The Primary
History (Genesis-2Kings), The Case for a Single Author
Update 10
Feb. 2003 at end of this article
A
long-standing paradigm has the "Primary History" (Genesis-2 Kings) an
accretion of various authors of differing ages from the days of King
Solomon (or even Moses) to Ezra, the so-called JEDP theory
(Jahwist-Elohist-Deuteronomist-Priestly paradigm), suggesting a "work in
progress" over a period of a thousand years-
"More than a
thousand years of time separate the earliest and latest compositions in
the Old Testament...Probably as early as the time of David and Solomon,
out of matrix of myth, legend, and history, there appeared the earliest
written form of the story of the saving acts of God from Creation to the
Conquest of the Promised Land...The date of the final compilation of the
Pentateuch or Law...is uncertain, although some have conservatively dated
it at the time of the Exile in the sixth century." (pp.xxv-xxvii.
"Introduction to the Old Testament." Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger,
editors. The New
Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (Revised Standard Edition). New York. Oxford University Press.
1977)
An author in
composing a history has to have a "grand-plan" before him, a vision of
what the history will encompass. He must envision a beginning, middle and
end and build his work about this frame. Such an observation was made over
2000 years ago by the Greek historian, Polybius (ca. 200-118 BCE) who
wrote thusly about the "methodology" involved in composing a
history-
"In their
probverb 'The starting point is half the whole,' the ancients reccomended
the payment of the utmost attention in any given case to the achievement
of a good start; and what is commonly regarded as an exaggerated statement
on their part really errs, in my opinion, by falling short of the truth.
It may be asserted with confidence that the starting point is not 'half of
the whole' but that it extends right to the end. It is quite impossible to
make a good start in anything without, in anticipation, mentally embracing
the completion of the project or realizing in what sphere and to what
purpose and for what reason the action is projected. It is equally
impossible adequately to summarize any given course of events without, in
the process, referring to the starting point and showing whence and how
and why that point has led up to the actual transactions of the moment.
Starting points must accordingly be regarded as extending not merely to
the middle but to the end, and the utmost attention ought, in consequence,
to be paid to starting points by both writers and readers of Universal
History." (p.137, Arnold J. Toynbee. Greek
Historical Thought. 1952,
citing from Polybius Book 5, chapter 31:6-33, "The Universality of
History")
I find
myself in full agreement with Polybius' observation, and it for this
reason, that I understand that the "Primary History" (Genesis-2 Kings) is
the work of a single author. Certainly he had access to and utilized
earlier stories and compositions as well as traditions, but that is
something that all historians do, history is not made up out of whole
cloth off the top of one's head.
Noting
Polybius' observation about the importance of a good beginning which must
be followed through to the end, I make the following observations about
the Primary History-
The history
opens with the progenitors of the human race, Adam and Eve, being placed
in an earthly paradise called the Garden of Eden by God. They are
Condemned and "EXILED" from this paradise for failing to obey God's word.
These themes, Condemnation and Exile for failing to obey God, run through
the whole of the Primary History. The ending, 2 Kings 25, concludes that
Israel and Judah were guilty of failing to obey God, violating his Torah,
and justly condemned by Him into an EXILE from their earthly paradise, the
so-called Promised Land (It is worth noting that the Prophets likened
Israel to the Garden of the Lord or Eden, cf. Isa. 51:3; Ez 36:35; Joel
2:3). In summation, what happened to Adam and Eve, in the beginning,
happens to Israel and Judah, in the end ---EXILE ! This
over-arching theme of condemnation and allusions to an upcoming exile by
Moses (De 30:1), from beginning to end, suggest this work was composed in
either an Exilic or Post-Exilic world, for an audience whose personal
experience of an Exile, insures that they will relate the message to their
experiences.
Polybius'
observations about the beginning following through to the ending seems to
be in place for the Primary History, suggesting to me that this is one
author's work and "grand-plan." The author of the Primary History is using
a literary device called a "Ring-Composition," whereby the Beginning
foreshadows the End, and the End alludes back to the Beginning. Such a
device was common in Greek Histories, and apparently it was utilized by
the Hebrews as well in their Primary History.
Considering
that endings date beginnings in linear histories, and the fact that the
Primary History is a linear history, the date of this work's composition
has to be no earlier than ca. 562 BCE, when the Babylonian King, Evil
Merodach came to the Throne and set free the Jewish king Jehoiachin (cf. 2
Kings 25:27). This history is a so-called "prose" history, it is not
poetry, which was favored in earlier Epics. It is of note that the
earliest Greek "prose" histories are dated to ca. 550 BCE, about the time
frame of the Primary History.
Hornblower
on the earliest Greek "Prose" historian, Hecateus of Ionia (flourished ca.
