37 1.3.6 The Complexity of the Sinai Complex
1.3.10 En Route to the Hexateuch Redaction
1.3.10.1 Ernst Axel Knauf’s Hexateuch Redaction
Knauf accepts Schmid’s general outline regarding the linking the Moses-Exodus history with the ancestral history. For his part he accentuates the contradicting attitudes toward things foreign in evidence within the two Geschichtsbilder, reckoning with their impact on the sociological and theological contouring of the book of Joshua.
237Knauf considers it inconceivable that the Moses-Exodus history would conclude before entering the land of Canaan. Indeed, the book of Joshua began its literary career not as an independent
Baruch ben Neriah) writing a lengthy, comprehensive literary piece. This remains true even in the face of the respective “histories” of Herodotus and Thucydides. The same holds when the work is assumed to have been produced by an authorial collective. The analogy of a modern court may prove helpful here. The defense is brought forward in negotiation with the prosecution, and both presentations are subject to the approval of the judge (imperial representative, sovereign, theocrat), who may reject aspects of those presentations. Members of the jury (general population), for whom cases are tailored and to whom they are presented, also play an important role both as individuals and as a collective (cf. the “brotherhood” in H and in the office laws). As a postscript, Schmid concedes the arguments for the existence of an independent Moses-Exodus history do not dependent entirely upon a redactional model (Erzväter, 138f.).
236 For a recent essay in English summarizing a number of Schmid’s theses, including his critique of the notion of the Yahwist as author, see Konrad Schmid, “The So-Called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus,” in A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (ed. T. Dozeman and K. Schmid; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 29-50, et passim.
An earlier, compositional model spanning a wide expanse of canonical books such as Erhard Blum’s Komposition-D (which builds in significant ways on the preliminary work of his teacher Rolf Rendtorff) merits mention here. Blum has himself modified aspects of his KD hypothesis set forth in Komposition (1984) and Studien (1990) based on Schmid’s 1999 and subsequent work; cf. Blum, “literarische Verbindung,” 152: “… a literary connection (Verbindung) between Genesis and Exodus and/or ancestral history and Exodus history cannot be demonstrated on pre-priestly levels”; cf. Römer, “Numeri,” 220.
Cf. also Jan Christian Gertz, “Abraham, Mose und der Exodus: Beobachtungen zur
Redaktionsgeschichte von Gen 15,” in Abschied vom Jahwisten. Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (ed. J. Gertz, et al.; vol. 315 of BZAW; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 63-81; idem, Tradition und Redaktion.
237 Knauf differentiates between local Fortschreibungen and global book redactions in the book of Joshua:
Whereas Fortschreibungen expand a Mikrotext, sometimes only a verse or part of a verse, book redactions format anew the tradition within the framework of a specific political or theological program. The book redactions of Joshua present themselves in a series of book conclusions 10:40-42; 11:16-23; 18:1 (Knauf’s posited end of Pg); 21:43-45; 24 (Josua, 17). The beginnings of the redactional work of Joshua, around or shortly before 600 BCE, may be sought in Bethel or Jerusalem; the book saw completion in Jerusalem shortly after 400 BCE (leaving out of consideration an anti-Samaritan reworking in the 3rd and 2nd century;
ibid.).
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work but rather as a bookend to the Moses-Exodus history (ca. 600 BCE).
238The Hexateuch moreover follows in dialogue from the contrastive if not oppositional groups of D (ideologically dominated) and P (religiopolitically and socially pragmatic, empire- conscious and -acquiescent). The Hexateuch, which saw the light of day through its namesake redaction, constitutes the third phase of Knauf’s multi-phase development of Joshua.
239In contrast to Otto and Achenbach’s redactional schemas, in which the Hexateuch Redaction (HexRed) precedes the Pentateuch Redaction (PentRed), Knauf’s hexateuchal formation follows the D-dominated formation of the torah (which he also calls the Pentateuch Redaction
240); it dates to the early fifth century, an era he believes witnessed the reshaping of the post-444 BCE torah
241into a more suitable foundational document for Jerusalem’s current sociopolitical climate. Influential leadership among the rising Persian colony of Yehud felt compelled to tone down its fundamental opposition to peaceful coexistence with the land’s pre-inhabitant “Canaanites.”
242The Hexateuchal visionaries would take the bold but necessary step of combining the D-
composition/Pentateuch redaction with the P material, subsequently enhancing that coalescence by means of an exchange of views between advocates of both parties. “The
238 Whereas the Moses-Exodus tradition stemmed from the northern kingdom of Israel, it ended there in the land between Bethel and Dan (cf. 1 Kgs 12:28f, a tradition likely deriving from the 8th century BCE; Josua, 18).
239 Knauf, Josua, 18-21. The “prophet” or “book redaction” constitutes the final, and “main redactional”
phase.
