This is a collection of twelve of Bernard M. Levinson's previously published essays on various aspects of biblical law, all painstakingly updated. The epigraph in the title of the volume (and in that of the opening essay, “The Right Chorale: From the Poetics to the Hermeneutics of the Hebrew Bible” [1991]), taken from a Wallace Stevens poem, expresses Levinson's insistence that biblical scholarship must strive for a correct balance between diachronic and synchronic approaches. As he makes clear throughout, the “right chorale” is the one that acknowledges that because biblical literature exists in time and is shaped by history, the biblical text is often the result of historically conditioned literary processes: intentional reuse, allusion, and polemic at the compositional stage, and deliberate interpolation, accretion, and revision at the redactional stage. Indeed, for Levinson, not only is an appreciation of the final form of the text impossible without an awareness of these features, but also it consists essentially of this very awareness because, to his mind, the creative impulse behind much biblical literature is in fact re-creative: intertextual and interactive. It is to the philologically solid and exegetically sound implementation of this conviction, within the confines of biblical legal literature (broadly defined as including the Pentateuchal narratives, but primarily the law collections themselves), that Levinson has devoted these essays, and indeed much of his scholarly career thus far.
In the opening selection, Levinson sets out his methodological agenda. Analyzing the overtly synchronic approach of Meir Sternberg and providing contrastive illustrations of his own, he reminds us that it is unfair to brand the diachronic study of biblical literature as interested solely in textual history for its own sake because it, no less than the synchronic method, is concerned with meaning (11). He goes on to urge that the term “the Bible” not be seen as interchangeable with “biblical prose narrative,” not only because the Bible contains law as well but also because the legal literature preserves and embodies “that which is truly distinctive” of biblical Israel's revelation: the perception of the divine command, “the revelation of cultic, ethical, and civil law” (27), “the formulation of ethics and law in covenantal terms, the attribution of law to Sinai” (9).
The second essay, “The Seductions of the Garden and the Genesis of Hermeneutics as Critique” (2002), further explores the latter point by examining the inherent paradox of the Eden narrative in Genesis 2–3: that in order to understand the very concept of command, Adam and Eve first needed to disobey the single command they were given. This leads to a discussion of autonomous accountability as an essential component of the view of humankind expressed in biblical law as well as narrative. In the next essay, “The Sinai Covenant: The Argument of Revelation” (2000), Levinson presents his understanding of the basic covenantal idea underlying biblical Israel's self-image. He correctly stresses that Israel sensed its role as a ministry, but one must take issue with his determination that this was thought of as a ministry “to the world” (49); surely the biblical covenant conceives of Israel's task as one of service—on behalf of the world, as it were—to YHWH. Levinson rightly calls attention to the fact that depicting Israel's relationship with YHWH in covenantal terms is a conceptual innovation marking a watershed in the development of the biblical tradition, but this should not be credited to the seventh-century Deuteronomic movement (48). The covenant idea, in its explicit, literary expression, is fully and independently developed in the narratives of J, E, and P. The Deuteronomic covenant marks the end, not the beginning, of this process.
In Chapter 4, “Deuteronomy's Conception of Law as an ‘Ideal Type’” (2005), Levinson expertly delineates the Deuteronomic contribution to the judicial structure and hierarchies of power in Israel, a theme that he has addressed in some of his other writings as well, but this time emphasizing that in D, “law does not merely enshrine or reflect the existing social order” (86) but rather envisions, and attempts to implement, an ideal. Here, too, emphasizing the presence of this feature in D runs the risk of ignoring the earlier sources on which D relied and that exhibit it as well.
Chapters 5–8 contain four of Levinson's most important recent essays on specific legal texts: “The ‘Effected Object’ in Contractual Legal Language: The Semantics of ‘If You Purchase a Hebrew Slave’ (Exodus 21:2)” (2006), “Textual Criticism, Assyriology, and the History of Interpretation: Deuteronomy 13:7a as a Test Case in Method” (2001), “Recovering the Lost Original Meaning of ולא תכסה עליו (Deuteronomy 13:9)” (1996), and “‘But You Shall Surely Kill Him!’: The Text-Critical and Neo-Assyrian Evidence for MT Deuteronomy 13:10” (1995). Each of these is a masterful illustration of the meticulous and uncompromising philology, exegetical common sense, and healthy skepticism for which Levinson is justly renowned. They also demonstrate the sort of results that may be achieved by the truly expert use of Near Eastern texts, the ancient versions and the rabbinic exegetical tradition, as opposed to the arbitrary and impressionistic theories that abound when these tools are employed by those less skilled in their use.
Levinson is perhaps at his most penetrating and his most compelling in the final four chapters of the book, each of which contains his detailed and rigorous critique of the work of a scholar whose approach, while innovative, exhibits serious shortcomings. These are “The Case for Revision and Interpolation within the Biblical Legal Corpora” (1994), in which he addresses the work of Raymond Westbrook; “Calum M. Carmichael's Approach to the Laws of Deuteronomy” (1990); “The Hermeneutics of Tradition in Deuteronomy: A Reply to J. G. McConville” (2000); and “Is the Covenant Code an Exilic Composition? A Response to John Van Seters” (2004). No biblical scholar active today carries out the arduous and delicate task of refuting untenable suggestions as responsibly as Levinson, and we are all in his debt for doing the indispensable work that many are reluctant to do. Levinson is unsurpassed in his awareness of the potential detriment to future research that methodologically problematic approaches, even idiosyncratic or transparently tendentious ones, are liable to cause if they go uncriticized and unchecked. Never dismissive, he piercingly but respectfully addresses the faulty logic, inadequate philology, historical omissions, and problematic assumptions of scholars. Proceeding point by point, he patiently adduces the relevant evidence and supplies the needed corrective. He is particularly critical of any failure to consult and engage the scholarly literature, and his own work serves as an exemplary reminder of how crucial this element is if any progress is to be made in the field. His view of biblical literature as patently self-reflective corresponds to the standard that he demands of the discipline of biblical scholarship.
Debate over Levinson's own approach to the Pentateuch will no doubt continue. Source critics will certainly wish that his earnest pleading in favor of the need for diachronic study would also make room for the study of the earlier components—the literary sources themselves—on their own terms, prior to their having been combined or revised. For Levinson, diachronic study is defined as the study of reformulation, revision, and interpolation, and his critique of scholars who ignore the diachronic dimension of biblical literature is, not surprisingly, aimed at their failure to study these aspects. This emphasis on redactional genius and creativity is no coincidence; Levinson indeed views the Pentateuch as essentially the product of redactional stages and refers to the “redactional creation of the Pentateuch” as “the integration of three originally independent legal collections into a common narrative” (222; emphasis added). Adherents of competing, equally diachronic, approaches to the formation of the Torah will have their work cut out for them as they contend both with Levinson's own scholarship and with his conscientious scrutiny of the state and progress of scholarship at large.
