The purpose of this thesis is to compare the approaches and positions of the Alt school with those of the Albright school on the patriarcal traditions.
This study shall be investigating the facts presented in the Old Testament which relate to the ori...
The purpose of this thesis is to compare the approaches and positions of the Alt school with those of the Albright school on the patriarcal traditions.
This study shall be investigating the facts presented in the Old Testament which relate to the origins of the patriarchs on the basis of the viewpoints of the two schools. And the contents that shall be compared among the approaches and positions of the patriarchal traditions proposed by the two schools are as follows, the methodological difference of the two schools, the origins of the patriarchal traditions, the date of the patriarchs, the identity of the patriarchs (the names of the patriarchs, Ur of the Chaldaeans, a wandering Aramaean, Abram the Hebrew), the religion of the patriarchs.
Since the time of Wellhausen two new factors have dominated the study of the origins of Israel. On the one hand the literary criticism of the text of Genesis has advanced a point that is caught up in the study of the preliterary history of the documents(J.E.D.P) and of the oral tradition from which they emerged. On the other hand an enormous mass of texts and documents has been unearthed by excavations in the Near East. Archaeological discoveries in the 1950s and 1960s in Palestine and in surrounding lands led to a more :positive evaluation of the biblical texts.
As a result of both these influences, we can take two schools that whose views have commanded considerable influence upon the patriarchal traditions.
In Germany the Alt school gave a fresh impetus to Pentateuchal criticism particularly in the history of the tradition. They insisted on thoroughgoing critical analysis of the biblical texts as the proper starting point for reconstructing Israelite history, but they are less sensitive to the evidence of archaeolgy in its strict sense. They did not deny the historicity of the patriarchs; they insisted simply that, given a long and complicated process of the patriarchal traditions, it is impossible to isolate the patriarchal traditions at a certain stage of the history. Especially, Noth suggested that the tradition of the patriarchs began with the establishment of the Israelite confederation of the twelve tribes. the Amphictyony.
In America, however, the Albright school take a general view of the many points of detail on which the narratives in Genesis and the extrabiblical documents are to be in a line. They recognize also that the historical setting in which the extrabiblical texts originate is very similar to that of the patriarchal narratives, They had much to say about the "essential historicity" of these narratives, and they claimed to have identified the historical period in which the patriarchs lived. They insisted that the entrance of the Hebrew patriarchs into Canaan was seen as part of a much larger Amorite movement that produced the seminomadic interlude during MB I. The starting point for this hypothesis is that there is a connection between the patriarchs and 'nomadic' :groups which entered northern Mesopotamia and Syria-Palestine round about 2000 B,C,E.
Since the 1970s, the positive assessments of the patriarchal narratives developed by the Albright school on the basis of parallels with texts from Mari and Nuzi have been in the face of sharp criticisms by two scholars, such as Thomas Thompson and John Van Seters. Thompson asserts that not only has archaeology not proven a single event of the patriarchal traditions to be historical, it has not shown any of the traditions to be likely. Van Seters has likewise questioned many of the traditional interpretations of the patriarchal narratives and has suggested a radical dislocation. After all, they concluded that the stories of the patriarchs may be creative--dating to the Babylonia Exile(6th century B.C.E) or later--and are quite a rootless in history.
In conclusion, the Alt school and the Albright school shared a common goal of constructing a history of early Israel on the basis of a critical appraisal and synthesis of biblical, archaeological and ancient Near Eastern studies. It should be emphasized, however, that the two schools did not represent opposite extremes but rather poles within an intermediate range of attitudes toward the Bible and its relationship to Israellite history. Therefore, there must be made an attempt the harmony and synthesis of the approaches and positions suggested by the two schools in order to overcome the critical point of the latest scholars and develop the new study.