JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

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concern among many. Parallel to the shift in archaeological
goals has been a shift in results, or, at least, in interpretation
of the finds (which is cause, and which effect, is debatable).
The synthesis hammered out by Albright, Wright, Glueck,
etc., ought to defend at least the “substantial historicity” of the
biblical traditions about the patriarchs, the exodus, and the
conquest. In the past decade, however, that construction has
increasingly been assailed from all sides. At the extreme, T.
Thompson (The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives, 1974)
and J. van Seters (Abraham in History and Tradition, 1975) have
championed a return to a sort of prearchaeological status quo
ante, largely divesting the patriarchs of historicity altogether,
and viewing those traditions as mainly postexilic constructs
in support of the land claims of that time.
Tradition and Interpretation (G. Anderson, ed., 1979),
containing essays by members of the “British Society for Old
Testament Study,” summarizes developments between Rowley’s
predecessor’s work (1951; see bibliography) and about
1974. To the annual Book List of that same society may now be
welcomed the American Old Testament Abstracts (since February
1978), reviewing also periodical literature. J.W. Rogerson,
Anthropology and the Old Testament (1978) offers a succinct
overview of once popular approaches, which now appear to
be in decline. Encounter with the Text. Form and History in
the Hebrew Bible (M.J. Buss, ed., 1979) contains a helpful review
of contemporary methodological competitors. B. Childs’
Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (1979) begins
each chapter with a masterful survey of recent research usually
highlighting diversity and often mutual incompatibility
as a backdrop for his own proposals (see above). Israelite and
Judean History (J. Hayes and J. Mueller, eds.; 1977) offers an
indispensable summary of recent developments in that field.
Finally, H. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (1974) must
be included for its penetrating analysis of the development
of modern attitudes toward biblical history. The archaeological
evidence itself continues to be indirect, at best, but especially
the Ebla finds (see Bible: Related Epigraphic Finds)
have raised the possibility that Abraham should be dated
some five hundred years earlier than the previous consensus
(c. 2300 B.C.E. instead of 1800, i.e., in the “Early Bronze” rather
than the “Middle Bronze” period). Excavations in Jordan, at
and around Bab-edh-Dhra, near the southeast corner of the
Dead Sea, may point in the same direction, conceivably having
even located the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Neither has archaeological evidence always been “cooperative,”
perhaps most notably in Aharoni’s various excavations
in the Negev. Increasingly ambivalent evidence has been
matched by a tendency to think of an “infiltration” rather than
a conquest, and to view the process more from a sociological
aspect. Some regard “Israel” as entirely a later idealization, it
not being a conceptual entity until the monarchy. Mendenhall
advanced one version of this thesis in his Tenth Generation
(1973), as did C.H. de Geus in The Tribes of Israel (1976),
and, more radically, Gottwald in The Tribes of Yahweh (1979).
The “nomadic ideal,” on which some of the older constructs
were based, has been demolished and replaced by a theory of
“transhumance” (seasonal migration with flocks) in V.H. Matthews,
Pastoral Nomadism in the Mari Kingdom (1978).
The hypothesis of an Israelite “amphictyony,” which a
previous generation regarded as all but established, has been
almost completely abandoned. R. de Vaux took strong exception
to it in his incomplete Early History of Israel (ET, 1978)
and A.E. Mayes reached similar conclusions in his Israel in the
Period of the Judges (1974). With the fall of the amphictyonic
hypothesis, the viability of various other once favored hypotheses
has been jeopardized, especially that of an early Israelite
“covenant renewal festival” and its various spinoffs. A more
sociological approach to the phenomenon of prophecy may
be noted in this connection: R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society
in Ancient Israel (1980).
The wisdom corpus has been perhaps the major beneficiary
of the newer mood in biblical studies. Not only has
there been concern to redress the previous “benign neglect”
of that literature, but the surfeit of “Heilsgeschichte” and the
ascendancy of the more introspective and immantalistic fashions
has made “Wisdom” very congenial. Von Rad, developing
ideas already set forth in his Old Testament Theology, has
again set the pace in his Wisdom in Israel (1970) (although,
it should be noted, his proposal that apocalyptic was an offshoot
primarily of wisdom rather than of prophecy, has not
been generally accepted). Out of the vast literature, Perdue’s
important Wisdom and Cult (1977) calls for special mention.
In it he demonstrates that the ancient wisdom both in Israel
and surrounding cultures did not assume the simply anti-cultic
posture, which earlier writers had tended to assume.
In general, research into Israel’s cultus seems increasingly
to be moving toward relative objectivity, at least in contrast to
the pejorative dismissal or the bondage to patternistic dogmas,
from which it once suffered. A major contribution came in M.
Haran’s, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (1978),
putting together studies of tabernacle-temple ritual theory accumulated
over the years. Even sacrifice, long the stepchild of
cultic studies in spite of its obvious prominence in the biblical
texts, has been accorded attention; particularly to be noted are
B.A. Levine, In the Presence of the Lord (1974), and J. Milgrom,
Cult and Conscience (1976).
Apocalyptic literature has also moved toward center stage
in recent years, probably partly in resonance with the “apocalyptic”
quality of much contemporary history. An increasingly
popular construct is that of sharp polarization after the Exile,
with the priestly party (Ezekiel, Ezra, etc.) seizing the reins of
power, and the more utopian losers (beginning with Deutero-
Isaiah) increasingly withdrawing into an otherworldly apocalypticism.
O. Plöger (Theocracy and Eschatology, 1959; ET 1968)
had earlier developed this view, and P. Hanson (The Dawn of
Apocalyptic, 1975) has given it wide currency in the United
States; cf. also D. Petersen, Late Israelite Prophecy, 1977). In this
scenario, Chronicles is sometimes seen to reflect a mediating,
compromise stance (cf., for example, H. Williamson, Israel in
the Books of Chronicles, 1977). Among the many studies and
654 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3