41

Review of

Bolings Judges

The Framework of Judges and the Deuteronomists

A. Graeme Auld, New College, University of

Edinburgh,

Scotland EH1 2LX.

literary analysis proposed in the new Anchor Bible commentary on Judges represents a radical departure from the
The
that has been usage of the terms Deuteronomic widespread since Martin Noths magisterial work on the It is not just that Deuteronomistic History in 1943. the edited core of the book is ascribed to a pre-Deuteronomistic (Noths term) period - others have already made similar proposals. Much more surprisingly these terms are applied to those appendices where Noth and so many followers found no trace of a Deuteronom(ist)ic editorial Interest then must focus on the authors criteria activity. for the use of these terms.

/-istic /1/

/2/

There is much that is fresh and attractive in Robert Bolings commentary, particularly in terms of rhetorical criticism and the illustrative use of archaeological data. and so, knowing that Boling My space however is limited; has the right of reply in this issue, I indulge in the critics I find foible of concentrating on but one area of disquiet. a considerable lack of clarity in his statements on the growth and structure of the book of Judges. On the one hand there appears to be a tension between analyses proposed in different while on the other some of the new proparts of the volume; posals of Boling seem less than well founded.

The relevant section of his introduction (pp.29-38) is Were these pages but a recapitulation of one or other familiar account of the genesis of the book, the brevity of the analysis might fairly be taken to represent the authors lesser interest in this than other introductory Yet in them a rather novel schema is cursorily protopics. and while further substantiation is promised in the posed ; notes and comments throughout the main body of the volume these

fairly brief.

are

not

always in harmony with Bolings opening proposals.

42 compact summary (pp.30-31) recognizes four main (1) composition of individual narrative units and the stages: formation of early Israelite epic, (2) a didactic collection of such stories (the pragmatic edition) completed by the eighth (3) incorporation of the collection in a seventhcentury, historical work (the bulk of Deuteronomy Deuteronomic century (4) a sixth century updating to produce through II Kings),
His

the final

or

Deuteronomistic edition of the

same

books.

Bolings pragmatic edition (Life under the Judges) represented by Jud. 2:6 - 15:20, with the exception of These along with 2:1-5 (three judg6:7-10 and 10:6-16.
is

ment speeches) are the contribution of our authors Deuteronomic editor who also added the three supplements in The fourth 16:1 - 18:31 that give lessons from the past. and final stage is reached by the simple addition of the Preview in 1:1-36 (the nation disintegrating) and the Postview in 19:1 - 21:25 (the people reunified).
It may be remarked that in two aspects of this analysis, appears to be drawing on ideas which Cross has made One is his terming two strata in the production familiar. of the familiar historical work Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic and his dating of these stages. Crosss analysis is based mostly on passages in Kings (and to in fact on a more detailed study of some extent deemed Deuteronomistic The other is passages by Noth. Bolings description of an early stage in the growth of the material as the formation of early Israelite epic. The present reviewer must admit to his prejudice that much is being written on epic in the OT with less than adequate evidence. Yet some details in the present commentary fuel his If I understand his intentions, I suspect that misgivings. Boling should be proposing the separation (in principle at least - the practice may be next to impossible) of five strata, not four: individual units, epic formation, and then the pragmatic and two Deuteronom(ist)ic editions. Be that as it may, the haziness of our authors use of the term epic is shown in its application sometimes to his first stratum (as at the bottom of p.30 already and sometimes to the second (as higher on the same page where the material in 2:6 - 3:6, the beginning of the pragmatic edition, is described as its That this is no isolated sentiment is clear Epic Prologue). from p.36 where he writes of the activity of the Deuteronomic historian in updating the old epic.

