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The two-year Certificate in Theology, awarded by the University of Exeter, and taught originally in evening classes at Exeter, Plymouth and Truro, has evolved considerably over the 25 years or more since it emerged from different courses run by the dioceses of Exeter and Truro. I got involved in the mid-1990s to do some teaching in Truro on the Bible Year, though it wasn't really a Bible Year at all then as it only covered the New Testament. Soon afterwards, encouraged by Theology South West, a high-level forum of theological educators and church leaders in the region which is now sadly defunct, the course was revamped and one term of the Bible Year was devoted to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. I found myself in the Old Testament Working group and then found myself supplying a possible course outline which the group agreed, and then writing the course itself which the group tweaked and approved. I have module directed the resulting Old Testament/Hebrew Bible module ever since and regularly taught it at Truro and also online. Due to strange circumstances at the university last time round, I taught the module face to face in Exeter and the event was transmitted to the university campus at Tremough, near Falmouth, where the Cornish class joined in on the screen. Great fun. The Bible Year and the Doctrine Year alternate, and what you have here are the weekly class handouts from the last time the Bible Year was run, which was in the 2009-10 academic year. Many of the supporting handouts can be found on the next page of this website university certificate (2) where there are also a few of my older New Testament sessions from Truro, where I got involved in teaching that interesting Supplement. The course will be shortened, tweaked and updated again for the 2011-2012 academic year when it will be managed by SWMTC and marketed under the Encountering Theology logo. I think everything in what follows is self-explanatory.
INDEX
1 Introduction to the module
2 Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
3 A Reading exercise – ‘In the beginning’ – Gen 1:1-2:4a Gen 1 is the opening passage in every Bible. It is also, still, relatively familiar to people. A number of questions present themselves straight away: What sort of literature is it? What does it mean? Why do modern translations differ? Is it ‘true’? So reading it together from NRSV (out loud, with a narrator, God and chorus – and asking class members who have other translations to listen to the reading, read their own translations, and note any differences – all at the same time!) what do we see in terms of its structure, language, style and theology? a. Observations about the structure, language, style and theology of the passage:
b. Observations about the differences between the translations and any difficult words, phrases or ideas: v2 – wind from God, Spirit of God, mighty wind – which reflects the rich translation possibilities of both ruach (wind, breath, spirit, cf pneuma) and elohim (usually God, but occasionally a superlative, as in the American expression ‘God-awful’ – from Hebrew via the Jewish community?). NB the wisdom of looking at footnotes in Bibles as well as of comparing as many translations as possible v2 – swept, or hovered, or rushed or brooded: a rare Hebrew word which possibly has something to do with birds – though swooping and hovering are rather different! An excellent example of a word whose unknown meaning generates guesses v26 – us – who is God talking to or about? Why is the Trinitarian explanation ancient but wrong? A ‘royal we’? But there is no such thing in Hebrew except for 1 Samuel 24:3. Answer – Heavenly Court/Council as in Isaiah 6, Ps 82, Job 1-2, 1 Kings 22:19 vv26-31, imago dei – a huge and crucially key question – too big for now But the most difficult of all is v1 with its two quite different pictures depending on how we insert the English punctuation. There is the traditional picture of creatio ex nihilo (before God creates there is nothing, then he creates the chaos, then he creates order out of it), as implied in the translation in AV and RSV. Or there is the other one (chaos exists, God begins to create by bringing order out of it), as in NRSV but even clearer in the first option in NRSV margin and even in GNB. Do you find it challenging that the Bible’s opening sentence is capable of diverse and conflicting translations? The first assignment gives you the opportunity to explore all this in some depth 4 Genre - the most important word in this course is ‘genre’ because, as John Barton (Reading the OT, 2nd ed, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1996, chapter 1) points out, ‘genre-recognition’ is the key to all reading. Thus if you pick up a scrap of litter with ‘Take four ounces of flou …’ scribbled on it you will, probably, recognise the beginnings of a recipe. But genres in the Bible are not so clear, and that adds further complications to Biblical interpretation. So what is the genre of this passage, ie how is this text to be read and described? Is it a creation account? What about words like story, poem or parable? 5 And finally - why should anyone want to read an ancient text like this? There may be many reasons why, and some reasons why not (Marcion!). Perhaps the best is that the ancient anthology of religious literature which it introduces (whether that is the Hebrew Bible or the various Christian ones) is recognised by two major religious traditions as having important things to say about the meaning of life, the universe and everything? We shall see. Follow-up Reading
Short Task for the next session: Read (1) Genesis 2:4b-3:24 (2) Psalms 74:12-17 and 89:5-18 + Isaiah 51:9-11 and (3) Proverbs 8:22-31 + Job 28:20-28. Summarise what you have observed in your reading
Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
1 Review of the ‘Short Task [which was to read (1) Genesis 2:4b-3:24 (2) Psalms 74:12-17 and 89:5-18 + Isaiah 51:9-11 and (3) Proverbs 8:22-31 + Job 28:20-28 and to summarise what you have observed in your reading]. What did you observe in your reading? Eg:
All this will probably begin to raise issues of authority and inspiration. However, it is only when we have seen what the Bible is, and how it has come to us, that we can go on to inspiration and authority questions – despite those who want to do it the other way round! 2 Canons (ie official and authorised lists of approved books) If a Bible is an anthology, the Contents page becomes a source of endless fascination. The NRSV Contents page (see University certificate (2) item 7 in this website) is a very useful resource here for this translation contains – for the first time between one set of covers – all the books accepted as ‘canonical’ by all the different church groupings. So - looking at the NRSV Contents Page what do you notice? The divisions in the Hebrew Bible, the different number of books in the list in column 3 and the different order of the books in column 1. The ‘Protestant Bible (OT)’ contains only the books of the HB, but it puts them in the order of the Roman Catholic OT. The first column was the ‘Bible’ of Jesus and the fourth was the ‘Bible’ of St Paul Is it an important question to ask who decided what should be included, and why there are different orders? Does it matter? What difference does the order make? 3 How did we get these books? The People of Israel were religious people, and like us accumulated hymns and sermons, proverbs and commandments and, above all, stories of the way that God had guided them in the past. Most of these were not written down at all for many years. Eventually, for various reasons, they began to write them down, and so scrolls containing old and new stories began to appear. Later on, for reasons which are not too clear, the Jews decided to recognise some of these books as Sacred Scripture:
So we get the 3 parts of the HB being recognised and ‘authorised’. But just after Part Two was agreed they needed a translation for all those Jews who lived outside Palestine (the majority) who no longer spoke Hebrew, and so a translation into Greek was produced in Egypt (The Septuagint - LXX). But this included other books not translated from the Hebrew at all which were popular among the Jews there. These are the books Protestants call the ‘Apocrypha’ and modern Roman Catholics call the ‘Deutero-canonical Books’. Then when Christianity split away from Judaism the Jews decided to keep only the HB, and the Christians read the books of the Greek Bible in the order in the third column. A universal Latin translation (the Vulgate) was produced by Jerome in the 4th century which omitted or appendicised a small number of items (Ps 151, 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, Prayer of Manasseh). This was used in the west until the Reformers in the 16th century decided to keep to the books of the HB only, ie the second column. Note therefore: the Bible in Falmouth or Exeter between the arrival of Christianity around 400CE and the Reformation was the Bible in col.3: the ‘Authorised Version of 1611 included the Apocrypha in a separate block, but then in the 19th century the Bible Society insisted they stop publishing that, and so the AV became in the 19th century a radical, Protestant, minority innovation in dismissing those other books! Is it therefore more appropriate to speak of ‘The Bibles’ rather than ‘The Bible’? If different Bibles divide the books up in different ways, put them in different orders and add or omit books, does this mean that each anthology has a different theme or story line? See
