Forschungen zum Alten Testament

Edited by Bernd Janowski (Tbingen) · Mark S. Smith (New York) Hermann Spieckermann (Gçttingen)

68

Joel S. Baden

J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch

Mohr Siebeck Joel S. Baden, born 1977; 2002 M. A. in Northwest Semitics from the University of Chicago; 2007 Ph. D. in Hebrew Bible from Harvard University; currently Assis- tant Professor of Old Testament at the Yale Divinity School.

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-151109-7 ISBN 978-3-16-149930-2 ISSN 0940-4155 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament) Die Deutsche Nationalibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliogra- phie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

2009 Mohr Siebeck Tbingen. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that per- mitted by copyright law) without the publishers written permission. This applies parti- cularly to reproduction, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by epline in Kirchheim/Teck, printed by Gulde-Druck in Tbin- gen on non-aging paper and bound by Großbuchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. For my parents

Acknowledgments

This book is a revision of my dissertation, completed at Harvard Univer- sity in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. My thanks go to my advisor at Harvard, Peter Machinist, who was supportive of this project from beginning to end; Jo Ann Hackett, for giving freely of both her teaching and her friendship; John Huehnergard and Dennis Par- dee, for encouraging me in my Hebrew and other Semitic studies, for this and other projects; Benjamin Sommer, for being the first to show me how source criticism should be done; John Collins, Carolyn Sharp, and Harold Attridge for their support in my first years at Yale; and Robert Wilson, who started me on the path of biblical scholarship. A special debt of gratitude is owed to Baruch Schwartz, without whom this book certainly never would have been written - he is an exemplary scholar, a marvelous teacher, and, above all, simply the finest mentor a student, colleague, or friend could wish for. Thanks are due to Richard Elliot Friedman and John Van Seters for allowing me advance looks at forthcoming works. Numerous friends and colleagues contributed through reading, listening, and commenting, fore- most among them Jeffrey Stackert, Simi Chavel, Candida Moss, Jeremy Hutton, and Cory Crawford. Stewart Moore assisted with some early proofreading, and Brad Holden was indispensable to the editing and com- pletion of this book. I am indebted to Mark Smith for both accepting this book into the FAT series and for innumerable contributions and correc- tions. More than anyone else, of course, I am most grateful to my family: to my wife, Gillian, whose support never wavered for an instant throughout the years it took to bring this project to fruition; to my daughter, Zara, who conveniently only showed up for the good parts at the end; and to Aviva, whose absence is felt even and especially in our times of greatest joy.

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 1 Chapter One: The Scholarly Origins of JE...... 11 Hermann Hupfeld ...... 13 Karl Heinrich Graf ...... 19 Abraham Kuenen ...... 24 Julius Wellhausen ...... 27 August Dillmann ...... 37 Eduard Riehm...... 40 Conclusion ...... 43

Chapter Two: JE and the Documentary Hypothesis in the Twentieth Century ...... 45 Hermann Gunkel...... 46 Gerhard von Rad and Martin Noth...... 48 Rudolf Smend, Otto Eissfeldt, et al...... 51 Paul Volz and Wilhelm Rudolph ...... 54 Rolf Rendtorff, et al...... 60 Brevard Childs...... 78 John Van Seters ...... 85 Richard E. Friedman...... 94 Conclusion ...... 97

Chapter Three: The Relationship of D to J and E...... 99 Deut 1:9–18: Appointing of judges ...... 106 Deut 1:19–45: The spies...... 114 Deut 2:2–3:11: Edom, Sihon, and Og ...... 130 Deut 3:12–20: Apportioning the Transjordan...... 141 Deut 4:10–14; 5:2–5, 19–28; 9:8–21, 25–10:5: Horeb ...... 153 Deut 8:15–16: Testing in the wilderness ...... 172 Deut 9:22–24: Additional examples of disobedience in the wilderness 173 Deut 10:6–9: Travel and the Levites...... 179 X Table of Contents

Deut 11:2b–6: The acts of YHWH ...... 181 Deut 23:4–6: Ammonites, Moabites, and Balaam ...... 184 Deut 25:17–19: Amalek...... 184 Deut 31:1–8: The authority of Joshua ...... 185 Conclusion ...... 188

Excursus: The Relationship of P to JE...... 197 Chapter Four: RJE – The Reliance on the Redactor...... 209 Factual Discrepancies ...... 211 Genesis 16:8–10...... 211 Genesis 21:32, 34 and 26:15, 18 ...... 213 Exodus 4:13–16, et al...... 218 Exodus 34:1, 4 ...... 221 Exodus32–34...... 223 Terminological Overlap ...... 225 Genesis 20:18...... 228 Genesis 28:21...... 230 Genesis 31:3 ...... 232 Exodus3:7...... 234 Secondary Additions...... 236 Exodus 3:14, 15* ...... 237 Exodus 4:21–23 ...... 238 Covenant Code expansions ...... 239 Deuteronomic affinities ...... 241 Patriarchal promises ...... 243 The Effect of the Expansion of the Redactor ...... 248 Patriarchal promises ...... 248 Exodus32–34...... 249 Exodus 34:1, 4*, 28 ...... 251 Conclusion ...... 253

