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    Genesis–Leviticus
    Genesis–Leviticus
    Genesis–Leviticus
    Ebook1,781 pages25 hours

    Genesis–Leviticus

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    About this ebook

    Continuing a Gold Medallion Award-winning legacy, the completely revised Expositor's Bible Commentary puts world-class biblical scholarship in your hands.

    A staple for students, teachers, and pastors worldwide, The Expositor's Bible Commentary (EBC) offers comprehensive yet succinct commentary from scholars committed to the authority of the Holy Scriptures. The EBC uses the New International Version of the Bible, but the contributors work from the original Hebrew and Greek languages and refer to other translations when useful.

    Each section of the commentary includes:

    • An introduction: background information, a short bibliography, and an outline
    • An overview of Scripture to illuminate the big picture
    • The complete NIV text
    • Extensive commentary
    • Notes on textual questions, key words, and concepts
    • Reflections to give expanded thoughts on important issues

    The series features 56 contributors, who:

    • Believe in the divine inspiration, complete trustworthiness, and full authority of the Bible
    • Have demonstrated proficiency in the biblical book that is their specialty
    • Are committed to the church and the pastoral dimension of biblical interpretation
    • Represent geographical and denominational diversity
    • Use a balanced and respectful approach toward marked differences of opinion
    • Write from an evangelical viewpoint

    For insightful exposition, thoughtful discussion, and ease of use—look no further than The Expositor's Bible Commentary.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateDec 15, 2009
    ISBN9780310590569
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      Genesis–Leviticus - Zondervan

      THE

      EXPOSITOR’S

      BIBLE

      COMMENTARY

      THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE COMMENTARY

      in Thirteen Volumes

      When complete, the Expositor’s Bible Commentary will include the following volumes:

      Volume 1: Genesis – Leviticus

      Volume 2: Numbers – Ruth

      Volume 3: 1 Samuel – 2 Kings

      Volume 4: 1 Chronicles – Job

      Volume 5: Psalms

      Volume 6: Proverbs – Isaiah

      Volume 7: Jeremiah – Ezekiel

      Volume 8: Daniel – Malachi

      Volume 9: Matthew – Mark

      Volume 10: Luke – Acts

      Volume 11: Romans – Galatians

      Volume 12: Ephesians – Philemon

      Volume 13: Hebrews – Revelation

      To see which titles are available, visit www.zondervan.com.

      fm6_1

      ZONDERVAN

      THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE COMMENTARY: Genesis – Leviticus

      Genesis — Copyright © 2008 by John H. Sailhamer

      Exodus — Copyright © 2008 by Walter C. Kaiser Jr.

      Leviticus — Copyright © 2008 by Richard S. Hess

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

      ePub Edition September 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-59056-9

      Requests for information should be addressed to:

      Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      The expositor’s Bible commentary / [general editors], Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland. — Rev.

      p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references.

      IBSN 978-0-310-23082-3

      1.Bible. N. T. — Commentaries. I. Longman, Tremper. II. Garland, David E.

      BS2341.53.E96 2005

      220.7 — dc22

      2005006281

      All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

      08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 7 18 19 20 • 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      CONTENTS

      Cover Page

      Title Page

      Copyright Page

      Contributors to Volume One

      Preface

      Abbreviations

      Genesis

      Exodus

      Leviticus

      About the Publisher

      Share Your Thoughts

      CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME ONE

      Genesis: John H. Sailhamer (Ph.D., UCLA) is professor of Old Testament at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Brea, California, and was formerly senior professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His other works include An Introduction to Old Testament Theology and The NIV Compact Bible Commentary.

      Exodus: Walter C. Kaiser Jr. (Ph.D., Brandeis University) is the Colman M. Mockler distinguished professor of Old Testament and a former president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Dr. Kaiser has written numerous books, including Toward an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching; The Messiah in the Old Testament; and A History of Israel. Dr. Kaiser and his wife, Marge, currently reside in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin.

      Leviticus: Richard S. Hess (Ph.D., Hebrew Union College) is professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Denver Seminary. He edits the Bulletin for Biblical Research, a leading evangelical biblical studies journal, and is author of a commentary on Song of Songs in the Baker Old Testament commentary series.

