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.
GENESIS AND EXODUS AS TWO FORMERLY INDEPENDENT TRADITIONS 193
In methodological terms, I do not agree with either alternative
Baden is proposing: “Thus rather than assume that the patriarchs
and exodus were originally separate in the non-priestly text and
then look for some pristine explicit verbal link to prove it (a verbal
link that looks similar to that in the priestly narrative), we ought
rather to work from the assumption that the non-priestly text is in
fact continuous, and then — entirely in isolation from the priestly
text — appreciate the historical claims in the non-priestly text that
are consistent across its whole†(165). In my opinion, we should
not start with any assumption regarding the continuity or disconti-
nuity between Genesis and Exodus, but assess the textual evidence
and then evaluate whether or not this points to an original continu-
ity on the textual level or not. Following one of Baden’s examples,
of course it is clear that one should assume an original continuity
between Exodus and Leviticus (see Exod 40,38; Lev 1,1), but such a
perspective is much better founded for this case than in the transition
from Genesis to Exodus (see Exod 1,6.8).
Finally, I am glad to find myself in agreement with Baden re-
garding the assumption “that the verbal links between the patriarchs
and the exodus in this section of P are considerably denser and more
explicit than in the equivalent non-P text†(163). In his J, E, and the
Redaction of the Pentateuch, he had maintained as an overall state-
ment: “the J and E documents are no less coherent [emphasis K.S.]
in the continuity of their historical claims and narrative details than
P†12. Baden is ready to restate this general assumption in order to
acknowledge, at least for the verbal links in Exodus 1–6, the differ-
ent quality of P and non-P with regard to the connection between the
patriarchs and the exodus. However, he still maintains that those
blocks are linked in J and E in a comparably strong way, although not
through explicit cross references. I would assign more weight to these
cross references and less to thematic correspondences. In my think-
ing, it is especially this overall impression of a much stronger den-
sity of P’s coherence in terms of its verbal links throughout both
Genesis and Exodus when compared to the non-P texts that is, again,
not a compelling argument, but a strong hint supporting the assump-
tion that the pre-priestly traditions in Genesis and in Exodus were
not linked to each other from the outset.
J. BADEN, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch (FAT 68; Tübingen
12
2009) 3.
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