Chapter Five: The Singularity of the Redactor(s) ...... 255 Combining Documents ...... 258 Block Sequence ...... 260 Interweaving Texts ...... 261 Insertions ...... 263 Factual Corrections ...... 265 Genesis 33:18a ...... 265 Genesis 35:9...... 267 Table of Contents XI

Genesis 39:1 ...... 268 Exodus 3:4 ...... 269 Exodus 34:29 ...... 271 Numbers 16:24, 27, 32 ...... 271 Derivative Additions ...... 273 Exodus 4:21 ...... 273 Numbers 13:26 ...... 275 Numbers 32:9, 11, 12 ...... 276 Numbers 32:33 ...... 277 Deuteronomy 1:39 ...... 278 Pattern Corrections ...... 279 Exodus 9:35, 10:20 ...... 279 Numbers 32:29, 30 ...... 281 Amalgamating Verses...... 282 Exodus 31:18 ...... 283 Exodus 34:4 ...... 284 Numbers 13:26 ...... 285 Conclusion ...... 285

Chapter Six: Unstated Assumptions Underlying the JE Theory ...... 287 Conclusion ...... 305

Bibliography ...... 315

Index of Biblical Citations ...... 327

Index of Authors Cited ...... 337

Abbreviations

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary [6 vols.]. D. N. Freedman, ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992. AJSLL American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature AWEAT Archiv fr wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testaments CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly DBI Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation [2 vols.]. J. H. Hayes, ed. Nash- ville: Abingdon, 1999. GKC Gesenius Hebrew Grammar.28th ed. Edited by E. Kautzsch. Trans- lated by A. E. Cowley. Oxford: Clarendon, 1910. HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JDTh Jahrbch fr deutsche Theologie JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament VT Vetus Testamentum ZAW Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Introduction

It is not uncommon in current scholarship to encounter statements pro- claiming a “crisis” in pentateuchal studies, or, more forcefully, the “de- mise” of the Documentary Hypothesis. The rise, primarily in Europe, of an explicitly anti-documentary approach, one which revives the old frag- mentary and supplementary models and combines them with more recent form- and tradition-critical theories, has resulted in a broad state of uncer- tainty among contemporary biblical scholars regarding the state of the field and the status of the classical theory of pentateuchal formation. It would be folly to ignore the increasingly persistent voices calling for the Documentary Hypothesis to abdicate the throne of pentateuchal criticism. These cries began in earnest with the work of Rolf Rendtorff,1 and have grown steadily in the generation of his students, and their students in turn. Taken together, their individual works may not present a unified the- ory of pentateuchal composition, but they are certainly unified in their refusal to accept the methods or conclusions of the Documentary Hypoth- esis. Thus, although it is currently impossible to point to a widely agreed- upon alternative to the classical theory, it is very much in fashion to claim that the classical theory “can no longer be maintained.” The fact that there is vocal, intelligent opposition to the Documentary Hypothesis, however, does not mean that it is to be rejected entirely. The proclamation that a theory is obsolete does not necessarily make it so. Challenges are just that: challenges, not assured conquests. It is unfortu- nate, perhaps, that the defense of the Documentary Hypothesis has not been nearly as detailed, public, or loud as the attacks upon it, as this has surely created the impression that the classical view has little or no sup- port among pentateuchal scholars. Yet this is mistaken: believers in the Documentary Hypothesis exist, but they have been both stunned by the swiftness and force of the assaults upon them and at the same time ren- dered unprepared by more than a century of complacent dominance of the field. Those few who have actively taken up arms in defense of the