      General editor: Tremper Longman III (Ph.D., Yale University) is Robert H. Gundry professor of biblical studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

      General editor: David E. Garland (Ph.D., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate dean of academic affairs and William M. Hinson professor of Christian Scriptures at George W. Truett Seminary, Baylor University, in Waco, Texas.

      PREFACE

      Frank Gaebelein wrote the following in the preface to the original Expositor’s Bible Commentary (which first appeared in 1979): The title of this work defines its purpose. Written primarily by expositors for expositors, it aims to provide preachers, teachers, and students of the Bible with a new and comprehensive commentary on the books of the Old and New Testaments. Those volumes achieved that purpose admirably. The original EBC was exceptionally well received and had an enormous impact on the life of the church. It has served as the mainstay of countless pastors and students who could not afford an extensive library on each book of the Bible but who wanted solid guidance from scholars committed to the authority of the Holy Scriptures.

      Gaebelein also wrote, A commentary that will continue to be useful through the years should handle contemporary trends in biblical studies in such a way as to avoid becoming outdated when critical fashions change. This revision continues the EBC’s exalted purpose and stands on the shoulders of the expositors of the first edition, but it seeks to maintain the usefulness of the commentary by interacting with new discoveries and academic discussions. While the primary goal of this commentary is to elucidate the text and not to provide a guide to the scholarly literature about the text, the commentators critically engage recent academic discussion and provide updated bibliographies so that pastors, teachers, and students can keep abreast of modern scholarship.

      Some of the commentaries in the EBC have been revised by the original author or in conjunction with a younger colleague. In other cases, scholars have been commissioned to offer fresh commentaries because the original author had passed on or wanted to pass on the baton to the next generation of evangelical scholars. Today, with commentaries on a single book of the Old and New Testaments often extending into multiple volumes, the need for a comprehensive yet succinct commentary that guides one to the gist of the text’s meaning is even more pressing. The new EBC seeks to fill this need.

      The theological stance of this commentary series remains unchanged: the authors are committed to the divine inspiration, complete trustworthiness, and full authority of the Bible. The commentators have demonstrated proficiency in the biblical book that is their specialty, as well as commitment to the church and the pastoral dimension of biblical interpretation. They also represent the geographical and confessional diversity that characterized the first contributors.

      The commentaries adhere to the same chief principle of grammatico-historical interpretation that drove the first edition. In the foreword to the inaugural issue of the journal New Testament Studies in 1954, Matthew Black warned that the danger in the present is that theology, with its head too high in the clouds, may end by falling into the pit of an unhistorical and uncritical dogmatism. Into any new theological undertaking must be brought all that was best in the old ideal of sound learning, scrupulous attention to philology, text and history. The dangers that Black warned against over fifty years ago have not vanished. Indeed, new dangers arise in a secular, consumerist culture that finds it more acceptable to use God’s name in exclamations than in prayer and that encourages insipid theologies that hang in the wind and shift to tickle the ears and to meet the latest fancy. Only a solid biblical foundation can fend off these fads.

      The Bible was not written for our information but for our transformation. It is not a quarry to find stones with which to batter others but to find the rock on which to build the church. It does not invite us simply to speak of God but to hear God and to confess that his Son, Jesus Christ, is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Php 2:11). It also calls us to obey his commandments (Mt 28:20). It is not a self-interpreting text, however. Interpretation of the Holy Scriptures requires sound learning and regard for history, language, and text. Exegetes must interpret not only the primary documents but all that has a bearing, direct or indirect, on the grammar and syntax, historical context, transmission, and translation of these writings.

