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Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel Julius Wellhausen 9781375013383 Books

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Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel Julius Wellhausen 9781375013383 Books

Wellhausen wrote a timeless Old Testament Theology. His work is cited as one of the first of many OT Theo. books to share what God did through history to relate to His people. Well written and a must have for any serious scholar or ministry practitioner!

Product details Paperback 656 pages Publisher Pinnacle Press (May 26, 2017) Language English ISBN-10 1375013386

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Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel Julius Wellhausen 9781375013383 Books Reviews

Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, noted particularly for being one of the originators of the documentary hypothesis of the Old Testament.

He wrote in the Introduction to this book (originally published in 1878), “In the following pages it is proposed to discuss the place in history of the ‘law of Moses’; more precisely, the question to be considered is whether that law is the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel, or not rather for that of Judaism, i.e., of the religious communion which survived the destruction of the nation by the Assyrians and the Chaldeans… We come then to the Law. Here, as for most parts of the Old Testament, we have no express information as to the author and date of composition, and to get even approximately at the truth we are shut up to the use of such data as can be derived from an analysis of the contents, taken in conjunction with what we may happen to know from other sources as to the course of Israel’s history…serious difficulties beset the assumption that the Law of Moses came into existence at a period long before the exile, and did not attain the force of law until many centuries afterwards, and in totally different circumstances from those under which it had arisen… We cannot, therefore, peremptorily refuse to regard it as possible that what was the law of Judaism may also have been its product.” (Pg. 1-3)

He states, “With the Hebrews, as with the whole ancient world, sacrifice constituted the main part of worship. The question is whether their worship did not also in this most important respect pass through a history the stages of which are reflected in the Pentateuch… this must be regarded at the outset as probable… the Jehovistic portion of the Pentateuch also knows of no other kind of divine worship besides the sacrificial, and does not attach to it less importance than the Priestly Code. But we do not find many traces of the view that the sacrificial system of Israel is distinguished from all others by a special form revealed to Moses, which makes it the alone legitimate. Sacrifice is sacrifice; when offered to Baal, it is heathenish; when offered to Jehovah, it is Israelite.” (Pg. 52-53)

He observes, “The kingdom which bore the name of Israel was actually in point of fact in the olden times the proper Israel, and Judah was merely a kind of appendage to it… Israel was the cradle of prophecy; Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha exercised their activity there; what contemporary figure from Judah is there to place alongside of them?” (Pg. 188) He argues, “It is certainly the case that the grand figure of Elijah could not have been drawn as we have it except from the impression produced by a real character. But it is too much torn away from the historical position it belongs to, and is thereby magnified to colossal proportions.” (Pg. 292)

He summarizes, “What in the common view appears to be the specific character of Israelite history, and has chiefly led to its being called SACRED history, rests for the most part on a later re-painting of the original picture. The discolouring influences begin early… The prophets did not form the tradition at first, but came after, shedding upon it their peculiar light. Their interest in history was not so great that they felt it necessary to write it down; they only infused their own spirit into it subsequently. But the systematic recoining of the tradition was only effected when a firmer stamp had become available than the free ideas of the prophets, the will of God having been formulated in writing. When this point was reached, no one could fail to see the discrepancy between the ideal commencement, which was now sought to be restored as it stood in the book, and the succeeding development. The old books of the people… had to be thoroughly remodeled according to the Mosaic form, in order to make them valuable, digestible, and edifying, for the new generation… Thus in the question of the order of sequence of the two great bodies of laws, the history of the tradition leads us to the same conclusion as the history of the cultus.” (Pg. 293-294)

He says of the sources themselves, “Thus the agreement of the sources in the plan of the narrative is not a matter of course, but a matter requiring explanation, and only to be explained on the ground of the literary dependence of one source on the other. The question how this relation of dependence is to be defined is thus a much more pressing one than is commonly assumed. This, however, if not the place to attempt a history of the development of the Israelite legend. We are only to lay the foundation for such a work, by comparing the narrative of the Priestly Code with the Jehovistic one… the Jehovistic form of the legend is the earlier of the two.” (Pg. 296) Later, he adds, “The history of the pre-historic and the epic tradition thus passes through the same stages as that of the historic; and in this parallel the Priestly Code answers both as a whole, and in every detail, to the Chronicles. The connecting link between old and new, between Israel and Judaism, is everywhere Deuteronomy.” (Pg. 362)

He suggests, “When it is recognised that THE CANON is what distinguishes Judaism from ancient Israel, it is recognised at the same time that what distinguishes Judaism from ancient Israel if THE WRITTEN TORAH.” (Pg. 410)

Biblical criticism has come a long way since Wellhausen; but anyone studying the history of its development will find Wellhausen’s work to be a fascinating study.
This edition isn't fabulous, but the text is the same. 5 stars is also needed to balance out the sickening apologists reviewing this having not even read it, supposing they can even read.
This review is about the edition published by Forgotten Books in 2008.

