The second chapter of Karel van der Toorn’s book Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible brings up some very interesting points on authorship in the ancient Near East. His first chapter dismantled the idea that the “books” of the Hebrew Bible should be understood as “books” in the modern sense, showing that these “books” were actually viewed as the collective property of the scribal community as they wrote and copied sacred texts for centuries. They were better understood as a collective deposit of traditions. “Books” in the modern sense did not show up on the scene until the Hellenistic period.
Similarly, the idea of an “author” as understood in modern times did not show up on the scene until the Hellenistic period and was not stressed in Christianity until the romantic period. One of the first Jewish books, for instance, where the author is made explicit is Ben Sira. The “books” (to use an anachronism van der Toorn has warned us against) of the Hebrew Bible are either anonymous (Torah, Joshua-2 Kings, Chronicles, etc.), are given attributed authors (the prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, etc.), or are written as pseudepigraphical texts (Daniel, Qoheleth, etc.). The reason for the latter two instances were for the sake of authority as “antiquity implies authority.” In these ways, the Hebrew Bible reflects much of what is going on in the cultures of its ancient Near Eastern neighbors, as van der Toorn points out in this chapter.
The point of writing this is to ask a question: if our understanding of authorship and our concept of author is a modern understanding that is pushed back onto the Hebrew Bible, then why do people make such a fuss about the Mosaic authorship of Torah or of Isaianic authorship of Isaiah or of Solomonic authorship of Proverbs, etc.? After looking at the data within the Hebrew Bible itself as well as the data within the historical milieu of the Hebrew Bible, to continue arguing issues of authorship seems to be not so much arguing for a “high view of Scripture” as much as it is arguing for a “high view of modern categories.”
30 June 2009 at 5.37 pm
“…to continue arguing issues of authorship seems to be not so much arguing for a “high view of Scripture” as much as it is arguing for a “high view of modern categories.””
Indeed! Very interesting.
Re: this point: “The “books” (to use an anachronism van der Toorn has warned us against)…”
What does van der Toorn offer as an alternative to “book”?
30 June 2009 at 5.58 pm
@aaron: He doesn’t propose another term, as they were originally written on scrolls…but the term ’scrolls’ is usually interpreted as ‘ancient books,’ which isn’t helpful.
Instead, he proposes viewing them in different ways, depending on what “books” one has in view. For some “books,” they were used as aide-memoire for messengers, heralds, bards, etc. Others were a deposit of tradition. Others were written for an oral performance. So, it’s really a case-by-case basis. He doesn’t propose one term to replace ‘books.’
30 June 2009 at 6.53 pm
I’m responding to this post…admitting I haven’t read your critique of the first chapter yet. Hopefully I’m not rehashing a subject that’s been addressed in the replies to that post.
I think the perception of modern scholars searching for the author of such OT “books” is confused with the actual search for the date for each “book” (yes, I’ll keep putting it in quotes throughout this comment
). The dating of Isaiah (as a whole or in three parts), Daniel, etc. help the reader understand better what the actual author(s) was trying to say. Many prophetic passages become recollections of past events depending on when the “books” are dated.
Some might find a difference between saying “Moses wrote the Torah” versus saying “a contemporary of Moses wrote the Torah”, but I presume most find the difference minute in relation to the true discovery through such a determination: It was written during the time of the Exodus, not centuries or a millennium later. The viewpoint of a 15th century BC writing vs a 6th century BC writing would be immense.
Also, some want to critique the Isaianic authorship of Isaiah (as a whole vs. three separate sections) since Isaiah mentions Cyrus by name hundreds of years before his birth…if the eighth century BC Isaiah wrote the entire “book”. Josephus also mentions that Cyrus read the text written about him. The same desire to determine what was actually prophetic could be said of Daniel and other potentially prophetic books.
1 July 2009 at 8.03 am
“…not stressed in Christianity until the romantic period.”
I’m skeptical – i feel like authorship of books (in NT) was stressed a lot (too much perhaps) in discussions about cannonisity.
1 July 2009 at 11.41 am
@Tim S: I think you’re right in the sense that search for dating “books” in the Hebrew Bible is often tied up in the search for authorship. But the model you put forward here (and that is often put forward in these searches) is still wrapped up with modern ideas of authorship and “books.” The idea that “it was written during the time of the Exodus” or “it was written by a contemporary of Moses” still has, behind it, the idea that “books” were composed by single authors at a certain time period in history. This is the view that van der Toorn shows is not consistent with the biblical or historical record as its underpinnings are modern conceptions of authorship and book making. So even if there is a shift in rhetoric in searching for a ‘date’ as opposed to an ‘author,’ there still seems to be some anachronistic thinking in play.
