Carr, David M. The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction

Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. — XII+ 534 p.
This book rethinks both the methods and historical orientation points for research into the growth of the Hebrew Bible. Building on his prior work, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart (Oxford, 2005), the author explores the possibilities and limits of reconstruction of pre-stages of the Bible. The method advocated is a “methodologically modest” investigation of those pre-stages, utilizing criteria and models derived from the author’s survey of documented examples of textual revision in the Ancient Near East. The result is a new picture of the Bible’s formation, with insights on the emergence of Hebrew literary textuality, the development of the first Hexateuch, and the final formation of the Hebrew Bible. Where some have advocated dating the bulk of the Hebrew Bible in a single period, whether relatively early (Neo-Assyrian) or late (Persian or Hellenistic), the author uncovers evidence that the Hebrew Bible contains texts dating across Israelite history, even the early pre-exilic period (10th-9th centuries) where many recent studies have been hesitant to date substantial portions of the Bible. He traces the impact of Neo-Assyrian imperialism on eighth and seventh century Israelite textuality, uses studies of collective trauma to identify marks of the reshaping and collection of traditions in response to the destruction of Jerusalem and Babylonian exile, develops a picture of varied Priestly reshaping of narrative and prophetic traditions in the Second Temple period, and uses manuscript evidence from Qumran and the Septuagint to reveal the final literary reshaping that produced the proto-Masoretic text.Introduction: The Oral-Written Model and the Formation
of the Hebrew Bible 3
Part one ■ Methodological Prologue: Textual Transmission in the Ancient World and How to Reconstruct It
1 Variants and Evidence of Oral-Written Transmission
of Israelite Literature 13
2 Documented Cases of Transmission History, Part 1: 37
Two Cases
3 Documented Cases of Transmission History, Part 2: 57
Broader Trends
4 From Documented Growth to Method in Reconstruction
of Growth 102
Part two ■ Excavating the History of the Formation of the Hebrew Bible
5 The Hasmonean Period: Finalization of Scripture in an
Increasingly Greek World 153
6 The Hellenistic Period up to the Hasmonean Monarchy:
Priestly and Diaspora Textuality 180
7 The Persian Period: Textuality of Persian-Sponsored Returnees 204
8 The Babylonian Exile: Trauma, Diaspora, and the Transition
to Post-Monarchal Textuality 225
9 Bible for Exiles: Th e Reshaping of Stories About Israel’s
Earliest History 252
10 Textuality Under Empire: Refl exes of Neo-Assyrian Domination 304
11 From the Neo-Assyrian to Hasmonean Periods: Preliminary
Conclusions and Outlook 339
Part three ■ Th e Shape of Literary Textuality in the Early Pre-Exilic Period
12 Early Highland States and Evidence for Literary Textuality
in Them 355
13 Royal Psalms: Locating Judah and Israel’s Early
Pro-Royal Literature 386
14 Proverbs and Israel’s Early Oral-Written Curriculum 403
15 Other Supposedly Solomonic Books: Song of Songs and Qohelet 432
16 Other Biblical Texts Potentially from the Early Monarchal Period 456
17 Toward a New Picture of Early Monarchal Texts
in the Hebrew Bible 487
Afterword 491
Select Bibliography 493
Selective Index of Scripture Citations 503
Subject Index 519