This edition is much cheaper than others but is apparently an OCRed version or something. It contains errors and its pagination doesn't match those of standard editions. If you plan to cite Wellhausen in academic writings, this is not for you. If you just want the content, it's a good deal. My two stars indicate the quality of publication of this particular edition.

For its content, it is a bit complicated to review with "stars." A rule of thumb To make it a good purchase, you should know what you are buying and why (you specifically chose Wellhausen). If you do, all you need is the first two paragraphs of this review and I think it is worth more than five stars.
If you do not, please read on, though it'd be hardly worth more than three stars for your purpose. (FYI A quick advice is in the last paragraph.)

It was written in 1882 by Julius Wellhausen (a German biblical scholar) as an attempt to explain how the Pentateuch came into being in the history of ancient Israel. He agreed to the conjecture that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament reflect several independent "source documents" used for their composition (hence "Documentary Hypothesis"). He proposed the chronological order of the sources to be J, E, D, and P (notably shifting P's position to the last unlike his predecessors). Though the name Documentary Hypothesis is usually associated with his name, his proposal was significant not as much for its originality as for his ability to synthesize previous discussions and to write in a persuasive way. This hypothesis aside, topics covered in this book are the place of worship, sacrifice, festivals, priests and Levites, the comparison of the view of Chronicles to that of Judges-Kings, "Hexateuch", oral and written law, and theocracy in the framework of his hypothesis.

On the one hand, his influence for the subsequent scholars has been fundamental. Many of his claims (including the alleged sources named J,E,D,P) are still held by many of his followers. Professors with mainline liberal background will most likely to present to you his hypothesis and related conjectures as if they are facts or as if there's a scholarly "consensus," which is hardly a truth.

On the other hand, many of his claims are now modified, questioned, or sometimes abandoned. An in-depth study on the subject will expose you to various explanations concerning how to better understand the Pentateuch. Nowadays, even Wellhausen's followers (those studying with Wellhausenian source-critical assumptions) do not agree with each other on the fundamental elements of his hypothesis (e.g. the order of "the sources," etc.). Outside Wellhausenian circle, there are increasing voices criticizing the whole reconstructionist attitude toward the Bible (that is, schools that have been overly confident about their ability to reconstruct the origins of biblical books using methodologies such as source-, form-, and traditio-historical criticisms. Now this attitude is often linked to the pitfalls of German Romanticism. As a matter of fact, we do NOT have a single physical evidence of any of the proposed sources, J,E,D, or P. This is not to say that the strength of historical critical methods is gone now. It is just that their revealed limitations are now clear to many in the academia). Moreover, more recent methodologies are developing under the suspicion that historical criticism has acted as a hindrance to our understanding of the Bible's message as well as a stimulating tool to it.

Professors sensible of these issues will introduce Wellhausen's hypothesis with more cautions and nuances. Critical scholars with evangelical background will explain Wellhausen's findings in ways that do not necessitate the sources held by Wellhausen school. In this case, the terms essential or substantial Mosaic authorship are often adopted.

If you are just an interested reader hoping to know more about the history of Israel, there are better starting points Iain Provan and others' A Biblical History of Israel (2003) or Richard S. Hess's Israelite Religions An Archaeological and Biblical Survey(2007), to name but a few. Both contain recent findings that were unavailable to Wellhausen and have clear writing styles. The second one has a more archaeological focus. If you pursue professional goals, you don't want to avoid engaging with Wellhausen and his follower regardless of how you agree with them.
Wellhausen wrote a timeless Old Testament Theology. His work is cited as one of the first of many OT Theo. books to share what God did through history to relate to His people. Well written and a must have for any serious scholar or ministry practitioner!