Biblical Wisdom, Then and Now 2021003642, 2021003643, 9780367481308, 9781032027869, 9781003041580

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“This collection of essays in honor of Ken Kuntz does exactly what such a collection can do best. It permits contributors great freedom to move in new interpretive directions. It permits all of these probes to cluster around a common theme, in this case, wisdom. And it offers suggestive linkages to the work of the honoree. This collection of essays offers fresh perspective and makes important links between the work of the text and the deep crises of our society. It reflects on the “fractured morality” in a world where God’s governance is at best hidden. It is suitable offer of tribute to Ken Kuntz. I am glad to add my affirmation to this salute to my friend and school mate.” —Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, USA “This collection of essays is an excellent and well-deserved tribute to J. Kenneth Kuntz, beloved teacher, friend, and scholar, whose keen insights into wisdom literature has made an enduring contribution to biblical scholarship. Thematically centered on how wisdom literature continues to speak to a wide range of contemporary issues (e.g., refugees and immigrants, ecology and environmental crises, sustainable scholarly practices, wise leadership, and discrimination in the #MeToo Era), these essays ably reflect the “scholarly broadmindedness” of this incredible “ambassador of ancient texts.” Hearty congratulations, Ken!” —Samuel E. Balentine, Professor of Old Testament Emeritus, Union Presbyterian Seminary, USA “Few topics in biblical studies stimulate reflection on the present state of things as readily as wisdom does. In this unusually coherent but wide-ranging volume, Flannery and Roddy have assembled excellent studies of wisdom that both investigate its early history and explore its significance for the contemporary world. In this fitting tribute to the work of J. Kenneth Kuntz, readers will find substantive contributions to current scholarship as well as stimulating essays on surprising aspects of wisdom that have become conspicuous in recent years.” —Michael C. Legaspi, Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA “Of the many students Professor J. Kenneth Kuntz taught across the years, some became professors themselves. The superb essays in this book testify to the success of both his labors and theirs. Employing varieties of methods, the essays explore wisdom literature in the ancient biblical world and connect the findings to contemporary issues. Politics, economy, ecology, othering, gender and intersectionality indicate the wide range of connections. Analyses of the past illuminate the present. In so offering tributes to their esteemed professor, these talented teachers provide rich nourishment for receptive readers. Thereby this first-rate Festschrift becomes a blessing.” —Phyllis Trible, Baldwin Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature, Union Theological Seminary, New York, USA

Biblical Wisdom, Then and Now

This volume examines biblical wisdom literature both in its historical context and as it relates to a host of contemporary themes, including overcoming social divisions, reading from a place of inclusion, healing from trauma, and challenging religious attitudes toward climate change and animals. This volume delivers fresh insights on biblical wisdom texts, exploring ways in which wisdom literature speaks perennially to the human condition despite the differences in societies then and now. Employing both biblical studies and theological approaches, the diverse group of authors in this collection examine biblical wisdom literature from a variety of perspectives and methodologies to illuminate the relevance of wisdom for ancient audiences such as exiles, scribes, and leaders, as well as for contemporary audiences concerned with challenges such as climate change, social division, and healing from trauma. Its eleven chapters utilize an accessible style that brings erudite scholarship on biblical wisdom to a broader audience. Biblical Wisdom, Then and Now will be an invaluable resource for undergraduates, graduates, and specialists in biblical studies, as well as the more general reader with an interest in biblical literature and its reception. Frances Flannery is Professor of Religion at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA. She teaches courses in biblical studies, religion and culture, and intelligence analysis. She is a specialist in the intersection of biblical studies and contemporary challenges, especially as concerns climate change, violent extremism, peacebuilding, and intergroup dialogue. She has authored two monographs (Dreamers, Scribes and Priests: Jewish Dreams in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras, 2004; Understanding Apocalyptic Terrorism: Countering the Radical Mindset, Routledge, 2016), two other edited volumes (The Bible and Political Debate: What Does it Really Say?, 2016; Experientia, Volume One: Inquiry into Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Christianity, 2008), and over fifty peer-reviewed articles or chapters. Nicolae Roddy is Professor of Theology at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, USA. An Eastern (Romanian) Orthodox biblical scholar, Roddy teaches Hebrew Bible / Older Testament courses, as well as early Jewish and Christian history in Creighton’s Honors program. Roddy is a former Fulbright

scholar to Romania. He currently serves as Visiting Professor for the Jewish Studies Center in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Bucharest, teaching ancient Jewish history and biblical archaeology. For twenty years, Dr. Roddy served as co-director and area supervisor for the Bethsaida Archaeology project. He is author of The Romanian Version of the Testament of Abraham: Text, Translation, and Cultural Context (2001) and three edited volumes, as well as numerous peer-reviewed book chapters, articles, and archaeological reports.

Biblical Wisdom, Then and Now

Edited by Frances Flannery and Nicolae Roddy

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Frances Flannery and Nicolae Roddy; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Frances Flannery and Nicolae Roddy to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Flannery, Frances, editor. | Roddy, Nicolae, 1954- editor. Title: Biblical wisdom, then and now / edited by Frances Flannery and Nicolae Roddy. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021003642 (print) | LCCN 2021003643 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367481308 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032027869 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003041580 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Wisdom literature--Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Theological anthropology--Christianity. Classification: LCC BS1455 .B48 2021 (print) | LCC BS1455 (ebook) | DDC 223/.06--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021003642 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021003643 ISBN: 978-0-367-48130-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-02786-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-04158-0 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580 Typeset in Bembo by Taylor & Francis Books

This volume is dedicated to a wise man, Dr. J. Kenneth Kuntz (Grinnell College BA, 1956, with honors; Yale Divinity School, MDiv 1959, with honors; and Union Theological Seminary, PhD, 1963), with profound thanks to Ruth Kuntz, formerly Ruth Stanley (m. 1962). Ken taught biblical studies at Wellesley College, Massachusetts (1963–1967) and the University of Iowa (1967–2006), where he mentored numerous grateful undergraduate, MA, and PhD students and earned the esteem of his colleagues. This volume includes articles from some of those former students and colleagues, including those from Cambridge University where he regularly conducted research.

Contents

List of contributors Foreword

xi xiii

ALAN J. HAUSER

Preface Abbreviations Introduction and case study: Wisdom for challenging times: Ecclesiastes, Job, and a vote for compassionate theology

xvi xviii

1

NICOLAE RODDY AND FRANCES FLANNERY

PART I

Biblical wisdom then 1 Wisdom for the exiled: An intertextual approach

21 23

KATHARINE J. DELL

2 Wisdom for the scribe: Ritual and the life of the scribe in Sirach

36

RODNEY A. WERLINE

3 Wisdom for the king: Wisdom for rulers throughout history

48

LOWELL K. HANDY

PART II

Biblical wisdom now 4 Wisdom for those in the image of God: An eco-theological reading of human and serpentine knowledge in Genesis 1–3 FRANCES FLANNERY

63 65

x

Contents 5 Wisdom for evangelical Christians: Reading the Bible wisely in relation to climate change

83

CHRIS VANLANDINGHAM

6 Wisdom for animals and the cosmos: The Psalms and “anthropocentric religion”

99

IAIN PROVAN

7 Wisdom for the silenced: Reading Psalm 32 as cautionary counsel in response to 2 Samuel 13–19

114

CHARLES A. PACKER

8 Wisdom for all: Reading the liberating “I” of the psalms

129

BETH LANEEL TANNER

9 Wisdom for the imagination: Hammering heaven in William Blake’s illuminated books

138

RACHEL WAGNER

10 Wisdom for haters: Wisdom as an antidote for othering

152

NICOLAE RODDY

Index of Biblical References Index of Modern Authors Subject Index

167 175 178

Contributors

Katharine J. Dell is an internationally recognized expert in wisdom literature of the Bible. She is currently Reader in Old Testament Literature and Theology at the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Fellow of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Frances Flannery holds the rank of Professor of Religion at James Madison University, USA. Her research and teaching lie at the intersection of biblical studies and contemporary challenges, especially as concerns climate change, violent extremism, peacebuilding, and intergroup dialogue. Lowell K. Handy is a retired independent scholar formerly affiliated with the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and Loyola University Chicago, USA. He has authored numerous publications in Syro-Palestinian religion and biblical historiography. Charles A. Packer teaches courses in biblical interpretation, research methodology, and pastoral theology at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He also serves as Dean of the Congregational Foundation for Theological Studies of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, USA, and is Senior Minister of the Pine Hill Congregational Church in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Iain Provan is the Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. He has published extensively in the field of biblical studies, specifically the history, theology, ethics, and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Nicolae Roddy holds the rank of Professor of Theology, teaching Hebrew Bible/Older Testament at Creighton University, USA. He is also affiliated with the University of Bucharest, Romania, teaching ancient Jewish history and biblical archaeology, and is a former co-director and area supervisor for the Bethsaida Archaeology project. Beth LaNeel Tanner holds the Norman and Mary Kansfield Professorship of Old Testament Interpretation at New Brunswick Theological Seminary,

xii List of contributors USA, specializing in Hebrew poetry and especially psalms of lament. She currently serves as Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs. Chris VanLandingham is an independent scholar currently teaching US history and government at Cascia Hall Preparatory School, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Rachel Wagner is Associate Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College, New York, USA. Her work centers on the study of religion and culture, focusing especially on analyses of religion in film, virtual reality, and other media. Rodney A. Werline is Professor of Religious Studies and the Leman and Marie Barnhill Endowed Chair in Religious Studies at Barton College, Wilson, North Carolina, USA. He also directs the Barton College Center for Religious Studies.

Foreword Alan J. Hauser

Today the term “wisdom” carries a wider range of meanings than it would have had in ancient Israel, where it largely focused on the court of the king, the world of the scribe, and the psalms sung in the temple. Issues addressed in ancient Israelite wisdom included: integrity, justice, candor, evil, deceitfulness, righteousness, and the care of the poor. However, already in Israel’s ancient world, wisdom literature asserted considerable influence beyond the boundaries of its early, courtly context. The exilic prophets, such as Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah (Isa. 40–55), and the books of Job, Sirach, and Ecclesiastes all profited greatly from being influenced by earlier wisdom traditions. In our own time, much in the wisdom tradition speaks directly to our contemporary world, as for example in the teaching that evil contains within itself its own undoing, and wisdom’s words encouraging us to have a supportive relationship with our environment. Wisdom today can help us mitigate the insider/outsider dichotomy we so often encounter in society, even while encouraging persons to retain their own group identity. The employment of the first person in many psalms can, as noted decades ago by Martin Buber (1937), help all readers imagine themselves as the “I” so as to provide a leveling effect in today’s world, which is so stratified by ethnic and social differences. Wisdom can help us understand our interaction with all of nature, helping us get beyond a nearsightedness in which creation is seen as being solely for human purposes. This volume will address issues such as these, both ancient and modern, and discuss how wisdom indeed has a great deal to say to our contemporary world. A variety of scholars have come together to discuss wisdom and how it interweaves with today’s concerns and problems. Many, including me, are former students of Ken Kuntz, or colleagues and friends he has known and worked with throughout his many years as a teacher and a scholar. It is to honor him that this volume has been assembled. I was Ken’s first PhD student to complete the graduate program in the School of Religion at the University of Iowa. I remember vividly my initial meeting with him as I began my doctoral program in August 1968. Ken was welcoming, supportive, and friendly as he and I discussed the graduate program I hoped to pursue, focusing on biblical studies, especially the Old Testament. His warmth and openness immediately made me feel at home, and for that I will always be grateful. I also

xiv Foreword recall his enthusiasm for wisdom literature, which led him to gently nudge me into the seminar on wisdom literature he was preparing to teach that fall. It became quite clear that his interest in wisdom ran broad and deep, and was contagious. As his graduate student, one of the things that impressed me immediately about Ken was his openness, indeed eagerness, to consider new ideas and approaches. After an almost fifty-year career teaching biblical scholarship at a state university and being an active participant in Society of Biblical Literature regional, national, and international conferences, I must say that Ken is one of the most open-minded biblical scholars I have ever met. I am not saying he will always agree with new ideas and new approaches, but he will always give them careful consideration, think them through, learn from them, and incorporate them when reasonable into what he is doing. Scholarship in the 1990s, and now in the new millennium, has been trending more and more in that direction; but in the 60s, 70s, and 80s that was not easily found, as scholars tended to group themselves into schools, defending resiliently their own ramparts of scholarship. My hat is off to Ken, as he had that openness already when I first met him in 1968. That openness has had a significant impact on my own scholarship. Ken would of course disagree at times with his graduate students, but it was always in a way which left them feeling supported and encouraged, even as they were challenged. It is a real skill, one to be cherished, when a graduate faculty member can lead a graduate student to see she/he is likely wrong without also causing them to feel eviscerated, allowing the student room to reconfigure and begin anew. Ken, on behalf of all your graduate students, I say “Thank you for this skill in interacting so constructively with your graduate students.” Wisdom literature has clearly been one of Ken’s primary interests. One of his earliest publications analyzed ancient Israel’s canonical Wisdom Psalms (Kuntz 1974), exploring their formal, thematic, and rhetorical dimensions, the latter a perspective Ken learned from his own mentor, James Muilenburg. Ken’s “Retribution Motif in Psalmic Wisdom” (1977) continued one facet of this earlier discussion. The Dictionary of Bible and Religion (Gentz 1986) subsequently published wisdom entries by Ken on Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. In 2003, Ken had an animated discussion with James Crenshaw in Currents in Biblical Research, the journal I edited, about the nature and character of Wisdom Psalms. Ken has continued to be active in research concerning wisdom, especially as wisdom is evidenced in the book of Psalms. Ken’s interest in wisdom in the Psalms also led him into numerous studies and articles focused around the Psalms as well as biblical Hebrew poetry, a few examples of which must suffice: a rhetorical analysis of Psalms 20 and 21 (Kuntz 1986), another on a rhetorical-critical examination of Psalm 18 (1992), perspectives in the study of biblical Hebrew poetry (1993), and an article on the nature and function of the motive clause in Hebrew poetry (1998). Ken also wrote definitive analyses on the state of research being done on the Psalms and Hebrew poetry for Currents (Kuntz 1994, 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2012). This brief survey certainly does not do justice to the scope of Ken’s scholarship; but it at least provides a good sense of the quality and breadth of his work, which also included the excellent Old Testament textbook—The People of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought (1974, 2nd edition 2012).

Foreword

xv

The articles in this volume clearly are reflective of Ken’s openness to embracing new perspectives for studying and making use of biblical literature. Wisdom not only had something to say to the ancient Israelites; it clearly has something to say to us today. That many of Ken’s doctoral students are included in this volume, presenting articles applying ancient Israelite wisdom to the problems and issues we face today, is a tribute to the scholarly broadmindedness Ken has always instilled in his graduate students. That some of Ken’s colleagues are also included is a tribute to his kindness and a testimony to the esteem in which he is held. It is an honor to celebrate with Ken these fruits of his many years of teaching and scholarship. References Buber, Martin. 1937. I and Thou, translated by R. G. Smith. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Gentz, William H., ed. 1986. The Dictionary of Bible and Religion. Nashville: Abingdon. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1974. The People of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought. 2nd ed. 2012. New York: Harper & Row. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1977. “The Retribution Motif in Psalmic Wisdom.” ZAW 89, no. 2: 223–233. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1986. “King Triumphant: A Rhetorical Study of Psalms 20 and 21.” Hebrew Annual Review 10: 157–176. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1992. “Psalm 18: A Rhetorical-Critical Analysis.” In Beyond Form Criticism: Essays in Old Testament Literary Criticism, edited by P. R. House, 70–97. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1993. “Recent Perspectives on Biblical Poetry.” RSR 19, no. 4: 321–327. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1994. “Engaging the Psalms: Gains and Trends in Recent Research.” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 2: 77–106. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1998. “Biblical Hebrew Poetry in Recent Research, Part I.” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 6: 31–64. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1999. “Biblical Hebrew Poetry in Recent Research, Part II.” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 7: 35–79. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 2003. “Reclaiming Biblical Wisdom Psalms: A Response to James L. Crenshaw.” Currents in Biblical Research 1, no. 2: 145–154. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 2012. “Continuing the Engagement: Psalms Research since the Early 1990s.” Currents in Biblical Research 10, no. 3: 321–378.

Preface

In a world faced with looming environmental, technological, cultural, epidemiological, and socio-economic crises, it has perhaps never been more relevant to lament along with Job, “Where is wisdom to be found?” (Job 28:12). This volume argues that the insights of biblical texts that confront this question are still relevant today—in fact, more relevant than ever. From the Torah’s first taste of the knowledge of good and bad (Gen. 3:6), to later wrestlings in the Prophets and Writings about how best to live and what it all might mean, the Hebrew Bible regularly employs the theme of wisdom to pose both practical and ultimate questions about human existence. This noetic focus is most apparent in the wisdom corpus, a scholarly construct traditionally held to include Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, and arguably certain Wisdom Psalms and Song of Solomon. Yet, as recent scholarly discussions have made clear, a deep and pervasive preoccupation with wisdom ranges beyond this wisdom corpus to include other biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts, which may be called “wisdom literature” more generally. The present collection is not concerned with the ongoing and important discussions of the limits of wisdom as a genre (referred to in the Introduction), but rather with exploring the profound ability of biblical wisdom literature—whether narrowly defined as part of a corpus or more broadly defined as texts principally concerned with wisdom—to speak perennially to the human condition, both in antiquity and in the present day. In the current volume, the rich relevance of the biblical wisdom literature to a broad range of concerns is conveyed by means of rigorous application of biblical studies approaches to ancient texts in the biblical corpus (Part I: Biblical Wisdom Then), followed by insightful biblical studies based theological and ethical approaches that bring contemporary issues into conversation with ancient themes (Part II: Biblical Wisdom Now). This latter section also brings the wisdom corpus, including the Wisdom Psalms, into further dialogue with other wisdom-focused literature, e.g. Genesis, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, Isaiah, and even the works of William Blake. It should also be noted that this project came at a particularly challenging time, as three supporting contributors had to pull their proposed chapters while we continue to grapple with an unfolding global pandemic and quarantine; yet the resulting volume covers an impressive breadth of topics nevertheless.

Preface

xvii

As a well-deserved honor for Professor J. Kenneth Kuntz, Professor Emeritus at the University of Iowa, his former students and colleagues have assembled these reflections on biblical wisdom as an homage to his enduring contribution to scholarship on the Wisdom Psalms and other areas related to wisdom literature. In addition to the significant impact of his scholarship, we celebrate the truly compassionate and self-giving nature which he freely offered to all who know him. The resulting project is as unique in the diversity of its authorship as it is in its content—spanning biblical studies, ethics, and theology-based approaches that explore the theme of wisdom from a variety of perspectives and methodologies— vividly illustrating the enduring vitality of biblical wisdom for our time. Frances Flannery, Harrisonburg, Virginia, December 15, 2020

Abbreviations

AB ABD ACJS AER AIIL ASOR BAR BASOR BDB BLS BM BS BTB BZAW CBQ CSSCA CSR DCLS DSD EJL ESV FAT HCOT HTKAT HTS IBT IPBES IPCC ISDCL JAOS JBL

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Annual of the College of Jewish Studies American Ecclesiastical Review Ancient Israel and Its Literature American Schools of Oriental Research Biblical Archaeology Review Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon Bible and Literature Series British Museum artifact Bibliotheca Sacra Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Catholic Biblical Quarterly Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology Christian Scholars Review Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies Dead Sea Discoveries Early Judaism and Its Literature English Standard Version English Translation of the Bible Forschungen zum Alten Testament Historical Commentary on the Old Testament Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Hervormde Teologiese Studies Interpreting Biblical Texts Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change International Society for Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature

Abbreviations xix JNES JR JPS JSJ JSJSup JSOT JSOTSup JTS KJV LBS LHBOTS LXX NETS NIV NJBC NRSV OCABS OTE OTL OTP PTMS RSR SBLEJL SBLSymS SHCANE STDJ SJT TE TT VT VTS WAW WBC ZAW

Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Religion Jewish Publication Society English Translation of the Tanakh Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series Journal of Theological Studies King James Version English Translation of the Bible Library of Biblical Studies Library of Hebrew Bible Old Testament Studies Septuagint New English Translation of the Septuagint New International Version English Translation of the Bible New Jerome Biblical Commentary New Revised Standard Version English Translation of the Bible Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical Studies Old Testament Essays Old Testament Library Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series Religious Studies Review Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and Its Literature Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East Studies on the Texts of the Desert in Judah Scottish Journal of Theology Theological Education Theology Today Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum Supplements Writings of the Ancient World Word Biblical Commentary Zeitschrit für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Introduction and case study Wisdom for challenging times: Ecclesiastes, Job, and a vote for compassionate theology Nicolae Roddy and Frances Flannery

There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. (Eccl. 8:14)

Few topics should hold the interest of scholars and intellectuals of any stripe more than the quest for wisdom. From the 1970s into the first decade of the new millennium, the majority of critical biblical scholarship on wisdom was driven by a focus on questions of genre in the attempt to arrive at a discrete set of texts definitively set apart from the rest of the Hebrew Bible, owing to their particular forms and wisdom content (for discussions of trends in scholarship see Kuntz 1998, 1999, 2012; Kynes 2015). The texts in the “biblical wisdom corpus”—which traditionally includes Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Ben Sira, and Wisdom of Solomon, and arguably Song of Songs and certain Wisdom Psalms (see Kuntz 1974, 2000, 2003)— establish as their central concern the attempt to understand divine wisdom and God’s ways. However, other biblical texts also ponder what constitutes wisdom and knowledge (e.g., Gen. 2–3; Amos 3:3–6; Hos. 14:9; Isa. 11:1–5 19:11–15, 30:15, 32:1–5; Deut. 4:5–6, 34:9), and such questions are clearly not limited to the musings of ancient Israel, calling into question the limits of the biblical corpus that scholarship had constructed. Adding to the confusion, scholars used “wisdom” not only to denote a literary corpus, but also a genre, theme, or movement in antiquity. Most biblical scholars still recognize unifying characteristics in the biblical wisdom corpus; yet, nearly from the start of its identification, this looseness in definitional terminology and the universalism of wisdom as a theme (Crenshaw 1976, 3; 1998, 11), both in biblical texts and in the ancient Near East, has threatened to dilute the category—a circumscription that has required constant defending. Thus, since 2010, some scholars have questioned whether “the wisdom tradition” ever existed (Sneed 2011), whether we should speak of the “wisdom corpus” any longer (Sneed 2015), or whether “if, indeed, it is a genre in any meaningful sense” given the pervasiveness of “wisdom thinking” in other texts (Weeks 2010, 85, 107–108). Subsequent studies of wisdom and sapiential apocalyptic literature have also made it difficult to sustain a distinctive category of DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-1

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wisdom (e.g., Wright and Wills 2005). Even among those who do wish to preserve the category, there is debate regarding what characteristics should determine what additional texts should be included, especially from the Dead Sea Scrolls (Wright 2010, 291, 297; Goff 2010, 327–330).1 Those who argue for retaining the wisdom genre argue for new additions, fuzzy borders, and a reminder that “the wisdom corpus” is merely a scholarly construct (Goff 334–335; Wright 292) not limited to ancient Israel (Clifford 2007). While the underpainting of these discussions infuses the background of this present volume, the evolving insights into the definitional challenges of “wisdom” as a corpus or genre are not its main concern. Rather, the contributors were encouraged to address any biblical wisdom literature that spoke vibrantly to them, which therefore could extend beyond “the wisdom corpus” to include texts exhibiting what Sneed calls a “mode” of wisdom, much as we might refer to legal or historical material in the Bible, without resort to a particular collection of books (Sneed 2011, 57; Kynes 18), or what Goff calls “a noetic purpose,” either concerning instruction or a search for wisdom (Goff 327–330). The present volume, Biblical Wisdom, Then and Now, therefore treats both those wisdom texts that scholarship has traditionally and profitably considered as having some coherent wisdom themes and forms, as well as other biblical and extra-biblical texts that exhibit an intertextual interplay with the theme of wisdom, as long as wisdom is a principal focus of the text (Kynes 31). More specifically, the authors in Part I: Biblical Wisdom Then analyze the wisdom corpus and other ancient Near Eastern texts to explore how wisdom relates to those in antiquity surviving in exile (Dell), flourishing as scribes (Werline), and striving as kings (Handy). Grounded as the chapters are in the ancient Near East, they are remarkably resonant today, as it is indeed difficult not to glean insights into the experience of displaced persons and refugees, scholars seeking a sustainable practice, and leaders seeking to rule wisely. The contributors in Part II: Biblical Wisdom Now speak more directly to a range of contemporary concerns, combining historical and literary critical approaches with ethical and theological perspectives to bring a range of pressing issues into conversation with the wisdom corpus and other wisdom literature. In this way, these authors explore wisdom’s lessons for humankind’s relationship to animals and the non-human natural world (Flannery), the environmental crisis (VanLandingham, Provan), the inclusion of women in religion (Tanner), the healing of trauma (Packer), emergent relationships with both materiality and eternal beings (Wagner), and the challenges of social divisions that threaten our stability (Roddy). By way of introducing the insights offered by each of these individual authors and gesturing to the potential of the wisdom literature to speak vividly to concerns both past and present, we open this volume with a case study on Ecclesiastes and Job. Almost as a maxim, these two texts from the traditional wisdom corpus are often said to show no interest in a revealed covenant or the Mosaic law revealed at Sinai (e.g., Cohen 1987, 42; Murphy 1992b). In fact, we find they demonstrate a mature, realistic, and compassionate appraisal of the covenantal formulas.

