The Doyen of DtrH: Thomas Römer

Introduction

In three previous posts on the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), we’ve covered (1) two milestones in the history of scholarship (here), i.e. Martin Noth and Frank Moore Cross, (2) subsequent advancements by the Göttingen School and Neo-Nothians (here), including Rudolf Smend, Walter Dietrich, Timo Veijola, John Van Seters, and Steven L. McKenzie, and (3) five further developments (here), namely Richard Nelson, Norbert Lohfink, Moshe Weinfeld, Bernard Levinson, and Gary Knoppers. In this post, the last in our history of scholarship, we consider the career and scholarship of Thomas Römer who has rightly been called the doyen of Deuteronomistic scholarship.

Biographical Sketch

Thomas C. Römer (b. 1955) is a German-born Swiss philologist and biblical scholar. He studied at the Universities of Heidelberg, Tübingen, as well as several institutes in Paris (École pratique des hautes études; Institut catholique de Paris, and the Faculté de théologie protestante de Paris). Römer went on to receive a PhD at the University of Geneva under Prof. Albert de Pury followed by several teaching and faculty appointments, including at the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne, and especially the Collège de France.

While at Heidelberg, Römer studied with Rolf Rendtorff (1925-2014), one of the most important German Pentateuchal scholars of the twentieth century (Rendtorff studied with Gerhard von Rad and Walther Zimmerli as well as worked alongside Claus Westermann). The work of Rendtorff ultimately influenced Römer’s doctoral thesis, called Israels Vater: Untersuchungen Zur Vaterthematik Im Deuteronomium Und in Der Deuteronomistischen Tradition (publ. 1990), but he completed it under Françoise Florentin-Smyth in Paris where he obtained his doctorate degree in 1988.

Römer’s publications are numerous, including some 25 monographs, many translated in several languages, more than 20 edited books, and some 350 scientific articles (numbers according to his CV). Notable mentions are The So-Called Deuteronomistic History (2005), Writing the Bible: Scribes, Scribalism and Script (2013, with Philip Davies), Aux origines de la Torah: Nouvelles rencontres, nouvelles perspectives (2019, with Israel Finkelstein), and other monographs dedicated to Moses and Jeremiah. His approach combines historical and literary criticism, close philological analysis, and archaeology to shed light on the texts of the Old Testament and the traditions standing behind them. In honor of his many contributions, Römer has been awarded many prizes, honors, and awards, including an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University (2015), elected “Académicien” at the prestigious Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in Paris (2016), Knight in the Order of the Legion of Honor (2019), Knight in the Order of Academic Palms (2021), and another honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Lyon (2022).

Contributions to DtrH Scholarship

This section reviews four publications by Römer (arranged chronologically) in order to outline his understanding of the compositional and redactional history of DtrH: (1) The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical, and Literary Introduction (2005); (2) “Book-Endings in Joshua and the Question of the So-Called Deuteronomistic History,” in Raising Up a Faithful Exegete: Essays in Honor of Richard D. Nelson (2010); (3) “The So-called Deuteronomistic History and Its Theories of Composition,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible (2020); and (4) “Theories of Composition of the Books of Kings,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Books of Kings (2024).

Römer 2005 (paperback 2007): In this book, Römer provides a monograph-length treatment on DtrH, including an overview of its content (ch. 1), a survey of past research (ch. 2), DtrH from the Assyrian to the Persian period (ch. 3), Deuteronomistic editing in the Assyrian period as a means of royal propaganda (ch. 4), the constitution of the Deuteronomistic history in the Neo-Babylonian period (ch. 5), and editing DtrH during the Persian period (ch. 6). First, the content of DtrH is well-known (Deuteronomy-Kings), providing a coherent literary narrative about the history of Israel-Judah from Moses through the monarchy: “This summary of contents shows that in spite of the very different themes and materials which are collected and assembled in Deuteronomy to Kings, these books are nevertheless linked by a chronological principle: from the Mosaic origins to the end of Judah” (p. 11). Second, Römer’s history of research proceeds in several stages: the discovery of Deuteronomism (de Wette; Colenso); the elaboration of the idea of Deuteronomistic editors (Ewald; Wellhausen); the creation of DtrH under Martin Noth; first reactions to Noth’s model (Jepsen; Engnell); major modifications and critics (double redaction: Cross and Nelson; multiple exilic redactions: Smend and Dietrich; Neo-Nothians: Van Seters and McKenzie); criticisms of DtrH (Westermann; Würthwein; Auld; Knauf; Rösel); and the present state of discussion (and the need for compromise). Third, Römer addresses three related issues: (1) the identity of the Deuteronomists; (2) the foundation myth of the Deuteronomistic school; and (3) different viewpoints on centralization and their correlation to the multiple redactions of DtrH. Specifically, Römer lays out his view that Deuteronomistic editing was the result of a Deuteronomistic “school” which, over the course of four centuries, created three primary versions of DtrH, each evolving with successive socio-political events in the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian periods respectively. The next three chapters (ch. 4-6) cover each of these phases of redaction in further depth.

