This essay was originally presented at “The Hebrew Bible in the Making,” a conference held at the National Humanities Center, April 27—29, 1988. I am grateful to Professor Shemaryahu Talmon for inviting the paper; to my thoughtful respondents, Professors David Daiches and Regina Schwartz; to the several participants in the conference who made helpful suggestions; and to my colleague David Marcus, who provided food for thought and material in composing this paper.

1. Spinoza, Benedict de, Theologico-Political Treatise (New York; Dover Books, 1951), chap. 8 (pp. 120–132).Google Scholar

2. Cf. Meir, Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1985), esp. pp. 89–90.Google Scholar

3. Cf., e.g., Speiser, E. A., “The Biblical Idea of History in Its Common Near Eastern Setting,” in The Jewish Expression, ed. Judah, Goldin (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 1–17,Google Scholar esp. p. 8, who maintains that the Hebrew “canon” began to “emerge”—“no doubt in oral form at first”—in the mid-second millennium, “close to the age of the patriarchs.” In his Anchor Bible Genesis (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964), pp. 105–109, Speiser argued that the Genesis 14 tale about Abraham's warring is based on an early-second-millennium Akkadian source. Rofe, Alexander, “The Story of Rebekah's Betrothal (Genesis 24),” Eshel Beersheva 1 (1976): 42–67,Google Scholar esp. p. 45 [in Hebrew], represents a more moderate position, according to which some biblical texts may have second-millennium origins, while others, like Genesis 24, may derive from the postexilic period. Talmon, Shemaryahu, “Kingship and the Ideology of the State,” in World History of the Jewish People, ed. Abraham, Malamat and Israel Eph'al (Jerusalem: Massada, 1979), vol. 4/2, pp. 3–26, may not attribute historical Israelite sources to as far back as the second millennium B.C.E., but he views the literary growth of biblical historiography as a centuries-long process (esp. p. 3).Google Scholar

4. Cf., e.g., Seters, John Van, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983).Google Scholar For an only somewhat more moderate view, cf. Koch, Klaus, The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method, trans. S., M. Cupitt, 2nd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969), who posits early oral traditions but holds that they were given written form only “relatively late” (pp. 84–85). The exilic Deuteronomist, writes Koch (p. 85), “had some sources at his disposal, but apparently only some.”Google Scholar

5. For a survey of recent scholarship, see Douglas A. Knight, “The Pentateuch,” and Ackroyd, Peter R., “The Historical Literature,” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters, ed. Knight, D. A. and Gene M. Tucker (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 263–305;Google Scholar and cf. Vries, Simon J. De, “A Review of Recent Research in the Tradition History of the Pentateuch,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1987 Seminar Papers, ed. Kent, H. Richards (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 459–502.Google Scholar

6. Gunkel, Hermann, What Remains of the Old Testament and Other Essays, trans. Dallas, A. K. (New York: Maemillan, 1928), p. 58 (= Reden und Aufsdtze [Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913], p. 30).Google Scholar

7. Cf. Sternberg, Poetics of Biblical Narrative, esp. p. 17.

8. Freedman, David N., “The Earliest Bible,” in Backgrounds for the Bible, ed. Michael, P. O'Connor and D. N. Freedman (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1987), pp. 29–37;Google Scholar cf. Driver, S. R., An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1956), p. 4.Google Scholar

9. On theoretical models in biblical criticism, see Schokel, Luis Alonso, “Of Methods and Models,” Vetus Teslamentum Supplements 36 (1985): 3–13;Google Scholar and my “Theory and Argument in Biblical Criticism,” Hebrew Annual Review 10 (1987): 77–93 (slightly revised in my Essays on Biblical Method and Translation [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989], pp. 53–68). Cf., too, Gottwald, Norman K., The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).Google Scholar

10. For recent evidence that this theory is alive and well, cf. Friedman, Richard E., Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit, 1987).Google Scholar

11. Lods, Adolphe, Israel from Its Beginnings to the Middle of the Eighth Century, trans. Hooke, S. H. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1932), p. 11.Google Scholar

12. Lods, loc. cit.; cf., e.g., Rowley, H. H., The Growth of the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar One may also compare the hypothesized use by the Torah's redactor of the Numbers 33 itinerary in providing a framework for the exodus and wilderness trek narratives; see Cross, Frank M., Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 308–317;Google Scholar cf. Coats, George W., “The Wilderness Itinerary,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972): 135–152.Google Scholar

13. Lods, Israel from Its Beginnings, p. 13; cf., e.g., Bewer, Julius A., The Literature of the Old Testament, 3rd ed., rev. by Kraeling, Emil G. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), esp. pp. 47–48;Google ScholarJackson, Jared J., “David's Throne: Patterns in the Succession Story,” Canadian Journal of Theology 11 (1965): 183–195, esp. 183–184.Google Scholar

14. Cf. my “The State of Biblical Studies; or, Biblical Studies in a State,” Essays on Biblical Method, pp. 3–27, esp. 5–10.

15. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, p. 5.

