The Poetic Priestly Source (PPS) is a revision of Gaines's 2013 Brandeis PhD dissertation, completed under the principal supervision of Marc Brettler and David Wright. The monograph argues for the existence of a purely poetic document underlying the narrative sections of the P, or Priestly corpus, of the Pentateuch. This poetic source was then subject to a process of prose supplementation, yielding the final form of the P narrative. Gaines rolls out his argument in several stages. Initially, and in very short order, he asserts the plausibility of his thesis (introduction, pp. 12–19). Second, in a lengthier and more thorough section, PPS sets up a framework for the analysis of biblical poetry and for the differentiation of poetry and prose (chapters 1–2, pp. 21–120 and appendix, pp. 464–67). The monograph continues with a detailed exposition of two test cases, the circumcision pericope in Genesis 17 and the flood story in Genesis 6–9 (chapters 3–4, pp. 121–256). Gaines then bring the reader up to date on the scholarship pertaining to the composition of the P narrative, and the Torah more generally (chapter 5, pp. 257–87). Finally he lays out, with an extensive and fully annotated chart, his poetic “ur-P” in comparison to MT's final form (chapter 6, pp. 288–447), followed by a brief wrap-up (conclusion, chapter 7, pp. 448–63). The book is suitable for scholars and advanced students who can engage with the biblical text in the original.
The study has many merits but the central proposal for an original poetic P stratum is not persuasive. To note the merits—first and foremost, the presentation is strong. The writing is lucid and to the point, the organization is cogent, and the charts are uniformly decipherable. Gaines articulates his assumptions, provides the reader with a usable “roadmap,” and takes us where he says he will. Whether or not you agree with his arguments, they are never opaque. More significantly, the section devoted to biblical poetics reveals the rigor of Gaines's preparation and his capacity for close reading. He provides a compact guide to the state of the field appropriate for experts and novice biblicists alike.
The core of Gaines's “poetic P” argument can be distilled to the following two basic elements or assumptions: (1) Biblical poetry is regular and symmetrical, and (2) verses or clauses that diverge from this regularity are therefore prose or prose-like, and must be supplements. The scenario, advanced in a mere two pages (15–17), without any proffer of real evidence, suffers from an inherent circularity. For the thesis to be sustainable, the reader must accept, whole cloth, a set of largely unsubstantiated subjective assertions. At the very least, some kind of corroborative evidence would have placed the work on methodological terra firma. Examples would be the text-critical support found in 4QJudga for a theory of stratification in Judges 6:7–10, or the insistence on converging lines of evidence to buttress arguments regarding the dating of Pentateuchal passages that permeate Ziony Zevit's writings.
While circularity can be endemic in the subfield of Redaktionsgeschichte, where PPS would be situated (see David Carr's take on Joel Baden's J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, in the Review of Biblical Literature Online 12/2010), my concerns with the monograph run deeper. Gaines's study is substantially at odds with itself. One the one hand, Gaines demonstrates skillfully that poetry and prose exist on a continuum, and he acknowledges the scholars, notably Meir Paran and Sean McEvenue, who place P's work away from the ends of the continuum by classifying it as “poetic-prose.” On the other hand, fundamental to Gaines's enterprise is the profoundly reductionist denial of such a potential “middle of the spectrum” literary creation, at least in the primary P strata. As such, PPS also virtually eliminates the possibility that an original P author or composer possessed the nuance or flourish to stretch the bounds of the poetic sameness that Gaines posits. To my mind, the enduring aesthetic sophistication and rhetorical force of the Priestly tradent, and much of biblical poetry, hinges on variability and divergence from the strictly formulaic. A prime example would be Genesis 17:11, an extralong line that arguably anchors the circumcision mandate (see PPS 125–52, 330), and whose metric weight serves to emphasize the central notion of the covenant sign. Why must this be a “prose supplement”? Similarly, I would suggest that va-yidom ’Aharon occurring at the end of Leviticus 10:3, a phrase that, due to its brevity and the absence of a parallel line, Gaines considers secondary (PPS 418), serves to still the reader like a well-timed off-speed pitch. As such, it provides a suitable close to the tale of Nadav and Avihu's death. Why could this metric deviation not demonstrate the original author's creativity and instinct for Thanatos?
Gaines might have benefited by paying closer heed to scholars such as Meir Weiss (his seminal work is included in Gaines's bibliography), who demonstrates that in certain Psalms, changes in voice or emphasis, and the employment of clauses that slightly alter a poem's tight structure or syntax, are often utilized for potent rhetorical effect (The Bible from Within [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984], 260–61). In the same vein, he might have considered the trenchant contributions in psycholinguistics and discourse-analysis of Chris Wyckoff, one of Gaines's Brandeis brethren (“Poetic and Editorial Closure in the Book of Psalms: A Discourse Analytic Perspective” [PhD diss., Brandeis University, 2005], and “Have We Come Full Circle Yet? Closure, Psycholinguistics and Problems of Recognition with the Inclusio,” JSOT 30 [2006]: 475–505).
In sum, I can commend The Poetic Priestly Source on the merits I described above. Moreover, Gaines does deserve credit for thinking out of the box and challenging regnant paradigms. However, Gaines's “Poetic P” compositional template does not suffice to advance the field or the conversation.
