46

REVIEWS

Rolf Rendtorff, Das überlieferungeschichtliche Problem des Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 1977). Pentateuch (BZAW 147; Pp. VIII, 177. DM. 78.00. Review

by

R.E.

Clements

Fitzwilliam

College

Cambridge

The documentary hypothesis regarding the origin and structure of the Pentateuch still tends to dominate the questioning about Almost all the standard the literary form of this great work. introductions to the Old Testament concern themselves with explaining what this hypothesis is, with relatively minor modifications from the form in which it was argued by Julius Yet the form-critical and traditio-historical method Wellhausen. initiated by Hermann Gunkel in his study of Genesis has rendered the kind of information associated with such a documentary hypothesis less and less meaningful as further research has progressed. G. von Rads attempt to trace the way in which older stories have been adapted and woven together by the Yahwist and Martin Noths wider ranging efforts to piece together the process by which the individual stories of the books of Genesis to Numbers were formed into a composite narrative have both assumed the four-document hypothesis to be basically correct. They have accepted this hypothesis, without adding any significant new evidence to show its rightness. At the same time their own studies of the Pentateuch have shown that other stages in its growth are vitally interesting from a theological and historical point of view besides those represented by the supposed documents. Now Rolf Rendtorff argues a more thoroughgoing case from the traditio-historical point of view that the four-document hypothesis is no longer necessary at all. More than this, it is positively and needs to be abandoned misleading altogether.

support of this contention Rendtorff offers an extensive the documentary hypothesis centering on two major issues. The first of these is that the patriarchal history forms
In

criticism of
a

&dquo;larger unit&dquo;

within the Pentateuch which is self-contained and

47

So far has little direct literary relationship to what follows. as its interpretation is concerned it forms a separate work which is self-explanatory and does not properly anticipate the subsequent

stories of the oppression in Egypt, the exodus event, nor the The revelation on Mount Sinai or wandering in the wilderness. second major issue is that of the state of Pentateuchal criticism in the present time, which assumes a near uniform consensus of agreement about the existence of the four major documents, but at the same time shows a wide disagreement when it comes to details about their scope, date, characteristics and general literary and religious aims. The apparent acceptance of the hypothesis masks

agreed adherence to any one presentation of what documentary hypothesis actually affirms. All this comes from Rendtorff after a short general introduction regarding the way in which recent study of the Pentateuch has progressed, chiefly through the works of von Rad and Noth. At the end there is a useful and concise summing up of the main conclusions.
the

the lack of any

unfortunate, and be approached with a If he is right then all the critics are wrong, or if the literary critics are right then we can afford to ignore Rendtorffs case. Rather we need to view it with a wider awareness of its merits and weaknesses. It is dismiss it out of hand. What to are the altogether impossible points that Rendtorff makes and how far do they lead to a better understanding of the Pentateuch? After all the four-document hypothesis has always had its critics and it has never pretended to be able to explain altogether the way in which the present Pentateuch came into being. G. von Rad himself, in his latest writings, more than once expressed the need for a closer investigation into the shape that our Pentateuch now has and some appreciation of why and how this was given to it. It is to see some weak in the critics relatively easy points literary case: the vagueness of criteria of style, the unsatisfactoriness of arguments based on vocabulary usage, the admission that not one of the supposed four documents is thought to have been preserved in a complete form, the Elohist document, in particular, being preserved only in relatively disconnected fragments.
In

looking

at Rendtorffs work it would be

can

probably mistaken, to suppose that it relatively simple either/or formula.

begin then by noting some points raised by Rendtorff speak strongly in his favour. Most of all here we must concede that the disagreement amongst the literary critics, the weaknesses of some of their arguments, if taken by themselves, and
We may

