1.? For this paper, please focus on a small (roughly 6-10 verse) section of Genesis 38- and work it through in as much detail

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Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38) in Ancient Jewish Exegesis: Studies in Literary Form and Hermeneutics Bellavance, Eric The Catholic Biblical Quarterly; Jul 2000; 62, 3; Research Library pg. 526

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Genesis 38: Its Contribution to the Jacob Story Clifford, Richard J The Catholic Biblical Quarterly; Oct 2004; 66, 4; Research Library pg. 519

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Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective

mark leuchter [email protected]

Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122

While many scholars still view the Judah–Tamar tale in Genesis 38 as a once- independent unit secondarily woven into the Joseph story (chs. 37–50), the rela- tionship with its intertext in 2 Samuel 13 is more complicated. Questions remain regarding a possible direction of literary influence from one narrative to the other, or whether both narratives independently drew from a common trove of tradition. The present study addresses this issue through a closer look at Genesis 38, evaluating its linguistic/sociolinguistic features, its tradition-historical and sociological presuppositions, and the symbolic/mythic valences running through the text. The author behind Genesis 38 drew from an authoritative agrarian mythology that also informed the composition of the narrative beginning in 2 Samuel 13 but cast this mythology in contradistinction to its function in that work.

The problems of family integrity, the threat to progeny, the temptation to abuse power, and the underlying themes regarding monarchic politics flavor both the Judah–Tamar tale in Genesis 38 and the chapters surrounding it.1 Plot devices and literary correspondences reveal the degree to which Genesis 38 imparts greater meaning and significance to the Joseph story and the ancestral traditions in Genesis more generally.2 While many scholars have studied Genesis 38 as an

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Vienna in 2007. I am deeply indebted to the participants in the session where it was first read, to Benjamin Sommer for his helpful comments on an earlier draft, and to the anonymous reviewers at JBL for their suggested revisions.

1 On the issue of monarchic politics encoded into the Joseph story (at different stages of its growth), see Yigal Levin, “Joseph, Judah and the Benjamin Conundrum,” ZAW 116 (2004): 223–41; David M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 273–74, 279–80.

2 Such was the conclusion reached several decades ago by George W. Coats, “Redactional

JBL 132, no. 2 (2013): 209–227

209

210 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

independent narrative secondarily situated in its present location,3 others have taken a step back and considered the chapter’s relation to the Joseph story and the Jacob story en masse, seeing the chapter as intimately connected to the composition of the adjacent material.4 One of the more recent arguments in favor of this view is that of Richard Clifford, who observes a network of thematic and lexical cor- respondences between the Judah–Tamar tale and its larger literary context.5 Especially noteworthy is his discussion of the phrase הכר נא (NRSV: “Take note, please”) in Gen 38:25, which is paralleled in only one other place in the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures, namely, in Gen 37:32.6 Clifford’s position is supported by the recurrence of the הכר terminology at a poignant moment later in the Joseph story (Gen 42:8), and this, he adds, sets up the later, climactic moment where Joseph changes from a man driven by vengeance to a forgiving brother. The theme of recognition (הכר) thus functions as a motif that binds together the entire

Unity in Genesis 37–50,” JBL 93 (1974): 21. See also Paul R. Noble, “Esau, Tamar and Joseph: Criteria for Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions,” VT 52 (2002): 232–43, 248–49.

3 The list of scholarship advocating this view is exhaustive. More recent studies include Peter Weimar, “Gen 38—Eine Einschaltung in die Josefsgeschichte” (Teil 2), BN 140 (2009): 5–30 (who sees the chapter’s current location as part of a larger pentateuchal redactional effort); André Wenin, “L’ aventure de Juda en Genèse 38 et l’histoire de Joseph,” RB 111 (2004): 5–27; Craig Y. S. Ho, “The Stories of the Family Troubles of Judah and David: A Study of Their Literary Links,” VT 49 (1999): 514–31; Brian Peckham, History and Prophecy: The Development of Late Judean Literary Traditions (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 559–61; Gary A. Rendsburg, “David and His Circle in Genesis xxxviii,” VT 36 (1986): 438–46; Erhard Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 224. See also the summary of scholarship by Richard Clifford, “Genesis 38: Its Contribution to the Jacob Story,” CBQ 66 (2004): 519–32, here 520–21 n. 4. Hans-Christoph Schmitt suggests that the chapter knows both the Deuteronomistic tradition and the Holiness Code and includes references to both in order to create greater connectivity across the Petauteuch (“Die Josephsgeschichte and das deuteronomistische Geschichtswerk Genesis 38 and 48–50,” in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature: Festschrift C. H. W. Brekelmans (ed. M. Vervenne and J. Lust; BETL 133; Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 403. This position recalls that of Peckham, which posits a Deuteronomistic redactional allusion to the levirate law of Deuteronomy 25 (History and Prophecy, 559–61). Despite initial impressions that the author knows and invokes these works, the difficulties in accepting these conclusions will be discussed below.

