DEUTERONOMY

and the Hermeneutics

of Legal Innovation
This page intentionally left blank
DEUTERONOMY
and the Hermeneutics
of Legal Innovation

Bernard M. Levinson

New York Oxford

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1997
 Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1997 by Bernard M. Levinson

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Levinson, Bernard M. (Bernard Malcolm)
Deuteronomy and the hermeneutics of legal innovation / Bernard M. Levinson.
p. cm.
Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)—Brandeis University.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-511280-6
1. Bible. O.T. Deuteronomy XII-XXVI—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
2. Bible. O.T. Exodus XX, 22-XXIII, 33—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
3. Law (Theology)—Biblical teaching. I. Title.
BS1275.2.L48 1997
222'.1506—dc21 96-47389

35798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my father, Ulysses
This page intentionally left blank
 PREFACE

R
esearch for this book began with my doctoral dissertation, undertaken at
Brandeis University and directed by Michael Fishbane, who first introduced
me to the nature of textuality in ancient Israel and who fostered my approach
to the material. His encouragement of my independence set a lasting model—
not only for scholarly achievement but also for devotion to learning and com-
mitment to family. This book represents a comprehensive rethinking and com-
plete revision of the dissertation. The change in perspective came about as a
result of a year's research leave in Germany. I am very grateful to Professor
Norbert Lohfink, who first encouraged me to come to Germany and who pro-
vided extensive comments on my dissertation. I am also deeply grateful to
Professor Eckart Otto of the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the Johannes
Gutenberg University in Mainz for making that year possible. He generously
offered me a position in the Seminar for Biblical Archaeology while freeing
me to pursue my own research as we engaged in wide-ranging discussions about
the field of biblical studies. That I here engage in debate with these three—
whom I regard as teachers, senior colleagues, and friends—only indicates how
much I have learned from them.
This book is concerned with how the authors of Deuteronomy drew on
and transformed earlier literary sources in order to mandate a major transfor-
mation of religion and society in ancient Israel. In order to map that reuse, it is
essential to employ the technical terms developed by biblical scholars to refer
to the literary sources of the Bible. In the real hope that this book will find a
wider readership, however, I would like to provide a simple primer for some
of the terms, which may be obscure for nonspecialists. The classical documen-
tary hypothesis assumes the Pentateuch to be the combination of four origi-
nally independent literary sources: the Yahwistic work, the Elohistic work,
Deuteronomy, and the Priestly source, which includes the Holiness Code
(Leviticus 17-26). These sources are conventionally abbreviated J (after the
German term for the Yahwist), E, D, P (with H). J and E are assumed to be the
viii Preface

oldest sources of the Pentateuch; at a relatively early stage of their literary

growth they are understood to have been combined together as the work of the
Jehovist, or JE. The core of Deuteronomy is normally associated with Josiah's
reform, as narrated in 2 Kings 22-23, which would date to 622 B.C.E. Most
scholars date the Priestly source and the Holiness Code later than Deuteronomy,
to the exilic and postexilic eras, although a number of scholars, chiefly Israeli,
date it prior to or contemporary with Deuteronomy.
The term "the Deuteronomistic History" (or DtrH) also requires explana-
tion. It refers to the entirety of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, and 1-2 Kings,
viewed as the redactional achievement of one or more editors who worked under
the literary influence of Deuteronomy. Most American scholars believe that a
first edition of this work was completed during Josiah's reign; most European
scholars believe that the work was not begun until the Exile. This editor or
editors gave Deuteronomy its present introduction in chapters 1-4, which
thereby provide the introduction to the Deuteronomistic History. Since the editor
was also active elsewhere in Deuteronomy (and, many hold, in Exodus), schol-
ars find it necessary to distinguish the material original to Deuteronomy, called
Deuteronomic, from the later additions to this text, which are called Deuter-
onomistic. Many scholars also identify Deuteronomistic additions to the pro-
phetical books, like Jeremiah, but that goes beyond the scope of this book.
Completion of this manuscript was facilitated by a one-semester teaching
reduction granted by Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Martha C. Kraft Professor of the
Humanities and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cul-
tures at Indiana University. I am indebted to a number of colleagues and friends
whose comments on previous drafts of part or all of this manuscript were in-
valuable and whose generosity was often heroic: Professors James S. Ackerman,
Marc Brettler, Alan M. Cooper, Sam Greengus, Baruch Halpern, Stephen Katz,
Gary Knoppers, Herbert Marks, Benjamin Nathans, Dina Spechler, and Stephen
Weitzman. The painstaking comments by Oxford's anonymous readers were
very beneficial. Cynthia Garver helped pay careful attention to demanding
details of formatting while guiding the manuscript through production at Ox-
ford. The Author Index and the Index of Scriptural and Other Citations were
prepared by my student and friend Alexander Moorhead, whose meticulous
work is exceeded only by his ability as a budding Hebraist and by his grace. I
especially acknowledge the kindness of Professor Leah Shopkow, who taught
me much about both friendship and writing.

Bloomington, Indiana B.M.L.

June 1996
 CONTENTS

Abbreviations xi

1. Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation:

The Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation in Deuteronomy 3
Methodological Presuppositions 6
The Question of Deuteronomistic Revision of the Covenant Code 11
Authoritative Texts and the Problem of Legal Innovation 13
Editorial Devices as Cues to Textual Reformulation 17
The Purpose and Scope of This Book 20

2. The Innovation of Cultic Centralization in Deuteronomy 12 23

The Innovation of Centralization as Exegetical Reformulation 28
Lemmatic Transformation in Deut 12:13-19 34
Lemmatic Transformation in Deut 12:20-28 36
The Double Justification of Innovation in Deut 12:20-28 39
The Hermeneutical Function of Deut 12:8-12 44
Reflections upon Textuality and Exegesis in Deuteronomy 12 46
The Double Movement of Cultic Centralization and
Local Secularization 49

3. The Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread

in Deuteronomy 16 53
The Programmatic Origins of Deut 16:1-8 54
The Pre-Deuteronomic Passover 57
The Conflict between Centralization and
the Pre-Deuteronomic Passover 62
x Contents

The Originality of Deuteronomy's Transformation and Blend

of Passover and Unleavened Bread 65
Deuteronomy's Double Transformation of Passover and
Unleavened Bread 72
Lemmatic Reformulation in Deut 16:1 -8 75
When Texts Collide: The Hermeneutics of
Prepositional Reduplication 81
The Transformation of Law and Religion in Deut 16:16-17 90
Conclusions 93

4. The Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 98

Deut 16:18-17:13: The Problematic of Textual Sequence 700
Deut 17:2-7: The Standard Argument for Textual Relocation 704
A Critique of the Standard Solution 707
The Rewriting of Legal History: The Coherence of
Deut 17:2-7 and 8-13 709
Pre-Deuteronomic Judicial Procedures in the Local Sphere 770
The Implications of Centralization for Israelite Justice 777
Deut 17:2-7 as a Revision of Deut 13:7-12 118
The Hermeneutical Function of Deut 17:2-7 123
The Contextual Function of Deut 17:8-13 727
Toward a Coherent Reading of Deut 17:2-7 and 8-13 130
Apostasy as the Transgression against the Text 133
The Dialectic of Coherence 735
The Eclipse of Royal Judicial Authority (Deut 17:14-20) 138

5. The Revisionary Hermeneutics of Deuteronomy 144

Deuteronomy's Relation to the Covenant Code: A New Approach 149
Deuteronomy's Self-Presentation 757
Revisionary Hermeneutics and Literary History 752

Bibliography 759

Author Index 779

Subject Index 785

Index of Scriptural and Other Sources 799

 ABBREVIATIONS

AB Anchor Bible
AJBI Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute
AnBib Analecta biblica
ANET James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the
Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969)
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
AOS American Oriental Series
ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments
BBB Bonner biblische Beitrage
BDB F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and S. A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexi-
con of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907)
BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium
BFCT Beitrage zur Forderung christlicher Theologie
Bib Biblica
BJS Brown Judaica Studies
BN Biblische Notizen
BWANT Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament
BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago
CahRB Cahiers de la Revue biblique
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
ConBOT Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament
CRINT Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad novum testamentum
ErFor Ertrage der Forschung
EstBib Estudios biblicos
ETL Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses
Xll Abbreviations

FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testa-
ments
GKC E. Kautzsch (ed.), Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, tr. A. Cowley (2d ed.;
Oxford: Clarendon, 1910)
GTA Gottinger theologische Arbeiten
HALAT L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner et al. (eds.), The Hebrew and Ara-
maic Lexicon of the Old Testament, tr. M. E. J. Richardson (4 vols.;
Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994-97)
HAR Hebrew Annual Review
HBS Herders Biblische Studien/Herder's Biblical Studies
HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
ICC International Critical Commentary
IDBSup Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume (Nash-
ville: Abingdon, 1976)
IE] Israel Exploration Journal
Int Interpretation
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JPOS Journal of Palestine Oriental Society
JPS Jewish Publication Society
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
KcHAT Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament
LD Lectio divina
LXX Septuagint (Greek) translation of the Hebrew Bible
MT Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible
NCBC New Century Bible Commentary
NEB New English Bible
NJPSV New Jewish Publication Society Version = Tanakh: A New Transla-
tion of the Holy Scriptures according to the Traditional Hebrew Text
(Philadelphia: JPS, 1988)
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
OBO Orbis biblicus et orientalis
OrAnt Oriens antiquus
OTL Old Testament Library
OTS Oudtestamentische Studien
PAAJR Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research
QD Quaestiones disputatae
RB Revue biblique
 Abbreviations xiii

RSV Revised Standard Version

SBAB Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbande, Altes Testament
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series
SBLMasS Society of Biblical Literature Masoretic Studies
SBLWAW Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World
SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien
SBT Studies in Biblical Theology
ScrHier Scripta hierosolymitana
SJLA Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity
SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament
SSN Studia semitica neerlandica
StudBib Studia Biblica
TBii Theologische Bucherei
TDOT G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theological Dictionary of
the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974- )
Tg. Targum
TLZ Theologische Literaturzeitung
TP Theologie und Philosophie
TRE Theologische Realenzyklopadie
TRu Theologische Rundschau
TWAT G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theologisches Worterbuch
zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970- )
VS Verbuin salutis
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTSup Vetus Testamentum, Supplements
WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament
WZKM Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes
ZA Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie
ZAW Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZTK Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche

The abbreviations of biblical books and pseudepigraphical and rabbinic litera-

ture follow the conventions of JBL, as found most recently in the Society of
Biblical Literature Membership Directory and Handbook (Decatur: Society of
Biblical Literature, 1994) 223-40. For the sake of convenience, the abbrevia-
tions of the books of the Hebrew Bible are presented below:
Gen Genesis 1-2 Kgs 1-2 Kings
Exod Exodus Isa Isaiah
Lev Leviticus Jer Jeremiah
Num Numbers Ezek Ezekiel
Deut Deuteronomy Hos Hosea
Josh Joshua Joel Joel
Judg Judges Amos Amos
1-2 Sam 1-2 Samuel Obad Obadiah
xiv Abbreviations

Jonah Jonah Prov Proverbs

Mic Micah Ruth Ruth
Nah Nahum Cant Canticles (Song of Songs)
Hab Habakkuk Qoh Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes)
Zeph Zephaniah Lam Lamentations
Hag Haggai Esth Esther
Zech Zechariah Dan Daniel
Mal Malachi Ezra Ezra
Ps (pl.:Pss) Psalms Neh Nehemiah
Job Job 1-2 Chr 1-2 Chronicles
DEUTERONOMY
and the Hermeneutics
of Legal Innovation
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 1
Textual Revision and Cultural
Transformation
The Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation
in Deuteronomy

F or centuries the legal corpus of Deuteronomy 12-26 has presented biblical

scholars with two key difficulties. The first involves the seemingly arbi-
trary selection of topics within the legal corpus, their lack of coherent order,
their frequent repetition, and their often tortuous philological structure. The
second involves the ambiguous relationship of the corpus as a whole to the
Covenant Code (Exod 20:22-23:33), a text on which it seemingly depends for
both content and language but from which it nonetheless diverges in signifi-
cant ways. 1 These problems, usually considered independently, have not
yet found satisfactory solution. In this book I argue that they are inextricably
linked. Innovation took place by means of literary reformulation in Deuter-
onomy; once that is recognized, the long-standing critical difficulties begin to
yield. Deuteronomy represents a radical revision of the Covenant Code. The
authors of Deuteronomy sought to implement a far-reaching transformation of
religion, law, and social structure that was essentially without cultural prece-
dent. They therefore turned to the earlier code in order to anchor their depar-
ture from legal convention in the very textual heritage from which they cut
themselves free in substantive terms. They deliberately presented their new
vision of the Judaean polity as continuous with the abrogated past and used
the earlier textual material, carefully transformed, to sanction their own inde-

1. The Covenant Code (or Book of the Covenant) is conventionally defined as Exod
21:1-23:19, together with its preface, 20:22-26, and its homiletical conclusion, 23:20-33. There
is an ongoing scholarly debate, however, concerning how much of that present textual compass
is pre-Deuteronomic and how much is a result of Deuteronomistic additions. Providing a useful
overview is Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974)
451-88. Recent work has greatly increased the amount of material ceded to Deuteronomistic
literary activity. On these matters, see "The Question of Deuteronomistic Revision of the Cove-
nant Code."

3
4 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

pendent agenda. Many of the problems of coherence and structure in the legal
corpus result from this revisionist activity.
The authors of Deuteronomy were sophisticated interpreters or, better,
reinterpreters of texts, both Israelite and cuneiform. They were skilled scribes
confronting a central problem in the history of religions: the justification of
innovation.2 Central to Deuteronomy is the question of hermeneutics. In stress-
ing the importance of hermeneutics, I do not restrict it to the discipline of
the contemporary biblical scholar or exegete, who is concerned to explicate
the text philologically and raise the question of its contemporary meaning.
Hermeneutics is not simply a matter of the history of reception and interpreta-
tion of Deuteronomy by ancient, medieval, or modern communities of believ-
ers or scholars. Instead, Deuteronomy was already a complex hermeneutical
work from the beginning; it was the composition of authors who consciously
reused and reinterpreted earlier texts to propound and justify their program of
cultic and legal reform, even—or particularly—when those texts conflicted with
the authors' agenda. Previous scholarship has not fully recognized, let alone
conceptualized, the centrality of this hermeneutical question to Deuteronomy's
authors, nor the extent to which, once recognized, it helps explain a number of
long-standing problems that have otherwise resisted solution.
Deuteronomy is, on the one hand, among the most radically innovative
literary units in the Hebrew Bible and, on the other, among those that most
loudly silence the suggestion of innovation. The earliest literary strata of the
Pentateuch, both legal and narrative, as well as the narratives of Joshua through
2 Kings, clearly contemplate sacrificial worship of Yahweh at multiple altar
sites throughout the land. To select only the most familiar of examples, Abraham
sacrifices at Shechem and Beth El, Jacob at Beth El, Samuel at Shiloh and
Ramah, and Elijah upon Mount Carmel.3 Contrary to this norm, the authors of
Deuteronomy prohibit all sacrificial worship at the familiar local altars. They
restrict legitimate sacrifice to a single, exclusive site, "the place that Yahweh
shall choose," Deuteronomy's circumlocution for Jerusalem and its Temple.4
The radically disruptive nature of that transformation of religious routine should
not be underestimated. Deuteronomy's repeated emphasis on the "joy" to be
experienced at the central sanctuary might well represent an attempt to pro-

2. See Jonathan Z. Smith, "Sacred Persistence: Toward a Redescription of Canon," in

Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism;
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982) 36—52; and Bernard M. Levinson,
"The Human Voice in Divine Revelation: The Problem of Authority in Biblical Law," in Inno-
vation in Religious Traditions (ed. Michael A. Williams, Collett Cox, and Martin S. Jaffee; Re-
ligion and Society 31; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992) 35-71. Note also the editors' intro-
duction and extensive bibliography.
3. Gen 12:7-8; 35:1-7; 1 Sam 3:1; 7:17; and 1 Kgs 18:20-46.
4. The text of Deuteronomy nowhere itself specifies that the formula refers to Jerusalem.
Although there is universal agreement that, in the final version of the legal corpus, the Jerusa-
lem Temple is intended, some scholars have maintained that the formula originally functioned
distributively, not exclusively. They thereby argue that, in earlier strata, the formula applied to
other sanctuaries, like Shiloh or Beth El. For a more complete discussion of this issue, see chapter
2, n. 1.
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 5

vide compensation for the loss of the local cultic sites, where the people would
more conventionally have gained access to the deity.5 The rejection and trans-
formation of the religious status quo does not stop with the institution of sac-
rifice alone. Already invasive and revolutionary, the implications of central-
ization extend still further.
The Deuteronomic proscription of local cultic activity and restriction of
cultic action to the central sphere entailed the obligation to revise essentially
the entire apparatus of cultic rituals and institutions that governed local cultic
activity: tithes and firstlings, the festival calendar with its pilgrimages to local
sanctuaries, and the Passover as an apotropaic blood rite involving a home
slaughter. The authors of Deuteronomy also had to transform institutions of
public life that did not directly involve the cultus. Judicial procedure, for ex-
ample, had to be reorganized—because the local sanctuary had played a cru-
cial role in the resolution of ambiguous civil and criminal legal cases. Even
the conventional role of the king in Israelite society, as the highest civil and
judicial authority, was fundamentally transformed on account of centralization.
In this case centralization ironically led to a decrease in royal power, as the
Temple eclipsed the king's authority.6
But the Deuteronomic authors' transformative action did not operate
exclusively at the empirical level. Their profound transformation of Judah's
religious and judicial institutions cannot be understood apart from the larger
problem of innovation in a culture in which prestigious or authoritative texts
occupy an important place. In commanding centralization, the authors and edi-
tors of the legal corpus did not create lex ex nihilo. They confronted existing
legal texts that enshrined the legitimacy of the local altars that the Deuteronomic
authors sought to prohibit. Granted, those legal texts may not yet have had the
status of actual public law; they may have been only prestigious texts, part of
the curriculum of scribal schools, but they were nonetheless texts that could
not simply be ignored or dispensed with. The authors of Deuteronomy, in one
way or another, had to take account of these texts and justify their departure
from their norms.
In the innovation of centralization, therefore, the Deuteronomic authors
did not only transform empirical institutions. They also rewrote literary his-
tory. Their paradoxical technique for defending their innovation was, in many
cases, to appropriate and rework the earlier texts that would seem to preclude
centralization. The authors of Deuteronomy coopted those texts, accommodat-
ing them to their innovations, by citing selected key words and phrases (lem-

5. Deut 12:7, 12, 18; 14:26; 15:20; 16:11, 14, 15; 26:11. For this point see Norbert Lohfink,
"The Cult Reform of Josiah of Judah: 2 Kings 22-23 as a Source for the History of Israelite
Religion," in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D.
Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 459-75 (469);
Lohfink, "Opfer und Sakularisierung im Deuteronomium," in Studien zu Opfer und Kult im Alten
Testament (ed. Adrian Shenker; Forschungen zum Alten Testament 3; Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr
[Paul Siebeck], 1992) 15-43 (31); and Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the
Old Testment Period (2 vols.; OTL; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994) 1.211.
6. See chapter 4 for the revisions both of judicial procedure and of royal authority.
6 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

mas) from their source texts and giving them new contexts and meanings. In
the process, the authors camouflaged the radical and often subversive nature
of their innovations, as the new textual content was often expressed, quite lit-
erally, using the terms of the older dispensation. Such learned textual recycling
left in its wake a number of clear editorial markers, including citation formu-
las, repetitive resumption, devoicing, revoicing, and intertextual allusion. Many
of the philological difficulties of the text derive from and become intelligible
in light of this hermeneutical activity. They are not merely the evidence of
redactional layering of pre-Deuteronomic, Deuteronomic, and Deuteronomistic
strata. Rather, they represent the wake of transformative exegesis, the deliber-
ate attempt to rework prestigious texts in light of the innovation of centraliza-
tion. Standard diachronic literary criticism, although it provides the essential
analysis of the philological problems of the text, lacks access to their solution
unless it takes into account the hermeneutics of innovation. The scribal authors
of Deuteronomy authorized their radical cultic and legal transformations
by disclaiming their innovative force. Very likely, even the voicing of
Deuteronomy—its attribution to Moses—points to the attempt by the text's
authors to lend legitimacy to their innovations.7 The voice of the text belies
its belatedness. By means of it, the text's authors purchased a pedigree—both
an antiquity and an authority—that the text properly lacked. In so doing,
they borrowed pseudepigraphically from the very textual authority that they
subverted.8

Methodological l pPresuppositions
In arguing that Deuteronomy revises the Covenant Code, I assume that the Cove-
nant Code as a text chronologically precedes Deuteronomy and was known, in
whole or in part, by Deuteronomy's authors. Each component of that assump-

7. There is no scholarly consensus about whether Deuteronomy's being garbed as Mo-

saic speech is original to its composition; hence, there are other ways of explaining the evi-
dence. Contending that the Mosaic voicing of the legal corpus is not original but represents the
work of its later Deuteronomistic editors is Norbert Lohfink, "2 Kon 23,3 und Dtn 6,17," Bib
71 (1990) 34—42; and Lohfink, "Das Deuteronomium: Jahwegesetz oder Mosegesetz? Die
Subjektzuordnung bei Wortern fur 'Gesetz' im Dtn und in der dtr Literatur," TP 65 (1990)
387-91. Against Lohfink, Eleonore Reuter argues for the originality of the Mosaic voicing
(Kultzentralisation: Entstehung und Theologie von Dtn 12 [BBB 87; Frankfurt: Anton Hain,
1993] 213-26). In his review article, however, Lohfink maintains that Reuter misrepresents his
position, which he there also amplifies ("Kultzentralisation und Deuteronomium: Zu einem Buch
von Eleonore Reuter," Zeitschrift fur Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte, 1 [1995]
117—48). Lohfink's review article provides a valuable assessment of the archaeological evidence
for and against the historicity of Josiah's centralization of the cultus.
8. Morton Smith has demonstrated that pseudepigraphy is a literary technique character-
istic of a broad range of texts within the Hebrew Bible and that Deuteronomy's attribution to
Moses provides a classic example of it. See his "Pseudepigraphy in the Israelite Literary Tradi-
tion," in Pseudepigrapha I: Pseudopythagorica—Lettres de Platan—Litterature pseudepi-
graphique juive (ed. Kurt von Fritz; Fondation Hardt; Entretiens sur 1'antiquite classique 18;
Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1971) 191-215.
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 1

tion is consistent with the broad scholarly consensus.9 Some scholars have chal-
lenged the very idea of literary relation between Deuteronomy and the Covenant
Code or have reversed the consensus, claiming that the Covenant Code, in whole
or in part, depends upon Deuteronomy.10 While raising valuable issues, these
challenges have for good reason not won currency. There is clear precedent in
the ancient Near East for subsequent legal collections directly revising earlier
ones in order to articulate developments in juridical thought.11 Moreover, the
degree of the detailed lexical and syntactical correspondence between Deu-
teronomy and the Covenant Code is too extensive to be explained otherwise than

9. For the most recent presentations of the history of research, see Albert de Pury and
Thomas Romer, "Le Pentateuque en question: Position du probleme et breve histoire de la re-
cherche," Le Pentateuque en question: Les Origines et la composition des cinq premiers livres
de la Bible a la lumiere des recherches recentes (Le Monde de la Bible 19; 2d ed.; Geneva:
Labor et Fides, 1991) 9-80; and Norbert Lohfink, "Deuteronome et Pentateuque: Etat de la
recherche," Le Pentateuque: Debats et recherches (ed. P. Haudebert; LD 151; Paris: Cerf, 1992)
35-64.
10. Denying any literary relation whatsoever among the biblical legal corpora is Yehezkel
Kaufmann, Toledot ha-'emuna ha-yisre'elit (8 vols. in 4; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute; Tel Aviv:
Dvir, 1937-56) 1.113-42, 201-203 (Hebrew); abridged as The Religion of Israel: From Its
Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (tr. Moshe Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1960) 205. Also denying dependence among the legal corpora is Rosario Pius Merendino, Das
deuteronomische Gesetz: Eine literarkritische, gattungs- und uberlieferungsgeschichtliche
Untersuchung zu Dt 12-26 (BBB 31; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1969) 401-402. Accepting depen-
dence but reversing the sequence to argue that Exod 22:17-23:19 depends upon Deuteronomy
is Gary Alan Chamberlain, "Exodus 21-23 and Deuteronomy 12-26: A Form-critical Study"
(Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1977) 129-59. Dating J postexilically, eliminating E, and there-
fore reversing the consensus to claim the dependence of both J and the Covenant Code upon
Deuteronomy is John Van Seters, "The Place of the Yahwist in the History of Passover and
Massot," Z4W 95 (1983) 167-82; Van Seters, "Etiology in the Moses Tradition: The Case of
Exodus 18," in Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of S. D. Goitein (ed. R. Ahroni; HAR 9;
Columbus: Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, Ohio State Uni-
versity, 1985), 355-61; Van Seters, '"Comparing Scripture with Scripture': Some Observations
on the Sinai Pericope of Exodus 19-24," in Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpreta-
tion: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (ed. G. M. Tucker, D. L. Petersen, and R. R. Wilson;
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 111-30; and Van Seters, The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as His-
torian in Exodus-Numbers (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994).
11. Establishing deliberate legal revision of cuneiform legal collections, based on devel-
opments in judicial thought, are J. J. Finkelstein, The Ox That Gored (Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society 71:2; Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1981)
18-20; Barry L. Eichler, "Literary Structure in the Laws of Eshnunna," Language, Literature
and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner (ed. F. Rochberg-
Halton; AOS 67; New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987) 71-84; Reuven Yaron, '"En-
quire Now about Hammurabi, Ruler of Babylon,'" Legal History Review 49 (1991) 223-38;
and Eckart Otto, "Aspects of Legal Reform and Reformulation in Ancient Cuneiform and Isra-
elite Law," in Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation, and
Development (ed. Bernard M. Levinson; JSOTSup 181; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1994) 160-96. Denying revision but maintaining that the individual legal collections were part
of a coherent literary and scholastic curriculum is Raymond Westbrook, Studies in Biblical and
Cuneiform Law (CahRB 26; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1988) 1-8; and Westbrook, "What Is the Cove-
nant Code?," in Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation,
and Development (ed. Bernard M. Levinson; JSOTSup 181; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1994) 20-32.
8 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

in terms of literary dependence, while divergences can be explained in terms of

terminological or legal updating. The attempts to make Deuteronomy precede
the Covenant Code or the Yahwistic source do not come to grips with legal his-
tory; they overlook the evidence of historical linguistics; and they arbitrarily ex-
clude other Pentateuchal sources from the analysis.12
Some scholars have proposed a "two source" theory for the composition of
Deuteronomy. They hold that, in addition to the Covenant Code, an ancient "Privi-
lege Law" source, which is identified with Exod 34:10-26, exists. These schol-
ars have a specific view of the compositional and redactional history of the legal
corpus, according to which a core of texts in Deut 12:1-16:17 represented the
original Josianic Deuteronomy. The literary influence of the Privilege Law is
restricted to this allegedly original section, although it operates in conjunction
with the Covenant Code.13 According to this "block model," the Josianic legal
corpus was exilically expanded with "the Laws of Public Officials" (Deut
16:18-18:22), and, still later, with the final section (chs. 19-25).14 Despite this
model, I have chosen in this book to focus upon the role of the Covenant Code in
the composition of Deuteronomy's legal corpus. I do not see the justification for
claiming that the Privilege Law functions as an additional source. On the one
hand, proponents of the block model concede that any point of literary contact
between the legal corpus of Deuteronomy and Exod 34:10-26 has a correspond-
ing parallel in the Covenant Code.15 On the other hand, these proponents also
concede that the constitutive law-giving of Deuteronomy, requiring centraliza-
tion of the cult (Deut 12:4—28), finds its exclusive literary source in the altar law
of the Covenant Code (Exod 20:24) and is without a parallel in Exodus 34.16 Under
these circumstances, it seems most reasonable to invoke Ockham's razor and to
regard the Privilege Law as superfluous.

12. Refuting Kaufmann's claim of no literary contact between the pentateuchal legal sources,
see Sara Japhet, "The Relationship between the Legal Corpora in the Pentateuch in Light of
Manumission Laws," Studies in Bible, 1986 (ScrHier 31; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986) 69-70. Fur-
ther disputing Kaufmann's position and those of Merendino and Van Seters, see Bernard M.
Levinson, The Hermeneutics of Innovation: The Impact of Centralization upon the Structure,
Sequence, and Reformulation of Legal Material in Deuteronomy (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University
Microfilms, 1991) 88-114. Refuting Chamberlain's arguments, see Eckart Otto, Wandet der
Rechtsbegrundungen in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte des antiken Israel: Eine Rechtsgeschichte des
"Bundesbuches" Ex XX 22-XXI1I 13 (StudBib 3; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988) 8.
13. That approach is maintained by Norbert Lohfink, "Deuteronomy," IDBSup (Nashville:
Abingdon, 1976) 230; Lohfink, "Zur deuteronomischen Zentralisationsformel," Bib 65 (1984)
297-328, reprinted in Lohfink, Studien zum Deuteronomium und zur deuteronomistischen
Literatur II (SBAB 12; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991) 147-77, esp. 172-77; and Georg
Braulik, Die deuteronomischen Gesetze und der Dekalog: Studien zum Aufbau von Deuter-
onomium 12-26 (SBS 145; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991) 116.
14. For a critique of this model of the redactional history of the legal corpus see Eckart
Otto, "Von der Gerichtsordnung zum Verfassungsentwurf: Deuteronomische Gestaltung und
deuteronomistische Interpretation im 'Amtergesetz' Dtn 16,18-18,22," in "Wer ist wie du, HERR,
unter den Gottern?" Studien zur Theologie und Religionsgeschichte Israels fur Otto Kaiser (ed.
Ingo Kottsieper et al.; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995) 142-55, esp. 152.
15. See the table in Lohfink, "Zentralisationsformel," 174.
16. Lohfink, "Zentralisationsformel," 174-75.
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 9

That "double source" theory was originally invoked on the basis of older
assumptions regarding the date of Exod 34:10-26, which was regarded as an-
cient. Since the block model was originally proposed, however, an important
reorientation has taken place. An increasing number of scholars, from a vari-
ety of schools, now view that unit as a late redactional composition that pre-
supposes Deuteronomy and that revises the Covenant Code in light of it.17
According to this approach, the alleged Privilege Law source for Deuteronomy
more properly belongs to the history of reception of Deuteronomy than to its
literary prehistory. My approach poses a further challenge to the block model.
In chapter 4, I show how recourse to the Covenant Code, with its laws con-
cerning judicial oaths at the local sanctuaries, makes it inevitable that the au-
thors of Deuteronomy will have to transform the conventional procedures for
administering justice, because they abolish those sanctuaries. In contrast, for
proponents of the block model, who claim Exod 34:10-26 as a source but in
which there are no comparable laws, the topical shift in the legal corpus from
matters of cult to matters of justice cannot be explained.
A basic core of texts in the legal corpus of Deuteronomy is associated with
Josiah's centralization and purification of the cultus in 622 B.C.E., as narrated
in 2 Kings 22-23. Josiah's unusual actions of restricting sacrifice to a single,
exclusive sanctuary and abolishing even Yahwistic local shrines are inexpli-
cable except with reference to Deuteronomy. Other of his actions also corre-
spond closely to the provisions of Deuteronomy.18 This link between the legal
corpus and Josiah's reform again represents the scholarly consensus.19 That
consensus has been challenged on two counts, neither of which is finally per-
suasive. First, the use of 2 Kings 22-23 as a historical source has been called
into question.20 This questioning is understandable, inasmuch as the Deuter-
onomistic Historian does not merely narrate Josiah's reform but actively pro-

17. For a more detailed discussion of the older and the more recent approaches to Exod
34:10-26, with bibliography, see chapter 3.
18. For an excellent examination of the correspondences between Josiah's actions and
the requirements of Deuteronomy see L. B. Paton, "The Case for the Post-Exilic Origins of
Deuteronomy," JBL 47 [=The Problem of Deuteronomy: A Symposium} (1928) 322-57, esp.
325-26. Paton's article in fact refutes the postexilic date.
19. See Horst Dietrich PreuB, Deuteronomium (ErFor 164; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1982) 1-12. The preponderance of correspondences should not detract atten-
tion from points of noncorrespondence. Note the cautions properly raised by Gary N. Knoppers,
Two Nations under God: The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon and the Dual Monarchies
(2 vols.; HSM 52-53; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993-94) 2.179 n. 11 (with literature).
20. For the most thorough assessment of this literature, see Norbert Lohfink, "Zur neueren
Diskussion uber 2 Kon 22-23," in Das Deuteronomium: Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft (ed.
Norbert Lohfink; BETL 68; Louvain: University Press, 1985) 24-48; translated, "Recent Dis-
cussion on 2 Kings 22-23: The State of the Question," in A Song of Power and the Power of
Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 1993) 36-61. See also Lohfink, "Cult Reform of Josiah," 459-75. For material
published subsequent to Lohfink's two articles, see Steven L. McKenzie, "The Books of Kings
in the Deuteronomistic History," in The History of Israel's Traditions: The Heritage of Martin
Noth (ed. Steven L. McKenzie and M. Patrick Graham; JSOTSup 182; Sheffield: Sheffield Aca-
demic Press, 1994) 293-95.
10 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

motes and legitimates it. Indeed, it is the Deuteronomist, not any of his pos-
sible earlier annalistic sources, who first explicitly connects the accounts of
the discovery of the Torah scroll in the Jerusalem temple, the national covenant
ratification, and the centralization of the cult.21 Some scholars contend that this
material has no preexilic anchor whatsoever but instead represents an ideal-
ized exilic or postexilic depiction of how a righteous king ought to—and never
historically did—behave.22 But this approach does little to explain a series of
problems associated with the story. Throughout the Deuteronomistic History,
the editor evaluates kings according to their conformity to a standard of legal
righteousness. For that same editor suddenly to confess that the lawbook that
served as the basis for his evaluations was in fact completely unknown and
only belatedly discovered, and then only by chance, threatens to jeopardize the
credibility of the entire enterprise.23 The later one shifts the composition of the
story, the more difficult it becomes to explain it.24 The anomaly is best explained
under the premise that the narrative core of 2 Kings 22-23 is the work of a
preexilic editor who sought to legitimate the introduction of a new set of laws
and to sanction Josiah's cultic and political initiatives. That narrative was most
likely supplemented in the exilic and postexilic periods.
Second, the nexus between Deuteronomy and Josiah's reform has been
called into question by the recent claim that the Covenant Code, not Deuter-
onomy, precipitated Josiah's reform, with Deuteronomy the fallout of that
reform rather than its impetus.25 That argument is highly problematic. The Cov-
enant Code could not logically have provided the legislative basis for both
Josiah's centralization of the cult and his observance of a centralized Passover
(2 Kgs 23:21-23): the Covenant Code refers neither to centralization of the
cultus nor to the Passover, let alone to a centralized Passover! There have been
other attempts as well to break the nexus between Deuteronomy and central-
ization or between the legal corpus and Josiah' s reform. These attempts, which
in defiance of the evidence date Deuteronomy to the early monarchy or even
to the pre-Settlement period, are unconvincing.26

21. As noted by Lohfink, "2 Kon 22-23," 46.

22. For two recent examples among the many possible, see Hans-Detlef Hoffmann, Re-
form und Reformen: Untersuchungen zu einem Grundthema der deuteronomistischen Geschichts-
schreibung (ATANT 66; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1980); and Philip R. Davies, In Search
of "Ancient Israel" (JSOTSup 148; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992) 40-41.
23. See the compelling arguments made by Paton, "Origins of Deuteronomy," 337-38.
24. See Knoppers, Two Nations under God, 2.137-38.
25. Reuter, Kultzentralisation, 255-58. The nearly identical position was earlier proposed
by C. P. W. Gramberg, Kritische Geschichte der Religionsideen des Alien Testaments (1 vols.;
Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1829-30) 1.306.
26. For a detailed critique of one such attempt to make the legal corpus the product of a
single author just prior to the Conquest, see Bernard M. Levinson, "McConville's Law and
Theology in Deuteronomy" JQR 80 (1990) 396-404. McConville regularly harmonizes laws
that are actually inconsistent. He does not engage the arguments in favor of a neo-Assyrian setting
for the treaty material in Deuteronomy, which would controvert the second millennium context
he favors. Similarly problematic is the claim by Chaim Rabin that Deuteronomy belongs to the
period of Elijah ("Discourse Analysis and the Dating of Deuteronomy," Interpreting the Hebrew
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 11

The Question of Deuteronomistic Revision

of the Covenant Code
Recent German scholarship has mounted some fundamental challenges to any
simple notion of the priority of the Covenant Code to Deuteronomy. To begin
with, the Covenant Code itself is viewed as having a complex redactional his-
tory. Its text is widely held to contain various secondary ethical, hortatory, and
theological expansions that presuppose Deuteronomy and that align the Cove-
nant Code, in whole or in part, with Deuteronomic thought. By these lights,
Deuteronomy is no longer simply dependent upon and subsequent to the Cove-
nant Code. The direction of literary influence becomes in effect reciprocal, as
Deuteronomy also exerts, it is argued, an influence upon the language, values,
and theology of the Covenant Code.27 The most current reconstructions of the
redactional history of the Covenant Code suggest, at minimum, a four stage
process: (1) the compilation of the Covenant Code either from originally inde-
pendent subcollections of laws of various origins (family, local courts, cult) or
from separate continuous strata; (2) pre-Deuteronomic revision of the Covenant
Code by way of reformulation, supplementation, and redrafting; (3) a Deu-
teronomistic redaction of the Covenant Code that brings it into conformity with
the theology and social concerns of Deuteronomy and that is responsible for
embedding it into the larger Sinai narrative (Exodus 19-24); and (4) a final
priestly redaction.

Bible: Essays in Honour of E. I. J. Rosenthal [ed. J. A. Emerton and S. C. Reif; Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1982] 171-178). That argument overlooks the illogic of dating
Deuteronomy to the ninth century, when Elijah's sacrifice on Mount Carmel blatantly contra-
dicts Deuteronomy's demand for cult centralization. Although I disagree with Rabin's method
for dating Deuteronomy, I am also not convinced by Steven L. McKenzie's recent proposal that
the Elijah material in 1 Kings 17-19 represents a late, post-Deuteronomistic "prophetic supple-
ment" to the Deuteronomistic History (The Trouble with Kings: The Composition of the Book
of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History [VTSup 42; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991] 81-88, 148-49).
While valuably demonstrating the redactional seams that permitted this material to be incorpo-
rated into the Deuteronomistic History, McKenzie's argument that the material must therefore
be extrinsic and, thus, a late exilic or postexilic addition is not a necessary conclusion, particu-
larly when the cultural context and the rationale for the supplement remain unclarified. Since
the Deuteronomistic History is nothing if not a redactional tour de force, those textual seams
might more simply be construed as pointing to the compositional techniques of an editor inte-
grating various literary sources into a comprehensive narrative.
27. For a succinct history of the entire issue of Deuteronomistic revision of the Covenant
Code see Otto, Rechtsgeschichte des "Bundesbuches", 4-8, with his own conclusions at 57-60,
who sees the origin of the Covenant Code in the compilation of originally independent sub-
collections. Arguing for separate proto-Deuteronomic, Deuteronomistic, and priestly redactions
is Ludger Schwienhorst-Schonberger, Das Bundesbuch (Ex 20,22-23,33): Studien zu seiner
Entstehung und Theologie (BZAW 188; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990) 284-417. Claiming,
however, that the Covenant Code reached its final form pre-Deuteronomistically is Yuichi Osumi,
Die Kompositionsgeschichte des Bundesbuches Exodus 20,22b~23,33 (OBO 105; Freiburg,
Switzerland: Universitatsverlag; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991). For the most recent
analysis of the issues, see Eckart Otto, "Zur Kompositionsgeschichte des alttestamentlichen
'Bundesbuches' (Ex 20,22-23,33)," a review article of Die Kompositionsgeschichte des
Bundesbuches Exodus 20,22b-23,33 by Yuichi Osumi, in WZKM 83 (1993) 149-65.
12 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

However, a number of scholars reject the claim of substantial Deuteron-

omistic revision of the Covenant Code. Of course, most scholars concede the
existence of secondary material within the Covenant Code and the validity of
diachronic analysis for discerning editorial activity.28 That is not the issue. The
crux is whether these expansions presuppose the specific language, legislation,
and theology of Deuteronomy. Detailed analysis shows that the expansions do
not presuppose Deuteronomy as a text, even if they begin to express related
concerns, such as the social justice owed the alien, the widow, and the orphan.
Since they are not textually dependent upon Deuteronomy but move in the
direction of its concerns, the additions are most logically viewed as pre-
Deuteronomic.29 The further inconsistency of these expansions with Deuter-
onomistic language reinforces the judgment that they should be dated prior to
Deuteronomy.30 Similar arguments have been made about homiletic expansions
within the older JE narratives concerning the observance of Passover and Un-
leavened Bread in Exodus 12-13. These expansions, too, have been classified
as "proto-Deuteronomic."31 Finally, in a crucial study that for the first time di-
rectly asks, "Did there exist a Deuteronomistic movement?," Norbert Lohfink
challenges the very presupposition that underlies the tendency of many conti-
nental scholars to see extensive Deuteronomistic editorial activity throughout
the entire Hebrew Bible, of which the particular arguments concerning the Cov-

28. In contrast, denying the validity of diachronic analysis altogether are Westbrook, "What
Is the Covenant Code?," 15-36; and Joseph M. Sprinkle, The "Book of the Covenant": A Liter-
ary Approach (JSOTSup 174; Sheffield; JSOT Press, 1994). Arguing that diachronic analysis
better explains the evidence are Bernard M. Levinson, "The Case for Revision and Interpola-
tion within the Biblical Legal Corpora," Samuel Greengus, "Some Issues Relating to the Com-
parability of Laws and the Coherence of the Legal Tradition," Sophie Lafont, "Ancient Near
Eastern Laws: Continuity and Pluralism," and Eckart Otto, "Legal Reform and Reformulation
in Ancient Cuneiform and Israelite Law," all in Levinson (ed.), Theory and Method in Biblical
and Cuneiform Law, 37-59, 60-87, 91-118, 160-96.
29. Walter Beyerlin, "Die Paranese im Bundesbuch und ihre Herkunft," in Gottes Won
und Gottes Land: Hans-Wilhelm Hertzberg mm 70. Geburtstag (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow;
Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965) 9-29; Chr. Brekelmans, "Die sogennanten deuter-
onomischen Elemente in Gen.-Num.: Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Deuteronomiums,"
Volume du Congres: Geneve 1965 (VTSup 15; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966) 90-96; and, providing
a systematic case study using the social justice laws of the Covenant Code, Norbert Lohfink,
"Gibt es eine deuteronomistische Bearbeitung im Bundesbuch?," Pentateuchal and Deuterono-
mistic Studies: Papers Read at the Xlllth 1OSOT Congress Leuven 1989 (ed. C. Brekelmans
and J. Lust; BETL 94; Louvain: Peelers Press / University Press, 1990) 91-113. Lohfink's ar-
ticle provides the basis for the issues stressed here. Note, however, the challenge to this approach
by Schwienhorst-Schonberger, Das Bundesbuch, 331-57.
30. Lohfink, "Bundesbuch," 91-113.
31. See Norbert Lohfink, Das Hauptgebot: Eine Untersuchung literarischer Einleitungs-
fragen zu Dtn 5-11 (AnBib 20; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963) 121-22, on Exod
12:24-27a; and M. Caloz, "Exode, XIII, 3-16 et son rapport au Deutcronome," RB 75 (1968)
5-62. Challenging these arguments, however, and viewing both texts as presupposing Deu-
teronomy is Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (BZAW 189; Berlin: Walter
de Gruyter, 1990) 166-69.
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 13

enant Code are just one expression.32 The arguments on both sides are vital to
our ongoing efforts to understand the complex relation of Deuteronomy to the
Covenant Code.
A related problem is the complex literary and redactional history of Deuter-
onomy itself. It is likely, for example, that a complex chapter such as Deuter-
onomy 12 had a lengthy compositional history, including proto-Deuteronomic,
Deuteronomic, and possibly several Deuteronomistic elements.33 It is entirely
possible, therefore, that the present form of Deuteronomy manifests several
stages of interaction with the Exodus source text. Indeed, the successive re-
workings of Deuteronomy may have proceeded in tandem with the redaction
and reworking of the Exodus material. Moreover, I shall argue that later strata
within Deuteronomy revise and transform earlier ones within Deuteronomy
itself (chapter 4). My own focus, however, will be more on demonstrating the
existence and the nature of the textual transformation in each case and less on
assigning each a particular superscripted number denoting the hypothetical
stratum to which it belongs. Too often such detailed reconstructions of the
redactional history of the legal corpus become self-generating. They multiply
strata on the basis of problematic criteria of originality (like rhythmically con-
sistent original oral units), are uncontrolled by reference to the redactional tech-
niques of cuneiform law, and do not really clarify either the meaning of the
text or the motivations of its authors.34

Authoritative Texts and the Problem of Legal Innovation

Recent, particularly English language, scholarship concerned with the signifi-
cance of texts in ancient Israel has gone in two directions: "canonical criticism"

32. Norbert Lohfink, "Gab es eine deuteronomistische Bewegung?" in Jeremia und die
"deuteronomistische Bewegung" (ed. Walter GroB; BBB 98; Weinheim: BELTZ Athenaum,
1995) 313-82.
33. For the most recent analysis, see Reuter, Kultzentralisation, 42-114. Although the
authors, as I argue, drew upon pre-Deuteronomic material, it is nonetheless unlikely that there
was ever a pre-Deuteronomic redaction of the legal corpus. In other words, there was no Deuter-
onomy without cult centralization; see Reuter, Kultzentralisation, 189-91.
34. See most recently Fabrizio Foresti, "Storia della Redazione di Dtn. 16,18-18,22 e le
sue Connessioni con 1'Opera Storica Deuteronomistica," Teresianum Ephemerides Carmeliticae
39 (1988) 5-199; and Gunter Krinetzki, Rechtsprechung und Amt im Deuteronomium: Zur
Exegese der Gesetze Dtn 16,18-20; 17,8-18,22 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1994). Foresti assumes
that the legal corpus of Deuteronomy derives from originally metrically consistent oral pro-
nouncements and reconstructs eight redactional layers (pp. 181-89). His astoundingly meticu-
lous reconstruction never once refers to the compositional norms of cuneiform literature. As
such, the analysis operates in a vacuum that substantiates the author's ungrounded prior assump-
tion that "ancient" or "original" requires syntactical simplicity and metrical consistency. Simi-
lar difficulties apply to Krinetzki's posthumous monograph. The author never articulates the
criteria for his reconstruction of "original" laws, which are completely unviable both legally
and syntactically (see his p. 170). By not including cuneiform literature in their purview, these
works fail to recognize the degree of legal, syntactic, and redactional sophistication possessed
by ancient scribes.
14 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

and "inner biblical exegesis." Canonical criticism assumes that the canon was
a source of cultural identity that could be mined during times of spiritual crisis.
Canonical criticism takes for granted the ability of the text to be updated in new
circumstances: older narratives constitute a plenum of spiritual meaning upon
which, in times of national crisis, the writers can call for spiritual renewal. This
assumption of the infinite mutability of the textual patrimony in times of exis-
tential need overlooks, however, the technical and studied nature of textual reuse
in Israel and the ancient Near East. It places a nearly exclusive emphasis on
narrative reuse, for the sake of alleged spiritual succor, but it does not address
the key role played by the deliberate reinterpretation of legal texts or the con-
cern with matters of public polity involved in that reuse.35 Finally, it also does
not take into account the literary phenomenon of rewriting, as in the Chronicler's
recourse to the Deuteronomistic History or the Deuteronomic authors' recourse
to the Covenant Code, in each case to mandate an entirely new religious and
social program not contemplated by the preceding literary source.
In contrast, inner biblical exegesis recognizes that the canon was not in-
herently flexible; rather it was, at least in intention, inflexible.36 The canon was
not simply a textual mine for subsequent creative borrowing but a problem that
had to be overcome hermeneutically. The very maxim to enforce the stability
of texts as timeless and unchanging—s
"You must neither add to the word which I command you nor di-
minish from it" (Deut 4:2a; cf. 13:1 )37—necessitated subsequent exegetical ad-
aptation in order to accommodate older texts to newer social, economic, his-
torical, or religious realities.38 Of course, it is anachronistic to speak of a
"canon," in the conventional sense, in ancient Israel. As technically denoting
a fixed number of authoritative texts to which religious adherence is owed
because of their particular status, "canon" is clearly a postbiblical concept.39

35. For a fuller presentation of my critique, see Levinson, Hermeneutics of Innovation,

162-68. More broadly on the impact of canonical criticism upon biblical studies, see Mark G.
Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis? The Impact of the Canonical Approach on Old Testament
Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), whose focus is the work of Brevard
S. Childs; and Christoph Dohmen and Manfred Ocming, Biblischer Kanon: Warum und Wozu?
Eine Kanontheologie (QD 137; Freiburg: Herder, 1992) 11-26.
36. For the most comprehensive presentation of the various types of interpretation within
the Hebrew Bible, see Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1985). See also James L. Kugel, "Early Interpretation: The Common Background
of Late Forms of Biblical Exegesis," in Early Biblical Interpretation (ed. James L. Kugel and
Rowan A. Greer; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986) 9-106.
37. In English and other translations, Deut 13:1 appears as 12:32. For a fuller discussion
of the hermeneutical function of Deut 13:1 and for bibliography on the canon formula, please
see "Reflections upon Textuality and Exegesis in Deuteronomy 12," in chapter 2.
38. Nahum M. Sarna, "Psalm 89: A Study in Inner Biblical Exegesis," Biblical and Other
Studies (cd. A. Altmann; Brandeis University Studies and Texts 1; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1963) 34. On the dialectic in the history of religions between textual closure
and exegetical transformation, see Levinson, "Human Voice in Divine Revelation," 35-39.
39. On the whole issue, see Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scrip-
ture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 46-68; and James Barr, Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority,
Criticism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983) 1-23.
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 15

Nonetheless, in a different sense, there did exist in the ancient Near East both
concepts of a stream of learned tradition, presumably as part of the scribal
curriculum, and of standardization and stabilization of the formal aspects of
the text.40 The highly formalized genre of the cuneiform legal collection was
one important component of this larger scribal curriculum.41 In the case of
ancient Israel, the concepts of textual stability, prestige, and authority necessi-
tated subsequent adaptation, interpolation, reinterpretation, and transformation.
In the end, however, inner biblical exegesis does not provide a satisfac-
tory model to describe the achievements of the authors of Deuteronomy. The
concern of the authors of Deuteronomy was not to explicate older texts but to
transform them. Neither "interpretation" nor "exegesis" adequately suggests
the extent to which Deuteronomy radically transforms literary and legal his-
tory in order to forge a new vision of religion and the state. Here arises the
second point. If the very notion of exegesis implies the continuity of the revis-
ing text with its source, I wish to underscore the opposite: the extent to which
exegesis may make itself independent of the source text, challenging and even
attempting to reverse or abrogate its substantive content, all the while under
the hermeneutical mantle of consistency with or dependency upon its source.42
Exegesis is thus often radically transformative: new religious, intellectual, or
cultural insights are granted sanction and legitimacy by being presented as if
they derived from authoritative texts that neither contain nor anticipate those
insights.43

40. See Francesca Rochberg-Halton, "Canonicity in Cuneiform Texts," JCS 36 (1984)

127-44; and Stephen J. Lieberman, "Canonical and Official Cuneiform Texts: Towards an
Understanding of Assurbanipal's Personal Tablet Collection," in Lingering over Words: Stud-
ies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William J. Moran (ed. Tzvi Abusch, John
Huehnergard, and Piotr Steinkeller; HSM 37; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 305-36.
41. See Raymond Westbrook, Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Law (CahRB 26; Paris:
J. Gabalda, 1988) 2-5; and Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia
Minor (SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995) 2-4.
42. See also Herbert Marks, review of Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel by Michael
Fishbane, in Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 35 (1986) 152-55. In fairness,
Fishbane himself stresses the radical gaps between the source text and its reinterpretation at
specific points; see his Biblical Interpretation, 263-64, 343. The overall focus of his book,
however, is to emphasize continuity over discontinuity. He generally frames inner-biblical ex-
egesis as the pious and conscientious explication of possibilities of meaning that are consistent
with and latent within the source text (276-77, 537). For the same basic orientation, see Fishbane,
The Garments ofTorah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1989) 17-18.
43. Postbiblical rabbinic interpretation provides a striking example of how exegesis can
controvert and replace the original meaning of the source text on which it nominally depends.
Within biblical law, talion ("measure for measure") is invoked for crimes against the person,
whether bodily injury (Exod 21:23-25; Lev 24:17, 19-21) or perjury (Deut 19:19-21). In con-
trast, financial compensation is levied in the case of property damage or theft (Exod 21:36, 37;
22:3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 13). The two systems of punishment are mutually exclusive and explicitly
contrasted (Lev 24:17—21). Rabbinic exegesis confutes the plain meaning of the scriptural text
and rules that "an eye for an eye" means rather "[the financial compensation for] an eye for an
eye." (See Mekilta Exodus 21:23—24 in the edition of Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Mekilta de-Rabbi
lshmael[3 vols.; Philadelphia: JPS, 1935] 3.67. For very clear analyses of this reversal, see Elliot
16 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Deuteronomy establishes that derivation itself can function as a trope,

which is to say, as a ploy. Any comparison of the length, compass, and agenda
of each work suggests that it is reductive to regard Deuteronomy as derived
from the Covenant Code. That would be comparable to claiming that Hamlet,
which makes agency and inwardness central to tragedy, derives from classical
Greek tragedy or from Aristotle's Poetics, with their stress on fate as deter-
mining human action. In both cases, the later text not only goes far beyond the
range of imaginative possibilities offered by the ostensible exemplar but also
constructs a completely new structure of human existence. Thus, exegesis, at
least as conventionally understood, does not represent an adequate way to con-
ceptualize the literary reuse involved in Deuteronomy's recourse to the Cove-
nant Code. While the authors of the legal corpus appropriate key lemmas from
the earlier text, their concern is neither with exegesis, even through the lens of
cult centralization, nor with the Covenant Code in itself.44 Instead, their con-
cern was to implement their own agenda: to effect a major transformation of
all spheres of Judaean life—cultically, politically, theologically, judicially,
ethically, and economically. The authors of Deuteronomy had a radically new
vision of the religious and public polity and sought to implement unprecedented
changes in religion and society. Precisely for that reason, the guise of continu-
ity with the past became crucial. The authors of Deuteronomy sought to locate
their innovative vision in prior textual authority by tendentiously appropriat-
ing texts like the Covenant Code, while freely going beyond them in program-
matic and substantive terms to address matters like public administration, the
role of the monarchy, and the laws of warfare.
Deuteronomy's reuse of its textual patrimony was creative, active, revi-
sionist, and tendentious. It functioned as a means for cultural transformation.
Comparable is the work of the Chronicler during the Judaean restoration. The
Chronicler programmatically rewrote the Deuteronomistic History and pre-
sented the distinctive religious and political innovations of the Persian period,
such as the idea of the citizen-Temple state, as if they represented the familiar

N. Dorff and Arthur Rosett, A Living Tree: The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law [Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1988J 145-84; and Jacob Milgrom, "Lex Talionis and the Rab-
bis," Bible Review 12:2 [April 1996] 16, 48.) Indeed, the Rabbis were aware of their occasion-
ally abrogating biblical law. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, the first president of the Sanhedrin
after it moved to Yavneh (Jamniah) following the destruction of the Temple (70 C.E.), had al-
ready "enumerated instances where the halachah crushes the Scriptural text under heel and
overthrows it" (B. Sola 16a; translated, The Babylonian Talmud, vol. 20, Seder Nashim, Sotah
[ed. I. Epstein; London: Soncino, 1936] 84. Milgrom, "Lex Talionis," 16, also adduces this
citation.) For a stimulating presentation of the creativity of Second Temple rabbinic exegesis,
see Simon Rawidowicz, "On Interpretation," PAAJR 26 (1957) 83-126, esp. 83-101; reprinted
with abridged notes in Rawidowicz, Studies in Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: JPS, 1974) 45-80.
44. Contra Eckart Otto, who maintains that Deuteronomy represents critical exegesis of
the Covenant Code in light of centralization ("Vom Bundesbuch zum Deuteronomium: Die
deuteronomische Redaktion in Dtn 12-26," in Biblische Theologie und gesellschaftlicher
Wandel: fur Norbert Lohfink [ed. Georg Braulik, Walter GroB, and Sean McEvenue; Freiburg:
Herder, 199.3] 260-78).
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 17

norms of the preexilic Judaean monarchy.45 In its hermeneutics of innovation,

Deuteronomy is more radical than most contemporary hermeneutical theory.
Deuteronomy breaks down any facile bifurcation between text and interpreta-
tion or between text composition and text reception.46 Many recent works of
literary and philosophical hermeneutics, detached from the philological method,
fail to recognize the intellectual, authorial, redactional, and radically transfor-
mative nature of ancient Israelite textuality.

Editorial Devices as Cues to Textual Reformulation

That ancient Israel inherits a broad selection of literary genres and topoi from
the Near East—the legal collection, narratives, historiographies, cultic instruc-
tions, genealogies, proverbial wisdom, theodicies, poetry—is widely recog-
nized. Concomitant with the transmission of textual genre and topical content,
both formal matters and specific redactional techniques were also inherited by
Israelite scribes from their counterparts trained in cuneiform literature. In the
case of the legal collections, for example, the casuistic " i f . . . then" form repre-
sents one such literary feature transmitted from southern Mesopotamia through
Assyria to the Hittite Empire and ancient Israel.47 Most important for my pur-
poses, specific techniques for collating, structuring, and annotating law were

45. For the Persian model involved, see Joel P. Weinbcrg, The Citizen-Temple Commu-
nity (JSOTSup 151; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994). In stating that the Chronicler
rewrote the Deuteronomistic History, I do not intend to gainsay the possibility that the Chroni-
cler worked with a different and perhaps more expansive version of it than is now found in the
Masoretic text (see Werner K. Lemke, "The Synoptic Problem in the Chronicler's History," HTR
58 [1965] 349-63) or with a no longer extant first edition of it (see Steven L. McKenzie, The
Chronicler's Use of the Deuteronomistic History [HSM 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985]
119-58). For a concise assessment of these and other possibilities, with relevant literature, see
Marc Zvi Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (London: Routledge, 1995) 164-65.
Despite allowing for the possibility of versional differences, my own position is that most of
the Chronicler's variations from the Deuteronomistic History result from deliberate reworking.
46. R. E. Palmer develops a notion of hermeneutics as recapturing a lost oral originality
(Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer
[Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy; Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1969] 13-32). He thereby fails to recognize that the (revela-
tory) text may actually be an original literary and intellectual composition that presupposes
sophisticated hermeneutical strategems. In his reflections on Luke 24:25-27 (pp. 23-24), for
example, he takes at face value the account that Jesus "interpreted" the Hebrew Bible. He fails
thereby to note the extent to which that very claim was itself an interpretive construction, po-
lemically geared to justify the early Church's Christological reading and to disenfranchise com-
peting Jewish and sectarian interpretation. More recently, Werner G. Jeanrond still views both
interpretation and reception as theological categories separate from and subsequent to the com-
position of the text (Text and Interpretation as Categories of Theological Thinking [New York:
Crossroad, 1988]). In contrast, note the engaging model of hermeneutics provided by Brayton
Polka, Truth and Interpretation: An Essay in Thinking (New York: St. Martin's, 1990).
47. R. A. F. Mackenzie, "The Formal Aspect of Ancient Near Eastern Law," in The Seed
of Wisdom (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964) 31-44; and S. Segert, "Genres of An-
cient Israelite Legal Sentences: 1934 and 1974," WZKM 68 (1976) 131-42, together with his
additional bibliography on p. 139, nn. 25, 26.
18 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

also a crucial part of the cuneiform patrimony of Israelite scribes. Likely a

component of the curriculum of the scribal schools, such redactional devices
include superscriptions and colophons, particular sequencing of textual mate-
rial, and deictic markers for glosses.48
Deuteronomy is a learned text, a literary composition that is the product
of skilled scribes. It is a text whose authors draw upon other texts, Israelite
and cuneiform, to revise them for their own ends. The significance of this
fact goes beyond the historical question of the text's origins among the scribes
of Hezekiah's or Josiah's court.49 It is also necessary to address the impact
of those scribal origins upon the composition and the structure of the text.
Because of this scribal background, literary reworking in Deuteronomy is
frequently marked by specific scribal techniques that help identify sites of
textual reformulation.
Two devices, in particular, provide evidence of editorial activity and tex-
tual reformulation: the repetitive resumption and Seidel's law. The repetitive
resumption brackets a digression or interpolation by framing it with a repeti-
tion, much as a flashback in a film is often correspondingly framed, introduced
by a fade-out and concluded with a fade-in.50 In the case of the repetitive re-
sumption, one or two clauses from the material preceding the interruption are
repeated after it to mark the resumption of the original text. As such, there is a
sequence of original material A B C , then the contextually disruptive X, fol-
lowed by the repetition, C, after which the original sequence, DBF, resumes.
The repetition in question need not be verbatim. More often it is approximate
and may abridge the earlier unit. In addition, the repetition may reverse the
elements of the original, in conformity with Seidel's law.51 According to this

48. See Stephen A. Kaufman, "The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law," Maarav 1/2
(1978-79) 105-58, at 116-17, 132-33, 135, 141. See also Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation,
27-43 and passim. Demonstrating the influence of cuneiform redactional techniques on the
editing of the Covenant Code is Eckart Otto, Korperverletzungen in den Keilschriftrechten und
im Alten Testament: Studien zum Rechtstransfer im Alten Orient (AOAT 226; Kevelaer: Butzon
& Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991) 165-87; Otto, "Town and Rural
Countryside in Ancient Israelite Law: Reception and Redaction in Cuneiform and Israelite Law,"
JSOT 57 (1993) 3-22; and Otto, "Kompositionsgeschichte des Bundesbuches," 160-64.
49. For the scribal origins of Deuteronomy, Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the
Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 57-58, provides a critical breakthrough. See
further Paul Dion, "Deuteronomy 13: The Suppression of Alien Religious Propaganda in Israel
during the Late Monarchical Era," in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed. Baruch Halpern
and Deborah W. Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 204-205,
who situates the composition of Deuteronomy 13 among Josiah's entourage.
50. For a full discussion and bibliography of this device, also called the Wiederaufnahme,
see Levinson, Hermeneutics of Innovation, 142-50.
51. The principle is named after its discoverer: M. Seidel, "Parallels between Isaiah and
Psalms," Sinai 38 (1955-56) 149-72, 229-40, 272-80, 335-55, at p. 150; reprinted, Seidel,
Hiqrei Miqra (Jerusalem: Rav Kook Institute, 1978) 1-97 (Hebrew). Seidel's claims are often
imprecise or doubtful because they are insufficiently controlled by criteria for establishing the
direction of dependency. More controlled uses include Shemaryahu Talmon, "The Textual Study
of the Bible—A New Outlook," in Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text (ed. F. M. Cross
and S. Talmon; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975) 362-63; and P. Beentjes,
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 19

principle, citation within the Hebrew Bible frequently reverses the elements of
the source text. As such, quotation is marked chiastically, with the original text
AB often cited as B'A'. Although the repetitive resumption and Seidel's law
often occur independent of each other, they may also occur in conjunction.
The repetitive resumption may function as a compositional device and need
not necessarily point to editorial activity or textual reworking.52 More generally,
however, both in cuneiform and Israelite literature, the device is editorial or re-
dactional in origin. It marks literary reuse, reformulation, or interpolation. In a
narrative setting, for example, a redactor might interrupt the narrative in order to
insert a genealogy that establishes the lineage of major cultural figures, as in the
case of Moses and Aaron in Exod 6:14—25.53 The function of that insertion is (1)
to justify Aaron, named here for the first time in the priestly narrative, as
corecipient, with Moses, of God's revelation; (2) to clarify that the two men are
jointly commissioned to lead the Israelites out of Egypt; and (3) to develop the
Levitical genealogy.54 There is a carefully detailed chiastic framing of the inser-
tion, according to Seidel's law, by the verses that precede and follow it:
(12) Moses spoke to Yahweh saying, "Seeing that the Israelites
did not listen to me, how then should Pharaoh heed me, A
especially since I am halting in speech? speech? B
(13) Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, commanding them C
regarding the Israelites and regarding Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
to lead the Israelites out of the land of Egypt. D
(14-25: the genealogy) X
(27) They were the ones who spoke to Pharoah, King of
Egypt, to lead the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, D'
it was Moses and Aaron. C'
(28) When Yahweh spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt. ..
(30) Moses said before Yahweh, since I am halting in speech, B'
how then should Pharoah heed ME? me? A'
Particularly within biblical law, the repetitive resumption marks interpo-
lations or reformulations. For example, the inclusion of the Sabbath (Lev 23:3)

"Inverted Quotations in the Bible: A Neglected Stylistic Pattern," Bib 63 (1982) 506-23. Not-
ing the value of Seidel's law in determining a repetitive resumption is Marc Z. Brettler, "Jud
1,1-2,10: From Appendix to Prologue," ZAW 101 (1989) 434.
52. Making this case for narrative is Shemaryahu Talmon, "The Presentation of Syn-
chroneity and Simultaneity in Biblical Narrative," Studies in Hebrew Narrative Art Through-
out the Ages (ed. J. Heinemann and S. Werses; ScrHier 27; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978) 9-26;
reprinted, Talmon, Literary Studies in the Hebrew Bible: Form and Content, Collected Studies
(Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993) 112-33.
53. Isaac Leo Seeligmann, "Hebraische Erzahlung und biblische Geschichtsschreibung,"
Theologische Zeitschrift 18 (1962) 322 first identified Exod 6:14-25 as a "klassisches Beispiel
der Wiederaufnahme." He did not, however, note the chiastic form of the device.
54. For a very clear analysis that also notes the repetitive resumption, see Georg Fohrer,
Uberlieferung und Geschichte des Exodus (BZAW 91; Berlin: A. Topelman, 1964) 49. The
genealogy's redaction into the narrative is more complex than it is possible to discuss here and
20 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

within the festival calendar of Leviticus 23 is disruptive both on topical and

formal grounds.55 That secondary inclusion, which aims at greater comprehen-
siveness, is marked by a repetitive resumption. The editor frames Lev 23:3 with
v. 4, which repeats the verse before the interpolation (Lev 23:2) according to
Seidel's law:
(1) Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, (2) "Speak to the
Israelites and say to them, The fixed times of
Yahweh, -which you shall proclaim to them, A
are sacred occasions. B
These are they—my fixed times. C
(3: Sabbath law) . X
(4)These are the fixed times of Yahweh— C'
sacred occasions, B'
which you shall proclaim at their fixed time. A'
The interpolation marks an inner-biblical tendency toward the programmatic
incorporation of the Sabbath in the ritual calendar, even at the expense of dis-
torting the original specificity of the calendar.

