Lecture #3: Documentary Theory (Part II)

Course: Old Testament

Lecture #3: Documentary Theory (Part II)

• The Deuteronomic writer probably wrote in the 7th cent. BCE, after the fall of the North (Israel) and become The Reforms of Josiah (Thus between 722-622 BCE
• What we now have as the book of Deuteronomy (Deut), at least chapters 12 – 26:15 (known as the D Code) was "Found" by a priest while cleaning out the temple in 622 BCE (see II Kings 22:8) (read)
• D sees Josiah as the great King (his Favorite) because of the reforms he brings

• D does not approve of David – too morally lax so he goes to Josiah,

• The Books of which D is the final editor are Deuteronomy (2 levels D1 & D2, Judges, I & II Sam & I & II Kings.
• We can speak of a “school" of the Deuteronomic Writer - a D1 & D2 which edited books during the exile at about the same time the priestly redactor was editing and compiling books.
• Both used the earlier writings of J and E to compile their own history.
• Example of how a redactor works:

• Read: Deut. 26:1-19 – is a personal harvest ritual. vs. 1-11 are penned by J concerned with individual person and private wealth.
• D doesn't cut it out but puts his view in verses 12-19 and places his emphasis on nationalistic section. D is concerned with propertyless persons and with women.
• Look at I & II Sam, I & II Kings to show bridge sentences use I Sam 12:14-15 // D's Theology

• Moses seen as king–prototype of leadership
• Judges (book) sees cyclic view of history, lawlessness going from disaster => repentance => victory
• Example: Judges 3:7-11 (Read)
• D felt the judges were over all Israel. => Redacted to show must turn back to God for victory.
• Called "Josianic Compromise" because it wants to see the king, the royal priesthood and the royal prophets as equal. All others are illegitimate.
• II Kings 23 – desperate attempt for independence. restructure of priest, prophet and king relationship
• D renders the Ark of the Covenant obsolete which is good since it had probably disappeared by then.
• War Theme runs through all Deuteronomic history. All leaders are war leaders. One of ways to determine which strand you are reading is in the attitude towards war.

• For King: expands territory
• Priest: it shows God's power, use Urim and Thummim

• Note: Urim and Thummim were two-sided dice worn on the high priests breast plate which were cast to see what YHWH wanted in a situation. The answer would be yes or no or maybe depending on how they landed when cast.

• Prophet: war is test of obedience of King or warrior
• warrior: justifies his power & leadership

Passover – read Deuteronomy 16:1-8

• Is the central mythological symbol for all the strands. Most important day for all sources because Passover is a fundamental holiday for the nation because of exodus.

• Also, as an individual holiday--essence of social religion. Emphasis on national beginning.

• Deuteronomy is written to emphasize that all individuals are to follow the law.
• Priestly writings were probably pre-exile, about the same time as Deuteronomy. - competing verovon-722 following

“P” Writer

• Priestly and scribal – called P writer. Post exilic (536 BCE) written from Babylon – priests were final redactions
• Final redactor for nearly all the books through Nehemiah.

• All those not mentioned for D including Genesis, Ex, Lev., Num, Joshua (Re-edited D), I/II Chron, Ezra and Nehemiah.

• Concerned with law, traditions, and ritual. Priestly authority.
• Sees history as going from parochial to universal faith. It is with P that monolatry gives way to monotheism.

• creation> Noah> Abraham> Moses> Solomon > Hezekiah> Ezra.

• Read: Covenant-Gen.17:1-27 -Covenant for promise of covenant ritual of circumcision as everlasting sign.
• Moses seen as Priest.
• Read: Exodus 6:2-8--more covenant conscious.

• 1. Meaning of YHWH's new name is as a covenant seal -first called YHWH in Ex. 6, before that called El Shaddai or the great one.
• 2. God's nature – a covenant observer
• 3. Promise to create a covenant nation, a new type of nation--land important because of the covenant, not because it is 'milk and honey" as for J.

