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  • From: barre AT access1.com
  • To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Beyond Minimalism III: Tradition History
  • Date: 19 Sep 99 11:37:42 -0800


Dear List,

In some earlier postings I argued that the dating of Ben Sira provides the ad
quem for the
development of the canon of the Hebrew Bible (c. 200 BCE), and that
considerations
regarding the history of Israelite literature excludes a post-exilic dating
for the bulk of the OT.
I further argued that the traditional methodologies of source criticism
(better composition
criticism) and form criticism provide two of the most effective tools for the
historical
reconstruction of Israelite culture, demonstrated first by Wellhausen and
Gunkel respectively.
Tradition history is a third methodology that logically follows from the
others and has been
developed and effectively brought to bear on Israelite literature especially
by Martin Noth.

However, as many of you will know, research into the early period has fallen
into something
of a malaise. Many have argued that we know virtually nothing about the
historical Israel
prior to the Monarchy. Indeed, a learned skepticism has assault even the
monarchic period.
How did this happen, and is there anyway to assault the impasse?

One of the effects of form criticism has been a recognition of literary
genre. As a result of the
generic classification of the literary components incorporated into the final
form of the OT,
form critics have demonstrated that these genres do not provide direct
historical information
in the "events" that they describe. Rather, narrative material has been
classified into genre
that were not intended to provide direct, historical information. Rather,
they are seen as
myth, legend, tale, and as other genres whose intention disqualifies from
being read naively as
descriptions of historical events. Consequently, many have despaired of
using them for
historical reconstruction.

However, when adequately understood, source, form and tradition criticism
provide means
by which historical information may be extracted indirectly from fictional
and quasi-fictional
genres. In form criticism, it is a central tenet that genre and matrix
(setting) have an integral
relationship, allowing one to move from an understanding of genre to the
concrete
circumstances that generated and sustained it. A similar situation obtains
with redaction
criticism, a method that is renown in NT studies but which is largely ignored
among OT
scholarship. Yet, like form criticism, this method allows one to ground a
tradition in its
historical context.

Traditio-historical methodology complements and extends these other methods
in that it too
relates literature to historical circumstances. Its additional feature is
that it provides a means
to present a synthetic understand of how a given tradition evolves through
time. It traces the
history of a tradition in whatever literary form that tradition may take as
it develops. So the
two major studies of von Rad and Noth sought to show how various Pentateuchal
themes
developed to produce the final form left to us. However, the necessary
relationship posited
between tradent and tradition has not be fully exploited. The emphasis has
decidedly been
on studying the growth of a tradition rather than investigating the tradents
who created and
passed them on. Methodologically then, there is no reason why we cannot
penetrate the pre-
monarchic impasse. Only the conclusion that the OT contains no pre-monarchic
traditions
will condemn us to ignorance and such a conclusion is patently prejudicial if
not downright
absurd. Therefore, the contemporary focus should be one in which attention
is given to the
concrete, historical communities that produced the biblical traditions. In
other words, the
bipolar relationship of tradition and tradent needs elucidation.
Furthermore, a redressing of
the ignoring of the tradent side of the relationship may draw upon a approach
of sociological
investigations of ancient Israel. The approach is virtually the same as that
of an archaeologist
who interrogates artifacts in order to extract as much historical information
as possible.
Tradition history interrogates the traditions in order uncover various groups
that produced
and transmitted them. Furthermore, the method allows one to produce a
synthetic
understanding of how a specific group developed historically as it is
reflected in the group of
their distinctive traditions. Here I am thinking of groups such as the
Levites, the sages or the
prophets. In the end, one produces a description what is known as a "streams
of tradition" as
well as profiles of the groups that is reflected in them.

Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever why historians cannot write a
history of pre-
Monarchic Israel. In this regard, I have more than once encountered a
certain smugness
among those who counsel despair. The problem is not with the task, but with
methodological
ignorance. Indeed, in my opinion it is this issue that has generated the
abandonment of the
old paradigm to produce the alternative paradigm of minimalism.

Thank you for abiding this lengthy post.

Respectfully submitted,



L. M. Barre, Ph.D.

barre AT access1.com
www.angelfire.com/ca2/AncientIsrael






  • Beyond Minimalism III: Tradition History, barre, 09/19/1999

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