[
U]ORIGINS OF THE BIBLE[/U]
Before it became a collection of books, it was a folk tradition that relied entirely upon
human memory, originally the only means of passing on ideas. This tradition was
sung.
"At an elementary stage, writes E. Jacob, every people sings; in Israel, as elsewhere,
poetry preceded prose. Israel sang long and well; led by circumstances of his history
to the heights of joy and the depths of despair, taking part with intense feeling in all
that happened to it, for everything in their eyes had a sense, Israel gave its song a
wide variety of expression". They sang for the most diverse reasons and E. Jacob
mentions a number of them to which we find the accompanying songs in the Bible:
eating songs, harvest songs, songs connected with work, like the famous Well Song
(Numbers 21, 17), wedding songs, as in the Song of Songs, and mourning songs. In
the Bible there are numerous songs of war and among these we find the Song of
Deborah (Judges 5, 1-32) exalting Israel's victory desired and led by Yahweh
Himself, (Numbers 10, 35); "And whenever the ark (of alliance) set out, Moses said,
'Arise, oh Yahweh, and let thy enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee nee
before thee".
There are also the Maxims and Proverbs (Book of Proverbs, Proverbs and Maxims of
the Historic Books), words of blessing and curse, and the laws decreed to man by the
Prophets on reception of their Divine mandate.
E. Jacobs notes that these words were either passed down from family to family or
channelled through the sanctuaries in the form of an account of the history of God's
chosen people. History quickly turned into fable, as in the Fable of Jotham (Judges 9,
7-21), where "the trees went forth to anoint a king over them; and they asked in turn
the olive tree, the fig tree, the vine and the bramble", which allows E. Jacob to note
"animated by the need to tell a good story, the narration was not perturbed by subjects
or times whose history was not well known", from which he concludes:
"It is probable that what the Old Testament narrates about Moses and the patriarchs
only roughly corresponds to the succession of historic facts. The narrators however,
even at the stage of oral transmission, were able to bring into play such grace and
imagination to blend between them highly varied episodes, that when all is said and
done, they were able to present as a history that was fairly credible to critical thinkers
what happened at the beginning of humanity and the world".
There is good reason to believe that after the Jewish people settled in Canaan, at the
end of the Thirteenth century B.C., writing was used to preserve and hand down the
tradition. There was not however complete accuracy, even in what to men seems to
demand the greatest durability, i.e. the laws. Among these, the laws which are
supposed to have been written by God's own hand, the Ten Commandments, were
transmitted in the Old Testament in two versions; Exodus (20,1-21) and Deuteronomy
(5, 1-30). They are the same in spirit, but the variations are obvious. There is also a
concern to keep a large written record of contracts, letters, lists of personalities
(Judges, high city officials, genealogical tables), lists of offerings and plunder. In this
way, archives were created which provided documentation for the later editing of
definitive works resulting in the books we have today. Thus in each book there is a
mixture of different literary genres: it can be left to the specialists to find the reasons
for this odd assortment of documents.
The Old Testament is a disparate whole based upon an initially oral tradition. It is
interesting therefore to compare the process by which it was constituted with what
could happen in another period and another place at the time when a primitive
literature was born.
Let us take, for example, the birth of French literature at the time of the Frankish
Royalty. The same oral tradition presided over the preservation of important deeds:
wars, often in the defense of Christianity, various sensational events, where heroes
distinguished themselves, that were destined centuries later to inspire court poets,
chroniclers and authors of various 'cycles'. In this way, from the Eleventh century
A.D. onwards, these narrative poems, in which reality is mixed with legend, were to
appear and constitute the first monument in epic poetry. The most famous of all is the
Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) a biographical chant about a feat of arms in
which Roland was the commander of Emperor Charlemagne's rearguard on its way
home from an expedition in Spain. The sacrifice of Roland is not just an episode
invented to meet the needs of the story. It took place on 15th August, 778. In actual
fact it was an attack by Basques living in the mountains. This literary work is not just
legend ; it has a historical basis, but no historian would take it literally.
