JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

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appear to be increasingly corrected: its disregard of cult and
ritual, and its tendency to view “Torah” as essentially legalistic,
and less worthy an object of study than the more “spiritual”
parts of the Bible.
Archaeological Evidence
The contributions of archaeology, beyond those already mentioned,
are especially significant in the area of lexicography
and textual criticism. In general, the literary finds discovered
since 1929 at Ras Shamra (the ancient *Ugarit destroyed in
the 12th century B.C.E.) on the northern Phoenician coast are
easily the most important for biblical studies. Here in three
major epics and much other literature in the *Ugaritic language,
there are not only classical versions of the paganism
which was Yahwism’s major competitor, but also the “language
of Canaan” as it was spoken at a time and place not too far
removed from “biblical Hebrew” (i.e., mostly, the pre-Exilic
dialect of Jerusalem). As a result, all sorts of obscurities in the
older biblical text (e.g., Ex. 15, Judg. 5, etc.) can be clarified, as
well as many features in even younger texts where tradition
apparently transmitted the consonantal text faithfully, but using
idioms which the masoretes or other later commentators
no longer understood (e.g., an “enclitic mem,” various meanings
of lamed, etc.)
H.L. *Ginsberg was among the earliest to recognize and
explore the potential of Ugaritic for biblical research and many
others have followed suit. It is now clear that ancient Israel
was heir to old poetic traditions of Syria-Palestine. The central
Syrian city of *Emar, which only began to be unearthed
in 1972, has yielded much important comparative material
relating to Israelite religion. Biblicists have likewise benefited
greatly from having access to the documents published in the
ongoing Finnish series State Archives of Assyria (1987ff).
The *Dead Sea Scrolls have been of great importance
for an understanding of the complexities of the Judaism of
the times as well as of the origins of Christianity. For the Old
Testament, however, their significance is largely limited to
the field of textual criticism – where their influence has been
nearly revolutionary. Above all, since the oldest manuscripts
previously known had been nearly a millennium younger, the
Qumran scrolls eliminated with one stroke much of the great
skepticism which had previously reigned in some quarters
concerning the age and reliability of the texts. At the same
time, the variation in detail in some of the Hebrew manuscripts
showed that no absolutely standardized and uniform
text had been fixed at the beginning of the Christian era.
Even more significant, in a way, was the discovery of Hebrew
manuscripts in recensions agreeing with the Septuagint
and the Samaritan Pentateuch. In the past, the pendulum had
swung from one extreme to another in the comparative evaluation
of the Hebrew text and the versions; in general, “Wellhausenianism,”
true to its anti-traditional stance in general,
had preferred the versions, while some later correctives discounted
them almost entirely. Now it increasingly became
plain that all three streams had equally ancient roots, that
no a priori preferences could be maintained in favor of any
of the three, and that, in all likelihood, the original tradition
was richer than any one of its three major later derivatives.
That is, in contrast to much of the textual criticism of the 19th
century which attempted, often on the basis of highly subjective
assumptions, to eliminate all the later additions and restore
the original “pure” text, it now seems likely that the text
has suffered more from losses than from glosses. Apparently,
as an official rabbinic or masoretic text gradually came into
existence around the beginning of the Christian era, at least
three major attempts to revise the Septuagint in conformity
with it can be traced. (See F.M. Cross, “The Contribution of
the Qumran Discoveries to the Study of the Biblical Text,” in
IEJ, 16 (1966), 81ff.; E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew
Bible (2001).
[Horace D. Hummel / S. David Sperling (2nd ed.)]
Developments in the 1970s
Bible research and criticism was actively pursued in the 1970s.
Yet, despite the intensive discussions and new publications,
it is often difficult to discern new major trends, motifs, or
“schools.”
This situation is partly the result of the passing from the
scene of many of the great pacesetters of the previous generation
(e.g., Albright, Wright, Mowinckel) without obvious
successors; partly the increasing specialization of a burgeoning
discipline, and partly, apparently, a reflection of the
increasing fragmentation of much Western thought in general.
Certainly in the United States, the proliferation of departments
of religion at universities has been a major catalyst
in the change.
The period witnessed frontal attacks on historical critical
method, not only from traditionalist circles, but even from
within the ranks themselves. Often it is a matter of semantics,
but the challenge nonetheless bears witness to the intensity of
the ferment. Thus, W. Wink (The Bible in Human Transformation,
1973) decries the objectivism of much biblical study, and
proposes paying more attention to the interpreter’s subjectivity.
With that new approach, “liberation theology,” the feminist
movement, and other contemporary sociopolitical trends have
left their mark. Most, however, do not think so much of abandoning
the “method” as of perfecting it somehow.
Although source-critical investigations of a more or less
classical type certainly continue, together with it there have
appeared massive assaults on the classical results. R. Rendtorff
(Das Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch,
1977) attacks the traditional documentary hypothesis, and regards
the Pentateuch as formed by the linking together of selfcontained
units which developed independently of each other.
Among the less radical, the centrality of the “Deuteronomists”
has generally become more axiomatic and pivotal than ever,
so much so that some complain of a “pan-Deuteronomism”;
cf. E. Nicholson Preaching to the Exiles (1970), M. Weinfeld
(Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 1972) makes those
circles the redactors of the Priestly document, but in other
652 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3