Writer of Fancy: The Playful Piety of Jane Austen

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

« Previous Entries in Category |

Bible - OT: Where are prophets?

First Things has put up an article of mine on prophecy on their web site:http://www.firstthings.com.

Bible - OT: Street Hebrew

With papyrological evidence, there’s some grounds for saying that there’s considerable overlap between the vocabulary and syntax of NT Greek and “street Greek.”  Barr, though, thinks the same about Hebrew: “In Israel at any rate much of the biblical language is unspecialized, for the religious structure is roughly coincident with the linguistic group and the nation as a whole.”  The argument of the last clause is intriguing. One could put it this way: Because the whole nation was covenantally formed, he concludes that the language of the covenant documents and the language of normal life overlapped.  But isn’t it possible that the OT contains a specialized language for common life, just as lawyers speak a specialized language for things that non-lawyers talk about in non-specialized ways?

In any case, in the absence of comparative evidence, there is simply no way to know for sure whether the Hebrew of the Hebrew Bible is street Hebrew or not.  Barr’s main concerns are lexical and semantic, and in that regard it’s likely that there’s considerable overlap.  There’s no reason why traders in the market would not have talked about the latest news about the melek, and no reason to think there was another word for “walk” than halak.

Given the intricate literary form of the Hebrew Bible, and the frequent focus on specialized priestly concerns, however, there’s a good bit of evidence that it’s not street Hebrew in every respect.

Bible - OT: Early Higher Critics

In his recent commentary on Daniel, Jim Jordan suggests that the modern notion that Josiah and his priests wrote “the book of the law” they claimed to discover in the temple was likely shared by people of Josiah’s time: “The image-users of the high places had always resented the official, God-given worship at the temple, and they doubtless saw the ‘discovery’ of this book as just another ‘protestant ploy’ to destroy their ‘holy traditions.’  The callous rich, while happy with the ornate cathedral-worship style of the Jerusalem Temple, no doubt regarded the laws in the Book of the Covenant as having been fabricated to despoil them of their wealth.  These two groups would accuse Josiah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah of trying to centralize religious power in the Remnant.”

Bible - OT: Silent gods

Idols have mouths, but don’t speak.  But the fear of the prophets is that Yahweh might be the same.  Evil abounds in Israel and the nations, yet Yahweh does nothing and says nothing.  If Yahweh is silent in the face of evil, how does he differ from the gods of the nations?  The problem of evil in the prophets is the problem of God’s silence, which is really a question of theology proper: Is Yahweh any different from Baal or Molech?

Bible - OT: Horns of the Altar

Why grasp the horns of the altar when you’re a fugitive in the temple?  How is it legitimate to touch the horns, when the altar as a whole is forbidden to all but the priests?  The answer to the first is found in the premise of the second: The altar is holy, and communicates holiness to anyone who touches it (if they aren’t holy already).  When a fugitive grasps the horns of the altar, he becomes sanctified and hence inviolable.  If found guilty, he will be killed (like Joab) because of a sacrilege; but if he is innocent, he protects himself with a taboo of holiness.

Bible - OT: Lovely Like Jerusalem

For Protestants, one of the best pieces of news in the past century has been the revival of biblical studies among Catholics. It’s been said (by Mark Noll, of all people!) that, with the new Catholic lectionary, more Scripture is read in Catholic worship than in most Protestant denominations.

As prolific Catholic theologian Aidan Nichols points out in the Prface of his recent overview of the Old Testament, Lovely Like Jerusalem (Ignatius), Catholics often have problems getting a sense of the overall shape of the OT, and understanding its purpose in the church.

Not only Catholics: As Nichols rightly argues early in the book, Protestant scholarship, and hence Protestant church life, have been ruined by neo-Marcionite hostility to the OT (Nichols names Schleiermacher, Harnack, and Bultmann as culprits).

Drawing on recent OT scholarship, recent Catholic thought, as well as on the church fathers, Nichols’s book attempts to guide average Christians in a Christian reading of the OT. He succeeds very nicely.

Continue reading…

Bible - OT: Yahweh/Iehave

“Yahweh” is often thought to be a purely modern rendering of the Hebrew name, but Smalley finds a medieval glossator who writes the name as “Iahave.” She goes on: “The ‘monstrous form’ Jehoveh was already known to Christians in the late thirteenth century. Henry Crossy seems to compromise between Jehoveh and Jahweh by writing Iehave. . . . St. Jerome used IHAO; the IABE of the Greek Father, Theodoret, was probably unknown to him; nor was he likely to have been in contact with the Samaritans, who until quite recent times pronounced ‘Jahweh.’”

