The "Good Book"…

Last week we looked at the authorship of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and we saw:

• the traditional view, that Moses is the author, and
• the scholarly view, that four earlier texts, referred to as E, J, P and D, were combined by an editor to produce the Torah

To say when, why and over what period the four texts were written, and then combined, is to some extent a matter of educated guesswork. There is a number of theories. But, to illustrate how scripture is not only about history, but comes out of history, I'm going to look at just one theory.

	The groupings of the books of the Old Testament: The Torah (The Law); The Histories: The Prophets: The Writings

The predominant view is that many of the stories which made it into the Torah were handed down orally for generations before being written down, and they were written down independently to form the different texts that preceded the Torah. Even these early texts weren't necessarily all written down at once; the J-writer, for example, may have produced a text which embodied both oral traditions and some already-existing written traditions. There's no agreement as to who the J-writer and the other writers were, although there are some speculations. Some scholars believe the J-writer was a woman.

An overview of the history of the Israelites…

If we're going to put some shape on this, we'll need an overview of the history of the Israelites. So here's a time-line with some highlights down to the time of Christ.

• Before 1250 BC: The mythic period — the Creation, the Flood, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve tribes, the sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus. This is roughly the period of history described in the Torah. By calling it the "mythic period" I don't mean that all the stories contained in the Torah are factually untrue; just that their predominant purpose is to impart some knowledge or understanding of the character, experience or identity of the Jewish people, and that their factual truth or untruth is a secondary consideration.
• 1250 BC to 1000 BC: The period of the Judges — the people of Israel, under Joshua, conquer the land of Canaan. The twelve tribes form a loose confederation. They have no stable established governing structure, but from time to time leaders (called "Judges") emerge to address particular circumstances or particular crises.
• Around 1000 BC: The Judges give way to the kings, who unite the twelve tribes into a single kingdom. Saul, David, Solomon. The construction of the Temple.
• 920 BC: After the death of Solomon, the kingdom splits in two, Judah in the south with the royal capital (and the Temple) at Jerusalem, and Israel (also called Ephraim) in the north. Each kingdom has its own line of kings descended from David.
• 722 BC: Israel, the northern kingdom, is conquered by Assyria and its people are scattered and exiled. Many flee to Judah in the south. The northern kingdom is never re-established.
• 587 BC: Judah, the southern kingdom, is conquered by Babylon. The Temple is destroyed, and the people, or at least the political and religious elite, are exiled to what is now Iraq (the "Babylonian Captivity").
• 538 BC to about 450 BC: Babylon is itself conquered by Persia in 538 BC, The Persian king, Cyrus, permits the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem. This takes some time; there are several waves of returning migrants over a period of decades. By around about 500 BC they rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem and set about restoring their religion. There is no longer a king of the line of David, but by about 450 BC a centralised Jewish authority has been established at Jerusalem. What is now called Judea is a province of the Persian empire, but enjoys a high degree of self-government.
• 332 BC: Alexander the Great defeats the Persians, and Judea becomes province of Alexander's empire and, later, of one of the successor kingdoms into which the empire is divided in 301 BC. At this time and subsequently, Greek culture is spread throughout the Middle East. The Jews are exposed to very significant Hellenising influences.
• 165 BC: Judea is by now a province of the Seleucid empire, which dominates Syria and much of the Middle East. The Jews rebel against the Seleucids. The rebellion succeeds, and results in the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty in Judea, a succession of hereditary high priests who wield military, political, and religious power.
• 63 BC: the Hasmonean kingdom is incorporated into the Roman empire. Herod the Great and his successors rule under Roman oversight until a Roman governor is appointed in 6 BC to rule directly.

Now, how does the Torah emerge from this? Yes, the Torah describes the events of the mythic period, but it can't be assumed that the text, or even any of the predecessor texts, actually date from that period.

At least one scholar asserts that the stories that make up the Torah were handed on from generation to generation in oral form during the period of the Judges. Some parts of them may have been written down, but if so those texts do not survive, and they never supplanted the oral tradition.

The J-text…

It's only in the time of King David that the J-writer produces his (or her?) text. The J-text describes the creation of the universe, the birth and history of the twelve tribes and their special relationship with God. Its stories focus on morality, on behavior, reward and punishment.

Following the division into two kingdoms, new versions of the stories begin to accumulate in the North, with twists reflecting local circumstances. As much as anything, changes reflect local pride. For example:

• In the northern stories, important things happen on Mount Horeb (which is in the north) rather than Mount Sinai (in the south).
• In the southern stories Judah (head of the chief tribe of the south) saves Joseph from being killed by his brothers; in the northern version, it's Reuben (head of the chief tribe of the north).

