John Van Seters

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John Van Seters (born 2 May 1935) is a notable scholar on the Ancient Near East.

HisAbraham in History and Tradition (1975) was one of the seminal publications in its field, arguing that no convincing evidence existed to support the historical existence of Abraham and the other Biblical Patriarchs or the historical reliability of the book of Genesis. The book undermined both the Biblical archaeology school of William F. Albright, who had argued over the previous fifty years that the archaeological record confirmed the essential truth of the history contained in Genesis, and the "tradition history" school of Martin Noth, which argued that Genesis contained a core of valid history passed down through oral tradition prior to the composition of the written book itself.

Van Seters went on to put forward his own theory on the origins of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the bible, Genesis/Exodus/Leviticus/Numbers/Deuteronomy), arguing that they had been composed as additions and revisions of a single original document composed by an author writing in the 6th century BC. This "supplementary hypothesis" has become one of the three models now discussed by scholars considering the question of Pentateuchal origins (the other two being the "documentary hypothesis" and the "fragmentary hypothesis").

He is a prolific writer, concentrating largely on questions of the history of Old Testament texts and traditions.


[edit] Reviews of selected publications

[edit] Bibliography

  • John Van Seters, "Abraham in History and Tradition", Yale University Press, 1975.
  • John Van Seters, "Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis", Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992.
  • John Van Seters, "Pentateuch: A Social Science Commentary", Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
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