Also my Why Bible-believing Methodists shouldn’t eat Black Pudding (The Bible – What is it? How did we get it? How shall we use it?) – on this website 4 Does Gen 12:1-3 serve as the key to the plot of Genesis? ‘The theme of the Pentateuch’ is a phrase symptomatic of the newer ways of approaching the OT/HB, and essential reading to follow up this session is the book with the same title by D J A Clines, Journal for the Study of the OT, Supplement series 10, 1978 revised in a second edition, 1996. In it Clines asserts that Gen 12:1-3 is the key to the plot of the Pentateuch in that it sets out 3 promises to Abraham:
Thereafter the story is of the partial fulfilment (but also the partial unfulfilment) of these promises. So the story unfolds so that by the end of Genesis no.2 is well on the way to being completed, by the end of Deuteronomy no.3 is complete and the stage is set for the fulfilment of no.1 which has been the motif since the beginning of Exodus. Though note that this key narrative ends with the People of God on the wrong side of the River Jordan, and leaves the question of will they? (or we?)/won’t they? (or we?) cross over and enter the Land of Promise hanging, open, in the air. Isn’t this a fascinating way for your Really Holy Book to end? Short Task for the next session: Prepare a glossary entry on ‘Torah’
Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
1 The meaning(s) and role(s) of Torah ‘The Torah’ is the name given to the Five Books in the first and definitive part of the Hebrew Bible, traditionally translated as ‘The Law’ These books (or This ‘Book’?) contain a variety of material, principally narrative and instruction. The Hebrew words for these two different kinds of material found within The Torah are halakah (‘walking’ = rules for living in God's way, pl halakoth) and haggadah (‘story’ = inspiration for living in God's way, pl haggadoth) Torah thus has two senses, a general and a specific one; the general sense is that of the ‘story’ which is God’s teaching or revelation, and the specific one refers to individual words of instruction or guidance (especially the ‘testimonies, commandments, ordinances and statutes’ so beloved of Deuteronomy, but also the liturgical instructions in Leviticus and Numbers) Torah, in all of its senses, is traditionally translated as ‘law’, but is perhaps better translated as ‘teaching’ or ‘guidance’ or even ‘revelation’ or ‘gospel’. In Judaism and the OT the word is entirely warm and wholesome: God has made himself known as the Saviour of Israel, and the Torah tells that story. The story includes toroth, commandments which Israel is to keep, but these are God's guidelines in how to stay ‘saved’ and not his list of exercises and merit-marks by which people might earn his salvation, see Ex 20:1. The life of faithfulness thus consists in walking in God’s ways and thereby continuing to receiving God’s blessings The fundamental image of God here is therefore that of Teacher, and you may like to reflect on how different that sounds to ‘Lawgiver’ The implications of this understanding of torah for reading the NT are considerable, as the writings of E P Sanders show. See also the article on Torah by J A Sanders in IDB Supp pp909f. The ‘Ten Commandments’ (the Decalogue) and all the rest of the 613 laws or commandments or statutes or ordinances are therefore grace rather than works in the Lutheran sense, which is surely why the longest psalm in the Psalter is a song of praise which expresses delight in Torah! See the photocopy about Simhat Torah from de Lange 2 Torah as StoryWe usually read the OT and the New in bits and pieces. In an anthology (or a library or even a web-site) it is quite acceptable to dip in anywhere (or pick any book off the shelf): but as we have it the HB and the OT plus NT together in the Christian Bibles are complete collections, put together into a particular order (or variety of orders) and published in a single bound volume. Perhaps at this point, therefore, the anthology/library analogy begins to break down and our reading of snippets to be called into question? Although the Bound Volume contains a variety of different types of literature, the most prominent genre in the collection is narrative. This simple observation gives grounds for looking for a narrative thread/theme/story-line in the Bound Volume as a whole. But the different orders of the books in the different collections mean that the reading of the whole thing from beginning to end (should anyone have the patience to try it) produces different reading experiences in the different collections. To put it another way, they tell different overall stories. Each reading highlights different themes and different theologies. In a real sense, therefore, the HB tells a different tale from the OT Reading
3 Mapping Israel’s Core Creed The Torah is a story of God. In this part of the session we look at the name of Israel’s God and its meaning. The Shema (Deut 6:4) is the central liturgical affirmation of Judaism. What does it say? What does it mean for theology and faith to have a creed we cannot define and a God we cannot name? Does Ex 34:5-7 help or hinder and is it legitimate for NRSV to interpret this key passage as it does? a The Shema‘ as Judaism's basic cry of faith
b God’s Name
4 The Sources of the Pentateuch It was such problems as the conflict between Ex 6:3 and Gen 4:1, or the differences in the numbers of animals going into the Ark that led scholars to suggest that The Books of Moses were not by him at all, but were a composite production by person or persons unknown using a variety of older documents. The name above all which was associated with this 19th century ‘Documentary Hypothesis’ was Julius Wellhausen. Arch conservatives continued to insist that Moses wrote the Pentateuch but in serious OT scholarship the Documentary Hypothesis was quickly accepted, and the letters J, E, D and P became an accepted (and tedious) part of a student's life. (‘J’ was the document which used the name ‘Jehovah/Yahweh’ for God from the beginning, whereas ‘E’ was the one which normally called him just ‘God’ (Hebrew Elohim) until the change at Ex 6:3. ‘P’ was the stately and liturgical document primarily concerned with priestly things (‘P’ = ‘Priestly’) and found mostly in Leviticus and Numbers though including Gen 1 and ‘D’ was ‘Deuteronomy’ quite distinct in language and style from the others. It was usually agreed that J and E were combined fairly early on, D was ‘The Book of the Law discovered in the House of the Lord’ in 2 Kg 22:8, and the whole lot were combined into their present form during or shortly after the Exile In the 20th century the idea of ‘documents’ came under fire and scholars began to talk about "traditions" instead, and the Germans found more and more of these in the Pentateuch, and more and more revisions. British scholars tended to yawn at the whole enterprise. In the last 30 years both the much-revised ‘Documentary Hypothesis’ and the whole search for the ‘traditions’ has been seriously questioned, not because we believe that Moses wrote it all, but because we have come to think that while there were probably a few ‘documents’ behind the Pentateuch and there were also all sorts of oral traditions, it is actually impossible to recover them. They were used, together with no small element of creative writing, by whoever wove the whole thing together, and, modern scholarship suggests, our attention should focus on the ‘final form’ of the Pentateuch as we have it For a summary of the discussion see the articles ‘Pentateuch etc’ by Clements in the SCM Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, ed Coggins & Houlden, pp527-530, and Clines in the Oxford Companion. Recent guides are Rofe A (1999) Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, Nicholson E W (1998) The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century, Oxford: OUP and Davies G I ‘Introduction to the Pentateuch’ in the Oxford Bible Commentary pp12-38 (OUP 2001). A useful summary of the current position can be found in chapter 5 (by G J Wenham) of Baker D W & Arnold B T (eds) (1999) The Face of OT Studies Michigan: Apollos and a summary in Wenham G (2003) Exploring the OT - vol 1 - The Pentateuch, London: SPCK, chapter 9 Reading Barton & Bowden pp x-xi, 2.2, 3.1, 5.1
‘The Prophets’ is the second section of the Hebrew Bible in which in word and deed the prophets of ancient Israel feature significantly. Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible also relies heavily on ‘what the prophets foretold’. But who were these characters? What did they do? How far are the OT prophets ‘forthtellers’? A case study of Amos, both the man and the book and an introduction to the Historical-critical method. 1 Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
