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Footnotes
Yahweh is the probable vocalization of the tetragrammaton (YHWH), the name of God in Hebrew script.
The J source is the earliest of the four literary strata of the Pentateuch. For an excellent introduction to these sources, see Richard E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987).
See Richard E. Friedman, “Is Everybody a Bible Expert?” BR 07:02.
Endnotes
This position was actually taken in some ancient Gnostic sects; see Birger A. Pearson, “Use, Authority and Exegesis of Mikra in Gnostic Literature,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. M.J. Mulder (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), pp. 638–641.
Cited in W. Neil, “The Criticism and Theological Use of the Bible, 1700–1950,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 3, ed. S.L. Greenslade (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1963), pp. 250–251.
For other discussions of this and related topics, see the fine contributions of John Barton, “Understanding Old Testament Ethics,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (JSOT) 9 (1978), pp. 44–64, and “Approaches to Ethics in the Old Testament,” in Beginning Old Testament Study, ed. J. Rogerson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982), pp. 113–130; and Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988).
For example, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 4:1, perhaps implied in 1 John 3:12, and many later Jewish and Christian sources; see Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909–1938), vol. 1, p. 105, and vol. 5, pp. 133–134; and Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1987), pp. 236–237.
Among ancient commentators, for example, Philo, On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 52 and 72, trans. in Philo, vol. 2, ed. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker, Loeb Classical Library(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1929) Genesis Rabbah 22.5. Among modern commentators, for example, Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961), p. 205; E.A. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible 1 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), p. 30; Nahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: Schocken, 1966), pp. 29–30; Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), pp. 101–102.
Leviticus 2:14–16 specifies that an offering of first fruits is only one category of acceptable grain offerings.
See Saul Levin, “The More Savory Offering: A Key to the Problem of Gen 4:3–5, ” Journal of Biblical Literature (1979), p. 85.
Origen, On First Principles, book 4, 2.9, transl. in Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church, ed. K. Froehlich (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), p. 62.
See the discussion by James Barr, “The Literal, the Allegorical, and Modern Biblical Scholarship,” JSOT 44 (1989), pp. 3–17.
So, with variations, Herman Gunkel, Genesis übersetzt und erklärt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 3rd ed., 1910), pp. 47–49, and The Folktale in the Old Testament (Sheffield, UK: Almond, 1987), pp. 150–151; Walther Zimmerli, 1 Mose 1–11: Urgeschichte (Zurich: Theologischer, 3rd ed., 1967), p. 210; Speiser, Genesis, p. 31.
See, for example, the critical remarks of John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2nd ed., 1930), pp. 112–114; Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), pp. 282–284.
See the critical remarks of Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, pp. 111–115; and Cassuto, A Commentary, pp. 179–183.
Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, rev. ed., 1972) p. 104; see similar comments by Zimmerli, 1 Mose 1–11, p. 212.
A notable exception is Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), pp. 56–57.
See, for example, the critical discussions in Philip Rieff, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 281–328; Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1970), pp. 230–259, 531–551; and James S. Preus, Explaining Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to Freud (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1987), pp. 178–204.
Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg, The Book of J (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990), pp. 305–306.
Genesis 18:17–33; Exodus 32:9–14. See the fine discussion by David Noel Freedman, “Who Asks (or Tells) God to Repent?” BR 01:04.