This parallel between the birth of the Bible and a secular literature seems to
correspond exactly with reality. It is in no way meant to relegate the whole Biblical
text as we know it today to the store of mythological collections, as do so many of
those who systematically negate the idea of God. It is perfectly possible to believe in
the reality of the Creation, God's transmission to Moses of the Ten Commandments,
Divine intercession in human affairs, e.g. at the time of Solomon. This does not stop
us, at the same time, from considering that what has been conveyed to us is the gist of
these facts, and that the detail in the description should be subjected to rigorous
criticism, the reason for this being that the element of human participation in the
transcription of originally oral traditions is so great
The Books of the Old Testament
The Old Testament is a collection of works of greatly differing length and many
different genres. They were written in several languages over a period of more than
nine hundred years, based on oral traditions. Many of these works were corrected and
completed in accordance with events or special requirements, often at periods that
were very distant from one another.
This copious literature probably flowered at the beginning of the Israelite Monarchy,
around the Eleventh century B.C. It was at this period that a body of scribes appeared
among the members of the royal household. They were cultivated men whose role
was not limited to writing. The first incomplete writings, mentioned in the preceding
chapter, may date from this period. There was a special reason for writing these works
down; there were a certain number of songs (mentioned earlier), the prophetic oracles
of Jacob and Moses, the Ten Commandments and, on a more general level, the
legislative texts which established a religious tradition before the formation of the
law. All these texts constitute fragments scattered here and there throughout the
various collections of the Old Testament.
It was not until a little later, possibly during the Tenth century B.C., that the so-called
'Yahvist'[6] text of the Pentateuch was written. This text was to form the backbone of
the first five books ascribed to Moses. Later, the so-called 'Elohist'[7] text was to be
added, and also the so-called 'Sacerdotal'[8] version. The initial Yahvist text deals
with the origins of the world up to the death of Jacob. This text comes from the
southern kingdom, Judah.
At the end of the Ninth century and in the middle of the Eighth century B.C., the
prophetic influence of Elias and Elisha took shape and spread. We have their books
today. This is also the time of the Elohist text of the Pentateuch which covers a much
smaller period than the Yahvist text because it limits itself to facts relating to
Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. The books of Joshua and Judges date from this time.
The Eighth century B.C. saw the appearance of the writerprophets: Amos and Hosea
in Israel, and Michah in Judah.
In 721 B.C., the fall of Samaria put an end to the Kingdom of Israel. The Kingdom of
Judah took over its religious heritage. The collection of Proverbs dates from this
period, distinguished in particular by the fusion into a single book of the Yahvist and
Elohist texts of the Pentateuch; in this way the Torah was constituted. Deuteronomy
was written at this time.
In the second half of the Seventh century B.C., the reign of Josiah coincided with the
appearance of the prophet Jeremiah, but his work did not take definitive shape until a
century later.
Before the first deportation to Babylon in 598 B.C., there appeared the Books of
Zephaniah, Nahum and Habakkuk. Ezekiel was already prophesying during this first
deportation. The fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. marked the beginning of the second
deportation which lasted until 538 B.C.
The Book of Ezekiel, the last great prophet and the prophet of exile, was not arranged
into its present form until after his death by the scribes that were to become his
spiritual inheritors. These same scribes were to resume Genesis in a third version, the
so-called 'Sacerdotal' version, for the section going from the Creation to the death of
Jacob. In this way a third text was to be inserted into the central fabric of the Yahvist
and Elohist texts of the Torah. We shall see later on, in the books written roughly two
and four centuries earlier, an aspect of the intricacies of this third text. It was at this
time that the Lamentations appeared.
On the order of Cyrus, the deportation to Babylon came to an end in 538 B.C. The
Jews returned to Palestine and the Temple at Jerusalem was rebuilt. The prophets'
activities began again, resulting in the books of Haggai, Zechariah, the third book of
Isaiah, Malachi, Daniel and Baruch (the last being in Greek). The period following the
deportation is also the period of the Books of Wisdom: Proverbs was written
definitively around 480 B.C., Job in the middle of the Fifth century B.C., Ecclesiastes
or Koheleth dates from the Third century B.C., as do the Song of Songs, Chronicles I
& II, Ezra and Nehemiah; Ecclesiasticus or Sirah appeared in the Second century
B.C.; the Book of Wisdom and the Book of Maccabees I & II were written one
century before Christ. The Books of Ruth, Esther and Jonah are not easily datable.
The same is true for Tobit and Judith. All these dates are given on the understanding
that there may have been subsequent adaptations, since it was only circa one century
before Christ that form was first given to the writings of the Old Testament. For many
this did not become definitive until one century after Christ.