The Purpose and Scope of This Book

The aim of this book is to show, in depth, both how far-reaching the Deuter-
onomic transformation of Israelite religion and society was and how the au-
thors of the legal corpus accomplished that program hermeneutically. The
authors of Deuteronomy sought to implement a comprehensive program of
religious, social, and political transformation that left no area of life untouched.
Their new vision of the Judaean polity included matters of cultus, justice, po-
litical administration, family life, sexuality, warfare, social and economic jus-
tice, and theology. Treatment of this entire program is impossible. I focus here
on three key units within the legal corpus, each of which has long represented
a scholarly crux, in order to argue a specific thesis. The Deuteronomic pro-
gram of innovation was completely without precedent. The authors of the legal
corpus therefore also faced an essential hermeneutical task: to justify their in-
novations in light of prestigious texts like the Covenant Code that had a com-
pletely different religious orientation and that presupposed a much more tradi-
tional social structure. Precisely at the points of conflict between their agenda
and the conventions of the Covenant Code, the authors of Deuteronomy ap-

deserves further study. There may have been a series of attempts to integrate it. Perhaps v. 26
represents the first such attempt; note that it partially repeats v. 13 and is itself partially redu-
plicated in v. 27. Note also that v. 29 partially repeats vv. 10-11.
55. For a thorough analysis of the secondary nature of the Sabbath in the context of this
calendar, see Israel Knohl, "The Priestly Torah versus the Holiness School: Sabbath and Festivals,"
HUCA 58 (1987) 72-76. Identifying the use of the repetitive resumption to insert the Sabbath law
here are Brettler, "Jud 1,1-2,10," 434; and Levinson, "Revision and Interpolation," 55-56. Much
of the relevant material in Knohl's valuable article seems reprinted in Knohl, The Sanctuary of
Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 14-16.
 Textual Revision and Cultural Transformation 21

propriated the problematic laws in question and reworked them in order to erase
the conflict and to further their own program. The authors of Deuteronomy
employed the Covenant Code, in other words, not merely as a textual source
but as a resource, in order to purchase the legitimacy and authority that their
reform agenda otherwise lacked. The reuse of the older material lent their in-
novations the guise of continuity with the past and consistency with traditional
law. The authors of Deuteronomy cast their departure from tradition as its re-
affirmation, their transformation and abrogation of conventional religious law
as the original intent of that law.
Each of the three chapters shows the profound changes in religion and
society introduced by the authors of Deuteronomy and how their hermeneutical
sophistication made the program of change possible. Everything begins, of
course, with cultic centralization, which transformed the sacrificial worship of
Yahweh. The familiar local altars and sanctuaries were proscribed, and new
procedures had to be implemented in order to redirect all sacrifice to the cen-
tral sanctuary. New procedures also had to be developed to allow for the slaugh-
ter of domestic animals for food. Deuteronomy's proscription of the local altars
would otherwise have made such local slaughter impossible, since, prior to
Deuteronomy, all slaughter of domestic animals, even if intended for food rather
than worship, had to take place at an altar. These changes are the subject of
chapter 2.
Deuteronomy's innovations affected the structure of time. Ancient Israel's
festival calendar consisted of three observances, Unleavened Bread, Weeks,
and Tabernacles, that were celebrated as pilgrimages to the local sanctuaries,
where each Israelite male was obliged to appear before the deity (Exod 23:17).
The local focus of these festivals had to be abrogated and transferred to the
central sphere. The ancient rite of Passover had also to be transformed. In its
original and pre-Deuteronomic form, Passover was a completely separate ob-
servance from Unleavened Bread. It involved the ritual slaughter of a lamb in
the doorway of the private domicile and the smearing of its blood on the door-
posts in order to protect the occupants within from the forces of irrational dan-
ger without. In this convention of Passover as a private slaughter that was com-
pletely detached from the cultus and that did not even involve an altar, the
authors of Deuteronomy confronted a major challenge to their program of
restricting all cultic slaughter to the central sanctuary. In chapter 3, I recon-
struct this problem and show how the authors of Deuteronomy overcame it by
radically transforming both Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread.
The consequences of centralization extended beyond explicitly cultic mat-
ters, as I argue in chapter 4. Centralization entailed important changes in the
administration of justice and in the conventional structures of social and political
authority. The entire apparatus of local justice, both cultic and lay, had to be
overturned. The local altars that the authors of Deuteronomy prohibit had con-
ventionally played an essential role in matters of justice. The authors of
Deuteronomy had to abrogate the judicial function of the local altars and estab-
lish alternative procedures. Local justice that was not associated with the sanc-
tuary posed a different set of problems. Village justice was conventionally
22 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

administered by the clan elders. That tie between justice and the lineage sys-
tem of the clans was essential to maintaining the traditional structure of rural
Judaean society. But with the social break and the urbanization that Hezekiah
had begun to institute, the entire range of values associated with the clan net-
works came under attack.56 Similarly with Deuteronomy: the authors sought
to transform the very structures of traditional belief and organization that the
clan system propagated. For that reason, the authors of Deuteronomy abolished
the conventional role of the village elders in administering justice and substi-
tuted a professionalized judiciary. As a consequence of centralization, the con-
ventional role of the monarch was also transformed and, paradoxically, drasti-
cally circumscribed. In the authors' attempt to elevate the Temple and to make
it the sole place where ambiguous legal cases are resolved, they divested the
king of one of his key functions in ancient Israel: as supreme judicial authority.
The accomplishments of the authors of Deuteronomy establish the essen-
tial connection of hermeneutics to the history of Israelite religion. The authors
of Deuteronomy were writers extremely conscious of their place in Israelite
literary history. In the way that they revised previous texts and previous norms
of religion and law, the authors of Deuteronomy unintentionally provided a
precedent for how their own composition would itself be revised by subsequent
writers, no sooner than it had won authoritative status. These later revisions of
Deuteronomy, which presented themselves rather as implementations of Deuter-
onomy, took place both inner-biblically and post-biblically. A literary dynamic
of revisionist transformation—usurpation might not be too far off the mark—
thus presents itself as an essential component of ancient Israelite religious and
literary creativity. The final chapter suggests the implications of this perspec-
tive for a broader theory of authorship and innovation in ancient Israel.

56. See Baruch Halpern, "Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century BCE: Kin-
ship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability," in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed.
Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 11-107.
 2
The Innovation of
Cultic Centralization
in Deuteronomy 12

Imorefliterary
modern biblical studies is a discipline concerned with the reconstruction of
history, then few texts have more loudly called for such analysis, yet
successfully resisted it, than Deuteronomy 12. This introductory chapter
of the legal corpus of Deuteronomy (chapters 12-26) mandates two radical trans-
formations of Israelite religion. First, it prohibits all sacrifice at the local altars
prevalent throughout the countryside. It requires the complete destruction of all
such altars together with their cultic apparatus, even as it concedes the preva-
lence of such worship in the present (Deut 12:5). The chapter stipulates repeat-
edly that all sacrifice should instead take place exclusively at a single site, "the
place that Yahweh shall choose," Deuteronomy's circumlocution for Jerusalem
and its temple.1 Second, although prohibiting in the strongest possible terms the

1. Some scholars have maintained that the formula originally functioned not exclusively
but rather distributively and thus applied to a succession of earlier sanctuaries, such as at Shechem
and Shiloh. This view is tied to the claim that the origins of Deuteronomy are to be found in the
northern kingdom of Israel and that the formula was only secondarily respecified to apply to
Jerusalem. The argument that the Deuteronomic centralization formula (as at Deut 12:14) has a
distributive meaning goes back to attempts early in this century to make the origins of Deu
teronomy ancient. Recent advocates of this approach include Alexander Rofe, "The Strata of
Law about the Centralization of Worship in Deuteronomy and the History of the Deuteronomic
Movement," in Congress Volume: Uppsala 1971 (VTSup 22; Leiden: E. J, Brill, 1972) 221-26;
and Baruch Halpern, "The Centralization Formula in Deuteronomy," VT 31 (1981) 20-38.
Nonetheless, the attempt to assign a distributive meaning to the centralization formula cannot
be defended philologically. For the early history of these attempts and refutations of their lin-
guistic arguments, see Julius A. Bewer, "The Case for the Early Date of Deuteronomy," JBL 47
(1928) 305-21; and E. W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967)
53-54. Indeed, there is compelling evidence that the election formula was, from its inception,
centered on Jerusalem. When the formulae that include the key term "choose" are exam-
ined, they always refer to Zion/Jerusalem or to the election of the Davidic dynasty resident there.

23
24 Deuteronomy and the Hermenemics of Legal Innovation

TABLE 2-1 The thematic structure of the centralization laws in Deuteronomy 12

Centralization
Formula Law no. Unit Addressee Theme

Deut 12:5 1 12:2-7 plural Cultic unity against Canaanite plurality

of altars
Deut 12:11 2 12:8-12 plural Condition for inauguration of
centralization
Dent 12:14 3 12:13-19 singular Requirement for centralization
Deut 12:18 singular Concession for secular slaughter
Deut 12:21 4 12:20-28 singular Condition for inauguration of secular
slaughter
Deut 12:26 " singular Blood protocol

local sacrifice of domestic animals for purposes of worship, it grants permission

for local secular slaughter of these animals for food. With that concession, and
for the first time in Israelite religion, the chapter forges a distinction between the
cultic sacrifice of animals at an altar and their secular slaughter, not at an altar.
Deuteronomy 12 is clearly composite and characterized by redundancy.
It is conventionally divided into four originally independent laws, each con-
cerned with cultic centralization (vv. 2-7, 8-12,13-19,20-28), and a conclud-
ing paragraph, concerned with cultic purity (vv. 29-31).2 The formulaic com-
mand for the centralization of sacrifice occurs six different times, with some
slight variations (Deut 12:5, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26). The concession for secular
slaughter occurs twice (Deut 12:15, 21). The accompanying stipulation that the
blood, in cases of secular slaughter, should not be consumed but rather "poured
out upon the earth like water" also occurs twice (Deut 12:16, 23-24). The ra-
tionale for centralization is in each case different, and there is no obvious at-
tempt to integrate the various repetitions into a coherent whole in substantive
legal terms. Grammatical anomalies increase the sense that the chapter is dis-
jointed. The second-person addressee of the laws shifts without explanation
from primarily second-person plural (Deut 12:1-12) to singular (Deut 12:13-
31), although neither section is entirely internally consistent. Two of the six
repetitions of the centralization formula are found in the plural section, four in
the singular section (table 2-1).3 The four centralization laws, therefore, each
have at least one occurrence of the centralization formula and vary according

On this issue, see Norbert Lohfink, "Zur deuteronomischen Zentralisationsformel," Bib 65 (1984)
297-328; reprinted in and cited according to Lohfink, Studien zum Deuteronomium und zur
deuteronomistischen Literatur 11 (SBAB 12; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991) 144-77,
at 169-73. See further Eleonore Renter's demonstration that there are no precentralization strata
in Deuteronomy and that the election formula is oriented on Jerusalem (Kultzentralisation:
Entstehung und Theologie von Din 12 (BBB 87; Frankfurt: Anton Hain, 1993] 115-91).
2. See, for example, Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966)
89; and A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCBC; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1979) 222.
3. This table is based in part on one provided by Norbert Lohfink, "Opfer und Sakularisierung
im Deuteronomium," in Studien zu Opfer und Kult im Alten Testament (ed. Adrian Schenker; For-
schungen zum Alten Testament 3; Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1992) 15-43, at p. 26.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 25

TABLE 2-2 The redactional framework of Deuteronomy 12

Law no. Unit Number of addressee Theme

Deut 12:1 Singular/Plural Superscription: Geography and Time

1 Dem 12:2-7 Plural Cultic purification and centralization
2 Deut 12:8-12 Plural Temporal condition for centralization
3 Deut 12:13-19 Singular Centralization and secular slaughter
4 Deut 12:20-28 Singular Geographical condition for slaughter
5 Deut 12:29-31 Singular Conclusion: Cultic purification

to the reason given for introducing centralization and by the presence or

absence of additional provisions, such as secular slaughter.
The superscription to the chapter, the work of its final editor, introduces the
key organizing motifs for the four centralization laws by identifying both geo-
graphical purview and historical duration as criteria for legal adherence. The laws
that follow, the superscription affirms, apply geographically in the promised land
of Canaan and are historically valid while Israel inhabits that land: "These are
the statutes and the laws that you shall take care to observe in the land that Yahweh,
the God of thine ancestors, has given thee to possess—all the days that you live
upon the earth" (Deut 12:1 ).4 Within this superscription a shift occurs in the gram-
matical number of the addressee: from second-person plural at the beginning and
end to second-person singular in the land donation formula in the middle (table
2-2). This shift does not entail secondary accretions; the superscription is rather
a unified composition.5 Its number change, among other functions, helps pre-
pare the reader for the number change of the laws that follow.
In their final redaction, the laws are arranged in a chiastic structure (A B
C B' A1).6 Laws 1 and 5 each address issues of cultic purification and polemicize

4. Norbert Lohfink, "Die huqqim umispatim und ihre Neubegrenzung durch Dtn 12,1,"
Bib 70 (1989) 1-29; reprinted in and cited according to Lohfink, Studien zum Deuteronomium
und zur deuteronomistischen Literatur 11 (SBAB 12; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991)
229-56. See also Lohfink, "Dtn 12,1 und Gen 15,18: Das dem Samen Abrahams geschenkte
Land als der Geltungsbereich der deuteronomischen Gesetze"; and Lohfink, "Zum rabbinischen
Verstandnis von Dtn 12,1," both reprinted in the same volume (pp. 257-85, 287-92).
5. Lohfink, "Dtn 12,1 und Gen 15,18," 259, 265, establishes both the coherence of the
superscription on juridical grounds and its text-critical originality as the lectio difficilior in
contrast to the Septuagint, which levels the plural through the verse. This frequent number change
(Numeruswechsel) in the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy, which occurs both in the legal corpus
and in the narrative frame, still awaits satisfactory explanation. For more detailed studies see
Norbert Lohfink, Das Hauptgebot: Eine Untersuchung literarischer Einleitungsfragen zu Dtn
5-11 (AnBib 20; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963) 239-57; Christopher T. Begg, "The
Significance of the Numeruswechsel in Deuteronomy—The 'Prehistory' of the Question," ETL
55 (1979) 116-24; Begg, "Contributions to the Elucidation of the Composition of Deuteronomy
with Special Attention to the Significance of the Numeruswechsel" (Ph.D. diss., University of
Louvain, 1987); and Yoshihide Suzuki, "The 'Numeruswechsel' in Deuteronomy" (Ph.D. diss.,
Claremont Graduate School, 1982).
6. See the fine analysis by Georg Braulik, Die deuteronomischen Gesetze und der Dekalog:
Studien zum Aufbau von Deuteronomium 12-26 (SBS 145; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk,
1991) 23-30.
26 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

against syncretism with Canaanite practices; laws 2 and 4 each present the
conditions, whether historical or geographic, for the inception of centraliza-
tion and secular slaughter. Thereby doubly framed and functioning as the
focus of the chapter is law 3, which commands centralization and local secular
slaughter. Law 5, which makes no reference to cult centralization, was most
likely added by a late editor. Nonetheless, by means of the law's focus on cultic
purity, the editor establishes multiple points of contact with law 1 and thereby
provides the chapter with an elegant chiastic frame:7

A (3) You shall burn their sacred posts by fire

B (4) You shall not do thus for Yahweh your God
C (5) You shall seek
C' (30) Lest thou seek
B' (31) Thou shall not do thus for Yahweh thy God
A' (31) R They Awrn their sons and daughters by fire

As a result of such redactional design, the chapter appears simultaneously

composite, redacted from five originally independent paragraphs, and cohesive,
with the five paragraphs integrated into an ordered structure. This double nature
of the chapter has engendered a double approach to its scholarly interpretation.
The dominant approach in source-critical scholarship is to attempt by means of
diachronic analysis to isolate its earliest stratum, deemed variously Deuteronomic
or pre-Deuteronomic, and then to assign the other paragraphs to successive, later
editors. The most recent monograph, for example, finds two preexilic, one early
exilic, and one late exilic stratum.8 Such confident precision raises more ques-
tions than it answers, since the criteria for distinguishing two preexilic Deu-
teronomic strata from one another, when each is Josianic and presupposes cen-
tralization—yet neither of which is Deuteronomistic—are never made clear, either
linguistically or legal-historically. The problem with many such approaches is
that, while properly emphasizing the composite nature of the chapter, they over-
look both the evidence for the secondary imposition of an editorial structure and
the difficulties that such deliberate redactional reworking pose for reconstruct-
ing literary history in the first place. Despite all such attempts, there is no direct
access to a hypothetically reconstructed earliest centralization law: even the law
conventionally deemed the earliest, Deut 12:13-19, has already been reworked
in light of the final stage of the redaction.9
Conversely, a number of scholars have taken the opposite approach.
Denying that the repetitions in the chapter are signs of redundancy and com-
posite origin, these scholars reject diachronic analysis altogether. They strive

7. Note the additional parallel between "where the nations worshipped their gods" (Deut
12:2) and "how did these nations worship their gods" (Deut 12:30).
8. Reuter, Kultzemralisation, 109-14.
9. Norbert Lohf'ink, Lectures on Deuteronomy 12-14 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute,
1983) 101, 105. Professor Lohfink kindly made available to me these transcribed lectures, origi-
nally given at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, which contain a wealth of research. See also
Lohfink, "Zentralisationsformel," 164.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 27

for synchronic solutions and explain the repetitions as deliberate rhetorical em-
phasis. Evidence for that position might be found in the requirement for the
septennial public reading of the law at the pilgrimage festival of Tabernacles
(Deut 31:9-13). However, almost all proponents of this synchronic approach
fail to do justice to the degree of philological difficulty in the chapter. They
restrict the difficulty, for example, to mere repetition alone, as if that problem
did not interlock with the number change of the addressee. Rhetorical empha-
sis might account for the former problem, but not the latter, let alone both to-
gether. Moreover, proponents of this synchronic method frequently commit a
logical error. They move from the claim of rhetorical or literary structure to
that of compositional coherence, without taking into account that such struc-
tures may, with equal justification, represent secondary editorial attempts to
impose coherence upon originally composite material. Even if a ring-pattern
or chiasm, for example, can legitimately be identified in a text, it does not fol-
low automatically that the whole text represents the original composition of a
single author.10 After all, that an editor has obscured textual seams does not
mean that there are no seams, no matter how adroitly the disparate material
may have been integrated through the use of redactional bridges." The very
structures, in other words, that suggest compositional unity to some scholars
may actually lead to the opposite conclusion once the full degree of philologi-
cal complexity of a text is recognized.12 Each approach, both the diachronic
and the synchronic, contributes to the discussion, but neither is in itself suffi-
cient to account for the text. A shift in perspective is necessary.
The key to the composition and redactional structure of Deuteronomy 12
is the way it engages and transforms prior Israelite literary history. The chap-
ter is exegetical: not in the sense of a passive explication of the meaning of a
text but rather, more profoundly, in using the guise of exegesis (see Deut 1:5)
in order to sanction a major transformation of legal, cultic, and literary history
by means of literary reworking—and by ascribing the departure from conven-
tion to the authoritative tradition. Literary history presented a problem for the
authors of Deuteronomy. The authors of the legal corpus were concerned to
mandate a major transformation of Israelite religion: to institute centralization

10. See the due cautions of James L. Kugel, "On the Bible and Literary Criticism,"
Prooftexts 1 (1981) 217-36.
11. See the interesting discussion of "the disappearing redactor" by John Barton, Read-
ing the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984) 56-58.
12. Several analyses of Deuteronomy reason from literary design to single authorship
without considering an alternative interpretation of the evidence. For an example of baroque
chiastic analysis carried out without addressing philological issues, such as grammatical num-
ber change, which is then used to defend a claim of compositional unity, see J. G. McConville,
Law and Theology in Deuteronomy (JSOTSup 33; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984) 67. For a criti-
cal analysis, see Bernard M. Levinson, "McConville's Law and Theology in Deuteronomy" JQR
80 (1990) 396-404. On the synchronic approaches of Harold M. Wiener, Calum M. Carmichael,
Stephen A. Kaufman, and J. G. McConville, see Bernard M. Levinson, "Calum M. Carmichaei's
Approach to the Laws of Deuteronomy," HTR 83 (1990) 227-57; and Levinson, The Herme-
neutics of Innovation: The Impact of Centralization upon the Structure, Sequence, and Refor-
mulation of Legal Material in Deuteronomy (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1991) 14-60.
28 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

of the sacrificial cultus. That innovation required a transformation of the so-

cial and religious status quo, whereby sacrifices were offered throughout the
land at the long-established local altars and sanctuaries. The innovation of cultic
centralization entailed, moreover, a direct conflict with existing prestigious or
authoritative texts that circulated within the scribal schools, even if they were
not yet publicly known, and that contemplated precisely the opposite of cen-
tralization. In order for the Deuteronomic agenda to succeed, therefore, the
authors and editors of the legal corpus had to find some way to justify their
innovation. They had not only empirically to proscribe the local altars and
sanctuaries, to which the people turned for cultic access to their God, but also
to qualify the validity of the older texts whose content they contradicted and
that might have jeopardized the success of their innovative agenda. In order to
do so, the authors of Deuteronomy paradoxically turned to those very texts and
coerced them to call for centralization.
Deuteronomy 12 does not simply represent "centralization law," as if that
were some immediate positive legal requirement intended directly to act upon
society. Instead, what is at stake is something broader, both theoretical and prac-
tical: not simply the innovation of centralization but also its careful justification
and defense in light of previous Israelite literary history.13 This hermeneutical
issue—the impediment faced by the authors of the legal corpus and their need to
defend their innovation—has not previously been recognized. Once understood,
it helps to explain the problematic structure of much of the chapter. Deuteronomy
12 to a large extent represents a redactional anthology of repeated attempts not
simply to command but also to justify the innovation of centralization. The chief
technique for doing so employs tendentious textual exegesis: the authors turn to
the very texts that threaten the validity of centralization and rework them to com-
mand the desired new content. These facts help account for the chapter's prob-
lematic redundancy and provide a new perspective for understanding the liter-
ary and hermeneutical dynamics of other key chapters in the legal corpus.

The Innovation of Centralization

as Exegetical Reformulation
Widely regarded as providing the earliest stratum of the chapter, Deut 12:13-19
plays a key role in the legal corpus of Deuteronomy. In substantive terms, the
unit (1) prohibits sacrificial worship at random altars (v. 13); (2) stipulates that
sacrifice should take place exclusively at a single altar designated by Yahweh;
(3) sanctions the secular slaughter of domestic animals, wherever and when-
ever desired "in each of your city-gates," that is, not at an altar (v. 15); (4)
qualifies that sanction in two ways, stipulating that blood should not be con-

13. Morton Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics that Shaped the Old Testament (2d
ed.; London: SCM, 1987) broke important ground in arguing that Deut 12:8-12 represents a
later exegetical harmonization between noncentralization law (Exod 20:24) and centralization
law (Deut 12:4-7). In contrast to his model, however, the claim here is that the very initial for-
mulation of the centralization law is already exegetical and intertextual. Moreover, he does not
indicate why he considers Deut 12:4-7 to represent the earliest formulation of centralization.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 29

sumed and prohibiting the making of cultic offerings and donations in the towns
(vv. 16-17); (5) reiterates that all such cultic activity must take place only at
the single sanctuary designated by Yahweh (v. 18); and (6) concludes with a
formulaic admonition not to abandon the Levite (v. 19):

(13) Take heed lest you offer your burnt offerings in every place
that you see; (14) but rather in the place that Yahweh shall choose in
one of your tribes—there shall you offer your burnt offerings and there
shall you do all that I command you. (15) But whenever you desire you
may slaughter and eat meat in all your city-gates, according to the
blessing of Yahweh your God; the impure and the pure may eat it, as of
the gazelle and the hart. (16) But you must not eat the blood; you must
pour it out upon the ground like water.
(17) Nor are you permitted to eat in any of your city-gates the
tithes of your new grain, wine, or oil, the firstlings of your herds and
your flocks, any of the votive offerings that you vow, your freewill
offerings, or your donations; (18) but rather shall you eat these before
Yahweh your God in the place that Yahweh your God shall choose—
you, your son, your daughter, your male and your female slaves and the
Levites resident in your cities—rejoicing before Yahweh your God in
all of your undertakings. (19) Take heed lest you neglect the Levite as
long as you live in your land.
Although Deut 12:13-19, as repetitive, may include later insertions, it has
a deliberate redactional structure:14
(13) Take heed lest
(14) but rather + centralization formula
(15) but + secular slaughter
(16) but + secular blood protocol
(18) but rather + centralization formula
(19) Take heed lest

14. For a similar diagram see Gottfried Seitz, Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien zum
Deuteronomium (BWANT 93; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1971) 211, who, however, arbitrarily
splits v. 15b off from v. 15a to provide a focal point for his structural diagram. That half-verse
cannot support such exegetical weight. For the various analyses of the literary history of the
unit see Reuter, Kultzentralisation, 100-105.
30 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

The rhetorical formulae and the redactional structures interact with the
substantive requirements in striking ways. Curiously, the opening imperative
does not affirm what Deuteronomy requires—cult centralization—but rather
prohibits an activity that even on the face of it seems illogical: promiscuously
making sacrifices "in every place that you see" (Deut 12:13).
Since under normal circumstances, sacrificial worship took place at familiar
and established altars or sanctuaries, this prohibition erects a rhetorical straw
man. It conceals the actual object of concern as something self-evidently to be
rejected. The legal rhetoric continues to be curious in what follows. Neither of
the two key substantive requirements of Deuteronomy—the centralization
command that restricts all sacrifice to a single site chosen by Yahweh and the
sanction for local secular slaughter—occurs as an independent imperative or
affirmation. Instead, both stipulations—whereby Deuteronomy establishes its
legal-historical uniqueness and independence from existing Israelite law—are
shunted into the dependent syntax of opposition and qualification,15 almost as
if they were not, after all, the essential points of the authors' agenda.
Within vv. 13-15, there is a striking manipulation of syntax. In order to
propound their substantive legal requirements, the unit's authors deliberately
bracket the command to bring all offerings to the exclusive cultic center
(v. 14) with two contrasting formulations, each of which employs the distribu-
tive pronoun to which, depending on context, means "every" or "all." That
same pronoun thereby governs both the prohibited action (v. 13) and the
permitted one (v. 15). Distributive plurality cannot be applied, however, to
Deuteronomy's cultic center because, by definition, it is exclusive. The syn-
tactical play points to a triadic literary structure:

(v. 13) in every place

(v. 14) in the place
(v. 15) in all your city-gates

That same triadic literary structure translates into the following legal struc-
ture as it governs human action, both cultic and secular:

Legal Status Legal Content Legal Locale Form of Expression

(v. 13) Prohibited Random sacrifice Multiple sites Rhetorical deflection

(v. 14) Prescribed Cultic centralization Single site Periphrasis
(v. 15) Permitted Secular slaughter Multiple sites Metonym

Deuteronomy's authors are hardly innocent, either in the lexicon or in the

conceptual background that underlies this triadic literary-legal structure. First,
the very word mpD "place" that stands as the focus of attention is not a neutral
term. In Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, and Arabic, the word possesses, in
addition, the more technical meaning of a "cult site" or "altar," as is explicit in

15. Lohfink, Lectures, 104-106.

 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 31

Deut 12:2.16 Second, the synchronic structure just isolated is quite sophisticated.
It does not propound a simple binary opposition: Do not do X but rather Y.
Instead, the structure is tripartite, and the logic is dialectical. Balancing and
rehabilitating prohibited X, with its formulation of plurality and random ac-
tion, is the newly permitted free action—ad libitum—in the plural settlements.
Although sacrifice "in every place" is prohibited, noncultic slaughter "in all
your city-gates" is sanctioned. At the focal point stands Deuteronomy's key
requirement of cultic centralization. To express it, the authors revamp the ter-
minology of what was prohibited to formulate what they prescribe: "not in every
place ... but in the place."
This synchronic structure originates diachronically in literary history. What
the authors of Deuteronomy proscribe—sacrificial worship of Yahweh at
multiple sites throughout the countryside ( "in every place that")—
conforms both in substance and in formulation to the older legal norm repre-
sented by the altar law that stands now as a preface to the Covenant Code (Exod
20:24; in some printings, Exod 20:21).17 Yahweh's first person speech there
directly affirms that he provides his cultic presence and blessing consequent
upon sacrifice "in every place that" (Exod 20:24b)—precisely
what Deut 12:13 proscribes as anathema. The rhetorical straw man erected by
the authors of Deuteronomy thus camouflages the real point of the exercise:
functionally to abrogate that law with its affirmation of multiple altar sites as
legitimate for sacrifice.

16. See BOB, 880 (§ 4) and the valuable new HALAT, 2.627 (§ 6). S. R. Driver, Deuter-
onomy (ICC; 3d ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901) 139 adduces Gen 12:6; 28:11; 1 Sam 7:16;
Jer 7:12; and Arabic maqam "sacred place." For evidence from Phoenician and Punic inscrip-
tions, see R. S. Tomback, A Comparative Semitic Lexicon of the Phoenician and Punic Lan-
guages (SBLDS 32; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978) 195-96. See also J. Hoftijzer and K. Jongeling,
Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions (2 vols.; Handbuch der Orientalistik 21;
Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995) 2.680, s.v. mqm, (§ la). Note also Aramaic «-,n«.
17. The literary reconstruction of Diethelm Conrad, which makes Exod 20:24b second-
ary, is arbitrary (Studien zum Altargesetz Ex 20:24-26 [Marburg: H. Kombacher, 1968]. Conrad
simply assumes in his preface that second-person singular apodictic laws are directed against
foreign cults. That presupposition, even though nowhere justified, nonetheless drives his sub-
sequent literary criticism. Those sections of Exod 20:24-26 that fail to conform to it are sum-
marily dismissed as secondary accretions to an imagined original law that constituted a polemic
against foreign cults. The logic is watertight—and circular. Conrad's argument overlooks the
evidence that the close literary connection in Exod 20:24 among (1) altar-building, (2) theophany,
and (3) divine beneficence has clear parallels elsewhere in the Bible. See Gen 12:7-8 and 1
Kgs 3:4-5 (the first is noted in the review of Conrad's work by Henri Cazelles, OrAnt 11 [1972]
332-35). Indeed, the connection between a theophany and the divine's proclaiming his name
in a cultic context was a convention within Israel and the ancient Near East. See Tryggve N. D.
Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaolh: Studies in the Shein and Kabod Theologies (Lund:
CWK Gleerup, 1982) 125-27. On the literary and redactional history of the altar law and estab-
lishing its essentially pre-Deuteronomic status are Eckart Otto, Wandel der Rechtsbegrundungen
in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte des antiken Israels: Eine Rechtsgeschichte des "Bundesbuches "
Ex XX 22-XXIII 13 (StudBib 3; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988) 54-56; and Ludger Schwienhorst-
Schonberger, Das Bundesbuch (Ex 20,22—23,33): Studien zu seiner Entstehung und Theologie
(BZAW 188; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990) 287-99.
32 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation ation

Exod 20:24

An earthen altar shall you make for me, and you shall sacrifice upon it
your burnt offerings and your whole offerings, your sheep and your
cattle;
In every place that I proclaim my name I shall come to you and bless
you. 18
The authors of Deut 12:13-15 appropriate this lemma to serve their own
very different agenda. They deftly rework it to command the distinctive
innovations of Deuteronomy—both cultic centralization19 and local, secular
slaughter:
Exod20:24b Deut 12:13-15
prohibited in every place
in every [the] place required in the place
permitted in all your city-gates

The Deuteronomic authors skillfully break up and recast the syntax of the
older Exodus altar law. The preposition ("in") and the definite noun ("the
place") are now grouped together to designate the chosen site to which all sac-
rifice must be directed: "in the place." The distributive is similarly recast so
that it now refers both negatively to the prohibited multiple altar sites (which
were formerly legitimate for sacrifice) and positively to the multiple sites for
secular slaughter (which activity was previously inconceivable). By means of

18. The Hebrew of Exod 20:24b reads literally "in every [the] place." More commonly,
the idiom for "every" requires to plus an indefinite substantive whereas to plus a definite sub-
stantive, as here, means "all" or "the whole." Notwithstanding that convention, the correct trans-
lation here is indeed distributive "every." There are a number of other cases where to plus the
definite substantive has a distributive function. Such a use is clear, for example, in Abraham's
self-exculpation before Abimelek: "When God caused me to wander from my father's house, I
said to her, 'Do this gracious deed for me: in every place that N we come to, say
of me, "He is my brother'"" (Gen 20:13). Consequently, the discussion of Exod 20:24 and its
syntax by GKC § 127e is sorely inadequate. Gesenius argues that the use of the definite article
represents a later "dogmatic correction" and that the definite article was absent in the original
text. He considers the one other syntactical parallel he cites, Gen 20:13, similarly anomalous
"since elsewhere every place is always (8 times)" (emphasis in original). Gesenius's
"always" overlooks I "every place where the sole of your foot treads shall belong to
you" (Deut 11:24); so Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster,
1974) 447. Moreover, that the phrase with definite nomen rectum means "every place"—exactly
as it does without the article—is clear from Joshua's subsequent citation of that promise using
an indefinite nomen rectum: "every place where the sole of your foot treads I have
given to you" (Josh 1:3).
19. For the ground-breaking demonstration of the relation between the "election-formula"
of Deuteronomy and Exod 20:24b, with the structure ["place" + relative clause + verb + Divine
Name] common to both, see Lohfink, "Zentralisationsformel," 167-77. See also S. Dean McBride,
"The Deuteronomic Name Theology" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1969) 209; and Michael
Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 252.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 33

this reworking, the Deuteronomic authors turn the older Exodus altar law against
itself. They appropriate its syntax and lexemes to propound Deuteronomy's
own innovations so that it now (1) prohibits all local sacrifice "in every
place"; (2) mandates cultic centralization "in the place"; and (3) sanc-
tions local, secular slaughter "in all your city-gates" (Deut 12:13-15).
The literary recycling allows the Deuteronomic authors to retain the os-
tensible validity of the older Exodus altar law or, at least, to cast their innova-
tions in light of the older sacrificial norm and to minimize their departure from
it. Nonetheless, in substantive terms, they abrogate it. Indeed, they doubly dis-
enfranchise it. They meticulously rework it to prohibit the plurality of altars
that it originally presupposed and to require the cultic exclusivity that it never
contemplated.20 The degree of technical scribal sophistication involved is re-
markable. The authors of Deuteronomy have atomistically restricted the older
law's authority to individual, recycled lexemes shorn from their original se-
mantic context.
For the first time in the history of Israelite religion a distinction has been
forged between cultic sacrifice (at an altar) and secular slaughter (not at an altar).
That distinction would have been a contradiction in terms to the author of the
altar law. Prior to Deuteronomy, all slaughter of domestic animals—even for
the purposes of food—was a ritual activity necessarily carried out at an altar.21
There was, in other words, no functional distinction between the sacrifice of
sheep and cattle for cultic purposes and the slaughter of the same animals for
food. Both took place at an altar. In the Exodus altar law, the same verb rat
encompassed both activities—although that verbal action could take place only
at the altar. Ironically, precisely because of that double focus, the old altar law
of Exod 20:24 was sufficiently polyvalent that the authors of Deuteronomy
could exploit it to justify their innovations.
None of this is accidental. The Exodus altar law had the prestige of antiq-
uity, was ascribed to Yahweh, likely circulated with the Covenant Code, and
represented normative practice. Because of its prestige and normative status,

20. Reuter, Kultientralisation, 123, maintains that the Exodus altar law shows an initial
movement toward centralization in its relative clause, which she reads with a restrictive force
as Yahweh's delimiting the sites where he cultically appears: "nicht jeder Ort geeignet ist, sondern
nur die von JWHW dazu bestimmten." That approach makes the relative clause merely state
the obvious. More problematical, it also unintentionally reinterprets the clause, nearly verba-
tim, in light of Deut 12:13-14—and thereby reverses legal and literary history. There is further
evidence against her analysis. In its noncultic attestations, the same structure of "place" +
relative clause emphasizes plurality and plenitude rather than restriction or delimitation; see
Gen 20:13, Deut 11:24, and Josh 1:3 (cited in previous note). Reuter is apparently unaware that
her analysis of Exod 20:24 precisely recapitulates one of the harmonistic solutions employed
by ancient rabbinic exegesis; see the survey collected by S. Weissblueth, '"In Every Place Where
I Mention My Name I Will Come to You and Bless You,'" Beth Miqra 30 (1984/85) 173-78
(Hebrew).
21. This norm is presupposed by the narrative of Saul's troops who are reprimanded for
slaughtering "on the ground" and eating "with the blood" (1 Sam 14:31-35. See the remarks of
Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961) 338, which repre-
sents the standard position of source criticism. See also Lev 17:1-9, which stipulates that all
slaughter must take place at an altar.
34 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

the law could not be dispensed with or bypassed. In order to justify their de-
parture from it, the authors of Deuteronomy tendentiously reworked it by means
of studied, transformative exegesis, appropriating its very wording to express
their own innovative agenda. Their implicit argument is that their innovation
represents the actual force of that altar law, which they nevertheless replace by
turning its own syntax and lexemes against it.
At issue is a problem in legal and religious history. In a culture with a
curriculum of prestigious and authoritative texts, how are legal innovation and
religious transformation possible? The solution is to disclaim authorship and
to deny originality. Employing the technique of lemmatic citation and trans-
formation, Deuteronomy's authors harness the lexemes of older texts, wher-
ever possible, to formulate their own religious and legal agenda. They never
speak in their own belated, seventh-century B.C.E. scribal voice. Instead, they
defer to the voice of authoritative antiquity. They appropriate, and possibly
create,22 the fiction of Moses as textual speaker to make him propound their
transformation of legal and literary history. Deuteronomy, in other words, is a
deliberate literary pseudepigraph, designed to belie literary history by locat-
ing the innovative force of the new composition in an authoritative past. Both
authorship and originality are thereby ascribed to the very textual tradition that
is actually radically transformed. Looking at the material this way suggests that
familiar postbiblical and Second Temple techniques of sectarian literary ac-
tivity find a precedent in Deuteronomy. These include pseudepigraphy, exegesis
as a technique of textual transformation, and the phenomenon of the "rewrit-
ten Bible."
The authors of Deuteronomy continue to exploit the Exodus altar law both
in this unit (Deut 12:13-19) and in the following one (Deut 12:20-28). In each
case, it is reworked twice. The polyvalency of its transformations is striking:
the authors of Deuteronomy rework it to sponsor both cultic centralization and
local secular slaughter. In order to demonstrate the techniques for textual re-
working employed by the authors of Deuteronomy, I first move through each
unit synchronically, showing the reuse. Then I explore the diachronic and ex-
egetical implications of this reworking.

Lemmatic Transformation in Deut 12:13-19

In mandating their innovations, the authors of Deuteronomy transform the entire
Exodus altar law, not only that portion of it which refers distributively to the
"place" (Exod 20:24ba). The altar law provides a textual basis not only
for Deuteronomy's election or "place" formula but also for the central-
ization command, the concession for secular slaughter, and the blood rite at
the altar. There are two further examples in Deut 12:13-19. The first occurs in

22. Norbert Lohfink contends that the Mosaic voicing is not original but a later, Deu-
teronomistic addition; see chapter 1, n. 7. Were that the case, it would only strengthen my posi-
tion: for Deuteronomy, at the time of its composition, like the Qumran Temple Scroll, would
then constitute a divine pseudepigraph, with theonymy the ultimate trope of authority.
 Innovation ofCultic Centralization 35

Deut 12:14, where the reference to the central sanctuary and the instructions
concerning what to do there chiastically cite Exod 20:24. That altar law has
two prime components:
A You shall sacrifice
upon it
your burnt offerings ...
B in every place where ...
Deut 12:14 takes up those two elements in reverse order, according to
Seidel's law. Here the focus is on the site of sacrifice:
B' in the place
which Yahweh shall choose
A1 there you shall offer
your burnt offerings
Within that reformulation, the authors of Deuteronomy locate their radi-
cal cultic and legal novum in the relative clause that, functioning like a techni-
cal gloss, redefines lemmatic DipQ[n] in terms of Deuteronomy's distinctive
demand for cultic centralization: "the place—which Yahweh shall choose in
one of your tribes."23
The authors of Deuteronomy reuse different segments of the same lemma
in order to introduce local secular slaughter:
Exod_20:24
A You shall sacrifice
upon it
your burnt offerings ...
B in every place where I proclaim my name
I shall come to you and bless you
The two key elements of the Exodus lemma are cited for the second time
by Deut 12:15:
A2 Only, to your heart's desire
you may slaughter
and eat meat
B2 according to the blessing
of Yahweh your God
in each of your city-gates
In this new context the verb is completely detached from its originally
essential link to the altar. No longer does it denote a cultic sacrifice. The verb

23. Emanuel Tov, "Glosses, Interpolations, and Other Types of Scribal Additions in the
Text of the Hebrew Bible," Language, Theology, and The Bible: Essays in Honour of James
Barr (ed. Samuel E. Balentine and John Barton; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994) 40-66, urges due
caution in the widespread use of the term "gloss" within the textual criticism of the Hebrew
Bible. My use differs from that and does not imply a secondary addition to the text. It refers to
the composition of the text, not its manuscript history.
36 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

is given a new, secular meaning: "to slaughter."24 Its action pointedly no longer
takes place in a cultic context, at an altar, but, rather, in the local settlements.
The construct phrase "according to the blessing of Yahweh" para-
phrases in the third person the lemma's original first-person divine promise
"and I shall bless you." Deuteronomy thus deftly manages both to re-
strict the divine cultic presence to the central sanctuary and to maintain a me-
diated divine presence in the local, secular sphere: the land and its produce
constitute divine gifts. In the lemma one receives locally the cultic blessing of
Yahweh. In Deuteronomy's revision of the lemma, with the local cultic pres-
ence of Yahweh no longer a legitimate possibility, one continues to receive
divine blessing and sustenance locally, albeit now in secular form, indepen-
dent of any cultic activity.

Lemmatic Transformation in Deut 12:20-28

There are another two studied reformulations of the altar law in Deut 12:20-
28. In the first, Deut 12:21 reformulates Exod 20:24, although with a telling
ellipsis. Deuteronomy deliberately elides two elements from the Exodus altar
law: the prepositional phrase vbs "upon it," which refers to the altar, and the
first pair in the sacrificial list, -pn^o riRi ~]'rbv ns "your burnt offerings and
your well-being offerings."
Expd2j0^24ap Deut_l_2j^lap

And you shall sacrifice upon it And you shall slaughter (!)
your burnt offerings and your
well-being offerings,
your sheep and your cattle from your cattle and from your sheep
which Yahweh has given
to you as I have commanded you
Deut 12:20-21 makes the institution of secular slaughter contingent upon
the expansion of the territorial boundaries, a concession to the citizenry on ac-
count of distance from the cultic center. In this context the reason for the two
elisions from the lemma in the Exodus altar law is clear: the slaughter contem-
plated is secular rather than cultic.25 In the technical terminology of v. 21, it is
24. This issue will be discussed in more detail in the following section, "Lemmatic Trans-
formation in Deut 12:20-28."
25. The jurist Harold M. Wiener, The Altars of the Old Testament (Beigabe zur Orien-
talistischen Literatur-Zeitung; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1927) 18, notes the textual relation. This
synchronic insight is, however, undercut by his conservative presuppositions and his rejection
of historical criticism. Assuming Deuteronomy to be Mosaic, he harmonizes Deut 12:21 with
Exod 20:24—and claims that Deuteronomy does not abolish local altars. He denies altogether
that Deuteronomy centralizes the cultus but never addresses Deut 12:14 where no other expla-
nation is possible.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 37

"in your city-gates," that is, local, in contrast to "at the place,"
Deuteronomy's periphrasis for the central sanctuary. Local secular slaughter by
definition cannot take place "upon it"—upon an altar—because Deuteronomy
sanctions only the single altar at the cultic center. For the same reason, the lemma's
reference to the cultic sacrifices "your burnt offerings and
your well-being offerings" is deleted in this noncultic context.
The missing elements from the Exodus lemma, which are specific to cultic
action, are restored and reworked in Deut 12:26-27, which is concerned with
ritual action at the central sanctuary.
Exod 20:24a Deut 12:27

An earthen a/tor shall you You shall offer your burnt offerings,
make for me, and you shall both the flesh and the blood,
sacrifice upon it your burnt upon the altar of Yahweh your God;
offerings and your well-being the blood of your [other] sacrifices
offerings shall be spilled upon the altar of
Yahweh your God
but you may consume the flesh
In Exod 20:24, the adverbial phrase "upon it," which followed the
stipulation "you shall sacrifice," had the bound (i.e., construct) phrase
"an earthen altar" as its antecedent. That phrase was distributive: any
altar among the plurality of altars was legitimate so long as it was, ideally,
earthen or, alternatively, of unhewn stones. In contrast, the altar reference in
Deut 12:27 is bound in such a way as to become exclusive rather than distribu-
tive. The sacrifice shall take place "upon the [unique] altar of
Yahweh." The transformation of the original bound phrase establishes the cultic-
historical distance between Deuteronomy and its predecessors.
The four-item sacrificial list of Exod 20:24 may be subdivided into two
pairs. The first pair is distinctively cultic: "your burnt offer-
ings and your well-being offerings."26 The second pair, "sheep and cattle," is
not necessarily cult-specific. Syntactically, since the first object marker does
not have the copula, this pair may simply stand in apposition to the first pair,
specifying the possible sacrificial animals rather than supplementing the first
pair: "[namely,] your sheep and your cattle."27 Only one term

26. I disagree with the position of Schwienhorst-Schonberger, Das Bundesbuch, 296, who
concludes that this sacrificial list represents a secondary Deuteronomistic expansion of the origi-
nal altar law. It is difficult to imagine that a Deuteronomistic interpolator would add such a list
but leave unscathed the altar law's explicit reference to multiple altars as legitimate sites for
cultic theophany and divine blessing.
27. Additional evidence for this syntactic rendering is that both the Samaritan Pentateuch
and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (E. G. Clarke, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text
38 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

from the remaining pair is reused in this new context: "your burnt offer-
ings" (v. 27). There is a reason that the second term from the lemma,
"your well-being offerings," is not reused: with one exception, the word is never
used in Deuteronomy and is not part of its vocabulary.28
It is striking that in this cultic context of reformulation of the Exodus altar
law, its key verb— "you shall sacrifice"—is not employed. The nonuse is
the more salient inasmuch as a noun derived from the same verb— "your
sacrifices"—occurs in the same verse (v. 27). There is a clear rationale for this
selectivity. In its paradoxical reuse of the Exodus altar law to sanction local
secular slaughter, Deuteronomy has appropriated and deliberately redefined
the original verb. In the new context, it no longer retains its original meaning—
cultic sacrifice—but instead denotes its opposite—slaughter, but not at an altar
(Deut 12:15, 21). That deliberate abrogation of the verb's conventional mean-
ing is unique in the entire lexicon of the Hebrew Bible to these two verses.29
Elsewhere, even in Deuteronomy, the verb retains its normal denotation.30 The
precision of the radical respecification of the verb admits one logical explana-
tion. In both cases, the author struggles to justify the innovation of secular
slaughter in terms of prior textual authority, almost as if the older Exodus altar
law itself lexically sanctioned the very innovation that overturns it. But that
pointed reassignment of the verb to sanction secular slaughter precludes its
being used in this context also to denote cultic sacrifice. Accordingly, an alter-
native idiom—in Deuteronomy, unique to this verse—becomes necessary here:
"to make a burnt offering."31

and Concordance [Hoboken, N.J.: Ktav, 1984] 92) render this phrase using the partitive preposi-
tion ]0 bound to the noun instead of the MT's object marker. Thereby the holocaust and well-
being offerings would come "from your sheep and from your cattle." In both verses, the syntacti-
cal change most likely reflects ancient exegetical activity that harmonizes the Exodus lemma with
its revision in Deut 12:21. Thus, the Exodus altar law and the Deuteronomic centralization law
were at a very early stage in the history of interpretation already read alongside one another.
28. The one exception proves the rule. The word occurs only at Deut 27:7—thus, within
a chapter that is a late, secondary addition to the legal corpus. Moreover, even there, it is used
within a later interpolation framed by a repetitive resumption; see Fishbane, Biblical Interpre-
tation, 228 n. 131.
29. The verb normally has a clear cultic force—either generally "to sacrifice" or, more
technically, "to offer the rat sacrifice." Even where it does not explicitly take place in a cultic
context, emulation or assertion of cultic status is involved (1 Kgs 1:9, 19, 25; 19:21). Making
this point is Alfred Cholewinski, Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium: Eine vergleichende
Studie (AnBib 66; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1976) 151 n. 12. Independently noting the verb's
anomalous use is Jacob Milgrom, "Profane Slaughter and a Formulaic Key to the Composition
of Deuteronomy," HUCA 47 (1976) 1-17, at 2.
30. Deut 15:21; 16:2,4,5, 6; 17:1; 27:7; 32:17; 33:19. On the anomaly of Passover as a
sacrifice (Deut 16:1-7), see chapter 3.
31. A related idiom does, however, occur in the context of Deuteronomy's festival calen-
dar (Deut 16:1, 10, 13). The idiom there may be an ellipsis of "to offer the [sacri-
fice] of + festival name." Elsewhere the idiom is common in the Deuteronomistic History (i.e.,
Judg 13:16; 2 Kgs 5:17; 10:24), P (i.e., Num 15:3, 5, 8) and the literature related to P (Chronicles
and Ezekiel). The use of the verb "to do, make" in conjunction with sacrifice is also normal in
Akkadian, where it may take as object alpu (bull), niqe (sacrifices), or ududaru (regular sheep
offering); see CAD, 4.201-202, 214, 224, s.v. epesu.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 39

The Double Justification of Innovation in Deut 12:20-28

The altar law of Exodus figured prominently as the lemmatic source for both
the secularization of slaughter and the centralization of sacrifice in Deut
12:20-28, just as it did in the previous unit (Deut 12:13-19). From this per-
spective, a number of widespread assumptions about Deut 12:20-28 must be
reexamined. The two paragraphs contrast remarkably in their rhetorical stance.
In Deut 12:13-19, secular slaughter was granted unconditionally. In contrast,
the innovation is presented as doubly conditional in Deut 12:20-28. Secular
slaughter is now made contingent upon both future expansion of the national
boundaries and excessive distance from the cultic center (vv. 20-21). The for-
mulation of the two verses is redundant, involving two parallel conditional
clauses and two parallel concessions, each granting the consumption of meat
in a nonsacrificial context.32
[20]
[21]

(20) When Yahweh your God enlarges your territory, as he has

promised you, and you say, "I shall eat some meat," for you wish to eat
some meat, you may eat meat whenever you have the desire. (21) When
the place that Yahweh your God shall choose to establish his name is
too distant from you, you may slaughter any of your cattle and your
sheep, which Yahweh has given you, as I have commanded you; you
may eat within your settlements whenever you have the desire.
There are good reasons to question the prevailing scholarly view that this
unit represents a later legal reinterpretation of Deut 12:13-19, restricting secular
slaughter's geographical purview.33 Allegedly, the reference to the expansion
of the boundaries refers to Josiah's extending the range of his cultic reform
from Judah into Samaria, the former northern kingdom of Israel. This approach
regards the unit's composition as having been triggered by an immediate, prac-
tical contingency. There is no textual justification for this claim that the double
reference to the expansion of the boundaries and to distance from the cultic
center reflects Josiah's expansion into the territory of the former Israel.34 In
the narrative describing his actions (2 Kgs 23:15-20), there is simply no use of

32. The double condition may well point to separate redactional strata, as Seitz, Studien,
210, maintains, believing v. 21 to be earlier. Nevertheless, it is also possible that the redactor is
deliberately grouping together two different exegetical formulae to introduce his reworking of
different parts of v. 15 in each case (vv. 20, 21).
33. This prevailing view is held by Cholewiriski, Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium,
152-53; Georg Braulik, Deuteronomium 1-16,17 (Neue Echter Bibel 15; Wurzburg: Echter,
1986) 99-100; and Lohfink, "Opfer und Sakularisierung," 16 n. 6.
34. See also Reuter, Kultzentralisation, 91-92. Her analysis does not clarify how she does
understand the reference to operate: whether it refers to a different historical context or is merely
literary.
40 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

that language or terminology and therefore no justification for claiming a con-

nection between Deut 12:20-28 and that narrative or the event it describes. The
language does not represent any form of direct historical contingency. Instead,
both formulae constitute deliberate exegetical tropes that introduce and justify
textual and legal revision.35 They present the later innovation as an originally
planned-for contingency, a type of vaticinium ex eventu. They thereby con-
ceal the fact that prior law is actually being amended or abrogated.36
The second formula, which concerns distance from the cultic center, also
occurs in the context of the tithes law, where it grants the citizen permission,
"if the cultic center is too distant" to convert tithes into currency (Deut 14:24a).
Such a provision directly contradicts the conventions of cultic law that pro-
hibit the conversion of sancta?1 A slight variant, using an adjectival rather than
verbal construction, occurs in the war laws of Deuteronomy. In order to sanc-
tion Deuteronomy's distinctive innovation of the D~in "holy war," which calls
for the killing of all the Canaanites, the earlier war law, that sanctioned taking
women, children, and animals as plunder, was redactionally respecified to apply
only to "all the [non-Canaanite] cities which are very distant ( ) from
you" (Deut 20:15).38
It seems much more likely to connect the motifs of the expansion of the
borders to the Deuteronomistic Historian's account of Solomon's hegemony,
with the explicit references there to his rule over foreign powers (1 Kgs 5:1-5).
There is an additional point of connection. Immediately after achieving politi-
cal hegemony, Solomon initiated his plan to build the Temple: he sent his en-
voys to Hiram, declaring that all necessary preconditions were now met (1 Kgs
5:16-19).39 In Deut 12:8-12, the Deuteronomistic author establishes the tem-

35. Alexander Rofe, Introduction to Deuteronomy: Part I and Further Chapters (2d rev.
ed.; Jerusalem: Akademon, 1988) 16 (Hebrew); Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 157, 249.
36. This formula for the expansion of the borders also occurs in the context of the laws
for the cities of refuge, in order to sanction the increase in their number from three to six (Deut
19:8). It occurs again, in the context of Deuteronomistic textual reworking, at Exod 34:24, where
it marks a redactor's homiletic insertion into an earlier pilgrimage law (Exod 23:17) and is framed
by a repetitive resumption. On Exod 34:24 see Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 193-94; and
Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (BZAW 189; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
1990) 69.
37. Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon,
1972) 214—17. The cultic law involved would correspond to the substance of Lev 27:33, even
if not to that particular text. Claiming direct textual dependence is problematic because most
scholars date Leviticus 17—26 after Deuteronomy; many Israeli scholars, including Weinfeld,
and some North American scholars date it contemporary with or prior to Deuteronomy. On the
substantive issue of whether secularization is here involved, note the important different inter-
pretation provided by Lohfink, "Opfer und Sakularisierung," 23-24.
38. See Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 199-200. See also his analysis of the similar
adjectival construction used in the revision of the Passover law at Num 9:10 (pp. 157, 247-50).
39. Solomon's rule provided "peace from all the antagonists all about" (1 Kgs 5:4; cp.
5:18 and Deut 12:10) and thereby provided the necessary precondition for the construction of
the Temple as a domicile for Yahweh's Name (1 Kgs 5:17; Deut 12:21). See further Gary N.
Knoppers, Two Nations under God: The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon and the Dual
Monarchies (2 vols.; HSM 52-53; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993-94) 1.7.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 41

poral condition for the inception of centralization and points to the fulfillment
of this condition of rest with Solomon's Temple (1 Kgs 8:56).40 Similarly, Deut
12:20-28, as the geographical condition for the inception of local secular
slaughter, also tags Solomonic hegemony as having satisfied the condition of
the expansion of the borders.
At issue, therefore, are deliberate hermeneutical tropes that attempt to jus-
tify legal amendment or innovation. Deut 12:20-28 is not a restrictive reinter-
pretation of Deut 12:13-19 that was triggered by a specific historical contingency.
Instead, it represents an attempt by the text's authors to justify the introduction
of local secular slaughter. They were conscious of its contradicting both existing
ritual practice and existing authoritative texts: the altar law of Exod 20:24.41
That text was reworked within this unit to sponsor both the formulation of local
secular slaughter and the blood ritual at the centralized altar. The trope of the
expansion of the borders presents a kind of legal fiction. It suggests that the inno-
vation of local secular slaughter does not represent a breach with legal conven-
tion. Rather, under the terms of the fictional legal trope, it grants local secular
slaughter unconditional sanction—with an inception dating back effectively to
the "golden age" of the Solomonic empire with its construction of the Temple.
The old altar law is not explicitly abrogated. Instead, under the guise of a geo-
graphical restriction, its validity is simply made historically limited.
Now a further issue of exegetical history must be addressed. The conces-
sion for secular slaughter contains a citation tag: "If the place that Yahweh your
God will choose to set his name is distant from you, then you may slaughter
any of your cattle and your sheep, which Yahweh has given you,
as I commanded you; you may eat in your settlements according to your heart's
desire" (Deut 12:21). Almost without exception, that cross-reference has been
understood to have Deut 12:15 as its antecedent.42 According to this view, Deut
12:20-21 restrict and reinterpret Deut 12:15, making secular slaughter contin-
gent upon the expansion of the boundaries and distance from the cultic center.
On a number of grounds, that consensus position is open to question. First, since
Moses in Deut 12:15 grants a free concession to Israel, permitting them locally
to slaughter and eat to their heart's desire, it makes no sense to regard this verse
as the antecedent of Deut 12:21, which speaks rather of a command.43 This
interpretation of the citation tag, wherein it refers to a free concession, forces

40. See "The Hermeneutical Function of Deut 12:8-12," which follows.

41. In contrast, Rofe argues that Deut 12:20-28 represents a late harmonization of the
innovation of local secular slaughter (Deut 12:13-19) with the requirement in Lev 17:1-7 that
all slaughter of domestic animals take place at the sanctuary: now secular slaughter will only
apply in the geographical area where Lev 17:1—7 was never meant to apply (Deuteronomy, 16).
Smith argues for a harmonization in the opposite direction (Palestinian Parties, 140).
42. Among the many examples are Driver, Deuteronomy, 148; Dieter Eduard Skweres,
Die Ruckverweise im Buch Deuteronomium (AnBib 79; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1979)
71-72; Braulik, Deuteronomium, 100; and Reuter, Kultzentralisation, 80-82.
43. The difficulty of squaring the view that Deut 12:21 refers back to 12:15 with the ob-
vious fact that v. 15 is not a command is evident in the awkward need for a gloss on v. 21: "wie
ich dir geboten d. i. erlaubt habe (V. 15)"; so August Dillmann, Die Bucher Numeri, Deu-
teronomium und Josua (KeHAT; 2d ed.; Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1886) 298 (emphasis in origi-
42 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

the verb rm, "to command," to bear an otherwise completely unattested mean-
ing—without ever justifying the lexicographic problem involved.44 Second,
although there is clear linguistic similarity between the verses, v. 15 provides
no source for the emphasis in v. 21 on "from your cattle and from
your sheep" as the partitive object of the verb nran "you may slaughter."45 A
new antecedent must be sought46 However, there is a problem. There neither is
nor can be a direct textual antecedent for the verse because the innovation of
secular slaughter (Deut 12:21, 15) is unprecedented. Local secular slaughter,
like cultic centralization, represents one of the distinctive innovations of
Deuteronomy. Precisely the problem faced by the authors of Deuteronomy—
the lack of prior legal or religious warrant for their double innovation—pro-
vides a new way of approaching this crux.
Deut 12:21 is not a simple citation; it is rather a pseudocitation.47 Reflecting
on the problem that the innovation of local secular slaughter lacked support in

nal). Challenging this consensus position on the antecedent of v. 21 on these grounds is Jacob
Milgrom, "Profane Slaughter and a Formulaic Key to the Composition of Deuteronomy," HUCA
47 (1976) 1-17, at 2-3. The similar analysis is also provided by Milgrom, "Ethics and Ritual:
The Foundations of the Biblical Dietary Laws," in Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and
Islamic Perspectives (ed. Edwin R. Firmage, Bernard G. Weiss, and John W. Welch; Winona
Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990) 159-91.
44. Recognizing this problem, Eduard Nielsen attempts to finesse it by proposing to trans-
late the verb nix as "erlauben" (permit) because it would be "viel einfacher" to do so (Deu-
teronomium [Handbuch zum Alten Testament 1.6; Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1995]
141). That it would be much easier does not make it philologically defensible. Nielsen provides
no textual evidence in support of the new translation, which is unattested in the lexica. The only
clear modification of the verb's denotation is that it can also refer to a deathbed settling of one's
affairs, in order to prepare a legacy (Gen 50:16; 1 Kgs 2:1). The latter, established usage (see BDB,
845 [Ib], s.v. rras) covers the reservations expressed by Samuel A. Meier, Speaking of Speaking:
Marking Direct Discourse in the Hebrew Bible (VTSup 46; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992) 198.
45. This problem was already recognized by August Klostermann, Der Penateuch: Beitrage
zu seinem Verstandnis und seiner Entstehungsgeschichte (Leipzig: A. Deichert, 1907) 281.
46. Milgrom, "Profane Slaughter," 1-17 importantly opens the consensus position to re-
examination. His alternative solution, however, is problematic. He argues that the citation for-
mula in v. 21 refers to priestly rules prescribing the ritual cutting of a sacrificial animal's throat.
He thereby leaves unexplained the anomalous use of the verb rat to govern profane slaughter in
v. 15, which lacks the citation formula. Moreover, this explanation anachronistically presup-
poses Second Temple and later Mishnaic systematizations for which there is no evidence in the
Bible. Unnoted by Milgrom, his own gloss on v. 21 (pp. 13-15) returns almost verbatim to the
harmonistic solution offered by the Tannaitic commentary on Deuteronomy: *}« noTiED D'tnp nc
no'ntzn •'bin "Just as consecrated animals must be slaughtered in the ritual manner, so also pro-
fane animals must be slaughtered in the ritual manner"; so Sifre on Deuteronomy, pisqa 75 (ed.
L. Finkelstein; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1969) 140. Precisely this
recourse to the rules for ritual slaughter, which are found only in postbiblical halakhah, had
earlier been rejected by David Zvi Hoffmann, Das Buch Deuteronomium (2 vols.; Berlin: M.
Poppelauer, 1913-22) 1.167—68, on whose work Milgrom bases his analysis in the first place.
For further details see Levinson, Hermeneutics of Innovation, 177-86.
47. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 534, similarly calls it a "pseudo-ascription." His
argument, however, that the unit harmonizes Deut 12:13-19 with Leviticus 17 overlooks the
role of the Exodus altar law and raises problems by assuming the priority of the Holiness Code
to Deuteronomy.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 43

literary history, Deuteronomy's authors attempt to give it the necessary textual

pedigree. Resorting to the literary tropes that they also employ elsewhere to re-
vise authoritative law, the text's authors present the new concession as if it em-
bodied the intent of the altar law that is actually here abrogated. The pseudocitation
tags and reworks Exod 20:24. Three facts support this interpretation. First, both
the verb and the list of sacrificial animals (" "you may slaugh-
ter from your cattle and your sheep") derive from Exod 20:24 (
"you shall sacrifice. .. your sheep and your cattle").48 The Hebrew verb
is identical in each case, as are the animals that are specified. Second, the altar
law does constitute a divine command, as required by the verb of the citation
tag. Third, the secularization of the Exodus altar law explains the deliberately
anomalous use of the verb —normally, "to sacrifice"—here as "to slaughter."
An objection to this analysis could be raised. The citation tag in Deut 12:21,
where Moses is the speaker, would seem to presuppose Moses also as the is-
suer of the previous command—yet Yahweh is the speaker in Exod 20:24.49
In fact, however, the promulgation formula in which Moses exhorts obedience
to the law "which I command you/have commanded you" often specifies that
Moses commands what Yahweh has already commanded—that Moses is the
spokesperson for God. Very frequently, the promulgation formula does not refer
back to something originally and independently Mosaic but to the Mosaic re-
iteration of divine law.50 Moreover, the promulgation formula sometimes leaves
ambiguous who is actually imposing the law in question: whether it designates
Moses himself, the textual speaker, or Yahweh, for whom he speaks. On occa-
sion it is impossible to distinguish between the two.51 In one case (Deut 20:17),
Yahweh, speaking in the first person, even seems to cite a Mosaic utterance
(Deut 7:1) as his own.52 Consequently, Moses in Deut 12:21 functions as
Yahweh's spokesperson and alludes in the first person to a law originally pro-
claimed by Yahweh. In this case, however, the voice of Moses represents the
voice of tendentious scribal hermeneutics striving to defend and justify the
innovation of local secular slaughter, making a legal precedent out of necessity.

48. The sequence "cattle/sheep" (Deut 12:21) conforms to the stylistic norm of Deu-
teronomy (Deut 8:13; 12:17; 14:23, 26; 15:19; cf. 32:14; 7:13; 28:4, 18, 51); see J. B. Segal,
The Hebrew Passover: From the Earliest Times to A.D. 70 (London Oriental Series 12; London:
Oxford University Press, 1963) 205 n. 4. It therefore cannot be construed as a chiastic citation
of Exod 20:24 according to Seidel's law.
49. See Norbert Lohfink, "Fortschreibung? Zur Technik von Rechtsrevisionen im deu-
teronomischen Bereich, erortert an Deuteronomium 12, Ex 21,2-11 und Dtn 15,12-18," in Das
Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen (ed. Timo Veijola; Schriften der Finnischen
Exegetischen Gesellschaft 62; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) 139 n. 49.
50. For example, referring to Yahweh, Moses says to the people, "You shall observe his
statutes and his commandments, which I command you this day" (Deut 4:40; similarly, 6:2; 8:11).
An equivalent formulation is "the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes which I command
you this day" (Deut 10:13; 11:27; similarly, 11:28; 13:19; 15:5; 27:10; 28:1, 13, 15). The most
current analysis of the promulgation formula, with comprehensive bibliography, is now pro-
vided by Norbert Lohfink, Die Vater Israels im Deuteronomium (OBO 111; Freiburg, Switzer-
land: Universitatsverlag; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991) 87-99.
51. See Lohfink, Hauptgebot, 61; and Skweres, Ruckverweise, 71 n. 304.
52. Lohfink, Hauptgebot, 60-61.
44 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

The Hermeneutical Function of Deut 12:8-12

No less than the other paragraphs, Deut 12:8-10 represents an intertextual at-
tempt to reflect upon and to justify the innovation of centralization. It repre-
sents a later, Deuteronomistic stratum of the legal corpus that has multiple ties
to the Deuteronomistic History. At the same time, it is very carefully redac-
tionally integrated into its present context. The sequence of Deut 12:2-7, com-
manding centralization, followed by Deut 12:8-12, reflecting upon the tem-
poral condition for its inception, is established by Deut 12:1, which defines
the purview of the Deuteronomic legal corpus in chronological and geographic
terms: "These are the statutes and the laws that you shall take care to observe
in the land that Yahweh, the God of thine ancestors, has given thee to possess—
all the days that you live upon the earth." Rhetorically, too, the unit is care-
fully integrated into its context. The construction of v. 8, "You shall
not do as," continued by "D "because" in v. 9, is nearly identical to the con-
struction of the prior unit concerning centralization, vv. 4—7, which begins with
"You shall not do thus" continued by 'D (Deut 12:5).53
Whereas in the paragraphs already examined the innovation of cult cen-
tralization is justified intertextually in relation to legal history—the altar law
of the Covenant Code—in this case, the editor's frame of reference is rather
the Deuteronomistic History. The key to the unit is Deut 12:9-10, which has a
clear programmatic function: "For you have not as yet come to the rest and the
inheritance ( ) that Yahweh your God is giving you. When
you cross over the Jordan and settle in the land that Yahweh your God is allo-
cating to you, he shall grant you rest from all of your enemies round about
so that you shall dwell in security." Deut 12:9 and
25:19, which provides a near verbatim repetition of the italicized clauses, form
an inclusio that frames the legal corpus.54 These verses also provide a means
for the Deuteronomistic Historian to integrate the legal corpus of Deuteronomy
into his larger historiographic project: to structure and periodize his theology
of history into various stages of promise and fulfillment that span and unify
Deuteronomy through 2 Kings.55 The idea of God's providing "rest from the

53. In Deut 12:5, the conjunction marks disjunctive "but"; in v. 9 it functions as explana-
tory "because."
54. For the most careful examination of the verses' ties to the Deuteronomistic History,
their programmatic function, and the inclusio, see Georg Braulik, "Zur deuteronomistischen
Konzeption von Freiheit und Frieden," in Congress Volume Salamanca 1983 (ed. J. A. Emerton;
VTSup 36; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985) 29-39; reprinted in and cited according to Braulik, Studien
zur Theologie des Deuteronomiums (SBAB 2; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988) 219-30.
55. Although I refer here to the Deuteronomistic Historian, in the singular, for convenience,
in point of fact there are multiple Deuteronomistic strata, the exact number and dating of which
remain under discussion. For recent summaries of the discussion see Knoppers, Two Nations un-
der God, 1.1-56; and Horst Dietrich Preu|3, "Zum deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk," TRu 58
(1993) 229-64, 341-95. Since Noth's groundbreaking work, scholars have increasingly revised
his model and recognized the extent of Deuteronomistic material within the legal corpus. Instru-
mental in this shift is Norbert Lohfink, "Kerygmata des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks,"
in Die Botschaft und die Boten: Festschrift fur Hans Walter Wolff (ed. J. Jeremias and L. Perlitt;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981) 87-100; reprinted, Lohfink, Studien zum Deute-
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 45

enemies round about" is clearly marked as fulfilled with the idyllic meditation
concerning the completion of the Conquest (Josh 21:43-45).56 That motif of
national rest is also stressed in terms of the history of the monarchy, whereby
God affirms for David—immediately after he has brought the Ark to Jerusa-
lem—that He has granted him "rest from his enemies round about" (2 Sam 7:1;
cf. 11). With the completion of the Temple, as Solomon makes clear in his
Temple dedication speech (1 Kgs 8:56), the nation now achieves the "rest"
that Yahweh had originally promised (Deut 12:9).57 The Temple's
completion, for the Deuteronomistic Historiographer, therefore provides a
double fulfillment: of the Davidic dynastic oracle spoken by Nathan (2 Sam
7:13a) and of the promise to Israel spoken by Moses (Deut 12:9).58 In the
Temple, accordingly, dynastic history and cultic history, Kingship and Sacri-
fice, combine, as both time and national destiny find their fulfillment.
Separate from this significant integration of the Deuteronomic legal cor-
pus into the larger historiographic scheme of the Deuteronomistic History, the
unit serves another function. It provides a proleptic explanation for the incon-
sistency between the late innovation of cultic centralization and the entire his-
toriographic record, in which there was no centralization and the people sacri-
ficed at the local altars. Both the establishment of the monarchy and the
construction of the Temple were the essential preconditions for centralization.
This concern to explain the failure to observe centralization and to present it
as a lack of centralized government whereby "each man [does] whatever is right
in his own eyes" (Deut 12:8) is glossed by the Deuteronomistic Historian's more
explicit editorial comment elsewhere: "In those days there was no king in Israel;
every man would do whatever was right in his own eyes."59 Within the legal
corpus, the paragraph provides an exculpation for Israel's failure to observe
the new standard of centralization, much as the notes by the Deuteronomistic
Historian within the historiographic literature similarly attempt to excuse the
nation's sacrificing at the local high places (see 1 Kgs 3:2).60
The cultic norm that centralization strives to displace—worship at mul-
tiple altars—becomes conveniently reinterpreted as a throwback to the pre-

ronomium und zur deuteronomistischen Literatur II (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991)

125-42.
56. Josh 21:43-45 strikingly reinterprets Deut 12:10. What was originally presented as a
simple divine gift, proclaimed by Moses, is reinterpreted in Joshua 21:43-45 as a divine prom-
ise to the patriarchs—with no mention of Moses. See Braulik, "Freiheit und Frieden," 222.
57. On Solomon's reign as the realization of this rest, see Gerhard von Rad, The Problem
of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966) 94-98.
58. Note the similar argument by Gary N. Knoppers that the Deuteronomistic Historian's
account of the Temple dedication integrates Davidic promises and Mosaic law ("Prayer and
Propaganda: Solomon's Dedication of the Temple and the Deuteronomist's Program," CBQ 57
[1995] 229-54).
59. Judg 17:6; 21:25; cf. 18:1; 19:1.
60. The chronological exculpation of the people for not observing the late innovation of
centralization is marked in both Deut 12:10 and 1 Kgs 3:2b by the formula: s^ -2 -t- verb in
perfect + 1J>.
46 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

monarchic period. In this deft revision of cultic and legal history, such wor-
ship was intended, from the very beginning, to have been merely contingent: a
retrograde custom associated with the chaos that existed prior to the monarchy
and the emergence of proper government. The hermeneutical move is bold.
The authors responsible for the unit quietly restrict previously authoritative and
temporally unconditional cultic law (Exod 20:24) so that it now—ex post
facto—has but provisional validity and a planned obsolescence.