which

48

the limitations of some of the conclusions regarding the date and provenance of the supposed documents, all call for a more open recognition of uncertainty than the critics themselves have usually We cannot go on assuming that the documents themselves are allowed. If these hypotheses, more than the objects of useful hypotheses. for one reason or another, cease to be convincing then they will have to be abandoned. Perhaps more significant than this is the further fact that a good however, particular point, hypothesis, such as Wellhausens explanation of the Pentateuch undoubtedly was, tends to become too assertive. The result is that it is made to explain more of the material than it is really A look at the standard Hexateuchal synopses of able to do. There Eissfeldt or Battersby-Harford quickly shows up this point. is scarcely a significant verse of the Pentateuch which is left out of reckoning in its asscription to one or other of the major documents, even when little in the way of direct evidential support In reality, as more recent studies have exists to support this. begun to concede, whole blocks of self-contained material, in law collections or lists, have been inserted into the Pentateuch, in some cases at a very late stage of its growth. They probably never were part of any one of the main literary strata, or supposed strata, of which the Pentateuch is composed.
A second major positive point in Rendtorffs favour is the fact that the Pentateuch now exists as a connected whole, and its constituent parts, from a literary point of view, are quite well preserved and clearly evident. They are: the patriarchal history, oppression in Egypt, exodus and revelation at Sinai, the latter being inserted into the wilderness wandering account. Each part possesses its own redactional structure and stands quite adequately by itself. This recognition is made into one of the key weapons with which to attack the literary critics. If two, or three, have narratives been woven separate together as claimed, then it is reasonable to expect that the links that reach across each of these &dquo;chapters&dquo; of the story will be clearly in evidence; yet this is not so. In fact they are very limited in scope and easily as the work of redactors. explicable A third point of criticism is in line with this, and applies particularly to the work of von Rad. The attempt to treat the main literary sources as expressive of particular &dquo;theologies&dquo; those of the Yahwist and Priestly Writer - end up with very indistinct and uncertain conclusions because they are themselves only built on an indistinct hypothesis. Rendtorff dismisses the idea of a Yahwist theology and accords only restrained approval

49

for the idea of any kind of

&dquo;Priestly&dquo; theological

stratum.

Each of these major points regarding the weaknesses of the traditional four-document hypothesis in explanation of the origin of the Pentateuch is backed up by Rendtorff with a number of more detailed studies. These primarily take the form of samples of particular sections, such as the theme of blessing in the patriarchal narratives, the use of linguistic criteria to support the case for separate sources, and some illustrations of theological themes, or motifs, which have been discerned in the Yahwist for example. Since Rendtorff has already earlier written an attack upon the hypothesis of a Yahwist he can afford to look at general principles and special features, rather than go through chapter by chapter as Volz and Rudolph did forty years ago in IT challenging the case for an Elohist. This &dquo;sample technique&dquo; itself has strengths and weaknesses, since in large measure it has been the cumulative weight of a numner of separate items of evidence, rather than the over-riding strength of any single one of them, which has accounted for the general acceptance of the documentary hypothesis. It is certainly also noteworthy that Rendtorff is much more at home in challenging the existence of a Where the latter is Yahwist than that of a Priestly author. concerned Rendtorff notices several factors which have hitherto been regarded as indicating the existence of a separate Priestly source. Most significant here is the existence of a sequence of chronological notices in the stratum that is usually ascribed to P. Here Rendtorff contents himself with pointing out (p.131) that these notices are much less uniform in their nature and use than has usually been claimed, and argues that they must be Likewise the ascribed to the work of a &dquo;redaction stratum&dquo;. similarity of presentation in the notions about the deaths of

Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob is ascribed to this priestly stratum of editing. What is important for Rendtorff is to avoid the claim for a Priestly narrative as such.
There arc several more general features whirh Rendtorff In particular he points to the argues for in support of his case. lack of any clear allusions to the pentateuchal narrative, or to anything like it, in the pre-exilic prophets, or any other pre-exilic literature. Also the unease expressed most particularly in recent years by J. van Seters about the date and provenance of the Abraham traditions is used by Rendtorff to uphold his position, whist he does not wish to endorse the alternative literary To this extent Rendtorff conclusions that van Seters arrived at.

50

makes

use of the evident disagreements of others, whilst remaining relatively quiet about points where he himself would be in disagreement with them.

that it is necessary The his arguments have the effect of showing that it is even less of a unity than the classical four-document hypothesis has claimed. How then has it come into being? Basically here Rendtorff relies The first is that the Pentateuch grew on two main observations. up over a long period of time and that this growing-up process gave rise to separate blocks of traditions which remained for some There were the Abraham and time more or less self-contained. Jacob narratives, which ultimately produced a rounded patriarchal narrative. Then the plague and exodus narratives, the Sinai account and wilderness and conquest narratives all grew together into a series of separate larger units. When we come to consider how these came to be joined together to make a connected &dquo;Pentateuchal narrative&dquo; it is to the work of a Deuteronomic, or Deuteronomistic, redactor that Rendtorff points. This redactional activity first shows itself after the exile, and is undoubtedly connected with the Deuteronomistic History, since Rendtorff follows Th.C. Vriezen in detecting similarities between Exodus 1 and Judges 2. Also the complex structure of Numbers 32-35 and Deuteronomy 34 points to this Deuteronomistic editorial activity. What Rendtorff is reluctant to accept at all is that there was anything resembling a Tetrateuch or Pentateuch before this editorial joining-together took place. As for the question of the date of separate parts of the Pentateuch, or of separate phases of its growth, Rendtorff remains profoundly sceptical. We may be able to establish some kind of relative chronology of the growth of the parts, but there is little hope of scholarly research being able to link specific stages of growth to any known events, reforms or institutional developments of Israelite Jewish history.