      The translation used in this commentary remains the New International Version (North American edition), but all of the commentators work from the original languages (Hebrew and Greek) and draw on other translations when deemed useful. The format is also very similar to the original EBC, while the design is extensively updated with a view to enhanced ease of use for the reader. Each commentary section begins with an introduction (printed in a single-column format) that provides the reader with the background necessary to understand the Bible book. Almost all introductions include a short bibliography and an outline. The Bible text is divided into primary units that are often explained in an Overview section that precedes commentary on specific verses. The complete text of the New International Version is provided for quick reference, and an extensive Commentary section (printed in a double-column format) follows the reproducing of the text. When the Hebrew or Greek text is cited in the commentary section, a phonetic system of transliteration and translation is used. The Notes section (printed in a single-column format) provides a specialized discussion of key words or concepts, as well as helpful resource information. The original languages and their transliterations will appear in this section. Finally, on occasion, expanded thoughts can be found in a Reflections section (printed in a double-column format) that follows the Notes section.

      One additional feature is worth mentioning. Throughout this volume, wherever specific biblical words are discussed, the Goodrick-Kohlenberger (GK) numbers have been added. These numbers, which appear in the Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance and other reference tools, are based on the numbering system developed by Edward Goodrick and John Kohlenberger III and provide a system similar but superior to the Strong’s numbering system.

      The editors wish to thank all of the contributors for their hard work and commitment to this project. We also deeply appreciate the labor and skill of the staff at Zondervan. It is a joy to work with them — in particular Jack Kuhatschek, Stan Gundry, Katya Covrett, Dirk Buursma, and Verlyn Verbrugge. In addition, we acknowledge with thanks the work of Connie Gundry Tappy as copy editor.

      We all fervently desire that these commentaries will result not only in a deeper intellectual grasp of the Word of God but also in hearts that more profoundly love and obey the God who reveals himself to us in its pages.

      David E. Garland, associate dean for academic affairs and

      William M. Hinson professor of Christian Scriptures, George W.

      Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University

      Tremper Longman III, Robert H. Gundry professor of biblical studies,Westmont College

      ABBREVIATIONS

      Bible Texts,Versions, Etc.

      Old Testament, New Testament, Apocrypha

      Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Texts

      Other Ancient Texts

      Journals, Periodicals, Reference Works, Series

      General

      GENESIS

      JOHN H. SAILHAMER

      Introduction

      1. Historical Background

      2. Unity

      3. Authorship, Date, and Place of Origin

      4. Purpose

      5. Literary Form

      6. Genesis and the Final Shape of the Primary History

      7. Genesis and the Tanak

      8. Bibliography

      9. Outline

      1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

      Little is known about the origin and authorship of Genesis. The book is a part of the Pentateuch. Both Jewish tradition and the NT ascribe it to Moses (cf. Jn 1:17; 5:46; 7:19, 23). Though many modern biblical scholars doubt the Mosaic authorship of most of the book, there is little evidence within the book itself to warrant such wholesale skepticism. Generally, the question of the authorship of Genesis is taken up within the context of theories regarding the literary history of the narratives that make up the Pentateuch. Similarly, questions of its authorship have been bound up with doubts regarding the historicity of many of the narratives as well as varying assessments of the nature and purpose of the narratives.

      Fortunately, an understanding and an appreciation of the book are not dependent on a final answer to questions of historical background, author, unity, and composition. In the final analysis, an understanding of Genesis and its message comes from reading the book itself. No amount of historical and diachronic literary scholarship can replace the simple reading of the text as the primary means for determining the nature and purpose of this book.

      We must distinguish two forms of background material in the study of Genesis: (1) the historical background or context within which the book was written (the author’s context), and (2) the historical background or context of the events recorded in the book. In the first we have in mind a specific time and place in which Genesis was composed. We look for why the book was written, who wrote it, and for whom. In the second we must look over a wide array of settings for the events of the book, taking us from the garden of Eden to the flood, to the building of the city of Babylon, to the land of the patriarchs, and finally to the land of Egypt. In the present section we will discuss the background of Genesis in the second sense of the term — the background of the events of the book. Under Authorship, we will discuss the probable background and context within which the book was written.

