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YAHWIST

One of the literary sources which many scholars discern as comprising the Pentateuch or Torah. Though the hypothesis of a composite text has dominated the last 200 years of scholarly pentateuchal study, substantial disagreement remains about virtually every facet of any Yahwist hypothesis. Still, a heuristic sketch may be offered.

The Yahwist, abbreviated by the siglum “J” (from Ger. Jahweh), is typically recognized as the most brilliant of the pentateuchal storytellers, responsible for much of the material in Genesis and substantial portions of narrative in Exodus and Numbers. Hence J carries the story line from the origins of human existence to the eve of entrance into the Promised Land, a span composed of 22 generations: primeval episodes, adventures of the founding ancestors of Israel, journeys of Moses and the Exodus-wilderness group. The Yahwist may be presumed to have been active in the Davidic court, hence writing ca. the 10th century b.c.e. Since the interest of the materials is southern, the presumed location of the writer is Judah, specifically Jerusalem. The Jerusalem location and early date suggest to some that the Yahwist is an apologist for the Davidic monarchy and enterprise, the epic recounting the tribal roots of the emergent state.

Though it is not clear whether the Yahwist is best seen as a composer, a collector, or a compiler, some persistent characteristics of both style and content mark texts commonly attributed to J. Early noted was a tendency to name the deity as Yahweh, a fondness for puns and etiologies, a set of vivid characters who act boldly, dialogue pungently, and soliloquize revealingly; J uses a technique of singling an individual out from a larger group, providing a matrix of minor players while giving one primary focus. The Yahwist stories are rich in imagery. The deity in the J narrative is not quite so omnipotent and competent as in other sources, and the humans that emerge from J are often very flawed but highly memorable. The key opponent in the Yahwist story is Egypt, with its oppressive ways. Some major longitudinal themes seen in J include furtherance of blessing, the accomplishment of divine purposes, and the establishment of key cultural institutions. There is substantial resonance between extrabiblical material (e.g., Sumerian, Akkadian, and Ugaritic epic material that features the entanglements of deities and human beings) and many structural elements and smaller motifs in J.

Major dissent to the position sketched here includes the likely identity of J (a woman has been suggested, or a popular bard), the genre (history or theology rather than apology), the date (ranging from Solomonic to exilic), and the purposes (often described more theologically and generally than socially). Since any discussion of the Yahwist is embedded in conversations about pentateuchal studies, those who doubt the usefulness of the standard strata or source hypothesis will view the “Yahwist” texts very differently than those for whom it remains a viable model of authorship.

Bibliography. R. B. Coote and D. R. Ord, The Bible’s First History (Philadelphia, 1989); R. Rendtorff, “The Yahwist as Theologian? The Dilemma of Pentateuchal Criticism,” JSOT 3 (1977): 2-10 and responses, 11-32; J. Van Seters, Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis (Louisville, 1992); H. W. Wolff, “The Kerygma of the Yahwist,” in The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions, ed. W. Brueggemenn and Wolff, 2nd ed. (Atlanta, 1982), 41-66.

Barbara Green, O.P.

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YAHWIST

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)