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92

FRIDAY, SEPT. 25, 1987

I

The Bible

Continued from Page 90

polemical attack is explained
persuasively by Friedman as
he puts together the pieces of
that puzzle. The author of E
used the golden calf story as
a means of furthering the
northern kingdom's political
structure. The story reveals a
good deal about its author,
the political and religious
conditions of the north and
the south in ancient
Palestine. Maybe the author
was really a Shiloh priest of
the north who thought of
Moses as his own ancestor
and therefore gives Moses a
more sympathetic treatment,
focusing on the central place
of Moses in the time of the
Covenant, the birth of the na-
tion and the time of the
world's first acquain-
tanceship with God by name.
Ultimately, as Friedman
describes, J and E were com-
bined because of the destruc-
tion of the kingdom of Israel
in 722 by the Assyrian Em-
pire. Judah was left alone to
face a new international
alignment of imperialism.
Now reduced to a vassal state,
with no more tribes of Israel
in the north, Judah's sacred
recollections were combined
into JE.
King Hezekiah's reforms
(he ruled from 715 to 687
BCE) came to light in a spec-
tacular way when his great-
grandson Josiah came to the
throne at the age of only
eight. As he grew up, King
Josiah decided to institute
many of Hezekiah's religious
reforms, including centraliz-
ing the religion in Jerusalem,
the capital of Judah. A sacred
book was discovered and
dramatically read to him. It
was the book of Deuteronomy,
detailing the whole program
of religious reforms and laws
to be instituted.
But once Nebuchadnezzar
captured and burned Jerusa-
lem in 587 BCE, a turning
point in the history of the Bi-
ble took place. The city was
destroyed, its inhabitants'
either captured and carried
off as captives to Babylon or
escaped to Egypt as refugees.
The ribmple was destroyed,
the Ark lost, the religion of
the Jews about to be oblit-
erated.
But not quite. One writer
survived who had an impact
on the question of who worte
the Bible. Someone had
fashioned Deuteronomy and
the next six books of the Bi-
ble — Joshua, Judges, I and I
Samuel, I and II Kings — as
one continuous historical
work. That someone must
have lived during the reign.of
King Josiah. He had written
the story of the Hebrew peo-
ple from Moses to Josiah. He

had even included a Law
Code (Deut. 12-26).
Friedman believes the per-
son who was connected with
King Josiah and with
Deuteronomy was the pro-
phet Jeremiah. How Jeremi-
ah edited and reworked the
major themes of Deute-
ronomy — fidelity to Yahweh,
the Davidic covenant, -all
culminated in the reign of
King Josiah, the hero of
Deuteronomy: This called for
a re-editing of Biblical
history, a new summary or
syrithesis that would reshape
the history of Judaism.
The man who was alive and
writing, with his faithful
secretary Baruch ben
Nevihah, was Jeremiah.
Friedman believes he was the
Deuteronomist. He was the
writer, author, editor whose
unmistakable hand cast the
writing into form and text.
Friedman even reproduces
the seal impression recently
discovered and now in the

Ezra threaded all
the documents
into one tapestry.

Israel Museum that reads in
translation, "Belonging to
Baruch son of Neriyah the
scribe."
Friedman does not stop
there. The ultimate task of
final editing and redacting
the Bible belongs to another
man and another age after
the Exile. With the Jews
returned to Judah after 80
years of exile, a person arm-
ed with enforcement authori-
ty from Cyrus of Persia, a
priest and a scribe, an
Aaronid priest, came on the
stage of history. He was Ezra.
He brought with him to
Judah the complete Ibrah.
Ezra took all the documents
— JE, P, D — and threaded
them into one tapestry. With
the Second Temple now re-
built in Jerupalem and the
Aaronid priests firmly in con-
trol of all 'Temple rituals, Ezra
now took on the enormous, in-
tricate and ironic task of com-
bining the alternative ver-
sions of the same stories into
one Biblical work. How?
Friedman tells how, step by
step, Ezra the final editor or
redactor converted the Bible
into more than the sum of its
parts.
Friedman,
Harvard-
trained, is now a professor of
Hebrew at the University of
California at San Diego. He
has written this concise ac-
count identifying the various
strands of biblical writing
like - a Sherlock Holmes
mystery, teasing the reader
from chapter to chapter and
•building his case from