2 Prophecy and ProphetsWho were the prophets, what was a prophet, what is prophecy? The problem is that ‘prophet/prophecy’ are slippery words which have been used over many centuries and in different contexts, hence they have multiple meanings. In the OT/HB prophecy is only very partially about predicting the future. In OT/HB terms a prophet was God's spokesperson, his preacher, his messenger, his announcer; the one who spoke out in God's name. He or she declared the will of God to God's people in a particular place and time. Cf Ex 7:1 where Aaron is called ‘Moses' prophet’, = his spokesman, and the use of the verb ‘prophesy’ in Ezek 37:4-10 Sometimes this message was concerned with the future, ie that if the people did or didn't do this or that then x, y or z would happen: but here the future was almost always the very near future which would affect those listening to the prophet at the time. It used to be fashionable to dismiss the future element altogether and to say that the prophets were ‘forthtellers’ not ‘foretellers’: nowadays we are inclined to say they were both ‘forthtellers’ and ‘foretellers’, because they announced God's will for their contemporaries with warning or encouragement about what would happen if the people listened to it. But the one thing that the OT/HB prophet was not was a predictor of the long-term, centuries-on future The OT/HB prophet was the ‘man of God’ (though there were women prophets too), who heard God's voice, and announced his will to the people. We are familiar with the great names, but there were certainly plenty more in all shapes and sizes. Those who were remembered were those who spoke particularly important things at especially crucial times in the nation's history, and whose words could be used later in the dominant ideology: but there were others. Cf Samuel, the prophet of Ramah, in 1 Sam 9:5-10, the ‘Temple prophets’, the groups of prophets who got into trances with music and dancing as in 1 Sam 10:9-13, and the official Court Prophets (eg Elisha in 2 Kg 6:12, the story of Micaiah and his opponents in 1 Kg 22, Nathan in 2 Sam 12) Those whose names we know are only a fragment of the total, but even then there is a great variety. They come from different social backgrounds; Isaiah the sophisticated nobleman from Jerusalem, Jeremiah and Ezekiel the priests, Amos some sort of countryman like Micah. They are different sorts of personalities, Elijah the lonely extrovert, the visionary Ezekiel with his trances, the shy and retiring Jeremiah. Some prophesied for a lifetime, others only once or twice. They met with different responses, worked in different places over a long period of time: but the one thing they had in common was that they saw themselves called to ‘give a message from God’. Sometimes it was with great reluctance that they acknowledged that call, often it was at great cost: but the words of Amos 3:8 can stand for them all Reading
3 The Historical-critical MethodThe ‘Latter Prophets’ gives us anthologies of the sayings of named prophets. Each prophetic book is a collection of varied and diverse material: oracles of God in the first person, reports of sayings of God in the third, accounts of visions, proverbs and riddles, narratives about the prophet and much else often in an apparent jumble of threats, warnings and encouragements. The study of these different types of material is called Form Criticism. Whatever development there has been in different ways of approaching these books, the Historical Critical Method remains essential in understanding the sayings of the prophets. Put simply this method says that the key to understanding these sayings and of making your way through these at times difficult and repetitive books, is to ask five questions before you start:
You will no doubt discover when asking these questions of a particular passage that it might come from a later time than the prophet in question, which does not in any way make it a less interesting or less valuable saying. You just need to ask the 5 questions of it to make sense of it in its particular original context One implication of this is that, to take Amos as an example, the name ‘Amos’ can stand for two different things: for the book with that name in the OT, or for the prophet of that name from the eighth century BCE whose life and words are found in the book. But there is material in the book which, almost certainly, does not originate with the prophet of that name You can also look at the final form of the whole book to see if there is any overall shape or theme, or any reason why the anthology was arranged as it is (= Redaction Criticism) 4 Amos the Man and Amos the Book
Note that in doing this we are trying to look at the context in which the sayings were originally spoken, and thereby understand what the sayings mean. Or to put it another way, we are talking about the Man and his Message. But as we have them now these sayings are part of a written text, an anthology, and we do not know who by, when or where the sayings were edited, revised, and published. Looking at Amos the Book you can ask questions about the organisation and theme of the anthology as a whole. The new literary studies tend to focus on this enterprise while the HCM focuses on the former. Both are legitimate but they are different studies Learning Journal Task: Prepare a glossary entry on ‘Prophecy’
A look at the famous passage Isaiah 6.1-8 will tease out more key features of the OT/HB’s understanding of God (and glance at R Otto’s famous ‘mysterium tremendum et fascinans’ in the process). We shall, however, read on into the difficult verses 9-13 and explore the possible interpretations of these verses. How far are the OT/HB prophets ‘foretellers’? 1 Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
2 Background There was a time when serious attempts were made to examine the psychology of the prophets, but in general this is now regarded as almost impossible to do on the basis of the only data we have available, which is either stories about the prophets or their reported words, none of which are necessarily first-hand. What is clear, however, is that in almost all cases, we are dealing with experiences of ecstasy in one form or another. This may be frightening or bizarre, but it is not, in the sociology of religion, particularly unusual. The prophets of Israel were of a piece with the prophets of Baal! What appears to have been important in the prophets in Israel is not their existence, but the particular message they, or at least a significant number of them, communicated and its effect on the path of the nation's history and its contribution to the national sense of identity at a particularly critical period in that history. In other words, without Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the unknown prophet responsible for chapters 40-55 of the Book of Isaiah, it is highly unlikely that the people of Israel would have survived as a nation, that Judaism would have developed as a religion, and that we would be here discussing the OT/HB at all In the narratives about or the writing of the prophets themselves ‘call’ experiences are important. One of the most well-known is Isaiah 6, which is usually called a ‘call-narrative’ (but why after 5 chapters?). The second half of the chapter is, however, both very difficult and very revealing of attitudes to prophets and to their ‘success’ – ie they usually failed, at least in their immediate contexts (see Matthew 23:37) 3 Introduction to exegesis and worked outline example For how to do an exegesis, see item 19 in the university certificate (2) page of this website An exegesis normally consists of 5 or 6 parts, and so an exegesis of Isaiah 6.1-8 would look something like this (with explanations given to the words or themes noted in 3-5 obviously). For a fuller version see item 20 in the university certificate (2) page of this website 1 An introductory sentence which sets the passage in its context or contexts – literary and/or historical
2 A sentence which summarises the passage in today’s language
3 An explanation of any particularly difficult words, phrases or ideas
4 Discussion of the key themes or ideas
5 A concluding paragraph which points to the place of the passage and its ideas in the OT/HB
4 But what about the ‘hard bit’ - Isaiah 6:9-13? A common explanation is that these verses are deeply and sadly ironic in tone:
Do you think this explanation is satisfactory? See the way this passage is quoted in Mark 4:12 (and its parallels in Matthew 13:10-15 and Luke 8:10) and then John 12:40 and Acts 28:25-28 Matthew 13:10 speaks of this passage being ‘fulfilled’ in the time of Jesus? Is that a legitimate interpretation of it? Reading
For the Study Day: read Psalms 1, 51, 74 and 93 Short Task for the Study Day: Prepare an outline exegesis of Ps 24
Ezekiel (the man or the book) is, in many ways, one of the most bizarre of the canonical prophets. Here we look at the man and the book using the tools of the Historical-critical method. 1 Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
2 Ezekiel the Man