Bible - OT: These Ten Times

In Num 14:22, Yahweh charges that Israel has tested Him “these ten times.” Ronald Allen offers this list of 10 rebellions in his Expositor’s Bible Commentary:

1. Israel’s fear that Pharaoh would destroy them, Ex 14:10-12
2. Marah, Ex 15:22-24
3. Hunger in the wilderness, Ex 16:1-3
4. Disobedience to Moses concerning saving manna overnight, Ex 16:19-20
5. Disobedience to Moses concerning gathering manna on Sabbath, Ex 16:27-30
6. Rephidim, Ex 17:1-4. . . .

Continue reading…

Bible - OT: Red Heifer

Nicole Rouen offered an intriguing discussion of the red heifer purification law (Num 19) as an “anti-sacrifice” or “inverted sacrifice.” At a number of points, the actions and concerns of Num 19 overlap with those of the sacrificial texts. The heifer is called a HATTAT (purification offering), and the animal is killed, burned, and its remnants distributed as in a normal sacrifice. (This is in contract to the non-sacrificial procedures for the animal in Deut 21.)

Yet, the rite for the red heifer diverges at significant points from the sacrificial rite. The heifer is not killed at the altar, and its blood is not removed - the text explicitly and uniquely speaks about the burning of the animals blood. The animal is not brought into the holy place, but taken outside the camp, and the portion that is brought into the camp is the portion that is normally excluded - the waste ashes.

Continue reading…

Bible - OT: Exhortation, September 18

In today’s sermon, we’ll learn about Joshua’s zeal for fighting the enemies of Yahweh in order to conquer the land of promise. While he is fighting five kings, the sun begins to go down. He could easily have said, “Enough for today. We can take care of them tomorrow.” Instead, he asked Yahweh to lengthen the day, so that he could finish the battle and gain the victory.

Zeal in battle is not optional. At the end of Judges is a story about the sin of the Benjamite city of Gibeah. A traveling Levite stops for the night and is accosted by sodomites, who rape and kill

Continue reading…

Bible - OT: From Former Prophets to Deuteronomistic History

Here’s a PhD thesis: What is going on, philosophically and theologically, in the transition from viewing Joshua-2 Kings as Former Prophets (Jewish tradition) to seeing them as Historical Books (evangelical) to seeing them as Deuteronomistic History (contemporary academic consensus). There’s a story to unpack there similar to the story that Milbank tells (all too briefly) about how Wellhausen inscribed the liberal Protestant metanarrative into the history of ancient Israel, thus turning the OT (circularly) into a warrant for liberal Protestantism. Perhaps someone’s already done this. If so, I’d like to know.

Bible - OT: United generations

Zechariah 8:4-5: “Thus says Yahweh of hosts: Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age. And the squares of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in the squares.”

Zechariah prophesied in Jerusalem after the people of Judah had returned from exile in Babylon. His prophecy was an encouragement to the people of the restoration to continue their work on the temple, confident that Yahweh would bless them. “I will return to Zion,” the Lord says, “and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth and the mountain of Yahweh of hosts will be called the Holy Mountain.” Yahweh promised to restore Israel to life, full life and prosperity in the land.

Continue reading…

Bible - OT: Alter on Douglas

Robert Alter reviews Mary Douglas’s latest book, Jacob’s Tears: The Priestly Work of Reconciliation, in the March 3 issue of the London Review of Books. Douglas’s book deals with two main areas, the first historical and the second anthropological.

Alter finds the first section unpersuasive; from his description, it sounds unfortunate as well. Douglas attempts to show how the Pentateuch fits into the post-exilic history of Israel, specifically how it arose from a conflict between the “separatists” like Ezra and Nehemiah and the “unifiers,” enlightened priestly intellectuals who wanted the returnees to embrace the people of the land. She sees everything in the Pentateuch “as a direct and pointedly political reflection of the division among the Judeans she has posited.” For example: “Jacob’s deathbed curse of Simeon and Levi for massacring the male population of Shechem ‘was inserted into Genesis to represent the editor’s case against the government of Judah’s foreign policy.’ Balaam’s practice in his poetic oracles in Numbers of setting the names of Jacob and Israel in apposition is said to be an affirmation that Israel is an integral part of the nation . . . Balaam himself is described here as ‘a brilliant pastiche of a colonial governor.’” Oh my. Douglas’s contributions to biblical studies have largely come from her ability to see the texts without the distorting screen of critical scholarship, but alas she has become a critical scholar. Alter notes that “Douglas plays the ingenious but arbitrary game of more conventional biblical scholars, which is to date any given text, or at least its purportedly determinative redaction, to the period that interests you, and then to read all its details as a reflex of a particular ideological trent in that period.”

