The Making of the Pentateuch
Encyclopedia
The Making of the Pentateuch ("The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study", JSOT Press, Sheffield, 1987) by R. N. Whybray
, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Studies at the University of Hull (UK), was a major contribution to the field of Old Testament studies, and specifically to theories on the origins and composition of the Pentateuch. Its originality lay in its detailed critique of the documentary hypothesis
, and it remains a standard text on many reading lists.
. In the closing decades of the 19th century Julius Wellhausen
published Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels
, in which he had set out the definitive version of the historical development of the Hebrew bible
. According to this hypothesis, the Pentateuch - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus
, Numbers
and Deuteronomy
- was originally four separate documents, retelling the same episodes and stories, but with differing emphases designed to further the theological and political agendas of their authors. Their combination by a Redactor (editor) into a single narrative spread over five books had resulted in many inconsistencies and repetitous stories, which could be analysed through the methodology of source criticism
to reconstruct the original documents.
Wellhausen had concentrated exclusively on the written text of the Pentateuch, but in the next generation Hermann Gunkel
developed form criticism
, a methodology which he claimed could identify the various genres which had contributed to the text and thus reconstruct its tradition history
. Gunkel and his followers, notably Martin Noth
, used this new methodology to discover the oral saga
s which formed the basis of the written texts of the Pentateuch.
By the middle of the 20th century, Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis, the tradition history of Gunkel and Noth, and the Biblical archaeology
of William F. Albright
, who claimed to have found physical proof of the 2nd millennium BC origins of Genesis, Exodus, and the other books of the Pentateuch, had merged to form a dominant paradigm, or consensual view, of the origins of the Pentateuch. It was this paradigm that was challenged by Whybray's "The Making of the Pentateuch".
; Part 2 examines the methodology of form criticism and tradition history as developed by Noth and others; and Part 3 sets out Whybray's own suggestions for the process by which the Pentateuch came to be composed.
Whybray's attack on the documentary hypothesis addressed the basic methodology of source criticism, which relies on the existence of inconsistencies, repetitions and stylistic features such as alternative names for God to identify distinctive sources within the biblical text. The assumptions behind this methodology, Whybray says, are illogical and self-contradictory. If the authors of the original documents did not tolerate contradiction and repetition, why did the editors of the final work do so? And if the writers who created the final document did not mind such features, why should we suppose that the earlier sources did not contain contradiction and repetition? "Thus the hypothesis can only be maintained on the assumption that, while consistency was the hallmark of the various documents, inconsistency was the hallmark of the redactors" (p.19). Similarly, the repetition and stylistic variation which the documentary hypothesis explains as the remains of distinct sources, may be understood quite differently. For example, since other religious texts use a variety of names for God, why should the change of divine name in Genesis from Yahweh to Elohim
signal a change of source? There could be a theological reason why one name is preferred to another, or the writer may just want a change. Repetition is often done for stylistic reasons, or for emphasis, or for rhetorical effect or in poetic parallelism. The task of form and tradition critics, according to Whybray, is even more difficult than that of source critics. Where the latter are dealing with partially extant texts, the former are dealing with hypothetical reconstructions for which we have no tangible evidence: "Much of Noth's detailed reconstruction of the Pentateuchal traditions was obtained by piling one speculation upon another." (p.20) His critique of scholars such as Rolf Rendtorff
and Erhard Blum, who worked after Noth but in the same form and tradition-critical school was even more trenchant: "Rendtorff has merely replaced the comparatively simple Documentary Hypothesis which postulated only a small number of written sources and redactors with a bewildering multiplicity of sources and redactors" (p.21), while Blum's approach was, if anything, more complex and more dogmatic - not to mention less demonstrable - than Rendtorff's.
Whybray's own, alternative hypothesis, is based not on the documentary model but on a fragmentary model. He suggests that the Pentateuch was the product of a single author (not the four authors and multiple editors of the documentary hypothesis) working at some time in the 6th century BC "[with] a mass of material, most of which may have been of quite recent origin and had not necessarily formed part of any ancient Israelite tradition" (p. 242). Whybray saw this author as a national historian, aware of contemporary Greek history and writing in conscious imitation of Greek models, with the aim of extending the existing Deuteronomic history backwards in time to create a national history of the Israelites from the creation of the world.