3 Ezekiel the Book 1 Who ‘wrote’ it? Despite some attempts, the ‘unity’ of the Book of Ezekiel has survived attempts to divide it into different sources, and the idea of the prophet’s words being developed by an ‘Ezekiel School’ has also not met with universal assent. Nor is it agreed that the final form of the book is the work of an anonymous, but deeply sympathetic, editor. It may be, alone and significant among the books of prophets, that Ezekiel himself is responsible for the final form of the book, and that his visions and words were preserved in writing from the beginning 2 Who ‘published’ it? Unlike Jeremiah, and many of the other books of the prophets, Ezekiel shows no sign of editing and publishing by the Deuteronomists (its affinities are with the ‘P’ strand of the Torah). Here too Ezekiel himself may be responsible for its ‘publication’ 3 What does it contain? It is a book in two halves (downfall (1-24) and restoration (25-48)) which can be further subdivided:
Reading
Learning Journal Task: Read Job and answer these questions:
1 Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
2 The OT/HB Wisdom Literature 1 Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes are the main OT/HB examples of ‘Wisdom Literature’ and at first sight they look very different. What do they have in common that leads them to be held together and called ‘the Wisdom literature’? In Jere 18:18 we find a reference to three groups of people - prophets, priests and the wise. The educated ‘wise men’ of Solomon's court and the popular ‘wise people’ of the villages (eg 2 Sam 14:2, the wise woman of Tekoa) actually had much in common. In the literature which they produced there are no visions of God, and no prophets declaring to the people what God has told them to say; instead the wise look around at the world with open eyes and see what is going on. By simply observing nature and human affairs the wise draw conclusions about the best way to live, to live in harmony and fullness of life. The basic conviction of this way of thinking is that wise living leads to fullness of life, whereas folly leads to death, and wise living is based on carefully reflecting on the way the world works. God is not left out of this (‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’), but his will and his ways are to be seen in the creation and the life of nature and human beings. Wisdom is based on observation, perception and common sense and is deeply aware of the ‘orders’ or ‘regularities’ of life. God is ever present as validating and ensuring this order: but neither the immediacy of prophetic religion nor the reality of his sacramental presence is prominent in Wisdom thought. 2 In addition to this general approach Wisdom Lit. has two sets of literary characteristics:
3 Israel shared this ‘Wisdom’ approach with other nations. It was an international heritage (eg Prov 22:17-24:22 are lifted from an Egyptian collection - the Instruction of Amen-em-opet). 4 The Book of Job begins with a prose prologue (1-2), then Job is visited by three friends who talk round and round the same problem; each speaks in turn and Job replies to each speech, though Zophar doesn't get his third turn. Job's final plea for God to listen is found in 29-31. Then Elihu speaks (32-37) before God speaks with Job twice (38-40:2, 40:6-41) before the prose epilogue. With Job, the Historical-Critical Method encouraged us to split the book up into several parts (Prologue/Epilogue, three cycles of debate, the Elihu speech, the divine speeches), each of which were attributed to different settings and authors, albeit very vaguely and without many agreed conclusions. The emphasis always fell on the cycles of debate with a passing interest in the Prologue – very few took notice of Elihu and his speeches, which were simply dismissed as a later addition. More recently we have begun to look at the book as a whole – its ‘final form’ etc Job is a classic of the world's religious literature (and also a good place to see how OT/HB studies have changed in recent years) but it is also an enigma of a book. The speeches of Job and his friends which form the bulk of the book deal with one of the major concerns of the Wise - success and failure - by way of a sustained protest against the simplistic pragmatism of some of the other Wisdom writings eg Proverbs, and also against the theological orthodoxy of the Deuteronomists, who both agree that righteousness/wisdom is rewarded and sin/folly is punished. ‘It ain't necessarily so’, cries Job. But at the end the whole argument seems to be undone So, what is it all about? What is its genre? The book is long, complex and complicated and a classic of the world's religious literature. But does it have a theme? Is it about the problem of suffering? Is it about providence and rewards and punishments? Is it about the absence of God? Is it a protest against both Deuteronomic orthodoxy and Orthodox Wisdom or a validation of both? Are different parts of the book in conflict? Is it an extended theological reflection on the genre of the Individual Lament? Perhaps it is best read as a ‘consciousness-raising’ exercise, a theological-reflection programme, a Case Study for trainee pastoral theologians ancient and postmodern? 5 Proverbs is an anthology of various orthodox wisdom writings. Ecclesiastes is the sceptical or realistic antidote to its platitudes.
Reading
3 The Wisdom of Solomon, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphy 1 Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach, or the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach) are the prime examples of Wisdom Literature in the Apocrypha (the collection of books which are not in HB but which were found in the earliest Greek translations and which are found in the OT section of ‘Roman Catholic’ and Orthodox Bibles). 2 Wisdom of Solomon is an example of a pseudepigraphic book, written by an unknown author and usually dated in the first centuries BCE or CE. 3 Pseudepigraphy (literally ‘false-writing’) is a common feature of writings from the ancient world of the eastern Mediterranean whose conventions of authorship and copyright were different from ours. Baruch is a second example from the Apocrypha and the Pastoral Epistles are widely held to be an example of this in the NT. It became a very common feature of later Jewish writing, and examples are the Book of Enoch, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Apocalypse of Abraham. The Gospel of Thomas is the best known example of a Christian pseudepigraph. 4 Thus The Pseudepigrapha is the title of collections of these ancient Jewish texts, eg those available in 2-volume editions by R H Charles (1913) and J H Charlesworth (1984).
Reading
For the next session: read Barton & Bowden 3.1, 3.2, 3.6 and 4.5; but be warned. The question of ‘history’ is not only one which students often find unsettling, it is also one of the most hotly-debated and strongly controversial areas in current OT/HB scholarship. The latest example is the appearance of the Jewish historian Shlomo Sant on Andrew Marr’s ‘Start the Week’ programme on Radio 4 last week – google his name and see what you find …
8 Reading History in the Hebrew Bible
Gen to 2 Kg tells a single story and in some Bibles Josh – 2 Kg are called the ‘History Books’. The story line can be quite easily recited and its highlights identified. Here we see how story generates and maintains community: but how does the world in the story relate to the world of the ancient Near East? Where in the Bible narrative do we put a ‘Real History Begins Here’ marker, if at all? How much of the story is true? And does it matter? Here we meet the most influential theologian in the HB/OT, the Deuteronomic Historian 1 Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
2 Story in the Bible. Story is the leading genre in the Bible. Over half of both Testaments are narratives. In the Hebrew Bible the Torah tells the story of God, his world and his people from Creation to the wrong side of the Jordan and it does so as a continuous narrative. The narrative continues in Josh, Jg, Sam and Kg – the Former Prophets – or the ‘Deuteronomic History’ – which take things on to the Exile. In the Writings the long story is found again in the Chronicler’s History (Chron + Ez and Neh). For short stories there is Ruth, Esther and Jonah. Job and Daniel are also given narrative frameworks. 3 Story forms the world. ‘Story’ has become one of the key words in postmodernity. There are no more meta-narratives - so the meta-narrative of postmodernity insists – but each of us has a story and so does every community of whatever kind. Stories, we now recognise, define, describe, shape and form tradition and community. ‘We are who we are from the stories we tell’; ‘Story forms worlds and creates tradition’, ‘Story is the bedrock of culture’ - these random gleanings are almost truisms in culture studies. The Bible, in relation to both Judaism and Christianity, is an excellent example of this process: Christians are those who say of the Christian Bible Story – ‘this is my story, this is my song’; they are formed as Christians in a tradition which sees itself as the next chapter in that story, and central to the life of the Church is the retelling of the Story. 