16. Cf. my “Sources of the Pentateuch,” in Harper's Bible Dictionary, ed. Paul, J. Achtemeier (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 983–986, esp. 983–984.Google Scholar What looks like an editorial operation from a diachronic perspective may look like an artful compositional technique from a synchronic one. An excellent case in point is provided by the phenomenon of “resumptive repetition,” which had been regarded by scholars as an editor's linking device, but has been considered a narrational strategy by Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Presentation of Synchroneity and Simultaneity in Biblical Narratives,” in Studies in Hebrew Narrative Art, ed. Joseph, Heinemann and Shmuel Werses, Scripta Hierosolymitana 27 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978), pp. 9–26;Google Scholar and Long, Burke O., “Framing Repetitions in Biblical Historiography,” Journal of Biblical Literature 106 (1987): 385–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Although Long treats the “framing repetition” within a synchronic narratology, he allows that this reflects the particular “model” he adopts. Long acknowledges that within a literary historical model the very same phenomena could be explained as redactional work (see esp. p. 399). Damrosch, David, in The Narrative Covenant: Transformations of Genre in the Growth of Biblical Literature (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987),Google Scholar has attempted to add a diachronic dimension to synchronic literary analysis. I do not, however, believe that one can go beyond this to merge a synchronic and diachronic paradigm, because in the end a critic must repeatedly decide whether to relate to a phenomenon as a primary or secondary object of interpretation; cf. my discussion of Damrosch's, book, “On the Genesis of Biblical Prose Narrative,” Prooftexts 8 (1988): 347–354.Google Scholar I discuss this problem, too, in my review of Berlin's, AdelePoetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, in AJS Review 12 (1987): 279–282.Google Scholar

17. So my “Sources of the Pentateuch,” p. 983; cf. the more conservative approach taken in Coats, George W., Genesis with an Introduction to Narrative Literature (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1983), p. 71.Google Scholar

18. Cf., e.g., Pfeiffer, Robert H., Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper, 1941), p. 272;Google ScholarNorth, C. R., “Pentateuchal Criticism,” in The Old Testament and Modern Study, ed. H., Rowley H. (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), pp. 48–83, at p. 56;Google Scholar Rowley, Growth of the Old Testament, pp. 36–41; Fohrer, Ernst Sellin-Georg, Introduction to the Old Testament, trans. Green, David E. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1988), pp. 149, 186–190;Google ScholarFriedman, Richard E., The Exile and Biblical Narrative: The Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Priestly Works (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1981), pp. 86, 90;Google Scholar idem, Who Wrote the Bible?, p. 85; Coats, Genesis, p. 67. On the discrete origin of the songs in Deuteronomy 32 and 33, respectively, see Cassuto, Umberto, “The Song of Moses,” in Biblical and Oriental Studies, trans. Abrahams, Israel (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975), vol. 1, pp. 41–46, esp. p. 45; and idem, “Deuteronomy Chapter XXXIII and the New Year in Ancient Israel,”Google ScholarIbid, pp. 47–70. For the preexistence of the laws incorporated into Deuteronomy, for example, cf. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, p. 90.

19. Cf., e.g, Lods, Israel, p. 13.

20. Cf., e.g., Friedman, Exile and Biblical Narrative, pp. 46–47, 80, with reference, too, to the work of F. M. Cross.

21. Cf., e.g., Gunkel, Hermann, The Legends of Genesis, trans. Carruth, W. H. (New York: Schocken, 1964), p. 130;Google Scholar North, “Pentateuchal Criticism,” pp. 57, 59, 78–79; Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, p. 293 and passim; Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, pp. 166, 172, who, following Gunkel, regards even as a “school” transmitting “several separate scrolls.” In an original and penetrating analysis of the Jacob “cycle,” Weisman, Zeev. From Jacob to Israel [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986), contends that the Jacob material stems essentially from the same corpus, corresponding to what source critics call “E.” Although Weisman works (as a revisionist) within the documentary model, his “E” may resemble more the corpus of material as conceived by Gunkel.Google Scholar

22. Coats, “Wilderness Itinerary,” p. 141.

23. For example, Num. 35:11 ff. and Josh. 20:1 ff. (but not Deut. 19:1 ff.) refer to the towns as “cities of refuge” ('are miqlai) where the fugitive must “stand before the assembly for judgment.” For delineation of the textual elements of P and D in Joshua 20, see Kaufmann, Yehezkel, The Book of Joshua [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1966), p. 229.Google ScholarNoth, Martin, Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1967), pp. 189–190,Google Scholar had insisted that despite the presence of P material, the basis of Joshua 20 is still Deuteronomic, but his view has not held sway. John, Gray, ed., Joshua, Judges and Ruth (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1967), pp. 25–26,Google Scholar observes the intermixture of P and D in Joshua 20 and concludes that this chapter's “literary history … is rather more complicated” than most of the book. But while Gray explains the similarities among Deuteronomy 4 and 19, Numbers 35, and Joshua 20–21 as the result of mutual influence in the course of transmission, Soggin, J. Alberto, Joshua: A Commentary, trans. Wilson, R. A. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), p. 197,Google Scholar attributes the strong Priestly component in Joshua 20 to the heavy hand of a Predactor. Boling, Robert G., Joshua (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984), p. 473, notes the parallels of Joshua 20 to both Numbers 35 and Deuteronomy 19, but he draws no conclusions. From Boling's criticism of Henry McKeating's dating of the city of refuge institution to the seventh century (“The Development of the Law on Homicide in Ancient Israel,” Vetus Testamentum 25 [1975]: esp. 53–55), one may infer that he regards the tradition as ancient and holds that the various biblical sources received a similar tradition.Google Scholar

