Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!apple!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Documentary Hypothesis and the Homeric Question Message-ID: Date: 27 Nov 90 22:51:02 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 353 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) writes: > Unfortunately, I have not ever found a good modern presentation of the data. > No _Einleitung_ I have looked at really addresses the issue in terms of an > empirical investigation -- most simply start from an acceptance of the basic > DH outline, with some indications of problems or limits of its application. Surely this is a powerful argument for the point of view I put forward: 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. I wrote > H2) Much of the text which was incorporated from earlier documents > was not significantly altered. > > In one sense, this is likely. Based on analogy with the NT and > Kings/Chronicles, one would expect a story like Noah's ark to be > copied INTACT and more or less verbatim. So what we'd expect is > a collection of stories due to earlier sources joined together > by "scaffolding" provided by the redactor. To which Siemon replied > This is the statement in which Mr. O'Keefe seems to me to accept the > fundamental framework of the DH. English lesson: the rule for abbreviations is that an abbreviation ends with an abbreviation point if and only if the last letter of the abbreviation differs from the last letter of the word abbreviated. Hence "St" (street) "Ave" (avenue) "Rd" (road) have no abbreviation point, but "Dr." (drive) does. "Mr" being an abbreviation for "Mister", it takes no abbreviation point. What's more, in the context of a debate like this one, it is more respectful to refer to someone by their name without honorific (as in "O'Keefe") than with the lowest available "Mr O'Keefe". What I outlined in that paragraph is NOT "the fundamental framework of the DH". 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 than _might_ recover them, and still believe in an early redaction. > The question then becomes, *how well* can we separate out stylistic > differences in the Pentateuch, and do these stylistic differences correlate > with theological differences -- and furthermore can such differences be > coherently ascribed to different "parties" (either contemporaneous or over > time) with different interests and different "constituencies" and with a > reasonable "need" to have produced a documentary tradition. The problem here is that the argument goes in a circle: we have very little evidence of the "parties"'s existence, interests, or consitutencies other than the partitions imposed on the text. We do have a fair bit of "intertestamental" stuff, but on any account that's too late to be relevant. > 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. Is that *enough* to overthrow traditional interpretations and accept the presuppositions of the DH? Apply the test to modern history and literature. C.S.Lewis pointed out that critics of his own time, place, and culture thought that Roger Llewellyn(?)'s Land of the Lord High Tiger was modelled on Lewis's Narnia, whereas the actual chronology went the other way. He also pointed out that critics of his own time, place, and culture thought that the Ring in Tolkien's great story was an image of the Bomb, where once again the actual chronology and the author's explicit statement are against it. I have a little paper (270 lines of LaTeX which I'll be glad to post if there is any interest) called "NT Criticism meets Jack the Ripper" which looks at a case where an analysis of 2 versions of a 19th century document in terms of "interest" goes dead wrong. 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". > Those who reject > the DH because they find it implausible had better face the fact that an > historian finds the *traditional* account utterly ludicrous. Which historian, and what precisely do you think the "traditional account" is that is ridiculous? And for heaven's sake, where did you get the idea that the great-big-axe-to-grind DH and whatever you think the traditional account is are the ONLY alternatives? What *I* am arguing for is *scepticism*: it is clearly the case that the Torah has sources -- for example, if there was such a person as Moses with anything -- resembling the life-history given in Exodus, then he had had -- the opportunity to become acquainted with Egyptian and -- Babylonian, even with Hittite, legal codes. They would count -- as sources. the methods which have been proposed to recover the sources are not _known_ to work on *any* documents > > On the face of it, > > that's exactly what we have in Genesis: the scaffolding being > > the genealogies, with "the generations of X" serving as "chapter > > headings". > > This illustrates that Mr. O'Keefe is in fact unfamiliar with the details > of the DH. Systematic use of genealogies is characteristic of the Priestly > source (on the DH account, of course :-)), not of the Redactor. This illustrates that Siemon wasn't paying attention to what I wrote. 