerning the redating of J, the influence of Deuteronomy on J, the disappearance of E, and the debate over the nature of P.  His command of the literature is impressive, and he does an excellent job summarizing the positions of each scholar.  He covers Rendtorff, Blum, Schmid, van Seters, and a number of others.

Of course, being convinced of the correctness of the Documentary Hypothesis, Nicholson does not merely summarize these scholars; he also critiques their positions, which adds to the usefulness of this book.  Due to the extensiveness of the arguments against the Documentary Hypothesis, his arguments against their arguments are sometimes rather thin, but he does at least attempt to address their concerns.

This book is a little too dense to be used as an undergraduate book on the source critical study of the Pentateuch.  It is not an easy read.  It would be difficult to read without already understanding at least a little about Pentateuchal studies.  It would be excellent as a primary text for a seminary or Ph.D. class, provided it was supplemented with the readings of the scholars he is critiquing.  If any scholar is looking for a book to bring them up to speed on contemporary thinking on source criticism, this book would fit that bill as well.

Having been engaged in the question of the dating of the sources of the Pentateuch for some time, there is one criterium that I have encountered repeatedly. This is the idea that sources can be dated by identified by finding time periods in which they would have answered the needs of the community. This has been done by a number of different scholars. Van Seters dates J to the exile in part because it would have served a community in exile. Levine argues that P should be considered postexilic because it would have met the needs of those returning from Babylon. Examples could be multiplied ad naseum.

This seems to me, however, to be a very poor criterium. Sure, the biblical text met the needs of the exilic community and the postexilic community, but they have also met the needs of any number of time periods since then. This is one of the dynamic aspects of the Bible and one of the reason it continues to be used as Scripture. If the text had not continually met the needs of the community, it would not continue to be used.

Identifying the Sitz im Leben of the biblical text is an important step in interpretation. But it is a step that should be taken after a text has been dated on other grounds. If we can date J to the exilic period (and I think Van Seters has made that case in other ways), then and only then is it valid to ask the function it would have served in the exile. To try to date the text on the basis of whether it answered questions is much too subjective, since it answered questions in many time periods.

The best criteria are historical, linguistic, and comparative. Historical references in the text give us a general time period. Linguistic data will provide us with relative dating, although we still do not have a complete idea of the development of the language through the centuries. And comparative studies with other books provide us with a relative date. This, for instance, is what Avi Hurvitz has done in showing that P is relatively earlier than Ezekiel, even though it does not provide us with exact dating. None of these is a fool proof means of dating of course, but they are better than trying to pinpoint the date on the basis of a supposed Sitz im Leben.

Over the past few days, several bibliobloggers have been discussing the idea of how exclusive biblical interpretation should be. That is, who makes the best interpreters. Two bloggers, Alastair and Jim West, have argued against just anyone interpreting the Bible, while Chris Heard at Higgaion has countered by arguing again exclusivism in interpretation. I will allow my readers to read their posts, as I do not plan to engage in the conversation directly, but I did want to make one comment.

One of the things I have been thinking about recently is the idea of a chronological exclusivism in biblical interpretation. That is, to what extent does my own approach to interpreting the Bible imply that interpreters throughout history have been wrong? If I claim that the historical critical method is the way we should interpret the Bible (and indeed this is what I teach), does that not imply that anyone who does not use this method is wrong? Since no one prior to the 19th century used this method and not everyone uses it today, is that not in and of itself a bit of scholastic hubris?

I don’t have any answers so far, but what I am seeking to elucidate is a way of saying that I believe that the historical critical method is the best way of interpreting the text for today while not invalidating other methods of reading the text, whether those methods be contemporary of historical. The Bible is a dynamic book and cannot be limited to one method of interpretation, so how do we say that some methods are good, others are better, but still others are unacceptable?

Granted, these are not the most cohearent thoughts, but one of the pluses and minuses of Open Source Scholarship ™ is seeing scholarship in progress, even when it is sloppy. I would love to hear the thoughts of others on this topic.

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.

1. Jacob Milgrom, “Review of A Linguistic Study of the Relationship Between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel,” CBQ 46 (1984): 119. [back]
2. G.I. Davies, “Review of A Linguistic Study of the Relationship Between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel,” VT 37 (1987): 117-118. [back]

From the last Biblical Studies Blog Carnival in the frozen north of Lithuania, we move to this month’s carnival down in sunny Brisbane, Australia. The current carnival is being hosted by Benjamin Myers at Faith and Theology. Drop by to see the best that the biblioblog community had to offer in the month of May. We may have all been busy grading papers and exams last month, but we did manage to get some good blogging in.