Reflections upon Textuality

and Exegesis in Deuteronomy 12
Through their exegetical reworking, the authors of Deuteronomy transform the
Exodus altar law. They rework its key terms in such a way as finally to make
it prohibit what it originally sanctioned (multiple altar sites as legitimate) and
command the two innovations it could never have contemplated: cultic cen-
tralization and local, secular slaughter. Both the technique and the boldness
of this hermeneutical transformation are remarkable. The lemma is viewed
atomistically: legal or textual authority operates at the level of individual words
that, even when recontextualized, retain their operative force. Such studied
concern with textual authority, not to mention the immense meditation upon
the laws that it presupposes, is astonishing in seventh-century Israel. In its
reuse, the Exodus lemma is so fundamentally transformed that it commands
both cultic sacrifice (at the central sanctuary) and local slaughter (voided of
ritual meaning). The antithetical reworking of the original text suggests an
extraordinary ambivalence on the part of the authors of Deuteronomy, who
retain the old altar law only to transform it and who thereby subvert the very
textual authority that they invoke.
The skilled textual manipulation presses the question of the self-
understanding of the Deuteronomic authors. Did they actually believe that their
transformative exegesis merely elucidated an ambiguity inherent in the Exo-
dus altar law and therefore "was not so much rejecting the rule in Exod 20:24
as specifying its underlying intent"?61 Their raiding of its lexemes was more
likely deliberate. Ambiguity did not finally inhere in the grammar of the verse.
Ambiguity was deliberately injected into that lemma in order to sponsor a radi-
cally new view of religion, law, and the social polity. Through their lemmatic
transformation of the altar law, the authors and later editors of Deuteronomy
found a way to maintain its formal authority, if circumscribed to the level of
discrete lexemes, and to garb their innovations in the mantle of the very text
that they substantively abrogate.
The hermeneutical richness of Deuteronomy is that it should subvert the
force of its innovation by locating that innovation in the original revelation.
The innovation is presented as a citation of what God originally required at

61. So Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 252; I have corrected the typo in the original,
which read "Exod 20:20."
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 47

Sinai "as I commanded you." Citation thereby becomes pseudo-

citation: no such law was commanded at Sinai. Through their manipulation of
the Exodus lemma, the authors of Deuteronomy create legal and literary his-
tory anew. Not only do they function as the authors of their new legal compo-
sition, but also they become sole mediators and arbiters of the authoritative
tradition from which they depart and consistency with which they claim. It is
as if the older textual dispensation itself commanded Deuteronomy's innova-
tion of cultic centralization. Pseudocitation in turn gives way to pseudepigraphy:
the authors of Deuteronomy usurp the Mosaic voice of authoritative tradition
in order to authorize their own innovations.62
If the burden of literary history and the authority of a tradition of divine
commands embedded in texts suppress innovation, one must either deny inno-
vation or attribute it to the authoritative tradition. The first choice is one con-
text in which exegesis emerges; the second is one basis for pseudepigraphy.
In either case, the novum in literary history is denied and authorship is deflected
from the writer to the authoritative tradition.63 The late Temple Scroll
(11 QTemple), for example, presents its compilation of sectarian law as the
original Sinaitic Torah.64 Similarly, the Amoraim of the third through the sixth
centuries C.E. authorize the Oral Law by claiming a rather ex post facto Sinaitic
pedigree for it and by presenting their new legal system as merely the interpre-
tation of older texts.65 Moses de Leon confers the mantle of instant antiquity
and authority for the Zohar, which he wrote in the early 1290s C.E., by pseud-
epigraphically ascribing it to Shim'on bar Yohai, a second-century C.E. Tanna.66
Such maneuvers, while widely recognized in postbiblical literature, have not

62. The notion of an author's deliberately misreading his literary predecessors in order to
overcome the burden of an authoritative literary tradition has become a generative idea in mod-
ern literary theory. See Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence (London: Oxford University,
1973); and Bloom, A Map of Misreading (Oxford: Oxford University, 1975).
63. On pseudepigraphy as a device to permit innovation in the face of an authoritative
tradition, see Geoffrey H. Hartman, "On the Jewish Imagination," Prooftexts 5 (1985) 201-20,
at 210. The prestige of the Qur'an delayed the emergence of the novel in Muslim cultures until
the turn of this century. Moreover, so problematic was originality that "the word heresy in Ara-
bic is synonymous with the verb 'to innovate' or 'to begin'"; see Edward Said, Beginnings:
Intention and Method (New York: Basic Books, 1975) 81.
64. See Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society,
1977-83) 1.392; and Ben Zion Wacholder, The Dawn of Qumran: The Sectarian Torah and the
Teacher of Righteousness (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1983) 222-29. Note that
Wacholder (p. 3) does not accurately represent Yadin's position on the matter; their positions
are closer than he suggests.
65. Martin S. Jaffee, "The Pretext of Interpretation: Rabbinic Oral Torah and the Cha-
risma of Revelation," in God in Language (ed. Robert P. Scharlemann and Gilbert E. M. Ogutu;
New York: Paragon House, 1987) 73-89. Robert Goldenberg, "The Problem of Originality in
Talmudic Thought," From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understand-
ing, Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox (ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Nahum M. Sarna;
4 vols.; BJS 159, 173-175; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 2.19-27, shows how "anxiety and
ambivalence toward innovation in the realm of Torah pervade the early Rabbinic tradition" (21).
66. On the maneuver whereby authors continually ascribe new religious developments to
the very tradition that they transform, see G. Scholem, "Revelation and Tradition as Religious
Categories in Judaism," in his The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1971)
48 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

previously been recognized as helping explain the composition and problem-

atic structure of Deuteronomy.
It is particularly striking that the two cultic innovations of Deuteronomy
12, centralization and secular slaughter, are followed immediately by the
so-called "canon formula" that prohibits any alteration of the given text:
"you shall neither add to it nor diminish it" (Deut 13: Ib;
cf. 4:2).67 Despite the implication of the present chapter division, that formula
does not function as a superscription to introduce chapter 13. Those chapter
divisions are very late and originate only with the Latin Bible of the thirteenth
century.68 Instead, the ancient witnesses agree that MT Deut 13:1 actually marks
the conclusion of chapter 12 and that a new unit begins with 13:2. That is clear
from (1) the ancient Palestinian division of the text into "lessons" for
triennial reading, where a new "lesson" begins with 13:2; (2) the Babylonian
annual lection, where a(n "open paragraph" precedes 13:2;
and (3) the Septuagint division.69 Deut 13:1 thus functions as a colophon to
the systematic reworking of the Exodus altar law in Deuteronomy 12. The
sudden importuning of textual fidelity in this context suggests that the text's
editors were fully aware of the chapter's radical transformation of Israelite cultic
and legal history.70 They attempted to camouflage those innovations by feign-
ing a cunning piety with respect to the very authoritative texts that they had
subverted.

282-303. On the Zohar as a late-thirteenth-century pseudepigraph and Scholem's shift from

credulity to acceptance of this dating, see David Biale, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and
Counter-History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979) 115-21. Examining the
recent claim that the Zohar actually does preserve an ancient oral tradition, see Hava Tirosh-
Rothschild, "Continuity and Revision in the Study of Kabbalah," reviewing Kabbalah: New
Perspectives, by Moshe Idel, AJS Review 16 (1991) 161-92.
67. In English and other translations, Deut 13:1 appears as 12:32, based on the Septuagint.
Although the formula is an ancient one in cuneiform literature, in its present context it seems to
be Deuteronomistic and secondary; see Mayes, Deuteronomy, 232. Adducing valuable com-
parative material, see Michael Fishbane, "Varia Deuteronomica," ZAW 84 (1972) 349-52;
Eleonore Reuter, '"Nimm nichts davon weg und fuge nichts hinzu': Dtn 13,1, seine alttestament-
lichen Parallelen und seine altorientalischen Vorbilder," BN 47 (1989) 107-14; and Christoph
Dohmen and Manfred Oeming, Biblischer Kanon: Warum und Wozu? Eine Kanontheologie
(QD 137; Freiburg: Herder, 1992) 68-89. The discussions of Deut 13:1 by Reuter (p. 110) and
by Dohmen and Oeming (p. 83) stress that the canon formula sanctions the centralization law,
given its importance to the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic program. Their discussions
overlook, however, what seems to be the most important point: the paradox that it is precisely
in the context of cultic-legal innovation that the immutability of the textual heritage is so stu-
diously asserted.
68. G. F. Moore, "The Vulgate Chapters and the Numbered Verses in the Hebrew Bible,"
JBL 12 (1893) 73-78; reprinted, The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible (ed. Sidney Z.
Leiman; New York: Ktav, 1974) 815-820.
69. On the Palestinian "lessons" and the more complex Babylonian division of the He-
brew text, see B. J. Roberts, The Old Testament Text and Versions (Cardiff: University of Wales,
1951) 37; and, most comprehensively, Israel Yeivin, Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah
(SBLMasS 5; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1980) 39-42.
70. Similarly, Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 263.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 49

The Double Movement of Cultic Centralization

and Local Secularization
The authors of Deuteronomy strikingly transform and secularize both language
and literary history. There are three specific points of secularization in Deut
12:13-19, 20-28. First, the very formulation of the rule for local slaughter
appropriates two key terms from the lemma of the Exodus altar law—the verb
TOT and the cultic list of originally sacrificial animals—and recontextualizes
them, shorn of their original cultic context. Uniquely in Deut 12:15, 21, the
verb, which conventionally, and everywhere else even in Deuteronomy itself,
means "sacrifice," is deliberately forced to denote the secular "slaughter" that
takes place locally, in the absence of an altar. The authors of Deuteronomy
secularize language no less than they create a new, noncultic procedure. Sec-
ond, the ritual that requires the Israelite to "spill it [the blood of the secularly
slaughtered animal] upon the ground like water" S (Deut
12:16, 24), precisely mirrors, both in language and action, the normative in-
junction that the blood of the sacrificial animal "be spilled upon the altar of
Yahweh" (Deut 12:27b). The prescribed local secular action
has essentially the same structure as the cultic action at the central sanctuary.
Third, the local blessing promised by Yahweh in the altar law as consequent
upon sacrifice ("I shall come to you and bless you" ; Exod
20:24b) is retained—no longer, however, in the context of cultic theophany
but rather in the secular context of the land's abundance that Yahweh provides
the citizen Deut 12:15).71 The original cultic divine pres-
ence is retained, although now restricted to the central sanctuary where the
offerings are made "before Yahweh" (Deut 12:7, 12, 18).
In draining the local sphere of all cultic content, the authors of Deuteronomy
do not leave it as a profane religious void. Instead, they reconceptualize it in
secular terms and give it positive new content. The local sphere continues to
have a fundamentally religious structure. One continues to receive divine bless-
ing in the local sphere, although it is now mediated. The compensation for the
loss of direct access to the divine, with the eradication of the local altars, does
not only take place at the cultic center, with the repeated emphasis on the "joy"
available there to the pilgrim.72That restitution is equally provided in the local
sphere with this noncultic, although still religiously conceived, "blessing of
Yahweh your God." In face of the dismantling of the countryside cultus begun
by Hezekiah and intensified by Josiah, it was crucial for the Deuteronomic
authors to establish for the citizens of Judah that the loss of the local altars did
not entail complete loss of local access to God or, more seriously, that God

71. The reference to divine blessing is characteristic of Deuteronomy's rhetorical emphasis

on the promised land and its bounty: see Deut 12:7; 15:4, 6, 10, 14, 18, etc.
72. Deut 12:7, 12, 18; 14:26; 15:20; 16:11, 14, 15; 26:11. For this point, see Norbert
Lohfink, "The Cult Reform of Josiah of Judah: 2 Kings 22-23 as a Source for the History of
Israelite Religion," in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed.
Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987)
459-75 (469); and Lohfink, "Opfer und Sakularisierung," 31.
50 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

had abandoned the local sphere.73 They went out of their way to provide the
local sphere with its own integrity. Yahweh continues to be active and to grant
his blessing there.
Deuteronomy's reconception of the local sphere in secular terms is radi-
cally new. The secular and the cultic are not antithetical, with only one of the
two spheres constituting religious legitimacy, the other illegitimacy.74 Rather,
both spheres, local and central, are equally valid and dialectically related. Legiti-
macy and divine sanction adhere to both the cultic and the secular spheres.
Deuteronomy's prescriptions for worship at the central sanctuary are as radi-
cally new, in terms of cultic convention and the history of religion, as are its
prescriptions for local secular action.75 Both are exegetically constituted out of
the lexemes of the older altar law. Equally legitimate and jointly religiously
conceived, both are also opposed to the one profane action: local sacrifice. The
tripartite structure of Deut 12:13-15 explicitly distinguishes between the pro-
fane and the secular. The profane is illegitimate. The secular is legitimate and
sanctioned by Yahweh's blessing:
(v. 13) local cultic action: prohibited
(v. 14) central cultic action: required
(v. 15) local secular action: permitted
This perspective challenges existing models for conceptualizing the rela-
tion between sacred and secular in Deuteronomy. Those models debate whether
the primary dynamic in the legal corpus involves the secularization of prior
cultic law or whether the opposite movement takes place as the authors subor-
dinate all of life to God.76 Both models presuppose a false dichotomy between

73. On the historical issue, see Baruch Halpern, "Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Sev-
enth Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability," in Law and Ideology in
Monarchic Israel (ed. Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield: JSOT
Press, 1991) 77-78. On the theological motif, Yahweh's judgment on Jerusalem is explicitly
presented as divine abandonment: see Lam 4:20. The divine presence also abandons Jerusalem
and the Temple compound in Ezekiel 10-11; see Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel, 1-20 (AB; Gar-
den City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983) 193-205.
74. Contrast the situation in the Holiness Code where all slaughter of domestic, sacrifi-
cial animals—not at an altar—constitutes action contrary to God's will and requires excision
from the community (Lev 17:3-4). Here the structure of experience involves the polar opposi-
tion between cultic and profane.
75. See Georg Braulik, "Die Freude des Festes: Das Kultverstandnis des Deuteronomium—
die alteste biblische Festtheorie" [1970], reprinted in Braulik, Studien zur Theologie des
Deuteronomiums (SBAB 2; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988) 161-218.
76. Arguing for secularization of prior cultic law and thought in Deuteronomy is Moshe
Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) 233-43.
Challenging that approach with a comprehensive new interpretation that shows how Deuteronomy
extends the presence of God over all of life is Lohfink, "Opfer und Sakularisierung," 15—43.
Weinfeld and Lohfink provide the two most systematic and powerful alternatives. In his review
article, Jacob Milgrom, "The Alleged 'Demythologization' and 'Secularization' in Deuteronomy,"
IEJ 23 (1973) 156-61, questions Weinfeld's interpretation of priestly texts. The most recent ar-
ticle on this issue is Eckart Otto, "Vom Rechtsbruch zur Sunde: Priesterliche Interpretationen des
Rechts," Jahrbuch fur Biblische Theologie 9 (1994) 25-52.
 Innovation of Cultic Centralization 51

sacred and secular, while failing to distinguish between secular and profane.
Deuteronomy's own model is more complex. The central, or cultic, and the
local, or secular, are each religiously conceived. The authors of Deuteronomy
transform both the central and the local sphere simultaneously; they recon-
ceptualize each; the two are dialectically related and hermeneutically structured;
each is opposed to the profane.
This double movement of Deuteronomy—cultic centralization and local
secularization—operates both synchronically and diachronically. The drive to
restrict cultic action to the central sphere and to secularize the local sphere
provides an important synchronic insight into the composition and structure
of the legal corpus. At key points, the authors of Deuteronomy work system-
atically to drain the local sphere of any connection with cultic action. They
must do so at exactly those points where cultic centralization conflicts with
norms and with texts that presuppose local cultic activity. It became necessary
to establish new procedures in each case. In doing so, the authors of Deu-
teronomy formulate a distinctive lexicon that distinguishes between action
"in the place" and action "piJJEn "in your city-gates"—which is to say, between
the central and the local spheres, or between cultic and secular activity. The
different procedures locally and at the cultic center are described in the cases
of sacrifice, the festival calendar, and the administration of justice. In diachronic
terms, the need to erase the contradiction between the innovation of cultic cen-
tralization and the pre-Deuteronomic texts that presupposed local sanctuaries
provides the authors of Deuteronomy with a literary-historical agenda. Wher-
ever possible, by means of lemmatic transformation, they must justify their
innovations in light of existing texts. Their struggle to do so accounts for many
of the aporia of syntax, structure, and formulation that scholars have long rec-
ognized but not yet satisfactorily accounted for.
The authors of Deuteronomy have a double program that is simultaneously
legislative—to propound their new vision of religion, law, and the administra-
tion of the polity—and hermeneutical—concerned with justifying their own
authority radically to overturn legal history. It is this double program that ac-
counts for the two diverging trends in the scholarly interpretation of the legal
corpus.77 One approach has maintained that the legal corpus represents preexilic
legislation designed to implement a broad-based cultic, judicial, and adminis-
trative program.78 The other has emphasized the theoretical and impractical

77. The two diverging approaches in the history of Deuteronomy scholarship have been
recognized by A. D. H. Mayes, "On Describing the Purpose of Deuteronomy," JSOT 58 (1993)
13-33. His ideas are taken up by Thomas Romer, "The Book of Deuteronomy," in The History
of Israel's Traditions: The Heritage of Martin Noth (ed. Steven L. McKenzie and M. Patrick
Graham; JSOTSup 182; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994) 192-94.
78. S. Dean McBride, "Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy," Int
41 (1987) 229-44, reprinted in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of
Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993) 62-77; and
Frank Crusemann, Die Tora: Theologie und Sozialgeschichte des alttestamentlichen Gesetzes
(Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1992) 235-322. Both approaches necessarily seek to establish the coher-
ence of the legal corpus and minimize the amount of exilic and postexilic, Deuteronomistic
material in it.
52 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

nature of the legal corpus, either in terms of levitical homily or as Utopian theo-
logical reflection dating to the exilic or postexilic period.79 The two discrepant
approaches, when brought together at all, have been simultaneously maintained
only by attributing them to separate Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic strata
of the legal corpus, a method that only emphasizes their nonrelation.80 There
has not yet been an approach that either unifies these two insights into the na-
ture of Deuteronomy or that recognizes their common origin in the program of
the text's authors. The approach taken here is that, from the very inception of
the legal corpus, with the innovation of centralization, the legislative and the
hermeneutical were inseparable from each other.

79. Gustav Holscher, "Komposition und Ursprung des Deuteronomiums,"ZAW40 (1922)

161-255, for example, argued that the laws of Deuteronomy represented postexilic theological
attempts to conform priestly law to centralization and were never meant to be implemented.
From a quite different perspective, working with a "Blockmodell" of the redaction of the legal
corpus, Norbert Lohfink views Deut 16:18-18:22 as a Utopian, exilic, Deuteronomistic compo-
sition that never saw practical application. See his "Die Sicherung der Wirksamkeit des Gottes-
wortes durch das Prinzip der Schriftlichkeit der Tora und durch das Prinzip der Gewaltenteilung
nach den amtergesetzen des Buches Deuteronomium (Dt 16,18-18,22)," in Testimonium Veritati:
Festschrift Wilhelm Kempf (ed. H. Wolter; Frankfurter Theologische Studien 7; Frankfurt:
Knecht, 1971) 143-55; reprinted, Lohfink, Studien zum Deuteronomium und zur deuterono-
mistischen Literatur I (SBAB 8; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1990) 305-23. The article
has been translated as "Distribution of the Functions of Power: The Laws Concerning Public
Offices in Deuteronomy 16:18-18:22," in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on
the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993)
336-52.
80. See Udo Rutersworden, Von der politischen Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde: Studien zu
Dt 16,1-18,22 (BBB 65; Frankfurt: Athenaum, 1987) 94-112; and Eckart Otto, "Von der
Gerichtsordnung zum Verfassungsentwurf: Deuteronomische Gestaltung und deuteronomistische
Interpretation im 'Amtergesetz' Dtn 16,18-18,22," in "Wer ist wie du, HERR, unter den Gotten?"
Studien zur Theologie und Religionsgeschichte Israels fur Otto Kaiser (ed. Ingo Kottsieper
et al.; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995) 142-55. This approach has received a fun-
damental methodological challenge. On both approaches, see chapter 4.
 3

The Transformation of
Passover and Unleavened
Bread in Deuteronomy 16

T he festival calendar of Deut 16:1-17 goes to the very heart of the Deute-
ronomic program and reveals the authors' literary and religious achieve-
ments. The Deuteronomic drive to centralize the cultus did not involve a mere
restriction of the location for sacrifice. It entailed a much more systematic and
profound transformation of Judaean religious and social life. The authors of
Deuteronomy also found it necessary to transform the festival calendar of an-
cient Israel together with other religious observances, most notably the Pass-
over. Deuteronomy's proscription of the local sanctuaries meant that the an-
cient festivals of Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Tabernacles could no longer
be observed in the customary way. These festivals were originally "pilgrim-
age festivals" to the very local sanctuaries that the authors of Deuteronomy
sought to abolish. Similarly, the authors' restriction of all cultic activity to the
central sanctuary necessarily created a conflict with the ancient rite of the Pass-
over. That observance involved the ritual slaughter of a sheep or goat in the
doorway of the private domicile and was accompanied by a distinctive blood
rite. The contradiction between such an observance and the new Deuteronomic
imperative, which required that ritual slaughter take place exclusively at the
central sanctuary and that all ritually significant blood be spilled at or upon the
altar there, could not have been greater.
In order to implement their agenda of cultic centralization, therefore, the
authors of Deuteronomy had somehow to erase the blatant contradiction be-
tween their program of cultic reform and the conventional observance of the
festivals and the Passover. They could neither prohibit nor ignore these ancient
observances. The festivals had immense significance: they provided a means
for the people to gain cultic access to the deity, to celebrate the natural rhythms
of the year, and to acknowledge the source of the land's natural bounty. Sepa-
rate from the popularity of these celebrations, the authors of Deuteronomy

53
54 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

confronted another crucial dilemma. These holy occasions were enshrined by

prestigious and authoritative texts: it was a requirement of religious law that
each Israelite male observe the pilgrimage festivals by appearing thrice yearly
before Yahweh at the local sanctuary and that each family observe the paschal
slaughter.1 Both the popularity of these observances and, more acutely, the
prestige and the authority of the texts commanding them meant that the au-
thors of Deuteronomy were constrained to come to terms with the festival cal-
endar and the Passover. Across the board, "the stylized nature of almost all of
Deuteronomy's laws of centralization as joy-filled festivals indicates that the
people had to be talked out of feeling they had lost something."2 The question
thus arises: How could the Deuteronomic authors retain these observances and
acknowledge the authoritative texts concerning them without sabotaging the
entire thrust of their cultic reform?
They completely coopted the older paschal rite and the festivals. Just as they
had in the case of local sacrifice, which was originally sanctioned by the old al-
tar law of Exod 20:24, so now did the authors of Deuteronomy accommodate
older texts to their new vision by reworking them. In so doing, the authors of
Deuteronomy profoundly transformed the very structure of Judaean religious life
and ritual observance. In placing its focus upon Passover and the Festival of
Unleavened Bread, this chapter follows the lead set by the authors of Deute-
ronomy, who devoted almost half of the entire festival calendar to these two
observances (eight of the seventeen verses in Deut 16:1-17). They summarily
dispatched the other two, Weeks and Tabernacles, with three formulaic and closely
overlapping verses each.3 These two festivals presented less of a problem to the
authors of Deuteronomy, who essentially just diverted them to the cultic center
and stressed their social focus over their original agricultural orientation.4
In contrast, Passover and Unleavened Bread, both individually and in their con-
junction, presented the authors of Deuteronomy with more far-reaching problems.

The Programmatic Origins of Deut 16:1-8

It has long been held that the festival calendar of Deut 16:1-8 involves "a pro-
cess of growth ... in the course of which two separate festivals, Passover and

1. Exod 23:14, 17 and 34:23; 12:3, 21.

2. Norbert Lohfink, "The Cult Reform of Josiah of Judah: 2 Kings 22—23 as a Source for
the History of Israelite Religion," in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore
Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride; Philadelphia: Fortress,
1987) 459-75, at 469, citing Deut 12:7, 12, 18; 14:26; 15:20; 16:11, 14, 15; 26:11. Note also
Georg Braulik, "Die Freude des Festes: Das Kultverstandnis des Deuteronomium—die alteste
biblische Festtheorie," in Braulik, Studien Zur Theologie des Deuteronomiums (SBAB 2; Stutt-
gart: Katholisches Bibclwerk, 1988) 161-218.
3. Deut 16:11//Deut 16:14+ 15a£; Deut 16:10b//Deut 16:15aa.
4. On Deuteronomy's conception of Weeks and Tabernacles see Georg Braulik, "Lcidcns-
gedachtnisfeier und Freudenfest: 'Volksliturgie' nach dem deuteronomischen Festkalender (Dtn
16, 1-17)," TP 56 (1981) 335-57; reprinted in and cited from Braulik, Studien zur Theologie
des Deuteronomiums (SBAB 2; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988) 95-121.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 55

Unleavened Bread (Mazzot), have been combined."5 According to this ap-

proach, the text achieves its form as the result of prior cultic or tradition his-
tory, which it reflects. Allegedly, the gradual shift from nomadic to settled life
leads to the obsolescence of such ancient nomadic customs as the paschal
slaughter, and the festival calendar thus mirrors already achieved, de facto,
empirical development. Despite its popularity, that hypothesis has no real sup-
porting evidence except for the very text that the reconstruction of external
history both derives from and attempts to explain. The circular argument ob-
scures its unexamined presupposition, which I dispute: that Deuteronomy's
festival calendar passively reflects the external cultic and economic history
problematically reconstructed to account for it. By this account, the authors of
Deuteronomy were merely playing catch-up, bringing law into conformity with
existing practice.
The dubious historical assumptions of the circular argument create fur-
ther difficulties when it comes to analyzing the blend of Passover and Unleav-
ened Bread in Deut 16:1-8. With literary history viewed as a mirror of empiri-
cal events, the analysis of Deut 16:1-8 becomes a simplistic, either/or issue.
The critic only attempts to resolve whether the text's editor interpolated Pass-
over into preexisting Unleavened Bread legislation or whether the editor did
the reverse by interpolating Unleavened Bread legislation into preexisting
Passover texts.6 Much of the scholarship on Deuteronomy's festival calendar
has been devoted to that question. The forced choice restricts the analytical
question to simple diachrony alone. Such an approach fails to do full justice to
either the historical or the literary issues that underlie the composition and the
structure of this unit.
The conventional approach fails to recognize the programmatic nature and
the intentional composition of Deuteronomy's festival calendar. It views his-
tory as taking place as if there were no actors, and texts as if they had no authors
capable of originality. Deuteronomy's festival calendar was not an update but

5. A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCBC; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1979) 254.
This view of the "Zusammenmischung von Passah u. Mazzoth" in Deut 16:1-8 is already ex-
plicit in August Dillmann, Die Bucker Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua (KeHAT; 2d cd.;
Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1886) 311. More broadly, for a valuable analysis of the importance of
Deuteronomy's festival calendar to the history of pentateuchal scholarship, see Time Veijola,
"The History of Passover in the Light of Deuteronomy 16, 1-8," Zeitschriftfiir Altorientalische
und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 1 (1996) 53-75, which arrived just as this manuscript was in
press. I do not agree, however, with his redactional reconstruction, which views the material as
post-priestly and situates it in the late postexilic period. For a critique of this and similar ap-
proaches, see Jan Christian Gertz, "Die Passa-Massot-Ordnung im deuteronomischen Fest-
kalender." in Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen (ed. Timo Veijola; Schriften der
Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellschaft 62; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) 56-80.
6. For a detailed presentation of the scholars following each alternative, see Alfred
Cholewinski, Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium: Eine vergleichende Studie (AnBib 66;
Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1976) 179-81; or Mayes. Deuteronomy, 254-55. Eckart Otto,
"nos pasah/paesah," TWAT 6 (1989) 659-82, at 675, seeks to find a way out of the traditional
either/or approach by suggesting that each is true from its own perspective: diachronically, the
Unleavened Bread legislation is prior, but synchronically, Passover legislation provides the
current frame. Even so, the tenets of the existing model are still affirmed.
56 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

a revolution. The truth of the matter is that, prior to and independent of

Deuteronomy, Unleavened Bread was not joined to Passover, nor was Pass-
over, prior to Deuteronomy, anything other than a rite in the private home. The
issue is not priority in genetic terms. Posing the question in that way is futile,
since it is impossible to move behind the texts to establish the relative priority
of either Passover or Unleavened Bread. There is no prior text that can be re-
constructed as "original."7 Nor is it a matter of the interpolation of either Pass-
over or Unleavened Bread legislation into the other. Neither legislation is pre-
served intact; each is transformed in light of the other.
What is prior is neither Passover nor Unleavened Bread, in itself, but rather
the innovation of centralization and the historical program of Deuteronomy's
authors. In Deut 16:1-8, the authors of Deuteronomy construct and sanction
an entirely new observance that supplants both the original Passover and the
original Unleavened Bread and that is now consistent with the Deuteronomic
program. The complex structure of the text reflects intentionality, not prior cultic
history. The innovation of cultic centralization compelled the authors of Deute-
ronomy to create new texts. They had to eclipse the authority of existing texts
that did not contemplate centralization in order to authorize their innovation.
Paradoxically, it was precisely to those older texts that the Deuteronomic authors
turned—deliberately, creatively, and tendentiously raiding them for their pres-
tigious lemmas, which they then reconstituted in order to accomplish their own
religious and social agenda.
Although it contains much arcane material, Deuteronomy's festival cal-
endar therefore reveals the capacity of the text's authors for radical religious
and legal innovation, as well as the techniques of studied textual transforma-
tion used to accomplish their program. The authors of Deuteronomy apply lem-
mas to the new Passover, whose original reference was the Feast of Unleav-
ened Bread. This reformulation transforms the Passover, originally a local
domestic observance, into a pilgrimage festival in everything but name. Un-
leavened Bread is similarly transformed, but in a different direction. Unleav-
ened Bread originally involved a pilgrimage to the local sanctuary; Deute-
ronomy's version is completely shorn of the pilgrimage element to become a
static local observance. Both transformations involve the larger dynamic that
I demonstrated in chapter 1: cultic centralization and local secularization. In
order to demonstrate these arguments, I provide a reconstruction of the pre-
Deuteronomic Passover and Unleavened Bread festival, showing how each
conflicted with the Deuteronomic program. Then I show how the authors of
Deuteronomy transformed both observances in light of centralization.

7. Unconvincing is the reconstruction offered by Eleonore Reuter, Kultzentralisation:

Entstehung und Theologie von Dtn 12 (BBB 87; Frankfurt: Anton Hain, 1993) 255-58. She
claims that the Unleavened Bread legislation is original; the Passover legislation, a later accre-
tion. Her own valuable insistence elsewhere that there is no Deuteronomy without cult central-
ization (pp. 189-91) contradicts that claim. To reconstruct a festival calendar with Unleavened
Bread legislation as original (p. 170) but in which neither cult centralization nor pilgrimage to
the sanctuary plays a role then becomes illogical.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 57

The Pre-Deuteronomic Passover

Passover originally had nothing whatsoever to do with the Festival of Unleav-
ened Bread, niKD.8 It was not technically a "festival" (an), that is, an observance
requiring that the worshiper undertake a pilgrimage to one of the local sanctu-
aries to pay homage to the deity (Exod 23:17).9 Nor did the Passover ritual
involve, in the technical sense of the term, a normal cultic sacrifice. The rite
bore no connection to the public or official cultus. Instead, in its original form,
prior to Deuteronomy, the paschal slaughter was a ritual activity that took place
entirely within the context of the clan. The Yahwistic legislation (J) uses the
distributive to stipulate that each family unit was required to slaughter its own
small cattle: "sheep for your families" (Exod 12:21), a require-
ment and construction retained by the later Priestly (P) source:
"a lamb to a family, a lamb to a household" (Exod 12:3).10 This emphasis
on the clan is widely recognized as owing to the Passover's origin in the no-
madic culture of the pre-Settlement period.'' In sociological terms, the family

8. Inevitably, all the possible positions have been argued. Thus, the claim that the two
rites represented an original unity, only secondarily presented as separate, is not supported by
the language of the texts involved; contra J. B. Segal, The Hebrew Passover: From the Earliest
Times to A.D. 70 (London Oriental Series 12; London; Oxford University Press, 1963) 175. Nor
does either rite simply represent a logical, traditio-historical development from the other. Spe-
cifically, the Unleavened Bread ritual does not originate in the Passover, contra Jorn Halbe,
"Erwagungen zu Ursprung und Wesen des Massotfestes," ZAW 87 (1975) 324-46; nor, con-
versely, does Passover represent a Deuteronomic development of the Unleavened Bread festi-
val, contra B. N. Wambacq, "Les Massot," Bib 61 (1980) 31-54. Refuting these positions and
demonstrating the independence of the two rites is Eckart Otto, Das Mazzotfest in Gilgal
(BWANT 107; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1975) 175-84; and Otto (with Tim Schramm), Fes-
tival and Joy (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980) 13, 195-96.
9. There was a scholarly fashion during the 1960s and 1970s to regard the Deuteronomic
view of Passover as a pilgrimage as a carryover from the premonarchic period. Allegedly, Pass-
over was an important celebration of the early tribal league that involved a pilgrimage or "ritual
conquest" to the "central" sanctuary at Gilgal. One reconstruction in this vein is provided by
Frank Moore Cross, who casts the net as widely as possible by referring to "the spring festival
('Passover' or 'Massot')"; see his Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of
the Religion of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973) 79-85, 103. All such re-
constructions appear highly problematic in light of recent studies of Israelite origins, which dis-
pute the notion of a tribal league or amphictyony.
10. It is quite possible, however, that the priestly source does not passively retain the
original family nexus of the J source (Exod 12:21). P's man rv3 (Exod 12:3) may actually refer
to a quite different social institution of the postexilic period: the units of approximately one
thousand males into which Yehud as a civic-and-temple community may have been organized,
following the model of Persian agnatic groups. See Joel P. Weinberg, "Das beit 'abot im 6.—4.
Jahrhundert v.u.Z.," VT 23 (1973) 400-414; Weinberg, The Citizen-Temple Community
(JSOTSup 151; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992); and Paul E. Dion, "The Civic-and-
Temple Community of Persian Period Judaea: Neglected Insights from Eastern Europe," JNES
50 (1991) 281-87. On these grounds Joseph Blenkinsopp concludes that the priestly account of
the passover ritual is distinctly postexilic rather than preexilic in its orientation (The Pentateuch:
An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible [New York: Doubleday, 1992] 156).
11. Alternatively, the text may not be retaining a primitive rite unchanged but imagina-
tively creating it as part of a larger construction of a national prehistory. For a valuable chal-
58 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

setting points to the origin of the stipulations in a Gemeinschaft rather than a

complex, national Gesellschaft.12
Despite the biblical text's presentation of the paschal observance as origi-
nating in Egypt in the context of the divine sparing of the Israelites from the
final plague, the Passover actually originated as an apotropaic ritualized slaugh-
ter with no inherent connection to the plagues or to the events of the Exodus.
The etymology of the word nos—properly, "protection," not "pass over"—
also makes this clear.13 The apotropaic origin of the Passover is particularly
evident in the blood ritual that is central to the observance. Using a branch of
hyssop, the paterfamilias daubs fresh blood from the sheep just slaughtered upon
the threshold onto each of the two door posts and the lintel of the doorway.
Both the hyssop and the daubing are apotropaic.14 The fourfold framing of the
entrance with blood—top, bottom, and sides, thus marking totality15—protects
the household from the demonic agent of destruction, barring his entrance:
"and not permit the Destroyer to enter and smite
your home" (Exod 12:23, J).16 By framing the doorway with blood, the head

lenge to traditio-historical assumptions of Passover's antiquity, see John Van Seters, The Life
of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus-Numbers (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox,
1994) 114. Recent historiography has seriously challenged all older models of the nomadic ori-
gins of ancient Israel and complicated the very notion of how nomadism should be defined. See
Thomas L. Thompson, "Palestinian Pastoralism and Israel's Origins," SJOT6 (1992) 1-13; and
Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: Prom the Written and Archaeological Sources
(Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East 4; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992) 21-22, 177-300.
12. For the classical formulation of the two sociological categories, see F. Tb'nnies, Com-
munity and Society [1887] (New York: Harper & Row, 1957); for the community setting of the
Passover see Otto, "pasah/paesah," 672.
13. On the original independence of the Passover rite see Samuel E. Loewenstamm, The
Evolution of the Exodus Tradition (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992) 189-218. On the rite's nomadic
and apotropaic origins, note also Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel:
An Inquiry into the Character of Cult-Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) 318-21, esp. 320 n. 7. For the most recent analyses of the meaning
of the verb, see Loewenstamm, Exodus Tradition, 197-202, 219-21; and Otto, "pasah/paesah,"
659-82, who provides a concise reconstruction of the rite's origins and development.
14. On hyssop and its apotropaic function, see Haran, Temples, 319 n. 5.
15. The symbolic requirement that the protective daubing be fourfold and thereby com-
prehensive is equally preserved in the use of the paleo-Hebrew taw, shaped like an "X," as
apotropaic mark inscribed by a scribal angel on the foreheads of the righteous in Ezek 9:4-6.
That text marks a symbolic inversion of Exodus 12: the angelic destroyer is now set loose against
those who do not recognize Yahweh's authority within Jerusalem; those who reject God are
internal rather than external to the nation. The current Samaritan observance of the Passover
combines the apotropy of that protective mark with that of blood's power of sympathetic sub-
stitution. The celebrants smear an "X" (recalling the paleo-Hebrew taw of Ezek 9:4-6) upon
the foreheads of their children by using the blood of the paschal lamb (personal observation,
Samaritan Passover, Nablus/Schechcm, spring, 1980).
16. Note the later reformulation by P, deanimating this personification to a simple ab-
stract verbal noun, "there shall not be upon you smiting to destruction" n'nBn1? (Exod 12:13).
The intertextual dimensions of the Priestly version of the Passover, as a revision of sources, is
stressed by Van Seters, Life of Moses, 123, while using different examples and assumptions about
dating.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 59

of each Israelite family establishes a liminal barrier between "within the

house"—as a refuge—and "outside the door of his house" (Exod
12:22)—as the realm of otherwise uncontrolled demonic energies. The ritual
works by the magic of sympathetic substitution: the token of the lamb's
blood on the doorway averts the spilling of further blood—that of the house's
occupants.17
Most standard translations obscure the location of the blood ritual, incor-
rectly rendering as "the blood which is in the basin" (Exod 12:22).18
The phrase should more properly be rendered as "the blood which is upon the
threshold."19 Granted, the lexeme^o may have two meanings, one of which refers
to basins as receptacles for liquids, although that definition has received an
important challenge.20 More accurately, it denotes the threshold or sill of a door-
way, a meaning also reflected in one of the guilds of temple functionaries,
the door-keepers.21 The double meaning of the word from very early times
gave rise to a double exegetical tradition. The ancient textual versions divide,
with the Septuagint (mv napa ~cr\v Qvpav) and Vulgate (sanguine qui est in
limine) reflecting "doorway," while the Syriac Peshitta and the Targums reflect
"vessel" in Targum Onqelos; t n Targum Pseudo-
Jonathan; in Targum Neofitil).22 Ancient rabbinic exegesis simi-
larly divides, with the competing meanings debated in the Tannaitic midra-

17. The apotropaic use of blood against a demonically threatening divine power recalls
the incident of Exod 4:24-26, where Zipporah places the bloody prepuce of the infant upon the
"legs" (a euphemism for the genitalia) of Moses to divert a hostile God. In both cases, blood by
sympathetic substitution magically averts the further demonic spilling of blood.
18. So the RSV, the NJPSV, NRSV, and, equivalently, the German revised Luther Bible
(1984).
19. See A. M. Honeyman, "Hebrew *p 'Basin, Goblet'," JTS 37 (1936) 56-59. The at-
tempt by Segal, The Hebrew Passover, 53, 157-58 to deny this interpretation is untenable. His
analogy (158 n. 1) to Exod 24:6 is forced. Moreover, his claim that "basin" applies—even if
"threshold" represents the actual meaning—amounts to special pleading.
20. The texts normally cited are 2 Sam 17:28; 1 Kgs 7:50; 2 Kgs 12:14; Jer 52:19. Re-
jecting the validity altogether of that definition for the word is Honeyman, "Basin, Goblet,"
56-59.
21. The word denotes the doorway or threshold at Judg 19:27; 1 Kgs 14:17; Isa 6:4; Ezek
40:6, 7; 41:16 [bis], 43:8 [bis]; Amos 9:1; 2 Chr 3:7. The guild of doorkeepers is mentioned at
2 Kgs 12:10; 22:4 = 2 Chr 34:9; Jer 35:4, and so on.
22. The Vulgate of Exod 12:22 is cited according to Biblica Sacra luxta Vulgatam
Versionem; I: Genesis-Psalmi (ed. Bonifatius Fischer et al.; 3d ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibel-
gesellschaft, 1983) 93. For the Syriac see The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta
Edition (ed. Peshitta Institute; l . l ; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977) 143. Targum Onqelos is widely
printed in Rabbinic Bibles; see also Alexander Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic Based on Old
Manuscripts and Printed Texts; 1: The Pentateuch According to Targum Onkelos (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1959) 108. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Exod 12:22 is cited according to E. G. Clarke,
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and Concordance (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1984)
79. Neofiti is cited according to Alejandro Diez Macho, Neophyti 1, vol. 2, Exodo (Madrid:
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1970) 73. No commentary on the verse is pre-
served in the Fragmentary Targum; see The Fragment-Targums of the Pentateuch (ed. Michael
L. Klein; AnBib 76; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1980).
60 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

shim.23 In his longer commentary on Exod 12:22, Abraham ibn Ezra

(1089-1164) presents both of these exegetical traditions as equally valid, with-
out explicitly stating his preference:
There are those who say
that the paschal offering used to be slaughtered upon the threshold of the
doorway; the hyssop would be dipped in it [i.e., that blood] and applied to the
door posts.. .. Others say that it refers to a vessel."24 The former translation,
to which ibn Ezra grants pride of place, is the only logical one: the stipulation
intends that the entire doorway—top, sides, and bottom—be framed with
blood.25 The contrary rendering of the Syriac and Targums is best understood
as an attempt to mask or revise the anomaly of a ritual slaughter detached from
an altar.
In every respect, the paschal rite contradicted the conventions of the Isra-
elite cultus. As represented by the literary sources of the Bible, normative sac-
rifice took place at an altar (Exod 20:24; Lev 1:3; 17:4; 1 Sam 14:31-35). By
contrast, the Passover slaughter took place on the threshold of the family door-
way. Moreover, common to all the pentateuchal literary sources is the expec-
tation or stipulation that the blood of the sacrificial victim ritually be dashed
against the altar or at its base. JE requires that the animal be slaughtered at an
altar (Exod 20:24); its narrative of the covenant ratification ceremony speci-
fies the sprinkling of blood upon the altar (Exod 24:6). This requirement is
explicitly formulated in each of the other literary strata of the Pentateuch.
Deuteronomy (Deut 12:27), the Priestly source (e.g., Lev 1:5), and the Holi-
ness Code (Lev 17:6) consistently require that the blood be spilled in the di-
rection of the altar or upon its base.26 This consigning of the blood—which
symbolizes the life force of a sentient being (Gen 9:4; Lev 17:11, 14; Deut
12:23)—to the altar has an important function in the cult. It symbolically drains
the blood of the power to work autonomous magic and subordinates its effi-

23. See both Mekilla De-Rabbi Ishmael (ed, J. Z. Lauterbach; 3 vols.; Philadelphia: JPS,
1933) 1.84 and Mekhilta D 'Rabbi Sim 'on b. Jochai (ed. J. N. Epstein and E. Z. Melamed; Jerusa-
lem: Mekitzc Nirdamim, 1955) 25-26. In the first instance, R. Ishmael argues that the word
means threshold; in both cases it is R. Aqiba' who argues that the word means 'to "vessel." On
the double exegetical tradition engendered by the word, see Alexander Rofe, Introduction to
Deuteronomy: Part I and Further Chapters (2d rev. ed.; Jerusalem: Akademon, 1988) 41-42
(Hebrew).
24. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, Commentary on the Torah (ed. A. Weiser; 3 vols.; Jerusa-
lem: Rav Kook Institute, 1977) 2.81 (Hebrew).
25. The Hebrew Bible preserves other apotropaic rituals whose focus is the threshold.
Indeed, the formulas for apotropaic avoidance of the entrance or threshold are strikingly simi-
lar in each case: "pass over the entrance" (Exod 12:23; J); "tread on the threshold" (1 Sam 5:5);
"leap over the threshold" (Zeph 1:9); cf. "but if you do not do right, sin crouches at the door"
(Gen 4:7).
26. Whereas MT Deut 12:27 seems to require that the blood be spilled in the direction of
the altar, the LXX of that verse makes a harmonization with Lev 17:6, requiring that the blood
be spilled upon the base of that altar. The similar embedding of later halakhic norms is evident
in the Temple Scroll (1 IQTemple 52:21). On this issue see P. E. Dion, "Early Evidence for the
Ritual Significance of the Base of the Altar," JBL 106 (1987) 487-90. The same issues emerge
at 2 Chr 30:16; 35:11; and Jub 49:20.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 61

cacy to that of Yahweh. The contradiction between that cultic norm and the
blood apotropy of Passover could not be greater.
Both the specification of the animal and the method of cooking it also con-
tradicted the conventions of the Israelite cultus. The restriction of the animal to be
slaughtered to small cattle, such as sheep or goats, that are members of the flock,
common to J and P in the verses cited, derives from the nomadic origins of Pass-
over. The restriction stands in striking contrast to the normal sacrificial protocol
that includes both large domestic cattle from the herd, such as cows or oxen, and
small ones from the flock (Exod 20:24; Lev 1:2; 17:3; Num 22:40; 28:11, etc.).
As regards the animal's preparation, the situation is more complex. The
earliest Passover regulations focus exclusively on the apotropaic force of the
blood rite (Exod 12:21-23, J; vv. 24-27a, proto-Deuteronomic).27 They make
no mention whatsoever of eating: neither of unleavened wafers nor of the
slaughtered lamb! In contrast, P regards the lamb's consumption as central: it
preserves the stipulation that the paschal lamb be roasted and prohibits its being
either boiled or eaten raw (Exod 12:8-9). There thus arises a methodological
difficulty in knowing how to interpret the preservation by a late stratum (P)
of an ostensibly ancient rite (the roasting of the lamb) for which there is no
evidence in the earliest literary stratum—J. The latter's nonmention of the
consumption of the lamb raises the real possibility that Passover was indeed
originally only an apotropaic blood rite, with the lamb not subsequently con-
sumed.28 Nevertheless, if the stipulations of P concerning the preparation and
consumption of the paschal lamb were only a late and secondary addition, it is
difficult to understand why the Priestly editor would here tolerate such a con-
travention of P's own normal protocol for sacrificial meals. Boiling—not roast-
ing, as with the paschal lamb—is the normative means for preparing sacrifi-
cial meat, both in P and more broadly.29 It therefore seems likely that P here

27. The literary analysis is based on B. S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (OTL; Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1974) 184. I have corrected his typo for J as "12:2-23" to 12:21-23. The isolation
of the proto-Deuteronomic text follows Norbert Lohfmk, Das Hauptgebot: Eine Untersuchung
litemrischer Einleitungsfragen zu Dtn 5-11 (AnBib 20; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963)
121-22. Note, however, the challenge by Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch
(BZAW 189; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990) 166-69. See also n. 30 in this chapter. For the argu-
ment that the entirety of Exod 12:1-28 is P, see Van Seters, Life of Moses, 114-19.
28. For scholarly literature maintaining this position, see Haran, Temples, 320 n. 7. Al-
though valuable for its explication of cultic phenomenology, Haran's literary analysis and re-
construction of the Passover (pp. 316-48) are problematic. He asserts that no contradictions
exist between the J Passover (Exod 12:21-27) and the P account (Exod 12:1-14). His harmoni-
zation of the two accounts employs a conventional strategy of erasing crucial textual differ-
ence: "Both refer to the same happening, but neither of them has all the details, which means
that they actually complement one another" (p. 320). This classical harmonistic approach (equiva-
lent in its presuppositions to Tatian's Diatessaron) "fills in" what each text allegedly omits—
and thereby levels all legal-historical and religious-historical differences between the texts in-
volved. This methodology removes the criteria that would be necessary for Haran to demonstrate
the antiquity of P, although doing so is one of the avowed purposes of the book (p. v).
29. Exod 29:31; Lev 6:28; 8:31; Num 6:19 (all, P); 1 Sam 2:15; Zech 14:21; and in Ezekiel's
vision of the restored Temple, the "boiling-places" (Ezek 46:20, 24); so S. R. Driver, The Book of
Exodus (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Cambridge: University Press, 1911) 91.
62 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

actually preserves ancient stipulations concerning the preparation of the pas-

chal lamb. If similar stipulations had once been part of J's account of the Pass-
over, the redactor might have omitted them as redundant in light of his grant-
ing priority to the P Passover account in Exod 12:1-13.
This apotropaic use of blood within the Passover rite thus completely con-
tradicted the norms of the Israelite cultus in four respects: (a) the specification
of the animal (only members of the flock rather than either members of the
herd or the flock); (b) the location of the slaughter (doorway rather than altar);
(c) the disposition of the blood (daubing at the threshold as liminal site rather
than being consigned to the altar); and (d) the method of cooking the animal
(roasting rather than boiling). All of these—the very phenomena that grant the
paschal slaughter its distinctiveness—make it absolutely anomalous within the
normative sacrificial protocol of ancient Israel. The anomaly of the Passover
was also linguistically marked. Neither the legislation of J in Exod 12:23 nor
that of P in 12:1-14 speak of a paschal sacrifice (mi). Instead, each techni-
cally mandates a paschal slaughter: "Slaughter the paschal offer-
ing" (Exod 12:21, J), "Slaughter it" (Exod 12:6, P).30 The paschal
slaughter, in the home and without an altar, represented the antithesis of the
normal cultic sacrifice. The conflict with the Deuteronomic program that re-
stricted all cultic slaughter and all cultic blood rites to the central sanctuary
could not have been greater.

The Conflict between Centralization and

the Pre-Deuteronomic Passover
The intent of the Deuteronomic reform, and of Josiah's drive for cultic and
political renewal, was to create a unified, centralized, essentially homogeneous
cult and to assert the authority of Jerusalem, simultaneously political and
religious, over all of Judah and Israel. Most likely, cultic centralization made a
religious virtue out of a political necessity. In the period following Sennacherib's
expeditions, Jerusalem was forced to retrench; it became a rump state, protected
by its fortress cities. As a strategic response to the neo-Assyrian incursions,
Hezekiah largely abandoned the countryside to the invaders and sought to ur-
banize Judah's population. In so doing, he dismantled both the extensive rural
cultus and the familiar clan structure that supported it. What resulted was a
massive disruption of popular forms of religion.31 Notwithstanding Hezekiah's

30. Most likely, the assimilation of the Passover slaughter to the normative cultic proto-
col already begins to become apparent in the proto-Deuteronomic redaction that asserts: "It is
a paschal sacrifice for Yahweh" (Exod 12:27a). Nevertheless, that designation by itself may
require reconsideration of Lohfink's argument that Exod 12:24-27a is proto-D (Das Hauptgebol,
122). His argument is based on the passage's vocabulary but does not address either this phrase
or the cult-historical issue it raises.
31. For a far-reaching analysis of the archaeological and literary evidence and of Deute-
ronomy's connection to the immense social change wrought by Hezekiah and Josiah, see Baruch
Halpern, "Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Indi-
vidual Moral Liability," in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed. Baruch Halpern and
Deborah W. Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 11-107, at 27, 74-75.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 63

attempts, there is archaeological evidence that popular religion not only sur-
vived but actually flourished in the final decades of the Judaean state. Archae-
ology attests the existence of a "distributed" and "non-conformist cultus,"
located in individual domiciles, that burst into expression in the seventh cen-
tury.32 Cultic materials found in domestic stratigraphy are iconic and suggest
the popularity of private, domestic shrines that included, among others, female
figurines (often set into pillars and most likely representing Asherah), horse
and rider figures, and zoomorphic figures.33 These distributed, or private, shrines
differ notably from the primarily aniconic relics of the public cult, as preserved
at Temple sites. The archaeological evidence thus points to a sharp contrast
between popular piety, centered in the family domicile, and "establishment"
religion as the latter is represented both in Temple archaeology and in the lit-
erary sources of the Hebrew Bible.34
It is particularly striking that the distributed cultus seemed to flourish in
the final decades of the Judaean state. That chronology overlaps with the con-
ventional dating of Deuteronomy to the Josianic period. On that basis, it is
suggestive to view Deuteronomy, on the one hand, with its centralizing and
anti-iconic drive, and the burgeoning popular piety, with its iconic recourse to
thedea nutrix, on the other, as two competing emergency responses to Judah's
national crisis under neo-Assyrian hegemony. Each response seems, moreover,
to involve an appropriation of the past in order to inject new life and meaning
into the present. In the case of Deuteronomy, that recourse to an idealized
reconfiguration of the past represents an elite literary construction with paral-
lels to neo-Assyrian classicizing tendencies evident in Ashurbanipal's library.35
In the case of the distributed religion, it involves a popular return to Syrian
and Canaanite deities that seem to have been out of fashion for a period.36

32. For both the data cited here and the valuable distinction between a "distributed" or
"nonconformist" cultus and an "establishment" cultus, see John S. Holladay, Jr., "Religion in
Israel and Judah under the Monarchy: An Explicitly Archaeological Approach," in Ancient
Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D.
Hanson, and S. Dean McBride; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 249-99, at 275-81.
33. See Holladay, "Religion in Israel and Judah," 274-78, discussing the evidence at Hazor,
Stratum V (in the North), and Tell Beit Mirsim and Lachish, Level IV (in Judah).
34. In his very stimulating Endnote, Holladay, "Religion in Israel and Judah," 295-99,
attempts to grapple with the inconsistency of popular religion with both temple sites and the
literary account of the Bible.
35. See Halpern, "Jerusalem and the Lineages," 87-88.
36. For the literary recourse to the past as a model to transform the present and the conse-
quent growth of literary canons see Halpern, "Jerusalem and the Lineages," 87-91; and Halpern,
"Sybil, or the Two Nations? Archaism, Kinship, Alienation, and the Elite Redefinition of Tra-
ditional Culture in Judah in the 8th-7th Centuries B.C.E.," in The Study of the Ancient Near East
in the Twenty-First Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference (ed, Jerrold
S. Cooper and Glenn M. Schwartz; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1996) 291-338. For the
sudden bursts of popular piety and of iconic objects in the archaeological remains see Holladay,
"Religion in Israel and Judah," 278-80. The analogy between the two, as competing although
having a common structure, is my own hypothesis. In this context Jeremiah 44 raises fascinat-
ing issues: popular nostalgia for the past involves the desire to restore the worship of the Queen
of Heaven.
64 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

There is an additional matter. If the distributed cultus was not official,

neither could Deuteronomy, at its composition, have represented either norma-
tive or official religion. Quite the opposite. It was hardly normative, because
centralization directs itself against the prevailing assumptions of the pre-
Deuteronomic texts. More likely, it represented something closer to a sectar-
ian reconceptualization of religion. This does not mean, however, that Deute-
ronomy was popular in origin. Although there is an immense commitment to
improving the lot of all those living at the fringes of society, its studied literary
nature and language suggest its scribal origin in the Judaean court.37 These
reflections are conjecture, of course. But central to Deuteronomy as a text is
its own bid for authority. In order to implement their own new vision of reli-
gion and law, the authors of Deuteronomy had to displace both established
norms of worship and the texts that enshrined those norms. They began by
proscribing the formerly valid local sanctuaries (as they do in Deuteronomy
12). They also found it essential to penetrate into the private domicile. The
paschal rite that took place there involved the private, domestic manipulation
of blood independent of any form of social control. Precisely because it was
detached from the altar and the public cultus, the manipulation of blood by the
paterfamilias or clan elder threatened the Deuteronomic attempt to construct a
centralized cultus and a uniform state religion.38 Within such family or clan-
based activities, centrifugal forces could emerge, permitting religious differ-
ence (private religiosity) to perpetuate itself.39 Consequently, it became neces-
sary for the Deuteronomic authors to abrogate and wrest the pre-Deuteronomic
Passover out of the private domain. Blood became a "controlled substance,"
whose ritual use the authors of Deuteronomy restricted to the central sanctu-
ary (Deut 12:27). Deuteronomy's Passover (Deut 16:1-8) remarkably makes
no mention whatsoever of the blood originally essential to the rite: the better
to silence its threat. The result of these changes was homogenization—but
thereby the creation of a national religion.

37. On the social focus see Norbert Lohfmk, "Das deuteronomische Gesetz in der Endgestalt
—Entwurf einer Gesellschaft ohne marginale Gruppen," BN 51 (1990) 25-40. On the scribal
origins see Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon,
1972) 158-78.
38. That conflict between the legal norms of the pre-Deuteronomic Passover and Deute-
ronomy's drive for centralization remains the crucial point. I do not mean to imply that the pre-
Deuteronomic Passover directly represents either popular piety or the distributed cultus. That
it is represented in the pentateuchal literary sources already suggests otherwise. All that can be
safely said is that it represents one prestigious norm of religious law that contradicted Deute-
ronomy's new vision and that the authors of Deuteronomy had to revise in order to implement
their vision.
39. See the analysis of Deut 13:2-6 in the following chapter. From a different perspec-
tive than the one taken here, Rainer Albertz, Personliche Frommigkeit und offizielle Religion:
Religionsinterner Pluralismus in Israel und Babylon (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1978) 169—78 was the
first to address the transformation of popular piety and its integration into the official religion
by the Deuteronomic authors. See further Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old
Testament Period (2 vols.; OTL; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994) 1.210-16.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 65

The Originality of Deuteronomy's Transformation

and Blend of Passover and Unleavened Bread
Despite the blend represented by Deut 16:1-8, the pilgrimage festival of Un-
leavened Bread originally bore no relation to the Passover. Prior to Deute
ronomy, the two observances were entirely independent of and unrelated to
each other, both in religious-historical terms and in literary representation. The
authors of Deuteronomy were responsible for both the transformation of each
observance and their literary integration. In order to prove this, having recon-
structed the pre-Deuteronomic Passover, it is also necessary to reconstruct the
pre-Deuteronomic Festival of Unleavened Bread. After this, I argue that tex-
tual material claimed by some scholars to be a source for Deuteronomy's fes-
tival calendar actually presupposes it.
Just as the J and proto-D accounts of the Passover (Exod 12:21-23 +
24-27a) make no mention of the eating of unleavened bread, so the earliest
literary strata of the Pentateuch—in the context of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread—never refer to the Passover. The two calendrical observances are never
presented as contiguous ritual events. It is the authors of Deuteronomy who
are responsible for the combination of the two. In order to reconstruct the pre-
Deuteronomic form of this festival, two passages are important to examine:
the Covenant Code's festival calendar (Exod 23:14-19; cf. 34:18-26) and the
account of the Festival of Unleavened Bread in Exod 13:3-10, given in the
context of the Exodus narrative.

Exod 23:14-19
Deuteronomy draws on the festival legislation of Exod 23:14-19 as a literary
source. That unit is ancient and bears clear evidence of linguistic and redac-
tional coherence with the rest of the Covenant Code.40 It is possible that the
unit had an originally independent circulation prior to its incorporation into
the Covenant Code.41 Nonetheless, if so, that redactional incorporation took
place at a pre-Deuteronomic stage. Neither in language nor in substantive law

40. See Bernard R. Goldstein and Alan Cooper, "The Festivals of Israel and Judah and
the Literafy History of the Pentateuch," JAOS 110 (1990) 21, emphasizing the structural coher-
ence of Exod 23:10-19.
41. Maintaining the original redactional independence of Exod 23:14-19 are Eckart Otto,
Wandel der Rechtsbegriindungen in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte des antiken Israel: eine
Rechtsgeschichte des "Bundesbuches" ExXX22-XXIH III 13 (StudBib 3; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988)
58; and Ludger Schwienhorst-Schonbcrger,Das Bundesbuch (Ex 20,22-23,33): Studien zu seiner
Entstehung und Theologie (BZAW 188; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990) 22-23, 29-30, 37,
401-406. Both authors maintain that the unit is pre-Deuteronomic in content, although they
diverge in their analysis of when it was redactionally incorporated into the Covenant Code. Otto
argues that the unit was first integrated into the Covenant Code quite late, with the Covenant
Code's incorporation into the Sinai pericope. In contrast, Schwienhorst-Schonberger maintains
its pre-Deuteronomic redaction into the Covenant Code, a position that I follow. For further
details, please see the next note.
66 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

does that unit betray any signs of Deuteronomistic or later editing.42 Nor does
this unit presuppose Deuteronomy as a literary source.43 That claim, which
reverses dependence and reception, involves special pleading and has not found
wide acceptance.44

42. Contra Eckart Otto, who maintains that the Covenant Code originally concluded with
Exod 23:13. More commonly, scholars understand the Covenant Code to extend to Exod 23:19,
with 23:20-33 viewed as an epilogue. Otto develops his arguments in Wandel der Rechtsbe-
grundungen, 10-11, 52-56; Otto, " TWAT 7 (1992) 1022-23; and
Otto, "Zur Kompositionsgeschichte des alttestamentlichen 'Bundesbuches' Ex 20,22b—23,33,"
WZKM 83 (1993) 149-65. The latter article provides an important review of current scholar-
ship on the Covenant Code. Otto's proposal that a Deuteronomistic or later redactor had final
disposition of Exod 23:14-19, viewed as secondary, is unlikely. Such a redactor would be ex-
pected to update this calendar just as he did at Exod 34:25b, in order to harmonize Unleavened
Bread with Passover. The text betrays, however, no signs of such updating and remains free of
the type of Deuteronomistic incursions that Otto identifies in Exodus 34. Indeed, Otto himself
elsewhere establishes the priority of the Unleavened Bread legislation of Exod 23:15, which
lacks any reference to Passover, to that of Exod 34:24, which secondarily adds it (Mazzotfest in
Gilgal, 248). Consequently, Otto can only argue from silence in support of his claim that this
unit has undergone secondary revision. For example, he suggests that Exod 23:14—19 originally
contained a sabbath law, on analogy with Exod 34:21a. He maintains that the late redactor who
allegedly joined Exod 23:14—19 to the Covenant Code proper (Exod 21:1-23:12) and who then
incorporated the newly expanded Covenant Code into the Sinai pericope (Exodus 19-24) de-
leted this original sabbath law in order to avoid redundancy with Exod 23:12 (Wandel der
Rechtsbegrundungen, 58; and "saeba'/sabu'ot," 1023). But this insertion of an "original" Sab-
bath law into Exod 23:14-19, merely on the basis of the parallel with Exodus 34, begs the ques-
tion of the priority of Exodus 34 to the Covenant Code, which is precisely the question. Both
the reconstruction of an original form of Exod 23:14-19 (with Sabbath law added) and the claim
of a subsequent editorial deletion (necessary to account for its absence) require special plead-
ing, since there is no textual evidence, versional or otherwise, to support either assertion. Strik-
ingly, this claim that the festival calendar of the Covenant Code represents a late addition jeop-
ardizes Otto's compelling arguments elsewhere that Deuteronomy owes its redactional structure
to the Covenant Code ("Vom Bundesbuch zum Deuteronomium: Die deuteronomische Redaktion
in Dtn 12-26," Biblische Theologie und gesellschaftlicher Wandel: Fur Norbert Lohfink [ed.
Georg Braulik, Walter GroB, and Sean McEvenue; Freiburg: Herder, 1993] 266, 269; and Otto,
"Aspects of Legal Reforms and Reformulations in Ancient Cuneiform and Israelite Law," in
Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation, and Development
[ed. Bernard M. Levinson; JSOTSup 181; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994] 188, 194).
Given Otto's point-by-point derivation of the structure of the Deuteronomic legal corpus from
the Covenant Code, why does Deuteronomy's festival calendar alone hover without a tether to
the Covenant Code? At this point his redactional analysis of the Deuteronomic legal corpus (as
an exegetical revision of the Covenant Code under the influence of cult centralization) and his
redactional analysis of the Covenant Code (which regards the calendar of Exod 23:14-19 as
secondary) become mutually inconsistent. Given the importance of the celebration of the cen-
tralized Passover to the Josianic setting of Deuteronomy, this matter will warrant further study.
43. Contra Gary Alan Chamberlain, "Exodus 21-23 and Deuteronomy 12-26: A Form-
Critical Study" (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1977) 152-55. Also contra John Van Seters,
"The Place of the Yahwist in the History of Passover and Massot," ZAW 95 (1983) 167-82,
who offers a new source analysis of Exodus 12-13, based on his claim of J as late, and posits
that "the earliest statement on passover is in Deuteronomy" (p. 179). Similarly, Van Seters, Life
of Moses, 113-27.
44. Otto, Wandel der Rechtsbegrundungen, 8, provides a concise refutation of Chamberlain's
arguments. Challenging the claim by Van Seters that the Yahwist presupposes Deuteronomy, see
Bernard M. Levinson, The Hermeneutics of Innovation: the Impact of Centralization upon the
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 67

The festival calendar with which the Covenant Code concludes (Exod
23:14-17), together with its coda of related ritual rules (vv. 18-19), lists the
three festivals during the year when male Israelites were required to make a
pilgrimage to the local sanctuary: Unleavened Bread, Harvest, and Ingather-
ing.45 Exod 23:14 + 17 redactionally frame the itemization of the specific fes-
tivals within vv. 15-16. Of course, the three festivals specified by vv. 15-16
were not the only events of ritual importance within the Israelite calendar: both
Sabbaths and New Moons, for example, were observed by special sacrifices
(see Num 28:9-10,11-15). These three festivals, however, were the only ones
that required the lay Israelite to undertake a pilgrimage to the local sanctuary.
"Pilgrimage festival" is thus the specific denotation of the technical term 3n,
the regulations concerning which are this unit's focus.46
Two features distinguish the stipulations for Unleavened Bread, in Exod
23:15, from the stipulations for the other two festivals, Harvest and Ingather-
ing, in v. 16. First, alone of the three, Unleavened Bread contains a textual cross-
reference to an earlier divine promulgation. The festival should be celebrated,
Yahweh requires in the first person, "as I commanded you" (Exod
23:15), which reference can apply only to Exod 13:6.47 The stipulation in Exod
23:15 that requires "seven days shall you eat unleavened
bread" is an exact citation of the latter lemma.48 This citation of Exod 13:6
by the Covenant Code provides important evidence that ancient stipulations
remain at the core of Exod 13:3-10 (see next section) and that the proto-
Deuteronomic redaction consists primarily of the parenetic framework, not
substantive law.
Second, Unleavened Bread is the only one of the three festivals to be speci-
fied both calendrically ("at the appointed time in the month of Abib") and as

Structure, Sequence, and Reformulation of Legal Material in Deuteronomy (Ann Arbor, Mich.:
University Microfilms, 1991) 106-14.
45. I employ the term "festival calendar" to stress (1) the focus of these units upon the
three major pilgrimage festivals and (2) that the units intentionally span the calendar year. These
points are not made sufficiently clear by Donn Farley Morgan, The So-Called Cultic Calendars
in the Pentateuch: A Morphological and Typological Study (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Micro-
films, 1974) 159 in his form-critical argument that Exod 23:14-17, 34:18-26, and Deut 16:1-17
each represents "not a [cultic] calendar but a list of festal prescriptions."
46. See Driver, Exodus, 242; and Haran, Temples, 289-94, with valuable bibliography.
47. The claim by Schwienhorst-Schonberger that this cross-reference must be a late
Deuteronomistic addition is arbitrary (Das Bundesbuch, 402-404). There is no reason that the
textual cross-reference must presuppose the incorporation of the Covenant Code into the Sinai
pericope. The reference could just as easily have been made prior to and independent of the
present redaction of both texts. By analogy, Deuteronomy's reuse of the Covenant Code does
not presuppose the latter's incorporation into the Sinai pericope.
48. So also H. L. Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism (New York: Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary of America, 1982) 47. In contrast, the claim by U. Cassuto, A Commentary on
the Book of Exodus (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967) 303 that the citation tag refers to Exod 12:15
cannot be sustained. The clauses differ in syntax and verbal number; further, Cassuto does not
address any of the diachronic and source-critical issues involved in making Exod 12:15, as a P
text, function as a literary source for the Covenant Code.
68 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

having an historical justification, commemorating the Exodus:

"for in it you went forth from Egypt" (Exod 23:15). In contrast, the other two
festivals are marked only by the stages of the agricultural year. The Festival of
the Harvest marks the firstfruits of the field while the Festival of Ingathering
marks the completion of the harvest season (Exod 23:16).

