Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz>]

Jim wrote:-

>The closer you look, the more impossible is the venerable JEPD theory
of >the  authorship of the Patriarchal narratives.  J, P, D and their
two >editors, all  being from Jerusalem, could not have ?forgotten?
about >Jerusalem?s existence and failed to mention Jerusalem, in a text
which >portrays the Patriarchs as often sojourning at a place called
?Hebron?.  

I've cut a lot out. You have argued in this manner for a long time and
its still unconvincing. How do we know they ``forgot'' to add in
Jerusalem? It is just a guess. Let's for a moment take a different line
of speculation. Let's say that these editors were working with what they
believed to be sacred traditions. I use traditions to mean either
written or oral or both. Why would they add in a reference to Jerusalem
when the readers or hearers could already make that association if they
figured that association was important? We could speculate that they
wouldn't add it in out or reverence for the traditions. 

>The Patriarchal narratives are not late fiction composed by 
>multiple authors, most of whom were from Jerusalem, as the JEPD theory
>would have it.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the theory. As I posted earlier
we had both Thomson and Lemche on this list at one stage. Given their
reputations as minimalists I was quite surprised at the extent of their
conceding a history memory to the Hebrew Bible. Look, for example, at
Milgrom's commentary as I posted earlier. He places the historical
memory of Levicitus going back before the Monarchy. That's hardly ``late
fiction''. Of course, there are others who place the writing of the
patriarchal narratives much, much later. We had one member at one stage
who placed their writing close to the Macabeean period. So the reality
is that the JEPD and its many subsequent revisions and elaborations is
just an identification of possible sources. You can find proposals on
their dates that range over a thousand years. To me none of them seem
entirely convincing. All of them have problems. 

Bill Rea, ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
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