24. Num. 35:25, Josh. 20:6.

25. Kaiser, Introduction lo the Old Testament, p. 139; contrast, e.g., Noth, Uberlieferungsgeschlichtliche Studien, pp. 182–190.

26. Gunkel, Hermann, Genesis, 7th ed. (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966; first published 1910), p. 144;Google Scholar cf. Skinner, John, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1930), p. 164.Google Scholar On the antiquity of this usage of “windows of the sky,” see Ehrlich, Arnold B., Mikrd ki-Pheschuto, vol. 1 (New York: Ktav, 1969; first published 1899), pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

27. Cf. e.g., Cassuto, Umberto, “The Israelite Epic,” in his Biblical and Oriental Studies, vol. 2, pp. 69–109;Google Scholar idem, “The Beginning of Historiography among the Israelites,” Ibid vol. 1, pp. 7–16; Albright, William F., From the Stone Age to Christianity, 2nd ed. (New York: Anchor Books, 1957), pp. 66–68;Google Scholaridem, , Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), e.g., pp. 37–38, 46, 48, 52, 92;Google ScholarCross, Frank M., Jr., “The Divine Warrior in Israel's Early Cult,” in Biblical Motifs, ed. Alexander, Altmann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 11–30, esp. 14 with n. 8;Google Scholar idem, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, e.g., p. 124 and passim; Miller, Patrick D., Jr., The Divine Warrior in Early Israel, Harvard Semitic Monographs 5 (Scholars Press, 1973), pp. 166–170;Google ScholarKselman, John S., “The Recovery of Poetic Fragments from the Pentateuchal Priestly Source,” Journal of Biblical Literature 97 (1978): 161–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gunkel, Legends of Genesis, p. 38, had already by 1905 identified poetic origins of passages and phrases in Genesis; cf. Albright's introduction to the Schocken edition of Gunkel, esp. p. viii. For a critical discussion and survey of scholarship on the question, see Conroy, Charles, “Hebrew Epic: Historical Notes and Critical Reflections,” Biblica 61 (1980): 1–30.Google Scholar Conroy does not attack the evidence of poetic fragments; for criticism of conclusions drawn from such evidence, cf. Talmon, Shemaryahu, “The ‘Comparative Method’ in Biblical Interpretation—Principles and Problems,” Vetus Teslamentum Supplements 29 (1978): 320–356, esp. 352–355.Google Scholar

28. Quite interestingly, Gunkel, Genesis, p. 110, observes that the archaic expression hayyeto 'eres is placed in the deity's quoted speech (Gen. 1:24) while the narrator uses the more prosaic hayyat ha'ares (v. 25).

29. Cassuto, Umberto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, trans. Abrahams, Israel (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961), pt. 1, esp. pp. 8–17.Google Scholar On this “poetic” verbal pattern in Ugaritic and biblical verse, see idem, “Biblical and Canaanite Literature,” in his Biblical and Oriental Studies, vol. 2, pp. 16–59, at pp. 57–58; and see further Moshe Held. “The YQTL-QTL (QTLYQTL) Sequence of Identical Verbs in Biblical Hebrew and in Ugaritic,” in Essays Presented to Abraham A. Neuman, ed. Meir, Ben-Horin (Leiden: Dropsie College, 1962), 281–290.Google Scholar

30. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, p. 37.

31. Cf., e.g., Gunkel, What Remains of the Old Testament, p. 62.

32. Cf., e.g., Bewer, Literature of the Old Testament, p. 65.

33. Koch, Klaus, The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method, trans. Cupitt, S. M., 2nd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969), p. 24.Google Scholar

34. Coats, George W., “Moses Versus Amalek: Aetiology and Legend in Exod. 17:8–16.” Vetus Teslamentum Supplements 28 (1974): 29–41.Google Scholar

35. Cf.Kawin, Bruce, Telling It Again and Again (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), p. 9.Google Scholar This principle should be regarded more as a guideline than a law. Gary Rendsburg has helpfully suggested to me that the Egyptian story of “The Shipwrecked Sailor,” dated to ca. 2000 B.C.E., might pose a challenge to the principle, as it is essentially a “prose” narrative in which one finds a few repetitive passages; see e.g.,Simpson, William K., The Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), pp. 50–56. It may be, however, that this text serves to “prove” the “rule.” Though written (and remarkably well preserved), the story contains telltale signs of an oral character, such as bursts of parallelism (e.g., “Wash yourself; place water on your fingers”; “For the speech of a man saves him, and his words gain him indulgence”; p. 51). Moreover, by contrast to, e.g., Ugaritic epic, the repetitions here are not entirely verbatim, as they involve both expansion and variation. They are, as Rendsburg observes, the sorts of repetition one finds routinely in biblical prose narrative.Google Scholar

