Reading the Bible: Noticing Repetition: Simple Distant Repetition

In the first article we looked at a type of repetition called an inclusio. In that technique information is presented at the beginning of a text and at the end of a text to form a bracket, or bookends, around the unit of text. It can be compared to a sandwich: a carefully stacked meal between two slices of crafted bread.

Another very common way that the biblical authors showed how their texts were organized was by using simple repetition. But in this case the repetition occurs only at one end of the text, either the beginning or the end. The repetitions are distant from each other because of the sermon, poem, or narrative between them.

The first step is recognizing where these simple distant repetitions occur. These simple distant repetitions are often used to mark the beginning (or the end) of a new topic. They might be used as theme of a book or as motifs on a theme. Or they might be used as a trope in a book [click on those terms to get a short explanation]. But before we make an evaluation on the meaning and use of a set of repetitions we want first to identify them in their contexts.

Here we are going to look at examples of simple distant repetition in two categories. We will call them: Front-end Repetition, which are repeated words or phrases placed at the beginning of a topic; and Back-end Repetition, which are placed after a topic. Then we will look at an example of both techniques used together.

Front-end Repetition
In the book of Isaiah there are many examples of simple distant repetition that mark a new sermon or addressee. In some cases simple distant repetition is used to mark subtopics. Here we will focus on examples from the Burdens and Woes. In The Burden against Tyre we will highlight other uses of front-end repetition for the subtopics.

13:1 The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw

14:28 This is the burden which came in the year that king Ahaz died.

(v. 28 against Philistia)

15:1 The burden against Moab

17:1 The burden against Damascus.

17:12 Woe to the multitude of many people

18:1 Woe to the land shadowed with buzzing wings

19:1 The burden against Egypt

21:1 The burden against the Wilderness of the Sea

21:11 The burden against Dumah

21:13 The burden against Arabia

22:1 The burden against the Valley of Vision

23:1 The burden against Tyre

First there is a section in which subtopics are marked with imperative verbs:

23:1 Wail-(this is an inclusio with v. 14)

23:1 Be still

23:4 Be ashamed

23:6 Cross over

23:10 Overflow

23:13 Behold

23:14 Wail

Second there is a section in which the
subtopics are marked with a repeated phrase

23:15 In that day

24:21 In that day

26:1 In that day

27:1 In that day

27:2 In that day

27:12 In that day

28:1 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim

29:1 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt

29:15 Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord

30:1 Woe to the rebellious children

30:6 The burden against the beasts of the South

31:1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help

33:1 Woe to you who plunder, though you have not been plundered

Back-end Repetition
In Exodus when Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh there is a series of events that are marked by back-end repetition. At the end of each episode is a reference to Pharaoh’s heart being hardened. Three other verbal expressions accompany this, but are not used in every case. One is the statement that Pharaoh did not heed. A second is that Pharaoh did not let go. And third is a reference to the fact that this was done in accordance with the Lord’s word as the Lord had said.

When Pharaoh’s heart is first mentioned it is at the beginning of the First Plague. God mentions this to Moses as the reason Pharaoh will not let the people go. One other time Pharaoh’s heart is mentioned at the beginning of a section. This is at the start of the Eighth Plague when God states his intent to harden Pharaoh’s heart. The rest of the repetitions are back-end repetition in the narrative portions, not in speech.

7:14-25 The First Plague: Nile turns to  Blood

7:14 “Pharaoh’s heart is hard”

[The events]

7:22 Pharaoh’s heart grew hard,

and he did not heed them,

as the Lord had said.

7:23 Neither was his [Pharaoh’s] heart moved by this.

8:1-15 The Second Plague: Frogs

[The events]

8:15 Pharaoh ... hardened his heart

and did not heed them,

as the Lord had said.

8:16-19 The Third Plague: Dust to Lice

[The events]

8:19 Pharaoh’s heart grew hard,

and he did not heed them,

just as the Lord had said.

8:20-32 The Fourth Plague: Swarms of Flies

[The events]

8:32 Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also;

neither would he let the people go.

9:1-7 The Fifth Plague: The Livestock

[The events]

9:7 But the heart of Pharaoh became hard,

and he did not let the people go.

9:8-12 The Sixth Plague: Boils

[The events]

9:12 But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh; and he did not heed them,

just as the Lord had spoken to Moses.

9:13-35 The Seventh Plague: Hail and Fire

[The events]

9:34 And when Pharaoh … hardened his heart, he and his servants.

