Copyright © 1991 by Westminster
Theological Seminary, cited with permission;
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THE
MOSAIC LAW
AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE PENTATEUCH
JOHN H. SAILHAMER
I.
Introduction
THE
purpose of this article is to raise the question of the role of the
Mosaic Law in the theology of the Pentateuch. By "theology of
the
Pentateuch,"
I mean the major themes and purposes that lie behind its final
composition.
1. The Final Composition
of the Pentateuch
Much has been written in recent years about the
final composition of the
Pentateuch.1 In an earlier paper, I attempted to demonstrate
the influence
of prophetic hope and eschatology in its
composition.2 The Pentateuch, I
argued, represents an attempt to point to the same
hope as the later proph-
ets, namely, the New Covenant.3
"The narrative texts of past events are
presented as pointers to events that lie yet in
the future. Past events fore-
shadow the future."4 Along similar
lines, though working from quite differ-
ent assumptions, Hans-Christoph Schmitt has argued
that the Pentateuch
is the product of a unified compositional strategy
that lays great emphasis
on faith.5 According to Schmitt, the
same theme is found within the com-
position of the prophetic books, like Isaiah, and
ultimately can be traced
into the NT, e.g., the Book of Hebrews.
Schmitt's approach differs from many critical
approaches in that he
treats the Pentateuch as one would the later
historical books, that is, as the
1 Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (
Gruyter,
1990); Rolf E Knierim, "The Composition of the Pentateuch," in SBLSP
1985,
395-415;
Erhard Blum, Die Komposition der Vatergeschichte
(Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener
Verlag, 1984); RolfRendtorff, Das
Uberlieferungs-geschichtliche
Problem des Pentateuch (BZAW 147; Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter, 1977).
2 John H. Sailhamer, "The Canonical
Approach to the OT: Its Effect on Understanding
Prophecy,"
JETS 30 (1987) 307-15.
3 This does not necessarily imply that the
final composition of the Pentateuch is later than
that of the prophetic books. On the contrary, if the
composition of the Pentateuch were dated
before that of the prophetic books, it would help
explain the origin of the message of those
books. In the discussion which follows, the date of
the final composition of the Pentateuch as
such is taken to be Mosaic.
4 Sailhamer, "The Canonical
Approach," 311.
5 Hans-Christoph Schmitt, "Redaktion
des Pentateuch im Geiste der Prophetie," VT 32
(1982) 170-89.
241
242
product of an intentional theological redaction
or composition. One must
start from the final form of the book and ask what
each part of the whole
contributes to its theological intention. Schmitt
argues that each major
unit6 of narrative in the
Pentateuch shows signs of a homogeneous theo-
logical redaction. A characteristic feature of
this redaction is the recurrence
of the terminology of "faith" (e.g. b
Nymxh).7
At crucial compositional seams
throughout the Pentateuch, Schmitt is able to find
convincing evidence of
a "faith theme," that is, a consistent
assessment of the narrative events in
light of the rule of "faith" (b
Nymxh).8
According to Schmitt, this redaction
represents the final stages in the composition of
the Pentateuch--later even
than the so-called priestly redaction. According to
Schmitt, it does not
reflect an emphasis on keeping the priestly law
codes (viz., the Mosaic Law)
but rather on preserving a sense of trust in God
and an expectation of his
work in the future. It is in light of this
eschatological expectation of God's
future work that the redaction lays great stress on
"faith."9
Schmitt's study goes a long way in demonstrating
an important part of
the theological intention and orientation of the
Pentateuch as a narrative text.
Put
simply, Schmitt shows that the Pentateuch is intended to teach "faith"
in God.10
An important question raised by Schmitt's study
is whether the concept
of "faith" in the Pentateuch is intended
to stand in opposition to the
6 The largest literary units (grosseren
Einheiten) which are linked in the final redaction of
the Pentateuch, according to Schmitt, are the
Primeval History, the Patriarchal Narratives,
the Exodus Narratives, the Sinai Narratives, and
the Wilderness Narratives. See Rendtorff,
Das Uberlieferungs-geschichtliche
Problem,
19ff.