4 Jan Wim Wesselius, “From Stumbling Blocks to Cornerstones: The Function of Prob- lematic Episodes in the Primary History and in Ezra-Nehemiah,” in The Interpretation of Exodus: Studies in Honour of Cornelius Houtman (ed. Riemer Roukema et al.; CBET 44; Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 41; Anthony J. Lambe, “Judah’s Development: The Pattern of Departure–Transition– Return,” JSOT 89 (1999): 53–68; Aaron Wildavsky, “Survival Must Not Be Gained through Sin: The Moral of the Joseph Stories Prefigured through Judah and Tamar,” JSOT 62 (1994): 37–48; J. Gordon Wenham, Genesis 16–50 (WBC 2; Dallas: Word, 1994), 363–65.

5 Clifford, “Genesis 38,” 519–32. 6 Ibid., 521. This lexical parallel (and others) was noted also by Coats, “Redactional Unity,”

17. See also J. A. Emerton, “Some Problems in Genesis xxxviii,” VT 25 (1975): 347.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 211

narrative involving the sons of Jacob, with its early appearances in chs. 37–38 informing how the reader perceives its function in the crucial later chapters.7

Yet, while the appearance of the phrase in Genesis 38 contributes to a thematic trajectory running throughout the entire Joseph story, it does not necessarily depend on it. The הכר נא of v. 25—uttered by Tamar as she produces incriminating evidence concerning her liason with Judah—may also be explained as a tit-for-tat response to Judah’s request for sexual contact earlier in the narrative when this liason took place:

Gen 38:16: . . . הבה נא אבוא אליך

Come, let me come in to you. (NRSV)

Gen 38:25 . . . הכר נא למי החתמת

Take note, please, whose these are, the signet . . . (NRSV)

In other words, the linguistic peculiarity noted by Clifford may be explained as deriving from the internal drama of the narrative rather than as arising from common authorship with Genesis 37 (or beyond). The הכר נא in ch. 37 may thus be a redactional gloss inspired by the introduction of ch. 38 into the developing Joseph story,8 as the verse reads perfectly well without it:

וישלחו את כתנת הפסים ויביאו אל אביהם ויאמרו זאת מצאנו ]. . .[ הכתנת בנך הוא אם לא

Then they sent the colored tunic and brought it to their father, and said, “We have found this . . . is this not your son’s tunic?” (Gen 37:32)

The presence of the נכר root at the outset of the following verse (ויכירה in 37:33) would have provided a redactor with a superb strategic moment to anticipate the appearance of הכר נא in 38:25. Through this method, the redactor created a work that draws the reader’s attention away from the above-mentioned wordplay between Judah’s request for sex and Tamar’s production of incriminating evidence and instead focuses attention on the motifs of family conflict shared between the two tales. This produced a cohesive narrative with a different emphasis: the second occurrence of נא forces the reader to recall the circumstances where it first הכר appeared and to consider the Judah–Tamar episode a stop along the way to Judah’s later emergence as a restored family leader (ch. 44).9

Therefore, while the thematic and lexical yarns running through ch. 38 set it

7 Clifford, “Genesis 38,” 530–32. 8 See also Walter Dietrich (Die Josephserzählung als Novelle und Geschichtsschreibung:

Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Pentateuchfrage ]Biblisch-theologische Studien 14; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989[, 51 n. 144), who draws attention to this phrase as a sign of redactional incursion.

9 Such is the interpretation offered by Clifford, “Genesis 38,” 520, 527.

212 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

comfortably within the Joseph story and indeed make it integral to the story’s function in the book of Genesis, the hallmarks of the redactional process call attention to themselves and alert the reader that the tale once had a life of its own.10 Apart from the sudden shift in tone and focus (a band of brothers and international interaction vs. a single man’s experience in a geographically protracted setting),11 the Wiederaufnahme in 37:36b and 39:1 marking the points of insertion is otherwise difficult to explain (פוטיפר סריס פרעה שר הטבחים, “Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard”). The literary form of ch. 38 may have resulted from a scribe writing with an eye to the larger Joseph story,12 but this scribe’s handling of the Judah–Tamar episode points to its origins beyond the sources that constitute the tale of Joseph and his brothers. If this is the case, then the thematic commonalities may be attributed to a common set of cultural tropes behind each work rather than a single story built from the ground up.

On the other hand, it remains difficult to deny a closer relationship between Genesis 38 and the Tamar-Amnon drama of 2 Samuel 13, since these are the only narratives in the Hebrew Bible where a character named Tamar plays a major role. Beyond Tamar’s name and the overt concern with the Davidic line (via the con- cluding reference to Perez in Gen 38:29), both tales highlight the fragility of the leading family in Judahite society, challenges to matters of succession within a family, and the vulnerability of women in a patriarchal society.13 The questions this raises are manifold. Is one narrative a conscious response to (or comment on) the other?14 Or, rather, did both narratives arise in parallel response to a common concept or set of circumstances? Finally, should the critique of Judah and his family in Genesis 38 be viewed as a condemnation of David, or may it contain a different type of critique?

10 This may well have been a deliberate choice on the part of the redactor; see Brian Peckham, “Writing and Editing,” in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday (ed. Astrid B. Beck et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 368–69, 382.