Introduction and case study

3

A case study: Ecclesiastes and Job The longing for a glimpse of what is eternal, good, and true that lies behind the veil of disorder, impermanence, and illusion of this world (e.g., maya, in Asian philosophical traditions) appears to be a universal human quest, albeit not one upon which everyone chooses to embark. Ecclesiastes addresses this fact by observing that God has “set the world in our hearts” while lamenting the tragedy that humans cannot understand all the fullness of God, even if they desire to know it (Eccl. 3:11, JPS). In the biblical wisdom corpus, the quest for understanding the divine is addressed by two seemingly different kinds of question. The first is mundane: what are the best practical steps and principles that one should adopt in order to be successful in life? The second question is more profound and transcends the practicalities of everyday life, namely: what is the meaning of life, the Universe, and “everything done under the Sun” (1:14)? Regarding the second, deeper kind of question, Ecclesiastes and Job speak to the limits of human wisdom while affirming that the search for answers is nevertheless valuable in itself. By the Persian period, the long stretch that several generations of Jews had spent in exilic and post-exilic environs prompted a reexamination among some sages who challenged the answers of traditional covenantal theology, which maintains that God reliably rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked (Deut. 28). Job stems from this early Persian period (Clines 1989, 2006, 2011) and Ecclesiastes from this time or even later in the Hellenistic period (Crenshaw 1987; Murphy 1992b; Seow 1997). Both texts portray their main characters—Qoheleth, in first-person perspective, and Job, in third—as searching for a way to understand divine wisdom, given all the injustices that they witness or experience. As a result of the quest for knowledge and understanding, both characters are thereby led to suspend their belief in a simplistic mechanistic working of the covenant. Without rejecting God, Qoheleth and Job both come to embrace the covenant merely as an ideal state of affairs that is subject to the whims of an inscrutable divine that does whatever it wants (esp. Clines 2011, 1224). While the Israelite wisdom corpus as a whole did not show an overarching diachronic movement from confidence in covenantal theology to skepticism (Newsom 2005a, 2599), the inclusion of these two particular books in the canon, with their significant caveats to the covenant, added a long-lasting voice to both Jewish and Christian theology that preferred intellectual integrity over simplistic platitudes of comfort. We argue that far from being a cynical post-crisis theology or a rejection of the covenant, Ecclesiastes and Job articulate a compassionate and knowledgeable theology for the suffering. Through a combined reader-response approach, we argue as citizens of a challenging, complex, and unpredictable world that this corrective to the covenant contributes meaningful wisdom to us today.

How things ought to work: a covenantal perspective The Mosaic covenant of Exodus and Deuteronomy, situated at the head of the canon sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, posits that wisdom is

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equivalent to obedience to the covenant. Moses puts it to the people simply: Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the midst of the land whither ye go in to possess it. Observe therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom (chokmah) and your understanding (binah) in the sight of the peoples, that, when they hear all these statutes, shall say: “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people (cam chakam venabon).” (Deut. 4:5–6, JPS) God’s covenant with the Hebrews, mediated through Moses in Exodus and iterated also in Deuteronomy, presents a simple, straightforward formula. Those who faithfully observe the divine commandments will enjoy blessings in the form of good health, prosperity, protection from one’s enemies, and long life (Exod. 19:5–6, 23:20–22, 26–30; Deut. 28:1–14). Conversely, those who do not will be sick, hungry, wanting, overrun by enemies, and short-lived (e.g., Exod. 23:21; Deut. 28:15–68). Because this part of the canon foresees no afterlife where justice in the form of punishments and rewards will be meted out—of the sort we find in Daniel 12:2–3—just outcomes are expected to work out neatly in this life. Prophetic literature often reflects a similar view. Isaiah promises, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword” (Isa. 1:19–20). Additionally, ex eventu prophecies strewn throughout the Former Prophets make a direct connection between right actions and assured consequences.2 For example, God appears to Solomon in a dream and asks him what he should like to receive, to which the king asks only for “an understanding heart” (lev shomea). Solomon pleases God with his desire for wisdom (cf. Gen. 3:6), so as a result he receives “a wise and discerning heart” (levchakam venabon) and so much more (1 Kgs. 3:11–13). Yet, there are strings attached. God assures Solomon, “If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life” (3:9– 10). However, in Solomon’s second dream the if/then clauses intensify, the consequences switch to the negative (“but if you do not …”), and the entire nation is implicated: If you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them; and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will become a proverb and a taunt among all peoples. This house will become a heap of ruins; everyone passing by it will be astonished, and will hiss; and they will say, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this house?” Then they will say, “Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other

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gods, worshiping them and serving them; therefore the Lord has brought this disaster upon them.” (1 Kgs. 9:6–9) By inserting a second dream into the narrative world of the tenth century BCE, the Deuteronomistic historian offers a foreboding portent of an actual sixthcentury BCE concern, addressing the question of why God would have permitted Solomon’s glorious temple to be destroyed. Such would be the logical consequences of the Judahites’ departure from the covenant, discussed below. Some texts in the wisdom corpus also agree that righteous ones are assuredly rewarded while the wicked are punished—so thoroughly, in fact, that wisdom is defined as covenantal righteousness. Proverbs 10:8 asserts, “The wise of heart will heed commandments.” For those who “embrace wisdom,” “the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,” while “the way of the wicked is like deep darkness” (4:7–8, 13–19). Those who observe the cultic regulations of tithing in the Mosaic covenant will have abundance: “Honor the LORD with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine” (3:9–10; Exod. 34:19; Lev. 2:14). These wise righteous will be healthy and live a long life: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life” (Prov. 9:10– 11). When they die, “The memory of the righteous is a blessing,” whereas for the wicked who do not heed the commandments, “the name of the wicked will rot” (10:7–8), such that they will be forgotten. The book of Proverbs includes affirmations of the covenant that are simple, straightforward, and clear, and these examples may be multiplied in the extreme. Simply put, the text promises that life will work out for the righteous: “The righteous are delivered from trouble, and the wicked get into it instead” (11:8). These texts assert a neatly predictable pattern to life’s unfolding, unknown to foolish humans, that issues from the start. Genesis 1 depicts a Creator who transcends the laws of nature and is not subject to them in the manner of the warring gods of the Babylonian cosmogony Enuma Elish who personify aspects of nature. This revolutionary theological idea is not only expressed within the text of Genesis 1, but by its very structure. Notice how the first three days of creation serve as fields respectively populated by days four through six: Day 1: Light Day 2: Waters (above and below) Day 3: Land and vegetation

> > >

Day 4: Sun, moon, and stars Day 5: Fish and birds Day 6: Mammals, including human beings

It would hardly have been lost on the ancients that light was spoken into existence before the appearance of the only things in the natural world that provide light. Thumbing his nose at the Babylonian pantheon, the Priestly

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writer uses earthly illogic to proclaim the utter transcendence of God’s wisdom over creation itself. The connection between the Creator and orderly creation found rooted in the Torah (e.g., Genesis 1) is reflected also in the prophets (e.g., Isa. 45:18, 55:8–9; Jer. 51:15) and extolled in the Psalms. The celestial bodies wander predictably across the heavens because the universe has issued by the word/ breath (dabar/ruach) of its Creator: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth” (Psa. 33:6). Elsewhere, “The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (19:1). Last but not least, Psalm 104:24 marvels: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all.” All are included—even though Psalm 104 petitions for the demise of the wicked (v. 35), at least one proverb asserts that they too have a purpose in the divine plan: “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” (Prov. 16:4). In sum, significant portions of the Hebrew Bible—the Torah, Prophets, and Writings alike—assert that natural creation conforms to the will of its Creator, who has established a predictable order that extends to earthly reward for righteousness and punishment for wickedness, according to the covenantal relationship. This worldview offered a facile explanation for the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem’s palace-temple complex and resulting deportations: Judah had broken ovenant, implying that had the nation kept to the covenant, it would have been delivered. However, as the searing trauma of national history began to heal, it became quite apparent to the sages that this is not how the world actually operates.

How things really work: a wisdom perspective As Katharine Dell argues later in this volume, much of the wisdom corpus was formed in the crucible of the exilic period, during which time existing traditions were reevaluated and new ones began to develop. The profound trauma of a destroyed temple and mass deportation to Babylon—the end of national history— required a theological explanation in light of Judah’s covenant with YHWH. The ultimate question had to do with what had gone so terribly wrong that God would destroy his own city and house—especially after having delivered them from the Assyrian siege (701 BCE) “for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David” (2 Kgs. 19:34). For the exilic revision of the Deuteronomistic History (or Dtr2; Noth 1981; Cross 1968), traditional wisdom, such as we find in covenantal language of Exodus and Deuteronomy, provided a convenient response to the question “What went wrong?” The comprehensive response to the question was based upon an expanded definition of the concept of idolatry expressed as Judah’s misguided trust in its own institutions (cf. Deut. 8:11–20). These include the monarchy (1 Sam. 8:7–8; cf. 2 Sam. 11:1), its fortified cities (Roddy 2008), its military defenses, specifically chariots of iron (Roddy 2017), and even the cult itself (Jer. 7:3–4). With that, the answer to what went wrong became abundantly clear:

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3

We did! With the acuity of 20/20 hindsight, the covenantal paradigm that made sense of Jerusalem’s destruction could also be used to explain the fall of Samaria (Isa. 43:22–28; Ezek. 16:51; Jer. 23:13–14). Recent archaeological discoveries indicate that the trauma of the Exile we see reflected in Psalm 137 eventually subsided as many of the exiles began to adapt and enjoy the sort of life Jeremiah encouraged them to build in his letter to exiled elders (Jer. 29:4–7): Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Babylonian texts indicate that deportees were forced to work in the field or rebuild cities destroyed by war with the Assyrians. Some lived together in their own settlements, such as al-Yahudu (Akkadian for the Judahite city), located southeast of Nippur. Eventually, as the wounds of divine chastisement began to heal, perspectives on the Exile broadened and new forms of wisdom started to emerge. Some came to view the experience as service to God’s greater plan for the nations, such as we find in the Servant Songs (Isa. 49:5–7, 53:1–12, 54:7–8). Others focused on the Exile in light of an impending return to Jerusalem as YHWH’s demonstration of divine chesed (steadfast love; 40:1–2, 43:1–2). In the end, the Deuteronomic paradigm that had provided such a neat and tidy explanation for the ills that befell the nation began to lose its luster for some. After all, it is doubtful that anyone— including the Deuteronomistic writers—ever really thought that only good things befall the good, leaving only misfortune to the wicked. If anything, under the Persians, Greeks, Hasmoneans, and Romans, Byzantines (and on into our own day), reality demonstrates that innocent people of the world endure untold suffering and live short and miserable lives, often under the unyielding boot of wicked ones, who frequently manage to live long and prosperous lives. Ecclesiastes To this theological maelstrom, Qoheleth, the “Gatherer,” the authorial voice of Ecclesiastes, responds Hevel hevelim, meaning all is vanity/emptiness/futility/meaninglessness—all translations for a Hebrew word meaning “chasing after a puff of wind” (Eccl. 1:2, 2:11, 4:13). Writing in the late Persian or early Hellenistic period (Crenshaw 1987; Murphy 1992a),4 Qoheleth knows how the covenant is supposed to work: “I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work” (Eccl. 3:17). Yet he cannot suspend his intellectual integrity, and indeed, that is the beginning of wisdom. As the

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wisest man to date in Jerusalem (2:9), he declares that he has seen it all—’et-hakol ra’iytiy biymey hevliy, “I have seen everything in the days of my emptiness” (7:15, translation ours). What Qoheleth learns is disheartening, namely that “there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing” (Eccl. 7:15b). He knows what he knows, and cannot pretend otherwise: Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, not the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. (Eccl. 9:11) One may do whatever one can do to please God, fear God, and obey the commandments, but ultimately the divine appears to humans as unknowable time and chance (Eccl. 9:11). Death comes to all and the covenant does not always work out, and “there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (9:10). However, while death ends everything, and wisdom ultimately matters not, death does not rob life of meaning. Before the net comes to us as to a fish, or the snare comes to us as to a bird (9:12), we can try to eat some, drink some, and eke out some happiness with a companion or two (2:24, 3:13, 9:12). This is not a very cheery thought; however, it is realistic. It is also compassionate, as those who are suffering trauma require acknowledgment of their experience, insights that can be extended to today, as a later chapter in this volume by Packer explores. A modern Jewish tradition for sitting shiva in the house of mourning the dead maintains that one should be there with the mourners in grief, without trying to dispel the grief. There is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Eccl. 3:4); thus, platitudes such as “God has a plan,” “God needed another angel in heaven,” or (God forbid!) the covenantal proposition that the departed must have deserved death are cruel and uncompassionate positions, whatever the intention of the speakers (Kushner 1981). Injustice is unfair, tragedy is painful, and death brings loss. Again, Qoheleth knows what he knows, and says it plainly: “Again I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed—with no one to comfort them!” (Eccl. 4:1). A bit of comic relief in the book comes in the epilogue, when a scribe copying the text not only appears to have agreed with Qoheleth, but also desired to express his realistic appraisal of his own scribal suffering, adding: “Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is wearying to the flesh!” (Eccl. 12:12). However, the final scribe of the epilogue simply could not abide Qoheleth’s message, and his one short expression of another perspective is sometimes erroneously allowed to frame the whole book because it comes as the final word. Seemingly scandalized by the irreverent undoing of the Mosaic covenant by the author of Ecclesiastes, he asserts, after copying the whole of Qoheleth’s manuscript, that God would indeed uphold the covenant taught in the Torah: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his

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commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (12:13–14). We may appreciate the final scribe’s impulse towards reverence and obedience, but not his understanding of the wider world. There is a pious compulsion religious persons often feel to defend religion, even against plain evidence to the contrary that challenges religious maxims, such as the idea that God is always fair or in control. Yet it takes wisdom to see the truth clearly. Second Isaiah, the author of Isaiah 40–55, knew this when he began his exilic oracles by acknowledging that Judah’s punishment was excessive: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God … [Jerusalem] has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins” (40:2). The covenant is not always fair for persons under it because it is not an individual covenant, but rather a collective one. Qoheleth not only sees righteous persons who perish and wicked people who prosper (Eccl. 7:15), he also laments that “the same fate comes to everyone,” i.e., everyone dies, which he calls “an evil in all that happens under the sun” (9:3). Moreover, death is the end: “All go to one place, all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again” (3:20) and “there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (9:10). With no meaningful afterlife, the covenant’s failure to reward the good and punish the wicked consistently and reliably is particularly galling. Such injustice is compounded even more by the agony of “the days of trouble … [when] the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them,’” that is, old age (12:1–7). Qoheleth’s appraisal of the harshness of our lot is thus unflinching: “Men’s hearts are full of sadness, and their minds of madness, then—to the dead!” (9:3, JPS). The book of Job The poetry section of Job 3:1–42:6, most likely composed during the Exile at the earliest, stems from an author who, like Qoheleth, has seen that the promises of the Deuteronomic covenant do not always work out neatly. The author whom we will call the Poet of Job likely inserts almost forty chapters of poetry in the middle of what appears to have been an older prose folktale that upholds the Mosaic covenant (Job 1:1–2:13 and 42:10 [or 7]–17).5 In the prose folktale, Job is “a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil” (1:8, 2:3) who finds himself to be the subject of a bet between God and the Satan, an angel of the heavenly court whose appointed task appears to be to walk to and fro on the earth to inspect whether humans are carrying on as they should in service to God (1:6–12, 2:1–7). The role of Satan may have been added later after the dialogues (Stokes 2019, 37–39), and even with the additions it is clear that God is in control of taking away from Job, in this order, his oxen and donkeys and servants, his sheep and more servants, his camels and more servants, his seven sons and three daughters, and then finally, his health (Job 1:13–19, 2:7–8). However, despite Job’s wife quite understandably asking him to curse God and die (2:9–10), Job of the prose folktale remains patient and faithful, saying “Shall we receive the good at

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the hand of God and not receive the bad?” so that the text would declare, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (2:10). By the end of the book, God restores Job’s losses, including seven more sons, three more daughters, and twice his former wealth in animal resources (42:12–13). Even to the casual observer however, the folktale bookends, which almost perfectly uphold the traditional Mosaic covenant, exhibit a fractured morality. Even after his fortunes are restored at the end of the book, Job’s first set of children are still dead, through no fault of their own, not to mention scores of nameless servants, oxen, donkey, sheep, and camels. Job’s wife also suffered greatly. And thus, it should be no surprise that the exilic or post-exilic Poet of Job commences his addition by putting in the character Job’s mouth a despairing and impatient attitude: “After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said ‘Let the day perish in which I was born’” (3:1–3). Job of the poetic section understands what the reader of the prose folktale already knows to be true: he is being punished unfairly by God, even though he did not sin. For the bulk of the book, Job fervently maintains his innocence, stipulating: “I am clean, without transgression, I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me” (33:9, JPS). Job knows how the covenant is supposed to work; but, like Qoheleth, his life experience leads him to recognize that it does not always function that way: “therefore I say, [God] destroys both the blameless and the wicked” (9:22). Job is upset, even angry at God, and he wants answers: “I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God … Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me” (13:3, 22). He asserts that, given the chance, he would ask God for answers: Oh, that I knew where I might find him, That I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, And fill my mouth with arguments. I would know (yadc) the words which he would answer me, And understand (biyn) what he would say unto me. (Job 23:3–5, JPS) While the reader knows that Job is correct in these protestations of innocence, throughout the entire poetry section Job’s interlocutors—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and the later scribal addition of a fourth friend, Elihu—all try to convince him otherwise. Their point of view upholds the traditional, covenantal view of punishment and suffering, stipulating that if Job has had misfortune, then he deserves it, for God is just: Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? If your children sinned against him, he delivered them into the power of their transgression … if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore to you your rightful place. (Job 8:5–6)

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They find Job’s protestations unconvincing and urge him to repent of his sin, as Zophar says: [Y]ou say, “My conduct is pure, and I am clean in God’s sight.” But O that God would speak and open his lips to you and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom! For wisdom is many-sided. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves. (Job 11:6) Yet since Job is innocent of the sin that deserved such calamity, his frustration grows and he replies sarcastically, “No doubt … wisdom will die with you. But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know such things as these?” (12:3–4). In addition to being wrong about why Job is suffering, the friends are “miserable comforters” (16:10) who blame the victim for being guilty, for they appear to be more committed to avoiding criticism of God than they are to having compassion for the suffering friend in front of them. To the despondent one who says “My spirit is broken … the grave is ready for me” (Job 17:1), Eliphaz offers no solace, motivated above all by a defense of religion, saying: “you are doing away with the fear of God … Your own mouth condemns you, and not I” (15:4–6). By the end of the book, God provides the ultimate point of view. With majesty befitting the Creator of the Universe, God enters the scene again in Chapter 38, thundering at Job from a whirlwind, saying: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me” (Job 38:2–3). God appears powerful and perhaps angry, asking a series of questions that rhetorically put Job in his place: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (38:4). Most of the questions point to Job’s relative lack of power in comparison to the Creator’s, e.g.: “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?” (38:31). Many questions also directly address Job’s comparative lack of wisdom as compared with God’s: “Who has the wisdom (chokmah) to number the clouds?” (38:37); “Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south?” (39:26). Yet although the sight of God peppering Job with questions that establish God’s incomparable position and power is awe-inspiring and intimidating, it is not completely clear that God means to silence Job. God’s command in Job 38:2 to “Gird up your loins like a man” refers to wrapping one’s tunic through the legs and around the waist so that it functions as shorts, enabling one to run swiftly or engage in other acts of athleticism or hard work (1 Kings 18:46).6 God challenges Job in asking, “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Anyone who argues with God must respond” (Job 40:2). Yet when Job responds with humility, saying that he will now be silent (40:3–5), God challenges Job out of the whirlwind a second time, telling him once again to “Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me” (40:7–8).

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Typically, when a speaker asks a question a second time after an answer is given, the speaker desires a different answer than was first given (e.g., the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19:9–13). In fact, God’s demand echoes Job’s earlier hopes to be able to make his case before God, when he pleaded: “I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God … Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me” (Job 13:3, 22; 23:3–5). God asks Job another lengthy set of questions, this time about Behemoth and Leviathan, monsters whose power and ways are outside of humankind’s ken (40:15–34). Finally, Job relents, whether because he accepts that he will never get the answers he desires from God (so Clines 2011, 1241) or because he recognizes that his earlier questions were self-righteous and haughty. Perhaps he is just cowed. For whatever reason, Job states that he has spoken about what he does not know (42:3) and repents, “seeing I am but dust and ashes” (42:6). How we interpret the significance of Job’s final silence and repentance depends on a surprising last scene between God, Job, and his so-called friends. The LORD turns to Eliphaz to say, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). God also asks Job to sacrifice some animals on behalf of the three friends and to pray for them, stating to them again: “you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done” (42:8). From this interchange, we know two things. One, we know that the positions that the three friends have stated throughout the book, in which they sought to defend the justness of God and the workings of the covenant, are quite clearly considered by God to be wrong. God declares this not just once, but twice (42:7, 8). This is a stunning conclusion to the book, which then stands to overturn the simple neatness of the covenant as affirmed throughout the Torah and most of the prophets. Two, we know that God deems Job to be the one who was correct about God (Clines 2011, 1241). But what exactly did Job get right? As Newsom notes, the book’s popularity throughout history owes to its stubbornness in being definitively interpreted (2005b, 4932), and thus at least three options present themselves, in our view. First, Job may have been correct throughout the bulk of the book when he asserts his innocence and calls God to task for his plight, demanding an answer from Shaddai, the Almighty (so Clines). In this interpretation, God repeats the command to “Gird up your loins like a man” because God in fact wants Job to answer, as a worthy conversational partner. Job is, after all, God’s favorite human in the whole wide world (Job 1:8, 2:3). In fact, it may be that God asks Job a third time to answer, if Job 42:4 is understood to be God’s part of the dialogue: “Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.” Job is deemed by God to have “spoken rightly of me” (42:7–8) for refusing to suspend his intellectual integrity throughout the text, and God in fact wants Job to make his case. Job’s final silence is therefore not what God wished for, but God overlooks it to commend the man’s earlier stance. Another possibility for what Job ultimately gets right (Job 42:7, 8) is not a transcendent view of the workings of the universe, but a genuine humility before the awesome majesty of God that eventually leads him to confess, “I am dust and ashes” (42:6). For nearly forty chapters, Job’s friends have been building their case

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against him, arguing that he must have sinned greatly in order to have received such disastrous recompense. While Job is technically correct from the start in defending his innocence, our protagonist’s arguments in self-defense also grow increasingly haughty. After asserting that mortals do not know how to find wisdom and that only God understands the way (28:13, 23), he goes on to boast of his own life of wisdom “when the friendship of God was on his tent” (29), complain that he has become a victim (30), and offer a litany of his many virtuous acts (31) as a final defense. Finally, toward the end of his defense comes a bold proclamation that might best be read as sarcasm: O that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!) O that I had the indictment written by my adversary! Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; I would bind it on me like a crown; I would give him an account of all my steps; like a prince I would approach him. (Job 31:35–37) At some point along the way, Job crosses the line into asserting he knows how the world and everything in and around it actually works. He has built up such an inflated sense of “rightness” that his friends break off their dialogue, seeing Job “was righteous in his own eyes” (32:1). Notice that the text does not state that they perceived Job as being self-righteous; rather, it is the narrator who asserts that Job is “righteous in his own eyes” (tsadiyq bcaynayn). The fact that the narrator asserts this is very telling, and a divine corrective is now the order for all human beings involved in their erroneous discourse. Just as Job has rebuked his friends, it is now Job’s turn to be rebuked. Since Elihu’s dialogue (Job 32:6–35:3) is clearly an interpolation to which nothing else in the text alludes, many interpreters have seen it as a superfluous addition by “a dissatisfied reader” (Newsom 2003, 200–233; Balentine 2006, 510–513; Clines 2006). However, the mysterious, youthful-looking, drop-in character may serve an important function in the final version of the text, as a kind of forerunner to the impending voice from the whirlwind in helping Job see the error of his ways.7 According to Seow, “[Elihu’s] discourses are entirely appropriate at the heels of the poem that asks where wisdom might be found. Elihu asserts that wisdom is to be found only when God reveals it, in this case through a human intermediary” (Seow 2011, 264). In fact, the text is not clear whether Elihu is human or divine, since he refers to the ruach in his belly (Job 32:18), being carried off by God like Elijah (32:22), and having been made by the divine spirit and kept alive by God’s breath (33:4; cf. Ezek. 37:14; Seow 264). Whoever he is, Elihu says: Those who have sense will say to me, and the wise who hear me will say, “Job speaks without knowledge,

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Nicolae Roddy and Frances Flannery his words are without insight.” Would that Job were tried to the limit, because his answers are those of the wicked. For he adds rebellion to his sin; he claps his hands among us, and multiplies his words against God. (Job 34:34–37)

In sum, Elihu functions to correct Job—not for any initial guilt, but for his eventual self-justifying “words against God” that “add rebellion to his sin” (Job 34:37). Elihu’s bold confrontation of Job’s prideful and misguided grasp of how things work sets the stage for the only authoritative voice that can put things right, namely the one that comes roaring out of the whirlwind. The insidious nature of Job’s growing self-righteousness—which in modern parlance would involve talking about the ego-self—is so grievous that it takes four full chapters (Job 38–41) for God to return Job to what he only thought he knew before he got off-track: “Mortals do not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living” (28:13). When the divine voice from the whirlwind finally subsides, Job realizes he had been presumptuous in speaking about things beyond his knowing (42:3), saying: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5–6). This comports well with something else that Job had earlier gotten right: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (1:21). As a third possibility, perhaps when God states that Job has “spoken rightly of me” (Job 42:7–8), God is referring to several ways in which Job is correct. First, Job was correct in his intellectual position for most of his dialogue, yet he also grew increasingly angry and disrespectful of God. In the end, Job finally finds a balance between the proper intellectual position and an appropriate spiritual/attitudinal submission to God’s mysterious presence, made evident when he says “now my eye sees you” (42:5). Job finally understands something about God’s nature, namely that God is incomprehensible. While he was technically correct earlier in his assertions about the workings of the covenant, he is now also humbled when he realizes that humans are but “dust and ashes” compared with the one who tames monsters and chaos (42:6; Seow 2013). The fact that Qoheleth and Job both question the reliability of the covenantal formulas—and do so based on their wisdom—stands in marked contrast to the tidy formulas of transactional covenantal behavior and reward found in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and a myriad of prophets. Neither wisdom text shrinks before the gaping maw of injustice, suffering, and death; and neither rejects God as a result. While Qoheleth may believe the deity is inscrutable and equivalent to time and chance (Eccl. 9:11), and Job believes that God stalks and frightens him (Job 7:17–19, 13:20–25), both wisdom texts nevertheless affirm that God is the Creator who is in control, who does pay some mind to puny humans.

