Form and Tradition Criticism

This chapter traces the influence of the history of religions school on the interpretation of the Pentateuch in two important areas of research: (1) the identification of individual oral stories in form criticism; and (2) the attempt to trace the formation of oral stories into larger collections in tradition history. It also discusses the main methodological issues raised by the various approaches surveyed in this chapter.

Ancient Near Eastern Literature and the Pentateuch

Modern academic biblical scholarship has observed a range of correlations between biblical texts and other texts from the larger ancient Near Eastern world. The observed correspondences have been used phenomenologically and interpretively to raise questions for investigation and offer insights for understanding the biblical texts, especially by contrasts between the texts. A more dynamic and controversial mode of comparative analysis, the focus of this survey, is to ask whether similarities point to a genetic relationship between cultures with the goal of historical reconstruction and placing the Hebrew biblical texts and ideas in their Near Eastern context.

The Pentateuch: Archaeology and History

This essay deals with the archaeological and extrabiblical clues that are relevant for identifying the historical realities that may lay behind pentateuchal texts. It will concentrate on the most thoroughly discussed pentateuchal narrative complexes, namely, the patriarchs and the Exodus and desert wandering.

The Pentateuch as (/and) Social Memory of “Israel” in the Late Persian Period

This essay explores the heuristic potential of Social Memory approach for the study of the Pentateuch. It focus on eight different “windows” that each sheds light on what an approach informed by memory studies may contribute to current discussions on the Pentateuch as a collection and the types of issues, questions or “angles” within existing questions that such an approach may raise. These windows focus on matters such as the Pentateuch as shared foundational memory of not one but two distinctive ‘groups’, beginnings and endings, main sites of memory, villains, multiplicity of voices, and intertwining of laws and narratives.

Positions on Redaction

This essay examines the nature of pentateuchal redaction, the various positions that scholars have taken on it across the history of modern biblical studies, and the ways that these theories contribute to larger theories of compositional history. It highlights the manner in which redactional theories have been especially productive among continental European scholars over the past half-century. The essay concludes with a consideration of external, empirical evidence for redaction, especially among the Persian and Hellenistic period witnesses to the Pentateuch.

The Identification of Postexilic Material in the Pentateuch

Without archaeological or paleographical means to determine the date of texts from the Pentateuch, scholarship relies on historical, linguistic, and literary-historical evidence to place pentateuchal materials in their compositional contexts. Under these three headings, this essay presents the evidence for texts originating in the postexilic period, and argues that there is considerably more of it than has traditionally been identified.

The Imperial Context of the Pentateuch

This chapter explores the variety of ways in which the Persian imperial context may have helped to shape, directly or indirectly, the authority and the content of the Torah as the five books of Moses. It critically evaluates the theory that the Pentateuch was officially authorized by the Persians, and finds this scenario much less convincing than more subtle accounts of imperial pressure giving rise to a series of compromises—between priestly and non-priestly literature and between the temples of Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim. Unlike the book of Ezra, the Pentateuch studiously avoids giving priority either to Jerusalem or to Gerizim, while hexateuchal redactions affirm the north. The chapter also considers proposals for understanding the pentateuchal traditions through the lens of postcolonial studies, clarifying the ways in which this research paradigm highlights the dynamics of mimicry, while undermining assumed distinctions between local agency and imperial administration.

The Identification of Preexilic Material in the Pentateuch

It is the aim of this chapter to indicate the convergence of the linguistic data and the sociocultural background for many segments in the narratives of the patriarchs and the Exodus, noting the convergence of the cultural hybridity of these narratives that are sometimes close to the Ugaritic epic, and their predominant oral background, as revealed by language usage. Some of the allusions to sociopolitical and geopolitical context dovetail with different periods of the Israelite/Judahite monarchy. Against these features I pointed to the congruence of the language usage of the deuteronomic/ priestly strata and their place in the royal/temple administration. This dialectic interplay of cultural/linguistic contrasts and convergences indicates four main formative stages/strata for pentateuchal literature, to begin with the oral/written, epic stage (ninth/early eighth century).

The Relevance of Moses Traditions in the Second Temple Period

This essay considers the array of Moses traditions in the Second Temple period and their relationship to the Pentateuch. It begins with a discussion of the pluriformity of the pentateuchal text during this period. It then turns to pentateuchal figures and themes in non-pentateuchal texts, analyzing their impact on questions of canon and authority. The essay also examines the term “Torah” itself, demonstrating that, even in the late Second Temple period, this term was not coterminous with the Pentateuch. It concludes with suggestions for how scholarship might take fuller advantage of the insights provided by the Second Temple period texts and manuscripts.

The Genres of the Pentateuch and Their Social Settings

The ability to recognize genres has been central to modern critical study of the Pentateuch since the work of Hermann Gunkel at the turn of the twentieth century. This essay surveys the legal, administrative, and literary genres used in the Pentateuch, offering a sense of its generic complexity. Genres are defined not as the fixed and stable forms used to classify texts, as understood by classic form-critical method, but as idealized cognitive models employed as tools for writing and interpreting texts, an understanding drawn from modern genre theory. Because genres are situated in social contexts, Gunkel saw genre as central to writing a history of Israel’s literature. This essay surveys the limitations of Gunkel’s vision yet identifies a way to reconnect with it and write a more organic literary history, one that may intersect with but also at times challenge the results of source- and redaction-critical methods.