The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch.

• Author: Rendsburg, Gary A.

The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch. Edited by JOEL S. BADEN and JEFFREY STACKERT. Oxford: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2021. Pp. xvi + 572. $145.

In line with the numerous other volumes published under the rubric The Oxford Handbook of... , in theory the volume under review should present a neutral state-of-the-art snapshot of the field. At times, this goal is achieved, with some of the essays (especially in part 1) presenting empirical facts and the like, but taken as a whole the volume reveals a distinct bias in favor of the Documentary Hypothesis (especially in part 2), often to the exclusion of alternative approaches. Given the published oeuvre of the two editors, who self-identify as Neo-Documentarians (note: I have never quite understood the "Neo-" portion of this term, but so be it), the overall flavor of the volume should come as no surprise. But the generalist reader who will turn to this book for objective information on the Pentateuch should be forewarned.

In lieu of listing the twenty-six individual chapters (including the introduction written by the coeditors), with name of author and title of essay, I direct the reader to the Table of Contents posted at the publisher's website: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-the-pentateuch-9780198726302.

As intimated above, in general the five essays in part 1, "Text and Early Reception," provide objective information on such topics as the Septuagint, the Qumran manuscripts, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the role of the Pentateuch in Second Temple Judaism. Naturally, the authors are able to present their findings in such fashion, because in the main the sources provide empirical evidence and verifiable facts (e.g., regarding textual fluidity during the period under discussion; evocations of the Torah in Enoch, Jubilees, the Temple Scroll; and so on).

As further indicated above, the cumulative effect of the eleven essays in part 2, "The Formation of the Pentateuch," is a firm tilt toward the Documentary Hypothesis. One would have hoped for alternative voices to be heard, in a presumed twelfth chapter, concerning the literary approach to the Bible generally and to the Torah narratives specifically. Nowhere in the entire 500+ pages of this volume does one find the names of Robert Alter, Adele Berlin, Jan Fokkelman, or Meir Sternberg (to mention the four leading lights)--all of whom are more inclined to read the Genesis and Exodus narratives as literary wholes...