Römer 2010: In this chapter, Römer argues that the several “concluding texts” throughout the book of Joshua are evidence of the multiple phases of the redaction of the book. These texts include Josh 10:42; 11:23; 18:1; 21:43-45; and both speeches in 23 and 24. The first (Josh 10:42) and last two (Josh 23-24) are perhaps the most significant. On the one hand, the first text concludes the oldest core of the Joshua narrative, namely the conquest account. On the other hand, Josh 23 contains two Deuteronomistic endings when it was incorporated into DtrH, while Josh 24 was an even later conclusion that was added to the nascent Torah (on the chronology of the redaction of the Tetrateuch and DtrH, see the end of Römer 2020 below).

Römer 2020: In this chapter, Römer examines the theories of the composition of DtrH from Noth to Cross to Smend and Römer himself. The first eight sections focus on the history of scholarship while the last two outline Römer’s own view which can be summarized as follows: “This article will try to show that the best approach to Noth’s theory is to combine the models of Cross and Smend. Instead of a Deuteronomistic History, one should better speak of a ‘Deuteronomistic library’ which was compiled in three stages in the seventh century BCE, during the Babylonian exile, and in the first decades of the Persian period” (excerpt from the abstract). The history of scholarship proceeds in eight sections: (1) the prehistory of the theory of DtrH including Kuenen, Wellhausen, Colenso, de Wette, Ewald, and Noth’s teacher Albrecht Alt; (2) Noth’s invention of DtrH on the basis of evidence that DtrH is a coherent literary unit;[1] (3) the initial reception of Noth’s theory including Jepsen’s redactional layers of Kings, von Rad’s hopeful Deuteronomist, and Wolff’s Deuteronomistic “circle”; (4) the two major modifications to Noth’s theory, namely Cross’s double (Josianic and exilic) redaction and Smend et al.’s multiple (exilic and post-exilic) strata, including Eissfeldt, Smend, and Veijola; (5) Noth’s single redaction model maintained, including Van Seters’s Deuteronomistic author-historian (not Redaktor-editor) and McKenzie; (6) the question of Deuteronomistic editing in the Tetrateuch (e.g. Erhard Blum and Rainer Albertz); (7) the dissolution of the coherence of DtrH, including the inflation of various sigla and layers, among them Deuteronomistische Landeroberungserzählung (DtrL), Überarbeiter (DtrÜ), Nomist (DtrN), late/spät Dtr (DtrS), and a bundestheologischer Deuteronomist (DtrB); and (8) the rejection (or suppression) of DtrH by Knauf, Noll, and to a lesser extent Würthwein, Auld, and Aurelius. As mentioned, the final two sections outline Römer’s own eclectic view. In section nine, Römer argues for a three-fold edition of the Deuteronomistic library: “the deuteronomistic collection was edited and elaborated for at least a century, and there is evidence that enables us to distinguish three major strata of redaction: a first edition under Josiah, a new edition during the Babylonian period (when the book of Judges and probably also the book of Jeremiah were added into the deuteronomistic library), and finally a last revision in the early Persian period before the Deuteronomistic History was broken up and the book of Deuteronomy became the final book of the Pentateuch” (p. 314). Ultimately, around 400-350 BCE, the Pentateuchal editors constructed the Pentateuch as a biography of Moses from his birth (Exod 2) to his death (Deut 34), at which point they appended the Deuteronomistic history to the Tetrateuchal one, which was subsequently reinterpreted as a Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) and section of former prophets (Joshua-Kings). “The Deuteronomistic History had disappeared—until it was rediscovered by Martin Noth” (p. 317). If this is true, then Martin Noth is simply one of the most brilliant Old Testament scholars in the history of scholarship.

[1] On Noth’s original view: “In constructing his history, the Deuteronomist acted like an ‘honest broker’ (p. 128) and did not alter the older traditions he incorporated, even if their ideology did not t his own ideas… The Deuteronomist was, according to Noth, an independent author, who was not commissioned by any particular individual or group (p. 145). He possibly wrote in Palestine, perhaps in Mizpah, the place where the Babylonians established the governor of the land. He was therefore ‘one of those who stayed in the land’” (p. 306).