7 It is important to note that, according
to Schmitt, the terminology of "faith" (b
Nymxh)
occurs only at the redactional seams. See n. 8.
8 The key texts of that redaction are Gen
15:6, "And Abraham believed in [b Nymxh] the
Lord
and he reckoned it to him for righteousness"; Exod 4:5, "In order
that they might believe
[vnymxy] that the Lord, the God of their fathers. . . has
appeared to you"; Exod
they
[the people] believed in b Nymxh] the Lord and in Moses his
servant"; Num
long
will they [the people] not believe in b Nymxh] me"; Num
Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not believe in
b Nymxh] me.' " See also Deut
Schmitt
has not discussed Gen 45:26, the only occurrence of the term for
"faith" outside of
Schmitt's
redactional seams, because it does not show other signs of belonging to the
"Glaubens-Thematik."
9 "So steht am Ende der
Pentateuchentstehung nicht die Abschliessung in ein Ordnungs-
denken theokratischen Charakters. Vielmehr geht es
hier darum, in prophetischem Geiste die
Offenheit
fur ein neues Handeln Gottes zu wahren und in diesem Zusammenhang mit dem
aus der prophetischen Tradition entnommenen Begriff
des “Glaubens" eine Haltung heraus-
zustellen, die spater auch das Neue Testament als
fur das Gottesverhaltnis zentral ansieht"
(Schmitt, "Redaktion des Pentateuch,"
188-89).
10 It is important to note that such a
reading of the Pentateuch, as a lesson on faith, can
be found throughout the subsequent canonical
literature. Pss 78 and 106, two psalms that look
at the meaning of the whole of the Pentateuch,
both read the events of the Pentateuch as
evidence of the Israelites' faith or
faithlessness (cf. Ps 78:22, 32, 37; 106:12, 24). A similar
reading is found in Nehemiah 9, which is a
rehearsal of the pentateuchal narrative in its
present form (cf. Neh 9:8). The example of
Hebrews 11 has already been pointed out.
THE MOSAIC LAW 243
Mosaic
Law or whether this faith is to be understood simply as "keeping
the law."11 To say it another way,
can we find evidence in the composition
of the Pentateuch that the author is concerned
with the question of "faith
versus works of the law"?
It is well known that this issue surfaces a
number of times in other OT
texts. In Ps 51:18-19 (English vv. 16-17), for
example, David says, "For
thou hast no delight in sacrifice. . . . The
sacrifice acceptable to God is a
broken spirit" and in Mic 6:6-8 it says,
"With what shall I come before the
Lord.
. . Shall I come before him with burnt offerings? He has showed you,
O
man, what is good . . . to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk
humbly with your God?" Since such texts do, in
fact, exist within the OT,
we may, with some justification, look for similar
ideas within the theological
macrostructure of the Pentateuch.
In the present article, we will attempt to show
that the issue of "faith
versus works of the law" was, indeed, central to
the theological purpose of
the Pentateuch. Specifically, we will argue that,
among other things, the
Pentateuch
is an attempt to contrast the lives of two individuals, Abraham
and Moses. Abraham, who lived before the law (ante legem), is portrayed as
one who kept the law, whereas Moses, who lived
under the law (sub lege),
is portrayed as one who died in the wilderness
because he did not believe.
If
such a contrast between faith and works is, in fact, a part of the com-
positional strategy of the Pentateuch, then we may
rightfully conclude that
part of the purpose of the book was to show not
merely the way of faith, but
also the weakness of the law.
2. The Genre of the
Pentateuch
In a recent article, Rolf Knierim has focused
attention on the question of
the genre of the Pentateuch as a whole.12
Knierim has argued that the
Pentateuch
consists of two major generic sections: Genesis and Exodus-
Deuteronomy. According to him,
Genesis is to be taken as an introduction
to the whole of the Pentateuch. The genre of the
central section of the
Pentateuch,
Exodus-Deuteronomy, is not so much that of a narrative his-
tory of
its genre is that of a biography, specifically, a
biography of Moses.
