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2.3 Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomist, and the Deuteronomic School

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„For the Levites to compose and propagate the doctrine of centralisation would be like a man sawing through the branch (of the tree) upon which he is perched. Nor could the Levites have had access to the wealth of literary material which Deuteronomy comprises, only a neutral circle could have drawn upon the various types of literary material which make up Deuteronomy66.

In the light of the above, M. Weinfeld seeks to find the authors in a neutral circle and this he does among the wisemen and scribes. This observation was reached on the bases of the similarities between the Vassal treaties of Esarhaddon (VTE) and the covenant form that the book of Deuteronomy exibits. He says, „The similarities in the formulation of the Deuteronomic covenant and the Assyrian treaties led me to infer that trained scribes of the Judean court transferred literary patterns from the political sphere with which they were intimately familiar to the religious sphere with which they began to be active during the Hezekian-Josianic reign. This position differs from C.F.Burney, Wetch, Bentzen and Von Rad, who think that the authors must be sought among the heirs of the religious traditions of the Northern Kingdom and among the disciples of the prophets or in the Levitical circles. In the light of the diversities of opinions it is most probably that the authorship lies with the scribes and disciples of the prophets whose views were congruent with Mosaic traditions. The author combines exhortations and legal stipulations, all of which derive from older traditions and are interpreted in the light of changing social and political situations in Israel. The link of the authorship of the Book with the theme of social inequality is that Deuteronomy was a creation of the scribal circles which began their literary project prior to the reign of Josiah with the

66 M. Weinfeld. 1972. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. p.55.

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view of providing a theoretical framework for organising the cultic and social life of Israel. One cardinal objective of the book was to champion the course of the marginal groups which we find in the text segments.

M. Noth‟s Deuteronomistic History, which was built upon W.M.C. De Wette‟s thesis, assigns the book of Deuteronomy to the era of Josiah and designates the book of the law discovered under Josiah‟s Reform as the Book Deuteronomy. Rather than a single author of the Deuteronomistic History as propounded by M. Noth67 the theory of the composite authorship championed by Von Rad, Smend, T. Veijola 68 observes that there are differences in the interests of authors leading to the theory of Multiple Redactors.

The two major interests were the Nomistic (DtrN) which focuses on the laws, and the Prophetic materials which are designated DtrP whose interest centers on a prophetic interpretation of the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH). The Deuteronomist (Dtr) here refers to the author(s) computer (s) who put together the Deuteronomistic History. M.

Weinfeld‟s, „Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic school69‟, whose interest is to discover the group behind the Book of Deuteronomy, Von Rad, Smend, T. Veijola which were examined ascribes the authorship of Deuteronomy to the Scribal Circles. These studies concern themselves with the authorship of the Book of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History. They identified the various interests of the redactors namely the normistic (Drt N) i.e. the law and the Priestly (Dtr P). Here a gap is found, namely that the phenomenon of social inequality which is reflected in the D-code, especially with

67 M.Noth.1953. The Deuteronomist History (Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche studien) 2 edition, Tubingen Niemeyer (Sheffield: JSOT Press. 1981).

68 D.N. Freedman, G.A. Herion et al “Eds.” 1992. The Anchor Bible Dictionary (D-G) London: Double Day Press) pp.161-168.

69 M. Weinfeld. 1972. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic school. Oxford: At Clarendon Press. see T.

Oestericher.1929. Problem of Deuteronomy .(JBL) 48: 291-306.

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reference to the social status of the marginal groups in Ancient Israel namely the Orphans, Widows, Sojourners and the Levites were not investigated which, by implication, are issues for the contemporary society. This gap exists largely because biblical studies have been concerned largely with theological matters rather than sociological issues. Coupled with this is the hegemony of biblical studies done from Western cultural background and has given little attention to issues of class inequality.

The question that the authorship of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History raises is what group lies behind the literary work and what interest?