9:35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hard;

Neither would he let the children of Israel go,
as the Lord had spoken by Moses.

10:1-20 The Eighth Plague: Locusts

10:1 God speaking to Moses before the plague
“Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants,

that I may show these signs of Mine before him”
[The events]

10:20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart,

and he did not let the children of Israel go.

10:21-27 The Ninth Plague: 3 Days Darkness

[The events]

10:27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart,

and he would not let them go.

Combinations of both Front-end and Back-end Repetitions
Both front-end and back-end repetitions can occur in the same book. Genesis uses eleven front-end repetitions to mark the beginning of the spread of the generations, generally followed by the events of significant persons in those generations. These are the called the Toledoth in Hebrew. In English this word is translated variously as “generations” “genealogy” or “history.” These larger units are tied together with two events in the opening chapters of Genesis. First is the command to Adam and Eve “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.” in Genesis 1:28 and repeated to Noah in Genesis 9:1. Second is the Promise of the Seed Who would crush Satan’s head and reunite exiled humanity back with God. (Genesis 3:15)

Back-end repetition marks the end of sections which focused on particular individuals who carried the Promise of the Conquering Seed of the Woman. There are four of these back-end repetitions in Genesis. These back-end repetitions are the notices of deaths: of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Part 1 Six Day Creation and Sabbath: Genesis 1:1-2:3

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth

Part 2 Origin of Man 2:7-25,

Origin of Sin 3:1-24 (the Promise of the Seed of the Woman)

The Children 4:1-26

(Cain, the firstborn, is Not the Promised Seed)

(The Substitute at the end of the section, Seth Bears the Promise)

Gen 5:1 This is the book of generations of Adam  

Down to Noah and his sons: Shem, Ham, Japheth

Part 3 The Multiplication of Man’s Sin 6:1-8

Gen 6:9 These are the generations of Noah

Part 4 Destruction Renewal 6:11-9:28

Ends with death of Noah

Gen 10:1 And these are the generations of the sons of Noah

Part 5 Scattering of Mankind 11:1-9

Gen 11:10 These are the generations of Shem  

[No interlude between genealogies]

Gen 11:27 And these are the generations of Terah  

Part 6 Leaving Ur stopping at Haran 11:28-32

Abraham receives the Promise of the Seed 12:1-25:10f

Ends with death of Abraham

Gen 25:12 And these are the generations of Ishmael (Not the Promised Seed)

[No Interlude between genealogies]

Gen 25:19 And these are the generations of Isaac (Bearer of the Promised Seed)

Part 7 Isaac to Jacob 25:20-35:29

Ends with death of Isaac.

Gen 36:1 And these are the generations of Esau (Not the Promised Seed)

[No Interlude between genealogies]

Gen 36:9 And these are the generations of Esau, father of Edom in Mount Seir

Part 8 Jacob in Canaan 37:1

Gen 37:2 These are the generations of Jacob (Bearer of the Promised Seed)

Part 9 Joseph and his Brothers 37:3-50:26

Ends with deaths of Jacob and Joseph

The techniques of simple distant repetition can be used in other ways. They also can be used in conjunction with other forms of repetition, like the inclusio (as we saw in Isaiah 23). Some readers may notice that in the Plagues there are a few examples of inclusio used with back-end repetition.

The goal here is to lay out examples of these techniques of repetition so we are more able to identify them. When we can identify these types of repetition we are better able to read the Scripture and understand the Bible according to the way the writers arranged their texts.

Reading the Bible: Noticing Repetition, the Inclusio

In this series of articles we are looking at some uses of repetition in the Bible. These particular uses are ways in which the Biblical authors marked the divisions of topics in the Scripture. Learning to recognize these repetitions and to understand how they are used enables us to become better readers, understanding the layout of the topics in Scripture in their own terms.

When the books of the Bible were written the authors did not put spaces between words. In ancient Hebrew, vowel letters were introduced slowly and only partially. Their writing was without any visual layout practices which modern English readers take for granted. There was no punctuation, no break between paragraphs. There were no distinctions between capital or lowercase letters.  There were no verse or chapter numbers in these texts. The verse and chapter numbers we are familiar with were developed in the 13th century A.D. They are handy for finding places in the Bible. Sometimes they match up well with the sense of a passage. But but very often the chapter numbers and verses do not match up at all.

