Schart, Aaron:
Redactional Models: Comparisons, Contrasts, Agreements, Disagreements [1]

 

The "Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture" from Brevard S. Childs represents an important shift in the research on the prophetic books.[2] In the legacy of Hermann Gunkel the main interest was in the small units which could be perceived as delivered in an oral setting. It was common to imagine the prophet standing somewhere in the streets confronting his hearers with the divinely inspired message. Hans W. Wolff in his commentary on Hosea for example considered many texts to be "Auftrittsskizzen" written hastily during or immediately after the oral communication.[3] Wolff impressively presented Hosea, Amos and Micah as participants in the social conflicts of their historic societies, trying to bring the conflicting parties to hear the unambiguous word of God. By the same time he noted in his commentary on Amos, that many and important passages were written by redactors from different times.[4] Since then the interest in the historical prophet has declined. Instead the canonical prophetic book became more and more important.[5] They include the original prophetic oracles in such a fashion, that it is in most cases almost impossible to reconstruct the oral setting.[6] The final text is in most parts the result of many different redactional activities, which wanted to aim the prophetic claims onto new generations. Within this new stream of research the fact was registered with fresh insight, that the Book of the Twelve Prophets in Antiquity was considered to be one book. It seems appropriate to reserve the word "book" to denote the collection as a whole and to speak of the twelve units ascribed to different prophets as "writings".[7]

 

The Book of the Twelve as a redactional unit

E. Ben Zvi has vehemently denied that the Book of the Twelve was originally meant to be a unit.[8] He conceives the book as a collection of writings, of which some have indeed thematic overlaps or even allude to one another, but which has no redactional sense as a whole. A reader may impinge a meaning on the whole, but one should be clear that this is not what the final redactors had in mind. They wanted to preserve the individual writings. Ben Zvi rightly emphasizes the problem, how one can discern that the redactors wanted to present the twelve prophets as part of a larger unity. The most unambiguous evidence is lacking: the Book of the Twelve has no superscription. So, what else can be accepted as signal for redactional purpose?

 

Widely acknowledged is the "Stichwortverkettung" phenomenon. F. Delitzsch noted, that the ending of one writing and the beginning of the adjacent one often share significant vocabulary.[9]  Most often the following instances were considered to be significant: Hos 14,2 // Joel 2,12; Joel 4,16 // Am 1,2; Am 9,12 // Obd 1,19; Obd 1,1 // Jona (as messenger to the nations); Jona 4,2 // Mi 7,18-19 // Nah 1,2-3; Nah 1,1 // Hab 1,1 (mas8s8a) ); Hab 2,20 // Zef 1,7. Some assumed that the redactors grouped writings together, which accidentally contained such Stichwörter.  Others postulated that the Stichwörter were implemented in order to stitch together writings, which the redactors wanted to place after one another. This second hypothesis is strongly supported by J. Nogalski, who most thoroughly dealt with the Stichwort phenomenon. He even discovered a lot of Stichwörter, which had been overlooked so far. For example the inconspicuous word "time" ((t) connects Zeph 3,20 with Hag 1,2.4. The glorious future envisioned in Zeph 3,9-20 is counterbalanced by the unsatisfactory state of the people living around the ruins of the temple.[10]

 

B. A. Jones and Ben Zvi doubt that the Stichwörter can provide evidence for the redactional linking of the writings. One problem is that there is shared vocabulary between writings, which do not stand adjacent to each other. Obadiah for example could as easily follow after Joel 4:19, where Edom is mentioned, as after Am 9:12. Especially since the decisive term "Edom" in Am 9:12 is according to Jones lacking in the Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint.[11] Jones and Ben Zvi rightly argue, that in many cases the Stichwörter are not significant enough, to preclude an accidental allusion of the involved passages. However, if additional arguments are found, the Stichwörter are still valuable clues to the redactional plan. Most important are source critical observations. If, to use a disputed example of Nogalski, almost all differences between Obadiah and its Vorlage in Jer 49 pick up vocabulary and theme present in Am 9, it is probable, that Obd was designed to fit into its place after Amos.[12] Jones too easily dismisses the arguments of Nogalski, when he states: "Even if Nogalski's conclusion is correct, however, that Obadiah has been shaped redactionally under the influence of Amos 9, again this may explain but does not require the arrangement of Amos and Obadiah in the MT Book of the Twelve. One should not be surprised that a relatively late book such as Obadiah has been influenced by the Book of Amos".[13] However, it is unjustified to require only from the proponents of the idea of a redactional unity this high degree of probability. Too long the Book of the Twelve as a whole was ignored. One should challenge this common reading by turning around the burden of proof: One should start with the assumption that the Book of the Twelve is a unit and only give up, if the opposite can be demonstrated.[14]