The Deuteronomic School

The understanding that the Deuteronomic School was responsible for the composition of Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomistic History and the editing of Jeremiah goes back to M. Noth‟s theory of the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) Gerhard Von Rad70, M. Weinfeld71 and those who understand the School as constituted by scribal guilds says that their redactional activities spanned a long period of time, from possibly as early as the Pre-exilic period to the Persian period and shortly before Ezra. Von Rad observes: Deuteronomy makes its appearance at a definite point in the history of Israel‟s faith. …at a relatively late date it gathers together practically the whole of the assets of the faith of Israel, re-sifting them and purifying them theologically. This theological purification Von Rad attributes to the Deuteronomic School. By theological purification he meant the re-interpretation of the earlier traditions and rites in ancient Israel with the

70 G. Von Rad. 1963. Studies in Deuteronomy, Bloomsbury. Street London: SCM Press.

71 M.Weinfeld comments on the Deuteronomic School as follows: The authors of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School must be sought for, then, among circles which held public office, among persons who had at their command a vast reservoir of literary material, who had developed and were capable of developing a literary technique of their own, those experienced in literary composition and skilled with the pen and the book: those authors must consequently have been the soferim-hakamin.

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view of identifying their religious and social significance. The School however consistently also included the social significance to the cultic regulations inherited from the earlier traditions. In the view of R.F.Person the Deuteronomic School was an all encompassing scribal guild which rose in the Babylonian exile and dominated the bureaucratic and literary output of the Persian-period community in Judah until its demise in the time of Ezra when a new scribal school replaced it. Nicholson holds a different view. He argues that the ancient traditions of Israel preserved by the northern prophetic circles were transmitted by members of these circles (i.e, the Prophetic circle) to the South as they fled to Judah following the fall of Samaria in 721 BC. This suggests that the Deuteronomic School was a prophetic and a literary group which began its work ever before the Babylonian exile. This view which contrasts Raymond‟s sees the Deuteronomistic History and the Chronicles as contemporary historiographers but was produced by different scribal guilds, one in Babylon and one in Jerusalem. For R.F.Person both histories have a common institutional ancestry in the Deuteronomic school of the Babylonian exile. The split occurred when the Deuteronomic school returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel to provide scribal support for the rebuilding of the temple and its cult, leaving what became the Chronistic School in Babylon.72 With this difference of opinions means is that it may not be clear at what point the School began its work; whether in the ninth century or the seventh century BC. What is more likely is that it started from the pre-exilic and continued into the exilic period.

A School is said to exist where there is a continuous literary activity such as we find in the work of the Deuteronomists. The existence of literary schools in the ancient near East is variously attested by the presence of and role attached to the Scribes. Three

72 R. F.Person Jr. 2011. The Deuteronomic History, the Book of Chronicles, and their relationship.

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Hebrew terms are commonly used to describe the scribes. These are Soper „One who enumerates‟, the root Str from the Akkadian language which means, „to write‟ while the third is Mazkir

ryKi(z>m;

which literally means „One who reminds‟ or „Court recorder‟ (2Sam 816, 2024 Ikgs 43, 2kgs 1818,37 IChron 1815, 2Chron 348) It has been observed that such scribal schools were established in Egypt and Mesopotamia, training which resembles contemporary apprenticeships in which novices working under the tetulage of more senior scribes were made to copy ancient manuscripts. Copying ancient texts which was part of their training not only exposed them to ancient texts but become familiar to texts from across different spectrums and genres. These include diplomatic and royal correspondence, legal documents such as laws, treaties, socioeconomic texts and marriage settlements etc. For this reason it is believed that the Deuteronomic School was a closed guild in which the scribal arts of reading and writing were taught as training for the scribal profession. This guild is viewed as part of the court or temple bureaucracy responsible for all administrative texts and for official literary documents and religious texts. In the view of Person the Deuteronomic School is meant to convey the notion of a collection of scribes with a common ideology, like a philosophical School. Another way of speaking of the Deuteronomic School is the work of the multiple redactors in the Deuteronomic corpus who are responsible for the composition of the Deuteronomic History and the modifications of its texts, and who have been influenced by the oral mentality of the social context to produce a free non-literal transmission of the tradition73. It is arguable that the interest of the redactors was not simply to preserve the traditions through the literary work but to interpret them and in persuasive manner to address both

73 The Deuteronomic School: History, Social Setting, and Literature, By Raymond F.Person. Jr. 2000.

Studies in Biblical Literature SBL. 2 Atlanta : Society of Biblical Literature.

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cultic and social issues of their own times. This is evident in the use of the legal texts which are found in the Deuteronomic texts under consideration. That Deuteronomy originates from the (rural) Levitical circles in the northern kingdom has been argued. This connection, according to W.H.Schmidt is drawn on Deuteronomy‟s concern for their welfare (1212,18) and includes them among the unfortunate who need protection and help (1427, 2611). This social vision of Deuteronomy is what we find reflected in the texts which give philanthropic consideration to the marginal groups. One of the social issues of the day was social inequality, and constitutes the concern of the prophetic tradition in Ancient Israel to which the Deuteronomic School derives its inspiration.