Fortunately, the book also includes some of Douglas’s trademark anthropologically-inspired discussions of the Pentateuch. For Douglas, Leviticus in particular is not centrally about regulations for sacrifice, laws of uncleanness, or rules for sanctuary maintenance, but “an articulation of the tripartite sacred architecture of creation.” Sinai serves as the model, and Douglas finds echoes of the triple structure of Sinai in three areas: in the structure of the tabernacle sanctuary; in the various parts of a sacrifices animal (”a pyramid shape, with the head and the meal, the parts available to be eaten by the priests and people, at the bottom; above that the midriff area with the fat covering the kidneys, which is to be burnt entirely on the altar; and on the top, the entrails, the liver lobe and the genitals”); and in the structure of Leviticus itself (three sections separated by brief narratives in chapters 10 and 24). Addressing the question of why this tripartite structures of Leviticus has not been observed before (she calls Leviticus a “book planned as a projection of a building”), Douglas reverts to her historical argument: “beginning with the separatist party of Ezra and Nehemiah, who became the conservators of the new scriptural canon, readers of the priestly literary achievement were able to see it only from the perspective of their own preoccupation with fencing themselves off from the surrounding peoples and preserving themselves from external contamination.” Thus, “this generation would not recognise a cosmogram if it was staring straight at them.” Alter is not entirely persuaded, but he appreciates Douglas’s challenge to “ponder whether these ancient regulations bearing on the conduct of the cult and the preservation of the sanctuary’s purity might have a larger metaphysical purpose.

Bible - OT: Written or Oral?

Does the OT show signs of being a product of long oral tradition? In his 2004 book Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode (Indiana University Press), Robert S. Kawashima argues that it does not. He believes that the Bible manifests a very different narrative art from the epic tradition of both the ANE and ancient Greece, and sets out to explain the difference. He argues that the difference lies primarily in the fact that epic is an oral narrative art, while the Bible is (and was from the beginning, he argues) a written narrative: The difference of biblical narrative “resides in the simple fact that writing allows an author to edit, to rewrite, whereas speech exists instantaneously and irrevocably in the act of its utterance. The ability to manipulate language and, more generally, narrative form gives rise in written narratives to techniques foreign to the traditional, improvisational art of epic, techniques premised on the impulse to innovate.”

Kawashima offers a number of large supporting arguments for his conclusion, and I will summarize only two:

1) Biblical narrative’s treatment of time points to a writer rather than a bard. Building on the insights of Auerbach and others, Kawashima notes that Homeric epic (for example) flattens time, and brings everything to the surface. There is no “true simultaneity” depicted in Homeric epic; even when we KNOW that certain events must have taken place simultaneously, Homer depicts them as successive. Kawashima argues that this has to do with the fact that all times and events are being related to the present of the bard. Biblical narrative, by contrast, employs the “meanwhile” (or, the pluperfect) of true simultaneity, which points to a writer who is not sharing a “present” with his readers but is able to depict a variety of times from a position outside.

2) Kawashima argues that even when the Bible uses techniques found in epic, it flagrantly violates the conventions, out of all recognition. He focuses on the issue of “type scenes,” introduced from Homeric into biblical scholarship by Robert Alter, and particularly discusses various examples of the “annunciation type scene” in the OT. He points out, for instance, that the annunciation of Isaac’s birth in Genesis 18 is separated from the fulfillment of the promise in chapter 21 by the events of Sodom and Gomorrah. A type scene into which ANOTHER type scene intervenes (the destruction of a city) is not likely to arise in an oral narrative, given that one key purpose of the type scene (at least on Parry’s view) is to provide a “riff” that the bard can draw on when necessary.

