Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 70:1 (NA 2019)
Article: Sacrifice And Centralisation In The Pentateuch Is Exodus 20:24–26 Really At Odds With Deuteronomy?
Author: Benjamin Foreman

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Sacrifice And Centralisation In The Pentateuch
Is Exodus 20:24–26 Really At Odds With Deuteronomy?

Benjamin Foreman

([email protected])

Summary

Many scholars believe Exodus 20:24–26 and Deuteronomy 12:1–28 present contradictory regulations on how and where to sacrifice. Exodus 20:24–26 seems to imply that sacrificial altars can be built at any location throughout the country, while Deuteronomy appears to prohibit all sacrifice outside of the central place of worship. Scholars have dealt with this discrepancy in various ways. In this paper I show how none of these explanations hold up to closer scrutiny and argue that both texts simply address different types of sacrifices permitted in ancient Israel.

1. Introduction

One of the long-standing questions readers of the Pentateuch have had to address is how to interpret the seemingly contradictory viewpoints on sacrifice in Exodus 20:24–26 and Deuteronomy 12:1–28.1 Indeed, when these texts are read side by side, the distance between them seems striking: Exodus 20:24–26 appears to authorise sacrifice at local altars throughout the country, whereas Deuteronomy 12:1–28 apparently restricts all sacrifice to the central sanctuary.

Since Wellhausen, the standard historical-critical explanation has been that these texts belong to separate sources, each containing its

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own law collection,2 each stemming from a different period in Israel’s history. Exodus 20:24–26, according to Wellhausen, belongs to the tenth-century BC ‘J’ source. It permits sacrifice at multiple venues because at this stage in Israel’s history ‘The restriction of worship to a single selected place was unknown to any one even as a pious desire.’3 The Deuteronomic law code (‘D’), in Wellhausen’s view, was produced in the seventh century BC, developed out of J, and overturned some of its laws. The biggest innovation in D was the centralisation of Israel’s worship to one location. The seemingly contradictory views on sacrifice and centralisation in the respective sources was a key plank in Wellhausen’s view that J, E,...