 

A further question to detect redactional intention is whether the reading process is designed in such a way, that the small units appear as parts of a global discourse structure. One has to ask for example, if a unit presupposes a thought from a previous text or uses a lexem that has a specific connotation, which was established in an earlier passage in the reading process. Important are also frames, e. g. Hosea starting with a Fremdbericht (Hos 1) and Amos having one included in the final vision cycle (Am 7:10-17). Likewise a meaningful superstructure points towards a deliberate ordering, e. g. the historical ordering of the writings with Hosea being the first, because he mentions the "House of Jehu" in Hos 1:4, and Maleachi being last, because he presupposes an operative second temple.[15]

 

The order of the writings

The manuscript evidence of the Book of the Twelve was investigated by Jones, Fuller and Steck.[16] So far three variants are known. In the Hebrew tradition all manuscripts follow the masoretic order with the exception of one of the oldest scrolls 4QXII(a), where it is the most plausible reconstruction, that Jonah followed after Maleachi.[17] In the Septuagint tradition we find a third option. The first six writings are arranged: Hos, Am, Mi, Joel, Obd, Jona. The problem, whether we have enough evidence to reconstruct the goal of the final redactors, comes up again. Do the different variants signal that the order of the writings was meaningless, or to the contrary, that the sequence was important to express a new understanding of the whole by the redactors and/or translators? The consensus so far was that the masoretic order was the original one.[18] In contrast, Jones considers the Septuagint order to be the older one.[19] The aim was, to group together writings similar in content. This is for example the reason why Obadiah immediately follows Joel. The main problem with Jones' hypothesis is, that it has no explanation how the masoretic order came into being. Much more convincing is that the Septuagint version placed Am and Mic immediately after Hosea and left all other writings in the order they had in the masoretic sequence. The reason probably was the historical setting given by the superscriptions. Since Hosea, Amos and Micah prophesied partly under the same kings, they form a closed group, to which Joel, Obadiah and Jonah do not belong.

 

More convincing is Jones' hypothesis that the oldest order had Jonah after Maleachi, as represented by 4QXII(a). Since Jonah has a different position in every of the three variants, Jones argues that it came into the collection last.[20] It seems to be an imaginable process, that this strange writing was first attached to the end of the collection, and in a second step found its place close to the prophets from the 8^Th century, because Jonah ben Amittai lived under Jerobeam II. (2 Kings 14:25).

 

The global structure of the Twelve

If the Book of the Twelve is a purposeful arrangement, one should expect to find a coherent global structure, which directs the reading process.[21] Most important in that respect are the beginnings of the writings, of which nine are superscriptions.[22] Since the dated beginnings follow in a historical sequence, the reader gets the impression, that the whole collection intends to unfold a certain part of the history of prophecy. The deepest break is located between Zeph and Hag: At this point the Babylonian exile is presupposed, but not mentioned.

