Julius Wellhausen goes to Copenhagen: Towards a more progressive commentary on Exodus

Abstract

This article explores how commentaries on Exodus have engaged with the documentary hypothesis and alternative theories of pentateuchal composition. Despite new and compelling theories as to how and when the Pentateuch was composed arising over the last thirty years, commentators on Exodus have shown very limited engagement with these ideas. Resulting from this, both conservative and revisionist positions are becoming ever-more entrenched, commentaries are imposing unnecessary and detrimental limits on themselves and confessing readers of commentaries are being sold short. Following an outline of the most prominent theories of pentateuchal composition, three recent commentaries on Exodus are examined, in terms of their engagement with Wellhausen’s theory and selected alternatives. I next focus on three particular effects of commentaries’ limited engagement with revisionist scholarship, before suggesting a new way forward for an Exodus commentary.