This is not the place to enter into a full
discussion of Knierim's descrip-
tion of the genre of the Pentateuch. It is enough to
say that his general
observations about the Pentateuch
are convincing. The Pentateuch devotes
11 There are indications in Schmitt's study
that the notion of faith in the Pentateuch is put
in opposition to that of "obedience to the
law." Schmitt has argued, for example, that the
"faith" seams overlay and reinterpret the narratives
which have stressed obedience to the law
(cf.
comments below on Num 20:12).
12 Knierim, "The Composition of the
Pentateuch," 395-415.
244
its attention more to the individual Moses than to
the nation of
Hence
its overall purpose in all likelihood should be understood in relation-
ship more to the life of Moses, per se, than to the
history of the nation. As
such it is reasonable to conclude that the
Pentateuch reads much like and
apparently aims to be a biography.
Since the purpose of a biography is the presentation
or conceptualization
of the work or life of an individual person, the
Pentateuch can well be
viewed generically as a presentation
(conceptualization) of the work of
Moses.
The events of the life of Moses (Vita
Mosis) are not told entirely for
their own sake but are intended as a narrative
explication of the nature of
a life lived within the context of the call of
God and the covenant at Sinai.
The
Pentateuch seeks to answer the question of how well Moses carried out
his calling, that is, his work under the Sinai
covenant. It seeks to tell how
well he performed his task.
There is room for doubt, however, whether
Knierim's description of the
whole of the Pentateuch as a biography of Moses is
entirely adequate. In the
first place, the whole of the collections of laws
which make up a major part
of the final composition of the Pentateuch do not
fit within the narrow limits
of a biography. However, according to Knierim's
reckoning, these laws,
e.g.,
the Sinai-pericope and Deuteronomy, make up 68.5 percent of the
total text of the Pentateuch. Although Knierim treats
these legal sections
as part of the Moses texts, they clearly are not
part of the Moses narratives
per se. The course of the narratives is
distinctively broken into and sus-
pended until these large collections of laws are
exhausted. It appears that
in the final stage of the composition, the focus
on Moses, the individual
lawgiver, has been intentionally expanded to
include a substantial portion
of the law itself. This state of affairs raises
the question of why, in light of
the genre of the Pentateuch, these laws were placed
in the midst of the
biography.
The traditional answer to this question has been
that they were put there
simply as legislation, that is, as laws which were to
be kept--thus the
Pentateuch's reputation as a "Book of the
law."
In this view the Pentateuch
is read as if it were a collection of laws
intended to guide the daily living
of its readers. This view of the purpose of the
laws in the Pentateuch is so
pervasive that it is often, if not always, merely
assumed in works dealing
with the problem of the law.
However, it is also possible that the Pentateuch
has intentionally in-
cluded this selection of laws for another purpose,
that is, to give the reader an
understanding of the nature of the Mosaic Law and God's purpose in giving
it to
tell the reader
how to live but rather to tell the reader how Moses was to live
under the law. To use an example from the Pentateuch
itself, it is clear to
all that the detailed instructions on the building
of the ark in Genesis 6 were
not given to
the reader so he or she could build an ark and load it with
animals, but those detailed instructions were
given to show what Noah was
THE MOSAIC LAW 245
to do in response to God's command. Competent
readers of the Pentateuch
easily understand that God's instructions to Noah in
the narrative is di-
rected only to Noah and not to the readers. These
instructions are included
as narrative information for the reader. The
message of the Pentateuch in
other words, is not that its readers should build an
ark like Noah.
The same may be true for the legal instructions
found in the Mosaic Law.
