Th e Pentateuch as Scripture and the Challenge of Biblical Criticism 227scholarship at large. Th ere are at least three reasons for this: Kaufmann’s
oeuvre is part of a comprehensive attempt to deal with Jewish national ex-
istence; thus, it is directed most naturally at a Jewish readership. In this
sense, Kaufmann’s work is a function of time and place: the early twentieth-
century Jewish cultural milieu. Second, and an outgrowth of the fi rst, Kauf-
mann wrote virtually all his scholarly studies in Hebrew; translations were
partial and appeared late and were confi ned to English until recently. Th ird,
Kaufmann dared to question the very fundamental assumptions of (mainly
German) biblical scholars without distancing himself from their methods.
It would not be an exaggeration to claim that by attacking them on their
own grounds, Kaufmann presented too formidable a challenge. Scholars
found it simpler to ignore than to respond.
Not surprisingly, Kaufmann’s infl uence has been felt primarily among
his Jewish successors, who make up a considerably large portion of Jew-
ish biblicists, living and deceased, in Israel and elsewhere. Constant refer-
ence to his work pervades all serious Pentateuchal scholarship produced by
Jews, be it exegetical-philological or historical-phenomenological. Whether
endorsed or challenged, he, not Wellhausen, is the starting point for aca-
demic Pentateuchal studies among Jewish biblical scholars. Jews are to be
found among the leading fi gures in biblical studies today, and their highly
disproportionate number among scholars dealing with the Torah literature
is a direct result of Kaufmann’s thorough and groundbreaking Pentateuchal
studies. It can be said that Kaufmann signaled Jewish scholars’ loss of inhi-
bition and fi nal surrender to scholarly method in studying the Pentateuch,
while at the same time maintaining the traditional Jewish refusal to accept
uncritically the consensus of Protestant scholarship. While Kaufmann may
have been widely ignored in person, this legacy of his has been of abid-
ing infl uence.
Notes- Bibliographic references are kept to a minimum in this chapter. For a fuller
bibliography, see the longer Italian version of this essay, “La critica del Pentateuco
nell’ebraismo e negli studiosi ebrai moderni,” in S. Sierra, ed., La lettura ebraica
delle Scritture, 433 – 63 (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1995). - On this notion in midrashic and kabbalistic literature, see note 5 in chapter
10 by Moshe Idel in this volume. - See especially Wellhausen’s Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel,
originally published in German in 1878. An English translation by J. Sutherland