mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) (12/19/90)
I've had some system downtime, and other problems, that prevented me from giving a more timely answer to Richard O'Keefe's postings on the Document- ary Hypothesis. I hope to get around to some comments on his "experiment" -- but I have first of all to catch up on the main thread of discussion between us. He wrote one rather long note in somewhat vehement response to me, which when purged of rhetorical gestures seems to leave us in violent agreement on many points. And it remains very obscure to me precisely what he is arguing against where we *do* disagree. I hope note this from me will allow us to clarify what we have in contention. + What I do affirm is that the Torah most likely _had_ humanly accessible + sources for the most part, and that we should expect many of these sources + to have used Semitic literary forms known from other Near Eastern cultures. I'd broaden that a bit to say that the other Semitic literatures may illumine our texts, even when the forms differ -- maybe especially where they differ. One example I have seen, in studies of Ugaritic narrative and in comments on creation stories, is that the Hebrew materials are highly "demythologized" in comparison. This goes beyond the obvious elimination of pantheons of many gods in favor of a single God (as one would expect of our material :-)) to a severe restraint in refering human actions to divine motivations and detailed divine manipulations. "The culture history" in the early chapters of Genesis (except for God's interference at Babel to introduce linguistic confusion, which has some of the flavor of typical Semitic narrative) is a good example -- the "blessings" of Genesis 1 may be seen as indirectly a reference to God's providence, but agriculture, cities, metalworking, herding and viticulture are all just "there" at some point of the genealogy, not the explicit gifts of a god (or theft by some hero from the gods.) Anyway, since O'Keefe *is* willing to use archaeological data and comparison to surrounding cultures, I once again affirm that he is not far at all from the historico-critical camp. He says: + obviously the Torah has _some_ sources, but we should maintain an attitude + of honest scepticism towards the claim that "the" Documentary Hypothesis + is able to recover them. Within limits, I am again in perfect agreement. Dogmatic adherence to the J/E/P/D hypothesis is inherently absurd, since critical/historical methods are BASED on doubt. The limits of skepticism lie in tentatively accepting a hypothesis that maintains historical plausibility and generates critical commentary that enriches the text (obviously, there is some subjective judgment in both of these categories). An impression of dogmatism is often conveyed by standard academic discourse, especially in German -- and I can imagine O'Keefe being put off by what he *takes* to be dogmatism. All I can say is that I am not aware of any of the "hidden agendas" he seems to find, or other devious ideological axe-grinding -- it would be a peculiar kind of axe that was shared by German Evangelical Lutherans, Anglicans, Roman Catholics and atheistic secular linguists and historians. I believe I said before that SOME presentations of the DH are tightly bound to rather extreme (and by no means established) hypotheses in the history of Judaism. That is a peculiarly Germanic preoccupation, however, and I don't think it is [as] much found in English-language sources. In any case, my own provisional acceptance of the D.H. *isn't* dependent on presumptions about the course of Israelite history -- except that it should manage to "fit" into the general picture of human history given us by archaeological and other historical endeavors that do not in themselves deal directly with theological issues. [This reservation, of course, sets me apart from the "traditionalists of both Jewish and Christian communities. I do not mean it in any way as a blasphemy -- it is simply the ONLY way I can honestly approach the issue. If the history of faith is NOT open to human inquiry, I might as well give up now.] I believe that the skeptical standards Richard appears to use with respect to the D.H. would, applied even-handedly, leave one devoid of ANY opinion (beyond the generic commitment to critical and historical reason I posited above) about the structure and authorship of the Bible. + The fundamental framework of the DH is its hidden agenda: so to divide + up the Torah as to sustain an argument that it was collated _late_. You + can believe in documentary sources, you can even investigate methods that + _might_ recover them, and still believe in an early redaction. Agreed. I have no ideological commitment (or any other, actually, besides finding the suggestion historically plausible) to a late redaction. As I understand it (let me again disclaim any relevant knowledge of Hebrew, but this is consonant with my knowledge of English and Greek and is suggested to me by friends with relevant training in Semitic languages), there is sufficient evidence of historical change in Hebrew (and sufficient in the way of comparative data to other NW Semitic languages) to buttress claims of a late redaction. What is your evidence for an EARLY redaction? Why would a skeptic have any preference in this matter? Given that our earliest texts of Hebrew scripture are from Qumran, and we have *reference* to the texts only from about the time of their translation into Greek (Septuagint), it's already granting considerable weight (mostly on the basis of their relative accuracy about late Assyrian/Chaldean/Egyptian matters that we can confirm from other sources) to these texts to refer the Torah and the "Deuteronomic History" back to the 6th century. *I* am skeptical of any assertions that they go back much futher, except as generic folklore of indeterminate content. I'm *willing* to be persuaded otherwise -- but that needs an argument. > One may, of course, be skeptical that we know *anything* about the history > of Israel sufficently well to "excavate" the literary strata of the texts > -- but in THAT case, the conclusion must surely be to reject "traditional" > readings even more forcefully than one doubts the DH! + I would like to see this "proof by intimidation" turned into something + approaching a reasoned argument. We do have knowledge about the history + of Israel, obtained principally from the Tanach, but also from archaeology. I don't know what you mean by "proof by intimidation." I simply state the skeptic's creed (Symbolum Missouriensis) "show me." Traditional accounts with which I am familiar approximate to that of Orthodox Judaism, that the Torah was given letter for letter to Moses on Sinai (along with the oral law). Christian accounts are not so rigid (and dispense with the oral law in this context :-)), but again assume Moses as *author* (under divine inspriation) not as any kind of redactor (and certainly do NOT allow for a redactor later than Moses for the Torah!) Let me suggest that if one casts Moses as either author or redactor, one will find some severe problems dealing with "doublets" about Aaron. Or perhaps I may be allowed to quote the Exodus commentary on my shelves, Brevard Childs' _The Book of Exodus_, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1974, ISBN 0-664-20985-8, refering to arguments for a traditional reading of Exodus 3:1-4:17 "The other extreme [from Germanic Relgionsgeschichte reductionism] is found in Buber, who seeks to defend the unity of the section, by which meaning is assigned to the use of the names, as well as the constant need to adjust the theory in every succeeding section, does not evoke great confidence in this approach." To repeat, I have no problem with criticism of the D.H. as such, SO LONG AS the critics are willing to subject their OWN notions to as high a level of skeptical critique. I am confident that the D.H. survives such criticism better than any other that I have seen. + Note too that "the DH" and "traditional readings" are not the same + kind of entity. The traditional analogue of "the DH" would be a claim + something like "the texts are to be taken at face value where possible". This is a red herring. All critical study -- rabbinic, traditional Christian or modern -- *starts* from the texts taken at face value. I would contend that (specifically to *escape* from problems arising from stylistic and historical/scientific difficulties raised thereby) all the old traditions rapidly depart from (or, in the Jewish case, keep but overlay with manifold interpretive supplements) the plain text. If anything, modern critical study takes the text itself far more seriously than traditional methods (by modern criteria of seriousness, of course :-)) O'Keefe deals with two substantive issues: the genealogies and the multiple names of God. I think he misrepresents the data on both counts: + I knew perfectly well that the genealogies are *assumed* to be + characteristic of P. But I wrote about their present FUNCTION. The + FUNCTION of the genealogies in the present text of Genesis is that they + are the scaffolding on which the stories hang. I don't think this addresses my objection. There *is* a genealogical structure in the part of Genesis before the Patriarchs; they of course have their genealogical relation of persons but the stories of Abraham have no particular reference to that structure, nor do the stories of Isaac or Jacob. There is again a major influx of genealogy to define the tribes as children of Israel (and as a bridge to Exodus), and Joshua too ends with a similar genealogy-as-politics kind of passage. SOME of this is functional in the CURRENT text, some is oddly related to function (e.g., compare Genesis 4 and Genesis 5), and vast parts of OUR text simply have NO relation to it -- that is ALL I am saying: the use of genealogy seems to be a bit haphazard in our CURRENT text, but much more systematic in the text ascribed to P. J/E/P/D claims that P *is* functionally much more dependent on genealogy as its main "historical" device. I agree the argument for this would be circular *IF* it remained in isolation. I think, however, that it picks up explanatory force (and a test of its validity) when used, as for example in Westermann's commentary that I have mentioned before, to inquire deeply about the text -- i.e. to take the text seriously instead of inventing pious fictions to explain away the problems. I'm sorry if it offends Jews that I take Talmudic and other midrash as "pious fiction" -- but these simply don't answer *my* kinds of questions -- historical and literary ones. + Remember, this is the methodological foundation of the JEPD division, + the idea that "J" uses YHWH and that "E" uses ELHM. No; you are caricaturing the position (even the simple-minded