      For purposes of historical background, the events of Genesis can be divided into two types. On the one hand are the events that happened on a global or even cosmic scale: e.g., creation (chs. 1 – 2) and the flood (chs. 6 – 8). On the other hand are the events that happened in an isolated, localized way: e.g., Noah’s drunkenness (ch. 9) and Abraham’s vision (ch. 15). By far the great majority of events in Genesis happened within a limited sphere of time and location and can best be described simply as family matters. The narratives of the book turn from major catastrophes, such as the flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to seemingly incidental encounters between individuals. It is a part of this book’s central purpose to show that these two spheres belong together in God’s eyes. The God of the universe, the Creator, cares about and is concerned with the personal lives of every individual in his world.

      Significantly, both the major and the minor individual types of historical events are the most difficult to reconstruct by modern historical methods. On the whole, events such as creation and the flood do not belong to the field of historical research at all. Though they are historical in nature, in that they actually happened as recorded, as a factual record they fall in the domain of the natural sciences: astronomy, geology, and biology. A study of the Genesis flood, whose magnitude evidentially appears to have been global in scope, would be the task of the science of geology. By contrast, isolated events in the lives of a few individuals such as Abraham and his family can be studied only in the general terms of historical and cultural anthropology of the ancient world. It is expecting too much to insist that the biblical archaeologist find the remains of Abraham’s own home and possessions, or Abraham’s gravesite. It is more than enough to show that the biblical account of the life of Abraham conforms well to the historical and cultural setting of the ancient world in which he lived.

      2. UNITY

      The book of Genesis is characterized by both a discernible unity as well as a noticeable lack of uniformity.¹The history of the study of the interpretation of Genesis is marked by a tendency to stress one of these characteristics at the expense of the other. Critical scholarship has focused on the lack of uniformity of style and vocabulary as a sign of a lack of unity in the composition and message of the book. Conservative scholarship often ignores the rough edges of the narratives, thinking that doing so safeguards the unity of the book. To sustain a realistic understanding of the unity of the book one must have a proper appreciation of the nature of its compositional strategy.

      Much like the writers of the NT Gospels and the later historical books of the OT (e.g., Kings and Chronicles), the writer of Genesis appears to have composed his work from archival written records of God’s great deeds in the past. We know from specific references within the historical narratives that records were available at an early stage in Israel’s history (Ex 17:14; Nu 21:14; Jos 10:13). Similar records were likely kept at earlier periods within the individual households of the patriarchs and tribal ancestors. In any event, the narratives within the book appear to be largely composed of small, self-contained stories worked into larger units by means of itineraries and genealogical tables. If such is the case, one would not expect to find absolute uniformity of style among the individual narratives any more than we might expect an absolute uniformity in the later historical books (e.g., Kings, Chronicles, or the Gospels). Indeed, we would more likely expect the writer, working under God’s direction, to have preserved his records as he received them, sacrificing uniformity and cohesion where necessary for the sake of historical faithfulness.

      The unity of Genesis, therefore, should be seen in its coherent compositional strategy rather than in an absolutely smooth and uniform narrative. The narrative about building the city of Babylon (11:1 – 9) is almost entirely self-contained and shows little external relationship with other narratives within its immediate context. Yet this narrative plays a strategic role in the development of one of the major themes in the book: the restoration of the primeval blessing through the call of Abraham. By placing the narrative between two genealogies of Shem, the author establishes a relationship between the central point of the narrative — Let us make a name [‘Shem’] for ourselves (11:4) — and the central point of the patriarchal narratives — and God said, ‘I will make your name [‘Shem’] great’ (12:2a). Thus the genealogies of Shem provide a narrative link between the story of the fall of Babylon (11:1 – 9) and the account of the call of Abraham (12:1 – 3). The picture of the narratives of Genesis that emerges from such observations is that of a carefully wrought account of Israel’s early history fashioned from the narratives and genealogical tables of Israel’s own ancestral archives.

      3. AUTHORSHIP, DATE, AND PLACE OF ORIGIN

      Who wrote the book of Genesis? When, where, and why was it written? Since Genesis is a part of the Pentateuch, the authorship of Genesis is bound up with the question of the authorship of the Pentateuch. Like most biblical books in the OT, however, the Pentateuch does not contain the name of its author.