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Indeed, it is striking that both texts show such faithfulness toward such an inscrutable God. Job asserts, “I know that my Redeemer lives … after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:26), which in fact he later does (42:5). In a rigorously monotheistic system such as ancient Israelite religion/early Judaism, Satan is not ultimately to blame in Job; nor are the wicked ultimately to blame in Ecclesiastes. God is the dispenser of both good and bad (Job 2:10; Eccl. 3:14–15), and there is nothing to do in response to whatever happens except to accept this fact: “God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him” (Eccl. 3:14). The best we can do is hope: “For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease” (Job 14:7). All there is to do is enjoy what we can while we can (Eccl. 12:1–8).

How things continue to work: biblical wisdom for today—a reader-response approach There is a reason that these two books resonate more with our students than do many others in our biblical studies courses. The attitude in Ecclesiastes and Job is presciently postmodern, for both affirm the reality of unfair suffering while eschewing easy answers. We write this from 2020, during the spread of a global coronavirus pandemic that has infected over 76 million people and killed well over 1.5 million, shut down economies, and stressed families and individuals in nearly every country. This same year, the US saw the most unpredictable election in its history during renewed protests against systemic racism and police violence, amidst threats of civil war from a radical extremist minority and a recalcitrant outgoing President who, at this writing, had yet to concede victory to the President-Elect. Globally, the recent #MeToo movement ignited protests against sexism, resulting in arrests against prominent harassers and abusers of women. The world currently has more refugees than ever in history, as nearly 80 million persons were forcibly displaced in 2020 due to violence, persecution, or climate, including 30–34 million children. And the backdrop to it all is climate change, with impacts that continue to accelerate and threaten us all. Several of the contributions to this volume address these challenges by plumbing wisdom literature for new insights on these issues. As we continue to search for wise counsel, one thing is clear: many of those who suffer do not deserve it, just like Job. In the context of such vast despair, the promises of the traditional covenant may appear as a cruel ideal unless they are balanced with the acerbic, sharp-eyed elaboration of the wisdom literature, especially as found in Ecclesiastes and Job. The rabbis who compiled the Jewish canon in the first and second centuries are to be applauded for insisting that these wisdom texts be included, as messy as that made things theologically, for life is messy. Similarly, the early theologians and bishops who debated the Christian canon in the late fourth century are to be commended for leaving the glaring contradictions of the canon intact. It is the tension in the scriptures as a whole—the balance between the tidy promises of the covenant revealed to Moses and the messy affirmation by Ecclesiastes and Job that “it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with” (Eccl. 1:13)—which ultimately enables the covenant itself to be maintained.

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As readers who stand in this challenging and complex postmodern world, we cannot imagine a relevant canon without these two wisdom books. As Ecclesiastes and Job grappled with the past tragedy of the Exile, we in 2020 have no dearth of tragedies through which to process God’s promises. It is sometimes said that in Judaism there has been no theology since the Shoah (or Holocaust), a hyperbolic assertion indicating that the scope of the tragedy has made it apparent there can no longer be any neat, orderly, simple assertion of a God who is both omnipotent and caring. Numerous post-Shoah Jewish theologians have proposed myriad responses to make sense of this unprecedented scale of cruelty, including that: God suffered alongside us and needs us as much as we need God (Heschel 1976); the Shoah resulted from the failure of human morality and requires a doubling of efforts to serve as an example to the world of morality (Baeck 1964); God deserves to be on trial for the events (Wiesel 1979); Judaism must now renounce the idea of God (Rubenstein 1966); the classical idea of the covenant is henceforth over (Cohen 1981); or the covenant is still valid and the purpose of the Shoah was as a sacrifice for the rest of the world, an “atonement” (Maybaum 1965). Speaking to the last proposal, Rabbi Irving Greenberg countered with this working principle: “No statement—theological or otherwise—should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children” (Greenberg 1977, 23). Indeed, this is a fitting working principle for the whole postmodern age, the horrors of which have eclipsed even the tragedy of the Exile that spawned the wisdom corpus. Were we left only with the simple formula of the Mosaic covenant’s promises of reward and punishment, then this religion would arguably be cruel, intellectually naïve, or irrelevant. However, with the brave positions staked out by the wisdom texts of Ecclesiastes and Job, there is the possibility of yet remaining dedicated to God, unknowable as God’s ways may be, with freedom for intellectual questioning (and perhaps even for anger, although mysticism is ultimately always humbling—a lesson from Job’s whirlwind encounter). Ecclesiastes and Job, as well as some other wisdom texts, might say along with Buber that religion is simply “living in relationship to … unconditionally affirmed absolute Being” (Buber 1952, 17), and, beyond that, we preserve room for relentless questions and a dearth of answers. This almost existential position and comfort with ambiguity stands over and against a later effort in Judaism and Christianity meant to rescue the covenant in a fashion that Job’s friends had never thought of, namely, apocalyptic theology. Antiochus IV’s oppression of the Jews in 168–165 BCE, including his outlawing of the Torah and persecution of the people, could well have spelled the end of Judaism and also, preemptively, Christianity. Under Antiochus, those who observed the Mosaic covenant were punished, tortured, or killed, while the wicked Hellenizing Jews who disobeyed the covenant were rewarded, such as by receiving Antiochene citizenship or governmental offices. Bending under the weight of that covenantal crisis, the author of Daniel 12 crystallized an apocalyptic answer for Judaism: a divine intermediary would return at the end of time, and “many” for whom the covenant had not worked out would be raised from Sheol, either to everlasting reward or to everlasting punishment (Dan. 12:1–3). This

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apocalyptic theology would later profoundly influence Christianity and Islam. Certainly, it is a tidier answer than the difficult one that Ecclesiastes and Job provide; and it is more simple, in that it puts the burden on the divine to solve our problems and work the covenant out after death. Yet, with its easy bifurcation of society into good and evil and its reliance on external salvation for our problems, and most of all because it obviates the need for us to think our way through an complex and challenging universe, it is also one that is arguably less healthy for the challenging times of our contemporary period. What Ecclesiastes, Job, and many other wisdom texts treated in this volume have in common is the starting point of endeavoring to peer behind the illusory nature of things in order to attain a true view of reality. Ecclesiastes and Job recognize that this ultimate reality cannot be completely grasped, and they refuse to dilute it with simple covenantal formulas. Instead, the sages behind the present versions of these texts staunchly reject the traditional premise that things always work out neatly, justly, and fairly for the righteous ones who follow them. Their position may appear to deviate from the norms and expectations of religious piety, but it turns out to be more authentic, realistic, and indeed compassionate in its understanding and application of the Torah to the unpredictable exigencies of human existence. Ecclesiastes and Job speak to the reality of a sometimes chaotic and sometimes seemingly indifferent universe, articulated powerfully in God’s speech about the monster Leviathan, symbol of ultimate chaos and “king over all that are proud” (Job 41:1–34). Fitting for our time, these wisdom texts yet do not abandon the covenant, but instead build on it through their resolute allegiance to integrity, the intellectual quest, and epistemology, with submission to the greater mystery.

Notes 1 Wright (297–299) proposes four features that establish a framework for judging admission to the wisdom corpus: (1) pedagogical form and intent; (2) concern for acquiring wisdom through study and learning; (3) engagement with earlier sapiential tradition; (4) an interest in practical ethics. Goff (327–330) hones this down to two ambiguous criteria: (1) a noetic purpose, including instructing and a search for understanding; and (2) significant participation in a sapiential discourse by engaging with traditional Israelite wisdom as exemplified by Proverbs, which admittedly is circular in that it relies on an a priori identification of a wisdom corpus. 2 A prophecy ex eventu, also known as vaticinium ex eventu, is a literary device in which an event that has already occurred in the writer’s past is presented as a prophecy, such as the “foretelling” of Josiah, a seventh-century BCE king, in an episode set in the narrative tenth-century BCE (1 Kgs. 13:1–2). 3 The warning of Deuteronomy 8:11–20 is aimed at a people exalting itself in pride over its own accomplishments and good fortune. The summative reference to idolatry in the passage suggests that the concept of idolatry has much broader application beyond simply “gods made with hands.” The term that appears most frequently in prophetic literature referring to idolatry is zanah (literally, adultery or “whoredom”; cf. Hos. 1:2), understood as placing one’s trust in (or having intercourse with) any human construct perceived to carry some promise of security. 4 Given the Persian provenance, the author is not Solomon despite the attribution in 1:1, but likely a “he,” which we will retain here.

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5 A few commentators tend to read the text as a unified composition (e.g., Newsom 2003; Seow 2013); however, this does not affect the main arguments here. 6 See Proverbs 31:17 where it is applied to an ideal woman who is also described with other masculine terms. 7 Cf. Clines 2004, who would relocate Elihu’s speeches so that YHWH’s whirlwind speech comes as a direct response to Job.

References Baeck, Leo. 1964. This People Israel: The Meaning of Jewish Existence. New York: Jewish Publication Society. Balentine, Samuel E. 2006. Job. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys. Buber, Martin. 1952. Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation between Religion and Philosophy. New York: Harper & Brothers. Clifford, Richard J. 2007. Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel. Atlanta: SBL Press. Clines, David J. A. 1989. Job: 1–20. WBC 18A. Dallas, TX: Thomas Nelson. Clines, David J. A. 2004. “Putting Elihu in His Place: A Proposal for the Reallocation of Job 32–37.” JSOT 29: 115–125. Clines, David J. A. 2006. Job 21–37. WBC 18A. Dallas, TX: Thomas Nelson. Clines, David J. A. 2011. Job 38–42. WBC 18A. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. Cohen, Arthur A. 1981. The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust. New York: Crossroad. Cohen, Shaye J. D. 1987. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. Philadelphia: Westminster. Crenshaw, James L. 1976. “Prolegomenon.” Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom, edited by J. L. Crenshaw, 1–60. LBS. New York: KTAV. Crenshaw, James L. 1987. Ecclesiastes: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster. Crenshaw, James L. 1998. Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Cross, Frank M. 1968. “The Structure of the Deuteronomistic History.” Perspectives in Jewish Learning, edited by J. M. Rosenthal, 9–24. ACJS 3. Chicago: College of Jewish Studies. Goff, Matthew. 2010. “Qumran Wisdom Literature and the Problem of Genre.” DSD 17, no. 3: 315–335. Greenberg, Irving. 1977. “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire: Judaism, Christianity, and Modernity after the Holocaust.” In Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era?, edited by Eva Fleischer, 7–55; 441–446. New York: KTAV. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. 1976. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1974. “The Canonical Wisdom Psalms of Ancient Israel: Their Rhetorical, Thematic, and Formal Dimensions.” In Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, edited by J. J. Jackson and M. Kessler, 186–222. PTMS. Pittsburgh: Pickwick. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1998. “Biblical Hebrew Poetry in Recent Research, Part I.” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 6: 31–64. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1999. “Biblical Hebrew Poetry in Recent Research, Part II.” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 7: 35–79. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 2000. “Wisdom Psalms and the Shaping of the Hebrew Psalter.” In For a Later Generation: The Transformation of Tradition in Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, edited by R. A. Argall, B. A. Bow, and R. A. Werline, 144–160. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.

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Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 2003. “Reclaiming Biblical Wisdom Psalms: A Response to James L. Crenshaw,” Currents in Biblical Research 1, no. 2: 145–154. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 2012. “Continuing the Engagement: Psalms Research since the Early 1990s.” Currents in Biblical Research 10, no. 3: 321–378. Kushner, Harold S. 1981. When Bad Things Happen To Good People. New York: Schocken. Kynes, Will. 2015. “The Modern Scholarly Wisdom Tradition and the Threat of PanSapientialism: A Case Report.” In Was There a Wisdom Tradition: New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies, edited by M. R. Sneed, 11–38. Atlanta: SBL Press. Maybaum, Ignaz. 1965. The Face of God at Auschwitz. Amsterdam: Polak and Van Gennep. Murphy, Roland E. 1992a. Ecclesiastes. WBC 23A. Dallas: Thomas Nelson. Murphy, Roland E. 1992b. “Wisdom in the OT.” In Anchor Bible Dictionary 4: 297. New York: Doubleday. Newsom, Carol A. 2003. The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Newsom, Carol A. 2005a. “Ecclesiastes.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., edited by Lindsay Jones, 2599–2600. Vol. 4. Detroit, MI: Macmillan. Gale eBooks. https://link.ga le.com/apps/doc/CX3424500871/GVRL?u=viva_jmu&sid=GVRL&xid=4e7e0d27. Newsom, Carol A. 2005b. “Job.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., edited by Lindsay Jones, 4930–4933. Vol. 7. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. Gale eBooks. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3424501630/GVRL?u=viva_jmu&sid= GVRL&xid=22e6209d. Noth, Martin. 1981. The Deuteronomistic History. JSOTSup 15. Sheffield: JSOT. Roddy, Nicolae. 2008. “Landscape of Shadows: The Image of City in the Hebrew Bible.” In Cities Through the Looking Glass, edited by R. Arav, 11–21. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Roddy, Nicolae. 2017. “Chariots of Fire, Unassailable Cities, and the One True King: The Prophetically Influenced Scribal Perspective on War.” In Orthodox Christian Perspectives on War, edited by P. Hamalis and V. Karras, 61–84. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Rubenstein, Richard. 1966. After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism. New York: Macmillan. Seow, C. L. 1997. Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. ABC 18C. New York: Doubleday. Seow, C. L. 2011. “Elihu’s Revelation.” Theology Today 68, no. 3: 253–271. Seow, C. L. 2013. Job 1–21: Interpretation and Commentary. Illuminations. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Sneed, Mark. 2011. “Is the ‘Wisdom Tradition’ a Tradition?” CBQ 73: 50–71. Sneed, Mark, ed. 2015. Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies. AIIL 23. Atlanta, VA: Society of Biblical Literature. Stokes, Ryan E. The Satan:How God’s Executioner Became the Enemy. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Weeks, Stuart. 2010. An Introduction to the Study of Wisdom Literature. New York: T&T Clark. Wiesel, Elie. 1979. The Trial of God, translated by Marion Wiesel. New York: Schocken. Wright, Benjamin G. III. 2010. “Joining the Club: A Suggestion about Genre in Early Jewish Texts.” DSD 17: 289–314. Wright, Benjamin G. III, and Lawrence M. Wills, eds. 2005. Conflicted Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism. SBLSymS 35. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Part I

Biblical wisdom then

1

Wisdom for the exiled An intertextual approach Katharine J. Dell

In 2004, I contributed a chapter to a volume entitled In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel asking the question: “How much wisdom literature has its roots in the pre-exilic period?” I complained there that scholars nowadays have all but forgotten wisdom’s “earlier stages” in the focus on late dating, especially in the Persian period, and in moves towards scribal culture, final stages of composition, and final form. I was going against the tide then, and in some ways again now with my question concerning what wisdom activity may have been going on in the Exile. In that earlier piece I noted that some scholars “see the whole wisdom enterprise as having substantially arisen at or just after the Exile, perhaps out of the institutional void that was left after the destruction of Temple and palace” (Dell 2004, 251), and cited Camp (1985) and Clements (1992), to whose works I shall briefly return below. I argued then, on the basis of Proverbs, that proverbial material had important oral and literary roots in the pre-exilic period. Furthermore, rather than viewing any signs of wisdom influence as purely redactional, I strongly argued for seeing a wealth of wisdom features in other texts that were clearly on a developmental timeline starting in the pre-exilic period. I am not sure that my calls have had much impact on the scholarly tide—if anything there has been even more skepticism since then about the wisdom category and whether we can even speak of groups of wise men at work or literature confined to this educational and didactic category (Weeks 2010; Sneed 2015a; Kynes 2018, 2019). The view of a much more homogenous scribal culture, which breaks down divisions between groups, has gained popularity (Kwon 2016; Sneed 2015b; see also Boda et al. 2018). Can we speak any more of wisdom influence if wisdom is simply in the cultural mix of the learned? Are our genre distinctions between types of literature breaking down? I have long argued that wisdom literature is not to be hived off into a corner and that Job in particular of the “big three” has less in common with the other two socalled “wisdom books” (Dell 2015). I have called for the noticing of intertextual links across the canon (Dell and Kynes 2012, 2014, 2018) that helps to reinforce this sense that a broader “intellectual tradition” (Whybray 1974) is at work, not just “later” but “earlier” too, without being too precise about those boundaries. For me, it is not about dating everything late and seeing much of the material as redactional—it is about formative influences and, turning this chapter’s theme, the formative influence DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-3

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of the Exile. I am suggesting here that intellectual activity on this level would mainly have happened in Babylon where the exiles were situated, where we have evidence of settled living (Cogan 2013) and oral and literary production, and where there would have been more likelihood of contact with Babylonian texts. I wish in this chapter then to evaluate the claim that “the whole wisdom enterprise” substantially arose “at or just after the exile,” with a specific focus on this period in terms of literary texts and intertexts.

The exilic situation However one evaluates the Exile in historical terms, whether it was a great tragedy in the life of the nation or a mere inconvenience for a few years, when one reads the literature that is clearly of the time (notably Lamentations and exilic Psalms 137, 44, 69, 74, 79, and part of 89) there is no doubt that for the Israelites it represented, as Brueggemann put it, “an acute crisis of displacement” (1997, 75). The shift from independent state to exile in a foreign land and then, fifty years later, a return under the overlordship of foreign powers was a dislocation of considerable magnitude. It was an institutional crisis—the institutions needed to run a separate state disappeared. There was no need for a capital city, for a king, or for a temple, and these were lost along with the land itself. Upon return, a temple was built; but Jerusalem never again had the same status as part of the Persian Empire, and there would not be another king in Jerusalem until the Hellenistic period. Whether 8,000 and 10,000 citizens of Jerusalem left in two deportations respectively (2 Kgs. 24:14, 16) or 3,023 and 832 citizens (Jer. 52:28–29, a figure which may exclude women or children), it is clear that many of those who left were political leaders (e.g., King Jehoiachin) and the educated (2 Kgs. 24:12–15). Our attention then shifts from Jerusalem to Babylon where the core of the nation went, including King Jehoiachin, who is also mentioned in Babylonian records (Cogan 2013), and from where any future hope of return might spring. Jeremiah, who remained in Judah, says this in Jeremiah 24:1–10 using the metaphor of the good and bad figs. Our attention is also attracted there because Ezekiel, a deportee in the first wave, was prophesying from his location in Babylon, giving us a Babylonian perspective on events both back in Jerusalem and, more significantly, directly from the exilic situation. We are given the impression that those deported were treated quite well and given some freedom. So the king was released and dined at the king’s table (2 Kgs. 25:29; Jer. 52:33); Ezekiel had a house at which elders among the exiles gathered (Ezek. 8:1); and the Murashu tablets from the Persian period indicate that some Jewish exiles settled down and never returned to Israel, such that their Hebrew names and settlement persisted. Whether there was continued to worship or not is debated—was there enough to inspire the writing of Psalms? Was this the beginning of a synagogue-style tendency of meeting in order to teach and discuss rather than to worship in any sacrificial sense? Was this a time when family life, and with it the proverbial material, filled an inevitable institutional void? This final question is the one to which I wish to turn for my first section of detailed attention.

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The recontextualization of Proverbs It is clear that the Exile provided a fresh context for the re-evaluation of old ideas and the creation of new ones. Much was “recontextualized” (following Brueggemann’s idea of a “double reading” of all texts at the Exile).1 This is what Clements suggested in his book Wisdom in Theology, namely that wisdom material found a new relevance in this period. A new context demanded a new formulation or at least a new set of emphases. He argues that proverbs, many of which may have existed for a long time, found an important fresh context among those of the Diaspora from the time of the Exile onwards, and that this led to a decisive development in the ideas of and production of wisdom literature. In the context of the old structures of national life having broken down—no monarchy, no temple—a vacuum was created that was filled by the wisdom literature, which was practical and universal, and therefore of primary relevance in this situation. Clements writes, “For a time wisdom held a unique key to understanding the new world in which the Jews found themselves among the nations” (25–26). Another scholar arriving at similar conclusions in this area is Camp (1985), who speaks of the possibility of a new post-exilic contextualization of the proverbs in a situation where there was no king and in which Israel was a vassal state, under the power of neighboring superpowers. She sees this as involving a reorientation of old perspectives in a new context which has the family as its central focus rather than the cult. Old family wisdom once again finds a fresh and relevant context. This later emphasis was to pick up on wisdom’s traditional role in family education, but this time to see the family as the central point in social organization and to see wisdom as a medium of God’s blessing. These are attractive ideas from these scholars, but there is little evidence within the wisdom literature itself for such a view. Family wisdom belongs to every stage of Israelite development and probably persists in this period, but it is impossible to date particular familial proverbs to specific times. Indeed, if any part of the book of Proverbs belongs to this period, it might be Proverbs 1–9, with its instructions from father to son that present a family context but do not contain the kinds of familial proverbs to which these scholars refer. I personally think that Proverbs 1–9 is substantially formed before the Exile occurs, but much scholarship puts it after the Exile on the grounds of its more mature theological reflection. I believe that strong Egyptian links put the instructions earlier, and that Deuteronomic links also place it there (Dell 2006). Anyway, I am not going down this particular road today. Suffice it to say that this scholarly suggestion of a flowering of wisdom at the Exile is not enough to build on with sure foundations. There has then been an older tendency in scholarship to see the Exile as the time when the full literary flowering of the nation took place.2 That idea has, as I have indicated, been replaced with models of later writing contexts leading up to the final form of material. I do not want to get involved in these arguments here, but I want to stress that I see the Exile as an important point on the continuum of the production of texts—often a new context, often a recontextualization, but unlikely predominantly to represent the final stage of material. Indeed, I would argue that the period did not offer the stability for extensive writing—the lack of court structures that housed the

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sages, administrators and court personnel would have led to a crisis where the production of texts was substantially halted. This means that we have to look outside the wisdom literature to engage intertextually with prophecy that was still going on during the Exile in the Babylonian context, as I shall do here. The disruption caused by this crisis ultimately spawned more texts and a deeper engagement and further recontextualization of the material into more educational and didactic contexts in an emergent broader scribal culture that went on to define the later post-exilic period (as argued by Sneed 2015b). Another important aspect of Israel’s sojourn in Babylon was their contact with Babylonian myths and literary culture, which greatly influenced the wisdom material as well as other parts of the canon. While Proverbs is arguably influenced more significantly by Egyptian literary culture, especially the instruction texts, as well as by local Canaanite culture (Day 2010), Job seems to emerge from the ashes of exilic loss and trauma, heavily influenced by Babylonian parallels (Dell 2013). The parallels with Babylonian literature, such as the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, are striking and it is hard to believe that the author of the dialogue and God speeches in particular was not influenced by such texts. Similarly, Babylonian texts likely influenced the Priestly document as well as the final stages of the editing of the Pentateuch.3

On Job Although scholars have traditionally dated Job to the fourth century BCE, many scholars assign it to the sixth through fourth centuries BCE; however, their reasons for doing so seem vague (Perdue 1991; Dell 2000). We have the added complexity of a text that most likely came together in stages, with an earlier folktale in the prose sections in Job 1–2 and 42:7–17, expanded with the dialogue and other main poetry sections such as the God speeches at a second stage. We are then looking at a third stage with redactions such as the Elihu speeches of Job 32–37 and at a final form for the book in the fourth century. So in fact the main “post-folktale” expansion of the book and thus predominant conception of it belongs to the exilic period, or is at least the ultimately a product of exilic thought. In order to make this case, I will turn to the issue of suffering. The usual argument is that the striking difference between Job and typical expressions of suffering within the exilic period is that Job is the story of the suffering of an individual, whereas in the rest of the exilic literature the suffering is almost always communal.4 Even in Psalm 69, which is often likened to Job in its laments and feelings of rejection from others, speaks of communal restoration; e.g., God will “save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah” (Psa. 69:35). The prophets speak of communal doom and communal punishment for sins committed. While there may be a hint of individual responsibility in the book of Ezekiel, notably in Chapter 18, the judgment of the nation is pretty much a wholesale one (Joyce 1989). Indeed, scholars point to a key difference between the wisdom literature and other literature in the Hebrew Bible being this focus on the individual and on individual experience and responsibility. Job then, on this ticket, is an unlikely contender for the thought of the Exile.

