E-Book, Englisch, 360 Seiten
Utzschneider / Oswald / Dietrich Exodus 1-15
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-3-17-025336-0
Verlag: Kohlhammer
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 360 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-17-025336-0
Verlag: Kohlhammer
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark
This commentary interprets the first part of the book of Exodus, through 15:21. It features two approaches. On the one hand, the commentary interprets the final form of the traditional Hebrew text "synchronically" by means of form criticism and modern literary methods. On the other hand, it "diachronically" reconstructs the predecessors of the final form, from its origins in an exodus composition that opposes political domination to the text's final form as a dramatic narrative about the transfer of sovereignty from the Pharaoh to the God of Israel. Concluding syntheses examine the relationship between these two interpretive approaches while adding reflections on traditional and contemporary concerns.
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Introduction: The Exodus Narrative in Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective
The IECOT commentary series has set itself the goal of combining, to the greatest possible degree, diachronic and synchronic perspectives in its exegesis of the Old Testament. The starting point and reference point for both perspectives is the traditional text that has been transmitted in the Biblia Hebraica. We have decided to call chapters 1–15 the subject matter of this commentary, the “biblical exodus narrative.” In this commentary, separate authors have treated the two interpretive perspectives – Helmut Utzschneider the synchronic perspective and Wolfgang Oswald the diachronic. In this commentary, the two different interpretive perspectives will initially be treated separately in the sub-sections “synchrony” and “diachrony,” both part of the section called “text analysis.” Their common basis will be the translation, which is provided with notes. In the section entitled “synthesis,” moments of convergence and divergence between the two perspectives will be related to each other. The “dialogue” between the two interpretive perspectives aims to deepen theological understanding and clarify the degree to which the respective hermeneutical presuppositions bring about different interpretations. The following introductions each have their own research goals and scope of analysis. The introduction from a synchronic perspective offers a broad view of the exodus narrative (Exod 1:1–15:21), in accordance with the scope of this commentary. The introduction from a diachronic perspective, on the other hand, treats the entire book of Exodus. This is because the stages that underlie the final form of the text consist of compositions that are not limited to the first part of the book of Exodus. In some cases, the decisive evidence for the presence of a layer of literary extension is found in Exod 16–40; as such, a comprehensive view of the text is required in order to successfully sketch the literary history of the book. A. The Biblical Exodus Narrative – A Synchronic Analysis
1. “Synchronic Interpretation” as Literary-Aesthetic Interpretation
The term “synchronic” is firmly anchored yet only vaguely defined in biblical scholarship. Though we cannot repeat the debate here,1 it is nevertheless necessary to give a brief account of the way this commentary understands the term. Synchronic Interpretation in Exodus Commentaries In addition to this, it is helpful to cast a glance next at the significance of synchronic interpretation for more recent commentaries on the book of Exodus.2 Synchronic interpretation has now firmly established itself in the discipline; nevertheless, the understanding of this perspective is variously accentuated and often is defined in contrast to a diachronic perspective (cf. section B.1. of this introduction for the diachronically oriented commentaries). Of these commentaries, the first to be mentioned is Das Buch Exodus by the Jewish scholar and Rabbi Benno Jacob. This comprehensive book was written in German between 1934 and 1944. Because its author had to flee Nazi Germany it has only been accessible in a restored German edition since 1997. The commentator orients himself towards the extant Hebrew text, which he analyzes in light of an intimate knowledge of the classical Jewish interpretive literature and with great linguistic precision. Benno Jacob’s primary concern is to work out the “religious thoughts and intentions” of the Torah, “according to which the narrative has been shaped in the way it has and not in some other way.”3 This point of view is combined with a healthy scepticism towards historically analytical biblical scholarship that has its source in Christian Protestantism. In particular, Jacob vehemently rejects the theory of literary sources, which at the time of his writing was almost the only dominant theory.4 The four-volume commentary by Cornelis Houtman that appeared between 1993 and 2002 does in fact assume that “material from various sources”5 has played a role in the composition of the