Re: Discussion of von Rad's _Genesis: A Commentary_

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:40:30 -0500, Zoe wrote:

On 28 Nov 2007 02:15:17 GMT, Garamond Lethe <cartographical@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Hi Zoe,

First, a few general impressions from the Introduction.

hi, Garamond,

thanks for starting the discussion. Please know that my intention here
is not to convince you to change your views but merely to offer my
personal understanding of the material.


von Rad is writing for a scholarly audience, specifically an audience
where quite a number of issues are taken as settled that you might not
agree with.

von Rad's Foreword, p. 11, led me to believe that he would be writing
for the uninitiated: "... the exposition should be readable for
nontheologians..." but this nontheologian got hit with such terms as
paraenetic (why not just "exhortation"), or amphictyony, immanental,
theologumena, and more. Looks like he quickly forgot who he said he was
writing for.

Further in his foreword: "....limits were set in the discussion of
individual problems, namely, those of philological and archeological
nature."

......which is disappointing since it is that very background of
evidence that interests me. I do not look upon the Biblical record as
verbatim dictation from God, and because of this, I am interested to
learn how the human messenger expressed his encounters with God. But
this book promises no such insights.

Again, in the Foreword: "The theologian, especially the student, must by
all means consult in addition a more exhaustive scientific commentary."

This statement seems to imply that the full-fledged theologian has
access to some more exhaustive scientific commentary, but since this
book is geared towards the nontheologian, that commentary will not be
offered......which is aggravating because I am now expected to take von
Rad at his word. Therefore, already, I find that I am not inclined to
offer this book as a good resource for facts, but merely a suggested
resource for ideas, if one is interested in new ways of looking at the
material.

I can recall being taught that "Moses wrote the first five
books of the Bible." This isn't the current consensus, but vR only
addresses this in a throwaway line:

"The preceding discussion presupposes the recognition of a fact that has
become accepted in contemporary Old Testament science after almost 200
years of research: The books Genesis to Joshua consist of several
continuous source documents that were woven together more or less
skillfully by a redactor." (pg 23).

I don't have a problem with the terms Pentateuch or Hexateuch. What
gives me pause is the term "redactor." I think that is an unfortunate
term because it implies editing in which multiple source texts are
combined together and subjected to alterations to make it appear that
they are a single work. Redaction, as defined, is often simply a method
of collecting together various writings on a "vaguely similar theme," in
order to create a coherent whole.

Well....if a redactor has pulled the Hexateuch together into a coherent
whole, then he did a poor job of it because it has always struck me that
many different works are evident in the first five or six books of the
Bible (not to mention the entire Bible) and it never occurred to me that
these works comprised a single work.

In any event, von Rad seems to contradict himself on the matter of
redaction. First he says, (p. 13) that a final redactor skillfully
combined the individual sources into the composition as a whole, and in
the next breath (still p. 13) he brings up later editors who divided up
the "originally unified" material into the Hexateuch. So here we have a
final redactor, followed by later redactors, and worst yet, a total
absence of the original UNunified material from which comparisons could
have been made to show where redactions truly occurred. One now
suspects that such redaction of "originals" may have been pulled from
von Rad's imagination, and since they no longer exist as evidence to
support the claim of redaction, we must take his word for it.


It's certainly reasonable for you to ask for the evidence to this
conclusion, and it's unfortunate that this particular book doesn't use
more citations. I expect this research forms an interesting story in
its own right (well, at least to those of us who like that sort of
thing), and if you like we can take a short diversion and read up on
that. Wikipedia, as always, has an article[1].

sure, we can do that at a later date. But this is a discussion on von
Rad's commentary, so can we stick to that for now?


There's another issue with a scholar writing for scholars: terms of art
are used that have meanings quite different from everyday use (esp.
"cult" and "saga") or are far, far outside my vocabulary
("aetiological"? "hermeneutical"? "kerygma"?!?). vR appears to have
defined most of these terms, but not necessarily before they are
initially used. Also note that the translator has used the word
"history" to cover two very different German terms (which appear to the
right in parentheses). I've not seen that convention before, but it
didn't take too long to figure it out.

I found the meat of the introduction (and perhaps the whole book) best
laid out in the long footnote starting on page 18. vR details how a
cultic tradition limited in space and time becomes first interpreted and
then doctrinalized, with all three version preserved[2].