Though
the nature of the instructions to Noah and those to Moses (the
building of the tabernacle in Exodus 25ff., for
example) are similar in form
and narrative function, we often read them entirely
differently. We read the
instructions to Noah as given for the reader, and those to Moses as given
to
the reader.13 It is possible, however,
that the two sets of instructions within
the Pentateuch are intended to be read in the same
way. In other words,
to put it in the terms introduced into OT studies
by Mendenhall, the
inclusion of the selection of laws (viz., the
Mosaic Law) in the Pentateuch
was not so much intended to be a source for legal
action (technique) as
rather a statement of legal policy.14
This understanding of the purpose of the laws in
the Pentateuch is sup-
ported by the observation that the collections of laws
in the Pentateuch
appear to be incomplete and selective. The Pentateuch
as such is not de-
signed as a source of legal action. That the laws in
the Pentateuch are
incomplete is suggested by the fact that many
aspects of ordinary commu-
nity life are not covered in these laws. Moreover,
there is at least one
example in the Pentateuch where a "statute
given to Moses by the Lord"
is mentioned but not actually recorded in the
Pentateuch.15 The selective
13 "From the earliest days of the
church Christians have asked about the commands of the
Old
Testament: do they apply to us? The question, however, is ambiguous. It may be
a
question about authority, or it may be a question
about prescriptive claim. A prescription, we
said, instructs somebody to do, or not to do,
something. We may ask in each case who is
instructed and who instructs. If, as I walk down
the street, somebody in a blue coat says,
'Stop!', I shall have to ask, first, 'Is he speaking to me?’--the question of claim--and, then, 'Is
he a policeman?'--the question
of authority. And so it is with the commands of the Old
Testament:
we must ask, 'Do they purport to include people like us in their scope?'--the
question of claim--and, 'If so, ought we to heed
them?’--the question of authority. In the
patristic church, after the rejection of the
Gnostic temptation, especially in its Marcionite
form, the question of authority was not really open
for discussion; Old Testament commands
were evaluated entirely in terms of their claim. Our
own age, conversely, has been so dom-
inated by the question of authority that the question
of claim has been obscured and forgotten"
(O.
M. T. O'Donovan, "Towards an Interpretation of Biblical Ethics," TynBul 27 [1976]
58-59).
14 "That common body of what might be
called the sense of justice in a community we
shall call 'policy'. What happens in a law court,
however, is usually much more directly related to
the technical corpus of specialized legal acts and
tradition. These are 'techniques' " (George
E.
Mendenhall, "Ancient Oriental and Biblical Law," The Biblical Archaeologist Reader 3 [ed.
E. E Campbell and D. N. Freedman;
15 The "statute of the law that the
Lord gave Moses," referred to by Eleazar in Num 31:21,
is not found elsewhere in the Pentateuch, though a
part of what Eleazar commands (the water of
cleansing) was given in Numbers 19. This shows
either that the laws included in the
Pentateuch
are selective, that is, not every law given to Moses
was included, or that any law
246
nature of the laws included in the Pentateuch is
further illustrated both by
the fact that the number of laws (611) is the same
as the numerical equiv-
alent of the Hebrew title of the Pentateuch,
"Torah" (hrvt),16 and by the
fact that within the structure of the collections of
laws the number seven
and multiples of seven predominate. The listing of
42 (7 x 6) laws in the
Covenant
Code (Exod 21:1-23:12), for example, equals the numerical value
of the title of that section "And these (are
the judgments)." This is not to
suggest that secret numerical codes were
intended to conceal mysteries
within these texts. The use of the numerical values of
titles and catch
phrases was a common literary device at the time
of the composition of
Scripture. The same principle of numerical
selectivity may also be seen
within the Book of Proverbs, where the total number of
proverbs in chaps.
10:1-22:16
(375) equals the numerical value of the name "Solomon."17
This
suggests that, just as in the publication of law in the ancient Near
Eastern
world in general,18 the laws in the
Pentateuch were not intended
to be used in the administration of justice as a
collection of laws to be
enforced.
In his study of law codes in the ancient world, F.
