WRW Mattfeld

Joel,
First, let me clarify that I am NOT a "professional PhD toting Biblical Scholar," I am an amateur. I find the obeservations made by Whybray convincing, evidently you don't. I speak of an author you speak of a redactor. I suspect part of the problem lies in YOUR attempt to impose on this ancient author YOUR modern 21st century notions of what an AUTHOR IS vs. a REDACTOR. Such standards and notions DID NOT exist in antiquity. Ancient Authors frequently incorporated in their works passages from others without acknowledgement of their sources. They also are FULL OF CONTRADICTIONS and at times UNEVENESS in reading. Yet the works were by ONE author, in that he arranged everything to tell a story to his audience. Below is part of an article at my website on ancient authors.

Having identified my research strategies as being of a Rationalist/ Secular Humanist nature, it behooves me to explain to the viewer what is involved under this viewpoint.


Humanists take the Bible to be a historical relic, to be studied with the same critical tools as are employed in the study of literary works, be they ancient or modern.


The dialogs or speeches that occur in the Bible are understood by Humanists to be fictious, arising from the mind or imagination of the narrator. At times the narrator also creates imaginary scenes or events to promote the points he wishes to make with his audience or readers. All ancient authors worked this way, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and the Hebrews too.


Grant on ancient historians' use of fictional speeches or dialogs:


"The writings of the Greek and Roman historians are full of speeches. They could not possibly have been delivered in the forms in which they were reported. For one thing, nobody had taken down full notes of them at the time, and there were no handouts describing their contents. Second, the language in which the historians reported them is very often their own, and not that of the speakers...what the historians put down, as an alleged record of such speeches, was a vital part of ancient historiography, because it reflected the backgrounds and explanations of events and the characters, motives, intentions, aims, expectations and reactions of the principal participants. The speeches, therefore, with which the works of the ancient historians are filled form a vital part of their historical picture...they are not history in the modern sense of the word, because they are unauthentic; if they ever took place at all, they were not delivered in those terms, or even with those contents. Thus, speeches form an enormous barrier between ancient ideas of historiography and our own conceptions of the same activity." (pp.44-45, "Speeches, Digressions and Cycles," Michael Grant. Greek and Roman Historians, Information and Misinformation. Routledge. London & New York. 1995. ISBN 0-415-11770-4 pbk)


Grant on viewing ancient histories (which would include the Bible's "History") from a modern perspective:


"Ancient and modern historiography are two quite different things...What we ought to be doing is approaching ancient historians as the writers of literature which they are...Our primary response to the texts of the ancient historians should be literary rather than historical since the nature of the texts themselves is literary. Only when literary analysis has been carried out can we begin to use these texts as evidence for history...historiography in antiquity is a literary genre...judged by literary criteria...To sum up, it is necessay to repeat, once again, that ancient history was understood not as history, according to our meaning of the word, but as literature... Mommsen was not far wrong when he classified historians among artists rather than scholars, believing that it was artists that they had to be. 'A writer was not called a historian unless he had considerable pretensions to style. A historian had to entertain, and for that purpose he did not need truth as much as wit." (pp. 98-99, Grant)


Why do I claim the Primary History is the work of ONE AUTHOR and not four redactors ? Its the mention of towns, villages and hamlets, throughout the texts, from Genesis to to the end of 2 kings that DID NOT APPEAR in the archaeological record UNTIL ca. 640-560 BCE as noted by Israel Finklestein and Burton MacDonald, both of whom are professional Archaeologists. For me it is absolutely LUDRICOUS to claim that some "redactor" wandered along ca. 560 BCE and patiently "INSERTED" or "updated" the text with the names of these places for his audience. They appear in Genesis-2 Kings because this is when the Texts were written and the author was UNAWARE that these places DID NOT exist in the time frames he was placing them, his audience didn't know any better either. I agree with you, however, that he did incorporate works of other authors into his history without acknowledging the sources (although he does at times mention a few sources like the book of Jasher and Chronicles of the Kings). Still not satisfied ? Then I suggest YOU READ the Works cited in my notes for further details.

All the best, Walter

Celsus

We're both amateurs, but that doesn't mean we're going to be slipshod with our ideas, does it?

Of course you're right that such standards did not exist. But the point of identifying whether we have an author or redactor is to say whether the search ends or not. With your "author", you are evidently saying that there's no further point looking for the original works still visible in the text.

