I am currently reading the section on priests in Blenkinsopp’s Sage, Priest, Prophet. Blenkinsopp begins by discussing the derision in which many scholars from the 19th and 20th centuries held the Priestly authors. He provides this wonderful quote from Wellhausen on P:

The Creator of heaven and earth becomes the manager of a petty scheme of salvation; the living God descends from his throne to make way for the law. The law thrusts itself in everywhere; it commands and blocks up access to heaven; it regulates and sets limits to the understanding of the divine working on earth. As far as it can, it takes the soul out of religion and spoils morality. It demands a service of God which, though revealed, may well with truth be called a self-chosen and unnatural one, the sense and use of which are apparent neither to the understanding nor the heart. The labour is done for the sake of the exercise; it does no one any good and rejoices neither God nor man. It has no inner aim after which it spontaneously strives and which it hopes to attain by itself, but only an outward one, namely, the reward attached to it, which might as well be attached to other and possibly even more curious conditions.1

Blenkinsopp states that “Wellhausen’s indictment of the religion of the priests . . . was widely shared and has often been expressed, though rarely with his eloquent and mordant wit.”2 Wellhausen, of course, was highly influenced by Hegel, who saw history proceeding through cycles in which great ideas came to light (e.g., the prophetic religion in Israel) but later atrophied (e.g., the priestly religion in Israel), only to be brought to life again by later thinkers (e.g., Jesus).

Fortunately, this impression of priestly religion has less of a hold on scholarship today, although it continues in some circles and certainly still obtains in popular understanding. I always consider it a success in intro classes when I am able to get the students to see the priestly religion as living and dynamic. It is, after all, the avenue of God’s grace in ancient Israel.

How different Wellhausen’s view is from that of the psalmist, who declared, “Oh, how I love your law!” (Psalm 119:97).


  1. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1885; reprint, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 361. [back]
  2. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Sage, Priest, Prophet, Library of Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), 66. [back]
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