R. Kraus19 has provided
a helpful analogy to the nature and purpose of
the laws included in the final
composition of the Pentateuch. According to Kraus,
literary works such as
the Code of Hammurapi were not intended to be used
in the actual adminis-
tration of law. They were not, in fact,
associated with the systems of justice
in the ancient world. According to Kraus, they
were rather intended to tell
us something about the lawgiver, viz., important
people like Hammurapi
himself.20 For example, when the
whole of the present shape of the docu-
given by a priest could have been called a
"statute of the law that the Lord gave Moses"
(cf.
Deut 33:10). The former alternative appears more likely because the text
expressly says "the
Lord
gave [it] to Moses," The omission of “to Moses" in the Samaritan
Pentateuch is evidence
that at an early period there was already a tendency
to read the laws of the Pentateuch as
complete.
16 The traditional number of laws in the
Pentateuch (613) is obtained by treating both
Deut
6:4 (the "Shema") and Exod 20:2 ("I am the Lord your God")
as "laws,"
17 Barry J. Beitzel, "Exodus
Trinity Journal 1 NS (1980) 6. See also J. M. Sasson,
"Wordplay in the OT," IDBSup,
968-70,
18 "Das grosse Gesetzgebungswerk des Konigs
our Representation geblieben und niemals
Rechtswirklichkeit
geworden sei" (W. Eilers, Rechtsvergleichende
Studien zur Gesetzgebung
Hammurapis [1917] 8, quoted in R.
E Kraus, "Ein zentrales Problem des altmesopotamischen
Rechtes:
Was It der Codex Hammu-rabi?" Genava 8 [1960] 283-96).
19 Kraus, "Ein
zentrales Problem."
20 "In seiner Selbstdarstellung sind
Gerechtigkeit und Klugheit die Eigenschaften, die er
sich, von den ublichen Cliches abweichend, immer
wieder zuschreibt, . . . emqum,
'klug', ist
ein typisches Pradikat des Schreibers. . . nur
Hammu-rabi, gleichzeitig gerechter Richter
und gelehrter Autor, hat seine Rechtsspruche
aufgezeichnet und der Welt zur Verfugung
gestellt genauso, wie die Autoren der
Eingeweideschaukompendien ihre Erfahrungen und
Erkenntnisse zu Nutz und Frommen der Welt in
ihren Werken niederlegen. Zu Nutz und
Frommen
der Welt hat auch Hammu-rabi seinen Codex verfasst und offentlich aufstellen
lassen" (Kraus, "Ein zentrales
Problem," 290-91).
THE MOSAIC LAW 247
ment, including the important but often overlooked
prologue of Hammu-
rapi's Code, is taken into consideration, it becomes
clear that a text such as
Hammurapi's
was not to be used to administer justice, but was rather
intended to promote the image of Hammurapi as a
wise and just king.21
What
Kraus has argued for the Code of Hammurapi suits the phenomenon
of law in the Pentateuch remarkably well. It
explains the existence of the
relatively large collections of laws strategically
placed throughout the penta-
teuchal narratives dealing with the life of
Moses. Applying the analogy of
the Code of Hammurapi helps confirm the judgment
that the selection of
laws in the Pentateuch is not there as a corpus of
laws as such (qua lex), but
was intended as a description of the nature of
divine wisdom and justice
revealed through Moses (qua institutio).
An inter-biblical example of this is found in
the Book of Proverbs, with
its prologue and selection of wise sayings of
Solomon. The Book of Proverbs
was not intended to be read as an exhaustive book
of right actions but as
a selective example of godly wisdom.
In the narratives of Exodus-Deuteronomy, then,
we are to see not only
a picture of Moses, but we are also to catch a
glimpse of the nature of the
law under which he lived and God's purpose for
giving it. Along with the
narrative portrait of Moses we see a selected
sample of his laws. Returning
to Knierim's thesis of the genre of the
Pentateuch, what emerges from a
genre analysis of the Pentateuch in its present shape
is that it is a biography
of Moses, albeit a modified one. It is a biography
of Moses, which portrays
him as a man who
lived under the law given at Sinai. It is a biography of Moses
sub lege.
