Halfway to Noth: Taking Stock of Current Research on the Formation of Genesis–Kings

The Hebrew Bible is characterized by both continuity and discontinuity, as well as by multiple levels of tension between the two properties. One of these levels is that of the biblical corpora. In particular, Genesis–Kings (with or without Ruth) is obviously a reasonably continuous account, running from the creation of the world to Jehoiachin’s release from Babylonian prison. And yet, all canons divide this account into multiple “books”: Jews count nine and Christians twelve (including Ruth). Moreover, the Jewish tradition draws a major boundary after the first five books, seeing them as a legally and liturgically paramount macro-unit in its own right—the Torah—and, what is even more important, lumping the balance of the sequence together with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the book of twelve “minor prophets” into the “Prophets” section. In Christianity, the division is somewhat less important, yet all Old Testament canons clearly distinguish between the Pentateuch and the “historical books,” the latter including not only Joshua–Kings, but also (at the very least) Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

The intricate mix of continuity and discontinuity that characterizes what we know today as Genesis–Kings raises serious questions concerning the trajectory whereby the corpus received its present shape. Did the Torah and the Former Prophets emerge independently of each other? Was the initially continuous composition split into the Torah and the Former Prophets of the Jewish tradition in the process of canon formation? Did individual books or small clusters of books come into being on their own and then coalesce into a larger whole simply on account of their chronologically sequential arrangement on a library shelf? Or perhaps a larger proto-corporal nucleus that was coterminous with neither the Torah nor the Former Prophets (e.g., Genesis–Numbers also known as the Tetrateuch, Genesis–Joshua also known as the Hexateuch, Exodus–Kings, or Judges–Kings) grew through addition of prequels or sequels? The choice between these—and other—options may be hermeneutically crucial, as it determines the context in which the given biblical text is read. One well-known example will suffice: the way in which the message and thrust of Judg 11:30–40 is understood depends to a large extent on whether its author had, or might have had, in mind the Akedah (Genesis 22) and especially the condemnation of child sacrifice by fire as a foreign practice in Deut 12:31.

A good idea of the current state of research on the formation of Genesis–Kings and of the potential future vectors of this research is given by a recently published collection of eleven papers by scholars who represent three main centers of biblical criticism—continental Europe, North America, and Israel. The present essay reviews each of these papers, offering critical reflections on its arguments and findings, and then briefly summarizes the overall trends that manifest themselves in the volume.

The reviewed book comes in two parts, “Methodological Studies” and “Case Studies.” In fact, there is little to no difference between them as far as attention to methodology is concerned. Rather, the four papers in the first part discuss Genesis–Kings as a whole, especially the relationship between the Torah and the Former Prophets, whereas the seven papers in the second part are more narrowly focused—although their implications may be just as broad.

The opening paper of the first part, “The Emergence and Disappearance of the Separation between the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History in Biblical Studies” by Konrad Schmid (pp. 11–24), succinctly but clearly demonstrates that modern critical scholarship has never truly accepted the canonical division of Genesis–Kings into the Torah/Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. Source critics saw at least some of the four classical “documents,” J, E, D, and P, as extending at least through Joshua and perhaps as far as Kings, and the ultimate tradition...