Again, this question should help you understand my point better: Do you understand Isaiah and Zechariah to be the work of a single author, or multiple ones? I really wish you would try to look at this question to see exactly why a distinction between author and redactor is important for modern studies. Obviously the multiple authorship is not just because everyone in antiquity borrowed from older traditions, but because it helps answer so many more questions.

It places a date on when traditions may have originated:

Single worship of Yahweh (and the beginnings of monotheism during Josiah's reign.

Similarities between the books of Amos and Deuteronomy show the influence that the fall of the Northern Kingdom had on Judah.

Priestly instructions in Leviticus must have originated during the time of the First Temple, there would be no point in creating new commands if the temple itself did not exist.

Etiological myths explaining cultic practices show that these must still have been generally acceptable at the time of writing (Moses' bronze serpent which was later destroyed).

Sympathies with various tribes in their books (e.g. Namaan the Syrian) perhaps suggest that they were allied at the time of writing.

The wanderings of the patriarchs were skillfully written so as to give the Israelites claim of Canaan, most probably at a time when that claim was insecure.

Now what's wrong in going past this single author of yours and trying to determine who/what/when the originals were?

Again you are right, but it doesn't matter if the final person copied out large chunks of someone else's materials (which is very evident in the JEDP and Deuteronomic History). We still want to look for where those chunks came from originally. However, in the case of a work like the Iliad or Odyssey, Homer (or whoever actually wrote them) has so authoritatively written his own style over these myths that searching for originals in Bronze Age mythology may just as well be hopeless. Notice, too, no doublets! (But we still have occasional anachronisms) Since such is not the case with the Bible, then we might as well still look for the sources. And why don't you examine the doublets in the Pentateuch, and be very careful to note:

The name of God used
The tribe(s) affected
The characteristics of God (anthropomorphic, supernatural, etc.)
The promises or lessons
The etiology

When you have finished doing that, see if two overarching sources are good candidates for these doublets - one Northern, one Southern.

[quote]<strong>&lt;snip&gt;

Grant on viewing ancient histories (which would include the Bible's "History") from a modern perspective:

"Mommsen was not far wrong when he classified historians among artists rather than scholars, believing that it was artists that they had to be. 'A writer was not called a historian unless he had considerable pretensions to style. A historian had to entertain, and for that purpose he did not need truth as much as wit." (pp. 98-99, Grant) [qb][quote]

It would also be a mistake to conflate Greek historical styles with Jewish historical styles. I don't think we're in any disagreement here (except, note my emphasis). Remember, an artist imposes his style on the final work. A redactor would not, yes?

You do realise that Finklestein (I'm not sure about MacDonald) basicallly accepts the JEDP paradigm?

I think you are using a bit of a straw man. Secondly, the places that did exist at the time of writing are the important ones. Shechem, Jerusalem, Hebron, Gaza, Ashkelon etc. all exist as they would have needed to. Others like Carmel would have been an embarassment to Deuteronomists unless the tradition was already well established, probably in writing. Inconsequential towns that only arise in border demarcations do not really concern anyone. They could just as easily be (much later) interpolations as part of a redaction.

Anyway, could you please answer the Zechariah/Isaiah question. Feel free to tackle just one of the books. If not, at least tell me: did this single Genesis-Kings author copy wholesale from others, and are we wrong to suggest that some elements are visibly written by identifiable sources? And finally, please do take a second look at the doublets in the Bible.

Celsus

To clarify my position, a good comparison is simply the Pentateuch and Deuteronomic History (Joshua-Kings). In the Deuteronomic History, the sources are much harder to identify, suggesting they were written by a single author/group of authors, although alternative sources are still traceable. Scholars who attempted a Documentary Hypothesis for these books mostly failed, or at least were never accepted. The sources also show faint JE traces, but not sufficient that modern scholars can claim the books are a JED synthesis. For the Pentateuch (or in fact just Genesis-Numbers) the sources are identifiable, hence the persistence of multiple authorship.

Celsus

Bump.

Mattfeld? Are you still around? One good thing that came about from this thread was it made me read something more recent, and so the Solomonic composition of J and the composition of E need to be dated at least a few centuries later. I'll only be revising that in my notes, however.

Joel