Deuteronomy and the Jerusalem Cult Tradition

Abstract

The traditio-historical approach to the Book of Deuteronomy has made it abundantly clear that its cultic and legal material does not fit into the distinctive traditions of Jerusalem, which are more characteristically represented by the Holiness Code, the Reconstruction Programme appended to the Book of Ezekiel (xl-xlviii), and the Priestly Document. Instead the background of Deuteronomy has been rightly sought in religious circles of the Northern Kingdom. This, so far as I am aware, was first suggested by C. F. BURNEY in 1918, in the introduction to his commentary on the Book of Judges 1), and has since been elaborated by a number of scholars, especially WELCH 2), BENTZEN 3) and VON RAD 4). The authors of Deuteronomy must be sought among the heirs of the religious traditions of the Northern Kingdom, either among disciples of the prophets, as BURNEY thought, or more probably, as BENTZEN and VON RAD argue, in Levitical circles. These may well have been associated with the sanctuaries of Shechem and Bethel, and have been dispossessed of their living by the religious changes introduced after the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom in 721 B.C. Ultimately their cultic and legal traditions would go back to the conditions and ideology of the amphictyony, so that Deuteronomy may justifiably be presented as a developed expression of the older Mosaic religion. In agreement with this several distinctive features of Deuteronomy have been thought to reflect the traditions of the amphictyony.