Genesis, A Royal Epic. Loren R. Fisher
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view of how to determine the meaning of the text. The Hebrew text in which Genesis was written cannot “speak for itself” to those who do not read Hebrew. The translator must help the text find its voice, and to find ways to allow the text to speak to modern readers as it once spoke to ancient readers. From the determination of the meanings of individual words, to the syntax of phrases and sentences, to the sense of paragraphs and larger units of material, the translator must constantly endeavor to convey the significance of the text to the reader.
To illustrate the role of the translator, we might turn to Gen 5:22 and 24, where I have translated a Hebrew phrase in each verse as “Enoch walked with the gods.” The reader is not likely to find “the gods” in other translations, which will read simply “God.” How should we account for the two different interpretations of the phrase?
In the Bible, the title “God” is often expressed by the Hebrew word ’elohim, which is the word used in Gen 5:22 and 24. This Hebrew word is not a singular noun! The -im ending is plural. ’Elohim literally signifies “gods,” and when the word appears in texts outside the Bible it is always translated as a plural. However, in the Bible ’elohim usually denotes one god, and in these cases, this translation just leaves it as Elohim. When translators of Genesis see the word ’elohim, how can they know whether it refers to one god or any number of gods?
They could use grammar as a basis. In Gen 5:22 and 24 ’elohim is preceded by the definite article, so that it literally reads “the ’elohim.” The translation “the gods” better conveys the grammatical sense of the text than the translation “God.” Why, then, do most translators use “God” for the phrase “the ’elohim”?
Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, the reference grammar used by most students throughout the twentieth century, shows us the reason. According to Gesenius, we should translate the plural form ’elohim as a singular unless the speaker of the passage can be understood as a “heathen!”1 So according to Gesenius, Enoch could walk with only one God because Enoch was not a heathen. Gesenius’s expectations about the meaning of the text are shaped by theology more than grammar.
Genesis 6:9 offers another example of a man, in this case Noah, walking with “the ’elohim.”2 I have translated: “With the gods, Noah walked,” where other translators perceive Noah walking with “God.” Again, the difference is between the translators, not the wording of the text. Not only do other translators ignore the definite article and the plural form of the noun, they also overlook the narrative fact that Noah in Genesis 6 and Enoch in Genesis 5 live before the Flood. In the traditions inherited by the Israelites, the Flood marks a major dividing-line in human affairs, and the pre-Flood heroes were not monotheistic theologians! The point is that the grammar of the texts and their ancient contexts lead me in one direction, while an anachronistic theological presupposition leads Gesenius in another direction.
The treatment of ’elohim illustrates the need for translators to state their basic understandings of texts and the methods they use to translate the texts. In order to clarify my own understanding of the book of Genesis, I will first consider the question of the sources of the book as it now exists. Next I will describe the kind of literature we have in the book of Genesis, which I believe is “royal” literature. Then I will discuss the structure of Genesis, which offers additional evidence about the royal nature of the material. The cycle of “burial, blessing, and birth” has special significance in royal literature, and I will show how this cycle enlarges our understanding of Genesis. As the last part of this Introduction, I will state the main characteristics of this translation.
Sources of the Book of Genesis
Early Jewish tradition (Babylonian Talmud, Baba bathra 14b–15a) considered Moses as the author of Genesis and the rest of the Torah or the Pentateuch (the first “five books”). The early Christians followed this Jewish tradition. Later, there were early Church Fathers who questioned the Mosaic authorship, and Medieval Jewish authors also raised the question.3 In our day, the Mosaic authorship has become an impossible view, because there are too many indications that the author(s) lived in the land west of the Jordon at a later time.4 During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, literary criticism demonstrated that the Torah was a composite from several sources, and that it was put together long after the time of Moses. I do not intend to go into great detail here concerning the sources (you can read these details in any good commentary; see the Bibliography), but I do want to give a short sketch of the development of this criticism and describe the present state of such studies. Then we can look at some new suggestions.
Jean Astruc, a French physician, separated two major documents in Genesis by using the divine names of Yahweh and Elohim. In other words, one name was used in one document/source, and the other name was used in the second source. He published his work in 1753. He was followed by others and this became known as the Old Documentary Hypothesis. The next step was called the Fragment Hypothesis. This was developed by Alexander Geddes (1800), J. S. Vater (1802), and W. M. L. de Wette (1807). By using this theory the critics could see in a book like Genesis many fragments/sources but could not account for any continuity or plan in such a book. Still later, the Supplement Hypothesis was developed by Heinrich Ewald (1831). In this theory one basic document was proposed (providing the plan), and then to this document material was added from later traditions.
In 1853 H. Hupfeld played a major role in developing the New Documentary Hypothesis. This theory, after a few years and the contributions of others, came up with four sources for the Pentateuch and put them in chronological order: P (the Priestly source), E (the Elohist), J (the Yahwist), and D (Deuteronomy). Through the work of Reuss, Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen these sources were given a new order because of new dates that were assigned to them: J (850 BCE), E (750 BCE), D (622 BCE), and P (450 BCE). All of this was “set in concrete” in Julius Wellhausen’s great book, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (1878). Since then we speak of the Wellhausen Hypothesis.
Wellhausen arranged the sources of the Pentateuch in chronological order so that he could give us a history of the development of Israel and of the religion of Israel. Since the time of Wellhausen, however, there have been many new theories. Today the picture is very unclear. Many scholars have divided documents, added new documents, or have maintained that we do not have continuous documents but rather source strata. These strata have in them old and late materials. It is not a neat system today as it was for Wellhausen. In fact, the Uppsala School in Sweden maintains that these materials were oral for so many years that it would be impossible to separate such things as J and E. So it goes. For the past thirty years scholars have been saying that there is no consensus in all of this, but they usually move along in their work as if all is well.5
I have learned a great deal from the research of the past, but it is not going to help much to re-date J or P or invent new sources. Today we have more information than ever before. The archaeological information that we have could have made things a lot easier for the likes of Wellhausen. In fact, we have recovered entire libraries at sites such as Ugarit/Ras Shamra. When Wellhausen discussed the ritual calendars in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Numbers 28 and 29), he said that these belong to P and they are late. Why? Because definite dates and details in ritual calendars can only be late. But at Ugarit (ca. 1400 BCE, certainly before the time of Israel), there are many ritual texts of various kinds. If we thought like nineteenth-century critics, we would take these ritual texts and put them in chronological order, the simple ones early and the more complex ones late. These texts do have dates for some of the rituals and even detailed instructions, but this does not make them late. Rather the different text types functioned in different ways within the cult.6 Wellhausen had no way of knowing such things.
One thing is very clear. Genesis is made up of several sources, and these sources are put together with a plan and with great care. I would add that