Exod 13:3-10
Earlier literary critics identified this unit as deriving from the Yahwist and
understood it to represent the latter's account of Unleavened Bread in con-
trast to the Priestly account of Exod 12:14-20.49 The trend more recently is
to identify the unit as proto-Deuteronomic.50 As such, the unit provides in-
sight into the nature of the pre-Deuteronomic Festival of Unleavened Bread.
The festival is from the beginning rationalized in terms of its marking the
date of the exodus from Egypt: "This day you go
free, in the month of Abib" (Exod 13:4).51 Apart from this exact commemo-
ration of the Exodus (see Exod 12:29-30), the date of the given day is not
further calendrically specified.
The celebration of Unleavened Bread lasts seven days and involves the
removal of both sourdough starter and risen loaves (Exod 13:6-7). The sev-
enth of these days is distinguished from the first six: "Seven days shall you eat
unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a ( ) pilgrimage
festival for Yahweh" (Exod 13:6). As a "pilgrimage festival," the observance
of Unleavened Bread was crowned with a sacrifice at the local sanctuary.

49. August Dillmann, Die Bucher Exodus und Leviticus (ed. V. Ryssel; KeHAT; 3d ed.;
Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1897) 139; and Driver, Exodus, 106.
50. Lohfink, Das Hauptgebot, 121-24; and M. Caloz, "Exode, XIII, 3-16 et son rapport
au Deuteronome," RB 75 (1968) 5-62. Note the disagreement of Blum, Komposition des
Pentateuch, 166-69.
51. As an alternative translation, "on the new moon of Abib," or even, glossing Abib as
referring to newly ripe grain, "on the new moon of milky ears of corn." The issue is that the
word Ehn can mean either "month" or "New Moon" (BDB, 294). This ambiguity creates a vex-
ing difficulty in the exegesis of passages such as this one; Exod 23:15; 34:18; and the double
occurrence of the word at Deut 16:1. In Exod 13:4, the convention is to translate it as "month"
(so BDB, 294, 2b). Nonetheless, there is good reason to translate it here as "new moon." For
the justification, see Otto, Mazwtfest in Gilgal, 182 and n. 5; and Ginsberg, Israelian Heritage,
44. Note the helpful summary by Braulik, "Leidensgedachtnisfeier und Freudenfest," 102
n. 19. The rendering "new moon" requires the additional postulate that, postexilically, P shifts
the original date of Unleavened Bread from being a New Moon observance (allegedly preserved
by Exod 13:4) to a Full Moon observance on the fifteenth of the month, as at Num 33:3; see
Ginsberg, Israelian Heritage, 78-79. A now widely held position is that the word always means
"new moon" preexilically, and "month" postexilically; see E. Auerbach, "Die Feste im alien
Israel," VT 8 (1958) 1-14, at 1. That claim is refuted by Cholewinski, Heiligkeitsgesetz und
Deuteronomium, 183-84; and by William S. Morrow, "The Composition of Deuteronomy
14:1-17:1," (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1988) 214-15 (the expanded revision, Scrib-
ing the Center: Organization and Redaction in Deuteronomy 14:1-17:13 [SBLMS 49; Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1995] has just appeared). Suggesting that the word has a different meaning de-
pending upon whether the calendars are Israelite or Judaean are Goldstein and Cooper, "The
Festivals of Israel and Judah," 21.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 69

This connection between the Festival of Unleavened Bread and the local
sanctuaries constitutes its challenge to the authors of Deuteronomy. The
Deuteronomic program of cult centralization involved the extirpation of the
very local sanctuaries that provided the festival with its home. That conflict
required that the authors of Deuteronomy find a way to transform Unleavened
Bread. In principle, two options were open to them: either to divert its celebra-
tion from the local to the central sanctuary or to secularize it, by deleting alto-
gether its connection to the sacrificial cultus and the altar. I argue that they
elected the latter option. It is Passover that they diverted to the central sphere,
leaving Unleavened Bread to be celebrated locally, with the original pilgrim-
age element entirely voided.

The Secondary Status of the Passover Reference in Exod 34:25b

Exodus 34, which narrates the renewal of the covenant between God and Israel
following the Golden Calf incident, contains a divine proclamation of law that
includes a religious calendar (Exod 34:18-26). Within that passage, which par-
allels certain parts of the Covenant Code, there is a command: "the sacrifice of
the Festival of Passover ( shall not be left lying until morning" (Exod
34:25b). That reference presents Passover as a technical pilgrimage festival
Were it pre-Deuteronomic, it would undermine my claim that Deuteronomy is
responsible for the transformation of Passover. However, there is broad schol-
arly agreement that the phrase is a late, Deuteronomistic interpolation in the
verse.52 As such, Deuteronomy represents the real source for that passage, and
not vice versa. Passover material does not otherwise appear in Exod 34:18-26,
and the unit's regulations for Unleavened Bread are otherwise essentially iden-
tical to those found in the Covenant Code (Exod 23:15a//34:18). Accordingly,
in discussing the festival calendar, I shall treat Exod 34:25 as belonging to the
history of reception of Deuteronomy's festival calendar.
Very likely, an isolated, later addition is not the issue in Exod 34:25b.
Instead, a much more programmatic revision of prior law is at stake. The verse
is arguably a deliberate attempt to revise and update the festival legislation of
the Covenant Code (Exod 23:18) specifically in light of Deuteronomy's dis-
tinctive blend of Passover and Unleavened Bread (Deut 16:1-8).53 The notion
that the change involved is not isolated but programmatic represents one compo-
nent of a broader debate concerning Exod 34:18-26. Classical source-criticism
regarded the unit as an ancient "cultic Decalogue" ascribed to the Yahwist.54

52. See Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel [1878] (New
York: Meridian, 1957) 85 n. 1. More recently, Jorn Halbe, Das Privilegrecht Jahwes Ex.
34,10-26: Gestalt und Wesen, Herkunft und Wirken in vordeuteronomischer Zeit (FRLANT 114;
Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975) 195-97; Otto, Maizotfest in Gilgal, 177 n. 1, 247;
and Braulik, "Leidensgedachtnisfeier und Freudenfest," 101 n. 110. Each of the latter three
scholars provides extensive further bibliography.
53. Most clearly, Ginsberg, Israelian Heritage, 64-65.
54. Classically, J. Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen
Bucherdes Alten Testaments (4th ed.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1963) 84-86, especially 329-35.
70 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Traditio-historical scholarship viewed the unit as yet more ancient: as a pre-

monarchic Privilege Law.55 On that assumption of its antiquity, the unit has
sometimes been viewed, conjointly with the Covenant Code, as providing a
literary source for Deuteronomy, including its festival legislation.56
Despite this older view, Exod 34:18-26 does not constitute a literary source
for Deuteronomy's festival calendar. Increasingly within scholarship, the ten-
dency has been to move away from the older source-critical and traditio-
historical dating of the unit and to regard it as post-Deuteronomic. Indeed, a
more profound paradigm shift has taken place. Many scholars now no longer
regard the unit as an independent literary or traditio-historical source but rather
see it as itself a deliberate redactional conflation of prior literary sources (in-
cluding the Covenant Code, Exodus 13, and Deuteronomy 16) that attempts
forcibly to read later legal and textual developments back into the Sinai peri-
cope.57 This approach provides the best explanation for the actual sequence
and structure of the laws and hortatory material within Exodus 34. In this light,
with the unit seen as a post-Deuteronomic redactional composition, it becomes
methodologically problematic to seek to reconstruct a pre-Deuteronomistic core
for the chapter, as if the Deuteronomistic material were simply secondary ac-
cretions added to an original source.58

Deuteronomy as Responsible for

the Transformation of the Calendar
The originality of Deuteronomy's combination of Passover and Unleavened
Bread has recently been challenged by Bernard R. Goldstein and Alan Cooper,
who claim that Deuteronomy introduces no significant structural change into

55. On the Privilege Law see Halbe, Das Privilegrecht Jahwes, 502-505 for whom the
unit also represented a source for the Covenant Code. In contrast, Otto, Mazzotfest in Gilgal,
241-54, maintains that neither Exodus 34 nor Exodus 23 depends upon the other but that both
embody an ancient, preliterary tradition joining covenant, Unleavened Bread, and Conquest.
56. Norbert Lohfink, "Zur deuteronomischen Zentralisationsfonnel," Bib 65 (1984) 297-328,
republished in and cited after Lohfink, Studien mm Deuteronomium und zur deuteronomistischen
Literaturll (SBAB 12; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991) 147-77, at 173-77; Lohfink,
"Deuteronomy," IDBSup (1976) 230; and Georg Braulik, Deuteronomium 1-16,17 (Neue Echter
Bibel 15; Wiirzburg: Echter Verlag, 1986) 10.
57. Ginsberg, hraelian Heritage, 62-66; Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in
Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 194-97; William Johnstone, "Reactivating the
Chronicles Analogy in Pentateuchal Studies, with Special Reference to the Sinai Pericope in
Exodus,"ZAW99 (1987) 16-37; Erik Aurelius, Der FiirbitterIsraels: Eine Studie zum Mosebild
im Alien Testament (ConBOT 27; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1988) 116-26; and Blum,
Komposition des Pentateuch, 67-70, 369-77. Note the astute early analysis by N. M. Nicolsky,
"Pascha im Kulte des jerusalemischen Tempels," ZAW 45 (1927) 174-75.
58. Otto's careful attempt at literary separation does not draw the full implications of the
very redactional models that he cites ("Kompositionsgeschichte des alttestamentlichen 'Bundes-
buches,'" 154-55). It is not clear that the text he reconstructs ever had any pre-Deuteronomic
independent existence.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 71

the festival calendar. They assign the key transformation of the calendar to a
radically redefined RJE, whom they describe as a northern redactor operating
in Judah during the early eighth century.59 While their position offers a valu-
able rethinking of the evidence, some methodological difficulties arise in shift-
ing the innovative force of Deuteronomy's festival legislation back to this pre-
Deuteronomic redactor. The major one is that they derive the festival legislation
of Exod 34:18-26 from this same, pre-Deuteronomic RJE, with the result that
the designation there of Passover as a :n "festival" (Exod 34:25) also becomes
pre-Deuteronomic. That understanding of the calendar in Exodus 34 then con-
stitutes evidence for claiming that Deuteronomy is not responsible for signifi-
cant structural change in the festival calendar. Goldstein and Cooper's argu-
ment is problematic. They base their view of Exodus 34 as a redactional
reworking of the Covenant Code and their assumption of the northern origins
of proto-Deuteronomy on the work of H. L. Ginsberg.60 In particular, they
defend their reconstruction of the literary history of the calendar in light of
"Ginsberg's characterization of the festival legislation in Exodus 34 as proto-
deuteronomic."61 Ginsberg's actual position was the opposite. He argued that
Exodus 34 was a post-Deuteronomic revision of Exodus 23 in light of Deute-
ronomy 's festival calendar.62 With that error, their diachronic scheme loses its
essential support. Their argument is further weakened because they assume the
priority of P to D, without noting that such a sequence is highly contested and
that Ginsberg himself rejected it in favor of the prevailing view that P is later
than Deuteronoy.63
Prior to Deuteronomy, Passover and Unleavened Bread were therefore
independent of each other, both religiously and textually. Passover involved
an apotropaic blood ritual; Unleavened Bread, a pilgrimage to the local sanc-
tuary. All that changed with Deuteronomy.

59. Goldstein and Cooper, "The Festivals of Israel and Judah," 27, 29, 31; and Cooper
and Goldstein, "Exodus and Massot in History and Tradition," Maarav (Stanley Gevirtz Me-
morial Volume) 8 (1994) 15-37, at 17, 27.
60. In claiming that Deuteronomy's origins are northern and in emphasizing the strikingly
close ties of the legal corpus to the oracles of Hosea, Ginsberg, hraelian Heritage (1982), 19-24,
overlooks the similar arguments long ago made by Adam C. Welch, The Code of Deuteronomy:
A New Theory of Its Origin (New York: George H. Doran [1924]) 31-34, 128-31, 184-90.
61. Cooper and Goldstein, "Exodus and Massot," 17. Contrast the accurate representa-
tion in Goldstein and Cooper, "The Festivals of Israel and Judah," 24, although there dismiss-
ing Ginsberg's dating without engaging with any of his specific textual arguments.
62. Ginsberg, hraelian Heritage, 62-66. With respect to the incongruous designation of
Passover as a festival in Exod 34:25, Ginsberg's position was implicitly already proposed by
August Dillmann, Deuteronomium (1886), 311.
63. Goldstein and Cooper, "The Festivals of Israel and Judah," 27, 30-31; Cooper and
Goldstein, "Exodus and Massot," 25 n. 35; and Ginsberg, Israelian Heritage, 100-117. Ginsberg
tentatively allowed only Deut 15:12-18 as an exception. Now even that exception has been
refuted: see Stephen A. Kaufman, "Deuteronomy 15 and Recent Research on the Dating of P,"
in Das Deuteronomium: Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft (ed. Norbert Lohfink; BETL 68;
Lou vain: University Press, 1985) 273-76.
72 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Deuteronomy's Double Transformation

of Passover and Unleavened Bread
The authors of Deuteronomy radically transformed the original observances
of Passover and Unleavened Bread. In a striking reversal of cultic and literary
history, Passover, originally a local, family based slaughter, becomes in every-
thing but name a pilgrimage festival, to be performed, as all sacrifices must, at
the central sanctuary.64 Even the initial purpose of the paschal slaughter, the
apotropaic blood ritual—which is to be observed annually in perpetuity (Exod
12:24—27a, proto-D)—is rejected in total silence.65 Precisely the ritual that gives
the Passover its distinctive identity—and that militates against Deuteronomy's
restricting the cultic use of blood to the altar at the central sanctuary—is abso-
lutely suppressed. The Passover slaughter loses its ritual distinctiveness and,
but for the specification that it take place at night (Deut 16:1, 6), becomes as-
similated to the standard sacrificial protocol.66
So thorough is this routinization of the Passover that both the selection of
animals and their preparation are equally transformed.67 If, reflecting the ritual's
nomadic origins, the paschal slaughter was originally restricted to small cattle
from the flock, either sheep or goats (Exod 12:21; cf. Exod 12:3, 5), that re-
striction is now effectively canceled. The animal becomes standardized to
include both small and large cattle (Deut 16:2), as is conventional for sacrifice
(Deut 12:21; Exod 20:24; Lev 1:2; Num 22:40).68 Similarly, the nomadic routine
that specifies the roasting of the lamb is accommodated to the normal sacrifi-

64. Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: IPS, 1989) 266.
In contrast, to argue, "The earliest statement on Passover is in Deuteronomy," while also main-
taining that "Deuteronomy (Dtn) historicized it ... and he centralized it," leaves unexplained
what the "it" was that Deuteronomy reacted against. For this reason, Van Seters, Life of Moses,
123-24, opens his argument to question.
65. For Deuteronomy's excision of other ancient features of the Passover, see Moshe
Weinfeld, "The Reorientation in the Understanding of the Divinity and of the Cultus in the Book
of Deuteronomy," Tarbif 31 (1961-62) 5 (Hebrew); and Haran, Temples, 321.
66. Note also Braulik, "Leidensgedachtnisfeier und Freudenfest," 101-103; and Ginsberg,
Israelian Heritage, 57.
67. See Moshe Weinfeld, "Deuteronomy—The Present State of Inquiry," JBL 86 (1967)
259-60; reprinted in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy
(ed. Duane L. Christensen; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993) 31-32.
68. Contra Segal, who notes the problem but attempts to explain away "large cattle" as a
scribal error (The Hebrew Passover, 205). Lacking all versional support, Segal makes his case
on the sole basis that, elsewhere in Deuteronomy, "large cattle" precedes "sheep," whereas here
it follows it. Segal thereby overlooks that in the Passover texts which the author inherits, the
focus is exclusively on "sheep" (Exod 12:21, J; cf. 12:3, P), which explains its priority here,
before the extension of the prescription to include large cattle. That the sequence is not anoma-
lous is clear from its conformity to Exod 20:24. Rosario Pius Merendino (Das deuteronomische
Gesetz: Eine literarkritische, gattungs- und uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu Dt
12-26 [BBB 31; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1969] 128) and Jorn Halbe ("Passa-Massot im deuteron-
omischen Festkalender: Komposition, Entstehung und Programm von Dtn 16, 1-8," ZAW 87
[1975] 152) similarly avoid the issue by deleting "large and small cattle" as a later addition.
This, too, lacks versional support. Moreover, as Morrow notes, excluding the phrase makes the
verse redundant alongside 16:5-6 ("Deut 14:1-17:1," 216).
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 73

cial protocol that involves the boiling of those parts in which the celebrant and
priest share (Deut 16:7; cf. 1 Sam 2:13-16).69 The attempts to deny this delib-
erate transformation by claiming either that the verse contains an interpolation
or that the verb does not mean "boil" are untenable.70
All these transformations of legal and religious history cohere in the com-
mand n "You shall
sacrifice the paschal offering to Yahweh, your God—sheep or cattle—in the
place that Yahweh shall choose to establish his name" (Deut 16:2). That com-
mand expresses in nuce the complete Deuteronomic transformation of Pass-
over. The correct idiom was conventionally "You shall slaughter
the Passover."71 The change in formulation represents a radical innovation by
the authors of Deuteronomy. The application of the technical verb "sacrifice"
(Deut 16:2, 5, 6)72 to the paschal slaughter signals the complete abrogation of
the old rite and its assimilation into the public cult. This represents as bold a
reworking of language as does the paradoxical use of the same verb to denote
local secular slaughter, completely detached from any altar, in Deut 12:15,21.73

69. Concerning the shift in animals and preparation, see G. von Rad, Deuteronomy (Phila-
delphia: Westminster, 1966) 112.
70. Claiming an interpolation are Merendino, Das deuteronomische Gesetz, 133-34; and
Halbe, "Passa-Massot im deuteronomischen Festkalender," 152. Claiming that the verb "702
means only "cook," not "boil," are Segal, The Hebrew Passover, 205—206; and J. G. McConville,
Law and Theology in Deuteronomy (JSOTSup 33; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984) 117-18. For a
more detailed critique of these positions, see Morrow, "Deuteronomy 14:1-17:1," 130, 220;
and Bernard M. Levinson, "McConville's Law and Theology in Deuteronomy," JQR 80 (1990)
396-404. Interestingly, Segal's and McConville's claim returns precisely to the harmonistic
solution of ancient Rabbinic exegesis; see Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (ed. Jacob Z. Lauterbach;
3 vols.; Philadelphia: JPS, 1933-35) 1.49. Seeking to erase the manifest contradiction between
Exod 12:9 and Deut 16:7, the Mekilta paradoxically cites the earlier inner-biblical harmoniza-
tion represented by 2 Chr 35:13 as if it represented an independent use of the verb. On 2 Chr
35:13, see further chapter 5. On the rabbinic linguistic harmonizations involved, see Fishbane,
Biblical Interpretation, 135-36. On rabbinic exegesis as "harmonizing inconcinnities," see Jon
D. Levenson, "The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism," in his The
Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox,
1993) 2-3.
71. Exod 12:21 (JE); similarly, Exod 12:6 (P).
72. The verb designates the sacrifice as one "whose meat is eaten by the worshiper," an
essential feature if this rite is to replace the original paschal family ritual. For the definition, see
Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 218. Recognizing the trans-
formation from paschal rite to offering, Braulik, "Leidensgedachtnisfeier und Freudenfest," 101.
73. Contra Reuter, Kultzentralisation, 167, who maintains that the verb is used in Deut
16:2, 5, 6 merely in its conventional cultic sense, without noting the anomaly involved. The
same problem arises with Samuel Amsler, "Les Documents de la loi et la formation du Penta-
teuque," in Le Pentateuque en question: Les Origines et la composition des cinq premiers
livres de la Bible a la lumiere des recherches recentes (ed. Albert de Pury; Le Monde de la
Bible 19; 2d ed.; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1989) 251. Amsler contradictorily explains the verb
on the basis of Exod 23:18 (where it applies to the festival of Unleavened Bread, not the pas-
chal slaughter) and Exod 34:25 (which he himself regards as Deuteronomistic, and therefore
post-Deuteronomic). Although Amsler valuably stresses the importance of biblical law for
pentateuchal theory, his analysis overlooks the basic distinction between Passover and Un-
leavened Bread.
74 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

In each case, the anomalous use of the verb integrates into normative religion
that which was formally incompatible with it.
Language here becomes a means of hegemony, as the public cult asserts
its control over the distributed cult. Not only the conversion of Passover into a
normative sacrifice but also the syntactical conjunction of Passover and
Deuteronomy's centralization formula establish the extraordinary capacity of
Deuteronomy's authors for innovation. The insistence that the Passover should
be a sacrifice performed at the central sanctuary—of all places—completely
annuls its original identity as a slaughter that took place at the threshold of the
family domicile. The authors of Deuteronomy remove the rite's original clan
focus to make it instead the constitutive national holiday, with each family
observing it simultaneously at the central sanctuary. Passover, as the holiday
in which the family members were originally forbidden from leaving their resi-
dence (Exod 12:22b), under pain of death, now becomes an observance which
the citizens are forbidden to celebrate at home:

You must not sacrifice the paschal offering in any of your city-gates
which Yahweh your God is giving you; but rather, at the place where
Yahweh your God shall choose to establish his name, there shall you
sacrifice the paschal offering in the evening. . . . (Deut 16:5-6)

Deuteronomy's Passover completely abrogates earlier authoritative law.

The formula for prohibition—7 "You must
not sacrifice the paschal offering in any of your city-gates"74—is an all but
explicit polemic against the pre-Deuteronomic laws regulating the Passover.
The prohibition transforms the Passover not only in the place of its obser-
vance but also in form and social structure. The prohibition voids the Pass-
over of its original clan nexus by shunting each individual family to the
Temple in a single national convocation. So profoundly do the authors of
Deuteronomy transform the Passover that it essentially becomes the pilgrim-
age festival par excellence as they integrate it into their formulaic language
for all Temple pilgrimages.75

74. The Hebrew literally translates as "in one of your [city]-gates" (Deut 16:5). The func-
tion of the "one" in this case is distributive and indicates completely random or arbitrary choice
(as at Deut 23:17). The German Einheitsubersetzung (Stuttgart: Katholische Bibelanstalt, 1980)
captures the idea perfectly: irgendeinem ("just any, any one or other"). Reuter's claim that Deut
16:5 conflicts with Deut 12:13 because of the different use of "one" in each case is therefore
unconvincing (Kultzentralisation, 168-69). She moves prematurely from recognizing different
lexical choices to claiming inconsistency and contradiction. The same word used differently in
two different cases hardly implies that the authors of Deut 16:1-8 failed to take into account
the distinction between local and central forged by Deut 12:13-15.
75. The pilgrimage scheme involves the consistent structure of language and thought
employed by the Deuteronomic author to represent cultic action at the central sanctuary and
travel to it. That scheme was discovered by Norbert Lohfink, who presents it most comprehen-
sively in "Opfer und Sakularisierung im Deuteronomium," in Studien zu Opfer und Kult im Alten
Testament (ed. Adrian Schenker; Forschungen zum Alten Testament 3; Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr
[Paul Siebeck], 1992) 15-43.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 75

Lemmatic Reformulation in Deut 16:1-8

In order to accomplish their program, the authors of Deuteronomy apply to
the new Deuteronomic Passover lemmas whose original reference is the Feast
of Unleavened Bread. Conversely, the authors of Deuteronomy transform Un-
leavened Bread into a neutered local observance: they remove its original con-
nection to the local sanctuaries and thus void it of the very pilgrimage ele-
ment originally essential to it. Table 3-1 and its subsequent textual analysis
demonstrate Deuteronomy's lemmatic recontextualizations. Particularly im-
portant is the way that the text's authors draw upon and revise the festival
legislation that concludes the Covenant Code.
Exod 23:15, in the context of the Covenant Code's festival calendar, com-
mands "The [Pilgrimage] Festival of Unleavened Bread shall
you observe." The same verb is retained by the calendar of Deuteronomy. In
its new application, however, that verb is remarkably detached from its origi-
nal grammatical object. Whereas the lemma stressed that object by means of
a casus pendens that placed it in an initial, marked position, the authors of
Deuteronomy stress the verbal action instead. They shift the verb from its
original final position now to an introductory infinitive absolute: "Observe
the month of Abib." The authors of Deuteronomy thereby avoid emphasiz-
ing the object of the verb—which they have pointedly revised from "the
Festival of Unleavened Bread" (Exod 23:15) torrnsn Din "the month of Abib"
(Deut 16:1).76 The transformation of the verbal object, brought up from the
adverbial phrase in the lemma, permits in turn the more radical shift: a pil-
grimage—no longer in order to observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread
but rather in order to "offer the passover sacrifice" ( , Deut 16:1).
The incongruity of the resulting literary unit, let alone of the sacrificial rite
involved, cannot be too highly stressed. Both the conclusion to the Covenant
Code, Exod 23:15-18, and Deut 16:1-17, in its overall orientation, present a
festival calendar that lists the three pilgrimages which each male Israelite is
bound to observe. The reformulation of Exod 23:15-16 by Deut 16:16 sub-
stantiates this point. The inclusion, therefore, of what is quintessentially a
local home rite, the Passover, in the context of a festival calendar whose
concern is rather pilgrimage to the sanctuary, points to Deuteronomy's radi-
cal reworking of cultic and literary history.
If Deuteronomy marks its deletion of the lemma's original object—Un-
leavened Bread as the pilgrimage festival—so it marks its striking addition
to that lemma—Passover as the Abib observance. The striking interpolation
of the paschal slaughter into the lemma is distinguished by a repetition within
Deut 16:1. The double reference to the festival date as "[in] the month of
Abib" frames the Passover command and marks a repetitive resumption within
the verse:
Frame (A): Observe the month of Abib
Passover Command: and offer a passover sacrifice to Yahweh your God,

76. Alternatively, "the new moon of Abib"; see n. 51.

TABLE 3-1 Textual sources for Deuteronomy's Passover legislation
Deut 16:1-4 Exod 23:15+18 Exod 13:3-10

(1) Observe the month of Abib (15) The Festival of Unleavened

and offer a passover sacrifice Bread shall you observe:
to Yahweh your God, seven days shall you eat
unleavened bread,
as I commanded you,
at the appointed time
for in the month of Abib in the month of Abib, (4) in the month of Abib
Yahweh your God for in it you (9) Yahweh [your God]a
led you out of Egypt, went out of Egypt. led you out of Egypt
at night.
None shall appear before
me empty-handed.
(3) You shall not eat anything (18) You shall not offer anything
leavened with it leavened with the blood of
my sacrifice;
Seven days shall you eat (6) Seven days shall you eat
unleavened bread with it— unleavened bread
bread of distress . . . and on the seventh
day — a Pilgrimage
Festival to Yahweh.
(4) No sourdough shall be (7) No sourdough shall be
seen with you in all your seen with you in all your
territory for seven days, territory,
nor shall any of nor shall any of
the flesh which the fat of my
you sacrificed Festival offering
on the evening of the
first day remain remain
until the morning. until the morning.

a. Septuagint plus.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 77

Frame (A'): for in the month ofAbib

Motive Clause: Yahweh your God led you out of Egypt
Adverbial Accusative: by night
The insertion of the Passover command into the frame, whose original focus
was Unleavened Bread, manifests the dexterity of the authors of Deuteronomy:
textual transformation is essential to their transformation of legal and cultic
history. By means of the repetitive resumption, they transform the original
Passover from a local domestic slaughter into a centralized cultic sacrifice. The
motive clause similarly applies to the Passover observance a lemma that origi-
nally belonged to the Unleavened Bread observance (see Exod 13:9; similarly,
23:15).
In order to reassign that lemma to their reconceived Passover, the authors
of Deuteronomy complete it with an adverbial accusative asserting that the
Exodus took place "by night." In the context of the motive clause, which
derives from Unleavened Bread, the nocturnal reference is inappropriate.77
Despite the assertion of the lemma, the dominant biblical tradition is that the
Exodus took place dramatically in broad daylight, the better to epater les
Egyptiens.78 The trope of "night" properly belongs to the Passover, whose dis-
tinctive doorway slaughter and blood rite both took place at sunset.79 The
adverb's strategic addition to the lemma signals the Deuteronomic authors'
exegetical legerdemain. It effects the transition from the lemma's original
focus—Unleavened Bread—to its reuse in their reformulation of the Passover.
This "night" motif is amplified and integrated more specifically into the Pass-
over regulations as the time of the paschal sacrifice in Deut 16:6.
Far more is involved than merely making a deft literary transition. At stake
is the complete transformation by the Deuteronomic author of the original

77. It is absent both in the Covenant Code (Exod 23:15-18) and in the proto-Deuteronomic
Unleavened Bread legislation (Exod 13:3-10).
78. "They set out from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month;
on the morrow of the passover offering the Israelites went out highhandedly in the sight of all
the Egyptians" (Num 33:3; P). This emphasis on the dramatic daylight departure for the Exo-
dus is consistent with the divine command in the instructions concerning the Passover that pro-
hibits the Israelites from exiting their domiciles until daybreak (Exod 12:22b; J). The biblical
traditions are inconsistent on this point, however. The narrative of Exod 12:30-31 (J), implies
that the departure occurs the very night of the Passover. The inconsistency most likely repre-
sents originally independent traditions or, perhaps, the contamination of one tradition (daylight
Exodus) by another (nocturnal Passover) in the context of their literary redaction. Loewenstamm,
Exodus Tradition, 222-25, convincingly isolates two distinct traditions: (1) that of the paschal
sacrifice by night, which requires a daytime departure (Exod 12:22b); and (2) that of the first-
born plague, which struck at midnight and which implies a departure as soon as possible there-
after that same night. Israel Knohl, "The Priestly Torah versus the Holiness School: Sabbath
and the Festivals," HUCA 58 (1987) 65-117, at 77-81, also demonstrates the weak connection
between the Exodus and the night motif. Once the tradition of the daytime departure became
the dominant one within the Bible, early Jewish exegesis revised Deut 16:1 to make the ex-
plicit night reference no longer apply to the Exodus but rather to the paschal sacrifice (so Tg.
Pseudo-Jonathan Deut 16:1 [ed. Clarke, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, 228]) or to the performance
of divine wonders (so Tg. Onqelos Deut 16:1); see also Loewenstamm, Exodus Tradition, 223.
79. Exod 12:22b, J; and Exod 12:6b, P.
78 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

signification of the Passover. Deut 16:1 asserts that the Passover commemo-
rates the Exodus.80 There is no evidence whatsoever for that assertion in
Deuteronomy's sources. The original cultic commemoration of the Exodus is
not the Passover but the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Passover properly com-
memorates the deliverance of the Israelites from the plague directed against
the first-born.81 Deuteronomy's contrary assertion—that the Passover com-
memorates the Exodus—is thus an innovation that lacks any direct basis in lit-
erary history. The transformation is not a natural traditio-historical develop-
ment but rather a creative solution to a hermeneutical problem. Their program
of cult centralization required the authors of Deuteronomy to abrogate the
doorway slaughter and blood apotropy originally essential to the paschal rite.
To do this, they transformed the noncultic slaughter into a normative sacrifice
at the Temple, where the blood would, as with all sacrifices, be poured against
the base of the altar (Deut 12:27b). That transformation, however, completely
drained Passover of its distinctive identity. The Deuteronomic assertion that
Passover commemorates the Exodus is therefore nearly an admission of de-
spair: how else to retain the Passover altogether but by giving it renewed
significance, however tendentiously predicated?
This reapplication of the Exodus material to Passover is also evident in
Deut 16:6. What was originally an adverbial phrase to specify the date of the
Festival of Unleavened Bread becomes recontextualized rather to specify the
hour of the performance of the Passover slaughter! In this recontextualization,
the term IBID "appointed time, sacred season," which conventionally refers
to significant dates within the lunar or solar calendar, becomes respecified
to denote the time of day. Whereas Exod 23:15 refers to the seven days of
Unleavened Bread as occurring "at the
appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you went forth from Egypt," Deut
16:6 stipulates that the Passover sacrifice should occur
"in the evening, at sundown, the time [of day] when you went forth
from Egypt." The night motif, added to the lemma in Deut 16:1, now so thor-
oughly controls the lemmatic reformulation that the paschal slaughter at
sunset—rather than, as the lemma contemplates, the seven-day eating of un-
leavened bread during Abib—commemorates the Exodus. Remarkably, in
Deuteronomy, the Passover proper—the deliverance from the tenth plague—
remains entirely without cultic commemoration!
The most striking addition to Deut 16:1, framed by the repetitive resump-
tion, is the application of Deuteronomy's technical language for sacrifice to
the Passover, originally a noncultic slaughter. Deuteronomy's addition to the
lemma—~ "You shall offer a paschal sacrifice to Yahweh,

80. On this memorial aspect of Deuteronomy's festival calendar, see Braulik, "Leidens-
gedachtnisfeier und Freudenfest," 95-121.
81. The difference between the two is made clear in the instructions to the Israelite father
on how to instruct his children concerning the significance of each observance (Exod 12:26-27;
13:8; both, proto-D). The Covenant Code's Unleavened Bread legislation (Exod 23:15) and the
narrative anchoring of Unleavened Bread in the story of the Exodus (Exod 12:33, 39) confirm
that the Exodus originally has its commemoration exclusively in the Unleavened Bread festival.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 79

your God" (Deut 16:la(3)—deliberately reverses cultic and legal history. The
verb involved does not merely exhort abstract observance; hence, it is mislead-
ing to render it simply as "keep the Passover" (RSV; similarly, NRSV).82 In-
stead, the verb represents Deuteronomy's technical term for cultic sacrifice at
the centralized altar (see Deut 12:27).83 Just that technical idiom interpolated
into the lemma by itself expresses in nuce the whole of Deuteronomy's funda-
mental transformation of the Passover. In rejecting the earlier idiom of local,
paschal slaughter "Slaughter the passover offering" [Exod 12:21,
JE]) for the terminology of cultic sacrifice, Deuteronomy forcibly assimilates
the Passover to the normative sacrificial protocol.
Deuteronomy will tolerate no cultic ritual but at the Temple, as the con-
tinuation and expansion of this clause in Deut 16:2 makes clear: nos nran
"You shall sacrifice the
passover offering for Yahweh your God, sheep and cattle, in the place where
Yahweh your God shall choose to make his name dwell." The Passover—an
anomaly in terms of Deuteronomy's creation of the local sphere as the realm
of the secular and its restriction of cultic activity to the central Temple—is here
relocated in its phenomenology from the private to the central sphere. The
Passover is no longer a slaughter in the doorway of the individual family's home,
and the apotropaic daubing of blood is excised from the rite. Extraordinarily,
the Passover becomes a festival pilgrimage to the central Temple in order to
perform a routine cultic sacrifice. The normative objects of sacrifice, both small
and large cattle, are to be sacrificed upon an altar; the blood will be spilled on
the base of the altar, according to protocol (Deut 12:27); and the parts of the
animal to be eaten are, as normal, boiled (Deut 16:7), rather than roasted (in-
consistent with the older norm retained by Exod 12:8-9, P).
The appropriation of the paschal slaughter into the centralized sacrificial
system thus involves an extensive series of normalizations: (1) of the slaugh-
tered animal, from formerly just sheep to both sheep and cattle; (2) the aboli-
tion of blood apotropy—Deuteronomy 16 avoids even mentioning blood; (3)
the shift from roasting to cultically routine boiling as the means for the prepa-
ration of the offering; (4) and, preeminently, the prohibition of precisely the
local, domestic context for the ritual (Deut 16:2b, 5-6a) that formerly distin-
guished the Passover.84 The Festival of Unleavened Bread becomes equally
transformed. It retains its local focus but loses its distinctive identity as a pil-
grimage to a local altar. In fact, the Passover pilgrims are now commanded to

82. Contra Morrow, "Deut 14:1—17:1," 126, 215, who considers that the idiom involves
"holding" the Passover festival. Mayes, Deuteronomy, 258, follows the RSV in its rendering.
83. See chapter 2, n. 31 for the verb's use in the other literary sources of the Bible and for
the similar sacrificial uses of its cognate in Akkadian.
84. For a different compositional analysis, see Morrow, "Deut 14:1-17:1," 231-32.
Morrow's methodology of structural linguistics explicitly subordinates textual content to the
meticulous mapping of syntactical form (p. 23). Such a move takes the text largely as a given
and as essentially cohesive. By removing matters of content from consideration, this approach
a priori precludes recognizing the programmatic aspects of a text: of authors seeking, through
their literary composition, to effect changes in religion or society.
80 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

return home from their pilgrimage to observe the prescription to eat unleav-
ened bread for a seven-day period. Unleavened Bread is thereby completely
shorn of its original identity as a pilgrimage festival.
The changes demonstrated here in the festival calendar are consistent in
their structure with the transformation of sacrifice (Deut 12:1-28). The delib-
erate assimilation of the originally domestic paschal slaughter to the central
sanctuary conforms to Deuteronomy's transfer of sacrifice from the local to
the central sphere. In both cases, textual reworking becomes the means to over-
come and coopt a fundamental challenge to the innovative program of the
Deuteronomic authors. The structural parallel goes further. The authors of
Deuteronomy 12 paradoxically retain and transform what they proscribe: local
sacrifice, albeit now secularized as a local slaughter and completely detached
from the cultus and from the altar (Deut 12:15-16, 20-25). Analogously, in
the case of the festival legislation, the Deuteronomic authors retain Unleav-
ened Bread as a local observance but shear its original nexus with the now pro-
scribed local sanctuary. What remains then is the public assembly and the eat-
ing of unleavened cakes, now detached from any explicit connection to the
cultus. The local realm is thereby not made into a religiohistorical or a textual
void; it is given new content and integrity.
This analysis of how both observances are so profoundly transformed
sheds new light on the reason why the authors of Deuteronomy do not em-
ploy the term 3n "pilgrimage festival" to refer either to Passover or to Un-
leavened Bread in Deut 16:1-8. That omission is striking because the term is
correctly applied, as expected, to both Weeks (Deut 16:10) and Booths (Deut
16:13), and to the traditional three, including Unleavened Bread, in the colo-
phon (Deut 16:16). Most likely, the nonuse is studied and deliberate. The
Deuteronomic authors withhold this designation not simply because of ritual
difference85 but because their transformations are completely without prece-
dent. They are consciously departing from literary convention. It is there-
fore entirely proper that the authors of Deut 16:1-8 refrain from designating
as a jn "pilgrimage festival" either Unleavened Bread (which no longer in-
volves a pilgrimage to a sanctuary) or Passover (which, despite its origins,
they have transformed into a pilgrimage in all but name).86 To invoke the

85. Contra Nicolsky, "Pascha," 182-83; and Braulik, "Leidensgedachtnisfeier und

Freudenfest," 101.
86. The term "pilgrimage festival," pointedly missing from the Hebrew of Deut 16:1—8,
is restored by the Samaritan version, arguably as a harmonization with Exod 13:6b, the very
text that the authors of Deuteronomy were constrained to revise. Conversely, both the Samari-
tan and the Septuagint harmonize the numerical scheme of Exod 13:6 to make it conform to
that of Deut 16:8 ("six days shall you eat unleavened cakes and on the seventh . . ."). This read-
ing in the LXX and the Samaritan Pentateuch of Exod 13:6 therefore does not represent a more
original text than the MT; contra B. N. Wambacq, "Les Massot," Bib 61 (1980) 31-54, at 46.
Instead, it is simply an example of the versions' attempt to eliminate inconsistencies between
parallel texts. There is no evidence to support the reconstruction of MT Deut 16:8 by Peter Laaf,
Die Pascha-Feier Israels: Eine literarkritische und uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Sludie (BBB
36; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1970) 79. He makes up his own eccentric idiom, for which there is
neither biblical attestation nor support from the textual witnesses.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 81

conventional reference to the pilgrimage festival at this point would only call
attention to the paschal lamb's new clothes.
The innovation of centralization represents the driving force that accounts
for the problematic structures evident in both the centralization law of
Deuteronomy 12 and the cultic calendar of Deut 16:1-8. Deuteronomy's
transformation of the Passover renders illegitimate what formerly was required:
You must not sacrifice the Passover offering
in any of your city-gates" (Deut 16:5). In the antithesis, the authors of
Deuteronomy assert as exclusively legitimate that which is both religiously and
textually unprecedented:
"but rather at the place where Yahweh shall cause his name to
dwell, there shall you sacrifice the passover offering, in the evening" (Deut
16:6; similarly, 12:18, 5, 14). The analogy with the prohibition of the local
consumption ofsancta in the case of Deuteronomy's centralization law is strik-
ing. In both cases the prohibition You must not" signals the Deute-
ronomic authors' ruling against current or anticipated practice while simulta-
neously, if covertly, rejecting the authority of their textual patrimony.87 The
similar prohibition in Deut 12:17 does not simply prohibit the cultic activity
that, pre-Deuteronomically, would have taken place at the local altars. It also
directs itself against the pre-Deuteronomic laws that require local sacrifice and
the local offering of tithes, firstfruits, and firstlings88—and forbids them. Both
laws prohibit obedience to prior religious law. Here the authors of Deuteronomy
do not merely abrogate the prior dispensation that enshrines cultic activity at
the local altars. They polemically engage it. They avoid identifying it as previ-
ously normative and instead stigmatize it as anathema, as contrary to the divine
revelation that Moses now mediates. Horeb, as reiterated at Moab, subverts
Sinai.

When Texts Collide: The Hermeneutics of

Prepositional Reduplication
Scholars have long identified aporia of grammar, syntax, and meaning in Deute-
ronomy's blend of Passover and Unleavened Bread (Deut 16:1-8). There have
been many attempts to account for these difficulties, which have, for the most
part, not been successful. They include claims that errors in the transmission of
the text caused dittography or that words are used in this text with meanings else-
where unattested for them. These philological problems are better explained as
a by-product of the deliberate redactional composition of the festival calendar.
As the Deuteronomic authors transform Passover into a normative sacrifice, their

87. Whether this formula consistently in Deuteronomy signals a polemic, direct or indi-
rect, warrants further investigation. Unconvincing, for example, is the suggestion by David Daube
that the formula's use in the law of the king (Deut 17:15) represents a direct textual allusion to
the story of Abimelech's kingship in Judges 9 ('"One from among Your Brethren Shall I Set
King over "You,"' JBL90 [1971] 480—81). There are insufficient linguistic ties between the texts
involved to support his proposal.
88. Exod 20:24; 22:27-29; 23:19.
82 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

technique for doing so involves the recontextualization of originally unrelated

lemmas into a new text. As a result, the now centralized Passover is forcibly
adjoined to the new Festival of Unleavened Bread, which itself is transformed
so as no longer to involve a pilgrimage. The forced conjunction of the two
is preeminently a textual reformulation born of hermeneutical necessity.
The degree of transformation of the lemmas concerned with each obser-
vance accounts for the structural and philological difficulties long identified
but hitherto not resolved. The authors' redactional work creates textual "fault
lines" where originally unrelated lemmas abut. Deut 16:3a represents one such
critical textual seam. Both its a and P portions raise complex syntactic and
literary-critical issues.
Deut 16:3aa is conventionally understood as a regu-
lation that "concerns the passover sacrifice at night."89 The new Jewish Publi-
cation Society Version embeds this exegesis in its translation: "You shall not
eat anything leavened with it."90 Such translations presuppose that, as object
of the preposition, the word "it refers to the sacrificial animal."91 Neither the
translation of the verse nor the claim that the preposition refers back to the pas-
chal offering in the previous verse (Deut 16:2) is tenable:
[2]
[3]
(2) You shall sacrifice the passover offering for Yahweh your God,
from the flock or the herd, in the place where Yahweh shall choose
to establish his name.
(3) You shall not eat anything leavened upon/with it.. .
Contextually, the pronominal suffix on the preposition, T^y "upon it"
(v. 3), must have the noa "paschal offering" of v. 2 for its antecedent. That
antecedent in turn, however, points to the lack of logic in the placement of the
prohibition in v. 3aa. After all, v. 2, with its centralization formula, prescribes
only the proper location for the paschal sacrifice; the proper ritual preparation
of the sacrifice is not addressed. The intrusive force of the prohibition against
eating an offering (so v. 3aa)—the instructions concerning the cooking of which
have yet to be given—becomes clear by contrasting it with the more logical
sequence that follows in vv. 5—la.
[5]
[6]

[7]
(5) You must not sacrifice the passover offering in any of your city-
gates which Yahweh your God is giving you;

89. So Rofe, Deuteronomy, 39 (my translation).

90. Tanakh: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures according to the Traditional Hebrew
Text (Philadelphia: JPS, 1988) 300.
91. Mayes, Deuteronomy, 259 (emphasis in the original).
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 83

(6) but rather, at the place where Yahweh your God shall choose to
establish his name, there shall you sacrifice the passover offering in the
evening, at sundown, at the time of day that you came forth from Egypt.
(7) You shall cook and eat it in the place which Yahweh your God
shall choose . ..
Verse 5 provides the negative formulation and, arguably, the logical con-
tinuation of v. 2, while v. 6a restates the centralization formula, which speci-
fies the proper location of sacrifice. From this specification, v. 6b logically
follows, prescribing the proper time for the sacrifice, as does v. 7a, stipulating
the proper method of its preparation. In contrast, however, to the logical
sequence of vv. 5-7a, the conjunction of vv. 2 + 3aa is illogical. It proscribes
eating leavened bread r"w "with it"—with the as yet uncooked paschal sacrifice!
Not only does v. 16:3aa fail to make contextual sense but its proper literary-
historical derivation is also problematic. A. D. H. Mayes has argued, "This is
a Passover regulation; it refers to the Passover sacrificial animal. Leaven was
not permitted with the Passover sacrifice." He adduces as sole support for his
argument Exod 23:18 and 34:25, two texts that have no original connection to
the Passover.92 The first of these texts derives rather from the Covenant Code's
coda of rules that apply to the pilgrimage festival sacrifices.93 The second, as I
have already argued, is Deuteronomistic: it represents a post-Deuteronomic
revision of Exod 23:18 in light of Deuteronomy's festival calendar—the very
passage in question. Mayes's argument is thus circular. He has read Exod 23:18
as if it meant the same thing as Exod 34:25—and thus missed the literary-
historical distance between the two passages.
Another possible explanation for Deut 16:3aa, which prohibits the con-
sumption of leaven with the paschal offering, is that it represents a negative
formulation of the Priestly stipulation that the lamb be consumed with unleav-
ened cakes and bitter herbs. Indeed, even the use of the preposition ^s to indi-
cate accompaniment and the verbal root are common to both contexts: msni
"[with] unleavened cakes and with bitter herbs they shall eat
it" (Exod 12:8; cf. Num 9:11).94 This approach is also problematic. With rare

92. Mayes, Deuteronomy, 258, who bases his analysis upon Halbe, "Passa-Massot im
deuteronomischen Festkalender," 150, 153.
93. Contra Haran, Temples, 327--31, who, although not explicitly, follows the harmoni-
zation of Targum Onqelos Exod 23:18 and reads the Passover specification of Exod 34:25 back
into Exod 23:18. In other words, he subordinates the pre-Deuteronomic source to its later,
Deuteronomistic reformulation. For the original meaning of Exod 23:18 as a general festival
prescription, see Dillmann, Exodus, 279.
94. Neither the grammar nor the syntax of Exod 12:8 is straightforward. Traditional Rab-
binic exegesis, disregarding the (disjunctive accent) under "this night," con-
strues the verse as "They shall eat the meat during this night roasted by fire and [with] unleav-
ened cakes; with bitter herbs they shall eat it." Nachmanides renders it, "They shall eat the meat
during this night roasted by fire; they shall eat it [with] unleavened cakes and bitter herbs." See
Nachmanides (Ramban), Commentary on the Torah (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Rav Kook Institute,
1975-76) 1.228 (Hebrew). On the range of traditional renderings, note H. M. Orlinsky, Notes
on the New Translation of the Torah (Philadelphia: JPS, 1970) 164-65.
84 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

exception, even the minority of scholars who date P prior to or contemporary

with D usually do not assert direct literary influence between the two sources.95
Second, there remains the problem of the logic of the text's organization. In
the context of the P prescriptions for the Passover (Exod 12:1-13), the stipula-
tion to consume the offering together with unleavened cakes and bitter herbs
logically follows the references to the offering's being slaughtered, cooked,
and eaten (Exod 12:6-8a). Precisely that logical coherence of textual sequence
is absent in Deut 16:l-3aa. Hence, the attempt to derive Deut 16:3aa from
Passover legislation founders because no such stipulation can be cited in a
Passover context and because the derivation fails to explain the textual disorder.
Not less contextually incoherent than the first rta is the second in v. 3.96
Like the first, the preposition in the phrase under discussion—^:
"seven days shall you eat unleavened cakes with it"—grammatically
requires the paschal offering of v. 2 as the antecedent for its pronominal suf-
fix. That grammatical antecedent, however, would require the law's addressee
to eat unleavened bread for seven days v^>s "with it"—with the passover offering
which, according to v. 4b, must not be retained beyond the morning following
the evening slaughter (similarly, Exod 12:8; Num 9:12). To observe Unleav-
ened Bread would thereby require abrogation of the Passover law. Such a com-
mand makes no sense.97
Various attempts have been made to resolve this illogic both of grammar
and ritual law. None have been successful. For example, a synchronic attempt

In fact, Exod 12:8b is a casus pendens with a double adverbial accusative, the first of which
is "roasted by fire," the second of which is the phrase i "[with] unleavened
cakes and with bitter herbs," both of which accusatives are governed by the verb in final posi-
tion ' "they shall eat it." Adverbial accusative clauses such as this normally (1) are anarthrous
(lack the definite article) and (2) occur in inverted word order; see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syn-
tax: An Outline (2d ed.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976) 14 (§ 60), 81-82 (§ 491).
The verse as a whole is thus most accurately translated: "They shall eat the flesh that same night,
eating it roasted, with unleavened cakes and bitter herbs"; so Childs, Exodus, 179. The prepo-
sition *w in context thus marks accompaniment ("with" or "and"). For this usage, with a cita-
tion to this passage, see Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 52 (§ 293).
The syntactical ambiguities of Exod 12:8b are removed in the citation which occurs in the
exegetical context of the second Passover in Num 9:11: (note the cross-
reference in Num 9:3). The adverbial accusative is broken and a prepositional phrase substi-
tuted; the waw, rather than marking the second object, becomes a simple copula. For the ex-
egetical nature of Num 9:6-14, see Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 99. The linguistic analysis
here confirms his argument that Num 9:6-14 must represent a later stratum within P.
95. See Sara Japhet, "The Relationship between the Legal Corpora in the Pentateuch in
Light of Manumission Laws," Studies in Bible, 1986 (ed. Sara Japhet; ScrHier 31; Jerusalem:
Magnes, 1986) 68-78. Her own important article rejects that view of the nonrelation of the
sources. Nonetheless, I disagree with her conclusion that the manumission law of Lev 25:39^6
presupposes that of Deut 15:12-18. See also Levinson, Hermeneutics of Innovation, 90-106,
113-14. For an analysis of Jacob Milgrom's argument that D cites P, see chapter 2, n. 46.
96. See Halbe, "Passa-Massot," 150 n. 14; and Cholewiiiski, Heiligkeitsgesetz undDeute-
ronomium, 182-83 (n. 19), 187, for the many previous attempts to explain the preposition.
97. Morrow, "Deut 14:1-17:1," 128, 218, defends this reading but provides no clear ac-
count of what the phrase means, given its antecedent in v. 2.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 85

is implicit in the translation of the new Jewish Publication Society Version,

which renders the problematic prepositional phrase, "for seven days there-
after" and thus severs the connection between this rule and that concerning the
paschal offering.98 Such a ruse of translation is untenable; it lacks any justifi-
cation in lexicography." The temporal signification it assigns the preposition
is not defended in the accompanying footnote, which concedes, "Lit. 'upon
it.'" That the identical preposition in two adjacent phrases should have such
starkly inconsistent translations—in the first case, "with it"; in the second,
"thereafter"—is intrinsically problematic. No more effective are text-critical
solutions: the textual witnesses attest the prepositional phrase. The failure of a
harmonizing, synchronic solution and the lack of justification for a text-critical
emendation suggest that a diachronic interpretation is called for.
Although they are contiguous, the two clauses (vv. 3aa + (3) do not consti-
tute a coherent text. Their contiguity is rather by means of the forced appro-
priation of texts. Deut 16:3a(3, which refers to the Festival of Unleavened Bread,
bears no original relationship to the immediately preceding clause (v. 3aa),
which is concerned rather with the Passover ritual. Deut 16:3ap~4a are widely
regarded as an original Unleavened Bread unit, into which a Passover unit
consisting of Deut 16:3aa + 4b was interpolated.100 This analysis of the text is
strengthened by the recognition that the contextually disruptive section con-
cerned with the Festival of Unleavened Bread, vv. 3ap-4a, both begins and
closes with the adverbial accusative phrase "seven days." The rep-
etition frames the insertion and marks the problematic text as a repetitive re-
sumption. This insertion is not diachronically "secondary"; rather, the text is
itself an original redactional composition that uses prior lemmas in the process
of its formulation.
Once the preceding analysis is recognized as accounting for the problem-
atic structure of the verse, the literary history and the exegetical reworking of
each half can separately be traced. Prior to the interpolation of the Unleavened
Bread unit, vv. 3aa + 4b were continuous. With this observation, the original
context in literary history for the difficult 3act can be recovered:
[3aa]
[4b]
(3aa) You must not eat anything leavened with it;
(4b) None of the flesh which you sacrifice on the evening of the first
day shall be allowed to remain until morning.

98. Tanakh, 300.

99. Such a rendering for the preposition is absent in S. R. Driver's detailed analysis in
BOB, 752-759, s.v. Nor does it find any support in Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 51-52 (§ 285-96)
or, most recently, in Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew
Syntax (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990) 216-18.
100. So Halbe, "Passa-Massot," 150-54; and Mayes, Deuteronomy, 254-55, 258. Note the
structural analysis of Otto, "pasah/paesah," 674-75. Disputing the chronological priority of the
Unleavened Bread unit is Cholewinski, Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium, 181.
86 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Although in its present context v. 3aa deals with Passover, such a deriva-
tion is impossible in terms of its lemmatic history. Similarly, however, it is
impossible to derive Deut 16:4b from Passover stipulations. Despite the temp-
tation of an analogy with the priestly regulation "You
shall not leave any of it over until morning" (Exod 12:10, cf. Num 9:12), it is
unclear why v. 4b should include a temporal specification ( "which
you sacrifice on the evening"), when the stipulation about how and the time
when to perform the sacrifice in the first place is not positively formulated until
v. 6a|3,b-7.
Neither of the two clauses in question can logically derive from Passover
legislation. Instead, Deuteronomy's regulation for the Passover observance
(Deut 16:3aa + 4b) paradoxically derives from the laws for pilgrimage festi-
val sacrifices found in the Covenant Code (Exod 23:18b).101 Given Deute-
ronomy's drive to centralize the Passover and transform it into a pilgrimage
festival in all but name, such a lemmatic origin makes sense, even as it stands
prior law on its head. The verse in question from the Covenant Code accounts
for many features of Deuteronomy' s Passover regulation: the sequence of two
negatives joined by a copula ( ), the formulation involving an initial
second person singular verb resumed by third person singular, and even the
specific verb used by the prohibition, "let there not remain until the morrow":
Deut 16:3act + 4b Exod 23:18

You shall not eat anything leavened You shall not offer anything leavened
with it with the blood of my sacrifice
Nor shall any of the flesh which Nor shall the fat of my pilgrimage
you sacrifice on the evening of the festival offering
first day
be allowed to remain to morning. be allowed to remain until morning.

The authors of Deuteronomy respecify the coda to the Covenant Code,

concerned with regulations for the festival sacrifices, so that it now governs
the originally local paschal slaughter.102 This hypothesis that the verse was
originally concerned to prohibit leaven in the context of festival sacrifices, not
in the context of the Passover, avoids the present incoherence of the text, which
prohibits the consumption of the just slaughtered but not yet cooked paschal

101. S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy (ICC; 3d ed.; Edinburgh:!. & T. Clark, 1901) 192 places
the texts parallel but does not analyze the exegetical reformulation.
102. Contra Morrow, "Deut 14:1-17:1," 228. Here there arc two problems. First, he char-
acterizes both Exod 23:18 and 34:25 as Passover regulations. He thereby reads Exod 34:25 back
deiterpmp,ostoc/
into 23:18, although they are independent and the former is deuteronomistic. .
seecondm morrow
notes the differences between the texts but does not consider the possibility of the tendentious
reworking of a source text as one form of textual relationship. His method, a descriptive struc-
tural linguistics that sees relation in terms of cohesion or similarity, rules it out.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 87

offering.103 The hypothesis raises, however, a further issue. The verb of the
original prohibition concerns not the eating of leaven but rather the sacrifice
of a festival offering with leaven. Although the lemma specifies
"You shall not sacrifice with," the reformulated text in Deuteronomy specifies
"You shall not eat with." How may this shift be understood? It seems
most likely that the original verb was changed in order to effect the transition
from the frame of the repetitive resumption, concerned with Passover (Deut
16:3aa + 4b), to the insertion (Deut 16:3afS-4a), concerned rather with the Fes-
tival of Unleavened Bread. The verbal substitution facilitated the integration
of the two units.
As a result of the change, the sacrificial rule of the lemma is assimilated to
the eating motif of the interpolation. The editor creates a lexical analogy be-
tween the leaven upon which the Passover offering is not to be sacrificed and
the leaven that the community is prohibited from eating during Unleavened
Bread.104 The forced assimilation of the two prescriptions expresses itself in
the redundancy of the verse: "You
shall not eat with it anything leavened; seven days shall you eat with it unleav-
ened cakes" (Deut 16:3a). The pleonasm of the preposition is thus not a me-
chanical error resulting from dittography.105 Instead, it derives from the forced
combination of two originally independent regulations.
The repetitive resumption establishes that the original continuation of
16:3aa is v. 4b. This permits the restoration of the lemma's original verb,
"You shall sacrifice," on analogy with Exod 23:18a. That missing verb, first
observed in v. 2a, reappears in the continuation: "the flesh
which you sacrifice in the evening" (Deut 16:4b). That regulation applies to
the paschal offering a rule whose literary-historical origin is rather the general
pilgrimage festival regulations of Exod 23:18b.
This raises an interesting question of cultic history. I have earlier noted
that the earliest (J) regulations concerned with Passover do not specify that it
was eaten: they mention neither the consumption of the paschal slaughter nor
the requirement that it be consumed before morning (Exod 12:21-23).106 They
stipulate only that, following the rite of blood apotropy, no one leave the
domicile "until the morning" (Exod 12:22). In contrast, the post-
Deuteronomic regulations for the Passover not only stipulate the blood apotropy
but also specify that the paschal lamb should be eaten by night and not be al-
lowed to remain "until the morning" (Exod 12:8, 10; P). It is therefore

103. The prohibition of leaven in the cultus extended to all cereal offerings (Lev 2:11;
6:10) except for the thanksgiving offering (Lev 7:13) and the loaves for the priests (Lev 23:17);
see Cassuto, Exodus, 304.
104. This maneuver is loosely comparable to the formalized Rabbinic exegetical tech-
nique of interpreting a problematic word in light of its usage in another context (gezerah shavah).
On that technique see Saul J. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (2d ed.; New York:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962) 58-62; and Menahem Elon, Jewish Law: His-
tory, Sources, Principles (4 vols.; Philadelphia: JPS, 1994) 1.351-55.
105. Contra Halbe, "Passa-Massot," 150.
106. Seep. 61.
88 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

possible that Deuteronomy, which stands between these two literary sources,107
is responsible for the transformation of the Passover from strictly a rite of blood
apotropy, in which the lamb was not eaten, into a communal meal.
In its second appearance in v. 3, the problematic prepositional phrase—
"upon it"—must be recognized as having no original role in the legisla-
tion concerning the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Rather it arises, either inten-
tionally or from contamination by the first half of the verse, as part of the
combination by the Deuteronomic author of the originally separate rituals con-
cerning Passover and Unleavened Bread. In this passage, the Deuteronomic
author appropriates key lemmas from the proto-Deuteronomic legislation con-
cerning Unleavened Bread:
Deut_16:3ap-4a Exod 13:6-7

Seven days shall you eat Seven days shall you eat
unleavened cakes upon it, unleavened cakes;
the bread of affliction and on the seventh day there shall be a
—for you departed from the pilgrimage festival for Yahweh.
land of Egypt in haste . . . Unleavened cakes shall be eaten for
the seven days;
No leavened bread shall be seen
with you,
Nor shall sourdough be seen nor shall sourdough be seen
with you in all your territory with you in all your territory.
for seven days.

107. The date of the Priestly source in relation to Deuteronomy (and P's relation to the
Holiness Code) remains in dispute. I follow the consensus that considers P and H, in their present
redaction, to follow Deuteronomy. A number of scholars, however, especially those following
Yehezkel Kaufmann, maintain that P precedes Deuteronomy and, independently of it, presupposes
centralization. Among those dating P before Deuteronomy are Haran, Temples, 132-48; Avi
Hurvitz, A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book ofEzekiel
(CahRB 20; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1982; Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1987) 161-216; and Milgrom, Leviticus, 13-35. Note the review of
Milgrom's work by Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, "Ancient Israelite Cult in History, Tradition, and
Interpretation," AJS Review 19 (1994) 213-36. Israel Knohl proposes a multilayered approach
(The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School [Minneapolis; Fortress,
1995] 199-226. He argues that preexilic priestly material, dating from the time of Solomon's
Temple, underwent a process of later redaction by the authors of the Holiness Code, whose latest
layers date to the beginning of the Persian period. While I accept his arguments for the priority of
P to H, the Solomonic dating of P is unconvincing. Knohl's argument seems to represent a com-
promise position between Yehezkel Kaufmann's preexilic and Wellhausen's postexilic dating of
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 89

Deuteronomy's reuse of the lemma is highly selective: deliberately so.

The authors retain only the dietary requirement that can be observed inde-
pendent of the local altar and delete the pilgrimage that requires that altar.
The force of the reworking is completely to transform Unleavened Bread from
a pilgrimage festival (sn) into a local observance completely removed from
the sanctuary and distinguished only by its flat diet. It therefore becomes
inevitable that the concluding day of the nonfestival can only be marked
bloodlessly. Thus in contrast to the lemma "and on the
seventh day there shall be a pilgrimage festivall for Yahweh" (Exod 13:6b),
Deut 16:8 can require only "and
on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly for Yahweh your God;
you shall do no work."108
In the end, there is no simple blend of Passover and Unleavened Bread in
Deuteronomy's festival calendar. It is not a matter of the two observances' being
sutured together or of one being interpolated into the other, as if each were
otherwise retained intact. To the contrary, the authors of Deuteronomy already
radically transform each of the two in the act of bringing them into conjunc-
tion. Both Passover and Unleavened Bread emerge newly conceived. Passover
becomes a pilgrimage sacrifice in all but name, while Unleavened Bread has
the pilgrimage element entirely deleted from it. So forcibly does the new Pass-
over usurp that original identity of Unleavened Bread that the pilgrim who
paradoxically goes to the Temple for the Passover offering g must immediately
make a pilgrimage away from the sanctuary in order to return home to celebrate
Unleavened Bread: "And in the morning you shall turn
back and go to your tents" (Deut 16:7b).109The hapless pilgrim's double move-
ment marks the Deuteronomic authors' double reworking of the cultic obser-
vances involved.

the priestly material. Knohl's historical arguments would be strengthened by an analysis that di
rectly addressed the important matter of the relation of P and H to Deuteronomy.
108. The coherence and inevitability of Deut 16:8 call into question Cholewinski's claim
that the verse represents a third stratum within the unit (Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium,
184-86). On the replacement of the key term in Deut 16:8, see Caloz, "Exode XIII, 3-16," 57.
The argument here would also rule out attempts to view Deut 16:8 as a priestly or even later
post-priestly interpolation; see, most recently, Veijola, "History of Passover," 66-72. For
a detailed critique, see Gertz, "Die Passa-Massot-Ordnung im deuteronomischen Festkalender,"
56-80. More broadly on the importance of septads for the redaction of this calendar and
the legal corpus, see Georg Braulik, "Die Funktion von Siebenergruppierungen im Endtext
des Deuteronomiums," in Ein Golt—eine Offenbarung: Festschrift Notker Fuglister (ed.
Friedrich V. Reiterer; Wurzburg: Echter, 1991) 37-50; and Otto, "Saeba'/Sabu'dt," 1017-22
(with literature).
109. A. B. Ehrlich, Mikra ki-Pheschuto (3 vols.; Berlin: M. Poppelauer, 1899-1901; re-
printed, New York: Ktav, 1969) 1.338 (Hebrew), defends the clear sense of the text against the
postbiblical halakhah, which prohibits travel on festivals and holy days. Nonetheless, he then
inconsistently reinstates the halakhic norm of the Mishnah and Tosephta, maintaining that the
only travel contemplated here is within Jerusalem, to the pilgrims' temporary tents, not back to
their homes in the outlying cities.
90 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

The Transformation of Law and Religion in Deut 16:16-17

Deuteronomy's festival calendar, Deut 16:1-17, concludes with two verses,
the first of which summarizes the three pilgrimage festivals and the second of
which is a general exhortation to cultic generosity. Deut 16:16 chiastically cites
Exod 23:15-17, consistent with Seidel's law, and, by means of the interpola-
tion of the centralization formula, completely transforms that lemma in light
of Deuteronomy's distinctive ideology.

Exod 23:15-17
15]
A
[16] B
[17] C

(15) You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread . ..

A and none shall appear before me empty-handed',
B (16) And the Festival of Harvest. .. and the Festival of Ingathering
C (17) Three times a year shall all your males
appear before the Lord Yahweh

peutJ6^16-17
[16] C'
+X
B'
A'
17]
C' (16) Three times a year shall all your males
appear before Yahweh your God
+X in the place that he shall choose'.
B on the Festival of Unleavened Bread, on the Festival of
Weeks, and on the Festival of Booths.
A' None shall appear before Yahweh empty-handed;
(17) each man [shall give], as he is able, according to the
blessing that Yahweh your God has bestowed upon you.

