The Old Testament of the Old Testament: Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism (review)

Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 166 Reviews THE OLD TESTAMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: PATRI· ARCHAL NARRATIVES AND MOSAIC YAHWISM. By R. W. L. Moberly. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Pp. xvi + 224. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992. Paper, $13.95. Moberly makes it clear that this contribution to Christian biblical theology is one among many possible readings. He focuses upon the problematic use of the name Yahweh in the Pentateuch but draws significantly different conclusions from source critical studies of this phenomenon. Crucial to his overall thesis is the fact that the revelation of the divine name is given to Moses alone set in the context of the Exodus and Sinaitic traditions and that the deity revealed as having the name Yahweh was also the god of the patriarchs . Moberly, in trying to explain why the name Yahweh is used in Genesis if it is first revealed to Moses in private, offers a positive alternative to source critical assumptions that the divergent traditions betray different literary sources. He concludes that the use of Yahweh in Genesis 12-50 conveys the perspective of the Yahwistic storytellers retelling originally non-Yahwistic traditions in a Yahwistic context. Although he believes that the name Yahweh was added to some of the narratives to clarify that this is the deity being referred to, he tends to justify this by appeal to the logic of his argument . He declines to explore the redactional history of the text because this would lead too far from his central thesis. The weakness of his argument here is recognized when he says that some stories use the name Yahweh throughout, notably the Abraham narratives, and there is no evidence of the use of any other divine appellation. Yet he is still able to state that "nonetheless, this likely was the case" (p. 73). He concludes that all the writers of the Pentateuch were consistent in their belief that Yahweh was revealed to Moses alone. He then reconstructs what he sees as the characteristic differences between patriarchal religion and "Mosaic Yahwism." In doing this, he is less interested in whether the traditions are ancient or historically accurate than in how they reflect Israel's own understanding of its foundational traditions , whether or not a writer was imaginatively consistent with the world of the patriarchs. He argues that the patriarchs worshipped only one God as a matter of straightforward religious fact rather than in Mosaic Yahwism as a matter of urgent religious choice (Exod 20:3). Patriarchal religion lacked a specific cult centre or mediating priestly or prophetic functionaries , while its practices were generally in line with Canaanite customs Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 167 Reviews condemned elsewhere in the Old Testament. It was characterised by its lack of moral content, emphasis on sin and judgment, or notion of holiness. Any exceptions to this description are easily dismissed: Genesis 35 is described as an exception that proves the rule (p. 89); in Gen 48:22 the narrator has allowed Yahwistic characteristics to colour the presentation of the story, whereas Gen 15:16, 34:14-17, 35:2, 4, and 48:22 are notes that are "only sounded in passing and so tend simply to prove the rule" (p. 104). Moberly is concerned to examine this distinction for its theological significance rather than as the usual description of Israelite religious history. It is placed firmly in the context of Christian biblical theology, drawing an analogy with the Christian understanding of the Old and New Testaments as representing two different periods of salvation history in which one and the same God is revealed in different ways. He proposes that the relationship of patriarchal religion in Genesis 12-50 to Mosaic Yahwism in Exodus is analogous to the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament. In both cases there is the sense of looking back on a previous period of salvation history from the perspective of a new period which has superseded the old. It is the dynamics of this process which are of central concern for Moberly in the rest of his study. He focuses upon the problem of continuity and discontinuity arising from such an approach, which privileges certain texts and treats them as...