, for example, writing in 1996, "Whybray's work on the Pentateuch could be viewed as the logical conclusion of the direction in which most pentateuchal criticism has been moving in the last three decades. ... His book is a powerful and valid critique of the methods that have been taken for granted in Pentateuchal criticism for nearly two centuries."
R. N. Whybray
Roger Norman Whybray was a Biblical scholar and specialist in Hebrew studies.Whybray read French and Theology at Oxford and was ordained as priest in the Church of England. After a number of minor teaching posts he held the position of Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Central Theological...
, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Studies at the University of Hull (UK), was a major contribution to the field of Old Testament studies, and specifically to theories on the origins and composition of the Pentateuch. Its originality lay in its detailed critique of the documentary hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
, and it remains a standard text on many reading lists.
Background
For almost a century prior to Whybray's book, a scholarly consensus had developed regarding the question of Pentateuchal origins - the composition and dates of the first five books of the Old TestamentOld Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
. In the closing decades of the 19th century Julius Wellhausen
Julius Wellhausen
Julius Wellhausen , was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, noted particularly for his contribution to scholarly understanding of the origin of the Pentateuch/Torah ....
published Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels
Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels
Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels is a book by German biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen which formulated the documentary hypothesis...
, in which he had set out the definitive version of the historical development of the Hebrew bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
. According to this hypothesis, the Pentateuch - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus
Leviticus
The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the third of five books of the Torah ....
, Numbers
Book of Numbers
The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch....
and Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...
- was originally four separate documents, retelling the same episodes and stories, but with differing emphases designed to further the theological and political agendas of their authors. Their combination by a Redactor (editor) into a single narrative spread over five books had resulted in many inconsistencies and repetitous stories, which could be analysed through the methodology of source criticism
Source criticism
A source criticism is a published source evaluation . An information source may be a document, a person, a speech, a fingerprint, a photo, an observation or anything used in order to obtain knowledge. In relation to a given purpose, a given information source may be more or less valid, reliable or...
to reconstruct the original documents.
Wellhausen had concentrated exclusively on the written text of the Pentateuch, but in the next generation Hermann Gunkel
Hermann Gunkel
Hermann Gunkel was a German Protestant Old Testament scholar. He is noted for his contribution to form criticism and the study of oral tradition in biblical texts. He was an outstanding representative of the "History of Religion School."...
developed form criticism
Form criticism
Form criticism is a method of biblical criticism that classifies units of scripture by literary pattern and that attempts to trace each type to its period of oral transmission. Form criticism seeks to determine a unit's original form and the historical context of the literary tradition. Hermann...
, a methodology which he claimed could identify the various genres which had contributed to the text and thus reconstruct its tradition history
Tradition history
Tradition history or criticism is a methodology of Biblical criticism that was developed by Hermann Gunkel. Tradition history seeks to analyze biblical literature in terms of the process by which biblical traditions passed from stage to stage into their final form, especially how they passed from...
. Gunkel and his followers, notably Martin Noth
Martin Noth
Martin Noth was a German 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.-Life:Noth was...
, used this new methodology to discover the oral saga
Saga
Sagas, are stories in Old Norse about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, etc.Saga may also refer to:Business*Saga DAB radio, a British radio station*Saga Airlines, a Turkish airline*Saga Falabella, a department store chain in Peru...
s which formed the basis of the written texts of the Pentateuch.
By the middle of the 20th century, Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis, the tradition history of Gunkel and Noth, and the Biblical archaeology
Biblical archaeology
For the movement associated with William F. Albright and also known as biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. For the interpretation of biblical archaeology in relation to biblical historicity, see The Bible and history....
of William F. Albright
William F. Albright
William Foxwell Albright was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, philologist 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 claimed to have found physical proof of the 2nd millennium BC origins of Genesis, Exodus, and the other books of the Pentateuch, had merged to form a dominant paradigm, or consensual view, of the origins of the Pentateuch. It was this paradigm that was challenged by Whybray's "The Making of the Pentateuch".