 

According to P. House the implied picture of the history of Israel follows the scheme "sin – punishment – restoration".[23] Hos, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah belong to first topic. These writings are not exclusively but mainly concerned with the sin of Israel and the nations. Nah, Hab, and Zeph describe extensively the punishment of that sin. The writings Hag, Zech, and Mal envision the restoration of Israel within the nations. Although House' description of the global structure of the Twelve contains many insights in the intertextual relationship of the different writings, his scheme seems to be too imprecise.[24] On first sight it is obvious that all three topics are regularly part of a single writing. Mal, for example, does contain more and more specific accusations than Joel. As a result, it is difficult to describe the aim of Joel as disclosing the sin of Israel.[25]

 

T. Collins presents a more complex model. He identifies a set of recurring themes. "The principal themes of the whole book are those of covenant-election, fidelity and infidelity, fertility and infertility, turning and returning, the justice of God and the mercy of God, the kingship of God, the place of his dwelling (Temple/Mt. Zion), the nations as enemies, the nations as allies."[26] Every prophet adds a certain aspect to the topics, sometimes in accordance, sometimes in opposition to other writings. Collins tries to find the overall unity, which can make sense of all the different aspects. How this works may be illustrated from passages dealing with the temple. Hosea accuses the temple of Northern Israel, because a calf is worshipped there. In contrast, Joel makes clear that at the temple in Jerusalem the true worship of YHWH is going on with a call to repentance. It is not before Mic 3:12, that the temple on Mt. Zion is condemned. However, immediately thereafter it is envisioned that Mt. Zion will once be the center of the world, to which all nations will come spontaneously in order to accept the tora as the way to universal peace. Zeph 3:9-20 further explores this topic. In order to serve its eschatological responsibility Mt. Zion has to be cleansed and has to be the home of holy community. This thought sets the stage for Hag, Zech, and Mal. Especially Zech 8, which once formed the end of a smaller collection, reminds the reader of Zeph 3 (comp. Zech 8:3 with Zeph 3:11.15). Maleachi then recognizes that the promised glorious future of Zion "is still impeded by the unworthy behaviour of the priests in the temple, the very place where God's name should be honored most."(81) Collin's model is certainly more complex than House' one, but it does more justice to the variety of topics and the sometimes striking differences between the writings.

 

An outstanding topic of the Twelve is the Day of YHWH. No other prophetic book contains so many passages about this day, which at the same time are so central for the overall structure. In addition, the day of YHWH is the concept, which integrates at least some of the basic topics into one scenario. The writing of Joel impressively introduces the Day of YHWH into the collection and the reader is forced to perceive what follows within this framework. R. Rendtorff gives a good example.[27] The passage Am 5,18-20 does imply that the opponents of Amos are longing for the day of YHWH. Since Amos himself never spoke about this day, the hearers must know about it from elsewhere. From the perspective of the reader it is obvious, that they have heard Joel's message before. One gets the impression that the contemporaries of Amos used Joel's prophecy in order to evade the call to turn back to God (Am 5:4-6.14-15). How they did it, is not spelled out. Amos restates the severe scenario of Joel: for those who do not repent the coming day will bring complete darkness. Likewise this reading sets the stage for understanding the Day of YHWH in Obadiah 1:18, where it is announced that the "House of Jacob" will burn the "House of Esau". According to Am 5 and 9:8-10 this eschatological "House of Jacob" will comprise only those, who did not reject the message of Amos and at the same time belong to persons called by God, as stated in Joel 3:5. Rendtorff rightly observes that the nearness of the day of YHWH inspires a call to repentance (Joel 2:12-14; Am 5:4-6.14-15; Zeph 2:1-3; Mal 3:24). The reader may also infer that every reference to a decisive day, on which YHWH will punish the sin and restore the true Israel, e. g. "on that day" (Am 2:16; 8:3); "day of trouble" (Nah 1,7), points toward the one Day of YHWH.

 

R. C. van Leeuwen observes, how the first six writings make use of Ex 34,6-7, a text that contains "an elaboration of the name YHWH expressing the bipolar attributes of mercy and retributive justice".[28] The first allusion he sees already in Hos 1:6, where it is unambiguously declared, that the mercy character of God is no longer operative. However, in Hos 14:10 it is implied, that the wise know that God does forgive those who repent. The redactors seem to exploit the tension between mercy and justice in God in order to show that different prophets emphasized different attributes of the very same God. Joel cites Ex 34,6-7 in 2:12, Jonah in 3:9 and 4:2, Micah in 2:8 (conjectured) and 7:18-20, and Nahum in 1:2-3a. The tensions between the different writings are deeply routed within God. Only a diverse multiplicity of approaches does justice to the mystery of God's personality.

