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jsburbidgeA few days ago I was talking with a friend who has an undergraduate degree in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto. I made some broad reference to the current (for values of "current" == "since the 1950s, at least") views regarding the historicity of the Exodus narrative and found that she hadn't been exposed to them, despite the fact that she had taken an introductory Old Testament course. She brought out her Old Testament texts and I was appalled to find that her main reference (Anderson's Understanding the Old Testament), although it had some references to good sources buried deep in its bibliography, did not canvass the issues at all. This was in the late 70s, at which time this had been the responsible consensus for a generation: at least the position should have been set out clearly as one of several alternative approaches. The book itself still is in print and is being sold, with generally laudatory reviews.
So, OK, historicity and Biblical narrative. A quick summary before the main (cynical) point.
For the OT, the major sense of "historicity" which is in play is "can we reasonably argue that X might have happened". (There's another sense of the word which comes into play in, for example, the "search for the historical Jesus". In this context, it's more, "what can be said about X while staying strictly within the bounds of the discipline of history". The two uses are not identical. For example, one frequent criterion used to exclude sayings in the gospels as sayings of Jesus is if the saying reflects a view popular in Judaism at the time (in which case it may have been derived from the environment, and not from Jesus). Now, this works as long as one keeps in mind the aim of being _really sure_ that something can be considered authentic, but a little reflection will indicate that Jesus must have said many things which were in congruence with what other people around him thought, and that this criterion must exclude a fair amount of sayings which really could go back to Jesus.) That is, arguments are not over what can be said with certitude about what happened, but what can be admitted as possibly having happened, combined with close reading around the agenda of the redactors / authors to explain how the text got to be the way it was.
The books of the Tanakh / OT were assembled over the course of several centuries, with varying levels of redaction. Many of the books seem to have reached close to their final form at the time of "the Deuteronomist" (who may actually have been several editors/writers in the same school) in about the 6th century BCE. Many contain embedded sources of greater or lesser historical value; some (Daniel, Ruth, and Esther, for example) are essentially novels; and some belong to genres which don't give rise to much argument about historical truth-claims (for example, the wisdom literature).
In the 1950s it would be fair to say that there were two schools regarding the historicity of OT narrative from Genesis through Kings among responsible historical scholars, i.e. those who were at least officially willing to approach the issues without simply assuming that the authority of the text on its face provided an a priori answer. The first was an American school associated with Albright which argued for broad confirmation of the biblical narratives (the main focus being on Genesis through Judges) by archaeological evidence. (It's this school which the Anderson textbook reflects.) A second school was German in origin and represented by Martin Noth and Gerhardt von Rad; these scholars were (based on textual studies) rather more dubious about the historicity of the narratives in Genesis through Judges. Noth regarded the patriarchal traditions as being originally independent and fused into a single tradition late on; considered the Exodus and Sinai narratives to be originally completely independent, with the figure of Moses not originally associated with the Sinai theophanic tradition, and that neither tradition could be taken as historical on its face (although both probably preserved some historical reminiscences); and argued that the development of the tribal structure of Israel occurred in situ in Canaan as an amphyctyonic coalition focused on access to religious shrines, and had no ancestral basis. (Note that the scholars of this school were by no means hostile to the religion they were treating: most continued to be firmly attached to their confessional faiths).
By the early 1970's, the Albright position was falling apart. In some cases there was simple absence of evidence (nothing much could be found reflecting the Davidic line), but in many more cases this extended to evidence of absence: details of the patriarchal narratives were increasingly difficult to reconcile with archaeological findings/datings, there was no evidence supporting an invasion of Canaan corresponding to Joshua, the narrative of the Exodus did not line up with what was known of the period it was to be placed in on a straightforward reading.
Most of the German school's positions are still reasonable, although there are many places where individual details or specific theses are argued over. There have been arguments regarding the unified kingdom which would modify the details, and there's a lot of argument about Noth's specific position regarding an amphyctyonic coalition (although it would certainly be modern consensus that Israel as a coalition / concept came into existence in situ rather than as an invasion, the details are under debate). Similarly, there are varying vies regarding the composition of the "Deuteronomic history". But these are all basically arguments within a generally accepted framework rather than a challenge to the framework as a whole.