Authors used repetition of words, phrases, ideas, and events as techniques to mark how they transitioned from one topic or section to the next.

The goal of this article is to help the reader learn to recognize a type of repetition which we call  the inclusio. By learning to recognize this style of repetition we hope to help the reader learn some of the ways repetition is used in the Biblical text.

In our own everyday conversations we use repetition to shape our words. Our use of repetition in conversation, storytelling, and public speaking can be deliberate. Often our use of repetition is unplanned, and may be formulaic or habitual. Repetition is used by speakers and writers of every natural human language. Both in conversation and in writing people use forms of repetition to mark the beginning and end of a topic. Repetition is used to mark transitions, to build anticipation, to show character, and to highlight crucial information, among many other uses.

So let us consider a technique of repetition calle the inclusio.

An Inclusio is like bookends, it is material that occurs at the beginning and at the end of a text. It can also be called an envelope structure, or bracketing.

The Inclusio as Bookends
In its most basic form an inclusio is a phrase or idea that occurs at the beginning of a stretch of text and at the end. It marks the beginning and the end with the theme or topic. In this way the inclusio functions as a type of introduction and conclusion to the topic.  A very simple example is in Psalm 118, where identical wording is used at the beginning and the end of the psalm.

1 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.
                 [All of the rest of the Psalm sandwiched in here.]
29 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.

The inclusio can be an identical restatement, as in Psalm 118. But it can also show variation. For example: Jeremiah uses an identical phrase “the words of Jeremiah” in only three places. Once at the beginning, once in the middle (26:20), and once at the end.  At the beginning the introduction contains more information. The second use is when Jeremiah is threatened with death. Another prophet was murdered because he preached in accordance with “the words of Jeremiah.” The third use is in the conclusion. Here the conclusion includes only two additional words: “Thus far” to mark the end of Jeremiah’s sermons. Thus, the collection of sermons starts with and ends with the phrase “the words of Jeremiah.”

1:1    The words of Jeremiah (who he was, when the words were given)
                        [Jeremiah’s Preaching, and the Historical Narrative related directly to his sermons]
51:64 Thus far the words of Jeremiah.
52 This chapter contains no preaching of Jeremiah. It does contain a narrative of the Fall of Jerusalem and the Deportation showing the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s sermons.

An inclusio need not use identical words to convey the same ideas. And the word order does not need to be the same. For instance, Psalm 46 shows examples of both the use of synonyms and reverse word order. The psalm starts and closes with a description of God as “our refuge.” The Hebrew words are different but close synonyms. With regard to order, Psalm 46 opens with these two ideas: A) God is our refuge and B) He is present with us to help. It closes in reverse order: B’) the Lord is present with us and A’) God is our refuge.

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.
[The body of the Psalm]
Psalm 46:11 The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

When the order of ideas or words is reversed like this it is called a chiastic structure. This term means that the order of elements resembles the criss-crossing of the Greek letter X “Chi.”  This is another style of repetition that I hope to cover soon.

The examples we looked at above were from whole works. The inclusio functions as book-ends. You can find several other examples in Scripture. Here are just three more to whet your appetite:

• Revelation begins in the first chapter with Jesus saying He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. In the final chapter Jesus closes the book saying the same words. 
• Deuteronomy begins and ends with describing Moses, some works God did through him, and the geography of Moab. In between are the sermons of Moses reviewing the Covenant of Sinai. 
• The first chapter of Matthew declares that Jesus is “Immanuel, which is translated ‘God with us.’” The Gospel closes with Jesus saying “And lo, I am with you, even to the end of the age.”

The Inclusio as Paragraphing
The inclusio is used also to mark smaller sections of larger works. It is used like brackets for these smaller parts. We mentioned above that ancient Hebrew and Greek did not originally use our convention of paragraph layout. There were no spaces between words, no capital letters, no punctuation. In this English document that you are reading each paragraph is separated from the other by space. The inclusio was one of the ways that the ancient authors used to mark out these topical units. Some are longer, some are shorter. We do the same when we speak and write. Very often we are not even aware that we make use of this method of shaping thoughts and ideas.

Here are a few examples of inclusio used to bracket shorter sections of a longer document. Our first few examples are taken from the opening of Genesis:

1:1 In the beginning       God created      the heavens and the earth
2:3 the heavens and the earth were  finished   which God created

2:4-7 God puts man in the garden
3:22-24      God puts man out of the garden

4:1    Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bore a son
4:25 Adam knew his wife again and she              bore a son

There are some cases where the whole book and its sections are marked by inclusio. Jonah is such a case.

