Deuteronomy 12 and the Law of the Central Sanctuary noch einmal

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VetusTestamentum

Deuteronomy 12 and the Law of the Central Sanctuary noch einmal

Bill T. ArnoldPaul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, Asbury Theological Seminary, 204 North Lexington Avenue, Wilmore, KY 40390-1199, USA

[email protected]

Abstract

Critiques the recent attempt by Frederick E. Greenspahn to call into question the inter-pretation of Deut 12 as instituting cult centralization. The paper first considers Greenspahn’s argument that the definite article in the phrase “the place” at Deut 12:5 (and 12:14) is a generic article. The paper also critiques Greenspahn’s assumption that the theory of cult centralization is narrowly based upon a misreading of the definite article at Deut 12:5 (and 12:14). On the contrary, it is argued here that the theory is more broadly dependent on internal data of the chapter and external connections with other portions of the Pentateuch.

Keywords

Deuteronomy – centralization – Deut 12:5 – law of the central altar – Josiah

* * *

Recently in the pages of Vetus Testamentum, Frederick E. Greenspahn raised doubts once again about whether the book of Deuteronomy, and in particu-lar chapter 12, requires cult centralization.1 His conclusion, as stated in the abstract is quite clear.

1 Frederick E. Greenspahn, “Deuteronomy and Centralization,” Vetus Testamentum, forthcoming.

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Vetus Testamentum 64 (2014) 236-248

[T]he syntax of Deuteronomy 12 (especially verses 5 and 13-14) does not require that sacrifice be limited to a single place, though these verses may have come to be understood that way. As a result, the dating of other biblical books on the basis of their dependence on Deuteronomy or their awareness of cult centralization must be reconsidered.

Professor Greenspahn argues that the theory of the central sanctuary in Deuteronomy rests upon a mistaken reading of the definite article in “the place” (hammāqôm [12:5] and bammāqôm [12:14]) as “the sole basis for linking it to centralization.” In his assessment, this centralization error was the basis for the connection between Josiah’s reforms and the book of Deuteronomy as far back as W. M. L. de Wette in 1805. And further, this mistaken identifica-tion of Deuteronomy in whole or in part with the Josianic reforms became the benchmark for dating other Pentateuchal texts related to cultic practices. This in turn led to Wellhausen’s reconstruction of Israelite religion and his classic source-critical theories about the composition of the Pentateuch. Thus, Greenspahn contends that a better understanding of the definite article in “the place” (Deut 12:5,14) has “significant consequences for our understanding of both Josiah’s reform and the development of the pentateuchal documents.”

Seldom has a definite article carried so much weight. In fact, in this brief response, I call into question two assumptions at work in this argument. First, a consideration of Professor Greenspahn’s investigation of the definite article in “the place” as generic, and second, the assertion that cult centraliza-tion is based solely on a misreading of the definite article, which has led to so many other misreadings and false interpretations of the chapter. I cannot take up in this brief response the related question of whether Deuteronomy had influence in the Josianic reform (also discussed by Professor Greenspahn). Nor can this be the venue for exploring the implications of this investigation for the dating of other biblical books.2 In nuce, I hope to show that Professor Greenspahn’s effort is essentially a return to the challenges of Adam C. Welch

2 Deut 12 is also thought to have gone through a complicated diachronic development, with three separate portions each containing its own centralizing prescription (see below). This compositional history is indirectly supported by the Numeruswechsel long noted by scholars of the book; that is, change of direct address between 2nd person singular and 2nd person plural. See Horst Dietrich Preuss, Deuteronomium (EdF 164; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982), 51-52 and 113-14. In addition, the relative age and literary relationship of the centralizing formula of Deut 12 to the other portions of the book’s legal core (chapters 12-26) are also important research questions. While relevant to the questions raised by Professor Greenspahn’s paper, I will only touch upon this topic briefly below.