There are, of course, large numbers of teachers at post-secondary institutions who ignore all of this, I may note, and for whom even the position of Albright and his school is inadmissible. If your theology is based on a position regarding the literal inerrancy of the bible then any divergence from its being an exact record of what happened is verboten. So there are protestant fundamentalist/evangelical scholars who simply reject archaeological findings: if the findings disagree with the bible, too bad for the findings. This is at least a consistent position, if a determinedly ignorant one (and, to my mind, reflecting a fundamentally defective theology) but it's a little beside the point of why I was so disappointed in the textbook my friend had.
The U of T course was not based on any sort of assumption about inerrancy. A secondary text by Otto Kaiser on the authorship/composition of the OT books was fully up to date on form-critical (and similar) conclusions. The Anderson text would not be acceptable in any rigorously fundamentalist school: it explicitly accepts modern historical/critical methodology. It was just shoddy and deliberately limited in its scope by 1975, when the third edition (which my friend had) was published.
The first edition of the Anderson text dates from 1957, when it would have been acceptable (although somewhat deceptive) for an introductory text written by a member of the American / Albright school to present an exclusively Albright approach, with a few German sources referenced in the bibliography for completeness. By 1975, the approach was really a zombie. So why was (is) it retained[1]?
Let me point out three things: the 1975 edition is very much a student text published by Prentice-Hall (fifth edition is Pearson). (Sometimes "introductions" are meant to remain usable on a scholar's shelf long after they finish several levels of studies; the Kaiser book is a good example, in that it surveys positions from a high level and provides detailed references to all of the substantive and more specialized studies at the head of each section, so it acts as a useful index. The Anderson book is not that kind of introduction.) Secondly, the description provided on Amazon for the Fifth Edition is blurbs by teachers about how usable the book is as an assigned text (its market is not students: in typical textbook style, its market is instructors). Thirdly, the trade paperback of the fifth edition has a cover price of 134.95 (CAD), which nobody would pay for this unless they had to.
I think that the book has remained defective in this way to allow American universities to assign it for courses containing a large number of students, many of whom will have a relatively literalist understanding of the bible, without upsetting too many of them too much. In other words, this is driven by the same sort of commercial interests which lead to American biology textbooks which ignore evolution, and (more broadly) media presentations which present what the producers think more people will want to see/hear than the truth.
[1]The current edition available is the fifth edition. I haven't seen this edition, so I'm limiting myself to a critique "as of 1975". However, the reviews I see of the fifth edition do not suggest a major change in the content of the book.
So, OK, historicity and Biblical narrative. A quick summary before the main (cynical) point.
For the OT, the major sense of "historicity" which is in play is "can we reasonably argue that X might have happened". (There's another sense of the word which comes into play in, for example, the "search for the historical Jesus". In this context, it's more, "what can be said about X while staying strictly within the bounds of the discipline of history". The two uses are not identical. For example, one frequent criterion used to exclude sayings in the gospels as sayings of Jesus is if the saying reflects a view popular in Judaism at the time (in which case it may have been derived from the environment, and not from Jesus). Now, this works as long as one keeps in mind the aim of being _really sure_ that something can be considered authentic, but a little reflection will indicate that Jesus must have said many things which were in congruence with what other people around him thought, and that this criterion must exclude a fair amount of sayings which really could go back to Jesus.) That is, arguments are not over what can be said with certitude about what happened, but what can be admitted as possibly having happened, combined with close reading around the agenda of the redactors / authors to explain how the text got to be the way it was.
The books of the Tanakh / OT were assembled over the course of several centuries, with varying levels of redaction. Many of the books seem to have reached close to their final form at the time of "the Deuteronomist" (who may actually have been several editors/writers in the same school) in about the 6th century BCE. Many contain embedded sources of greater or lesser historical value; some (Daniel, Ruth, and Esther, for example) are essentially novels; and some belong to genres which don't give rise to much argument about historical truth-claims (for example, the wisdom literature).