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. > [ Incidentally, Speiser and Westermann (and even von Rad :-)) are > good for this kind of "spot checking" the DH; the trouble is that > they do not really present a systematic listing of criteria by > which one could go over the texts and apportion verses to J, E, P, > D or _incerti_ ] Surely this is a very serious objection. > This is unfair. The Deluge story is just about the ONLY one in which there > is such an (apparent) weaving together. ... > > Basically, Wellhausen's approach requires that the redactor of > > the Pentateuch was willing to chop up his originals into > > separate phrases and interweave phrases from separate traditions > > (it is quite common to find half-verses attributed to different > > sources) yet was fanatically literal about the *words* in the > > scraps he was so carefree about chopping up and re-arranging. > As I said, that is only very rarely the case -- and it is as surprising > to the DH people as to their critics. Another article, apparently from Creed Jones says of the DH "An introduction to the Pentateuch in the 1976 Oxford Study Edition of the New English Bible, however, accepts it as orthodoxy: ... "It was perhaps during the reign of Solomon (tenth century B.C.) that many of the local cultic recitations, histories, songs, and law codes were first gathered and edited into a sustained account (the earliest skeleton un- derlying Gen.-1 Kings ch. 2). Its purpose was to suggest that the Israelite Kingdom was the fulfillment of the ancient promises to the patriarchs. Modern scholars call this work "J," because it uses for the deity the name Jehovah (Heb. Yahweh), and was produced by Judean theologians; they believe that it was soon supplemented by other ancient tradi- tions preserved in Ephraim, and called "E" because the divine term Elohim is used. "". Remember, this is the methodological foundation of the JEPD division, the idea that "J" uses YHWH and that "E" uses ELHM. Let's just consider Genesis, in order to keep things simple. What kind of book is it? -- it is a Near Eastern -- religious story -- containing an account of creation -- written in a Semitic language -- and evidently having a long history behind it. In order to evaluate the idea that differing divine names might expose differing sources, let's look at another -- Near Eastern -- religious story -- containing an account of creation -- written in a Semitic language -- and evidently having a long history behind it and while we're at it, let's make it one that has actually been suggested as one of the possible sources for Genesis 1:1--2:3. Does that sound fair? I refer, of course, to Enuma Elish. Enuma Elish and Genesis 1:1--2:3 aren't exactly the same kind of text: Enuma Elish is poetry, while Genesis 1 is *very* tightly crafted prose, and Enuma Elish isn't primarily a creation story. But there is a very remarkable fact: where Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 intersect, they have the points of intersection in the same order (Table from Heidel:) Enuma Elish Genesis ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Divine spirit and cosmic matter are Divine spirit creates cosmic matter coexistent and coeternal and exists independently of it ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Primaeval chaos; Ti'amat enveloped The earth a desolate waste, with in darkness darkness covering the deep (tehom) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Light emanating from the gods Light created ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The creation of the firmament The creation of the firmament ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The creation of dry land The creation of dry land ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The creation of the luminaries The creation of the luminaries ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The creation of man (with the The creation of man (with the blood of the gods + clay) breath of G-d + clay) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The gods rest and celebrate G-d rests and sanctifies the 7th day ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- So there is point 1: if _anything_ is a fair comparison to Genesis, Enuma Elish is. Point 2 is that religious language is conservative. I was stunned the other day to discover on the foundation stone of a nearby Catholic church the inscription "Deo optimo + et maximo". Indeed, G-d _is_ "best and greatest", but whenever I have seen that phrase in the past it was as an epithet of Jupiter. "Deus optimus maximus" has survived 2,500 years or so and a change of religion! Existing copies of Enuma Elish go back as far as 1000BC, although it is thought to go back much further. All you have to concede for my argument to go through is that Hebrew religious literature and Babylonian religious literature drew on a common cultural stock and used similar literary devices. This is manifestly the case with poetry: parallelism pervades Enuma Elish and there are known resemblances between some of the Psalms and texts from Ras Shamra. What is the particular stylistic point? This: several of the deities in Enuma Elish have more than one name (the climax of the story is when the Annunaki in assembly give Marduk his 50 names) and that within a single thought it is not uncommon for a deity to