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How to Decode the Bible (OT): #1
Feb. 26th, 2020 11:15 amWell, it looks like it's time for a major paradigmatic adjustment in the field of Biblical scholarship. After taking a good, hard look at some of the most cutting-edge biblical criticism research that has been published in recent years, it seems that any serious researcher must now contend with the idea that the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the OT canon) may have in fact not been written down in any sort of codified and unified narrative format, much in less the narrative we know of today, until about 275 BCE.
The 2006 book, Berrosus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch seems to make a slam-dunk case, via the method of critical literary analysis, that the Pentateuch is in fact dependent on primarily two source texts that were in existence around the era of the Macedonian Ptolemaic regime which ruled over Egypt right after Alexander's conquest of most of the civilized world of the time. Through literary analysis, the authors concluded that the composition of the Pentateuch, particularly the books of Genesis and Exodus were source dependent on two great historical compilations that were contemporary with the (hypothetical) initial penning of the Hebrew corpus:
(1) The History of Babylonia, by the Babylonian scribe Berossus, who in service of his Hellenistic rulers (in his case, the Seleucid kings) compiled a historical collection of Babylonian/Mesopotamian lore, religion, history, ect.
(2) Aegyptiaca, which was basically the same thing as above, only for the Egyptians, who were at this time subjects of the Ptolemies.
This seems to point to a domestic policy, shared by the various Macedonian kings alike, of paying scribes to assemble official accounts of various subject peoples. So this raises the obvious next question: If the Seleucids and Ptolemies made it an official policy to document the histories and religious rites of their Babylonian and Egyptian (respectively) subjects, then why not do the same thing for the Judeans? And the answer to this question leads directly into the premise of the book I cited above.
So the hypothetical scenario which goes along with this theory would be such: A Ptolemaic king, say Ptolemy II Philadelphus assembled a team of Judean scribes c. 275 BCE and offered them a handsome sum to sit down together and flesh out a single canon that includes their histories, myths, lore, religious rites, law codes, ect. The scribes would have been tasked with harmonizing myriad and disparate oral tales and ritualistic practices; harmonized all of these into a single agreed-upon narrative. In effect, this process would have been the creation of a unified religion by committee. And we know how messy committee process can be. And thus all of the contradictions and conflicting stories we can easily find in the Pentateuch, which up until recently was explained away by the Documentary Hypothesis.
This new critical approach is pretty much a game-changer and it provides a radically different way of looking at the OT. I hope to be writing a lot of follow-up posts which flow from this basic premise.
The 2006 book, Berrosus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch seems to make a slam-dunk case, via the method of critical literary analysis, that the Pentateuch is in fact dependent on primarily two source texts that were in existence around the era of the Macedonian Ptolemaic regime which ruled over Egypt right after Alexander's conquest of most of the civilized world of the time. Through literary analysis, the authors concluded that the composition of the Pentateuch, particularly the books of Genesis and Exodus were source dependent on two great historical compilations that were contemporary with the (hypothetical) initial penning of the Hebrew corpus:
(1) The History of Babylonia, by the Babylonian scribe Berossus, who in service of his Hellenistic rulers (in his case, the Seleucid kings) compiled a historical collection of Babylonian/Mesopotamian lore, religion, history, ect.
(2) Aegyptiaca, which was basically the same thing as above, only for the Egyptians, who were at this time subjects of the Ptolemies.
This seems to point to a domestic policy, shared by the various Macedonian kings alike, of paying scribes to assemble official accounts of various subject peoples. So this raises the obvious next question: If the Seleucids and Ptolemies made it an official policy to document the histories and religious rites of their Babylonian and Egyptian (respectively) subjects, then why not do the same thing for the Judeans? And the answer to this question leads directly into the premise of the book I cited above.
So the hypothetical scenario which goes along with this theory would be such: A Ptolemaic king, say Ptolemy II Philadelphus assembled a team of Judean scribes c. 275 BCE and offered them a handsome sum to sit down together and flesh out a single canon that includes their histories, myths, lore, religious rites, law codes, ect. The scribes would have been tasked with harmonizing myriad and disparate oral tales and ritualistic practices; harmonized all of these into a single agreed-upon narrative. In effect, this process would have been the creation of a unified religion by committee. And we know how messy committee process can be. And thus all of the contradictions and conflicting stories we can easily find in the Pentateuch, which up until recently was explained away by the Documentary Hypothesis.
This new critical approach is pretty much a game-changer and it provides a radically different way of looking at the OT. I hope to be writing a lot of follow-up posts which flow from this basic premise.
