1991

The dictum of Wellhausen that a biblical document reflects the historical context of its own formation rather than the social milieu of its explicit referents in a more distant past is one that has hardly been overcome by any of the attempts to synthesize the tradition-historical understanding of the Pentateuch and archaeological research during the past century. The Altean and Albrightean syntheses of biblical and extra-biblical research, especially when viewed in the light of the encyclopedic accomplishments of a Galling or a de Vaux, have only intensified the Wellhausean impasse. From another direction, the form-critical analyses of the pre-history of the Pentateuch's documentary traditions, following the leads of Gunkel, Eissfeldt, Noth, and Nielsen, have substantially modified perceptions of the historical contexts of traditions and redactions. Such analyses have lent support particularly to the now-axiomatic assumption – strongly influenced by the ‘biblical theology’ movement – that biblical traditions originated in events.

These post-Wellhausean scholarly movements have shared a common goal and common presuppositions. The goal was to reconstruct the history of Israel's past and of its origins through a historical-critical appraisal of the complex biblical tradition. It was commonly assumed that the tradition's literary fixation first came about during the time of the ‘United Monarchy’ or slightly later. The existence of a considerable oral pre-history of the texts, which leads back to the central core of the tradition's referents in a yet more distant past, was taken for granted.