1 Especially in his The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch (trans. John J. Scullion; JSOTS 89; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1977); trans. of Das berlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (BZAW 147; Berlin: Walter de Gruy- ter, 1977). 2 Introduction classical approach have found it difficult to make their voices heard in the anti-documentary uproar. It is necessary, then, to provide a brief defense of the continuing utility of the Documentary Hypothesis in the field of pentateuchal criticism. The first point to be made in this defense is methodological. The Documentary Hypothesis is a purely literary solution to a purely literary problem. The inherent difficulties in reading the canonical text of the Pentateuch – the contradictions of detail in both narrative and law, the violations in one passage of the historical claims made in another, the repetitions and varia- tions of events – demand an explanation. At the same time, the continuity and coherence of details, historical claims, and theological viewpoints among disparate passages cannot be ignored, and deserve equal consid- eration. Thus we have before us a text of substantial dimensions that shows clear signs both of unity and disunity, of narrative continuity and discontinuity – and both poles must be explained. It is problematic to fa- vor one side of the evidence over another, either by dismissing the contra- dictions and discontinuities and claiming a unified text or by eliminating as secondary the narrative links between passages in order to support ar- guments derived from methods not primarily focused on the literary pro- duct of the Pentateuch. The Documentary Hypothesis exists and func- tions as a literary explanation for the conflicting phenomena of the Penta- teuch, one which takes into account and values both the contradictions and the continuities evident in the text. The scholarly delineation of the sources P and D has achieved nearly universal consensus for over a century. There is still considerable debate in contemporary scholarship about whether P and D are independent sources, redactional layers, or some combination thereof; whether P or D are parts of larger literary productions that extend into the book of Joshua and beyond; and especially whether there are priestly or Deuteronomic in- sertions and revisions in the non-P and non-D material. Despite these im- portant disagreements, what is most at stake in the current debate is the status of what remains of the non-Deuteronomic text after P has been iso- lated. Much of the confusion on this part is due, in fact, to the long-stand- ing ease with which P has been identified. Scholars have grown accus- tomed to identifying P on the basis of well-known priestly theology, termi- nology, and style. Yet on literary grounds, P is separable not primarily by these features, or not by these alone; rather, it is the unique historical claims of the priestly work, its identifiable structure and narrative flow, that mark it as distinct. These historical claims – the absence of sacrifice before its formal, divinely ordained institution at Sinai, the exalted status of Aaron and the priesthood, and the use of the title El Shaddai before the revelation of the divine name to Moses, to name but a few of the most Introduction 3 prominent – are discernible both by their continuity from one priestly pas- sage to another and by their incompatibility with non-priestly passages. P can be isolated on these grounds alone, almost without exception, and it is as these connections are drawn that the unity and distinctiveness of theol- ogy, terminology, and style become increasingly apparent. What remains after P has been isolated, however, is still riddled with precisely the same sorts of contradictions and continuities of historical claims. We still find in the non-priestly text duplications and contradic- tions of detail: names of personages and places, itineraries and actions, events and their outcomes, that cannot be reconciled. We also still find that the features of one passage are continued and built upon in subse- quent passages, and reflect the features of those that came before. This continuity does not occur haphazardly, but rather in two distinct lines, each of which is consistent and coherent on its own terms. Just as Ps lar- ger historical claims mark it as distinct, so too do those of J and E. In the case of E, whose existence and coherence have more vehemently been doubted in recent scholarship, often to the point of being denied outright, we may note the giving of the laws at Horeb (the so-called Covenant Code), the existence and location of the tent of meeting, and the ignorance of the divine name before Exod 3, among many others. These broad, cru- cially important historical claims are presumed, stated, and reflected throughout the E document, and in each case they also conflict with the historical claims of both J and P. In short, the method by which P is separated from non-P is identical to that by which E can be separated from J. Moreover, the results are vir- tually identical: the J and E documents are no less coherent in the conti- nuity of their historical claims and narrative details than P. P is longer, and its style and terminology more recognizable, but it evinces the same funda- mental narrative features as the other pentateuchal documents. Further evidence of the continuing utility of the Documentary Hypoth- esis is the fact that contemporary scholarship, despite its criticism, persis- tently relies on its fundamental points and its basic findings. In the last fifteen years alone there is substantial evidence that the Documentary Hypothesis remains the standard model for pentateuchal criticism, and remains the basis for ongoing scholarly discussion and exeg- esis of the text. Major introductions to the Old Testament or the Penta- teuch continue to use the Documentary Hypothesis as the means of de- scribing the formation of the Pentateuch: from the United States, John J. Collins Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,2 Michael D. Coogans The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scrip-

2 Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004, 47–65. 4 Introduction tures,3 and Marc Z. Brettlers How to Read the Bible;4 from Britain, Ernest Nicholsons The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen;5 from Israel, Alexander Rofs Introduction to the Composi- tion of the Pentateuch;6 from Europe, Werner H. Schmidts Old Testament Introduction7 and T. C. Vriezen and A. S. van der Woudes Ancient Israe- lite and Early Jewish Literature.8 Even the E document remains a focus of scholarly attention around the globe: Robert Gnuses “Redefining the Elohist;”9 Axel Graupners Der Elohist: Gegenwart und Wirksamkeit des transzendenten Gottes in der Ge- schichte10 and “Die Erzhlkunst des Elohisten: Zur Makrostruktur und Intention der elohistischen Darstellung der Grndungsgeschichte Is- raels;”11 and Tzemah Yorehs “Hamma¯qr ha¯>elhst: >ahdt mibneh.”12 ˙ ˙ Although each of these scholars takes a different approach to the pro- blems presented by the Elohistic text, they agree on the essential continu- ity of its historical claims and underlying themes. Whether as an explicit or implicit rebuttal of the new anti-documentary approach, scholars have continued to advance our understanding of the exegesis of the narratives, the critical study of the law codes, and the re- construction of the process of composition and canonization of the Penta- teuch, all while operating under the supposedly delegitimated classical model.13 It is not, therefore, either unreasonable or anachronistic to work within the framework of the Documentary Hypothesis. Indeed, it is worth stating again: despite the challenges hurled against it, the Documentary Hypothesis remains the simplest, most complete explanation for the lit- erary problems of the canonical text of the Pentateuch. As I intend to de- monstrate in the present work, the most basic version of the Documentary

3 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, 21–30. 4 Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005, 34f. 5 Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. 6 Bib. Sem. 58; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999, 28–61. 7 2nd ed.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995, 44–58, 75–135. 8 Leiden: Brill, 2005, 169–182. 9 JBL 119 (2000): 201–220. 10 WMANT 97; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002. 11 In Das Alte Testament und die Kunst (eds. John Barton, J. Cheryl Exum, and Manfred Oeming; Mnster: Lit, 2005), 67–90. 12 Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2003. 13 Even in Germany, the center of the anti-documentary movement, there are still a group of respected scholars who continue to defend and work with the Documentary Hypothesis in something very closely resembling its classical form: in addition to Schmidt, Lothar Ruppert, Horst Seebass, and Ludwig Schmidt are prominent. On these scholars, and for a brief bibliography, cf. Jean-Louis Ska, Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch (trans. Pascale Dominique; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 141f.; trans. of Introduction la lectures du Pentateuque: Cls pour linterprtation des cinq pre- miers livres de la Bible (Brussels: Editions Lessius, 2000). Introduction 5

