Konrad Schmid, «Genesis and Exodus as Two Formerly Independent Traditions of Origins for Ancient Israel», Vol. 93 (2012) 187-208
This paper is a response to Joel Baden’s article, which claims that the material in Genesis and Exodus was already literarily connected within the independent J and E documents. I suggest an alternative approach that has gained increased acceptance, especially in European scholarship. The ancestral stories of Genesis on the one hand and the Moses story in Exodus and the following books on the other hand were originally autonomous literary units, and it was only through P that they were connected conceptually and literarily.
188 KONRAD SCHMID
and cannot be upheld. Already the double mentioning of Joseph’s
death in Gen 50,26 and Exod 1,6 shows that Genesis and Exodus,
even on the level of the received text, have been shaped as two at least
semi-independent literary units. The repetition of Joseph’s death at
the beginning of the book of Exodus attests to an undeniable division.
It would make no sense to repeat an unrepeatable event like Joseph’s
death within six verses of a continuous narrative. Furthermore, in
terms of their concerns, their theological shape, and their wording,
Genesis and Exodus are indeed quite different. Genesis offers a fam-
ily story; Exodus presents the story of a people. Genesis is mainly au-
tochthonous and inclusive, while Exodus is allochthonous and
exclusive. In the patriarchal narratives, Genesis constructs a picture of
the origin of Israel in its own land, and the storyline is both theologi-
cally and politically inclusive. The gods of Canaan can be identified
with YHWH, as can be deduced from the religious-historical back-
ground of cult legends like Gen 28,11-19 or Gen 32,23-33, and the pa-
triarchs dwell together with the inhabitants of the land and make
treaties with them. Exodus, on the other hand, stresses Israel’s origin
abroad in Egypt and puts forward an exclusively theological argu-
ment: YHWH is a jealous god that does not tolerate any other gods be-
sides himself (Exod 20,3-5; 34,14), and the Israelites shall not make
peace with the inhabitants of the land (cf. Exod 23,32–33; 34,12.15;
Deut 12,29-31; 16,21; 20,16-17; 25,19). The theological substance of
Genesis and Exodus is so divergent that it is unconvincing to con-
clude that there is no break whatsoever between these books 3.
Additionally, in response to Baden’s observation that there is no
distinction between Genesis and Exodus on the level of the canoni-
cal text, it is instructive to note that there is no distinction between P
and non-P in the canonical Pentateuch either. Nevertheless, Baden
and I agree that there is enough critical evidence to assume such a dis-
tinction in literary-historical terms. Whether or not there is a conti-
nuity in the canonical text is not the real problem. Much more
significant is the question of the nature of this continuity. And here,
in my opinion, the evidence as sketched out above is sufficiently
clear. It was this kind of evidence that led to the above-mentioned
development of pentateuchal criticism in the work of Noth, and even
before Noth (e.g., Galling) 4, which relies on specific textual obser-
I have elaborated on this at length in my Genesis and the Moses Story
3
(Siphrut 3; Winona Lake, IN 2009); see esp. 92-151.
K. GALLING, Die Erwählungstraditionen Israels (Gießen 1928).
4
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