A second difficulty in Knierim's assessment of
the genre of the Penta-
teuch is the fact that although Knierim treats
Genesis as an introduction to
the life of Moses, there are significant problems
in accounting for this sec-
tion of the Pentateuch within the genre of Biography
of Moses. According
to Knierim, Genesis adds the dimension of
"all of human history" to the
biography of Moses. But it is self-evidently clear
that not all of Genesis is
about "all of human history." It is only
the first eleven chapters of the book
which have all of humanity specifically in view.
Though the rest of Genesis
is, in fact, drawn into the scope of "all
humanity" by means of the reit-
erated promise that in the seed of Abraham ”all the
families of the land will
be blessed," the narratives in chaps. 12-50
focus specifically on the family
of Abraham. In fact, the three major sections of
Genesis 12-50 appear to
consist of genres nearly identical to that of
Knierim's view of the whole
21 "Eine Welt trennt diese sehr
deutlich formulierte Denkweise von der ungerer heutigen
Gesetzgeber
und unserer modernen Konzeption von der Geltung der Gesetze. Die Gultigkeit,
welche Hammu-rabi fur sein Werk erhofft, ist
grundstzlich anderer Natur als die unserer
Gesetze,
und seine Hoffnung ruht auf anderen Voraussetzungen als
der Geltungsanspruch
moderner Gesetzbucher. Seine sogenannten Gesetze sind Musterentscheidungen, Vorbilder
guter Rechtsprechung" (ibid., 291).
248
Pentateuch,
namely, biographies of Abraham (chaps. 12-26), Jacob (chaps.
27-36) and Joseph (chaps. 37-50).
Knierim rightly makes much of the fact that the
whole of Genesis, cover-
ing some 2000 years, takes up only about 25 percent
of the total text of the
Pentateuch,
whereas Exodus-Deuteronomy, which covers only the span of
the life of Moses, takes up the other 75 percent.
"The extent of material
allotted to each of the two time spans is
extremely disproportionate, a factor
that must be considered programmatic."22
However, when the Moses-
narratives (Exod 1-18 and Num
the laws (Deuteronomy and the Sinai-pericope), they
make up only about
20 percent of the whole of the Pentateuch. The material in Genesis
devoted
to the Patriarchs (Genesis 12-50) is also about 20
percent, making the
narratives about Moses and those about the
Patriarchs appear of equal
importance within the final text.
It thus is not satisfactory to group the
patriarchal narratives together
with Genesis 1-11 and consider them both as the
introduction to Moses'
biography. It appears more probable within the
framework of the whole of
the Pentateuch that the patriarchal material in
Genesis is intended on its
own to balance off the material in the Moses
narratives. The biographies
of the patriarchs are set over against the
biography of Moses.
The early chapters of Genesis (1-11) play their
own part in providing an
introduction to the whole of the
Pentateuch, stressing the context of "all
humanity" for both the patriarchal
narratives and those of Moses. The
Moses
material, for its part, has been expanded with voluminous selections
from the Sinai laws in order to show the reader the
nature of the law under
which Moses lived.
If this is an adequate description of the
Pentateuch, then its genre is not
simply that of a biography of Moses but rather it is a
series of biographies
similar perhaps to those in Kings or Samuel
where the life of Saul, for
example, is counterbalanced to that of David.
Within this series of biog-
raphies in the Pentateuch a further textual
strategy appears evident.
The chronological framework of Genesis
(periodization) and the virtual
freezing of time in Exodus-Deuteronomy (a single
period of time only, viz.,
the lifespan of Moses) suggests that there has been
a conscious effort to
contrast the time before and leading up to the
giving of the law (ante legem)
with the time of Moses under the law (sub lege).23 Abraham lived before the
giving of the law and Moses lived after it was given.
With this background to the compositional
strategy of the final shape of
the Pentateuch, we can now turn to its treatment of
Abraham and Moses.
