Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition. By JAMES K. HOFFMEIER.

Abstract

This book is the sequel to Professor Hoffmeier's Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition, which was reviewed in JTS, ns 51 (2000), pp. 195–9. Parts of both volumes examine the same problems, and in particular chapters 4 and 5 of Ancient Israel in Sinai provide information about recent archaeological research which has led Hoffmeier to revise some of his earlier conclusions. Old Testament specialists will once again be grateful for the wealth of material from Egyptian sources which Hoffmeier discusses. It is important that this should be accessible for Old Testament study, and copious bibliographical references make it easy to follow up individual topics. Hoffmeier deals principally with ‘the Pentateuchal materials that are set in Sinai’ (p. 3), and his comprehensive treatment of these includes both a consideration of the route taken by the Israelites and of the location of Mount Sinai and an assessment of the age of the Sinai Legislation and of the Tabernacle, together with the identification of numerous Egyptian elements in these narratives. His claim that ‘the geography of the exodus itself has been clarified, thanks to new data from North Sinai’ (p. 248) is justified, but some of his views will not command general assent. His comparison of the Sinaitic covenant with Hittite suzerainty treaties (pp. 184–90) is unconvincing. D. J. McCarthy (Treaty and Covenant [Rome, 1963], pp. 160–1, cf. pp. 28–30) rightly points out that the so-called ‘historical prologue’ in Exod. 20:2b, unlike the feature in Hittite treaties which has been thought to be analogous, ‘is less concerned with what happened than with who did it. The reference to historical events serves to designate the speaker.’ Moreover, despite Hoffmeier's assertion to the contrary (p. 189), it is a serious weakness in his position that the six items held to be common to the treaties and the Sinaitic covenant are not found together in Exodus 20. Hoffmeier (p. 259 n. 10) believes that the verb at Hosea 13:5; Amos 3:1–2 ‘refers to the intimate relationship God established with Israel by means of the Sinai covenant’ and so is evidence, with Hosea 2:14–20, that two eighth-century prophets knew the Sinai theophany. Yet the term ‘covenant’ is not used by Amos, Isaiah, or Micah for Yahweh's relationship with Israel, though they say a great deal about Israel's unfaithfulness to Yahweh, and so they might have been expected to refer explicitly to the covenant if it had had an important place in Israel's life since the time of Moses. Thus a case can be made against a literal reading of an important part of the Sinai narratives on the basis of material contained in the Old Testament itself, without recourse to the classical theories about either source analysis or the development of Israelite religion which Hoffmeier frequently censures.