Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman on Prophets Changing Their Revelations


In my article Biblical Prophets Changing their Words and the Words of Previous Prophets, I discuss various examples of biblical prophets changing their writings and/or the writings of previous prophets, similar to what Joseph Smith did to some of his revelations. In their commentary on the book of Amos as part of the Anchor Bible series, Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, when discussing this practice, write the following which sheds further light on this intriguing issue:

[T]he literary product called the book of Amos is not merely the transcript of oracles uttered by the prophet and stories about his experience recalled directly by him or through an amanuensis. There is a significant editorial process as we move from the actual utterances of the prophet to a written literary record and adaptation. An editor is at work putting the book together, certainly using materials taken directly from the prophet. After all, it is the book of Amos, a person important enough to warrant the attention given to him and his words, because except for the book he would be totally unknown. No one would invent and otherwise unknown person because it would serve no describable or conceivable purpose.

So Amos himself and his words remain the central factor in the book and we make our first assumption by arguing that the editor’s purpose is to do precisely that—to make and maintain the centrality of Amos, man and prophet, words and deeds. In other words, there is a coherence and continuity between prophet and editor. It is conceivable that a prophet could be his own editor, as seems to be the case with Ezekiel (and possibly Zechariah, who can be postulated as editor of the book of Haggai and his own book, that is, chaps. 1-8; but concerning the remainder we can say only that it is very obscure). A more likely and common situation is reflected in the book of Jeremiah, concerning which we know who the first and most important editor was, Baruch the Scribe (Muilenburg 1970). The circumstances are entirely plausible and understandable, and while some of the details are unique and peculiar to Jeremiah’s time and place, we can posit such a pattern for other prophets, unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary. Again it seems likely that the prophet and his editor were in close contact, and that the editorial work proceeded with the authorization and approval, as well as the critical appraisal and corrections, of the principal. To the extent that this is the way matters developed we can speak of the prophet as his own editor, one who was heavily involved in that process.

The importance of this aspect of the process of the literary embodiment of oracles should not be underestimated. It means that the transition from first oral presentation to ultimate or at least stable written form will have been done with the prophet’s supervision and approval. The implication is that the materials can be well preserved, for that is the purpose of the exercise. It is important to note that secondary and tertiary uses—written records as opposed to initial presentation—serve different purposes from the original, and often (or at least sometimes) modifications are introduced when the transition occurs. It is not so much the supposed shift from oracles to written forms, as there is no reason why one need be different from the other. Speeches presented orally can be written down verbatim and no doubt were, whereas speeches originally written down can and will be delivered orally There may well be alternation as one moves from one medium to another, but the transfer itself does not require or even imply significant changes. Rather, it is the modification in purposes and function that dictates change in format, style, wording, and the like. The tendency in writing is to expand, as the wry comment about Baruch’s second edition of Jeremiah’s book makes clear:

And Jeremiah took another scroll and he gave it to Baruch ben-Neriah the Scribe; and he [Baruch] wrote upon it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the book [the writing] that Jehoiakim the king of Judah had burned in the fire; and again [even so] he added to them many words like those (Jer 36:32).

The point is that a good many of the oracles show signs of rewriting or adaptation, the product of editorial work designed to preserve material in context, or to link it with other materials presented at different times and places. Such editorial activity may be taken for granted, and scholars are constantly on the lookout for signs and clues showing that the preserved form of an oracle may not be the same as the form of the original presentation. Such analysis is both important and useful, and when successful can point us to the original utterance by the prophet. But it would be a mistaken to relegate automatically the revised or updated form in which the oracles now appear to the hand of a later editor—and to deem it of less value than the reconstructed original Two comments are in order.

1. The exercise is a hypothetical and speculative one. The recovery or reconstruction of so-called original versions of oracles or poems or narratives is an enterprise fraught with perils, obstacles, and difficulties; any results, however appealing, are still partly if not largely informed guesswork. In the end there is a significant difference between having something tangible in front of our eyes, and trying to draw inferences or argue cases on the basis of a reconstructed hypothetical original. What we reconstruct is finally of our own making; the text in its preserved from is what we have.

2. The revised form may be as much the work of the prophet as the original presentation. The editing or altering may well have been done with his approval and authorization if not with his direct participation. Poets often revise their work, and who is to say that one version is more authentic or authoritative than another? We must reckon with this possibility in the case of biblical books, and in the case of Amos (as well as others) we must give this option first consideration. Thus the intermixture of elements deriving ostensibly from different occasions may not be the work of clumsy later editors or contributors, but rather the revisions and rearrangements of the prophet himself, making the book serve purposes other than those of the originally presented oracles. (Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Amos: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 24A; New York: Doubleday, 1989], 74-76, comments in square brackets in original)