Homeric type scenes are not identical to each other, but the variations function according to a generative grammar of their own. As Karashima puts it, Home “follows certain primary rules of composition in order to generate his type-scenes, variations and all. In this way he never leaves the familiar terrain of tradition. Biblical narrative, on the other hand, performs seconary operations, or ‘transformations,’ upon the convention’s underlying syntax or ‘deep structure.’ Its defamiliarizing art treats the type-scene’s norm as a mere point of departure.” Thus, “The exigencies of oral performance necessitated Homer’s economy of style, the formal purity of his type-scenes. To defamiliarize the tradition as the biblical writers did, conversely, is a more costly procedure. The pen, like the scalpel, can dissect and reassemble literary forms, but only through the lengthy procedures of writing and rewriting.” Biblical narrative art is closer to Virgil’s than to Homer’s: “Virgil displaces motifs, alters their function, changes their context, or deletes an expected motif, much like the ‘transformations’ in biblical narrative. Virgil, as an epic WRITER following in the wake of the tradition, practices an art of defamiliarization.”

Along the way, Kawashima offers a couple of other interesting points. He challenges, for instance, the notion that writing was widely unknown in ancient Israel. On the contrary, “the world of biblical narrative exhibits a thoroughgoing and . . . mundane familiarity with writing without parallel, moreover, in Homeric, Ugaritic, and Mesopotamian narrative traditions.” He cites Judges 8:14, where Gideon makes a young captive write the names of the leaders and elders of Succoth. (To this, one could add the repeated references to Moses writing portions of the law, even the “whole law” in Deuteronomy - see especially 31:24, but also 6:6-9; 17:18; 27:2-8; 29:20; note also the fact that Joshua is commanded to do all that is written in the book of the law, 1:8-9). He admits that the Bible does not give clear indications of the extent of literacy, however.

One final point: Why would the Hebrews have abandoned oral epic in favor of written narrative? Kawashima cites Shemaryahu Talmon, who writes, “The outstanding predominance in the Bible of straightforward prose narration fulfills the functions for which other literatures revert to the epic genre: heroic tales, historiography, even myth and cosmology. The phenomenon is too striking to be coincidental. It appears that the ancient Hebrew writers purposefully nurtured and developed prose narration to take the place of the epic genre which by its content was intimately bound up with the world of paganism and appears to have had a special standing in the polytheistic cults. The recitation of epics was tantamount to a reenactment of cosmic events in the manner of sympathetic magic. In the process of total rejection of the polytheistic religions and thier ritual expressions in the cult, epic songs and also the epic genre were purged from the literary repertoire of the Hebrew authors.”

Bible - OT: OT Historiography

Iain Provan, Philips Long, and Tremper Longman’s A Biblical History of Israel begins with several excellent chapters on OT historiography, and on historiographical issues in general. Some highlights of the discussion (highlights to me at least):

1) The authors challenge the distinction between primary and secondary sources because it is based on a faulty “scientific” understanding of historical study: “The idea goes at least as far back as Ranke himself, who proposed that texts produced in the course of events as they were happening are more worthy of the historian’s attention than texts produced afterwards. Priority is thus to be given in scientific historiography to what are called primary over against secondary and later sources. However, there is no good reason to assume in advance that so-called ‘primary’ sources are going to be more reliable than any others. The assumption has quite a bit to do with the naive belief that eyewitnesses ‘tell it like it is,’ while others inevitably filter reality through various distorting screens. As in art, however, so it is in history: close proximity to subject and canvas by no means guarantees a more ‘accurate’ picture (since the painter sometimes gets lost among the proverbal trees, and loses sight of the overall chape of the forest). On the one hand, eyewitnesses, like everyone else, have a point of view, and in the process of testifying they must inevitably simplify, select, and interpret. On the other hand, people who secondarily pass testimony along, whether oral or written, may do this not only accurately but also intelligently and with a better sense than the eyewitnesses of the way in which a particular testimony fits the larger picture.”

To built on the last point: Who has the better view of a battle in World War II? A solider on the field? A general who is overseeing the effort but does not know the ultimate outcome of the battle or the war? Or an historian who looks back to see not only the end of the war but the aftermath? For various purposes (the feel of combat, for instance), the soldier on the ground might be a better witness. But the historian is in the better position to tell the story of World War II than either of the participants. As in a novel, the historian who knows the end of the story has the ability to assess the significance of various chapters much better than the participants who are living in the chapters.

2) The authors point to the ironic fact that some OT historians operate with a bias toward narrative sources at the very same time that interest in narrative history is reviving among historians generally. They include an extensive discussion of Lawrence Stone’s 1979 (!) article about the revival of narrative history.