The substance of the stories remain the same but the details vary. The stories from the south tend to stress the importance of Jerusalem, Aaron, the priesthood and Temple sacrifice. Those from the north are about sacrifices conducted anywhere, and stress Moses rather than Aaron.

The E-text, then JE and then tribal distinctions disappear…

In due course the northern stories are written down and become the E-text. We then have two sets of written stories, E-stories (northern) and J-stories (southern), both evolved from a single oral tradition.

When the northern kingdom is overthrown in 722 BC, many flee to the south, leading to social and religious disruption in the south. Although they are all Israelites, those from the north have may different customs and beliefs. One probable source of friction is that they have different versions of the foundational stories. So someone — we don't know who — combines the two to form a single document, which we'll call JE. The combined text contains enough from both sources to enable everyone to identify with it. Sitting around the fire and hearing the JE text read, both the northerners and the southerners can both say, yes, that's the story I heard at my grandmother's knee. This helps the process of communal integration. In time north/south distinctions, and tribal distinctions, disappear.

The P-text…

At some point a third work appears, mostly concerned with Temple rites, sacrifices, priestly codes, genealogy, and so forth. This is the P-text. The P-stories are probably very old, and handed down orally. The dating of the written text is debated, but there is general agreement that it comes along some time after the JE-text. Possibly — this is speculation — it emanates from the priestly class who feel the need to reassert the importance of Temple, sacrifice and, yes, the priesthood itself in the upheaval following the collapse of the north and the migration into the south.

II Kings describes (23:8-13) how a "lost" scroll of Moses was found around 622 BC and read to King Josiah. Most scholars suggest that this was Deuteronomy (and some of the early Christian fathers, including Jerome, said so as well). The content of Deuteronomy is very old, but the literary style seems to be from around the time it was "found". Deuteronomy largely recapitulates the other books of the Torah, but it does contain some new material. The author of this text is D, the Deuteronomist (and we'll have more say about him later on).

Three different texts…

So now we have three different texts: JE, P, and D.

Skip forward to the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity, in the decades after 538 BC. Restoring Judaism is not easy. Religion and customs have been weakened by the exile; they need to be strengthened and consolidated.

It's in this context, in around 450 BC, that the Redactor appears. He sees the need for religious revival and renewal, for strengthening and centralisation. So he combines JE, P, and D. As with the merger of the J and E texts following the collapse of the northern kingdom, the explicit purpose is to unify; to provide a single foundational text for all Jews rather than different, and potentially competing, texts which could become a source of division.

The Redactor does lots of cutting-and-pasting. He took the genealogies that (probably) started all together in the P-text, and relocated them throughout JE, to act as bridging material, or to serve as introductions to the stories of the people to whom they refer. He neatly wove together different versions of the same story.

But the Redactor was respectful of his sources. These were sacred, ancient texts, so he didn't drop material — better to duplicate than to omit. Sometimes he combined the different texts; sometimes he left the two stories side by side.

And so The Torah emerges…

The result was one extended narrative, divided into five books — the Torah.

And that's it. From 450 BC on the document was fixed — no more changes. The oldest existing Torah texts that survive, the Dead Sea scrolls, date from around 100 BC. But scholars are confident that, apart from the odd transcription error, the Dead Sea scrolls accurately reflect the text compiled more than three hundred years previously by the Redactor.

This is all very interesting, but does it matter? Yes, I think it does.

So why is this important?

It shows that the Torah does not just describe the history and experience of the Jewish people. The text of the Torah is itself the product of that history and experience, and furthermore of a history and experience that continue to unfold long after the events described.

Different versions of the stories arise because the people are scattered and separated, and because people in different places have different priorities — in the northern kingdom you simply can't practice a religion in which Temple sacrifice is central, and this affects how you remember and understand the foundational stories. And, when the people are consciously trying to unite themselves or to restore their history and culture, then there are quite deliberate attempt to bring together the different stories and different versions into a single narrative.

In other words, the foundation of all scripture — not just what it describes, but how it is constructed, received and acknowledged as scriptural — is the lived experience and communal needs of God's people.

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: PART I | PART II | PART III | PART IV | PART V | PART VI

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

Peregrinus can be contacted at: Peregrinus <peregrinus@catholica.com.au>

©2007 Peregrinus

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