I think the introduction sets the tone for the entire commentary, and
one would first need to agree with the premises and foundations laid out
therein, in order to agree with the approach taken in the rest of the
book. But already I'm concerned that this book is not a source for
evidence but a source for von Rad's views which, so far, I find to be
myopic, sloppy, and filled with baseless conclusions.

Why myopic? Because vR studies Israelite history only in the context of
the Hexateuch, and more particularly in three passages that summarize
the historic Israelite experience. On pages 14 to 16 of the
Introduction, von Rad quotes three short passages that summarize
Israel's history, in saga fashion, but which history has been laid out
in far more detail in other books. Then he states, "None of the three
passages mentioned above contains even a parenthetical recollection of
anything historical."

It seems unreasonable to me to take three summaries of a larger
historical account and make these the main source for the theme of the
Hexateuch. And focusing narrowly on these summaries, he claims that none
of these three passages contain even a parenthetical recollection of
anything historical? What about the more detailed history as found in
the surrounding books? I don't know why vR ignores the weight of the
entire history elsewhere and emphasizes only the summarized history
found in those three brief passages. Seems upside down to me. If
anything, those three summaries are parenthetical to the full history.

Why sloppy? von Rad uses "et cetera" in areas where I would have liked
for him to have finished the thought. And at one point, he quotes a
text that is not there. On p. 52, he refers to Genesis 32:47, but
chapter 32 does not have 47 verses. Well, that might be a typo or
proofreading failure in translation from German to English, but I am now
left to hunt for the text that is supposed to support his
interpretation.

Nice catch? I'm not seeing "32:47" in my edition on pg. 52 or the pages
immediately surrounding it, so I'm guessing a typo. Could you send over
the context? (I spent a large portion of my undergrad career studying
misprints -- thus the interest.)


Why baseless? Because so far, there are too many assertions without
support. P. 16, he says, "The text Deut., ch. 26, bears clear signs of
a later revision." I want to know what these clear signs are. He gives
none. He adds, "So it is hard to say when such historical summaries
arose and came into use." Where are the earlier versions that would
confirm that later revisions occurred? No evidence (so far, anyway) is
offered. We must take von Rad at his word.


Now I'll be the first to admit that this is pretty heavy going. If
you're willing to accept all of this as an interesting hypothesis, I
think you'll enjoy going forward. But if you haven't been exposed to
the idea of multiple authors with differing intentions collating
multiple sources into the Hexateuch then I can see how this would be a
bit much to swallow all at once. I'm happy to take a step backwards and
explore the issue (to the best of my ability).

And there are far too many exclamation points for my taste. Oh well.

Over to you....

well, to sum up so far....as a source book for understanding Genesis or
even the history of the Hexateuch, von Rad's book, so far, fails
miserably. Be prepared to come to his book with a trusting,
unquestioning mind, and if lack of evidence propped up by long
theological words is sufficient to convince, then this is the book for
you.

Should we go on, or enough said already?

<grin>

I think this is going to be fun....

I disagree with you characterizations of myopic, sloppy, and baseless,
but that primarily because I'm a bit more sympathetic to what vR was
trying to accomplish. Yes, I do think he was expecting his audience to
take his word for quite a bit of what he wrote, and that's the bane of
writing for a popular audience. You might have the same reaction to
"Consciousness Explained" or "The Selfish Gene" or "The Elegant
Universe", depending on your level of interest in the topic. This
certainly wouldn't have passed muster as his dissertation, and it sounds
like you're interested in that kind of writing. I think we'd be better
served by finding a more "exhaustive scientific commentary".

John or Roger -- any suggestions? Zoe, is there a particularly good
theological seminary that you know of? The class syllabuses should be
online, and that might be a good place to start.

I'm going to head over to Princeton and see what they have. I'm still
curious about the Hittite treaties and will keep this book on the
nightstand.

Best,

Garamond



Garamond



[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_authorship [2] The example used
is the Manna story, with vR placing Ex 16:4-5,13b-15 and 27-30 in the
cultic tradition ("must be understood quite objectively and is filled
with historical difficulties"), the Priestly document at Ex 2-3, 6-13a,
and 16-26 ("The event is apparently described concretely, yet in such a
way that no reader is detained by the external details .... A miracle,
limited in space and time, becomes something universal, almost
timelessly valid.") Finally, this is contrasted with the retelling in
Deut 8.3: "[T]he Deuteronomist gave up the old meaning altogether. He
speaks only indirectly of actual eating ... and substitutes for it
feeding on God's word." (pg 18)

.

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