“The Book of the Covenant: a Literary Approach” Review
Summary
This book was the best, most-boring book I think I’ve ever read. Dr. Joe Sprinkle is a professor Johnson University, and an expert in OT law. In this book, published in 1994 (yes, I’m very late to the party), he attempts to argue for a literary approach to the Bible, juxtaposing it with source criticism. Simply defined, textual criticism is the broader umbrella under which all other fields of textual scholarship fall under. The goal of textual criticism is to determine what the original text said, with Christians specifically using that to try and determine the meaning of the text. Source criticism wants to know the source of where the text came from, and will look for any clues that identify when it was written, and by whom. Often this is done by noticing any disruptions to the flow of thought or pattern of the text.
Sprinkle argues for a literary approach, simply working under the assumption that it was written with an order and logic in mind. He applies this methodology to the ‘Book of the Covenant’, the name often given to the legal passages in Ex. 20:22–23:33. He breaks the passage into smaller sections, and explains the passage using his method, simply asking the reader to determine for themselves if this approach might solve a lot of the so-called issues that source critics find. At the end, he summarizes his findings and explains where a literary approach falls short in interpretation, but also pointing to the problems it solves.
Review
The problem with source criticism, Sprinkle convincingly argues, is that so much of it is hypothetical and is often applied unfairly. If a passage and its ordering doesn’t make sense to a scholar today, text critics assume it must have been added in some time later by some editor, and will then research what developments in the future perhaps caused the reason for the edit. But is that justified? Scholars are trying their best with the information they have, but in what other field would such conjecture fly and pass as scholarship and discovery?
Joe Sprinkle is a hero, because without being rude or dismissive towards source criticism, he subtly undermines the process for the entire field by providing a methodology that engages with the text, and provides answers from the text. No guesswork, just research and carefully thought out interpretations from the text.
Subtler still, he challenges scholars who too quickly allow concepts of genre to create too narrow of a lens in which to observe the text. Sprinkle argues that the legal “codes” provided there in Ex. 20–23 are only loosely so. If they were strict legal codes, why are so many important details missing? For example, Ex.21:28–36, there is a series of laws about oxes goring people, other animals, etc., and what the punishments for each instance should be. However, notably missing are any details on who is to carry out the sentence, by whom they will be judged, or any other details of the proceedings. Strictly speaking, this falls well short of a full legal code. Sprinkle suggests that perhaps this is because what is really meant to be understood is more religious and theological. It is after all, a religious text.
Here’s the bottom line: Source criticism is largely built on condescension. That may sound harsh, but it stems from a belief that if a particular order or logic in a text doesn’t make sense to us, then it “clearly” must have been foreign to the original text. It assumes an intellectual superiority, and then prosecutes the text for it (e.g. Ex.20:22–26, where there is talk about altars with an ‘interruption’ about the Lord’s presence in vs.24; most scholars just assume this must be new). Worse still, is that it has to create support to back up these claims, but such claims can almost never be substantially supported. In almost all cases, the best thing a source critic can do is to point to a logical reason as to why someone may have edited the text later. It can be plausible, sometimes even probable, but almost never for certain.
Literary criticism, however, assumes that the people writing the text, knew what they were doing. Even staying open to possible edits, it assumes that someone taking on such an enormously weighty task would be thoughtful in doing so, not careless, as so many text critics seem to assume. This approach has a posture of humility, seeking to understand what the original writer(s) had in mind, seeking to learn from them. By following this methodology, the text seems far more organized than it typically gets credit for.
Final Verdict
I was only about 20 pages in before I nearly stopped reading this book. Dr. Sprinkle provides a methodology that I have long taken for granted, providing a very boring but necessary contribution to the textual criticism field. He provides many details, and I think whatever his critics assail him with, can really only target specific claims, missing the overall structure. It is a great shame that this book came out in 1994, because clearly it did not create the seismic shift in source criticism that it should have. If this had been written more recently, perhaps there would be hope of some change for the better for biblical scholarship! This is not a fun read, and it will serve no good to most believers. However, for pastors, Christian scholars or leaders, this gives a very helpful look into the applications of text criticism, and provides some defense against it. For those, I highly recommend this book.
