Axes of Inquiry: The Problem of Form and Time in Wellhausen and Gunkel

Abstract

This article disassembles the methodologies of Wellhausen and Gunkel to demonstrate an intellectual conundrum endemic to reconstructing historical phenomena. Applying insights from Carlo Ginzburg and Jonathan Smith, the essay distinguishes morphology and evolution as two discrete inquiries. First, it surveys Goethe’s classificatory pursuits and their incorporation into natural science’s later temporality. The study then identifies their fusion in Wellhausen’s textual criticism, literary analysis, anthropology, and national history. Though cast as his conceptual combatant, Gunkel succumbed to the same quandary, combining morphology and evolution in religious and literary comparisons. Finally, the essay traces such conflation throughout diverse debates that converge in Hebrew Bible scholarship.