36. Jason, Heda, “The Story of David and Goliath: A Folk Epic?” Biblica 60 (1970): 36–70, esp. 37.Google Scholar

37. Cf. Lichtenstein, Murray H., “Episodic Structure in the Ugaritic Keret Legend” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1979).Google Scholar

38. Cf. Koch, Growth of the Biblical Tradition, p. 82. Contrast the doubts raised in this regard inWidengren, Geo, “Oral Tradition and Written Literature among the Hebrews in the Light of Arabic Evidence, with Special Regard to the Prose Narratives,” Ada Orientalia 23 (1959): 201–262, esp. 229.Google Scholar

39. Rad, Gerhard von, Theology of the Old Testament, trans. Stalker, D. M. G., 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), e.g., 1:4 and passim; cf. also, e.g., North, “Pentateuchal Criticism,” p. 63, citing J. Pedersen; Bewer, Literature of the Old Testament, p. 75, n. 16; Cross, “Divine Warrior.”Google Scholar

40. Cf., e.g.,Myers, Jacob M., The Linguistic and Literary Form of the Book of Ruth (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955); Duane L. Christensen, “Prose and Poetry in the Bible: The Narrative Poetics of Deuteronomy 1,9–18,” Zeitschrift fur alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 97 (1985): 179–189; for other references, see Conroy, “Hebrew Epic,” esp. p. 6.Google Scholar

41. Cf.Segal, M. Z., Mevo′ hammiqra′ [Introduction to Scripture] (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1967), vol. I, pp. 35–36Google Scholar (for a translation of most of this passage into English, seePreminger, Alex and Greenstein, E. L., eds., The Hebrew Bible in Literary Criticism [New York: Frederick Ungar, 1968], pp. 189–190).Google Scholar In this context one may also understand the remarks ofKugel, James L., The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), esp. pp. 85–87.Google Scholar On the option of ancient Hebrew prose writers to adopt repetitive styles, cf.Licht, Jacob, Storytelling in the Bible (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978), pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

42. Rendtorff, Rolf, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem der Pentateuch (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1977);CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, . “The Future of Pentateuchal Criticism,” Henoch 6 (1984): 1–14;Google Scholaridem, , The Old Testament: An Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986);Google ScholarSeters, John Van, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975);Google Scholaridem, , In Search of History. A more radical version of the model that accounts for the composition of biblical narratives through repeated efforts of supplementation is that presented in N. H. Tur-Sinai, “Sifrut hammiqra′–mahi?” in his Hallashon vehassefer, sefer vol. (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1959), pp. 3–57, esp. 51–56. Tur-Sinai imagines a diverse corpus of early brief stories, proverbs, songs, and laws, each reflecting an authentic tradition. These, he contends, were expanded and elaborated into full narratives and legal passages by scribal tradents. He bases this sketchy model on his hypothesis that virtually all the psalms and other poetic texts were composed as extensive expansions of short songs by the royal court bards concerning episodes in the lives of David and Solomon–a theory that seems quite bizarre by most standards. The present form of the primary biblical narrative Tur-Sinai attributes to redactors who selected and abridged material from numerous and lengthy sources (p. 51).Google Scholar

43. Esp. Van Seters, In Search of History, pp. 31–54 and passim.

44. Cf. Licht, Storytelling in the Bible, p. 128: “freedom from the constraints of history is essential for the fashioning of long and complex stories.”

45. On the difficulty in dating pre-exilic Hebrew prose narrative, cf.Thompson, T. L., review of Abraham in History and TraditionGoogle Scholar bySeters, J. Van, Journal of the American Oriental Society 98 (1978): 79a; Talmon, “Kingship and the Ideology of the State,” p. 3; Rofe, “Story of Rebekah's Betrothal.”Google Scholar

46. On the similarities in language, style, historiography, and theology, cf., e.g.,Driver, S. R., Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1913),Google Scholar p. xciii;Ullendorff, E., “The Moabite Stone,” in Documents from Old Testament Times, ed. D.Winton, Thomas (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), pp. 195–196;Google ScholarLipiriski, E., “North Semitic Texts,” in Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. Walter, Beyerlin (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978), p. 238;Google ScholarGibson, John C. L., Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, vol. 1, Hebrew and Moabite Inscriptions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 71.Google Scholar

