HISTORY OF RESEARCH: PART I
Exod 20:18-20: Elohim institutes Moses as mediator to assuage the people’s fear
1.2.1.4 Ernest W. Nicholson
In contrast to Childs, E. W. Nicholson’s analysis of the “Decalogue as God’s direct address to Israel” does not limit the plenary theme to the circles responsible for
rejection of the view that the E material in Genesis ever existed as a separate continuous document.
Wilhelm Rudolph, who collaborated with Volz in this work ... subsequently [in Der “Elohist” von Exodus bis Joshua] extended the analysis to the remaining books of the Hexateuch. Both scholars argued promoted a thesis of E material originating from redactional additions to J.... Sigmund Mowinckel [Sigmund
Mowinckel, “Der Ursprung der Bil’āmsage,” ZAW 48 (1930): 233-71; idem., Erwägungen zur Pentateuch Quellenfrage (Trondheim: Aktietrykkeriet i Trondhjem, 1964), 59-118] ... argued that the E material emerged gradually as the result of a tradition-historical process based upon the material in J.... The Elohist, properly understood, he argued, was the person who revised the venerable work of Jv by incorporating it into the younger J variatus material which had developed orally, at least to begin with, subsequent to the composition of J.” The notion of a merger of J and E, so JE, however, continues to find adherents; cf.
Werner H. Schmidt, Old Testament Introduction (trans. Matthew J. O’Connell with David J. Reimer;
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 84-92, for recent advocacy of an Elohist source within a rendition of the classical four-source hypothesis (JEDP); for synopsis and critique, including diagram, of a similar view, see Erich Zenger, “Theorien über die Entstehung des Pentateuch,” in Einleitung in das Alte Testament5 (ed. E. Zenger et al.; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2004), 74-123, 94f.; for recent advocacy of separate sources J and E, and of D relying on J and E as separate documents, see Joel S. Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch (vol. 68 of FAT; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009).
46 “How is one to explain the tension between Deut.5.4 and 5 (sic)? Does it stem from a literary development caused by the fusion of sources or is Deuteronomy dependent on some early tradition in which the law was given directly to the people?” (Childs, Exodus, 359).
47 Childs concludes the literary evidence of vv. 4-5 “remains the most plausible. Verse 4 is a reading of the tradition after the redaction of J and E placed the Decalogue in its present position within the narrative.
Verse 5 represents accordingly an earlier tradition of the mediatorial office of Moses” (Exodus, 360). In my judgment this assessment lacks clarity and is not convincing; cf. Van Seters, Law Book, 50: “The text in Deut 5:5 has all the marks of being a later addition to the rest of Deut 5, so that it can hardly reflect an earlier version of Moses’ mediatorial role.”
48 Ibid., 359-60.
49 One wonders if the author had intended to take up the issue again in an exegetical analysis devoted to dtn/dtr texts.
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Deuteronomy passages in which the theme is prominent, i.e., chs. 4–5. Rather, Nicholson hypothesizes a redactor that positions the Dec in Exod 20. This tradent holds views similar to the conception of Deut 5:4. A combination of both editorial and theological motivations best accounts for the pericope’s positioning.
50Certain differences in the two presentations of the Dec figure within the broad scope of the plenary theme:
Deuteronomy 4–5 places considerable theological and apologetical emphasis upon the Decalogue as God’s direct address to Israel. What is less obvious is why in Exodus the Decalogue is proclaimed directly to the people by God whilst the remaining laws (the Book of the Covenant), though also written in the first person singular as a speech of God, are transmitted at second hand, so to speak, by Moses.
51In 1981 Nicholson lamented the general lack of interest given the final form of the Exodus narrative by scholars.
52For him the “direct address of God to Israel” in
Deuteronomy instills “the fear of the Lord,”
53emphasizes the “uniqueness” of Israel (no other people had heard directly from God), and “seals” Israel’s election.
54Deuteronomy 4–5 “attach both theological and apologetic significance to the direct transmission of the Decalogue to Israel at Horeb.”
55A methodological question then arises whether to interpret this view as peculiar to the authors of Deut 4–5. Did for example similar
motives lie in the mind of the tradents responsible for Exod 20?
56Whereas for Nicholson the direction of dependence remains “a matter of dispute,” “the close relationship
between the Decalogue as God’s direct address to Israel and Exod 20:22-23—the latter arising from the former and the former explained to some extent by the latter—” makes better sense if one attributes both to the same dtn redactor.
