Blue Cord

I am currently reading Christophe Nihan’s From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch. This book was my big purchase at the SBL, and the more I read of the book the more I am glad I bought it. The book is very well written, clearly organized, and beautifully argued. The topic of the book is the composition of Leviticus (I can hear the collective yawn from the majority of my readers), but in dealing with this subject Nihan has to deal with broader issues in source criticism.

I am currently in the second chapter, where Nihan is dealing with the question of the extent of the Priestly Document.¹ Working backwards through Deuteronomy and Numbers, he finds no suitable ending to P in those texts. He then skips Leviticus and moves to Exodus. A large section of this chapter is devoted to arguing that Exodus 25-31 as a whole are a part of the original P document instead of being from several redactional hands (with a few exceptions). Within this section, however, he finds no suitable ending for P. This means the ending must be in Leviticus, as he will no doubt argue in subsequent chapters.

One of the issues he addresses is whether Exodus 35-40 were a part of the P document or are later additions. Israel Knohl has argued that PT sees the tabernacle as being built by Moses while HS views it as the work of all the people.² Nihan disagrees, and points to Pola’s argument that P frequently contains “execution formulas” in which commands from God are paired with passages in which the command is carried out.³ He argues that it would be odd to find the command to build the tabernacle without also having a report of its completion.

I am not completely convinced either way, although I still lean towards Exodus 35-40 coming from HS. I can easily see some short expression of completion in PT that has been expanded into a larger section by HS. I think the theological differences between 25-31 and 35-40 are stronger arguments than an expected execution formula.

This whole topic feeds into a post I made prior to the SBL about the covenant at Sinai in the Priestly Document. If the ending of P is found in the building of the tabernacle or in the consecration of the priests in Leviticus 8-9 (as Nihan argues), then the setting up of the cultus would be the one of the main goals of P. It would fit nicely with Mark George’s idea that the completion of the tabernacle is the completion of creation.⁴ This ending would also explain why P is focused more on the Abrahamic covenant than one at Sinai as Steve Cook has argued.⁵

1. Nihan views P as a document, and not as a redaction the way Frank Moore Cross and others have seen it. [back]
2. Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 64–66. [back]
3. T. Pola, Die ursprünglich Priesterschrift, WMANT 70 (Neukirchen–Vluyn, 1995), 116ff. [back]
4. Mark K. George, “Israel’s Tabernacle as Modification of Priestly Creation,” paper delivered at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, 2007 (San Diego). [back]
5. Stephen L. Cook, “Holiness Versus Reverence: Two Priestly Theologies; Two Priestly Schools” (forthcoming). [back]

The final day of the SBL began with me at the Pentateuch section. This was the second Pentateuch section that was held together with the Deuteronomistic History session. Although four presenters were scheduled, Mark Zvi Brettler and Albert De Pury were not able to attend.  So, we only heard two papers, but fortunately they were both very good.

Thomas B. Dozeman’s paper “The Golden Calf in the Enneateuch” was first.  The is probably the best paper I heard at the conference, mostly because he combined excellent scholarship and new interpretive approaches in a paper that was logically organized and easy to follow. He discussed the passages that discuss the Golden Calf: Exodus 32, Deuteronomy 9-10, and 1 Kings 12.  He argues that Exodus 32 is the latest of these and is engaged in innerbiblical exegesis on the other two texts.

This has implications for some of the work I am doing.  Obviously, Exodus 32, which is non-P, is pro-Levite and anti-Aaronid.  This would suggest that it was composed around the same time as texts such as Ezekiel 44 and the reworking of Numbers 16-18 by HS. It seems a part of a larger dialog taking place in the post-exilic period about the place of the Levites.

The second paper was “The Envisioning of the Land in the Priestly Material: Fulfilled Promise or Future Hope?” by Suzanne Boorer.  She argued that Priestly material does not continue into the book of Joshua, which leaves the promise of the land unfulfilled in the Priestly document. Although it was a good paper, I disagree with her. As I argued in a paper last year at the EABS, I think there is a good deal of P in Joshua 13-21. But I do agree with Boorer that at some point the promise of land was broken off when Joshua was removed in the process that created the Pentateuch out of the Hexateuch.

Some of the discussion surrounding the papers was helpful for my own thought process.  One idea that came to me is that the Priestly layers in Joshua might have been added by HS in the post-exilic period in order to encourage people to return to Judah/Yehud from Babylon. A focus on the land would make sense at that point.

After a quick run through the book sale, I headed to the Kansas City Barbecue place across from the Hyatt.  Some scenes from the movie Top Gun were filmed there, and being an aficionado of  barbecue I thought I should give it a try.  The barbecue was OK, but not quite up to the standards of North Carolina, although the sweet potato pie I had for desert was excellent.

I will be heading to the airport this afternoon.  I have a red-eye flight back tonight at 11:00 pm.

Next year in Jerusalem Boston!

One of the interesting problems in source criticism is the fact that the P material as it now stands in Exodus has so little to say about Sinai and no mention of a covenant there. This troubles scholars, since the covenant at Sinai is supposed to be such a central idea in Israelite religion.