Rendtorff is
to

certainly

very well

aware

only pull down, but also to build up and to plant. Pentateuch is obviously not a unity, and in many respects
not

The work overall therefore is undoubtedly a bid to establish thoroughgoing traditio-historical picture of the growth of the Pentateuch which cannot but evoke comparison with I. Engnells
a

overtures

in this direction three decades ago - a bid which failed to complete. Where Rendtorff differs from him Engnell is that he makes virtually no appeal to the virtues and possibilities of oral tradition, although this must be the assumed mode of transmission for much of the material for very long periods.

51

Furthermore Rendtorff pays a great deal of attention to the building-up process by which cycles of traditions were formed out In fact it is this picture of a of shorter narrative stories. fairly natural growth process which forms the centre of the argument. Then all that an editor needed to do was to &dquo;top and tail&dquo; the connected stories in order to round them off, and to join the longer chains of them into a epic history. It becomes evident to the critical reader of Rendtorff that a great deal comes to depend upon the distinction between an author and a Our Pentateuch is largely credited to the work of redactor. redactors, and contains little at all in the way of compositions by &dquo;authors&dquo; in anything like the traditional sense accorded to this word. Yet it might be argued that to shape and organise such large collections of material in the way that Rendtorff claims is a sufficiently original and creative achievement as to warrant There are certainly more points here to the title &dquo;author&dquo;. which Rendtorff rightly draws attention, but they have a double edge. Few would disagree now with Gunkels assumption that the main narrative sources of J, E and P, assuming them to have existed, were collections of already extant materials, and so bore some resemblance to modern anthologies, rather than to original historical compositions. Furthermore these collections were not made at a single stroke, but were the result of a gradual process of building up. If this is the case then it is very unlikely that the collections would have given rise to extensive joining-sections by which the larger context of the stories would have been intruded into the contents of any, or It is true that the redactional connecting even a few, of them. pieces represent a late stage in the growth of the major What collections - the larger units - of which Rendtorff speaks. is much less clear tnan Rendtorff admits is that this relative lateness of the connecting redactional comments within each of the larger units is on a level with what we might call the ultimate lateness of the redactional connecting pieces of the Pentateuch as a whole. In other words a great deal more hinges on Rendtorffs claim that all the connecting pieces of the Pentateuch are Deuteronomic, or Deuteronomistic, in character than he admits. Furthermore the kind of criteria by which he would establish the &dquo;Deuteronomic&dquo; characteristics of this material are precisely the criteria about which he is so sceptical when applied to the case for a Yahwist, i.e. criteria of vocabulary and general theological outlook. If some of these connecting elements are of pre-exilic origin then a great deaL of the case for a Yahwistic, or JE, phase of collecting and shaping of the material, in the Pentateuch has

52

As is usually the case, it comes to a balancing to be conceded. of possibilities, and, limited as they are, the kind of criteria which Pentateuchal literary critics have worked with in the past
are

not

easily dispensible.
we

aqainst one of the crucial areas of Conceding that the case for an Elohist document as such is, and always has been, very problematical in view of the fragmentary way in which such material has been preserved, a central issue arises over the question of the Was there some kind of overall scheme, replete existence of J. with connecting pieces and a coherent theme or plot, much as J In this respect it matters is usually thought to have possessed? little whether we ascribe such an overall scheme, or outline, to G, J, JE, or RJE, since what is basically at issue is the existence of a structural framework which has been given to the Pentateuch at an early stage, and certainly in the period of the monarchy. It is Rendtorffs contention that there is insufficient evidence to show that there was such a framework, and that rather the framework which we now have has been imposed on the material by Deuteronomistic hands. Two points are strongly in favour of such a position, and must be fairly conceded. The first is that there certainly is evidence of a relatively late Deuteronomistic editing of the Pentateuch which must have been accomplished either contemporaneously with, or soon after, the time when the
Here then

do come up

Rendtorffs claim.

