Talk:Umberto Cassuto

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The following text is from the Encyclopedia Judaica article on Cassuto:

While he appreciated the scholarly basis of Higher Criticism, he was an opponent of the Graf-Wellhausen theories (see below). In place of the documentary theory, he posited the existence of an oral tradition and a number of ancient poetic epics, which were subsequently woven into the unitary and artistic texts of the Pentateuch and other biblical books. His expositions focused on the existing text, analyzing its spiritual and ethical teachings, pointing out its literary devices, and discussing its exegetical problems, on which he brought to bear comparative literary and linguistic material whenever possible. In addition, his Ugaritic studies throw considerable light on the literary structure and vocabulary of the Bible.

...Among his books on biblical research are: a critique of the documentary hypothesis of the composition of Genesis in Italian (La questione della Genesi, 1934); and in Hebrew (Perush al Sefer Bereshit, 2 vols., 1944–49; English: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, 2 vols., 1961–64)...

[edit] The Documentary Hypothesis

Rather than rely on a secondary source, I read parts of Cassuto's commentary on Genesis. The Documentary Hypothesis, by definition, asserts that someone (known as the Redactor) took several documents covering similar subjects and edited them together. Thus Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are two different accounts of the creation that allegedly were edited together in this way.

Cassuto did not accept the Fundamentalist position that the Pentateuch as we have it was written by Moses and has never been substantially modified. He seems to believe that different parts had different authors. However, equally he rejected the idea of documents edited together. He argued very strongly that Genesis 1 and 2 were by the same hand. Thus it is misleading to deny that he rejected the Documentary Hypothesis.

I'm not following you. You say that he believes that "different parts had different editors", yet you also say that "he rejects the idea of documents edited together." Are these not contradictory statements? Please clarify. RK 00:48, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

I dodn't say "different editors"; I said "different authors". What I mean is that according to Wellhausen and his successors, there were originally two accounts of say the Flood, which the Redactor skillfully wove together to make one account. Cassuto denies this, saying that the editor of the torah only had one account of the Flood, which he presumably used with little if any revision. The Wellhausen school scour the text for inconsistencies, and use these to "prove" that there were two sources. Cassuto rejected this philosophy and produced arguments for the essential unity of each story.

Don't mean to butt in but the thing about Cassuto is he gets attacked from both sides. Fundamentalists disapprove of his denial of the literal Mosaic authorship of the Torah. I suspect Jewish fundamentalists are doubly outraged that an orthodox Rabbi should do so. Dogmatic followers of Wellhausen don't like his strong arguments against the existence of JEPD. Haven't read Wenham's commentary but it's nice to see some modern scholars are in the middle on this.

Just edited the Cassuuto-on-Wellhausen section to maake it tighter. But no need to alter anything - the thrust and assessment are right. Cassuuto had the misfortune to be ahead of his time; if he were arund today he'd be mainstream. The DH, by the way, is one of a number of models for looking at the origins of the Torah - Wellhausen and Moses aren't the only alternatives.PiCo 16:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cassuto and the text of the Hebrew Bible

"His research showed that the printed Bibles generally have an accurate text...where he differs from other Bibles in any of these respects, it is likely that Cassuto has better authority."

This seems like quite an extraordinary claim - that a scholar, working alone, would have better authority than the various groups of scholars who have produced the other translations. They would surely have the benefit of differing viewpoints that could be thoughtfully considered - he would have no one to be accountable to but himself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.138.89.235 (talk) 21:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)