Boling

/3/

Joshua),

quoted)

43
The discussion in the main body of the commentary urges an analysis of 2:6 - 3:6 markedly different and much less radically novel than that suggested in the brief Here only 2:6-10; schema. 2:20-23; and 3:1,3-4 are ascribed while 2:11-17 to the Epic Prologue of the pragmatic edition; and 3:5-6 are deemed part of the Deuteronomic edition and If this is 2:18-19 and 3:2 are later Deuteronomistic notes. on is not only Outline then his Schematic p.30 Bolings view, In fact even 2:6-10 in its brief but rather misleading. present form is Deuteronomic; the older Joshua-Judges story had known this transitional note only in its Jos.24:28-31 form. The Deuteronomic editor revised its sequence, yielding a structure more appropriate to the beginning of a story. It appears then on closer perusal that 2:20-23, which had once followed directly on Jos.24:2~-31, is the only part of the prologue to the pragmatic edition now extant in Jud.2; the rest is Deuteronomic.

(pp.

72-79)

/4/

Smend too has proposed a two-stage edition of the Deuteronomistic History, on the basis of a renewed analysis of passages in Joshua and the opening of Judges. His conclusion about the relationship of Jud. 2:6ff and 2:20ff is the exact opposite of Bolings: that the latter passage is also the later, and to be assigned to the second Deuteronomistic editor. Its attitude to the peoples that remain correlates well with the attitude found in Jos.23 and the latter portion of Jud.1, both of which Boling like Smend ascribes to the latest editor.

/5/

One consequence of Bolings approach to the resumption of the note that concludes our book of Joshua should be made more Between the two appearances explicit than he does himself. of the note in his Deuteronomic edition there had stood only 2:1-5, possibly the two verses that now conclude Joshua, and possibly a brief question (now displaced by the whole of ch.1) Are these seven or eight verses suffmotivating 2:1-5). iciently extensive to have warranted the Deuteronomic editors wholesale repetition of the four verses in question? Indeed the difficulty of this view is compounded by Bolings admission that the connection between 2:1-5 and what follows is Smends is a much preferable version of the very difficult. recapitulation theory: that the editor who repeated the note inserted the whole of 1:1 - 2:5. In fact some elements in Bolings discussion of that whole passage(which is dealt with as a single block in his commentary, pp. 53-67~ could be cited in support of its functional unity.

(p.66)

44

discussing the resumption of the note, Boling observes that the Deuteronomic historian segmented his sources to (p.36) serve his own theological and political purposes. While this is thoroughly appropriate, it seems to me that that is In precisely the function of the original note as it is. themselves these four verses conclude one period and begin that transition to the next which is more fully developed in Jud. His general observation is eloquent testimony 2:10, 11ff. to the note having been penned de novo by the Deuteronom(ist)ic historian.
In
Jud. 2:6-9 In fact, as I have argued elsewhere and order the reflect more exactly wording of this original note than do Jos. 24:28-31(MT). Firstly the LXX of Joshua, regularly a better witness than the MT to the original text shares the Judges order. of that book Then, as Boling of is more Timnath-heres Jud.2:9 likely to be agrees, These and other Timnath-serah. than Jos.24:30s original observations encouraged me to argue against Smend that the Deuteronomistic note Jud. 2:6-9 is in its original order and place before the equally Deuteronomistic 2:10ff, while 1:1 - 2:5 marks a new (and so post-Deut.) introduction to the book of Judges - Jos. 24:28-31 reflecting a restored An argument I did not conclusion to the book of Joshua. then use, but which has some relevance as we move to consider Bolings account of the final chapters of Judges, is that in Jud.1:1ff specifically Deuteronom(ist)ic pointers are hard to

/6/,

/7/,

detect. That chs. 17-18 and 19-21 are separate (groups of) that they Yet it has often been noted stories is clear. share literary characteristics not (or less frequently) found in the bulk of the book. Bolings main criterion is the correlation of the contrast in the characterizations of two Levites in chs.17 and 19 (P-35) with that between the Deuteronomic platform of reform (Deut. 18:1-8) on the one hand and its implementation on the other, as reported in Kings and To the Deuteronomic edition belong the stories Chronicles. about the easy exploitation and corruptiorr of a promising young Levite at secondary shrines; to the Deuteronomistic the account of the Gibeah outrage, which was touched off by a failure of Yahwist &dquo;hospitality&dquo; toward another Levite. The contrast between Bolings handling of these final chapters and his discussion of ch.16 (pp.252-253) is instructive. There he offers positive grounds for that chapter being a later and Deuteronomic appendix to the Samson traditions. However,