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Another point is that the nation Israel transgresses and is punished and then restored, while Job never did transgress—he is “blameless and upright” (Job 1:1), he sacrifices on behalf of his children just in case they had sinned (1:5); but despite these actions he is punished. This seems to contradict the whole principle of exilic theology, that suffering is the result of deserved punishment. That principle would be more the stance of Proverbs, and indeed the stance of Job’s friends—that is what they told Job, that he must have sinned in order to have suffered. So, the book of Job is often rejected as an exilic contender on such grounds. However, the thought of the Exile is not static, and if Job is a product of exilic thought it arguably fits in best as a form of “late” exilic thought (but still exilic) that is breaking away from ideas of suffering being solely the result of sin. This would bring it closer to the thought of Deutero-Isaiah (Isa. 40–55), with its hints that suffering might sometimes be more than is deserved. Isaiah 40:2 speaks of Israel having received “double” for its sins, perhaps suggesting a greater punishment than was fair or deserved. Also, in Isaiah 53:1–12, one of the Servant Songs, the servant of God suffers vicariously on behalf of others. The punishment here is also to an individual and also undeserved. Some scholars have even suggested that this servant figure may be Job, although the servant does not utter a word of complaint, which is very different from the complaints of Job.5 Thus these theological differences to the main exilic sentiments suggest to scholars that the main author of Job was starting to move in the direction of the later exilic idea that suffering could be experienced differently by different individuals, and that it was not always fully deserved. Against this conclusion, I would suggest that Job also represents, like Deutero-Isaiah, important aspects of communal suffering alongside its individual focus on the character of Job. Also, it has important exilic links with Jeremiah’s confessions that suggest Job is echoing Jeremiah (Dell 2012), and with exilic psalms such as Psalm 69. In my view, Babylonian parallels to Job demonstrate that ideas of an innocent individual sufferer were very much around in the culture in which the exiles found themselves. However, the innocent sufferer is never alone—their standing in the community (or lack of it) is always of great concern. Consider, for example, the Babylonian text Poem of the Righteous Sufferer (Ludlul Bel Nemeqi 1.92), which reads, “My family treats me as an alien,” and Job 19:13, which similarly bemoans, “He has put my family far from me and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.” The Babylonian texts are much older than the Israelite material, and so that raises the question whether cross-cultural influence might have happened a good deal earlier than during the Exile. In any case, exposure to Babylonian culture must have been greater in the exilic period, and one can imagine the theme of unjust suffering being taken up in later circles of the wise, with their more questioning stance. The Israelites, in a sense, needed their version of the pious sufferer type, and the character of Job may have suggested such a composition to the main author of the biblical book. One interesting point about Job is that he is not an Israelite—he is described as from the land of Uz, probably Edom in modern-day Jordan, and so is a good figure for the airing of an universal motif. Such a figure may have had more resonance not only for an international wisdom tradition but also for Israelites living in a foreign land.

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Wisdom “influence”/“worldview” in exilic texts What I now want to move my focus towards is the need for wider evidence of “wisdom influence” or the “wisdom worldview” in exilic Hebrew Bible texts, notably from the Babylonian context. This principle would help to fill out our view of what might be happening in the Babylonian situation as regards the place of ongoing speculation about wisdom. Rather than focusing on the wisdom books themselves that are so difficult to date and contextualize, largely because of their universal nature and concerns, if we could find evidence that wisdom ideas were flourishing in other texts that we consider exilic, would that not give a firmer basis for sensing wisdom’s role at this time? Perhaps it was simply part of their literary culture by this time (Weeks 2016), which would bolster my earlier claims (Dell 2004); but what that means needs further definition. The definition of wisdom and wisdom influence is fraught in current debate,6 but I advocate a broad definition of wisdom that needs to include reference to creation and interest in the natural world (Dell 1997). An intertextual approach facilitates this discussion.

Ezekiel and wisdom Ezekiel gives us a broad overview of the entire Exile, with his knowledge of events in Jerusalem as they unfold and of the divine judgment that becomes inevitable. This is followed by his taking us beyond the judgment to the prospect of return to Israel after the punishment is past. Return was something that was not much of a political reality in his time, but rather a distant hope. He actually mentions the figure of Job (Ezek. 14:14, 20), which is an interesting indication that he had heard of the character— whether as a historical figure or a literary character—although the Job of the earlier folktale is the most likely reference. This gives an interesting intertextual link with Job even if the final form of the book of Job is later (cf. Joyce 2012), airing the possibility that the reference to Job might even have inspired an author, post-Ezekiel, to write the book of Job. Or could Ezekiel have been aware of an exilic text of the book of Job as it was forming? A nice thought, but probably unprovable. A few scholars have looked at Ezekiel for wisdom elements, but found relatively slim pickings compared to other prophets. On the level of genre, for example, Morgan (1981) draws attention to Ezekiel’s use of proverbial sayings in 12:22, 15:2ff., 16:44, and 18:2. In fact, both 15:2 and 16:44 are part of larger allegories—a wisdom form perhaps? (cf. Ezek. 17:2, 20:49)—with 15:2 having a riddling character. Both stress the message of God from a positive perspective in contrast to Ezekiel 12:22 and 18:2, for which a proverb is used to correct a mistaken impression on the part of the people concerning the actions of God towards his people. In these cases, the proverb is cited in order to be refuted: “As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel” (Ezek. 18:2). As Morgan writes (110), This use of proverbial sayings not only reflects a familiarity with such sayings in the exile, but more importantly demonstrates the ability of the prophet to

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incorporate a message into a prophetic speech as well as a conflict between the popular understandings presupposed by these particular sayings. Another level of linkage is a contextual one, in that Ezekiel seems to have an awareness of “wisdom” as a social reality.7 In Ezekiel 28 he mentions the foreign wisdom of Tyre. There is an interesting association of wisdom with the king of Tyre, whose wisdom is said to be substantial (vv. 3–5).8 The occurrences (Ezek. 28:3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 17) “all refer to the pretended [c]hokma of the prince or king of Tyre” (Whybray 1974, 81). However, in this lies the fatal flaw—this king’s wisdom has allowed him to overreach himself and liken himself to a god, and this is the seed of his downfall. Morgan comments: “the critique of the prophet stands against a wisdom which perceives itself to be self-sufficient, seeing itself separate and valid apart from its source” (111). There is an element of such critique of home-grown wisdom in Ezekiel 7:26, where “counsel from the elders” is no longer to be trusted. The citation of proverbs suggests some kind of popular currency for such genres and, with the loss of the monarchy, suggests perhaps the disengagement of such wisdom from the king or other administrative circles. Yet critique of kingly wisdom still emerges here in the criticism of Tyre. As Morgan writes, “The wisdom tradition may have lost one of its primary sociological settings with the monarchy, but the experiential perception of what God is doing formulated through aphoristic forms and idioms continues, and is utilized by the prophet himself” (112). Morgan’s work is built upon by Joyce in his consideration of Job in intertextual dialogue with Ezekiel. Apart from the Job reference in Ezekiel 14, which groups Job with others as an epitome of righteousness, Joyce points to very loose similarities between Job 1:13–19 and Ezekiel 14:13–19—simply a fourfold pattern of four friends and four punishments (perhaps a wisdom technique of numerical heightening). Also, there is some similarity between Job 22:27–30 and Ezekiel 14 in the idea that others may be delivered on account of Job’s piety; Eliphaz expresses this positively while Ezekiel does so negatively in that Job would only save his own life by his righteousness. In Job 2:13 and Ezekiel 3:15 there is also the similar idea of sitting down for seven days. In Job 10:11–12 there is mention of bones and sinews, skin and flesh, which Joyce compares with Ezekiel 37:7–10. In Job 22:13–14 there is a questioning of what God knows, given that his Being is enveloped in darkness; similarly, Ezekiel 8:12 speaks of elders surrounded by images in the dark, asking whether God can see them. Job 27:14– 15 shares a threefold punishment pattern with Ezekiel 5:12 and 6:12. Finally, some theophanic language appears in both books—in Job 38:1 and Ezekiel 1:4 alike we find the language of whirlwind. In Job the LORD answers him “out of the whirlwind” (literally, storm), and in Ezekiel 1 the storm is accompanied by wind, cloud, and flashing fire, all denoting the presence of God. The issue of individual responsibility seems also to link the books: Job 21:19–20 can be read as a critique of inherited generational sin. Rather than Ezekiel necessarily expressing individualism, which is then taken up in the test case of Job, Joyce wishes to stress that the communal suffering of Israel is a common theme in both

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books, which would again suggest that Job may have reached its final form in the exilic period. I want to add a third dimension to this wisdom discussion, namely the interest in creation, which is not a major theme in Ezekiel. However, the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37 seems to me to be one of the most vivid pictures we have of an overturning of the natural order that can be effected by Israel’s God. It is part of the demonstration of God’s power. The restored land is also an image presented in idealistic natural terms. Thus not only history will repeat itself in terms of a new exodus but the natural order itself will also witness to the restoration of the nation to her land. This picks up on the creation tradition running through the wisdom literature, which stresses God as creator and sustainer of the earth and all its inhabitants (see Prov. 3:19–20, 8:22–31; Dell 2006). Clements mentions Ezekiel 47:9, 12 as having a possible link to wisdom on account of its description of a river flowing from God’s temple nurturing the water and the creatures within it, promoting life, trees, leaves, and fruit. Themes of life and the fruits of the earth are certainly present in wisdom books, but how deep the connection goes might be debated. It does show however that Ezekiel was connected to creation ideas, which loosely connects the book to a major wisdom theme. While these are small pickings in Ezekiel, they yet paint a picture of a prophet (or his redactors) versed in some of the genres of wisdom and in some of the themes that resonate in the pages of wisdom literature. It shows perhaps that wisdom’s thought-world was not forgotten during this exilic period.

Deutero-Isaiah Fifty years from deportation and yet still in Exile, we find the hopeful prophet known as Deutero-Isaiah (Isa. 40–55). With the gradual decline of the Babylonian Empire and the rise of Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who allowed subject peoples to worship their own gods, comes hope of return and cultic reengagement with Yahweh, the Judahites’ national god. As with Ezekiel, we find a small number of proverbial forms in DeuteroIsaiah, specifically in 49:24 and 55:8, 13 (see Morgan). For instance, there are woe oracles using nature imagery and reference to God’s creative power: Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds, among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, “What are you making?” Does your work say, “The potter has no hands?” (Isa. 45:9) We also find questions concerning the Creator in a prophetic disputation which uses some terminology familiar from Job (Isa. 40:12–14; cf. Job 38:4–39:27). More interestingly, we find the reapplication of certain speech forms, as noted by Fohrer (1963), such as the cry of a food vendor: “Come, all you who are thirsty … come, buy and eat” (Isa. 55:1), which resembles the proverbial cry of personified Wisdom: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed” (Prov. 9:5).

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Also in Deutero-Isaiah the Hebrew root for wisdom, chkm, is used to describe the craftsman’s skill—in this case to make idols out of wood in Isaiah 40:20 (cf. Jer. 10:9)—and twice (Isa. 44:25, 47:10) applied to the sages of Babylon (cf. Jer. 50:35, 51:57), who “by counsel or enchantments, are deluded in their pretensions to lordship over history” (Van Leeuwen 1990, 305). Van Leeuwen points out that these Babylonian sages were often cast as opponents of the Hebrew prophets (cf. Jer. 8:8–9). Morgan mentions references to God as creator in Isaiah 42:5; 44:24; 45:7, 12; 48:13, where the focus is not nationalistic but rather about God’s power and human finitude. God is portrayed as stretching out the heavens and nurturing the offspring of the earth, notably human beings in both 42:5 and 44:24, with the added idea in 44:24 of God’s action in the formation of a child in the womb. In Isaiah 45:7 God forms light and dark alongside the creation of moral categories of peace and evil, and later in the same passage he makes earth and humans and the heavens and their hosts. In Isaiah 48:13 the language of the hand is used to describe God’s making of earth and heavens. Deutero-Isaiah also makes a link between wisdom and the theme of false gods, since Deutero-Isaiah uses the argument from God’s power in creation to counter the claims of the worshippers of idols. In Isaiah 40:12–14, the wisdom and power of Yahweh is contrasted with the powerless Babylonian gods: “Whom did [God] consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice?” (40:14a). This praise of God’s wisdom is paired with a powerful statement of God’s power in creation, e.g., “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?” (40:12), and with acknowledgment of his knowledge and understanding,9 both of which are wisdom terms: “Who taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?” (40:14b).10 In this context, the argument is used against the gods of Babylon to whom the exiles might have been attracted. It may be the case that there are links to the wisdom tradition in this emphasis on a creator God whose wisdom transcends human wisdom (Whybray 1975). More fruitful, however, are links between Isaiah 40–55 and the book of Job, first discussed by Pfeiffer (1927) and Terrien (1960), who found more than forty verbal affinities between them and thought that Deutero-Isaiah was attempting to answer questions raised by the book of Job—an idea that has been taken up by many others (Kynes 2012; Brinks-Ream 2012). At any rate, it is clear there is a close intertextual relationship between these texts. Kynes reiterates the point that dating problems mean that the direction of dependence between the two is by no means certain (2012, 96). Like me, Kynes sees a parody of Deutero-Isaiah by the author of the Job dialogue as the most likely situation. Job 12:9 and Isaiah 41:20 share the same phrase—“that the hand of the Lord has done this”—but the contexts are very different, with a note of praise being sounded in Deutero-Isaiah that contrasts vividly with Job’s sarcastic words about God’s destructive power in creation. Job 9:2–12 contains a number of parallels to Deutero-Isaiah and is the richest section for this theory (Job 9:4/Isa. 40:26; Job 9:8/Isa. 44:24; Job 9:10/Isa. 40:28; Job 9:12/Isa. 43:13, 45:9). Kynes shows there are weaker examples that indicate “the author of Job is drawing widely on Isaiah 40–55 to inform the

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dialogue between Job and his friends” (2012, 101), for example Job 12:17 and Isaiah 44:25, where Job parodies the prophet’s attempt to show God as just in order to reinforce his claim that God is not just but simply arbitrary. He demonstrates some echoes in the speeches of the friends that indicate that it is not only the character of Job that engages with this intertext. For example, Bildad’s speech in Job 25:2–4—notably the phrase “he makes peace”—has resonances with Isaiah 45:9, already alluded to by Job in 9:12.11 Kwon (2016) has recently revisited this debate about the relationship between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. He believes that finding a relationship between the two books ultimately fails, but that shared ideas belong to a broader scribal culture. Focusing largely in this case on issues of God’s control and his freedom, these are “the result of cultural values and insights which the literati of the Persian period inherited and practiced” (225). This is a good example of the tendency of modern scholarship to date everything in the Persian period (or later) and to try to place books in an unspecific “late” intellectual tradition.

Conclusion We always come back to the vexing problem of the dating of texts and their interrelationships and how to evaluate this; but it does not seem to me—returning to my original question—that there was a great flowering of wisdom activity at the time of the Exile in Babylon. Rather, much of the wisdom literature had already been established in pre-exilic times, notably the foundational wisdom book of Proverbs. There may well have been influence on Hebrew wisdom literature from Babylonian texts and ideas within the Exile, but this is hard to evaluate when the Babylonian texts themselves are much older. Job, though, seems a real contender for this approach. In relation to the wider literature of the Exile, it is clear that a focus on wisdom is still present and texts of other genres, such as prophecy, feature enough emphasis on wisdom to suggest that an important phase of the development of the wisdom corpus took place in Exile. And if one of the most profound productions sprung out of this situation—that is, Job—then it would increase the case for the Exile being a melting pot of key ideas, a case bolstered by the links with Deutero-Isaiah. However, I cannot see that there is evidence for the wholesale production of extensive literature in what must have been a difficult situation away from the homeland. It is more likely that the Babylonian influence was felt on the return of a proportion of the Jewish elite to Judah, and that this experience of displacement led to a mature flowering of wisdom that continued well on into the post-exilic period. On a wider methodological level, I have tried to show how a more traditional approach using genres and intertexts bears fruit in seeing not only intimate relationships between certain books but also in revealing contextual links between different groups working and operating over a period of time. In the Exile, the old divisions into scribe, priest, and prophet broke down without the institutions to support them, and so we are starting to see more links and changes to texts that

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would provide the impetus for great change after the Exile. Perhaps this change is the formation of a broader intellectual tradition or scribal culture, but, then again, maybe that topic is for another day.

Notes 1 Walter Brueggemann’s idea of “double reading” is pertinent here. He proposes that the exilic prophets are all submitted to a reading from the exilic perspective as well as in relation to a reading that seeks to recreate the ipsissima verba. 2 As mentioned in relation to Brueggemann’s earlier work suggesting “double readings,” which would now be more accurately replaced by multiple stages of reading. With reference to wisdom literature, see Heaton (1974). 3 For instance, the Old Babylonian texts that biblical scholars have long seen as influencing portions of Genesis include the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis Epic, as well as the even older Sumero-Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish. 4 For older views of the rise of individualism at the Exile in Ezekiel and Job, see von Rad (1972). 5 See Davidson (1884), for example. 6 I am very pleased to offer this essay to Kenneth Kuntz in appreciation of his work on Wisdom Psalms and how they integrate with a wider selection of wisdom texts. I think in particular of his statement that “Thorough Psalms research moves into wisdom; likewise, thorough Wisdom research moves into the Psalms” (Kuntz 1974, 186). 7 This Hebrew root can also refer to “craft,” as observed by van Leeuwen (1990), as in Ezekiel 27:8–9, where it refers to the skill of the Tyrian seafarers. 8 Cf. Solomon’s wisdom in 1 Kings 1–11, and notably in 4:29–34. 9 See Ward (1978), who argues for a link between the servant figure in Isaiah 53 with the phrase “knowledge of God.” 10 Cf. Psalm 104:24, where God’s wisdom is manifest through the created acts of God. 11 For other examples, see Kynes 2012, 101–104.

References Boda, Mark, Russell Meek, and William Osborne, eds. 2018. Riddles and Revelations: Explorations into the Relationship between Wisdom and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. LHBOTS 634. London: Bloomsbury, T&T Clark. Brinks-Ream, Christina. 2012. “Job and Deutero-Isaiah: The Use and Abuse of Traditions.” Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches 20: 407–420. Brueggemann, Walter. 1997. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. Camp, Claudia V. 1985. Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs. BLS 11. Sheffield: Almond. Clements, Ronald E. 1992. Wisdom in Theology. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster. Cogan, Mordechai. 2013. Bound for Exile: Israelites and Judeans under Imperial Yoke, Documents from Assyria and Babylon. Jerusalem: Carta. Davidson, A. B. 1884. The Book of Job, Cambridge Bible for Schools and College. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Day, John, ed. 2010. Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. LHBOTS 265. London: Sheffield Academic. Dell, Katharine J. 1997. “On the Development of Wisdom in Israel.” In Congress Volume: Cambridge 1995, edited by J. A. Emerton, 135–151. Leiden: Brill.

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Dell, Katharine J. 2000. Get Wisdom, Get Insight: An Introduction to Israel’s Wisdom Literature. London: DLT Books. Dell, Katharine J. 2004. “How Much Wisdom Literature Has Its Roots in the Pre-exilic Period?” In In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel, edited by John Day, 251–271. London: T&T Clark International. Dell, Katharine J. 2006. The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dell, Katharine J. 2012. “‘Cursed be the day I was born’: Job and Jeremiah Revisited.” In Reading Job Intertextually, edited by K. Dell and W. Kynes, 106–117. LHBOTS 574. London: Bloomsbury. Dell, Katharine J. 2013. Job: Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?Phoenix Guides to the Old Testament. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix. Dell, Katharine J. 2015. “Deciding the Boundaries of Wisdom: Applying the Concept of Family Resemblance.” In Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies, edited by M. R. Sneed, 145–160. AIIL. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Dell, Katharine J. and Will Kynes, eds. 2012. Reading Job Intertextually. LHBOTS 574. London: Bloomsbury. Dell, Katharine J. and Will Kynes, eds. 2014. Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually. LHBOTS 587. London: Bloomsbury. Dell, Katharine J. and Will Kynes, eds. 2018. Reading Proverbs Intertextually. LHBOTS 629. London: Bloomsbury. Fohrer, G. 1963. “Form und Funktion in der Hiobdichtung.” In Studien zum Buche Hiob (1956–1993), 60–77. BZAW 159. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Heaton, E. W. 1974. The School Tradition in the Old Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joyce, Paul M. 1989. Divine Initiative and Human Response in Ezekiel. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Joyce, Paul M. 2012. “‘Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it …’ (Ezekiel 14:14): The Case of Job and Ezekiel.” In Reading Job Intertextually, edited by K. Dell and W. Kynes, 145–160. LHBOTS 574. London: Bloomsbury. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1974. “The Canonical Wisdom Psalms of Ancient Israel: Their Rhetorical, Thematic, and Formal Dimensions.” In Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, edited by J. J. Jackson and M. Kessler, 186–222. PTMS. Pittsburgh: Pickwick. Kwon, JiSeong James. 2016. Scribal Culture and Intertextuality. FAT 85. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kynes, Will. 2012. “Job and Isaiah 40–55: Intertextualities in Dialogue.” In Reading Job Intertextually, edited by K. Dell and W. Kynes, 94–105. LHBOTS 574. London: Bloomsbury. Kynes, Will. 2018. “The Wisdom Literature Category: An Obituary.” JTS 69: 1–24. Kynes, Will. 2019. An Obituary for “Wisdom Literature”: The Birth, Death and Intertextual Reintegration of a Biblical Corpus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morgan, Donn F. 1981. Wisdom in the Old Testament Traditions. Atlanta: John Knox. Perdue, Leo. 1991. Wisdom in Revolt. Sheffield: Almond. Pfeiffer, R. H. 1927. “The Priority of Job over Isaiah 40–55.” JBL 46: 202–206. Sneed, Mark R., ed. 2015a. Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies. AIIL. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Sneed, Mark R., ed. 2015b. The Social World of the Sages: An Introduction to Israelite and Jewish Wisdom Literature. Minneapolis: Fortress.

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Terrien, Samuel. 1960. “Quelques remarques sur les affinités de Job avec DeuteroEsaïe.” VTS 15: 295–310. Van Leeuwen, Ray. 1990. “The Sage in the Prophetic Literature.” In The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, edited by L. G. Perdue and J. G. Gammie, 295–306. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Von Rad, Gerhard. 1972. Wisdom in Israel. London: SCM Press. Ward, James J. 1978. “The Servant’s Knowledge in Isaiah 40–50.” In Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien, edited by J. G. Gammieet al., 121–136. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Weeks, Stuart. 2010. An Introduction to the Study of Wisdom Literature. London: Continuum, T&T Clark. Weeks, Stuart. 2016. “Is ‘Wisdom Literature’ a Useful Category?” In Tracing Sapiential Traditions in Ancient Judaism, edited by H. Najman, J.-S. Rey, and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, 3–23. Leiden: Brill. Whybray, R. N. 1974. The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament. BZAW 135. Berlin: De Gruyter. Whybray, R. N. 1975. Isaiah 40–66. New Century Bible. London: Oliphants.

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Wisdom for the scribe Ritual and the life of the scribe in Sirach Rodney A. Werline

I sought wisdom openly in my prayer. Before the temple I asked for her, and I will search for her until the end. (Sir. 51:13–14)

The surviving textual traditions from the Second Temple period contain few directions or detailed descriptions about proper enactments and functions of rituals, including prayer. A large amount of our knowledge about ritual from the period rests on narratives that include them as part of the “plot” of the scene—characters pray, offer blessings upon God or other characters, give doxologies, pronounce curses, offer sacrifices, carry out dream/vision incubations, pronounce “last wills and testaments,” get married, greet people and depart from people, name children, and bury their dead. Some poetic or psalm-esque works (e.g., Psalms of Solomon) also incorporate references to the practice of prayer, and themselves may have been used in some ritual or liturgical setting (Werline 2015). The Dead Sea Scrolls contain several prayer texts, and some texts provide instructions about when and what to pray. The Scrolls also display a wide array of rituals (Arnold 2006; Kugler 2002). In their lack of specific instructions and detailed descriptions, texts from the Second Temple era differ little from the Hebrew Bible, which also actually provides little in this regard. Even the parts of Numbers and Leviticus that speak of rituals lack sufficient details to have served as ritual handbooks. People do not engage in such ritualistic practices, including prayer, innately or genetically—though humans’ cognitive constitutions equip them to enact and to understand rituals, at whatever level of consciousness might be operational in a given moment (e.g., Boyer 1992; McCauley and Lawson 2002; Newburg et al. 2001; Whitehouse 2004). Humans learn these behaviors and acquire this kind of practical knowledge through bodily engagement and enactment, and also through observation, imitation, instruction, and practice (Mauss 2003; Bourdieu 1990; Asad 1993; Bell 1992; Holland et al. 1998; Mahmood 2005). Some interpreters have perhaps overlooked these references to prayer in Second Temple Jewish texts and have possibly taken this type of cultural knowledge and practice for granted, or, worse, tacitly dismissed it as mere piety and as descriptive literary flourish deployed by authors. Over the past decade or more, though, new scholarly investigations have identified and have elevated ritual moments within early DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-4

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Jewish texts and, when applicable, have explicated their key roles within narratives and within the lives of the communities honoring the various traditions. Prayer stands front and center among these ritual practices. At that point, scholars began to apply a broad spectrum of methodologies in order to reconstruct possible functions of the rituals and the reasons authors included them within the texts (e.g., Werline 1998, 2012, 2015; Falk 1998; Newman 2012, 2018; Penner 2012). Wherever these approaches might lead, one unassailable fact stands: whether consciously or not, authors assume that their audiences possess a shared cultural knowledge about these various practices, including prayer. This supposition operates at almost the same level as language itself—authors take for granted that their audiences will understand without need of explanation. That is, by what they do not say, texts reveal that authors and audiences share much assumed, unspoken knowledge. This assumed knowledge would not mean that the members of the audience could produce liturgical texts or perform any and every ritual—such actions would require specific cultural knowledge, expertise, and socially established and recognized authority, which would fall in the domain of rulers, priests, properly appointed worship assistants, and scribes. Within this liturgical world as summarized here, two textual collections stand out as particularly useful in reconstructing the place of prayer and other rituals within communities and among their specialists—the Dead Sea Scrolls and Sirach, composed by the scribe Ben Sira. Unlike most texts, the two corpora include reflections or descriptions about the proper execution, the meaning, the times, and the functions of prayer. This current study focuses on Ben Sira, the wisdom sage par excellence of the Second Temple period. Among Second Temple contemporaries and biblical texts, Ben Sira stands out in his emphasis on prayer in such a way that Gilbert, at the conclusion of his treatment of prayer in the text, exclaims: “No other sage of the Bible spoke or reflected as he did on prayer and its value” (Gilbert 2004, 132). Focusing on Ben Sira provides a somewhat better glimpse of the place of prayer in early Jewish life and how the practice formed certain individuals and constructed the scribe, the student, and the identity of the community. Sirach reveals that Ben Sira frequently incorporated teachings about prayer and carefully constructed prayer texts. In centering this chapter on Ben Sira, I will not compare Sirach to very many other Second Temple Jewish texts. However, it is worth noting that, unlike earlier generations of scholars, who sought to distance so-called wisdom texts from so-called apocalyptic texts, current scholarship has argued that the distinction cannot be maintained. Texts traditionally labeled as wisdom traditions or as following wisdom forms appear in texts traditionally labeled apocalyptic, and vice versa (Argall 1995; Wright and Wills 2005). This means that comparisons between texts once formally separated into different categories of genres now become possible, but with the recognition that social locations, ideological predilections, historical and social contexts, and goals might vastly differ. Thus, future investigations into the function of prayer in Ben Sira should be compared to other Second Temple period apocalyptic texts such as 1 Enoch, Daniel, and 4 Ezra. My preliminary investigations have shown that, in general, the interpreter can recognize that prayer has similar roles in all these

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texts, and presumably within the communities that produced and preserved the traditions.

