Blue Cord

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.

The OT reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for today included 1 Kings 19:19-21, which reads:

So [Elijah] set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah?? said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant. (NRSV)

As I was listening to the reading, a question occurred to me: Why did Elisha kill the oxen? Was it a sacrifice or not?

When I got home, I checked the different translations. The ESV and NASB say that Elisha sacrificed the oxen, while the NRSV and NIV both say that Elisha slaughtered them.  The Hebrew does not provide much help here.  The verb used is zabakh.  This generally indicates a sacrifice, but also could be used for common slaughter of animals.

If this passage were from the priestly layers of the OT, it would be a moot point.  All slaughter of animals was considered a sacrifice in the priestly schema.  But Deuteronomy allows for the non-sacrificial slaughter of animals (Deut. 12:13-27).  Since the 1 Kings passage is part of the DtrH, this could be either.

But Deuteronomy also states that all sacrifice must be done in Jerusalem.  Elisha is from Abel-Meholah.  Although 1 Kings 19 does not state it explicitly, it is likely that the call of Elisha took place in or near his home town, not in Jerusalem.  If Elisha is being pictured following the Deuteronomic law, then what he is doing should not be considered a sacrifice.  I would say the NRSV and NIV have the better translation in this case.

But that leaves us with out original question: Why did Elisha kill the oxen?  If it was not a sacrifice, why did he do it?  Although the passage is not explicit, I think the clue to interpretation needs to come from Elisha’s request to kiss his father and mother before following Elijah.  The slaughter of the oxen and ensuing feast seem to be the fulfillment of that wish.

Now, if I really wanted to go out on a limb, I might argue that his request to kiss his father and mother and the feast that followed were part of paying homage to his departed ancestors, since his new life would be one that took place outside of his family.  I am not feeling that brave today, so I will offer that suggestion only as a possibility.

As I mentioned previously, I have been looking at Blenkinsopp’s Sage, Priest, Prophet. I have not been reading the whole book. Instead, because of my interest in the history of the priesthood, I have been reading over the chapter on priests. I thought I would give a brief summary of the chapter here along with just a few of my own comments tossed in.

Blenkinsopp begins with a note about the lack of respect priests have usually had in biblical scholarship. Having deconstructed the ideas behind that, he moves on the discuss the sources that we have available to us when talking about priests. He then discusses the rise of the priesthood, which he sees as taking place during the pre-monarchic period, if only in an embryonic form.

He then has a helpful section on the functions that priests were expected to perform. Among these he lists:

• Carrying out ritual
• Divination (a role that was less important in Israel than in Mesopotamia)
• Teachers
• Magistrates

It is interesting to compare what he has to say about the role of priests with Iain Duguid’s treatment of the same question in his essay “Putting Priests in their Place” in Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World. Duguid is addressing the question based only on Ezekiel, but it is interesting to note how much his list resembles Blenkinsopp’s.

Blenkinsopp also discusses the issue of Aaronides Zadokites, and Levites. He notes that no preexilic tests deal with Aaron as a priest.¹  Instead, he is always Moses’ spokesman. He points out the preexilic texts always refer to Levitical priests instead. The Zadokites, according to Blenkinsopp, gain power in Babylon, due in part to the work of Ezekiel. Only then are the Levites demoted to temple servants. Later in the Persian period they begin to develop specialiations such as musicians and gatekeeps. Blenkinsopp concludes with a brief section on training for the priesthood.

This summary is very brief and does not do justice to Blenkinsopp’s treatment. For those interested in the subject, this is a must read. The book is not intended as a major discussion of the priesthood, but it does bring together Blenkinsopp’s thoughts on the subject. For the classroom, this book would be idea for an upper level undergraduate course or a seminary class, but does not quite rise to the level of something you would use in a seminar.

1. Blenkinsopp does not like Knohl’s division of P into PT and HS. I asked him about this during a break at the EABS conference last summer in Budapest, and he said he sees it as a return to older models of source criticism. [back]

I have been thinking about the Levites in the northern kingdom of Israel and thought I would jot down a few notes.

As I have mentioned before, the list of Levitical cities in Joshua 21 says that the cities for the Aaronides were in Judah while the rest of the Levites had cities in Israel. This passage probably stems from HS and is therefore postexilic, reflecting a period when the Aaronides had been given a Levitical genealogy (if they didn’t have one from the start). But it also seems to recall a preexilic situation in which Levites were centered in Israel. This fits with what seems to be the very old tradition of Dan being a Levite sanctuary (Judg 18).

But although the Levites were active in the north, they were certainly not the only priests who were there. 1 Kings 12:31 indicates that Jeroboam installed priests who were not Levites. This might indicate that the Levites were marginalized, even in Israel. This would explain why DtrH is so negative of Jeroboam, if Deuteronomy originated in Levitical circles in the north (as seems likely). But it would also suggest that Deuteronomy was a minority opinion. It is generally accepted that Deuteronomy was accepted only by a few people in Judah prior to the exile (after which it gained general acceptance), but it may have initially been intended as a critique of the official priesthood in the north as well.

I was reading what Blenkinsopp has to say about the Aaronides, Bethel, and the golden calf episode in Exodus 32-34. Because I disagree with his idea that the Aaronides originated in Bethel, it got me thinking. What group would want to critique both the Aaronides and the practice of golden calves at Dan and Bethel. The obvious answer is the Levites. They had lost their power in the north and did not like the practices instituted by Jeroboam. At the same time, the Aaronides were a rival group.   It is interesting to note that the only mention of Aaron in Deuteronomy is in connection with the golden calf (Deut 9:20). This raises the further question of whether the golden calf story arose prior to the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE or afterwards when the Levites came south. I don’t have an answer to that question yet.

Steve Cook kindly responded to the points I raised in “An Ithamarite Priesthood.” I think we are mostly in agreement, but I want to address a couple of things he said.

Steve correctly points out that Ezekiel 40:45 still calls the Ithamarites “priests.” The question, then, is how do we define priests. Obviously, the Ithamarites did not have access to the altar, but having altar access is not a sine qua non for priests. So, would Ithamarites have been considered priests in the postexilic period and, if so, how do we define priests in this period? Would a former priestly line that had been reduced to overseers still have been a cohesive enough group to produce parts of the OT?

By the way, my books just arrived from Lithuania, and Blenkinsopp’s Sage, Priest, and Prophet is one of the first ones I want to read. I am sure it has something to say on the definition of priests.

I agree with Steve that the Ithamarites might have felt differently about the matter than Zadokites. But if so, why don’t we have any literature in the OT that offers competing claims to those of the Zadokites? If the Ithamarites did produce parts of the OT, then why no “pro-Ithamarite” passages? In the absence of these, I would be more inclined to think that they accepted the fact that they no longer had claim to function as priests. This could have happened if the Ithamarites were a minor line in the preexilic period and had only a few representatives in the exile.

I am interested in Steve’s reading of Isaiah 66:5 as a Ithamarite complaint. While it is a complaint, I would be interested in hearing why he thinks this is Ithamarite literature. Of course, Steve has more important things to be doing in the next two weeks (and the ones after that), so I hope he doesn’t feel any pressure to respond.