Hypothesis – four sources, one redactor – for all its simplicity, does, when implemented correctly, account for all the detailed problems of the biblical text, and does so more cleanly and more convincingly than any other the- ory. And yet: we may not rest content with simply reasserting the classical theory. The new approaches to the Pentateuch in European scholarship are the outgrowth of serious challenges to the Documentary Hypothesis raised throughout the past century or more, and deserve attention. They demand that we reevaluate some of the fundamentals of the theory: on what basis are the sources identified and separated? what are the relation- ships of the sources to one another? what assumptions are made about the nature of these sources as written documents? Many, if not all, of these questions, and the others that accompany them, are responses not to the explicit arguments of the Documentary Hypothesis, but to the underlying, frequently unspoken claims and assumptions on the basis of which the hy- pothesis was originally constructed. It is an unfortunate reality that the vast majority of supporters of the Documentary Hypothesis have for the most part been singularly unwilling or unable to question the fundamental tenets of the theory in the 150 years since it became standard in the field. Thus methodological and ana- lytical difficulties, even when occasionally acknowledged as such, have tended to be uncritically repeated in scholarship down through the genera- tions. As a result one is given the impression that these problems are in- herent in the theory, inseparable from it, and therefore grounds for its complete dismissal. The basic structure of the Documentary Hypothesis need not be dis- carded. It is simply required that the methodological errors that have been made throughout the years, and the unnecessary accretions to the basic theory, be identified and corrected, and a restatement put forward that is simpler and more readily able to withstand the challenges of the past, present, and future. These methodological errors, in the view of the present author, fall into four major categories: 1) The starting point of analysis. In the earliest developmental stages of the Documentary Hypothesis, the laws were given considerably more at- tention than the narratives, which in itself is neither surprising nor objec- tionable, for the Pentateuch had for two millennia been known as “the Law,” and it is in the laws that the most glaring contradictions are to be found. An unfortunate result of this prioritizing, however, was that con- clusions derived from the study of the laws were, appropriately or inappro- priately, applied secondarily and somewhat haphazardly to the narratives. The culmination of this process was Julius Wellhausens reconstruction of 6 Introduction

Israelite religious history, founded on the basis of his belief that the laws were necessarily late and on the source division that arose from that belief. His basic scheme was so widely accepted that, in many if not most cases, the actual source division itself became something of an afterthought. Priority was given to the various theories of religious or cultural develop- ment – which had originally arisen out of the study of the sources – such that it became common to find literary analysis performed on the basis of a scholars view of Israelite religious or national history, rather than the reverse. Methodologically, the literary problem of the Pentateuch is ap- proachable only through literary means. Any and all observations regard- ing the religious, state, institutional, or cultural history of Israel may be made only on the basis of the literary analysis, and never the other way around. The Documentary Hypothesis must be returned to its roots as a literary solution intended to resolve a literary problem, not a historical, religious, or cultural theory. 2) The basis on which the sources are identified. The origin of the idea that there are separate sources in the Pentateuch lies in the alternation of the divine names in Genesis, and as such the division of the sources on the basis of terminology has a long and fruitful history. This process reached its zenith in the critical works of the early twentieth century, which are littered with, and at times dominated by, lengthy lists of words, phrases, and concepts considered either unique to or predominantly used by a gi- ven source. Yet the strict adherence of scholars to these lists, frequently to the exclusion of questions of actual content, when separating the sources has resulted in innumerable analytical difficulties. There is but one feature of the pentateuchal text that can justly be used as the primary rationale for dividing the sources: narrative consistency and coherence.14 This claim reflects the principal problem that the method is explicitly designed to solve: why is the Pentateuch a fundamentally incoherent narrative? All other questions – why do the divine names alternate? why does this word seem to have different meanings in different settings? why is this pericope so different stylistically from the one before it? – are secondary and sup- plementary to the basic question: why is a given section incompatible, in basic narrative sense, with those before and after it? As one resolves the narrative inconsistencies by the division of the text into independent sources, it becomes clear that specific terminological and stylistic indica-

