Cart 0 Log In
SBL Press Bookstore
A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation
Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid,
ISBN
9781589831636
Volume
SymS 34
Status
Available
Price
$27.00
Publication Date
July 2006
Paperback

$27.00

Since the “assured results” of scholarship are rarely certain, it should come as no surprise that the classical formulation of the Documentary Hypothesis has yet again been called into question. However, many North American scholars are unfamiliar with the work of a new generation of European scholars who are advancing an alternate view of the compositional history of the Pentateuch. A growing consensus in Europe argues that the larger blocks of pentateuchal tradition, especially the stories of the patriarchs and Moses, were not redactionally linked before the Priestly Code, as the J hypothesis suggests, but existed side by side as two independent, rival myths of Israel’s origins. This volume makes available both the most recent European scholarship on the Pentateuch and its critical discussion, providing a helpful resource and fostering further dialogue between North American and European interpreters.

Thomas B. Dozeman is Professor of Hebrew Bible at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author of Exodus (Eerdmans), God at War: Power in the Exodus Tradition (Oxford), and God on the Mountain: A Study of Redaction, Theology and Canon in Exodus 19–24 (Society of Biblical Literature [Scholars Press]).
Konrad Schmid is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Zürich. He is the author of Buchgestalten des Jeremiabuches: Untersuchungen zur Redaktions- und Rezeptionsgeschichte von Jer 30-33 im Kontext des Buches and Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels in den Geschichtsbüchern des Alten Testaments (both from Neukirchener Verlag).

CONTENTS

Introduction
—Thomas B. Dozeman and Konrad Schmid

Part 1: Main Papers

The Elusive Yahwist: A Short History of Research
—Thomas Christian Römer

The So-Called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus
—Konrad Schmid

The Jacob Story and the Beginning of the Formation of the Pentateuch
—Albert de Pury

The Transition between the Books of Genesis and Exodus
—Jan Christian Gertz

The Literary Connection between the Books of Genesis and Exodus and the End of the Book of Joshua
—Erhard Blum

The Commission of Moses and the Book of Genesis
—Thomas B. Dozeman

Part 2: Responses

The Yahwist and the Redactional Link between Genesis and Exodus
—Christoph Levin

The Report of the Yahwist’s Demise Has Been Greatly Exaggerated!
—John Van Seters

What Is Required to Identify Pre-Priestly Narrative Connections between Genesis and Exodus? Some General Reflections and Specific Cases
—David M. Carr