Charles Cutler Torrey was an American
historian, archeologist and scholar. In 1901, he founded the American School of Archeology in Jerusalem and taught
Semitic languages at Yale for almost 30 years.
Eighty-eight years ago, Torrey’s record was as credible as any other secular authority whose job was analyzing and dating ancient
manuscripts. Then his book Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Original Prophecy (1930) was released, setting out his theory that
the canonical book of Ezekiel was actually written much later than originally thought, in the third century B.C.
Torrey’s book remains of sufficient interest that it was reprinted both in 2008 and 2013. Amazon calls it “culturally important”.
Both Sides Now
As Infogalactic puts it:
“[Torrey] stated that the Book of Ezekiel derived much of its prophecy from a pseudipigraphic work dating from about 230 B.C.E. [4QPseudo-Ezekiel — ed.] which was then edited around 200 into the canonical book that we know. Torrey also proposed that elements regarding the Exilic Period in which the historical Ezekiel lived (ca. 623 B.C.E. – ca. 571 B.C.E.) were added in the second round of editing to make the text appear as though it belonged to the Sixth century, rather than the Third.”
In short, Torrey claimed Ezekiel is a total con job.
That position on Ezekiel was ambitious; a classic case of trying to have one’s cake and eat it too. Torrey maintained
simultaneously that Ezekiel’s prophecies were (i) not predictive, but written long after the events
they describe, and (ii) mostly inaccurate. For instance,
he denied the historicity of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem, the Captivity and the Restoration. (This meant also rejecting Ezra, Nehemiah and Jeremiah, and I can’t begin
to imagine what he did with Daniel or Esther.) Taking his cue from Torrey, the
University of Chicago’s William Irwin published The Problem of Ezekiel in 1943, staking out a similar position with
respect to the book’s age and authenticity.
A Basic Issue, Overlooked
But Ezekiel’s original readers had a much better sense of the book’s historicity than Charles Torrey. They have the final word on whether his prophecies were accurate. Regardless of whether that audience was comprised of sixth or third century Jews, it is impossible they would prize and treat as canonical a book that told the
story of their nation’s subjugation and exile to Chaldea if in fact these
events never occurred. In order to be sufficiently naïve to accept a false
narrative as the word of God, they would have had to have no other written
or oral records of the last 400 years with which they could compare the book
of Ezekiel. But we know without a doubt this was not the case. Israel and Judah had been keeping
detailed and
fastidiously
preserved
written
records for
at least 1,200 years. These were safely maintained even throughout the chaotic period of the
Judges, and certainly through the Captivity.
In any case, Torrey’s unorthodox approach to critiquing Ezekiel did not have legs. Rabbinic scholars quite reasonably found his conclusions unacceptable and violently disputed them, pointing out what
further textual criticism has since made obvious: that the 4QPseudo-Ezekiel manuscript discovered in the caves of Qumran, the scroll that gave rise to Torrey’s claims about the book’s origins, was actually derived from Ezekiel rather than having been an original source for it. The post-war period saw a move among critics away from the Torrey/Irwin school of thought. Now, almost ninety years down the road, accepting the unity of Ezekiel and its historical placement
during the Exile is commonplace among secular scholars; even Wikipedia concedes it.
A Whiff of Desperate Unbelief
In hindsight, Torrey’s assault on Ezekiel seems to carry with it a faint whiff of desperation even in its first edition. Had he
made a case for the essential accuracy of the prophecies, he might credibly
have been able to late-date them, as critics of Daniel have attempted with
varying degrees of plausibility. That argument takes one of the book’s strengths
(its accuracy) and makes it a weakness by insisting it must be the product of a
time-based cheat. Alternatively, he could have argued for the dates and
disputed the accuracy of one or two of Ezekiel’s prophetic passages. (John
Oakes handles two such attacks very effectively
here and
here.) Such attacks on Ezekiel are still mounted occasionally.
Instead, Torrey imprudently attempted to attack the book’s internal date claims and historical accuracy at the same time,
a move that leaves any serious student of the Old Testament shaking his head in disbelief.
Shaking in Our Boots
All the same, I wonder how many well-read Christians in the period between 1930 and 1950 were shaking in their boots, or at very
least a little unsettled about the status of several major books of their Old
Testament.
In the face of new scientific or historical claims about the accuracy of Bible history and prophecy, it is always wise to
take a wait-and-see posture rather than genuflect to the experts at the
first bit of proffered “proof”. Far too many of these alleged dealbreakers have
been easily debunked by other experts, or by later archeological finds that put
earlier evidence into perspective.
Even 15 or 20 years can change everything.
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