book of Deuteronomy was joined onto Genesis - Numbers to form a Pentateuch. The second point is that von Rads attempt to establish an ancient cultic confessional outline, or credo, to show how the structural outline of J was formed is mistaken and must be abandoned. The evidence that has been used to defend this contention consists largely of late Deuterononiistic summaries, not early cultic recitations. Yet having said this, the case for the existence of any early structural framework to the Pentateuch, such as that usually credited to J, would still appear to be a strong one. Once such has been affirmed for J, then a much revised form of it, such as has usually been ascribed to P, can also readily be held to have existed. In fact it is noteworthy that Rendtorff has greater difficulty in dismissing the evidence of a strong degree of connectedness and consistency in the Priestly material than he has in dealing with the Yahwist.
In general criticism of Rendtorffs case the following five points appear to be relevant factors in the discussion, and suggest that there are still features in favour of some form of

53

documentary hypothesis, which

are not simply the result of The first point is academic reluctance to face new ideas. largely an attempt to understand the nature of oral tradition and transmission in its general relation to religious, cultural

literary development. There are certainly important guidelines, not to say laws, which affect the memorising, shaping, adaptation and literary preservation of the folk-memory Short narratives are linked with other short of a people. narratives by all kinds of techniques that aid memory and generate meaning. Gunkel seems to have been wrong to regard so much of the patriarchal tradition as cultic legend related to places and rites, binding elements in the formation of the material. The national Even so it is hard to heroes have a more primary place than this. become convinced that the very isolation and self-sufficiency of the &dquo;larger units&dquo; of tradition, particularly of the exodus and wilderness, could have survived for so long without the existence of a framework with which to hold them in place in relation to
and

Of course the framework was slender, because that was each other. all that was needed, and it did not intrude into the narratives themselves because these had grown up in a relatively independent
The manner in which the tradition-forming process operated way. would seem to have required that there should be a framework, but That is exactly how the Yahwists that it should not be intrusive. framework has usually been represented and it is certainly the way The thinness of the framework, in which von Rad presents it.

therefore, is

no

reason

for

discounting

it

altogether.

This leads
material
once

on

to

second

point

which is that concerning the

dating of the connecting pieces of their importance

to the it came to be written down. Should we really expect to find, in ancient narrative traditions, allusions to figures, names or themes, which belong to totally different stories? Is not the relatively self-contained nature of each short narrative unit a more or less inevitable consequence of the way in which it was recounted? It was only at a much later literary stage that the necessary control and structural framework emerged which made it possible to introduce a continuing forward- and backward-looking technique. That the patriarchal stories do not explicitly refer forward to the exodus or the conquest, that the oppression narratives give only slight and indistinct hints of the revelation at Sinai, are less arguments about the existence, or non-existence of J, than reflections upon the kind of traditional stories which have been preserved for us. What they show is that the narrative framework is secondary and the separate stories a more primary This is as element in the overall structure of the Pentateuch.

54

observation for the purported J as it is for the The connecting Deuteronomistic editing of the complete work. features therefore are necessarily thin and little more than links to bind the whole together. They do not obtrude into the separate stories, because these latter were already in a more or less In any case there finished state when they were linked together. cross-references such not are lacking connecting certainly altogether, as in the &dquo;God of the fathers&dquo; theme in the deliverance from Egypt, or the &dquo;longing to be back in Egypt&dquo; as a murmuring motif in the wilderness. We should also consider the claim that a very primary and originating feature of the Joseph stories was the need to establish a narrative basis for joining the &dquo;patriarchal&dquo; and &dquo;oppression in Egypt&dquo; themes to each other. A good deal depends on the kind of relative chronology that is built up for the processes of growth of the pentateuchal material He is certainly right in claiming that Rendtorff contends for. the secondary character of the framework material as a general principle, but himself frankly concedes the difficulty that attends
valid
an

one.