1:1-2 The Lord acts toward Nineveh-doesn’t explain to Jonah

1:3         Jonah runs away from        the Lord
1:14-16 Gentiles    turn to the Lord

1:17 The Lord prepared a Great fish to swallow Jonah
2:10 The Lord causes the fish      to vomit Jonah.

3:1-3 Jonah goes to Nineveh
4:5    Jonah goes out of Nineveh

4:6-10 The Lord acts toward Nineveh-does explain to Jonah


Sometimes the bookends explain what is going on in very clear terms. This is the case in the Sermon on the Mount. This is stylistically closer to how we might expect an article or sermon to open and close. The opening and closing of Jesus’ sermon  in Matthew 5:

5:1-2  And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying.
[The body of the sermon is sandwiched here]
7:28-29  And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Inclusio is not the only method used by the authors of Scripture to show how they ordered and arranged their sermons, poems, and narratives. Sometimes the exact wording is used in the beginning part and in the end part. Other times the words are different but convey the same ideas. The words may be synonyms, or convey similar actions or attitudes.

Being able to recognize the inclusio helps us to read and to understand the text in its own terms by the way the text itself was organized by the writers.

Review: Kitchen, Kenneth and Paul Lawrence 2013 Treaty, Law and Covenant in the Ancient Near East

Kitchen, Kenneth and Paul Lawrence

2013 Treaty, Law and Covenant in the Ancient Near East, 3 Volumes, Harrassowitz Verlag. Hardcover: 1641 pages, 8.5 x 11.5 inches, $386

https://www.amazon.com/Treaty-Covenant-Ancient-Near-East/dp/3447067268/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522673032&sr=8-2&keywords=kenneth+kitchen


Review by Joseph Abrahamson

Treaty, Law and Covenant in the Ancient Near East is a three volume set that is the culmination of work occupying the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of this century. Throughout this long period of research Kenneth Kitchen had published some of the results of his ongoing study previously in three other more popular style books. These older publications are:

• 1966 Ancient Orient and Old Testament. London: Tyndale Press. Chicago: InterVarsity Press (touched on throughout but focused on in pp. 147-170).
• 1977 The Bible In Its World. Exeter: Paternoster. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press 1978. (throughout the work, but particularly pp. 79-86)
• 2003 On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (particular focus on covenants in pp. 241-245, 274-307)

In Treaty, Law and Covenant in the Ancient Near East Kitchen and Lawrence have gathered together a comprehensive collection of 106 Ancient Near Eastern texts from 10 languages, presented them fully in romanized transcription and English translation (Volume I), “to which notes, maps and key-charts are added (Volume II), and a historical overall survey of the development and interrelations of these data in their societies (Voume III).” (Preface)

The texts under study are collections of “laws that govern life in a given community…, treaties that govern relations between such communities, and covenant used by or between individuals or them and groups or in dealings with deity.”(Preface)

Part 1: The Texts, 2 Excurses, 1086 pages
This volume consists of 106 separate textual records. There are 102 numbered entries of texts in transcription and translation organized chronologically. These items are collections of laws, treaties, and covenants from the Ancient Near East. Where collections of related texts exist or where copies of treaties exist in more than one language, these texts are included with their number but transcribed and translated separately as separate entries with alphabetical notion or bis. There are 13 of these texts noted.

Thus three different tablets in a collection of Sumerian Exercise law are included under

• 11A-C Annexe 1: Laws in Exercise Tablets, A-C 

And two different language versions of a treaty are included under the same number:

• 55A Suppiluliuma I, Hatti/Shattiwaza, Mitanni (Akkadian) 
• 55B Suppiluliuma I, Hatti/Shattiwaza, Mitanni (Hittite)

Some texts are presented in English only. These texts are listed with the rest in the contents by order of their chronological context but are included in square brackets. These translations are included in Excursus I. The authors state that these “transliterations have been omitted, because they are superfluous (Demotic only useful for demotists; Greek, because well presented already) or for other reasons.” (Introduction p. IXX).

Some texts are not included either in transliteration or translation. These are also listed in the contents in order of their chronological context and marked by square brackets. These texts are discussed in Excursus II. They are placed there “either because they (i) do not belong within this work, or else (ii) they are not readily (or at all) available at present.” (ibid.)