Thus the Old Testament appears as a literary monument to the Jewish people, from its
origins to the coming of Christianity. The books it consists of were written, completed
and revised between the Tenth and the First centuries B.C. This is in no way a
personal point of view on the history of its composition. The essential data for this
historical survey were taken from the entry The Bible in the Encyclopedia
Universalis[9] by J. P. Sandroz, a professor at the Dominican Faculties, Saulchoir. To
understand what the Old Testament represents, it is important to retain this
information, correctly established today by highly qualified specialists.
A Revelation is mingled in all these writings, but all we possess today is what men
have seen fit to leave us. These men manipulated the texts to please themselves,
according to the circumstances they were in and the necessities they had to meet.
When these objective data are compared with those found in various prefaces to
Bibles destined today for mass publication, one realizes that facts are presented in
them in quite a different way. Fundamental facts concerning the writing of the books
are passed over in silence, ambiguities which mislead the reader are maintained, facts
are minimalised to such an extent that a false idea of reality is conveyed. A large
number of prefaces or introductions to the Bible misrepresent reality in this way. In
the case of books that were adapted several times (like the Pentateuch), it is said that
certain details may have been added later on. A discussion of an unimportant passage
of a book is introduced, but crucial facts warranting lengthy expositions are passed
over in silence. It is distressing to see such inaccurate information on the Bible
maintained for mass publication.
THE TORAH OR PENTATEUCH
Torah is the Semitic name.
The Greek expression, which in English gives us 'Pentateuch', designates a work in
five parts; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These were to
form the five primary elements of the collection of thirty-nine volumes that makes up
the Old Testament.
This group of texts deals with the origins of the world up to the entry of the Jewish
people into Canaan, the land promised to them after their exile in Egypt, more
precisely until the death of Moses. The narration of these facts serves however as a
general framework for a description of the provisions made for the religious and
social life of the Jewish people, hence the name Law or Torah.
Judaism and Christianity for many centuries considered that the author was Moses
himself. Perhaps this affirmation was based on the fact that God said to Moses
(Exodus 17, 14): "Write this (the defeat of Amalek) as a memorial in a book", or
again, talking of the Exodus from Egypt, "Moses wrote down their starting places"
(Numbers 33, 2), and finally "And Moses wrote this law" (Deuteronomy 31, 9). From
the First century B.C. onwards, the theory that Moses wrote the Pentateuch was
upheld; Flavius Josephus and Philo of Alexandria maintain it.
Today, this theory has been completely abandoned; everybody is in agreement on this
point. The New Testament nevertheless ascribes the authorship to Moses. Paul, in his
Letter to the Romans (10, 5) quoting from Leviticus, affirms that "Moses writes that
the man who practices righteousness which is based on the law . . ." etc. John, in his
Gospel (5,46-47), makes Jesus say the following: "If you believed Moses, you would
believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you
believe my words?" We have here an example of editing, because the Greek word that
corresponds to the original (written in Greek) is episteuete, so that the Evangelist is
putting an affirmation into Jesus's mouth that is totally wrong: the following
demonstrates this.
I am borrowing the elements of this demonstration from Father de Vaux, Head of the
Biblical School of Jerusalem. He prefaced his French translation of Genesis in 1962
with a General Introduction to the Pentateuch which contained valuable arguments.
These ran contrary to the affirmations of the Evangelists on the authorship of the work
in question. Father de Vaux reminds us that the "Jewish tradition which was followed
by Christ and his Apostles" was accepted up to the end of the Middle Ages. The only
person to contest this theory was Abenezra in the Twelfth century. It was in the
Sixteenth century that Calstadt noted that Moses could not have written the account of
his own death in Deuteronomy (34, 5-12). The author then quotes other critics who
refuse to ascribe to Moses a part, at least, of the Pentateuch. It was above all the work
of Richard Simon, father of the Oratory, Critical History of the Old Testament
(Histoire critique du Vieux Testament) 1678, that underlined the chronological
difficulties, the repetitions, the confusion of the stories and stylistic differences in the
Pentateuch. The book caused a scandal. R. Simon's line of argument was barely
followed in history books at the beginning of the Eighteenth century. At this time, the
references to antiquity very often proceeded from what "Moses had written".
One can easily imagine how difficult it was to combat a legend strengthened by Jesus
himself who, as we have seen, supported it in the New Testament. It is to Jean Astruc,
Louis XV's doctor, that we owe the decisive argument.