47. Cf., e.g.,McKenzie, John L., “Reflections on Wisdom“, Journal of Biblical Literature 86 (1967): 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 8; Sasson, Jack M., Ruth: A New Translation with a Philological Commentary and a Formalist-Folklorist Interpretation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 250–251.Google Scholar For similarities between the story of Ruth, which Sasson dates to the Josianic era (pp. 240–252), and other “primary” biblical narratives, such as those of Joseph and David, seeHals, Ronald M., The Theology of the Book of Ruth (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), pp. 20–75. On the nature of Josiah's new nationalist program and its modeling of the past, see esp. Moshe Weinfeld, “Hit'orerut hattoda'a halle'umit beyisra'el bamme'a hashevi'it lifne sefirat hannoserim” [The emergence of nationalist consciousness in Israel in the seventh century B.C.E.], in Oz ledawid: qoves mehqarim battenakh [David Ben-Gurion Festschrift: studies on the Bible] (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1964), pp. 396–420, esp. 401–403.Google Scholar

48. Cf. Olmstead, A. T., History of the Persian Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 1–2. Cf. also Shmuel Yeivin, “Hagigim ′al zeman hibburam shel sifre nevi′im rishonim” [Thoughts on the time of composition of the Former Prophets], in ′lyyunim besefer melakhim [Studies in the Book of Kings], ed. B. Z. Luria (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1985), pp. 415–418, who sees the period of Hezekiah as the most likely era in which Israel's traditions were consolidated; contrast Weinfeld (see preceding note).Google Scholar

49. Cf.Machinist, Peter, “Literature as Politics: The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic and the Bible,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976): 455–82.Google Scholar

50. Cf., e.g.,Jenks, Alan W., The Elohist and North Israelite Traditions (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977);Google ScholarGinsberg, H. L., The Israelian Heritage of Judaism (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1982). On the literary and ideologicaj relations between E and D as northern sources, see now Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?Google Scholar

51. Cf., e.g., Koch, Growth of the Biblical Tradition, p. 85;Friedman, , Exile and Biblical Narrative; and my “The Torah as She Is Read,” Response 47 (Winter 1985): 17–40 (revised in my Essays on Biblical Method, pp. 29–51).Google Scholar

52. Cf., e.g., North, “Pentateuchal Criticism,” esp. pp. 78–79. For a model of redaction that entails the incorporation of both written and oral material, see the account of Arab traditionists in Widengren, “Oral Tradition and Written Literature among the Hebrews,” p. 239.

53. Critics who seek to distinguish editorial from original compositional techniques should bear in mind that what was accepted convention among editors might have been equally acceptable among authors; cf. my “An Equivocal Reading of the Sale of Joseph,” in Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives, ed.Louis, Kenneth R. R. Gros withAckerman, James S., vol. 2 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1982), pp. 114–125, 306–310, esp. 117; and my “The Torah as She is Read,” esp. pp. 20–25 (Essays, pp. 32 ff.). For this reason it is practically impossible to ascertain whether one is dealing with an editorial or compositional phenomenon; see above, n. 16.Google Scholar

54. Bright, John, “The Date of the Prose Sermons of Jeremiah,” in A Prophet to the Nations: Essays in Jeremiah Studies, ed. Leo, G. Perdue and Brian, Kovacs (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984), pp. 193–212, at 204.Google Scholar

55. Cf., e.g., Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 357; Bewer, Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 65–66; Cassuto, “Beginning of Historiography among the Israelites,” p. 8; Jackson, “David's Throne,” pp. 183–184; Rad, Gerhard von, “The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel,” in his The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, trans. E. T. Dicken (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 166–204;Google ScholarWolff, Hans Walter, “The Kerygma of the Yahwist”, Interpretation 20 (1966): 131–158CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 134; Clements, Ronald, Abraham and David: Genesis 15 and Its Meaning for Israelite Tradition (Naperville, 111.: Alec R. Allenson, 1967), esp. p. 21Google Scholar; Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, p. 29; Whybray, R. N., The Succession Narrative (Naperville, 111.: Alec R. Allenson, 1968), esp. p. 14Google Scholar; Brueggemann, Walter, “David and His Theologian”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 30 (1968): 156–181Google Scholar, esp. 157; Kaiser, Otto, Introduction to the Old Testament, trans. John Sturdy (Minneapolis: Augburg Publishing House, 1977), pp. 82“91;Google ScholarMcCarter, P.Kyle, Jr., “The Apology of David” Journal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980): 489–504CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 495; Gottwald, Hebrew Bible, p. 137; De Vries, “Review of Recent Research,” esp. pp. 500–501. Freedman, David N., “Early Israelite Poetry and Historical Reconstructions,” in Symposia, ed. Frank M. Cross (Cambridge, Mass.: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1979), pp. 85–96Google Scholar, esp. 86–87, dates the putative prose transformations of the early Israelite epics to “the days of David and Solomon,” and the JE literary compositions to the subsequent period. For critiques of this position, cf., e.g., Wagner, N. E., “Abraham and David?” in Studies on the Ancient Palestinian World, ed. John W. Wevers and Donald B. Redford (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), pp. 117–140; Van Seters, In Search of History.Google Scholar

56. Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, esp. pp. 153–155.

