A commenter on my recent post about the Documentary Hypothesis suggested a possible analogy to the activity of the redactor of the Pentateuch, namely Tatian’s Diatessaron, the first attempt to create a single life of Jesus from the four Gospels.
I wonder whether the scenario of creating a single narrative from multiple sources, however unusual some aspects of it may seem in the context of typical ancient composition, is nevertheless a persistent recurrent phenomenon distinctive of the Biblical tradition, which perhaps more than once saw the creation of multiple written works, their achievement of authoritative status, and the attempt to then combine them into a single piece of literature.
Patristic and Pentateuchal studies rarely intersect, but if this analogy seems worthy of further exploration, perhaps they should be allowed to more frequently. What do others think?
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