Juha Pakkala has a fine article in the latest ZAW outlining his ten reasons why Urdeuteronomium – the earliest edition of the book of Deuteronomy – dates later than Josiah and the Judean Kingdom, that is after 586 BCE. In fact, his reasons point to a period no earlier than the 300s BCE.
It’s a splendid thing having exactly ten reasons: everyone likes such a fine round number. Do have a read of the article, if you are interested in his more detailed reasoning. But here is a quick run-down of the Pakkala’s ten reasons for dating the earliest edition of Deuteronomy after 586 BCE:
1. The monarch plays no role in the Urdeuteronomium, which would be “exceptional” for any lawcode expected to be enforced (as apparently narrated in 2 Kings 22-23).
2. Connected with (1), the laws do not imply “any state infrastructure and organization”, but instead “are written as if the author were implying a stateless religious community.”
3. There are no references to Judah in Urdeuteronomium, and in fact the status of Judah is challenged by the reference to “Israel”, by which is meant “a religious community rather than… the inhabitants of a state”.
4. There is no reference to the Temple in any core law of the Urdeuteronomium, even though many of the laws are concerned with the centralization of the sacrificial cult – suggesting that the context was one in which “there was no temple” and the author “was not sure if there ever would be one”.
5. Connected with (4), there is no reference to Jerusalem, the reference to “this place” in Deut 12 suggesting a context “when the future of Jerusalem as a center of the cult would have been uncertain” leading the author “to use a more vague formulation and leave many options open.”
6. Connected with (4) and (5), the “place” of Deut 12 is vaguely connected with “one of your tribes”, such vagueness being unlikely “if the setting was the kingdom of Judah during monarchic times.” Furthermore, the reference to 12 tribes, as pointed out by many scholars, likely reflects a later development.
7. The implementation of the law is set in a time in the future, using the imperfect (Deut 12.14) and referring to “the place that Yahweh will choose”. But this future timeframe, within the Urdeuteronomium (which does not yet have the Mosaic context of the final form of Deuteronomy), does not suit the kingdom of Josiah . Furthermore, the very setting of this temple foundation myth – in the middle of the desert, rather than at the temple – reflects a non-monarchic setting.
8. The shem (name) theology in Deut 12.21, the core idea of which is that Yahweh’s name rather than physical presence or cult image (ark) dwells in the temple, “points to a situation where the temple had ceased to be the actual dwelling place of Yahweh, his cult image or his Presence”.
9. The external evidence indicates that there was no cult centralization at Jerusalem at least before 400 BCE. The Elephantine papyri shows that the Egyptian Jewish community was unaware of cult centralization and that their requests of the governors of Jerusalem and Samaria to build a temple at Elephantine (ca 407 BCE) and to sacrifice on the altar were asked without any such awareness, and were approved without the issue being raised. “This suggests that even as late as the late fifth century BCE the political elite in Jerusalem and Samaria was not influenced, restricted or even aware of a prohibition to sacrifice outside Jerusalem (or Mt. Gerizim),” contrary to Deut 12. Furthermore, the so-called Passover Letter (ca 419 BCE) provides instructions for celebrating Passover at Elephantine that appear to contradict Deut 16.
10. The laws of Urdeuteronomium are not realistic, but idealistic laws that were unlikely ever to have been followed. The laws suit the ideals of a community “visioning a new society should the state be reestablished.” In particular, the idea that the people had to attend Jerusalem for sacrifice (Deut 12.13-14) and offer a whole tenth of the agricultural products and livestock (14.22-26) are “completely unrealistic”.
Juha Pakkala, ‘The Date of the Oldest Edition of Deuteronomy.’ Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 121.3 (Sep 2009): 388–401.
Here is Juha!
The Dunedin School 
Instead of moving forward to the Hellenistic times, why not move back to the Late Bronze Age period?
I don’t know of any good reason to do so (and the idea of Hittite parallels is a poor argument).
But even the stories in Kings and Chronicles treat the centralization and central Passover of Deut 12 & 16 as newly discovered laws, of which Josiah (/Hezekiah) and all the priests had been ignorant. This contrasts with the parallel laws in Exodus/Leviticus (also, allegedly, by ‘Moses’), which stipulate the celebration of Passover must be carred out in every home. The centralization innovation is an embarassment in these texts. This is a strong argument for not dating it earlier than Josiah.
“the so-called Passover Letter provides instructions …that appear to contradict Deut 16”
That’s interesting. I am unable to load the full essay by Pakkala. Got anymore on this?
just throwing out a bit of a thought experiment;
IF the deuteronomic text was written prior to the construction of the first temple in Jerusalem (i realise this is not agreed with, I’m just playing with scenarios here) AND Dt. 16 was a reference to the ark or tabernacle (i.e. that the “name” thing was synonymous with presence) then the elephantine letters seem to indicate (or perhaps even provide proof that) that the Jewish god could be sacrificed to at more than one place (i.e. wherever they built their specific kind of temple) and not just Jerusalem, and that this is how they generally interpreted the deuteronomic text. The idea that Jerusalem could be the only place for sacrifices might have been a later, reinterpretation of the text, or simly a matter of logistics, as no other temple complex’s existed. After all, the text doesn;t specifically state Jerusalem as the only place. . .
#9 doesn’t necessarily indicate that Urdeuteronomium didn’t yet exist, only that certain Yahwistic authority figures were not Deuteronomists. Some version of Deuteronomy could exist without being authoritative.
(This observation does not, of course, impugn the overall argument.)
Yes, none of these arguments are decisive, and they all require making quite a bit (assumptions, generalisations) out of some very limited evidence.