Römer 2024: In this chapter, Römer examines the composition and redactional history of the Books of Kings, situating them within the broader DtrH and highlighting their complex editorial development. He proceeds in nine sections: (1) The Books of Kings, Their Structure, and Their Relationship with the Books of Samuel, the “Enneateuch” and the Prophets; (2) The Question of the Author(s) of Kings; (3) The Complexity of Kings; (4) The Composition of the Books of Kings in Recent Research; (5) The Different Stages of the Composition of the Books of Kings; (6) The Sources; (7) The First Edition of the Book of Kings in the Seventh Century BCE; (8) The “Exilic” and “Postexilic” Revisions of Kings in the Sixth Century BCE; and (9) Revisions of Kings in the Middle and Late Persian Period. In the first section, Römer discusses how the two books of Kings were originally a single book meant to be read in succession with Samuel as a unified history of the Israelite monarchy. Kings can be divided into three sections: (1) The reign of Solomon and the united monarchy (1 Kgs 1-11); (2) The two kingdoms of Israel and Judah until the fall of Samaria (1 Kgs 12 – 2 Kgs 17); and (3) The kingdom of Judah until the fall of Jerusalem and the exile (2 Kgs 18-25). Second, although the Babylonian Talmud first suggested that Jeremiah was the author of Kings, Römer shows that the concept of an individual, independent author is anachronistic and didn’t exist in the ANE before Hellenistic times. Third, Kings is a complex composition because, in fact, it’s a pastiche of different literary genres such as long construction reports (1 Kgs 5-8), chronicles about kings, and stories of prophets (e.g. 1 Kgs 18-20 with close parallels to Isa 36-39). Fourth, the study of the composition of Kings has a long history dating back at least to Spinoza who attributed the redaction of Kings to the end of the Enneateuch. Römer summarizes the history of research covering Spinoza, Simon, Graf, De Wette, Ewald, Wellhausen, Benzinger, Jepsen, Noth, Cross, Smend, and Würthwein, but ironically, he doesn’t move much beyond that in his survey of “recent research” (i.e., the last 50 years). Nevertheless, he makes a key observation about his own view in this section: “The best model to explain all of these observations is to imagine the so-called Deuteronomistic History as a library that started in the Assyrian period, perhaps already under Hezekiah and continued under Josiah… The first edition of Samuel and Kings may have taken place during this time in order to present Josiah as a new David. This Deuteronomistic library in the Jerusalem temple was composed by several unrelated scrolls” (p. 106). Fifth, the conclusion from the previous section is that the Book of Kings is the result of a compositional process that took place in multiple stages and included materials from both the northern and southern kingdoms, perhaps dating as early as the ninth century BCE up through the Persian period. Given the constant expansions and reshaping of events, however, it is in general methodologically impossible to reconstruct the precise word for word sources or redactional layers that pre-existed the current Book of Kings. What are these sources? He lists them in the sixth section, including the synchronic chronicle and annals, sources about Solomon, and prophetic tales about Elisha and Elijah. Seventh, according to Römer, the first “edition” of the Book of Kings appeared in the seventh century BCE, which is “best explained as a propaganda work for Josiah’s cultic and monolatric reform and an explanation for the fall of the northern kingdom” (p. 114). The final two sections cover the two major revisions of Kings during the sixth century BCE (one exilic, one post-exilic), as well as subsequent minor revisions in the Middle and Late Persian Period. Ultimately, “The important textual differences between the MT and different Greek recensions attest a history of transmission and edition that continued until the late Hellenistic period” (p. 118).

Conclusion

In conclusion, it’s clear that the field has come a long way since Noth first proposed a unified exilic redaction of DtrH in 1943. Römer’s substantial contributions, especially his innovative model of a Deuteronomistic library shaped over three successive socio-political/historical periods, offers a compelling framework for understanding the complex compositional and redactional history of these texts. Römer continues to provide fresh insights into the composition and redaction of DtrH, which rightfully earn him the status of the current doyen of Deuteronomistic scholarship.

In our final two posts in this series on DtrH, we’ll consider four types of arguments supporting a comprehensive DtrH (linguistic/stylistic, historical, theological, and literary/form-critical) as well as an overview of the key texts of relevance from each book (Deuteronomy-Kings).

Additional Bibliography

Römer, Thomas C., “Deuteronomy in Search of Origins.” In Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deuteronomistic History. Edited by Gary N. Knoppers and J. Gordon McConville. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2000.

________, ed. The Future of the Deuteronomistic History. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium 147. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2000.

________, and A. de Pury. “The Deuteronomistic History (DH): History of Research and Debated Issues.” In Israel Constructs Its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research. Translated by J. Edward Crowley. Edited by Albert de Pury, Thomas Römer, and Jean-Daniel Macchi, 24–143. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 306. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.

About The Author

Matthew Saunders

Matthew Saunders is a PhD student in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He researches the languages and literatures of the ancient Near East, especially Aramaic Studies, Ugaritic Studies, and Comparative Semitics.

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