3) The authors frequently employ the analogy of painting and historical narrative to address various historiographic issues. For example, they quote Hans Barstad to the effect that “Narrative history is not pure fiction, but contains a mixture of history and fiction,” and respond: “One would not exactly say of a portrait that it is a MIXTURE of history and fiction. In one sense, a portrait is all history, since its essential purpose is to represent a historical subject. Ideally, every brushstroke in the portrait seves that purpose. In another sense, however, a portrait is all fiction — that is, it is all ‘fabrication,’ just paint on canvas. No brushstroke of combination of brushstrokes exactly DUPLICATES the historical subject. Taken together, however, the brushstrokes DEPICT, or represent, the historical subject. . . . In a similar way, a biblical narrative is in one sense a fabrication, because it consists of words on paper and not the actual past. Nevertheless, these words on paper, like paint on canvas, can accurately represent the historical past.”

This volume looks to be among the best histories of Israel available, and certainly the most philosophically sophisticated that I’ve come across.

Bible - OT: The Critical History of Israel’s Priesthood

According to the critical consensus, 2 Samuel 8:18, 20:26 and 1 Kings 4:5 above show no acquaintance with ?P?s?Enotion that priesthood was restricted to members of the tribe of Levi; from this evidence, inter alia, the conclusion is drawn that P must not then have been in existence, for if it were, the authors of Samuel and Kings would certainly have condemned the presence of nonLevitical priests. In my interpretation of these texts in The Priesthood of the Plebs, I have assumed, on the contrary, that the restriction of priestly ministry to the tribe of Levi predated the early monarchy, a stance that, though raising problems about the texts in question, is necessary to open up a more accurate interpretation of these texts, and a fuller understanding of Israelite priesthood generally. Clearly, I cannot here examine the classic JEDP thesis fully here, but only point to several of the reasons I find it utterly unpersuasive. The notion that a distinct priestly source can be isolated at all is, I think, highly dubious (cf. Cassuto 1941), but for the sake of the following exercise I will assume that a distinct ?priestly document?Eor ?layer?Ecan be abstracted from the Pentateuch, so that what is at issue in the following argument is the date of P, the priestly literature that distinguishes most sharply between layman and Levite. A number of rather technical recent studies have contested a postexilic dating for P (summarized in Zevit 1982: 481-511), but I have no competence for evaluating questions such as the development Hebrew style and grammar or archeological evidence; my arguments do not rely on specialized knowledge. Besides, a late pre-exilic dating for P, such as Zevit and others argue for, does not in the least help me here. In order to present my reasons for rejecting the critical post-exilic date for P, I will follow the arguments of S. R. Driver?s Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, whose balanced assessment of the evidence is less strained by prejudice, and therefore more worthy of detailed attention, than Wellhausen?s often tendentious, albeit eloquent, tract. I will, however, address Wellhausen specifically at several points, and wish throughout to demonstrate Driver?s essential agreement with him.

According to Joseph Blenkinsopp, who has recently defended the postexilic dating of P (Blenkinsopp 1996), ?One of the main arguments for Wellhausen?s hypothesis, repeated many times in the Prolegomena, is that no pre-exilic writing betrays the slightest acquaintance with P?E(Blenkinsopp 1977: 58). Thus, by beginning with incontrovertibly early literature, and showing its lack of acquaintance with P, and by gradually moving through later literature, again showing that this literature shows no knowledge of P, P can be removed to a later and later period. If a document can be assigned an absolute date, and if it can be shown that this document does not assume the structures and institutions of P, then it must be that P is later than this document.
Driver endorses something like this procedure, beginning his discussion of the date of P by pointing out that in Judges and Samuel, sacrifice is offered by anyone, anywhere, ?without any hint of disapproval on the part of the narrator, and without any apparent sense, even on the part of men like Samuel and David, that an irregularity was being committed?E(Driver 1913a: 136). Deuteronomy likewise does not presuppose P, but is liturgically much closer to the early Pentateuchal documents J and E (Driver 1913a: 137), and Deuteronomy can be dated with some certainty to the Josianic reforms and centralization of the sanctuary in the seventh century (Driver 1913a; Wellhausen 1885). Hence, P must be later than the seventh century. Finally, Ezekiel 44:6-16, a passage that played a key role in Wellhausen?s reconstruction as well, institutes, as for the first time, a distinction between (Zadokite) priests and Levites. This distinction, however, is pervasively assumed by P; if Ezekiel instituted it for the first time, it must be that Ezekiel predates P, and since Ezekiel was living in the early exilic period, P must be either exilic or later (Driver 1913a: 139).