In the 1950s it would be fair to say that there were two schools regarding the historicity of OT narrative from Genesis through Kings among responsible historical scholars, i.e. those who were at least officially willing to approach the issues without simply assuming that the authority of the text on its face provided an a priori answer. The first was an American school associated with Albright which argued for broad confirmation of the biblical narratives (the main focus being on Genesis through Judges) by archaeological evidence. (It's this school which the Anderson textbook reflects.) A second school was German in origin and represented by Martin Noth and Gerhardt von Rad; these scholars were (based on textual studies) rather more dubious about the historicity of the narratives in Genesis through Judges. Noth regarded the patriarchal traditions as being originally independent and fused into a single tradition late on; considered the Exodus and Sinai narratives to be originally completely independent, with the figure of Moses not originally associated with the Sinai theophanic tradition, and that neither tradition could be taken as historical on its face (although both probably preserved some historical reminiscences); and argued that the development of the tribal structure of Israel occurred in situ in Canaan as an amphyctyonic coalition focused on access to religious shrines, and had no ancestral basis. (Note that the scholars of this school were by no means hostile to the religion they were treating: most continued to be firmly attached to their confessional faiths).
By the early 1970's, the Albright position was falling apart. In some cases there was simple absence of evidence (nothing much could be found reflecting the Davidic line), but in many more cases this extended to evidence of absence: details of the patriarchal narratives were increasingly difficult to reconcile with archaeological findings/datings, there was no evidence supporting an invasion of Canaan corresponding to Joshua, the narrative of the Exodus did not line up with what was known of the period it was to be placed in on a straightforward reading.
Most of the German school's positions are still reasonable, although there are many places where individual details or specific theses are argued over. There have been arguments regarding the unified kingdom which would modify the details, and there's a lot of argument about Noth's specific position regarding an amphyctyonic coalition (although it would certainly be modern consensus that Israel as a coalition / concept came into existence in situ rather than as an invasion, the details are under debate). Similarly, there are varying vies regarding the composition of the "Deuteronomic history". But these are all basically arguments within a generally accepted framework rather than a challenge to the framework as a whole.
There are, of course, large numbers of teachers at post-secondary institutions who ignore all of this, I may note, and for whom even the position of Albright and his school is inadmissible. If your theology is based on a position regarding the literal inerrancy of the bible then any divergence from its being an exact record of what happened is verboten. So there are protestant fundamentalist/evangelical scholars who simply reject archaeological findings: if the findings disagree with the bible, too bad for the findings. This is at least a consistent position, if a determinedly ignorant one (and, to my mind, reflecting a fundamentally defective theology) but it's a little beside the point of why I was so disappointed in the textbook my friend had.
The U of T course was not based on any sort of assumption about inerrancy. A secondary text by Otto Kaiser on the authorship/composition of the OT books was fully up to date on form-critical (and similar) conclusions. The Anderson text would not be acceptable in any rigorously fundamentalist school: it explicitly accepts modern historical/critical methodology. It was just shoddy and deliberately limited in its scope by 1975, when the third edition (which my friend had) was published.
The first edition of the Anderson text dates from 1957, when it would have been acceptable (although somewhat deceptive) for an introductory text written by a member of the American / Albright school to present an exclusively Albright approach, with a few German sources referenced in the bibliography for completeness. By 1975, the approach was really a zombie. So why was (is) it retained[1]?
Let me point out three things: the 1975 edition is very much a student text published by Prentice-Hall (fifth edition is Pearson). (Sometimes "introductions" are meant to remain usable on a scholar's shelf long after they finish several levels of studies; the Kaiser book is a good example, in that it surveys positions from a high level and provides detailed references to all of the substantive and more specialized studies at the head of each section, so it acts as a useful index. The Anderson book is not that kind of introduction.) Secondly, the description provided on Amazon for the Fifth Edition is blurbs by teachers about how usable the book is as an assigned text (its market is not students: in typical textbook style, its market is instructors). Thirdly, the trade paperback of the fifth edition has a cover price of 134.95 (CAD), which nobody would pay for this unless they had to.
I think that the book has remained defective in this way to allow American universities to assign it for courses containing a large number of students, many of whom will have a relatively literalist understanding of the bible, without upsetting too many of them too much. In other words, this is driven by the same sort of commercial interests which lead to American biology textbooks which ignore evolution, and (more broadly) media presentations which present what the producers think more people will want to see/hear than the truth.
[1]The current edition available is the fifth edition. I haven't seen this edition, so I'm limiting myself to a critique "as of 1975". However, the reviews I see of the fifth edition do not suggest a major change in the content of the book.