14 This is not limited to the narrative portions of the Pentateuch, however. The issue, in both the narrative and the law, is what the historical claims of the author are. In one source, the author claims that laws a, b, and c were given; a different authors claims that laws x, y, and z were given. This is not so different, in the end, from one author claiming that Joseph was stolen by Midianites, and another claiming that he was sold to Ishmae- lites, e. g. Introduction 7 tors – as well as historiographical and theological concepts – begin to re- solve into two columns as well, matched to the narrative threads. These non-narrative considerations are, therefore, a way of describing the differ- ing literary strands, not a prescription for the division of the text into those strands. 3) The similarities and differences among the sources. Virtually since its inception, scholars of the Documentary Hypothesis have relied in their analysis on the basic premise that the narratives of the various sources were essentially similar. It is apparent that the over-arching story – prime- val history, patriarchs, exodus, revelation, wilderness – is held in common among all the sources, and even within this structure some of the episodes are similar. It has commonly been assumed, however, that not some but all of the episodes that make up the larger narrative must have originally appeared in each source. And more than this: within these episodes, the sources are assumed to be telling the same stories in essentially the same manner, with the same narrative details. This assumption may have a num- ber of explanations – basis in a common oral or written tradition; depen- dence of later sources on earlier sources; evolutionary theories of literary and religious development – but none are inherent in the literature itself. Rather, they derive from ones personal, external concepts of how the bib- lical literature “must have” developed. The result of the belief that all the sources must be telling essentially the same stories has been innumerable tortured divisions of texts, the primary intention of which has been the preservation of two basically equal stories on each side of the page. Be- cause these divisions are inflicted upon the text from without, on external grounds rather than from any literary necessity, they are both analytically insupportable and inherently subjective. When, however, one realizes that there is no literary reason for one source to tell the same story as another, either in the details of a particular episode or in the specific list of episodes that make up the overarching story, one is free to be guided by the internal problems of the text alone in ones analysis. 4) The reliance on the redactor. The potent combination of non-literary considerations, over-dependence on style and terminology, and increas- ingly complicated analysis of the text led to an increasing dependence on the redactor as the solution to countless source-critical difficulties. Stea- dily, and almost imperceptibly, the redactor was assigned a more and more active role in the development of the text. He was blamed for pro- blems created by a scholars source analysis. He gained theological and historiographical beliefs, which were considered to be discernible in the text. And it multiplied, in accordance with the assumption that the sources were combined in successive stages, such that each required its own redac- tor. Lost in all this was the true nature of the redactor: he is a necessary 8 Introduction side-effect of the recognition of multiple sources in the text, not a primary feature of the theory. The theory demands a redactor, because the sources were evidently combined by someone – but no more than one. Multiple redactors need to be proven literarily, just like multiple authors. The same rigorous demands we make of scholars attempting to prove the existence of different sources should be applied to scholars claiming the existence of different redactors. The redactor is not a tool to be wielded by the source critic in an effort to justify his analysis. It is rather a necessary outgrowth of that analysis. The redactor must be returned to his proper place in the theory. The following study represents an attempt to come to terms with the challenges raised against the Documentary Hypothesis over the past thirty years while still upholding the basic tenets of the classical theory. It is not within the scope of this study to confront fully the contemporary Eur- opean approach to the composition of the Pentateuch. Rather, I hope to use this new approach heuristically, as a means of identifying the problems inherent in the classical documentary model. It is the classical model which remains the focus of the analysis below, with the aim of reasserting its basic structure but reassessing those aspects that have been criticized. This entails defending the fundamental elements and methods of the theo- ry, while being free to jettison those that are without literary justification. In a field almost entirely devoid of hard, externally verifiable evidence, the most valuable analyses are those that create the tightest possible circle of reasoning. When the theory explains all the details, and the evidence of the details universally supports the theory – and when the theory is simple enough to be historically plausible – it may be considered, if not empiri- cally true, then at least convincing. The particular issue that this study addresses is the relationship of the J and E sources and their purported combination into a unified JE docu- ment.15 What follows is an effort to correct the problems created by the aforementioned methodological errors made over the history of the Docu- mentary Hypothesis. With regard to the issue at stake here, those pro- blems manifest themselves in the inability to separate J from E with any