240 Cf. the subheading on p. 18: “Die D-oder ‘Pentateuch’-Redaktion.”
241 Regarding a date for D or Ur-Deuteronomy, Ernst Axel Knauf, “Observations on Judah’s Social and Economic History and the Dating of the Laws in Deuteronomy,” n.p. [cited 9 April 2011]. Online:
http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_120.pdf, posits a time of origination in the early sixth century, thus nullifying any direct connection to a seventh century Josiah. “The available data from social and economic history render the ‘Josianic’ dating of Deuteronomy 12–26 untenable; the basic layer of these laws reacts to the situation at Mizpah and Bethel after 586 BCE.” A question mark is however placed against the notion of substantial literary activity occurring in Judah prior to the middle of the fifth century, especially were Jerusalem to be the center of that activity; see Oded Lipschits, “Achaemenid Imperial Policy, Settlement Processes in Palestine, and the Status of Jerusalem in the Middle of the Fifth Century BCE,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming; Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2006), 19-52, 34-40. “Because the fortifications of Jerusalem were destroyed by the
Babylonians (cf. 2 Kgs 25:10), and because the first attempt to rebuild them without the permission of the Achaemenid authorities failed (as reported in Ezra 4; cf. Neh 1:3), it seems that, even if the temple had al- ready been rebuilt in Jerusalem and even if the city had already been reestablished as the cultic center of the Judeans, it could not serve as a capital.”
242 Knauf, Josua, 18f. This situation obtained, even though some of their religious beliefs and practices were actually indigenous to earlier Israelite settlements. The animosity toward Canaanites, Hittites,
Perizzites, Jebusites, and Amorites may actually have to do with an inner-Judean conflict between returnees from Babylon (aniconic monotheists) and traditionalist “inhabitants of the land,” with their cult images and problematic YHWH cult.
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dialogue leads to a reciprocal convergence in which are visible examples of D theology in P language (e.g., Num 31), but also of P theology in D language (Deut 9–11).”
243Although this quoted statement bespeaks of the views of scholars that go unnamed in the Kommentar,
244the succinctness and forthrightness of Knauf’s presentation of the
redactional formation of the Hexateuch is compelling. That within the redactional schema are included significant sociopolitical observations evidences the fruitful convergence of diachronic and synchronic dimensions adumbrated—and advocated—earlier in this chapter. Rounding off the comments on Knauf’s work, we note three theses that are pertinent to the present study, summarized as follows: (1) most if not all mentions of Joshua in secondary P or D texts in Exodus to Deuteronomy probably belong in the context of the Hexateuch redaction;
245(2) the Hexateuch redaction represents the
“decisive step” taken within the history of Israel towards a schema of coexistence with surrounding peoples; it nonetheless perpetuates an ancient yet viable version of
Yahwistic religion during an era of imperial domination;
246(3) with respect to the ḥerem, the mentions of which occur primarily in Joshua, the doomed pre-inhabitants
(Canaanites, Amorites, and Hitittes) were none other than the Benjamites who remained in the land. Opposing the theological innovations of the returnees, the Benjamites continued to practice their ancient, ancestral religion.
247As in other cases—e.g., in the
“enemies of the rebuilding of Jerusalem” in Neh 2–6—the hostility projected on external enemies derives from inner-Judahite conflict.
248Thesis three becomes all the more significant once the implications of an amiable conclusion with the pre-inhabitants are
243 Ibid., 21: “Der Dialog führt zur einer gegenseitigen Annäherung, die an Beispielen für D-Theologie in P-Sprach (z.B. 4 Mose 31), aber auch von P-Theologie in D-Sprache (5 Mose 9–11) sichtbar wird.”
244 Knauf’s contribution to the new Zürcher Bibelkommentare series lacks footnotes, comprehensive bibliography, and subject and scripture indices.
245 Ibid. In the book of Joshua the Hexateuch redaction makes itself felt in chs. 3f. (crossing the Jordan), 6 (procession of the ark of the covenant), and in the fundamental layer of the report of the distribution of the land in chs. 14–17.* It encompasses the whole of the Hexateuch, ending with Josh 18:1 (P); 21:43-5 (described by Knauf as P theology in D language). With 18:1 the ark arrives at Shilo, from where its history is continued with 1 Sam in the ‘books of kings” (Sam-Kgs*). By making reference to 1 Kgs 8, Josh 21:43- 45 combine the ark in Shilo with the Solomonic Temple of Jerusalem (ibid.).
246 Ibid. Within 50 years (thus by the early 4th century) the decisive step would lead to a “completed Torah,” in which “the P pragmatists had gained the upper hand against the D ideologues” and with which the beginnings of a prophetic canon would be associated (ibid.).
247 Cf. Philip R. Davies, “The Place of Deuteronomy in the Development of Judean Society and Religion,”
in Recenti Tendenze nella Riconstruzione della Storia Antica d’Israele (ed. E. Gabba et al.; Rome:
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2005), 139-55, 152.
248 Knauf, Josua, 28.