The Pentateuch: Genesis

Abstract

The PentateuchGenesis Christopher T. Begg and Fred W. Guyette 1207. [Genesis–Joshua: P and D] Pekka Pitkäanen, "Reconstruction [sic! Reconstructing] the Social Contexts of the Priestly and Deuteronomic Materials in a Non-Wellhausian Setting," Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, 323-35 [see #1595]. This paper has outlined a possible way of looking at and reconstructing the social context of the Priestly and Deuteronomic materials in a setting that does not assume the main Wellhausian scheme of development and dating of the pentateuchal materials. Such an examination is clearly, if not naturally, linked with dating and compositional issues that relate to the ancient document that is the Pentateuch. Accordingly, I have outlined how such an alternative reconstruction can be linked with the wider isagogical issues. I have above all suggested that priests and Levites as cultic personnel were responsible for creating Genesis–Joshua in the context of Israel's settling the Canaanite highlands and creating a new society there to replace existing indigenous societies. Such a reconstruction [End Page 403] is certainly different from the Wellhausian one; nevertheless, it builds on the idea that a variety of sources were available to the authors from which they created the document we have before us in the Pentateuch. I hope this paper can stimulate further discussion about the Pentateuch in a context that is not limited to the Wellhausian paradigm that in my view is a hindrance when trying to understand this amazing work from antiquity and the history of ancient Israel. Any new understandings may also then have related new ethical, religious, and political implications for today (and also implications for academics). I believe that the above considerations, together with the other presentations that form the basis of this volume, do present a plausible and credible alternative to the Wellhausian approach, which, at a minimum, accounts very well for the data as a whole. [Adapted from published abstract] 1208. [Pentateuch; Roman Law] Matthias Armgardt, "Why a Paradigm Change in Pentateuch Research Is Necessary. The Perspective of Legal History," Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, 79-91 [see #1591]. In this essay, A., a legal historian, makes the case that after two hundred years of scholarly work on the basis of critical foundation of M. W. L. de Wette and a more or less modified Wellhausenian paradigm, pentateuchal research has reached a dead end. The methodological flaws of the enterprise, among them circular reasoning in particular, are obvious. Interestingly, something similar happened in the discipline of the study of Roman Law. After decades of searching for interpolations in the Corpus Iuris Civilis (CIC), about 30 years ago legal historians became aware that there was something wrong with the methods and assumptions that formed the foundation of their research. Today, almost every scholar of Roman Law assumes that the legal texts in the Digest have not, in fact, been interpolated, unless there is really strong evidence to the contrary. If all the theories about interpolations that scholars in the first decades of the 20th century assumed had been correct, the making of the CIC would have taken at least 30 years, not three years. A. further notes that in the case of the CIC there is no doubt that some interpolations did occur, but not nearly as many as earlier scholars suspected. Nowadays, everybody wonders how it is possible that brilliant scholars could have walked into the trap of arbitrariness and uncontrolled speculation in this field of research. A. suggests that a similar turning point has come for Pentateuch research now. A critical analysis of the assumptions and methods of this field of research is needed. At the same time, it is clear that a change of paradigm is never easy. A help in this critical situation is the fact that groundbreaking work has already been done, in particular by Kenneth Kitchen. He, among others, has shown that the right way forward in pentateuchal studies is to rely on external evidence, esp. that from the 2nd millennium b.c.e. In this connection, A. points out that attempts to show a connection between the 1st millennium Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon or the Law of Gortyn or the Roman Twelve...