entire work. At the same time, due to an act of “final editing,”6 the entire work is characterized by considerable unity. This is precisely the sense in which it was intended to be a “unity,” and so this is how it should be read. This does not prohibit us from noting, in individual cases, moments of unevenness or tension in the text that may indicate a literary prehistory behind the unified end product. The Exodus volume by Carol Meyers, which appeared in 2005 as part of the series New Cambridge Bible Commentaries, has clearly been influenced by more recent literary studies. In line with these trends, her commentary is interested in the “existing text,”7 which does not hinder the author from occasionally drawing attention to traces of the sources of the present text, in particular the “dominant hand of P.”8 From a literary perspective, “Exodus [is] essentially a narrative – a connected series of episodes with characters and a plot.”9 As a narrative, the entire book of Exodus (not only the exodus narrative in Exod 1–15) has a special function. With reference to Jan Assmann, Meyers claims that it is remembered history and thus represents “a kind of thinking, in which the biblical traditions are understood as phenomena of collective cultural memory.”10 This “literature of remembrance” preserves elements of historical reality, such as events and conditions in Egypt during the 19th Dynasty, which are analogous to certain events in the exodus narrative.11 She supposes that the figure of Moses preserves the memory of a charismatic figure from the beginnings of Israel in the village culture of the Iron Age. As in her other works, Meyers applies feminist exegesis to the Exodus narrative (cf. in particular her interpretation of the Song of Miriam in Exod 15:20). As in Meyer’s commentary, Christoph Dohmen’s German language volume Exodus 19–40, published in 2004 as part of the series Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament, orients itself towards the traditional Hebrew text and has as its starting point the role of the reader, specifically that of the contemporary reader. The meaning of texts is “always as manifold as their readers.”12 Nevertheless, limitations are placed upon this semantic diversity by the “intentio operis” – Dohmen refers here to Umberto Eco. However, nowhere does Dohmen name a method or even criteria for determining the “intentio operis.” The interpretive perspective is twofold: it desires to do justice to both the textual perspective and to the perspective of the reader. As such the commentary is the “guarantor and watchman of the text” while simultaneously keeping open the text’s “semantic plenitude and multidimensionality.”13 For Dohmen, this is part and parcel of a clear scepticism towards classical, diachronic research. Dohmen is not concerned with discovering the “original meaning” or the authorial intention of the text. Inquiry into the earlier stages of the text is not ruled out of court, but for him it does not belong to the actual task of a commentary. Das Buch Exodus, a German commentary by Georg Fischer and Dominik Markl, which appeared in 2009 in the series Neuer Stuttgarter Kommentar – Altes Testament, also takes a synchronic approach. The authors undertook to “remain close to the biblical word,”14 which meant paying attention to its linguistic structure with all its intricacies. The authors strive to provide a comprehensive portrait of the narrative by paying special attention to its inner movement, its figures and motifs, as well as the text’s peculiar literary characteristics. This latter phenomenon can be seen above all in the fact that the individual parts demonstrate a “coherent, often even necessary sequence.”15 The result is a very unified view of the exodus narrative and the book of Exodus, the “Exodus scroll,”16 as a totality; this view typically has great scepticism towards all diachronic theories.17 Fischer und Markl read “Exodus as an intentional unity full of tensions.”18 The Text as “Literary-Aesthetic Subject” This commentary agrees with the commentaries discussed above in that it relates its synchronic interpretation to the traditional Hebrew text. It understands this entity to be a “literary-aesthetic subject,”19 i.e. an independent literary work that can be meaningfully read without reference to the intentions of its authors and without knowledge of the history of its development. Synchronic interpretation in this sense is directed towards the literary form, the poetic formation of the traditional Hebrew text, as well as its aesthetic response. Its most defining poetic form is narrative. This form is realized by means of the specific features of ancient Hebrew narrative style (e.g. syntax, textual incipits), as well as more general narrative techniques20 that are also typical of modern narrative texts. At its heart, therefore, synchronic interpretation is a representation of the narrative profile of the exodus narrative. It is the purpose of this introduction to give an initial impression of this profile; this will later be further developed in the exegesis of its larger and smaller sub-units. Textual Form Literary-aesthetic interpretation also focuses...