The authors of Deuteronomy revise the formula from the Covenant Code
that mandates the appearance of the male Israelite at the originally local sanc-
tuary (C) by interpolating the centralization formula: C'+X. With that interpo-
lation, the Israelite is now required exclusively to make his cultic appearance
before Yawheh at the central sanctuary; all festival pilgrimages (to the local
sanctuary) thereby become Temple pilgrimages. That transformation abrogates
the norm of older law while seeming to be only a restatement of it. The trans-
formation involved has far-reaching consequences. In the Covenant Code, the
command to appear thrice yearly before Yahweh was a distributive command;
it could be fulfilled at any of the multiple altars or sanctuaries throughout Judah
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 91

and Israel. Each male would observe it at the nearest sanctuary; many such
observances would therefore take place simultaneously, with Unleavened Bread
celebrated at every local altar by the clans in the adjacent area. Very likely,
given variations in climate and growing season throughout the land and the
fact that the festival observances were not calendrically fixed, the same obser-
vance would even have taken place at different times at different sanctuaries.
The authors of Deuteronomy reject all this. They introduce uniformity and
systematization where they did not previously exist. They abrogate the origi-
nal intimate connection between the formula to appear before Yahweh and the
multiple local sanctuaries that were its home. Compliance with that command
now requires an unprecedented pilgrimage to the central sanctuary. There is
no cultic access to Yahweh, the authors of Deuteronomy insist, but at the cen-
tral sanctuary. That transformation asserts hegemony by the national and pub-
lic cult over the local cult. The restriction of site (and of sight) creates a reli-
gious monopoly that involves power and exclusivity. The very assertion that
there is no cultus but the Jerusalem Temple cultus implies that there is no valid
religious law but the law of Deuteronomy.
The Israelite would originally have observed the festivals at the local sanc-
tuary, which would have been part of his community and where he would have
been known. Deuteronomy's command to undertake a pilgrimage to the cen-
tral sanctuary to observe these festivals had to involve immense social displace-
ment; not only would the new site have been unfamiliar, but the celebrant would
himself be unknown in the Temple precincts. He would be surrounded by others
alien to him, themselves feeling equally alien. The new command, therefore,
would contribute to a breakdown of the local cultus and to a decrease in the
dominance of the clan networks in conventional religious life. Deuteronomy
replaces these with a corporate religion. The citizenry becomes constituted as
a national religious polity as it now begins to celebrate the festivals at a single
time, at a single place, and as a single body.
A different issue arises as the authors of Deuteronomy also attempt to solve
a problem regarding the original celebration of Unleavened Bread. In Deut
16:16, the introductory positive injunction of "shall appear" is framed by
the concluding negative "shall not appear." Originally, however, the
latter prohibition against appearing before Yahweh empty-handed was specific
to Unleavened Bread (in the lemma, A). The authors of Deuteronomy void its
original specificity to make it a general coda applying to all three festivals
(A').no There is a reason that it is no longer necessary in its original context.
In the Covenant Code, that admonition was necessary because of a prob-
lem associated with observing the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Although
pilgrimage to the sanctuary required an offering, the early date of the obser-
vance within the agricultural season precluded having produce ripe enough to
be presented on the altar. Despite the older opinion that understood Unleav-
ened Bread to mark the beginning of the barley harvest, the month of Abib

110. This change of application, although not the more detailed chiastic citation, was also
observed by Morgan, Cultic Calendars in the Pentateuch, 150.
92 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

was too early for a harvest festival. Neither barley nor wheat would be suffi-
ciently mature to permit flour to be made from them, which might in turn be
used to bake unleavened cakes.''' Later in the season, produce would be avail-
able as an offering, and thus no such prohibition against appearing empty-
handed accompanies the injunctions to observe the Festivals of Harvest and
Ingathering: both are followed by clauses relating the observance to the progress
of the agricultural year (Exod 23:16). Of necessity, then, in the case of Un-
leavened Bread, the legislator could only lamely require that the celebrant not
appear before God empty-handed; he could not suggest what produce the cele-
brant might offer.
That problem is redactionally solved in the context of Deuteronomy's fes-
tival calendar. The Unleavened Bread festival of Deut 16:16 contextually can
only mean that union of Passover and Unleavened Bread prescribed in Deut
16:1-8. As such, there is now no doubt about what to bring:
"You shall sacrifice the passover offering to Yahweh your God,
sheep and cattle" (Deut 16:2). The paschal offering, now reworked into a nor-
mative sacrifice, fills the void and becomes the Unleavened Bread offering.
The sheep and cattle in question may well be specifically the firstlings of
each (Deut 15:19-23), as suggested by the legislation that immediately pre-
cedes the festival calendar. Deuteronomy 15 represents aredactional associa-
tion of two originally separate types of legislation, each of which was concerned
with the seventh year: the law of the year of release (Deut 15:1-11) and the
law concerning manumission of slaves (Deut 15:12-18). In the context of that
assemblage of units with a common septennial cycle (Deut 15:1, 12), to add a
unit that mandates the annual presentation of firstlings of cattle and sheep to
Yahweh at the central sanctuary is disruptive (Deut 15:19-23). The most logi-
cal reason for its placement is that it serves as a redactional gloss upon the fes-
tival calendar that immediately follows. Firstlings, the redactor implies, con-
stitute the logical offering for the Deuteronomically transformed Passover/
Unleavened Bread sacrifice of sheep and cattle (Deut 16:2)."2 The same re-
dactional association of Firstlings and Unleavened Bread evident here is also

111. The erroneous assumption about the growing season is almost universally reflected
in the commentaries. See Driver, Exodus, 242; M. Noth, Exodus (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1962) 191; and J. P. Hyatt, Exodus (NCBC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971) 248. Recognizing
that the month of Abib is too early for a harvest festival are Otto, Mazzotfest in Gilgal, 173;
Halbe, "Erwagungen zu Ursprung und Wesen des Massotfestes," 324^6; and, overlooking the
earlier work of Otto and Halbe, Ginsberg, Israetian Heritage, 44 n. 60, 58-59. All three depend
upon the crucial insight on the growing season provided by G. Dalman, Arbeit und Sine in
Palastina 1.2: Jahresablauf und Tagesablauf: Friihling und Sommer (BFCT 2.17; Gutersloh:
Bertelsmann, 1928) 453. Note, however, the important cautions raised by Veijola, "History of
the Passover," 61.
112. My analysis of the redactional logic for the conjunction of Firstlings and Unleav-
ened Bread / Passover thus differs with Alexander RoK, "The Arrangement of the Laws in
Deuteronomy," ETL 64 (1988) 265-87, at 280, who understands the connection to be based on
direct or indirect references to the Exodus.
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 93

found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.113 The contiguity of the two units here
may also be predicated on the homophony of the verbal adjective "is lame"
(Deut 15:21) and the noun "passover offering" (Deut 16:1).114

Conclusions
The double transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread reveals the same
dynamic structure that was evident in Deuteronomy's transformation of sacri-
fice in chapter 12. Cultic centralization and local secularization were essential
to the success of the Deuteronomic program. That program was simultaneously
legal, striving to transform social reality, and hermeneutical, striving to trans-
form prior textual authority and to justify innovation. Cultic centralization
accounts for the transformation of the Passover into a pilgrimage festival in all
but name, as the authors of Deuteronomy restricted all religiously significant
blood rituals to the central sanctuary. Just as sacrifice at the local sanctuaries
was prohibited (Deut 12:17) and redirected to the central sanctuary (Deut 12:14,
18), so was Passover prohibited in the local sphere (Deut 16:5) and redirected
to the central sanctuary (Deut 16:2, 6). There is a single structure of language
and thought that operates consistently in both cases.
In extirpating the local sanctuaries, Deuteronomy's authors also had to
secularize all religious activities that formerly adhered to those altars. Just as
the innovation of secular slaughter took the convention of sacrifice at those
local altars, deleted the connection to the altar, and retained the slaughter, so
did the authors of Deuteronomy shear Unleavened Bread of its originally es-
sential pilgrimage to the local sanctuaries. The neutered observance that re-
sulted was a pale imitation of the original: with the pilgrimage elided, all that
remained was a weeklong local observance distinguished only by its unleav-
ened diet and by its final assembly and work stoppage.
Deuteronomy's transformation of Unleavened Bread produced an inter-
esting anomaly. On the one hand, the observance is no longer a pilgrimage
festival, although that was its original identity, as enshrined in previous reli-
gious law. The pilgrimage command (Exod 23:17) cannot be retained, since
the Deuteronomic authors have just banned the local sanctuaries that were the
festival's original home. On the other hand, the burden of textual memory
clearly still operates, despite the obscuring of the festival's original identity:
Unleavened Bread becomes nearly an antipilgrimage festival. The evasion
points straight to the repression, as the pilgrim to the Temple for Passover is
commanded immediately, on the morrow, to undertake a reverse pilgrimage
to the home precincts, there to observe Unleavened Bread (Deut 16:7).

113. Both Exod 34:18-20 and Exod 13:1-2 + (3-10) + 11-16 redactionally associate
Unleavened Bread with Firstlings. For an analysis of the redactional logic involved see Fishbane,
Biblical Interpretation, 195-97.
114. See Stephen A. Kaufman, "The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law," Maarav 1/2
(1978-79) 105-58, at 132.
94 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Rendering—perhaps denaturing is the better word—Passover as a pilgrim-

age sacrifice and Unleavened Bread as a nonpilgrimage, the Deuteronomic
authors radically transformed both the institutions and the texts associated with
the festival calendar. Most likely, the authors of Deuteronomy were fully con-
scious of just how anomalous was their subversive new creation. This aware-
ness of themselves as authors and as transformers provides the most logical
explanation for how punctiliously they avoided designating their hybrid of
Passover and Unleavened Bread as a "pilgrimage festival" (Deut 16:1-8).
They knew the contrary facts too well. Only where the issues were not so press-
ing, as at Weeks and Tabernacles (Deut 16:10, 13-14) or in the summarizing
colophon that chastely avoids reference back to the Passover (Deut 16:16), did
the authors feel free to invoke that term.
Deuteronomy's festival calendar reveals the extraordinary capacity of the
authors of Deuteronomy to innovate. They implemented centralization as a far-
reaching transformation of Judaean life and acted in complete independence of
the very traditions of textual authority to which they ostensibly defered. Their
reuse of older texts is creative: the authors of Deuteronomy went beyond any-
thing that was in those texts to implement a new vision of religion and the social
polity. For these reasons the festival calendar represents an important chapter in
the cultural history of authorship and textuality. The radical creativity evident in
Deuteronomy's transformation of the Passover challenges prevailing models used
within biblical studies to understand authorship. Deuteronomy's transformation
of Passover and Unleavened Bread confutes the history of traditions model be-
cause the calendar does not involve any natural development, nor did its authors
simply play catch-up with already completed, external cultic history. The calen-
dar is not an evolution but a revolution. The festival calendar equally challenges
the model of textuality associated with Inner Biblical Exegesis. If exegesis means
explication, derivation, and deference, then the authors of Deuteronomy were
rather subverters of the texts that they inherited. They exploited those texts for
convenient lexemes, the more effectively to deny those texts their semantic co-
herence and legal integrity and the better to implement an entirely new program
of religion and social change. With the reuse, the older texts do not speak in a
new voice; nor is there traditio-historical Vergegenwartigung. The older texts
are silenced, and there is only the voice of the authors of Deuteronomy. In the
end, textual authority is not a given that resides in the pre-Deuteronomic tradition
to which the Deuteronomic authors must defer. Instead, textual authority repre-
sents an ideological and programmatic construction to which, the Deuteronomic
authors insist, previous texts must defer. It then becomes an irony of literary his-
tory that the very texts that the authors of Deuteronomy sought to replace were
nonetheless redacted with it in the Pentateuch.
The authors of Deuteronomy used older texts only to buttress their own
agenda. Their revisions of those texts completely changed the significance and
practice of the major festivals, which retained little of their original character.
If implemented according to Deuteronomy's festival calendar, Passover and
Unleavened Bread would bear scant, if any, resemblance to the ancient practices.
The Passover is no longer family based and characterized by blood apotropy
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 95

in the private domicile; rather, it requires a pilgrimage to the Temple, where it

becomes the constitutive national holiday, in which all families are incorpo-
rated into a single polity. The original requirement in the festival superscrip-
tion and coda of the Covenant Code that all males appear thrice yearly before
Yahweh no longer functions distributively, sending those men to the local
sanctuaries. Instead, in its Deuteronomic revision, it too creates a new, uni-
form polity, as all males must now appear simultaneously at a single site, the
exclusive sanctuary (Deut 16:16).
The textual reuse allowed the Deuteronomic authors to associate their new
legislation with earlier, authoritative legislation. Hence, their text has the guise
of familiarity and consistency with tradition, even as that tradition is subverted.
The hermeneutical screw continues to turn in precisely the same way once
Deuteronomy itself wins normative status. The Deuteronomistic Historian wants
the reader to understand the Josianic reforms as the triumph of Deuteronomic
law; and so, too, has it been understood by most scholars, as implementing
Deuteronomy's norms. The actual story is more complex, for Deuteronomy's
norms are implemented by the Deuteronomistic Historian in a completely non-
Deuteronomic way.115 The Deuteronomistic account of the national celebra-
tion of the Passover in Jerusalem, the high point of the account of Josiah's
reform, radically revises the Deuteronomic Passover, which it ostensibly en-
acts to the letter (2 Kgs 23:21-23). In Deuteronomy, the festival calendar is
addressed to each citizen who is commanded to observe it (see Deut 16:11,
14). It is not supervised by any official or public authority, not even the high-
est of them, the King. Textually speaking, the Passover law within the festival
calendar (Deut 16:1-17) is detached from the Laws of Public Officials (Deut
16:18-18:22). Conversely, Deuteronomy's Law of the King scrupulously denies
the king active participation in all matters that, according to biblical and Near
Eastern convention, were part of his bailiwick: leadership in war, supreme
judicial authority, and sponsorship of the cult.116
This double denial by the Deuteronomic author that there should be any
connection between king and cult is completely revoked by the Deuteronomistic
Historian. In narrating the first ever centralized celebration of the Passover,117
115. Gary N. Knoppers, Two Nations under God: The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon
and the Dual Monarchies (2 vols.; HSM 52-53; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993-94) 2.223-25
shows the transformation of Deuteronomic law involved in Josiah's Passover. See also Knoppers,
"The Deuteronomist and the Deuteromic Law of the King: A Reexamination of a Relationship,"
ZAW 108 (1996) 329-46. In speaking in the singular about the Deuteronomistic Historian, I do
not mean to level the differences among the various strata and the complexity of dating involved;
see chapter 2, n. 55. It is simply necessary to speak schematically in order to make some broader
observations about authorship and literary history.
116. See the more extensive analysis in the following chapter.
117. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel (London: Darton, Longman & Todd) 487-88, under-
stands the syntax of 2 Kgs 23:22 to presuppose an early centralized observance of the Passover
during the period of the tribal league, with Josiah's observance marking its reinstatement. That
analysis can be supported neither syntactically nor historically. The parallel between the syn-
tax of comparison in v. 22 and the subsequent note about Josiah—"that like him there was no
king before him . . . nor arose [one] like him after him" (v. 25)—suggests that the Deuteronomist
in both cases uses the language of comparison to express absolute difference: both Josiah and
96 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

the Deuteronomistic Historian made Josiah the royal patron of the cult who
assiduously supervised the celebration of the Passover. He it is, then, standing
ceremoniously before the assembled people, who solemnly commands:
"Offer the passover sacrifice to Yahweh,
your God, as it is written upon this scroll of the covenant" (2 Kgs 23:21). The
formula mriDD points to the king's near verbatim citation of the Deuteronomic
command "You shall offer the passover sacrifice to
Yahweh, your God" (Deut 16:lap). Despite the royal insistence upon confor-
mity to law, Josiah's very invocation of that law transforms it. The narrative
introduction to the royal citation already raises the interplay of voice and
authority as the Deuteronomist cannily observes that Torah is here implemented
under royal aegis: "The king commanded all the people
..." (2 Kgs 23:21aa). In one deft stroke the Deuteronomistic Historian revokes
and redefines both the Deuteronomic Passover, now enacted under royal com-
mand, and Deuteronomy' s Law of the King, since the king now leads the cultus.
The Deuteronomistic Historian subordinates normative Deuteronomic law to
his own revisionist view of the proper relation between king and cult. The king's
pious affirmation of textual fidelity is thus rather self-serving: as the monarch
presides over the Passover, Mosaic law becomes embedded in royal speech,
and Zion coopts Sinai."8
There is an additional irony involved in the Deuteronomic transfer of the
Passover to the Temple, and then of the Deuteronomistic Historian asserting
that Josiah's Passover, celebrated at Jerusalem, represents the letter of that law.
The affirmation that the Jerusalem Temple represents the proper site for the
commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt is curious. The same link between
Temple and Exodus is elsewhere evident in the Deuteronomistic History, where
the editor affirms that the construction of the Temple marks the four hundred
and eightieth anniversary of the Exodus (1 Kgs 6:1). In both cases, the link
between Temple and Exodus is tendentious. Neither in tribal disposition nor
in historical context did Jerusalem bear any original connection to the Exodus.
The editor is far less concerned with chronology and the commemoration of
freedom than he is with constructing a decidedly non-Deuteronomic royal ide-
ology that sanctions what pentateuchal law could not have anticipated: both
the construction of the Temple (1 Kgs 6:lb) and the celebration of the major
cultic festivals, Tabernacles (1 Kgs 8:2) and Passover (2 Kgs 23:21-23) alike,
under royal initiative and aegis."9

the Passover were unique. Historically, there is no evidence to support any premonarchic tribal
unity under an amphictyony; see the critique of the latter notion in A. D. H. Mayes, "The Period
of the Judges and the Rise of the Monarchy," in Israelite and Judaean History (ed. J. H. Hayes
and J. M. Miller; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977) 297-304. J. G. McConville, Law and Theol-
ogy in Deuteronomy (JSOTSup 33; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984) 108 follows de Vaux in the
misunderstanding of 2 Kgs 23:22.
118. On the dynamic relationship between Sinai and Zion in other biblical traditions, see
Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985).
119. That Josiah's Passover involves more than piety has been conceived in different ways.
Suggesting that Passover provided a timely political ploy to win support for Josiah's ensuing
 Transformation of Passover and Unleavened Bread 97

Nothing could be more Deuteronomic in spirit than for the Deuteronomistic

Historian to subordinate Deuteronomy, which he claims to implement, to his
own independent agenda. The Deuteronomistic Historian uses both Josiah and
the anonymity of the narrator to deflect his own vocal transformation of au-
thoritative texts, much as the Deuteronomic author employs the voice of Moses
to camouflage his innovations. The literary history of the festival calendar re-
veals a cascade down of voice, or in the rank of the speaker, as one moves from
the Covenant Code to Deuteronomy to the Deuteronomistic History:
Observance Textual Speaker Textual Source
Unleavened Bread as festival Yahweh Covenant Code
Passover as pilgrimage sacrifice Moses Deuteronomy
Royal sponsorship of Passover Josiah + anonymous Deuteronomistic
narrator History
Nevertheless, there is an attendant cascade up in the autonomy of the
author, who obliquely transforms previous textual authority. If the Deuter-
onomic author both revises and expands the Covenant Code with new notions
of religion and the social polity, so, too, is Deuteronomy itself revised and
expanded in the Deuteronomistic Historian's reconfiguration of the ties between
cult and monarchy. In each case, continuity with tradition is both claimed and
breached. As authors speak through the masks of Mosaic authority, royal
speech, or anonymity, the pseudepigraphic deflection of authorial voice pro-
vides an important means to purchase a more profound originality and con-
ceptual independence. It enables successive authors to assert their autonomy
in relation to their forbears.

campaign against Egypt is Nicolsky, "Pascha," 171-90. Addressing rather the way that the
Passover advances the programmatic aims of the Deuteronomistic Historian is Knoppers, Two
Nations under God, 2.223-25. Knoppers also demonstrates how Solomon's allusion to the
Temple as the fulfillment of Mosaic law (1 Kgs 8:56) is similarly tendentious (1.112-18).
 4
The Transformation
of Justice in Light
of Centralization

Ientirely
n systematically working out the implications of cultic centralization, the
authors of Deuteronomy would also have had to take up issues that seem
unrelated to the cultus. Foremost among these would have been the
impact of their innovation upon justice. Centralization required a revision both
of conventional forms of judicial procedure and of conventional sources of
judicial authority. In the local sphere, the important judicial function conven-
tionally played by the local altar or sanctuary could no longer be tolerated;
moreover, if the innovations of the Deuteronomic authors were to succeed, the
judicial authority of the elders, the bearers of precedent, would in some way
have to be circumscribed or curtailed. Finally, in the central sphere, the role
played by the king as the final arbiter of justice also had to be transformed.
That role, conforming to Israelite and broader ancient Near East convention,
had to be radically revised in order to permit the central sanctuary to occupy
its new place in the judicial administration. This hypothesis permits a cluster
of long-standing problems associated with the sequence and order of the legal
corpus to find their solution.
As a case in point, Deut 16:18-17:13 represents one of the most problem-
atic "case studies" available within the legal corpus for the entire range of or-
dering issues: topic selection, sequencing, and ostensible redundancy. The initial
problem with the unit arises at the global level of the organization of the legal
corpus. Essentially, all critical commentaries note that the first section of the
legal corpus, Deut 12:1-16:17, has the Israelite cultus as its primary concern
and that a new unit begins with Deut 16:18 and extends to Deut 18:22; this
unit is generally entitled "Office-bearers of the theocracy."1 That ostensibly

1. S. R. Driver, Deuteronomy (ICC; 3rd ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901) 135. Al-
most identical is the description of A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCBC; London: Marshall,
Morgan & Scott, 1979) 261: "Officials in the Theocratic State."

98
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 99

simple description, however, begs a series of prior questions. First, what

motivates the ostensible shift in topic altogether from cultic to administrative
issues? In other words, is there any logic to the transition from the last cultic
issue, the festival calendar of Deut 16:1-17, to the initial focus of the new sec-
tion, local judicial officials (Deut 16:18-20)? Indeed, precisely because the
transition seems so abrupt, as if an entirely new unit were beginning that lacks
substantive relation to what precedes, some scholars have argued that the origi-
nal Deuteronomic law book concluded with Deut 16:17.2 According to this
"block model" of the redaction of the legal corpus, a later, Deuteronomistic
edition begins with Deut 16:18. That approach translates the synchronic prob-
lem—the apparent thematic discontinuity between the first and the second sec-
tions of the legal corpus—into a diachronic hypothesis: the new section repre-
sents a later stratum, discontinuous both topically and compositionally with
the earlier section.3 Although I disagree with that redactional model, it arose
in the attempt to solve a clear problem. In this chapter, I provide an alternative
analysis: the same hermeneutical issue that I have highlighted as operating in
the first section of the legal corpus continues to operate in this section as well.
Both sections of the legal corpus cohere as its authors continue to work out the
implications of cultic centralization.
The unit contains a second, fundamental problem that has not previously
been solved, despite repeated attempts over the past century. It has often been
argued that one of the paragraphs in this section of the legal corpus, concerned
with apostasy, does not belong in its present context and should be relocated
into the first section. In fact, scholars view an entire section of text, concerned
with cultic issues (Deut 16:21-17:1, 17:2-7) as intrusive in a context other-
wise concerned with public officials and judicial procedure. For that reason,
these scholars maintain that the unit belongs more properly in the previous
section of the legal corpus, which is concerned with matters of cult. Nonethe-
less, the text is coherent. The key to its logic is the very paragraph normally

2. Stressing the "abrupt" transition and ascribing an exilic date to the redaction of Deut
16:18-18:22 is Norbert Lohfink, "Die Sicherung der Wirksamkeit des Gotteswortes durch das
Prinzip der Schriftlichkeit der Tora und durch das Prinzip der Gewaltenteilung nach den
Amtergesetzen des Buches Deuteronomium (Dt 16,18-18,22)," in Testimonium Veritati:
Festschrift Wilhelm Kempf (ed. H. Wolter; Frankfurter Theologische Studien 7; Frankfurt:
Knecht, 1971) 143-55; reprinted and cited according to Lohfink, Studien zum Deuteronomium
und zur deuteronomistischen Literatur I (SBAB 8; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1990)
305-23, especially pp. 306, 313-14. The article has been translated as "Distribution of the
Functions of Power: The Laws Concerning Public Offices in Deuteronomy 16:18-18:22," in A
Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L.
Christensen; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993) 336-52.
3. Georg Braulik, Die deuteronomischen Gesetze und der Dekalog: Studien zum Aufbau
von Deuteronomium 12-26 (SBS 145; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991) 115-18. Note
that an earlier version of one chapter of this book is translated as "The Sequence of the Laws in
Deuteronomy 12-26 and in the Decalogue," in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays
on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993)
313-35. For a succinct analysis of the different redactional models, see Eckart Otto, Theologische
Ethik des Alien Testaments (Theologische Wissenschaft 3.2; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1994)
177-79.
100 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

viewed either as intrusive or as belonging to a later redactional stratum: Deut

17:2-7. In that paragraph, the text's authors are concerned to work out the
implications of centralization for judicial procedure. Once that fact is recog-
nized, the coherence of the text can emerge.

Deut 16:18-17:13: The Problematic of Textual Sequence

Deut 16:18-17:13 has long been thought to be marred by disruption and inter-
polation. The unit begins with three verses (Deut 16:18-20), the first of which
inaugurates a system of judicial officials to be located throughout the land, the
second two of which exhort judicial probity.
(18) Judges and officials shall you appoint in each of your cities that
Yahweh your God is giving to you, according to your tribes. They shall
judge the people with righteous justice. (19) Do not pervert justice, do
not show partiality, and do not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of
the wise and pervert the plea of those who are in the right. (20) Justice,
only justice shall you pursue, so that you may live and retain posses-
sion of the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.
Given that introductory focus, it is contextually problematic that the three
verses immediately following (Deut 16:21-17:1) bear no relationship whatso-
ever to justice. They deal with cultic issues—the topic of the previous section
of the legal corpus (Deut 12:1-16:17).
(16:21) You shall neither set up any pole as a sacred pillar (Asherah)
beside the altar that you make to Yahweh your God; (16:22) nor shall
you erect a stone pillar—things that Yahweh your God detests! (17:1)
You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or a sheep that has
any kind of serious defect, for that is abhorrent to Yahweh your God.
This section already raises at least three questions concerning its sequence.
First, why are cultic regulations—already presented in the first section of the
legal corpus—reintroduced in this new section, which is rather concerned with
judicial administration? Second, why does the redactor begin with justice in
Deut 16:18-20 only to shift back to cultic issues in which neither justice nor
administration plays any role? Third, what is the reason for the prohibition of
the sacrifice of blemished animals? That prohibition is redundant given the
similar prohibition of Deut 15:21-23. Whereas the latter prohibition made sense,
since it is found in the context of a law requiring the sacrifice of firstborn ani-
mals, the rationale for repeating such a prohibition here, in a judicial context,
is unclear.4

4. The secondary nature of Deut 17:1 is suggested on two grounds. First, in literary terms,
it cites 15:21 according to Seidel's law. The AB sequence of Deut 15:21 ("If it has a defect, . ..
any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to Yahweh your God") recurs chiastically A'B' in
17:1 ("You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or a sheep if it has a defect, any
serious matter"). Second, in legal terms, Deut 17:1 universalizes the application of 15:21 from
its original specific prohibition against sacrificing blemished firstlings into a general rule gov-
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 101

The textual sequence becomes even more problematic with the next para-
graph, whose focus is the stoning of the apostate (Deut 17:2-7). That paragraph
does not focus on any official, judicial or otherwise. Only one verse of it bears
any relation to the judicial topos established by Deut 16:18-20. Deut 17:6 estab-
lishes the rule that two witnesses are required to convict someone of a capital
offense. If the larger unit (Deut 16:18-18:22) is properly entitled "Office-bearers
of the theocracy," then this paragraph bears little clear relation to that topos.
(2) If there is found in your midst, in one of your city-gates that
Yahweh your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is
evil in the sight of Yahweh your God by transgressing his covenant; (3)
and he goes and worships other gods, prostrating himself to them—
whether to the sun or the moon or to any of the heavenly host, which I
never commanded—(4) and if it is reported to you or you hear of it,
then you shall conduct a thorough inquiry. If indeed it is true—the case
is established—this abomination was performed in Israel, (5) then you
shall take that man or that woman who performed this wicked act out to
your city-gates and you shall stone them—man or woman—to death!—
(6) On the testimony of two witnesses or three witnesses shall a person
be executed; a person must not be executed on the testimony of a single
witness.—(7) The hands of the witnesses shall be first against him to
execute him, and the hands of all the people thereafter. Thus shall you
purge evil from your midst!
This focus on apostasy seems even more disruptive in relation to the para-
graph that follows. Deut 17:8-13 returns to the original topos of judicial orga-
nization and provides a protocol for the resolution of problematic cases through
recourse to a type of High Court at the central sanctuary.
(8) If a legal case exceeds your ken—whether distinguishing between
one category of homicide and another, one category of civil law and
another, one category of bodily injury and another, any kind of legal
dispute within your city-gates—then you shall proceed up to the place
that Yahweh your God shall choose, (9) and come and inquire before
the levitical priests and the judge who is in office at that time. When
they proclaim to you the verdict of the case, (10) you must implement
the verdict that they proclaim to you from that place which Yahweh
shall choose. Be sure to do all that they instruct you. (11) You must
fully implement the instruction that they teach you and the verdict
that they proclaim to you. You may deviate neither right nor left
from the verdict that they announce to you. (12) Should a man act
presumptously so as to disobey the priest appointed there to serve

erning all sacrificial animals. For both points, see the fine analysis by Jan Christian Gertz, Die
Gerichtsorganisation Israels im deuteronomischen Gesetz (FRLANT 165; Gottingen: Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 1994) 58. I have added the identification of the citation as conforming to
Seidel's law.
102 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Yahweh your God, or the judge, that man shall die. Thus shall you
purge evil from Israel! (13) And all the people will take heed and be
afraid and not act presumptuously again.
The array of topics is difficult to explain. The two paragraphs that logi-
cally ought to be adjacent, because they share the theme of judicial adminis-
tration—Deut 16:18-20 (local judicial officials and judicial probity) + 17:8-13
(the "High Court" at the central sanctuary)—are instead separated by two para-
graphs—Deut 16:21-17:1 (cultic issues) + 17:2-7 (apostasy)—each of which
is anomalous in the context of the larger unit. The disruptiveness of these two
paragraphs is marked linguistically and thematically. Their only links to their
context are superficial, second-order ones involving verbal associations that
are not based on meaning or legal context. Such associations do not point to
compositional design.5 In the case of Deut 16:21-17:1, the three cultic prohi-
bitions in these verses echo the three moral ones addressed to the judiciary in
16:19. The association thus seems to be based on verbal assonance (ncan s^
16:19; i>an sb 16:21) and similar morphology (second person prohibition).6
Similarly, in the case of Deut 17:2-7, the relation of the paragraph to the larger
unit seems superficial. The idiom (Deut 17:4) con-
firming that the apostasy, characterized as an "abomination," has definitely
occurred, echoes the cultic terminology of the verse that immediately precedes
this paragraph. That verse prohibits sacrificing a blemished animal "because it
is an abomination to Yahweh ( ) your God" (Deut 17:1). As already
noted, however, Deut 17:1 is itself dependent upon Deut 15:21 and intrusive
in the context of the unit's larger concern with the administration of justice.
Consequently, Deut 17:2-7 seems to have only superficial lexical ties to its
context: the verbal association of a single word—"abomination"—with a pre-
ceding verse that is itself redundant and contextually disruptive. No substan-
tive or thematic relation seems to exist.
Even more striking, Deut 17:2-7, as the following table illustrates, redu-
plicates the topos, form, and terminology of the sequence of three paragraphs

5. The explanation of a textual join in terms of verbal association confuses means and
ends: it may account for the technique used to make a join but not the intent of the join, let
alone whether the join is original or secondary. Two scholars have attempted to use the asso-
ciation of ideas or of words to account for the problematic organization of the legal corpus of
Deuteronomy: Harold M. Wiener, "The Arrangement of Deuteronomy 12-26," JPOS 6 (1926)
185-95; republished in Wiener, Posthumous Essays (ed. H. Loewe; London: Oxford, 1932)
26-36; and Alexander Rofe, "The Arrangement of the Laws in Deuteronomy," ETL 64 (1988)
265-87. Neither attempt provides a convincing analysis of compositional design as opposed to
indicating how redactors might have added secondary material, as Rofe acknowledges. Recourse
to association often overlooks inner-Israelite literary tradition, such as inherited legal sequences,
that might more directly explain a given textual join. For a fuller analysis of each of these at-
tempts, see Bernard M. Levinson, The Hermeneutics of Innovation: The Impact of Centraliza-
tion upon the Structure, Sequence, and Reformulation of Legal Material in Deuteronomy (Ann
Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1991) 16-36.
6. Stephen A. Kaufman, "The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law," Maarav 1/2 (1978—
1979) 155 n. 87; and Rofe, "Arrangement," 270-71.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 103

concerned with apostasy in Deut 13:2-19.7 Deut 13:2-6 concerns incitement

to apostasy by a mantic prophet or oneiromancer; vv. 7-12, by a member of
the same kinship group as the legal addressee; vv. 13-18 by a band of rogues
who successfully incite an entire city to apostasy (v. 19 is a general conclu-
sion). Both Deut 17:2-7 and chapter 13 thus address the topos of apostasy and
mandate that the community take concerted action to remove any such threat
from its midst.
Deut 17:2-7 Deut 13:2-6,7-12, 13-18
[2] [2]
[13]
[3] [7=14]
[4] [13]
[15]

[5] [11]
[7] [10]

[6]
(2) If there is found j'n your midst, (2) If there arises j'n yowr midst,. . .
in one of your gates which (13) in one of your cities which
Yahweh your God is Yahweh your God is
giving you . . . giving you
(3) and he goes and worships (7) "Let us go and worship
other gods . . . other gods"
(4) and it has been reported to you,
or you hear, (13) If you hear . . .
then you shall thoroughly (15) then you shall thoroughly
inquire', inquire,
investigate and interrogate;
and if indeed it is true— and if indeed it is true—
the case is established— the case is established—
this abomination was performed this abomination was performed
in Israel, among you,
(5) then you shall stone them (11) then you shall stone him
to death with stones. to death with stones.
(7) The hand of the witnesses shall be (10) Your hand shall be
first against him to execute him', first against him to execute him;
thereafter, the hand of all thereafter, the hand of all
the people. the people.
Thus shall you extirpate the evil (6) Thus shall you extirpate the evil
from your midst. from your midst.

7. Note the similar table provided by G. Seitz, Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien turn

Deuteronomium (BWANT 93; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1971) 154.
104 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Each case is formulated in the distinctive Deuteronomic casuistic form,

with protasis introduced by o "if," followed by a second-person addressee. In
each case the incitement to apostasy is technically formulated in the idiom
"to go and worship other gods."8 In chapter 13 the incitement
is consistently presented as a hypothetical citation introduced by and con-
tinued with first-person plural cohortativem "Let us go so that
we may worship [them]" (vv. 3, 7, 14). The same idiom for apostasy recurs in
Deut 17:2-7 where, however, the offense is presented as actual apostasy, not
mere incitement. Further, in each of chapter 13 and 17:2-7 there is detailed
attention to legal process involving common technical formulae both for
investigation and for execution by means of the collective stoning of the apos-
tate. The requirements for the corroboration of the accusation are formulated
nearly identically (Deut 13:15; 17:4). In both cases, too, the text specifies in
nearly identical terms the procedure for the stoning: the addressee or witnesses
initiate the action, which is then followed by the participation of the entire
community (Deut 13:10-11; 17:5+7). Finally, the formula that concludes
17:2-7, "you shall extirpate the evil from your midst," is also
employed in the conclusion to 13:2-6.9 It emerges that Deut 17:2-7, concerned
with apostasy and seemingly disruptive in its present context, bears very close
linguistic and topical ties to chapter 13, concerned with incitement to apos-
tasy. Thus, the paragraph's closest literary relationship is ostensibly to the pre-
vious section of the legal corpus, whose focus is the cult.

Deut 17:2-7: The Standard Argument

for Textual Relocation
With very few exceptions, scholars of all methodologies have attempted to
resolve the disruptiveness of Deut 17:2-7 by relocating the problematic unit
to the context of chapter 13. With a single literary critical stratagem, therefore,
a double exegetical problem—the contextual disruptiveness of Deut 17:2-7 and
its duplication in a new section of the legal corpus of the topos, form, and for-
mulae of chapter 13—is ostensibly resolved. This solution originates with

8. This idiom seems to conflate two separate ones whose origin lies in the treaty termi-
nology of the Near East. The first is = Akkadian alaku arki found in the
Amarna letters. The second is , to which compare Akkadian aradu, ardutu. For
complete citations to both the Deuteronomic and the later Deuteronomistic use of each formula,
see Moshe Wcinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972)
320. For their origin in cuneiform and Aramaic treaty terminology see his p. 83 (with litera-
ture). The full conflation of the two idioms is evident in Deut 13:3: . . .
CT2M1 "Let us go after other gods ... in order that we may worship them" (cf. Deut 28:14). Mayes,
Deuteronomy, 233, points out that the idiom of'"ins -^n "to go after" always takes "other gods"
as its object within the legal corpus—except for Deut 13:5, which is formulated as a stressed
antithesis to Deut 13:3.
9. The formula appears elsewhere in Deut 19:19; 21:21; 22:21, 24; 24:7. The formula
occurs also with "from Israel" substituted for "from your midst" in Deut 17:12; 22:22; see
J. L'Hour, "Une legislation criminelle dans le Deuteronome," Bib 44 (1963) 1-28 and Mayes,
Deuteronomy, 233-34.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 105

August Dillmann's suggestion more than a century ago that Deut 16:21-17:1
and 17:2-7 should conjointly be relocated between 12:31 and 13:2.10 Dillmann's
rearrangement of the text rapidly won broad acceptance. S. R. Driver, for ex-
ample, follows Dillmann's analysis, noting the separation of the two units con-
cerned with judicial administration (16:18-20 + 17:8-13) that would more
naturally be conjoined. Thus he too restores Deut 16:21-17:7 to a claimed
original context before Deut 13:2 in order to achieve the double topical coher-
ence: (1) a single unit consistently concerned with apostasy (Deut 17:2-7+
13:2-19), and (2) a single unit consistently concerned with "judges" (Deut
16:18-20 +17:8-13)." Karl Budde concludes his own important analysis claim-
ing the restoration to be incontrovertible: "In sum, it is not subject to any doubt:
13:2-19 never existed without 17:2-7."12 Perhaps most striking in the history
of this text-critical restoration is its acceptance even by scholars who other-
wise reject the diachronic analysis of biblical law. Harold Wiener claimed to
demonstrate the perfect coherence of the entire legal corpus of Deuteronomy
on the basis of "the association of ideas." He found only a single clear excep-
tion—Deut 17:2-7—which, he maintained, belonged more properly in chap-
ter 13.13
With essential agreement won early in this century, and with assent gained
even from opponents of diachronic analysis, it is no wonder that a consensus
rapidly emerged that the problematic material (Deut 16:21-17:1 + 17:2-7)
should be relocated to chapter 13. This consensus, the essential elements of
which were all in place a century ago, remains dominant even in the most re-
cent work. It provides a rare note of near unanimity within biblical scholarship
and joins scholars of all methodological persuasions, whether synchronic or
diachronic, whether literary-critical, legal-historical, form-critical, redaction-
historical, or comparativist, whether European, American, or Israeli.14 Until
recently, dissent was all but nonexistent.15

10. August Dillmann, Die Biicher Numeri, Deuteronomiutn und Josua (KeHAT; 2d ed.;
Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1886) 319.
11. Driver, Deuteronomy, 135, 201.
12. K. Budde, "Dtn 13 10, und was daran hangt," ZAW 36 (1916) 187-97; citation from
p. 194 (my translation).
13. Wiener, "Arrangement of Deuteronomy 12-26," 33. In contrast, Kaufman, "Structure
of the Deuteronomic Law," 134, provides an explanation of Deut 17:2-7 in its context and does
not call for the paragraph's transposition. He does not however note the paragraph's close simi-
larities to chapter 13. Moreover, he contends that the legal corpus is coherent in its redaction and
the product of a single author, allowing only Deut 24:1-4 as a disruption (pp. 112, 144-47). The
synchronic reading provided by Robert Polzin, Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study
of the Deuteronomic History (New York: Seabury, 1980) 43-69, does not discuss Deut 17:2-7
and thereby avoids an important challenge to his arguments defending the unity of the text.
14. George Ernest Wright, "Deuteronomy," IB (Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1953)
2.436-37; P. Buis, Le Deuteronome (VS 4; Paris: Beauchesne, 1969) 273; Seitz, Redaktions-
geschichtliche Studien, 201; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 92 n. 2;
95; Horst Dietrich PreuB,Deuteronomium (ErFor 164; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-
schaft, 1982) 134; Yoshihide Suzuki, "Deuteronomic Reformation in View of the Centraliza-
tion of the Administration of Justice," AJBI 13 (1987) 22-58; Fabrizio Foresti, "Storia della
106 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Some scholars have, however, advocated a different approach. Norbert

Lohfink, in particular, introduced a revolutionary shift in the discussion with his
argument that Deut 16:18-18:22 represents a Utopian draft constitution put to-
gether by the second Deuteronomistic Historian during the Babylonian exile.16
Rather than try conventionally to reconstruct the unit's complex literary history,
which he conceded, Lohfink instead raised a question that had, astonishingly,
never previously been asked: Given that complexity, what is the redactor trying
to say? What, in other words, is the significance of the text as it currently stands?
With the coherence of the text now made the point of departure, however, the
entire question of the textual relocation was shunted aside. In this approach, the
present position of Deut 17:2-7 is assumed as a given. Whether that context is
original or secondary, let alone what compositional or legal-historical issue, if
any, accounts for the paragraph's inclusion, is not addressed.
Similar issues arise in subsequent work. Georg Braulik, for example, pre-
supposing Lohfink's analysis, does not so much argue for the compositional
integrity of Deut 17:2-7 to its context as demonstrate the ways it now coheres
by means of lexical and associational links. Whether those linkages are origi-
nal or secondary is not directly addressed: whether they embody an original
compositional logic or are the means redactionally to incorporate a passage
that originated elsewhere is not distinguished. With his focus on the "final form"
of the text, he deliberately does not seek any reconstruction of its composi-

Redazione di Dtn. 16,18-18,22 e le sue Connessioni con 1'Opera Storica Deuteronomistica," in

Teresianum Ephemerides Carmeliticae 39 (1988) 5-199, at pp. 22-76; Rofe, "Arrangement,"
278, 286; and Horst SeebaB, "Vorschlag zur Vereinfachung literarischer Analysen im dtn
Gesetz," BN 58 (1991) 83-98. This scenario was simply reversed by Rosario Pius Merendino,
Das deuteronomische Gesetz: Eine literarkritische, gattungs- und iiberlieferungsgeschichtliche
Untersuchung w Dt 12-26 (BBB 31; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1969) 80-81, for whom Deut 13:2-
19 originally followed Deut 17:2-7. For Giinter Krinetzki,Rechtsprechung undAmt im Deuteron-
omium: Zur Exegese der Gesetze Dtn 16,18-20: 17,8-18,22 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1994) 124,
the entire unit is so extrinsic that it is altogether omitted from any kind of consideration, one
way or the other, in his extensive posthumous monograph.
15. The rejection by Mayes, Deuteronomy, 230, of the relocation is only an apparent
exception. On the one hand, he importantly recognizes that Deut 17:2-7 involves apostasy that
has been committed, while chapter 13, only incitement. For that reason, he opposes transposi-
tion. On the other hand, Mayes concedes that Deut 17:2-7 makes no sense in its present con-
text. He attempts to mitigate the difficulty by reconstructing an original version of the law con-
cerned not with apostasy but with "those who do 'what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God'"
(pp. 263, 266). That idiom, however, cannot be used to reconstruct an earlier version of the law.
It is much better attested in the later Deuteronomistic literature than in Deuteronomic strata.
Against fifty attestations in Deuteronomistic contexts, there are only four in Deuteronomy; see
Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 339. Mayes's reconstruction is contra-
dicted by his own demonstration that, this passage aside, each of the three other attestations of
the idiom in Deuteronomy belongs to the later, Deuteronomistic stratum (Deut 4:25; 9:18; 31:29;
see pp. 148, 195, 379).
16. Lohfink, "Amtergesetze," 305-23. In the postbiblical reception of the text, Deute-
ronomy was from ancient times viewed as a constitutional model by Jews. The rabbinic patri-
archate in Israel during the second century C.E. and the exilarchate in Babylon were organized
in the spirit of Deuteronomy; see Daniel J. Elazar, Covenant and Polity in Biblical Israel: Bib-
lical Foundations and Jewish Expressions (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1995) 196.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 107

tional or redactional history.17 If the descriptive analysis restricts itself, how-

ever, to the Endgestalt, it does not automatically follow that the observations,
however fine, apply to an earlier form of the text.18 It is difficult, in other words,
to draw diachronic conclusions from synchronic observations.19
While such approaches valuably posit the coherence of Deut 17:2-7 within
its present context as a theoretically possible reading, they do not justify that
claim either by refuting the arguments to the contrary or by providing the ra-
tionale for the paragraph's inclusion in the first place. On linguistic grounds,
too, it has been suggested that Deut 17:2-7 is a Deuteronomistic composition
that reuses material from chapter 13 and therefore should not be relocated.20
That insight has not been developed, however, to provide a clear reason for
the textual reuse. A recent monograph summarily dispatches the paragraph,
viewed as secondary and extrinsic, in two sentences.21 In all these cases, there-
fore, the basic problem of the paragraph's function remains unsolved. The
arguments in favor of the standard solution have never, to the best of my knowl-
edge, been directly engaged and refuted.22 Nor has a clear counterargument
for the contextual function and legal-historical role of Deut 17:2-7 been pro-
vided. In what follows, I attempt to do both.

A Critique of the Standard Solution

The relocation of Deut 17:2-7 to chapter 13 creates topical coherence but in-
volves two fundamental presuppositions. The first is that Deut 17:2-7 com-

17. Braulik, Die deuteronomischen Gesetze, 46.

18. The same applies to Braulik's larger thesis that the redaction of Deuteronomy 12-26
is based upon the Decalogue; see Eckart Otto, review of Die deuteronomischen Gesetze und
der Dekalog by Georg Braulik, TLZ 119 (1994) 15-17.
19. Recent scholarship has turned away from Lohfink's insight and dissolved the premise
of a redactionally coherent unit. Rather than see Deut 16:18-18:22 as a unit concerned with the
Laws of the Public Officials and as outlining a draft constitution, the unit is seen as expressing
the theological concerns of the Deuteronomistic Historian. For a valuable critical assessment
of this literature, see Udo Rutersworden, "Der Verfassungsentwurf des Deuteronomiums in der
neueren Diskussion: Ein Uberblick," in Altes Testament Forschung und Wirkung: Festschrift
filr Henning Graf Reventlow (ed. Peter Mommer and Winfried Thiel; Frankfurt: Peter Lang,
1994) 313-28.
20. First noted by Udo Rutersworden, Von der politischen Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde:
Studien zu Dt 16,18-18,22 (BBB 65; Frankfurt: Athenaum, 1987) 32-38. The arguments are
presented most comprehensively, on the basis of careful linguistic analysis, by Paul E. Dion,
"Deuteronomy 13: The Suppression of Alien Religious Propaganda in Israel during the Late
Monarchical Era," in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed. Baruch Halpern and Deborah
W. Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 147-216. Dion establishes that Deut
17:2-7 does not represent a broken off piece of Deuteronomy 13 but rather represents a later
"derivative" of that chapter. With his focus on the language and historical context of chapter
13, however, Dion does not investigate the textual or legal-historical function of Deut 17:2-7
in its context.
21. Eleonore Reuter, Kultzentralisation: Entstehung und Theologie. von Dtn 12 (BBB 87;
Frankfurt: Anton Hain, 1993) 176.
22. Braulik, "Die deuteronomischen Gesetze," 20 n. 36. 31 n. 17, for example, disagrees
with the restoration, which he associates only with Rofe, "Arrangement," but does not refute it.
108 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

pletes an apostasy series in chapter 13, to which it originally belonged. Sec-

ond, the relocation assumes that both Deut 17:2-7 and chapter 13 derive from
the same literary stratum. Neither assumption can be maintained. The section
"Deut 17:2-7 as a Revision of Deut 13:7-12" addresses the literary stratifica-
tion; here the analysis focuses on the matter of textual sequence. The "restora-
tion" of the allegedly misplaced paragraph (Deut 17:2-7) only transfers the
problem of disorder from one context to another and makes matters worse. It
introduces a redundancy into the newly reconstituted chapter, saddling the new
chapter 13 with two cases, each of which treats apostasy by an individual
(13:7-12; 17:2-7).23 In addition to this redundancy, there is another problem.
The "restored" sequence (Deut 12:29-13:1 + 16:21-17:1 + 17:2-7 + 13:2-19)
is incoherent. Why should the two cases that each deal with action by lay indi-
viduals (17:2-7; 13:7-12) have the case of incitement by a prophet illogically
wedged between them? The alleged solution thus mirrors the very same prob-
lem that triggered it in the first place: the disruption of cases that seem to be-
long together. Nor does inserting Deut 17:2-7 immediately before 13:7-12,
so as to group together the two cases involving apostasy by an individual, pro-
vide an adequate solution.24 This arrangement simply creates another difficulty,
equally serious. It disrupts an ordered series of cases, all dealing with incite-
ment, with a single case, Deut 17:2-7, concerned with the/act of apostasy, in
which there is no incitement and in which the grammar involves past action
rather than quoted provocation.25
Conventional literary criticism can identify the problem—the contextual
problematic of Deut 17:2-7—but, in its attempts to solve the problem, substi-
tutes a superficial topical coherence that breaks down upon more careful analy-
sis. The ostensibly critical solution unknowingly repeats the similar precritical
solution found earlier in the history of interpretation. The redactor of the
Qumran Temple Scroll, consistent with his proclivity to regroup biblical laws,
has Deut 16:18-20 begin a section on the judicial system (HQTemple
51:11-16). He follows that unit with a broad collection of cult laws culled from
the Tetrateuch (HQTemple 51:16-54:7), then adds the apostasy laws of Deut
13:1-18 (HQTemple 54:8-55:14), with his revision of Deut 17:2-7 deftly
conjoined (HQTemple 55:15-56:[ ]).26 Only after this broad excursus does
the redactor of the Temple Scroll continue with the original biblical sequence
from which he had departed: Deut 17:8-13, on the central court at the Temple
(1 IQTemple 56:[ ]-l 1) and Deut 17:14-20, the unit on the king (1 IQTemple
56:12-21). The modern solution, therefore, shares with the ancient one an
approach that is harmonistic. This yearning for topical coherence at any cost

23. Rofe, "Arrangement," 278, is one of the few scholars to address this difficulty. He
claims that Deuteronomy 13 is incomplete for omitting an instance of apostasy by a general
individual, while including apostasy by a close kin (Deut 13:7-12). Contrary to his proposal,
however, that case is not restricted to the kinship group but extends to the "friend" who is not
kin (Deut 13:7).
24. Wiener, "Arrangement of Deuteronomy 12-26," 29-30.
25. Note Mayes, Deuteronomy, 230.
26. The top lines of column 56 are unfortunately not preserved.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 109

replaces an attempt to come to grips with a challenging textual sequence. On

these grounds, then, the meaning of the text as it stands, with its ordo difficilior,21
may be probed.

The Rewriting of Legal History:

The Coherence ofDeut 17:2-7 and 8-13
The integrity of Deut 17:2-7 to the larger unit becomes clear with the recogni-
tion that the consequences of Deuteronomy's reform, cultic centralization,
extend beyond the cultic to the legal realm.28 A fundamental literary dynamic
underlies the legal corpus. All local cultic activity, hitherto legitimate, presents
a double problem in light of the Deuteronomic reform. Given the prohibition
of the local altars, indeed, of all local cultic activity (including the pre-
Deuteronomic paschal slaughter, originally a home rite), not only must exist-
ing cultic practice be revised, but authoritative Israelite texts contemplating such
local cultic activity must also be reformulated in order to justify innovation.
The authors of Deuteronomy redirect and restrict to the cultic center the
sacrifices that were formerly valid in the local sphere. This transformation in-
volves innovation at two levels. First arises the creation of new cultic protocols—
and texts to describe them. Second arises the necessity, as a consequence of cen-
tralization, of transforming the local sphere into a realm where customary cultic
rites, such as sacrifice, are prohibited. Cultic centralization thus involves a double
dynamic: the restriction of cultic activity to the central sphere and the secular-
ization of the local sphere. This double transformation is not simply empirical
but also, and more importantly, literary-historical. The transformation involves
not merely the revision of existing normative practice but also the legitimation
of that empirical reform in light of existing authoritative texts.
Accordingly, the prevalent claim that Deut 16:18 begins a new section of
the legal corpus, whether classically understood as "The Administration of the
Theocracy" or as a draft constitution, overlooks a fundamental issue. The same

27. For the felicitous Latin coinage, as applied to postbiblical law, see David Daube, "The
Civil Law of the Mishnah: The Arrangement of the Three Gates," Tulane Law Review 18
(1943-44) 351-407.
28. The following arguments for the coherence and legal-historical function ofDeut 17:2-7
were first presented in my dissertation: Bernard M. Levinson, The Hermeneatics of Innovation:
The Impact of Centralization upon the Structure, Sequence, and Reformulation of Legal Mate-
rial in Deuteronomy (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1991) 325—432. Other schol-
ars have since accepted these arguments: Eckart Otto, "Rechtsreformen in Deuteronomium
XII-XXVI und im Mittelassyrischen Kodex der Tafel A (KAV 1)," in Congress Volume: Paris,
1992 (ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup 61; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 264; Otto, "Vom Bundesbuch zum
Deuteronomium: Die deuteronomische Redaktion in Dtn 12-26," Biblische Theologie und
gesellschafilicher Wandel: Fur Norbert Lohfink (ed. Georg Braulik, Walter GroB, and Sean
McEvenue; Freiburg: Herder, 1993) 262; Otto, "Aspects of Legal Reforms and Reformulations
in Ancient Cuneiform and Israelite Law," in Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law:
Revision, Interpolation, and Development (ed. Bernard M. Levinson; JSOTSup 181; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1994) 190-91; Otto, Theologische Ethik, 194-95; and Riitersworden,
"Der Verfassungsentwurf des Dcuteroriomiums," 327.
110 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

literary-historical concerns that motivate the text's authors in the first section of
the legal corpus (Deut 12:1-16:17), continue to engage them in this allegedly
new section.29 The transformation of existing norms of action in light of central-
ization and the textual defense of that innovative activity continue to operate and
account for the structure and sequence of Deut 17:2-7 + 8-13. The problematic
sequence of legal topoi in this unit becomes intelligible only with the recogni-
tion of the unit's true topos, which is not immediately empirical—an ancient
administrative flowchart—but, rather, hermeneutical—the necessity of transform-
ing judicial procedure as a consequence of cultic centralization. An analysis
of judicial procedures prior to Deuteronomy will clarify why Deuteronomy's
authors were constrained to introduce the changes that they made.

Pre-Deuteronomic Judicial Procedures in the Local Sphere

According to the most recent reconstructions, there were four major contexts
for the administration of justice in ancient Israel: family and clan law, in the
hands of the paterfamilias; local or town law, administered by the elders; sac-
ral law, dispensed by the priests; and royal judicial authority.30 These four
spheres most likely overlapped historically and competed with one another. I
reserve treatment of the king's role in justice for the conclusion of this chap-
ter, in conjunction with the law of the king in Deut 17:14-20. My focus here is
on local justice and on the role of the cultus in justice.
Local justice had its home in important public locales such as the city gate
(Deut 21:19; 22:15; 25:7; Ruth 4:11) or the threshing-floor (Ruth 3:10-14;

29. From a different perspective, Lothar Perlitt also challenges the separation of this unit
from the preceding one ("Der Staatsgedanke im Deuteronomium," Language, Theology, and
The Bible: Essays in Honour of James Barr [ed. Samuel E. Balentine and James Barton; Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1994] 182-98). He argues that the unit is not concerned with political admin-
istration hut continues the same concern with religious reform found in Deut 12:1-16:17.
30. A. Phillips, Ancient Israel's Criminal Law: A New Approach to The Decalogue (New
York: Schockcn, 1970) 17-35; G. C. Macholz, "Zur Geschichte der Justizorganisation in Juda,"
Z4W84 (1972) 314-40; Keith W. Whitelam, The Just King: Monarchical Judicial Authority in
Ancient Israel (JSOTSup 12; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1979) 39-69. Attempting to reconstruct
the premonarchic judicial system on the basis of sociological models is Robert R. Wilson, "En-
forcing the Covenant: The Mechanisms of Judicial Authority in Early Israel," in The Quest for
the Kingdom of God: Studies in Honor of George E. Mendenhall (ed. H. B. Huffmon, F. A. Spina,
and A. R. W. Green; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983) 59—75; and, similarly, Wilson,
"Israel's Judicial System in the Preexilic Period," JQR 74 (1983) 229-48. Reconstructing the
history of justice at the local courts, see L. H. Kohler, Hebrew Man (London: SCM, 1956) 149—
75; D. A. McKenzie, "Judicial Procedure at the Town Gate," VT14 (1964) 100-104; Hans Jochen
Boecker, Law and the Administration of Justice in the Old Testament and Ancient East (Min-
neapolis: Augsburg, 1980) 27-40; Herbert Niehr, Rechtsprechung in Israel: Untersuchungen
zur Geschichte der Gerichtsorganisation im Alien Testament (SBS 130; Stuttgart: Katholisches
Bibelwerk, 1987) 50-54, 63-66; and Eckart Otto, "-IMJ Sa'ar" TWAT 8 (1995) 358-403. Dis-
puting the usual reconstruction of the judicial role of the elders at the gate, see Frank Crusemann,
Die Tora: Theologie und Sozialgeschichte des alttestamentlichen Gesetzes (Munich: Chr. Kai-
ser, 1992) 80-113. Note the important review of the latter: Eckart Otto, "Die Tora in Israels
Rechtsgeschichtc," TLZ 118 (1994) 903-10.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 111

1 Kgs 22:10).31 The agents for judicial deliberation in such "civic centers" were
the elders, most commonly, or the public assembly.32 These public bodies com-
bined the function of judge and jury in a legal proceeding. This formalization,
which specified or presupposed a public hearing, served to delimit the right of
the paterfamilias to take independent legal action against his wife or minor
children.33 In addition, judicial oracles seem to have been proclaimed (Judg
4:4-5) by the charismatic D'QSty "judges" who may also have functioned as
traveling "circuit-court" judges (1 Sam 7:15-17).34
In contrast to the lay dispensation of justice stand the sundry cultic con-
texts for judicial decision making. The various literary genres of the Bible,
including each of the pentateuchal literary strata, point to the important role
played by the altar, the gate of the local sanctuary, the priesthood, and the
priestly lots in judicial activity.35 Perhaps the most dramatic image of the inter-
connection in Israelite thought between justice and the cultus is the tradition,
preserved by the Priestly stratum, that the vestments of the Priest include the
Qsoon jtzin "breastplate of justice," within which were stored the Urim and
Thummim, the lots by means of which the priests made their legal rulings
(Exod 28:15-30; Lev 8:8). The Blessing of Moses assigns pride of place to
the Urim and the Thummim as the preeminent attributes of Levi (Deut 33:8).
The cultus provided a significant site for judicial procedure at the gate of
the local sanctuary or directly before the altar. Such locations constituted
authoritative sites wherein legal proceedings could take place numinously in
the presence of the divine: (Exod 21:6; 22:7) or (Exod
22:8), both, "before God," or "before Yahweh" (Num 5:16, 18, 30;
27:5). In addition to its providing an authoritative setting and access to di-

3). Victor H. Matthews, "Entrance Ways and Threshing Floors: Legally Significant Sites
in the Ancient Near East," Fides et Historia 19 (1987) 25-40. Matthews does not address the
difficult question of Ruth's dating and consequently its reliability for legal-historical recon-
struction. My assumption is that Ruth is late but accurately archaizes in stressing the judicial
role of the elders at the city gate.
32. On the elders, see Moshe Weinfeld, "Elders," Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem:
Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972) 6.578-80; Whitelam, The Just King, 42-44. Several studies fo-
cus on the role of the elders in Deuteronomy. Leslie J. Hoppe, The Origins of Deuteronomy
(Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1978) argues that they—not the levitical priests or
a scribal school—are responsible for the composition of the text. Despite his valuable critique,
Hoppe does not defend his presupposition that the text's authors would in some direct way re-
flect themselves in their composition. His similar argument, "Elders and Deuteronomy," Eglise
et theologie 14 (1983) 259-72, asserts cultic centralization to be a completely postexilic insti-
tution but does not address the evidence that the pre-Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy is preexilic;
nor does it engage archaeological evidence. The most recent treatments are Joachim Buchholz,
Die Altesten Israels im Deuteronomium (GTA 36; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988);
and Gertz, Gerichtsorganisation Israels, 173-225.
33. Wilson, "Judicial System," 233-34.
34. For the difficulties of historical reconstruction involved, see Whitelam, The Just King,
47-69.
35. Whitelam, The Just King, 45, correctly rejects the claim by Phillips, Ancient Israel's
Criminal Law, 22, that "the priests appear to have exercised no judicial role in early Israel." He
points out that Phillips omits reference to the lots in premonarchical narratives.
112 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

vine judicial knowledge, the temple gate seems to have been thought par-
ticularly appropriate for the performance of certain legal rituals marking a
transition in legal or social status. A case in point is the asseveration by an
indentured servant that he voluntarily relinquishes manumission (Exod
21:5-6).36 This ceremony is to occur in the gateway of the local sanctuary:
"his master shall bring him
before God; his master shall bring him before the doorway or the door post"
(Exod 21:6a).37 The liminal ceremony, involving the transition from contrac-
tually limited to permanent slavery, requires a liminal context: the gateway
of a temple or sanctuary, which marks the transition point between the di-
vine and the human realms.
Legal proceedings in this cultic context seem to have taken a number of
forms. The Hebrew Bible preserves all of the following forms of cultically
mediated judicial resolution: (1) the judicial oath;38 (2) the judicial ordeal;39

36. See the recent study by Ake Viberg, Symbols of Law: A Contextual Analysis of Legal
Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament (ConBOT 34; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1992)
77-87.
37. The ancient versions preserve diverging exegetical traditions concerning the mean-
ing of D'rftN in this and related judicial contexts (Exod 22:7, 8). In each case the LXX renders
the term in its conventional sense of "God," whereas Targum Onqelos renders «Tl "judges"
(see Ps 138:1, which is not explicitly a legal setting, for the same divergence). The latter mean-
ing is frequently represented in traditional translations. Nevertheless, the inadmissibility of
"judges" as an accurate rendering for the word was established by Cyrus H. Gordon on the ba-
sis of the use of the cognate Hani "gods" in Nuzi legal texts; see his "Elohim in its Reputed
Meaning of Rulers, Judges," JBL 54 (1935) 134-44. With the question of translation resolved,
however, a more complex issue arises. The testamentary literature at Nuzi provides clear evi-
dence that the Hani denoted family gods that were worshipped in home shrines and that were
transferred as part of the private estate; see the meticulous presentation by Karlheinz Dcller,
"Die Hausgotter der Familie Sukrija S. Huja," Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi
and the Hurrians in Honor of Ernest R. Lacheman (ed. M. A. Morrison and D. I. Owen; Winona
Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1981) 47-76. Clearly, it is to be expected that the family gods, as part
of the inheritance, should figure in the private wills preserved in the Nuzi archives. It goes be-
yond the evidence, however, to transfer that meaning into the Covenant Code, which belongs
to a different literary genre, and to assume that the judicial oaths of Exod 21:6 and 22:7, 8 take
place in the context of a home shrine, as maintained by A. E. Draffkorn, "fLANI/ELOHIM,"
JBL 76 (1957) 216-24; and Meir Malul, Studies in Mesopotamia^ Legal Symbolism (AOAT
221; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988) 86 n. 30.
The casuistic material in the Covenant Code much more closely resembles the cuneiform legal
collections, in which the judicial oath and the appearance before the deity takes place at the
local sanctuary, not in the private domicile.
38. Of course, a wider range of oath forms exists in the Hebrew Bible, not all of which
were sworn in a cultic context: note Gen 24:1-3. For a useful study of the terminology and form
of biblical oaths, with reference to broader Near Eastern conventions, see M. R. Lehmann,
"Biblical Oaths," ZAW 81 (1969) 74-92. Vows are a separate category; for the most recent study,
see Tony W. Cartledge, Vows in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup 147;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992).
39. Moshe Weinfeld, "Ordeal of Jealousy," Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Ency-
clopaedia Judaica, 1972) 12.1449-50; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, The Judicial Ordeal in the Ancient
Near East (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1977) 474-80; and Frymer-Kensky, "The
Strange Case of the Suspected Sotah (Numbers v 11-31)," VT 34 (1984) 11-26.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 113

(3) the priestly manipulation of oracular paraphernalia, such as the lots40 in order
to issue a judicial ruling; (4) and priestly oracular rulings, apparently without
recourse to the lots. It is not the cultic locale alone or the participation of priestly
functionaries that distinguishes these cases from those administered in a lay
context by the elders or the public assembly. Rather, it is a question of the nature
of the case. Obviously, the priests are to be involved in all questions related to
ritual purity and impurity, as the divine commission of Aaron and his sons makes
clear (Lev 10:10-11). This role is presupposed in the regulations associated
with afflictions of skin or cloth (Lev 13:1-59), leprosy (Lev 14:1-32), and
fungal infestation of dwellings (Lev 14:33-55); elsewhere, too, the priesthood
rules on questions involving the communicability of purity or contagion (Hag
2:10-13).
Less obvious, and most important, the cultus played an essential role in
justice, even with respect to cases that had nothing whatsoever to do with cultic
or ritual matters. Under certain conditions, secular cases of civil or criminal
law had to be adjudicated cultically. Where a dearth of evidence—the absence
of either testimony by witnesses or material proof—deprives human reason of
the possibility of making a determination, the cultus granted the community
access to a suprahuman agency of judicial decision making.41 Under such cir-
cumstances, the parties to the dispute would repair to the local altar or sanctu-
ary, there, in the symbolic presence of the deity, to swear a judicial oath or to
submit to the ordeal.42 With human reason unable to make a ruling, the deity,
whose judicial insight was free of empirical constraint, would determine the
guilty party: "he whom God indicts shall pay
double to his neighbor" (Exod 22:8b).43 In cases involving trial by ordeal, the
divine determination of guilt became also, in effect, a death sentence.