Prayer in the scribe’s daily practice The most useful entry point into how ritual may have shaped the life of Ben Sira the scribe is his description about the work of the scribe in Sirach 38:34b– 39:11 (LXX 39:1–11).1 Ben Sira sets his description of the scribes’ vocation within a larger discussion about other occupations crucial for the functioning of society: farmers (38:25–26); artisans (vv. 27); smiths (vv. 28); and potters (vv. 29–30). As he explains, “All these rely on their hands, and all are skillful in their own work. Without them no city can be inhabited, and wherever they live, they will not go hungry” (vv. 31–32). Reflections on the importance of the many contributors to civilization occur in other ancient texts. The standard comparison to Ben Sira in this instance is the Instruction on the Trades, an apparently popular satire (among scribes anyway) from Egypt’s 12th Dynasty (ca. 1991–1786 BCE). Khety, the author of the work, “describes with obvious relish and graphic detail, the wretchedness, tedium, and foul odors of various Egyptian artisans” (Skehan and Di Lella 1987, 449). A scribe himself, he contrasts this artisanal life with the grandeur of the vocation of the scribe. Greek philosophers also took up the place of the work of craftsmen, a kind of knowledge that they generally termed technê (“craft”). While tradesmen and craftsmen typically possess this kind of knowledge, so might doctors and horse trainers (Perry 2020). Similarly, in his Republic (IV, V, VI), Plato somewhat unfavorably compared the knowledge of craftsmen with that of rulers and philosophers (here called epistêmê). Aristotle also highlights the differences between technê and epistêmê in Nicomachean Ethics VI. Notably, Aristotle’s classism surfaces in Politics (3.4): [T]he other would be degrading; and by the other I mean the power actually to do menial duties, which vary much in character and are executed by various classes of slaves, such, for example, as handicraftsmen, who, as their name signifies, live by the labor of their hands. Certainly, Ben Sira distinguishes and elevates the scribe in his presentation: “The wisdom of the scribe depends on the opportunity of leisure; only the one who has little business can become wise” (Sir. 38:24); “How different the one who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High!” (v. 34).2 However, he does not demean other occupations, and he is not opposed to their demands on life (cf. Skehan and Di Lella, 450). His audience members should take seriously their farm work if that is their occupation: “Do not hate hard labor or farm work, which was created by the Most High” (Sir. 7:15); “Do you have cattle? Look after them; if they are profitable to you, keep them” (7:22). Such demands cannot be too great or else they will distract or detract from the scribal task: “How can one become wise who handles the

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plow, and who glories in the shaft of a goad, who drives oxen and is occupied with their work, and whose talk is about bulls?” (38:25). As his line earlier in this section clarifies, these matters cannot consume the scribe’s time, because the occupation requires leisure (v. 24). What practices fill this leisure time? It begins with devoting “himself to the study of the law of the Most High!” (Sir. 38:34 [39:1]). The inquiry and his quest for knowledge does not end there, but extends to many forms of wisdom, and perhaps from many places: “He seeks out the wisdom of all the ancients” (39:1). He describes this activity by applying the verb “seek” (ekze-te-sei; 39:1), the Greek term that would likely translate two key Hebrew terms for interpretation: baqash and darash. As Argall (86, n. 218) notes, an example of the former appears in 33:18, and the latter in 51:14b. Further, Argall (86, 91) encourages us to see “research” as the modern equivalent for the Greek term. Within those various wisdom traditions that the scribe researches, Ben Sira’s scribe focuses on unraveling the meanings and significances of “prophecies,” “parables,” and “proverbs,” and he also “preserves the sayings of the famous” (Sir. 39:1–3). In Sirach 39:5, most importantly for our interests, Ben Sira also sets his hermeneutical process within ritual activity: He sets his heart to rise early to seek the Lord, who made him, and to petition the Most High; he opens his mouth in prayer and asks pardon for his sins. I have italicized “to seek” because it does not appear in the Greek of the Septuagint (LXX). Nevertheless, the verse still contains a series of verbs related to ritual enactments: “to petition” (deeitheisetai), “opens his mouth in prayer” (anoiksei stoma autou en proseuchei), and “asks pardon” (deeitheisetai). The NRSV also obscures the somewhat cultic language or imagery of the action conveyed in the phrase “before the Most High” (evanti hupsistou). The NETS translation does a much better job with these lines: He will devote his heart to rise early towards the Lord who made him, and he will petition in front of the Most High, and he will open his mouth in prayer, and concerning his sins he will petition. Ben Sira imagines prayer as “approaching” God or as an activity that is carried out in God’s presence—phraseology that occurs often in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (cf. Lev. 3:7, 12; 6:7; 7:2). An imagined arrival into God’s presence in prayer may motivate the scribe’s penitential confession. Even the archangels in 1 Enoch 9:4–5 must exercise caution and deference when they approach God to petition on behalf of suffering humanity.

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Thus, the scribe’s daily enterprise begins with early rising and a penitential prayer (Werline 1998, 82–85). While fixed times for prayer were not yet established during the Second Temple period (Penner), texts like Daniel 6 and 9 and the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal that various communities seemed to have developed their own times for daily prayers (cf. Falk; Newman 2018, 24–25). When everything proceeds as the scribe hopes, he experiences the following: If the great Lord is willing, he will be filled with the spirit of understanding; he will pour forth words of wisdom of his own and give thanks to the Lord in prayer. (Sir. 39:6) By granting a “spirit of understanding,” God assists the scribe in understanding various types of wisdom and knowledge. In other words, the scribe receives his knowledge through inspiration and revelation. As many have recognized, Ben Sira’s prayer for wisdom, followed by God’s action of granting it, evokes the scene of Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings 3 (cf. Newman 2018, 25). This inspiration or revelation, then, follows a series of ritual activities. This collection of actions also shapes the act of reading or recollection, as Newman has forcefully argued (23–51). Not content with the simple acquisition of knowledge for his own private possession, Ben Sira offers his interpretations and expands upon the traditions by contributing his own insights in instruction. The scribe ends with the ritual of a prayer of thanksgiving for the wisdom received and for the instruction or performance enacted: “[A]nd [he will] give thanks to the Lord in prayer” (en proseuchei eksomologeisetai kurio; Sir. 39:6). In the current redacted form of Sirach, the audience enjoys what seems to be a sample of the kind of insight and wisdom that God grants the scribe that is expressed as a “thanksgiving” (en eksomologeisei) hymn to creation (Sir. 39:15). This is a liturgical piece, which testifies further to the central role that ritual and worship played in the construction of the scribal life. The scribe gained insight into ancient wisdom through study and prayer, would teach that revelation to others, offer thanks for the revelation, and produce liturgical pieces for the benefit and enrichment of others. Sirach contains a parallel text of the quest for wisdom in ch. 51, and that process also begins with prayer: While I was still young, before I went on my travels, I sought (ezeiteisa) wisdom openly in my prayer (en proseuchei mou). Before the temple I asked (eiksioun) for her, and I will search (ekzeiteiso) for her until the end. (Sir. 51:13–14) At his conclusion of his analysis of the final poem, Wright aptly states: Here, the sage sets himself up as the ideal to be emulated. If one searches in the manner that the sage has searched and submits to Wisdom’s discipline as

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the sage has, then that student will become the sage who has taken Wisdom as a possession. This poem purports to describe Ben Sira’s own experience, but whether it does or not, it offers a powerful motivation for the student not simply to abide by the sage’s teaching, but to emulate and then become the sage who produced it. As we will now see, it also forms the basis for the sage’s ability to position himself as an ideal type. (Wright 2008, 178) Among the many important elements of the text, one matter becomes clear: one cannot rise to the office of scribe and sage and acquire the necessary wisdom unless the journey includes a longing for wisdom that partially expresses itself through a ritual pursuit involving prayer, and maybe even a pilgrimage—even if only locally—to the temple.3

Embodiment of ritual and pedagogy Prayer serves more roles in the life of the scribe and his students than simply being part of the path toward the receiving and celebration of revelations concerning the meaning of difficult wisdom sayings and forms. Throughout Sirach the sage connects and combines prayer and ritual with the paideia or educational instruction offered in the book. Comments on wisdom come through the teacher’s instruction, but prayer provides an additional ritualized practice of the paideia that he offers, a way to embody and practice the scribe’s teaching. Wright makes a similar observation, with the emphasis on embodiment: “Ben Sira employs an array of strategies that are designed to coerce his reader, albeit subtly, to adopt and internalize his teaching” (Wright 168). Gilbert had arrived at a similar conclusion, which is repeated by Calduch-Benages as she begins her treatment of prayer in Ben Sira: “[F]or Ben Sira, ‘prayer is first of all a matter of teaching. Even the three explicit prayers we read in his book are strictly related to the context in which he teaches’” (Calduch-Benages 37; quote from Gilbert 117). While I agree with Wright, I place even greater emphasis on prayer as part of the process of embodying the scribe’s teaching. A much more reciprocal or circular relationship should be seen between ritual and teaching. Both ritual and practical wisdom inform, shape, and affirm one another. One should question if the two can even be separated from one another; they are part of one phenomenon in the case of scribal life, as Newman (2018) has shown. Relying on the observations of theorists such as Bourdieu, Mauss, Holland et al., Asad, and Mahmood, one can recognize how Ben Sira seeks to form his students through practice and establishment of a habitus, the unconscious structures and disposition each class acquires through long, repetitive, and embodied practice. Bourdieu essentially developed the concept, but perhaps Mahmood’s understanding best explains Ben Sira’s approach to the role of pedagogy and liturgical practice: My [Mahmood’s] own work draws upon a longer and richer history of this term [than what one finds in Bourdieu], one that addresses the centrality of

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Rodney A. Werline gestural capacities in certain traditions of moral cultivation and that is therefore analytically more useful for my purposes. Habitus in this older Aristotelian tradition is understood to be an acquired excellence at either moral or a practical craft, learned through repeated practice, until that practice leaves a permanent mark on the character of the person. Thus, moral virtues (such as modesty, honesty, and fortitude) are acquired through a coordination of outward behaviors (e.g., bodily acts, social demeanor) with inward dispositions (e.g., emotional states, thought, intentions) through the repeated performance of acts that entail those particular virtues. (Mahmood 136)

Saba Mahmood studied Muslim women in Egypt who wear veils as part of the development and practice of their piety. Her theoretical foundation, or conclusion, brings new light to a manner of reading the teachings and practices Ben Sira inculcates in his students. In Ben Sira’s teaching, of course, one might see that individual actions are required for the proper execution of rituals. When ritual is attached to teaching, the student feels the weight of obligation in the ritual enactment, and the teaching is affirmed (cf. Rappaport 1999, 123–124, 265). Both ritual and consumption of wisdom reinforce one another—in other words, it is all one package. The scribe promotes the connection between ritual and teaching in this admonition: “But above all pray to the Most High that he may direct your way in truth” (Sir. 37:15). Because this line stands at the conclusion of a discussion on friends, counsellors, and the selection of a wife, some debate has arisen about how far this teaching extends into other life contexts. Gilbert, following the lead of Corely, interprets this instruction as applicable to decisions related to interpersonal relationships: “This is the only prayer in the Book of Ben Sira which concerns important decisions individuals have to take in their life about interpersonal relations” (Gilbert 131). The larger context, though, constitutes a discussion about the value of establishing relationships that support a moral life. Ben Sira seems to come back to self-reliance and personal responsibility when deciding on important matters: And heed the counsel of your own heart, for no one is more faithful to you than it is. For our own mind sometimes keeps us better informed than seven sentinels sitting high on a watchtower. But above all pray to the Most High that he may direct your way in truth. (Sir. 37:13–15) Relationships are important, but the final determination of proper morals rests with the individual. The practice of prayer in the decision process functions, in a way, to undergird personal responsibility. As an ongoing practice in the life of the student and scribe, prayer serves to reinforce Ben Sira’s teaching and embody it in practice by establishing a particular disposition out of which the student or scribe will determine

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to act. That is, because Ben Sira has connected the ritual of prayer with so many teachings, the practice has the power to invoke all those teachings now embodied in the individual and assist in leading the individual to moral decisions. A clear example resides in Ben Sira’s instruction about penitential prayer, which, as we saw, functions as part of the prelude to revelation in the scribe’s interpretation process. Petitions for forgiveness, however, have a much broader function related to his students’ moral behavior and disposition. It turns out that forgiveness from the divine depends on a human’s practice of forgiveness of others. The scribe instructs the students as follows: The vengeful will face the Lord’s vengeance, for he keeps a strict account of their sins. Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. Does anyone harbor anger against another, and expect healing from the Lord? If one has no mercy toward another like himself, can he then seek pardon for his own sins? If a mere mortal harbors wrath, who will make an atoning sacrifice for his sins? (Sir. 28:1–5) As Gilbert notices, this is the first example of the teaching that will occur in both the New Testament (Matt. 6:14–15) and later rabbinic literature (Rosh Hashanah b 17a) (Gilbert 129). In all these cases, including Ben Sira of course, the traditions tie ritual practice with moral practice. They do not dive into a Protestant interiority, where motivation or interior spirituality trumps any action. Rather, Ben Sira’s disposition toward ritual practice and ethics basically seems to align with aspects of Jonathan Klawans’s assessment of the prophets—albeit on a different matter but applicable here—that concludes that ritual and ethics are all “intricately and inherently connected,” or even that “the dichotomy between ethics and rituals collapses” (Klawans 2006, 87).

Prayer and perseverance Nuria Calduch-Benages focused on prayer and the scribe’s admonition in Sirach 2 to persevere through difficult times and not to allow one’s trust in the Lord to falter: You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy; do not stray, or else you may fall. You who fear the Lord, trust in him, and your reward will not be lost. You who fear the Lord, hope for good things, for lasting joy and mercy.

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Rodney A. Werline Consider the generations of old and see: has anyone trusted in the Lord and been disappointed? Or has anyone persevered in the fear of the Lord and been forsaken? Or has anyone called upon him and been neglected? For the Lord is compassionate and merciful; he forgives sins and saves in time of distress. (Sir. 2:7–11)

If I correctly understand her analysis, Calduch-Benages asserts that throughout this section Ben Sira alludes to several traditions in the Psalms with his series of rhetorical questions. Ben Sira’s exhortation to the ethics of steadfastness relies on evocation rather than citation. If accurate, evocation delivers a powerful rhetorical impact because it honors the audience’s knowledge and intelligence. Further, evocation relies on communally shared knowledge and values. For the current chapter, as for Calduch-Benages’s argument, the reference to prayer in the series of questions attracts our attention: “Or has anyone called upon him and been neglected?” (Sir. 2:10). Also, relevant for my thesis, we should not miss the way in which the scribe has intertwined steadfastness—which entails moral faithfulness—and ritual practice, as in Sirach 28:1–5 treated above. In the final portion of her presentation, Calduch-Benages examines Ben Sira’s “Praise to the Ancestors” (Sir. 44:1–50:24) and his examples of Joshua, Samuel, and David as models of those who did not lose faith in God and who called on the Lord. Ben Sira says that they each prayed to the Lord during their great struggles— Joshua in Sirach 46:5, Samuel in 46:16, and David in 47:5. Her research leads her to the following conclusion: Recourse to the generations of old responds to a pedagogic objective, that is, to encourage his disciples to persevere tirelessly in faith. In fact, they must always remember that the Lord does not disappoint those who trust in him, does not abandon those who fear him, and does not ignore those who call upon him (cf. Sir. 2:10). (Calduch-Benages 51) This conclusion has great merit. I would venture one step farther, relying on ritual studies, to say that once again we encounter the way in which Ben Sira deploys ritual as an embodied action that works in concert with his teaching—with both ritual and teaching ensconced in an embodied circularity. Both bolster the student to persevere through difficult days.

Conclusions: pedagogy, prayer, perseverance, and restoration of Israel The most basic disposition required when approaching God in prayer is also one of the foundational characteristics of those who seek wisdom: “For the fear of the

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Lord is wisdom and discipline, fidelity and humility are his delight” (Sir. 1:27); “Those who fear the Lord prepare their hearts, and humble themselves before him” (Sir. 2:17). Ben Sira presents this as the goal for every student and all who seek God. Clearly, wisdom remains an impossible acquisition without humility, and humility stands among the most foundational virtues for those who seek God’s favor. Humility also displays a broad array of valuable traits that lead to honor within society. Unlike the description of the occupation of the scribe discussed above, Ben Sira warns his students about not seeking “what is too difficult” and what lies “beyond” their “power”: My child, perform your tasks with humility; then you will be loved by those whom God accepts. The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself; so you will find favor in the sight of the Lord. For great is the might of the Lord; but by the humble he is glorified. Neither seek what is too difficult for you, nor investigate what is beyond your power. (Sir. 3:17–21)4 It is difficult to determine if the language “but by the humble he is glorified” refers to the humble worshipping God or simply to the notion that the quality of their lives brings glory to God. When practiced in humility, the ritual of prayer becomes the embodied enactment of an essential virtue of the wise and the disposition out of which the moral life becomes possible. More essential instruction on humility and prayer appears in Sirach 35:20–26: The one whose service is pleasing to the Lord will be accepted, and his prayer will reach to the clouds. The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds, and it will not rest until it reaches its goal; it will not desist until the Most High responds and does justice for the righteous, and executes judgment. Indeed, the Lord will not delay, and like a warrior will not be patient until he crushes the loins of the unmerciful and repays vengeance on the nations; until he destroys the multitude of the insolent, and breaks the scepters of the unrighteous; until he repays mortals according to their deeds, and the works of all according to their thoughts; until he judges the case of his people and makes them rejoice in his mercy.

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Rodney A. Werline His mercy is as welcome in time of distress as clouds of rain in time of drought.

This reflection on the importance of a humble disposition in prayer followed by God’s forceful response coalesces nicely with the observations by Calduch-Benages examined above about Ben Sira’s exhortation to remain steadfast and faithful through difficulties. In the current form of the book, there follows a lengthy prayer for the deliverance of Israel, its restoration to the land, and the return of glory to Jerusalem and the temple (Sir. 36:1–22). In this instance, Ben Sira has offered his instruction while at the same time modeling his instruction. There can be no overlooking the close connections between teaching and ritual as presented in the life of the teacher. The teacher’s deepest hopes also cannot be missed, hopes that he longed for his students to make their own as well.

Notes 1 Translations of the Bible are the NSRV and are taken from BibleWorks 9 (www. bibleworks.com). All citations from the Septuagint (LXX) are taken from Alfred Rahlfs (1979) and accessed via BibleWorks 9. 2 Skehan and Di Lella (449) claim that Ben Sira constructs an inclusio with Sir. 38:24 and v. 34. However, Argall (85 n. 214) correctly contests their assessment because the verses lack any verbal link with one another. 3 For the importance of temple in Sirach, see Newman 2012. 4 For the textual problem with v. 19, see Skehan and Di Lella, 159.

References Argall, Randal A. 1995. 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation, and Judgment. SBLEJL 8. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Aristotle. Politics, translated by Benjamin Jowett. Internet Classics Archive. http://cla ssics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.3.three.html. Arnold, Russell C. D. 2006. The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community. STDJ 60. Leiden: Brill. Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Bell, Catherine. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. The Logic of Practice, translated by R. Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Boyer, Pascal. 1992. “Explaining Religious Ideas: Elements of a Cognitive Approach.” Numen 3: 27–57. Calduch-Benages, Nuria. 2019. “Ben Sira’s Teaching on Prayer: The Example of the Generations of Old.” In On Wings of Prayer Sources of Jewish Worship: Essays in Honor of Professor Stefan C. Reif on the Occasion of his Seventy-fifth Birthday, edited by N. Calduch-Benages, M. W. Duggan, and D. Marx, 37–54. Berlin: De Gruyter. Falk, Daniel K. 1998. Sabbath and Festival Prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls. STDJ 27. Leiden: Brill. Gilbert, Maurice. 2004. “Prayer in the Book of Ben Sira.” In Prayer from Tobit to Qumran: Inaugural Conference of the ISDCL at Salzburg, Austria, 5–9 July 2003, edited

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by R. Egger-Wenzel and J. Corley, 117–135. International Society for the Study of Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature 1. Berlin: De Gruyter. Holland, Dorothy, William Lachicotte Jr., Debra Skinner, and Carole Cain. 1998. Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Klawans, Jonathan. 2006. Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kugler, Robert A. 2002. “Making All Experience Religious: The Hegemony of Ritual at Qumran.” JSJ 33: 131–152. Mahmood, Saba. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mauss, Marcel. 2003. On Prayer, translated by W. S. F. Pickering. New York: Berghahn. McCauley, Robert N., and E. Thomas Lawson. 2002. Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newburg, Andrew, Eugene D’Aquili, and Vince Rause. 2001. Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine. Newman, Judith H. 2012. “Liturgical Imagination in the Composition of Ben Sira.” In Prayer and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday, edited by J. Penner, K. M. Penner, and C. Wassen, 323–338. STDJ 98. Leiden: Brill. Newman, Judith H. 2018. Before the Bible: The Liturgical Body and the Formation of Scriptures in Early Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press. Penner, Jeremy. 2012. Patterns of Daily Prayer in Second Temple Period Judaism. STDJ 104. Leiden: Brill. Perry, Richard. 2020. “Episteme and Techne.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/episteme-techne. Rahlfs, Alfred. 1979. Septuaginta. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. BibleWorks 9. www.bibleworks.com. Rappaport, Roy A. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. CSSCA 110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skehan, Patrick W. and Alexander A. Di Lella. 1987. The Wisdom of Ben Sira: A New Translation with Notes. AB 39. New York: Doubleday. Werline, Rodney A. 1998. Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution. SBLEJL 13. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Werline, Rodney A. 2012. “The Experience of God’s Paideia in the Psalms of Solomon.” In Experientia, Volume 2: Linking Text and Experience, edited by Colleen Shantz and Rodney A. Werline, 17–44. SBLEJL 35. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Werline, Rodney A. 2015. “The Formation of the Pious Person in the Psalms of Solomon.” In The Psalms of Solomon: Language, History, Theology, edited by Eberhard Bons and Patrick Pouchelle, 133–154. SBLEJL 40. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Whitehouse, Harvey. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Oxford: Alta Mira. Wright, Benjamin G., III. 2008. Praise Israel for Wisdom and Instruction: Essays on Ben Sira and Wisdom, the Letter of Aristeas and the Septuagint. JSJSup 131. Leiden: Brill. Wright, Benjamin G., III and Lawrence M. Wills, eds. 2005. Conflicted Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism. SBLSymS 35. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

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Wisdom for the king Wisdom for rulers throughout history Lowell K. Handy

Wisdom literature in the ancient Near East appeared early and often.1 The biblical literature traditionally designated by the term consists of a select number of books, only some of which refer to kings.2 However, royal wisdom traditions are incorporated into many biblical and post-biblical books. It has long been known that the wisdom literature of the ancient Judahites existed in a wider intellectual universe extending geographically from the Nile to the Persian Gulf (Bryce 1979; Lambert 1967).3 The primary social world of wisdom was the literate world of scribal circles, a status sufficiently high as to have time to learn writing and reading. Some among these literate people were advisors to the ruling elite. With few exceptions, rulers in the ancient world were men, and wisdom literature reflects a male-oriented construction of the world. The vast majority of the populations from Nubia to Persia remained illiterate, or nearly so; agriculturalists had little need for a full scribal education. “King” is generally understood as a title easily identified with the highest position in a social polity. The origins of the position are, however, less than certain for the ancient Near East. Traditionally assumed to be related to leadership in warfare, it has recently been observed that such a status might logically have derived from those who could supply the necessities of life (Charvát 2012, 266). To be a king it was deemed prudent to have wisdom, and wisdom literature had some advice on this matter. Advice for kings existed in literary texts from the ancient Near East long before there were any biblical texts. The best known of this literature derived from ancient Egypt. The book of Proverbs has long been recognized as having been written consciously in the Egyptian “instruction” genre (Scott 1965, xlii–xlv). The Instruction of Ankhsheshonq, a compendium of wise observations, most closely parallels the rote presentation of “wisdom bytes” in Proverbs (Scott xlv). Yet, the fullest Ankhsheshonq manuscript dates no earlier than the late Ptolemaic period, though fragments survive from the 27th Dynasty, in the fifth century BCE (Lichtheim 1980, 159).4 The single known “foreign” text incorporated into a biblical scroll derives from Egyptian literature. The Instruction of Amenemope appears to have been the source of Proverbs 22:17–23:11. This work has traditionally been dated to the 19th or 20th Dynasties (1293–1070 BCE) on the dubious thesis that it would correspond to the rise of Israelite literature, despite the earliest manuscript record DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-5