15 It is striking that a thorough study of this aspect of the classical theory has never before been attempted. Numerous studies of the independent sources J or E are avail- able, as are various introductions to the Hebrew Bible which present the classic view of the theory or a slightly revised one. The very basic step of the combination of J and E, however, which has been assumed since Wellhausen, has largely remained unexamined. The notable exception to this is Menahem Haran, who has, throughout his scholarship, maintained the separation of J and E. It was only in his most recent work on the compo- sition of D and the Deuteronomistic History, Ha¯>a¯sppa¯h hammiqra¯>t, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2004), however, that he discussed any methodological issues. Harans proposal and argumentation will receive close study in the following chapters. Introduction 9 assurance; the resulting belief that J and E may simply not be discernible any longer in their independent states; the increasing reliance on a specia- lized redactor, RJE, to solve the problems of the J and E narratives; and, most strikingly, the eventual refusal to acknowledge the existence of E in the first place. Applying proper methodology in the literary analysis, and thereby correcting the fundamental mistakes that led to these problems, results in a clearer picture of the J and E sources, both independently and in terms of the question of their combination. I will endeavor to approach the question of the combination of J and E from a variety of angles. First, it is necessary to inquire as to the scholarly origins of the JE document: not only which scholars proposed, promul- gated, and defended it in the early years of the Documentary Hypothesis, but more important, on what grounds they did so, under what intellectual circumstances, and with what intention. This examination of nineteenth- century scholarship reveals that, despite its widespread acceptance both then and now, the concept of the combined JE document is really little more than an accident of scholarship, a by-product of the particular man- ner in which the separation of the sources was undertaken by the methods early practitioners. Only subsequently, it will be shown, was any attempt made to defend this concept textually, and that rather unsuccessfully. Second, the idea of the JE document can be traced into the twentieth century, where it was either accepted almost wordlessly into the main- stream of pentateuchal scholarship (even when that scholarship moved in new directions) or rejected entirely along with the rest of the documentary edifice of which it had become a fundamental part. Both of these trends are important, on the one hand in order to demonstrate the manner by which ideas were uncritically accepted in later scholarship, and on the other in order to highlight the very problems with both the idea of JE and the entire Documentary Hypothesis that are at stake in this study. Third, the textual proof for the independence of J and E is found primarily and forcefully in the analysis of Ds use of the narratives in Exo- dus and Numbers. Although scholars have long recognized a relationship between the work of the Deuteronomist and the non-priestly narratives, this relationship was always viewed through the lens of the assumption of the existence of a JE document. When this assumption is removed, it be- comes quite clear that the author of D was not reading and basing his own work on a JE document, but rather on the independent J and E docu- ments – and almost exclusively on E. Given this analysis, we are required fourthly to look anew at those passages that have been identified in past scholarship as deriving from the hand of the redactor of JE, known famil- iarly as RJE. Without the assumption of such a redaction in the first place, and with the methodological errors of the past put behind us, these pas- 10 Introduction sages can be re-analyzed and put into their proper places in the various documents from which they authentically derive. In doing so, however, the question of the role of the redactor is raised, and as this has been a point of contention among pentateuchal scholars (and their critics) for nearly as long as the Documentary Hypothesis has existed, it requires careful and renewed attention. Fifthly, then, the method of the pentateu- chal redaction must be examined. The long-standing claim of multiple le- vels of redaction (beginning, of course, with that of RJE), just like that of multiple authors, requires that distinctions be drawn between the methods of the various purported redactors. While in the case of the authors we inquire as to their historical assumptions, theology, style, and other attri- butes of their writing, in the case of redactors the questions should be based on the manner in which the sources have been combined, or redac- tional insertions have been made. An analysis of this type, without the pre- sumption of multiple redactors, leads to the conclusion that in fact only one method is in evidence throughout the entire Pentateuch, and that therefore the literary evidence supports the existence of only a single re- dactor. As the textual evidence is so strongly and clearly against the indepen- dent combination of J and E, it is worthwhile to step back and look at the underlying literary and historical assumptions that have been either expli- cit or implicit in previous scholarship on this topic. The sixth chapter of this study addresses these very assumptions. When these are laid bare, the untenable nature of the standard view of the combination of J and E be- comes evident. Finally, the conclusion of this work will suggest a revised view of the nature and historical circumstances of the redaction of the Pen- tateuch, based on the literary evidence gathered in the preceding chapters. The primary aim of the present work is to demonstrate that J and E were never combined into an independent JE document, but the argu- ments brought in support of this claim result in a number of corollary claims: both J and E existed; they are separable from each other; they are independent of each other; they are essentially continuous, coherent nar- ratives – and not only these two sources, but all four, were combined by a single redactor at a single point in time. As such, what follows stands not only as a challenge to a major aspect of the classical source-critical formu- lation, but as a confirmation of the underlying principles of the Documen- tary Hypothesis – and, importantly, as a response and challenge in its own right to the modern European dismissal of the Documentary Hypothesis. This study attempts some much-needed steps to pull biblical scholarship back from the precipice of the perceived “crisis” in pentateuchal criticism. Chapter One

The Scholarly Origins of JE

The aim of this chapter is to reveal the scholarly origins of the idea of the combined “JE” document through a review of nineteenth-century scholar- ship. Though there are a number of excellent histories of pentateuchal scholarship, they are by their very nature of a more general variety, and are ill-equipped to deal in detail with any one particular facet of a scho- lars work.1 Thus we may typically learn in such a work that Hermann Hupfeld was one of the first scholars to recognize that the “Elohistic” document, as construed in the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, should in fact be divided into two sources (now known as E and P); we may also learn a few of his reasons for doing so, and how his work was received.2 The intricacies of Hupfelds argument, however, the assump- tions underlying it, and the impact it had on a narrower subfield within pentateuchal scholarship are of necessity left for a less generalized study.3 In this case, one might want to know not just that Hupfeld determined the existence of two sources E and P, but also how he viewed the original re- lationship between these two sources; how he imagined each of these sources relate to J and D; and how he envisioned the process of combina- tion that led to the amalgam of the sources as we now have it. Further- more, one might want to discern the impact these ideas had on future scholarship, not just in the most obvious sense (i. e., that subsequent scho- larship has universally recognized the distinction between E and P), but in the details: did the subsequent generation of scholars view the combina- tion of the sources in the same way that Hupfeld did? Did they make changes, and if so, what, and more importantly, why? These are the details that are unavailable in the general histories of pentateuchal scholarship, and it is for this reason that a renewed effort will be made in this study to review the scholarship on our particular subject.

