艾莫利大学

圣经的史前史，目的和政治前景

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With its walls razed to ground by Babylon’s armies, Jerusalem joined a long line of ancient vanquished cities—from Ur and Nineveh and Persepolis to Babylon itself. While some recovered from the destruction, others did not. But none responded to political catastrophe by fashioning the kind of elaborate and enduring monument to their own downfall that we find in the Bible. Most conquered populations viewed their subjugation as a source of shame. They consigned it to oblivion, opting instead to extol the golden ages of the past. The biblical authors in contrast reacted to loss by composing extensive writings that acknowledge collective failure, reflect deeply upon its causes, and discover thereby a ground for collective hope. Working through colorful biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts, and drawing on an array of comparative examples, the course illustrates the thoroughgoing manner with which biblical authors responded to defeat by advancing a demotic agenda that places the community at the center. The aim of the biblical authors was to create a nation, and they sought to realize this goal via a shared text, which includes stories and songs, wisdom and laws. This corpus of writings belongs, without a doubt, to humanity’s greatest achievements. Whereas the great civilizations of the Near East invested their energies and resources into monuments of stone that could be destroyed by invading armies, the biblical authors left a literary legacy that has been intensively studied until the present day. More important, these authors’ visionary response to defeat brought to light a radical new wisdom: the notion that a people is greater than the state which governs it, and that a community can survive collapse when all of its members can claim a piece of the pie and therefore have a reason to take an active part in its collective life.

From the lesson

The Making of the Bible as a Response to Defeat

In this module, we dive into the question of why the biblical authors created the Bible. We begin by looking at various depictions of how Judahites were living after the fall of Judah. These depictions provide us with insight into what the biblical authors were facing after the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests. We then turn our attention to the biblical writings as we deconstruct and reconstruct the text in order to discover what drives the biblical project. By engaging the text critically, we begin to see how the biblical authors creatively combined sources to create a pan-Israelite history. Upon completion of this module, learners will be able to: 1) Differentiate between extrabiblical and biblical depictions of Judahite communities living in various locations after the fall of Judah, 2) Identify distinct traditions or sources within the biblical text and distinguish between core narratives and supplements or links, and 3) Compare and contrast the dominant theories concerned with the composition of the Bible.

Analyzing a Biblical Text: Genesis 266:49

A Closer Look at Genesis 2613:40

Interweaving Sources5:04

Compositional Theories5:29

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Jacob L. Wright
Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible
Candler School of Theology and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies

So I just discussed some of how our work and what we did in the

studio in the two segments before really

relates to the development of a larger narrative.

And the importance of this for our purposes is the following.

That the formation of the earliest sources, the histories of Israel,

whether it be the history of Israel's ancestors and the lives of.

Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, or the histories of the exodus leaving

Egypt and the conquest of the land, really are built upon the

linking of what are separate individual representatives of clans and that

they're being brought together to create a larger conception of a people.

Of what's, is, what's called Israel.

So, I've mentioned also P&J and there's another sigla that we use,

siglum that we use, E and another one in addition to that, D.

So, JEPD you probably know this before,

from the documentary hypothesis where you prepared

for the course, or you had it in your college courses or read it somewhere.

There is this theory that the Torah or the Pentateuch

really consists of four sources that have been spliced together.

And this theory goes way back, long into

really 18th, 19th century and we won't go through

the history, you can read about it in

various places, whether on the internet or in textbooks.

We don't need to go into that but what I would like

to draw attention to is where we are now within biblical studies.

The current situation is, is that there is a renaissance of this strict JEPD

theory, that the, the theories that, that there are four sources,

one is called J, which really refers to the Yahwist, which we would

write with a Y but it's in German, so it's said with J.

And then there's an Elohist which is, comes

from a, a different place that tells a very

similar story, and along comes the priestly source, the

P source that I talked a little bit about.

And then later the d source.

And we'll talk a little about the d in greater length later.

But this theory goes way back into the study

of the Pentateuch and the formation of the Biblical literature.

And it's now regaining a foothold in various

places in America and Israel and other places.

On the other side of the spectrum

are those, mostly within the continent, continental Europe.

Where I was trained, and that is a group of

scholars which really have their roots that go back into

the JEPD theory, it's a German theory or a continental

European theory and that only later took hold in America.

These scholars that are still working in continental Europe and really are in many

ways some of the leaders in Biblical

studies, have departed from the JPD theory.

And what they work on in, in, in general, and

I'm now being very collapsing a lot of differences, but what

one usually does when training students, PhD students to work with

Biblical literature is to show that there is a base text.

And then the base text is also, has a

corresponding source, and that base text is sometimes called j.

And in keeping with the old, JEPD theory, and that

supplemental text is most often, very rarely not, called p.

So what one does is separate the p text from non p text and then

try to define whether the non p text is older or later than the p text.

So, there are two very different ways of thinking about these things.

One.

The one I just explained, this continen-, continental

European tradition, allows for a lot more supplements.

A lot more additions to the text, and that is in keeping

with a whole evolution and each generation as the text is expanded.

And the other is much more fixed on separating independent sources.

The importance of all of this for our work is that the supplementary approach, which

is really falsely called supplementary, because it

also has sources at the base of it.

But, the one that allows for much more additions and redactions,

and Layering in the sources and the biblical traditions, is much

more in keeping with I'm trying to do in showing how

generation after generation came to grips with issues that faced their community.

And, or their communities I should say.

And they adapted their literature to address those concerns.

And that this is not a formalistic bringing

together of sources at one point in time.

But rather something that is an ongoing process.

And the second reason is that this is also going on at

a time where when the states of Israel and Judah are destroyed.

According to the older JEPD theory and the one that's being

revived in many corners of the field, the strict neodocumentary approach.

All of this, all of these sources really took on shape during the times when

Israel and Judah were thriving as kingdoms and when great kings were on the throne.

Whether they be Hezekiah or Josiah, what have you.

It goes all the way back to King David

and Solomon and the earlier generations of this theory.

My attempt is to show that yes, there is some stuff that goes back to the states of

Israel and Judah, but it's real shape, it's real color and profile and some

of the most fascinating details, and what makes it so fun to read is due to

the multiple, small additions to the text that

really respond to great crises facing the people.

After they lose things that they take for granted, such as

their state, such as their borders, and their armies and so forth