4 The worlds of the HB/OT Story. The HB/OT tells a continuous story from Creation to the exile. Much of it is set in a world we recognise and places we can visit (eg Jerusalem, Palestine, Egypt, Babylon and Greece). Since the Enlightenment we have attempted to distinguish between the world in the story (or the world of the story) and the world outside the story (or the world behind the story). Some have regarded this attempt as unnecessary – the Bible story is history – the two worlds are the same! Most have seen that these two worlds are distinct, though related, and have attempted to insert a Real History Begins Here marker into the story at some point and to explore the historicity of characters or events in the story. They have also recognised that, even after that marker has been inserted, all talk of ‘history’ involves interpretation and point of view and, even, error. The debate about how much ‘real history’ is found in the HB/OT story is currently taking place with renewed vigour. A different recent contribution to the debate has been to recognise that there is another world too, the world in which we read the story (or the world in front of the story), ie to recognise that we as readers bring the world of our lives, concerns and interests into the story as we read it. 5 Controversy. The ‘History of Israel’ is a hugely controversial area academically. The debate is between the ‘Maximalists’ (eg Shanks, Provan) and ‘Minimalists’ or ‘Revisionists’ (eg T L Thompson, Lemche, Grabbe). You may have heard of the commotion in Jewish history circles around the name of the modern historian of Palestine, Schlomo Sant. Some Christians and Jews find (sadly) that even the most moderate academic approaches (such as those of the ‘Maximalists’) to these questions pose a threat to their faith. 6 The ‘Real History Begins Here’ game. See item 16 in university certificate 2 – I used to do this by getting students to put their hands up if they thought X or Y was a ‘real person’ but it got embarrassing if there were still hands up when we got to Eve. I now do it as a paper exercise and simply announce the results at the end. 7. Unpacking the issues. 1 Abraham was the interesting and controversial question 30 years ago. Roughly speaking there were the ‘German’ answers (in the classic OT History by M Noth, and more recently Thompson and van Seters) – ie that Abraham is a King Arthur sort of figure and what matters are the stories themselves. Or the ‘Albright’ answers (From the Stone Age to Christianity and in the classic OT History by John Bright, and more recently in Shanks) – ie if you dig long enough you will find an ‘Abraham was here’ graffito. These are, speaking roughly, the ‘literary/theological’ and the ‘archaeological’ approaches respectively. Is the parallel with St Piran helpful? 2 The Exodus and the emergence of Israel in Canaan are two more examples of contested views. 3 A Case Study. Let us focus on one fact – that the walls of Jericho didn’t fall down. Even a conservative history like H Shanks’ Ancient Israel (SPCK 1989) - which is a very good example of that Maximalist type of ‘OT History’ which basically retells the Bible story and which almost all so called ‘Histories of Israel’ do – recognises that this never happened (pp61-63). The chapter is by J A Callaway – late of the Southern Baptist Seminary in the USA! 4 The current liveliest debate focuses on David, the United Monarchy and Jerusalem. 8. What is ‘history’ anyway? The ‘question of history’ and of ‘history-writing’ (‘historiography’) is a complex and controversial one (eg the debates between ’moderns’ and ‘post-moderns’), and the question of history in the HB/OT is no less so. Opinions range from those who see almost everything in the HB/OT at least from the Exodus onwards as history (the ‘Maximalists’) to those who see little or no facticity at all (the ‘Minimalists’/’Revisionists’). It may also be helpful to remember the formula: ‘History’ = Fact + Interpretation as long as you also remember that ‘Fact’ = Event + Interpretation. Remember also ‘point of view’ and exaggeration.
ReadingIntroductory
Recommended ‘History’ – ed H Shanks, Ancient Israel, SPCK, 1989 The minimalist position is well presented in Sturgiss M (2001) It ain’t necessarily so London: Headline, the book of a series of programmes presented by John McCarthy late on Sunday evenings on ITV1 in 2001. Advanced:
PS This is how I summarise the debate in one of the endnotes in my SCM Studyguide on Psalms pp201f During the 20th century the debate about where you could place a ‘real history begins here’ marker in the Old Testament story moved it steadily forwards, or is it backwards?, from Abraham, via Moses and the Exodus to the ‘United Monarchy’, and got increasingly acrimonious as it went. The ‘Minimalists’ or ‘Revisionists’ questioned whether there was any ‘Israel of History’ as distinct from ‘Biblical Israel’ until very late indeed. The ‘Maximalists’ insisted that at least from the 12th century BC you could talk in these terms, though you did need to recognize that the story was presented from a particular point of view and used its own conventions of storytelling. Both groups are serious Biblical scholars, and none read the Old Testament stories as straight, literal and factual descriptions of what really was what. Mills, M. (1999), Historical Israel: Biblical Israel, London: Cassell provides a good introduction to the questions. Finkelstein, I. and Silberman N. A. (2001), The Bible Unearthed, New York etc.: Simon and Schuster, Touchstone provides a very readable statement of the ‘Minimalist’ viewpoint and its archaeological basis. Provan, I., Long, V. P. and Longman lll, T. (2003), A Biblical History of Israel, Louisville: WJK defends the ‘Maximalist’ position. A via media with regard to the ‘united monarchy’ is offered by William Dever in ‘Histories and Non-histories of Ancient Israel: the Question of the United Monarchy’ (chapter 4 in Day, J. (ed.) (2004), In Search of Ancient Israel, London: T&T Clark).
9 Reading Apocalyptic and Exploring Eschatology
If the ‘History Books’ look backward, parts of the OT/HB appear to look forward and to do so in a quite distinctive way. Here we look first at the origins, development, demise and legacy of the Davidic monarchy. The genre of ‘apocalyptic’ and its particular eschatology was influential in the two centuries before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and has left its mark in the NT. What was it all about? What shall we make of it? 1 Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
2 The roots of apocalyptic and eschatology?Probably the root and certainly much of the hope expressed in the Biblical apocalyptic literature lie in the ideology/theology of the Davidic monarchy. The story begins in 1 Sam 8-11, in which you can see the joins where two different points of view are woven together. Not everyone in Israel thought that a king was a good idea! The Deuteronomic Historian, especially, points out that kingship is a flawed concept in his common refrain ‘X (the king whose death he is mentioning) did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.’ But David, neither the first, the holiest, nor the most powerful of the kings, becomes a key symbol. His dynasty lasted for 500 years in Judah, and when, later, they tried to express their hopes for the future they did so by saying that God would raise up a new king like David (2 Esdras 12:32).Anointing was a recognised form of commissioning in the OT for prophets, priests and kings. Isa 45:1 even uses the word of Cyrus the Persian. The Davidic king was ‘anointed by God’. He was ‘the Lord's Anointed’. The Hebrew ‘to anoint’ is MaSHaCH, so ‘anointed’ is MaSHiaCH, pronounced in Greek as ‘Messias’ or as we say, ‘Messiah’. The Greek translation is ‘Christos’ - (cf ‘christening’) - so ‘Christ’ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew ‘Messiah’. ‘Messiah’ was a technical term for the Davidic king and, in post-monarchy times, for his hoped-for successor. The Lord's Anointed is special: see 1 Sam 24:6, the Royal Wedding Psalm Ps 45:7f, and the Coronation Psalm Ps 2:7. The King in Jerusalem is the ‘Son of God’ (2 Sam 7:14, Pss 89:26, 2:7 and ?110:3). Ps 45:6 and Isa 9:6 seem to go further and talk of the king sharing in God's divinity. For a full picture of the theology of kingship in Jerusalem see Ps 89. See also the ‘Royal Psalms’, especially 132, 21 and 72. Needless to say, most kings failed to live up to expectations, and no doubt the list of royal faults in 1 Sam 8:10-17 is based on what was remembered about them. Deut 17:14-20 is perhaps the basic text on which the whole Deuteronomic History is the sermon. It blames the end of Israel in 722 BCE on the failure of their kings to honour God (2 Kings 17:7-18), and the exile of Judah in Babylon on the faults of its Davidic king (eg 2 Kings 24:9). But something of a hope for a new David and a new future is seen in its curious ending at 2 Kings 25:27-30. Other expressions of hope for a new Messiah in a new age after the Exile can be seen in Zechariah 6:9-14, 9:9-10 and Haggai 2:21-23 in the OT/HB, and in later literature the idea is much more common. 