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and Theodor Oestreicher in the 1920s, who unsuccessfully challenged the theory of cult centralization and the connections between Deuteronomy and the Josianic reforms.3 And thus we find our discipline returning noch einmal to doubts about the law of the central sanctuary.4

1 The definite article in Deut 12:5, 12:14, and other syntactical features of the chapter

Professor Greenspahn has drawn attention to the syntax of the definite article at Deut. 12:5 and 12:13-14 because, it is assumed, the book’s assertion that the Israelites are to limit their worship to “the place” (hammāqôm) is “the sole basis for linking it to centralization.” He begins by objecting that the Hebrew defi-nite article can have other meanings in this syntax in order to show that noth-ing in Deuteronomy “requires us to conclude that only one site was acceptable, in other words, that it meant to centralize the cult.”5

The most important syntactical feature of these passages is not simply the definite article, however. I contend the contrastive movement from 12:2-4 lead-ing to hammāqôm at 12:5 (and from 12:13 leading to bammāqôm at 12:14) has been under appreciated in Professor Greenspahn’s treatment.

Deut. 12:2-5 You must destroy completely all the places (kol-hammĕqōmôt) where the nations you are dispossessing served their gods, . . . But instead (kî ʾim), you shall seek the place (hammāqôm) that Yhwh your God will choose . . .

3 Adam C. Welch, The Code of Deuteronomy: A New Theory of its Origin (London: J. Clarke & Co., Limited, 1924); Adam C. Welch, Deuteronomy, The Framework to the Code (London: Oxford University Press, 1932); Theodor Oestreicher, Das deuteronomische Grundgesetz (bfct 27/4; Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1923); and for summary of their challenge and its outcome, see Moshe Weinfeld, “Deuteronomy: The Present State of Inquiry,” in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 3; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 21-35, esp. 22-23; repr. from JBL 86 (1967): 249-262.

4 In some ways, Professor Greenspahn’s article and my response are mirrored by the debate between Theodor Oestreicher and Eduard König in 1925 and 1926; Theodor Oestreicher, “Dtr 12 13f im Licht von Dtn 23 16f,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 43 (1925): 246-249; Eduard König, “Der generelle Artikel im Hebräischen,” Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentli-che Wissenschaft 44 (1926): 172-175.

5 Greenspahn, “Centralization,” forthcoming.

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Deut. 12:13-14 Watch yourself carefully lest you offer your burnt offerings in any place (bĕkol-māqôm) you see. But instead (kî ʾim), you shall offer your burnt offerings in the place (bammāqôm) Yhwh will choose . . .

When considering this contrastive quality of Deut 12, Greenspahn dismisses its significance by saying these verses “could be directed at what were consid-ered unauthentic shrines rather than requiring allegiance to only one.” There is no question that the contrast was directed at unauthentic shrines. The direc-tives of 12:2-4 leave no doubt about that. After instructions to destroy all the old places of worship, to tear down, smash, burn, and chop in pieces all cult appurtenances, the prohibition is emphasized (12:4): “You shall not worship Yhwh your God in that way.” The contrastive emphasis of verse 5 then at least suggests the strong possibility that the contrast is not simply between unau-thentic Canaanite shrines and sanctioned Israelite shrines, but rather between multiple Canaanite shrines and a single Israelite shrine.6 (The movement from 12:13 to 12:14 reflects a similar contrastive quality.) Having minimized the sig-nificance of the contrast, Professor Greenspahn proposes an alternative inter-pretation of “the place” (hammāqôm), which he assumes is the “sole basis for linking [Deuteronomy] to centralization.”

He begins by asserting that “despite conventional wisdom, definite articles followed by singular nouns do not always refer to individual entities.” After pro-viding a few English examples (e.g., “the customer is always right”), he moves to examples in biblical Hebrew of articular singular nouns marking a class or cat-egory, usually labeled generic. However, “conventional wisdom” does, in fact, understand such a use of the definite article, and all reference grammars have plenty of examples.7 Generic noun phrases are normally restricted to ‘well-established kinds,’ such as animals, or are restricted to contexts associated with genericity such as repeated or habitual events.8 So the question before us is

6 The compound restrictive adverb kî ʾim (IBHS, §39.3.5,d), marking adversitivity at the begin-ning of 12:5 and 12:14, is used after negative clauses in these contexts to exclude all other options appearing in the preceding material; Bill T. Arnold, “Adversative: Biblical Hebrew,” in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (ed. Geoffrey Khan; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013), 1:53.

