Ejes transversales

Wellhausen had found an intimate relationship between the Torah of the priests and the word of the prophets not only because both have their origin in YHWH, but also because they existed as word in the mouth of the priests and prophets.134 He placed the Priestly documents and Deuteronomy with the laws after the prophets. He did not deny the existence of the law, though in oral form, before the prophets, but he asserts that the Priestly document with its accent on God’s laws came after the prophets. The prophets were, therefore, more than just freelance preachers of the Torah. They were proclaimers of the word of God in particular life situations as Zimmerly later described:

132

As already proposed above, the social critical references of the prophetic books do not pertain to a particular chronological epoch. Similarly, the writing-down of all the laws did not take place in one sitting or during a certain period, and certainly not during the life time of the eighth century prophets.

133 _{My translation from “Weder können Rechtssätze einfach als Beschreibung der faktischen}

gesellschaftlichen Ordnung angesehen werden, wie es freilich für das alte Israel mangels anderer Quelle vielfach geschehen ist und noch geschieht, noch kann das schriftliche Recht einfach als Ideal und Reformvorstellung der Realität entgegengestellt werden.”F. Crüsemann, Die Tora, p. 23.

134 _{J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1886. p. 415. He dates}

the written appearance of the Priestly Torah to 444 BCE and attributes to Ezra the enthroning of it as the constitution of the people of God signifying the transfer of “the people of the word” into “the people of the book” (cf. pp. 424.428). He rejects the assumption that the prophets were interpreters of the law (cf. p. 417). About the chronological evolution of the Torah his conclusion was: “Es ist darum leicht zu begreifen, dass die Thorah, obwohl als schriftstellerisches Produkt jünger als die geschichtlichen und prophetischen Bücher, dennoch als Gesetz älter ist als jene Schriften, die ja ursprünglich und ihrem Wesen nach gar kein gesetzlichen Charakter tragen, sondern denselben accessorisch erlangt haben, im Anschluss an ein vorhandenes eigentliches Gesetz.” (p. 429). He describes this process: “Das Wasser, das in der Vergangenheit gequollen war, fassten die Epigonen in Cisternen.” (p. 429).

So just as a messenger has to bring a context-related message on a day of battle, so the prophetic messengers, as the structure of their sayings in the early written prophetic period clearly shows, know that as messengers, they are sent with an announcement of God’s actions relevant to their time.135

Zimmerli also points out that Amos is not speaking with a completely new ethos of his own, but instead from very specific issues and concerns dealt with in the law of Israel, either in the older formulations of Exod 22.20ff. when he speaks about the weaker sections and 22,25ff. when he refers to the pledged garment, or in the later formulations of Deut 25,13-15 and Lev 19,35ff. in his critique of malpractices in trade.136

Before studying the response to the social crisis in biblical laws, we should try to answer the vexing questions: “To what extent did written laws exist during the time of the prophets?” and “What evidence do the biblical texts present in this regard?” The three references in the Bible which Kessler proposes as witnesses for the “writing-down” of laws during the prophets are: Isa 10,1; Hos 8,12; Jer 8,8ff. When these texts are critically evaluated, we find the following:

i. The “woe” introduction and the use of present participles in Isa 10,1 seem to suggest that the “decreeing” and “writing” activities indicate the actual situation. Some commentators have thereby concluded that these references mean that “either new, unjust laws were promulgated to the benefit of the wealthy and/or ruling classes or existing laws were interpreted so as to deprive the powerless of their goods and property.”137

The first part of the verse Isa 10,1 condemns those who make iniquitous decrees. There is mention to mәḵattәḇîm or “writers” in the second part of this verse. However it is not clear whether the object of their writing is law or statute as the word ʽāmāl is not used anywhere in the Bible with these meanings. In a similar phrase in Ps 94,20 yōṣērʽāmāl ʽălê-ḥōq “those who form injustice by statutes”, ʽāmāl and ḥōq are related but this evidence is not adequate to suggest the same meaning for both words. Whether Isa 10,1b could express the immoral zeal of the scribes, as commentator Beuken claims138, is also anybody’s guess. However, that laws and statutes in some form existed during the time of the prophet is inferable from this verse.

135

My translation from “So wie ein Bote an einem Kampftag eine ganz situationsbezogene Meldung zu bringen hat, so wissen sich die prophetischen Boten, wie die Formgestaltung ihrer Sprüche in der früheren schriftprophetischen Zeit deutlich zeigt, als Boten, die mit einer situationsgebundenen Ansage vom göttlichen Handeln in ihre Stunde gesandt sind.”W. Zimmerli, Das Gesetz und die Propheten, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969, p. 101.

136 _{Cf. W. Zimmerli, Das Gesetz und die Propheten, pp. 103-04.}

137 _{J.H. Hayes / S.A. Irvine, Isaiah: The Eighth-century Prophet; His Times and his Preaching,}

Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987, p. 191.

138

ii. The existence of written Torah seems to be presupposed also in Hos 8,12, where the general accusation of the disrespect of YHWH shown by building shrines for other gods is viewed as an utter disregard for the laws written for them by YHWH. Here too the existence of written laws can be only indirectly assumed and it would be too far-fetched to presume the existence of a systematically codified system of laws even from this reference.

iii. In Jer 8,8ff., the prophet questions the wisdom of the people of Jerusalem who claim to be wise because wәṯôraṯ yhwh “and the law of the Lord” is with them, even though their law is the product of the lying pen of the scribes and the falsehood of the wise (cf. vv 8-9). Here there is reference to a group that possesses the law of the Lord; a group called “wise”, “scribe”, belonging to the high officials. The phrase seems to suggest that they have the written laws in their hands and have reworked them. Even though they think that the law of the Lord is with them, they are fools because what they have is not the word of YHWH. The lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. Though the context of this remark remains elusive, the existence of written laws during the time of Jeremiah is inferable from this verse. However, we do not know whether wәṯôraṯ yhwh here is associated to “the book of the Law”.139

Though we do not have sufficient information to draw reliable conclusions, it must be granted that the references in Isaiah, Hosea and Jeremiah seem to suggest that some kind of writing activity with regard to laws had taken place or was going on already during their times. There are also a few other instances in the prophetical books where they refer to the Torah of the Lord. In Amos 2,4, in the oracle against Judah, the rejection of the law of the Lord is pointed out. Hosea accuses the people of forgetting the law of the Lord (cf. 4,6) and complains against the transgression of this law (8,1). Israel’s rejection of the law of the Lord is mentioned by Isa 5,24 and 30,9. A perusal of these texts reveals that the prophets understood laws as setting demands on human beings and wherever they use the term, it is to show people ignoring, rejecting, and rebelling against these demands of YHWH. But if the laws existed in a written and a codified form is not evident from the prophetical books themselves.

I would further suggest that it is unnecessary to draw a watertight distinction between the law and the prophets regarding their chronological sequence. Chapman has appropriately pointed out,

Historically the process of scripture in Israel began with the preservation of tradition and the commitment of tradition to written form. However, the origin of

139 _{Whether it refers to “the book of the Law” found during the reign of king Josiah (cf. 2 Kgs 22,8ff.),}

Israel’s canon (when defined as a conceptual and literary framework for those scriptures) is to be found in the insight that ‘the Law and the Prophets’ comprise an indissoluble unity of tradition and faith.140

He further concludes: “In the Law and the Prophets, Judaism and Christianity have not received ‘Law plus commentary’ or ‘Prophets plus background,’ but the fully mature witness of Israel to a dialectic that continues to be constitutive of the reality of God.”141