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.
198 KONRAD SCHMID
gin of Exodus 3; 32,26-29; or Num 20,14-16 19. They will not be con-
clusive enough to convince a documentarian, but, seen in another
framework, they still provide some important observations and raise
the probability of a late origin.
Of course, Baden recognizes the possible circularity of the argu-
ment regarding the notion of post-priestly redactional texts: “be-
cause if the priestly document was the first to connect the patriarchs
and the exodus, then every non-priestly connection between the two
must have occurred after P by definition†(173-174). But this is not
how the proponents of a post-priestly connection between Genesis
and Exodus argue. The argument is not built up from the expected
result, but the relevant texts are examined for signs of post-priestly
provenance. If Baden writes with regard to the alleged post-priestly
passages: “First, they show neither agreement with nor even knowl-
edge of the priestly texts on which they are purportedly based†(175),
then the expectation of the first point is mistaken and the evidence re-
garding the second one is unwarranted. Post-priestly texts, as is true
for virtually all redactional additions in the Hebrew Bible, usually
elaborate, correct, or modify pre-existing texts, be they priestly, or
non-priestly, or both. If they were just in agreement with the priestly
texts they rely on, then there would have been no need for them to
have been written. Of course, there are differences between P and
post-priestly additions as Baden describes on pp. 174-175 above,
and these differences are nothing other than what is to be expected.
That such post-priestly texts show no knowledge of P is an unproven
assumption that, in the cases of Genesis 15 and (at least parts) 20 of
Exodus 3–4 can easily be rejected, both texts take up the thematic,
the order, and even some of the wording of their P counterparts in
Genesis 17 and Exodus 6 21. To be sure, they do not fully concur
with those P texts. The reason for this lies in their nature as redac-
tional texts: they modify pre-existing material.
See J.C. GERTZ, “Beobachtungen zu Komposition und Redaktion in Ex-
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odus 32–34â€, Gottes Volk am Sinai. Untersuchungen zu Ex 32–34 und Dtn 9–
10 (eds. M. KÖCKERT – E. BLUM) (VWGT 18; Gütersloh 2001) 88-106, and
the references in my Genesis and the Moses Story, 66-67; 172-182.
See e.g. T. RÖMER, “Exodus 3-4 und die aktuelle Pentateuchdiskus-
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sionâ€, The Interpretation of Exodus. Studies in Honour of Cornelis Houtman
(eds. R. ROUKEMA et al.) (CBET 44; Leuven 2006) 65-79.
See SCHMID, Genesis and the Moses Story, 166-171, 182-193.
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