Summary
"The Making of the Pentateuch" (in fact only Genesis-Numbers, as Whybray excludes Deuteronomy) is in three parts. Part 1 examines the methodology and assumptions of source criticism and the Documentary HypothesisDocumentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
; Part 2 examines the methodology of form criticism and tradition history as developed by Noth and others; and Part 3 sets out Whybray's own suggestions for the process by which the Pentateuch came to be composed.
Whybray's attack on the documentary hypothesis addressed the basic methodology of source criticism, which relies on the existence of inconsistencies, repetitions and stylistic features such as alternative names for God to identify distinctive sources within the biblical text. The assumptions behind this methodology, Whybray says, are illogical and self-contradictory. If the authors of the original documents did not tolerate contradiction and repetition, why did the editors of the final work do so? And if the writers who created the final document did not mind such features, why should we suppose that the earlier sources did not contain contradiction and repetition? "Thus the hypothesis can only be maintained on the assumption that, while consistency was the hallmark of the various documents, inconsistency was the hallmark of the redactors" (p.19). Similarly, the repetition and stylistic variation which the documentary hypothesis explains as the remains of distinct sources, may be understood quite differently. For example, since other religious texts use a variety of names for God, why should the change of divine name in Genesis from Yahweh to Elohim
Elohim
Elohim is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language. When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or...
signal a change of source? There could be a theological reason why one name is preferred to another, or the writer may just want a change. Repetition is often done for stylistic reasons, or for emphasis, or for rhetorical effect or in poetic parallelism. The task of form and tradition critics, according to Whybray, is even more difficult than that of source critics. Where the latter are dealing with partially extant texts, the former are dealing with hypothetical reconstructions for which we have no tangible evidence: "Much of Noth's detailed reconstruction of the Pentateuchal traditions was obtained by piling one speculation upon another." (p.20) His critique of scholars such as Rolf Rendtorff
Rolf Rendtorff
Rolf Rendtorff is Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at the University of Heidelberg. He has written frequently on the Jewish scriptures and is notable chiefly for his contribution to the debate over the origins of the Pentateuch Rolf Rendtorff (born 10 March 1925) is Emeritus Professor of Old...
and Erhard Blum, who worked after Noth but in the same form and tradition-critical school was even more trenchant: "Rendtorff has merely replaced the comparatively simple Documentary Hypothesis which postulated only a small number of written sources and redactors with a bewildering multiplicity of sources and redactors" (p.21), while Blum's approach was, if anything, more complex and more dogmatic - not to mention less demonstrable - than Rendtorff's.
Whybray's own, alternative hypothesis, is based not on the documentary model but on a fragmentary model. He suggests that the Pentateuch was the product of a single author (not the four authors and multiple editors of the documentary hypothesis) working at some time in the 6th century BC "[with] a mass of material, most of which may have been of quite recent origin and had not necessarily formed part of any ancient Israelite tradition" (p. 242). Whybray saw this author as a national historian, aware of contemporary Greek history and writing in conscious imitation of Greek models, with the aim of extending the existing Deuteronomic history backwards in time to create a national history of the Israelites from the creation of the world.
Assessment
"The Making of the Pentateuch" has been described as "the most compelling critique of the hypothesis" ever made, and its arguments are frequently cited by evangelical Christians who wish to state the case for Mosaic authorship (although Whybray explicitly rejects this notion and states that he regards the Pentateuch as fiction). Gordon WenhamGordon Wenham
Gordon Wenham is an Old Testament scholar and author of several books about the Bible. Tremper Longman has called him "one of the finest evangelical commentators today."...
, for example, writing in 1996, "Whybray's work on the Pentateuch could be viewed as the logical conclusion of the direction in which most pentateuchal criticism has been moving in the last three decades. ... His book is a powerful and valid critique of the methods that have been taken for granted in Pentateuchal criticism for nearly two centuries."