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John Van Seters (born 2 May 1935) is a notable scholar on the Ancient Near East
Ancient Near East

The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , Fars Province, Elam and Medes , Anatolia , the Levant , and Ancient Egypt, from the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BCE until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, or covering both th...
.

HisAbraham in History and Tradition
Abraham in History and Tradition

Abraham in History and Tradition is a book by biblical scholar John Van Seters.The book was a landmark in Near Eastern Studies and Biblical archaeology, since it challenged the dominant view, popularised by William Foxwell Albright, that the patriarchal narratives of Book of Genesis can be identified on archaeological grounds with the...
 (1975) was one of the seminal publications in its field, arguing that no convincing evidence existed to support the historical existence of Abraham and the other Biblical Patriarchs or the historical reliability of the book of Genesis. The book undermined both the Biblical archaeology
Biblical archaeology

For the movement associated with William F. Albright and known as Biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. For the interpretation of Biblical archaeology in relation to Biblical historicity, see The Bible and history....
 school of William F. Albright
William F. Albright

William Foxwell Albright was an United States archaeology, Bible, linguistics and expert on ceramics . From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the universally acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement....
, who had argued over the previous fifty years that the archaeological record confirmed the essential truth of the history contained in Genesis, and the "tradition history" school of Martin Noth
Martin Noth

Martin Noth was a Germany scholar of the Hebrew Bible who specialized in the pre-Exilic history of the Hebrews. With Gerhard von Rad he pioneered the traditional-historical approach to biblical studies, emphasising the role of oral traditions in the formation of the biblical texts....
, which argued that Genesis contained a core of valid history passed down through oral tradition prior to the composition of the written book itself.

Van Seters went on to put forward his own theory on the origins of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the bible, Genesis/Exodus/Leviticus/Numbers/Deuteronomy), arguing that they had been composed as additions and revisions of a single original document composed by an author writing in the 6th century BC.






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John Van Seters (born 2 May 1935) is a notable scholar on the Ancient Near East
Ancient Near East

The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , Fars Province, Elam and Medes , Anatolia , the Levant , and Ancient Egypt, from the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BCE until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, or covering both th...
.

HisAbraham in History and Tradition
Abraham in History and Tradition

Abraham in History and Tradition is a book by biblical scholar John Van Seters.The book was a landmark in Near Eastern Studies and Biblical archaeology, since it challenged the dominant view, popularised by William Foxwell Albright, that the patriarchal narratives of Book of Genesis can be identified on archaeological grounds with the...
 (1975) was one of the seminal publications in its field, arguing that no convincing evidence existed to support the historical existence of Abraham and the other Biblical Patriarchs or the historical reliability of the book of Genesis. The book undermined both the Biblical archaeology
Biblical archaeology

For the movement associated with William F. Albright and known as Biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. For the interpretation of Biblical archaeology in relation to Biblical historicity, see The Bible and history....
 school of William F. Albright
William F. Albright

William Foxwell Albright was an United States archaeology, Bible, linguistics and expert on ceramics . From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the universally acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement....
, who had argued over the previous fifty years that the archaeological record confirmed the essential truth of the history contained in Genesis, and the "tradition history" school of Martin Noth
Martin Noth

Martin Noth was a Germany scholar of the Hebrew Bible who specialized in the pre-Exilic history of the Hebrews. With Gerhard von Rad he pioneered the traditional-historical approach to biblical studies, emphasising the role of oral traditions in the formation of the biblical texts....
, which argued that Genesis contained a core of valid history passed down through oral tradition prior to the composition of the written book itself.

Van Seters went on to put forward his own theory on the origins of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the bible, Genesis/Exodus/Leviticus/Numbers/Deuteronomy), arguing that they had been composed as additions and revisions of a single original document composed by an author writing in the 6th century BC. This "supplementary hypothesis" has become one of the three models now discussed by scholars considering the question of Pentateuchal origins (the other two being the "documentary hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis

The documentary hypothesis is the proposal that the first five books of the Old Testament represent a combination of documents from originally independent sources....
" and the "fragmentary hypothesis").

He is a prolific writer, concentrating largely on questions of the history of Old Testament texts and traditions.

Reviews of selected publications

  • "A Law Book for the Diaspora: Revision in the Study of the Covenant Code" ()
  • "The Edited Bible: The Curious History of the "Editor" in Biblical Criticism ()
  • The Pentateuch: A Social Science Commentary ()


Bibliography


  • John Van Seters, "", Yale University Press, 1975.
  • John Van Seters, "Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis", Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992.
  • John Van Seters, "Pentateuch: A Social Science Commentary", Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.