/8/

without

positive literary grounds

for

identifying

the editors

45
of the final chapters as Deuteronomists, any thematic correlation with Deuteronomic themes need be no more than accidental. That some aspects of the Micah story make it a good companion is again, piece to the Deuteronomic supplement on Samson in the absence of familiar Deuteronomic literary characteristics, A final point: the other passages no convincing criterion. in Judges which Boling, in company with most scholars, deems Deuteronom(ist)ic - viz. 2:11-17; 3:5-6; 6:7-10; 10 :6-16 have one dominant theme, Israels forsaking Yahweh for the This theme, like any mention of the service of other gods. is quite absent from the final. of activity Judges (cf.

(p.255)

2:11ff~~

chapters.
with stories which have grown over in which different elements may have been high-lighted at different stages, it is impossible to pretend to certainty as to which elements caught the final This reader must simply note that it editors attention. is similarities between the two blocks of tradition rather And two in particular: than differences that impress him. the recurrent note that all this happened when there was no in Israel the importance of Judah king, or ruler and Bethlehem that surprises any attentive reader of the main bulk of the book where Judah is so prominent by its absence. Are not these the motifs that endeared this once-separate five chapter complex to the editor who appended them to the stories of the judges?

When

one

long period

is of

dealing

time,

/9/,

/10/;

One cannot but agree with Boling, even if in different that the repetition of the oracular device and the of Judah in 1:1-2 and 20:18 is something quite out In my earlier discussion of Jud.1, of the ordinary (p.63). I argued that the structure of the first part of that chapter is provided by vv. 3-4 on the one hand and v.17 on the other. The most economical account of the outer framework of In Jud.l:1-2 our book of Judges appears to be the following. we find the work of the post-Deuteronomistic Judaean editor. in chs. In the rest of ch.1 (or the bulk of it at 17-21 he possessed congenial material about the premonarchical period with which to supplement the inherited story of the The stuff of ch.1,which he made his new introduction Judges. to the period, already stressed the primacy of Judah. In borrowing from 20:18 the orracular question and answer, he secured an introduction which only underscored that tribes pre-eminence - so compensating for a lack in the body of the

spirit, primacy

/11/

least)and

book.

46

/1/ /2/

Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien I, 1943.

W. Beyerlin, Gattung und Herkunft des Rahmens im Richterbuch, Tradition und Situation, 1963, pp.1-29. W. Richter, Die Bearbeitungen des Retterbuches in der deuteronomischen

Epoche, 1964.

/3/
.

The Structure of the Deuteronomic History, 3, 1968. Cross since noted ( Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 1973, p.274) a revision of his terminology, distinguishing now between first and second Deuteronomistic editions. F.M.

Cross,

Perspectives in Jewish Learning

/4/

In an earlier published paper in OT Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers, 1974, pp. 33-48, Boling notes his widespread approval of Richters analyses of the Richter in fact ascribes much material in Judges. less material to his main pre-Deuteronomistic source. This literary difference may have historical ramifications.
In the

/5/ /6/ /7/ /8/ /9/ /10/ /11/

Festschrift, Probleme Biblischer Theologie, 1971, pp. 494-509.

von

Rad

Judges

1 and

History:

1975,
Argued

pp.

261-285.

reconsideration, VT 25,

in detail in my Edinburgh dissertation, Studies in : Joshua Text and Literary Relations, 1976.

Recently
chreibung

in H. Schultz, Die Entstehung der Geschichtss im alten Israel, BZAW 128, 1972.

S. Talmon stresses the similarity in sense of mlk and in In those days there was no king in Israel,

spt

Immanuel 5, 1975,

pp.

27-36.

The note could have been borrowed by the ultimate editor from the penultimate; but other grounds must be supplied to make this likely. In VT

25,

pp.

275-6.