The Promise of the Land as Oath: A Key to the Formation of the Pentateuch

488 Pages·1992·12.721 MB·English

by  Suzanne Boorer

Suzanne Boorer
The Promise of the Land as Oath
w
DE
G
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die
alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
Herausgegeben von
Otto Kaiser
Band 205
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
1992
Suzanne Boorer
The Promise
of the Land as Oath
A Key to the Formation of the Pentateuch
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
1992
© Printed on acid-free paper which falls
within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure
permanence and durability.
Library of Congress Calaloging-in- Publication Data
Boorer, Suzanne, 1954—
The promise of the land as oath : a key to the formation
of the Pentateuch / Suzanne Boorer.
p. cm. — (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttesta-
mentliche Wissenschaft ; Bd. 205)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 3-11-013505-1
1. Bible. Ο. T. Pentateuch—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
2. Oaths in the Bible. 3. Land settlement patterns —Israel —
History. I. Title. II. Series.
BS410.Z5 vol. 205
[BS1225.6.027]
221.6 s — dc20
[222'.1066] 92-20149
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging in Publication Data
Boorer, Suzanne:
The promise of the land as oath : a key to the formation of the
Pentateuch / Suzanne Boorer. — Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter,
1992
(Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ;
Bd. 205)
ISBN 3-11-013505-1
NE: Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft / Beihefte
ISSN 0934-2575
© Copyright 1992 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-1000 Berlin 30.
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this
book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in Germany
Printing: Werner Hildebrand, Berlin 65
Binding: Lüderitz und Bauer, Berlin 61
Acknowledgments
This work represents the fruition of many years of study of the Pentateuch
that began with an evaluative study of R. Rendtorff s work for a master's
thesis in Melbourne and issued in a broader study of issues in the formation of
the Pentateuch for my doctoral dissertation at Emory University, of which this
is a revised version. Accordingly, I would like to express my deepest thanks
to the mentors who have accompanied me along the way and helped to bring
me to this point: to my doctoral adviser, Dr. Gene Tucker, not only for his
careful and balanced academic guidance but also for his encouragement and
warm hospitality during my time at Emory; to Fr. Antony Campbell S.J., with
whom I began Old Testament and whose faith in me has been a significant
contributing factor to my completing this study; and to Dr. Brevard Childs
whose passion for, and insight into, the Old Testament has had a lasting
impact on me.
I wish to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Otto Kaiser for accepting this
work for publication in BZAW.
I would also like to thank all those who have helped with the typing: Mrs.
Leonie Hudson, Mrs. M ax ine Graham, and my mother.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to the Perth Theological Hall
for allowing me generous amounts of time to complete this work, and to the
United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne for the use of its library.