      Early tradition ascribes the authorship of most of the Pentateuch to Moses. The last eight verses (Dt 34:5 – 12), which contain the report of the death and burial of Moses, are usually excluded. Throughout the Pentateuch Moses is associated with writing some narratives in the Pentateuch. Moses, for example, records the account of the battle with the Amalekites (Ex 17:14). Most of the laws in the Pentateuch are portrayed as having been dictated by God to Moses and also written down by him (cf. Ex 20:1). Later biblical texts such as Joshua 8:31 – 32 likewise speak of the literary contribution of Moses to the laws now contained in the Pentateuch. It seems apparent that Jesus and the writers of the NT believed Moses was the author of much, if not all, of the Pentateuch (e.g., Jn 5:46). While we may concur with these later biblical authors, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Pentateuch itself comes to us as an anonymous work and was apparently intended to be read as such.

      Before attempting to identify the author, it is important to have a clear picture of how the book was written. There are three general views of the authorship of the Pentateuch: the common (or traditional) view, the critical view, and the compositional view, which represents the view taken in this commentary on Genesis.

      The Common (or Traditional) View

      According to the common view, central (i.e., well-known) biblical persons, such as Moses, Joshua, Ezra, and others, were the primary authors of the OT books. They used historical records available to them to write of the past events in the Bible. For events in their own day, they relied on their own eyewitness observations. In most cases they simply wrote down accounts of events as they happened. The biblical account of Moses’ recording of Israel’s battle with the Amalekites in Exodus 17:14 is a prime example. After the battle, God commands Moses to make a record of the defeat of the Amalekites; it is to be a source for Israel’s later memory of God’s great acts of salvation against their enemies. This account shows how Moses continued to write the Pentateuch as the events themselves transpired. The OT thus took shape gradually and progressively as each successive event was recorded. Always, however, according to the common view, the process was controlled by a single, known author.

      Though the common view is sufficiently precise about who wrote the OT books, it is not as clear on the details about how the books were written. Unlike many of today’s critical scholars, who seem preoccupied with describing how the books were written, the common view tended to focus only on the identity of their authors.

      The lasting value of the traditional view has been its holistic approach to the biblical texts. By viewing the biblical books as the works of individual authors, emphasis naturally focuses on the meaning of the work as a whole. Modern biblical scholarship, with its radically different view of authorship (see below), moves in the other direction. In many scholarly studies of Genesis, the question of how the OT books were written has taken center stage. This has shifted attention away from seeing Genesis and the other OT books as whole texts and viewing them merely as the bits and pieces of supposed, earlier documents that have only imperfectly survived in the final text.

      Did Moses use sources? Many today proceed on the assumption that if we can answer the question of how the OT books were written, there is no further need for the question of who wrote them. It is, for example, commonly assumed by biblical scholars — erroneously I believe — that if Moses wrote the book of Genesis and the Pentateuch, he would not have used sources or previously edited documents. That being the case, many have attempted to disprove the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch simply by showing that there are written sources lying behind its present form. This has been a major line of opposition to the idea of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

      It is in cases just such as this that we must be careful to examine the underlying assumptions of both the traditional view as well as the opposition to it. We must raise, for example, both the question of how the Pentateuch was written and that of who its author was. If it can be shown that the author of the Pentateuch used written sources and if the traditional view is correct that Moses was that author, then we should accept the apparent conclusion that Moses used sources in writing the Pentateuch. In that case, Moses would have been no different from the author of the books of Kings or the authors of the Gospels. The use of written sources was a common feature of the authorship of many biblical books. The monumental conservative work on the OT by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown readily conceded that

      in the composition of those parts of the Pentateuch relating to matters which were not within the sphere of his personal knowledge, Moses would and did avail himself of existing records . .. interweaving them into his narrative conformably with that unity of design which so manifestly pervades the entire Pentateuch.²

      As it is commonly stated, there is inherently little that we might want to object to in the traditional view. Its chief weakness lies in its lack of detail. Though it has gone to great lengths to discover who wrote the OT books, it has said little about how they were written. This has proven to be a serious omission. Failure to address the full range of questions relating to authorship leaves the traditional view without a basis for a well-formulated answer to those who might challenge the integrity of Scripture. To state the obvious, the traditional view is grounded only in tradition; it is not sufficiently grounded in an actual examination of the Scriptures themselves.