• Exodus 12:1-20, 40-49 – cult of social solidarity. Begins with instituting a calendar. Feast of unleavened bread is important to the P writer (not for J and E.) and pilgrimage festival. Much more classical, exact
• Circumcision is a note of citizenship. (Ex 12: 47-49)
• Exodus 19:10-13 – Moses as priest giving the ten commandments. Message is:

• 1. contact with deity is dangerous for people--can only move so close to the mountain. (Ex 19:12-13)
• 2. Priest protects the people from the destructive elements of the divine. (Ex 19:20-25)
• 3. Setting up ritual barriers between holy and profane. (Ex 19:23)
• 4. Emphasis is on the death penalty – comes to whoever usurps priestly power. (Ex 19:12)

• Difference between priest and prophet is that any Israelite could be called to be a prophet, but a priest must come from the Levite tribe.
• Priest sets up unchanging order
• Prophet is innovative and brings change.
• P's primal history

• Non-anecdotal, not concerned with narrative.
• Concerned with details
• Never uses the name of YHWH before Moses.
• No reference to Cain and Abel, Adam & Eve not named.
• Wants a chronicle of God's Spirit in human world
• P's history has a pattern to it.

Creation narrative (Gen. 1:1-2;4b) [Read]

• P's Biblical creation account culminates in the cultic act – the sabbath. It's an event on the Lord's calendar, not man's. Nature's natural flow is what it means.
• Nature is God's creation, not an independent power in opposition to God.
• Man is in likeness of God not made out of blood of God as in Babylonian myth of Tiamut being slain by Marduk.
• The history of the world and man is the history of God. In Babylon, the history of Babylonia is the history of gods
• Gen. 5:1-8--Genealogy, P emphasizes every 10th generation.

• Adam> Noah Abraham>

• P wants to show the progressive decline from the potency of creative act. Then God must give another push. Called "theology of the push."
• Gen 6:9-22, 7:6 [Read] – Flood comes because there is only one righteous man.
• Gen 9:1-18; 28-29 – Covenant with Noah is a set contract between man, & creation, & God. so distance collapsed. P has constantly renewed covenant.
• P agrees with E that God's law is law not king's law. God is king.
• As I said, only the Jawist (J) and the Priestly writer (P) are even concerned with anything before Abraham.

A few other things ought to be mentioned:

• In regard to the creation account by P in Gen 1:1-2:4a, there is no question about Babylonian influence though the change made by the priestly writer in theology is incredible.
• in Babylonian myth, the Enuma Elish, there are 6 generations of gods, the oldest being Apsu (representing fresh water) Tiamut (representing salt water).
• In the Babylonian myth, the young God Marduk slays Apsu and Tiamut and cuts up Tiamut to create heaven and earth.
• Later generations of gods are responsible for creating animals, plants, etc.
• The writer of this account uses the same generations as the Babylonian myth but has one God creating what all the gods had done in the earlier myth, using the generations as days.
• On the seventh day God rested. This has two purposes; one mentioned last lecture is that the sabbath is built into the creation; the other is a reinterpretation of the Babylonian myth in which the seventh generation of the gods made man so they could serve the gods and the gods could rest.
• Thus, using established patterns and ideas from Mesopotamia, which was the origin of the Hebrews, the theological differences are unique in the ancient world.
• In regard to the 2nd creation account, which is the oldest account by around 500 years, there is much more concern to show that the worship of the Canaanites, particularly of the great mother with sexual knowledge, is reversed.
• The tree of knowledge representing sexual knowledge to the Canaanites, the serpent also a symbol of wisdom to them, all used to show that this is what caused the fall.
• This, like many other myths, including Marduk slaying Tiamut (the young male god slays the mother) is a myth of transition, in which the symbols are reversed for the sake of a new religious view.
• This is almost always associated with the Aryan influence of new male sky or mountain gods who are mythologically replacing the agricultural mother goddesses in the ancient near east from around 1500 BCE on. concerning the J account of Noah, one other thing needs to be mentioned.
• When Ham saw his father drunk and naked, it was not Ham Noah cursed, but Canaan his son. This was simply a theological way of saying that Canaan's subjection to Israel was a result of its sexual perversions.
• The reason I mention this, is in the American south it is commonly held that Ham was cursed, and since Ham is the father of all the black races, this is used to justify their inferiority and the reason they are black.