57. Brueggemann, “David and His Theologian.”

58. Cf. the impression of a sophisticated lay reader: “The Bible likes parallel stories with a difference”;Segal, Lore, “II Samuel,” in Congregation, ed. David, Rosenberg (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), p. 108.Google Scholar

59. See nowNiditch, Susan, Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 23–69.Google Scholar

60. Culley, Robert C., Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative (Philadelphia and Missoula: Fortress/Scholars Press, 1976).Google Scholar The most salient parallels between the portrayals of Elijah and Elisha are conveniently summarized inGarsiel, Moshe, The First Book of Samuel A Literary Study of Comparative Structures, Analogies and Parallels (Hebrew ed., Ramat-Gan: Revivim Publishing House, 1983; English ed., 1985), p. 22 (Hebrew ed.).Google Scholar

61. 1 Samuel 24 and 26; cf. Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, pp. 210–212.

62. For other examples, cf.Flanagan, James W., “Court History or Succession Document? A Study of 2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2,” Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (1972): 172–181; Garsiel, First Book of Samuel, p. 82 (Hebrew ed.) and passim; and Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, “The Growth of the David Story,” pp. 182–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63. Cf. alreadyHeilprin, Michael, The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews (New York: Appleton, 1879), vol. I, pp. 24–27,Google Scholar citing the work ofA.Bernstein; and recently Rendsburg, Gary A., “David and His Circle in Genesis XXXVIII,” Vetus Testamentum 36 (1986): 438–446. On the basis of several parallels, Rendsburg proposes that Genesis 38 was composed shortly after David's own lifetime as a satirical political allegory of David and his family. Several of the alleged parallels are not nearly as specific and precise as Rendsburg would like, however; the refusal of Onan to produce a son through Tamar in Genesis 38 is hardly comparable to the rape of David's daughter Tamar by Amnon, to take only one example. It therefore makes much more sense to me to understand the occasional parallels between the stories of Judah and David as the product of later, vague recollections of traditional stories about David; see further below. For similarities between Judah's unwitting liaison with Tamar en route to Timnah and Samson's pursuit of the woman from Timnah, see Yair Zakovitch, Hayyei shimshon [The life of Samson] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1982), p. 93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64. Fisher, Loren R., “The Patriarchal Cycles,” Alter Orient und altes Testament 22 (1973) [Cyrus H. Gordon Festschrift], pp. 59–65, at p. 64, suggests that Genesis 38 originally began a Judean epic about David.Google Scholar

65. Cf. Fisher, loc. cit.

66. Blenkinsopp, Joseph, “Theme and Motif in the Succession History (2 Sam. 11:2 ff.) and the Yahwist Corpus,” Vetus Testamentum Supplements 15 (1965): 44–57, esp. 52–53.Google Scholar

67. Ibid, p. 53.

68. A coincidence less central to the action of the stories, but a specific parallel between Judah and David nonetheless, is that Genesis 38 begins by observing, gratuitously it would seem, that Judah “went down from his brothers and turned to [camped by?] an Adullamite man” (v. 1) and that David sought refuge from Achish in the Cave of Adullam (I Sam. 22:1). “His brothers,” the text continues, “… went down to him there.”

69. For a summary of parallels between Joseph and David, cf. Garsiel, First Book of Samuel, p. 131. For a rather idiosyncratic but provocative reading of Genesis and the succeeding books as a parabolic representation of monarchic “interests and institutions,” seeFeldman, Shammai, “Biblical Motives and Sources,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 22 (1962): 73–103. Few of the comparisons I discuss are found there.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70. For details and parallels with the second-millennium stories of Idrimi of Alalakh and the Egyptian Sinuhe, see Greenstein, Edward L. and Marcus, David, ”The Akkadian Inscription of Idrimi”, Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 8 (1976): esp. 76–77Google Scholar; and cf. Buccellati, Giorgio, ”La ‘camera’ di David e quella di Idrimi, re di Alalac”, Bibbia e Oriente 4 (1962): 95–99.Google Scholar

71. Cf., e.g., Blenkinsopp, ”Theme and Motif in the Succession History,” pp. 51–52; Brueggemann, ”David and His Theologian,” p. 164; Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, pp. 153–154.Google Scholar

72. Zakovitch argues cogently that the story of Dinah’s rape is shaped by the story of Tamar; see Zakovitch, Yair, ”Assimilation in Biblical Narratives,” in Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, ed. Jeffrey H. Tigay (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), pp. 175–196, esp. 185–192.Google Scholar

73. Mazar, Benjamin, ”The Historical Background of the Book of Genesis”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 28 (1969): 73–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74. Zakovitch, Hayyei shimshon, p. 58.Google Scholar