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being much later (Lichtheim 1976, x, 147). The admonition genre existed throughout the dynastic eras with the “advice” couched in parental admonitions to child. Egyptian literature produced such admonition texts purporting to be royal instructions from pharaoh to heir apparent. The earliest Egyptian advice for a wise king comes from a pseudepigraphal didactic text known as The Instruction of Prince Hardjedef, pieced together from fragments datable to the New Kingdom. The date of composition has been theorized to be in the 5th Dynasty (2498–2345 BCE); however, this date that may be too early since names in the document, Hardjedef and Au-ib-re, are not recorded for any rulers of that dynasty. The work presents itself as advice from a royal father, who is heir to the throne, to his son (Lichtheim 1975, 58–59).5 As brief as the reconstructed fragment is, it clearly admonishes the future king to behave properly without need for recourse to counsel, and to establish himself with a good wife who will provide him an heir. In this composition, presumed to be from a king to his heir, the fact that the king’s immortal ba has a place in the hereafter, called the “West,” is understood to be of utmost importance and certain burial rituals must be properly carried out by the son. The earliest Egyptian wisdom text is concerned with a ruler’s need for a dynastic successor, which is also related to the grandeur of being an immortal king. A much longer text is The Instruction of Ptahhotep, perhaps of the late 6th Dynasty (2324–2181 BCE) (Lichtheim 1975, 62; McKane 51).6 As a collection of advice from a vizier to his son, it does not deal explicitly with kings; however, the lengthy manuscript begins with a reference to the king’s immortality.7 While there are many maxims on how to behave toward and around superiors, Ptahhotep does not relate these etiquettes explicitly with the ruler. The oldest extensive literary work purporting to be wisdom passed from a king to his heir apparently comes from the 10th-Dynasty reign of Merikare, to whom the wisdom is addressed (Lichtheim 1975, 97).8 The manuscript derives from the latter half of the 18th Dynasty (1570–1293 BCE), and most probably dates from this period (Kuhrt 1995, 156–157; Seidlmayer 2000, 139). Presented as an instruction to Merikare, the content of the work is a summary of the actions and policies of the unnamed king (assumed to be Khety). Unfortunately, the beginning of the work is missing (Erman 1966, 75–84; Lichtheim 1975, 99–107; Simpson 1973, 181–192; Pritchard 1969, 414–418). This wisdom parallels much of non-royal instructions, here presented as the intelligent manner for a king to rule, including much about commanding armies. In addition, a wise king maintains control over his advisors. He chooses those who are well trained, knowledgeable, and offer advice when they have something intelligent to say. A king should learn what his counselors know, have it written down for posterity, and be able to speak with authority about it. Such wisdom is worth more than physical force. On the other hand, fools are to be suppressed. A king must always demonstrate sound judgment in his decrees so that everyone knows that justice was administered fairly. A king should be merciful in his sentencing, resorting to incarceration or physical punishment and avoiding capital punishment, except in the case of rebels and traitors, who are to be executed

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without exception. Friends of the king—along with the poor, the maltreated, various fools, and the aged—all have their own motives, but a wise king takes these into account, deciding their cases on the basis of justice rather than emotion. Good kings promote through merit, look out for the welfare of the populace, and see that good people lack nothing of necessity. Merikare is informed at length about the military responsibilities of the king. A wise ruler leads and maintains a standing army. It needs to be composed of wealthy subjects and those of modest means, all of whom should be well paid. Advancement in the military must be by merit regardless of rank or social origin. It is mandatory that Egypt’s borders be defended against any form of encroachment. Fortresses for that purpose need to be built, maintained, and even expanded. The father assures Merikare that he has subdued all enemies and invaders, leaving his son with a peaceful kingdom. Throughout his instruction, Merikare is reminded of his immortality and his future remembrance. What the king does in this world affects his ba in the afterlife. Consequently, he should faithfully fulfill his religious obligations, never forgetting that he is responsible for governing everything Re has created. After all, Re established the king in his position and keeps watch over his rule as he makes his daily route across the sky. The king is answerable to the gods on behalf of all humanity (Hornung 1982, 52–53), and their monuments are to be constructed of the finest stone. A magnificent tomb should be dedicated to the king’s eternal memory and life in the West. This composition reflects a wisdom tradition largely positive concerning relations between king and people, a divine ruler with military prowess and wise subordinates. The Instruction of King Amenemhet I for His Son Sesostris I is not nearly as optimistic. A literary instruction of some popularity, it presents itself as the wisdom of the assassinated king Amenemhet I (1991–1962 BCE) to his heir, Senusret I (1971–1926 BCE) (McKane 83; Lichtheim 1975, 136–39; Simpson 193–97; Erman 72–74; Pritchard 418–419).9 The composition is generally dated to the reign of Sesostris I as an instruction from the ba (ghost) of his father.10 The divine king begins with a reminder that it is the king’s duty to bring abundance to Egypt. However, the core of his advice is to trust no one, for even friends, advisors, and counselors are potentially treacherous. Though a king may care for the poor, the orphaned, and the needy, they will turn on him whenever trouble arises. A description of his assassination begins with a request for his son to perform a grand funeral, noting the grand monument he had built to house his eternal existence. Despite having traveled throughout the kingdom, to which he brought peace and plenty, he was killed by his own well cared for people. The king may be a divinity, but he must always perceive others as traitorous, no matter how well they may be governed. An Egyptian Wisdom Psalm concerned with the role and person of the king dating to the reign of Amenemhet III (1842–1797 BCE) was excerpted from an instruction text and inscribed on a stela dedicated to Amenemhet’s chief treasurer, Sehetepibre (Bryce 136, 236 n. 3; Lichtheim 1975, 126–129; Pritchard 431; Erman 84–85; Simpson 199–209). The opening section instructs the scribe’s children to worship King Nymaatre (Amenemhet III) as the god Re, who sees all and

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produces abundance. The king embodies other deities as well, including Khnum, fashioner of human beings; Bastet, gracious protector of Upper and Lower Egypt; and Sekhmet, fierce lion goddess. In short, the king is the very life of the people, protector of those who obey him and destroyer of those who disobey. That the Egyptian king is a powerful deity could hardly be made clearer. Order in the world depends upon him. Other Middle Kingdom texts reflect on the chaos that results when the king is replaced by rabble, including Admonitions of Ipuwer, Complaints of Khakheperre-sonb, and Prophecies of Neferti. The Old and Middle Kingdoms provided instruction texts copied through the Ptolemaic period. The wisdom material of the New Kingdom tended toward advice deriving from the mid-levels of society admonishing acceptance of one’s status (Lichtheim 1976, 135, 146; McKane 92, 105). These texts do not present persons who expect to meet kings, but supply much advice on how to defer to one’s superiors. It is in a pair of Demotic texts of the Ptolemaic period (305–30 BCE) that the final references to kings appear in Egyptian wisdom instructions. The Instruction of Ankhsheshonq is a compilation of sayings ascribed to a priest of Re writing to his son from prison. It is not advice to a ruler, but contains a few helpful suggestions for the boy concerning how to behave regarding the king (16.16; 19.7; 23.10; 25.10–11) (Lichtheim 1980, 161–180). Entry 16.16 warns the son never to talk about royal business while drunk, since royal matters are a ruler’s concern only (McKane 117–150). The Instruction of Papyrus Insinger, reconstructed from numerous fragments, is such a collection of sayings. It is concerned with ordinary people who do not expect to meet royalty; however, it does make references to the king (4.4, 14.14–15.6, 22.9, 23.22–25, 33.23), urging the selection of wise counselors over fools and never to allow anger to guide one. The divine stature of the pharaoh as Horus, son of Osiris, accepted in these texts, was maintained from the Old Kingdom through the Ptolemaic rulers (Teeter 2011, 4). In royal inscriptions and literary texts, the kings of Egypt acquired ever more attributes of the gods, being deemed divine, even if Egyptian “theology” made a sometimes ambiguous distinction between deities and pharaohs (Frankfort 287; Hornung 142; Meeks and Favard-Meeks 1996, 122–123; Bryce 167–168; Frandsen 2008, 47–65). Like Egyptian literature, Mesopotamian wisdom texts from the third millennium provide instruction from kings to their sons. Sumerian compositions like The Instructions of Shuruppak to His Son Ziusudra and Ur-Ninurta are fictitious royal advice lists (Hallo 1997, 569–570; Kramer 1963, 224). Such admonitions were popularly translated into Akkadian for Babylonian and Assyrian readers. Shuruppak’s advice is a fairly generic wisdom offering on how to conduct a life, including staying out of other people’s disputes, being honest, avoiding even the appearance of sexual impropriety, and care in buying slaves. UrNinurta emphasizes consultation with the deities in establishing one’s reign. In the literary genre of divine letters, it is a common divine admonition to rulers to remember that it is the gods who keep them in power and victorious (Livingstone 1989, xxvii–xviii). The advice contrasts the just man/king (pious, honest, industrious) with the unjust (impious, deceitful). For long life and posthumous fame, be a just ruler.

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Many narratives about historical Sumerian and Akkadian kings blend historiography, fantasy, and wisdom. The best-known Mesopotamian literary narratives concerning a king are those relating the exploits of Gilgamesh (Van de Mieroop 1999, 29–30). A historical king of Uruk (ca. 2700 BCE), the literary Gilgamesh makes his appearance in Sumerian around 2150 BCE and continues unabated through the Akkadian literary world with aspects of the epic continuing through Greek, Latin, Islamic, and modern literature (Dalley 1989, 40–41). Significantly, this legendary tale posits Gilgamesh as two-thirds god and one-third human. At the center of the “standard” narrative, however, is the hard lesson for the muy macho king: “You will not find the eternal life you seek. When the gods created [hu]mankind They appointed death for [hu]mankind, Kept eternal life in their own hands” (150).11 The advice to kings, as well as commoners is stark: eat, enjoy what you can, bathe, wash garments, have children, love your wife, for it is all humans have (Sandars 1964, 99; Dalley 150; note parallel: Eccl. 9:7–10). Gilgamesh reflects ideals of a king who has no peers; he is powerful, slays monsters, defeats everyone except his companion Enkidu (the wild man), builds city walls, and is so incredibly handsome that Ishtar herself, goddess of sex and love, lusts after him (though he is so egotistical as to disparagingly spurn her). Nevertheless, the king is mortal and cannot escape death. One thing that Gilgamesh lacks, which the story makes abundantly clear, is basic wisdom. Prostitutes, ale-wives, and forlorn survivors of the flood all know more than he does, for in the end kings are just like everyone else. Gilgamesh’s obnoxious boasting, echoed by lackeys in chorus, changes nothing. Above all, it is made clear that an intelligent person should never anger the deities! Utnapishtim is human, but he does all he can to save the world so that the god Enlil rewards him and his wife with immortality. Gilgamesh has no such hope; he can only visit the Netherworld, where he will take up residence at the fated time. Indeed, the divine status of rulers in Mesopotamia appears to have been a notion of very short and unexceptional duration. If Egyptian rulers’ wisdom rested on their immortal status, this could not be accorded to Sumerian, Babylonian, or Assyrian kings, who, despite their status between divinity and human, remain fully human (Michalowski 2008, 42; Selz 2008, 24–25). Although Mesopotamian kings sometimes viewed themselves as deities, wisdom literature reminded them they were not! Mesopotamian admonitions to rulers appear as far afield as Ugarit and other provincial areas (Greenstein 2012). Among these texts so far recovered, the most important reminder for rulers is that they are mortal (Cohen 2013, 88–89, 135). Perhaps this was no accident in a region long under Egyptian cultural influence. Warnings against royal hubris appear in these reminders to kings as to who they are and what they are not. Kingship, it is stated, in the distant past was restricted to the gods; but kings are not gods. Ea retains the unraveling of fate; the human kings’ lives are not entirely in their own hands (133, 181). Indeed, once a king is dead— even the greatest—he is lost, forgotten, and exists no more. Among all these texts, only a single wise saying appears to be directed exclusively to kings. It admonishes a king that, however much power he wields, he should never take on more than he can handle (89; Shima milka line 60). King Lemuel’s mother’s admonition

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(Prov. 31:1–9) purports to be wisdom from “Massa.” It is uncertain whether this text refers to someone named Lemuel and a place called Massa (Scott 184). If it is a geographical place, it was most likely in northern Arabia; if so, this passage is no earlier than the Persian Empire (Knauf 1992) and this is another wisdom text from the Levantine area. More in the lineage of Egyptian than Akkadian wisdom texts, the queen mother admonishes her son to avoid women and wine (McKane 407). Alcohol is for the dying or the depressed; a king needs to be alert, compassionate, and just toward all, especially the poor and voiceless. Perhaps the most significant wisdom text cited from the greater ancient Near East in the Old Testament is that of Ahiqar, adapted by Tobit (Vílchez Líndez 42– 44). Ahiqar was translated and adapted into several ancient literatures; the earliest extant copy, fragmented and in Aramaic, was excavated at Elephantine. It dates from the late fifth century and was clearly copied from an earlier text, perhaps Aramaic (Lindenberger 1985; see also Harris et al. 1913, 724–779). The narrative’s first section weaves a tale of the scribe, while the proverbial second section relates wise sayings attributed to Ahiqar. Though the story purports to derive from the Neo-Assyrian Empire, it is generally agreed that it was written in Aramaic in the late seventh or early sixth century (Lindenberger 479, 481–482; Rankin 2 n. 1, 4– 5 n. 2). Where it was written remains unknown; both Mesopotamia and northern Syria have been rationally suggested (Lindenberger 482). A single section of the sayings portion is concerned with one’s dealings with a king (lines 100–108 in Lindenberger 500–501). Above all things, the king’s proclamations are powerful and dangerous; as a subject it is imperative that commands be carried out as though the very idea of them were one’s own. Never forget that the king is majestic, powerful, and confident; do not oppose the king, rile him, or speak unconsidered thoughts to him. Before the king one should act as one would before Shamash, the Sun deity.12 The Armenian sayings also warn not to compare oneself with the king, for a worm that eats a ruler’s corpse is still a worm (8:12 in Harris et al. 772– 773). Tobit contains significant wisdom material, but does not specifically deal with a king (Macatangay 2011, 10–12, 28). Wisdom literature in later biblical texts tends to be ascribed to the wisdom of kings, Solomon in particular. However, it is clear that Solomon’s legendary status as a wise man, rather than any actual texts deriving from him, is the reason for this (Rowley 1963, 140; Scott 10–13). Proverbs, generally believed to contain at least some sayings culled from the first half of the first millennium BCE in the scribal circles of Judah, were designated as Solomon’s sayings (Prov. 1:1, 10:1, 25:1), undoubtedly after the collection was compiled at a time unknown and perhaps as late as the Hellenistic period.13 Ascription has also been attributed to Solomon for Song of Songs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom of Solomon, Odes of Solomon, Psalms of Solomon, and Testament of Solomon, as well as a series of letters between Hiram and Solomon that have not survived (Josephus Ag. Ap. 1.18; what, if anything, he was referencing is unknown) (Handy 1997, 97 n. 5). Tradition, as well as superscriptions, attributes either the entire Psalter or individual psalms to King David; the latter includes some Wisdom Psalms.14 None of these works should be ascribed to Solomon or David, but the ascription of them

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by redactors and tradition to royal authority does qualify them as wisdom for the king in the canon. The book of Proverbs was not intended for the instruction of rulers, yet it is self-attributed to Solomon as though it were advice to his son (Prov. 1:8, 10).15 There are, however, sections specifically concerning kings. Early in the scroll it is emphasized that the earth was constructed as orderly through the work of Wisdom personified, co-creator of the earth with Yahweh; it is she who establishes kings, creates nobility, and leads them to be righteous governors (Prov. 8:15–16, 25:4–5). A king is defined by searching out knowledge that exists beyond the mental capabilities of other people, and by having the intelligence to understand it (25:2–3, 28:16). Some points about being a king are made clear. A proper king is a conduit of God’s will (21:1, 24:21–22); an angry king should frighten people, while his favor be received as a wonderful thing (19:12, 20:2); one can gain his friendship through one’s love and honest speech (22:11, 25:15); and (probably a saying for a king) allies who are ill-treated become the worst opponents (18:19). Kings are to be scrupulously honest in judicial matters such that it is wise to be honest in the royal presence and to seek to gain his pleasure (16:10–15, 20:8, 29:14, 26). One needs to be particularly scrupulous against envying the repast of the king (23:1–3), just as it is prudent to humble oneself in the king’s presence so that one may be honored by his raising one’s status (25:6). A king walks with a regal manner that demands respect (30:31). In addition, Proverbs has a few choice remarks on what a king is not. Any number of “kings” during a time of rebellion are not worth one who actually reigns intelligently (Prov. 28:2). It is the height of foolishness to allow a slave to rule over nobility (19:10, 30:22). A king without a substantial number of subjects is nothing (14:28). An evil king oppressing his impoverished people is not a king but a stalking lion or bear (28:15). Finally, a king dependent on lies rules through corrupt administrators (28:12). The book of Job makes only passing reference to kings. However, the might and willfulness of Yahweh makes kings into powerless mortals. In a feverish verbal onslaught concerning the debasement by God of the humanly powerful and respected, the character Job includes kings and nobility (Job 12:17–21). Kings may have some limited wisdom and understanding, but Yahweh severs it from them, leaving them wandering fools (12:24–25). In Elihu’s hot-headed speech he demands to know why Job would condemn the righteous and powerful God, who declares kings and nobility “scoundrels” and “wicked,” since Yahweh regards kings as no better than commoners, all heading for death (34:17–20; see 3:13– 14).16 Beyond these comments, Job uses a simile—“like a king among his troops”—to describe his former status among his community and before the nobility (29:25). There is also a simile used by Eliphaz: that the wicked are terrified “like a king prepared for battle” (15: 24). In Job there is reference to the “King of Terrors” (18:14), who widely is agreed to be Mot, ruler of the dead in Sheol; but even he cannot compare to the ultimate kingship of Yahweh (Pope, 136). Turning to Ecclesiastes, “The words of Qoheleth, son of David, King in Jerusalem” begins a pseudonymous work of Hellenized, Egyptian-influenced, late

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third-century BCE Jewish wisdom (Crenshaw 1987, 49–50; Perdue 164–165). Indeed, a wide range of dates have been accepted for the scroll, from Solomon in the tenth century to the first-century expansion of Rome (Schoors 2013, 2–5; Clifford 99–100). The presumption of the book is that it was the reflective, skeptical, and pessimistic thought of a wise and understanding king; exactly which king in Jerusalem is left ambiguous, though Solomon seems to be presumed (Clifford 99, 55–57). It is in fact a text written long after there was a king in Jerusalem; the “king” is a fiction (Schwienhorst-Schönberger 2004, 42; Schoors 36–37). In the guise of Solomon, Qoheleth observes for the readers’ edification that, like a good wise king, he had applied his superior wisdom to study all things, but found wisdom to be a road to sadness and a pursuit with no purpose. Solomon styles himself the greatest of all kings in Jerusalem, attaining power, pleasure, wealth, and renown—but it was all for nothing. Wisdom is superior to foolishness, but there is no discernible difference between them insofar as life and death are concerned. Enjoy all this meaningless travail, for it is all one can attain in this life: eat, drink, enjoy, die. If justice resides with kings, it resides with evil (Eccl. 3:16). A wise youth is a better ruler than an elderly but foolish king; however, over time there is no difference (4:13–16). Advice is proffered to those who deal with kings: obey, be prompt, fear not, stay calm in the face of anger, and never belittle the king even in private; kings have great power, but they are not even close to being all powerful (8:2–9; 10:4, 20). In like manner, kings are not wiser than anyone else since a poor but wise nobody can defeat a foolish king, with all his armed might (9:13–16, 18); indeed, fools can rule, which is a disaster for all concerned (10:5–6, 16). In the end a live dog is better than a dead lion (9:4); assuming the dog represents the low end of creatures (2 Sam. 9:8) and the lion strength, nobility, and kingship, dead kings are beneath any living thing. The poems defined as Wisdom Psalms do not directly concern themselves with kings. While many psalms fall into the category of royal Psalms—depicting kings as little less than divine, warriors of renown, or pious Yahwists—scholarly limits placed on the extent of the Wisdom Psalms produce lists of poems that essentially ignore monarchs (Kuntz 2000, 146–149). Those Wisdom Psalms bearing headings that relate the poems with David and Solomon contain wisdom advice of general concern. Only the names of the kings relate these, rather banal in wisdom terms, admonitions to royalty. God is thanked for mercy against sinners who seek belatedly the deity’s protection; the righteous are said to be watched over while the wicked will perish; therefore, trust in Yahweh. Finally, the “fear of Yahweh” is the very definition of wisdom. With the collapse of the Persian Empire, Jewish writers from Egypt to Mesopotamia suddenly found themselves in a Hellenistic world. The Greek equivalent of the wisdom tradition was philosophy, which had its own notions about how a wise king should behave. Indeed, according to Plato’s Republic, a good king was to be a philosopher who is observant, a quick learner, honest, just, and an unchanging guardian of the law (5.472, 6.484).17 For Aristotle a virtuous king has the power to define laws within the scope of legality and in the protection of the citizenry; the office should not be hereditary (Politics 3.15–16 [McKeon 1947]). In

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some learned Jewish circles there was a belief that all the best of Greek thought and philosophy had passed through Moses into biblical traditions and that Moses’s law was superior to all other legal systems in the world (Moses 1.5, 2.3 [Philo 1971]). Philo, for example, simply ignored anything that existed in Jewish tradition in irreconcilable conflict with his Platonic Hellenism (Philo vii–viii). The infusion of Platonic thought changed the wisdom literature of early Judaism. The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, also known as Ben Sira or Sirach, takes biblical wisdom traditions into the Hellenistic world; the work was written sometime around 180 BCE near Jerusalem (Di Lella 1992, 932; Nickelsburg 1981, 64–65). At that time the rulers of Jerusalem were the Egyptianizing Ptolemies; advice to kings would by necessity default to either wistful nostalgia for Israelite and Judean kings of a misty past, or hopeful wishes for these current foreign overlords (Perdue 235). While much of the content deals with social superiors dealing with social inferiors, the work as a whole reflects a contemporary state where there is no king immediately concerned with his public. Almost all the wise sayings could be useful for rulers; only a few are directly stated as wisdom for kings (or those dealing with kings). It is the will of God and proper obedience to personified Wisdom that determines those who rule in the world (Sir. 4:15, 10:4, 17:17, 47:11). Disobedience, arrogance, and greed in a king results in God turning kingdoms over to someone else (10:7–8, 14–17; 11:5–6, 36:12, 47:21). On the other hand, a good ruler teaches his populace discipline and wisdom (10:1–3). Those who wish to be well received by a king need to avoid promoting themselves (7:4–5) and feel proper shame for immorality and speaking lies before kings (41:17–18). However, those well versed in torah will always be welcomed by the ruler (38:34–39:4). Kings must never give themselves over to the pursuit of wealth (8:2) and should accept the word of Yahweh as spoken by prophets (48:12). In the end, kings and commoners are all the same before God and all alike die (33:10–13, 40:1–5). Jesus ben Sirach’s extended paean to famous men (Sir. 44–50) remembers only a few kings among the notable prophets and priests. These kings are noted for both good and evil behavior. Both Moses and Joshua are exalted for being prophets rather than being rulers (45:1–5, 46:1); neither is as aggrandized as is the priest Aaron (45:6– 222; [Di Lella 1990, 508]). Samuel is also identified as a prophet (46:13). Samuel is remarkable for having anointed kings (46:13) and for appealing to Yahweh, thereby causing the defeat of foreign kings (46:16–18), but not for being one. From the descriptions of Judah’s kings in Sirach it may be extrapolated that a wise king was outstanding from his youth (David, 47:3–6), a mighty military leader (David, 47:7–8; Hezekiah, 48:17–21), noted for wisdom and creativity (David, 47:8; Solomon, 47:14–17), and an accumulator of wealth by Yahweh’s grace (Solomon, 47:18). Above all, a good king is religious as defined in cultic observance and faithful behavior (David, 47: 9–11; Solomon, 47:13; Hezekiah, 48:22; Josiah, 49:2–3; Zerubbabel, 49:11–12). Also recorded is what a king should not be. No king should be a fool (Rehoboam, 47:23), sexually obsessed (Solomon, 47:19–20), or lead by evil example (Jeroboam, 47:23–25). For Sirach, the historical kings of Jerusalem and Samaria do not provide models of wise or good kings: “Excluding David and Hezekiah and Josiah, they were all overwhelmingly wicked” (49:4).