Both THEOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL VISIONS exist in DEUTERONOMY. The theological intention of Deuteronomy, it has been observed centers around three themes namely; One God, One People and One Cult. The concept of the One cult is considered in Deuteronomy as reason for the identification of the one single sanctuary with Jerusalem and is upheld as informing the cult centralization policy of Josiah (Deut. 1213-19). This demand for the exclusivity of the one center, „Take heed that you do not offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see; but at the place which the Lord will choose in one of your tribes there you shall offer your burnt offerings (1213f) and which called for the concentration of the Liturgy in a single place brought radical changes both in the cultic and social life of Israel. The implications for the religious and social life of Israel were, One God, one cult and unity of the people of God. This social vision which emerges from the theological, according to Schmidt W.H seeks to use the Unity of the people of God as the basis for conclusions regarding the social life of human beings. It expresses concern for social justice and fair treatment of all thus:

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The occupants of the highest offices are to come

“from among the brethren” – thus the promised prophet (1815,18) and even the King (1715) whose rights are sharply curtailed so that, „his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren (1720) is there not perhaps an intimation here that despite the diversity of roles all are equal before God?74

These exhortations meant to regulate the social life of the people of Israel are considered relevant in contemporary societies as a result of the similarities in the social conditions especially as it affects the marginal groups. Schmidt W.H states further:

The relationship of the brethren to one another likewise yields social consequences. Even the impoverished fellow believer is your poor brother (152f,7ff etc also Lev.2535) whom the Israelite is not to treat hardheartedly but whose debts he is rather to remit, so that the poor may have a share in God‟s gift.

Not only widows and orphans (Exo 22

22-24 Isa. I17,23) but also strangers „or‟

citizens in need of protection (gerim) who live far from home and relations.75

G.Holscher who is critical of the practical applicability of these regulations holds that

„such regulations in which the rights of the individual or family may by put before the tasks of the community earns for Deuteronomy the criticism that it is „utopia‟ in the sense of being remote from reality.76 This argument however fails to recognize the existing social structure of society which encourages inequality and puts some in marginal condition.

74 W.H.Schmidt. 1984. Introduction to the Old Testament. London: SCM Press Ltd. p.134.

75 Ibid. p.132.

76 Ibid. p.135.

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40 2.4. The Language and Style of Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is marked with both theological and peculiar literary style.

According to S.R.Driver, „Nowhere else in the Old Testament do we breathe such an atmosphere of generous devotion to God, and of large-hearted benevolence towards man;

and nowhere else is it shown with the same fullness of detail how these principles may be made to permeate the entire life of the community‟77. In vocabulary there are comparatively few exceptional words; but particular words and phrases, consisting sometimes of entire clauses which recur with extra-ordinary frequency, giving a distinctive colouring to every part of the work. Among the phrases characteristic of Deuteronomy are: „In thy gate‟ (of the cities of Israel)( see Deut 1212,15,17,18,21

,1421,27-29, 157,22,165,11-14,18,172,8186 Ex.2010, 1Kgs 837, 2 Chron 628); The stranger, the fatherless, and the widow (see Deut 1018. 2417,19,20,21

2719 cf. Ex 2221f Jer 76,223 Ezek.227) The genre in Deuteronomy include; History, Law and Prophecy.78 Each appears in various forms, and each is sometimes combined with one or both by the Deuteronomistic editor. The Deuteronomist makes use of both laws and narratives. Sometimes it combines Old traditions to arrive at its judgments. This is reflected in the text segments considered. The laws include various types of legislation, codification and related form of argumentation.

From the text segments investigated the apodictic form of the laws are found employed by the Deuteronomist. The Deuteronomist‟s language is predominantly imaginative, abstract, and idiomatic. The style of the Deuteronomist is also parenitic79, a method which the author(s) adopts, and subordinates to the historiographic and educational aim.

77 S.R.Driver. 1956. An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. New York: Meridian Books.

p.79. For Holzinger this constitutes one of the leading principles of Deuteronomy.

78 B. Peckham. 1993. History and Prophecy: The Development of late Judean literary Traditions. London:

Doubleday. P .652.

79 Parenetic is from Paraenesis which means to speak in praise of somebody or something.

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From the beginning to the end the book was an address to the community. It is in Deuteronomy that social Israel can be reviewed and interpreted.