RBL 02/2013 Roskop, Angela R. The Wilderness Itineraries: Genre, Geography, and the Growth of Torah History, Archaeology, and Culture of the Levant 3 Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2011. Pp. xvi + 311. Hardcover. $49.50. ISBN 9781575062129. Nathan MacDonald University of Cambridge Cambridge, United Kingdom For many biblical readers, the Pentateuch s itinerary notices do not appeal as fertile ground for understanding the literary goals and creative instincts of Jewish scribes. In The Wilderness Itineraries Angela Roskop convincingly demonstrates how these geographical snippets can provide a lens onto the purposes of the Torah s revisers. This is finely focused work but with larger interpretative issues never out of sight. It is an engaging piece of writing, rarely betraying its origins as a doctoral thesis under David Aaron and Samuel Greengus. In a book about itineraries, it is a little ironic that Roskop eschews offering her readers a roadmap for what is to come. Though introductions can be rather prosaic affairs, they do offer readers (and reviewers!) certain advantages, and this reader was never quite sure what was coming around the next corner (though he was rarely other than pleasantly surprised!). In broad terms Roskop s book has three main sections. The first two chapters offer methodological reflections that set the stage for the substance of the study. The following two chapters are concerned with ancient Near Eastern itineraries, while the last three chapters tackle various issues related to the pentateuchal itineraries.
In the first of the introductory chapters (1 13) Roskop tackles the problem of genre in relation to Torah. She rightly addresses the issue of verisimilitude. Rather than being simply historiographical, the Torah is generative: it forms a community. With this purpose, scribes not only utilized familiar genres but improvized on them. In the second chapter (14 49) Roskop develops her theory of reading, building especially on the work of Wolfgang Iser. Roskop is particular taken by Iser s idea of repertoire, the various elements of culture that help the reader construct meaning, which she brings together with a theory of blending, or conceptual integration. Such a theory can help in understanding the way that the wilderness narratives bring together numerous elements to become more than a reflection of its world of composition. Even details such as geographical locations or dates, which seem incidental to a text s purpose, shape the meaning of a text. To repertoire and blending, Roskop also introduces Hayden White s idea of emplotment. The wilderness narratives are not just repositories of historical data but have been given a narrative framework. Taken together this provides a theoretical undergirding for a quite different perspective on what have traditionally been called the redactors or editors of the Pentateuch. Far from being the artless compilers of the documentary theory (in its various guises, but most especially in its most recent incarnations), Roskop s scribes are creative writers. With the third and fourth chapters Roskop turns her attention to examples of itineraries from the ancient Near East. The approach in the third chapter (50 82) owes much to form criticism, whose categories Roskop uses in a sophisticated and effective manner. She reviews the evidence for the use of itineraries within the scribal curriculum in both Egypt and Assyria and argues that its use could be both military and commercial. The fourth chapter (83 135) shows how the itinerary genre was utilized in innovative ways, especially by Neo-Assyrian scribes. The itineraries were incorporated into Neo-Assyrian annals and became a vehicle for expressing a changing royal ideology. Kings were no longer builders and maintainers of the cult; they were also conquerors who brought order out of chaos. Thus, the accommodation of the itinerary form to new literary contexts was nothing new when the Jewish scribes began to deploy it in the portrayal of Israel s sojourn in the wilderness. In the last three chapters Roskop brings her insights gained from the ancient Near East to pentateuchal texts. The fifth chapter (136 84) proposes reading the wilderness material as an Israelite annal. Roskop rejects understanding Num 33 as the original source of the itinerary, and she likewise rejects the pilgrimage model as the inspiration for the wilderness itinerary (contra Mark S. Smith and Martin Noth). Instead, the wilderness stories have been emplotted as a military campaign with Canaan as its goal; the Neo- Assyrian annals are the primary inspiration. Liturgical and cultic elements are secondarily folded into this emplotment in innovative ways through a process of blending.