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The Wisdom of Solomon expressly claims to address rulers. A product of Hellenistic Egyptian Jewish circles of first-century Alexandria, the writers envisioned rulers who likely would have included the Ptolemies and/or the Roman emperors (Mazzinghi 2018, 201, 416; Clifford 134–136; Perdue 286–287).18 The rulers of the earth are addressed from the book’s beginning, as though the entire work was intended for their edification (Wis. 1:1). The recurring admonition is to be wise, seek wisdom, and never ever forget that God sets them and sustains them on the throne (5:16–20; 6:1– 3, 9–11 [Mazzinghi 170]). The righteous are designated by God to rule the earth (3:8, 9:5–7), and the purpose of a king is to rule with wisdom (6:22–25 [Mazzinghi 190]). A righteous king, as with other wise and righteous people, may expect immortality (5:15–16, 15:3). In Hellenistic Egypt, biblical royal thought converges with ancient Egyptian royal ideology insofar as a king can attain immortality by being righteous (Clifford 137). However, on earth all kings are mortal, even the wise, and any ruler may become as great as Solomon by becoming just as wise (7:1–22). Should the ruler not reign wisely, do justly, and serve God, there is a divine punishment stricter than for those without ruling power (6:4–8). Solomon, as the assumed author, is both the model for and the admonisher of all true kings (Clifford 147; Perdue 305; Mazzinghi 190). The truly wise king will know that the only real king of this earth is God, ruling with divine wisdom (8:1–4, 11:10–11, 12:13–15, 15:1). Even more than the Wisdom of Solomon, the Letter of Aristeas presents advice for rulers. This fictitious rendition of the Septuagint’s production includes a literary variation of the Greek philosophical symposium (Lett. Aris. 187–300) in which King Ptolemy Philadelphus (285–246 BCE) asks a single question for counsel on ruling from each of the seventy-two translators of the Hebrew Bible. The composition was written no earlier than the mid-second century, perhaps during the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes II (170–116 BCE), who was widely unpopular and could use such advice (Rost 1976, 102; Nickelsburg 168). According to Josephus (Ag. Ap. 2.5.50–55), Ptolemy VIII was violently opposed to the Jews, though his story is suspect on several grounds; nonetheless, a Jewish scribe might have thought he needed advice (Clayton 213–214). The answers provided in the story cover a vast range of wisdom traditions and topics, but reduce to very few themes (Nickelsburg 167). Essentially, the Jewish scribes insist the good king acknowledges God as the ultimate ruler of the world; patterns himself on the merciful, just, and generous deity; and avoids self-aggrandizement, wealth, and pleasure. Honesty, fairness, and providing bounty to his subjects define a wise king. Though the wisdom is quite generic, the Letter of Aristeas proposes that Jewish wisdom amazes the Ptolemaic king and is heartily proclaimed superior to anything Greek philosophy could offer. Wisdom traditions permeate the literature of the Hebrew Bible. Judges and Samuel both illustrate the ambiguous nature of royalty, displaying both wise and foolish rulers. The scrolls of Kings and Chronicles carry the irresistible message that the king is to be loyal to Yahweh; this is more important than any other characteristic of the rulers portrayed, even as murder, greed, sexual excess, and military incompetence are well represented. The narratives concerned with King Solomon (1 Kgs. 3:3–14; 2 Chron. 1:2–13) stress the relation

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between a great ruler and the desire for wisdom; from it comes all other aspects of a good reign. The wisdom, or lack of it, for all other rulers of Judah and Israel appears only in the actions taken of the succession of kings. The biblical canon and its immediately derivative literature emphasize a series of notions that a king ought to embody. The characteristics required for this wisdom derived from the reflection of authors who were not themselves kings; the wisdom for kings, therefore, consists of admonitions by subordinates for what they would prefer to find in their superiors. First and foremost, a wise king recognizes both that he is not a god and that Yahweh sustains him. In a region within the sphere of Egyptian culture, this notion took on particular importance as Egyptian rulers, whether native or foreign, increasingly insisted on the divinity of the ruler in Egypt itself. Unlike a god, the very human biblical king needs to take seriously the wisdom of the general public, incorporating that from scribal wisdom circles to that from Greek philosophy: a king must be wise, just, honest; a sustainer of his people, a good listener; and a competent military tactician without wishing to be always at war. The Hebrew Bible and its continuing literary traditions within the wisdom genre incorporate their continuously evolving cultural contexts, including explicitly Egyptian admonitions to wise living, Mesopotamian recognition of human mortality, and Greek philosophical approaches to logical thinking. Throughout the biblical wisdom material, however, the king must remain less than God and more than commoner—a balancing act that was clearly always difficult for kings to maintain.

Notes 1 See Kuntz 1974b, 448–480 for an informative and concise survey of the ancient Near Eastern tradition. 2 As the Introduction to this volume explains further, “Wisdom Literature” is a modern scholarly construct with ambiguous borders (Kynes 2015, 18–24, 32). The Wisdom corpus in the Hebrew Bible is generally considered to include Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, select Psalms, and often the Song of Songs, with the addition in some Christian Bibles of the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, and occasionally Tobit. An inclusive understanding of Wisdom Literature is utilized by Oliver Shaw Rankin (1936), while Leo G. Perdue (2007) uses a restricted corpus. Tobit makes several references to Ahiqar, a wisdom story derived from outside the biblical community (Vílchez Líndez 2000, 40). The wisdom genre extends into early Christian literature including teachings of Jesus and the Letter of James (Clifford 1998, 167–168; Mullins 1949, 335). 3 Wisdom is ubiquitous in Mesopotamian writings (Lambert 1). Some Mesopotamian compositions have themes related to that of Job, though none can be shown to have been known by a biblical author (Clifford 70–73). Nonetheless, Sumerian and Akkadian compositions have been posited as of the genre of the book of Job. For cultural background, see McKane 1970, 51–208 and Crenshaw 1981, 212–235. 4 Dynasties are dated according to Clayton 1994. 5 Dated to roughly the same time is a pseudonymous instruction for Kagemni, a vizier, internally dated to the passing of the kingship from Huni (2637–2613 BCE) to Snefru (2613–2589 BCE), suggesting that this type of fictitious literature was popular; this latter text deals mostly with proper dining, not royalty. 6 McKane opts for the 5th Dynasty. Two manuscript traditions exist: one from the Middle Kingdom and one from the New Kingdom.

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7 Translation is problematic, but the eternal life of the king is clear (Papyrus Prisse 4.1): “the Majesty of King Isesi, who lives for all eternity” (Lichtheim 1975, 62); “the majesty of King Issi, who liveth for ever and ever,” trans. Adolf Erman, in turn trans. Aylward M. Blackman (Erman 55); “His Majesty the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Izezi—may he live forever and ever,” trans. R. O. Faulkner (Simpson 159); “majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt: Izezi, living forever and ever,” trans. John A. Wilson (Pritchard 412). 8 Dating for First Intermediate reigns is uncertain; the 9th and 10th Dynasties ran from 2160 to 2040, placing the composition early in the 21st century BCE (Clayton 70). 9 Fragments of over seventy renditions exist, ranging from the 18th Dynasty through the New Kingdom, at which time it was used as a school text. 10 The debate as to whether the literary king was the survivor of an assassination attempt or a ghost has moved toward the latter (Erman 72; Bryce 169–170; Frankfort 1978, 57; Lichtheim 1975, 135; Simpson 193; Clayton 82; Callender 2000, 160). 11 Old Babylonian Version xiii, from early second millennium. On the Sumerian origin of the death of the king as a motif in the third millennium independent tales of Gilgamesh, see Dalley (43). 12 Shamash, the deity most related to truth and justice, was, with Adad, responsible for upholding righteousness and punishing wickedness. Therefore, standing before the king is like appearing before the judge, jury, and executioner (Black and Green 1992, 184, under “Utu,” the Sumerian name). 13 Perdue (38) dates the material to periods of Egyptian cultural domination. This explains for him the (dubious) attestation of a portion of the collection to Hezekiah (Prov. 25:1 [46]). A long period of redaction and expansion, ending in a very late scroll, should be assumed (Rowley 140–141; Sellin and Fohrer 1968, 323). 14 That King David is the composer of psalms is entrenched in Jewish and Christian traditions (Eaton 1967, 14–15). For Kuntz (1974a, 186–217) “Wisdom Psalms” consist of Psalms 1, 32, 34, 37, 49, 112, 127, 128, and 133. Of these, David is superscripted onto 32, 34, and 37, while 127 has Solomon. More psalms are included by other scholars (Saur 2015, 182–187, 198). 15 The historiographical tradition in 2 Kings 11:43–12:24 and 14:21–30 reflects no sign of wisdom being passed by Solomon to Rehoboam (Lasine 1997, 384). 16 Many have viewed Elihu’s speech as a climax of the “proper” wisdom tradition and the final view of the author/redactor of Job; it is assumed here that Elihu serves as the classic example of a “fool” in this work (Habel 1985, 36). Pope (1973, xxvii, lxxix–lxxx) sees the speeches as a poor attempt by the original author to salvage something from the traditional wisdom tradition, but discerns the classical wisdom’s fool in the person of Elihu. Perdue’s interpretation (133–134) that Elihu represents the voice of the downtrodden and marginalized provides a sermonic reading, but in no way contradicts the presentation of Elihu as a hot-headed, repetitious, uninsightful youth, the classic wisdom fool who should be (and is) ignored. 17 On the philosophical background see F. M. Cornford (Plato 1945, xxii–xxvi). 18 David Winston (1979, 3, 20–25) dates it to one century later and assumes Gaius Caligula (37–41 CE).

References Black, Jeremy, and Anthony Green. 1992. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bryce, Glendon E. 1979. A Legacy of Wisdom: The Egyptian Contribution to the Wisdom of Israel. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.

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Callender, Gae. 2000. “The Middle Kingdom Renaissance (c. 2055–1650 BC).” In The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by I. Shaw, 448–483. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Charvát, Petr. 2012. “From King to God: The NAMESDA Title in Archaid Ur.” In Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg 20–25 July 2008, edited by G. Wilhelm, 265–274. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Clayton, Peter A. 1994. Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames and Hudson. Clifford, Richard J. 1998. The Wisdom Literature. IBT. Nashville: Abingdon. Cohen, Yoram. 2013. Wisdom from the Late Bronze Age, edited by A. R. George. WAW 34. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Crenshaw, James L. 1981. Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction. Atlanta: John Knox. Crenshaw, James L. 1987. Ecclesiastes: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster. Dalley, Stephanie. 1989. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Di Lella, Alexander A. 1990. “Sirach.” In The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, edited by R. E. Brown, J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy, 496–509. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Di Lella, Alexander A. 1992. “Wisdom of Ben-Sira.” In Anchor Bible Dictionary 6: 931– 945, edited by D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday. Eaton, John Herbert. 1967. Psalms. Torch Bible Commentaries. London: SCM Press. Erman, Adolf. 1966. The Ancient Egyptians: A Source Book of Their Writings. New York: Harper & Row. Frandsen, Paul John. 2008. “Aspects of Kingship in Ancient Egypt.” In Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond, edited by Nicole Brisch, 47–73. Oriental Institute Seminars 4. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Frankfort, Henri. 1978. Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Greenstein, Edward L. 2012. “Wisdom Writers in Ugarit.” [In Hebrew] Beit Mikra 57, no. 2: 72–91. Habel, Norman C. 1985. The Book of Job: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster. Hallo, William W., ed. 1997. Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World. Vol. 1 of The Context of Scripture. Leiden: Brill. Handy, Lowell K. 1997. “On the Dating and Dates of Solomon’s Reign.” In The Age of Solomon: Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium, edited by L. K. Handy, 96–105. SHCANE 11. Leiden: Brill. Harris, J. Rendel, Agnes Smith Lewis, and F. C. Conybeare. 1913. “The Story of Ahiqar.” In The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English: Volume II: Pseudepigrapha, edited by R. H. Charles, 715–784. Oxford: Clarendon. Hornung, Erik. 1982. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, translated by John Baines. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Knauf, Ernst Axel. 1992. “Massa (Person).” In Anchor Bible Dictionary 4: 600, edited by D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday. Kramer, Samuel Noah. 1963. The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kuhrt, Amélie. 1995. The Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 BC. London: Routledge. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1974a. “The Canonical Wisdom Psalms of Ancient Israel: Their Rhetorical, Thematic and Formal Dimensions.” In Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor

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of James Muilenburg, edited by J. J. Jackson and M. Kessler, 186–222. PTMS. Pittsburgh: Pickwick. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1974b. The People of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought. New York: Harper & Row. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 2000. “Wisdom Psalms and the Shaping of the Hebrew Psalter.” In For a Later Generation: The Transformation of Tradition in Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, edited by R. A. Argall, B. A. Bow, and R. A. Werline, 144–160. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International. Kynes, Will. 2015. “The Modern Scholarly Wisdom Tradition and the Threat of PanSapientialism: A Case Report.” In Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies, edited by M. R. Sneed, 11–38. AIIL 23. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Lambert, W. G. 1967. Babylonian Wisdom Literature. Oxford: Clarendon. Lasine, Stuart. 1997. “Solomon and the Wizard of Oz: Power and Invisibility in a Verbal Palace.” In The Age of Solomon: Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium, edited by L. K. Handy, 375–392. SHCANE 11. Leiden: Brill. Lichtheim, Miriam. 1975. Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lichtheim, Miriam. 1976. Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume II: The New Kingdom. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lichtheim, Miriam. 1980. Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume III: The Late Period. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lindenberger, James M. 1985. “Ahiqar (Seventh to Sixth Century B.C.).” In Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2: 479–507, edited by J. H. Charlesworth. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Livingstone, Alasdair, ed. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea. State Archives of Assyria 3. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Macatangay, Francis M. 2011. The Wisdom Instructions in the Book of Tobit. DCLS 12. Berlin: De Gruyter. Mazzinghi, Luca. 2018. Weisheit. Internationaler Exegetische Kommentar zum Alten Testament. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. McKane, William. 1970. Proverbs: A New Approach. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster. McKeon, Richard. 1947. Introduction to Aristotle. New York: Modern Library. Meeks, Dimitri, and Christine Favard-Meeks, 1996. Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods, translated by G. M. Goshgarian. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Michalowski, Piotr. 2008. “The Mortal Kings of Ur: A Short Century of Divine Rule in Ancient Mesopotamia.” In Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond, edited by Nicole Brisch, 33–45. Oriental Institute Seminars 4. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Mullins, Terence Y. 1949. “Jewish Wisdom Literature in the New Testament,” JBL 68, no. 4: 335–339. Nickelsburg, George W. E. 1981. Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah. Philadelphia: Fortress. Perdue, Leo G. 2007. Wisdom Literature: A Theological History. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Philo Judaeus. 1971. The Essential Philo, translated by C. D. Yonge, edited by N. Glazer. New York: Schocken. Plato. 1945. The Republic of Plato, translated by F. MacDonald Cornford. London: Oxford University Press.

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Pope, Marvin H. 1973. Job: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 15. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Pritchard, James B., ed. 1969. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rankin, Oliver Shaw. 1936. Israel’s Wisdom Literature: Its Bearing on Theology and the History of Religion. New York: Schocken. Rost, Leonard. 1976. Judaism Outside the Hebrew Canon: An Introduction to the Documents. Nashville: Abingdon. Rowley, H. H. 1963. The Growth of the Old Testament. New York: Harper & Row. Sandars, N. K. 1964. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Baltimore, MD: Penguin. Saur, Markus. 2015. “Where Can Wisdom Be Found? New Perspectives on the Wisdom Psalms.” In Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies, edited by M. R. Sneed, 181–204. AIIL 23. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Schoors, Antoon. 2013. Ecclesiastes. HCOT. Leuven: Peeters. Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ludger. 2004. Kohelet. HTKAT. Freiburg: Herder. Scott, R. B. Y. 1965. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes: Introduction, Translation and Notes. AB 18. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Sellin, Ernst, and Georg Fohrer, 1968. Introduction to the Old Testament, translated by D. E. Green. Nashville: Abingdon. Selz, Gebhard J. 2008. “The Divine Prototypes.” In Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond, edited by N. Brisch, 13–31. Oriental Institute Seminars 4. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Seidlmayer, Stephan. 2000. “The First Intermediate Period (c. 2160–2055 BC).” In The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by I. Shaw, 118–147. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simpson, William Kelly, ed. 1973. The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry. New Haven: Yale University Press. Teeter, Emily. 2011. Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van de Mieroop, Marc. 1999. Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History. Approaching the Ancient World. London: Routledge. Vílchez Líndez, José. 2000. Tobias y Judit. Nueva Biblia Española: Narraciones 3. Estella: Verbo Divino. Winston, David. 1979. The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 43. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Part II

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Wisdom for those in the image of God An eco-theological reading of human and serpentine knowledge in Genesis 1–3 Frances Flannery If cows and horses had hands and could draw, cows would draw gods that look like cows and horses would draw gods that look like horses. Xenophanes

Introduction Some strains of Jewish and Christian theology, particularly in conservative Protestantism, maintain that humans have been granted biblically sanctioned “dominion” over other animals, since we uniquely are made “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:26–27). For centuries, theological and artistic depictions of God have portrayed the divine in our own physical human image—just think of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. Yet, since most Jewish and many Christian theologians realized early on that assuming a human physique for God was highly problematic, humankind’s similarity to God is typically framed in terms of an assumed intelligence or the possession of a spirit or soul (Linzey 1995) that somehow makes us more like God and less like the other animals.1 Whether stated explicitly or merely assumed, the thought persists that We have wisdom and souls, while Animals do not. Thus an anthropocentric reading of Proverbs 2:6—“the LORD gives wisdom, from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding”—might easily lead readers to assume that humans are the exclusive recipients of God’s wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. The impact of this theological assumption is serious; this sense of humankind’s own similarity to God has justified our exercise of “dominion” in the form of “domination” (McDaniel 1994, 77), which over the last century has resulted in civilizational changes that threaten 1 million species with extinction within the next few years (IPBES 2019). The present chapter challenges our inherited traditions of human superiority and dominion with a critical biblical studies approach to Genesis 1–3 that nuances exactly who can be wise and what it means to be like God. Other animals, specifically the serpent, can also be like God in specific ways, including possessing knowledge and wisdom. Reading Genesis 1–3 non-anthropocentrically, it is the serpent who at some point was the most intelligent and knowledgeable of all the living creatures, including humans (Charlesworth 2010; Davies 1986). The DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-7

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serpent—who is not Satan in an historical critical, culture-bound reading of Genesis 1–3 (Wray and Mobley 2005, 68–72; Hendel 1999, 747)2—eats from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad and possibly from the Tree of Life, serves as a wisdom teacher to the first humans,3 and becomes part of the divine retinue. This early tradition of divine serpentine wisdom was remembered in Israelite material artifacts, such as copper serpents that served as objects of worship. Humanity’s unique distinction of being made “in God’s image” refers not to the possession of special knowledge, but to a responsibility—having a caretaker’s role over other land and air animals, all of whom also partake of living soul, and some of whom also possess wisdom. Being made “in the image of God,” b’tselem Elohim, is therefore an aspect of human identity expressed in our functional capacity to act like the creative God by wisely nurturing and sustaining the harmonious plant and animal world. However, this novel idea in Genesis—that being made in God’s image is a job description—only becomes clear after we shed wrongful assumptions about the interconnectedness of the divine, animals, and wisdom in the ancient Near East.

Divinity as animal in the ancient world Animal depictions of divinity abound throughout the ancient Near East and Egypt, cultures which informed Genesis 1–3 in both its oral and written stages of composition. Ancient Egypt famously lacked an ontological hierarchy that cast human-like gods at the highest level. While some deities did take on anthropomorphic forms (like mummified Ptah or womanly Isis), most gods appeared as mammals (e.g., Anubis as a jackal, Thoth an ibis, Hathor a cow, Sekhmet a lion, or Khnum a ram) or insects (e.g., Re as a scarab beetle).4 Some Sumerian cultic statuettes portray divinities as colossal immortal humans, but worship sites like the Temple of Ninhursag placed these anthropomorphic deities among life-size statues of stately lions and giant flowers. Reliefs of later Mesopotamian hawk-headed apkallu who tended sacred trees, fishbodied apkallu, and statues of the famous lamassu composite creatures (lion or ox, eagle, cow, and human) that flanked palace doorways remind us that Mesopotamian cultures contemporary with the formation of the Hebrew Bible embraced a wide array of divine figures represented as animals or animal hybrids. Similarly, in ancient Israel God was frequently associated with animals, especially bulls—a conclusion that material and textual evidence suggests occurred at both folk and official cultic levels. The famous ninth-century BCE Israelite inscription on a pithos (a large storage jar) from Kuntillet Ajrud not only shocked biblical scholars by its mention of “YHWH and his Asherah,” a Canaanite consort, but also in its possible depiction of YHWH as a bull-like creature that resembles the Egyptian deity Bes (Meshel 1979). While the relationship of the drawing to the inscription is debated, both are also sketched in close proximity to a suckling calf and cow, suggesting additional connections between the God of Israel and bovines (Keel and Uehlinger 1998, 210–247). Four-horned altars from Iron Age sites throughout Israel and Palestine further support the conclusion that worship of the Israelite God was well associated with bovines (191–197).

Wisdom for those in the image of God 67 Plentiful textual evidence from the Hebrew Bible cements the association of the God of Israel with land animals, and especially bovines—from the golden bulls of the Israelite King Jeroboam I at Bethel and Dan (1 Kgs. 12:25–13:22; cf. Exod. 32:8) to the twelve bronze oxen in the courtyard of the Jerusalem Temple (1 Kgs. 7:25; Jer. 52:20). Cherubim were likely pictured as bovine or lion-like composite creatures resembling the Mesopotamian lamassu; hence the two giant gold-plated cherubim standing in the innermost sanctuary of the temple, their wings extended as they guard the door, would have looked much like the colossal winged bulls and lions flanking the entrances of Assyrian palaces such as that of Assurnasirpal II in the ninth century BCE (1 Kgs. 6:23–28, 8:6–7; 2 Chron. 3:10–13, 5:7–8). Indeed, cherubim were said to be a fitting “chariot of the LORD” (1 Chron. 28:18), and Ezekiel’s vision of the divine chariot includes four-faced cherubim with the faces of a man, ox, lion, and eagle (Ezek. 1:10, 10:14). Along with oxen and lions, depictions of cherubim decorated the portable lavers (1 Kgs. 7:29–36) as well as the gold-plated cedar planks on the inside walls of the Temple and the doors (1 Kgs. 6:29, 35; 2 Chron. 3:7), the veil of the Holy of Holies (2 Chron. 3:14), and the throne or mercy seat atop the Ark of the Covenant (Exod. 37:7–9). When we read in the Eden story that “the LORD God” was walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze (Gen. 3:7), too many of us picture a man walking around, when it is perhaps more valid to imagine a winged bull. The serpent, frequently associated with bulls (Joines 1968, 248; Miller 2018), also belonged to the Israelite divine retinue, but not as a sign of evil in the way that European Church history has constructed it (Handy 1992a, 1114). Serpents or snakes are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible as animals sent to do God’s work by afflicting as well as healing. Seraphim is one Hebrew term for serpents or snakes (Sweeney 1996), which Deuteronomy 8:15 references alongside scorpions as dangerous creatures. Numbers 21:6–7 portrays the LORD sending these “fiery snakes” (haseraphim hanechashim) to bite people according to God’s dictates. The “fire” may be a description of the effects of their venom (Joines 250–51; Nelson 2000); hence the NRSV translates the adjective haseraphim not as “fiery” but as “venomous.” The cure that the LORD shared with Moses was to “make a seraph figure and mount it on a standard. And if anyone who is bitten looks at it, he shall recover” (21:8; JPS). The text goes on to affirm the efficacy of this healing icon, stating that anyone who was in fact bitten by a serpent “would look at the copper serpent and recover” (21:9; JPS). Similarly, Hezekiah removed from the Jerusalem Temple a bronze serpent named Nechushtan that the people worshipped. This name most likely recalled the Hebrew/Aramaic term for snake (hanachash), with Joines suggesting that the biblical deity retained agricultural fertility aspects inspired by regional Canaanite influence (2 Kgs. 18:4; Joines 252–255).5 Handy (1992b) concludes that the bronze serpent as a divine being “was clearly part of the Judean pantheon and almost certainly a deity of healing” (see also Joines 245, 55). This association between the bronze serpent and fertility was still prominent by the time of the Gospel of John, which claims that the lifting of the bronze serpent prefigures Christ as a giver of life (John 3:14–15). This serpentine motif may have also been associated with the widespread healing cult of Asklepios, which cemented the

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symbolic connection between the serpent entwined on a staff and the medical profession to this day (Flannery 2016a). The Hebrew Bible also describes heavenly serpentine beings, six-winged seraphim, as elevated divine beings who flank the throne of the LORD in the heavenly Temple. These winged serpents are, notably, procreative creatures who modestly cover their genitalia (or “feet”) with one set of their wings, highlighting (whether negatively or positively) their association with fertility (Isa. 6:2; Joines 253). The seraphim are also holy: it is a seraph that flies over to the prophet Isaiah to touch his lips with a burning coal for the purpose of purification—a fitting duty for a fiery being (Isa. 6:2–6; cf. 14:29). Additionally, Exodus posits yet another connection of snakes with divinity. When Moses needed a sign to convince the people of Israel that God was really behind Moses’s urgings to leave Egypt, God used the snake (hanachash) as that sign. When God empowers Moses and Aaron to turn their staffs mysteriously into snakes, the people are persuaded to follow the brothers. Later, when the Egyptian magicians are able to make the same transformation, God’s snake swallows up the lesser snakes (Exod. 4:1–5, 7:8–13). Beyond just a magic trick, the episode firmly associates snakes with divine power once again. The material culture of the region also attests to the portrayal of the serpent as divine. Handy (1992b) sums it up well by saying: “The serpent appears to have been a stock religious character in Syria-Palestine from the middle of the 2nd millennium through the 1st millennium BCE.” At least seven bronze serpents have been discovered in pre-Israelite Palestine, the most exquisite of which is a copper snake covered in gold from the Timna Valley in southern Israel, and many more have been uncovered in Mesopotamia (Handy 1992b; Joines 245). Close by in Egypt, representations of winged serpents appear on numerous scarab seals and on Pharaohs’ thrones (Nelson 1186). While the Book of the Dead portrays certain kinds of snake as a part of the afterlife against which the soul is cautioned to guard itself (e.g., “Spells 33–35”; Faulkner 1985, 58), other snakes, such as the Uraeus, were symbols for the protection for pharaohs and gods themselves (“Spell 17”; Faulkner 46; Hendel 745–747). In one prayer from the Book of the Dead, the deceased would aspire to be transformed into a snake, portrayed as a sa-ta walking on legs: “I am a long-lived snake; I pass the night and am reborn every day. I am a snake which is in the limits of the earth; I pass the night and am reborn, renewed, and rejuvenated every day” (“Spell 87”; Faulkner 84). Even the sun god himself was thought to rejuvenate each night in the body of a snake before reappearing at dawn (Hendel 745). Snakes were preeminently associated with fertility (Joines 246–248, 250), eternal life, and regeneration, since they regularly slough their skin and appear anew. Accordingly, the iconography of grave goods in ancient Egypt makes it clear that snakes were associated with regeneration and eternal life, such as in the hieroglyphic funerary papyrus of the Chantress of Amun, Muthetepti of Thebes, whose mummy is surrounded by a line of protective deities each grasping a snake.6 Finally, the ourobouros symbol, a snake holding its own tail in its mouth, became a prominent symbol of immortality in Gnostic drawings and EgyptianHellenistic-Roman magical amulets (Faraone 2018, 2, 182, 243).

