Steve Cook and John Hobbins both replied to my post on H in Genesis. I wanted to address their comments.

Steve is right, of course, in pointing out that Knohl does not completely reject the idea of H in Genesis. In addition to p.103, n.150, which Steve notes, Knohl also says on p.60 that parts of Genesis 17 may belong to HS. This is a far cry, however, from attributing large amounts of narrative to H as John and Jim Getz have done.

John asks how I explain Ezekiel when I date H to the post–exilic period. The answer is that I see a development of tradition from PT, through Ezekiel, to HS. Ezekiel is, in effect, writing Torah, especially in Ezekiel 40-48. But according to the authors of the Pentateuch, all Torah is given at Sinai. This leads to HS taking many of the ideas of Ezekiel and writing them into the Pentateuch. For one example of this, see my post on P in the book of Numbers.

John also criticizes van Seters for seeing J as entirely post–D, but I don’t think this is an entirely accurate reading of van Seters. J the author certainly worked post–D according to van Seters, but I am sure he doesn’t deny that J drew upon older traditions (and even if van Seters denies this, I don’t). Although I am not directly familiar with Blum’s work on the Jacob stories, I would have no problem seeing a pre–exilic version of this story. It probably had several versions, some that are oral and some that are written. This does not change the fact that J as an author is post–D.

Finally, John thanked me for keeping this topic going, but I wanted to thank those who have responded (and hopefully will continue to respond) to this thread. As you know, I am currently not working in academics, so my only colleagues are those in the biblioblogosphere. Thanks to all of you for providing the intellectual stimuli I need to challenge my thinking on this topic.

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