In the sixth chapter (185 232) Roskop tackles the specific problems that arise from a critical examination of the biblical itineraries. Resuming her attack on the priority of Num 33, Roskop demonstrates how this proposal fails to explain the contradictory geographical information in the Torah. She then tackles five distinct problems. First, why do the Israelites attack Hormah though they have been sent back into the desert (Num 21:1 3)? Roskop argues that Num 21:1 3 may be the original conclusion of the Priestly writer s narrative. This has been marginalized by a scribe who made Hormah a site of defeat in Num 14 and sent Israel back south and around Edom so as to harmonize the exodus story with the Deuteronomistic tradition of an eastern entry into the land. Second, why is there a mix of itinerary forms in Num 21:10 20? Roskop thinks that the Priestly itinerary was extended to incorporate the Balaam material and to connect with Deuteronomy. She rightly observes that these verses shift the borders of Moab in order to make the north of Moab a legitimate Israelite conquest. Third, why is there a double arrival in the wilderness (Exod 13:20; 15:22a)? Roskop argues that this can be coordinated with different scribes sense of the main salvation event: the crossing of the sea or Pesah. Fourth, why is there a double arrival and double departure from Sinai? Against many others, Roskop argues that the wilderness of Sinai is earlier, and the mountain of Sinai was a later supplementation. Finally, what is the relationship of Num 33 to the wilderness itineraries? Against many earlier interpreters, including Davies and Noth, Roskop argues that Num 33 is a summary of the wilderness. Roskop demonstrates that in every case the solution to the interpretative difficulties is to be found not by appealing to the large-scale redaction of contradictory sources (say, J and P) but through a model of small-scale post- Priestly supplementation. With this perspective in view, it can be recognized that the changes to the biblical itineraries were exegetically and ideologically motivated. The scribal authors of the biblical text sought to integrate their innovative perspectives into an existing text, simultaneously creating a relatively coherent narrative, while also preserving traces of their activity. In chapter 7 Roskop returns to the issues of historicity and literarity by examining some of the specific locations mentioned in the Pentateuch: the Nile Delta, Yam Suf, Kadesh, and Mount Nebo. She rightly observes that the biblical writers were able to project a past that was coherent and history-like. They offer a vision for the future set in valorized rather than historical time (253). It is pleasing to see references to Hans Frei, who so perceptively put his finger on some of these dynamics. Roskop effectively tackles the arguments of those such as James K. Hoffmeier who want to insist that certain references to geographical locations conclusively prove a second-millennium date for the pentateuchal narratives. In a book that examines so many detailed interpretations, there is plenty to ponder. Roskop makes a convincing case for the value of the supplementary approach to
pentateuchal criticism and the importance of incorporating insights from innerbiblical interpretation. This places her work in quite a different methodological location from some other recent American pentateuchal scholarship. There are some important debates that need to take place, and although Roskop bypasses them here, she puts together the framework for a defence of a supplementary approach. In this respect it is unfortunate that Roskop s work fails to engage with recent European scholarship, including the extensive recent scholarship on Numbers by Achenbach, Seebass, Schmidt, and others. It feels somewhat churlish to draw attention to this omission, given Roskop s impressive integration of insights from the ancient Near East, contemporary work on genre, pentateuchal criticism, and innerbiblical interpretation, yet this omission is regrettable precisely because Roskop s own instincts in pentateuchal criticism toward a supplementary approach align her most obviously with many contemporary European interpreters. One senses, perhaps, that she has a familiarity with the current trends in Continental scholarship but has chosen not to enter into debates that would have markedly increased the length of her book. Nevertheless, I think she would, no doubt, have found plenty to disagree with, but much that would help undergird and sharpen her analysis. When the laments about the atrophying of academic interchange between Germanic and Anglo-American Old Testament scholarship have become a cliché, it is welcome to hear a fresh voice who could contribute much to any dialogue. I can only hope that her future work will allow her to take on this challenge. In a work that traverses such controversial territory and offers detailed interpretations of contested texts, there is much to think over, sometimes leading to agreement, but sometimes not. I think rather more could be said in favor of a pilgrimage to the land as an interpretative lens for the wilderness itineraries. Roskop appropriates Propp s objection that pilgrimage always entails going there and back, though this strikes me as rather too cavalier a dismissal. Texts such as Isa 2:1 5 and the Psalms of Ascent show no interest in the return journey; there seems no reason to expect anything different of the wilderness narratives. To my mind, equal weight needs to be given to the militaristic and sacerdotal language in Numbers. Nor am I certain that the interruption of the itinerary by the battle at Hormah ought to be used as evidence that Num 21:1 3 is an early tradition. It seems just as possible, as many have argued recently, that this is a postredactional insertion. Certainly the argument that this brief account is the conquest narrative for a Priestly version that ended in Numbers (p. 203) needs far more substantiation to be convincing. On what grounds should we assign this passage to a Priestly writer? In the discussion of this passage I also expected to see some discussion of the Deuteronomistic version of this material (Deut 1:44), even if Roskop were eventually to follow Lohfink in seeing Deuteronomy as dependent on Numbers at this point. Rather more discussion of Deuteronomy would also have been desirable in interpreting Num 21:10 20. Roskop
rightly observes that the itinerary in 21:12 13a reflects Deuteronomy s account of the march through Transjordan, but this is no more than a fleeting glimpse of what could be an important example of innerbiblical interpretation. Deuteronomy s portrayal of Israel passing through Transjordan (though notice the much-discussed use of min in Deut 2:8) deserves rather more of a role. Certainly parallel passages in Deuteronomy have been rather too easily set to one side. I also wonder whether Graham Davies s distinction between forward-looking and backward-looking itineraries, against which Roskop offers some insightful criticisms, might have some usefulness in explaining the different forms of the itineraries in 21:10 20. In other words, the listing of place names without verbs indicates that these places have not yet been reached, as is clear from the pericopes that follow in 21:21 35. Finally, while Roskop is right to think that 21:10 20 reflects a redrawing of Moab s border so as justify Israel s possession of former Moabite territory, this is only made explicit in Num 21:26, which Roskop does not mention. (Again, the whole perspective is colored by the Deuteronomistic theology of brother nations and the assigning of territory by YHWH). None of these quibbles should diminish the achievements of Roskop s work. Far from it! It is very much to the book s credit that it will provoke its readers to a careful engagement with the biblical text, and, thus, it would be quite inappropriate to end on anything less than a positive note. This is an excellent piece of work that bristles with insights. Its specific focus might lead some potential readers to pass over it, but if they do so, they will be missing an important work whose contribution to the discussion far surpasses its immediate focus. Tolle, lege!