 

The Book of the Twelve shares certain features with the Book of Isaiah. One may note, for example, that the Judean kings listed in Is 1:1 "Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah" are identical with the ones listed in Hos 1:1. Also, Is 2:2-4 and Mi 4,1-4 are almost identical. For these and other reasons Bosshard-Nepustil has closely examined the relationship between both books. It is remarkable how many cross-references on different layers he detects. He proposes that the main redactions in the Book of the Twelve, which he calls "Assur/Babel-Redaktion^XII" and "Babel-Redaktion^XII", were influenced by similar redactions in the Book of Isaiah.[29] Although he tries to display his results in well-structured tables, the sheer complexity of his reconstructions is overwhelming. Many of his source-critical decisions appear to be problematic and often one has the feeling that the intertextual allusions cannot be controlled.

4. Models for the redaction history of the Book of the Twelve

There is no question that a simple synchronic approach is insufficient. Already the superscriptions make it unambiguously clear that the different writings originated from different centuries. All of the redaction critical models proposed so far assume that smaller collections predated the final book. Indeed it is highly unlikely from the outset that twelve independent books were for the first time combined in hellenistic times.

 

R. E. Wolfe was the first to propose, that the thirteen redactional layers, which he differentiates, have worked across the boundaries of the individual writings. This is why he labels his model "strata hypothesis".[30] A notable layer for example is the "Day of Jahwe Editor", which contains the following passages: "in Amos 4,12b (from (qb); 5,13.18c (from hw)).20; Obadiah 1,15a (to hgwym); Joel 1,15; 2,1d (from ky)-2b (to w(rpl), 10-11; 3,1-5; 4,1-3.12.14-17; Zephaniah 1,7-8a (to yhwh).14-16.18c (from bywm); 2,1-3; 3,8b-e (from h[kw)" (103). This means that almost all passages, which contain the phrase "Day of YHWH", belong to this layer. He discerns four steps. First, Am and Hos were combined. Second, Mic, Nah, Hab and Zeph were added, yielding a collection of the six pre-exilic prophecies. Third, through the insertion of Joel, Jonah and Obadiah a "Book of the Nine" developed. The book became complete with the addition of Hag, Zech, and Mal.

 

D. A. Schneider thinks along similar lines.[31] The basis was the collection of Hos, Am and Mi in the time of Hezekiah. Under Josiah's rule Nah, Hab and Zeph were attached. During the exile Joel, Obd and Jonah entered the collection. Finally, in the time of Nehemiah, Hag, Zech and Mal were added.

 

Nogalski attributes the most extensive redactional activity to the "Joel-related layer". This redaction has combined a pre-existing "Deuteronomistic Corpus" (Hos-Am-Mic-Zeph) with Nah, Hab, Hag, Zech 1-8, Joel, Obd and Mal. After that Jonah and Zech 9-14 entered the collection.[32]

 

Schart assumes some more steps, in which the collection continually grew. First, Hos and Am were combined. For the next step he agrees with Nogalski that there must have been a Deuteronomistic Corpus. Then Nah and Hab were inserted. After that Hag and Sach 1-8 were attached. Subsequently, Joel, Obadiah and Zech 9-14 were added. Finally, Jonah, as a satirical narrative, and Maleachi completed the book.[33]

 

