David Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, pp. 11-12:
‘An important tendency in Pentateuchal studies--which it would be more exact to call an obsession--is toward ‘geneticism’. By that I mean the study of the origins and development of the extant biblical text.
‘An important tendency in Pentateuchal studies--which it would be more exact to call an obsession--is toward ‘geneticism’. By that I mean the study of the origins and development of the extant biblical text.
...A particular view of the nature of knowledge is implied by the genetic approach: that an object is best understood if its origins are uncovered, that a text is best interpreted if its sources can be reconstructed and its pre-history determined.
...Such an approach, however, may suit some studies better than others. When, as is the case in OT studies, the sources and pre-history of our present texts are for the most part entirely hypothetical,...
…and when, in any case, a work of art, such as a good deal of the OT undoubtedly is, yields its significance to the observer as a whole and through the articulation of its parts in its present form, one would have imagined a genetic approach would not be strongly favoured.
But it is, and it must indeed be confessed that many OT scholars know of no other way of doing research on the OT except along such lines.’