75. In his recent doctoral thesis on a dual reading of the Jacob and Gideon stories (Jewish Theological Seminary, 1988), my student Amnon Shapira delineates numerous striking parallels between Jacob and Gideon. Among them are these: both have seventy offspring, described as yose'e yerekho, “coming out of his loins [lit., thigh]” (Gen. 46:26, Judg. 8:30); both are younger/est brothers the a’(Gen. 25:23, Judg. 6:15); both built proper altars and removed a pagan idol/altar (Gen. 35:2^, Judg. 6:24–25); both encounter God/an angel of God “face to face” (panim ‘el panim; Gen. 32:31, Judg. 6:22); Jacob hides pagan idols “under the oak” (Gen. 35:4), while Gideon experiences a theophany “under the oak” (Judg. 6:11; cf. v. 19); Jacob moved on from Penuel (Gen. 32:32) to Sukkoth (33:17), precisely the provenance of the men Gideon vanquished in Judges 8 (see esp. vv. 8, 16 17; and cf. now Robert Alter, “Language as Theme in the Book of Judges” [published lecture of the Judaic Studies Program, University of Cincinnati, 1988], pp. 1–4); the alternative names of both have similar etymologies in the text– Yis‘ra’el: “For you have striven with God and man and prevailed” (Gen. 32:29), and Yeruba’al:“Let Baal contend with him” (Judg. 6:32); Gideon fought the Amalekites (Judg. 6:3), who are descended from the nemesis of Jacob, his brother Esau (Gen. 36:12).Google Scholar

76. Zakovitch, “Assimilation in Biblical Narratives,” pp. 192–196.Google Scholar

77. Leach, Edmund, Genesis as Myth and Other Essays (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), pp. 37–38Google Scholar. For further discussion of the comparison (and its limitations), see Marcus, David, Jephthah and His Vow (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1986), pp. 38–40.Google Scholar

78. Cf., e.g., Culley, Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative, pp. 54–59. For further references, see Trible, Phyllis, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 90, n. 44.Google Scholar

79. On which cf., e.g., Gunn, David M., “Narrative Patterns and Oral Tradition in Judges and Samuel”, Vetus Teslamentum 24 (1974): 286–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vater, Ann M., “Story Patterns for a Sitz: A Form- or Literary Critical Concern?” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 11 (1979): 47–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alter, Robert, The An of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), pp. 47–62Google Scholar. Cf. also the biblical topoi or folktale motifs delineated in Crenshaw, James L., Samson: A Secret Betrayed, a Vow Ignored (Altanta: John Knox Press, 1978), pp. 41–50.Google Scholar

80. Niditch, Susan, “The ‘Sodomite’ Theme in Judges 19–20: Family, Community, and Social Disintegration”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 44 (1982): 365–378,Google Scholar esp. 376. One may further support the literary dependency of Genesis 19 on Judges 19 by noting that the expression “do what is good in your eyes” is far more poignant in Judges, where Israel's lawlessness is emblematized by the phrase “each man would do what is right in his [own] eyes” (Judg. 17:6, 21:25); cf. on this point Lasine, Stuart, “Guest and Host in Judges 19: Lot's Hospitality in an Inverted World”, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 29 (1984): 37–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 40–41. Lasine reviews the controversy over which passage is chronologically prior and then argues from a literary perspective that the Judges story in its present context “depends” on the Genesis story in order to parody it. Lasine makes clear, however, that his synchronic treatment does not decide the historical issue: “By ‘literary dependence’ I mean that Judges 19 presupposes the reader's awareness of Genesis 19 in its present form” (p. 38). Similarly, when Leach, Edmund, “Anthropological Approaches to the Study of the Bible during the Twentieth Century,” in Leach and D. Alan Aycock, Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 7–32, at p. 27, states that Judges 19 “is a direct copy of the story of Lot in Sodom,” he refers to the impression of the reader encountering the final form of the text synchronically. As he says below and elsewhere, he takes biblical stories “at the same time without consideration of the order in which they appear” (p. 29).Google Scholar

81. It is possible that when we encounter similaf proper names or identical extensive discourse (e.g., Exod. 32:4 and I Kings 12:28), we are dealing with compositional techniques employed in order to link narratives. However, as I have indicated above, I see no way to decide whether such matters of style reflect authorial intention or a common literary or traditional source.

82. Gradwohl, Roland, “Das ‘Fremde Feuer’ von Nadab und Abihu” Zeitschrift fur alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 75 (1963): 288–296, esp. 293–295; cf. now Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, pp. 266–278.Google Scholar

83. Cf. Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, pp. 275–276.Google Scholar

84. Cf. my “Deconstruction and Biblical Narrative,” Prooftexts 9 (1989): 43–71, at 62.Google Scholar

85. Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, pp. 188–191, shows extensive parallels between the ensuing ark narrative in Samuel and the Exodus narrative.Google Scholar

86. For details, see Cross, , Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, pp. 191–194; cf. H. M. Y. Gevaryahu, ‘“Eliyahu hannavi’ bammiqra‘ uvemassoret yisra’el” [Elijah the prophet in the Bible and in Jewish tradition], in ‘Iyyunim besefer melakhim, ed. B. Z. Luria (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1985), p. 118Google Scholar, who also notes that the comparison was made in the classical midrash Pesiqta Rabbali: Savran, George, “1 and 2 Kings,” in The Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 162–163.Google Scholar