statement you quote from the NEB Study Edition should not suggest this -- scholars just use one salient difference between the putative documents as a convenient label.) There is NO claim that different divine names identify different documents. Specifically, the Elohist is characterized by a careful *control* on the use of multiple names -- holding back the use of YHWH until the revelation on the Mountain of God. There is a theological point implied by Exodus 3 that the NAME was not known until then -- which makes for a rather nasty critical problem since the name is freely used before then in our text! It's a careful reading of the text that gives rise to a problem that suggests some kind of solution along Yahwist/Elohist lines. And again, this poses some severe problems if you are going to take Moses as redactor of earlier sources -- why did he then introduce the name YHWH in *some* of his sources if it was indeed a name new to him? I do not mean to claim that such a problem is "insoluble" on any other ground than the D.H. -- one may even propose more or less plausible "explanations" that would keep Moses as redactor. But at this stage, the D.H. makes more sense to me than any alternative I have seen. Including, e.g., Cassuto's attempt to preserve "unity" of authorship by appealing to oral tradition. That is the ONE attempt I know of that understands the grounds of literary criticism and attempts to meet them with a quasi-traditional reading. It fails. My earlier note, with its reference to Milman Parry and the "Homeric Question" is a statement of HOW Cassuto failed. If O'Keefe is aware of ANY respectable venture in this field after Cassuto, I'd be glad to hear of it. O'Keefe goes into a long exposition about the Enuma Elish; I am glad to see his willingness to use this as somehow related to Genesis 1. I would point out that other stories may be similarly related to Genesis 2. Once you get to such statements the majority of "traditional" interpretationists in THIS country would write you off as hopelessly corrupted by the liberals, and in no way better than Wellhausen. One more point, however, before I close. + Marduk and Bel are one and the same. He is also called "the lord". This example (and the related ones he cites at some length) does not seem to me to demonstrate what O'Keefe claims for them. There are several points; first, "functional" titles like "Lord" (or like Allah's "names" Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim, etc.) are not at issue here. Most gods *do* have LOTS of these. And Marduk has accumulated functions and names over a couple of thousand years of Mesopotamian history -- many of the myths we have with Marduk as protagonist (and especially those around the New Year festival) go back to Sumerian prototypes with DIFFERENT gods -- and we can see in archaeological sources the succession/replacement of gods as cities achieve hegemony. A situation like that is analogous to the D.H. claims, not to the traditional ones. If the tetragrammaton is merely substituted for a creator from the old myths, a good part of American traditionalism simply goes down the toilet, however creative and admirable a job the redactor may otherwise have done. The "issue" is the relation (if any) between the ancient Canaanite god El (plural Elohim) which is the theophoric element in *my* name Michael, and the Israelite god **** revealed by name (but as the god of the patriarchs) on Sinai to Moses, appearing in the equivalent theophoric Mic[h]aiah. Names, and their theophoric components are a significant tool in the armory of archaeology. Related to this particular question are place names like Beth-el, questions of what god was Melchizedek priest of in [Jeru]salem, and whether or not the NAME is an independent god-name conflated to El by the Israelites or (as Frank Cross has argued, but I should note without any but analogical evidence) originally an epithet of El as a creator god. The D.H. is one POSSIBLE solution to the problems in this nexus; I'm not going to be willing to accept another proposal unless it solves both these and OTHER problems (in which the D.H. seems to me to "work") notably better than the D.H does (including the matter of historical plausibility). -- Michael L. Siemon In so far as people think they can see the m.siemon@ATT.COM "limits of human understanding", they think ...!att!sfsup!mls of course that they can see beyond these. standard disclaimer -- Ludwig Wittgenstein
mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) (12/24/90)
My quotation from Childs' commentary on Exodus 3 managed to drop 4 lines. Here's what I intended to post: "The other extreme [from Germanic Relgionsgeschichte reductionism] is found in Buber, who seeks to defend the unity of the section, but at the cost of considerable elimination of alleged accretions. Jacob, Cassuto, and Lacocque defend the traditional view that the interchange of divine names is a purposeful device of one author. However, both the extreme artificiality by which meaning is assigned to the use of the names, as well as the constant need to adjust the theory in every succeeding section, does not evoke great confidence in this approach." -- Michael L. Siemon In so far as people think they can see the m.siemon@ATT.COM "limits of human understanding", they think ...!att!sfsup!mls of course that they can see beyond these. standard disclaimer -- Ludwig Wittgenstein