By publishing, in 1753, his Conjectures on the original writings which it appears
Moses used to compose the Book of Genesis (Conjectures sur les Mèmoires originaux
dont il parait que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse), he placed
the accent on the plurality of sources. He was probably not the first to have noticed it,
but he did however have the courage to make public an observation of prime
importance: two texts, each denoted by the way in which God was named either
Yahweh or Elohim, were present side by side in Genesis. The latter therefore
contained two juxtaposed texts. Eichorn (1780-1783) made the same discovery for the
other four books; then Ilgen (1798) noticed that one of the texts isolated by Astruc,
the one where God is named Elohim, was itself divided into two. The Pentateuch
literally fell apart.
The Nineteenth century saw an even more minute search into the sources. In 1854,
four sources were recognised. They were called the Yahvist version, the Elohist
version, Deuteronomy, and the Sacerdotal version. It was even possible to date them:
1) The Yahvist version was placed in the Ninth century B.C. (written in Judah)
2) The Elohist version was probably a little more recent (written in Israel)
3) Deuteronomy was from the Eighth century B.C. for some (E. Jacob) , and from the
time of Josiah for others (Father de Vaux)
4) The Sacerdotal version came from the period of exile or after the exile: Sixth
century B.C.
It can be seen that the arrangement of the text of the Pentateuch spans at least three
centuries.
The problem is, however, even more complex. In 1941, A. Lods singled out three
sources in the Yahvist version, four in the Elohist version, six in Deuteronomy, nine
in the Sacerdotal version, "not including the additions spread out among eight
different authors" writes Father de Vaux. More recently, it has been thought that
"many of the constitutions or laws contained in the Pentateuch had parallels outside
the Bible going back much further than the dates ascribed to the documents
themselves" and that "many of the stories of the Pentateuch presupposed a
background that was different from-and older than-the one from which these
documents were supposed to have come". This leads on to "an interest in the
formation of traditions". The problem then appears so complicated that nobody knows
where he is anymore.
The multiplicity of sources brings with it numerous disagreements and repetitions.
Father de Vaux gives examples of this overlapping of traditions in the case of the
Flood, the kidnapping of Joseph, his adventures in Egypt, disagreement of names
relating to the same character, differing descriptions of important events.
Thus the Pentateuch is shown to be formed from various traditions brought together
more or less skillfully by its authors. The latter sometimes juxtaposed their
compilations and sometimes adapted the stories for the sake of synthesis. They
allowed improbabilities and disagreements to appear in the texts, however, which
have led modern man to the objective study of the sources.
As far as textual criticism is concerned, the Pentateuch provides what is probably the
most obvious example of adaptations made by the hand of man. These were made at
different times in the history of the Jewish people, taken from oral traditions and texts
handed down from preceding generations. It was begun in the Tenth or Ninth century
B.C. with the Yahvist tradition which took the story from its very beginnings. The
latter sketches Israel's own particular destiny to "fit it back into God's Grand Design
for humanity" (Father de Vaux). It was concluded in the Sixth century B.C. with the
Sacerdotal tradition that is meticulous in its precise mention of dates and
genealogies.[10] Father de Vaux writes that "The few stories this tradition has of its
own bear witness to legal preoccupations: Sabbatical rest at the completion of the
Creation, the alliance with Noah, the alliance with Abraham and the circumcision, the
purchase of the Cave of Makpela that gave the Patriarchs land in Canaan". We must
bear in mind that the Sacerdotal tradition dates from the time of the deportation to
Babylon and the return to Palestine starting in 538 B.C. There is therefore a mixture
of religious and purely political problems.
For Genesis alone, the division of the Book into three sources has been firmly
established: Father de Vaux in the commentary to his translation lists for each source
the passages in the present text of Genesis that rely on them. On the evidence of these
data it is possible to pinpoint the contribution made by the various sources to any one
of the chapters. For example, in the case of the Creation, the Flood and the period that
goes from the Flood to Abraham, occupying as it does the first eleven chapters of
Genesis, we can see alternating in the Biblical text a section of the Yahvist and a
section of the Sacerdotal texts. The Elohist text is not present in the first eleven
chapters. The overlapping of Yahvist and Sacerdotal contributions is here quite clear.
For the Creation and up to Noah (first five chapter's), the arrangement is simple: a
Yahvist passage alternates with a Sacerdotal passage from beginning to end of the
narration. For the Flood and especially chapters 7 and 8 moreover, the cutting of the
text according to its source is narrowed down to very short passages and even to a
single sentence. In the space of little more than a hundred lines of English text, the
text changes seventeen times. It is from this that the improbabilities and
contradictions arise when we read the present-day text. (see Table on page 15 for
schematic distribution of sources)
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