7 IBHS, §13.5.1,f; Joüon, §137,m; gkc, §126,l; Rudolph Meyer, Hebräische Grammatik (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), §96,d, page 371; Christo H. J. van der Merwe, Jackie A Naudé, and Jan H. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (Biblical Languages: Hebrew 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999) §24.4.4,d, page 191.

8 Peter Bekins, “Non-Prototypical Uses of the Definite Article in Biblical Hebrew,” Journal of Semitic Studies 58 (2013): 225-240, esp. 234. For broader introduction to genericity in biblical Hebrew, see John A. Cook, “Genericity, Tense, and Verbal Patterns in the Sentence Literature

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whether this is, in fact, a use of the generic article in Deut. 12:5,14. Here I will explore the examples offered by Professor Greenspahn to test their relevance to the argument that “the place” in Deuteronomy 12 is a generic article, or as I will propose instead, an example of the solitary definite article.9 The generic article denotes a class of persons or things and does not require an articular English translation. The solitary article marks a unique person, place, or thing (“the high priest,” Josh 20:6; “the sun,” Gen 15:12), and is used to designate a well-known thing or person.10

Professor Greenspahn has garnered eleven examples to support the idea that the definite article in Deut 12:5,14 is generic. The first nine do little more than establish that the generic use of the definite article does, in fact, occur in the Hebrew Bible.11 I do not refute or disagree that these are examples of such a use. However, asserting that the definite article can have a generic use and listing these examples of the generic definite article in the Hebrew Bible does not demonstrate that our definite article in “the place” in Deut 12:5 is, in fact, such a generic article. In fact, any number of other examples may be listed of the solitary use of the article to show that “the place” could just as well be one particular place. So, for example, Yhwh announces that he has given “the land” to the Israelites as possession (Deut 1:8), or commands Moses to charge “the people” (i.e., the Israelites) to pass through Edom (Deut 2:4). These are certainly solitary uses of the definite article, since we have no doubt what specific land and what specific people are in view. And these types of examples could be multiplied many times over, much more commonly than

of Proverbs,” in Seeking out the Wisdom of the Ancients: Essays Offered to Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (eds. Ronald L. Troxel, Kelvin G. Friebel and Dennis Robert Magary; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 117-133, esp. 118-21.

9 Bill T. Arnold and John H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), §2.6.4 and §2.6.5 (pages 31-32), and see especially Waltke and O’Connor’s “situational unique referent,” which I find helpful in this discus-sion (IBHS §13.5.1,b and c, page 242).

10 The simple solitary use of the definite article is a “unique use with a referent that is singu-lar” and normally corresponds in linguistic approaches to the anaphoric and “larger situ-ation uses.” However, our definite article in Deut 12:5,14 is a special case in which the restrictive relative clause is similar to the associative use of the article, moving it into the definite category. On this point, I have benefited from private correspondence with Peter Bekins and from his article “Non-Prototypical Uses of the Definite Article” (see especially page 228).

11 These nine examples, several of which are found in the reference grammars, are Gen 14:13; 18:7; Lev 11:4-7; Num 35:25; 11:27; Deut 19:5; 1 Sam 8:9; 2 Sam 15:13; Eccl 3:17.

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for the generic use of the article. My point is that proving the solitary use of the definite article was available to the authors of Deuteronomy does not establish that “the place” in Deut 12:5 must be interpreted as a solitary place; that is, a single, specific location. Similarly in turn, proving the existence of the generic article in biblical Hebrew fails to prove that such a use was, in fact, intended in Deut 12:5. Indeed, it is the syntax and larger literary context that determines by exegesis the intent and function of a definite article in each case. These first nine examples offer no evidence for taking “the place” in Deut 12 as a generic definite article.

Then Professor Greenspahn moves to two examples in Deuteronomy that he asserts have “the same syntax” as our definite article in Deut 12:5. These deserve closer scrutiny. First, he appeals to Deut 14:21, which prescribes giving the meat from an animal dead of natural causes “to the immigrant” (laggēr). Greenspahn argues that, just as Deut 12:5 prohibits the use of multiple cult shrines, 14:21 prohibits eating any animal that died of natural causes but that the animal should be given to the stranger. This stranger, Greenspahn argues, is no particular stranger and the article here is like 12:5, in which no particular place for worship is in view. However, ironically it is the syntax itself that fails to make this point (Deut 14:21a).

