Wellhausen and Kaufmann

Aly Elrefaei

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783110453300
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The controversy between Wellhausen and Kaufmann concerning the history of ancient Israel and the question of historical reconstruction has prompted this study. While Wellhausen's hypothesis introduces a synthesis of the religious development of ancient Israel, Kaufmann's work emphasizes the singularity of the Israelite religion. Their respective works, which represent the methodologies, presuppositions and the ideologies of their times, remain an impetus to further inquiry into the history of ancient Israel and its religion.
Both Wellhausen and Kaufmann applied the historical-critical method, but were divided as to its results. They agree that the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible is the primary source on which to base writing about the history of ancient Israel, but differ concerning the authority of its text. This book illustrates the real clash between Wellhausen and Kaufmann, with the aim of providing some basis for reaching a middle ground between these two poles.
As becomes clear in this study, Wellhausen reconstructed the religion of Israel in the framework of its history. Kaufmann, by contrast, proposed that monotheism emerged in Israel as a new creation of the spirit of Israel.

Biographical aspects

1 Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918)

Much has been written on Julius Wellhausen.34 In this context, Rudolf Smend pointed out, “Kein Alttestamentier ist mit so viel Bewunderung gelesen, keiner so erbittert bekämpft worden wie Wellhausen.”35 It can be said that Wellhausen gained a wide reputation because the course of his labours “shows a remarkable consistency of aim and methodology.”36 Judging from his pioneering works on the Old Testament, Islam, and the New Testament, it is fair to place Wellhausen among the great German historians.37

Wellhausen was born in Hameln in 1844. When he was eighteen, he went to Göttingen to study theology.38 Having received his licentiate in 1870, Wellhausen acted for two years as a private tutor. His academic career started as professor of the Old Testament in Greifswald (1872-1882)39, where most of his most controversial books were composed.40 He taught in Halle (1882-1885) and accepted an appointment as professor for Semitic languages in Marburg (1885-1892). As the successor of Paul Anton de Lagarde, Wellhausen was given a professorship in Göttingen in 1892, where he lived until his death on January 7, 1918.

As is well known, Wellhausen’s work on the Old Testament marked a turning point in the history of biblical scholarship.41 He gave classic expression to the efforts of his forerunners, including Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780-1849) and Karl Heinrich Graf (1815-1869). Wellhausen prepared the ground for his later works by concerning himself with the historiographical tradition of ancient Israel. He approached this through philology and text criticism (Der Text der Bücher Samuelis, 1871), moving towards source and literary criticism (Die Composition des Hexateuchs, 1876/77). On the controversy over the sectarians of the Second Commonwealth, Wellhausen’s book Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer (1874), against the thesis of Abraham Geiger (1810 -1874), put forward the idea that the Pharisees were a religious party, while the Sadducees were more political. In his magnum opus Geschichte Israels 1 1878 (Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israel 1883), Wellhausen outlined a new view of the history of Israelite religion, showing how it moved from a simple, spontaneous and natural religion to one of law and rituals. He questioned the historical dating of the Priestly Code, proposing that it fitted the conditions of the Second Temple period. Moreover, Wellhausen drew attention to the dominance of the prophetic and historical narrative, maintaining that the Law was not the starting point of Israel’s history but a product of historical and religious development. As a result of his critical investigation, Wellhausen brought into focus the antithesis of Israel and Judaism, regarding them as two different worldviews. In 1894, Wellhausen presented a historical synthesis of the history of Israel and Judah. “In order to better understand ancient, pre-exilic Israel he applied himself increasingly to the study of Old Arabian and early Islamic history.”42 Wellhausen himself says that he moved from the study of the Old Testament to Arabic studies with the aim of acquiring knowledge about “den Wildling kennen zu lernen, auf den von Priestern und Propheten das Reis der Thora Jahves gepfropft ist.”43

Wellhausen’s work on the Old Testament was not the last phase of research. However, his brilliant presentation of the problem summed up more than a century of critical investigation,44 and re-determined the course of the history of Israel.45 Of the far-reaching contribution of Wellhausen’s exegesis it has been said, “Die treffendste Charakterisierung jener Mitte, die zugleich ein Anfang gewesen sein könnte, verdankt die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft keinem geringeren als Julius Wellhausen.”46

Wellhausen’s interpretation of the history of ancient Israel caused agitation and many rejected his critical views.47 My aim here is to show how an important scholar like Yehezkel Kaufmann, who came from a different tradition of thought, reacted and criticized Wellhausen’s theories. While Wellhausen’s work is considered to be the most important contribution to historical critical method, Yehezkel Kaufmann is the only Bible scholar to have combined in his research such a comprehensive interpretation of Israelite religion with a critique of Wellhausen. In his massive Toledot, Kaufmann sought to invalidate Wellhausen’s position with regard to the order of the pentateuchal sources, and thereby to undermine his hypothesis on the emergence of monotheism in ancient Israel. Interestingly enough, although Kaufmann accepted the essentials of the historical-critical approach, his presentation is closer to tradition.48 In what follows, I shall give a brief profile of Yehezkel Kaufmann’s life and work.49

2 Yehezkel Kaufmann (1889-1963)

2.1 Life

Yehezkel Kaufmann was a distinguished Jewish historian, biblical scholar, and nationalist.50 His research combined philosophy, sociology and religious studies.51 Kaufmann was often described with such words as, “Never married, a small, ascetic, retiring man, his life was wholly given over to thought, writing, and research.”52