40. For a useful overview of the latter two, with a different organization than here pre-
sented, see P. J. Budd, "Priestly Instruction in Pre-Exilic Israel," VT 23 (1973) 1-14. For the
first study of the priestly proclamation as a Gattung (literary form), see J. Begrich, "Die
priesterliche Torah," in Werden und Wesen des Alten Testaments (BZAW 66; Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1936) 63-88; reprinted in his Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (TBu 21;
Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1964) 232-60.
41. For the most comprehensive analysis of recourse to divine means for the resolution
of legal disputes, see Frymer-Kensky, The Judicial Ordeal in the Ancient Near East; and Frymer-
Kensky, "Suprarational Legal Procedures in Elam and Nuzi," Studies on the Civilization and
Culture of Null and the Hurrians in Honor of Ernest R. Lachernan (ed. M. A. Morrison and D.
I. Owen; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1981) 115-31.
42. On the religious and forensic function of oaths, see Karel van der Toorn, Sin and
Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia: A Comparative Study (SSN 22; Assen/Maastricht: Van
Gorcum, 1985) 45-55.
43. The plural verb in the Hebrew has sometimes been understood as referring to the judges,
an interpretation that I have refuted in n. 37. Alternately, some scholars maintain that a pre-
Israelite notion of arbitration by "the gods" accounts for the plural verb, while others explain it
as merely a plural of majesty that should be translated as a singular. For scholars taking both
sides in that debate, see Ludger Schwienhorst-Schonberger (Das Bundesbuch \Ex 20,22-23,33}'.
Studien zu seiner Entstehung und Theologie [BZAW 188; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990] 200
n. 25), although he does not indicate his opinion on the matter. Since the label "plural of maj-
esty" risks being a circular argument, simply explaining away an otherwise unexplained plural,
114 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

This norm that even secular disputes having nothing directly to do with
the cultus were nonetheless resolved by means of recourse to the local altar or
sanctuary represents a literary convention within both biblical and cuneiform
law. This convention would have been presupposed by the authors of Deute-
ronomy, who would also have been constrained to transform it as a result of
cultic centralization. It was specifically the recourse to the local sanctuary or
altar for the resolution of such ambiguous cases that necessitated the transfor-
mation of this procedure by the authors of Deuteronomy. Prior to Deuteronomy,
in all cases of evidentiary insufficiency—the unavailability of witnesses
or evidence that would permit a normal judicial ruling—the case would be
cultically resolved. For example, in cuneiform law, even in such noncultic cases
as those involving the deposit of chattels in someone's house for safekeeping
or livestock entrusted to a shepherd, if the depositor accuses the recipient of
misappropriation and the recipient claims in turn that he is not guilty of the
loss but that some third party stole it, with neither side able to produce wit-
nesses, the only recourse is to repair to the local sanctuary where the guilty
party swears a judicial oath to exculpate himself: bel bltim ina bob (KA) DTispak
ms Him izakkarsiima "the owner of the house shall in the gate of Tispak swear
an oath to him [his accuser] by god" (Laws ofEshnunna § 37).44 Both the legal
topos of deposits and the technical terminology associated with the judicial oath

I prefer to avoid it. In my judgment, the text should be translated as a singular on both com-
parative and syntactical grounds. Cuneiform law illuminates the context. The judicial oath is
sworn, after all, at the temple or altar of a particular god, who would then provide the oracular
ruling (see the Laws ofEshnunna, § 37, discussed later). In terms of Hebrew grammar, the co-
ordination ofG'n'pK with a plural verb is not exceptional: see Gen 20:13; 31:53; 35:7; Josh 24:19;
and 2 Sam 7:23. In all cases (except the double subject of Gen 35:7), the reference seems unam-
biguously to "God," understood as a single deity. Note the formulation
"Yahweh—for he is a holy God" (Josh 24:19), where the adjective "holy" occurs in the plural
in order to agree with the morphologically plural form for "God," even though both "he" and
"Yahweh" are singular. The anomalous plural form therefore seems to reflect morphological
conformity between the verb or adjective and the plural ending of C'nVs but need not imply that
the given phrase is plural in meaning. For the converse phenomenon, where formal consistency
requires a single verb when the plural is more logically expected, see n. 54.
44. See R. Yaron, The Laws of Eshnunna (2d ed.; Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1988) 64-65 (col. B iii 3) or Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor
(SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995) 65. The normalization of the Akkadian is my own.
A iii 20 preserves an interesting variant. Instead of the reference to the gate, the latter refers to
the bit "house" of Tispak as the locus for the ceremony. The two alternative readings, indepen-
dently preserved and functionally synonymous, explain a problematic redundancy in Exod 21:6.
That verse coordinates two clauses, each with identical verb and preposition, both of which
specify the locus for the divine oath whereby the indentured slave relinquishes his right to
manumission: ni "His master shall take him before
God; shall take him before the gate or before the door post." It is unnecessary to resolve the
redundancy by claiming that the latter clause is a later (Deuteronomistic) addition, as does, most
recently, Schwienhorst-Schonberger, Bundesbuch, 308. More likely, the Hebrew text preserves
two variant readings alongside one another, corresponding to the two separately preserved in
the cuneiform text: one specifying the presence before the divine (at the altar or sanctuary), the
other, the location in the gate. On the phenomenon of conflated variants elsewhere, see S. Talmon,
"Double Readings in the Massoretic Text," Textus 1 (1960) 144-84.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 115

at the local sanctuary were taken over by the redactors of the Covenant Code:
! "the owner of the house shall approach God" in order
to swear "an oath by Yahweh" (Exod 22:7, 10).45
Within the Covenant Code, the Israelite legal draftsman structures the text
to establish a binary opposition between a secular and a cultic context for the
resolution of the dispute, contingent upon evidentiary ambiguity. The legal
draftsman first introduces the major case with protasis marked by '3 "if: 'D
"if a man deposits silver or ves-
sels with his neighbor for safekeeping which are then stolen from the man's
residence . . ." (Exod 22:6a). The two alternative subordinate clauses, a con-
trasting matched pair each introduced by the dependent protasis marker QN "if,"
make cultic resolution of the dispute contingent upon the absence of evidence—
the failure to apprehend a third party with the stolen goods in his possession.46
Exod 22:6b-7
[A]
[B]
(A) if the thief is apprehended, he shall pay double;
(B) if the thief is not apprehended, the owner of the house shall
approach God [to take an oath] that he did not appropriate his
neighbor's property.
In the second case (B), neither the depositor nor the bailee can prove
or refute the accusation of theft. With secular arbitration by definition impos-
sible, the two litigants must refer their case to divine arbitration:
"unto God shall go the case between the two of them" (Exod
22:8).47 The accused takes a judicial oath asserting his innocence in the divine

45. The literary-legal topos of deposits is an ancient one in the cuneiform legal collec-
tions and is appropriated by Israelite legal draftsmen. See the comprehensive analysis by Eckart
Otto, "Die rechtshistorische Entwicklung des Depositenrechts in altorientalischen und alt-
israelitischen Rechtskorpora," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte, Roma-
nistische Abteilung, 105 (1988) 1—31; and, most recently, his "Diachronie und Synchronie im
Depositenrecht des 'Bundesbuches,'" Zeitschrift fiir Altorientalische und Biblische Rechts-
geschichte 1 (1996) 76-85.
46. On the structure see G. Liedke, Gestalt und Bezeichnung alttestamentticher Rechtssdtze:
Eine formgeschichtlich-terminologische Studie (WMANT 39; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener
Verlag, 1971) 32-34; Eckart Otto, Wandel der Rechtsbegriindungen in der Gesellschaftsgeschichle
des antiken Israel: Eine Rechtsgeschichte des "Bundesbuches" Ex XX 22-XXIII13 (StudBib 3;
Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988) 16-17; Yuichi Osumi, Die Kompositionsgeschichle des Bundesbuches
Exodus 20,22b-23,33 (OBO 105; Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitatsverlag; Gottingen: Vanden-
hoeck & Ruprecht, 1991) 93-101.
47. Otto, Wandel der Rechtsbegriindungen, 14-19; and Otto, "Depositenrechts," 17-28,
maintains that the cultic oath here (and at Exod 22:10) represent secondary interpolations. He
reconstructs an entirely different text in which there is no oath but simple compensation of the
lost property. There is no versional support for that reconstruction. Nor, turning to cuneiform
legal history, does the simple compensation mandated by the Laws of Eshnunna § 36 suggest
that such a clause was original here, which would then overload the Covenant Code topos with
two cases requiring compensation (double and then single)—but no guidelines as to when the
116 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

presence, possibly in the gate of the local sanctuary (Exod 21:6) or before the
altar. The technical formula for the judicial oath whereby each litigant formally
asserts his innocence is "an oath by Yahweh" (Exod 22:10). The sub-
stantive denoting the asseveration is grammatically bound to Yahweh as the
source of its authority and as the one who would fulfill it.48 This formula is the
exact Hebrew equivalent of the Akkadian riisilim "[oath by] the life of the god."
The Hebrew formula for remanding the case to a cultic context such that the
disputants appear "before God" (Exod 22:7; 21:6) is the exact
interdialectical equivalent of the Akkadian ina mahar Him.49
In the law under discussion, the redactional structure providing the two
paradigmatic alternatives in the case of a dispute regarding deposits may well
have been inherited by the Israelite legal draftsmen from cuneiform law. The
example from the Laws of Eshnunna §§ 36-37, already discussed, provides
the same double conditional formulation (summa "if" . . . summa "if" . . . ).
The first law, based upon satisfactory evidence, requires restitution, and the
second, in which there is a deadlock, mandates recourse to the temple for a
judicial oath. The redactor of the Covenant Code uses a similar redactional
structure: again the alternatives are formulated in two parallel subordinate
clauses (n« ... CK "if. . . if. ..; Exod 22:6b-7). The first, in which the thief is
apprehended and the requirements for evidence satisfied, requires restitution,
and the second, in which there is no evidence, mandates recourse to the altar.
That redactional structure provides an important clue to the problematic
sequence of Deut 17:2-7 + 8-13 that has not previously been noticed. Here,
too, the redactor assembles two parallel, conditionally formulated laws (. . . o
. . . "D "if. . . if. . ."). The first involves secular resolution (Deut 17:2-7) based
upon incontrovertible evidence (the testimony of two witnesses) and the sec-
ond, in which there is ambiguity, mandates cultic resolution (Deut 17:8-13).
The innovation of cultic centralization made it necessary, however, for the
authors of Deuteronomy to transform the convention of repairing to the local
sanctuary for the resolution of such ambiguous legal cases. This binary struc-
ture links the two paragraphs and begins to establish their legal-historical logic.
Deut 17:2-7 had to be part of this redactional structure from the beginning. Its
function is to define the conditions for evidentiary certainty.

judicial oath must be sworn. The redactional logic of both the Laws of Eshnunna §§ 36-37 and
the Covenant Code (Exod 22:6-7) is to provide a paradigmatic case distinguishing, in the case
of lost deposits, when compensation is called for and when a judicial oath must be sworn.
48. This observation establishes that the translation of Exod 22:10 provided by the NJPSV,
"an oath before the LORD" (my emphasis) is philologically incorrect. Comparative evidence
for my assertion is found in Akkadian, which has both the exact interdialectical equivalent, nls
Him "oath by god," and the alternative, nls sarrim "oath by the king." For a comprehensive study
of Israelite oath forms, sceM. Lehmann, "Biblical Oaths," ZA W 81 (1969)74-92. Schwienhorst-
Schonberger, Bundesbuch, 201-202, also notes this meaning.
49. See, for example, Hammurapi's Laws, §§ 9, 23, 107, 120, 126, 266, in the context of
judicial oaths. For the most recent translation, see the superb edition by Martha T. Roth, Law
Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995)
71-142.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 117

The Implications of Centralization for Israelite Justice

The cultic innovations of Deuteronomy—centralization of sacrifice and the
concomitant prohibition of local altars—make local resolution of ambiguous
legal cases impossible. By definition, with all cultic activity relegated to the
central sanctuary, so must those judicial cases that hitherto required local cultic
resolution be transferred to the central context. No longer was it possible to
swear a judicial oath "before God" at the local sanctuary. Clearly, the implica-
tions of centralization were not restricted to such cultic issues as sacrifice
(Deuteronomy 12), tithes and firstlings (Deut 14:22-29; 15:19-23), or the fes-
tival calendar (Deut 16:1-17). Centralization equally transformedjudicial pro-
cedure. The extirpation of local altars created a "judicial vacuum in the pro-
vincial cities."50
The innovation of centralization thus involved a double agenda for the
authors of this section of Deuteronomy: (1) they needed to fill the local legal
vacuum created by centralization, and (2) they needed to find a means to adju-
dicate the ambiguous legal cases formerly tried at the local sanctuary. This
working out of the implications of centralization for judicial procedure took
place both empirically and at the level of the text and its structure. Most often,
it is only the former that is recognized. Moshe Weinfeld, for example, correctly
points out the Deuteronomic authors' double historical response to fill the local
legal vacuum: first, "the appointment of state judges in every city (Deut
16:18-20)" and, second, the use of the central tribunal in Jerusalem for cases
too problematic for the local courts (Deut 17:8-13).51 In his focus on the his-
torical issue, however, Weinfeld does not address the textual issue: the impli-
cations of the Deuteronomic reform for the sequence and the structure of the
legal corpus. His historical reconstruction presupposes the standard literary-
critical position whereby Deut 17:2-7, deemed disruptive, is "restored"
to chapter 13. His analysis of the judicial reform moves directly from Deut
16:18-20 (the innovation of local, professional judicial officials) to Deut
17:8-13 (the combination of priests and magistrates at the central tribunal).52
There remains for Deut 17:2-7, accordingly, neither legal-historical nor tex-
tual function.
Other questions remain. What precisely is the relation of the central to the
local courts? What are the precise conditions for determining the venue where
a given case will be heard? What precisely are the criteria whereby cases "must
be submitted to the adjudication of the central tribunal in Jerusalem
(17:8-13)"?53 Categorizing such cases as those where "the provincial magis-
trate was unable to render a decisive verdict" involves a circular argument:

50. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 234.

51. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 234-35. Weinfeld attempts
to reconstruct the historical role and broader background of the professional appointees in "Judge
and Officer in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East," Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1977)
65-88.
52. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 92 n. 2; 95 n. 1; 234-35.
53. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 235.
118 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

remanded to the central court are those cases too difficult to solve locally. The
prior, essential question is by what criteria some cases were permitted and others
denied local competence. The key to resolving these questions is the recogni-
tion that cultic centralization was not merely a matter of the cult. The innova-
tion required a transformation of conventional judicial procedure. With the
penetration of the state and its judicial administration into the local sphere,
centralization was both cultic and political.

Deut 17:2-7 as a Revision ofDeut 13:7-12

The function of Deut 17:2-7 is to demarcate the domain of local justice. The
authors' concern is not the explicit topos of apostasy but rather evidentiary
procedure. They rework a topos ostensibly involving cultic law, which they
appropriate from the apostasy series found in chapter 13. Their transformation
of that topos makes conviction in cases of apostasy conditional upon the avail-
ability of two witnesses. As a result, they restrict local jurisdiction to those cases
that can be empirically resolved. The authors select the particular case of apos-
tasy precisely because of its gravity and in order to drive home two essential
points: (1) the priority of witness law over summary execution and (2) the secu-
larization of judicial procedure in the local sphere. Deut 17:2-7 belongs to a
separate and later literary stratum than does chapter 13 and exegetically reworks
Deut 13:7-12, both of which paragraphs focus on the individual.
Deut 13:7-12 is concerned with incitement to apostasy by a single indi-
vidual who is an immediate member of the kinship group of the law's addressee
(Deut 13:7). In the case of such a provocation, the person to whom the incite-
ment is addressed must take summary action to execute the inciter, acting in
self-defense on behalf of the entire community to defend it from a mortal threat.
The lemma, Deut 13:10-1 la, commands:
[A]
[B]
(A) Your hand shall be first against him to execute him;
thereafter, the hand of all the people;54
(B) You shall stone him to death!

54. The construction both here and at Deut 17:7 initially appears ungrammatical, with
the singular "hand" bound to a collective ("people") or plural ("witnesses") noun. This con-
struction, however, is characteristic of classical Hebrew syntax. In all such cases, the construc-
tion suggests that the singular "hand" is construed as having a distributive force: Gen 19:16
"The men seized his hand . . . and the hand of his two daugh-
ters"); Exod 29:9; Lev 8:24; Deut 1:25; Judg 7:20 (bis). These references are found in BDB,
389 (la), s.v. T. The linguistic rationale for such a construction is that plurality docs not in fact
apply to the noun in question: each person, whatever the number, employs but one of his pair of
hands to hurl the stone. Surprisingly, this semantic issue is overlooked by the most recent text-
book: Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona
Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990). The Septuagint and the Targums normalize the construction,
substituting the logical plural for the distributive.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 119

That lemma is cited nearly verbatim by Deut 17:5b-7.55 The citation is

chiastic, according to Seidel's law. This reversal of the elements of the origi-
nal explains an incongruity in the sequence of instructions for the trial and
execution of the apostate in Deut 17:4—6. A number of scholars have questioned
why the ruling that the apostate should be executed at the city gate, in v. 5,
precedes the condition for reaching that verdict: the requirement that convic-
tion in capital cases be based upon the testimony of two or more witnesses,
first stated in v. 6. This incongruity in the order of the verses has led some
scholars to claim that v. 6 is a late addition to the text, disrupting its order.56
Despite that claim, the disorder is to be explained not in terms of a secondary
interpolation but rather in terms of Seidel' s law, as an editorial technique mark-
ing textual reuse:
Deut 17:5b-7
[B']
[X]
[A']
(B') You shall stone them to death!
(X) On the testimony of two witnesses or three witnesses shall a
person be executed; he shall not be executed on the testimony of a
single witness;
(A') The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to execute him;
thereafter, the hand of all the people.
In his reformulation, the editor interpolates the requirement, nowhere found
in chapter 13, that the conviction be based upon the testimony of a minimum
of two witnesses. In light of that interpolation, the chiastically cited second
element of the lemma is strikingly transformed so that the plural witnesses,
rather than the single accuser, are the ones required to initiate the capital pun-
ishment that results from their testimony.57 The rejection of the lemmatic ~|T

55. Bernard M. Levinson, The Hermeneutics of Innovation: The Impact of Centralization

upon the Structure, Sequence, and Reformulation of Legal Material in Deuteronomy (Ann Ar-
bor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1991) 381-82. Note also, very similarly, Georg Braulik,
Deuteronomium II: 16,18-34,12 (Neue Echter Bibel 28; Wurzburg: Echter Verlag, 1992) 125.
56. So Riitersworden, Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde, 37; and Foresti, "Dtn. 16.18-18.22," 27.
57. The recent attempt by Eckart Otto to claim that there is no contradiction between the
two laws is unconvincing ("Gerichtsordnung," 153). In claiming that the addressee of Deut
13:10-1 la "ist einer der Zeugen in 17,7," he overlooks the emphatic assertion to the contrary
by the author of Deut 13:7-12, who stipulates that the enticement took place "incn "in secret"
(Deut 13:7): without witnesses. Otto's harmonization of the two contradictory laws uninten-
tionally repeats nearly verbatim a prior harmonization by Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1164).
Glossing the lemma of "Your hand shall be upon him" (Deut 13:10a), he wrote:
"It would appear that this refers to each of the two witnesses [specified in
17:6-7]" (Commentary on the Torah [ed. Asher Weiser; Jerusalem: Rav Kook Institute, 19771
3.253 [Hebrew; my translationl). No textual basis is evident for such cisegesis, which in effect
rewrites Deut 13:7-12 (where it is specified that there are no witnesses) to make it conform to
Deut 17:5b-7 (which specifically invokes witness law).
120 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

"your hand" for the reformulation man T "the hand of the witnesses" estab-
lishes the legal-historical distance between the two texts.58
The concern of Deut 13:10-1 la is with summary execution: the singular
addressee of the law, as the one to whom the incitement had been addressed
(Deut 13:7), must subordinate feelings of kinship and mercy (Deut 13:9b), even
in the case of intimate kin (Deut 13:7), to a prior responsibility: the defense of
the community from the threat of apostasy.59 As such, immediate summary ex-
ecution—a form of community self-defense—is called for: "But
you shall surely kill him!" (Deut 13:10).60 Following cuneiform treaty prece-
dents, summary execution is the proper punishment for disloyalty.
In contrast, Deut 17:5-7 subordinates punishment to due process and high-
lights the witnesses as the agents of justice. This underscoring of their role works
both through the interpolation, which specifies that there should be no convic-

58. For linguistic and other evidence independently confirming that Deut 17:2-7 repre-
sents a later reuse of material from chapter 13, see Dion, "Deuteronomy 13," 159-62, 191-92;
Riitersworden, Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde, 37; Rutersworden, "Der Verfassungsentwurf des
Deuteronomiums," 326-28; and Gertz, Gerichtsorganisation Israels, 45-52. In contrast, Eckart
Otto has recently sought to level the diachronic difference between Deuteronomy 13 and 17:2-7
by reconstructing an allegedly original Deuteronomic core, common to both, from which he
excises ostensibly secondary Deuteronomistic accretions ("Von der Gerichtsordnung zum
Verfassungsentwurf: Deuteronomische Gestaltung und deuteronomistische Interpretation im
»Amtergesetz« Dtn 16,18-18,22," in "Wer ist wie du, HERR, unter den Gottern?" Studien zur
Theologie und Religionsgeschichte Israels fur Otto Kaiser fed. Ingo Kottsieper et al.; Gottingen:
Vandcnhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995] 149, 153). To support his reconstruction of this essential
Deuteronomic core for Deuteronomy 13, Otto (p. 149 n. 36) cites Dion's redactional analysis
of the chapter. The problem is that Dion's actual conclusions controvert Otto's enterprise, since
Dion denies that any Deuteronomic core is recoverable for either Deuteronomy 13 or 17:2-7.
Indeed, he insists that "Deut. 13.2-18 in its entirety is a dtr composition" and disallows that it
is "a D composition" ("Deuteronomy 13," 190, 191; my emphasis).
59. On Deut 13:7-12 as a test case that trenchantly sets loyalty to Yahweh over ties of
kinship and love, see Bernard M. Levinson, "Recovering the Lost Original Meaning of ncsn nVi
rbi) (Deuteronomy 13:9)," JBL 115 (1996) 601-20.
60. Despite the nearly absolute scholarly consensus to the contrary, the MT reading, not
a retroversion based on the Septuagint variant dvayYeXXcov dvayyeAeii; jtepi aikou "You shall
report him" (LXX Deut 13:9), is original. The LXX is but one of a chorus of mutually inconsis-
tent versional attempts to revise the MT and make it conform to due process. Moreover, the
neo-Assyrian treaties employed to support the LXX variant actually support the MT and re-
quire summary execution of traitors. See BernardM. Levinson, '"But You Shall Surely Kill Him!':
The Text-Critical and Neo-Assyrian Evidence for MT Deut 13:10," in Bundesdokument und
Gesetz: Studien zum Deuteronomium (ed. Georg Braulik; HBS 4; Freiburg: Herder, 1995) 37-63.
The recent defense of the Septuagint reading by Anneli Aejmelaeus is unconvincing ("Die
Septuaginta des Deuteronomiums," in Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen [ed.
Timo Veijola; Schriften der Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellschaft 62; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1996] 19-21). Her article implies that the other textual witnesses, the history of
interpretation, and the cuneiform material are all irrelevant to establishing the original text in
question. Her analysis avoids the evidence that consonantal metathesis was a widely attested
hermeneutical technique used by the Septuagint translators as well as by the Qumran sectarians
and rabbinic exegesis (see Levinson, '"But You Shall Surely Kill Him!,'" 53). It also concedes
that it cannot explain the absence from the Septuagint of the very adversative particle that is
essential to the reconstruction (p. 20 n. 65.).
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 121

tion on the basis of a single accuser (similarly, Deut 19:15), and through the
requirement that the witnesses themselves initiate the punishment that follows
from their testimony. Their direct involvement in the execution entails a legal
safeguard: it may well intimate the consequences of false accusation or false
testimony to the perpetrators. Confirming this hypothesis, the one place where
Deuteronomy cites the law of talion is in specifying the judicial penalty for
false accusation (Deut 19:19).
Strikingly, the requirement of a minimum of two witnesses becomes a
precondition to conviction even in the case of the most heinous offense imag-
inable, apostasy as the breach of the first commandment of the Decalogue (cf.
Deut 13:3; Exod 20:5 = Deut 5:9; Exod 23:24).6I Even in such a case, norma-
tive witness law must be scrupulously implemented. In the context of Deut
17:2-7, therefore, the selection of the particular case seems to function less for
its specific than for its paradigmatic value. That the formulation of the case
involves the reuse of prior lemmas and, but for the recontextualization, is quite
formulaic lends weight to the argument that the true topos of the paragraph is
not apostasy but the rules of evidence.
This introduction of the laws concerned with evidentiary procedure cor-
responds closely to the pride of place that the drafters of Hammurapi's Laws
grant to the same topos, setting it at the very beginning of the legal corpus. In
the context both of Deut 17:2-7 and the cuneiform corpus (§§ 1-5), therefore,
not only does justice functionally mean freedom from false accusation, but the
initial laws—in a unit whose topos is justice—become remarkably self-reflex-
ive, regulating judicial procedure (adjective law) more than actual delicts per
se (substantive law). That capital offenses, even in the gravest of cases (apos-
tasy in Deut 17:2-7; accusations of murder or sorcery in Hammurapi's Laws
§§ 1-2) are subordinated to a general law of evidence clearly gives a powerful
theme-setting demonstration of the injunction with which the unit as a whole
opens: pis astsn DOTra*IDDDT "they shall judge the people with righteous jus-
tice" (Deut 16:18).62

61. Later Jewish tradition makes the relation between the passages more explicit. The
Tiberian Massorah uses a theological vocalization to draw an exegetical analogy between the
case of apostasy in Deut 13:3 and the Decalogue's prohibition. The grammatically anomalous
hophal of the verb ~as "to serve, worship" is, but for these cases, completely unattested. A com-
parable instance of grammatically anomalous theological vocalization occurs in Num 7:89; Ezek
2:2; 43:6. In all these instances divine speech is vocalized as an intransitive reflexive (hithpael)
of ~\yi. See the analysis by Moshe Greenberg, Ezeiie/, 7-20 (AB; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1983) 62, who identifies them as "a later linguistic conceit."
62. For a valuable explanation of the logic of Hammurapi's Laws §§ 1-5, see Herbert
Petschow, "Zur Systematik und Gesetzestechnik im Codex Hammurabi," ZA 57 (1965) 148-49.
Medieval rabbinic exegesis already recognized the theme-setting role of initial laws within a
legal collection. Nachmanides (1194-1270) made the analogous claim about the otherwise prob
lematic placement of laws concerned with manumission of slaves (Exod 21:2-11) at the very
beginning of the Covenant Code (Exod 21:1-19)—prior even to a cluster of apodictic capital
cases (Exod 21:12-17). He argues that this placement is intelligible only as reflecting the first
verse of the Decalogue, both in its topos (manumission) and in its language: D"na . . . •ynRHin
"led you out . . . slaves" (Exod 20:2) is chiastically echoed (see Seidel's law) by «s' . . . -nil
"slave .. . shall go out" (Exod 21:2). See Nachmanides (R. Moses ben Nachman), Commentary on
122 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Whereas the topos of chapter 13 is incitement to apostasy, the actual topos

of Deut 17:2-7 is the innovation it makes in legal history: the evidentiary re-
quirement of two witnesses.63 The topos, form, and terminology of chapter 13
are appropriated by the drafter of Deut 17:2-7 in order to transform the earlier
judicial protocol. This reinterpretation extends the range of examples of tex-
tual transformation demonstrated within Deuteronomy. Previous examples have
revealed Deuteronomy's tendentious revision of pre-Deuteronomic literature
(the Covenant Code and JE material). This case raises a different issue. It sug-
gests that earlier strata within the legal corpus achieved sufficient authorita-
tive status that subsequent editors made new law through the reinterpretation
of earlier texts deriving from the same legal-scribal school.
This trajectory of textual revision within the legal corpus is highly nuanced
and multilayered. In its revision of Deuteronomy 13, Deut 17:2-7 revises a text
that is itself already a revision of earlier law, both biblical and cuneiform. First,
Deuteronomy 13 is very much of a literary text: a deliberate composition in
which Josianic authors appropriate the literary and the political model of the
neo-Assyrian state treaties, with their requirement for exclusive allegiance to
the secular lord, and transfer that loyalty oath (ade) to Yahweh. No discrete
literary strata, corresponding to alleged transformations in the nature of Israel-
ite piety, moving from a pristine clan-based immediacy that embodies a "primi-
tive-archaic naivete" to a more complex form of social and religious organiza-
tion, can legitimately be isolated.64 Such attempts, presupposing a specious

the Torah (ed. Charles B. Chavel; 2 vols.; Jerusalem: Rav Kook Institute, 1959) 1.412-13 (He-
brew; translated in 5 vols., New York: Shilo, 1971). Nachmanides was preceded in his analysis
by the ninth-century Midras Exodus Rabbah 30:15, which may have served him as a source.
The best edition of this text is Midrash rabbah ha-mevu'ar, vol. 2, Shemot rabbah (2 vols.;
Jerusalem: Makhon ha-midrash ha-mevu'ar, 1983) 2.90 (Hebrew). For the translation, see
Midrash Rabbah Exodus (tr. S. M. Lehrman; London: Soncino, 1983) 363.
63. This witness law is a Dcuteronomic innovation, which is then presupposed by the
Priestly source in Num 35:30. There is no evidence for such witness law to be pre-Deuteronomic.
Anachronistically set in the ninth century, the narrative of the kangaroo court set up by Jezebel
(1 Kgs 21:10-13) constitutes a very late Deuteronomistic literary composition that presupposes
the witness law of Deuteronomy. Establishing by virtue of language and content that 1 Kgs
21:1-16 dates to the Persian period and knows all four collections of pentateuchal law (BC, D,
H, and P) is Alexander Rofe, "The Vineyard of Naboth: The Origin and Message of the Story,"
VT38 (1988) 89-104.
64. Contra Martin Rose, Der Ausschliefilichkeitsanspruch Jahwes: Deuteronomische
Schultheologie und die Volksfrommigkeit in der spaten Konigszeit (BWANT 106; Stuttgart: W.
Kohlhammer, 1975), 19-50. Rose's source-critical reconstruction of the earliest stage of the text
of Deut 13:2-19; 17:2-7, is ineluctably linked to his postulate of the stage it is supposed to rep-
resent in terms of the history of religions: "Es ist die Stufe archaisch-primitiver Naivitat, die von
der Gemeinschaft der Stammeseinheit her denkt" (p. 46). He claims that the text's original focus
was less on allegiance to a particular God (pp. 20-21, 33) than on the rejection of unfamiliar gods
in order to maintain the intimacy of the ethnic community. Naming the deity to whom exclusive
allegiance is owed thus represents a secondary development and a fall from original immediacy
(pp. 40-41). Parenesis is added only at the tertiary level. The neo-Assyrian vassal treaties contro-
vert Rose's reconstruction. The Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon requires the subject's exclusive al-
legiance specifically to Esarhaddon and to his son Ashurbanipal; each is identified by name and
appropriate royal title; and admonitory parenesis is inseparable from the requirement for loyalty.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 123

understanding of the history of religions, are controverted by the fact that

Deuteronomy 13 is from the outset a literary composition, most likely a prod-
uct of the Josianic court, deliberately transferring the neo-Assyrian model to
an Israelite context and incorporating earlier Deuteronomic language and lit-
erary motifs.65
Second, Deuteronomy 13 revises and replaces the prohibition against sacri-
fice to foreign gods found in the Covenant Code (Exod 22:19).66 The assump-
tion is that the latter text's stipulation that such transgressors be "consecrated to
destruction" (mrr) would additionally have involved the collective destruction
of the entire family, together with its material goods.67 As such, Deut 13:7-12
represents a restrictive reinterpretation of Exod 22:19, limiting the punishment
to the individual, while Deut 13:13-18 would limit collective punishment to those
cases where the wrongdoing was actually collective, as in the case of the city
that succumbs to apostasy. On the one hand, Deut 13:7-12 mitigates the severity
of Exod 22:19, abrogating its original requirement for collective punishment. On
the other hand, the original law is also made more severe: now mere incitement,
and not the fact of apostasy, becomes a capital offense.

The Hermeneutical Function of Deut 17:2-7

Deut 17:2-7 reformulates Deut 13:7-12 in order to introduce the requirement
for a minimum of two witnesses for conviction in capital cases. The inclusion

65. See Dion, "Deuteronomy 13," 147-216. Arguing that despite the intimate ties to neo-
Assyrian treaty language, the chapter should nonetheless be dated to a postexilic redactional
layer is Timo Veijola, "Wahrheit und Intoleranz nach Deuteronomium 13," ZTK 92 (1995)
309-10. The author's argument for a late Deuteronomistic redaction, motivated by covenant
theology, does not provide a clear explanation of its premise that the neo-Assyrian material first
entered Deuteronomy only in the Persian period, not during the neo-Assyrian hegemony over
Judah while the treaty was a live issue, nor even during the subsequent Babylonian hegemony.
The most recent analysis of the chapter provides a comprehensive argument for the reuse of the
neo-Assyrian material in the context of the Josianic court. See Eckart Otto, "Treueid und Gesetz:
Die Urspriinge des Deuteronomiums im Horizont neuassyrischen Vertragsrechts," Zeitschrift
fiir Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 2 (1996) 1-52.
66. Norbert Lohfink, "Din haram" TDOT5 (1986) 198; and SeebaB, "Vorschlag," 83-98.
The clearest arguments are provided by Schwienhorst-Schonberger, Bundesbuch, 316-20, pro-
viding the strongest, if indirect, case for literary dependence; and, extending his earlier idea,
Norbert Lohfink, "Opfer und Sakularisierung im Deuteronomium," in Studien zu Opfer und Kult
im Alien Testament (ed. Adrian Schenker; Forschungen zum Alten Testament 3; Tubingen: J.
C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1992) 39--40. For the Near Eastern context, see Philip D. Stern, The
Biblical Herem: A Window on Israel's Religious Experience (BJS 211; Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1991) 67-110, who, however, does not address the literary-critical and redactional issues in his
analysis of Deut 13:13-18 (p. 106) and assumes, rather than demonstrates, a relation to Exod
22:19 (pp. 123-25).
67. So G. Schmitt, Du solst keinen Frieden schlieften mil den Bewohnern des Landes: Die
Wegweisung gegen die Kanaander in Israels Geschichte und Geschichtsschreibung (BWANT
91; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970) 141—42. However, there is no conclusive evidence that the
punishment does extend to the family in Exod 22:19. Making this point and adducing other
difficulties in the formulation by SeebaB, see Rutersworden, "Der Verfassungsentwurf des
Deuteronomiums," 326-27.
124 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

of this paragraph in the larger unit serves a double purpose. First, the require-
ment of two or more witnesses defines the case as one where a legal ruling is
intrinsically possible on the basis of empirical evidence and human reason alone.
As such, this evidentiary requirement is restrictive so far as the demarcation of
legal authority is concerned: only those cases, the authors assert, that permit of
secular resolution may be tried locally. Second, if the authors prohibit local
cultic justice as a consequence of centralization, they do not prohibit local jus-
tice altogether. Consistently for the authors of Deuteronomy, centralization
involves a double transformation—cultic exclusivity in the central sphere and
local secularization. With respect to sacrifice, for example, the authors of
Deuteronomy restrict legitimate cultic slaughter to the central sanctuary while
sanctioning secular slaughter of animals in the local sphere. The same prin-
ciple holds true for the two cases in question here. Cultic justice is restricted to
the central sanctuary in Deut 17:8-13; concomitantly, the local sphere, in Deut
17:2-7', is legitimated as the site of secular justice.
The function of Deut 17:2-7 is to serve paradigmatically to define and to
legitimate the role of the local sphere in judicial administration. Gustav Holscher
was thus close to the mark in claiming that the case of apostasy served as "merely
a paradigm of a criminal case" and as "a school example."68 The problem is
his "merely." That the case indeed functions paradigmatically does not mean
that, at the time of its composition, it was only so intended. Far more likely, it
was part of a far-reaching program to implement centralization through all of
life, cultically and judicially. The text's authors drive home the point that the
local sphere need not totally relinquish its authority to the Jerusalem revision-
ists. Its lay personnel can continue to try even capital cases. Since those cases
requiring cultic resolution were always beyond the scope of local lay author-
ity, the shift merely in cultic venue—from the local to the central sanctuary—
does not, at least in principle, diminish local lay jurisdiction. Even the gravest
of possible offenses, apostasy, by definition capital, may be tried locally, con-
tingent upon the case's satisfying the evidentiary requirement.
Whether, in sanctioning local justice, the authors of Deuteronomy also
intended to sanction the continued authority of the local clan elders is less clear.
The Deuteronomic authors impose a system of judicial professionals (Deut
16:18-20) upon the older system of city-gate justice and restrict ambiguous
cases requiring cultic recourse to the judiciary at the central sanctuary (Deut
17:8-9). The text's authors do not specify how or whether the professional
judiciary is to function alongside the older system of the clan justice. It is, after
all, precisely at the gate where the older system of clan justice, in the hands

68. Gustav Holscher, "{Composition und Ursprung des Deuteronomiums,"Z/lW40 (1922)

198 ("nur Musterbeispiel eines Kriminalvergehens," "Schulbeispiel"; my translation). Hb'lscher's
denial of the practicability of the law is part of his larger argument against the Josianic dating
of the legal corpus: he maintains that it merely represents post-exilic scholastic theologizing.
That argument is very unlikely. Centralization was a late pre-exilic concern. Postexilic Yehud
took it for granted and was more concerned with the role of Jerusalem and the construction of
a citizen-Temple state along Achaemcnid models.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 125

of the elders, operated (Deut 21:19; 22:15; 25:7; Job 29:7; Ruth 4:1, 11; Lam
5:14). Consequently the imposition of professional judges at the local level may
have initiated a conflict over spheres of judicial authority. Weinfeld recognizes
this conflict. However, he attempts to negate the problem by reconstructing sepa-
rate jurisdictions for each of the professional judiciary and the clan elders, as if
each operated simultaneously alongside the other, with the elders now restricted
to matters of family law.69 Such a synchronic harmonization overlooks diachronic
issues involved in the composition of the legal corpus. It is doubtful that the two
systems of judicial administration—that of the elders and that of the professional
judicial appointees of Deut 16:18-20—ever coexisted historically.70
The authors begin the unit concerned with the implications of centraliza-
tion for judicial procedure with paragraphs that deny, by means of polemical
silence, any role for the elders. Indeed, the authors impose their professionalized
judicial system upon the city gate as if it were a tabula rasa without traditional
legal-historical occupants: "Judges and judicial
officers shall you appoint for yourself in each of your city-gates" (Deut 16:18)!

69. M. Weinfeld, "Elders," 6.578-80; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic

School, 234. Similarly, Jacob Milgrom, "The Ideological and Historical Importance of the Of-
fice of Judge in Deuteronomy," in [sac [sic] Leo Seeligtnann Volume: Essays on the Bible and
the Ancient World (ed. Alexander Rofe and Yair Zakovitch; 3 vols.; Jerusalem: E. Rubinstein,
1983) 3.129-39 (138). Unfortunately, this entire question concerning the respective spheres of
authority of the elders and the official judicial system is not addressed by Hanoch Reviv, The
Elders in Ancient Israel: A Study of a Biblical Institution (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989) 61-70.
By discussing neither the installation of the judicial officials (Deut 16:18—20) nor the law of
the king (Deut 17:14-20), he avoids challenges to his claim that Deuteronomy retains the insti-
tution of the elders essentially intact in its presettlement form.
70. Most commonly, scholars view those laws in which the elders are active as an earlier
and pre-Deuteronomic stratum of the legal corpus. See Alexander Rofe, "The Law about the
Organization of Justice in Deuteronomy (16:18-20; 17:8-13)," Beth Mikra 65 (1976) 199-210,
esp. 200-201 (Hebrew; English abstract); and Mayes, Deuteronomy, 284-85, 304. That widely
held position has recently come under challenge from two different perspectives. First, Eckart
Otto has argued that these laws are Deuteronomic and that the professionalized judiciary coex-
isted with the administration of justice by the elders. See Otto, Sa 'ar, 375-76; and Otto, "Soziale
Verantwortung und Reinheit des Landes: Zur Redaktion der kasuistischen Rechtssatze in Deute-
ronomium 19-25," in Prophetie und geschichtliche Wirklichkeit im alien Israel: Festschrift fiir
Siegfried Hermann (ed. Riidiger Liwak and Siegfried Wagner; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1991)
290-306. His argument that their redaction is now Deuteronomic is compelling. The claim of
the coexistence of the two systems, however, strikes me as harmonistic: Deut 16:18 installs the
professionalized judiciary precisely at the site where the elders would exercise their public func-
tion, pulling the bench out from under them. Second, Jan Christian Gertz has recently reversed
the conventional view to argue that the laws involving the elders (Deut 21:18-21; 22:13-21;
and 25:5-10) actually arepost-Deuteronomic and exilic in origin (Gerichtsorganisation Israels,
173-225). As such, they would be later than—not earlier than or contemporary with—the
Deuteronomic system of a professionalized judiciary. Gertz was anticipated in his late dating
of the elder material by Hoppe, Origins of Deuteronomy, 257-356. His proposal leads to some
difficulties. Why should post-Deuteronomic tradents subvert Deuteronomic law by overturn-
ing the leading judicial role assigned to a professionalized judiciary in 16:18-20? Why only in
the exilic period would an ancient motif of cuneiform law, the casuistic law of the disrespectful
son (see Hammurabi's Code § 195) enter the legal corpus (Deut 21:18-21) as a late straggler,
when other cuneiform motifs (adultery and rape law) were already present (Deut 22:22-29)?
126 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

What the text here presents as simple installation actually involves the replace-
ment of one system of justice with another, as the elders are silently evicted
from their customary place of honor.71 The deliberate nonmention of the elders
in the very site where they customarily exercised their judicial function can
only constitute a deliberate polemic. As such, legal history is rewritten by means
of the textual strategy of exegetical silence.
The authors of Deuteronomy radically transform the authority structures
of public life. Mere seniority within the clan is no longer requisite to the task
of exercising judicial authority. This conventional role of the elders had been
based upon their social position and inherent status. The elders were thus nei-
ther appointed by nor answerable to the larger community. The authors of
Deuteronomy disrupt that old clan lineage judicial system and instead make
exercise of the judicial function conditional, first, upon appointment to the office
and, second, upon professionalization. In breaking the nexus between justice
and clan status, the authors of Deuteronomy push further to create a fully inde-
pendent judiciary that is equally free of royal control. The king does not ap-
point the local judiciary.72 Just as there is no mention of the monarch in the
context of judicial procedure (Deut 17:2-7, 8-13), so is there no mention of
his judicial authority or even of his right to appoint judicial officials in the law
of the king (Deut 17:14-20). The texts are perfectly consistent in sundering
any connection between justice and monarchy.73

71. Also arguing that the elders are displaced are Rofe, "Organization of Justice," 200-201;
Niehr, Rechtsprechung in Israel, 96-97; and Suzuki, "Administration of Justice," 34, 38.
Milgrom, "Judge in Deuteronomy," 129-39, recognizes the usurpation but harmonizes, main-
taining that the elders retain their authority in the domestic sphere. Wilson, "Israel's Judicial
System," 246, accepts that the system of clan lineage justice is abrogated but maintains that the
professionalization of the judiciary precedes the Deuteronomic reform. Deut 16:18-20, in his
analysis, merely extends the existing system of judicial appointees in cities under royal con-
trol, as established by Jehoshaphat's judicial reform, to all towns. But the only evidence for
Jehoshaphat's judicial reform is the narrative of 2 Chronicles 19—and Wilson himself estab-
lishes that the narrative is not historical (pp. 246-48). See further n. 73.
72. Arguing that the king is not given the power of judicial appointment are S. Dean
McBride, Jr., "Deuteronomium," TREK (1982) 531-43 (534); Rutersworden, Gemeinschaftzur
Gemeinde, 92-93; and Patrick D. Miller, Deuteronomy (Louisville: John Knox, 1990) 143.
Suzuki, "Administration of Justice," 22-58, argues for royal appointment. His argument is predi-
cated, however, upon problematic legal-historical distinctions between laws formulated in the
second-person singular and the plural. His analysis of the law of the king does not differentiate
between Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic elements and, in describing the king's authority,
seems to describe the viewpoint of the text's authors instead (41-43).
73. Only postexilically, under the influence of Achaemenid models of royal authority, is
the monarch's right to judicial appointment restored to him. The Chronicler's programmatic
narrative of Jehoshaphat's judicial reform anachronistically revises Deut 16:18—20; 17:2-7 (and
other texts) in order to reassert royal judicial authority (2 Chronicles 19). That text, despite the
very influential article by Albright, is not historical. It is a deliberate compilation of other texts
and provides reliable information only about the Chronicler's vision for a reconstruction in the
Persian Age. Establishing the text's nonhistoricity are Rofe, "Organization of Justice," 199-210;
Wilson, "Israel's Judicial System," 246-^8; Rutersworden, Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde, 15-19;
and, most extensively, Gary N. Knoppers, "Jehoshaphat's Judiciary and 'the Scroll of YHWH'S
Torah,'" JBL 113 (1994) 59-80. Rofe's article has been widely overlooked.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 127

This new vision radically transforms Israelite and ancient Near Eastern
precedent, whereby central to the royal ideology is the monarch's role in the
administration of justice. The authors of Deuteronomy have created a fully
independent judiciary, chosen by and answerable to the population at large
(Deut 16:18).74 But, more complexly, these new judicial officials also owe their
commission to the new Deuteronomic initiative. They must conform to and
implement Deuteronomy's own principles of sapiential justice (Deut 16:19-20),
using the paradigmatic cases of the legal corpus as the final arbiters of justice.
Rejecting both the conventional privilege of the elders and the conventional
power of the king, the authors of Deuteronomy substitute a new structure of
judicial and public authority: the Deuteronomic Torah.75

The Contextual Function of Deut 17:8-13

The Deuteronomic program of cultic centralization also provides the key to the
judicial role of the central sanctuary. Even civil cases that could not be empiri-
cally resolved because of evidentiary insufficiency were referred to the cultus
for an oracular responsum. Within the Covenant Code, the terminology for appear-
ing before the divine to make a judicial oath is "to draw near
to God" (Exod 22:7) or "unto God shall come the case
between the two of them" (Exod 22:8). Centralization necessitated the transfer
of that originally local cultic access to the central sphere. Because that legal-his-
torical convention already existed, the authors needed not to abrogate but merely
to respecify the existing norm. Just such reworking is apparent in the protasis of
Deut 17:8. Consistent with earlier protocol, that verse refers any case that defies
empirical resolution "to the cultic site" where an oracular responsum may be
obtained: .76 As a consequence of centralization, therefore, it becomes
necessary to respecify the cultic reference: "to
the place which Yahweh your God shall choose" (Deut 17:8). The reformulation
works like a lemma with its gloss. The relative clause restricts the site where
cultic access is achieved to the central sanctuary: the location of the one legiti-
mate altar. The originally local oracular resolution of the "case" granted in
Exod 22:8 is now centrally granted by the levitical priests or judge:
"they will proclaim to you the sentence of judgment" (Deut 17:9b).
The authors of the text take pains to stress that the cultic center does not
function as a Supreme or appellate court.77 Instead, its authority operates by

74. My formulation follows S. Dean McBride, Jr., "Polity of the Covenant People: The
Book of Deuteronomy," Int 41(1987) 229-44 (240); reprinted in A Song of Power and the Power
of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 1993) 62-77,
75. See also the reflections of Lohfink, "Amtergesetze," 319-20.
76. See chapter 2, n. 16. Given the connection between the cultus and justice, as stressed
here, it is relevant that in 1 Sam 7:16, the Septuagint reads "sanctified places" for MT mcipo.
The reading thus assumes that Samuel's judicial oracles are proclaimed at the sanctuaries listed
in the verse.
77. As noted by Lohfink, "Amtergesetze," 307. I thus disagree with Suzuki, "Adminis-
tration of Justice," 35-36.
128 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

default, in cases defined by the absence of witnesses or evidence. Only in cases

that defy empirical resolution—herewith local judicial authority receives its
sanction as the tribunal of first choice—must the litigants transfer the venue of
the case from the local to the central sphere:
"If a legal case exceeds your ken—
whether distinguishing between one category of homicide and another, one cat-
egory of civil law and another, one category of bodily injury and another, any
kind of legal dispute within your city-gates . . ." (Deut 17:8).
What is the function of the three pairs of delicts found in the protasis, each
of which is formulated as a double prepositional phrase, -*? p "between
and "? The intent seems to be to raise the issue of judicial classification
in terms of binary opposition: whether a particular case belongs in the category
of a culpable or nonculpable offense. For example, the distinction intended by
literally, "between blood and blood," means, as Abraham ibn Ezra
(1089-1164) correctly glosses, recovering the original meaning against the
halakhah: "between innocent blood-spilling and culpable
blood-spilling."78 Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam, 1080/85-c. 1174) similarly re-
jects the conventional halakhic meaning:
"between blood and blood: according to its literal meaning, be-
tween [one form of] murder and [another form] of murder, between [the] ho-
micide and the murderer."79 As these members of both the Spanish and the
French schools recognized, the syntax signals the crucial judicial distinction
as to whether a given homicide constitutes murder or manslaughter. This dis-
tinction is forged by the law, found in the three legal strata of the Pentateuch,
that grants refuge from the blood avenger to the unintentional killer but denies
it to the murderer: the Covenant Code (Exod 21:12,14 versus v. 13), the Priestly
stratum (Num 35:16-21 versus vv. 22-23), and Deuteronomy (Deut 19:4-7
versus vv. 11-13). That indeed the syntax in question signals this distinction is
suggested by the Priestly text that requires the community to adjudicate be-
tween the competing claims of the homicide—that it was not murder—and of
the blood avenger—that the death in fact requires avenging:
"the congregation shall adjudicate between the slayer and
the blood avenger" (Num 35:24).
In the absence of witnesses or evidence, there were no rational or empiri-
cal grounds for a human ruling concerning intent or probable cause: thus,
whether the case constituted murder or manslaughter. This requirement for
access to a capacity for discernment that exceeds finite and empirically condi-

78. Abraham ibn Ezra, Commentary on the Torah, 3.266 (Hebrew; my translation).
79. R. Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam), Commentary on the Pentateuch (ed. David Rosin;
Breslau: Schottelaender, 1881)216 (Hebrew; my translation). This edition is frequently reprinted
and is more accurate than the edition by A. I. Bromberg (1965). For a very interesting, com-
parative study of ibn Ezra and Samuel ben Meir, showing the emergence during the twelfth
century of nonhalakhic biblical exegesis, see Martin I. Lockshin, "Tradition or Context: Two
Exegetes Struggle with Peshat," From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of
Understanding, Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox (ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and
Nahum M. Sarna; 4 vols.; BJS 159, 173-175; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 2.173-86.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 129

tioned human knowledge is precisely what the key verb of the protasis signals:
"if a legal case exceeds your ken" (Deut 17:8).80 That
the case refers to one in which human reason cannot operate because it lacks
all the facts is confirmed by Job's finally recanting his legal case against God
on account of the overwhelming disproportion between divine and human
knowledge: "Thus I spoke without under-
standing—things too wondrous for me, which I did not know" (Job 42:3). Job's
recantation employs the same grammatical formula found in the protasis of Deut
17:8, the niphal of + prepositional p bound to a divine or human refer-
ence. As Job drops his legal case consequent upon a divine theophany, so con-
versely in the context of Deut 17:8-13, in the absence of the two witnesses
that would permit empirical adjudication, the legal case must be referred to the
Temple for divine arbitration.
The apodosis requires that the litigants proceed to the cultic center where
alone they may seek a legal ruling (Deut 17:8b-9). Scholars remain unclear
about who is understood actually to travel to the cultic center to receive the
judgment: the litigants themselves, to receive an oracular responsum (as in Exod
22:6-8,9-10) or the judicial authorities responsible for trying them. The rhetoric
of Deuteronomy clouds the issue, since at times the second-person-singular
addressee represents the judicial authorities of the community who are respon-
sible for both criminal investigation and execution (Deut 17:4-5,8a). This might
suggest that the judicial authorities, not the actual parties to the dispute, travel
to the Temple to receive an advisory responsum that permits them—this needs
to be assumed—to return to the local sphere to complete the legal hearing.81
Such an interpretation is unlikely. The litigants themselves appear before
the altar. First, the legal-historical antecedent for the cultic recourse, the judi-
cial oath ( / riis Him), requires the accused's self-exculpatory assev-
eration in the divine presence / ina mahar Him). Second, the am-
biguous second person formulation of Deut 17:9
"you shall come to the levitical priests and the judge
who shall officiate at that time") has a third-person counterpart in Deut 19:17
that removes the ambiguity:
"the two parties to the dispute shall stand before
Yahweh—before the priests and the judges who shall officiate at that time."
This formulation makes clear the editor's presupposition that the litigants them-
selves are present at the Temple to receive the judicial ruling. The second
"before" clause constitutes a gloss upon the first. The asyndetic gloss accom-
modates what may have been an older formula for the judicial oath sworn in

80. Note Ps 131:1. Note further "Is anything too wondrous for Yahweh?"
(Gen 18:14). The latter passage is the exact antithesis of the protasis of Deut 17:8, both of which
include in the formula the substantive ~n~ (word, case, matter, thing). In Deut 17:8 that sub-
stantive has a technical legal force, whereas in Gen 18:18 it has a more general denotation. On
the verb, note Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 235 n. 1; 258-60; and
Riitersworden, Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde, 44, with literature.
81. So both Mayes, Deuteronomy, 267, and, most recently, Riitersworden, "Der Verfas-
sungsentwurf des Deuteronomiums," 316.
130 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

an originally noncentralized cultic context (cf. Num 5:16,18) to Deuteronomy' s

cultic centralization. Finally, the Deuteronomistic History knows this conven-
tion of the now centralized altar as the site of judicial oath taking. The very
first petition in Solomon's Temple inauguration prayer confirms that the ac-
cused "shall come ( ) . . . before your altar in this Temple" to swear his in-
nocence and receive divine vindication (1 Kgs 8:31-32).

Toward a Coherent Reading ofDeut 17:2-7 and 8-13

The scholarly attempts to relocate Deut 17:2-7 to chapter 13 overlook the
paragraph's dialectical function. It works in conjunction with 17:8-13 to ex-
press the fundamental concern of the authors to define and frequently to rede-
fine those activities that are legitimate in both the local and the central spheres
as a consequence of centralization. The two paragraphs dialectically cohere both
topically and in their terminology. The two cases interlock: they restrict the
local sphere to secular legal activity (which they define through a paradigmatic
empirically soluble case), and they restrict cultic recourse for ambiguous legal
cases to the central sanctuary.
Just as in the case of the disputed deposit (Exod 22:6-7), the sequence of
Deut 17:2-7 + 8-13 functions to establish as a coherent whole the separate
conditions for lay resolution and for cultic resolution. Lay resolution of judi-
cial disputes, as was the case with Exod 22:6b, is contingent upon evidentiary
sufficiency. Deut 17:2-7 by definition satisfies this requirement. By stipulat-
ing the presence of two or more witnesses, the case leaves no room for ambi-
guity or legal deadlock: it is not a matter of one man's word against another's.
In contrast, cultic resolution, as was the case with Exod 22:7, is required for
those cases that exceed the powers of human knowledge because they require
a ruling in the absence of decisive evidence, as in Deut 17:8.
The logic of the two paragraphs is dialectical. Together, Deut 17:2-7 and
17:8-13 combine to form a merism for all categories of judicial activity, secu-
lar and cultic. Paradoxically, however, the redactor selects in the first instance
an ostensibly cultic case to define the conditions for local secular authority
while, equally paradoxically, selecting in the second instance ostensibly secu-
lar cases to define the conditions for recourse to the cultic center. As such, the
redactor has selected in Deut 17:2-7 the most heinous cultic offense conceiv-
able: the sacrificial worship of other gods (Deut 13:3, 7, 14;
17:3). Precisely that paradigmatic case, however, establishes the condition for
a legitimate secular and now (in light ofDeut 16:18—20) professionally con-
ducted trial: evidentiary certainty, the corroboration of a capital accusation by
means of the testimony of two witnesses. The local is thus dialectically defined
as the realm of the secular. Not only capital but also cultic offenses may be
tried locally—on condition that they leave no room for empirical doubt and
thus require no cultic recourse.
Conversely, the sphere in which cultic law operates is similarly dialecti-
cally defined in terms of those ostensibly noncultic cases, all belonging to the
realm of criminal or civil law, that do not permit empirical resolution. The two
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 131

judicial venues are terminologically contrasted. The protasis defines the local
realm, restricted to secular judicial procedure and the rules of evidence, by
means of the metonym "in your city-gates" (Deut 17:8a). Theapodosis
defines the central sphere, where alone cultic access may be granted, by means
of the periphrasis for the Temple: "the place which
Yahweh your God shall choose" (Deut 17:8b).
The technical reference to the local sphere in the protasis marks this legal
paragraph (Deut 17:8-13) as the direct continuation of the previous one (Deut
17:2-7) where the locus was similarly "in one of your city-gates"
(Deut 17:2; also the site of the execution in v. 5) and in which a profession-
alized—secular—system of judicial protocol was to be instituted:
"judges and judicial officers shall you appoint in each of
your city-gates" (Deut 16:18). The terminology is technical: Deuteronomy inno-
vates at the local sphere—demanding judicial professionalization and secular-
ization (evidentiary sufficiency defined as at minimum two witnesses for
conviction in capital cases)—no less than it innovates at the central sphere,
restricting all cultic activity to a single, legitimate site. The very distinction
between the two spheres—topography here becomes a hermeneutical trope—
is itself a Deuteronomic innovation: the local is created as exclusively the realm
of the secular, cultic activity is restricted to the central sphere, as the two, both
secular and cultic, become dialectically defined in terms of each other.
From the preceding analysis, it emerges that the distinction between Gipm
"in the place" and "in [all] your city-gates" plays an impor-
tant role in the legal corpus of Deuteronomy. These two terms are more than
polar opposites and more, too, than a way for the text's redactor to organize
different kinds of religious activity.82 The distinction is not simply termino-
logical or procedural but more profoundly conceptual: each reference, both the
periphrasis and the metonym, functions as a trope for the cultic and the secular
respectively. The interplay of the two terms embodies textual and religious
transformation. That the sequence of Deut 17:2-7 + 8-13 becomes coherent
only when that dialectic is grasped means that the sequence of the legal corpus
reflects hermeneutical issues confronted by the text's authors as a consequence
of innovation.
My argument concerning the technical terms and dialectical structure of
Deut 17:2-7 + 8-13 provides additional confirmation that the literary-critical
attempts to "restore" Deut 17:2-7 to chapter 13 finally break down on their
own terms. That Deut 17:2-7 belongs to a different redactional stratum of the
legal corpus than chapter 13 is clear on three counts. First, only in 17:2-7 is
the punishment of the apostate restricted by the rule of evidentiary procedure,
itself a reformulation of an original lemma found in chapter 13, as I have dem-
onstrated. Second, the casuistic protasis of Deut 17:2 begins with ^ "if plus
third-person-imperfect Niphal; in contrast, each of the three casuistic protases

82. For the former position, see Seitz, Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien, 192. For the latter
position, see William S. Morrow, "The Composition of Deuteronomy 14:1—17:1" (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Toronto, 1988) 493.
132 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

in chapter 13 begins with '3 plus an active verb (13:2, 7, 13). Third, the tech-
nical metonym for the local sphere found throughout this unit is totally absent
from Deuteronomy 13: "Judges and judicial of-
ficers shall you appoint in each of your city-gates" (Deut 16:18);
"disputed cases in your city-gates" (Deut 17:8).
Despite the standard text-critical relocation of Deut 17:2-7 to chapter 13
for its alleged disruption of the continuity of Deut 16:18-20 with Deut 17:8-13,
Deut 17:2-7 in fact shares a technical vocabulary with those two paragraphs
that chapter 13 lacks. The different vocabulary involved itself militates against
the transposition. Governing Deut 16:18-20,17:2-7, and 17:8-13 is the struc-
tural distinction between the local sphere, marked by the metonym "in your
gates" (Deut 16:18; 17:2, 5, 8), and the central sphere, marked by the central-
ization formula (Deut 17:8, 10). That structuring principle, together with its
distinctive terminology, is completely absent from Deuteronomy 13. The con-
sistent designation for the locus of the incitement to apostasy in chapter 13 is,
instead, "in your midst / from your midst," found in each of its
three paragraphs (Deut 13:2 and 6, which form an inclusio, framing the first
paragraph; v. 12, which concludes the second paragraph; and vv. 14,15, in the
third paragraph). This term is distinct from the local/central distinction that
operates elsewhere; it most likely renders ina birtukunu from the neo-Assyrian
treaties that provide the literary model after which Deuteronomy 13 is pat-
terned.83 Nor can the reference in Deut 13:13 to "in one of your cit-
ies," which is otherwise unattested in Deuteronomy, be conflated with the stan-
dard metonym elsewhere for the local sphere "in (all) your gates."
The terms are not synonymous and have very different rhetorical functions.84
The reference to "in one of your cities" does not function to distinguish local
as opposed to central action. Instead, the reference marks the incremental pro-
gression from incitement of an individual by a prophet (13:2-6) to incitement
of an individual by a family member or neighbor (13:7-12) to the successful
incitement to apostasy of an entire city by a band of rogues (13:13-18).
In this context, Deut 17:2 is strikingly redundant in juxtaposing the two
contrasting forms of geographic reference: "in your midst—
in one of your gates." The redundancy suggests that the redactor of Deut 17:2-7
added his own distinctive terminology—~p "in one of your gates"—
to an earlier text that derived from the apostasy series of Deuteronomy 13, em-
ploying "in your midst." Modern translations inaccurately render the
duplicated reference in synchronic terms, as if the second form were apposi-
tional to the first (RSV, NEB, NJPSV, NRSV). More likely, however, the re-
dundancy of Deut 17:2 involves the juxtaposition of two sets of terms that

83. Levinson, '"But You Shall Surely Kill Him!,'" 61 n. 51. To be sure, the reference with
3~ip "midst" is frequent in Deuteronomy; see Driver, Deuteronomy, Ixxxiii (#58) for a complete
list.
84. Contra Rose, DerA usschliejilichkeitsanspruch Jahwes, 43 n. 1, who assigns both terms
to a single stratum, considering them synonymous. A similar position is implied by Rutersworden,
Gemeinschafi zur Gemeinde, 32. Dion's contextual explanation ("Deuteronomy 13," 182) con-
flicts with his insight on p. 156.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 133

originally derive from separate literary strata.85 As I have already demonstrated,

the first paragraph of chapter 13, where the distinctive Deuteronomic metonym
is absent, is framed by an inclusio: "in your midst/from your midst"
(Deut 13:2, 6). Once the redundant Deuteronomic metonym is removed, the
identical inclusio frames Deut 17:2-7: "in your midst [in
one of your gates]" // "you shall purge the evil/rom your midst"
(Deut 17:2 // 7).86
This terminological analysis provides independent corroboration that Deut
17:2-7 reformulates the apostasy series of chapter 13 in two ways. First, it
interpolates witness law. Second, it introduces the distinction between local
(Deut 17:2-7) and central (Deut 17:8-13) judicial protocol. Justice is thereby
made consistent with the structuring principle of the first section of the legal
corpus, which regulated the cultus. The common structure involves local secu-
larization and cultic centralization.

Apostasy as the Transgression against the Text

In Deuteronomy 13, the offense is consistently apostasy: the sacrificial wor-
ship of deities other than Yahweh (Deut 13:3, 7, 14).87 At least in its present
redaction, the text stands in relation to the innovation of cultic centralization
(Deuteronomy 12) as point and counterpoint: the requirement of conformity
to the new cultic protocol and the requirement of fidelity to Yahweh, who spon-
sors the new cultic regime. Together they function as a kind of primary com-
mandment, from which all else follows.88 Sacrifice at a single exclusive site

85. The juxtaposition of divergent editorial terms also points to separate redactional lay-
ers elsewhere; see the analysis of the additive ^a preserved alongside inba in Numbers 28 by
Israel Knohl, "The Priestly Torah versus the Holiness School: Sabbath and the Festivals," HUCA
58 (1987) 89.
86. Evidence in support of this analysis is the fact that Deut 17:2 is the single case in
Deuteronomy where "in one of your gates" is juxtaposed with the alternative formula "in your
midst." This unique juxtaposition is the more salient because of the frequency of the metonym
"in [one/each of/all] your gates," which occurs twenty-six times in Deuteronomy (Deut 12:12,
15, 17, 18,21; 14:21,27,28,29; 15:7,22; 16:5, 11, 14, 18; 17:2, 8; 18:6; 23:17; 24:14; 26:12;
28:52, 55, 57; 31:12; and Deut 5:14 = Exod 20:10; for this list, see Driver, Deuteronomy, Ixxix).
The Septuagint translator seems to have recognized the redundancy inasmuch as it reads only
one of the two terms: ev [iia rmv KoXecnv aov "in any one of your cities."
87. Later theological redactors extended this original concern to require exclusive loy-
alty to Yahweh as the primary religious requirement (das Hauptgebot; Exod 34:14; 22:19; 23:13)
and oriented it specifically on the text of the Decalogue. The most explicit allusions to the text
of the Decalogue, as at Deut 13:6, seem to derive from the later theological expansions of the
Deuteronomistic redactor. On Deut 13:6, see Georg Braulik, "Die Ausdrticke fur 'Gesetz' im
Buch Deuteronomium," Bib 51 (1970) 39-66; reprinted and cited after Braulik, Studien zur
Theologie des Deuteronomiums (SBAB 2; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988) 11-38, at
p. 22. On the theological expansion see Dion, "Deuteronomy 13," 192. More generally on
Deuteronomy 13 and the Decalogue, see Georg Braulik, Deuteronomium 1-16,17 (Neue Echter
Bibel 15; Wurzburg: Echter Verlag, 1986) 101-102.
88. See Otto, "Legal Reforms and Reformulations," 190—91. For a diverging analysis, see
Veijola, "Deuteronomium 13," 308.
134 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

has for its counterpart the exclusive loyalty owed to Yahweh. In chapter 13,
the text's authors clearly drew upon the neo-Assyrian vassal treaties and trans-
ferred the penalty for disloyalty from the Assyrian overlord to Yahweh, just as
they strove to replace the vassal treaty that bound Judah to Assyria with
Deuteronomy itself as a new covenant binding Judah to the Great King.89 The
common punishment for enticing others into acts of disloyalty, with political
sedition now reconfigured as religious apostasy, is capital. In circumstances
where, by definition, there are no witnesses, even immediate summary execu-
tion—taking the law into one's own hands—is mandated: only so does the
subject establish his absolute allegiance to the lord, political or divine.90
In contrast, in Deut 17:2-7, apostasy is now redefined. No longer is it sim-
ply a matter of worshipping other gods. Instead, apostasy becomes reinterpreted
as a breach of faith with a text: the violation of the first commandment of the
Decalogue. No longer is the offense the invitation to worship foreign gods (Deut
13:3, 7, 14) but rather, "if there is found in your midst, in one of your city-
gates, which Yahweh your God is about to give you, a man or a woman who
would do evil in the opinion of God by transgressing his covenant (TT~CL ~QS'T)"
(Deut 17:2). The apostate transgresses not simply against God, by worship-
ping other gods; the transgression is specifically against the Decalogue as the
central commandment of the Torah.91 "His covenant" (in'-a) means, for all in-
tents and purposes, the Decalogue, already here presupposed as a text.92 After
all, it is distinctively Deuteronomy that construes the relationship between God
and Israel, forged at Horeb with the proclamation of the Decalogue, in cov-
enantal terms (Deut 4:13; 5:2).
In the following clause, the editor takes over from his source text in chap-
ter 13 the conventional notion of apostasy as the worship of foreign deities:

89. On Deuteronomy 13, sec Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School,
91-100; and Dion, "Deuteronomy 13," 147-216. On Deuteronomy as a substitute for the vas-
sal treaty, see R. Frankena, "The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon and the Dating of Deuteronomy,"
OTS 14 (1965) 153; and A. D. H. Mayes, "On Describing the Purpose of Deuteronomy," JSOT
58 (1993) 13-33. The conservative scholar Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The
Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963) also posits the substitu-
tion but maintains the Mosaic dating of Deuteronomy. No longer tenable is the position of Rose,
who rejected any direct literary influence of cuneiform material on Deuteronomy (Der Aus-
schliefilichkeitsanspruch Jahwes, 28-31). See the argument made by Hans Ulrich Steymans,
after a careful review of the evidence pro and con, that the curses of Deut 28:20-44 directly
depend on neo-Assyrian treaties, whether in cuneiform original or Aramaic translation ("Eine
assyrische Vorlage fiir Deuteronomium 28,20^14," in Bundesdokument und Gesetz: Studien turn
Deutemnomium [ed. Georg Braulik; HBS 4; Freiburg: Herder, 1995] 119-^1).
90. Levinson, '"But You Shall Surely Kill Him!,'" 54-63.
91. Lohfink, "Amtergesetze," 320.
92. A number of passages refer to contraventions of the "covenant" and thereby specifi-
cally refer to breach of the first commandment of the Decalogue (Deut 4:23; 17:2; 29:24; 31:16,
20). The breach in question occurs through the worship of "other gods" (Deut 17:3; 29:25; 31:16,
20) or of their images (Deut 4:23)—precisely as forbidden by the Decalogue (Deut 5:7-8). The
comments here follow the analysis provided by Braulik, "Ausdriicke fiir 'Gesetz,'" 15-16. In
other contexts in Deuteronomy, of course, as Braulik also notes, "covenant" may not have so
specific a denotation.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 135

"and he went and worshipped them" (Deut 17:3act; see Deut 13:3, 7, 14). In
reusing that source text, the editor appends a clause that extends the original
notion of apostasy to include astral worship: "and he prostrated himself before
them, and to the sun or the moon or the entire heavenly host—which I did not
command (T )" (Deut 17:3b(3). Moses had earlier emphasized, speak-
ing for Yahweh to the nation, that the Decalogue constitutes "his covenant which
he commanded ( ) you to do: the Ten Commandments" (Deut 4:13).
Now Yahweh himself stresses that the transgression against the covenant rep-
resents "that which I did not command" (Deut 17:3b).93 The divine voice rep-
resents the incursion into the text of the perspective of the Deuteronomistic
editors, who construe the Decalogue, in addition to the legal corpus, as the cov-
enant. It is they who represent apostasy as breach of the covenant that they have
forged between the nation and its God: the text of Deuteronomy, whose redac-
tors and defenders they are.