any attempt to relate this relative chronology to a more absolute That there was a pre-exilic, early monarchic framework such as the Yahwist has usually been thought to have established still appears a perfectly reasonable assumption. This leads us forward to consider a third point in criticism It is evident that of the points that Rendtorff makes. an author, such as the Yahwist is thought to have been, must show The greater the some measure of consistency in his work. inconsistency of theme, style, vocabulary and theological outlook, the less probable it is that we can assume anything deserving of the title of a continuous documentary source. Yet a collector of older ready-shaped stories, legends and tribal lists is bound to retain something of the unevenness of the separate units he has received. He may be expected to impose some relative uniformity on what he has, but it will not be absolute in its form and consistency of style. He is almost bound to leave a measure of unevenness in his material unless he rewrites every word of it, which is not how the Yahwist appears to have worked. A good example of this unevenness is to be found in the record of &dquo;Davids Rise&dquo; as J.H. Grnbaek has presented it. This point is particularly relevant to Rendtorffs treatment of the &dquo;promise&dquo; theme in the patriarchal narratives (pp. 40-65), where the different elements of the divine promise (land, numerous progeny, blessing, divine leadership) are looked at very perceptively and their differences noted. It need not mask these differences to
some

of

55

suppose that the Yahwist could, nevertheless, have bound several of them together in his narrative under the general heading of &dquo;promise&dquo; and thereby used this as a basic theological motif for The same point, that a literary author is in a measure the work. bound by the materials he has received, also has a bearing on This is the lack of any another aspect of Rendtorffs criticism. clear consensus among scholars about the exact scope of J, or for that matter of P, and the willingness of two of the foremost of recent advocates of the documentary hypothesis, viz. O. Eissfeldt and G. Fohrer, to subdivide J into two separate documents, the Where we are dealing with a kind of second to be called L, or N. &dquo;anthology of anthologies&dquo; such as the Pentateuch so evidently is,
there must, regrettably but inevitably, be disagreements about The outlines of the sources which story belonged to which source. are too blurred for the situation to be otherwise, but the uncertainties of some parts of the hypothesis need not compel us to dismiss the whole, since in other parts the evidence is stronger

brings us to a fourth point of consideration, where again suggested that Rendtorff blames the literary critics for failing to produce what they themselves admit they do not have. It has been a basic conclusion of the four-document hypothesis that finally it was the basic outline of P that was retained and used to provide the framework of the Pentateuch. Rendtorff has conceded the presence of these elements, only he ascribes them to a &dquo;Priestly redaction&dquo;. Js outline has been abandoned, by working the older J (or JE) material into Ps framework. The inability of the documentary hypothesis therefore to produce a complete J outline has always been accepted to a greater or lesser extent. Admittedly it is a weak point of the hypothesis, and Rendtorff is right to point this out, but it is not an unreasonable, or It is scarcely credible that the unexplained, feature of it. final redactor could have retained two separate frameworks, those of J and P, beside his own, Deuteronomistic, one.
This it may be
One last, and fifth, point of criticism may be made, even it is more by way of being an observation. In comparing

though

Rendtorffs

interesting thesis with that of J. Wellhausen, especially as presented in the Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels of 1878, it is noteworthy that the latter is largely concerned with outlining the picture of Israels religious institutions, of temple, priesthood, sacrifice, festivals, etc., which result from acceptance of the four-document hypothesis. This is totally lacking in Rendtorffs work, which is entirely taken up with literary questions. Granting that Wellhausens assumptions about

56

relationship of the Pentateuchal sources to institutional in tne religion was greatly overdrawn, they are There are early not entirely irrelevant. nevertheless (pre-exilic) and later (post-exilic) strata in the Pentateuch
the

changes

which Rendtorff admits, and it is open to serious consideration whether or not these strata, or some parts of them, once bore a literary relationship to each other. Wellhausen concluded that they did, and with all the necessary modifications and adjustments that further research has brought to light, it still appears most plausible and attractive to conclude that there was an early epic history of Israel. In this case there was a written Yahwist source and however this came to be supplemented and expanded (JE it achieved a firm literary form before the or Mowinckels Jv) composition of Deuteronomy. With some clear evidence, there also appears to have been a Priestly Writing, composed after the exile, although lacking many of those parts and features which led the What great nineteenth-century critics to call it &dquo;priestly&dquo;. Rendtorffs strictures amount to is a firm attack upon the over-zealous assumption that almost everything in the Pentateuch can be fitted into the scope of four documents. Furthermore it is important to learn from him that the Pentateuch is an extant literary whole, and to treat the hypothetical J or P sources as expressive of its normative theological meaning, as von Rad has encouraged us to do, is too arbritary and uncertain to lead us anywhere other than to Doubting Castle.