Biblica_2:Layout 1 21-11-2011 13:02 Pagina 434 434 KOOG P. HONG Blum’s early dating might sound audacious, particularly in light of the recent minimalist trend that favors later dating 27. In fact, a number of observations appear to justify, if not favor, this early northern Israelite origin 28. At Bethel, YHWH appears as a deity unknown to Jacob, in a way quite similar to Exod 3, where Moses first encounters YHWH. Jacob’s vow, “YHWH will be my God” (28,21b), is otherwise difficult to understand 29. This implies that the Jacob story once existed without the preceding Abraham narrative. Moreover, Jacob’s vow to build a temple and pay tithe (28,22) is probably designed to elicit the reader’s response of support for the cultic function of the Bethel sanctuary. It is, then, most likely that this vow was written at a time when Bethel was functioning as a religious center 30. Besides, it is difficult to imagine an exilic Judean scribe composing a founding myth of Bethel, a major rival shrine of Jerusalem — and even calling for a continued support for it — without leaving any explicit mention to Jerusalem in the entire book of Genesis 31. but rather focus on v. 15. Based on this partial literary connection of vv. 20- 22, Van Seters made a sweeping claim that the entire promise speech (vv. 13-15) must be assigned to the exilic J. Once the alleged unity of vv. 13-15 is dissolved, however, the entire argument can no longer stand. 27 For a critique of this movement, see J. DAY, ed., In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel. Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (JSOTSup 406; London 2004). 28 See CARR, Fractures, 204-215, 256-271, 298-300 for arguments for the independence of the Jacob story in general. See also M.A. SWEENEY, “Puns, Politics, and Perushim in the Jacob cycle: A Case Study in Teaching the English Hebrew Bible”, Shofar 9 (1991) 103-118. 29 The common explanation that a personal connection (not through his father Isaac) is first made here is unconvincing and an imposition of modern individualism on the ancient text. See, e.g., VAN SETERS, “Divine Encounter”, 508-509. 30 In Vätergeschichte, Blum assigned vv. 20-22 to his “Kompositionschicht”, a layer through which the earlier etiology has been incorporated into the Jacob story, which he dates to the time of Jeroboam I (97). To be sure, Bethel may have continued to function in the later neo-Babylonian and Persian periods. See, e.g., J. BLENKINSOPP, “Bethel in the Neo-Babylonian Period”, Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, 93-107; KNAUF, “Bethel”; J. GOMES, The Sanctuary of Bethel and the Configuration of Israelite Identity (BZAW 368; Berlin 2006); and M. KÖHLMOOS, Bet-El—Erinnerungen an eine Stadt. Perspektiven der alttestamentlichen Bet-El-Überlieferung (FAT 49; Tübingen 2006). Yet the supposed revival of this ancient shrine in a later period does not automatically exclude a possibility of its pre-exilic origin. 31 Against this, Van Seters’s apology for his exilic Yahwist sounds forced: “this reinterpretation could have in mind the Jerusalem temple and its restoration under the guise of this Bethel = ‘house of God’” or “perhaps the