The verb refers to the task of editing, working into shape, or framing a literary work.
The OT contains a number of anonymous books. We do not know, e.g., who wrote the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, and 1 & 2 Chronicles, but someone/s obviously worked very hard to source the facts and reports, wrote/re-wrote and 'edited' the material into the coherent books that we now possess. In biblical scholarship these persons are referred to as the books' redactors.
But we do not see the hand of redactors only in the anonymous books of the OT. No one doubts that the oracles recorded in the book of Amos are Amos's; Amos speaks often in the first-person: "This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me . . ." (8:1). There is, nonetheless, clear evidence that a redactor other than Amos was responsible for putting the book together in the form we now have it. When, e.g., Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, complained about Amos's preaching and charged him to go back to where he came from, Amos's response is reported in the third person: " Amos answered Amaziah, 'I was . . .'" (7:14). Similarly, a redactor had to have reported Moses' death in Deut 34; the suggestion once made that Moses prophesied his own death requires an unnecessary miracle (God can do such a thing with Moses, but it does not fit in with the character of God as He is revealed elsewhere in Scriptures to do such a thing).
Out of these observations and understanding arose the discipline of redaction criticism, that is, the attempt to discover the circumstances, motivations, and methods by which the redactor come upon his (in the ancient world of Israel, they were certain to be guys rather than gals) sources and framed the materials into the manner we now find them in the canon. Redaction criticism was viewed with suspicion in its early history as a discipline. Those who practiced it came to the discipline with too many assumptions of which they seem ignoran, and many of which proved to be false, and were also too cocky about the conclusions they drew (which were often mere reflections of their own presuppositions). This can clearly be seen from research papers and critique of them, and the discipline as a whole from, e.g., the 1980s.
Like all intellectual disciplines, redaction criticism have matured over the decades, and commentators are more cautious both about what they bring to the text in their study and what the limitations are. Appreciating the work of the redactor, however, is important for a better understanding of the text we are studying. Take the example of Jesus's parable recorded in Lk 18:9-14 (NIV; Luke is here the "redactor"):
10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
Precisely because we have been so shaped in our understanding by the redactor—Luke, in this case—we naturally identify with the tax collector. Why? Because Luke has begun his retelling of the event with the sentence, "To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: . . ." (v9). Jesus's original audience, of course, did not have such a warning, and, as Jesus told the parable, they would have identified with the Pharisee; they would have been glad to be able to be "confident of the their righteousness." In a very subtle way, then, Luke (the redactor) have shifted in a very significant way in which the parable is heard. Jesus told the parable to teach the justification of the unrighteousness; by adding the introductory warning, Luke ensures that his readers got the message clearly.
©ALBERITH
220918lch