The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study
Overview
Making of the Pentateuch, first published in 1987, has become one of the most important books on Pentateuchal origins published in a generation. In this volume, Whybray surveys the field of Pentateuch origins first developed by Julius Wellhausen in the late nineteenth century and Hermann Gunkel in the early twentieth century.
Making of the Pentateuch is divided into three sections. Part one examines literary hypotheses, looking at the Documentary Hypothesis in particular. Whybray surveys Pentateuchal criticism since Wellhausen, assesses the Documentary Hypothesis, and compares the Documentary Hypothesis to other literary hypotheses. In part two, Whybray surveys the form-critical and tradition-critical hypotheses, devoting extensive discussion to the methods of Martin Noth, Georg Fohrer, R. Rendtorff, E. Blum, and others. The final part of Making of the Pentateuch proposes an alternate approach, examining the possibility of a single author and introducing new methods of studying Pentateuchal sources. This volume also contains a massive bibliography and author index.
Top Highlights
“the common conclusion that until the period of the Exile at the earliest there was no ‘Pentateuch’” (Page 221)
“Although arguments from silence cannot be regarded as completely conclusive, it is, to say the least, surprising that the very existence of books like ‘J’ and ‘E’, which could hardly have been ‘private’ works but must have been in some sense ‘official histories’ and presumably in some way normative, should have left no mark, as far as we can tell, on the religious beliefs or national sentiments of pre-exilic Israel.” (Page 48)
“It is agreed by all critical scholars that the Pentateuch in its final form cannot have been completed before the sixth century bc. Can it be shown that any of the sources used by the author is significantly earlier than that time?” (Page 235)
“to see it as an expression of the theological standpoint of Deuteronomy or of the Deuteronomistic History.” (Page 223)
“The Documentary Hypothesis was not simply an attempt to solve a literary puzzle. The criterion to which Wellhausen attached the greatest importance for the reconstruction, out of the jumble of disparate and incongruously assembled fragments, of four separate and continuous documents was that of religious ideas and practices: the four documents, he argued, reflected four distinct and roughly datable stages in the religious evolution of Israel.” (Page 43)
Whybray's . . . book is a masterful review of all the options set out by critical scholarship since Wellhausen, i.e., over the last century. It is an exhaustive and up to date treatment, concise and highly readable.
—E. Dyck, Crux
- Title: The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study
- Author: R. Norman Whybray
- Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
- Publication Date: 1987
- Pages: 272
