JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

This reading obviates the legal difficulty inherent in the plain
sense of the received Hebrew that was troublesome to Rava
in BK 6b. The Septuagint of the last six chapters (which virtually
repeat the orders for building the Tabernacle merely
substituting past tenses for future) is abbreviated in places
and follows a different order from the received Hebrew. D.W.
Gooding has argued, however, that far from throwing a cloud
over the antiquity and primacy of the Hebrew, these changes
betray the impatience of the translators and the ineptness of
later editors. The Greek’s incompleteness and absurdity in
spots speaks against its priority over the sensible and consistent
account of the Hebrew. That the book is composed of
heterogeneous materials of varied provenance is a plausible
inference from the repetitions, inconsistencies, and incoherence
that have been indicated in the survey of its contents
given above. The assumption of a few tradition strands that
have been woven together or sometimes merely juxtaposed,
recognizable by characteristic conceptual and linguistic constants,
has proven to give the most satisfactory solution to the
question of the book’s composition. Conventional criticism
reckons with three such strands, styled J, E, and P (Priestly
Source), that were combined in stages by editors. There is
much controversy over details, some scholars denying the
existence of E, others finding it necessary to postulate yet a
fourth strand (variously identified and styled J1, N, or L). More
recently, controversy has broken out over the standing of P as
an independent document – for details see *Pentateuch and
Schwartz in Bibliography. The three conventional strands,
however, remain the starting point of critical assessment of the
book’s composition. They are set forth in the accompanying
table according to the analysis of S.R. Driver (1913). It must
be borne in mind that such schematic representation cannot
do justice to the careful, qualified arguments that underlie the
analysis, nor can it indicate where preexistent entities and editorial
work are postulated.
Subsequent study has focused on the earlier stages of
the tradition, recognizing behind the narrative strands individual
tales, or themes, or a ground form of the traditional
sequence of events; and behind the law collection, smaller
series (e.g., decalogues) of admonitions or categorical statements,
or casuistically formulated rules. The ultimate provenance
of the material and the manner of its transmission
can only be speculated upon. It is reasonable to suppose that
the narrative of the liberation from Egypt was utilized in the
celebration of the Passover, especially in view of the pedagogic
purpose of the celebration (13:8); less secure is the assumption
of a covenant festival in which the Sinai law giving
and covenant-making were celebrated, or rather dramatized
in accord with the “libretto” of chapter 19–20: bereft of any
plausible liturgical use is the golden calf episode. As a vehicle
of transmission the liturgy may thus have played a considerable,
but not exclusive role; as the original well-spring of the
traditions, it is wholly inadequate. The theory that the present
narrative has a poetic substratum is commended by traces of
poetic language, and not infrequent patches of elevated style
Jerusalem
exodus, book of
in which parallelism and refrain appear (e.g., 3:15b; 9:23–24;
14 (see above, E); 19:3–6). That the narrative is to be comprehended
as saga – the enthusiastic relation of events under the
impact of their significance – has been persuasively put forward
by M. Buber.
Attention is being focused increasingly upon the editorial
contribution to the shaping of the traditions. The disposition
of the material must have been dictated in the main by
the order of events as related in the individual strands. Indications
are that all strands shared a common ground form; the
variants that appear are, therefore, to be regarded as maximal.
Two forms of the covenant document were preserved – “the
smaller Book of the Covenant” (the “cultic Decalogue” in
34:10–26) and the other incorporated now in the “Book of the
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 621
Gaza
Jaffa
Lachish
Gerar
Beer-Sheba Hormah
Arad
MOUNT HOR
Kadesh-Barnea
CANAAN
Hebron
Ezion-Giber
Jordan R.
Jericho
DEAD SEA
Punon
STEPPES OF
MOAB
Nebo
Dibon
Heshbon
Kir of
Moab
M O A B
Bozrah
E D O M
AMM ON
Sihon
Ije-Abarim
Unsuccessful
Attempt
Earlier Route
Later Route
Map 2. Map illustrating earlier and later traditions regarding the route of
the Israelites from Kadesh-Barnea to the Moabite Plateau.