Joel Baden the Composition of the Pentateuch Book Review

Joel South. Baden. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. New Oasis: Yale University Printing, 2012. ten + 378 pp. $65.00 (textile), ISBN 978-0-300-15263-0.

Reviewed by Angela Roskop Erisman (Xavier University)
Published on H-Judaic (Dec, 2012)
Deputed by Jason Kalman (Hebrew Union College - Jewish Plant of Religion)

A Literary Solution to a Literary Problem?

Joel S. Baden's recent volume, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, may be one of the nigh lucid, well-written treatments of the Documentary Hypothesis available. Baden takes a "show-and-tell" approach to re-presenting this archetype theory of composition history, pairing chapters on each source document with detailed studies of selected texts. The chapters not only introduce readers to the main characteristics and parameters of each source certificate just also develop the overall themes of his argument for the Hypothesis in an alliterative, easy-to-think fashion. Baden argues for the continuity of J, equally opposed to the discontinuity implicit in supplementary approaches that posit the redaction of small-scale, dissever blocks of tradition. In dissimilarity to studies of E that unsuccessfully tried to distinguish it from J on the footing of way, he argues for the coherence of Eastward. His chapter on D makes a case for the complementarity of law and narrative within a single source document. And he counters the common view that P is a redactional layer by arguing for its completeness. The case studies illustrate key points developed in the chapters through study of select pericopes, showing the Documentary Hypothesis at piece of work and providing good models of what efforts to apply it to other texts might wait similar. Baden's framing of the entire discussion is pedagogically thoughtful and well executed, making this volume highly attainable to beginner and advanced students alike.

Baden agrees with some well-worn critiques of the Documentary Hypothesis--greater concern with historical development of religious ideas than with literary problems, multiplication of posited redactors, overreliance on style and vocabulary--and seeks to nowadays a refined version of it as a corrective. He reminds us that the Documentary Hypothesis is fundamentally an attempt to solve a literary problem, a business organisation to explicate the literary integrity of the text also equally the incoherence nosotros encounter as we try to read the Pentateuch as a whole. This is hardly a new signal.[1] But Baden helpfully brings us back in touch with the fact that classic source criticism was conceived every bit Literarkritik and strives to provide u.s. with a more solid ground for doing this disquisitional piece of work. He emphasizes that theme, fashion, and vocabulary tin be but secondary criteria for identifying compositional layers, considering more than than one source can deal with a single theme, and all have access to the resources of the Hebrew language. We must focus instead on the "narrative menstruation" of the text (p. 28) and the consistency of "claims about the way events transpired" (p. 16). Problems with either--such every bit irreconcilable contradictions, doublets that involve contradiction, and discontinuities (for case, Moses is told to get up the mountain when he is already on it)--should be taken as principal indicators that nosotros are dealing with multiple layers of limerick. Baden couples word of such problems with discussion of continuity, coherence, and completeness across select texts in an endeavour to argue that these layers are independent sources rather than redacted fragments.

If 1 is going to place the primary trouble of Pentateuchal criticism as a literary problem, as Baden rightly does, 1 needs a literary method adequate to address it, and hither this study is alarmingly weak. Literary criticism has given us a thorough set up of precise terms and concepts to aid in analysis, but Baden employs only a express range. When he speaks of "narrative period," one assumes he is talking about plot structure and to some extent characterization. What nigh setting, bespeak of view, genre, rhetorical strategy, and ideology, to name a few? All of these things play a role in the structure of a coherent literary text, yet Baden fails to adequately appoint them, and sometimes this results in problematic assay of text. For instance, he argues that the itinerary notices in Exod 12:37 and 13:twenty bring the Israelites to the body of water in preparation for the sea crossing and that they are but "retracing their steps" in Exod 14:2 (p. 205). But the places named in Exod 12:37 and xiii:20 are nowhere nearly a bounding main, and only Exod fourteen:2 provides a plausible setting for the sea crossing narrative. Baden misses this problem with the setting because he is looking for "narrative flow," broadly speaking, and the concept of setting is not an agile tool in his disquisitional toolbox.