בלה לגר אשר־בשערי� תתננה לא תאכלו כל־נ

You shall not eat any animal corpse; you may give it to the immigrant in your gates.

While it is true that both 12:5 and 14:21 involve contrast, the items being con-trasted in 14:21 are not the same nouns. In Deut 12, the noun “places” in the plural (v. 2) is contrasted with the same noun, “place,” in the singular (v. 5), whereas here we have different nouns, “corpse” and “immigrant.” The syntax is not parallel to Deut 12 because the real contrast of 14:21 is between “eating” and “giving”, not between an animal corpse and the stranger. On the other hand, the contrast at Deut 12:2,5 is between “all the places” and “the place.” The use of the generic definite article on “immigrant” at 14:21 is self-evident but its rel-evance for the discussion of 12:5 is spurious.

Second, Professor Greenspahn appeals similarly to the transition from “a city” to “the city” in Deut 20:19-20. He implies that since “the city” in v. 20 can be any city the Israelites wage war against, therefore “the place” of Deut 12:5 can be any place that Yhwh chooses. In order to test the relevance of this example, we must see the two uses of the noun in context, as follows (Deut 20:19-20 excerpted, my translation).

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19When you besiege a city (עיר) for an extended time to wage war against it and ultimately to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. While you may eat from them, you must not cut them down. . . . 20Only the trees that you know are not for food, those you may destroy and cut down, and thus build siegeworks against the city (העיר) that wages war against you, until it falls.

This parallel may appear at first sight to be useful in the discussion about Deut 12:5. However, upon closer examination, I suggest again that this example is irrelevant for the following reasons. (a) The use of the definite article on “city” in v. 20 is referential, as it refers to a hypothetical city mentioned in the imme-diately preceding context (v. 19).12 A nondescript city is taken up as an example of besieging cities in order to give prohibitions against destroying fruit-trees, and then that city (i.e., the hypothetical city introduced in v. 19) is referred to with the definite article. This is not an example of the generic definite article in the same vein as the other examples garnered by Professor Greenspahn, and does not support the idea that “the place” in 12:5 is generic. Perhaps more to the point, the contrastive nature of 12:5 has not sufficiently been taken into consideration in Professor Greenspahn’s discussion. This is so because (b) the contrast in Deut 20:19-20 is not a contrast between a group of cities as opposed to the city. Instead, the definite article Greenspahn wants to use as parallel to Deut 12:5 is not part of the contrast at all. The city of v. 20 is, in fact, the same city as v. 19. It is not one particular city in distinction from other cities. What we have in Deut 12:5 is a contrast between “all the places” of worship among the indigenous peoples of Canaan as distinct from “the place” of worship for Israel. The contrastive movement of Deut 12:2-5 has also been under appreciated in Professor Greenspahn’s argument because (c) the contrast in 20:19-20 is not between “a city” and “the city” but between fruit trees and non-food-produc-ing trees.13 The definite article on “city” in Deut 20:20 is referential instead of generic, and the contrast is not parallel to that of Deut 12:5.

A closer parallel to the syntactical features of the definite article in Deut. 12:5 may be found in Gen. 2:16-17, where permission to eat freely of any tree of the garden comes immediately before the prohibition against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

12 Arnold and Choi, Guide, §2.6.1. 13 While this prohibition may have had Neo-Assyrian poliorcetic practices in view, this

does not necessarily mean Deut 20:19-20 is a polemic against Assyrian military practices. Jacob L. Wright, “Warfare and Wanton Destruction: A Reexamination of Deuteronomy 20:19-20 in Relation to Ancient Siegecraft,” Journal of Biblical Literature 127 (2008):423-458, esp. 444-45.

