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Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible
In this Festschrift for John Van Seters the problem of Old Testament "historiography" is at the center. Well-known scholars deal with the topic in relevant studies.
317 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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About the author
Steven L. McKenzie
43 books11 followersSteven L. McKenzie is Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Rhodes College. He holds a B.A. (summa cum laude) and an M.Div. from Abilene Christian University and the Th.D. from Harvard University. His research and teaching interests include: the history of ancient Israel, the literature of the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew language, the Dead Sea Scrolls, methods of biblical interpretation, and archaeology. He is a past president of the board of governors of the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the University of Memphis. He is also a co-leader of the Middle East Travel Seminar, which tours Syria, Jordan, the Sinai, Israel, and Greece each Spring.
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September 8, 2020
A collection of essays by various authors dedicated to John Van Seters for the intellectual stimulation provided by his revolutionary approach to critical study of the Old Testament. Here are some points summarized from a few of these essays, which seek to augment Van Seters’s approach:
(1) Several scholars have earlier shown extensive dependence of some parts of Genesis on Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), especially on the Books of Samuel. For instance, certain themes in the stories of Joseph and Judah in Genesis. Because the Yahwist of the 6th century B.C. and the Deuteronomistic Historian are placed quite close together in time, some texts attributed by Van Seters to the Yahwist may be by DtrH, and some texts relegated as pre-Yahwist, may be DtrH or even by the Yahwist.
(2) Since Van Seters sets earliest possible ('a quo') dates of relative chronology for the biblical history writers [DtrH, Yahwist (J), Priestly Writer (P)], the bulk of the Pentateuchal content that he attributes to J during the Babylonian exile could be written later in the classical or even Hellenistic era. This gives reason to explore comparison to literary work later than Herodotus, which continued using both pragmatic and ideological historiography. Unfortunately, subsequent scholars who took up Greek historiography comparison following Van Seters, also restricted their comparison to “pre-classical” and “early classical” material, without extending to just slightly later writers such as Thucydides and Xenophon. The point of extending the range would be to note similar historical awareness and processes of history construction that were taking shape in the ancient Near East.
(3) A single great exile may have been an ideological construct like Joshua's conquest of Canaan, and there may have instead been only multiple small exiles.
(4) The bible history writers were more likely to be a "Hellenized", well-educated, elite minority of the Jewish diaspora educated in Babylon exposed to regional influence and traditions.
(5) Albert de Pury considers P, not J, to have given more shape to Genesis and the Pentateuch. He sees P as more inclusive of all descendants of Abraham in terms of promises in the text, which he sees narrowed down by post-P writers seeking to include only descendants of Jacob. De Pury finds clues to these in P-segments of burials of Abraham and Isaac, the wilder nature of Ishmael in post-P as opposed to de Pury's pacifist conception of P, and the flight and expulsion of Hagar in Gen 16 & 21 (which he sees as attempt to deal with the situation of non-Jacob-descendants in surrounding regions claiming legitimacy via the Ishmael-Abraham relation in the text and tradition).
(6) Was the 8th century prophet Hosea influenced by an existing wilderness wandering tradition? Evidence points that he was, although not by any fixed tradition. Hosea doesn’t seem to know of any divine guidance leading the people out of the wilderness. He seems to have known a very generic form of the exodus tradition, most likely from the (Jacob) cult at Bethel. In Hosea, the prophet who as Yahweh’s mediator helped the Israelites leave Egypt, is unnamed, although Jacob is named extensively. Although Hosea mentions present/future (not past) divine guidance into the wilderness for a temporary period (perhaps a reflection of the northern kingdom’s Assyrian exile), he doesn’t mention divine guidance out of the wilderness.
The foundation for subsequent salvation history set by Hosea, is taken up by prophets such as Jeremiah in the last days of the monarchy in the southern kingdom (immediately preceding the Babylonian exile), where Jeremiah explicitly mentions exodus from Egypt and divine guidance through the wilderness. Thomas Dozeman considers that the exodus and wilderness histories of the Pentateuch may also have been in formation around this same time of Jeremiah. But he agrees as Van Seters showed, that the “literary sophistication of the wilderness wandering stories” in the Pentateuch, suggest “later exilic authorship”.
(1) Several scholars have earlier shown extensive dependence of some parts of Genesis on Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), especially on the Books of Samuel. For instance, certain themes in the stories of Joseph and Judah in Genesis. Because the Yahwist of the 6th century B.C. and the Deuteronomistic Historian are placed quite close together in time, some texts attributed by Van Seters to the Yahwist may be by DtrH, and some texts relegated as pre-Yahwist, may be DtrH or even by the Yahwist.
(2) Since Van Seters sets earliest possible ('a quo') dates of relative chronology for the biblical history writers [DtrH, Yahwist (J), Priestly Writer (P)], the bulk of the Pentateuchal content that he attributes to J during the Babylonian exile could be written later in the classical or even Hellenistic era. This gives reason to explore comparison to literary work later than Herodotus, which continued using both pragmatic and ideological historiography. Unfortunately, subsequent scholars who took up Greek historiography comparison following Van Seters, also restricted their comparison to “pre-classical” and “early classical” material, without extending to just slightly later writers such as Thucydides and Xenophon. The point of extending the range would be to note similar historical awareness and processes of history construction that were taking shape in the ancient Near East.
(3) A single great exile may have been an ideological construct like Joshua's conquest of Canaan, and there may have instead been only multiple small exiles.
(4) The bible history writers were more likely to be a "Hellenized", well-educated, elite minority of the Jewish diaspora educated in Babylon exposed to regional influence and traditions.
(5) Albert de Pury considers P, not J, to have given more shape to Genesis and the Pentateuch. He sees P as more inclusive of all descendants of Abraham in terms of promises in the text, which he sees narrowed down by post-P writers seeking to include only descendants of Jacob. De Pury finds clues to these in P-segments of burials of Abraham and Isaac, the wilder nature of Ishmael in post-P as opposed to de Pury's pacifist conception of P, and the flight and expulsion of Hagar in Gen 16 & 21 (which he sees as attempt to deal with the situation of non-Jacob-descendants in surrounding regions claiming legitimacy via the Ishmael-Abraham relation in the text and tradition).
(6) Was the 8th century prophet Hosea influenced by an existing wilderness wandering tradition? Evidence points that he was, although not by any fixed tradition. Hosea doesn’t seem to know of any divine guidance leading the people out of the wilderness. He seems to have known a very generic form of the exodus tradition, most likely from the (Jacob) cult at Bethel. In Hosea, the prophet who as Yahweh’s mediator helped the Israelites leave Egypt, is unnamed, although Jacob is named extensively. Although Hosea mentions present/future (not past) divine guidance into the wilderness for a temporary period (perhaps a reflection of the northern kingdom’s Assyrian exile), he doesn’t mention divine guidance out of the wilderness.
The foundation for subsequent salvation history set by Hosea, is taken up by prophets such as Jeremiah in the last days of the monarchy in the southern kingdom (immediately preceding the Babylonian exile), where Jeremiah explicitly mentions exodus from Egypt and divine guidance through the wilderness. Thomas Dozeman considers that the exodus and wilderness histories of the Pentateuch may also have been in formation around this same time of Jeremiah. But he agrees as Van Seters showed, that the “literary sophistication of the wilderness wandering stories” in the Pentateuch, suggest “later exilic authorship”.
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