The literature on the Bible is immense. It would take a lifetime to just begin to digest the most important arguments and forms of evidence concerning personages, places and events. Into this large mix comes the rather simple and unpretentious book of Friedman, a book not without its flaws, but commendable because of its brevity and ease of digestion. In this case, the author is dealing with the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, treated separately here because of their general obscurity.
Though important discoveries have been made concerning the veracity of much in the Old Testament, much work still needs to be done, and as always, emotions from both sides of this discussion run high. Friedman’s entire project is to deal with the current texts of the first five books by dealing with the editorial context of its construction. In itself, “editorial context” should not be taken in a deconstructionist sense, but rather as a process that all books normally go through prior to their being brought to the public. The Pentateuch should be no exception.
As a matter fo course, the author holds that the battles between the two separated parts of Davidic Israel, the Northern Kingdom and Judah, is responsible for much of the final revision of this part of the Old Testament. In fact, Friedman goes so far as to make the claim that, given the political division of the Old Kingdom, there developed two exegetical traditions in dealing with the scriptures, and even more, that two very different forms of the scriptures developed given the constant rivalry between the two societies.
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Eventually, in the time of the Return, through a process of creative editing, a single understanding and textual basis was created. While prima facie disconcerting to the historian and theologian, the process seems to be pedagogically sound, for as the rivalries between the two kingdoms were gradually forgotten in the agony of the Babylonian Captivity, the two experiences were merged into one, while preserving some of the major elements of each. Unity, made a real force in the Captivity, was the social basis for the creation of a final, unified text, allegedly by Ezra the Scribe.
If anything, this approach provides a richer understanding of the ancient texts than if there was one “pristine” edition obligatory upon all. Yet even here, Friedman (cf. 241-244) holds that such a process is far from negating any form of divine inspiration. Truth be told, such processes are at the root of all great books, and hence, are rarely considered a problem. Early in Friedman’s story, he provides some cogent, if unoriginal, evidence that Moses did not write the Five Books (15-25).
Such arguments hold that Moses, being inarticulate, excessively self-deprecating, among other qualities, could not have, or might not have, written such things about his leadership skills and miracles. Yet of course, the ancient view is that Moses was merely a scribe for a higher authority, and that inspiration, while maintaining the characteristic of the individual writer (subjective enough to maintain), does not necessarily lead to a narrative that correspond exactly with the author’s thoughts.
In other words, God, not Moses, is the author. But this response is as common enough as the attacks against it. Friedman, for all his intelligence, cannot fully depart from the cliche ridden attacks on biblical veracity from the 19th century. Friedman, from the Creation to the gushing of the water from the rock, holds that there many be a connection between different narratives and the truth or falsehood of the narrative itself (cf. 19-20).
But of course, there is some room to hold that if there is more than one narrative, then there is more than one point of view, whether that be multiple human authors, or different interpretations of the same event over the course of time. If anything, such multiplication of stories strongly suggests Old Testament veracity than anything else. It is merely a thesis, proven by nothing but suggestion and artful construction, that one is dealing with multiple authors on true events (the weak thesis), or that the events are false (the strong thesis), and created to support political agendas.
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However, Friedman himself has claimed that the strong view is not his (Interview, n. p. ) It should be noted that the forms of Friedman’s argumentation are as ingenious as the process he attributes to the editors who brought the Israelite and Judahite sections together. Friedman is extremely picky, as in his treatment of the Golden Calf story (70-78).
The issues he raises between the two versions are very minor and in no manner affect the force or the interest of the narrative.
In fact, this level of minutiae hurts his case, showing how far Friedman has to go on showing the difficulty in squaring different interpretations of the same events. In this, as in so many other places, Friedman is bent on proving an already developed thesis, rather than developing the thesis itself, which is his job after all. Any ancient text can be treated in this way without in the least harming its integrity, but it is rare that an ancient text is forced to conform to a priori and strict examinations of veracity as the Bible has been. Again, this hurts Friedman’s case.
But the nature of these arguments is to prove that there was more than one set of ideas put on paper, ideas based not merely on political divisions between a northern and southern kingdom, but also between rival groups of priests and scribes, and finally brought together in the reconstruction of Judaism by the priest/scribe Ezra, a long standing candidate for this task. There is nothing original about the thesis, nor is there anything new about the evidence. It should be noted that Friedman does not offer anything new or original in his narrative.
He is as creative as he imagines Ezra to be in developing arguments that lead to the conclusion that there were two texts, two texts corresponding to priestly and political divisions. But even if this is the case, Friedman hedges his bets by claiming that his famous Redactor, likely Ezra in his view, maintained a distanced respect for the text, preferring slightly different versions to forming one “unified” version of a story. In fact, any Redactor could not have behaved differently, given the extreme reverence for the sacred writings.
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A controversy of immense silliness has recently broken out among Evangelicals regarding the validity of modern, conservative translations of the Bible like the New American Standard, the New International, and the New King James. The controversy was ignited by a book written by Gail Riplinger entitled New Age Bible Versions. The only thing sillier than the controversy is the book that sparked it. ...
If anything, the story that has come to us in modern times is likely helped, rather than vitiated, by the Redactor(s) work. Nevertheless, Friedman’s scholarship can be read as consistent with the single author thesis, especially if God, rather than Moses himself, is the author, as the traditionalists claim. Events were reported and understood according to the need of God to transmit certain thoughts and mindsets to the people, both then and now, and hence providing a narrative designed to lay out, in simple terms, the nature of the important events of Israelite life.
By way of conclusion, the student is faced by several documents, referring to place or priestly faction, purporting to be the authoritative account of the origins of Israel and the trials of Moses. These manuscripts are held to be separate by certain details being different from the others, as well as subjective evaluations of writing style, etc. Hence, to account for the discrepancies in the final text, one must posit a Redactor, one who took it upon himself to create a unified text, a project that was apparently ignored by scholars of the day, in Jewish communities dispersed around the Mediterranean world.
Friedman ignores the possibility of other explanations, such as later editing by Moses himself, or critiquing the basis by which the separate documents have been ferreted out of the original text in the first place. The book’s strength is in its brevity and power of language. It is easy reading for a non-specialist, and bring up more questions than it solves. Friedman, for all his faults, gives questions rather than dogmatic answers.
Works Cited/Consulted
Friedman, Richard Elliot. Who Wrote the Bible? Harper, 1997. Finklestein, Israel and Neil Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: Archeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts. Free Press, 2001 (work consulted) Sheahen, Laura. ”The Editorial Team behind the Bible: Interview with Richard E. Friedman” Beliefnet. com. http://www. beliefnet. com/Faiths/2004/02/The-Editorial-Team-Behind-The-Bible. aspx (accessed November 3, 2008) Basic Outline: I. Basic Thesis and introduction II. Strength and Weaknesses of the “multiauthor” thesis III. Strong and Weak versions of the thesis IV. Friedman and Truth V. Authorship versus Truth VI. Conclusions.
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