be referred to by two different names. Example. A passage which is repeated several times: They separated themselves and went over to the side of Ti'amat; They were angry, they plotted, not resting day or night; They took up the fight, fuming and raging; They held a meeting and planned the conflict. Mother Hubur, who fasions all things, Added irresistible weapons, bearing monster serpents, ... Mother Hubur and Ti'amat are one and the same. Example: They were glad and did homage, "Marduk is king!" They bestowed upon him the scepter, the throne, and the royal robe; They gave him an irresistible weapon smiting the enemy, "Go and cut off the life of Ti'amat". May the winds carry her blood to out-of-the-way places". After the gods his fathers had determined the destiny of Bel They set him on the road, the way to success and attainment. Marduk and Bel are one and the same. He is also called "the lord". Example: After Ea, the wise, had created mankind; He imposed the services of the gods (upon them) and set the gods free; That work was not suitable to (human) understanding; In accordance with the ingenious plans of Marduk did Nudimmud create -- Ea and Nudimmud are one and the same. It's not just in Enuma Elish that this happens. What is my argument here? This: that the use of more than one name for the same deity within a single passage is *known* to have been a feature of ancient Near Eastern religious literature, so that it would be rather surprising if the sources available to the redactor of Genesis were so very different in literary style as to use one name exclusively. We can therefore place no reliance at all on the use of divine names as a guide to *immediate* sources. I stressed immediate there because the multiple names of the Babylonian gods have a history behind them; Enuma Elish itself presumably had sources. But the DH assumes that the sources of Genesis were if anything _later_ than Enuma Elish. Let's look at a few more examples. Siemon is vehement that "The Deluge story is just about the ONLY one in which there is such an (apparent) weaving together". Recall that I had pointed out that that story uses more than one divine name. Well, there are others. You don't need to read Hebrew to find them. All you need is a good modern translation. The NIV, for example, makes plain that "LORD" = YHWH "Lord" = Adonai "Sovereign Lord" = Adonai YHWH "G-d" = Elohim and so on. Look at Genesis 3:1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the had made. He said to the woman, "Did really say, 'You must not eat from any tree of the garden'?" Genesis 3 as a whole uses with in reported speech. Look at Genesis 5:25--26 Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying " has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him" Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the . At Genesis 15:7--8 He also said to him, "I am the who brought you out of Ur of the Chaleans to give you this land to take possession of it". But Abram said, "O , how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" At Genesis 16:13 [Hagar] gave this name to the who spoke to her: "You are the who sees me (El-roi)"... At Genesis 19:27--29 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the . ... So when destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham ... At Genesis 20:17--18 The Abraham prayed to and healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again, for the had closed up every womb in Abimelech's household because of Abraham's wife Sarah. At this point my patience gave out. Nearly every story in Genesis that I looked at contained more than one name for G-d, often very close together. *Either* we accept that the use of different divine names tells us something about differing sources, in which case we have to chop up *most* of the stories in Genesis, *or* we accept the evidence of Enuma Elish, which is that a single "immediate" source may quite well use more than one name for a god within a single thought. > It's all very well to criticize Noth for his excesses What I'm doing is pointing out that the *fundamental* assumption of the method (that we can make a start on the partition by examining the use of divine names) is in conflict with the cultural background, and that it would result in chopping up *most* of the stories in Genesis. Accordingly, some other basis for partition must be found. > If you have > no explanation (or only the kinds of ad hoc stuff that the rabbis give, > which is certainly pious, but tends to obscure rather than clarifying the > data), then a DH "adherent" like me can only ask, "what do you suggest in > place of this, which I find historically plausible?" There is no obligation on a sceptic to suggest anything at all. You don't have to be an architect to point out that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is not vertical, still less do you have to have a plan for straightening it before your observation can be accepted as true. I have not in this argument made any affirmation about what the textual units of the Torah are, nor concerning their provenance, nor concerning their dates. 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 am not now and never have been a member of Mensa. -- Ariadne.