The Dialectic of Coherence

Just as the coherence of Deut 17:2-7 + 8-13 is dialectical, so, more broadly,
does this section of the legal corpus, concerned with justice, cohere dialecti-
cally with the previous section, concerned with the cult. In both cases, the pri-
mary concern of the text's authors is to confront the implications of centraliza-
tion for sacrifice as well as for justice. It is not simply conventional practice
that must be revised but also formerly authoritative texts that must be refor-
mulated. The transition from the first section of the legal corpus, concerned
with the cultus, to the present section, concerned with judicial procedure, is
therefore not "abrupt."94 Precisely at the point of transition, the editors delib-
erately interweave the two subject areas, cultus and justice, in order to mark
their inner coherence:

93. The identity of the first person speaker of that negative command formula is ambigu-
ous. Normally Moses is the primary speaker in the legal corpus and refers to Yahweh in the
third person, as in the immediately preceding reference to "his covenant" (Deut 17:2). Further
suggesting that Moses remains the speaker here is that the negative command alludes to an earlier
warning against astral worship by Moses: "[Beware] lest you raise your eyes heavenward and
see the sun and the moon and the stars, the entire heavenly host, and be thrust away and pros-
trate yourself before them and worship them" (Deut 4:19a). (See Dieter Eduard Skweres, Die
Riickverweise im Buch Deuteronomium [AnBib 79; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1979]
73.) That passage is a Deuteronomistic meditation upon the first commandment of the Decalogue.
(See Georg Braulik, Die Mittel deuteronomischer Rhetorik erhoben aus Deuteronomium 4,1—40
[AnBib 68; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1978].) Nonetheless, other evidence argues in
favor of Yahweh as the speaker of this interjection. The phrase "which I did not command" is
otherwise absent in Deuteronomy but occurs in Deuteronomistic material in the prophetical books
(Jer 7:31; 19:5; 32:35, in each case in connection with worship at the high places and child
sacrifice), where it is explicitly presented as direct Yahwistic speech. This consideration seems
the more decisive, and the formula in Deut 17:2 seems to mark a direct interjection by Yahweh
into the speech of Moses.
94. Contra Lohfink, "Amtergesetze," 306.
136 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

A Cultus(Deut 12:1-16:17)
B Justice (Deut 16:18-20)
A' Cultus (Deut 16:21-17:1)
B' Justice (Deut 17:2-7 + 8-13)
This redactional bridge was first discovered by Udo Rutersworden.95 Georg
Braulik elaborated this insight, demonstrating how elegantly the editors of the
legal corpus reprise key terms and motifs as they make the transition from cultic
law (Deut 12:1-16:17) to the Amtergesetze "Laws of Office-holders" (Deut
16:18-18:22).96 He showed how the redactional bridge at Deut 16:21-17:1 both
repeats and anticipates key terms of the preceding and following blocs of law.
At the same time, this very emphasis on the redactional bridge and the recur-
rence of language only raises the larger problem of textual coherence more
forcefully. By focusing on these technical connections, Rutersworden and
Braulik have unintentionally perpetuated the notion that there was no substan-
tive coherence between the two major sections of the legal corpus. In effect,
the connection was comprehended as merely external: a formal redactional
lattice whose parts overlap but do not truly join.
In contrast, the connection between the two sections of the legal corpus is
actually substantive and intellectual. The redactional bridge establishes their
dialectical relation. In both sections, the text's editors have a single, constant
concern: to work out the implications, both practical and hermeneutical, of
centralization. They justify their innovations by exegetically transforming prior
Israelite texts, preeminently the Covenant Code. The topical shift to address
the judicial and public personnel therefore marks no disjunction from the pre-
ceding section of the legal corpus but rather represents a logical consequence
of the Deuteronomic program of centralization. Deuteronomy's innovation is
accordingly not simply a matter of cultic unity and purity (Einheit und Reinheit),
as conventionally understood, nor is it one that is addressed only in the first
section of the legal corpus. The authors work out the implications of central-
ization not only for sacrifice and the cultic calendar but also for judicial proce-
dure and the public administration, both of which are transformed. The text
mandates centralization as the constitutive feature of Israelite life: that charter
accounts for the coherence of this section with the previous one.97

95. Rutersworden, Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde, 30 (seeing the initial unit only as Deut
14:22-16:17).
96. Braulik, Die deuteronomischen Gesetze, 46-61.
97. I concede a methodological difficulty, the resolution of which requires further research.
On the one hand, the evidence gathered here calls into question the notion that a redactionally
distinct and independent unit of the legal corpus begins with Deut 16:18, as proponents of the
block model maintain (see the compelling arguments of Otto, "Gerichtsordnung," 152). To the
contrary, the new unit continues to elaborate the Deuteronomic agenda of centralization. On
the other hand, assigning Deut 17:2-7 to a later stratum than Deuteronomy 13 approximates
one part of the block model analysis (which has not systematically addressed the literary rela-
tion of the two texts), although I disagree that Deut 1.7:2-7 is exilic in its orientation. Hence the
difficulty: Is Deut 17:2-7 Deuteronomistic because, in my analysis, it is a later stratum than
Deut 13:7-12? Or is it, on substantive grounds, Deuteronomic, because it furthers the Deu-
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 137

The transformation of public life was indeed Utopian, as Lohfink con-

tends, in subordinating each office to the ultimate authority of Torah. At
the same time, however, the program was also profoundly practical, point-
edly departing from the legal model provided by the Covenant Code to ad-
dress the judicial and administrative structure of public life systematically.
To that extent, the old literary critical label of this unit as concerned with
the theocratic administration may justifiably be reclaimed and reconciled
with the newer model of the unit as an ideal draft constitution. It is both
simultaneously, not originally one and then secondarily the other.98 The
Deuteronomic agenda is thus both cultic and judicial, both Utopian and prac-
tical; it is concerned both with the rewriting of texts and with the transfor-
mation of public life. The deliberateness of this program is such that, just
as the two paragraphs concerned with local and central judicial procedure
mutually interlock (Deut 17:2-7 and 17:8-13), so, too, on different grounds,
does the paragraph concerned with judicial procedure at the central sanctu-
ary (Deut 17:8-13) interlock with the law of the king (17:14-20). Just as the
former deliberately makes no mention of the king, so the latter grants the
monarch no judicial responsibilities. The radical transformations involved
in each case point to the further consequences of the Deuteronomic program
of centralization.

teronomic program? At the present time, there are no easy answers to this dilemma. Indeed,
an additional question must be raised about the criteria altogether for distinguishing between
Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic layers. If, as Dion contends, the apostasy laws of both
Deuteronomy 13 and 17:2-7 are Deuteronomistic, why does the Deuteronomistic Historian
allude to neither in his condemnation of Jeroboam for having created a cult for the wor-
ship of "other gods" (1 Kgs 14:9; cf. 1 Kgs 12:28; see Knoppers, Two Nations under God,
2.245)?
98. In other words, the unit was not only practical originally, in a Deuteronomic redac-
tion ascribed to the Josianic period, and then secondarily theologized by the Deuteronomist
during the Babylonian Exile, as Riitersworden has suggested (Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde,
94-111). On this point, see the important review by Norbert Lohfink, 7LZ 113 (1988) 426. From
a fresh perspective informed by his work on cuneiform law, Eckart Otto has adopted this model
of a two-stage redaction. He argues that in its first, preexilic, Deuteronomic redaction, the legal
corpus represented a programmatic legal reform, involving matters of cult, justice, and family
law, which was then secondarily revised to become a Deuteronomistic draft constitution for the
postexilic community ("Von der Programmschrift einer Rechtsreform zum Verfassungsentwurf
des Neuen Israel: Die Stellung des Deuteronomiums in der Rechtsgeschichte Israels," in
Bundesdokument und Gesetz: Studien zum Deuteronomium [ed. Georg Braulik; HBS 4; Freiburg:
Herder, 1995J 92-104). That argument hangs, however, on his assertion of a Deuteronomic core
common to both Deuteronomy 13 and 17:2—7, both of which he views as essential to the redac-
tional structure of the Deuteronomic law code. With that premise called into question (see n.
58), the deft reconstruction of two separate redactions and their separate application becomes
problematic. Moreover, it is confusing that, in a programmatic legal reform so closely tied to
Josiah, there should be no mention whatsoever of the role of the king (see Otto, "Vom
Bundesbuch zum Deuteronomium," 266-67). Otto's redactional reconstruction, which denies
any Deuteronomic law of the king, is thereby logically inconsistent with his historical claim
that the original version of the legal corpus constituted a far-reaching, Josianic cultic, judicial,
and legal reform document.
138 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

The Eclipse of Royal Judicial Authority (Deut 17:14-20)

In installing a professionalized judiciary at the city gate (Deut 16:18), the au-
thors of Deuteronomy pointedly oust the clan elders from their conventional
role as the mediators of judicial authority, precisely in that site. The same is-
sue arises with respect to the Deuteronomic transformation of justice in the
central sphere. The Deuteronomic assertion in Deut 17:8-13 that the central
sanctuary grants access to supreme judicial authority involves a striking sup-
pression of an alternate conception preserved by other literary sources. How
different, for example, is the ideology of the royal psalms:
"O God, grant the king your judgments; the king's son, your
righteousness!" (Ps 72:1). Indeed, that the monarch has a divinely appointed
role in the administration of justice represents the standard notion of the litera-
ture of the Near East. For example, both in Psalm 72:2,4 and in Hammurapi's
prologue the monarch functions to guarantee a fair trial for the poor, to protect
the disadvantaged, and to destroy those who oppress the unprotected." Al-
though in ancient Israel, which understands its law to be divine in origin, the
king does not author law, in the context of cuneiform legal history the author-
ity to promulgate law is distinctly monarchic. The great second-millennium
cuneiform legal collections attribute the text to a royal speaker.100
Although it lies beyond the scope of this volume to provide a detailed
reconstruction of the role of the monarch in the Israelite system of justice,
a number of points are appropriate to make in light of the impact of Deute-
ronomy's innovations upon the sequence of topics in chapter 17. Convention-
ally the monarch represented the supreme legal authority, arbiter, and appel-
late court.101 The historiographic sources establish that the king inherits not
simply the military function of the judges—leading the tribes in war—but also
their judicial role of arbitrating legal disputes (Judg 4:4-5; 1 Sam 7:15-17).
So central is the king to the administration of justice that the narratives con-
cerning the establishment of the monarchy give priority to the motif of justice
over the more likely historical cause for the institution of kingship, the Philis-
tine threat. Indeed, although the conflicting promonarchical and antimon-
archical traditions concerning the founding of the Israelite kingship have long
been recognized, there is a striking additional inconsistency that is less widely
noted. The redactional incorporation of the Ark Narrative (1 Sam 4:1-7:2) into

99. See Roth, Law Collections, 76, for the Akkadian and an English translation of the
relevant section of the prologue to Hammurapi's Laws (col. 1, 11. 27-39).
100. See Moshe Greenberg, "Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law," in Yehezkel Kauf-
mann Jubilee Volume (ed. M. Haran; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1960) 5-28; reprinted in Greenberg,
Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: JPS, 1995) 25-50.
101. On the judicial function of the king see Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel (London:
Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961) 150-52; G. C. Macholz, "Die Stellung des Konigs in der
israelitischen Gerichtsverfassung," ZAW 84 (1972) 157-82; Boecker, Law and the Administra-
tion of Justice, 40-49; Whitelam, The Just King; and Marc Zvi Brettler, God Is King: Under-
standing an Israelite Metaphor (JSOTSup 76; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989)
109-13. In addition to his judicial function, the king also played an important military, execu-
tive, and cultic role. For a reconstruction, see de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 100-114, 150-52; 376-77.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 139

the account of Samuel's birth and career (1 Sam 1-3; 7:3-17) underscores the
extent to which the Philistine threat necessitated the defensive shift from
the ad hoc leadership of the "judges" to a monarchy, modeled after the Canaanite
city-state, with an attendant standing army. That redactional analysis of the
origins of the monarchy largely conforms to modern historical reconstructions;
it was a direct response to the expansion of the technologically more advanced
Philistines from the coastal littoral into the Shephelah and the hill country of
central Judah and Samaria. Nonetheless, an alternative analysis presents the
popular demand for a king as filling a judicial, not a military, vacuum. Despite
Samuel's exemplary dispensation of justice in his role as circuit-court judge,
the sons whom he appoints in his old age fail to follow in his footsteps (1 Sam
8:1-4) and are indicted by the Deuteronomistic Historian for their corruption.
In this narrative, all Israel's elders converge upon Samuel at Ramah to request
a king as a supreme judicial authority, to fill the legal vacuum created by his
bribe-taking sons: "Therefore, appoint a king for us to
dispense justice for us" (1 Sam 8:5; cf. v. 6).102
The narrator's analysis of the founding of the monarchy as a direct response
to the failure of Samuel's sons to perform their roles as judges has further sup-
port. The Deuteronomistic Historian exegetically appropriates Deut 16:19—
the moralizing admonitions directed to judges (which are themselves a Deute-
ronomic adaptation of Exod 23:6, 8).103 Thus Deut 16:19 exhorts:
"You shall not pervert justice, you shall not show
partiality, you shall not take bribes. . ." The Deuteronomistic Historian applies
those lemmas to Samuel's sons in the context of their inheriting Samuel's
judicial functions (1 Sam 8:1-2). Indeed, the key terms of the lemma from Deut
16:19 are cited chiastically, according to Seidel's law, and the negative com-
mands of the original are rendered in the converted imperfect to signal accom-
plished—if illicit—fact:
"They did not follow in his footsteps; rather, they sought their own advantage,
they accepted bribes and perverted justice" (1 Sam 8:3). The indictment of
Samuel's sons by the Deuteronomistic Historian echoes the language of Deut
16:19 and is arguably an exegetical adaptation of it to establish their absolute
failure to conform to the requirements expected of judges.104 The new mon-

102. The Hebrew verb can also denote "to rule" or "to govern," but the context favors the
judicial denotation here. For a review of the various attempts to clarify the sense of the verb in
this verse, see Lyle M. Eslinger, Kingship of God in Crisis (Bible and Literature Series 10;
Sheffield: Almond, 1985) 254-58.
103. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 244-45. Braulik (Die
deuteronomischen Gesetze, 51 n. 19) and Otto ("Rechtsreformen," 269 n. 96) each refute the
argument made by Rutersworden (Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde, 21-22) that textual dependence
does not exist in this case. Schwienhorst-Schonberger's recent reverse claim that Deut 16:19
serves as the source of Exod 23:8 is unconvincing (Bundesbuch, 387-88). If, following his
analysis, the source text (Deut 16:19) and the interpolation in the Covenant Code (Exod 23:8)
are both Deuteronomistic, there is no reason for the interpolation to delete the wisdom motif of
its source.
104. Braulik (Die deuteronomischen Gesetze, 48-49) argues in contrast that Deut 16:19
presupposes 1 Sam 8:3, as does Buchholz (Altesten Israels, 88-89). Braulik's not considering
140 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

arch thus functions in the first instance to dispense justice and only in the sec-
ond instance to lead the nation in war (1 Sam 8:20).105
That the monarch exercises supreme judicial authority is evident not sim-
ply in the account of the founding of the monarchy but throughout the Deute-
ronomistic History. David and Solomon directly and by delegation heard com-
plex legal cases and entertained judicial appeals. Royal prerogative even
entitled the monarch to pardon a capital offense that would otherwise require
execution by the blood avenger (2 Sam 14:1-24). David is presented as both
public prosecutor and judge in Nathan's parable of the ewe lamb, whereby
David unwittingly convicts himself of a capital offense (2 Sam 12:1-14).
Absalom's designs to exercise supreme judicial authority are no less a usurp-
ing assault on his father's throne (2 Sam 15:4) than his subsequent claim on
his father's concubines (2 Sam 16:20-22).106 The king's judicial function,
as presupposed by the narratives, is not restricted to being either a final court
of appeal (as in the case of the woman from Tekoa in 2 Sam 14:1-24) or a
protector of the poor (as in the case of the ewe lamb in 2 Sam 12:1-14). In-
cluded among the monarch's judicial functions is the resolution of ambigu-
ous legal cases in which there are no witnesses and in which there exist no
empirical criteria for deciding between the competing claims of the two liti-
gants. In other words, the type of cases that, according to both the cuneiform
and biblical legal collections, might normally be relegated to a local sanctu-
ary for oracular resolution were remanded to the monarch for his adjudica-
tion, according to these narratives.
In his typology of ideal kingship, the Deuteronomistic Historian gives clear
priority to such judicial insight over more conventional attributes, such as
military leadership. Thus, in the prayer that he attributes to Solomon at the high
place of Gibeon, Solomon concedes that he is too inexperienced to lead the
nation in war ( ) but prays, not for martial compe-
tence, but for judicial wisdom:
"Grant your servant a discerning heart to judge your people and to distinguish
between good and bad" (1 Kgs 3:7b, 9a). The fulfillment of the prayer is
redactionally illustrated as the Deuteronomistic Historian deftly incorporates

the other direction of influence, as suggested here, seems to derive from a set of prior assump-
tions. He maintains a distinctive block model theory of the redactional history of the legal
corpus, according to which Deut 16:18—18:22 represents a late exilic Deuteronomistic stra-
tum, one significantly later than Deut 12:2-16:17. That model, along with others, is still being
actively debated in the scholarship. For a critique of Buchholz, see Riitersworden, "Der
Verfassungsentwurf des Deuteronomiums," 317-18.
105. It is curious that Samuel, in responding to the people's request, completely ignores
their legitimate concern with judicial probity. He remains completely silent about it, neither
acknowledging the corruption of his sons (1 Sam 8:3-4) nor suggesting an alternative form of
judicial and military leadership that might satisfy the people's legitimate needs. So concerned
is he—or the Deuteronomistic Historian—to point out the abuse of power that he associates
with the kingship (1 Sam 8:10-18) that he allows the issue of justice to fall by the wayside.
106. The same assault occurs in the Ugaritic Kirta epic (KTU 1.16.6:41-54); note Gary
N. Knoppers, "Dissonance and Disaster in the Legend of Kirta," JAOS 114 (1994) 572-82.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 141

an older tale of two prostitutes who test the acuity of an unnamed king (1 Kgs
3:16-28). The king, now contextually Solomon, is glorified for his "divine
wisdom in executing justice" (1 Kgs 3:28). In this idealization of the king in
terms of his judicial wisdom, the Deuteronomistic Historian draws extensively
on standard Near Eastern royal ideology.107
The Israelite and Near Eastern convention that makes the king, historically
speaking, central to the administration of justice points to a double anomaly,
textually speaking, in the present section of the legal corpus. First, in Deut
17:8-13, the locus for supreme judicial authority is the Temple and its offi-
cials. Not a word is said about the monarch, the expected arbiter of judicial
authority. Just as in Deut 16:18, where the Deuteronomic authors treat the city
gate as if it were a tabula rasa without the elders as its conventional legal his-
torical occupants, so in Deut 17:8-13 they rewrite literary history in designat-
ing the central sanctuary—markedly to the exclusion of the Israelite king—as
the exclusive source of judicial authority in the central sphere.
Second, in the following unit, Deut 17:14-20, which specifies the duties
of the king, not a word is said about his traditional judicial function. Just as
Deut 17:8-13 restricts judicial recourse in the central sphere to the cultus,
ignoring the role of the king, so does the paragraph devoted to the king sup-
press just those royal attributes that arguably represented the monarch's great-
est source of dignity. Indeed, the depiction of the functions of the king in
this unit serves far more to hamstring him than to permit him to exercise any
meaningful authority whatsoever. After the introductory specification that
the king should not be a foreigner (vv. 14-15), five prohibitions specify what
the king should not do (vv. 16-17). There remains for the king but a single
positive duty: while sitting demurely on his throne to "read each day of his
life" from the very Torah scroll that delimits his powers (vv. 18-20). In
Deuteronomy's presentation, the king is reduced to a mere titular figurehead
of the state, more restricted than potent, more otiose than exercising real
military, judicial, executive, and cultic function. 108 The one potent authority
is the Torah—the text of Deuteronomy 5-28109—in whose original reception,

107. Noting this point and showing how Solomon is rcdactionally aggrandized in con-
ventional Near Eastern terms as possessing superior skills of royal administration as well as
encyclopaedic wisdom (1 Kgs 4:1-19; 5:7-8; 5:9-14) is Gary N. Knoppers, Two Nations under
God: The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon and the Dual Monarchies (2 vols.; HSM 52-53;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993-94) 1.83-87. Knoppers extends this analysis to argue that the
Deuteronomistic Historian, in aggrandizing Solomon, revamps the Deuteronomic law of the king;
see his "The Deuteronomist and the Deuteronomic Law of the King: A Reexamination of a
Relationship," ZAW 108 (1966) 329-46.
108. Note the interesting suggestion by Christa Schafer-Lichtenberger that the contrac-
tion of royal authority corresponds to a reciprocal realignment of prophetic authority in Deut
18:9-22; see her Josua und Salomo: Eine Studie zu Autoritdt und Legititnitat des Nachfolgers
im Alien Testament (VTSup 58; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994) 103-106. Her approach extends the
observations of Lohfink concerning the subordination of all offices to the authority of the To-
rah ("Amtergesetze," 313-22).
109. Lohfink, "Amtergesetze," 318, argues that this is the meaning of the term for the
Deuteronomistic author of this passage. Note also Braulik, "Die Ausdrucke fur 'Geset?,,'" 36-38.
142 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

formulation, transcription, and implementation Deuteronomy's king plays no

role whatsoever.
The double anomaly of textual content in each case points to a correlative
anomaly of textual sequence. Despite the conventional view that the topic of
Deut 16:18-18:22 is "Office-bearers of the theocracy,"110 the text's sequence
does not reflect a concern with administrative organization alone. Were such
the case, the textual sequence would be expected to follow the officeholder's
rank within the organizational hierarchy and proceed most logically from the
officeholder at the top of the hierarchy to the official with the least authority.
Indeed, this principle of organizing legal paragraphs in a sequence that reflects
social rank, from higher to lower, has long been recognized within Israelite
and cuneiform legal collections.111 Were the arrangement here one of ascend-
ing order, the king, not the prophet, would logically be found at the apex of the
series; were the order descending, local judicial officals would be found at the
end, not the beginning, of the series. The actual arrangement of topics within
this unit thus conforms neither to an ascending nor to a descending organiza-
tion of the administration: local judiciary (Deut 16:18-20; 17:2-7), central
justice (Deut 17:8-13), monarch (17:14-20), priests (18:1-8), prophets
(18:9-22). Nor are alternative proposals to explain the arrangement convinc-
ing. 112 The anomalous arrangement of the text forces a reconsideration of its
topical focus, as conventionally understood.
The disorder starts to become intelligible with the recognition that the
sequence and selection of topics reflect the authors' drawing the consequences
of centralization for both judicial and public administration. Deuteronomy's
cultic center eclipses the king both in textual priority (since Deut 17:8-13
precedes 17:14-20) and in claiming supreme judicial authority at royal ex-
pense. The centralized cultus usurps the place—textual as well as hierarchi-
cal—more conventionally ascribed to the monarch. At the same time, the very
retention of the king in this unit, in second place after the account of the cen-
tralized judiciary but before the section dealing with the priests (18:1-8), is

110. Driver, Deuteronomy, 135, 199, 206; nearly identically, Mayes, Deuteronomy,
261-62.
111. In the Israelite context, note the sequence of the goring ox laws in the Covenant Code:
death of male or female adult (Exod 21:28-30), death of male or female minor (Exod 21:31),
death of male or female slave (Exod 21:32). See Kaufman, "The Structure of the Deuteronomic
Law," 116-17, 132-33, 135, 141. On this principle of arrangement within cuneiform law see
Petschow, "Systematik," 146-72.
112. Riitersworden, Gemeinschaft zur Gemeinde, 92-93 discovered another principle of
organization: according to their means of designation. He proposes that the degree of human
involvement in the selection and appointment of the officials decreases steadily as the office
becomes one over which God has increasingly sole right of appointment and disposition. Here,
the office of prophet logically concludes and anchors the series. Braulik, Die deuteronomischen
Gesetze, 54-61, elaborates Riitersworden's idea, suggesting that the officials are also introduced
chronologically according to their historical origin. His claim of chronological arrangement,
however, problematically associates the professional judiciary of Deut 16:18 with the premon-
archic "judge" (p. 55), which was rather an office of ad hoc tribal leadership.
 Transformation of Justice in Light of Centralization 143

intelligible only in light of the monarch's former role in the judicial system.113
The resequencing reflects the strategy of the text's authors: they divest the
king of his judicial authority and reassign it to the Temple. The authors of
Deuteronomy grant pride of place, both judicially and textually, to the cultic
center.

113. Lohfink, "Amtergesetze," 308.

 5
The Revisionary
Hermeneutics
of Deuteronomy

T he authors of Deuteronomy radically transformed the religion and society

of ancient Judah. The innovation of cultic centralization profoundly
changed sacrificial procedure, the festival calendar, judicial procedure, and
public administration, including the monarchy. The new vision was as much
political as it was religious. It led to a massive reallocation of power and au-
thority, both centrally and locally. At one end of the social spectrum, power
relations in the central sphere were reorganized, as the Temple became the
exclusive site for cultic activity and consequently usurped even the role of the
monarch as the final arbiter of problematic legal cases. At the other end of the
spectrum, the authors of Deuteronomy also completely restructured the local
sphere. They disrupted the conventional structures of clan piety, based around
the local sanctuaries, which they abolished. They displaced the elders from their
traditional role in judicial procedure and thereby abrogated their role as me-
diators of clan values tied to precedent and to continuity with the past. The
authors of Deuteronomy also intruded directly into the private domicile. They
wrested the original blood rite of Passover out of the hands of the paterfamilias,
who was required, instead, to conform to the new demand that Passover be cel-
ebrated at the Temple as a pilgrimage sacrifice.
The authors of Deuteronomy sought to eliminate any vestige of popular
piety that could jeopardize their new vision of a homogeneous public cultus.
Private religion became a matter of public policy in a way that was uncommon
in the otherwise religiously tolerant ancient Near East. The authors of Deute-
ronomy broke down the barriers between public and private and between
national and popular religion. In doing so, they directed intense scrutiny toward
the family. If you are incited to apostasy—even if by "your brother, your own
mother's son, or your son or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your

144
 The Revisionary Hermeneutics of Deuteronomy 145

friend who is like yourself"—you must extinguish all feelings of mercy and
summarily kill the inciter (Deut 13:7-10). The author of this text converted a
demand for absolute political allegiance owed the monarch in neo-Assyrian loy-
alty oaths, which he used as a source,1 into a requirement for religious loyalty to
the divine Sovereign—but thereby also for religious uniformity. In practical terms,
the law established the Deuteronomic Torah as exclusive arbiter of religious
authority. It stands to reason that the threat addressed by this law is not restricted
to incitement to worship other gods. From the vantage point of the text's authors,
heterodoxy included the worship of Yahweh in ways contrary to those prescribed
by Deuteronomy—including former Israelite orthodoxy. The law might then
conceivably be applied to adherents of traditional Israelite religion who resisted
the revisionist program of Deuteronomy: to someone, for example, who sought
piously to celebrate the paschal slaughter in the conventional way or who wished
to worship Yahweh at one of the local sanctuaries, as envisioned by the altar law
of the Covenant Code but prohibited by Deuteronomy.
The authors of Deuteronomy silenced competing—and prior—claims to
cultural and religious authority. There is no prophecy—not even that performed
by a prophet whose oracles are fulfilled, the conventional touchstone of a
prophet's authenticity—but that which conforms to the norms of the Deute-
ronomic Torah (Deut 13:2-6). The text's authors claimed the right to deter-
mine what constitutes true prophecy and what does not. Since the authors were
most likely professional scribes associated with Josiah's court, these claims to
arbitrate prophecy become ironic, if not audacious. That the authors took the
additional step of ascribing the mantle of prophetic authority to their own lit-
erary composition by making Moses their pseudepigraphic spokesman only
adds to the boldness of the maneuver. They disenfranchised conventional norms
of prophecy while asserting the prophetic authority of their own authorial voice.2

1. See Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon,
1972) 97—100; Paul E. Dion, "Deuteronomy 13: The Suppression of Alien Religious Propaganda
in Israel during the Late Monarchical Era," in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed. Baruch
Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 147-216; and
Bernard M. Levinson, '"But You Shall Surely Kill Him!': The Text-Critical and Neo-Assyrian
Evidence for MT Deut 13:10," in Bundesdokument und Gesetz: Studien mm Deuteronomium
(ed. Georg Braulik; HBS 4; Freiburg: Herder, 1995) 54-63. On the intentional Deuteronomic
transformation of the neo-Assyrian material, see Bernard M. Levinson, "Recovering the Lost
Original Meaning of rbu noDn HTTI (Deuteronomy 13:9)," JBL 115 (1996) 615-18.
2. The position taken here challenges the more standard view of the relation between
Deuteronomy and prophecy, which emphasizes the continuity between the two. The classical
literary critics early in this century often stressed this closeness for apologetic reasons: if the
Moses of Deuteronomy could no longer be viewed as an ancient lawgiver, he could be some-
what rehabilitated, now seen as reconfiguring older law in light of prophetic morality; see S. R.
Driver, Deuteronomy (ICC; 3d ed.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901) xlvii, Ivi—Ixii. More recent
scholarship has formulated the matter in different terms, with the widely held view that
Deuteronomy preserves northern prophetic traditions and originates within northern prophetic
circles. See E. W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967) 69-82;
H. Louis Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism (New York: Jewish Theological Semi-
nary of America, 1982) 19-24; and Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11 (AB 5; New York:
Doubleday, 1991) 44-57. Marking a different approach that emphasizes Deuteronomy's trans-
146 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Just as profoundly as they transformed religion and society, the authors

of Deuteronomy transformed Israelite literary history. The absence of pre-
cedent—of legal and textual justification for their departure from conven-
tion—forced the authors of Deuteronomy paradoxically to seek sanction for
their new composition from the very literary corpus that they simultaneously
displaced. In order to implement and justify the innovation of centralization,
they tendentiously revised and expanded the Covenant Code. They forcibly
derived their departure from authoritative or prestigious texts from those texts
themselves, now redeployed in a major new literary composition. The be-
ginning of Deuteronomy, textually speaking, was therefore the conflict be-
tween the Deuteronomic program of centralization and the literary patrimony
of its authors, between innovation and the constraints imposed by the exis-
tence of those texts.
The way the authors of Deuteronomy chose to give literary expression to
their program is remarkable. Given the conflict between the innovation of cen-
tralization and the preexisting text of the Covenant Code, a number of literary
options were at hand within ancient Israel and the broader Near East. The au-
thors of Deuteronomy could have enacted their legal reform using the tech-
nique of the editor of the Hittite Laws, for example, who, when it became nec-
essary to amend older laws, explicitly qualified them as obsolete and as now
superceded by a new penalty.3 More important, they could have chosen sim-

formation of conventional prophecy is Joseph Blenkinsopp, Prophecy and Canon: A Contribu-

tion to the Study of Jewish Origins (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977) 39-46.
See also Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible
(New York: Doubleday, 1992) 216-17 for a succinct critique of the claims concerning the pro-
phetic authorship of Deuteronomy.
3. The distinction between the obsolete and the new penalty was technically marked.
"Formerly" they would do (karu) . . . but "now" (kinuna) they do ... This formula occurs in
the Hittite Laws, §§ 7, 9, 19, 25, 51, 54, 57, 58, 59, 63, 67, 69, 81, 91, 92, 94, 101, 119, 121,
122, 123 (fragmentary text), 129, 166-167. On the legal reform involved, see Bernard M.
Levinson, "The Human Voice in Divine Revelation: The Problem of Authority in Biblical
Law," in Innovation in Religious Traditions (ed. Michael A. Williams, Collett Cox, and Martin
S. Jaffee; Religion and Society 31; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992) 41-43; and the articles
by Raymond Westbrook ("What Is the Covenant Code?"), Samuel Greengus ("Some Issues
Relating to the Comparability of Laws and the Coherence of the Legal Tradition"), and Eckart
Otto ("Aspects of Legal Reforms and Reformulations in Ancient Cuneiform and Israelite
Law"), all in Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation and
Development (ed. Bernard M. Levinson; JSOTSup 181; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1994) 22-28, 62-72, 175-82. For the text, see J. Friedrich, Die hethitischen Gesetze:
Transkription, Obersetzung, sprachliche Erlauterung und vollstandiges V/orterverzeichnis
(Documcnta et monumenta orientis antiqui 7; 2d ed.; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971) 17-21; and,
in the most recent translation, Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., "Hittite," in Law Collections from Mesopo-
tamia and Asia Minor (ed. and trans. Martha T. Roth; SBLWAW 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1995) 213-47. For suggestive parallels to the Hittite formulary in Rabbinic and Roman law,
see Martin S. Jaffee, "The Taqqanah in Tannaitic Literature: Jurisprudence and the Construc-
tion of Rabbinic Memory," JJS 41 (1990) 204-25.
 The Revisionary Hermeneutics of Deuteronomy 147

ply to update the Covenant Code by means of reworking and interpolation.4

After all, the Covenant Code betrays extended evidence of just such rework-
ing, revision, interpolation, and exegetical activity, much of which preceded
the composition of Deuteronomy. The authors of Deuteronomy might more
easily have inserted the necessary revisions and corrections directly into the
Covenant Code, rather than create an entirely new literary and legal composi-
tion. Indeed, certain didactic, theological, and ethical expansions within the
Covenant Code and the legal narratives of Exodus (12:24-27a; 13:3-16) betray
such an affinity to Deuteronomy that they are labeled "proto-Deuteronomic."
If these expansions represent the first literary expression of a scribal group that
may later have composed Deuteronomy itself, that only sharpens the question:
why did they not merely continue in the more conventional vein?5 Why did
they choose instead to compose an entirely new text?
Why, in other words, does Deuteronomy exist at all? The answer in large
measure, of course, is that the transformation of Israelite law and religion called
for by Deuteronomy was so profound that simply embedding new material in
a preexisting text could not accomplish the necessary changes. Something much
more systematic was necessary, because the gap between old text and new need
was too great to be spanned by mere ad hoc interpolations.6 The familiar so-
cial world had been irrevocably altered. In response to the neo-Assyrian rav-
ages, Hezekiah had radically transformed Judaean life, desacralizing the coun-
tryside and disrupting the established clan lineages and the conventional
structures of rural authority, which he replaced with an urbanized, centralized
political administration. Recourse to older sureties could no longer suffice; the
Covenant Code derived from an entirely different, decentralized social world
and could not be made relevant. There was no place in it for a systematic treat-
ment of the cultus or of judicial and political administration, including the
monarchy, the priesthood, and the institution of prophecy. What was essential
was an entirely new document to accommodate the unprecedented scope
of the authors' vision. Moreover, a new literary form was also called for.
Deuteronomy, stylized as a treaty between Yahweh and the nation of Israel,
abrogated and replaced the political treaty or loyalty oath (ade) that had hith-
erto made Judah the vassal of the neo-Assyrian Empire. The authors of Deute-
ronomy turned that treaty form against its inventors and made the genre of
subjugation an instrument of freedom, both religious and political.

4. Frank Criisemann, Die Torn: Theologie und Sozialgeschichte des alttestamentlichen

Gesetzes (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1992) 235.
5. The expansions in the Covenant Code are pre-Deuteronomic; see Norbert Lohfmk, "Gibt
es eine deuteronomistische Bearbeitung im Bundesbuch?," Pentateuchal and Deuteronomistic
Studies: Papers Read at the Xlllth IOSOT Congress Leuven 1989 (ed. C. Brekelmans and J. Lust;
BETL 94; Louvain: Peelers Press / University Press, 1990) 91-113. On Exod 12:24-27a and
13:3-16, see chapter 3, notes 27, 50.
6. Eckart Otto, Theologische Ethik des Alien Testaments (Theologische Wissenschaft 3.2;
Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1994) 181.
148 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

But resolving the matter in this way presses yet another question: If a new
book, why a new book that looks like an old book? Whether the Mosaic attri-
bution of the legal corpus is original or secondary and Deuteronomistic, the
essential point remains: Deuteronomy is stylized not as an overturning, revok-
ing, breach, or alteration of previous Israelite law but rather as continuous with
prior teachings and as called for from the very beginning. Discontinuity with
classical and authoritative law is presented as continuity; the new code is an
elaboration of the old, not its abrogation. Sometimes, indeed, there are clear
indications that procedures are to undergo change: what we are doing now, in
the fictive time of the text, will not always be the case but will change once
God grants peace from enemies roundabout (Deut 12:8-12). Such a convenient
vaticinium ex eventu explains the introduction of centralization as having been
deliberately delayed by divine plan until the necessary preconditions could be
met. Alternatively, the Deuteronomistic editors brand the Israelite cultic norms
that they wish to abrogate as objectionable practices of the displaced Canaanites
(Deut 12:2-3).7 If these Canaanites did not exist, the authors of Deuteronomy
would have found it necessary to invent them: for the prohibited practices in-
volved—worship in a plurality of cultic places ( ) and the use of cultic
pillars ( a)—suspiciously resemble former Israelite orthodoxy. After all,
Yahweh himself promised his blessing at multiple cultic places ( 3, Exod
20:24), and Moses erected twelve cultic pillars ( ) on Mount Sinai, adja-
cent to the altar, as part of the sacrificial protocol to ratify the covenant (Exod
24:4). These altars and cultic pillars played an important role in popular piety.
Archaeology confirms their proliferation throughout ancient Israel; they seem
to have been associated with widespread ancestral cults.8 The prohibition of
the cultic post ( t 12:3; 16:21) also represents an inner-Israelite po-
lemic, despite Deuteronomy's representation of it as Canaanite. Asherah, both
as goddess and as cult object, was a component of popular piety.9

7. The Deuteronomistic Historian employs the same technique elsewhere as well, stig-
matizing the orthodox past as Canaanite heterodoxy in Judg 2:6—3:6; see Baruch Halpern,
The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988)
134, 139. Halpern elaborates how originally Israelite forms of worship are labeled as foreign
in "The Baal (and the Asherah) in Seventh-Century Judah: Yhwh's Retainers Retired," Kon-
sequente Traditionsgeschichte: Festshrift fur Klaus Ballzer (ed. Riidiger Bartelmus, Thomas
Kriiger, and Helmut Utzschneider; OBO 126; Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitatsverlag;
Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993) 115-54.
8. On altar building and pillar raising as components of ancestor worship, see Theodore
J. Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (HSM 39; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989)
118-20; Elizabeth B\och-Smith,Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead (JSOTSap
123; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992) 113-14, 122-26; and Alan Cooper and Ber-
nard R. Goldstein, "The Cult of the Dead and the Theme of Entry into the Land," Biblical In-
terpretation 1 (1993) 285-303.
9. The inscription from Kuntillat 'Ajrud depicting ithyphallic males and a nude female,
entitled "To Yahweh and his Asherah," illustrates the gap between popular and official reli-
gion. The cultic post may have represented the Canaanite goddess; see J. Day, "Asherah in the
Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic Literature" JBL 105 (1986) 385-408; W. A. Maier, III,
'Aserah: Extrabiblical Evidence (HSM 37; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986); and Saul M. Olyan,
Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (SBLMS 34; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). For a
 The Revisionary Hermeneutics of Deuteronomy 149

The Canaanite here in Deuteronomy seems more literary trope than his-
torical memory: the authors and editors of the legal corpus stigmatize the or-
thodoxy from which they depart as foreign and odious. This deft opprobrium
conceals the real issue: a polemic against prior Israelite norms of religion, the
antiquity and popularity of which threatened the viability of Deuteronomy's
innovations. Without explicitly naming and identifying the normative practices
that are the actual object of concern, they are branded as non-Israelite and re-
defined as apostasy. In this sense, ethnicity, both Israelite and Canaanite, be-
comes a tendentious literary construct: the foreign is the rejected past, whereas
the native is the novum that lacks direct historical precedent.

Deuteronomy's Relation to the Covenant Code:

A New Approach
In view of the approach advocated here, it becomes possible to reconceptualize
the long-standing debate concerning Deuteronomy's dependence upon the
Covenant Code. Scholarship has long vacillated between those who assert such
dependence but who cannot satisfactorily explain Deuteronomy's independence
from the Covenant Code as regards legal content, formulation, and sequence
and those who deny dependence but then cannot account for the multiple points
of patent, often verbatim, lexical, and topical dependence. Neither of these
alternatives is correct; or, from a different perspective, both are. The point is
that the authors of Deuteronomy used the Covenant Code dialectically. On the
one hand, the Covenant Code was known to and used by the authors of the
legal corpus of Deuteronomy, even if not in its present compass or yet redacted
into the Sinai pericope; thus, textual dependence exists. On the other hand, the
Covenant Code did not constitute a textual source to which the authors of
Deuteronomy were bound in language, scope, or substantive legal content.
Instead, the authors of Deuteronomy used the Covenant Code as a textual re-
source in order to pursue their own very different religious and legal agenda.
The authors of Deuteronomy employed the garb of dependence to purchase
profound hermeneutical independence.
These reflections shed new light upon the authors' casting of Deuteronomy
as ancient. The Deuteronomic program of religious, legal, administrative, and
ethical innovation was unprecedented. The new norms the Deuteronomic au-
thors sought to implement were consistent neither with previous authoritative
texts nor with the iconic, popular piety represented by the distributed cultus. It
is tempting to press that point further and to suggest that the Deuteronomic
authors represented a sectarian movement within late Judaean society10—except

stimulating reconsideration of this material, see Baruch Margalit, "The Meaning and Signifi-
cance of Asherah," VT 40 (1990) 264-97.
10. For suggestive remarks along these lines, see M. Smith, Palestinian Parties and Poli-
tics that Shaped the Old Testament (2d ed.; London: SCM, 1987) 36-42.
150 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

that such a label presupposes a notion of "normative" religion that could hardly
have existed in late-seventh-century Judah. Be that as it may, the Deuteronomic
program was precarious in its originality: it departed from and challenged con-
ventions of thought, belief, and action. For that very reason, the authors of
Deuteronomy sought sanction in authoritative or prestigious texts for their in-
novations. They used the Covenant Code and other legal (and narrative) texts
to anchor their program in Israelite tradition. Doing so lent their new vision
prestige, credibility, authority, and continuity with a past that they both appro-
priated and disenfranchised.
Deuteronomy's use of precedent subverts it. The old saw of Deuteronomy
as a pious fraud may thus profitably be inverted. Is there not something of an
impious fraud—of pecca fortiterl—in the literary accomplishment of
the text's authors? Deuteronomy is surely one of the most original works of
the Hebrew Bible, innovative in its vision of religion, justice, and political
structure, as well as in its hermeneutics and textual structure. The fiction con-
cerning the time and place of the text's promulgation, not to mention its
Mosaic speaker, aids their endeavor. The authors of Deuteronomy retroject
into the past their modernist transformation of tradition. They define their
new vision as normative, while troping both the normative tradition and the
existing reality from which they depart as deviant. The function of the pseud-
epigraph is that it displaces not only the previous tradition (the authoritative
text) but also that tradition's just claim to priority. 11 The religious norms that
preceded Deuteronomy, such as local sacrifice and local celebration of the
Passover, are rejected as contrary to divine Torah, which the text of Deute-
ronomy alone defines and mediates.
Deuteronomy both promotes a radical innovation in ancient Israelite reli-
gion and represents a meditation upon what is necessary to accomplish a pro-
found cultural transformation. Its appeal to the Covenant Code, the ways in
which it reuses and attempts to situate itself in relation to prior texts, and the
fictions it both constructs and deconstructs point to the authors' awareness of
the problem of new writing, of revoking old law for the sake of new. In their
new literary composition, the authors of Deuteronomy deploy the older lem-
mas of the Covenant Code in a revised context and, in part, echo—or appro-
priate—the redactional structure of the older text. 12 Imitation becomes the
sincerest form of encroachment.

11. See Baruch Halpern, "Sybil, or the Two Nations? Archaism, Kinship, Alienation,
and the Elite Redefinition of Traditional Culture in Judah in the 8th-7th Centuries B.C.E.," in
The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-first Century: The William Foxwell Albright
Centennial Conference (ed. Jerrold S. Cooper and Glenn M. Schwartz; Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eiscnbrauns, 1996) 333-34.
12. For the congruence in redactional structures, see Eckart Otto, "Vom Bundesbuch zum
Deuteronomium: Die deuteronomische Redaktion in Dtn 12-26," in Biblische Theologie und
gesellschafllicher Wandel: Fur Norbert Lohfink (ed. Georg Braulik, Walter GroB, and Sean
McEvenue; Freiburg: Herder, 1993) 260-78.
 The Revisionary Hermeneutics of Deuteronomy 151

Deuteronomy's Self-Presentation
As later Deuteronomistic editors reflected upon the relation of the Deuteronomic
legal corpus to other collections of law, and as these texts were read in relation
to one another, it became necessary to address the question of Deuteronomy's
inconsistency with and departure from those texts. For that reason, Deuteronomy
everywhere assiduously denies its originality. Deuteronomy consistently asserts
its derivative status by presenting itself as either mere explication of preceding
legislation (Deut 1:5) or legislative codicil to the original covenant at Sinai/Horeb
(Deut 28:69). Deuteronomy presents itself in narrative terms as the recapitula-
tion of the story; in homiletical terms as exhortation to obey previously promul-
gated statutes; in legal terms as ancillary. Nonetheless, in substantive terms, as
Nachmanides and other medieval commentators already recognized, significant
difficulties arise the moment the attempt is made to claim the consistency of either
the narrative or the legal material in Deuteronomy, let alone the Sinaitic theophany
itself, with the material it purports merely to retell.
The reiteration of the past transforms it: that applies as much to Deute-
ronomy's narratives as to its laws. The rhetoric of the text simultaneously erects
fictions of past time and place and breaks down those same fictions. For ex-
ample, Deuteronomy distinguishes its present, both in the narrative and in the
legal corpus, from the past of the previous generation who experienced the
exodus, the revelation of law at Horeb, and the wilderness wandering. Within
the narrative, Deuteronomy marks itself as taking place nvn "today" (i.e., Deut
5:3; 26:16, 18; 29:11, 12, I4bis; 17; and passim) in contradistinction to those
earlier events that took place rather STin run "at that time."13 No sooner is "this
day" distinguished from "at that time," however, than the Mosaic speaker in-
consistently insists, "Not with our forefathers did Yahweh make this covenant,
but with us, we—these here today—all of us living. Face to face Yahweh spoke
to you on the mountain out of the fire . . ." (Deut 5:3-4, my emphasis). This
"you"—asserted to have been present at Horeb—represents an audacious denial
of the facts.14 The addressees of Moses are actually the new generation that

13. See Samuel E. Loewenstamm, "The FormulaBa'et Hahi'in the Introductory Speeches
in Deuteronomy," Tarbiz 38 (1968-69) 99-104 (Hebrew); translated in Loewenstamm, From
Babylon to Canaan: Studies in the Bible and its Oriental Background (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992)
42-50. Loewenstamm understands the formula to mark instances where the Deuteronomist
merely provides historical details passed over in the earlier narrative account. Similar is the
narratological approach of Jean-Pierre Sonnet, who shifts the supplemental model from the editor
to the narrator ("When Moses Had Finished Writing": Communication in Deuteronomy / Deute
ronomy as Communication [Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1996] 82 n. 77). The
revision is forthcoming as Sonnet, The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy (Bibli-
cal Interpretation 14; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997). More likely, however, the deliberate transfor-
mation of those narratives in light of the later ideology of the Deuteronomistic editors is at issue,
with the formula marking such revisionist activity.
14. Scholars have dealt with this problem in different ways. Gerhard von Rad argued that
the authors of Deuteronomy were striving to reactualize old traditions of election and salvation
at a time when Israel was threatened with political and religious disintegration (Studies in
Deuteronomy [SET 9; Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953] 70). Von Rad's assumption of the antiq-
152 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

arose after the forty years of wilderness wandering. The sole purpose of that
wilderness wandering was to kill off the entire generation of rebellious Israel-
ites who were the actual witnesses to the theophany (Deut 2:14-16). The insis-
tent staccato of repetition suggests that the authors' true appeal is to their own
contemporaries in late-seventh-century Judah and, with them, perpetually to
every subsequent generation of the text's readers: "us, we—these here today—
all of us living."
If the author is boldly revisionary in his claims about the past, so also does
he assert hegemony over the future. As with neo-Assyrian loyalty oaths, the
covenant in the plains of Moab binds not only those actually party to it but
also their progeny, who, unborn, cannot directly assent to it. It thus includes
those who are absent: "I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you
alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before Yahweh
our God and with those who are not with us here this day" (Deut 29:13-14).15
For Deuteronomy, presence, or participation in the covenant, and witness, as
of the theophany, in themselves have nothing to do with chronology or geog-
raphy, nothing to do with the past or the future. Literal presence, whether at
Sinai/Horeb in the past or on the Plains of Moab in the present, is neither suf-
ficient nor necessary for inclusion in the covenant. Deuteronomy's authors
transform both chronology and geography into tropes of human assent. Prior-
ity, presence, witness, participation in the covenant—these have nothing to
do with literal time and place. They have rather to do with commitment to
the Deuteronomic Torah—"Choose life!"—and thereby become matters of
hermeneutics.

Revisionary Hermeneutics and Literary History

It seems clear that Israelite authors, preeminently with Deuteronomy, sought
to displace the prestige and authority of the literary compositions that preceded
them. Within Deuteronomy, the narrator's statement that the divine voice pro-
mulgated the Decalogue "but did not continue" (Deut 5:19) is disen-
genuous. That statement is much more likely a deliberate textual polemic, as
Otto Eissfeldt suggested.16 The denial represents a Deuteronomistic attempt to
divest the Covenant Code of its authority by rejecting its Sinaitic pedigree. Of

uity of those traditions, however, rests upon his assumption of the amphictyony as the context
for their transmission, a belief that recent scholarship has rejected. More recently, a position
similar to that suggested here has been proposed by Thomas Romer, "Le Deuteronome a la quete
des origines," in Le Pentateuque: Debats et recherches (ed. P. Haudebert; LD 151; Paris: Cerf,
1992) 74. Note the challenge to Romer's analysis by Sonnet, "When Moses Had Finished Writ-
ing," 14.
15. See "Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty," § 25, 11. 283-301, in the invaluable critical
edition of Simo Parpola and Kazuko Watanabe, eds., Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths
(State Archives of Assyria 2; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988) 40.
16. Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (New York: Harper & Row, 1965)
220-23. In some Bible printings, Deut 5:19 appears as Deut 5:22.
 The Revisionary Hermeneutics of Deuteronomy 153

course, the Covenant Code was itself only secondarily inserted into the Sinai
pericope by clearly evident literary means: its redactors sought to purchase for
it an ex post facto revelatory status.17 Deuteronomy's polemic, although it does
not name its object, rewrites literary history. By circumscribing Sinai and si-
lencing the Covenant Code, the redactors of Deuteronomy sought to clear a
textual space for Moab as the authentic—and exclusive—supplement to the
original revelation (Deut 28:69).
It therefore represents a major irony of literary history that Second Temple
editors incorporated both the Covenant Code and the legal corpus of Deute-
ronomy into the Pentateuch. In doing so, they preserved Deuteronomy along-
side the very text that it sought to replace and subvert. An entire trajectory of
ongoing textual transformation takes shape as the revising text is itself eventu-
ally revised by another literary stratum, only to be revised in turn. The editors
of the Deuteronomistic History, for example, do not simply implement but trans-
form Deuteronomic norms. In the narrative of King Josiah's seizing the initiative
to celebrate and preside over the first centralized Passover, the Deuteronomistic
editors extend to the king a role as defender of the cult that is not ceded
him in Deut 17:14-20.l8 The revisionist editors of the Holiness Code rework
Deuteronomy in a quite different direction. They abrogate Deuteronomy's in-
novation of secular slaughter and reject Deuteronomy's transformation of lan-
guage, denying to rai "sacrifice" any profane application (Lev 17:2-7).19
At the same time, in rolling back Deuteronomy's innovation, the authors of

17. In the Decalogue, Yahweh proclaims "all these words" (Exod 21:1). That provides
the antecedent to the recapitulation by Moses, in the covenant ratification ceremony, of "all the
words of Yahweh and all the judgments" (Exod 24:3a); to the people's ensuing agreement to
perform "all the words which Yahweh had spoken" (Exod 24:3b); and to Moses' immediately
writing down "all the words of Yahweh" (Exod 24:4a). Unaccounted for in these otherwise
consistent recapitulations is the reference to "all the judgments" in Exod 24:3a, which is syn
tactically disruptive in its context. Were it original, it would more logically appear either as
"and all the judgments of Yahweh" or "and his judgments." The awkward phrase logically has
for its antecedent the superscription to the Covenant Code: "These are the judgments that you
shall set before them" (Exod 20:1). The function, therefore, of the epexegetical phrase in Exod
24:4 is redactionally to integrate the Covenant Code into the Sinai pericope as a supplement to
the Decalogue. See the similar analysis in Eissfeldt, Old Testament, 213.
18. Astonishingly, there has been no attempt that I am aware of, by proponents of either
the Gottingen or the Cross school, to establish that the various editorial strata that they distinguish
within the Deuteronomistic History can also be identified within Deuteronomy itself. Conversely,
scholars specializing in Deuteronomy have made little headway in linking the various later
(Deuteronomistic) strata that they isolate within the text of Deuteronomy with those in the
Deuteronomistic History. There simply seems to be an impasse. The forthcoming Deuteronomy
commentary by Timo Veijola (for Das Alte Testament Deutsch) may bridge this gap, because
of his work on the Deuteronomistic History. The law of the king in Deut 17:14-20 raises these
issues acutely.
19. Alfred Cholewinski, Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium: Eine vergleichende Studie
(AnBib 66; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1976) 160-78; and, most recently, Otto, Theolo-
glsche Ethik, 240-42. For a contrasting analysis, arguing that Deuteronomy does not innovate
but rather presupposes Leviticus 17 (H), see Jacob Milgrom, Levilicus 1-16 (AB 3; New York:
Doubleday, 1991) 28-29, 713-18.
154 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

the Holiness Code presuppose and confirm the more profound innovation of
Deuteronomy: centralization itself.20
These issues extend further. That late editors included both the Deute-
ronomistic History and the Chronicler's work in the Hebrew Bible most likely
contradicts the intentions of the Chronicler. The designation of Chronicles in
the Septuagint and Vulgate as Paralipomena, "Omitted Things," is not to the
point. It is more reasonable to assume that the intent of the Chronicler was
not adventitiously to supplement but rather to draw on the authority of the
Deuteronomistic History while, in effect, replacing it for all practical purposes.21
The Chronicler's real interest was not in the past, as such, but in the present: in
justifying a religious, social, and political program for his fifth-century-B.c.E.
postexilic community. Ironically, both authors faced similar challenges, lack-
ing sanction or precedent in tradition for the programs they attempted to imple-
ment. The Deuteronomistic Historian sought to grant the monarch complete
authority over matters of cult and Temple, despite the absence of precedent
for such a move in Deuteronomy, his ostensible source.22 The Chronicler con-
fronted a still more serious problem in seeking warrant for his attempt to con-
figure the postexilic Judaean polity as a Davidide-led royal temple state,
following contemporary Achaemenid models.23 Neither the Pentateuch (the
ostensible legal basis of the postexilic theocracy) nor the Deuteronomistic His-
tory (the Chronicler's ostensible historiographic source) sufficed: Pentateuchal
law envisaged no cultic role for the monarch (Deut 17:14-20), and the Deute-
ronomistic History reflected the needs of an exilic community requiring a jus-
tification for the destruction and assurance that the history of the nation had
not come to an abrupt end. The Chronicler's aim, in contrast, was to provide a
practical blueprint for the reconstruction of the Second Commonwealth. Never-

20. For the alternative claim that the Holiness Code precedes Deuteronomy, see chapter
3, n, 107.
21. There is a debate within the scholarly literature about whether Chronicles seeks to
replace or merely to supplement the Deuteronomistic History. In espousing the latter position,
Marc Zvi Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (London: Routledge, 1995) 22,
maintains: "the Chronicler was most likely not writing a history to replace Samuel and Kings,
but desired to reshape the way in which these books would be read and remembered. . . . He
attempted to supplement them." Brettler's supplemental model does not draw the full implica-
tions of his own demonstration of the Chronicler's anachronistic revisions of the Deuteronomistic
History: precisely in having the last word, the Chronicler becomes the final mediator of Israel's
past and alone provides the charter for the future of the postexilic commonwealth. For a model
of how shaping the way earlier books are read and remembered can be tantamount to displace-
ment, see Martin S. Jaffee, "The Pretext of Interpretation: Rabbinic Oral Torah and the Cha-
risma of Revelation," God in Language (ed. Robert P. Scharlemann and Gilbert E. M. Ogutu;
New York: Paragon, 1987) 73-89.
22. On the originality of the Deuteronomistic Historian, see Gary N. Knoppers, Two Na-
tions under God: The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon and the Dual Monarchies (HSM 53;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994) 2.229-53.
23. On the type of state that the Chronicler attempts to construct, see Paul E. Dion, "The
Civic-and-Temple Community of Persian Period Judaea: Neglected Insights from Eastern Europe,"
JNES 50 (1991) 281-87; and Joel P. Weinberg, The Citizen-Temple Community (JSOTSup 151;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992).
 The Revisiona/y Hermeneutics of Deuteronomy 155

theless, in order to claim continuity with past conventions of cultus and mon-
archy, the Chronicler rewrote his source in light of the new program. The
Chronicler preempted the Deuteronomistic Historian by assuming his identi-
cal voice, that of an anonymous authoritative historiographer.
A final irony of literary history took place when later writers harmonized
earlier sources with the very texts that they had originally sought to transform.
For example, in his narrative of Josiah's observance of the Passover, the post-
exilic Chronicler harmonizes the contradiction between the discrepant Pass-
over laws of Exod 12:9 (which requires that the paschal lamb be roasted in fire
and forbids its being boiled) and Deut 16:7 (which stipulates that it must be
boiled) by insisting, "They boiled the paschal offering in fire, according to the
law" (2 Chr 35:13).24 In attempting to honor both requirements, the resulting
harmonization conforms to neither. Even more striking is that such harmonistic
exegesis should assert itself as "according to the law"—should thereby present
exegetical law as the original signification of the law. Such attempts pointedly
demonstrate that the exegesis of authoritative Scripture within Scripture itself
acquired authoritative status as Scripture.25
The authors of Deuteronomy were thus eventually hoist with their own
petard. Deuteronomy's very achievement of authoritative status led to its dis-
placement: to competing claims to "more" original authority that marshalled
Deuteronomy's arsenal of textual strategies (pseudepigraphy, exegesis, rese-
quencing) against it. The sectarian authors of the Samaritan Pentateuch enlisted
Deuteronomy's distinctive requirement for cultic exclusivity to legitimate their
competing sanctuary on Mount Gerizim. Deuteronomy's rhetoric of displace-
ment was also employed by the authors of the Temple Scroll at Qumran. They
composed a divine pseudepigraph to preempt the prophetic voice of Deute-
ronomy and harnassed Deuteronomy's lemmas, now revoiced, to sanction their
own sectarian law.26

24. See Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into
the Character of Cult-Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1978) 322; Isaac Leo Seeligmann, "The Beginnings of Midrash in the Books of
Chronicles," Tarbiz. 49 (1979-80) 31-32 (Hebrew); Ginsberg, Israelian Heritage, 57-58; and
Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 134-37.
25. Identical issues emerge in biblical narrative. The redactor of the flood story attempted
to introduce a harmonization of his discrepant sources concerning the number of animals to be
taken aboard the Ark. In attempting to overcome the two mutually exclusive numbering schemes,
he creates a tertium quid consistent with neither. On Gen 7:8-9 see Bernard M. Levinson, '"The
Right Chorale': From the Poetics of Biblical Narrative to the Hermeneutics of the Hebrew Bible,"
in "Not in Heaven": Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative (ed. Jason P. Rosenblatt
and Joseph C. Sitterson; Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity Press, 1991) 129-53, at 140.
26. On the Samaritan Pentateuch, see Jeffrey H. Tigay, "Conflation as a Redactional Tech-
nique," in Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (ed. Jeffrey H. Tigay; Philadelphia: Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, 1985) 53-96. For striking examples of textual transformation in the Temple
Scroll, see Michael Fishbane, "Use, Authority and Interpretation of Mikra at Qumran," in Mikra:
Text, Translation, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Chris-
tianity (ed. Martin J. Mulder; CRINT 2:3; Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: For-
tress, 1988) 339-77 (with extensive bibliography). Disputing that Deuteronomy provided a direct
156 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation

Revisionist Deuteronomy and the literary history it both manifests and

engenders is a call to biblical scholarship to return to the origins of the disci-
pline: to take seriously texts, authors, and interpretation. The authors and edi-
tors of Deuteronomy, from the beginning, worked deliberately with texts to
transform other texts, to articulate a far-reaching program of cultic, judicial,
administrative, ethical, and theological innovation, to advance a new under-
standing of the past, and to create a new future for the nation. The method
advocated here can equally illumine the study of biblical narrative: the study
of any text must include a clear sense of its revisionary target.27 The her-
meneutical method, grounded upon diachronic analysis, provides an indispens-
able means to recover the creativity of ancient Israelite authors and to mark
their intellectual accomplishments.
Viewed from this perspective, the legal corpora raise issues of literary
history, authorship, voice, and cultural renewal that are central to a theory of
literature and to the humanities more broadly. In describing an author's attempt
to assert his or her own originality, contemporary literary theory has, in the
work of Harold Bloom, turned to psychoanalytic models to clarify the author's
struggle for originality.28 That only begs the question of the origin and appro-
priateness of Freud's model. It goes against the evidence to find in even the
most gripping of the classical Greek tragedies, Oedipus Rex, a model of au-
thorship that affords insight into agency and originality. The only insight in
that tragedy is into the absence of agency and the inability to originate, be-
cause fate's tyranny renders all human desire and initiative futile. The tragic
chorus saw that life in their world afforded but one release from continually
being subject to fatal reversal (peripeteia)'. "Count no man happy until he is
dead!" More is at stake than a matter of literary history. Before Bloom,
Kierkegaard also sought to reject all myths of absolute origins—in particular,
the Platonic notion of knowledge as the soul's "recollection" (anagnorisis) of
truths that it possessed prior to embodiment and temporality—urging, rather,
biblical "repetition" as a model of consciousness and existence, whereby truth
is learned historically. Although Kierkegaard regarded the New Testament as
the source of that model, a more appropriate exemplar, it seems to me, both
for the psychoanalytical phenomenon and the philosophical one, is that offered
by the way Deuteronomy's authors engaged prior texts in order to accomplish

source for the Temple Scroll are Hartmut Stegemann, "Is the Temple Scroll a Sixth Book of the
Torah—Lost for 2,500 Years?," Biblical Archaeology Review 13 (1987) 28-35; and Michael
Owen Wise, A Critical Study of the Temple Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (Studies in Ancient
Oriental Civilization 49; Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1990) 35-41.
27. For applications of this principle to the narratives in Deuteronomy, see Levinson,
Hermeneutics of Innovation, 424-32, and, especially, Brettler, Creation of History, 62-78. For
a stimulating analysis of how redaction involves revision in the narratives of Genesis, see David
M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 1996).
28. See Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (London: Oxford
University Press, 1973); Bloom, A Map of Misreading (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975);
and Bloom, Poetry and Repression (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976).
 The Revisionary Hermeneutics of Deuteronomy 157

their innovative program. They established that priority is not a matter of chro-
nology but a revisionary and sometimes polemical trope in the author's bid to
acquire autonomy and independence. There is, after all, no authorship, no origi-
nality, no agency, no freedom, no grace, no love, that is not after the fact, that
does not come after, that is not belated, that can avoid coming to terms with
predecessors and with the burden of the past. That is the significance of "the
repetition of this law."
This page intentionally left blank
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 Author Index

Pages where substantial discussion occurs are in italics.

Aejmelaeus, Anneli, 720 n.60 Brekelmans, Chr., 12 n.29

Albertz, Rainer, 5 n.5, 64 n.39 Brett, Mark G., 14 n.35
Amsler, Samuel, 73 n.73 Brettler, Marc Zvi, 17 n.45, 19n (from
Auerbach, E., 68 n.51 18 n.51), 20 n.55, 138 n.101, 154
Aurelius, Erik, 70 n.57 n.21, 156 n.27
Buchholz, Joachim, 111 n.32, 139
Barton, John, 27 n.11 n.104
Beentjes, Pancratius C., 18 n.51 Budd, P. J., 113n.40
Begg, Christopher T., 24 n.5 Budde, Karl, 105, 105 n.12
Begrich, J., 113n.40 Buis, P., 105 n.14
Bewer, Julius A., 23n
Beyerlin, Walter, 12 n.29 Caloz, Masseo, 12 n.31, 89 n.108
Biale, David, 48n (from 47 n.66) Carmichael, Calum M., 27 n. 12
Blenkinsopp, Joseph, 57 n.10, 146n Carr, David M., 756 n.27
(from 145 n.2) Cartledge, Tony W., 112 n.38
Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth, 148 n.8 Cassuto, Umberto, 67 n.48, 87 n.103
Bloom, Harold, 47 n.62, 156, 156 n.28 Gazelles, Henri, 31 n.17
Blum, Erhard, 12 n.31, 61 n.27, 68 n.50, Chamberlain, Gary Alan, 7 n. 10, 8 n.12,
70 n.57 66 n.43
Boecker, Hans Jochen, 110 n.30, 138 Childs, Brevard S., 3n, 14 n.39, 32 n.18,
n.101 61 n.27, 84n (from 83 n.94)
Braulik, Georg, 8 n.13, 25 n.6, 39 n.33, Cholewiriski, Alfred, 38 n.29, 39 n.33,
41 n.42, 44 n.54, 45 n.56, 50 n.75, 54 55 n.6, 68 n.51, 84 n.96, 85 n.100, 89
nn.2 and 4, 68 n.51, 69 n.52, 70 n.56, n.108, 153 n.19
72 n.66, 73 n.72, 78 n.80, 80 n.85, 89 Clarke, E. G., 59 n.22
n.108, 99 n.3, 106-107, 107 nn.17- Conrad, Diethelm, 31 n.17
I8,107n.22, 119n.55, 133 n.87, 134 Cooper, Alan, 65 n.40, 68 n.51, 70-77,
n.92, 135 n.93, 136, 136 n.97,139 71 nn.59, 61, and 63, 148 n.8
nn.103-104, 141 n.109, 142 n.112 Cross, Frank Moore, 57 n. 9

179
180 Author Index

Crusemann, Frank, 57 n.78, 110 n.30, Goldenberg, Robert, 47 n.65

147 n.4 Goldstein, Bernard R., 65 n.40, 68
n.51, 70-77, 71 nn.59, 61, and 63,
Dalman, G., 92 n.111 148 n.8
Daube, David, 87 n.87, 109 n.27 Gordon, Cyrus H., 772 n.37
Davies, Philip R., 10n.22 Gramberg, C. P. W., 10 n.25
Day, J., 148 n.9 Greenberg, Moshe, 50 n.73, 121 n.61,
Deller, Karlheinz, 112n.37 138 n.100
Dillmann, August, 41 n.43, 55 n.5, 68 Greengus, Samuel, 12 n.28, 146 n.3
n.49, 71 n.62, 83 n.93, 705, 105 n.10
Dion, Paul E., 18 n.49, 57 n.10, 60 n.26, Halbe, Jorn, 57 n.8, 69 n.52, 70 n.55, 72
107 n.20, 120n.58, 123 n.65, 732 n.68, 73 n.70, 83 n.92, 84 n.96, 85
n.84, 133 n.87, 134 n.89,137n (from n.100, 87n.l05, 92 n. Ill
136 n.97), 145 n.l, 154n.23 Halpern, Baruch, 22 n.56, 23n, 50 n.73,
Dohmen, Christoph, 14 n.35, 48 n.67 62 n.37, 63 nn.35-36, 148 n.7, 150
Dorff, Elliot N., 16n (from 15 n.43) n.ll
Draffkorn, A. E., 112n.37 Haran, Menahem, 58 nn.13-14,67 n.28,
Driver, Samuel Rolles, 31 n.16, 41 n.42, 67 n.46, 72 n.65, 83 n.93, 88n, 155
61 n.29, 67 n.46, 85 n.99, 86 n.101, n.24
92 n . l l l , 98n, 705, 105n.ll, 132 Hartman, Geoffrey H., 47 n.63
n.83, 133 n.86, 142 n.l 10, 145 n.2 Hoffmann, David Zvi, 42 n.46
Hoffmann, Hans-Detlef, 10n.22
Ehrlich, Arnold B., 89 n. 109 Hoffner, Harry A., Jr., 146 n.3
Eichler, Barry L., 7 n. 11 Hoftijzer, J., 31 n.16
Eissfeldt, Otto, 752, 152 n.16, 153 n.17 Holladay, John S., Jr., 63 nn.32, 33, 34,
Elazar, DanielJ., 106 n.16 and 36
Elon, Menahem, 87 n.l04 Holscher, Gustav, 52 n.79, 124, 124n
Eslinger, Lyle M., 139n.l02 Honeyman, A. M., 59 nn. 19-20
Hoppe, Leslie J., 777 n.32, 125 n.70
Finkelstein, Jacob J., 7 n.11 Hurowitz, Victor Avigdor, 88n
Fishbane, Michael, 14 n.36, 75 n.42, 18 Hurvitz, Avi,58n
n.48, 32 n.19, 38 n.28, 40 nn.35, 36, Hyatt, J. P., 92 n.l11
and 38, 42 n.47, 46 n.61, 48 nn.67 and
70, 70 n.57, 73 n.70, 84n (from 83 Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 60, 60 n.24, 779
n.94), 93 n.113, 155 nn.24 and 26 n.57, 128, 128 n.78
Fohrer, Georg, 19 n.54
Foresti, Fabrizio, 13 n.34, 105 n.14, 119 Jaffee, Martin S., 4 n.2, 47 n.65, 146 n.3,
n.56 154n.21
Frankena, R., 134 n.89 Japhet, Sara, 8n.l2, 84 n.95
Friedman, Richard Elliott, 88n Jeanrond, Werner G., 17 n.46
Friedrich, J., 146 n.3 Johnstone, William, 70 n.57
Frymer-Kensky, Tikva, 112 n.39, 113 Jongeling, K., 31 n.16
n.41
Kaufman, Stephen A., 18 n.48, 27 n.12,
Gertz, Jan Christian, 55 n.5, 89 n.108, 71 n.63, 93 n.l 14, 102 n.6, 705 n.73,
100 n.4, 111 n.32, 725 n.70 142 n . l l l
Gesenius, William, 32 n.18 Kaufmann, Yehezkel, 7n.10, 8 n.l2, 88n
Ginsberg, H. Louis, 67 n.48, 68 n.51, 69 Kierkegaard, S0ren, 756
n.53, 70 n.57, 77, 77 nn.60-63, 72 Kline, Meredith G., 734 n.89
n.66, 92 n.111, 145 n.2, 155 n.24 Klostermann, August, 42 n.45
 Author Index 181

Knohl, Israel, 20 n.55, 77n.78, 88n, 133 Macholz, G. C., 110n.30, 138n.l01
n.85 McKenzie, D. A., 110 n.30
Knoppers, Gary N., 9 n.19, 10 n.24, 40 MacKenzie, Roderick
n.39, 44 n.55, 45 n.58, 95 n.115, 97n, A. F., 17 n.47
126 n.73, 137n (from 136 n.97), 140 McKenzie, Steven L., 9 n.20, lln (from
n.106, 141 n.107, 154n.22 10 n.26), 17 n.45
Kohler, Ludwig, 110n.30 Maier, W. A., Ill, 148 n.9
Krinetzki, Giinter, 13 n.34,106n (from Malul, Meir, 112 n.37
105n.l4) Margalit, Baruch, 149n (from 148 n.9)
Kugel, James L., 14 n.36, 27 n.10 Marks, Herbert, 15 n.42
Matthews, Victor H., 111 n.31
L'Hour, J., 104 n.9 Mayes, A. D. H., 24 n.2, 48 n.67, 51
Laaf, Peter, 80 n.86 n.77, 55 nn.5-6, 79 n.82, 82 n.91, 83,
Lafont, Sophie, 12n.28 83 n.92, 85 n.100, 96n (from 95
Lehmann, Manfred R., 112 n.38, 116 n.48 n.l 17), 98n, 104 n.9, 106 n.l5, 108
Lemke, Werner K., 17 n.45 n.25, 725 n.70, 129 n.81, 134n.89,
Levenson, Jon D., 73 n. 70, 96 n. 118 142 n.110
Levine, Baruch A., 72 n.64 Meier, Samuel A., 42 n.44
Levinson, Bernard M., 4 n.2, 8 n.12, 10 Meir, R. Samuel ben (Rashbam), 128,
n.26, 12 n.28, 14 nn.35 and 38, 18 128 n.79
n.50, 20 n.55, 27 n.12, 42 n.46, 66 Merendino, Rosario Pius, 7 n.10, 8 n.12,
n.44, 73 n.70, 84 n.95, 102 n.5, 109 72 n.68, 73 n.70, 106n (from 105
n.28, 119 n.55, 120nn.59-60, 132 n.14)
n.83, 134 n.90, 145 n.l, 146 n.3, 155 Mettinger, Tryggve
n.25, 156n.27 N. D., 31 n.17
Lewis, Theodore J., 148 n.8 Milgrom, Jacob, 16n (from 15 n.43), 38
Lieberman, Saul J., 87 n. 104 n.29, 42n (from 41 n.43), 42 n.46, 50
Lieberman, Stephen J., 15 n.40 n.76, 73 n.72, 88n, 125 n.69, 726
Liedke, G., 115 n.46 n.71, 153 n.l9
Lockshin, Martin I., 128 n.79 Miller, Patrick D., 126 n.72
Loewenstamm, Samuel E., 58 n.l3,77 Moore, G. F., 48 n.68
n.78, 151 n.l 3 Morgan, Dorm Farley, 67 n.45, 91n
Lohfink, Norbert, 5 n.5, 6n.7,l n.9, 8 Morrow, William S., 68 n.51, 72 n.68,
nn.13, 15, and 16, 9 n.20, 10 n.21, 12- 73 n.70, 79 nn.82 and 84, 84 n.97, 86
13, 12 nn.29-31, 13 n.32, 24n (from n.l02,131 n
23 n.l), 24 n.3, 25 nn.4-5, 26 n.9, 30
n.15, 32 n.l9, 34 n.22, 39 n.33, 40 Nachmanides (R. Moses ben Nachman),
n.37, 43 nn.49-52, 44 n.55, 49 n.72, 83 n.94, 121 n.62,151
50 n.76, 52 n.79, 54 n.2, 61 n.27, 62 Nicholson, Ernest W., 23n, 145 n.2
n.30, 64 n.37, 68, 68 n.50, 70 n.56, 74 Nicolsky, N. M., 70 n.57, 80 n.85, 97n
n.75, 99 n.2, 106, 106n.l6, 107 n.19, (from 96 n.119)
123 n.66, 127 nn.75 and 77, 134 n.91, Niehr, Herbert, 110 n.30
135 n.94, 137, 137 n.98, 141 nn.108- Nielsen, Eduard, 42 n.44
109, 143n, 147 n.5 Noth, Martin, 44 n.55, 92 n.l11