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16Yhwh God commanded the man, “You may certainly eat from any of the trees (מכל עץ־הגן) of the garden, 17but from the tree of the knowledge ”. . . of good and evil, you must not eat (עץ הדעת)

Determination in this case, made clear by the construct state with an articu-lar genitive noun “knowledge,” is heightened by the contrasting syntax: any of these other trees in distinction from this one particular tree. Similarly, the most natural and logical reading of Deut 12:5 in light of its contrastive syntax and other centralizing features of Deuteronomy (as we shall see below) is some-thing like: not any of these other cult places where the Canaanites worshipped in distinction from this one particular cult place for Israelite worship.

Professor Greenspahn turns finally to a few syntactical features of the expressions “out of all your tribes” (ם Deut 12:5) and “in one of your ,מכל־שבטיכtribes” (י� ד שבט Deut 12:14). For support, he turns to similar phrases in ,באחcontexts in which any poor person in any town (באחד שערי�; Deut 15:7, simi-larly Deut 16:5, 17:2, and 23:17 [Eng 23:16]) denotes an unspecified person or place instead of a particular person or solitary place. In none of these cases is the phrase in question preceded by a definite article marking a person or place as “from/in one of your towns.”14 In fact, conditional clauses are the context for the examples in Deut 15:7 and 17:2, confirming the idea that “from/in one of your towns” has no particular specific location in mind in these examples. But their use in Deut 12:5 and 12:14 has a quite different syntax, preceded as they are by the articular “the place” that Yhwh will choose “from all your tribes/in one of your tribes.” On the one hand, I concede that these expressions on their own do not prove centralization of “the place” for Israelite worship. On the other hand, it is the extended syntax of these expressions that is at least suggestive that centralization is the intent.15

Professor Greenspahn’s conclusion merits further comment: “the syntax of Deuteronomy 12 . . . does not require that sacrifice be limited to a single place,

14 The exception is Deut 23:17 [Eng 23:16], which has the preceding definite noun, “the place,” before the phrase “they choose in any one of your towns.” Ironically, the phrase “in your city-gates” (bišʿārêkā) has been identified in the scholarship as intentionally marking a distinction between action in the local spheres, presumably also secular activity, on the one hand, and action “in the place” at the central sanctuary, or the cultic activity, on the other; Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 51.

15 Nor do I find Professor Greenspahn’s observations on the preposition min, especially in the phrase mikkol, particularly compelling. The use of this prepositional phrase in itself is not the basis for arguing for cult centralization, so giving examples of its use for nonspe-cific and generic usages does not carry weight in the argument.

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though these verses may have come to be understood that way.”16 No doubt the syntax does not require such a reading or we would not have such differences of opinion in the study of Deuteronomy. The question might be turned around. Does the syntax of Deut 12:5 and 12:14 require that an indefinite place be in view; that is, a place, any place, that Yhwh should choose? What is the most natural connotation of a text that prohibits worship at any of the places of worship used by the nations, while mandating worship only at the place Yhwh chooses? As we have seen, the syntax is suggestive that a single place is in view, and that Deut 12 is, in fact, establishing cult centralization. No convincing evi-dence has been presented against the interpretation of Deut 12 as establishing a central sanctuary, while the cumulative evidence tends to support it.

The final portion of Professor Greenspahn’s statement—“these verses may have come to be understood that way [as requiring a single sanctuary]”—is an interesting concession. Similarly, at the conclusion of his paper: “Deuteronomy’s contrastive tone plainly intends to circumscribe the number of places where sacrifices could be offered, but neither that nor its use of the definite article requires us to conclude that only one site was acceptable, in other words, that it meant to centralize the cult.”17 But if Deuteronomy intended to cir-cumscribe the number of places for worship, one wonders how many places would have been acceptable to Deuteronomy. If “the place” is more than one place permitted for Israelite worship, how many were approved? And if oth-ers were approved, how can Deut 12 be seen as prescribing worship at those other cult sites? On the other hand, if “the place” is, in fact, one place, how is this not centralization of the cult? Finally, if Deut 12 eventually came “to be understood that way” (i.e., as circumscribing sacrifice to a single location), then presumably this is the meaning of the text in its current literary location in Deuteronomy as a whole. And if this is the connotation of Deut 12 in its liter-ary context, then why not simply accept the solitary use of the definite article in Deut 12:5 and 12:14?