In their book Sources of the Pentateuch (p.43, n.55), Campbell and O’Brien list the three ways scholars have tried to explain this:

• Scholars who see P as the final redaction of the Pentateuch say that P didn’t need to have a section covering the covenant, since it was provided by JE.
• Some who see P as an independent source say P’s version of the covenant was suppressed in favor of the one from JE.
• Others who see P as an independent source argue that P focused more on the unconditional covenant with Abraham instead of the conditional covenant with Moses in order to provide comfort in the troubling times of the exile.

I have recently been rereading a forthcoming paper by Steve Cook that deals with the division of P into PT and HS (suggested by Israel Knohl). Steve argues that one of the differences between the theology of PT and HS is that PT focused on the covenant with Abraham while HS focused on Moses.

Knohl (and others such as Jacob Milgrom) argue that both PT and HS are pre-exilic. If I am reading him correctly (and remembering previous conversations accurately), Steve sees both as post-exilic. As I have argued before, I think PT is pre-exilic while HS is post-exilic. If this is the case, then it suggests a different answer to why P has no covenant at Sinai.

We need to find a reason for the lack of a P version of the covenant at Sinai if and only if we assume that PT thought the covenant at Sinai was important. But if PT is pre-exilic and focuses more on the covenant with Abraham than the one at Sinai, this could lead us to conclude that the covenant at Sinai was not very important to priestly circles in Jerusalem prior to the exile.

It is within the Deuteronomistic documents of the pre-exilic period that we have a focus on the covenant at Sinai. J also calls what happened at Sinai a covenant (Exod.19:5), but van Seters has argued that J is influenced by D. Other pre-exilic works from Judah, such as Amos and Isaiah, don’t refer to the covenant or to Sinai. HS could have picked up on the covenant at Sinai in the post-exilic period as the Deuteronomistic literature was becoming accepted in priestly circles. HS would not have needed its own version of Sinai, since it certainly had JE in hand.

While PT does not mention the covenant at Sinai, it does describe some events at Sinai. But instead of a covenant or law, Moses goes up to the mountain to receive the plans for the tabernacle in Exodus 24:15-18 (which introduces Exod.25-31, all from PT). This is exactly what we would expect priests to be interested in. The tabernacle either stands as a cipher for the temple or as a reference to a structure that actually existed inside the temple (as Richard Elliot Friedman has argued). According to PT, what the Israelites received at Sinai was not a covenant, but a cultus.

This would also explain why PT wrote the P narrative in Genesis. If PT was focused on the Abrahamic covenant as Steve argues, it makes perfect sense for it to have written a document that covered creation through Abraham.

Right now, we are covering digital photography in the graphic design classes that I am taking. In the process of this, I came across an interesting company web site that takes religious observances to a new level. The company is B&H Foto and Electronics. It is located in New York City, but also does business on the web.

The owners of the company are Jewish, so naturally they observe Jewish holidays. As one would expect, the store is closed on those holidays, including extended holidays. But not only are their physical stores closed; their website will not take orders either. Right now if you go to their site, you may browse, but they have a pop-up that notes that the site will not take orders until this Saturday at 8:00 pm.

The seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, nor thy web server in thy midst. (Exod.20:10 for the 21st century).

Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Proper 18 (series reading)

The Revised Common Lectionary appoints Exodus 12:1-14 as its OT series reading for this coming Sunday. It is part of a nine week series from the book of Exodus that began two weeks ago with the description of the Israelite’s slavery in Egypt and the birth of Moses. It continues through the deliverance at the Sea of Reeds, the journey to Sinai, the giving of the law, and the golden calf incident.

This passage, which comes from HS, is set as an interruption to the story of the final plague - the killing of the firstborn. It provides the law for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, placing the instructions for the feast in the middle of the story of Passover. It is immediately followed by the command to leave Egypt.

These instructions show the standard Priestly concern with the calendar. It sets up the month of Passover as the first month of the year. This places the beginning of the year in the Spring around the vernal equinox. This would later be changed in the Jewish calendar, which moved the beginning of the year to Rosh Hashannah in the Fall, near the autumnal equinox. ¹ The theology of connecting the new year with the Passover is clear: just as the final plague and deliverance from Egypt begin Israel’s new life with God, so does the remembrance of that event mark the beginning of the new year.

The Israelites are commanded to slaughter a lamb and place the blood on the lintel of the door. The requirement of the lamb and the command that it be entirely eaten before the morning suggests that the lamb is intended as a peace / fellowship offering offered for giving thanks (Leviticus 7:11-15).² In no way is it viewed as a sin offering. Although this passage does not describe the lamb as a sacrifice, the Priestly layers in the Pentateuch viewed all killing of animals as a sacrifice (a view which the Deuteronomists did not share). Of course, the picturing of the Passover according to the Priestly sacrificial scheme is a later interpretation of an earlier feast.

1. It should be noted that some scholars argue that originally the New Year was in the Fall and see the Priestly author’s concept of it falling in the Spring as an innovation. [back]
2. Please note that this is merely a suggestion and I have not researched it thoroughly. [back]