3 Apocalyptic. Anyone reading The Revelation of St John in the NT is aware from chapter 4 onwards that this is a strange book, when we find ourselves seeing dramatic visions of heaven and earth full of amazing animals, terrifying events and frightening images. This book is sometimes simply called, ‘The Apocalypse’ and it is the Bible’s best example of ‘apocalyptic literature’. ‘Apocalyptic’ is from the Greek word ‘apocalypse’ (‘revelation’) thus ‘apocalyptic literature’ is literature which reveals the hidden secrets of God. Dan 7-12 is a good example from the OT/HB, others are Isa 24-27, Joel 2, Zech 9-14 and Ezek 38-9 and in the NT there are also short apocalypses in Mk 13 (parallels Mt 24 and Lk 21) and 1 Thess 4-5. A great deal of apocalyptic literature seems to have been produced in the years just before the NT period, and much can be found in the Pseudepigrapha, the best example is probably the Book of Enoch. Nb apocalypse and apocalyptic have no connection with the word ‘Apocrypha’. It is usually thought that apocalyptic grew out of crisis, and so codes and symbols were used to disguise the meaning of the visions from the eyes of those persecuting the faithful, and also the theme of this literature is the reality of the living God who can be trusted to save his people if they remain faithful. This is certainly true in the cases of Dan & Reve. The characteristic features of apocalyptic literature include dreams and visions in which the hidden things of God are made clear, much interest in names and numbers, strange beasts and animals, concern for sacred signs, a strong theology of the rewards of faithfulness and the punishment of the wicked, a developed scene of angels and demons, and often a conviction that the end of the old age and the beginning of a new is near (the Eschaton – thus ‘eschatology’ is the theology of ends and new beginnings). It is often a characteristic of this literature that the revelation is given by an ancient worthy from the past or by an angel. The subject of these visions can vary. Often the theme is the End of the Old World and the Dawn of the New Age (ie eschatology) but this is not always the case, and another quite different subject is the journey into the highest or innermost heaven to learn the secrets of God. Reading
11 The Hebrew Bible in the New Testament
A study of Matthew 1-2. Matthew 1 follows Malachi 4 in Christian Bibles with hardly a break. In its ‘Birth Stories’ the Gospel of Matthew is careful to make connections with everything which has gone before. Its genealogy is a summary of ‘the history of Israel’, and for Matthew the words of Israel’s prophets and writers are ‘fulfilled’ in the birth and life of Jesus. Is Matthew a bold and creative theologian and Bible interpreter, or a charlatan who makes texts mean what he wants them to mean? 1 Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
2 The Bible commentaries from Qumran These (very clearly seen in the Habakkuk Commentary you looked at last week) illustrate the view that at the time of Jesus ‘Bible texts’ were held to have multiple meanings, not least ‘applications’ to new situations unknown to the authors of those texts. That view continued in the Church, though it was at times contested, for at least a millennium and a half,
The early-Christians had other things in common with Qumran too:
3 Matthew 1.23 and Isa 7.14: a case study of Matthew’s ‘fulfilment hermeneutic’ This fulfilment hermeneutic is also found in his Birth Story at 1.22, 2.15, 2.17 and 2.23 and thereafter at: 4.14, 5.17, 8.17, 12.17, 13.35, 21.4, 26.54/56 & 27.9. Blomberg in Beale and Carson (p5) calls this a ‘double fulfilment hermeneutic’ (p5).
See sermon no.2 ‘Jesus our Immanuel’ in sermons 2 and article no.5 ‘How does the Birth of Jesus fulfil the Prophecy of Isaiah?’ in articles. I use both of those in this session 4 The New Testament as Jewish Literature The NT is a collection of Jewish texts and it belongs in a series of collections of Jewish literature which run, more or less chronologically: Hebrew Bible – Apocrypha – Qumran – Pseudepigrapha - NT – Philo – Midrash – Talmud. In this series the Hebrew Bible is formative and all subsequent Jewish literature is written in a conscious or unconscious engagement with it. The fancy word for this is intertextuality. The early-Christians, however, also relied on the Septuagint. To ask how Mark or Paul or Rabbi Hillel (or Luther, or Wesley or Rowan Williams, or the Pope) read and interpret their Bibles is to ask about their hermeneutic strategies Sometimes it is easy to see where the OT/HB is used in the NT, as when we find explicit quotations, but it is not always so easy because quotations themselves can be mixed together, and there is the whole grey area of allusions and echoes. Moyise (p5) tries to clarify the distinction between ‘quotes, allusions and echoes’:
The major theological challenge facing the first Christians was to show that
and so the NT addresses it by interpreting the Jewish Scriptures, eg Lk 24.27 ‘he interpreted to them’, or Rm 1.1-2 and 15.4 or Hebrews (passim) 5 Later Eventually (by the 4th century) the Church had its own Bible(s) which included the NT. Thereafter the task has been to interpret Scripture in each generation and for each new setting: a task fraught with problems and often hotly debated (eg Alexandrians v. Antiochenes in the 3rd century and Fundamentalists v. Liberals in the early 20th, to say nothing of today ….)
Reading
Two old classics:
The final section of the Hebrew Bible brings together a great diversity of material. Much of it was used in the liturgies of Israel to promote and encourage the practice of the Faith. The “wisdom” material of Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes serves the same purpose, though it comes at it from a different place. Here we look at a number of psalms which reflect that diversity and show the rigour of ancient Israel’s theological questioning Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
Basic Information1 The Psalter used to be called the ‘hymnbook of the second Temple’ (ie the one they built in 516 BCE on the return from exile) and whilst not an accurate title it does give the right impression. The Psalter is a composite work whose history is uncertain. It is helpful to think of it as supplying many of the "words for worship" but with the rubrics missing. It also, however, has two other functions: as a ‘prayer book’ and a ‘manual for theological reflection’. 2 The psalm titles are problematic and so is their authorship. Anytime you see an untranslated Hebrew word in the psalms (eg Maskil, Gittith, selah) – it just means that no one can translate it. ‘A Psalm of David’ probably means ‘A Psalm belonging to the Royal Collection’ or ‘A Psalm for the Royal Temple’ and almost certainly does not mean ‘A Psalm written by David’. There was obviously a developing tradition of ascribing Davidic authorship to the psalms (74 in the Hebrew Bible, up by 14 to 88 in the Septuagint and by the time of the Midrash on Psalms almost every one of them!). On the psalm titles see Anderson AA (1972) Psalms London: New Century Bible Commentary, vol 1, pp43-51 and on titles and authorship see Craigie PC (1986) Psalms vol 1 Waco: Word Biblical Commentary pp31-35. 3 Hebrew poetry is always terse, and contains few (if any) of the markers of English poetry. Its distinctive feature is its binary technique, known as ‘parallelism’ = a ‘balancing/repetition of sense.’ Examples can be seen especially clearly throughout Ps 103. Such repetitions may be of the same image eg Ps 42:1 (’synonymous’ parallelism) or may use opposites eg Ps 37:21f (‘antithetical’ parallelism). See Gillingham, S. E. (1994), The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible, Oxford: OUP. 4 The Psalter contains various different types of Psalms: but perhaps there are two main categories - Praises and Laments. Each of these can be divided into Individual or Corporate forms, thus (very roughly) giving four basic psalm types: Corporate Laments (eg 60, 74, 79), Individual Laments (eg 5, 27, 142), Corporate Praises (often simply called ‘Hymns’ eg 113, 124, 150) and Individual Psalms of Praise (eg 18, 92, 138). Then some psalms move from one category to another and are often called ‘Mixed’ types (eg 22, 69, 71). Another way of categorising the psalms is by their subject matter: eg the important group of Royal Psalms (eg 2, 45, 72). 5 The Psalms are full of vivid pictures and every human emotion is there. 74:12-23 and 89:8-18 are typical examples of this in a Lament and a Psalm of Praise respectively. The force of the emotion in some psalms is such as to create difficulties for use in Christian liturgy, hence the use of the square brackets in ASB – the classic example is Ps 137:7-9. These do not appear in Common Worship. 6 Religion in the Psalter. Ninian Smart (The World’s Religions, Cambridge, 1989) suggested that a religion can be analysed under seven headings:
It is interesting to look at the psalms using these headings, and to build up something of a picture of the religion of Israel in its classic period from them. Four Psalms Psalm 1 – functions as a general introduction to the Psalter setting out its normative theology. It is a splendid example of how Orthodox Yahwism (ie the theology of the Deuteronomists - righteousness is rewarded and sin is punished) and Orthodox Wisdom (the wise flourish and the foolish fall apart) add up to the same thing! Whether either actually match up to the realities of life is another question, as we shall see. Note the influential wisdom image of the ‘two ways’ plus the Yahwistic delight in Torah. Psalm 51 - an individual confession whose tortured penitential agonising feels very different from the calm and order of Ps 1. The psalm title invites us to look at the story of David and Nathan in 2 Sam 12:1-15 and especially the ‘Thou art the man!’ of v7. Note the rich, warm words of the old core credo – steadfast love, mercy. Why, do you think, the added ending of vv18ff? Psalm 74 – a corporate lament in a time of national crisis. Note the violence and pain of its language and the directness of its attack on Israel’s absent God. Note also the use of the Chaoskampf creation theology in vv12-17. The principal issue raised in laments is theological. How does faith in the LORD respond to the experience of dissonance? See Davidson R (1983) The Courage to Doubt London : SCM chap 1 and Brueggemann W (1984) The Message of the Psalms, Augsburg: Fortress pp68-71. Psalm 93 – a ‘Royal Psalm’, note again creation theology which is used here to assert the kingship of the LORD. The ‘Annual New Year Festival’ (see the commentaries by J H Eaton and the work of S Mowinckel) is a bit passe these days, but this psalm and its neighbours in the 90s does invite a little speculative imagination along those lines
Reading
13 Temple Worship in Ancient Israel
Learning outcomes – from this session you should be able:
Temple worship 1 On this topic, as on most, we need to be aware of the dangers of transferring our own presuppositions/assumptions into the Bible, eg about practices (like weekly worship) or about the meaning of words (like priest or sacrifice itself). We need also to be aware of the assumption, itself fostered by parts of the OT, that there was ever only one way of worshipping in ancient Israel 2 A snapshot of worship in the Temple in Jerusalem in the classical period (ie before the Exile) would show:
Bibliography:
3 Squeamish modern westerners should not try to imagine the scene in the Temple, especially at a major celebration. It would have been noisy, smelly and gruesome. And that is our problem. Animal sacrifice belongs to a different world to that of the modern (or even postmodern) west and most ethnic and cultural westerners regard the practice as barbaric. For this reason alone it is incredibly difficult for us to enter into the mindset of ancient Israel and understand the theology involved. When you add to this the complexities of the sacrificial system itself plus the immense difficulties in reconstructing it from the texts about it, the task is almost impossible 4 The basic thing to grasp is that sacrifice was the normal way of worship in the Temple, cf the mass in the Roman Catholic Church For the Roman Catholic the Mass is the normal form of worship - to worship is to say mass and to say mass is to worship. In the Temple to worship was to sacrifice and to sacrifice was to worship. All worship was expressed through sacrifice and therefore there were different sacrifices for different acts of worship 5 If we Christians think about sacrifice at all it is either as a metaphor or in connection with the death of Christ. Then, apart from its metaphorical use, we tend to associate it with two things: blood and sin. We assume that all sacrifice involved blood and that all sacrifice was to do with sin: but neither was actually the case. There were sacrifices which did not involve animals, like the ‘grain offerings’ or the offerings of incense; and the sacrifices which they offered in such great abundance at the Dedication of the Temple in 1 Kings 8:44-66, for example, were all sacrifices of praise. None of those sacrifices were for ‘sin’, presumably because that celebration was neither the time nor the place for ‘sacrifices for sin’ 6 The details of the different sacrifices are not recoverable from the descriptions of sacrifice or the instructions for them given mainly in Leviticus, and the fact that different Bible translations give them different titles just makes a complex situation even more confusing. Neither is the reasoning behind the details recoverable. We just don't know, for example, why fat was to be treated as it was! 7 The ‘sacrifice of well-being’ (NRSV, NJPS) was the sacrifice in which part of the animal was burned on the altar, part was given to the priests and the rest taken away by the worshipper and used for a feast. The different names for this one in our translations are ‘peace offerings’ (AV cf RSV), ‘communion sacrifices’ (NJB), ‘fellowship offerings’ (NIV) and ‘shared-offerings’ (REB). AV's ‘peace offerings’ means ‘peace with each other’ for this type of sacrifice has nothing to do with ‘making peace’ with God. The words like ‘communion’, ‘fellowship’ and ‘shared’ in the other versions are all attempts to convey the sense of fellowship and community involved in sharing this special meal together. See Lev 3. The rule about burning the fat is found in verses 16b-17 8 The ‘burnt offering’ (‘whole-offering’ in REB) was the sacrifice in which the whole animal, after it had been skinned, was burned on the altar. There were so many of these on the occasion of the Dedication of the Temple (even allowing for the usual Biblical exaggeration of numbers) that the altar of burnt offerings in the main courtyard was inadequate and the floor of the courtyard had to be consecrated and used instead. This was the ‘standard’ form of sacrifice, offered night and morning daily in the Temple. See Ex 29:38-42 and Lev 1 9 ‘Grain offerings’ of corn and olive oil, sometimes in the form of cakes, could be offered separately but were often used with other sacrifices. They were completely burned. See Lev 2 10 In the sacrifices which were specifically designed to deal with sin (the ‘sin offering’ – the hattath – and the ‘guilt offering’ – the asham – though the difference between the two is very hard to define) none of the meat was eaten by the worshippers. Crucial to understanding these sacrifices for sin is, first, to see them as the gifts of God by which sin and guilt can be dealt with, ie forgiven and removed and, second, to understand them as liturgical acts in which people can express their repentance and then ‘know and feel their sins forgiven’. There is no sense at all, in the OT understanding of sacrifice, that they are acts which plead for God to change his mind and have mercy when he really intends something else. That is a completely upside down way of thinking of sacrifice and of God, though a prevalent one. God always wants the best for people and wants them to be made whole whenever their lives have become disordered, and that is nowhere more simply or more beautifully put than in the marvellous words of Ps 103:10-14. Thus in these sacrifices for sin the one offering the sacrifices lays his hands on his sacrifice as a sign of his repentance and then sees its blood smeared on the altar by the priest in the equivalent of our hearing the declaration of absolution or forgiveness. Thus Heb 9:22 is precisely and accurately true, though its meaning is the opposite to the one usually given to it by Christians! See Lev 4:1-4, 6:24-30 and 7:1-10 Bibliography:
14 The History of 'God' in the OT
1 The Bible was written, edited and published in a ‘world of many faiths.’ The OT has a variety of perspectives on the local ‘other faiths’ which it knew, and it is generally agreed that ancient Israel’s perspective(s) on ‘other faiths’ and the nature of its own God or gods developed from polytheism to monotheism via a recognizable intermediate position, but that it is impossible to plot the stages of this development and mistaken to think that this was either a co-ordinated or a smooth process. 