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Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible

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With the exception of the book of Daniel, the Hebrew Bible, says Van der Toorn, was the product of streams of tradition recorded and edited by scribes who were Levites connected to the Temple in Jerusalem. These Levites descended from the priesthood in Israel that had migrated to Judah after the Assyrian conquest and became integrated into the ranks of priests as the scribes. Consequently, Van der Toorn asserts that it is anachronism to refer to the Bible as a collection of books. Books are separate items with an author who designs parts to produce a whole and intends this product to be appreciated by an audience. Books thus presume authors, a book trade, and a literate public. Study of such books can appropriately focus on authenticity of authorship and the general intentions and message of the author. But, according to Van der Toorn, books and authors did not come into existence until the Hellenistic period. Before then the materials that evolved into the Hebrew Bible were streams of tradition recorded on various scrolls by an organized group of scribes. The scrolls represented the product of oral traditions mixed with the editorial activity of the scribes. The way to study the Hebrew Bible, then, is to trace the signs within documents that point to scribal editing. Based on this method, Van der Toorn argues there were four editions of the book of Deuteronomy that came approximately at forty year intervals as the scribes replaced the master copy of the book with an updated edition.

Van der Toorn uses Mesopotamian and Egyptian archeology and literature as he argues that Jewish scribes were part of a Middle Eastern phenomenon. Scribes were usually attached to the palace of the ruler and important temples. Van der Toorn believes that the key work on the Bible was done at the Jerusalem temple. He argues that Mesopotamian scribes were the first to claim that written documents represented authoritative revelation which superseded oral traditions. He says this transition happened in Mesopotamia around 1150 B.C.E. That transition happened in Judah, he maintains, with the Josiah reform of 622 when a written version of Deuteronomy was used as the basis for overruling oral tradition. Thenceforward written documents began to be viewed as revelation and the oral tradition was downgraded. Eventually the doctrine took hold that the era of prophecy had come to a close with the work of Ezra, who is credited with publishing the five books of the Torah as Jewish law, thus representing the closing of the canon as it relates to the Pentateuch. In the final analysis, the books that were included in the Hebrew Bible were those that were considered prior to the prophetic activity of Ezra. The books of prophecy that were admitted to the Masoretic canon derived from streams of tradition prior to Ezra with the exception of Daniel which was the only example of pseudepigraphy that was accepted as legitimately by an ancient prophet.

Van der Toorn goes into the books of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah to show in detail how the scribal procedures resulted in editions of Torah and prophets. Among the interesting facts that are revealed are that Jeremiah denounces the discovery of Deuteronomy in the temple under Josiah as a fraud perpetrated by the scribes; that Malachi was an invented prophet needed to bring the scroll of minor prophets to the perfect number twelve; and that Daniel was erroneously accepted as a legitimate traditional prophet when the book was definitely pseudonymous. He also argues that there was no closure of the canon at a particular time and place. Rather, the scribes were concerned with the closure of the canonization period, which is to say they accepted books that were regarded as reflecting material up to the life of Ezra, whose work was regarded as bringing to an end the age of prophesy. From that time onward, the scribes and their successors in Judaism maintained that revelation could only be found by studying the texts that became the Hebrew Bible.

Van der Toorn's book is very readable and full of provocative insights. Anyone interested in the development of the Hebrew Bible will find this work to be very worthwhile.

The nature of my Ph.D. thesis required an in-depth study of orality theory. Although I had studied early scribal culture, this book -- though clearly intended for the non-specialist -- brings together a significant depth and breadth of material on the subject. Unfortunately, although occasionally referencing orally produced material, van der Toon is overly scribe-centered and does not seriously engage orality theory. This produces a lop-sided impression of how the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures were formed and shaped. Nevetheless, the depiction of scribal culture is easily strong enough for me to recommend the first part of the book.

Unfortunately, I can not recommend the second part of the book, in which van der Toom attempts to reconstruct the writing and collection of the texts that make up the Hebrew Scriptures. Out of the massive mixture of consensus, bold ideas, and cautious suggestions that exist in the scholarship of this field, he fabricates a thesis in which all notions favorable to his paradigm function as equally certain. A more minimalist approach would, in my opinion, have produced less detailed but more convincing conclusions.

This book is somewhat elevated reading, meaning that it is not an easy read. However, it is iluminating and insightful on things other than its core theme of jewish scripture historic study. This book provides a very comprehensive overview of culture development and history in the making process. Its impact is well beyond religion evolution and really breaks through in cultural evolution and social organizations. The problem is that it has to be read slowly, it can't be read casually. This is a study book, a guide to anotate other references. it is invaluable for that and a cornerstone in its theme. With this caution, I fully enjoy it continued use.