@Sam Sutter: What van der Toorn is getting at in that point is that until the romantic period, or early modernity, the human authors of Scripture were viewed as mere conduits of the Divine word. In the romantic period (and much more in the modern period), a shift began that put more focus on the human author of Scripture. The phrase e mente auctoris (which conveys the idea of putting one’s self in the mind of the author when reading the text) was not introduced until the 17th century. Here is a quote from van der Toorn:
He goes on to point out that it was only following the Enlightenment (and modern categories and methodologies) where we see books focused on the life, theology, and thought of Paul, the Prophets, Isaiah, etc. Before that period, the author was not as stressed; the Divine aspect of Scripture ruled the day.
1 July 2009 at 2.21 pm
ok, I can kinda see that, I just seem to remember reading literature and seeing a lot of art from well before dawn of modernity featuring ancient biblical authors as characters. I don’t like the quote – i think there was obvious great interest in authors. Perhaps (his point) not in their precise role in the authorship of texts until modernity – i’ll give him that – , but they were obviously objects of interest. Interesting thoughts – thx.
1 July 2009 at 3.54 pm
There’s a whole literature on this stuff, Sam, if you’re interested in reading more about ancient notions of “authorship.”
For example, Jed Wyrick: “Christian scholars combined Greek attribution analysis with a Jewish approach to textual legitimacy, which held that the legitimacy of a text could be validated by considering the prophetic dispensation of its texualizer and verifying the conditions of its transmission…The combination of Greek and Jewish approaches to the relationship between names and texs achieved some startling results. On the one hand, religious confrontations between competing versions of Christianity could now take place within the discourse of grammar and its methodology of attribution analysis.” (Wyrick, The Ascension of Authorship, 390)
He identifies Tertullian, for example, as one important figure who started arguing that texts had to undergo a proper attribution analysis before it can be considered authoritative.
1 July 2009 at 8.43 pm
If I may, I approve of this book. Also, I also highly recommend the book Carlos cited to people interested in exploring some of these issues, Jed Wyrick, The Ascension of Authorship: Attribution and Canon Formation in Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian Traditions. For what it is worth…
1 July 2009 at 9.12 pm
I have heard it said that in East & South Asian ancient religious manuscripts it was often consider arrogant to place one’s name of a document and instead, many put their teacher’s name or someone else in their lineage. This makes scholarly dating and linking documents rather difficult. Understanding the mentality of folks thousands of years ago is a fun challenge.
1 July 2009 at 9.17 pm
“instead, many put their teacher’s name or someone else in their lineage.
Like Plato and Socrates!
2 July 2009 at 9.31 pm
Art, thanks for this review. I happen to be reading van der Toorn’s book as well, and I find it informative but also a little troubling–not necessarily a bad thing.
Van der Toorn writes:
“These observations challenge the assumption that each book of the Bible should be considered a carefully crafted whole with a plan that is reflected in all its parts. The books of the Bible were not designed to be read as unities. They rather compare to archives. A biblical book is often like a box containing heterogeneous materials brought together on the assumption of common authorship, subject matter, or chronology. Whatever literary unity these books possess was imposed by the editors and is, to some extent, artificial. The editors could rearrange, expand, or conflate the separate units at their disposal in such a way as to achieve the illusion of a single book with a single message.” (p. 16)
While clearly the historical facts he states are true, his skepticism about the unity of “books” (continuing the tradition of this post by using quotes) flies in the face of the way I was taught to read the Bible. No doubt, editors and redactors shaped existing traditional material for purposes–Gary Schnittjer uses the term “storymakers,” which I like best. But to say that the works of the HB were not designed as literary units does not do justice to them as products of the religious communities. Doesn’t this undermine any sort of literary or canonical approach?
At some point, after all, the text became so highly regarded that care was taken to copy it exactly (e.g., Masoretes). This means that the texts were solidified–we’re not sure when. But each text was ultimately the product of the intentions of at least one and probably multiple authors, redactors, editors, storymakers. I think it’s important to examine these levels of intentionality, but van der Toorn seems to think that is not important.
Thoughts? What am I missing here?
2 July 2009 at 9.38 pm
@Benj: I had similar thoughts when reading the first chapter. As I’m not finished with the book yet (my work schedule does not leave me much time to read these days, unfortunately), I’m going to hold off on commenting just in case van der Toorn approaches this subject later in the book. As of right now, I agree that there does seem to be more literary unity than van der Toorn admits, especially in books like Isaiah which, admittedly, are of a composite nature with different authors/editors. This quote also seems odd in light of the second chapter where van der Toorn notes the skills of the “authors” or scribes which included such things as acrostics. That certainly seems to point to literary unity.
Again, I’m going to wait until I finish the book until I critique van der Toorn on this point (because if he doesn’t approach it later in the book then I think he is overlooking the unity in some books of the HB in order to make his point).