Numbers 1-20

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2002 by Brueggemann, Dale A

ProQuest Information & Learning: Foreign text omitted

Numbers 1-20. By Baruch A. Levine. AB 4. New York: Doubleday, 1993, xvi 528 pp., $42.50. Numbers 21-36. By Baruch A. Levine. AB 4A. New York: Doubleday, 2000, xxii 614 pp., $45.00. Numbers: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture. By R. Dennis Cole. NAC 38. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000, 590 pp., $27.99.

Recent publication has given us two heavy-hitting commentaries on the book of Numbers. Baruch Levine's two-volume Anchor Bible commentary comes from the historico-critical stance. Dennis Cole's contribution to the New American Commentary combines the best of critical analysis and critical insight.

Levine's monumental work employs his own translation. It retains occasional transliterations, such as degel (e.g. 2:2ff. for standard or division), paroket (screen, e.g. 4:5; 18:7), sara at (e.g. 5:2; 12:10 for skin disease), herem (e.g. 21:2-3 for completely destroy, cf. Hormah Iv. 3]), sarap (serpents, e.g. 21:6, 8), mealim (e.g. 21:27 for poets). Sometimes he opts for bold translations, such as "dolphin skin" for ... (4:8), "prophesy ecstatically" for the hithpa`el of ... (11:25, instead of just prophesy), or "balanced verse" for ... (23:7, rather than oracle). Sometimes he uses square brackets for words added to make the English clearer. He follows the ben Asher MT with occasional emendation. He considers that preferable to generating an eclectic Hebrew text, one that has "never existed in reality" (vol. 1, p. 84).

One might wish he has showed the same skepticism about commenting on various hypothetical sources instead of treating the text that the believing community has had before them as a long-standing reality. But he is an avid proponent of the documentary source theory. He talks of a composite JE narrative history, he believes that J and E T (i.e. a Transjordan source that was a "subsource of the E tradition") were "combined, edited, and elaborated by the JE writers" in Judah about the seventh century (vol. 1, p. 48), and he thinks that P is early postexilic (vol. 1, pp. 102-3).

Levine's introduction includes only a single paragraph on "Numbers in the Final Form." When he does find signs of unity, he will not extend the implications very far. For example, he finds internal links between the Balaam poems, but he says this shows that the poems "represent a discrete collection of mesalam [sic]," and does not hint at any unity in the whole Balaam account (2.210). Quite the contrary; he finds presuppositions in the Balaam poems that differ from those of the Balaam narratives (2.215).

Levine lays out extensive archaeological and philological background for various texts. For example, he says a benediction from Keteph Hinnom is "largely identical with the biblical, priestly benediction of Num 6:24-26 ... almost verbatim" (1.238). He even uses that inscription to do text criticism on vv. 24-26! He evinces Hittite parallels to the laying on of hands in Num 8:10 (1.276). He draws heavily on Jewish interpretations (e.g. the treatment of the sotah in Numbers 5; 1.200-12).

A good example of Levine's tendencies is his discussion of the Balaam account. He separately discusses first the poems, then the narratives, then the three appended prophecies, and then how it all achieved its "received form." Following this comes a thirty-page edition (transliterated), translation, and commentary on the Balaam texts from Deir Alla.

Levine late-dates everything. For example, he dates 30:2-17 to the fourth century because it uses the term ... for vow, which he says is Aramaic (2.51). He follows van Seeters in supposing that the ethnographical designations in the book point to a first-- millennium Sitz-im-Leben rather than the mid-second millennium of the Exodus (1.95).

Levine is well edited, with few typographical errors. It includes the usual indexes: subject (thin), modern authors, Scripture (extensive), and Rabbinic and Medieval Jewish sources.

Dennis Cole's commentary could hardly be more different from Levine's. But then, it is a contribution to the New American Commentary, which emphasizes the theological unity of each book and of Scripture as a whole. The series "has been designed primarily to enable pastors, teachers, and students to read the Bible with clarity and proclaim it with power" (p. 7). Nevertheless, the editors have allowed the individual writers to wrestle with scholarly issues and to deal with the distinctive features of individual books (e.g. genre, style, motifs, theology). Cole maximizes the potential of that mandate, combining a rich mix of technical and theological guidance.

Cole's introduction includes the usual materials on date, authorship, textual history, and theology of the book. He treats both the traditional view of Mosaic authorship, following Harrison (Numbers, 1990), and the modern source critical theory. Then he attempts a synthesis that allows significant Mosaic origin for much of the material (pp. 29-36).

In addition to the usual bibliography and indexes (subject, person, and Scripture), Cole includes several other useful resources at the end of his commentary. These include excurses on topics ranging from literary structure of various units in Numbers (e.g. Numbers 13-14, 16-19, 18, and 22-24) to the use of various themes and motifs.