Konrad Schmid, «Genesis and Exodus as Two Formerly Independent Traditions of Origins for Ancient Israel», Vol. 93 (2012) 187-208
This paper is a response to Joel Baden’s article, which claims that the material in Genesis and Exodus was already literarily connected within the independent J and E documents. I suggest an alternative approach that has gained increased acceptance, especially in European scholarship. The ancestral stories of Genesis on the one hand and the Moses story in Exodus and the following books on the other hand were originally autonomous literary units, and it was only through P that they were connected conceptually and literarily.
GENESIS AND EXODUS AS TWO FORMERLY INDEPENDENT TRADITIONS 195
different in Genesis 37–50 on the one hand and in Exodus 1–15 on
the other that it is hardly plausible to assume the former are from
the outset narrative preparations for the latter and that their literary
basis is a common one. Joseph is described as a distinguished man
in the Egyptian court (see Gen 41,37-46) and favored by Pharaoh,
which then becomes true of his family once they relocate to Egypt.
The Israelites at the beginning of the book of Exodus, in contrast,
are portrayed as maliciously treated manual laborers similar to
those usually taken as prisoners of war. The wise and good pharaoh
of Genesis is exchanged for a cruel despot abusing the Israelites
and keeping them in check in Exodus 14. It is hard to see how these
divergences can be explained when it is assumed that the story was
never to fulfill any other function than preparing for the exodus
story. If the authors of the Joseph story, according to Baden J and
E, wrote it just to link the patriarchal and the exodus stories, why
should they introduce such significant tensions into the narrative
flow, only to straighten them out again at the beginning of the book
of Exodus in a rather unconvincing manner?
Rather, as Exod 1,8 (“a new king arose over Egypt who did not
know Josephâ€) demonstrates, these two narrative blocks seem to
have been joined only secondarily. Baden also tries to interpret Exod
1,8 so that this verse supports his position. According to him, this
text demands “that the reader know the patriarchal stories and the
Joseph story in some detail†(168). True, but from a historical per-
spective it is also clear that the author of Exod 1,8 recognized that
Exodus 1–15 is not a fitting continuation of Genesis 37–50. In order
to compensate he inserted the short notice stating that the king was
unaware of everything that was known about Joseph. Indeed, Exod
1,8 has a direct knowledge of both Genesis 12–50 and Exodus 1–15
and presupposes both texts, but at the same time Exod 1,8 is a clear
witness to the divergence of the literary traditions its author had be-
fore him. This verse is nothing other than what the textbooks on ex-
egetical methods refer to as a secondary clamp, i.e., redactional
formulations connecting two formerly independent texts 15.
See SCHMID, Genesis and the Moses Story, 6.
14
See O.H. STECK, Old Testament Exegesis. A Guide to Methodology (SBL
15
Resources for Biblical Study 39; Atlanta, GA 21998) 54, German original:
“Sekundäre Verklammerungenâ€, O.H. STECK, Exegese des Alten Testaments.
Leitfaden der Methodik (Neukirchen-Vluyn 141999) 54.
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