The main problem of all the different models is the problem of establishing controls about what is to be considered as deliberate redactional shaping and what is only accidentally connected. Which features should be construed as important goals of the final text, and which should be viewed as inferior ones? It seems wise to begin the reconstruction of the redaction history with those passages, which most obviously stem from editors: the superscriptions.[34] Given that starting point, it is most plausible that Hos, Am, Mic, and Zeph once existed as a separate collection. The superscriptions of these four writings follow the same type and through the names of the kings mentioned they convey the following scenario: First, Hosea and Amos prophesied simultaneously in the Northern Kingdom, thereafter Hosea and Micah at the same time in Judah.[35] Deliberately the writing Hos was put in the first position, although probably the historical prophet Amos delivered his oracles earlier than Hosea. The redactors wanted the reader to perceive the writing of Amos in the light of Hos, presumably because they were committed to Hosea's theological position. Some have used the concept "deuteronomistic" to characterize those redactors.[36] This seems unwise, since typical deuteronomistic language is only rarely to identify, e. g. in Am 3:7 "his servants the prophets".[37] To be more cautious one may speak of a redaction, which in addition to the superscriptions inserted some passages, which come close to deuteronomistic thoughts.[38]  Especially Schart pulled together a lot of observations concerning this redaction which had been made already in the past.[39] The central topic is that all transgressions were conceived as conducted directly against God. The root of all the evil is the distortion of the personal relationship to YHWH, which was established through the Exodus. In order to underline the last point, the redactors inserted passages referring to the Exodus at crucial points of the composition of the collection (Am 2:10; 3:2; 9:7; Mic 6:4-5). Social, cultic or juridical degeneration is seen to be the result of the fundamental corruption of the identity of Israel, which is determined by the Exodus. It is remarkable, that the redaction also reflected upon the role of the prophets within God's history with Israel and Judah (Am 2:11-12; 3:7).

 

If one asks for precursors to this corpus, it can most convincingly be argued that the writings of Hosea and Amos once formed a single composition. Especially J. Jeremias has proposed this hypothesis.[40] On the one hand, there are additions in the writing of Hosea, which pick up language from Am: The second half of Hos 4:15 pulls together words from Am 4:4; 5:5 and 8:14. Hos 8:14 is closely related with Am 3:9-11 and 6:8. The passages appear at positions where a reader from Judah possibly could perceive the transgressions of Northern Israel as something that would never happen in Judah. However, the aim of the redactional additions is to counteract those reactions. On the other hand, there are verses like Am 3:2; 7:9; 2:8; 5:25; 6:8; and 1:5, which are heavily loaded with vocabulary and topics from the writing of Hosea. Almost all of these redactional passages are located at important points in the composition of the writing of Amos. This implies that the composition of Am in an already early stage must have been designed with ideas of Hosea in mind. Schart has further pursued this insight.[41] In his view the same redactors edited both writings as a single composition. The overall structure was governed by the summons to hear (Hos 4:1; 5:1; Am 3:1; 4:1; 5:1). In both writings the prophet first addresses "the Israelites" (Hos 4:1; Am 3:1) and secondly the "House of Israel" (Hos 5:1; Am 5:1). The writings were combined in order to convince the reader that these prophecies of doom are truly the word of God. Schart points towards the letters from Mari, which show that the authority especially of unfavorable oracles could be strengthened, if a second oracle, which was independently uttered by a different speaker, confirmed the message of the first one.

 

As a redactional stage latter than the corpus, which comprised Hos, Am, Mic, and Zeph, there must have been something like a "Joel-related layer", which formed a corpus, at the center of which laid the Day of YHWH passages. After some forerunners it was Nogalski, who put together strong and fascinating arguments for this stage in the formation of the book.[42] Besides large parts of Joel this layer probably contained a version of Obadiah. According to Nogalski also little glosses dealing with locusts and the fertility of the land were inserted in older writings in order to recall the vivid picture of Joel 1-2, e. g. Nah 3:15ag.16b and Hab 3:16b-17. However, it seems difficult to find out exactly how many writings and passages this layer comprised. Although Wolfe, Nogalski, Bosshard, and Schart agree, that there was something like a "Day of YHWH-layer", which contained a large part of Joel, the differences between them are considerably. This problem is closely related to those in the last phase of the redaction history of the Book of the Twelve. Did the collection of the Joel-related layer end with a former version of Maleachi, which was attached to Zech 8, as Nogalski proposes?[43] Or was it concluded with Zech (9-)14, and Maleachi came in latter, as Schart prefers? In any case, Jonah is likely to be the last independent writing, which was added. In this respect Nogalski and Schart agree with Jones, who argues from the manuscript evidence: Because Jonah's position within the sequence of the Twelve is different in all three variants it was probably added last. Over the last decades there emerged a strong consensus that Mal 3,22-24 was added to the Book of the Twelve as conclusion to the second part of the Hebrew canon "Nebiim".[44]