22 Knierim, "The
Composition of the Pentateuch," 395.
23 Though it is not part of our immediate
concern, one could also note indications within
the final shape of the Pentateuch of a time
"after the law" (post legem).
Deuteronomy 30, for
example, looks to a future time quite distinct
from that of Moses' own day. There are close
affinities between this chapter and passages in the
prophetic literature which look to the time
of the New Covenant, e.g., Jer 31:31ff.; Ezek
36:22ff.
THE MOSAIC LAW 249
Specifically,
we wish to raise the question of what the Pentateuch
intends
to say about the lives of these two great men that
contributes to our under-
standing of faith and keeping the Mosaic Law?
A complete answer to this question cannot be
given within the scope of
this paper. We will limit ourselves to two strategically important penta-
teuchal texts from the standpoint of its final
composition, Gen 26:5 and
Num
20:12. Both texts are similar in that they offer a reflective look at the
lives of Abraham and Moses respectively and give an
evaluation that stems
from the final stages of the composition of the
Pentateuch. Furthermore,
both texts evaluate the lives of these two great men
from the perspective of
the theology of Deuteronomy. We will see that in
Gen 26:5 Abraham is
portrayed as one who "kept the law,"
whereas in Num
portrayed as one who "did not believe."
II. Abraham and the Mosaic Law (Gen 26:5)
In Gen 26:5, God says, "Abraham obeyed my
voice [ylqb. . . fmw] and
kept my charge [ytrmwm rmwyv], my commandments [ytvcm], my statutes
[ytvqH], and my laws [ytrvt]." Though on the face of
it, the meaning of this
verse is clear enough, it raises questions when
viewed within the larger
context of the book. How was it possible for
Abraham to obey the com-
mandments, statutes, and laws before they were
given? Why is Abraham
here credited with keeping the law when in the
previous narratives great
pains were taken to show him as one who lived by
faith (e.g., Gen 15:6)?
There
has been no mention of Abraham's having the law or keeping the law
previous to this passage. Why, now suddenly, does
the text say Abraham
had kept the law?
The verse is recognized as
"deuteronomic" by most biblical scholars,
both critical24 and conservative.25
Earlier biblical scholars went to great
lengths to explain the verse in view of its
inherent historical and theological
difficulties. For those who saw the
verse as a description of Abraham's legal
24 See Erhard Blum, Die Komposition der Vatergesckickte (Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Verlag, 1984) 363, for a discussion
of the critical views.
25 F. Delitzsch says of the verse, for
example, "Undoubtedly verse 5 in this passage
is from the hand of the Deuteronomist" (A New Commentary on Genesis [
describe the Mosaic Law: "The piety of
Abraham is described in words that indicate a perfect
obedience to all the commands of God and therefore
frequently recur among the legal expressions
of a later date [in der spateren Gesetzessprache
]" (Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament
[
verschiedensten Gebieten sein Leben
ahnlich den spateren Ordnungen des Gesetzes nach den
speziellen Weisungen Gottes, wie sie ihm erteilt
wurden oder er sie sich selbst erschliessen
mochte, eingerichtet hat" (Das erste Buck der Tora Genesis [Berlin: Schocken, 1934] 548).
Since,
throughout the Pentateuch and especially in
Deuteronomy, these terms denote the Mosaic
Law
(e.g., Deut 11:1; 26:17) this passage says, in no uncertain terms, that Abraham
kept the
Mosaic Law.
250
adherence to the law, the major problem was how
Abraham could have had
access to the Mosaic Law. Early rabbinical approaches,
for example, at-
tempted by word associations to identify each of
the terms used here with
a specific act of obedience of Abraham within the
patriarchal narratives. In
that way it could be demonstrated that Abraham knew
the Mosaic Law
and thus kept it.26 This approach,
however, did not gain wide acceptance
because, apart from a remote link to
circumcision, none of the terms in Gen
26:5
could be associated with events or actions of Abraham within the