Sárospataki Füzetek 20. (2016)

2016 / 2. szám - ARTICLES / STUDIEN - György Kustár: Ont he Slopes of Sinai - Some Hermeneutical Questions in Light of the Kabbalistic and Historical Critical Exegesis

György Kustár

the Sinai tradition in the frame of the recurring cultic ceremony of Israel under the age of the amphyctionic tribe covenant that originates from the wilderness period, and developed through the monarchy to reach its present form have source critical problems from present perspective.51 In more recent studies more emphasis is laid on the exposition of the narrative character of the story, but in some cases it resulted in an unfortunate mixture concept of tradition-historical and narrative analysis.52

b) “Sinai” as Tradition vs. History

As the Revelation story ceased to be perceived in the way it used to be in pre-critical ages, and a more general pressure appeared to interpret the texts in a historical framework, the narrative was re-contextualized. Applying general hermeneutical principles to ancient texts, which secured a convincingly homogeneous and seemingly universal domain of reason, helped to overcome the new diversity caused by several epistemological reasons we already elaborated elsewhere in detail.53 However, the inner inconsistencies and the unconscious governing presumptions that induced and nurtured the rationalistic-scientific universal paradigm were criticized from several corners from the early twentieth century onward. By the time of the thoroughgoing critique on modern, the distance between the scientific and religious usage of the Scriptures were so impassable that the attempts in the 1940’ and 50’s to bridge the gap ended without persuasive solutions.54 The historical-critical study of the Sinai revelation is instructive example in this respect, and in the following lines we will focus on the problem of the relation between the present form of the text and the sources.

As mentioned earlier, the story of the Sinai revelation described in the Exodus narrative profoundly differs from the reconstructed events as they are historically assumed to have taken place. For instance, in his Exodus commentary, Martin Noth distinguishes an ancient tradition preserved inside the Sinai tradition about a meet51 Beyerun, Walter: Origins and History of the Oldest Sinaitic Traditions, transi. S. Rudman, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1965, especially the Summary and Conclusion part, 145-170.; for the source critical problems, see McKenzie-Haynes (eds.): To Each Its Own Meaning, 41-46.

52 See the basic discontinuity in Dozeman's"traditio-historical"and "canonical" analysis, where the leap from the multiple source theory to the concept of unitary meaning is unconvincing and fragmentary. A study more focused on the narrative flow and its changes is representative in Martin Ravndal Hauge's The Descent from the Mountain, Narrative Patterns in Exodus 19-40 [Journal for study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 323], Sheffield, England, Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).

53 KustAr, György: "The God Absorbing Text", Kabbalah and Historical Method - A Complementary Hermeneutical Study, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrüchen, 2009, 22-54.

54 A source of this discussion can be found in Westermann, Claus: Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics, Westminster, John Knox Press, 1963. For the result of the discussion, and the new directions cf. Brett, Mark C: Biblical Criticism in Crisis? The Impact of the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

40 Sárospataki Füzetek 20. évfolyam 2016-2