11 Clifford is correct that the opening note does not create any greater discontinuity than similar shifts elsewhere in narrative transitions (“Genesis 38,” 521). But this, coupled with the protracted geographic and sociological spectrum of ch. 38 in comparison with the larger Joseph story, indicates deeper fissures between the two narratives.

12 I would further suggest that the parallel usage of the root ירד in 38:1 and 39:1 arises from this redactor’s eye to the bigger picture; see the conclusion of the present study for additional discussion.

13 For a convenient summary of these and other parallels, see Ho, “Family Troubles,” 515–22.

14 For rather different takes on this common view, see Ho, “Family Troubles,” 514–31; Rendsburg, “David and His Circle,” 438–46; A. Graeme Auld, “Tamar between David, Judah and Joseph,” in Samuel at the Threshold: Selected Works of Graeme Auld (SOTSMS; Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 216–18.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 213

I. Textuality and Linguistic/Sociolinguistic Considerations

To address these questions, the first task is to establish a general period for the composition of both narratives; I will begin with 2 Samuel 13. Positions vary on a date of origin, but most commentators accept a preexilic setting for the composition of (most of ) 1–2 Samuel,15 and some have proposed an Iron IIa dating of the narrative.16 Such an argument remains tenable, and the circulation of official tales regarding the founding of the monarchy may well have originated in a fairly early period.17 However, the view that a good amount of the narrative took textual form in the late eighth century during the reign of Hezekiah seems reasonable.18 This is in part because Hezekiah’s was the first reign since the tenth century b.c.e. that saw northern subjects (refugees from the fallen northern kingdom) under the jurisdiction of a Davidic king.19 Furthermore, Hezekiah’s

15 There are, of course, notable exceptions or adjustments to this view. Recently, for example, John Van Seters, has argued that a late-seventh-century, pro-Davidic collection in 1–2 Samuel received an anti-Davidic redaction during the Persian period, accounting for a significant amount of content in that work (The Biblical Saga of King David ]Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009[). Van Seters, however, does not give enough consideration to linguistic and redaction-critical elements; see the critique by Tzemah Yoreh, “Van Seters’ Saga of King David,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 10 (2010): 111–13.

16 On the possibility of an Iron IIa scribal production of the Davidic narratives, see Jeremy M. Hutton, The Transjordanian Palimpsest: The Overwritten Texts of Personal Exile and Transformation in the Deuteronomistic History (BZAW 396; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2009), 91–156. Hutton’s discussion of literacy and scribal resources in the Iron I–IIa periods (pp. 168– 74) provides a compelling reason to consider the likelihood that a sophisticated narrative such as 1–2 Samuel could indeed have obtained in written form in the Iron IIa period. The most thorough defense of an early date for the David narratives is that of Baruch Halpern, David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Bible in Its World; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 57–72, 99–100. Moshe Garsiel also has recently mounted a case for tenth-century authorship (“The Book of Samuel: Its Composition, Structure, and Significance as an Historigraphic Source,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 10 ]2010[ Article 5; online at http://www.jhsonline.org).

17 Edward L. Greenstein, “The Formation of the Biblical Narrative Corpus,” AJSR 15 (1990): 177.

18 Walter Dietrich, The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century b.c.e. (trans. Joachim Vette; SBL Biblical Encyclopedia 3; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 247, 263. See also Neil A. Silberman and Israel Finkelstein, “Temple and Dynasty: Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah, and the Rise of the Pan-Israelite Ideology,” JSOT 30 (2006): 259–85. The brief comments by Paul S. Ash (review of Halpern, David’s Secret Demons; online at http://www.bookreviews.org) that the memories of David among northern refugees to Judah in the late eighth century might explain the shaping of Davidic tradition.

19 Nadav Na’aman has recently mounted a detailed argument against a large wave of such refugees; see his “When and How Did Jerusalem Become a Great City? The Rise of Jerusalem

214 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

royal administration would have had much interaction with the rural clan leader- ship as part of the king’s urbanization program ca. 705–701 b.c.e. Establishing connections between Hezekiah and David, the latter of whom is remembered for negotiation with the elders of the hinterland (2 Sam 5:3), would be helpful in promoting cooperation among the clans faced with otherwise unpopular royal policies.

Although Hezekiah’s reign may have been a suitable time for the shaping of some narratives in 1–2 Samuel, it is unlikely that a troubled narrative such as 2 Samuel 13 would have been composed at this time. On one hand, 2 Samuel 13 contributes to the unfurling of events that legitimized Solomon’s seizure of the throne and thus supports the hegemony of Hezekiah’s ancestry.20 On the other, a time when traditional rural family structures were challenged through Hezekiah’s urbanization program seems an inappropriate context for highlighting the flaws of David’s own family. 2 Samuel 13 may have been textualized by Hezekiah’s scribes along with other Davidic legends, but it must have originated in an earlier time when Solomon’s ascent to the throne in particular was still in need of defense.

It is significant, however, that Genesis 38 has much in common with 2 Samuel 13 on linguistic grounds. Contemporary linguistic research into Biblical Hebrew has highlighted the difficulty with using linguistic criteria as a sure vehicle for dating texts.21 Robert Rezetk

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