Table Of ContentTHE
OLD TESTAMENT
OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT
PATRIARCHAL NARRATIVES
AND MOSAIC YAHWISM
R. W. L. Moberly
OVERTURES TO BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
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OVERTURES TO BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
The Land New Testament Hospitality
by Walter Brueggemann by John Koenig
God and the Rhetoric of Jesus, Liberation, and the
Biblical Jubilee
Sexuality
by Sharon H. Ringe
by Phyllis Trible
The Mighty from Their Thrones
Israel in Exile
by J. P. M. Walsh, S.J.
by Ralph W. Klein
Biblical Perspectives on Aging
The Ten Commandments and
by J. Gordon Harris
Human Rights
by Walter Harrelson The Economy of the Kingdom
by Halvor Moxnes
A Whirlpool of Torment
Holiness in Israel
by James A. Crenshaw
by John G. Gammie
Texts of Terror
The Feminine Unconventional
by Phyllis Trible
by Andre LaCocque
The Suffering of God
A Theology of the Cross
by Terence E. Fretheim
by Charles B. Cousar
Faithfulness in Action Reading Isaiah
by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld by Edgar W. Conrad
The Tragic Vision and the Hebrew The Old Testament of The Old
Tradition Testament
by W. Lee Humphreys by R. W. L. Moberly
Editors
Walter Brueggemann, Professor of Old Testament at Columbia
Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia
John R. Donahue, S.J., Professor of New Testament, Department of
Theology, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, Indiana
Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, Associate Professor of Religion, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia
Christopher R. Seitz, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Yale
Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut
TME
Patriarchal
Narratives (DEE) TTESTTMfflE
and
(DETTIHIE
Mosiac
(DEE) TTESTTMflE
Yahwism
R. W. L. MOBERLY
FORTRESS PRESS Minneapolis
THE OLD TESTAMENT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism
Copyright © 1992 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved. Except for brief
quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced
in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write to:
Permissions, Augsburg Fortress, 426 S. Fifth St., Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN
55440.
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard
Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Excerpt from Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel by J. Wellhausen
(Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, Publisher, Inc., 1973). Reprinted by permission.
Excerpts from Essays on Old Testament History and Religion by A. Alt (Oxford:
Blackwell, Ltd., 1966). Reprinted by permission.
Excerpts from The Tribes ofYahweh by Norman K. Gottwald, copyright © 1979
Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 10545. Reprinted by permission of Orbis Books and
SCM Press, Ltd.
Excerpts from Old Testament Theology, Vol. 1, by Gerhard von Rad (London:
SCM Press, Ltd. and New York: Harper & Row, 1962). Reprinted by permission
of SCM Press, Ltd. and HarperCollins, Publishers, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moberly, R. W. L.
The Old Testament of the Old Testament / R. W. L. Moberly.
p. cm. — (Overtures to biblical theology)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-8006-1561-1 (alk. paper):
1. Bible. O.T.—Theology. 2. Bible. O.T. Pentateuch-
-Criticisms. interpretation, etc. 3. Judaism—Relations-
-Christianity. 4. Christianity and other religions—Judaism.
I. Title. II. Series.
BS1192.5.M63 1992
221.6—dc20 91-45666
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z329.48-1984.
Manufactured in the U.S.A. AF 1-1561
96 95 94 93 92 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
For Meredith
with much love
Contents
Editor’s Foreword ix
Preface xiii
Abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
1. God’s Self-Disclosure as YHWH 5
2. Why Is the Name YHWH Used in Genesis? 36
3. The Religion of the Patriarchs 79
4. The Old Testament of the Old Testament 105
5. The Old Testament and Jewish-Christian Dialogue 147
6. Paradigms for Pentateuchal Criticism 176
Epilogue 203
Bibliography 206
Index of Authors 218
Index of Biblical Passages 220
vii
Editor’s Foreword
In its classic expression, pentateuchal criticism reached a vari
ety of theological conclusions about the various sources and
about their relationships one to another. The best known one—
and the one that also helped underscore the rightness of source
criticism as a literary science—had to do with the relationship
between the oldest source, J, and the youngest source, P. The
Jahwist believed that the divine name Yahweh had been revealed
quite early on in God’s dealings with humanity. As Gen. 4:26
puts it: “At that time people began to invoke the name of the
Lord [YHWH].” The Priestly writer (and his Elohist forebears),
on the other hand, gave prominence to the Mosaic period as the
time when the personal name of God was revealed, and therefore
before this time the generic name for God (Elohim) was the name
of choice. It was argued that the P-text at Exod. 6:1-9 raised this
observation to the level of status confessionis and put beyond
doubt the correctness of literary critical source divisions prior to
this juncture. As Exod. 6:3 puts it: “I appeared to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by my name
The Lord [YHWH] I did not make myself known to them.”
In a brilliant and penetrating way, Moberly has called this
conclusion into question. He argues that all the sources, includ
ing J, agree that an important cleavage between the patriarchal
and Mosaic periods is to be acknowledged. But then he pushes
beyond this literary and exegetically grounded observation to
press home key theological questions. While the reader may take
exception to Moberly’s literary and exegetical judgments at this
IX
X EDITOR S FOREWORD
or that point, it will be impossible to ignore the sheer energy of
his analysis and the probing way he pushes on to raise fundamen
tal theological questions which are a consequence of the source-
critical method itself. The practitioners of source criticism have
at times understood the directly theological implications of the
method itself and have frequently given prominence to theolog
ical issues and theological inquiry in assessing biblical texts from
a source-critical perspective. But Moberly wants to lodge an
objection at this point and make a critical distinction between
theological judgments that follow from historical and sociolog
ical reconstructions and a “truly theological approach” which is
“theological from the outset.”
At several junctures Moberly acknowledges his indebtedness
to Brevard Childs and Childs’s recent call for a canonical ap
proach to exegesis and interpretation. One will see in Moberly’s
analysis an assessment of the field (and its frequently all too
narrow historical interests) that is at points reminiscent of the
work of Childs. It would be fair to say they share similar enemies.
But there is another way in which Moberly stands closer to the
more traditional approach of Gerhard von Rad, especially as he
acknowledges the rightness of critical method or makes his own
adjustments but then pushes beyond matters of method and his
tory to raise theological concerns inherent in the method itself. In
that sense Moberly’s approach might be termed “theological-
critical” rather than canonical- or form-critical. In my judgment
Moberly has spotted terrain that stretches out beyond von Rad
and Childs both, and yet he also points up areas of similarity and
common concern that link them up in exciting and provocative
ways.
But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Moberly advances
a rich and stimulating collection of observations concerning
source criticism, both in its more traditional forms as well as in
the more modem work of Van Seters, Thompson, Blum, Rend-
torff, and others. Yet he does not stop here. He proceeds to press
on to a modem theological issue, Jewish-Christian dialogue, and
to offer his own fresh proposals in a manner that flows directly
from his exegetical work and his theological inquiry into source-
critical division of the Pentateuch. The relationship between