Insofar as this is an argument from the silence of the historical books, it is not only flimsy but also open to a variety of alternative explanations. Among Wellhausen?s arguments for the late date of P?s regulations concerning the priesthood, for example, was the sharp contrast between the elaborate priesthood described in Leviticus and Numbers and the apparent freedom in worship and sacrifice found in narratives describing Israel?s early life in the land; the suddenness of the institution of the cult, he said with characteristic wit, is matched by the suddenness of the cult?s disappearance after the conquest, so that ?the Book of Judges forthwith enters upon a secular history completely devoid of all churchly character?E(Wellhausen 1885: 127). The absence of the priesthood and cult from most of Judges is quite striking, since the Hexateuch leaves the impression that the high priest was the central figure in Israel at the time. It is, of course, exceedingly tenuous to draw large historical conclusions on the basis of a single book. More importantly, Wellhausen?s analysis ignores the fact that Judges is not written as mere narrative history but as a theological account of Israel?s failures; it is the work of a ?former prophet,?Enot a ?scientific nineteenth-century historian.?E Once this is recognized, the question arises of whether the absence of reference to priests and priestly institutions plays some theological role in the narrative. The plausibility of this line of thinking is increased by the fact that Levites do, in fact, appear in both of the long closing narratives of the book, and in neither case are they presented in a good light. By placing these narratives out of chronological order at the climactic point of the narrative, the author is highlighting the fact that the political failures of the early theocracy are in large measure the product of the failure of the Levites to guard Israel from idolatry (Jordan 1989). The narrative absence of the priests can be constructed as a thematic device to underscore their practical absence from the life of Israel. The book raises precisely Wellhausen?s question, ?Where are all the priests??E?Ewithout at all endorsing Wellhausen?s answer.

Driver?s argument is not, however, simply an argument from silence. He recognizes that the failure of many documents to allude to the institutions of P is evidence of ?less importance: the writers of these books may have found no occasion to mention them?E(Driver 1913a: 137). The argument is stronger when the texts record, without criticism, activities that are condemned by P, such as the permission seemingly granted to all lay Israelites to offer sacrifice. Here also, alternative explanations of the data are possible. A specific example will help. Judges 17-18 tells the story of Micah, who establishes a sanctuary for his ephod, and a wandering Levite named Jonathan, who is hired to manage the sanctuary. Most scholars recognize that this provides evidence, from sources deemed early, of a preference for Levitical priests. But more has been made of the story. From this incident, Kraus, among many others, concludes that during this period ?Anyone who managed to erect a sanctuary for the family or clan appointed a qualified man for the cult?E(Kraus 1966: 93), but to construct theories about what ?anyone?Emight do from a single narrative is building on sand. To be sure, the writer takes Micah and Jonathan as illustrative of a general tendency in Israel during the period of the judges, a tendency for every man to do what was right in his own eyes. Clearly, however, the author is critical of both Micah and Jonathan the Levite, so that it is simply not true that Judges passes over cultic abuses without comment.

Detailed exegetical debates aside, Driver?s thesis betrays serious internal inconsistencies. For critical scholars, the dating of P, it must be emphasized, depends entirely on comparison among the various texts of the Old Testament. Once the claim of the Pentateuch to Mosaic authorship is dismissed as unhistorical, one is left with no internal evidence for dating, and few fixed dates in relation to which other texts may be dated. Merely noting differences between P and Deuteronomy does not provide any information about relative dates. If P is to be assigned a later date than D, it must be shown that P presupposes what D requires, and that the opposite is not the case. If D presupposes P, then the dating would have to be reversed.

It is a remarkable testimony both to Driver?s care as a scholar and to his blind commitment to a postexilic date for P, that he provides abundant evidence for Deuteronomy?s knowledge of P?s institutions and regulations. Thus, Deuteronomy speaks of clean and unclean animals, requires sacrifices to be without blemish, uses the language of ?fire sacrifice,?Ealludes to burnt offerings and peace offerings, tithes, heave offerings, vows, and freewill offerings, the sanctity of firstlings and firstfruits, prohibits eating blood and the flesh of animals who died of themselves (Driver 1913: 144), all of which are prescribed (not presupposed) in P. Driver concludes that

It is thus apparent that at least one collection of priestly T?rth, which now forms part of P, was in existence when Dt. was written; and a presumption at once arises that other parts were in existence also. Now, the tenor of Dt. as a whole conflicts with the supposition that all the institutions of the Priests?ECode were in force when D wrote; but the list of passages just quoted shows that some were, and that the terminology used in connexion with them was known to D (Driver 1913a: 145).