1 Worthy of particular mention are John Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); Nicholson, Pentateuch; Cornelius Houtman, Der Pentateuch: Die Geschichte seiner Erforschung neben einer Auswertung (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994). 2 See Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism, 132–134. 3 See, for example, the single paragraph devoted to Hupfeld in Nicholsons work (Pentateuch, 8f.). 12 Chapter One: The Scholarly Origins of JE

The task at hand is relatively tricky. For the most part, virtually no stu- dies from the formative period of the Documentary Hypothesis (or there- after) were devoted solely to the question of the combination of J and E. One must, therefore, tease out scholars ideas from among their more gen- eral writings. Again turning to the example of Hupfeld: though his book on the sources of Genesis was revolutionary for its division of E and P, the manner in which his “second Elohist” (E) relates to J was not a focal point of his argument. One must therefore carefully examine scattered state- ments throughout the book to determine his thoughts on this issue. Simi- larly, in Julius Wellhausens Prolegomena, in which the main object is to demonstrate the dating of P relative to the rest of the sources, and thereby to reconstruct Israelite religious history, the question of the relationship of J and E is secondary, if not tertiary. Yet we are given an important clue about Wellhausens approach to this issue by his constant use of the si- glum “JE,” rather than either J or E. As we shall see, the impact of this particular choice has been far-ranging, and may indeed be the seminal moment in the scholarship of the combination of J and E; yet how many reviews and discussions of this most important book have recognized, let alone dealt with, this particular issue? Once one has resolved to make the attempt to determine the history of scholarship of this question, limits must be set, for an absolutely compre- hensive history of scholarship on an issue even as specific as this would require an entire volume, if not considerably more. Every scholar who writes about the Pentateuch in general, source criticism, form criticism, tradition-historical criticism, any particular pericope, chapter, or even verse, or writes a commentary on any of the books of the Pentateuch comes to some conclusion regarding the combination of J and E, even if it is not explicitly stated at the beginning of the work. Thus, one must de- termine which scholars have made the signal contributions to this particu- lar subfield. I have thus chosen only a handful of scholars whose work I consider foundational for the concept of “JE.” With the exception of Hupfeld, whose work was and remains a necessary prerequisite for all scholarship on this issue, all the scholars discussed in this chapter are from the generation that helped construct what came to be known as the “Newer Documentary Theory”: Karl Heinrich Graf, Abraham Kuenen, and Julius Wellhausen, the great triumvirate of source criticism; and their contemporaries August Dillmann and Eduard Riehm, who challenged the idea of the “JE” document. In this chapter I hope not just to produce a simple history of scholar- ship, in which the major scholars on the issue are reviewed and subse- quently neglected. Rather, I hope to show that the concept of the “JE” document was never effectively proven by its initial supporters, and was Hermann Hupfeld 13 in fact the secondary result of an entirely separate scholarly process. In short, I will demonstrate that the idea of “JE” can be ascribed almost to an accident of scholarship, one that became firmly entrenched and was defended only after it had become a part of the standard formulation of the Documentary Hypothesis.

Hermann Hupfeld

The history of scholarship regarding any aspect of the relationship be- tween the sources J and E must always begin with Hermann Hupfeld (1796–1866). Though Karl D. Ilgen was the first to separate what was ori- ginally known as the Elohist, or Urschrift, into two sources,4 it was Hup- felds rediscovery and reworking of Ilgens idea that was adopted by vir- tually all subsequent scholarship.5 The splitting of the Elohist into two sources, the “older” Elohist and “younger” Elohist, is justly remembered as Hupfelds great scholarly achievement. But Hupfeld devoted only a quarter of his book to proving this; the remainder he devoted to a close study of each of the (now three) non-Deuteronomic sources, identifying their individual styles and perspectives, and discussing, albeit briefly, their relationship to one another. Hupfelds work preceded that of Graf and Kuenen, and he was there- fore still writing under the premise that P (his “older Elohist”) was the oldest document of the Pentateuch. He viewed the “Jahwist” as the latest pre-Deuteronomic source, thereby staying within the general framework already established by de Wette (on whom he relied heavily6). On the basis of the divine names in particular, and also some theological features, Hup- feld assigned his new source (the “younger Elohist”) to a place in between the previously established pair. After Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen shat- tered the hypothesis of the priestly Grundschrift, the details of Hupfelds analysis of the three sources was essentially forgotten, a relic of an earlier era of pentateuchal scholarship. Thus we remember him today almost ex- 4 Karl D. Ilgen, Die Urkunden des ersten Buchs von Moses in ihrer Urgestalt: zum bes- sern Verstndniss und richtigern Gebrauch derselben: in ihrer gegenwrtigen Form aus dem Hebrischen mit kritischen Anmerkungen und Nachweisungen auch einer Abhandlung ber die Trennung der Urkunden (Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke, 1798). The term “Ur- schrift” was used by Hupfeld to describe the original Elohist (i. e., P+E), which was understood as the oldest document of the Pentateuch, and which was used as the basis for the subsequent J and D authors. This was also frequently called the “Grundschrift,” although that term may be better applied to P when it was still conceived as the earliest document of the Pentateuch upon which all others were based. 5 Hermann Hupfeld, Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung (Berlin: Wiegandt und Grieben, 1853). 6 Cf. Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism, 133. 14 Chapter One: The Scholarly Origins of JE clusively for his separation of P and E. This is regrettable, however, as Hupfeld was the first to deal with the issue not only of how to identify the various documents, but also of how these three documents were put together. Though his work was by definition preliminary, many of his ob- servations remain pertinent. Having identified the three sources, Hupfeld asked the following ques- tions: Did the Jahwist know the “younger Elohist” (E) document?7 Was the “younger Elohist” even an originally independent document at all?8 And most importantly for our purposes, how were the Jahwist and “younger Elohist” documents combined? Did one author both write his own narrative and also combine it with the other? Or were they indepen- dent documents which were combined by a separate redactor at a later date?9 It is remarkable that these same questions remain relevant in mod- ern scholarship, almost exactly as they were formulated by Hupfeld. Un- fortunately, his answers have been generally forgotten, ascribed to an ear- lier, more nave time in scholarship, relegated to the same dustbin as his early dating of P. Yet, since the questions remain, his initial solutions de- serve at least the respect of a new hearing. Not all of his conclusions are of equal worth, but his method of achieving them is worth studying. Hupfeld began by dismissing the notion that the later Jahwist author could have both written his own work in parallel to the younger Elohist and also combined the two documents. In his view, the presence of so many contradictions between the younger Elohist and the Jahwist, not least of all in the alternating use of the divine name, precluded this idea. For Hupfeld, it was simply not sensible to imagine an author consciously choosing to use a document as his base or model and then contradicting it at will without making any changes to the original. For one striking exam- ple, Hupfeld could not imagine the Jahwist leaving the Elohist narrative of the revelation of the divine name in Exodus as it stands, or even knowing it at all, as it directly contradicts the Jahwists explicit statements to the contrary in Genesis. Htte der Jhvhist die Elohistischen Quellen vor sich gehabt, so wrde er zwar wohl, da er nicht von derselben historischen Ansicht von dem Ursprung des Namens JHVH ausgieng, sich von der strengen Regel der Elohisten im Gebrauch des Na- mens njela entbunden, und beide Namen nach dem gewçhnlichen Sprachge- brauch angewendet: aber schwerlich seinerseits den Namen efej so ausschließlich wie jene ihr njela gebraucht, noch weniger aber gegen die Auctoritt und das aus-

