Literary Criticism and Theology of P - Christus Rex

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10 E. CORTESE This reductionist trend reaches its most radical position in Th. Pola 6 . He attributes to Pg the usual (and classical) portion of texts up to Ex 25. But from Ex 25 onwards his Pg is limited only to 25,1.8a.9; 29,45f. and 40,16.17a.33b and nothing more either in Lev or in Num 7 . The consequences of this reductionist approach to the theology of P are obvious. Such a radicalism invites a more reasonable literary critical approach towards our texts. At the same time we do not follow here the opposite trend, which renounces literary criticism, by adopting other exegetical methods, not to mention fundamentalism. Now if one gives credit to literary criticism, as we do, one can hardly accept the proposed structures of tent sections of P, either in their entirety or in their parts, if such opinions are proposed without a previous literary criticism. Such schemes or structures could be proposed only for the end text, and are the product of later redaction (Ps) or the result of the final redaction. Therefore many of the proposed structures of Pg on the Sinai corpus are to be suspected. Those structures of Pg, which do not presume a prior literary criticism and which are based simply on the supposed parallelism with ANET accounts of temple building and on the bipolarism between prescriptive and descriptive texts of the ancient documents and between command (Ex 25- 31) and execution (35-41) 8 , are not acceptable to us. Nor do we agree with those who build their demonstration of the structure purely on literary or stylistic elements 9 . There is also a sort of structure like the one proposed by Janowski 10 following Weimar, which is based on literary criticism, but presumes that 6. Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift. Beobachtungen zur Literarkritik und Traditionsgeschichte von Pg (WMANT 70), Neukirchen 1995. 7. See for instance Pola, Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift, 343, note 144. 8. B. Levine, “The descriptive Tabernacle texts of the Pentateuch”, JAOS 85 (1965) 110- 132. 307-318, has still his followers today. 9. G. Steins, “Sie sollen mir ein Heiligtum machen. Zur Struktur und Entstehung von Ex 24,12 (sic!)-31,18”, in F.L. Hossfeld (Ed.), Vom Sinai zu Horeb. Stationen alt. Glaubensgeschichte, Würzburg 1989, 145-167. The proposed structure is based principally on the speech introductions 30,11.17.22.34; 31,1.12, which are irregularly distributed in the complex. Moreover Steins admits the secondary trait, not only of Ex 30f., which the majority recognizes, but also of (28 and) 29, which he defends. 10. B. Janowski, “Tempel und Schöpfung. Schöpfungstheologische Aspekte der priesterschr.en Heiligtum Konzeption”, JBT 5 (1990) 50 (now in Id., Gottesgegenwart in Israel. Beiträge zur Theologie des AT, Neukirchen 1993, 214-246).
THE PRIESTLY TENT 11 Pg has only the tent and not its objects, particularly not the ark with her ‘edût. According to this hypothesis it is easy, but very questionable, to exclude from Pg any issue of the law, which was put in the ark. On the one hand, outlining a structure is not the indispensable work in the reconstruction of the theology of P, whereas literary criticism is, and it can give a surer basis for further exegetical work. On the other hand, considering the complex history of the formation of Ex 25-31 and 35-40, we cannot accept the obsession that makes out of every terminological change a literary critical hypothesis, creating to many layers of redaction (corresponding to different names of the tent 11 , to singular or plural verb for the subjects of the construction, to the differences in the many series of the objects, and so on). A. Ex 25-31 Is it possible to reach a sure textual basis in Ex 25ff. for the theology of P? We try to do it, not by a thorough new analysis, but by way of balancing between the scholars and by evaluating their results. 1. First we accept the general conclusions of the classic literary criticism: Ex 30f. and nearly all of 35-40 are Ps. It is difficult to recover the original Pg information or phrases in 35-40, after the massive work of Ps in this part. However, following the great majority of the past and present scholars, we consider at least 39,32 or 42 and 40,17.33f. as essential to Pg. The usual argument for the secondary character of 30f. is that the incense altar 12 is not mentioned in the most apt place, i.e., in ch. 25, but later in 30, and that in 35-40 we have a different order of the tent elements, where the incense altar is found in its right place. This different and more logical order is also a proof that this passage is later than that of 25ff. Moreover, as already noted, it is exactly after the incense altar (30,1-10) that a long series of introductions to YHWH speeches (30,11.17.22.34; 11. H Utzschneider, Das Heiligtum und das Gesetz. Studien zur Bedeutung der sinaitischen Heiligtumtexte (OBO 77), Freiburg Schw. 1988, even after shifting from an exaggerated literary critical approach, seems to run here into the same error. 12. Against the recent opinion of C. Meyers, “Realms of Sanctity: the case of the ‘misplaced’ incense altar in the Tabernacle Texts of Exodus”, in M.V. Fox et alii (Eds.), Texts, Temples, and Traditions. A Tribute to Menahem Haran, Winona L. Ind. 1996, 33-46.
Page 1: THE PRIESTLY TENT (Ex 25-31.35-40)
Page 5 and 6: THE PRIESTLY TENT 13 2c. There need
Page 7 and 8: B. Ex 35-40 THE PRIESTLY TENT 15 Al
Page 9 and 10: THE PRIESTLY TENT 17 As for Ex 35-4
Page 11 and 12: THE PRIESTLY TENT 19 At the moment
Page 13 and 14: THE PRIESTLY TENT 21 doors and so o
Page 15 and 16: THE PRIESTLY TENT 23 of Jesus Chris
Page 17 and 18: THE PRIESTLY TENT 25 Kabbalistic th
Page 19 and 20: THE PRIESTLY TENT 27 unacceptable:
Page 21 and 22: THE PRIESTLY TENT 29 only from God

Literary Criticism and Theology of P - Christus Rex

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