Driver draws the same conclusion from the references to P in the historical books (Driver 1913a: 142-144). The institutions described in P, and even some written regulations that were later incorporated into P, predated Deuteronomy, and traces are found in the historical books. P is thus not a pure invention of exilic priests but was ?based upon pre-existing Temple usage?E(Driver 1913a: 143). His claim about the post-exilic dating of P, then, is a claim about the full document, as we presently possess it, not about any of its specific contents.

But the claim, so restricted, simply collapses, dying not the death of a thousand qualifications but the more rapid death of basic fallacy. For starters, Driver?s theory could accommodate evidence that proved that all the institutions of P existed during the first temple period, without giving up the claim that P as a document is postexilic. But then the argument about P is merely an argument about when the regulations were written down, and is comparatively trivial; one could not reconstruct the history of Israel on the basis of this kind of claim, which is, however, what Driver, following Wellhausen, dearly wishes to do. Further, once it is admitted that the institutions and rites described in P are based on those of the first temple period, something that even Wellhausen was willing to concede, then the supposed absence of allusion to these institutions and rites in acknowledged first temple texts, far from being proof for the lateness of P, is rendered problematic. If Deuteronomy is of Josianic provenance, and if at least some of the institutions of P predate Josiah, there is no historical reason why Deuteronomy would not allude to those institutions of P but, on the contrary, every reason to expect Deuteronomy to contain a great deal more priestly material. Given the assumption that P did not exist as a written document, the reform of Josiah would have been a natural moment for the Jerusalem priests to put their practices into some kind of systematic written form.

Driver discovers, however, that references to priestly institutions are not absent from Deuteronomy after all, but explains these references as evidence of a knowledge of institutions described in P but not evidence that P existed as a document when Deuteronomy was written. If Driver can acknowledge that Deuteronomy contains numerous allusions to priestly institutions, and yet maintain a late date for P, the question of whether Deuteronomy displays a knowledge of priestly material is irrelevant to the dating of P (unless ?allusions to P?Emeans specific reference to a priestly document, but that, to reiterate, would be trivial, not to mention quite impossible to prove). But the relationship of P to Deuteronomy is one of the key arguments for the late date of P, so, having conceded that the evidence is not clear-cut, on what basis does Driver cling to this conclusion?

The ruse that priestly material in Deuteronomy and the historical literature is a ?later interpolation?Eis even more apparently an argument of despair, one that Driver largely avoids, though not entirely (cf. Driver 1913a: 143, on Judges 20-21). Again, the absence of allusions to priestly material forms one of the main arguments for the conclusion that P did not exist, and that the rites, officers, and institutions of P are late. To suggest that, when allusions do appear in earlier literature, one can still assign them to a late period, makes the whole enterprise suspect, and renders the theory of a late dating of P practically unfalsifiable. Without endorsing a Popperian falsification criterion, one must question whether a theory so completely resistant to counter-evidence explains anything at all.

In the end, Driver is left with little more than appeals to differences in ?tenor?Eand ?impression.?E It is thus not only the detailed presentation of worship in Judges and Samuel that sets these texts off from P, but rather ?the different tone of feeling, and the different spirit which animates the narratives of the historical books,?Eso that the actors of these books ?move in an atmosphere into which the spirit of P has not penetrated?E(Driver 1913a: 137; cf. 138 [on D]; 139 [on Ezekiel]). As with Wellhausen, the overall impression created by the different documents is finally the decisive consideration. ?Overall impression?Edepends, of course, on who is being impressed. Though Driver is less explicit about it than Wellhausen, it is clear that for both the impression created by P is an entirely negative one. P?s anthropomorphisms describe a ?transcendent?EGod (apparently, a bad thing), and his historical narratives show no ?color?Ebut are rather theoretical and abstract (Driver 1913a: 140-141). Again, as with Wellhausen, this evaluation of priestly religion is allied to an implicit assumption about the development of religious institutions. Describing the divergences between Ezekiel and P, Driver suggests that Ezekiel?s liturgical prescriptions are ?simpler?Eand therefore the idea that P develops from Ezekiel, as Ezekiel developed from D, ?naturally suggests itself?E(Driver 1913a: 140). Even granting the facts are as Driver indicates (which, in the light of Ezekiel?s elaborate description of the temple, is dubious), there is nothing more ?natural?Eabout a development from simplicity to complexity than about an opposite development; they are simply different kinds of developments. One might as well argue that a medieval high mass is a ?natural?Edevelopment from, and therefore later than, the worship of the churches of Zwinglian Zurich. Related assumptions underlie Driver?s claim that ?Ezk. plainly attached a value to ceremonial observances, and is thus the less likely to have introduced a simplification of established ritual?E(Driver 1913a: 140), as if the links of ?complexity=high value=late date?Eformed an unbreakable chain.