2 Israel’s earliest understandings of God are lost in history, but there is little reason to doubt that these understandings were anything other than polytheistic. One possible way of describing this stage in ancient Israel’s theological development would be to say that it thought that ‘YHWH was one god among many’, and that is a perfectly reasonable way of locating Israel’s god in relation to the gods of Edom, Moab, Syria and the rest. The danger in putting it like this, however, is that it suggests that from the earliest time there was only one god worshipped in ancient Israel. That is, of course, how the story is told in the OT, but it is widely held that other gods were worshipped by ancient Israelites alongside YHWH and that evidence for this is found in the OT itself. There, it is suggested, the names of some of these other gods remain as alternative names for YHWH, for example ‘the God of Abraham’ etc, ‘the Fear of Isaac’ (Gen 31:42), ‘God of Bethel’, El Elyon (‘God Most High’) and El Shaddai’ (traditionally ‘God Almighty’). It is also argued that the names and existence of others have been systematically written out of that text by a variety of stratagems, principally here Asherah, the ‘Queen of Heaven’, YHWH’s consort (Jere 44). This evidence is supplemented by that from archaeology where belief in a consort for YHWH at the Jewish temple at Elephantine on the River Nile has long been known and more recent discoveries at Kuntillet Ajrud have given another example of the same idea. We are therefore left to imagine a possible plethora of gods or manifestations of God in Israel, identified with different people and places, with such theology being by no means confined to the earliest period. See handout no 9, ‘Yahweh and his consort’ on the university certificate (2) page of this website 3 The ‘interim position’ is usually called ‘monolatry’ (the worship of only one god) or ‘henotheism’ (from the Greek terms for ‘one’ and ‘god’) – though it should be clear by now that any talk of ‘stages’ in this development is quite problematic. This approach can be understood to say that ‘YHWH is Israel’s own and only God who demands its exclusive obedience’. A classic story establishing this point is Joshua’s covenant-making ceremony at Shechem (Josh 24). It is almost certain that the classic texts of the Shema‘ (Deut 6:4) and the First Commandment (Ex 20:2f, Deut 5:6f) express this viewpoint – see the discussion of this below. A glance at the footnotes will show the variety of translations possible for the enigmatic ‘YHWH ’elohenu YHWH ’ehad’, literally ‘YHWH our God YHWH one’ of the Shema’. Later Jewish interpretation understood this as a powerful statement of God’s oneness in himself, in contradistinction to Christian trinitarianism, but such an understanding obviously cannot be the original one. There are two suggestions for the original meaning, one which suggests that it means that YHWH is the only Lord there is, and the other which suggests that YHWH is to be the one and only Lord in Israel. The latter is more strongly supported and is reflected in the monolatrous view of NRSV’s ‘The LORD is our God, the LORD alone’. The question of who will be Israel’s God forms the story line in the Elijah cycle of narratives in 1-2 Kings. This is the reason for the prophet’s contest as YHWH’s champion against Baal and his prophets which results in a climax of sorts on the summit of Mt Carmel when the people acclaim YHWH in the words ‘YHWH indeed is God, YHWH indeed is God’ (1 Kings 18:39). More is at stake here than the purity of Israel’s worship or theology, although that might not be noticed from reading Hosea who majors on this aspect of the struggle. The question of who will be Israel’s only God has an ethical dimension, as seen clearly in the subsequent episode of Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kings 21. If Queen Jezebel and her god, Baal, succeed here, the story goes, then Israel’s traditions of social justice and equality are finished for the ideology, world view and social system associated with Baal are alien to those of YHWH. Pss 81:9-10 and 100:3 and Ex 34:14 are other good examples of this view. 4 The final position is that of monotheism (there is only one God) as expressed in the ‘the LORD is God, there is no other’ of Deut 4:35-39. This final position is presented most clearly and dogmatically in Deutero-Isaiah with its repeated insistence on YHWH as the only God (Isa 40:25, 41:4, 42:5-9, 43:8-13, 44:6ff, 44:24, 45:5ff, 45:18f, 46:9 etc) and its scorn of all other so-called gods as idols (eg Isa 40:18-20, 41:6ff, 41:21-24, 44:9-20). 5 However, Deutero-Isaiah’s is not the only form of monotheism in the OT. There is a less radical strand which considers YHWH to be the only True God or the Supreme God (eg Ex 15:11, Pss 86:8, 95:3 and 97:6-9) and which finds places for other divine beings in his Heavenly Council (Ps 82), even if traces of Deutero-Isaiah’s scorn come into its references to them from time to time (eg Pss 96:4-5, 97:7, 135). We cannot do more than mention the controversial and difficult Deut 32:8 here, which speaks of Israel’s God as the ‘Most High’ (El Elyon) and identifies the gods of the other nations as his underlings of some kind, at least according to NRSV. The evidence is compelling that the original Hebrew text said something like this, but the authoritative Hebrew text seems to have been censored into unintelligibility at this point, in conformity with the kind of theology found in Deutero-Isaiah. And something similar has happened at Deut 32:43 which in NRSV calls upon ‘all you gods’ to praise YHWH. 6 Regardless of historical questions, however, including the accuracy or otherwise of this perceived ‘development’, or even the difference between the various expressions of monotheism discernible in its pages, the OT in its final form has a single and powerful agenda on this issue, which is to insist on Israel’s total and sole allegiance to its covenant God, YHWH, as expressed classically in the First Commandment,
6.1 The first commandment proper, ‘you shall have no other gods before or besides me’, is introduced by the formula which serves also to introduce the whole Decalogue, that the one who gives this teaching is YHWH, Israel’s saviour God who in his grace has already delivered them from slavery and is leading them into freedom. The commandments, therefore, are not rules to be kept in the hope of securing God’s blessing, but good advice to be followed so that the newly given freedom can continue to be enjoyed – that is the essence of torah. YHWH’s action in freeing the slaves renews his covenants with Abraham (Gen 15 and 17) and sets the stage for his new covenant with Israel mediated through Moses (Ex 24). It also establishes his claim to the exclusive loyalty of Israel, that he alone will be their God and they alone will be his people (Ex 19:4-6, 29:45f). 6.2 The commandment proper is that Israel shall have no other god. This is not a denial of the existence of other gods, but a ruling that Israel shall not worship any other god, and the second commandment follows it to say that Israel shall not worship any kind of representation of any god or even possibly of YHWH himself either. ‘Before me’ or ‘beside me’ are the variant translations of the literal ‘to my face’ (ie ‘in my presence’) and reflect two different nuances which some have seen in that phrase, understanding it to rule out the worship of any other god in preference to the worship of YHWH or alongside that worship. Whether such distinctions need to be read in the verse is an open question, and whether they are sufficiently different in meaning to merit distinction in a footnote I personally doubt. There is no doubt whatever about the plain meaning of the text, which is to exclude other gods from Israel’s spirituality. Ex 20:5 adds a strong passionate element to this instruction as YHWH exposes himself as a ‘jealous’ God who will tolerate no rival. 6.3 Issues of the dating of the Decalogue remain unresolved, as do those of the provenance and importance of the idea of covenant in which the Decalogue is embedded. There is no question, however, about the fundamental meaning of the first commandment nor that it expresses a monolatrous rather than a strict Deutero-Isaianic monotheistic theology. 6.4 It is a matter of fact that the strict monotheism of Deutero-Isaiah won the day in Judaism and Christianity, even to the extent of censoring some OT texts, as we have seen, and has become normative in the understanding of both church and synagogue. The idea of YHWH presiding over a Council of lesser gods, as in Ps 82, reads very strangely in both religions, although it might be argued that this idea has in fact been transmuted into the much more acceptable picture of God on his Heavenly Throne surrounded by such heavenly beings as cherubim, angels and archangels. (One wonders what difference it might make in our discussion of the status and nature of Other Faiths if this older understanding was to be revived and the stricter monotheism of Deutero-Isaiah, which goes far beyond such classical texts as the First Commandment and probably the Shema’, was to be demoted from its position of pre-eminence? The Heavenly Council picture is, after all, much more common in the OT than the other). 6.5 In the Heavenly Court pictures, the supremacy of YHWH as ‘most high’ among the gods or as king of the gods is powerfully asserted. We noted that in the preamble to the Decalogue YHWH’s saving role is highlighted, and this is expanded as the second commandment is unpacked using ideas which are found in the ‘core credo’ (Ex 34:6-7 etc). 7 Ps 82 pictures God sitting in judgement on the lesser gods gathered before him. The simple basis of the Most High’s judgement against the other gods is that they have failed to uphold and deliver social justice (mishpat). This strange psalm suggests that all gods and the religious systems which promote them might be measured against two yardsticks: do they make it possible for their worshippers to experience the transcendent as hesed and do they encourage them to practice their humanity by doing mishpat?
Follow-up Reading
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