Preface
The issue of the formation of the Pentateuch is the focus of much dispute at
the present time, as evidenced in the emergence of new paradigms, such as
those of R. Rendtorff and J. Van Seters, that compete with each other for
attention, but share in common a questioning of the traditional source theory,
and a challenge to the positions held by classic scholars such as J. Wellhausen
and M. Noth.
A re-examination of this issue in the face of this ferment is called for since the
conception held of redaction levels in the Pentateuch has significant
implications not only in the areas of historical reconstruction and insight into
the theologies of different levels but also for the interest of current scholarship
in interpreting the final form of the text which is always affected by our
perception, impossible for us to escape, of the diachronic formation of the
text.
This study provides a means of evaluating the existing paradigms for the
formation of the Pentateuch, in particular those represented by Wellhausen,
Noth, Van Seters, and Rendtorff. In order to accomplish this it analyzes
selected texts in Genesis - Numbers that express Yahweh's oath of the land to
the ancestors, Ex 13:5,11; 32:13; 33:1; Num 14:23a; 32:11, to determine their
relative levels, in relation to their surrounding contexts, to each other, and to
their parallels in Deuteronomy. This procedure uncovers relative levels in
Genesis - Numbers, on the one hand, and their relation to Deuteronomy (and
beyond) on the other, through the relation of each to these land oath texts as
reference points. The results that emerge provide a test by which to measure
the credibility of positions held at present for the formation of this material.
These particular texts were chosen as reference points in this procedure for
the following reasons. They occur at key points in the Pentateuch, and have a
νπι
Preface
common content and style in terms of the divine oath of the land to the
ancestors, which is close to Deuteronomy and Deuteronomistic texts extending
to Kings (labelled here broadly as 'Dtr'). Thus they represent a manageable
selection of important Dtr texts in the Pentateuch. The choice to focus on such
Dtr texts takes seriously the growing consensus amongst recent scholars, such
as H. Schmid, Rendtorff, and Van Seters, that redaction level(s) significant in
the shaping of Genesis - Numbers as a whole are closely related to
Deuteronomy and Deuteronomistic redaction(s) extending through to Kings.
The choice to focus on texts that concern the promise of the land is in line with
the trend in recent scholarship to use analysis of the land promise as a means
of discerning relative redaction levels and their order in the Pentateuch. In
these recent studies, however, which include the works of Van Seters, and
Rendtorff, the land oath texts selected here are only alluded to as part of a
wider discussion of the land promises in general, and a detailed study of these
land oath texts to determine their precise levels has not been carried out as
such. Thus this study moves beyond, and tests, these recent studies that use
the land promise texts to argue for varying views of the relative redaction
levels in the Pentateuch.
The method by which the relative levels of these land oath texts is determined
is a literary analysis that shows that each is an integral element of a Dtr
context, and then goes on to compares these contexts between themselves and
their parallels in Deuteronomy. This study makes a distinctive contribution in
comparing the contexts of which these oath texts are an integral part, rather
than comparing their formulaic expressions in isolation. The method of
comparing formulations of land promise texts per se with each other and
formulations in Deuteronomy, as carried out in some other studies such as
those of C. Westermann and Rendtorff, is rejected as a means of determining
levels since it cannot be concluded, without further evidence, that similar
formulations are due to the same hand. Similarity in expression is just as
likely to be due to a later hand copying an earlier formulation, and, indeed, the
results of this study indicate that with regard to these land oath texts this is in
fact the case.
Preface IX
The arrangement of this work is as follows. The first chapter sets out in
detail the issues involved, the approach taken and its justification touched on
briefly here by way of introduction. It incorporates as part of this a survey of
the history of interpretation of the redactional formation of the Pentateuch,
indeed of the material from Genesis - Kings, outlined in terms of four major
paradigms, and a survey of the history of interpretation of the land promise.
The appendix sets out a descriptive formulaic analysis of texts referring to the
oath of the land for the purposes of comparing this with results obtained with
regard to the relative levels of these texts using my method. The second, third
and fourth chapters focus on establishing the relative redaction levels of the
land oath texts that occur in contexts concerned with, the exodus (Ex 13:5,11),
the Sinai tradition (Ex 32:13; 33:1), and with the wilderness and conquest
traditions (Num 14:23a; 32:11), respectively. The final chapter sets out my
conclusions: the results regarding the relative redaction levels of these land
oath texts and related texts in Deuteronomy; the evaluation of existing
paradigms of the formation of the Pentateuch in light of these results; the
questions that remain open and further directions for research; and the
methodological, hermeneutical and theological implications of this study.
The results of this study, both with regard to relative redaction levels and the
process of redaction discerned, argue for the narrowing of the field of options
for conceptions of the formation of the Pentateuch, and point to areas and
positions where further exploration would be fruitful. They support most
closely Wellhausen's conception and also lend some support to aspects of the
paradigm initiated by Noth. However, they stand in direct contradiction to
Van Seter's position of a post-Deuteronomistic J, and to Rendtorffs
conception of a redaction layer spanning the Pentateuch that comprises these
Dtr land oath texts.
This study also has implications for further directions in Pentateuchal studies
in the areas of hermeneutics and theology. The redactional process discerned
calls in question both the hermeneutical move of attempting to interpret these
texts in their original historical situations and a literary approach to the text in
its final form only. It also implies that the fulfillment of the promise of the
land conceptualizes something more than territorial possession.
χ Preface
Ε. Blum's Habilitationsschrift, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch
(BZAW 189; Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1990), was published about
the time this dissertation was submitted and became available to me only
considerably later. It has seemed advisable not to incorporate a detailed
discussion of Blum's work into the body of this work. Reference to its
significance for positions adopted here have been incorporated into the
conclusion.
Perth, Australia, January 1992 Suzanne Boorer