[JSOT 60 (1993) 75-81]

Two KINDS OF ?
SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE OCCASION OF THE PUBLISHING
OF JACOB MILGROM'S COMMENTARY ON LEVITICUS 1-16*

R. Rendtorff
University of Heidelberg (emeritus), Buchenweg 21, D-61184 Karben

I
Several years ago I participated, together with Professor Milgrom, in
a panel at the World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem on
problems of 'P\ the so-called priestly source or document in the
Pentateuch. During the discussion I realized that we were discussing
two totally different concepts of 'P\ The one is first of all interested
in that kind of material in T ' that has its parallels in the non-priestly
parts of the Pentateuchthat is, mainly the narrative elements, begin
ning with creation and running through the primaeval and patriarchal
history, through exodus, the wanderings in the wilderness, the events
at Sinai and finally the reaching of the promised land, be it on the one
side of the Jordan or the other. The other concept is mainly interested
in the material that is specific for and distinguishes it from the other
Pentateuchal 'sources', such as cultic and legal material, the building
of the Tabernacle, the installation of the cultic institutions like priest
hood, sacrifices, purity regulations and so on, and finally in atonement
and purification.
Wellhausen had already wrestled with the problem of the two kinds
of material combined in what is usually called 'P\ He himself made a
distinction between the original narrative source and the various cultic
and legal materials that accumulated around this nucleus. The original
narrative he called *Q' for 'quattuor' (four) because he believed that
*
Paper read at the 1992 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in
San Francisco.

76

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 60 (1993)

the narrative speaks about four divine covenants: with Adam, with
Noah, with Abraham and with Moses. The term 'priestly code' he
used inconsistently for either the legal material or the final collection
of priestly material as a whole. Later, many scholars made distinctions
g
within 'P' by adding index letters to the capital 'P' like ' P '
s
('Grundschrift\ basic document) and 'P ' (supplements) or the like. It
was then Martin Noth who in 1948 (in his 'berlieferungsgeschichte
des Pentateuch') refused to use the letter 'P' for the cultic and legal
material at all and declared to be a pure narrative work. In
Jacob Milgrom's Leviticus commentary only parts of chs. 8 and 9
would belong to Noth's P. Many scholars followed Noth, first of all
Europeans, but also some others. But even among those who would
not accept Noth's rigid separation of the cultic and legal material from
the majority would see as a work structured by a narration that
begins with creation and leads through to the borders of the promised
land. For many of those the relation of the cultic and legal material to
the basic narration is a rather difficult problem.
II
The commentary by Professor Milgrom definitely subscribes to the
second definition of P. For him means first of all Leviticus. As far
as I can find out, he adheres to the traditional understanding of as a
whole, but he never mentions the relations between Leviticus and the
earlier narrative parts of in Genesis and the first half of Exodus,
except of some smaller details. He never mentions the whole field of
discussions about either, neither the earlier ones in the school of
Wellhausen nor the more recent ones beginning with, say, Frank
Cross about the question of as an independent Pentateuchal source.
In particular the narrative parts influence his presentation of con
ceptions and theology in no discernible manner. The chapter entitled
the 'The Priestly Theology' begins with the sentence: 'Theology is
what Leviticus is all about'. Priestly theology in this commentary
means the theology of Leviticus. From the point of view of
'Literarkritik' in the older sense, Milgrom's treatment of the given
text looks very traditional. When he presents tables of the composition
of texts they show Pi, P2, P3, and H2, so that one could believe
Milgrom to be a true Wellhausenian.
I want to demonstrate the difference between the two groups by

RENDTORFF TWO Kinds of ?