Baden is likewise imprecise in his utilize of literary terms. For example, some of the "thematic elements" of P he identifies are actually themes, while others are not: cult and priesthood are themes, while "the heavy use of genealogies" (p. 27) is a matter of genre, not theme. Moreover, he is not consequent in his handling of theme equally a benchmark for distinguishing source documents that is secondary to the criteria of "narrative catamenia" and consistent historical claims. At one indicate, he includes theme and style in his definition of "the hallmark of a unified composition" (p. sixteen), and the themes of meat complaint versus leadership are among the main criteria for separating J and E in his case study on Numbers 11. In fact, while Baden'southward critique of the employ of theme, style, and vocabulary as primary criteria for distinguishing sources in classical iterations of the Documentary Hypothesis is right on target and his handling of them as secondary criteria understandable, the question of theme is considerably more than complex. Plot, characterization, setting, point of view, etc., are employed as they are in a narrative typically in order to develop a particular theme or set up of themes, and so theme cannot really be separated from consideration of these other elements. Perhaps to hash out what constitutes coherence (or incoherence) in a narrative--to address the literary problem of the Pentateuch--we must carefully discuss how all of them work together (or fail to, as the case may be) in whatever given text.

Baden's treatment of literary criticism in this volume takes the form of a response to the typical formalist and structuralist approaches that became pop in biblical studies in the 1980s, and his critiques of these approaches are excellent ones: They too frequently "focus on formal construction over the narrative coherence of [a] passage" such that they fail to see textual difficulties (p. x). Alternatively, they acknowledge textual difficulties merely either ignore them as irrelevant to the concluding class or explain them away, oft implausibly, as features of style or rhetoric. Baden is right to bring our attention back to the fact that at that place are existent difficulties with the coherence of Pentateuchal narrative. Merely formalism and structuralism are just particular kinds of literary criticism, notwithstanding his critique of them reads like a dismissal of literary criticism as a whole. Some literary and linguistic theories are actually quite useful in dealing with the issues we face as we endeavour to solve the literary problem of the Pentateuch, including tools such every bit New Historicism, reception theory, linguistic pragmatics, and conceptual integration theory.[ii] Certainly a multifariousness others might exist used too. Information technology is a pity that Baden did non explore the potential yield of literary critical tools for his task; if he had, he might have avoided the problems identified here and produced a piece of work with a much more than solid theoretical and methodological foundation.

Baden's work is non merely a re-presentation of the Documentary Hypothesis but also an ardent defense of it against other current approaches to the limerick of the Pentateuch. Ane wonders if this defensive opinion does not keep him from thinking about possible approaches that have non still been tried. Moreover, at points he loses sight of his merits that the Documentary Hypothesis is a hypothesis, or one "proposed solution to the literary problems of the Pentateuch" (p. 32), and begins to depict it as the natural outcome of a careful reading of the text (p. 20), implying that those who exercise not incline to it simply are not reading closely enough. This rhetorical move has the potential effect of shutting down creative, innovative thinking about potential solutions to these bug not only for Baden himself but also for his readers. Nonetheless it is just such thinking that nosotros are arguably in need of within Pentateuchal studies, whether we want to find a more solid footing for the Documentary Hypothesis or a more than plausible culling to information technology.

One must counterbalance these concerns confronting the elegance and lucidity of Baden's work in deciding how it might be used. It is hard to underestimate the importance of encouraging innovative thinking that has a solid theoretical and methodological foundation, and this volume falls significantly short in these areas. Simply it is also hard to underestimate the value of models of good scholarly writing that tin be emulated, especially for students. This latter characteristic, coupled with Baden's very helpful treatment of the history of scholarship, makes it a expert refresher grade on the Documentary Hypothesis and candidate for a course text. One hopes that it might be issued in a more affordable paperback form for that use.

Notes

[1]. For instance, John Barton, "Historical Criticism and Literary Interpretation: Is There Any Common Ground?," in Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honour of Michael D. Goulder, ed. S. E. Porter, P. Joyce, and D. E. Orton, Biblical Interpretation Serial 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 7.

[two]. For use of these tools, see my The Wilderness Itineraries: Genre, Geography, and the Growth of Torah, HACL three (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011).

If in that location is additional give-and-take of this review, yous may access information technology through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-judaic.

Commendation: Angela Roskop Erisman. Review of Baden, Joel Southward., The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. December, 2012.
URL: http://world wide web.h-internet.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=36901

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