Thus, the JEDP theory as argued by Driver must be rejected as illogical and internally contradictory.

Bible - OT: First Church of the Bitter

Ask any church planter, and he’ll tell you that one of the dangers of starting a new work is that it tends to attract all the people who are disaffected and discontented from the churches of the surrounding area. They have made an utter nuisance of themselves in their own churches, and they can make the church planter’s life miserable. They will soon be disenchanted and disillusioned with the new church and its less-than-perfect pastor. Such is the conventional wisdom, and it is truly wisdom.

On the other hand: When David escaped from Saul and fled to the cave of Adullam, he attracted all the disaffected and disillusioned malcontents from all over Israel: “everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter of soul, gathered to him” (1 Kings 22:2). Hardly the ideal core group, that; and hardly the kind of upwardly mobile tithing folks who can make sure that the building program stays on schedule. And yet, this is Israel in exile, the true Israel. And this is not David’s church growth program only: Moses did not have an ideal band to start Israel in the first place. Had all Jews been happy with the priests, Pharisees, and scribes, would they have flocked to Jesus? Jesus’ church, like David’s and Moses’, is, in the first instance, the church of the bitter of soul.

This provides an essential perspective on contemporary church life. Migrations, sometimes mass migrations, are common in the modern church. Denominations are built from the distressed and the bitter of soul. And this can be disastrous. But it can also be wonderful. Are the AMiA and the various other continuing Anglican communions, the PCA, the OPC, the OCRC, the URC, and many others the churches of the distressed? You bet they are. Might the bitter of soul who congregate in these churches become embittered with each other and fragment further? You bet they could. But these are living stones that may freshly rebuild the church. This is the way Christ builds His church, calling the weary and heavy laden to find relief, to find Jesus, in truly evangelical churches (which may not be “Evangelical”)

First Church of the Bitter ?Eit was good enough for Moses and David. It was good enough for Jesus.

Bible - OT: Locative Manifestation of God

Throughout the OT, there are repeated references to Yahweh’s “name” dwelling in the place of Yahweh’s choosing (Deut 12; 2 Sam 7; 1 Kings 6-8). Frequently (as in 1 Kings 8:16), there is a pun on the word “name” (SHEM) and the word “there” (SHAM). If we can extrapolate from this pun to theology proper: To speak of the name of God is to speak of a manifestation of God that has a “there,” that possesses the locative quality of “thereness.” I think the best explanation of this is that “name” is a reference to Yahweh Himself available in a designated location; the “name” is the Second Person, who is with the Father and is God, but is the locative manifestation of the Father who is in heaven and of the Spirit who blows where He wishes.

Bible - OT: Cups and Thresholds

It is a curious fact that one of the Hebrew words for “cup” is the same as the word for “threshold” (SAF). This could be pure coincidence, but I wonder. Cups function as temple instruments in Ex 12:22; 1 Ki 7:50; Jer 52:19. And there are “guardians of the threshold” among the temple personnel - 2 Kings 25:18; 1 Chr 9:19, 22; 23:4. In Esther 2:21, there is a reference to the threshold-guardian of Ahasuerus’ palace, but that could, I suppose, just as easily be taken as the “cup-bearer” or “cup-guardian.”

One common element is that both are used as images of judgment. Judgments take place at doorways and thresholds, at gates, where decisions about entry and exile are made. Cups too figure into the administration of judgment (cf Zech 12:2, using SAF to speak about God’s cup of judgment).

It may be nothing. But it may be something too.

Bible - OT: Freedman Again

Freedman comments, “It may be pure coincidence that the Book of Genesis begins with the words beresit . . . elohim, ‘In the beginning, . . . God. . .,’ while the book of Ezra-Nehemiah ends with the words elohay letoba, ‘. . . my God for good.’ We need not point out that ‘good’ is the theme word of Genesis 1:1-2:3, and remains the leitmotif of the whole Hebrew Bible.” Or, maybe not pure coincidence. If this connection works, then the “good” that Nehemiah is looking for is the “good” of a new creation.

« Previous Entries in Category |