77

discussing one crucial point, namely the dating of P. It is well known

that the modern Documentary Hypothesis got its main impulse from
Wellhausen's fascination with the possibility of reading the prophets
without the 'Mosaic' law. This led to a late dating of P. 'Late' in this
context meant later than the other Pentateuchal sources, namely 'J' and
', and in a different sense also later than Deuteronomy. This
Wellhausenian position has remained more or less undisputed until
today. There have not been any serious voices to question the later
dating of compared to J and E. Of course, there always was a lot of
discussion about the relationship among the so-called sources, more
recently in particular about the character of as an independently
existing literary source. But as far as I can see there are no scholars
claiming a greater age for than for J and E.
At the very beginning of Milgrom's commentary there is a chapter
on 'The antiquity of P'. This chapter is exclusively concentrated on
cultic terminology, comparing first of all with Ezekiel and later
with Deuteronomy. It is obvious that this argumentation is totally
different from that in the rest of Old Testament scholarship, where
is compared with the other narrative 'sources' of the Pentateuch. In
Milgrom's argumentation the reference texts are of a quite different
kind, mainly Ezekiel, a book of another part of the canon, and
Deuteronomy, which has been compared to rather rarely. Milgrom
uses for his studies the work of Avi Hurvitz, whom he calls 'the chief
investigator of Priestly terminology'. The main point is internal com
parisons of cultic terminology, of which Ezekiel comprises the most
extensive material that in many respects is close to Leviticus. Milgrom
finally comes to the result that 'the priestly texts are pre-exilic'. But
according to Milgrom's research this is only relevant for Leviticus
and the related texts in Exodus and Numbers. What does that mean
with regard to the rest of P?
Ill
Therefore my first question to Milgrom is: How does his dating of
Leviticus relate to the rest of P? This question includes two sub-ques
tions: First: How is Leviticus related to the rest of P? Is it an integral
part of the narrative beginning in Genesis 1 ? Or are there in the
larger also ', 'P 2 ' and the like? If so, to which of those does
Leviticus belong? What are the diachronic implications of relating

78

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 60 (1993)

Leviticus to one or the other level in the greater P? And what are the
consequences for the dating, either of Leviticus or of the rest of P?
Second: How is Milgrom's dating of to be related to the ongoing
discussion in Pentateuchal criticism? To what degree is his dating of
dependent on, or related to, the dating of the rest of the so-called
sources of the Pentateuch? Would it be affected by the general
tendency towards late dating, and how?
It might be possible that Professor Milgrom would refuse to
answer those questions. Working on a Leviticus commentary myself, I
could understand a position which argued that the texts of Leviticus
have their own specific problems in such a degree that the interrela
tions to other parts of the Pentateuch are of less relevance. But this
would lead me back to my starting question: What is ? means one
of the 'sources' of the Pentateuch according to the Documentary
Hypothesis. Just to use that letter without explication is only possible
in that framework, otherwise you will not be understood. Therefore I
do not believe that it would be possible to use the siglum without
reflecting its position in the framework of the Pentateuch as a whole.
So either we would, at least in principle, discuss the relations of in
Leviticus to the rest of and to the Pentateuch in general, or we
would give up the term for the Leviticus texts. (I myself in my
commentary did the latter, just using the term 'priestly texts', but
never 'P' or 'priestly code', 'priestly source' or the like). Finally this
includes the question whether we still take the paradigm of the
Documentary Hypothesis for granted. Therefore I repeat my question
to Professor Milgrom: What is in his concept?
IV
I have still another question. Milgrom is eager to prove the texts of
Leviticus to be pre-exilic. In a number of cases he argues that
a certain terminology used by was no longer used in a later period.
What does this mean with regard to the cultic reality represented
by P's texts? Do later texts using a different terminology also
represent a different cultic reality? At the end of the chapter on 'The
Antiquity of P' Milgrom writes, 'P [was] composed by the priests
of Israel, in the land of Israel during the days of the First Temple'
(p. 13). My question is again a double one: First, does represent
the cultic reality of the First Temple? Secondly, what is P's relation

RENDTORFF TWO Kinds of ?

79

to the cultic reality of the Second Temple?

Let me explain this double question in a bit more detail. Milgrom's
main interest seems to be to deny the late dating of as it is widely
held in Old Testament scholarship. This denial is still part of the
struggle against Wellhausen as begun by Yehezkel Kaufmann. But this
is only one side of the problem. The other side is the question how
these texts were read in the time when the Pentateuch reached its final
shape. Is in accordance with the cultic reality of that late post-exilic
time?
As far as I understand Rabbinic literature, the sages took these texts
as description of what really happened in the Temple in Jerusalem
before its destruction. In many cases they seem to go back to oral
traditions about details of the cultic practice in the Second Temple.
Were they right in doing so? If so, what does this mean in relation to
the question of P's antiquity, and in particular, for Milgrom's
observations concerning P's use of terminology that later got lost?
Let me add another question related to that just discussed: What
about the relation of Ezekiel's language to any cultic reality? He tells
the reader that he describes a visionary experience. We do not know
how it relates to an earlier realitythat of the First Temple in
Jerusalem, which Ezekiel probably knew. The visionary image itself
does not claim to reflect reality. What then can we learn from
comparing Ezekiel's language with that of P? To what degree does
Ezekiel represent a later stage of the same language?
V
Finally I want to expand my questions to a more fundamental reflection
on the language of P. To what extent does it make sense to compare
the priestly language with that of other biblical books? My thesis is
that the priestly language from the beginning was an internal cultic
language used in the priestly circles in the temple of Jerusalem. We do
not know how old this language is; but we do not possess any text
about cultic details written in a different language, so this language
seems to be the only one used for cultic detailsand therefore might
be very old. Hence it is not a question of early or late but just a matter
of the social setting of the language. It seems to me that in earlier
times this internal cultic language was not known to people outside the
priestly circles, even those living in Jerusalem. Why else would Isaiah

