|
|
|
|
|
The Documentary Hypothesis
|
|
|
|
The Elohist Source
- Contents
-
- The hypothesis of an Elohist source independent of the Yahwist and earlier than the Priestly material is contested today. The problem is the notion of it as a full-fledged literary tradition; it appears instead to have amounted to some fragments of stories or perhaps a collection of stories united by language, style, and theological ideas. Nevertheless, as a working hypothesis, it helps to explain the doublets of certain stories from the Abraham cycle in Genesis through the account of Moses in Exodus to the Balaam oracle in Numbers 22–25, and there are certain characteristic themes that seem to suggest a particular perspective and thus group (see themes and historical context sections below).1
-
-
| |
Genesis |
|
|
15:3a, 5, 13-16?
20:1b-18
21:6, 8-34
22:1-19 |
 |
|
|
28:11-12, 17-18, 20-22
29:1-29, 31–32:33 (with J)
34:1-21 (with J)
35:1-15 (with P)
|
|
- Joseph (and his brothers):
|
37:1-36 (with J)
40:1-23
41:1–45:28 (with J)
46:1–48:22 (with J and P)
|
|
| |
Exodus |
|
|
1:15-22
2:1-10 |
|
|
|
3:4b, 6, 9-15
4:17-18, 20b |
|
- Moses Confronts Pharaoh, Plagues:
|
12:24-27a? |
|
|
|
13:17-19
14:5a, 7, 11-12, 19a, 25a
17:3 |
|
|
|
19:3a, 9-11a, 14-19
20:1–23:33
24:3-8, 12-15a, 18b |
|
|
|
32:1-35 |
|
|
|
33:2b-4. 5-11 |
|
| |
Numbers |
|
|
20:1c |
|
- Negotiation with the King of Edom:
|
20:14-21 (with J, and D editing?)
|
|
- Passage through Transjordan:
|
21:12-35 (or J)
|
|
|
|
22:2-21
23:1-26 |
|
|
|
25:1-5 (or J?)
|
|
- Settlement of Gad and Reuben in Transjordan:
|
32:1-27, 29-42 (or J?)
|
-
-
-
- Typical Passage2
-
Gen 22:1-19
Typical phrases appear in blue
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you." So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you." Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, "Father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." He said, "The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham said, "God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.
When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the LORD* called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place "The LORD will provide"; as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided."
The angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, "By myself I have sworn, says the LORD: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice." So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham lived at Beer-sheba.3
* The Elohist does sometimes use the name יהוה (YHWH/LORD) for God, perhaps in a nod to received tradition. |
-
-
-
- Themes & Identifying Traits4
-
- Use of the term אלוהים (Elohim) alone to indicate the name of the divine; most Bibles translate the term as "God." The Elohist will use other names for God at times, including יהוה (YHWH/LORD) after God uses that name in the burning bush episode (Exod 3:14), so this is not foolproof, but if a verse ONLY uses the term "God" for the deity, chances are, it is the Elohist.
- The most important theme or teaching in the entire Elohist corpus is the "fear of God." This fear is not so much terror or anxiety as it is a kind of respect and honor for the authority of God, leading to a response of obedience. Where that respect exists, people—whether Israelites or foreigners—can expect divine blessing. In several Elohist stories, characters' fear of the Lord is tested, often in rather horrific ways (Abimelech and Abraham in Gen 20:1-18; Abraham when asked to sacrifice his son in Gen 22). In the famous story of Isaac's near sacrifice, the Elohist even plays with the Hebrew, for the phrase for "you fear God" (יְרֵא אְֶלֹהיִם yireh elohim, 22:12) becomes Abraham's faith statement, that "God will provide" (אְֶלֹהיִם יִרְאֶה yere elohim, 22:8) —which God does by providing a ram to sacrifice in place of Isaac. We see the pattern of emphasis on fear of God and tests of fear in the Elohist versions of Joseph stories, as well as the story of the Hebrew midwives who defied Pharaoh's order to kill Hebrew boys because they "feared God" (Exod 1:17).
- In the Exodus narrative, Moses is often the subject of the sentence and the agent of the action, whereas the Yahwist often (not always) makes him a more passive recipient of God's commands (see Exod 19:16-25). As we would expect, Moses' "fear of God" is emphasized (see, for example, Exod 3:6).
- Elohist versions of stories paralleled in the Yahwist often feature more dialogue or even speeches in comparison to the Yahwist versions. These dialogues tease out more of the issues at play in the story (compare, for example, the Elohist account in Gen 20:3-7 with the Yahwist version in Gen 12:17).
- The Elohist links stories together with explicit references to prior or future events (cf. Abraham's reference to his migration from his father's house [Gen 12:1-3, J] in the later E narrative at Gen 20:13). These links have the effect of reinforcing the theme of obedience over time. If you are working on the Jacob, Joseph or Moses stories, you might want to refer to Hans Walter Wolff's discussion of this Elohist feature (Hans Walter Wolff, "The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch," trans. Keith R. Crim, in The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions (Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff, 2d ed.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1982; original, 1975) 76-9.
