1995

The two theophanies of Exodus 3 and 6 can be described with much justice as the heart of the Pentateuch. These passages have been at the center of the historical-critical controversies over the composition of the Pentateuch for three quarters of a century. They have been used in defining the distinctiveness of the documentary source E from J in Exodus 3 and both of these sources as radically different from the E of Exodus 6. They have been helpful as well in our understanding of the early religious history of the Israelite people as reflected in the Pentateuch: marking out the historically earlier and uniquely distinctive ‘god of the fathers’ and shaddai. They have helped distinguish the effervescent but supposedly later mal'akim from the more commonly used yhwh and 'elohim. Finally, these two theophany stories with their themes of divine self identification, covenant and promise of salvation have been pivotal passages in every theology of the Old Testament since Ernst Sellin. Certainly they have affected our understanding of the formation of the Pentateuch, of the history of Israel and of the Old Testament's theology. A reading of these two texts, however, has become especially difficult in the past two decades because the historical-critical method, which has invested so much in these two passages has all but entirely collapsed. The Elohist has gone the way of Marvin Pope's El at Ugarit: remembered, but, no longer of any account.