The contrary-to-final-Torah nature of cultic practice reflected in the Elephantine correspondence could also be linked to the witnesses of the fragmentary Greek historians (e.g. Hecataeus of Abdera), but again, the problem is a lack of and poor quality of evidence.
But it’s easy to make negative arguments, and as you imply, the overall positive argument Pakkala presents (of a post-586 original Deut) is coherent and I think more persuasive than the Josian or pre-Josian theories.
For me, 9 is probably the most compelling argument, along with 5. This is a text that will be sacred for Samaritans too and so if it was crafted in the reign of Josiah then I thin there would have to be more explicit references to Jerusalem. Also Qumran versions of Deuteronomy (c.f. Deut 32: 8-9) seem to accord with a non-unitarian monotheism that probably derives from a polytheistic base which for me would fit a period such as the Persian or early Hellenistic period when the religion of the old royal cults was being reconstructed to fit a time without kings.
For get Deuteronomy. Just look at that Persian garden at the beginning of Genesis, not to mention that Persian loanword pardes.
When exactly did Ezra live again?
Did Ezra live?
Stephan, your comment seems oddly tangential to me. Pakkala’s whole point is about the dating of Deuteronomy. Your point about the garden in Genesis 2 is interesting with regard that text, but has nothing to do with the composition of Urdeuteronomium. And פרדס appears only in Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Nehemiah—again, irrelevant to Pakkala’s thesis.
How is the discovery of the book of the law by Josiah explained by this theory?
My answer to your question, Ralph, is that it’s fiction.
Ralph – Juan Pakkala’s answer in his article (and his is a summary of much Continental especially Scandanavian scholarship) is along the same lines as Michael’s. Pakkala finds nothing in Urdeuteronomium to connect that work to the background of Josiah’s reign which is described in 2 Kings 22-23 (p. 391). He also notes that 2 King 22-23, especially chapter 23, “is one of the most edited texts in the entire Hebrew Bible and should not be used as a basis for any broadr theory” (390) and because of this problem with the sources, “it is very difficult to say much that is historically reliable about Judah during the reign of King Josiah” (391).
Of course, in the final fiction, the legal reforms of the “final form” of 2 Kings are very much in line with the legal interests of the “final form” of Deuteronomy.
but there probably is a little to say that is historically ‘religable’ about Josiah, don’t you think? ;-)
That’s religulous.
Ok. I got rid of the g.
Dates are much like the fashion in jeans – they either go up or down, mostly for no good reason.
Yes, I know what Pakkala is trying to say but if the whole Torah was written in a later period then his argument is strengthened n’est pas? BTW many of his points were already observed by Nietzsche in the nineteenth century. The Samaritans also point to an absence of any reference to Jerusalem in Genesis. Salem is understood to be located in northern Israel.
In the rabbinic writings there is a reflection of the idea that Deuteronomy was a separate composition, not written by God but composed ONLY on the authority of Moses.
BTW Nietzsche observed these same things generations ago. I forget where (it’s been decades since I read anything by him). But he made the same observations to prove the falseness of the history.
No, the date of the composition of Genesis has no bearing on the date of the composition of Ur-Deuteronomy, unless one supposes that these books were written at the same time as each other, or if one can show that Ur-Deuteronomy shows an awareness of Genesis—never mind that the whole point of speaking of Ur-Deuteronomy at all is that the individual books themselves, much less the collection, weren’t even written as wholes in singular events of composition. The very phrase “the whole Torah was written” implies that the Torah was written as a whole, which is contrary both to Pakkala’s thesis and to virtually all scholarly judgment since the middle 1700s. Dating the composition or completion of Genesis to the Persian era has no obvious bearing on whether Ur-Deuteronomy was composed or completed during the Persian era.
I say “obvious” to hedge my bets just a little. If one could show that Ur-Deuteronomy depended literarily on a form of Exodus that already presupposed the Joseph narrative, one might be able to chain out a series of links that would require some form of Genesis to predate Ur-Deuteronomy. But then one would need to reconstruct that form of Genesis and argue persuasively for its date, and so on.
And by the way, why use Persian royal gardens as the analogy for Eden rather than Assyrian royal gardens? I am entirely sympathetic with dating the composition, or at least completion, of Genesis in the Persian era, but analogies can’t be made slapdash.
The reason why the Persian origins for the Genesis story are to be believed is because it is called Pardes – one of a number of Persian loanwords in the Torah.
The fact that Samaritans, Mandaeans, pagans, Christians and Muslims all have a version of the story that Ezra was the author of the text – and the fact that the author describes Moses’ death – in my mind confirms the original evidence.
I am sorry to crash into this party. This is very interesting. It is deserves to be examined. I just can’t believe that it should be in anyway controversial that the text was established in the Persian period or later.
There is already an intimation among some sources in the rabbinic literature that Deuteronomy was a separate work from the Torah. If the Torah was written in the Persian period, it only strengthens the argument that Deuteronomy was later or in the same period.
There are many ways to get from New York to Boston. Sorry for taking the plane …
Stephan, the word פרדס does not appear in the Torah. Eden is called a גן in Genesis. I have no objection to dating the completion of Genesis, and even the composition of all or part thereof, in the Persian era. I specifically argued in favor of that view in my 2001 book on the Abraham stories. But dating books to the right time frame for poor reasons isn’t helpful.
if you will read the article of Israeli archaeologist Yitzhak Magen “The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in light of the Archaeological Evidence”http://books.google.com.ua/books?id=6NsxZRnxE70C&lpg=PP1&hl=uk&pg=PA157&output=embed” you will find the answers where and why Deuteronomy was written.