500 BCE) -
"Hecataeus
of Miletus, the first true Greek historian: he wrote a PROSE work on
genealogy, as well as a description of the world known to him, and a work
on mythology. His younger critic and improver was
Herodotus..."
(p.714,
"Historiography, Greek." Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, editors.
The Oxford
Classical Dictionary. 3rd
edition. New York. Oxford University Press. 1996)
My research
suggests that the Primary History is no later than the 562/561 BCE ending
date (cf. 2 Kings 25:27). The narrator is apparently unaware of kings who
succeeded Evil-Merodach, who ruled ca. 562-560 BCE, in other words, the
Primary History (Genesis- 2 Kings) is probably a composition of the Exile,
ca.
562/561
BCE.
Update 10
Feb. 2003
Professor
Akenson, employing differing methodologies from my own (above), has also
argued that the Primary History (Genesis- 2 Kings) is the work of one
author, in the Exile.
Akenson
(Emphasis is mine) :
"The
arguments here are extremely simple. (1) The first nine books of the
Hebrew Bible (using the Jewish, not the Christian arrangement of the
scriptures, and ignoring the early medieval division of both Samuel and
Kings into double volumes) are a unified invention. (2) The form of the
great invention was historical writing. Mostly, its formation involved
using pieces that were already available, but had not previously been
fully integrated into an integral unit. (3) This unified composition, in its final form, was the product of a
single great mind (however much help he may have received from his
colleagues), a combination of great editor and great
writer...if, as I
have argued, the Genesis-Kings text is a unity, indeed the primary unity
of the Hebrew scriptures, and if one accepts that the final portions of
that unity (which are stylistically integrated with what comes before, and
are not just a late add-on), contain a knowledge of the destruction of
Solomon's Temple and of the Babylonian exile, then it is clear that
Genesis-Kings in the form that we at present possess it, must be seen as
an invention- a mixture of collecting and editimg old material, adding
new, tossing out some items and integrating all the material that was
kept- and an invention that takes place between the beginning of the
Babylonian exile and before the return to the Holy Land: in other words,
the middle years of the sixth century before the Common Era.
This does
not mean that all the investigations and speculations about earlier
sources (JEDP, and so on) and about their possible dating and place of
provenance are useless, but merely that they are irrelevant to the point
at hand: the great moment when they were all put together in a single
entity, the Genesis-Kings unity...So, what
more natural- and more in tune with the primary evidence- than to suggest
that it was the product of a single consciousness ? Yes, an editorial
committee perhaps could have done the same job, in their collective
mourning near the waters of Babylon. Yet, why posit
many minds-working-as-one, when a single figure is both more economical
(remember Ockham's Razor) and ultimately more convincing ?...Consider that this great act of historical writing (which later
generations turned into a sacred text) was accomplished during the
Babylonian exile, and probably completed about 550 BCE. The completion
date is not so important (a decade earlier or later would not make any
difference to the argument), but the stimulus-date, the moment when such
an invention became necessary, is." (pp.61-62. "Apparent Woe and Great
Invention." Donald Harman Akenson. Surpassing
Wonder, the Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds. New York. Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1998.)
"Rozenzweig
is right and the reverence he suggests holds even more if one accepts the
argument presented here, that not only do we receive the Hexateuch, but
all of Genesis through Kings from a single hand, and, moreover, that hand
was not merely a redactor, but a brilliant historical writer as well."
(p.43. Akenson)
"The
earliest date (the point where the last episode ends) is just that:
the very first possible date of composition. Why the composition should be
assumed to have occurred at the earliest date in biblical history (but not
in secular history) defies explanation...Thus, I have suggested that the
author-editor of the first nine books of the Genesis-Kings volumes worked
in the mid-sixth century, not because Kings ends in the 560s, but because
there was a social context in that period which made his work necessary
for the maintenance of his own religious polity." (p.38. Akenson)
"...one has
a coherent story, from creation down almost to the time of post-exilic
writing and compilation, and one has a motive for the writing and editing
to be done. That may be simple to state, but in historical explanations,
as in mathematics, simplicity is elegance, and elegance is
strength.
Acceptance
of the unity of the first nine books of the Hebrew Bible, as the invention
of a single religious genius (however
much he may have been helped by colleagues), is dependent upon an
understanding of the wonderful flexibility of the Book of Deuteronomy. It
is not one thing- either the tie-up of the pre-history of the ancient
Hebrews, or the beginning of what, in the context of the times, was the
nation's "moder history"- it is both. The editor-cum-author here knew
exactly what he was doing. The Book of Deuteronomy is a stong spine with
two mighty arms. The spine and those arms can support, on the one hand the
first four books of Moses, and on the other the four "Former Prophets"
(Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings). There is a symmetry here that is
immensely skilful. The four books on each hand balance each other; and
each set of four becomes a set of five because they are thematically and
historically integrated with the central volume, Deuteronomy." (p.27.
Akenson)