      A second serious omission in the traditional view is its lack of a clear focus on the final form of the text. To be sure, the traditional view saw itself as focusing on the present text, but it did so with a great deal of imprecision. Often in discussions of the authorship of OT books, those who held the traditional view failed to see the actual book in view. They talked about the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, but at the same time they excluded the last eight verses of the Pentateuch (Dt 34:5 – 12), which speak of the death and burial of Moses. To most today it is obvious that Moses did not write that part of the book. But what is the Pentateuch if not what is now in the Pentateuch? This may appear to be a rather small point, but it reveals the kind of lack of precision that lies behind the common (traditional) view.

      The (Literary-) Critical View

      The critical view of biblical authorship maintains that the books of the OT are not derived from authors in the traditional sense. According to this view, the OT books are little more than compilations of earlier documents gathered from a long history of oral and written sources. The biblical books are not books in the usual sense of the term. They are the end result of a long process of literary growth — a long process that involved numerous uses and reuses of the same written material in new contexts, along with countless additions and supplementation. To speak of an author, let alone Moses, has little merit in such a context.

      According to the critical view, the biblical books arose out of the needs of various Israelite communities over long periods of time. In times of crises, or simply to give an expanded meaning to everyday life, various communities within ancient Israel told and retold the stories passed on to them. Each community understood the stories and traditions as reflections of their own present lives; hence they told these stories in their own way and with their own present circumstances in view. When they retold their stories, according to the critical view, they changed the details to reflect their current situation. For example, the words of one prophet might be used by another to tell his story. The deeds of one patriarch might be recast as the deeds of another. The individual books of the Bible as we have them today may thus represent only the last version of the meaning of Israel’s past. Many other viewpoints and versions of that story may have preceded the accounts preserved in the biblical books.

      Though various critical views of the making of the Pentateuch have come in and out of vogue, OT scholarship as a whole has accepted the main tenets of this position up to the present day. That does not mean, however, that there were not also many biblical scholars who never, or rarely, accepted the critical approach. There have in fact been many able-minded opponents of the critical view who have risen to defend the traditional views of the authorship of the Pentateuch and other biblical books. Those valuable works have continued to be appreciated by readers of the Bible and still enjoy wide circulation today.

      Beginning in the twentieth century, the study of biblical archaeology has demonstrated the historical feasibility of many long-held traditional views of authorship. In the early days of biblical criticism, for example, many believed that Moses could not have written a work of the magnitude and sophistication of the Pentateuch. But biblical archaeologists can now point to numerous examples of long and sophisticated works from Moses’ time that presume a considerable level of literacy.³Also, the use of the alphabet at an early period in Israel’s history suggests that a functional literacy was already widespread in Israel in Moses’ day.⁴Law codes and narratives resembling those in the Pentateuch were not uncommon. A growing body of archaeological knowledge shows that traditional views of Mosaic authorship are not hopelessly anachronistic but are, in fact, historically plausible. Such examples have been multiplied many times over since the twentieth century.

      What characterizes modern critical studies of the authorship of the OT books is the view that they are not, as we now have them, the product of an authorship in the usual sense of the term. They are, rather, the product of a long process of compilation and editing. That process in itself is often more important and interesting to the biblical scholar than the final product of the OT books themselves. If one is to speak of biblical authorship at all under such circumstances, one should speak only of the authorships (plural!) of the biblical books. According to most contemporary approaches, there was no single author for any OT book. There are, rather, many authors, each one with particular concerns and messages to be brought out in the material of the book. It is thus thought that the books of the OT were composed over many centuries, in numerous situations, and with multiple purposes in mind. In the end, little attention has been given to the books as we now have them. Such an approach presents serious obstacles to understanding the biblical books we have in the OT today.

      This is not the time or place to give a thorough assessment of the modern critical view of the OT scriptures. I want here only to point to what I believe are its major strengths and weaknesses.

