01_Biblica_Hong_Layout 1 08/07/13 12:54 Pagina 323 01_B 323 ABRAHAM, GENESIS 20–22, AND THE NORTHERN ELOHIST northern Israelites’ conception of Abraham help my discussion? The two models differ in the way they conceive of the nature of the basic unit around which their models are built. The source model presup- poses the continuity of each source (horizontal continuity). Each source is construed as a complete, parallel, document about Israel’s past. The block model is based on the premise that each tradition (e.g., the Abraham-Lot tradition or Jacob-Laban tradition) existed in- dependently as tribal or local heritage 10. The full scope of Israel’s history as we now know it arose only after they were combined. In the non-Priestly patriarchal narrative, for instance, source critics understand the two early narrative sources, J and E, as parallel and complete documents, which originated within the two biblical king- doms: Judah in the south and Israel in the north. Naturally, in this po- sition, the northern tradition is equated with E; the southern tradition, with J. This corresponding political orientation has been widely as- sumed by source critics 11. According to the block model, on the other hand, what constitutes the northern tradition within the patriarchal nar- rative makes up the core layer of the Jacob story (Genesis 25-33*) 12. The southern tradition, if it existed independently, was mainly com- posed of the Abraham tradition. The block model, then, understands the current pre-P patriarchal narrative as the product of the southern expansion and revision of the original northern tradition 13. To be sure, the exact nature of the authorship in source criticism and that of the provenance in tradition-historical criticism may not coincide. In the source model, the source writers’ political orientation has little to do with the provenance of the collected tradition. That is, even if the Yahwist is from exilic Judah, his document may com- M. NOTH, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs, NJ 10 1972) esp. 42-62 [German original: Stuttgart 1948]. E.g. R.B. COOTE, In Defense of Revolution: The Elohist History (Min- 11 neapolis, MN 1991) 12; NICHOLSON, The Pentateuch, 14-15. For earlier po- sitions see J. SKINNER, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh 21930) lvii; H. GUNKEL, Genesis (Mercer Library of Biblical Stud- ies; Macon, GA 1997) lxxv, n. 105 [German original: Göttingen 31910]. For arguments for the independent northern origin of the Jacob story, 12 see CARR, Fractures, 204-215, 256-271, 298-300; A. DE PURY, “The Jacob Story and the Beginning of the Formation of the Pentateuch”, A Farewell to the Yahwist?, 56-72. CARR, Fractures, 203-208; BLUM, Vätergeschichte, 204-361. 13 © Gregorian Biblical Press 2013 - Tutti i diritti riservati