Kaufmann was born in 1889 in Dunajiwzi, in the province of Podolia, Ukraine. In 1907, he went to Odessa to study at the modern Yeshivah.53 Following his stay in Odessa, Kaufmann continued his studies at the Academy of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg. From 1914, Kaufmann pursued his studies at Bern University, earning his doctorate in Kantian philosophy in 1918.54

In 1920, Kaufmann moved to Berlin where he spent the eight years that preceded his emigration to Palestine in 1928. For about twenty years Kaufmann worked as a teacher in Beth Hasepher Hareali in Haifa. Moshe Greenberg mentions that Kaufmann’s personal characteristics, along with his unorthodoxy and uncompromising self-assurance, combined to keep him out of the Hebrew University during the best twenty years of his creative life.55 Kaufmann was appointed a professor of the Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1949 until 1957. In recognition of his achievements and their impact on biblical studies and Jewish life, Kaufmann was awarded the Bialik Prize in 1956, the Israel Prize in 1958, and the Bublik Prize in 1961. After a long illness, Kaufmann died in Jerusalem on October 9,1963.

2.2 Main interest

Though Kaufmann studied and received his doctoral degree in philosophy56, it is said that he made few contributions to philosophy.57 Kaufmann’s main interest was the riddle of Jewish existence. His early writings were devoted to inquiry into the problem of the Jewish Diaspora through the ages. Kaufmann’s thoughts were shaped and sharpened quite early in his life. Ideologies such as socialism, Zionism, the Bund, Yiddish culture, assimilation and traditional Jewish religion formed his thinking. This appears in his first article in 1914, “The Judaism of Ahad ha-Am”, in which Kaufmann takes issue with Ahad ha-Am’s assumption that Judaism is a product of a collective will to survive. In breaking with the prevailing nationalist interpretations of his time, Kaufmann’s view was that it was religion that ensured Jewish survival in exile. It is probably fair to say that Kaufmann was moved by the situation of the Jewish people in diaspora and that this led him to search for solutions to the problem of the Jewish fate. In other words, Kaufmann looked at the past with eyes open to the present. Joseph Turner explicates Kaufmann’s position as follows:

The immediate historical background of his discussions concerning the nature of Jewish existence includes the precarious status of Jewish society in central Europe following World War I, the disintegration of the East European Jewish community, mass emigration to the United States and the building of Zionist settlements in the Land of Israel. There are those in the literature on Kaufmann’s thought who have pointed out its pedagogical character. That is to say, Kaufmann investigated Jewish history not only in order to understand and make sense of it, but also in order to formulate a program in regard to the type of activity necessary in order to deal with the problems of the present.58

2.3 Major works

Kaufmann is considered to be the most influential Jewish Bible scholar of modern times. He is called the towering Jewish personality in biblical scholarship.59 Perhaps this was due to Kaufmann’s scholarly erudition and abundant production.60 It is true that Kaufmann touched upon all issues of biblical study and Jewish history. The results of his investigations were massive volumes written in Modern Hebrew.61 When he was asked for his curriculum vitae, it is said that he replied, “I have no biography, only a bibliography"62

Kaufmann’s first important work (Golah ve-Nekhar, “Exile and Alienhood” (4 vols. 1929 – 30) is a socio-historical study on the fate of the Jewish people from ancient times to the modern period. The book deals mainly with the post-biblical and diaspora ages. It is a systematic empirical interpretation in which Kaufmann examines the factors that have shaped Jewish history through the ages. Reading Kaufmann, one must conclude that the monotheistic idea was the decisive factor ensuring the nation’s survival in exile.63 In point of fact, Kaufmann’s Golah is an attempt to discover the historical process that formed the experience of the Jewish people.64 Highly important, Kaufmann’s Golah ve-Nekhar made a profound impression within Jewish intellectual circles. On March 9, 1930, the Hebrew poet Haim Nahman Bialik wrote to Dr. J. L. Magnes, Chancellor of the Hebrew University, “Mark well the name of the author: Yehezkel Kaufmann. I have a feeling that Jewish thought has found a redeemer.”65

It should be mentioned that the subject of Kaufmann’s Golah ve-Nekhar was not new. A number of Jewish thinkers (Pinsker, Ahad ha-Am, Dubnow) have also inquired into Jewish history and the fate of the Jewish people, suggesting different answers as to the causes of Jewish exile. What distinguishes Kaufmann from the others is that “he placed the fundamental character of Jewish existence as an object of systematic historical thought.”66 It was Kaufmann’s Golah that provided a comprehensive exposition to Jewish history. For these reasons, it has been righty observed that:

Anyone seeking to understand the relationship of religion and nationalism in Jewish life must read it for its brilliant delineation of the role of these forces in Jewish history. Anyone seeking to unders...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Impressum
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Inhalt
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Biographical aspects
• Part I Julius Wellhausen’s Reconstruction of the History of Israel
• Chapter One: From Source and Literary Criticism to Historical Synthesis
• Chapter Two: History of Israelite Religion
• Chapter Three: Early History of Israel
• Part II From Religion to History: Yehezkel Kaufmann’s Interpretation of Ancient Israel
• Chapter Four: History of Israelite Religion: Literary Analysis
• Chapter Five: Israelite Religion: Phenomenological Interpretation
• Chapter Six: Early Israelite History in Canaan
• Chapter Seven: Sources of Kaufmann’s Exegetic Approach
• Part III Religion and History: A Comparison of Wellhausen and Kaufmann
• Chapter Eight: Moving between Wellhausen and Kaufmann
• Chapter Nine: Early Israel: Priestly Ideal or Prophetic Theocracy?
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Subject index
• Index of names
• Fußnoten