2 The basis of the theory of centralization in Deut 12

For the sake of these final observations, one might concede that Deut 12 is “an ambiguous passage,” and that it is entirely possible a precursor text originally ordered only a limitation of the cult, which was subsequently reinterpreted

16 Greenspahn, “Centralization,” forthcoming.17 Greenspahn, “Centralization,” forthcoming.

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as initiating centralization.18 Even if this is the approach one takes in reading Deuteronomy, I find the premise that the use of the definite article on “the place” (hammāqôm) as “the sole basis for linking [Deuteronomy] to centraliza-tion” to be an overly simplistic misrepresentation of the theory of cult cen-tralization.19 Consequently, the process of listing other possible meanings for the definite article in the phrase “the place” at Deut 12:5 and 12:14 does not refute the theory of centralization, which has been argued on much wider foundations, much less refuting the Josianic connections and the documen-tary approach to the Pentateuch.

Without rehearsing the evidence for the theory generally, I offer the follow-ing observations that I believe are more relevant to this debate on whether Deuteronomy is committed to cult centralization or not. Israelite legal corpora begin with laws on the building and function of an altar (Exod 20:24-25, Deut 12:2-28, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Lev 17:2-9). The most salient feature of Deut 12, in terms of the way it relates to these other legal corpora, is the way it engages and transforms the older altar law of the Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:24-25).20 The older law allows for earthen altars “in every place” and stone altars as long as they are built with field stones (i.e, unhewn). The exe-getical precision and ingenuity of Deut 12 is remarkable for the way it affirms an older venerated text, which is accepted as authoritative, while at the same time transforming it into an entirely new agenda for cult centralization with several other consequent changes in religious and private life.21 The whole tenor of Deut 12:2-28 establishes this centralizing agenda for the legal core, rather than the solitary use of the definite article in 12:5 and 12:14 alone. The interpretation of the definite article in “the place” as the solitary use is based on the exegesis of the chapter as a whole, and in particular as it contrasts with Exod 20:24-25, rather than any misguided assumption about the uses of the article in general.

Indeed, scholars of the nineteenth century identified Deut 12 as establish-ing cult centralization based on the whole tenor of the chapter as well as its many details, and especially in comparison with the altar law of the Book of

18 As Baruch Halpern proposed many years ago; Baruch Halpern, “The Centralization Formula in Deuteronomy,” Vetus Testamentum 31 (1981): 20-38, and esp. 38 for the “ambigu-ous passage” quote.

19 Greenspahn, “Centralization,” forthcoming. 20 Levinson, Deuteronomy, 23-52. 21 I am thus in general agreement with Levinson’s explanation of Deuteronomy’s transfor-

mative exegetical techniques, while I am less inclined to see the authors of Deuteronomy as intentionally subverting and replacing the older text. Ibid., esp. 152-57.

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the Covenant (Exod 20:24-26).22 And they did so without today’s more sophis-ticated understanding of the scribal techniques in legal innovation. Once they saw the centralizing theme of Deut 12, they also discerned the way this theme played out in many other modifications of the rituals and case laws of Deuteronomy’s legal core.23 The book therefore presents a massive national agenda of cultic and civil reform, and the centralizing principle of chapter 12 is only the first and formal statement. Denying cult centralization in Deut 12 requires explanation of these additional legal innovations as well.

Beyond the inner-pentateuchal contrast between Deut 12:2-28 and Exod 20:24-25, the particulars of Deut 12:2-28 are themselves instructive. After a one-verse superscription (12:1), the chapter is usually divided into four separate laws calling for cultic centralization: 12:2-7, 12:8-12, 12:13-19 (the oldest part of this text), and 12:20-28, followed by a concluding paragraph on cultic purity, 12:29-31.24 The injunction to limit Israelite worship in the Promised Land to one cultic location occurs in each of the first three of these paragraphs with the definite article in the phrase “the place” (12:5, 11, and 14). Each of these three occurrences is preceded by a negative decree as follows.

Deut 12:2-4. Cult shrines of the land’s previous inhabitants must be destroyed; Israelites are not to worship Yhwh in such ways.