      Much turns today on the question of the historical reliability of the OT narratives. Modern critical scholarship has a quite low assessment of their historical worth. I believe such a low assessment is not well founded and is without serious and consistent historical support. It is born out of a general and unwarranted skepticism of all historical records. It is our view that when seen in the context of what these narratives say about the ancient world and in the light of what we know about ancient history from other sources, the OT narratives are remarkably accurate accounts of past events. It is a curious fact that at the very time when historical and archaeological data confirming the reliability of the OT history are continuing to mount, critical scholarship has found itself moving in an increasingly skeptical direction.

      We must bear in mind that the skepticism of modern critical scholarship is often just that — skepticism. Methodologically, many modern scholars prefer to question or doubt the historical reliability of the OT narratives until they are explicitly proven to be true. Such an approach, needless to say, puts an enormous burden on the need to prove the countless details of the biblical narratives to be true and accurate. One can understand the rationale for such an approach and even concede its validity in certain cases. We should not expect an historian, as such, to take everything in the Bible at face value without any attempt at verification. What is not possible to concede, however, is the assumption that such an approach is the only scientifically acceptable procedure for studying the OT narratives.

      In light of the universal acknowledgment that the OT narratives do, in fact, preserve some accurate historical information, it is reasonable and methodologically sound to give them the benefit of the doubt unless they can be proven false. This is especially the case where the biblical events do not lend themselves to being independently confirmed in detail. How could we ever verify what Abraham said to his wife Sarah on a particular day enroute to Egypt (Ge 12:10 – 20)? Their conversation on that day is historically irrecoverable. If the biblical account of Abraham’s journey to Egypt is itself true to life within the context of the ancient world in which they lived, and if aspects of the narrative can be shown to be historically accurate, then it is reasonable to believe that its account of Abraham’s conversation with Sarah is also reliable. What often has to be assessed is the general historical reliability of the narratives themselves. Do they reflect accurately the time period and culture they purport to depict? Do the stories contradict themselves or other events we know to have occurred from eyewitness accounts?

      In the Genesis narrative, for example, it is distinctly stated in the opening verse that Abraham and Sarah went down to Egypt because there was a famine in the land (Ge 12:10). Now we know that that particular reason suits the historical situation of ancient Canaan and Egypt quite well. There are, in fact, wall paintings on Egyptian tombs from this same period showing Asiatic visitors in Egypt (Beni Hasan Tomb of Prince Khnumhotep III,Tomb of Prince Khety, dated ca. 1991 – 1786 BC). These are practically ancient photographs of the families of Abraham and Jacob. Moreover, a contemporary report of an Egyptian frontier guard tells of the official authorization of Edomites to enter Egypt to keep them alive and to keep their cattle alive. This sounds like a quotation right out of the Bible (Ge 42:2), but it isn’t. It is from an account contemporary with the biblical events.

      One can perhaps understand such methodological skepticism in dealing with ancient texts. A historian would not want to take all the claims of any ancient document at face value, even if they should later be proven true. From a historical perspective, historical claims should be proven, or at least verified, before they are accepted as established fact. There is a thin line, however, between such methodological doubt and an actual distrust of the reliability of the OT narratives. In my opinion, to the extent that modern biblical criticism simply distrusts the OT narratives, it goes beyond the legitimate bounds of its historical criticism. The OT narratives have many times demonstrated that they are reliable historical documents. Where they can be tested or falsified, they have proven to be reliable. There comes a point at which one must acknowledge the general reliability of such ancient texts. In areas where the events in such texts have not been specifically verified, the benefit of doubt rests in their favor. We believe the OT narratives, given their long record of proven reliability, have earned the right to be trusted until falsified by contemporary historical records.

      An important positive feature of the modern critical view is its attempt to understand the nature of the composition of the OT books. One can even speak of a trend among some critics today that assigns increasingly less importance to the task of reconstructing earlier documents and more importance to retracing the activities that have led to the composition of the final shape of the text. To be sure, this is not to say that critical scholars no longer believe such documents existed. Few critical scholars today would doubt the existence of sources in the Bible. What is no longer the primary concern of modern criticism is the task of reconstructing the documents that lay behind the present text.

