1977

The literary form of the Pentateuchal narratives is significant in a discussion of the early history of Israel not only because of the a historical nature of the tales that make up the Pentateuch, which prevents us from assuming that historical events, however veiled or hidden, lie at the source of these tales, but also because the narrative framework that links the narratives in a construct of Heilsgeschichte is essentially secondary and derivative from the conjunction of originally independent narratives. In fact, it may even be ventured that the Book of Exodus itself lacks an exodus narrative, historiographically speaking, and that such a perspective is an accidental distortion of the intentionality that formed the narratives related in this biblical book and has resulted from the union of tales that have a quite other literary and theological motivation. Nor can it really help the historian to refer to those narratives that in some demonstrable way irreducibly relate or refer to the origins of Israel in Egypt and to argue, however inconclusively, that some historical reality must have lain behind this consciousness which has subsequently dominated the theology and cult of Israel, for the originality of a narrative and its irreducible adherence to a given setting, or even the observable historical presuppositions of the narrator, are not truly relevant to questions about historical authenticity or historicity. This methodological impasse becomes apparent in a brief review of the more important primary and irreducible narratives and references to the origins of Israel.