I cannot exaggerate the importance of van der Toorn's work. Often the call for doing more 'work' in biblical scholarship comes to calling for sitting and contemplating new things to say or rearranging the way things are already said. This book is what I would call real work because it actually has something to contribute to the field of Hebrew bible studies. The greatest contribution to the excellence of this work is the comparative evidence from Mesopotamia and Egypt, though mostly Mesopotamia. This permeates all aspects of the entire thesis: scribal activity and social setting, literary compositional techniques (which support redactorial activity and source criticism; see the discussions of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah in chs. 6 & 7), divine revelation through textual traditions, canon formation, and conceptions of authorship in the ancient world. Karel van der Toorn balances this evidence in comprehensive and unquestionably gifted fashion. Simply put, text manufacture in the ancient world was generally a scribal phenomenon. Behind the scenes of the literary achievement of the Hebrew bible are generations of scribes. 'The books of the Bible would not have seen the light in the oral culture of Israel if it were not for the professional scribes. They are the main figures behind biblical literature; we owe the Bible entirely to them.' [p. 75] What are scribes, the scribes so important for this thesis? Not just automata of transcription. Rather, 'the involvement of scribes in the process of literary production exceeded that of mere copyists. They had an active part in the formation and transformation of the tradition'. [p. 110]

There is one major thing that perturbed me all the way through, and that was the argument for a correct conception of authorship in the ancient world as less individual and more authority or scribal representation of particular values. In the first case an individual figure might be the authority behind a textual tradition written by scribes. In the latter case, anonymity is the rule of thumb. But I don't see how this is consistent with his discussion of pseudonymity and what he calls 'attributed authorship'. Pseudonymity is where the real writer claims the name of an authority figure in a written text to deceive the public into its reception. I agree with van der Toorn here against other scholars who explain away pseudonymity as an ancient 'literary convention', obviously to extenuate the use of a pseudonym, which today looks very much like fraud and forgery. But alas, we try to look at the ancients too sympathetically as if they were sophisticated apes; they wouldn't ever intentionally mislead their audiences...they're too stupid, obviously, to think of something so sinister as pretending to be somebody else. In attributed authorship, editors/compilers repute a figure with the authorship of a text because they really believed the reputed figure wrote the text. (see p. 39) But the context indicates that this means the text was believed to have been written by the individual figure as opposed to the attribution being an editorial invoking of authority. This presupposes more than a 'scribal milieu' of common values or traditions or a figure standing behind the text in some way other than literal composition. And without a presupposition of individual authorship, in what sense could pseudonymity be fraudulent? That's what van der Toorn calls Deuteronomy, in agreement with Jeremiah's suspicion of Deuteronomy as van der Toorn so often reminds the reader. (see pp. 35, 77, 87, 95, 143, 145, 222f., 225) Pseudonymity ends up looking identical to the invoking of an authority figure, belief in a tradition streaming from him, or a case of honorary authorship. (see pp. 33f.) Therefore pseudonymity also presupposes a conception of authorship in antiquity along individual lines, especially considering that examples of this 'genre' record the individual experiences of the author in autobiographical form. (van der Toorn cites the standard edition of the Gilgamesh Epic and Daniel) Scribes writing this way knew the person they were attributing the text to had no such experiences.

Other than this, this book is jam-packed with data and authoritative.

It is difficult for a person living in our post-modern culture to understand the lives and point of view of people who lived just 100 years ago. Yet the majority of the bible was written by and for a priestly class in a pre-literate culture. Not only that, but a culture that pre-dates the Greco-Roman era. When we try to apply our post-modern ideas of authorship to to bible, we get some very strange results---like thinking Moses wrote the entire five books of Moses, when some were parts were clearly written after his death; like how we deal with scribal insertions in books where the divine inspiration of the single author is assumed. These issues and more are simply not a problem if we have a proper understanding of Scribal Culture.

Karel van der Toom's masterpiece, "Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible" must be purchased by all students of ancient historical, literary, scientific & philological culture in the Semitic & Indo-European languages. How were these ancient texts written, copied, edited, transmitted and interpreted by its various scribal cultures spanning the maturity of writing skill [2300 to 200 BCE] over a two millenia period of duration?

You young scholars at our great universities of the world must purchase and read this book more than once. I am 63 years old, so I am jealous that I did not have such a work of scholarship at my disposal when I was a young scholar in my teens and early twenties! It has taken me a lifetime reading my various ancient texts in their original languages to absord the intuitions that Karel displays with such alarming simplicity. His prose is immaculate, cogent, authoritative and clean. Not only is he a great scholar of Oriental and Classical scholarship, he is a humane, brilliant teacher.

His analysis of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah requires careful reading and re-reading. His mature discussions of redaction criticism stimulates the human mind to better appreciate our Biblical books free of the vulgar superstitions and dogmatic suppositions of our ignorant evangelical age.

You will appreciate how books were actually streams of traditions organized by a jealous priesthood guarding its tutelary gods or *God under the auspices of a Temple bureaucracy; and how presumed "authors" were really a series and successive groups of collective scribes preserving a specialized set of texts---legal, administrative, military, palace dossier and religious texts.

It is inexcusable not to buy this actual book! One does not want a kindle version. This book must be smelt, touched and fondled! It must be read multiple times!! Furthermore, it will enhance your insight into the behind-the-scenes activities that produced for us this great book we all call the Bible!!! The foundation of our western culture.