The works in this volume are organized by era:

• Texts from the 3rd Millennium BC
• Early 2nd Millennium BC
• Mid. 2nd Millennium BC
• Late 2nd Millennium BC
• Late 2nd/Early 1st Millennium BC
• Early 1st Millennium BC
• Excursus I Supplementary Repertoire of Texts in Translation
• Late Second Millennium BC 
• Mid.-Late 1st Millennium BC; 
• Excursus II Notices of texts not belonging/reproduced within these Series.

Each item begins with a brief indication of its epoch. geographical location, date, description of the language, and a short bibliographical introduction. Each text is presented fully, with a transcription of the original text on the left-hand page and English translation on the facing right hand page. Notes on textual issues, context, and descriptions of the state of the tablets and text are found in volume 2. After the text and translations the authors present a diagrammatic summary of the form and contents of each item “as a textual key to the color-chart (‘Chromogram’) in Volume II, Part 3.” (Introduction IXX)

The authors have analyzed the texts “in terms of 15 possible components under 13 numeric heads” (Introduction XXII). These components are the explicit literary features evident in the texts. These literary features are clearly defined with demonstration of how they are understood from the texts. The literary features are defined and evaluated in the same way for all texts. The authors explain any difficulties in their notes. These literary features are represented in the textual keys at the end of each textual entry and also in the chromograms of Volume II, Part 3. This is an effort to make the literary features quickly visible and explicitly demonstrate structuring through the use of color.

What one will notice immediately is that law codes, treaties, and covenants in the Hebrew Bible are included as items within the data set for comparison and evaluation. The authors explain their method and historical justifications for transcribing the consonantal Hebrew Biblical texts (Introduction XXVf). For example, Genesis 21:29 is transcribed:

w-y’mr ’b(y)mlk ’l-’brhm:
m(h) hn(h) šb‘ kbśt (h)-’l(h), ’šr hṣbt l-bdn(h).

Thus, along with texts from the Early 2nd Millennium BC Kitchen and Lawrence include formal analysis of three treaties and two covenants in Genesis.

• No. 30: Genesis 21:22-24 Treaty: Abraham with Abimelek a Gerar: Beersheba I
• No. 31: Genesis 21:25-33 Treaty: Abraham with Abimelek at Gerar: Beersheba II
• No. 32: Genesis 26:26-31 Treaty: Isaac with Abimelek at Gerar
• No. 33: Genesis 31:44-54 Treaty: Jacob with Laban at Harran
• No. 34: Genesis 9:8-17 Personal Covenant: YHWH with Noah 
• No. 35: Genesis 15: 7-21 Personal Covenant: YHWH with Abraham.

These treaties are mostly dated according to biblical chronology, however the Noahic covenant is described as “traditionally c. *pre-19th” century. (p. 245)

In the group of Late 2nd/Early 1st Millennium texts the authors also include several covenants and one issue of trial law from the Hebrew Bible. These include:

• No. 82, I: Exodus 20 - 25:9; 34:8-28; 35:1-19; Leviticus 11-15, 18-20, 24-27
  Covenant, I. YHWH and Israel (Moses at Mt. Sinai)
• No. 82, II: Numbers 5:11-31 Trial of alleged marital infidelity by Ordeal
• No. 83: Deuteronomy 1-32:47 Covenant, YHWH and Israel, II: Moses in Moab
• No. 84: Joshua 24:1-28 Covenant, YHWH and Israel, III: Joshua at Shechem
• No. 85, I: 1 Samuel 18:2-4 Personal Covenant: Jonathan and David
• No. 85, II: 2 samuel 7:1-17 and parallel 1 Chronicles 17:1-15 
• Personal Covenant: YHWH and David

Readers familiar with Kitchen’s other works will be aware that Kitchen dates the Exodus to the mid 13th century BC rather than following a biblical chronology placement at mid 15th century BC. Thus Nos. 82 to 84 are placed according to Kitchen’s late chronology.

Part 2: Text, Notes and Chromograms, 268 pages.
This volume is subdivided into three parts. Part 1 of this volume consists of the first eight chapters. These are the authors’ notes on the transcriptions and translations of the texts in volume one.

Part 2 of this volume is Chapter 9. This chapter includes a variety of indexes to the three volumes. These indexes include “Topics appearing in the Laws and Stipulations” a Statistical List of prices, fines, tribute, and etcs. An index to the statistical list by value, Near-Eastern currency/values and Graeco-Roman monetary notation. There is an index of deities named as witnesses and in the curses and blessings; a list of Blessings and Curses in Documents 1-106. This chapter closes with notes on the terminology used in Treaties, Laws and Covenants.