87. Cf. my “Joshua,”, in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), vol. 8, p. 118.Google Scholar

88. For the general similarity between Genesis 14 and Deuteronomistic historiography, see Astour, Michael C., “Political and Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis 14 and in Its Babylonian Sources,” in Biblical Motifs, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 65–112Google Scholar. For criticism of Astour's claim that Genesis 14 is Deuteronomistic, see Emerton, J. A., “The Riddle of Genesis XIV”, Vetus Testamentum 21 (1971): 403–139, at 404–05. Feldman, “Biblical Motives and Sources,” pp. 94–95, compares the Genesis 14 warfare to Judg. 3:7–11 and the account of David's victory over the Arameans in 2 Sam. 8:3 ff., 10:6 ff. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition, pp. 303–304, contends that although Genesis 14 is dependent on Deuteronomy, it is not the work of the Deuteronomist.Google Scholar

89. Some of the parallels are noted in Garsiel, First Book of Samuel, pp. 142–143.Google Scholar

90. Damrosch, Narrative Covenant, pp. 200–201, draws a parallel between the trap Saul thought he was setting for David by demanding Philistine foreskins and the stratagem Simon and Levi used against the men of Shechem by demanding that they circumcise themselves.Google Scholar

91. Prof. Shemaryahu Talmon has pointed out to me that, strictly speaking, there is a thematic difference in biblical narrative between (temporary) barrenness and the curse of childlessness. On account of the culmulative evidence in support of the parallel between Rachel and Michal, however, I feel that the former's barrenness and the latter's childlessness are sufficiently comparable.

92. Cf. Gray, John, I ' II Kings (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), p. 393Google Scholar, and Long, Burke O., I Kings with an Introduction to Historical Literature (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans,, 1984), pp. 151, 156, 228, who view the similarities among these and other punishment prophecies as the common workings of the Deuteronomic redactor. On the fulfillment of prophetic oracles as a theme in Kings, cf. now Savran, “1 and 2 Kings,” pp. 160–162.Google Scholar

93. Cf., e.g.,Damrosch, , Narrative Covenant, pp. 268 ff. Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974), pp. 559–561, maintains that “the Deuteronomic editor of I Kings 12 … was dependent on an existing story which he adjusted to suit his later polemic against Jeroboam” (p. 560).Google Scholar

94. Cf., e.g., Gunkel, Legends of Genesis: North, “Pentateuchal Criticism,” adducing the work of J. Pedersen; Feldman, “Biblical Motives and Sources”; Wagner, “Abraham and David?”Google Scholar

95. Cf., e.g., Leach, Genesis as Myth and Other Essays, pp. 25–83; Joel Rosenberg, “I and II Samuel,” in The Literary Guide to the Bible, Robert, Altered and Kermode, Frank (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 122–145.Google Scholar

96. Cf., e.g., Noth, Martin, Die israelitischen Personnamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung (Hildesheim: Georg Ohms, 1966; first published: Stuttgart, 1928), p. 242Google Scholar; see further Demsky, Aaron, “The Genealogies of Manasseh and the Location of the Territory of Milcah Daughter of Zelophehad”, Eretz-Israel 16 (1982): 70–75Google Scholar [in Hebrew], The Samaria ostraca attest the receipt/dispatch of merchandise from/to the localities of Hoglah and Noah, two of Zelofhad's “daughters.” Scholars tend to view Hoglah, Noah, and the rest not as placenames but as designations of clans; cf., e.g., Aharoni, Yohanan, The Land of the Bible, trans. A. F. Rainey, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1979), p. 363. “Daughter,” however, is, as is well known, the specific term for a town or village in the vicinity of a large town or city (e.g., Judg. 1:27). Moreover, Tirzah, the fifth “sister,” is clearly a place-name–the royal residence of the early North Israelite kings (cf., e.g., 1 Kings 14:17; 15:21, 33; 16:8, 15, 23). Consequently, the “daughters” in all likelihood represent toponyms.Google Scholar

97. Rosenberg, Joel, King and Kin: Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986). Rosenberg reads the Garden story and the Abraham cycle as “midrash” on 2 Samuel.Google Scholar

98. Wellhausen, Julius, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (New York: Meridian, 1957), pp. 360–361.Google Scholar

99. Cf. esp. Noth, Martin, A History of the Pentateuchal Traditions, trans. Bernhard W. Anderson (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1981), pp. 47–48 and passim.Google Scholar

100. Cf., e.g., Miller, Divine Warrior in Ancient Israel, pp. 160–161.Google Scholar

101. This repetition of scenes has been noted, albeit in a different formulation, by Fisher, “Patriarchal Cycles.”

102. Seeing as the narratives seem to include material from the North, which had been overrun by Assyria in 722 B.C.E., it is equally probable that King Hezekiah had begun the process of assembling and writing down traditional narratives, as well as composing new ones; cf., e.g., Ginsberg, Israelian Heritage of Judaism, esp. pp. 34–38; Yeivin, “Hagigim ’;al zeman hibburam shel sifre nevi‘im rishonim.”

103. On this, cf., e.g., Miller, Alan W., “Claude Levi-Strauss and Genesis 37-Exodus 20,” in Shiv'im, ed. Ronald A. Brauner (Philadelphia: Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, 1977), pp. 21–52; and my “The Torah as She Is Read.”Google Scholar