80

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 60 (1993)

(1.11) have expressed his critique against the cultic practice of his
time in a language so different from the priestly terminology?
erano afrn ub^ nbv msao
TT^sn onwi troam ans cm
Or take Micah (6.6-7):
*n ubxn nfrun
pD bri: rnoa-n crt* * mrr nsrrn
^EH 0 'XD n a 'iXDD n O D ]

How should we compare this language with that of the priestly texts?
Is it older or younger? Obviously the question is wrong. It is simply
another language, a non-technical one, not comparable with the
internal priestly language.1 Therefore it is no accident that these
famous biblical texts on sacrifices are almost nonexistent in Professor
Milgrom's commentary on Leviticus.
To my mind it is not very useful to compare the priestly language
with that of other books whose authors lived in other circles of
Israelite society. Ezekiel is the only exception in pre-exilic or exilic
times. Later at least the Chronicler had some knowledge of this langu
age, possibly because at that time the priestly texts had become part of
the Pentateuch or Torah that was known to the wider public.
This brings me to my last point, which goes beyond Leviticus. I
believe that only rather late priestly writers began to use this language
for other topics, such as, for example, creation, flood, patriarchs,
exodus and so on. That means that the appearance of this language in
the narrative parts of the Pentateuch is late, the latest one we have in
these narrative parts. But this does not say anything about the age of
the language in its internal cultic use, which could be as old as the
cultus in Israel itself. Therefore 'P' as a cultic tradition can be old,
even if it might have undergone several changes. But the narrative
parts of 'P' are late, so that 'P' as a source or layer of the Pentateuch
is late but containing old cultic material.
1. The terms no and Tin are never used in sacrificial texts in Leviticus. is
not used for any sacrifice in Lev. 1-7 but only once at all for the first sacrifices of
Aaron in Lev. 9.2, 3, 8. The expression TDD3 is incompatible with any use of
rw>n in Leviticus. But also the rest of the language in both of these prophetic texts
sounds very strange and almost unintelligible from the point of view of the language
of Leviticus.

RENDTORFF TWO Kinds of ?

81

ABSTRACT
Milgrom's recent commentary on Leviticus represents a notion of T ' that is almost
exclusively concentrated on the cultic materials, in particular in Leviticus. Other
scholars see in 'P' mainly a narrative, beginning with creation and leading up to the
border of the promised land. Many of those are rather uncertain whether and how the
cultic texts belong to this narrative. This brief essay asks Milgrom about his position
with regard to 'P' in the wider sense and describes the author's own view.

This publication
is available in
microform.

University Microfilms
International reproduces this
publication in microform:
microfiche and 16mm or
35mm film. For information
J about this publication or any
of the more than 13,000 titles
we offer, complete and mail the coupon to: University
Microfilms International, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor,
MI 48106. Call us toll-free for an immediate response:
800-521-3044. Or call collect in Michigan, Alaska and
Hawaii: 313-761-4700.
Q Please send information about these titles:

Company/Institution .
Address

Phone L_

University
Microfilms
International

^ s
Copyright and Use:
As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use
according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as
otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement.
No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the
copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling,
reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a
violation of copyright law.
This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission
from the copyright holder(s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of a journal
typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However,
for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article.
Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specific
work for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered
by your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the
copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available,
or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s).
About ATLAS:
The ATLA Serials (ATLAS) collection contains electronic versions of previously
published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAS
collection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association
(ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.
The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the American
Theological Library Association.