The final part of this volume consists of Maps and Chromograms. There are four maps. 1: Syro-Mesopotamian Place-names in the 3rd Millennium BC, 2: The Ancient Near East in the Early 2nd Millennium BC, 3: the Late 2nd Millennium BC, and 4: Near East and N. Araia End of 2nd and Early 1st Millennia BC.

The Chromograms make up the closing section of Part 3. These use color to indicate textual content of the various documents. Each document is represented by a vertical bar broken up into colored parts of size proportional to the amount of content each textual part takes of the particular document. Gray is used for Titles/Preambles, orange for Historical Prologue, royal blue for Stipulations, lemon for Depositions, purple for Witnesses, green for Blessings, crimson for Curses, golden-yellow for Oaths and Solemn Ceremonies, brown for Epilogue, white for Irregular Features and for Sanctions, and for Historical Report and/or Archaeological Flashback. An example is given at the beginning with explanations to aid the reader.

These Chromograms are indeed very helpful for visually representing the semantic structure of the documents. The Chromograms are presented in two groupings.

The first group of Chromograms present synchronic snapshots of treaty forms. A single page demonstrates each historical phase. For example, Phase I covers treaties from the 3rd Millennium BC. The page displays Eastern treaties on the left hand and Western Treaties on the right hand. This allows the reader to visualize the semantic organization of the treaties presented and to see the differences between regions. This first grouping covers each epochal phase from volume 1.

The second group of Chromograms present a diachronic view of treaty forms. The section is titled: “Summary Table of the Main Phases, c. 2500-40 BC.” On these two pages (which are, unfortunately, back-to-back, rather than facing each other) one can see the structural differences between document forms through the ages.

One notable observation here is that these Chromograms allow one to see how the structures of the Covenants and Treaties recorded in the Hebrew Bible compare both synchronically with their neighbors and diachronically through the Ancient Near East. I wish to give three examples of this usefulness.

First example: The formal structure of the Patriarchal Covenants (Nos 30-33) closely parallel closely parallel treaties from Mari, N. Syria, and Assur (Nos 20-29) from the early 2nd Millennium. This historical parallel fits with the chronology reported in the Hebrew Bible itself. The structures of these documents is also markedly different from those of other periods before and after.

Second example: There is only one close parallel in the Ancient Near East to the form of the Noahic Covenant (No 34) and that is an Old Babylonian tablet Sumu-numhim of Shadlash and Ammi-dushur of Nerebtum (No 18). The Babylonian text dates from c. 1800 BC. The structure is very simple, and there is one difference between them. The next time this form is used is by the Romans in 46 B.C (No 106).

Third example: The covenants and treaties in the Hebrew Bible which in biblical chronology would be placed at the beginning of the Exodus down to Joshua’s death (Biblical Chronology dates c. 1450-1390) are dated by Kitchen to the mid 13th century and later (1260-1210 BC). However, their Chromograms shows close structural affinity with two Hittite treaties from the end of the 15th century down to the early 14th century. The first is from Kizzuwatna and believed to be from Tudhaliya II and Sunassura (c. 1400 BC/1380 BC; No. 51). The second is a treaty between Suppiluliuma I of Hatti and Shattiwaza of Mitanni (mid 14th century; No 55A). This general Hittite treaty format stays in use through Hattusili III (d. 1237; No 71A). This would mean that by literary form Kitchen’s dates fall within the range of the data, but so also does the biblical chronology. Even though the biblical chronology is at the beginning of the range for the data, it is still within the range.

But the Chromograms show something more. The Chromogram for the Sinai Covenant and the Moab Covenant (p. 263) also shows structural affinity with the Laws of Lipit-Ishtar (c. 1930 BC; No 10) and the Laws of Hammurabi (c. 1800/1700 BC; No 14).

In terms of biblical chronology these earlier documents date from the time of Abraham down to when the Children of Israel went to live in Egypt under Joseph. The basic legal structure in these documents was adopted by the Hittites and kept in use until the close of the 13th century. But we never see this structure again in the Ancient Near East. 

