Morsels of Source Criticism

What stood out to me in my reading today of David Aaron's Etched in Stone was his summary and evaluation of certain source critical ideas. Here are some examples:

1. On pages 72-73, Dr. Aaron discusses the scholarly view that Psalm 105 contains "Deuteronomic" language. He responds that "language that is Deuteronomic in flavor could simply have been engaged by post-Deuteronomic writers who sought to emulate a given style." Dr. Aaron also notes a difference between Psalm 105 and Deuteronomy: "The largest section of the psalm is that which recalls the plagues. This is quite specifically non-Deuteronomic in flavor, for the literature we directly associate with the Deuteronomist speaks of 'signs and wonders' without ever elucidating plagues."

This stood out to me because of an article I read for my Bible comp: Marc Vervenne's "The Question of 'Deuteronomic' Elements in Genesis to Numbers." Vervenne notes language in Genesis-Numbers that appears Deuteronomic, and he discusses views that it could have been proto-Deuteronomic, or post-Deuteronomic. I really didn't understand his argument when I first read it, for it seemed to me that he was pulling something out of the clear blue sky. I had just written a paper for a class that tried to identify Deuteronomistic elements of II Samuel 7 and I Kings 8:1-30 by noting the elements of the chapters that echoed language in Deuteronomy. Now, Vervenne was telling me of people who said that having Deuteronomic language does not make a passage Deuteronomistic, for the passage could have come after the Deuteronomistic School, as its author imitated the Deuteronomistic style.

But Dr. Aaron's comments indicate that a passage can have Deuteronomistic language, and yet act in a way that is not characteristically Deuteronomistic. That's probably why some believe there were post-Deuteronomists who imitated the Deuteronomistic language.

2. On page 86, Dr. Aaron states that "Baruch Levine notes that there is 'little direct interaction between Numbers 22-24 and what precedes and follows these chapters,' making it altogether clear that the 'Balaam Pericope stands apart from the progression of the JE historiography in Numbers." I remember that Levine discussed the view that Numbers has a "T" source, which was a sub-source of E and included Numbers 21 and 23-24. I wonder if scholars posited the T source on the basis of a lack of continuity between Numbers 22-24 and surrounding chapters.

On my comp, I was asked to discuss the wilderness narratives in light of source criticism, and I must admit that---although I could discuss Leviticus and Deuteronomy (which were technically wilderness stories, since the Israelites weren't in the Promised Land yet) in terms of P, H, Dtr1, and Dtr2---I did not really know what the agenda of J, E, and T was in their presentation of the wilderness stories. (My professor is not a fan of the Documentary Hypothesis, but I should have at least known the various scholarly ideas about the wilderness narratives in Numbers.) I'm not sure if this is the part of the comp that I will have to redo, but I want to learn more about this issue as I study this second time around.

I myself wonder if there is no connection between Numbers 21-24 and surrounding stories. In Numbers 25, the Israelites are seduced by Moabite and Midianite women. That continues the theme of Numbers 21-24---that Moab was out to get Israel. In Numbers 21, the Israelites avenge themselves against Midian. Balaam is killed in Numbers 31:8. Some have argued that Balaam failed in cursing Israel because God forbade him to do so, and so Balaam tried to help the Moabites out by advising them to seduce the Israelites with Midianite and Moabite women, thereby inciting God's wrath against the Israelites. Revelation 2:14 contains such a tradition.

At the same time, there is a difference between Numbers 22-24 and Balaam in Numbers 31:8. At the end of Numbers 24, Balaam goes back home, which Numbers 22:5 says is near the Euphrates river---which is way up north. But, in Numbers 31:8, Balaam is killed in Midian, which is far south from the Euphrates. According to the tradition that Numbers 31:8 has, Balaam did not go back home to Mesopotamia, but he stays close to Israel (unless he went back home, then came back). So maybe Numbers 22-24 is a different source. But perhaps the redactor put the two sources about Balaam together to tell a story: Balaam failed to curse the Israelites for Moab, and so he taught the Moabites to seduce the Israelites and to defeat Israel that way. Balaam would get his payoff somehow! Only it wouldn't be worth it!

3. On pages 118-119, Dr. Aaron talks about the Tetrateuch. Advocates of the Tetrateuch hold that the Torah originally consisted of four books: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua (which was where the land promise was fulfilled). In this view, Deuteronomy and Leviticus were added later. But Dr. Aaron notes a difference between the Pentateuchal books and Joshua, which convinces him that Joshua was independent of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers: in the Pentateuch, the ark holds the tablets of the Decalogue, whereas the tablets are not associated with the ark in Joshua. This is somewhat important for Dr. Aaron's argument about the development of the Decalogue tradition. Joshua 24 presents a covenant at Shechem, which contains a standing stone. Also, Joshua 24 narrates the history of Israel, without mentioning Sinai.

Why would the Israelites have to make a covenant at Shechem, if they already did so at Sinai? And why does Joshua 24 not mention Sinai, which looms large in the Pentateuch? My impression is that Dr. Aaron believes that the Sinai story was written later than Joshua 24 (both of which were composed in Israel's Diaspora, in his view), and that the tablets of the Decalogue in the Ten Commandments story were like the standing stone that testified to Israel's covenant. But they were fictional and portable---making them a perfect sign in exile, where standing stones in a specific location wouldn't make much of a difference.