22 As culminating in Wellhausen, who makes the case without discussion of the definite article at all; Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1994), 17-38, esp. 32-34; repr. of Prolegomena to the History of Israel (trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Enzies, with preface by W. Robertson Smith; Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1885); trans. of Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (2d ed.; Berlin: G. Reimer, 1883).

23 Individual laws presupposing centralization are tithes (Deut 14:22-26), profane slaughter (Deut 12:20-25), holidays (Deut 16:1-17), cities of refuge (Deut 19:1-9), priesthood (Deut 18:1-8), and others. These were discussed already in Wellhausen (Prolegomena, 33-34), and are routinely acknowledged by scholars today. See Richard D. Nelson, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (otl; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 146; and Halpern, “Centralization Formula,” esp. 21-22.

24 E.g., Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies (ConBOT 18; Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1982), 54-56. The enigmatic Numeruswechsel, which occurs in both the legal and narrative portions of the book of Deuteronomy, con-tributes to this understanding of the chapter’s source-critical analysis. See also Levinson, Deuteronomy, 24-28.

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Deut 12:8-10. Individual cult practices observed prior to inheritance of the land are to be abandoned (“You shall not act as we are here today, each according to our own wishes”).

Deut 12:13. Israelites are not to engage in cultic practices wherever they like.

Each is then followed by the positive command to offer sacrifices with one’s extended household at “the place” choosen by Yhwh (12:5, 11, 14).25 The chapter is thus permeated with this binary opposition: Do not do X (not in every place) but rather Y (in the place).26 From the perspective of Deut 12, the old altar law of Exod 20:24 was sufficient for its day. As it was understood, human choice determined the places of cultic practices, locations where Yhwh would bless the Israelite worshipper by causing “his name to be remembered” there. But for Deut 12, the multiplicity of cult shrines was the result of arbitrary human choice, and would therefore be limited by an entirely different legitimizing relative clause, “that Yhwh your God will choose” (instead of “that I cause my name to be remembered,” Exod 20:24). The old legitimizing relative clause allowing multiple Israelite cult shrines has been replaced by a new clause lim-iting worship to one shrine.27

25 And these are not the only references in Deut 12 to “the place” for proper worship of Yhwh; see also Deut 12:18, 21, 26. For details on the modification of “the place” with the central-izing formula, “that Yhwh your God will choose,” in this chapter and elsewhere in Deuteronomy, see Sandra L. Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology: lĕšakkēn šĕmô šām in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (bzaw 318; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 53-63.

26 The reality of the chapter’s movement is more complicated than this, resulting in a tripar-tite structure, presenting prohibited X (multiple cult sites), permitting Y (secular slaugh-ter at multiple locations), and enjoining Z (a single cult site at the heart of the chapter); Levinson, Deuteronomy, 31.

27 Ibid., 35. And it is entirely possible the formula “the place that Yhwh will choose” clearly had Jerusalem in view from the beginning. In this interpretation, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 587/6 bce was followed by a reinterpretation and new edition of the book in order to promote the ancient cultic site near Shechem as the chosen site: “The cultic site near Shechem became the chosen place about which yhwh spoke to Moses at Horeb, and Shechem acquired the status of an ancient sacred center.” See Nadav Na’aman, “The Law of the Altar in Deuteronomy and the Cultic Site Near Shechem,” in Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible: Essays in Honour of John Van Seters (eds. Steven L. McKenzie, Thomas Römer and Hans Heinrich Schmid; bzaw 294; Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2000), 141-161, esp. 156-58.

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The theory of cult centralization is therefore based on both internal and external data; that is, internally coherent readings of Deut 12 itself, and exter-nal (i.e., inner-canonical) interpretation of the text with other legal corpora, especially Exod 20:24-25. There is more here than a simple misreading of a generic definite article at Deut 12:5,14. As we have seen, the interpretation of the definite article in these passages as solitary is based on wider exegetical issues, and not simply a misunderstanding of the nature of the article itself. It is certainly possible to arrive at different conclusions in the interpretation of these data.28 But the most economical theory, the one that answers more questions than it raises, is the long-standing interpretation of this chapter as establishing cult centralization as part of a larger reform of Israelite worship.

28 E.g., J. G. McConville and J. G. Millar, Time and Place in Deuteronomy (JSOTSup 179; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 117-23.

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