Part 3: Overall Historical Survey, 288 pages
The third volume consists of seven chapters and one excursus. The volume has an index and three maps. In the first six chapters the authors present a survey, analysis, and summary of the documents pertaining to each period as defined in volume 1. The studies are comprehensive, but I will focus on just a couple of aspects where the Ancient Near Eastern Documentation relates to the texts in the Hebrew Bible.

In their discussion of the Patriarchal Narratives the authors bring together the context of society as portrayed in Ancient Near Eastern documents. The authors focus on the evidence for “transhumant animal husbandry (as independent social units)”(p. 70) With respect to the societal organization of the Patriarchs in their narratives they find that the “transmitted picture in Genesis of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob practicing transhumant animal husbandry … is faithful to what we find in Canaan and far beyond, in the early 2nd millennium BC - and never again, in any later epoch.” (ibid) After listing the later period social contexts they state, “Thus, after c. 1550 BC, there was no later model from which our ‘patriarchal’ narratives could have been derived; they reflect well the typical ‘patchwork quilt’ phenomena of the first half of the 2nd millennium.”

This is also the case with the historical forms of their treaties transmitted down to us in the Hebrew Bible. The authors work through the treaties (Nos. 30-32) stating that examining the host “of other early-2nd-millennium features that clearly occur in the narratives of Genesis 11-50, then it can hardly be surprising to find that the patriarchs’ treaties also fit well into what is transparently their particular epoch on virtually all other grounds of legitimate comparison.” (p. 74)

The authors spend quite a bit of space with respect to the forms of covenant, treaty and law coming from the periods of Moses and Joshua (particularly Nos. 82-83). A principle question is who could have known these forms and transmitted them to the Israelites. “The only realistic conduit from court politics to a slave-group would be a rebel courtier in the Egyptian foreign office who cast his lot with them…[bringing with them] the cohesion and the binding covenant - of contemporary type!” (p. 136) The Biblical text names a person who fits these qualifications: Moses. Thus the “event and format must therefore have originated during the 13th century at the latest.” (ibid.) After analyzing the arrangement of the Sinai and Deuteronomic covenants (Nos. 82-83) the authors observe that significant relationships are also found with Lipit-Ishtar (No. 10), a text dating to the early 2nd millennium. Particularly with respect to two examples of case law “these two problems and their solutions in Numbers both find close and early precedents long before the Late Bronze age, never mind any later epoch.” (p. 142)

The authors also discuss the development of historical criticism and the theories of textual development and history these schools promoted (pp. 154-181). Here the authors go through many particulars claimed by historical critics as historical evidence for their theories of textual development. The authors show where these features of the Biblical Text are also found in both older and contemporary documents from the Ancient Near East. In this section the authors demonstrate that the Pentateuchal texts reflect the social and legal usages available to them in their time.

Thus, with regard to the issue of the date of the Exodus, while Kitchen and Lawrence place the date at 1260 BC for the latest possible date, the evidence they provide shows also that the early biblical chronology (c. 1450) fits well within the available data.

Summary

Back in 1977 Kitchen wrote “In order to prop up the old 19th-century view of the patriarchs as late fictions dreamt up 1000 years after the ‘patriarchal age’, they [historical critics] are driven to produce arguments at times so tortuous and convoluted as to stand almost self-condemned as spurious and far from even remotely proving their case.” (The Bible in Its World: The Bible & Archaeology Today, p. 58)

It is indeed difficult to accept the historical critics urgings to believe that their hypothetical editors in the 4th century BC were able to recreate faithfully the social customs as well as the legal, treaty, and covenant forms which were current in the periods of the Patriarchs and Moses. Especially through such convoluted processes as those the historical critics propose, particularly since there is no evidence that these particular forms were ever used again after the times of the Patriarchs and of Moses.

Back in 1966 Kitchen wrote about the historical critics, that their “approaches … rest much too heavily on preconceived theories imposed upon the Old Testament, instead of proceeding from an inductive and exhaustive survey of actual Ancient Oriental evidence for literary forms, methods and usages in the biblical East. For this fundamental reason, the results of these schools are suspect to a very large extent, and ultimately must be discarded in favor of new and properly based results securely founded on the maximum relevant comparative data with a more intelligent treatment of the Hebrew text in light of that material. We advocate not its [historical biblical interpretation] abolition, but its radical reconstruction, conditioned by the context of the biblical world instead of by Western philosophical schemes, medieval and Western literary categories, particularly of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries AD.” (Ancient Orient and the Old Testament, 137-138)

Kitchen and Lawrence have delivered. And they have delivered well.