      Many modern critical scholars believe the documents lying behind the present biblical texts were either too fragmentary to reconstruct or were melded so closely into the final text that it is now impossible to separate them confidently from their context. Also, many believe that the sources used by the biblical writers may have circulated in oral form before they were written down and eventually used in composing the biblical narratives. That, of course, does not rule out the likelihood that some records were written from the start. Few biblical scholars today, however, have the appetite for the painstaking and often fruitless task of unscrambling the literary fabric that now forms the biblical stories. What this means is that the attention of biblical scholarship has, at least in many circles, turned to the biblical narratives themselves, the ones that now lie before us in the present text. Though there is still little interest among biblical critics today in viewing the Pentateuch as a Mosaic document — that is, a document written or contributed to largely by Moses — there is a great and growing interest in viewing the Pentateuch as a document composed of many ancient written records and reflecting a final unity of design.

      I believe that such a view of the composition of the OT narratives provides a helpful starting point for understanding the history of the Bible and its message. Gone are the days when, under the influence of the goal of reconstructing earlier documents, biblical scholars sought to dissect and label every presumed segment of the biblical texts. Gone also are the days when biblical scholars were more concerned with what the earlier documents said than what the OT, in its final form (as we now have it), says. With the help of a wealth of new information about the formation of ancient texts and early writing practices, biblical scholars are able to focus their attention on the composition and meaning of the biblical texts now in the Hebrew Bible. It is along these lines that the present commentary on the book of Genesis will proceed.

      The Compositional View

      We turn now to the third view of authorship, the compositional view. Here we ask what biblical scholars have had to say about the composition of the OT books. What do we know about the formation of ancient texts and how they were written? What do we know, specifically, about the composition of the OT in general and the book of Genesis in particular?

      The compositional view attempts to trace the ways biblical authors organized and shaped their various texts into unified and whole books. It focuses on the historical authors of the biblical books. It also attempts to understand the theological characteristics of their finished works.⁵This view approaches the OT text as a literary unit and attempts to describe its literary strategy. Behind such compositional strategies lies the intent of the inspired biblical authors.

      When viewed as a whole, biblical texts are single literary units composed of many small or large pieces and fragments of ancient texts. In the interweaving of these parts into a whole, a discernible strategy can be traced throughout the entire work. That strategy is the key to the meaning and theology of the book. In the Pentateuch, as we develop in more detail below, important poetic texts are deliberately attached to large narrative segments in order to provide those narratives with a central thematic interpretation.⁶Also, the various law codes within the Pentateuch are deliberately placed within a narrative framework.⁷

      The theological motivation behind the strategy of the Pentateuch appears to be twofold. First, it demonstrates the failure of the Sinaitic covenant and the hope that lies in a yet-future new covenant.⁸In this respect it is similar in meaning and intent to the rest of the books of the OT, particularly those of the prophetic literature. Second, the Pentateuch looks forward to the future for the coming of a savior-king in the last days. That king will defeat Israel’s enemies and restore God’s blessing to all humanity.⁹It is for the purpose of developing those themes that Genesis was attached to the beginning of the Pentateuch.

      In-Textuality. The compositional strategy of a biblical text can be traced at various levels.¹⁰The cohesive nature of the strategy of the smallest literary unit is called in-textuality. Schmidt defines in-textuality as a distinct illocutionary act, or statement, performed by a segment of a text. A text as a total communication act is a coherent network of such discreet utterances. Any one of these discreet segments is an in-text.¹¹This simply means that the various parts of even the smallest literary units can be expected to belong together and to make sense as a whole.¹²In-textuality is the inner coherence of the smallest units of text. We will devote a considerable amount of attention to this strategy in the following commentary.

      The analysis of the compositional strategy of a biblical book such as Genesis begins with the in-textuality of each biblical passage. The inner-cohesion of the smallest passage is as important as the structural unity of the entire book. Finding the in-textuality of a biblical passage involves a close analysis of the smallest literary unit. One may employ various kinds of critical analysis. Form criticism,

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