. . . then began men
to call upon the name of YHWH. (Gen
4:26)
And I appeared unto
Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of El Shaddai, but by my name
YHWH was I not known to them. (Exo 6:3)
Some proponents of JEPD point to the apparent contradiction between these and similar texts. The argument, simplified, is that Gen 4:26 reflects a different source, one that used Yahweh for the name of God, while Exo 6:3 is part of a different tradition that, prior to this moment in the narrative, used Elohim and like-terms for God, but not Yahweh in the patriarchal narratives.
Evidences supporting
the claim that the peculiar arrangement of the divine names in Genesis is due
to sources is drawn from a few significant passages: Genesis 4:26; Exodus
3:5-15; 6:3. Of these, Exodus 6:3, which is assigned to the Priestly Writer, is
generally understood to state that the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did
not know God by the name Yahweh: ‘I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob,
as El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I did not made myself known to them.’
Although it is not expressed explicitly, Exodus 3:13-15, ascribed to E, may
imply that the name Yahweh was only first revealed to Moses. Thus, in the early
chapters of Exodus the E and P sources affirm that the patriarchs were not
familiar with the divine epithet Yahweh. This, it is suggested, it supported by
the observation that ‘Yahweh’ never appears in the E and P material preserved
in Genesis. In marked contrast, right at the beginning of the primeval history,
the J source introduces the name Yahweh, and this is confirmed by the statement
in Genesis 4:26: ‘At that time men began to call on the name of Yahweh’. Only
by dividing Genesis into sources, it is argued, is it possible to reconcile the
apparently conflicting statements found in Exodus 6:3 and Genesis 4:26.
This interpretation
of the evidence, however, creates an intriguing problem. Since the time of
Wellhausen it has been customary to view J as the oldest of the Pentateuchal
sources. Yet, if J existed prior to E and P, why did these later sources state
that the patriarchs did not know the name Yahweh? Were the authors of E and P
not already aware of the fact that the patriarchs knew God as Yahweh? In its
present form, the Documentary Hypothesis offers no satisfactory explanation for
this problem.
Although doubts have
been expressed in the past about the validity of the criterion of the divine
names, it is still widely viewed as an important guide to the sources
underlying the Pentateuch, and especially the book of Genesis. Nevertheless, it
is now acknowledged that a purely ‘mechanical application’ of this criterion is
unsatisfactory. This is so for a number of reasons. First, whereas Yahweh is a
personal name, Elohim is a common noun. While there are many occasions in
Genesis where it is possible to interchange these terms, there are contexts
which permit only the use of Elohim as a common noun meaning ‘deity’ (Gen.
9:36; 17:7, 8; 23:3, 7, 12, 27, 42, 48; 26:24; 27:20; 28:13[x2], 11; 31:5, 19,
29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 42[x2], 53[x2]; 32:10[x2]; 33:20; 35:2,4; 43:23[x2];
46:1,3; 50:17). Second, there are some obvious instances where the use of a
particular divine name is determined by the context. For example, in Genesis
3:1-5 the serpent and the woman use the designation Elohim, rather than Yahweh
Elohim, which is used elsewhere throughout 2:4-3:24. As his adversary, it is
hardly surprising that the serpent avoids using God’s personal name Yahweh.
Third, ‘the name for God is not as stringent a criterion for J as it is for P
(or E)’ (Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 579). Given that in E and P the divine
name Yahweh was first revealed to Moses, we would clearly not expect to find ‘Yahweh’
appearing in E or P passages occurring in Genesis. There is, however, no reason
why Yahweh should not appear in E or P narratives involving events after the
revelation of this new name to Moses. Similarly, there is no reason why the epithet
Elohim may not be present in any of the J Material (cf. Skinner, Genesis,
l-li). Thus, strictly speaking, in Genesis only the present of ‘Yahweh’ in a
text can be viewed as a decisive indicator for source analysis; the presence of
Elohim in a particular verse does not automatically require that it should be
assigned to either E or P. This factor may have important implications for the
source analysis of chaps. 20-22. Fourth, an examination of biblical material
outside of Genesis reveals that ‘variation in the name for God is certainly
possible in a literary unity’ (Westermann, Genesis 1-11, 579; cf. Segal,
‘El, Elohim and Yhwh’, 94-97; Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch,
67-68). The presence of both divine names in a single passage does not
necessarily 8imply that two separate accounts have been integrated together. It
is possible for one author to use both divine epithets. Fifth, we should be
alert to the possibility that the biblical texts may have been modified as a result
of editorial activity. Thus, for example, Skinner argues that the presence of
Yahweh in 22:11, 14; 28:21; 31:49 is ‘due to the intentional action of a redactor’
(Skinner, Genesis, l-li). Sixth, it is not inconceivable that in
some instances a divine name was changed merely by accident in the transmission
of the Genesis text. We cannot be completely certain that the Massoretic
Text preserves accurately the arrangement of the divine names following the
amalgamation of the supposed sources J, E and P. This possibly is supported by
the different textual traditions found in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint
(For a fuller discussion of the textual evidence, see J. Skinner, The Divine
Names in Genesis [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914]. The SP differs from
MT in some 9 cases [7:1, 9; 14:22; 20:18; 28:4; 31:7, 9, 16a; 35:9b]. The LXX
manuscripts preserve over 60 readings where the divine names differ from the MT).
All of these observations highlight the danger of adopting a purely
mechanical application of the divine names criterion for source analysis.
Yet, even after
making due allowance for these exceptions, the thesis that Genesis is comprised
of sources which use different divine names remains highly credible. Not surprisingly, a
majority of scholars appear content to accept this explanation for the
distribution of the divine epithets in Genesis. As Westermann observes, ‘none
of the attempts to explain the variation in the name for God in another way
have (sic.) so far led to any convincing result” (Westermann, Genesis 1-11,
578). (T. Desmond Alexander, Abraham in the Negev: A Source-Critical
Investigation of Genesis 20:1-22:19 [Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster Press,
1997], 91-93, emphasis added)