McBride, S. Dean, Jr., 32 n.19, 51 n.78, O'Connor, M., 85 n.99, 118n

126 n.72, 127 n.74 Oeming, Manfred, 14 n.35, 48 n.67
McConville, J. G., 10 n.26, 27 n.12, 73 Olyan, Saul M., 148 n.9
n.70,96n(from95n.U7) Orlinsky, Harry M., 83 n.94
Macho, Alejandro Diex, 59 n.22 Osumi,Yuichi, 11 n.27, 115 n.46
182 Author Index

Otto, Eckart, 7 n.11, 8 nn.12 and 14, 11 Rothschild, Hava Tirosh, 48n (from 47
n.27, 12 n.28, 16 n.44, 18 n.48, 31 n.66)
n.17, 50 n.76, 52 n.80, 55 n.6, 51 n.8, Riitersworden, Udo, 52 n.80, 107 nn.19-
58 nn. 12-13, 65 n.4], 66 nn.42 and 20,109 n.28, 119 n.56,120 n.58, 723
44, 68 n.51, 69 n.52, 70 nn.55 and n.67, 126nn.72-73, 129nn.80-81, 132
58, 85 n.100, 89 n.108, 92 n.111, 99 n.84,136, 136 n.95, 137 n.98, 139
n.3, 107 n.18, 109 n.28, 110 n.30, n.103, 140n (from 139 n.104), 142
115 nn.45-47, 119 n.57, 120 n.58, n.772
123 n.65, 125 n.70, 133 n.88, 136
n.97, 137 n.98, 139 n.103, 146 n.3, Said, Edward W., 47 n.63
147 n.6, 150 n.12, 153 n.19 Sarna, Nahum M., 14 n.38
Schafer-Lichtenberger, Christa, 747 n.108
Palmer, Richard E., 17 n.46 Schmitt, G., 123 n.67
Parpola, Simo, 152n.l5 Scholem, Gershom, 47 n.66
Paton, Louis Bayles, 9 n.18, 10 n.23 Schramm, Tim, 57 n.8
Perlitt, Lothar, 110n.29 Schwienhorst-Schonberger, Ludger, 11
Petschow, Herbert, 727 n.62, 142 n . l l l n.27, 12n.29, 31 n.11, 37 n.26,
Phillips, A., 110 n.30, 111 n.35 65n.41,67n.47,113n.43, 116 n.48,
Polka, Brayton, 17 n.46 123 n.66, 739 n. 103
Polzin, Robert, 705 n. 13 SeebaB, Horst, 106n (from 105 n.14),
PreuB, Horst Dietrich, 9 n.19, 44 n.55, 123nn.66-67
105 n.14 Seeligmann, Isaac Leo, 19 n.53, 155 n.24
Fury, Albert de, 7 n.9 Segal, J. B., 43 n.48, 57 n.8, 59 n.19, 72
n.68,73n.70
Rabin, Chaim, 10 n.26 Segert, Stanislav, 17 n.47
Rad, Gerhard von, 24 n.2, 45 n.57, 73 Seidel, Moshe, 18n.51
n.69, 757 n.14 Seitz, Gottfried, 29 n.14, 39 n.32, 103n,
Ramban. See Nachmanides 105 n.14, 131n
Rashbam. See Meir, R. Samuel ben Skweres, Dieter Eduard, 41 n.42, 135 n.93
Rawidowicz, Simon, 16n (from 15 n.43) Smith, Jonathan Z., 4 n.2
Reuter, Eleonore, 6 n.7, 10n.25, 13n.32, Smith, Morton, 6 n.8, 28n, 41 n.41, 149
24n (from 23 n.7), 26 n.8, 29 n.14, 33 n.10
n.20, 39 n.34, 41 n.42, 48 n.67, 56n, Sonnet, Jean-Pierre, 757 n.13, 152n
73 n.73, 74n.74, 107 n.21 (from 151 n.14)
Reviv, Hanoch, 725 n.69 Sperber, Alexander, 59 n.22
Roberts, B. J., 48 n.69 Sprinkle, Joseph M., 12 n.28
Rochberg-Halton, Francesca, 15 n.40 Stegemann, Hartmut, 156n(from 155
Rofe, Alexander, 40 n.35, 41 n.41, 60 n.26)
n.23, 82 n.89, 92 n.772, 702 nn.5-6, Stern, Philip D., 123 n.66
106n (from 105 n.14), 107 n.22, 108 Steymans, Hans Ulrich, 134 n.89
n.23, 122 n.63, 725 n.70, 126 nn.71 Suzuki, Yoshihide, 24 n.5, 105 n.14, 726
and 73 nn.71-72, 127 n.77
Romer, Thomas, 7 n.9, 51 n.77, 752n
(from 151 n.14) Talmon, Shemaryahu, 18 n.51, 19 n.52,
Rose, Martin, 722 n.64, 132 n.84, 134 114 n.44
n.89 Thompson, Thomas L., 58n (from 57
Rosett, Arthur, 16n (from 15 n.43) n.ll)
Roth, Martha T., 15n.41, 114 n.44, 116 Tigay, Jeffrey H., 155 n.26
n.49, 138 n.99 Tomback, Richard S., 31 n.16
 Author Index 183

Tonnies, F., 58 n.12 Weissblueth, S., 33 n.20

Tov, Emanuel, 35n Welch, AdamC., 71 n.60
Wellhausen, Julius, 69 nn.52 and 54,
van der Toorn, Karel, 113 n.42 88n
Van Seters, John, 7 n.10, 8 n.12, 58n Westbrook, Raymond, 7 n.l 1, 12 n.28,
(from57n.ll), 58 n.16, 61 n.27, 66 15n.41, 146 n.3
n.43, 72 n.64 Whitelam, Keith W.,
Vaux, Roland de, 33 n.21, 95 n.117, 138 HOn.30, 111 nn.32 and 34, 777
n.101 n. 55, 138 n.101
Veijola, Timo, 55 n.5, 89 n.108, 92 Wiener, Harold M, 27 n.12, 36
n.111,123 n.65, 133 n.88, 753 n.18 n.25,102 n.5,105, 105n.l3,
Viberg, Ake, 112n.36 108 n.24
Williams, Ronald J., 84n (from 83 n.94),
Wacholder, Ben Zion, 47 n.64 85 n.99
Waltke, Bruce K., 85 n.99,118n Williamson, Hugh
Wambacq, B. N., 57 n.8, 80 n.86 G. M., 178
Watanabe, Kazuko, 152 n.15 Wilson, Robert R., 110 n.30, 111 n.33,
Weinberg, Joel P., 17 126nn.71and73
n.45, 57n.l0, 154n.23 Wise, Michael Owen, 156n (from 155
Weinfeld, Moshe, 18 n.49, 40 n.37, 50 n.26)
n.76, 64 n.37, 72 nn.65 and 67, 104 Wright, George Ernest, 105 n. 14
n.8, 105 n. 14, 106n.l5, 111 n.32,
112n.39, 777, 117 nn.50-53, 725, Yadin, Yigael, 47 n.64
125 n.69, 129 n.80, 134 n.89, 139 Yaron, Reuven, 7 n . l l , 114n.44
n.103, 145 nn.1-2 Yeivin, Israel, 48 n.69
This page intentionally left blank
 Subject Index

Aaron, 19, 113 question of literary sequence, 99

Abimelek, 32 n.18, 81 n.87 relation of Deut 13:7-12 and 17:2-
Abraham, 4, 32 n.18 7, 101-104, 108, 118-23, 131-
Absalom, 140 33
Achaemenid models of royal authority, represent series of exegetical
126 n.73, 154 reformulations, 122-23 and notes
ade (loyalty oath). See cuneiform law: as transgression against the
vassal treaty Decalogue, 133-35
altar, as site for theophany, 5, 31, 31 apotropaic ritual(s), 5, 58-59, 58 n.15,
n.17, 49-51 60 n.25, 61-62, 72, 79, 87. See
altar law of the Covenant Code, 8, 31- also blood
38, 46, 49, 145 archaeology, 63, 148
altars, local. See local altars Ark Narrative, 138-39
ambiguous legal cases, 113-14, 117, Asherah. See under popular piety
127-30 Ashurbanipal, 63
Amoraim, 47 association of words or ideas. See
amphictyony, 57 n.9, 95 n.117 under editorial devices
Amtergesetze. See Laws of Public Assyria. See cuneiform law: vassal
Officials treaty; neo-Assyrian crisis
ancestor worship, 148 n.8. See also astral worship, 135, 135 n.93
popular piety authorship
Angel of Destruction, 58 denial of, 47
anthology, redactional, 28 impediments to, 5-6, 13-17, 28,
apostasy, laws of 33-34, 41^3, 46-48, 53-54,
as an abomination, 102 109-10, 146-50
incitement to, 103-104, 108, 118, models of, 27, 156-57
120, 132, 144-46 See also exegesis; originality; texts;
paradigmatic function of, 124 textual authority

185
186 Subject Index

authors of Deuteronomy calendar. See festival calendar;

aims and program of, 16, 20, 27-28, pilgrimage festivals
49-52, 137, 144-49, 156 Canaanites, 25, 40, 63, 148-49, 148
antiquity as trope, 149, 152 n.7
elders as, theory of, 111 n.32 canon, 14-15. See also authorship:
intentionality and self- impediments to; methodology;
understanding, 22, 46, 80-81, 94 textual authority
relation to Covenant Code, 6, 32, canon formula, 14, 48, 48 n.67
46, 136-37, 145, 149 canonical criticism, 13-14. See also
rework texts, 4, 32-33, 46-48, 94-95 methodology
as scribes, 18, 64, 145 n.2 capital cases, 101, 118-22, 121 n.62,
as sectarian, 149-50 123-24, 128, 131, 140
techniques of authorship, 4-6, 15, centralization, cultic. See cultic
34, 46-48, 146-47 centralization
transform and challenge religious centralization formula, 4, 4 n.4, 23,
norms, 53-54, 69, 81, 94, 125, 23n, 24-25, 29, 91, 132
149, 152-53, 157 and festival calendar, 81, 82-83, 90
transform language, 38, 38 n.29, 43, as reformulation of Exodus altar law,
49, 62, 62 n.30, 73-74, 73 n.73, 28n, 30-34, 32 n.19, 34-36
79-81, 94 syntax of, 30
transform literary history, 5-6, 15, central sanctuary
22, 146 dialectical relation to local sphere,
transform local sphere, 4, 9, 20, 53, 49-51, 89, 94, 131-33, 135-37
80, 93, 117, 124-27, 144 joy as compensation at, 4, 49
transform royal authority, 143 judicial function of, 98, 99, 101,
transformed by later authors, 155 117-18, 127-30, 138
See also textual authority; textual king eclipsed by, 142-43
voice paschal slaughter transformed into
sacrifice at, 53, 74, 79
ban, 40, 123, 123 nn.66-67 pilgrimage festivals shifted to, 90-91
barley harvest, 91-92 sacrifice restricted to, 4, 4n, 23, 23n,
Blessing of Moses, 111 35, 36-37, 93, 109
block model (of redaction), 8-9, 8 theophany restricted to, 49
n.14, 52 n.79, 99, 136, 136 n.97, See also Jerusalem Temple
137 n.98, 140n (from 139 n.104) chapter divisions, 48
blood chiasm, 18-20, 25-27, 27 n.12, 29.
apotropaic use of in paschal See also editorial devices
slaughter, 21, 58-62, 58 n.15, 59 chiastic citation (Seidel's law), 18-20,
n.17, 78, 87 18 n.51, 35, 90, 91n, 100 n.4,
apotropy deleted in Deuteronomic 118-19, 139
Passover, 78-79, 87-89, 94-95, Chronicler, the / Chronicles, 14,
144 16-17, 17 n.45, 126 n.73,
as controlled substance, 64, 79 154-55, 154 n.21
in cultic sacrifice, 24, 33 n.21, 34, citation, 42-43, 46-47. See also
37, 49, 60-62, 60 n.26 lemmas
in secular slaughter, 24, 28, 29, 49 citation formula, 6, 41-42, 43, 43
blood avenger, 128 n.50, 46-47, 67-68, 67 nn.47-48
Bloom, Harold, 47 n.62, 156 alleged rule of, 42 n.46
Booths, Festival of. See Tabernacles negative citation, 135, 135 n.93
breastplate of justice, 111 See also formulas
 Subject Index 187

clans need to authorize, as innovation, 28,

clan law, 110, 124-27, 125 n.70, 138 44-46, 47, 148,
context of Passover, 57, 74 relation to primary commandment,
disrupted by Deuteronomy's 133-34
transformations, 22, 64, 91, 144 of sacrifice, 4-5, 21, 23-4, 28-34, 80
See also elders; judicial authority See also centralization formula;
colophons, 18, 48, 91 central sanctuary; local altars
consonantal metathesis as exegetical cultic Decalogue, 9, 69-70
technique, 120 n.60 cultic pillars. See under popular piety
Covenant Code cultic purity, 25-26, 113, 136
authority of, contested by authors of cultic sacrifice. See sacrifice
Deuteronomy, 149, 152-53 cultic unity (Einheit), 136
compass of, textual, 3n, 66 n.42 cultural transformation, 3-22, 144-50
could not have mandated Josiah's culms
reform, 10, 56n distributed and establishment, 63-
and cuneiform law, 112 n.37, 114-16 64, 63 n.32, 74
Deuteronomy's literary relation to, role in justice, 110-16, 130-31
3, 6-8, 11, 149-50 See also cultic centralization;
judicial oaths in and laws of festival calendar; local altars;
evidence, 115-16, 127, 130 pilgrimage festivals; popular
literary development and redactional piety; religion
history of, 11, 65-68, 65 n.41, 69- cuneiform law
70, 147 challenges traditio-historical
redaction into Sinai pericope, 65 assumptions, 13, 13 n.34, 122
n.41, 66 n.42, 67 n.47, 149, 153, n.64
153 n.17 formula for legal revision in, 146 n.3
redactional structure transmitted to Hittite Laws, 146, 146 n.3
Deuteronomy, 116 judicial oath, 112 n.37, 114n (from
transformed by authors of 113 n.43), 116 and notes
Deuteronomy, 136-37 law of deposits in, 114, 116
Unleavened Bread: and festival Laws of Eshnunna, 113 n.43, 114,
calendar in, 65-68, 65 n.41, 69- 114 n.44, 115 n.47, 116
70,75, 86, 90-91; as source Laws of Hammurabi, 116 n.49, 121,
for Deuteronomy's Passover, 121 n.62, 138
76 legal collections, 15, 17-18, 112
See also altar law of the Covenant n.37, 115 n.45, 138
Code Nuzi family law, 112 n.37
cultic centralization, 23-52 paradigmatic cases in, 115 n.47, 121
also entails local secularization, 49- reception of legal motifs and
52, 93, 109, 124, 133 terminology of in Israel, 104 n.8,
conflict with paschal slaughter, 62- 114-16, 115 n.47, 123 n.65, 125
64, 64 n.38 n.70, 129, 132, 134 n.89
consequences of for religion and redactional techniques of, 115 n.47,
society, 5, 21-22, 27-28, 56, 121, 121 n.62, 142 n . l l l
117-18, 136-37, 144-49 royal voicing of legal collections, 138
as exegetical reformulation, 28-34 vassal treaty/loyalty oath (ade), 120,
historical context of, 6 n.7, 9, 10, 122, 122 n.64, 123, 123 n.65,
49, 62, 123 n.65, 124 n.68 132, 134, 134 n.89, 145, 147,
judicial consequences of, 98-143, 152
114, 116 curriculum, scribal, 5, 15, 18
188 Subject Index

David, 45, 140 metonym for Jerusalem Temple in,

Decalogue, 133-35, 135 n.93, 152, 4, 4n, 23, 23n
153 n.17 Mosaic voicing of, and
cultic, 9, 69 pseudepigraphy, 6, 6 n.7, 34, 34n,
demonic, 58-59, 59 n.17 97, 145, 150
deposits, law of, 114-16, 115 nn.45 neo-Assyrian parallels to, 63, 132,
and 47, 130 134, 134 n.89
Deuteronomic/Deuteronomistic as pious fraud, 150
material redaction into Pentateuch, 153
defined and distinguished, viii relation of legislative and Utopian
inDeut 17:2-7, 107, 136 n.97 dimensions of, 51-52, 51 n.77,
in Deuteronomy, 13, 52 106 n.16, 137 n.98
Law of Public Officials as, 52 n.79, as replacement treaty, 134, 134
99, 106, 137, 137n n.89
Mosaic voicing of Deuteronomy as, revised by DtrH, 22, 95-97, 153
6 n.7, 34n revised by H/P, 153-54
proto-Deuteronomic material in secularization in, 49-51
Exodus distinguished from self-presentation as "traditional," 4,
Deuteronomistic, 12-13, 62 21, 63, 95, 148, 151-52
n.30, 65, 68, 68 n.50, 147 structuring principle in, 131
Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), the transforms the past, 21, 148-49,
account of Josiah's reform as part 149-52
of, 9-10, 95-97 transforms prophecy, 145, 145 n.2
redactional integration of legal transforms religion, 20-22, 64, 144-
corpus, 44-46 45, 148, 150
revises Law of the King, 95-97 two source theory for (Privilege
on Solomon's reign as redactional Law), 8-9, 69-70
fulfillment, 40-41, 140-41, 141 why new composition was
n.107 necessary, 147
strata in, 10 n.26, 44 n.55 diachronic analysis, 6, 26-27, 51, 99,
transformed by Chronicler, 16-17, 105, 156. See also synchronic
17 n.45, 154-55 analysis
transforms Deuteronomic norms, distributed cultus, 63-64, 63 n.32, 74.
95-97, 153 See also popular piety
transition to monarchy in, 139 dittography, 81, 87
tropes Israelite past as Canaanite, 148 doorkeepers (guild), 59, 59 n.21
n.7 door posts
Deuteronomy blood apotropy at, 21, 58, 60
bid for authority, 64, 95, 109 legal rituals at, 112, 114 n.44
Canaanites as trope, 148-49 double readings, 114 n.44
dating issues, 9-10, 10 n.26
festival calendar transformed by, 21, E, 7 n.10
70-71, 72-75, 93-95 editorial devices, 6, 17-20
implications of for literary theory, 4, association of words or ideas, 92-
17, 144-57 93, 102, 102 n.5, 121 n.62
literary relation to Covenant Code, binary opposition as redactional
6-8, 11, 149-50 structure, 115-16, 115 n.47, 128,
literary relation to J, 8 130-33
literary relation to H and P, 88n, chiasm, 18-20, 25-27, 27 n.12,
153-54 29
 Subject Index 189

consonantal metathesis as Second rabbinic, 15 n.43, 42 n.46, 59-60,

Temple exegetical technique, 120 73 n.70, 77 n.78, 83 n.94, 87
n.60 n.104, 89 n.109, 119 n.57, 120
double readings, 114 n.44 n.60, 121 nn.61-62, 128, 128 n.79
geierah shavah (rabbinic), 87 n.104 rabbinic, as controverting biblical
gloss, 18, 35, 35n, 92, 127, 129, 132 source text, 15 n.43
inclusio, 44, 132-33 rabbinic, independent of halakhah,
lemmatic citation, 5-6, 34-36, 36- 89 n.109, 128, 128 n.79
38, 46, 75-81, 82 as transformative, 6, 15-17, 32-33,
redactional bridges, 27, 135-36 51-52, 94-95, 97, 149-50
repetitive resumption (Wiederauf- as updating in Covenant Code, 147
nahme), 6, 18-20, 75, 77-78, 85, See also editorial devices; formulas;
87 hermeneutics; tropes
Seidel's law, 18-20, 18 n.51, 35, 90, exegesis, harmonistic
91n, 100 n.4, 118-19, 139 defined as "harmonizing
septads, 89 n.108 inconcinnities," 70 n.70
See also redaction embedded in textual versions, 37
elders n.27, 60 n.26, 77 n.78, 80 n.86,
conventional judicial role of, 98, 83 n.93
110, 111, 124-27, 138, 144 inner biblical harmonizations, 73
disruption of traditional authority of, n.70, 155, 155 n.25
22, 98, 124-27, 125 nn.69- 70, by moderns, 26-27, 33 n.20, 36
126 n.71, 138, 144 n.25, 42 n.46, 61 n.28, 73 n.70,
theory of Deuteronomy's authors as, 86 n.102, 89 n.109, 119 n.57
111 n.32 See also exegesis: rabbinic;
See also judicial authority synchronic analysis
election formula. See centralization exegetical formulas. See formulas;
formula trope(s)
Elijah, 4, 10 n.26 Exodus, the
Elohim (the), 112 n.37, 113 n.43 Jerusalem Temple as site of
Elohistic work (E), 7 n.10 commemoration of, 94
Esarhaddon, Vassal Treaty of, 122, and Passover, 58, 78
122 n.64, 123, 123 n.65, 134, 134 tradition of as nocturnal event, 77,
n.89, 145, 147, 152. See also 77 n.78
cuneiform law Unleavened Bread as
Eshnunna, Laws of. See cuneiform commemorating, 68, 78, 78 n.81
law: Laws of Eshnunna
evidentiary insufficiency, 113, 114, female figurines, 63. See also popular
127, 130. See also witness law piety
execution, summary, 118-22. See also festival. See pilgrimage festival
capital cases festival calendar
exegesis consequences of centralization for,
approach of canonical criticism, 13- 21, 53, 70-71, 94
14 in Covenant Code, 65-68, 65 n.41,
approach of inner biblical exegesis, 69, 75
14-15, 94 programmatic origins of
atomistic, 46-7 Deuteronomy's, 54-56, 56 n.7, 95
centralization law as exegetical Sabbath as interpolation in, 20
reformulation, 27, 28-34, 28n, sequence of transformations in, 95-97
46-48 See also individual festivals
190 Subject Index

financial compensation, in talion law, casus pendens 75, 84n (from 83

15 n.43 n.94)
firstlings, 92, 100, lOOn of centralization command, 30
flood story, 155 n.25 of comparison, 95 n.117
form criticism, 27. See also of Deut 16:1,75,77
methodology Elohim, in judicial oath of Covenant
formulas Code, 112 n.37, 113 n.43
for apostasy ("to go and worship of Exod 12:8, 83 n.94
other gods"), 104 n.8 of Job's recantation, 129
"at that time," 151-52, 151 n.13 of judicial oaths, 116, 116 n.48
centralization formula. See as marking editorial strata, 131-33
centralization formula number change (Numeruswechsel),
citation formula. See citation 24-26, 25 n.5
formula philological complexity, challenge
distance from the cultic center, 39- to synchronic analysis, 26-27, 27
41 n.12
election formula. See centralization "plural of majesty," 113 n.43
formula redundancy, as sign of double
expansion of the boundaries, reading, 114 n.44
39-41 as sign of textual reworking, 75, 77,
incomparability, 95 n. 117 81-89
"in your midst," 132-33 singular noun bound to collective as
joy at cultic center, 4, 49 distributive, 118 n.54
legal amendment ("formerly . . . but theological vocalization, 121 n.61
now . . ."), 146 n.3 guilds, 59
legal compliance ("according to the
law"), 155 H. See Holiness Code
oath formula, 116, 116 n.48. See halakhah, 42 n.46, 89 n.109, 128
also judicial oaths Hammurabi's Laws. See under
pilgrimage scheme, 74 n.75 cuneiform law
prohibition against appearing harmonistic exegesis. See exegesis,
"empty-handed," 91-92 harmonistic
promulgation formula. See citation Harvest, Festival of, 67-68, 90, 91
formula Hauptgebot (primary commandment),
"rest from enemies," 40-41, 40 121, 121 n.62, 133-34, 133 n.87,
n.39, 44-45, 45 n.56, 148 135 n.93
"you must not . . .," as polemic, 81, hermeneutics
81 n.87 authorship as revision, 123-27,
See also grammar and syntax; 144-57
trope(s) central to Deuteronomy, 4, 20
Deuteronomy as more radical than
geierah shavah, 87 n.104 theories of, 16-17, 17 n.46, 152-
gloss, 18, 35, 35n, 92, 127, 129, 57
132 See also exegesis
grammar and syntax Hezekiah, 22, 49, 62, 147
adverbial accusative, 77 Hiram, 40
of altar law (Exod 20:24), 32 n.18 history of traditions model. See
apostasy idiom as conflation, 104 methodology: traditio-historical
n.8 approach
break-up of construct, 30-38 Hittite Code. See under cuneiform law
 Subject Index 191

Holiness Code (H) Job, 129

on blood of sacrificial victim, 60 joins, textual. See redaction:
concept of profane in, 50 n.74 redactional logic
dating, 40 n.37, 88n Joshua, 32 n.l8
festival calendar of, 20 Josiah
rolls back Deuteronomic innovation, authors of Deuteronomy in court of,
153-54 18, 62 n.31, 145 n.2
See also Priestly source centralization of the cultus by, 6 n.7,
homicide, 128 9-10, 49, 62
Horeb, 81, 134, 151, 152. See also political implications of cultic
Sinai reform, 39
horse and rider figures, 63. See also as royal patron of first centralized
popular piety Passover, 10, 95-97, 95 n.l17, 96
hyssop, 58 n.119, 153, 155
joy, 4, 49
Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 60, 119 n.57, 128 Judah
iconic objects, 63, 63 n.36. See also Chronicler's post-exilic vision of, 154
popular piety Deuteronomy as replacement treaty
incitement. See under apostasy, laws for, 134
of neo-Assyrian crisis and Hezekiah's
inclusio, 44, 132-3. See also editorial response, 22, 62-63, 147
devices Philistine expansion into, 139
Ingathering, Festival of, 67-68, 90, 91 religion and society transformed by
inner biblical exegesis, 14-15, 94. See centralization, 144—49
also exegesis; methodology See also Hezekiah; Josiah
insufficiency of evidence, 113-16, judges
127, 130 appointment of professional system
of, 100, 117, 124-25, 125 n.70,
J. See Yahwistic work 131-32, 138
JE. See Jehovist elders as, 111, 138, 144
Jehoshaphat's reform, 126 nn.71 and Elohim as, in Targum, 112 n.37, 113
73 n.43
Jehovist (JE), 12, 60 as independent of the king, 126-27,
Jerusalem Temple 126 nn.72-73
Exodus commemorated at, 96 judicial probity, 100, 102
first centralized Passover celebrated Samuel's sons as, 139
at, 95-96, 95 n. 117 of settlement period, 111, 142 n.l12
as fulfilling DtrH scheme of dynastic judicial authority
and cultic history, 40-41, 45 Deuteronomy as transforming, 5,
and preexilic core of DtrH, 10 21-22, 98
as reference of centralization of elders, 98, 110, 111, 124-27,
formula, 4, 4 n.4, 23, 23n 138, 144
Solomon's Temple, 40-41, 40 n.39, lay authority, 111, 130-31
45, 97n (from 96 n.l 19), 130 of paterfamilias, 58, 64, 110, 111, 144
transformation of local pilgrimages priests, 110, 111, 113
into Temple pilgrimages, 90-91 relation of professionalized judges'
See also central sanctuary and elders', 124-27 and nn.69-71
Jewish Publication Society Version, royal, as eclipsed by Temple, 138-^3
84-85, 132 secularization of in local sphere,
Jezebel, 122 n.63 123-27, 130-33, 136
192 Subject Index

judicial oaths historical context for transition to

in cuneiform law, 112 n.37, 114n monarchy, 138-39
(from 113 n.43), 116 and notes judiciary independent of, 126-27,
in laws of deposit, 114-16 126 nn.72-73
as necessary in cases of evidentiary Law of the King (Deut 17:14-20),
insufficiency, 112, 113-16, 127 95, 96, 126, 126 n.72, 137, 137
technical formula for, 116, 116 n.48 n.98, 141-42, 141 n.107, 153
judicial oracles, 111, 113, 127 n.18, 154
judicial ordeal, 112, 113 reduced to titular figurehead, 141-
judicial probity, 100, 102 42
judicial procedure
ambiguous legal cases, 113-14, Law(s) (of)
117, 127-30 altar law. See altar law of the
capital cases, 101, 118-22, 121 Covenant Code
n.62, 123-24, 128, 131, 140 apostasy. See apostasy, laws of
forms of adjudication in ancient the ban, 40, 123, 123 nn.66-67
Israel, 112-13 binary opposition to distinguish
impact of centralization upon, 5, 21- categories of, 115-16, 115 n.47,
22, 98, 117-18 128, 130-33
pre-Deuteronomic local, 110-16 blemished animals, 100, 102
witness law, 101, 118-22, 122 n.63, capital cases, 101, 118-22, 121
123-24, 130, 131, 133 n.62, 123-24, 128, 131, 140
justice, 98-143 centralization. See centralization
centralization's implications for, formula; cultic centralization
117-18 deposits, 114-16, 115 nn.45 and 47,
king as final arbiter of, 98, 138-41 130
professionalized judiciary as evidence, insufficiency of, 113-16,
independent of king, 126-27, 126 127, 130
nn.72-73 firstlings, 92, 100, lOOn
role of the cultus in, 110-16 judicial oaths. See judicial oaths
social justice (charity) laws in judicial oracles, 111, 113, 127
Covenant Code, 12 judicial ordeal, 112, 113
societal contexts for administration the King, 95, 96, 126, 126 n.72,
of, 110 137, 137 n.98, 141-42, 141
See also judges; judicial authority; n.107, 153 n.18, 154
Law(s) (of); local justice manumission of slaves, 92, 112, 114
n.44, 121 n.62
Kierkegaard, S0ren, 156 Public Officials. See Laws of Public
king, the Officials
absence of cultic role for in sacrifice. See sacrifice
Deuteronomy, 95-96, 153 as school example, 124, 124n
as arbiter of justice in royal secular slaughter. See secular
ideology, 98, 110, 138-41, 141 slaughter
n.107 summary execution, 118-22
authority eclipsed by cultic center, talion, 15 n.43, 121
5, 22, 137, 138-43 witness law, 101, 118-22, 122 n.63,
authority enhanced by DtrH, 95-97 123-24, 130, 131, 133
Chronicler's conception of, 126 See also cuneiform law; justice
nn.71 and 73, 153-54 Laws of Eshnunna. See under
evaluations of in DtrH, 10 cuneiform law
 Subject Index 193

Laws of Public Officials (Amtergesetze) local justice

(Deut 16:18-18:22) authors of Deuteronomy sanction,
block model of, 8, 8 n.14, 52 n.79, 124-27
99, 106, 107 n.19 for cultic offenses, 130
classically, "Office-bearers of the implications of centralization for,
theocracy," 98-100, 101, 142 114-16
as draft constitution, 52 n.79, 106, locales of, 110-11
107 n.19, 109, 137 lots, 113
redactional bridge to, 100n, 136 loyalty oath (ade). See under
relation to previous unit on cultus, cuneiform law
95, 98-99, 99 n.2, lOOn, 109-11,
110 n.29, 135-37 manslaughter, 128. See also capital
royal judicial authority eclipsed in, cases
138-43 manumission of slaves, 92, 112, 114
terminological redundancy of Deut n.44, 121 n.62
17:2, 132 Masoretic Text, 48, 120 n.60
textual sequence of, 100-104, 142- conflated variants in, ! 14 n.44
43, 142 n.112 theological vocalization in, 121
lay resolution of judicial disputes, 111, n.61
130-31 See also Versions
lemmas, 5-6, 34-36, 36-38, 46, 81- memory, 9.3
82, 91 methodology
Levite, the, 29 canonical criticism, 13-14
liminal space, 59, 62, 112 form criticism, 27
lintel, 58. See also apotropaic ritual(s) inner biblical exegesis, 14-15, 94
literary history source criticism, 17, 69-70, 145 n.2,
authors of Deuteronomy conscious 156
of their place in, 22 traditio-historical approach, 13 n.34,
authors of Deuteronomy rewrite, 5- 27, 55-56, 57 nn.8-9, 70, 78, 94,
6, 27-28, 146 122, 122 n.64, 134 n.89
revisionary hermeneutics and, 152- See also block model; diachronic
57 analysis; exegesis: rabbinic;
literary theory, 17, 156. See also synchronic analysis
hermeneutics Moab, 81, 152, 153
local altars/sanctuaries Moses
Deuteronomy proscribes cultic ambiguity of addressees of, 151-52
activity at, 4, 9, 21, 28-34, 53, attribution of Deuteronomy to, 6, 6
81, 93, 144 n.7, 34, 34n, 97, 145, 145 n.2,
"joy" as compensation for 148, 150
extirpation of, 4, 49 Blessing of Moses, 111
judicial function of, 5, 21, 98, genealogy of as interpolation, 19
111, 112 n.37, 113, 114-16, Mosaic voice and anonymous voice
117 of historiographer, 97
justifying proscription of, 28 and redaction of Covenant Code into
new roles ascribed to local sphere, Sinai pericope, 153 n.17
49-51, 74, 79-80, 89, 93-94, relation of Mosaic and divine voice,
117-18, 123-27, 131-33 34n, 135, 135 n.93
pilgrimage festivals to, 53, 90-93 as spokesperson for Yahweh in
Unleavened Bread associated with, citation formula (Deut 12:21), 43,
68-69, 75, 80 43 n.5()
194 Subject Index

Moses (continued) contrasted with cultic "sacrifice,"

understanding of Mosaic voice by 57, 60-62
classical literary criticism, 145 distinct from Unleavened Bread, 56,
n.2 65, 71
and vaticinium ex eventu, 148 etymology of, 58
Moses de Leon, 47 Josiah's celebration of first
murder, 128. See also capital cases centralized, 10, 95-96, 96 n.119,
153, 155
Nachmanides, 83 n.94, 121 n.62, 151 not technically a "festival," 57
narrative, 95-97, 138-40, 151-52, pre-Deuteronomic form of, 21, 56,
154-56 57-62
Nathan, 140 routinization of, 72, 91
neo-Assyrian crisis, 22, 62-63, 122, status of Exod 34:24b reference, 69-
123 n.65, 147 70, 83, 83 n.93, 86 n.102
neo-Assyrian treaties. See cuneiform textual sources for Deuteronomy's
law: vassal treaty legislation on, 76
new moon, 67, 68 n.51 transformed into a "festival," 69, 72,
number change (Numeruswechsel). 74, 74 n.5, 79, 80, 86, 89, 93, 94,
See under grammar and syntax 144
Nuzi family law. See under cuneiform transformed into a "sacrifice," 73-
law 74, 73 n.72, 78-79
See also pilgrimage festival;
oaths, judicial. See judicial oaths Unleavened Bread, Festival of
"Office-bearers of the theocracy." See past, the, 34, 63 n.36, 151-52, 157
Laws of Public Officials paterfamilias. See under judicial
Oral Law, 47 authority
oral literature, 27. See also Pentateuch, the, 4, 55 n.5, 65, 153,
methodology: traditio-historical 154
approach Philistines, 138-39
ordeal, judicial. See judicial ordeal pilgrimage festival (hag)
order avoidance of term for in Deut 16:1-
as dialectical, 130-32, 135-37 8, 80, 80 n.86, 89, 93-94
of Laws of Public Officials, 142 defined, 67
or do difficilior, 109 transformation of paschal slaughter
problematic textual sequence of into, 69, 72, 74, 74 n.5, 79, 80,
Deut 16:18-18:22, 100-104 86, 89, 93, 94, 144
See also redaction transformation of pre-Deuteronomic
originality, 150, 151, 154 n.22, 157 into Temple pilgrimages, 90-91
in Islam, 47 n.63 transformation of Unleavened Bread
into antipilgrimage, 89, 93-94
P. See Priestly source Unleavened Bread losing its original
Passover, 53-97 identity as, 79-80, 81, 89, 93
animals prescribed for, changes in, See also festival calendar; Passover;
61, 72, 72 n.68, 79, 92, 155 Tabernacles (Booths), Festival of;
as apotropaic ritual, 5, 58-59, 58 Unleavened Bread, Festival of;
n.15, 61-62, 72, 87 Weeks, Festival of
as commemorating deliverance from pillars, cultic. See under popular piety
tenth plague, 78 polemic, against prior Israelite norms,
as conflicting with cultic 81, 81 n.87, 125, 149, 152-53,
centralization, 62-64, 64 n.38 157
 Subject Index 195

popular piety, 62-64, See also Moses: attribution of

ancestor worship, 148 n.8 Deuteronomy to; textual voice;
archeological evidence of, 63, 63 vaticinium ex eventu
n.36, 148 n.9 pseudocitation. See citation
Asherah, 63, 100, 148, 148 nn.7 and psychoanalytic theory, 156
9 Public Officials, Law of. See Laws of
cultic pillars, 63, 100, 102, 148 Public Officials
Deuteronomy's disruption of, 62- purity, cultic. See cultic purity
64, 64 n.39, 74, 144-46
Queen of Heaven, 63 n.36 Queen of Heaven, 63 n.36
Priestly source (P) Qumran Temple Scroll, 34n, 47, 47
on blood of sacrificial victim, n.64, 60 n.26, 108, 155, 155 n.26
60 Qur'an, 47 n.63
dating issues, 57 n.10, 71, 88n
exegetical revisions of J Passover, rabbinic exegesis. See under exegesis.
58 n.16 See also exegesis, harmonistic
on family context of Passover, 57, redaction
57 n.10 association of words or ideas, 92-
leaven with Passover prohibited in, 93, 102, 102 n.5, 121 n.62
83-84 binary opposition as redactional
murder and manslaughter structure, 115-16, 115 n.47, 128,
distinguished by, 128 130-33
on preparing and eating the paschal "disappearing redactor," 27 n . l l
lamb, 61-62, 62 n.28 ordo difficilior, 109, 109 n.27
See also Holiness Code redactional anthology, 28
priests. See under judicial authority redactional bridges, 27, 135-36
primary commandment (Hauptgebot), redactional logic, 39 n.32, 92, 92
121, 121 n.62, 133-34, 133 n.87, n.112, 93 n.113, 102 n.5, 106-107,
135 n.93 116, 116n (from 115 n.47), 121,
Privilege Law (Privilegrecht), 8, 9, 69- 121 n.62, 123-27, 135-36, 141
70 n.107, 142-43, 142 nn.111-12
professionalization of judges, 117, RJE, 71
124-25, 125 n.70, 131, 138 See also block model; editorial
promulgation formula. See citation devices; Laws of Public Officials;
formula Privilege Law; order
prophecy, 145, 145 n.2 religion
proto-Deuteronomic material, in astral worship, 135, 135 n.93
Exodus, 12-13, 62 n.30, 65, 68, creation of a national, 64, 74, 90-
68 n.50, 147 91, 94-95, 144-46
psalms, 138 distributed cultus, 63-64, 63 n.32, 74
pseudepigraphy role of the cultus in justice, 110-16,
authorial voice deflected by, 97 130-31
in Deuteronomy, 6, 6 n.8, 34, 34n, See also cultic centralization; local
47-48, 155 altars; pilgrimage festival; popular
as device to permit innovation, 47, piety; sacrifice
47 nn.63-65 repetition
displaces tradition's claim to Deut 25:19 and Deut 12:9, as
authority, 150 inclusio, 44
in Temple Scroll, 34n, 47, 47 n.64, 155 and problem of originality, 151-52,
in Zohar, 47, 47 n.66 156-57
196 Subject Index

repetition (continued) secularization

synchronic analysis on, 26-27, 27 conception of in Deuteronomy, 49-
n.12 51, 50n.74
See also under editorial devices: as conversion of tithes, 40, 40 n.37
inclusio, repetitive resumption, dialectically related to cultic
Seidel's law centralization, 49-52, 89, 93, 109,
repetitive resumption 124, 131-33, 135-37
(Wiederaufnahme). See under of language, 38, 38 n.29, 43, 49
editorial devices secular slaughter
"Rest from enemies," 40-41, 40 n.39, absence of prior to Deuteronomy,
44_45, 45 n.56, 148 21, 33
ring structure. See editorial devices: justification of as contingent, 36,
chiasm 39-43
ritual purity. See cultic purity sanction for local, 24, 28, 30, 31,
Ruth, Book of, 111 n.31 33, 35-36, 38, 49, 124
Seidel's Law, 18-20, 18 n.51, 35, 90,
Sabbath, the, 20, 20 n.55, 66 n.42, 91n, 100 n.4, 119, 139. See also
67 editorial devices
sabbatical year, 92 Sennacherib, 62
sacral law, 110 septads as redactional device, 89 n.108
sacrifice Septuagint. See under Versions
of blemished animals, 100, 102 sequence. See order; redaction:
centralization of, 4-5, 4n, 21, 23- redactional logic
24, 23n, 28-34, 35, 36, 80, 93, seven days of Unleavened Bread, 67,
109, 144-45 68, 76, 78-79, 80, 84, 85, 87, 88
of domestic animals, 33, 35-36, 37- seventh day of Unleavened Bread, 80
38, 42-43, 49-50 n.86, 89, 89 n.108
of firstlings, 92-93, 100, lOOn seventh year / septennial cycle, 92
to foreign gods, 123, 130, 133 Sinai, 81, 96, 96 n.118, 148, 151, 152,
paschal slaughter distinguished 153
from, 57, 60-62 Sinai pericope, 11, 65 n.41, 66 n.42,
paschal slaughter transformed into 67 n.47, 149, 153
normative, 73-74, 73 n.72, 78- slaves, manumission of, 92, 112, 114
79, 145 n.44, 121 n.62
secular slaughter distinguished from, social justice laws, 12
33, 35-36, 49 Solomon, 40-41, 140-41, 141 n.107.
well-being offerings, 37, 38 See also under Jerusalem Temple
Samaria, 39, 139 source criticism. See under
Samaritan Pentateuch. See under methodology
Versions speaker. See textual voice
Samaritans, 58 n.15 summary execution, 118-22
Samuel, 4, 139, 140 n.105 synchronic analysis
Samuel ben Meir, R., 128, 128 n.79 Chronicler's harmonization of
sanctuaries. See central sanctuary; contradictory Passover laws, 155
Jerusalem Temple; local altars coherence of Laws of Public
school example, 124, 124n Officials, 99
scribal curriculum, 5, 15, 18 of Deuteronomy 12, 26-27, 27 n.12,
scribal training of authors of 31
Deuteronomy, 4, 17-18, 64, 145 embedded in modern Bible
n.2 translations, 84-85, 132
 Subject Index 197

scholarly methodology, 12 n.28, as constraint upon authorship, 5-6,

26-27, 27 n.12, 36 n.25, 99, 13-17, 28, 33-34, 41-43, 46-48,
105, 105 n.13, 106-107, 125 53-54, 109-110, 146-50
n.70 Deuteronomistic History
synchronic redactional structures, transforming prior, 97
31, 51, 99 Israelite authors challenging that of
See also exegesis: rabbinic; previous texts, 152-55
exegesis, harmonistic silencing of by authors of
Syriac Peshitta. See under Versions Deuteronomy, 94
See also textual voice
Tabernacles (Booths), Festival of textual complexity, and compositional
celebration of under royal aegis in unity, 27
DtrH, 96 textual joins. See editorial devices;
centralization's implications for, 21, redaction: redactional logic
53, 90 textual variants: double readings in
as pilgrimage festival, 80 MT, 114 n.44. See also Versions
reading of the law at, 27 textual voice
summary treatment of in anonymity of historiographer's, 97,
Deuteronomy 16, 54 155
See also festival calendar; attribution of Deuteronomy to
pilgrimage festival Moses, 6, 6 n.7, 34, 34n, 97, 145,
talion, 15 n.43, 121 145 n.2, 148, 150
Tannaitic midrashim, 59-60 breakdown of illusion of, 152
Targums. See under Versions competing levels of, 97, 155
taw, paleo-Hebrew, 58 n.15 divine voice (and theonymy), 34n,
temple gate, legal rituals at, 112 47, 97, 152, 153 n.17, 155
Temple of Jerusalem. See Jerusalem relation between and textual
Temple authority, 6, 47
Temple Scroll, 34n, 47, 60 n.26, 108, relation between Mosaic and divine
155, 155 n.26 in citation formulas, 43, 43 n.50,
Temple of Solomon. See Jerusalem 135, 135 n.93
Temple royal, 96-97, 138
texts silencing of older texts', 94
authors of Deuteronomy understanding of Mosaic voice by
transforming older, 46-48, 94-95, classical literary criticism, 145 n.2
118-28 and vaticinium ex eventu, 47, 148
canon, 14-15 See also pseudepigraphy
composition of, 17, 17 n.46, 146- theophany, 31, 31 n.17, 49, 151, 152
48 Thummim, 111
editorial devices as clues to time
reformulation of, 17-20 conceptualizing the past, 34, 63
reuse of in ancient Near East, 6, 14 n.36, 151-52, 157
See also authorship; authors of implications of centralization for
Deuteronomy; editorial devices; festival calendar, 21, 53, 70-71, 94
exegesis pseudepigraph displaces tradition's
textual authority claim to authority, 34, 150
atomization of as restriction of, 46 of text as Deuteronomic trope, 34,
authors of Deuteronomy seek to 39-41, 44-46, 46-48, 63,
establish own, 5-6, 20-21, 27- 148-49, 151-52
28, 46-48, 145, 150-52 See also pseudepigraphy
198 Subject Index

Torah, 10, 96, 141, 150. See also verbal association. See editorial devices:
Pentateuch; Temple Scroll; association of words or ideas
Versions: Samaritan Pentateuch Vergegenwartigung, 94. See also
traditio-historical approach. See under methodology: traditio-historical
methodology approach
trope(s) Versions
authors of Deuteronomy treat Samaritan Pentateuch, 37 n.27, 80
normative tradition as, 150 n.86, 155
Canaanites as, 148-49, 148 n.7 Septuagint, 48, 48 n.67, 59, 80 n.86,
chronology and geography as, 152 112 n.37, 118 n.54, 120 n.60, 127
citation as, 43. See also citation n.76, 133 n.86, 154
distance from cultic center, 39-41 Syriac Peshitta, 59, 60
expansion of borders as, 39-41, 41 Targums, 59, 77 n.78, 83 n.93, 112
n.41 n.37, 118 n.54
joy at central sanctuary as, 4, 49 Vulgate, 59, 154
night motif in festival calendar, 77 See also exegesis, harmonistic: in
time of text as, 34, 39-41, 44-46, textual versions; Masoretic Text
46-48, 63, 148-49, 151-52 voice, textual. See textual voice
topography (local and central
distinction) as, 131 Weeks, Festival of, 21, 53, 54, 80, 90
See also formulas well-being offerings, 37, 38. See also
sacrifice
Unleavened Bread, Festival of, 53-97 Wiederaufnahme. See editorial devices:
avoidance of term "festival" in Deut repetitive resumption
16:1-8, 80, 80 n.86, 89, 93-94 wilderness wandering, 151-52
commemorates the Exodus, 68, 78, witness law, 101, 118-22, 122 n.63,
78 n.81 123-24, 130, 131, 133
Covenant Code on, 65-68, 75, 90, 91
as new moon festival, 68 n.51 Yahwistic work (J)
original association with local cultic Decalogue attributed to, 9,
sanctuaries, 56, 68-69, 75, 80 69-70
original identity as pilgrimage lost, dating issues, 8, 57 n.10
79-80, 82, 89, 93-94 earlier attribution of Exod 13:3-10
and Passover as independent, 56, to, 68
65, 71 on the exodus as nocturnal, 77 n.78
prohibition against appearing empty- on family context of Passover, 57,
handed at, 91-92 57 n.10
redactional association with independence of Passover and
Firstlings, 91-93 Unleavened Bread in, 65
See also festival calendar; Passover; on preparing and consuming the
pilgrimage festival; seven days of; paschal lamb, 61-62, 61 n.28, 87
seventh day Yohanan ben Zakkai, 16n (from 15
Urim, 111 n.43)

Vassal Treaty of Esarhaddon, 122, 122 Zion, coopting Sinai, 96, 96

n.64, 123, 123 n.65, 134, 134 n.118
n.89, 145, 147, 152. See. also Zipporah, 59 n.17
cuneiform law Zohar, 47, 48n (from 47 n.66)
vaticinium ex eventu, 40, 47, 148. See zoomorphic figures, 63. See also
also pseudepigraphy popular piety
 Index of Scriptural and
Other Sources

Sources are arranged in the following order: The Bible, Ancient Near East-
era Literature, Versions, Targums, Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha, Rab-
binic Literature

The Bible
6:12-25 19 12:9 73 n.70, 155
Genesls
6:13 19, 20n (from 12:10 586-87
4:7 60 n.25 19 n450 13.13 58 16
7:8-9 155 n.25 6:14-25 19, 19 n.53 12:14-20 68
9.24 60
6:26-27 20n (from 12:15 67 n.48
126 31 160 6 0.
' 19 n.54) 12:21 54 n.l, 57,
12:7-8 4n.3, 31 n.17 6:27-28 19 57n.lO, 62, 72, 72
18:14 129 n.80 6:2929 20 (from 19
20n n.68, 73 n.71, 79
18:18 129 n.80 n 54) 12:21-23 61, 65, 87
1916 1182
6:30 19 12:21-27 61 n.28
20113 32015151252525
05152 1212512;22 59-60, 59
12 58 15
n.20, 114n(from
12 _
12 13 , .
610212554
13 12 66 n 43 n.22, 74, 77 nn.78-
113 n 43)
' 12:1-13 62, 84 79, 87
24:1-3 112 n.38 12:1-14 61 n.28, 62 12:23 58, 60 n.25,
28:11 31 n 16 16
' 12:1-28 61 n.27 62
31:53 114n (from 12;3 3 54 n . 1 , 5 7 , 5 7 12:24-27a 12n.31,
30 255 463 n43
113
n.lO, 72, 72 n.68 61, 62 n.30, 65, 72,
35:1-7 4n.3 12;3 72 72 147
35:7 114n (from 113 12:6 5 62,62 73 75n.71, 77 12:26-27 7 8 n . 8 1
n 43
" n.79 12:29-30 68
50:16 42 n.44 12:6-8a 84 12:30-31 77 n.78
Exodus 12:8 83, 83 n.94, 12:33 78 n.81
4:24-26 59 n.17 84, 84n (from 83 12:39 78 n.81
6:10-11 20n (from n.94), 87 13 70
19 n.54) 12:8-9 61, 79 13:1-2 93 n.113

199
200 Index of Scriptural and Other Sources

The Bible 22:8 8 111, 112 n.37, 34:10-26 8-9, 9

113, 115, 127 n.17
Exodus (continued)
13:3-10 65, 67-69,
76, 77n.77, 9 3 n . l l 3
22:9-10 129
22:10 0 115-116, 115
34:14
34:184 133 n.87
68 n.51, 69
n.47, 116 n.48 34:18-20 93 n.l 13
13:3-16 147
22:11 15 n.43 34:18-26 65, 67
13:4
4 68, 68 n.51
22:13 3 15 n.43 n.45, 69-71
9
13:6 67-68, 80
22:17-23:19 7 n.10 34:21a 66 n.42
n.86, 89
22:19 123, 123 34:23 54 n.l

2
13:6-7 68, 88-89

8
nn. 66-67, 133 n.87 34:24 40 n.36, 66
13:8 78 n.81
22:27-29 81 n.88 n.42
13:9 77
23 70 n.55, 71 34:25 66 n.42, 69,

6
13:11-16 93 n.113
19-24 4 11, 66 n.42
23:6 139 71, 71 n.62, 73
23:8 139, 139 n.103 n.73, 83, 83 n.93,
20:1 153 n.17
20:2
20:5
2 121 n.62
121
23:10-19 65 n.40

27
23:12
23:13
66 n.42
66 n.42, 133
86 n.102
Leviticus
20:10
20:211 133 n.86
31 4
23:14
n.87
54 n.l, 67
1:2 61, 72
1:3 60
20:22-26 3n
20:22-23:33 3 5
23:14-17 67, 67
1 :5
2:11
60
87 n.103
20:24 8, 28n, 31, 31
n.17, 32, 32 nn.18-
n.45
23:14-19 65-68, 65
6:10
6:28
8 87 n.103
61 n.29
19, 33, 33 n.20, 35- 5n.41, 66 n.42
7:13 87 n.103
4
23:15 66 n.42, 67-
37, 36 n.25, 41, 43, 8:8 111
69, 68 n.51, 75-78,
43 n.48, 46, 49, 54, 8:24 118n
78 n.81
60-61, 72, 72 n.68, 8:31 61 n.29
23:15-16 67, 75
81 n.88, 148 10:10-11 113
6
23:15-17 90
7
20:24-26 31 n.17 13:1-14:55 113
23:15-18 75, 77
21:1-23:12 66 n.42 17-26 40 n.37
n.77
6
21:1-23:19 3n 17 42 n.47, 153
23:16 67-68, 92
21:1 153 n.17 n.l 9
23:17 21, 40 n.36,
21:1-19 121 n.62 17:1-9 33 n.21, 41

21:5 5
21:2-11
112
121 n.62 8
23:18
54 n.l, 57, 67, 93
69, 73 n.73,
17:3
n.41, 153
61
76, 83, 83 n.93, 86-
21:6 111-112, 112 17:3-4 50 n.74
n.37, 114 n.44, 116
21:12-14 128
87, 86 n.102
98
23:18-19 67 4
17:4
17:6
60
60, 60 n.26
23:19 66 n.42, 81
21:12-17 121 n.62 17:11 60
n.88
17:14 60
2
21:23-25 15 n.43
23:20-33 3n, 66
21:28-32 142 n.lll 23 20
21:36-37 15 n.43
n.42
7
23:1-4 20
6
23:24 121

44
22:3-6 15 n.43 23:17 87 n.103
24:3 153 n.17 24:17-21 15 n.43
22:6 115, 130
24:4 148, 153 n.17
22:6-7 115-116, 25:39-46 84 n.95
24:6 59 n.19, 60
116n (from 115 27:33 40 n.37
28:15-30 111

1
n.47), 130
7
22:6-8 115, 129
29:9 118n
29:31 61 n.29
Numbers
5:16 111, 130
22:7 111, 112 n.37,
115-116, 127, 130
34 8, 66 n.42, 69-
70, 70 n.55, 71
8
5:18
5:30
111, 130
111
 Index of Scriptural and Other Sources 201

6:19 61 n.29 11:27-28 43 n.50 12:15 24, 28, 29n,

7:89 121 n.61 12:1-16:17 8, 98, 30, 35, 38, 39 n.32,
9:3 84n (from 83 100, 110, 110 n.29, 41, 41 n.43, 42, 42
n.94) 136 n.46, 49, 73, 133
9:6-14 84n (from 12:2-16:17 140n n.86
83 n.94) (from 139 n.104) 12:15-16 80
9:10 40 n.38 12-26 3, 23, 107 n.18 12:16 24, 49
9:11 83, 84n (from 12 13, 23-24, 27- 12:16-17 29
83 n.94) 28, 46, 48, 64, 12:17 43 n.48, 81,
9:12 84, 86 80-81, 93, 117, 93, 133 n.86
15:3 38 n.31 133 12:18 5 n.5, 24, 29,
15:5 38 n.31 12:1 25, 44 49, 49 n.72, 54 n.2,
15:8 38 n.31 12:1-12 24 81, 93, 133 n.86
22:40 61, 72 12:1-28 80 12:19 29
27:5 111 12:2 26 n.7, 31 12:20-21 36, 39, 39
28 133 n.85 12:2-3 148 n.32, 41
28:9-15 67 12:2-7 24, 25, 44 12:20-25 80
28:11 61 12:3 26, 148 12:20-28 24-25, 34,
33:3 68 n.51, 77 12:4 26 36-43, 41 n.41,49
n.78 12:4-7 28n, 44 12:21 24, 36, 36
35:16-24 128 12:4-28 8 n.25, 38, 38n (from
35:30 122 n.63 12:5 23-24, 26, 44, 37 n.27), 39 n,32,
44 n.53, 81 40 n.39, 41, 41
Deuteronomy
12:7 5 n.5, 49, 49 n.43, 42, 42n (from
1:5 27, 151
nn.71-72, 54 n.2 41 n.43), 42 n.46,
1:25 118n
12:8 44-45 43, 43 n.48, 49, 72-
2:14-16 152
12:8-10 44 73, 133 n.86
4:2 14, 48
12:8-12 24-25, 12:23 60
4:13 134, 135
28n, 40, 44-46, 12:23-24 24
4:19a 135 n.93
148 12:24 49
4:23 134 n.92
12:9 44-45, 44 n.53 12:26 24
4:25 106 n.15
12:10 40 n.39, 44, 12:26-27 37
4:40 43 n.50
45 nn.56 and 60 12:27 37-38, 49, 60,
5-28 141
12:11 24 60 n.26, 64, 78-79
5:2 134
12:12 5 n.5, 49, 49 12:29-31 24-25
5:3-4 151
n.72, 54 n.2, 133 12:29-13:1 108
5:7-8 134 n.92
n.86 12:30 25 n.7, 26
5:9 121
12:13 28, 30, 31, 74 12:31 26, 105
5:14 133 n.86
n.74 12:31-13:19 105
5:19 152, 152 n.16
12:13-14 33 n.20 12:32 14 n.37, 48
5:22 152 n.16
12:13-15 30, 32- n.67
6:2 43 n.50
33, 50, 74 n.74 13 18 n.49, 48, 103-
7:1 43
12:13-19 24-26, 109, 105 n.13, 106
7:13 43 n.48
28-29, 34, 39, 41, n.15, 107 n.20, 108
8:11 43 n.50
41 n.41, 42 n.47, n.23, 117-119, 120
8:13 43 n.48 49 n.58, 122-123,
9:18 106 n.15
12:13-31 24 130-134, 133 n.87,
10:13 43 n.50
12:14 23n, 24, 30, 134 n,89, 136 n.97,
11:24 32 n.18, 33
35, 36 n.25, 81, 137n (from 136
n.20
93 n.97), 137 n.98
202 Index of Scriptural and Other Sources ces

The Bible 15:4 49 n.71 16:8 80 n.86, 89, 89

15:5 43 n.50 n.108
Deuteronomy (continued)
15:6 49 n.71 16:10 38 n.31, 54
13:1 14, 14 n.37,
15:7 133 n.86 n.3, 80, 94
48, 48 n.67
15:10 49 n.71 16:11 5 n.5, 49
13:1-18 108
15:12-18 71 n.63, n.72, 54 nn.2-3, 95,
13:2 48, 105, 132-
84 n.95, 92 133 n.86
133
15:14 49 n.71 16:13 38 n.31, 80
13:2-6 64 n.39,
15:18 49 n.71 16:13-14 94
103-104, 132, 145
15:19 43 n.48 16:14 5 n.5, 49
13:2-18 120 n.58
15:19-23 92, 117 n.72, 54 nn.2-3, 95,
13:2-19 103-105,
15:20 5 n.5, 49 133 n.86
106n (from 105
n.72, 54 n.2 16:15 5 n.5, 49
n.14), 108, 122
15:21 38 n.30, 93, n.72, 54 nn.2-3
n.64, 132-135
lOOn, 102 16:16 75, 80, 90-
13:3 104, 104 n.8,
15:21-23 100 92, 94-95
121, 121 n.61, 130,
15:22 133 n.86 16:16-17 90-93
133—135
16 53, 70, 79 16:17 99
13:5 104 n.8
13:6 132-133, 133 16:1 38 n.31, 68 16:18-17:13 98,
n.51, 72, 75, 77 100-104
n.87
n.78, 78-79, 93, 96 16:18-18:22 8, 52
13:7 104, 108 n.23,
16:l-3aa 84 n.79, 95, 99 n.2,
118, 119 n.57, 120,
16:1-4 76 101, 106, 107 n.19,
130, 132-135
16:1-7 38 n.30 136, 140n (from
13:7-10 145
16:1-8 54-56, 55 139 n.104), 142
13:7-12 103, 108,
n.5, 64-65, 69, 74 16:18 98-99, 109,
108 n.23, 118-123,
n.74, 75-81, 80 121, 125, 125 n.70,
119 n.57, 120 n.59,
n.86, 92, 94 127, 131-132, 133
132, 136 n.97
16:1-17 53-54, 67 n.86, 136 n.97, 138,
13:9b 120
n.45, 75, 90, 95, 99, 141, 142 n.112
13:10 119 n.57, 120
117 16:18-20 99-102,
13:10-11 104, 118,
16:2 38 n.30, 72, 105, 108, 117, 124-
1 19 n.57, 120
73, 73 n.73, 79, 82, 125, 125 nn. 69-70,
13:12-13 132
83, 84, 84 n.97, 87, 126 nn.71 and 73,
13:13-18 103, 123,
92, 93 130, 132, 136,
123 n.66, 132
16:3 82-88 142
13:14 104, 130,
16:3ap-4a 85, 87-88 16:19 102, 139, 139
132, 133, 134, 135
16:4 38 n.30 nn. 103-104
13:15 104, 132
16:4h 84-87 16:19-20 127
13:19 43 n.50, 103
14:21 133 n.86 16:5 38 n.30, 73, 73 16:21 102, 148
n.73, 74 n.74, 81- 16:21-17:1 99, 100,
14:22-29 117
83, 93, 133 n.86 102, 105, 108,
14:23 43 n.48
16:5-6 72 n.68, 74, 136
14:24a 40 79 16:21-17:7 105
14:26 5 n.5, 43
16:5-7a 82-83 17 138
n.48, 49 n.72, 54
n.2 16:6 38 n.30, 72- 17:1 38 n.30, lOOn,
73, 73 n.73, 77-78, 102
14:27-29 133 n.86
81, 83, 86, 93 17:2 131-134, 133
15 92
16:7 73, 73 n.70, n.86, 134 n.92, 135
15:1-12 92
79, 83, 89, 93, 155 n.93
 Index of Scriptural and Other Sources 203
17:2-7 99-110, 105 20:15 40 32:17 38 n.30
n.13, 106n (from 20:17 43 33:8 111
105 n.14), 106 21:18-21 125 n.70 33:19 38 n.30
n.15, 107 n.20, 109 21:19 110, 125 Joshua
n.28, 116-124, 120 21:21 104 n.9
1:3 32 n.18, 33
n.58, 122 n.64, 126, 22:13-21 125 n.70
n.20
126 n.73, 130-137, 22:15 110, 125 21:43-45 45, 45
136 n.97, 137n 22:21 104 n.9
n.56
(from 136 n.97), 22:22 104 n.9
24:19 H4n (from
137 n.98, 142 22:22-29 125 n.70
113 n.43)
17:3 130, 134 n.92, 22:24 104 n.9
135 23:17 74 n.74, 133 Judges
17:4 102, 104 n.86 2:6-3:6 148 n.7
17:4-5 129 24:1-4 105 n.13 4:4-5 111, 138
17:4-6 119 24:7 104 n.9 7:20 118n
17:5 104, 119, 131-24:14 133 n.86 9 81 n.87
132 25:5-10 125 n.70 13:16 38 n.31
17:5-7 119, 119 25:7 110, 125 17:6 45 n.59
n.57, 120 25:19 44 18:1 45 n.59
17:6 101, 119 26:11 5 n.5, 49 19:1 45 n.59
17:7 104, 118n, 133 n.72, 54 n.2 19:27 59 n.21
17:8 127-130, 129 26:12 133 n.86 21:25 45 n.59
n.80, 132, 133 n.86 26:16 151 1 Samuel
17:8-13 101-102, 26:18 151 1-3 139
105, 108-110, 116- 27:7 38 rin.28 and 2:13-16 73
117, 124, 126-133, 30 2:15 61 n.29
135-138, 141-142 27:10 43 n.50 3:1 4 n.3
17:8a 129, 131 28:1 43 n.50 4:1-7:2 138
17:8b-9 129 28:4 43 n.48 5:5 60 n.25
17:9 127, 129 28:13 43 n.50 7:3-17 139
17:10 132 28:14 104 n.8 7:15-17 111, 138
17:12 104 n.9 28:15 43 n.50 7:16 31 n.16, 127
17:14_15 141 28:18 43 n.48 n.76
17:14-20 108, 110, 28:20-44 134 n.89 7:17 4 n.3
125 n.69, 126, 137- 28:51 43 n.48 8:1-4 139
138, 141-142, 153, 28:52 133 n.86 8:3 139, 139 n.104
153 n.18, 154 28:55 133 n.86 8:3-4 140 n.105
17:15 81 n.87 28:57 133 n.86 8:5-6 139
18:1-8 142 28:69 151, 153 8:10-18 140 n.105
18:6 133 n.86 29:11-12 151 8:20 140
18:9-22 142 29:13-14 152 14:31-35 33 n.21,
18:22 98 29:14 151 60
19-25 8 29:17 151
19:4-7 128 29:24-25 134 n.92 2 Samuel
19:8 40 n.36 31:9-13 27 7:1 45
19:11-13 128 31:12 133 n.86 7:11 45
19:15 121 31:16 134 n.92 7:13a 45
19:17 129 31:20 134 n.92 7:23 114n (from
19:19 104 n.9, 121 31:29 106 n.15 113 n.43)
19:19-21 15 n.43 32:14 43 n.48 14:1-24 140
204 Index of Scriptural and Other Sources

2 Samuel (continued) 23:22 95 n.117 2 Chronicles

15:4 140 23:25 95 n.117 3:7 59 n.21
16:20-22 140 Isaiah 19 126 nn.71 and
17:28 59 n.20 6:4 59 n.21 73
30:16 60 n.26
] Kings Jeremiah 34:9 59 n.21
1:9 38 n.29 7:12 31 n.16 35:11 60 n.26
1:19 38 n.29 7:31 135 n.93 35:13 73 n.70, 155
1:25 38 n.29 19:5 135 n.93
2:1 42 n.44 Luke
32:35 135 n.93
3:2 45, 45 n.60 24:25-27 17 n.46
35:4 59 n.21
3:4-5 31 n.17 44 63 n.36
3:7b 140 52:19 59 n.20 Ancient Near Eastern
3:9a 140 Literature
Ezekiel
3:16-28 141 Laws of Hammurabi
4:1-19 141 n.107 2:2 121 n.61
9:4-6 58 n.15 §§ 1-5 121, 121
5:1—5 40 n.62
£.*}
5:4 40 n.39 10-11 50 n.73
40:6-7 59 n.21 §§ 9, 23, 107, 120,
5:7-14 141 n.107 126, 266 116 n.49
5:16-19 40, 40 41:16 59 n.21
43:6 121 n.61 § 195 125 n.70
n.39
6:1 96 43:8 59 n.21 Hittite IMWS 146 n.3
7:50 59 n.20 46:20 61 n.29
46:24 61 n.29 Laws of Eshnunna
8:2 96 § 36 115 n.47, 116
8:31-32 130 Amos § 37 113 n.43, 114,
8:56 41, 45, 97n 9:1 59 n.21 114 n.44, 116
(from 96 n.119) Zephaniah
12:28 137n (from 1:9 60 n.25 Versions
136 n.97)
14:9 137n (from Haggai Septuagint
136 n.97) 2:10-13 113 Exodus
14:17 59 n.21 Zechariah 12:22 59
17-19 l l n (from 10 14:21 61 n.29 13:6 80 n.86
n.26) 21:6a 112 n.37
Psalms
18:20-46 4 n.3 22:8-9 112 n.37
72: 1 138
19:21 38 n.29 Deuteronomy
72:2, 4 138
21:1-16 122 n.63 12:27 60 n.26
131:1 129 n.80
22:10 111 13:9 120 n.60
138:1 112 n.37
2 Kings 17:2 133 n.86
Job
5:17 38 n.31 29:7 125 1 Samuel
10:24 38 n.31 42:3 129 7:16 127 n.76
12:10 59 n.21
Ruth Samaritan Pentateuch
12:14 59 n.20
3:10-14 110 Exodus
22-23 9-10
4:1 125 13:6 80 n.86
22:4 59 n.21
4:11 110, 125 20:24 37 n.27
23:15-20 39
23:21-23 10, 95, Lamentations Peshitta
96 4:20 50 n.73 Exodus
23:21-25 10, 95 5:14 125 12:22 59
 h ndes of scriputeal and othe soieras205 205
Vulgate Tg. Pseudo-Jonathan Rabbinic Literature
Exodus Exodus
b. Sola 16a 16n (from
12:22 59 12:22 59
15 n.43)
20:24 37 n.27
Targums Deuteronomy Mekilta de-Rabbi Sim 'on
16:1 77 n.78 bar Yochai 60
Tg. Neofiti I
n.23
Exodus
12:22 59 Dead Sea Scrolls Mekilta de-Rabbi Isma'el
15 n.43, 60 n.23, 73
Tg. Onqelos HQTemple n.70
Exodus 51:11-56:21 108
12:22 59 52:21 60 n.26 Midras Exodus Kabbah
21:6a 112 n.37 30:15 122n
22:7 112 n.37 Pseudepigrapha (from 121 n.62)
22:8 112 n.37
Sipre Deuteronomy,
23:18 83 n.93 Jubilees
49:20 60 n.26 pisqre75 42 n.46
Deuteronomy
16:1 77 n.78