Prolegomena to the History of IsraelWellhausen, Julius
Religion
Prolegomena to the History of Israel
Wellhausen, Julius
Bible. Old Testament -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Jews -- History -- To 70 A.D.; Judaism -- History -- To 70 A.D.
-- Footnote
1. Equivalent to ix. 35-44, which perhaps proves the later
interpolation of ix. 1-34.
-- Footnote
It cannot be said that this produces a very favourable impression
for the high antiquity of the other list of the Benjamites in vii.
6-11; to see how little value is to be attached to the pretensions
of the latter to be derived from original documents of hoary
antiquity, it is only necessary to notice the genuinely Jewish
phraseology of vers. 7, 9, 11, such proper names as Elioenai,
and the numbers given (22,034 + 20,200 + 17,200, making in all
59,434 fighting men).
The registers of greatest historical value are those relating
to the tribe of Judah (ii. 1-iV. 23). But in this statement
the genealogy of the descendants of David must be excepted
(chapter iii.), the interest of which begins only with Zerubbabel,
the rest being merely an exceedingly poor compilation of materials
still accessible to us in the older historical books of the canon,
and in Jeremiah. According to iii. 5, the first four of David's
sons, born in Jerusalem, were all children of Bathsheba; the
remaining seven are increased to nine by a textual error which
occurs also in the LXX version of 2Samuel v. 16. Among the sons
of Josiah (iii. 15 seq.), Johanan, i.e. Jehoahaz, is
distinguished from Shallum (Jeremiah xxii. 11), and because he
immediately succeeded his father, is represented as the
first-born, though in truth Jehoiakim was older (2Kings xxiii.
3I, 36); Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, is given out to be the
son of Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, because he was the
successor of Jeconiah, who succeeded Jehoiakim. Similar things
occur also in the Book of Daniel, but are usually overlooked, with
a mistaken piety. Whoever has eyes to see cannot assign any high
value except to the two great Jewish genealogies in chaps. ii.
and iv. Yet even here the most heterogeneous elements are tossed
together, and chaff is found mingled with wheat. /1/
-- Footnote
1. For further details the reader is referred to the author's
dissertation De gentibus et familiis Judaeis, Gottingen, 1870.
-- Footnote
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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