7 We might ask this question in reverse today, as the vast majority of scholarship now sees the J document as being older than E; Hupfeld, however, was working under the idea that J was younger than both P and E. 8 For these questions, see particularly pp. 162–68, 193–95. 9 On the role of Hupfelds Redactor, see pp. 195–203. Hermann Hupfeld 15 drckliche Zeugniss der Urschrift Exod. 6,2ff. diesen Namen in die ganze vormo- saische Zeit von Anfang der Dinge an – selbst im Munde der Heiden – einzufh- ren, und jenem Zeugniss sogar, wie es scheint, ein entgegengesetztes 4,26 gegen- berzustellen, also systematisch zu widersprechen gewagt haben; besonders da ein solches System schwerlich durch die Ueberlieferung – die sich auf dergleichen nicht einzulassen pflegt – gegeben ist. Nur dann ist dieser Widerspruch begreiflich, wenn der sptere unabhngig von dem frhern schrieb.10 If, therefore, the Jahwist was not responsible for the combination of the two documents, then perhaps he was at least familiar with the work of the younger Elohist. Hupfeld rejected this possibility in a similar fashion. The blatant contradictions between the two sources militate against the possi- bility of J knowing E. Denn das wird doch wohl niemand sich einreden wollen, dass der Verfasser so blind und einfltig gewesen sein kçnne die handgreiflichen Widersprche in die er sich dadurch mit seiner Quelle setzte nicht zu merken. Dass er aber so dreist gewe- sen sei ihr mit Bewusstsein und Absicht auf eigne Faust ins Angesicht zu wider- sprechen, ist sicherlich eben so wenig von einem Hebrischen Schriftsteller anzu- nehmen. Vielmehr muss bei allen Differenzen und Widersprchen der Hebrischen Geschichtschreiber, wie gross sie auch seien, unstreitig immer angenommen wer- den, dass sie unwissentliche oder unbewusste waren.11 Hupfelds underlying argument is that no author would consciously in- clude in his own work, with its particular historiographical and theologi- cal considerations, a work that was expressly contradictory.12 For Hupfeld, this led to only one conclusion: the two texts were com- bined at a later date, by an independent Redactor,13 who attempted to keep a considerable amount of each source intact: Da damit zugleich der an sich denkbare Fall dass der Jhvist etwa den jngeren Elohisten bereits in sein Werk aufgenommen habe, ausgeschlossen ist – was wenigs- tens nur unter der unwahrscheinlichen Voraussetzung mçglich wre, dass er sich einestheils ber jene Wiederholungen und Widersprche mit seiner Darstellung verblendet oder hinausgesetzt, anderntheils doch wieder hie und da seinen eignen Bericht verstmmelt und mit einem fremden ersetzt habe –: so folgt daraus dass die

10 Hupfeld, Quellen, 166. 11 Hupfeld, Quellen, 165f. 12 This argument remains effective, which may explain why few scholars attribute the process of combining the sources to any of the individual authors thereof. It is, however, also a good argument against the type of reconstruction suggested by Rendtorff and his followers (see chapter 2 below). 13 Here, and throughout this chapter, I follow the author in questions terminology for the editor/compiler of the sources. We will see below in chapter 2 that the commonly used term “Redactor” has lost virtually any specific meaning (especially in the section on the work of John Van Seters). It is notable that Hupfeld deviated from the theory, stan- dard since de Wette, that the redactor was the Deuteronomist (cf. Abraham Kuenen, An Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch [London: Macmillan and Co., 1886], xiii).