- Prophecy is of such significance for the Elohist that even Abraham is regarded as a prophetic intercessor or mediator (Gen 20:7), while the Elohist Joseph can interpret dreams as divine messages (Gen 40:8ff; 41:16), Moses is the mediator of the covenant (Exod 20:19), and even the foreigner Balaam cannot help but reveal the Jewish God's message (Num 23:19 [cf. the J version in Num 24]).
- God does not communicate directly to humans very often in the Elohist account, in contrast to the Yahwist. Instead, God communicates indirectly, through dreams (cf. Gen 20:3)
- Other characteristic vocabulary of the Elohist is the reference to the original inhabitants of the land of Israel as "Amorites" (vs. the Yahwist's "Canaanites"), and young women are referred to as amah (vs. the Yahwist's shifhah).
-
-
-
- Historical Context
-
- The Elohist source is traditionally associated with the northern kingdom of Israel after the split of the north from the south in 922 BCE. Wolff is a little more precise in dating the source to the period from 875–740 BCE, when the northern dynasty engaged in the worship of Canaanite and foreign gods alongside the worship of Yahweh and this in conjunction with alliances with neighboring countries through treaties and marriage.5 In this context, the emphasis on fear of God and obedience to God's word appears as an exhortation to obedience and fidelity in a social context of prosperity and temptations on many fronts—cultic, political and social. This is the period when we begin to have preserved traditions of actual prophets and their oracles, such as Hosea and Amos (both working in the northern kingdom); the Elohist's emphasis on the role of the prophet in asserting the covenant and interceding on behalf of the people may parallel this development.
-
-
-
-
-
- Later Echoes
-
- The following passages were not written by the Elohist, but reconstruct the earlier Elohist themes in new contexts. Can you identify the original Elohist theme, and analyze how it is repurposed in the new situation?
- Click on the image of the ancient key to see an explanation.
-
Proverbs 1:76
(This part of the book was likely composed in the post-exilic period under the Persian Achaemenid or Hellenistic Greek Empire)
|
 |
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
|
|
|
Proverbs 9:10
(This part of the book was likely composed in the post-exilic period under the Persian Achaemenid or Hellenistic Greek Empire)
|
|
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
|
|
|
Job 28:287
(A very old tradition set down in the post-exilic period, emphasizing various responses to the problem of human suffering)
|
|
[Job responds to his friends, who blame him for his own misfortune, with an assertion of his innocence and a statement of his faith in God. Here, he is speaking of God (that is, God is the "he"):]
"And he said to humankind,
'Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
and to depart from evil is understanding.'"
|
-
-
-
- New Questions
-
- There has been some skepticism in the last forty years about whether early sources such as the Yahwist and the Elohist may be so clearly identified; some scholars have even suggested that these sources do not exist. The "minimalists" (as the skeptics are called) are more comfortable assigning the composition of the Torah to the post-exilic period—that is, after 539 BCE—rather than to the putative monarchy of Davic or Solomon for which almost no archaeological evidence exists. These scholars are particularly skeptical of the Elohist tradition, which they regard as merely a reinterpretation of Yahwist strands by a later editor, rather than a full-fledged literary source pre-dating the Priestly tradition. Thus some of the sources you might read on an "Elohist" tradition might not speak of the Elohist at all.
-
-
-
- Sources
-
- Clifford, Richard J. "Exodus." In The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990) 44-60.
-
- Clifford, Richard J. and Roland E. Murphy. "Genesis." In NJBC, 8-43.
-
- L'Heureux, Conrad E. "Numbers." In NJBC, 80-93.
-
- Metzger, Bruce M. et al., eds. The Holy Bible (NRSV). Washington, D.C.: National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, 1989. Online, http://biblia.com/books/nrsv/, accessed 29 November 2016.
-
- Wolff, Hans Walter. "The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch," trans. Keith R. Crim. In The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions (Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff, 2d ed.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1982; original, 1975) 67-82.
-
- 1 The summary of the contents of the Elohist source is from Hans Walter Wolff, "The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch," trans. Keith R. Crim, in The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions (Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff, 2d ed.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1982; original, 1975) 67-82. The subsequent chart of the contents of the Elohist source has been compiled from the following essays: Richard J. Clifford and Roland E. Murphy, "Genesis," Clifford, "Exodus," and Conrad E. L'Heureux, "Numbers," in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990) 8-60 and 80-93.
-
- 2 The passage is discussed by Wolff, "The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch," 71-2.
-
- 3 Bruce M. Metzger et al., eds., The Holy Bible (NRSV) (Washington, D.C.: National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, 1989), online, http://biblia.com/books/nrsv/Ge12.1, accessed 3 December 2016.
-
- 4 The themes are summarized from Wolff, "The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch," 67-80, 154-6, and from Douglas A. Knight and Amy-Jill Levine, The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us (New York: HarperCollins, 2011) 70.
-
- 5 Wolff, "The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch," 80-82.
-
- 6 The Proverbs passages are discussed by Zoltán Schwáb, "Is Fear of the LORD the Source of Wisdom or Vice Versa?," Vetus Testamentum 63 (2013) 652-62.
-
- 7 David J. A. Clines, "'The Fear of the Lord Is Wisdom' (Job 28:28): A Semantic and Contextual Study," in Job 28: Cognition in Context (ed. Ellen van Wolde; BIS 64; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 57-92.
-
|
|
|
|
|
