1995

In John Van Seters's 1992 publication, Prologue to History, he continues his revision of Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis by attempting to define the work of the classical source J as a blend of historiographie and antiquarian interests that is drawn from Greek historiography within a context in the Jewish Diaspora in Babylon during the exilic period. Van Seters resolutely and convincingly establishes the thesis that the Yahwistic tradition is a product of the re-emergence of Israel rather than of its ‘Golden Age.’ The completion of this huge project and Van Seters's rejection of any possible context for the Pentateuch's tradition within the time periods reflected in Genesis–2 Kings is unequivocally a major achievement.

The circularity of argument, however, is not entirely broken. On internal grounds alone, this core of the Pentateuch postdates any biblical view of history the literature projects. Van Seters presents an argument for the dating of J and the Pentateuch that rests finally on his assumption that there is a historical exilic period to which he assigns the tradition, but such a period as such is unknown apart from the tradition. Van Seters's approach begins from within the literature, and, assuming the rationalistic paraphrase of Israel's history that our field has created for him, asks only after the earliest appropriate date for the tradition within the paraphrase that has been known as the history of Israel. The appropriateness of the date is then seen to be confirmed by the citation of analogous Greek and Babylonian texts drawn from literature that is ideologically and formally comparable.