57In contrast to Kuenen,
50 Ernest W. Nicholson, “The Decalogue as Direct Address by God,” VT 27 (1981): 422-33, 424.
51 Ibid., 422.
52 Ibid., 423-24, 427. On this account he both congratulates Childs and notes the problem of adhering to the view that the Decalogue originally followed Exod 20:18-21, which actually undercuts an otherwise cogent reconstruction (ibid., 428).
53 “When God let his people hear his voice from heaven, it was the commandments that he declared so that his people might learn to fear him” (ibid., 426; cf. Deut 4:36).
54 Ibid.; cf. 430; cf. Eckart Otto, “Del Libro de la Alianza a la Ley de Santidad. La reformulaçión del derecho Israelita y la formaçión del Pentateuco,” EstBib 52 (1994): 195-217, 213-14: “La relación personal con Dios, plasmada en la obedienca a la voluntad divina, consiste en la comunicación que Israel mantiene con el Dios único y transcendente. Ex 20,22 permite que el Libro de la Alianza pase a ser la revelación anunciada en Ex 19,9 y, en la conjuntación del Libro de la Alianza con el Deuteronomio efectuada por el redactor del Pentateuco, se convierta en el programa de Israel como ‘posesión real’ (הלגס) de YHWH y pueblo santo.”
55 “Direct Address,” 425f.
56 Ibid., 428.
57 Ibid., 431.
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Nicholson believes both vv. 22-23 and the Exodus Dec found insertion into the Exodus narrative after the Dec had been situated in Deuteronomy.
58He bases this belief in part on the late formulation of the Sabbath command in Exod 20, which reflects exilic or postexilic priestly influence.
59Nicholson’s engagement with the complexity of the material has produced plausible reconstructions on the proto-canonical level of the developmental processes leading to the integration of the Ten Commandments in both Exodus and Deuteronomy. Still, with respect to the direct revelation from God to the people at Sinai, as well as the chronology of the literary development and redaction of the Sinai complex, his conclusions remain tentative.
60Though in some respects Nicholson’s tradition-historical observations dovetail Childs’s
61work, J and E are left out of the equation, and P finds mention only with the context of the Sabbath formulation. His primary focus devolves to the dtr shaping of passages in both Exodus and Deuteronomy and the correlation of their presentations arguably achieved through dtr redactional and editorial activity. In significant ways, then, his approach resembles the new Pentateuch research emerging in the late 1970’s of R.
Rendtorff, H. H. Schmid, E. Blum, and others who reject aspects of the classical documentary hypothesis, especially regarding the putative, continuous compositional strands of the Yahwist and Elohist, respectively.
62Nicholson looks to independent blocks of dtn/dtr (cf. the so-called “block model” in Pentateuchal research) and priestly materials
58 In this case, Deut 5:5 would have to be a later gloss inserted by a hand familiar with the extant Sinai narrative sequence in Exodus. “Apart from verse 5 there is nothing in Deuteronomy 4–5 which necessarily indicates that the authors presupposed the narrative in Exodus” (ibid., 431, n. 13).
59 Ibid., 431. This does not however negate the possibility that otherwise the Dec in Exod 20 manifests an earlier formulation than that of Deuteronomy. Although the question of when the Dec and Exod 20:22-23 were inserted into the Sinai complex remains unresolved, Nicholson closes his essay by suggesting the addition(s) occurred “at a relatively late time and after the inclusion of the Decalogue and its related material in Deuteronomy 4–5” (ibid., 432-33).
60 Whereas in his opening paragraph Nicholson posits a direct connection between the positioning of the Dec and an explanation of the direct address traditions, and whereas he makes numerous convincing connections, he stops short of weaving the disparate theological and editorial elements together into a thorough, chronological or synchronic schema. Another outstanding desideratum would be to reckon with the sociopolitical dimensions of the unique influences impacting Israelite tradents during the postulated era of writing. To be sure, crucial textual and artifactual discoveries (and their interpretation) have surfaced since the appearance of Nicholson’s important study.
61 Nicholson’s main objective stated at the onset of his essay is “to offer some additional support for his [Childs’s] interpretation” (ibid., 422).
62 Cf. incidentally Nicholson’s wide-ranging synopsis of recent scholarship on the Pentateuch in his Pentateuch In The Twentieth Century.