Interweaving Sources

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From the course by Emory University

The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future

124 ratings

Emory University

The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future

124 ratings

With its walls razed to ground by Babylon’s armies, Jerusalem joined a long line of ancient vanquished cities—from Ur and Nineveh and Persepolis to Babylon itself. While some recovered from the destruction, others did not. But none responded to political catastrophe by fashioning the kind of elaborate and enduring monument to their own downfall that we find in the Bible. Most conquered populations viewed their subjugation as a source of shame. They consigned it to oblivion, opting instead to extol the golden ages of the past. The biblical authors in contrast reacted to loss by composing extensive writings that acknowledge collective failure, reflect deeply upon its causes, and discover thereby a ground for collective hope. Working through colorful biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts, and drawing on an array of comparative examples, the course illustrates the thoroughgoing manner with which biblical authors responded to defeat by advancing a demotic agenda that places the community at the center. The aim of the biblical authors was to create a nation, and they sought to realize this goal via a shared text, which includes stories and songs, wisdom and laws. This corpus of writings belongs, without a doubt, to humanity’s greatest achievements. Whereas the great civilizations of the Near East invested their energies and resources into monuments of stone that could be destroyed by invading armies, the biblical authors left a literary legacy that has been intensively studied until the present day. More important, these authors’ visionary response to defeat brought to light a radical new wisdom: the notion that a people is greater than the state which governs it, and that a community can survive collapse when all of its members can claim a piece of the pie and therefore have a reason to take an active part in its collective life.

From the lesson

The Making of the Bible as a Response to Defeat

In this module, we dive into the question of why the biblical authors created the Bible. We begin by looking at various depictions of how Judahites were living after the fall of Judah. These depictions provide us with insight into what the biblical authors were facing after the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests. We then turn our attention to the biblical writings as we deconstruct and reconstruct the text in order to discover what drives the biblical project. By engaging the text critically, we begin to see how the biblical authors creatively combined sources to create a pan-Israelite history. Upon completion of this module, learners will be able to: 1) Differentiate between extrabiblical and biblical depictions of Judahite communities living in various locations after the fall of Judah, 2) Identify distinct traditions or sources within the biblical text and distinguish between core narratives and supplements or links, and 3) Compare and contrast the dominant theories concerned with the composition of the Bible.

Analyzing a Biblical Text: Genesis 266:49

A Closer Look at Genesis 2613:40

Interweaving Sources5:04

Compositional Theories5:29

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Jacob L. Wright
Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible
Candler School of Theology and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies

So now we've come out to the campus,

after spending some time in the studio working on a text.

And what I want to do now is to reflect upon what we did and

to go from there to the larger perspective of how it all came together.

We look at Genesis 26 and Genesis 26 is the story of Isaac and Rebecca, and

how Isaac as a patriarch perhaps the progenitor of a clan.

Then comes to possess territories deep in the south and maybe that's where Issac,

the original Issac, narratives or the Issac clan was situated.

What we saw was that within that narrative,

you can find various portions and

passages and verses that link it to the larger narrative of the Book of Genesis.

So you have an older story, then you have some aspects,

supplements, that have been inserted into that story.

That then create this trajectory that really reaches

throughout the whole history of Israel.

At least the early part of Israel's history with Abraham,

the father of Isaac and then to Esau and to Jacob,

the sons of Isaac who will become the later representatives of Israel and

Israel's neighbors, Esau being [INAUDIBLE].

So one thing that I wanted to discuss before we go on is to show how some

of the theories that have developed around this text.

According to one of the sources that we've called P in the last segment,

where we discussed it, there we see how the marriages

of Esau to Hittite women cause a concern for Rebeca.

And in the next chapter or the chapter thereafter ask Isaac to send Jacob away so

that Jacob does not commit the same errors that Esau does when choosing a wife.

And that is the P source, the priestly source, and

it's a pretty good argument that the P source is a late post-exilic source

because it has the issue of the identity of Israel in relation to others.

Mixed marriage and marriages with others outside the Jewish

people become a huge issue after the defeat of Judah.

And when Judah is now faced with a situation where it has to do something to

be Judahite.

And one of those things that one does is marriage.

Marrying within the clan, within the nation so

that one can continue a community that is really defined by a common ethos,

and common culture and so forth.

We won't get into all those issues of intermarriage, but

that is a strong indication that the priestly source,

at least one of the threads that connects the older Isaac story to the history of

Israel is a very late layer, a very late thread that connects it.

So, in addition to that P source, the priestly source,

there is another source that scholars talk about, and that's the Jsource.

And that J source is the part of chapter 25 that tells about the birth of Jacob and

Esau, Isaac and Rebeca's sons.

And then it continues in chapter 27 and a little bit in 28,

about how Jacob picking up on chapter 25 how he then stole the birthright of Esau.

Then actually goes through with the deal with the help of his mother Rebeca, and

then Jacob has to then go off and run off to another land because he fears Esau.

So what we have is an older source that's been incorporated into a larger narrative

according to the theory that J has done this.

And then P comes along and

gives a new reason why Jacob has to leave, it's because of mixed marriages, not

because Jacob the patriarch of Israel was a trickster, as in the older narrative.

One of the problems with the J theory is that you have within

it a contradiction, so when you read chapter 25 and you do this on your own,

and we'll discuss it in the forum.

When you read chapter 25, followed by 26, and then 27,

28 26 we saw the older part of it really has nothing to do with Jacob and Esau.

Isaac and Rebeca seemed to be alone they don't need children.

So how is it that the theory works that J has this in

the same series of narratives that chapter 25 and 27, 28 are.

And one way to deal with that is that the creator of this J narrative,

used this as a source.

But perhaps it raises larger question about where there are the J source

itself has not undergone lots of layers in development.

We don't want to get into that it's possible to do to work both ways perhaps

the suggestion that J is using a source here and then expanding it and

integrating it into a larger narrative is the easier way to go.

But all this shows us that we have within the formation of some older narratives,

a source that is then interwoven into a larger narrative around Genesis and

this history of Israel.

In the next segment I want to think about some other examples of that before we go

on to discuss the whole development of what we call the that means the story that

runs from Genesis to Kings, that primary history.

So we'll come back and deal with that.

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