 

Hermeneutical Implications

The new insights into the redaction history of the Book of the Twelve change the way in which the meaning of the whole and its parts can be adequately construed.[45]

 

First, the well-known fact should again be emphasized that the original words of the historical prophets underwent a deep transformation within the literary transmission. Without the different redactors the first written records would have been left somewhere in an archive. With their adaptation they became an unparalleled literature which played an important role in the interaction between Israel and its God. The ongoing rewriting of the prophetic heritage certifies that the prophetic collections were successful in mediating the word of God into different historical situations. In this respect the prophetic books pursued the function of the original prophets.

 

A second well-known fact may also be stressed. The literary remains of the pre-exilic prophets were mostly shaped under the impression of the fulfillment of the original oracles. The exiles of Northern Israel and Judah functioned as the basic proof of truth for a precursor of the Book of the Twelve, which presumably contained at least Hos, Am, Mic, and Zeph. However, the prophecies of doom did also provoke the confident hope, that God will once bring peace and wellness to Israel within the context of a renewed creation.

 

Thirdly, from an early stage in the transmission process on, the oracles of one prophet were perceived in the light of the history of prophecy. One may already compare Jer 28:8, where Jeremiah uses the conformity of his message with the prophetic tradition as an argument against his opponent. It was even more so the goal of the redactors to present the prophets as a coherent whole. New prophecy had to demonstrate how it is related to the literary prophetic tradition. This does not mean that the prophetic messages remained unchanged during history, but every new prophecy had to be conceivable as picking up and expanding certain aspects of the tradition under the pressure of new experiences of God.

 

Fourthly, the prophetic writings were transmitted as parts of collections. It is very likely, that the redactors did expand and rewrite given prophetic writings in the opinion that they articulate what the historical prophet, under whose name they worked, would have said, if the prophet were confronted with the problems of their own time. However, whenever they were confronted with a new prophecy, which could not be harmonically integrated within the existing collection, a new writing was designed under a new author name. Presumably this writing circulated in many cases independently for a while before it was added to the existing group. The inclusion became possible when the redactors could develop a theological position, in which the differences between the older corpus and the new writings could be either integrated or became insignificant.[46] Within a given collection the writings were combined in such a way, that the meaning of the whole overruled the sense a certain text had in its original historical setting. The theological position, which was held by the last redactors, was inferred into all of the parts of the collection. For example, within the Joel-related layer all passages dealing with the Day of YHWH were interpreted as reference to the scenario described in Joel, no matter what the original meaning of those passages would had been. Therefore it is imperative for the interpreter not to isolate one prophetic writing against others, but to read it as part of a collection, which contributes to a consistent meaning of the whole. It is especially important to look for those redactional passages, which especially are concerned with developing complex scenarios, in which different concepts can be reconciled.

 

Fifthly, it is important, however, that the redactors did not produce a flat coherence without diversion, tensions and even contradictions. It must be called to attention that the final text does not support the idea of one prophet overlooking the whole history of Israel from one point in time, as for example the Book of Isaiah does. Instead it presents twelve different prophets from different times. The overarching unity of this book is much more unsettled than in Isaiah. Whereas former exegetes hesitated to conceive the individual messages as part of a higher unity, postmodern thought is intrigued by even that idea. The Book of the Twelve postulates that messages from different times, from persons with special insights, speaking from different backgrounds together form a complex unity. The reader is forced to proceed from one prophecy to the next, every time imagining the hidden theme of the whole, the judging and restoring presence of God in history, from a different perspective. For the postmodern reader it is not important to get a final coherent vision of what the book is about. Much more important is the arrangement of the prophecies in a way, that the single unit presents a distinct but memorable perspective, which at the same time needs to be balanced by the next unit. None of the prophecies needs to be criticized as long as the reader has delight in moving on. The trajectory of this complex process is the canonical guidance how the reader can achieve his or her own vision of the God of Israel.