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The origin of humans and other animals Once we dispense with the anachronistic notion that the Hebrew God is necessarily a larger-than-life human, we are better able to interrogate the Bible’s view of the identity of humans in relation to the other animals. This identification rests at the outset on correctly defining two terms, ’adamah and ’eretz, both of which are usually translated interchangeably as earth, land, or ground. However, these English translations obscure essential differences in the Hebrew, in which ’adamah denotes the ground or soil and ’eretz refers to the geographical scope of a region—whether a certain land (e.g.,’eretz yisrael, the land of Israel) or whole known land mass, or earth. Genesis 1 maintains that, with God’s permission, sea creatures spawn out of water and land animals arise from the dirt of the earth, the ’adamah or the ’eretz: God said, “Let the earth (ha’aretz) bring forth every kind of living creature (nefesh chayyah) … and God made the wild animals of the soil (chayyat ha’aretz) (Gen. 1:24–25). [T]he LORD God formed out of the soil (ha’adamah) all the wild animals (chayyat). (Gen. 2:19; NRSV) According to Genesis 1–2, the soil (ha’adamah) of the earth (’eretz) is the source of life for land animals as well as humans. The term for humankind, ’adam, is a clear word play on ’adamah, the source of our creation: “God formed man (ha’adam) from the dust (‘aphar) of the ground (ha’adamah)” (Gen. 2:7; NRSV). Thus, all land animals, human or otherwise, are “earthlings” or “dirtlings.” Like the Egyptian ram-headed potter god Khnum, who forms humans, cows, and crocodiles from the mud of the Nile, so does the Israelite God make all land animals from the ’adamah—including humans, mammals, and reptiles (but not sea creatures, which spawn from the waters; see Gen. 1:20–21).7 All living animals are referred to by the term chayyah (Gen. 1:24), simply a “living being,” but most English translations import distinctions between humans and other animals that are not present in the original Hebrew. Following the King James Version, most English-language Bibles substitute “creatures” (JPS, ESV, NIV, KJV), “animal life” (Good News), or “wild animals” (NRSV) for chayyah. Additionally, the English terms “living creatures,” “living animals,” “wild animals,” or “wild beasts” are typically used for the longer nefesh chayyah, which Genesis also uses to refer to all the animals that are created from the ’adamah, including land, air, and sea creatures (Gen. 1:20–21, 24). Yet nefesh also means “soul,” a word related to breath (as in the cognate Arabic). Thus, more literally, the nefesh chayyah that God creates are a living soul (singular), which includes the land animals that are dirtlings, as well as sea and air life. One thing that could potentially distinguish ha’adam, the human being, from the other partakers of the nefesh chayyah is that Genesis 1–3 only shows God breathing directly into ha’adam: “[God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (neshamah chayyim).” However, the text goes on to explain that the function of this

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action is that “the man (ha’adam) became a living being (nefesh chayyah)” (Gen. 2:7; NRSV), that is a “living soul”—the same phrase as in Genesis 1:24, 30 that described non-human animals. Inappropriate anthropocentric biases of translators are thus all too apparent in rendering nefesh chayyah as “living being” with respect to humans but as “wild beasts” with respect to describing non-human animals (Gen.1:30). Indeed, Habel and others involved in the Earth Bible project began their work on reading the Bible through an ecological hermeneutic by recognizing the fundamental insight that translators and interpreters of the Bible operate out of an anthropocentric bias (Habel and Trudinger 2008, 4). Yet, based on simple etymology and a close (and more literal) reading, it is evident that Genesis does not view humans as being distinct from animals in having an immaterial soul—no apologies to Descartes.8

Wise nefesh chayyah Having now deconstructed some assumptions about the identity of God and humans in relation to other animals in the Hebrew Bible, we are finally able to address assumptions regarding human versus animal wisdom. Thomas Aquinas held that the imago Dei meant that humans alone were endowed with rationality, on which account we have limited moral responsibility toward them (Summa Theologica I 93.1–9; Linzey 13). By contrast, the authors of Genesis 2 did not portray humans as being distinct from the animals on account of superior intelligence; in fact, the opposite is true in some cases. Read in its historical context of composition without retrojecting later notions of the devil (or Satan), the nachash serpent of Genesis 2–3 clearly has more knowledge than the original humans regarding the effects of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. The serpent (hanachash) is introduced as being more “crafty (‘arum) than any other wild animal (chayyat) whom the LORD God had made” (Gen. 3:1; NRSV). While ‘arum is often translated into English as crafty or sly, Charlesworth (291) rightly points out that anti-snake bias and misplaced associations with the demonic realm have influenced mistranslations of the Hebrew term, which need not have negative connotations. Proverbs 12 twice uses it “to denote a wise or prudent man in contrast to a fool” (Prov. 12:16, 23). Fittingly, the Septuagint translates the description of the serpent by using the Greek phronimotatos, or “the wisest.”9 Genesis depicts the serpent at this mythic point in time as not only the wisest of all YHWH’s creatures, but also the most naked (‘arom, related to the word ‘arum). These two concepts, intelligence and nakedness, neatly map onto the semantic range of the Tree of Knowledge (da‘ath, from yada‘), since the verb “to know” (yada‘) has two meanings as well: to know a subject intimately well through experience (Von Rad 1961, 81) and to have sex with (e.g., once outside of Eden, Adam knew his wife Eve; Gen. 4:1). The claim that the serpent is the most ‘arum thus means that it has competence in both the areas of wisdom and sexuality/fertility. By eating of the tree of “knowledge” (da‘ath, cf. yada‘), the humans are thus exposed to both spheres of knowledge—wisdom and fertility—much like the

Wisdom for those in the image of God 71 serpent who was the most clever and naked (dual meanings of the same word, pointed with different vowels, i.e. ‘arum/‘arom). After the humans eat the fruit, “then the eyes of both were opened,” signifying a new level of awareness and perception (Gen. 3:7a). The next statement, “and they knew (wayyede‘u, from yada‘) that they were naked (‘erummim, from ‘arum),” indicates that their new knowledge includes sexual awareness (Gen. 3:7b). That is, both the etymological description of the serpent and the name of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Bad) point to what the humans will gain: both sexual knowledge (leading to fertility) and wisdom, which includes at minimum some practical knowledge. This is captured by the scene in which the man and woman first realize they are naked (i.e., they have sexual knowledge, since recognition of nakedness implies sexual awareness) and then sew together leaves for clothes (i.e., they now have technical knowledge).10 Henceforth, they will not only have technical knowledge and sexual knowledge, but also moral knowledge (Scult et al. 1986, 118–119, 124). Immediately outside of Eden, these meanings of knowledge take effect, first as the man “knew” his wife and they had children (Gen. 4:1), beginning with Cain. Cain is not only portrayed as the father of those who invented cities, music, animal husbandry, and metal forging (Gen. 4:17–22), but also as the first offspring to face a great moral dilemma. Knowing that Cain was angry at the favor YHWH had for his brother, the deity tells Cain: “Behold, sin is lurking at your door. Its desire is for you … but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7). Spoiler alert: he doesn’t. Yet, well before the humans have their coming-of-age moment, the serpent is already both clever and naked, or ‘arum/‘arom. The woman and the man “who was with her” are, by contrast, quite naïve (Gen. 3:6). The serpent shares its wisdom when it tells the human animals something vital relating to the sphere of moral knowledge: “God knows that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing (yod‘ey, from yada‘) good and [bad]” (Gen. 3:5; NRSV). The veracity of this statement is confirmed later even by YHWH,11 who states: “’adam has become like one of us, knowing (lada‘ath) good and bad” (3:22; Moberly 1988, 1–27). Rather than being duped by a trickster, a traditional misreading of the passage, the woman is in fact educated by a wise creature. The woman eats this fruit precisely because “the woman saw … it was desired to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). It is “for knowing” (lehaskil); and, as Meyers has argued, this is the beginning of the woman’s initiative to become wiser, an effort that is to be applauded and not shamed (1988, 92).12 Certainly, understanding the distinction between good and bad is the start of wisdom, a motif on which the biblical wisdom tradition rests. However, the serpent knows even more than the difference between good and bad: it appears to understand what it is that God knows. It is the serpent, the human pair’s wisdom teacher, who reveals to them not just what will happen to them when they eat the fruit, but even what God thinks about this: “God knows (yode‘a) that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing (yod‘ey) good and [bad]” (Gen. 3:5; NRSV). It is of paramount significance that God later affirms the veracity of the serpent’s claim, saying: “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad” (Gen. 3:22).

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The divine plural in this statement has drawn the attention of a plethora of interpreters, who posit that this is the “royal we” (a wholly unconvincing argument), a remnant of Israelite polytheism, or a plural directed to the divine retinue of angels—or, in Christian theology, evidence of one member of the Trinity speaking to the others (a problematic interpretation not just on historicalcritical grounds but also on theological grounds). Another option is that God’s statement indicates that there is a plurality of beings who know good and bad: “’adam has become like one of us, knowing good and bad” (Gen. 3:22). From a history of religions perspective, the plural name likely derives from an Israelite consolidation of the myriad of Canaanite gods, chief of whom of course is El, into a single deity (Smith 2002, 32–42). I suggest that the simplest reading of the whole story is to deal with the characters who have already been introduced: the knowledgeable serpent has eaten of the tree and God is speaking to it here. This reading resonates with role of the serpent known from the Old Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, which few would debate profoundly informed Genesis 2– 3 (Charlesworth 294–295). That snake stole from Gilgamesh the plant of eternal life—aptly named “The-Old-Will-Be-Made-Young,” throwing off its skin afterwards to demonstrate that it has a new ability to rejuvenate (XI: 279–289). However, the whole premise of Gilgamesh is that immortality is only afforded to gods. Save for the hapless Utnapishtim and his wife, Gilgamesh is fated to die even though he is only one-third human. Thus, once the snake in Gilgamesh eats The-Old-Will-Be-Made-Young, it joins the ranks of immortal beings. If the serpent in Genesis 3 has similarly eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad as well as from the Tree of Life/Immortality, then the serpent is here associated with wisdom as well as with regeneration, a pervasive motif well known in the ancient Levant and Egypt. The Eden tale therefore ends with God speaking to the serpent, jointly planning to keep the humans out of Eden using cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the way. In fact, the “flame of the whirling sword” may itself be related to or identical with the seraphim, the flaming serpents who flank the throne of God in Isaiah’s vision; Hendel (746) argues it is at least a similar kind of fiery divine being (Isa. 6; Gen. 3:24). Accordingly, Davies (1986, 57) argues that the serpent “appeared as the serpent of glory, ‘one of the divine beings’ who saved and imparted wisdom to the world.” Such a reading of the animal prompts me to wonder whether the serpent should also be added to the list of divine theophanies in the Hebrew Bible that Kuntz (1967) has identified, although it lacks other features of the theophany Gattung, or form. Regardless, this reading of the serpent as a divine wisdom teacher does make sense of numerous curiosities in the Eden tale. The serpent knows some things that God knows. It also knows the effects of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. Using a Socratic-like method, it asks the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’” (Gen. 3:1). After she wrongly replies that they may eat of any tree of the garden but that the tree in the middle would cause them to die that day, even if they just touched it, the serpent corrects her by saying: “You will not die” (Gen. 3:4). As several commentators have noted, the serpent is being truthful (Moberley 4; Batto 1992, 59;

Wisdom for those in the image of God 73 Charlesworth 290, 310). First, the humans do not die that day. Second, the serpent correctly notes: “God knows (yode‘a) that as soon as you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing (yod‘ey) good and bad” (Gen. 3:4). Third, if the serpent ate from the tree and did not die, it is in fact telling Eve the truth from the vantage point of its own experience. Having knowledge of good and bad is a necessary but not sufficient cause of wisdom: the tree is not called the Tree of Wisdom. Once humans have knowledge, what they do with it is key; and after eating from the tree the man and woman hide from God, feel fear and shame, and then shift blame onto others (Gen. 3:8–13). Adam does not act wisely “post-knowledge” when he blames “the woman whom you [God] gave to be with me” for his eating the fruit (Gen. 3:12). While the woman has shown some intellectual initiative as compared to the man—since she “perceives the desirability of procuring wisdom” (Meyers 92)— she too does not act wisely when she states of her teacher, “the serpent tricked me” (Gen. 3:13). Only the serpent blames no one, and thus perhaps still acts wisely in remaining silent. At first glance this positive interpretation of the serpent would appear to be contradicted by the curse God places on it: Because you have done this, cursed (’arur) are you among all the animals and among all the wild creatures (chayyat); upon your belly you shall go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman. (Gen. 3:14–15)13 Yet ’arur, one of three terms translated as “curse,” does not necessarily indicate a punishment. Rather, it means “to bind,” and thus it can describe a state of affairs that is to be fated and which may already exist (BDB, Brown et al. 2005, 76; cf. Kitz 2014, 138–139).14 In this case, God’s declaration to the serpent describes two fates that have already been set in motion. First, enmity between the serpent and human beings has already occurred, since the woman has blamed the serpent for all of her bad behavior (signifying that one can possess knowledge without wisdom). Second, of all the animals, only the serpent will go forth on its belly, with the command “dust shall you eat all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:14).15 Since humans don’t typically like eating dust, we tend to read this as a punishment. However, throughout the text of Genesis 1–3, dust or ‘aphar is the very source of life (cf. Amzallag 2017).16 Humankind was created out of ‘aphar, and shortly after this proclamation to the serpent, God tells the man: “You are ‘aphar, and from ‘aphar you will return” (Gen. 3:19). Moreover, God tells the serpent that all the days of your life (kol-yemey chayyecha), you will eat ‘aphar, the source of life and the abode of death (Gen 3:14).17 This is far deeper than just an etiological folktale about why snakes crawl on the ground. Indeed, the fate dictated to the serpent is deeply intertwined with its role as a figure of eternal life, the consumer of the locus of life and death. This makes the serpent a fitting flaming instrument to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

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Humans as b’tselem Elohim While humans and other animals share much in common, Genesis 1 does give humans the sole distinction of being made in the image of God: “And God created humankind (’adam), male and female, in the image of God (b’tselem Elohim) [God] created them” (1:26–27). However, what exactly this entails is not immediately obvious. As we have seen, being made in the image of God does not necessarily entail our intellectual and moral superiority over other animals. I have argued that according to Genesis 1–3 the serpent was at one point wiser than humans and possibly remained more moral and divine. The creation of ’adam in Genesis 2 begins and ends with a job description. For the human dirtling, ’adam from the dust of the ’adamah, taking care of what else comes forth from the ground or ’adamah is our very raison d’être. In fact the existence of the original garden is predicated on having us as a gardener: no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no human (’adam) to till the ground (’adamah). (Gen. 2:5; NRSV) It is for this reason we were made: The LORD God formed the human (’adam) from the dust of the ground (’adamah) … The Lord God planted a garden (gan) in Eden … and placed there the human (’adam) whom He had formed; then from the soil (’adamah) the LORD God caused to grow every tree. (Gen. 2:7–8; my translation) Our job could not be more clear: “The LORD God took the human (’adam) and placed the human in the garden in Eden, to till it and preserve it” (Gen. 2:15; my translation). The garden is then populated with all of the land and air animals, each of which also come forth from the ’adamah: “out of the ’adamah the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air” (2:19). Originally God created the other animals as a potential “helper as a partner” for the ’adam; but they were not a full match for the human, and thus the job of sustaining the garden was given to the male and female of the ’adam species, that is, Adam and Eve (2:18). Together, we are ’adam in charge of all other entities created out of the ’adamah, all the plants and land animals. This lofty conception of humanity’s role is rooted in the ancient Near Eastern conception that the task of tending the garden was the greatest of honors. Gardens were associated with palaces and temples, such that “Mesopotamian kings were provided with the sovereignty-title … nu-kiki/nukaribu, or ‘gardener’” (Bauks 2012, 295). In an arid climate, a garden or paradise—from the Persian pardes or “wildlife park, defined area”—demanded much cultivation and, often, great expense. Elaborate gardens were therefore firmly associated with royal precincts,

Wisdom for those in the image of God 75 and Assyrian kings took great pains to save a vast range of plants and animals in their gardens that originated from their whole governed realm (Bauks 295; Harkins 2012, 208–210). This leads Bauks to state simply: “The royal task was to save the garden” (295). In Genesis 2–3, this garden is elevated to a realm containing all the plants, trees, and other land and air animals. Being a caretaker or gardener is such an elevated responsibility that Jewish pseudepigraphical texts such as 1 Enoch 32 depict a divine garden that only angels can access until the end of time. According to Jubilees 4:23–24, the ancient hero Enoch is taken to live in the Garden of Eden as the highest accolade: “He was taken from human society, and we led him into the Garden of Eden for [his] greatness and honor.” In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the reciter of the hymns known as the Hodayot describes himself as a gardener, and he thanks God for setting him “at the source of flowing waters in a dry land … (at) a watered garden (umashqi gan)” (1QH XVI 5.48–51).18 To live in a divine garden is to live in paradise, and tending the creatures and plants that live in it is an honor and a great privilege. To be made in the image of God is to act as the caretaker over creation, a role that includes both males and females, both created in God’s image (Gen. 1:27). However, the concept of human as gardener—’adam, caring for the produce and offspring of the ’adamah—has been so misunderstood and mistranslated that the very verse explaining our job has been utilized to justify the destruction of ecosystems and the exploitation of natural resources. Genesis 1:28 reads: God blessed [the humans] and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and subdue (vekivshuah) it; and have dominion (urdu) over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” From the common English translations of “subdue/master” for vekivshuah (from kavash) and “dominion/rule” for urdu (from radah), Habel (6) and other ecotheologians have concluded that “rule in Hebrew involves the forceful exercise of power” and “the verb ‘subdue’ (kavash) is also a term that reflects the exercise of force. There is no suggestion of stewardship or care in this term.” Accordingly, anti-environmental Christian groups such as the evangelical Cornwall Alliance can recommend that “We affirm that one way of exercising godly dominion is by transforming raw materials [e.g., oil and gas] into resources and using them to meet human needs” (emphasis added).19 However, while the verbs kavash and radah do occur in some military contexts in the Bible, both the range of meaning of the Hebrew terms and the context of the passage in Genesis suggest this is an erroneous English translation. The Hebrew for vekivshuah (from kavash) refers to bringing a land under control in order to rule it, as when Joshua and the Israelites took over the promised land (Josh. 18:1). Again, urdu (from radah) literally just means “to rule,” as when “[Solomon] rodeh the whole region … and he had peace on all his borders roundabout” (1 Kgs. 5:4). We may read exploitation into this text when we equate ruling with hierarchical subjugation of those under the ruler, but this is a poor way to rule.

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Moreover, what immediately follows Genesis 1:28 suggests that verse 28 should be read another way: God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the beings on the earth (chayyat ha’aretz), to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is a living soul (nefesh chayyah), I give all the green plants for food.” And it was so. And God saw all that He had made, and found it to be very good (tov me’od). (Gen. 1:29–30) Rather than our dominion being a license for exploitation, being in the image of God means that men and women are given the task of maintaining a peaceful, even vegan world created by God. All parts of the system were created good, tov. Put altogether, they were tov me’od, very good—a whole interlocking, functioning ecosystem in which all the parts work together harmoniously (Scult et al. 123–124).20

Humans, squandered knowledge, and the climate This original ideal world, according to the biblical narrative, did not last. Genesis relates that after humankind gained knowledge of the good and the bad, the first human born out of our new knowledge about sex could have mastered sin, but instead chose to kill his brother (Gen. 4:8).21 Eventually, “every inclination devised by [humankind’s] mind was only bad all the time” (Gen. 6:5). God decided to blot humans out “together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky,” saying, “for I regret that I made them” (6:1–7). The other animals suffered a terrible punishment because of human choices. Human custodianship over the ’eretz or planet earth had failed and was removed. Only the man Noah was put in charge of a tiny microcosm, the animals in the ark. After the flood God makes a new covenant, one that is almost always misremembered as God spreading a rainbow in the sky while he tenderly promises to protect humankind.22 In fact, God says: Never again will I doom the ground (’adamah) because of humankind (’adam), since the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature (’et-kol-chay), as I have done. (Gen. 8:21–22; NRSV) Humans choose evil; but God will not destroy the ground or all of the other animals on our account, since God knows what we are capable of. God then blesses Noah and his descendants with a transformation of the original plan for humans, but with a realistic accession to human wickedness: “Be fertile and increase, and fill the earth (ha’eretz). The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the animals (chayyat) of the earth (ha’eretz)” (Gen. 9:1–2). Instead of showing God’s tender love for humans, this post-flood covenant demonstrates that God had come to believe

Wisdom for those in the image of God 77 that humans will fail at the kind of custodianship for which we were created. The rainbow in the sky appears as a sign that God promises Noah and “every living creature (kol-nefesh chayyah) that is with you” that there will never again be a flood that destroys every living thing (Gen. 9:12–17). In the overall pattern of the flood story, human wickedness triggering a natural weather disaster in which both animals and the ground suffer is firmly ensconced in the later Mosaic covenant. Deuteronomy 28 makes it clear that Israel’s behavior and ability to follow the commandments in the law is tied up with the weather in a dynamic system, producing either blissful fertility or punishing blight. Using a casuistic “if/then” formula, Moses tells the Israelites that if they obey all the commandments (rabbinically determined to be 613), then “the LORD will open for you His bounteous store, the heavens, to provide rain for your land in season” (Gen. 28:12). If they fail to do so, then “The skies above your head shall be copper and the land (ha’eretz) under you iron. The LORD will make the rain of your land dust, and sand shall drop on you from the sky, until you are wiped out” (Gen. 28:23–24). Later prophets appear to have accepted this climate formula unhesitatingly. The prophet Hosea will complain about the people’s immorality by saying: False swearing, dishonesty, and murder, and theft and adultery are rife; crime follows upon crime! For that, the earth (ha’eretz) is withered: Everything living on it languishes—beasts of the field and birds. Of the sky—even the fish of the sea perish. (Hos. 4:3; JPS) Put simply, when humans act immorally, disaster results for all—the other animals, plants, and even the earth itself. This formula is baked into the covenant. Prophets that pictured an end time to regular history continually hoped that someday humankind would once again fulfill our original role as nurturing caretaker of the earth. Hosea prophesied: In that day, I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ’adamah; I will also banish bow, sword, and war from the land. Thus I will let them lie down in safety. (Hos. 2:20) Those to whom safety is extended clearly includes all categories of land and air animals, including the creeping serpents of the ’adamah, and in Hosea 4:3 the prophet even shows concern for the fish. Similarly, Isaiah portrays the eschatological time to come by describing a state of widespread knowledge and peace among all the creatures, including serpents, land animals, and humans: The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf, the lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them … The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or

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Wisdom and knowledge entail understanding our original role as the dirtling ’adam, nurturer and sustainer of all the produce and animal offspring of the ’adamah on a peaceable earth. The careful inclusion of all kinds of animals in this eschatological portrait is the culmination of the high regard that the Hebrew Bible shows for animals, which are sometimes portrayed as being wiser, more moral, and even more spiritually advanced than humans. One more example must suffice to show that this view extends to other non-human animals as well. In Numbers, Balaam’s donkey refuses to pass an angel blocking their way, but Balaam cannot see what the donkey sees. He beats the donkey three separate times for refusing to go on the path on which the angel stands. Then “the LORD opened the ass’s mouth.” What is most instructive, however, is not that a donkey is given the ability to speak, but rather what the donkey says: DONKEY: What have I done to you that BALAAM: You have made a mockery of

you have beaten me these three times? me! If I had a sword with me, I’d kill

you. Look—I am not the donkey that you have been riding all along until this day?! Have I ever treated you this way?! BALAAM: No. (Num. 22:21–39; JPS) DONKEY:

There is an ass in this story, and it isn’t the donkey. The donkey is portrayed as understanding the difference between what is good (avoiding the angel, serving Balaam, demanding a modicum of respect) and what is bad (the way she is unfairly treated by Balaam). She also understands the complex ethical concepts of reciprocity and fairness. The angel clearly thinks better of the donkey than he does the man, telling Balaam later, “If she had not shied away from me, you are the one I should have killed, while sparing her” (Num. 22:23–35). The book of Job, perhaps the pinnacle of the wisdom corpus, also displays this same kind of respect for non-human animals and the same lower regard for humans. At the end of the book, God starts asking Job a series of rhetorical questions, beginning: “Is it by your wisdom (hamibiynatecha, from binah) that the hawks grow their pinions?” (Job 39:26). This query is placed in parallel with questions about the limits of human power: i.e., “Is it by your command that the eagle soars?”; “Can you dominate a wild ox or wild donkey?”; “Did you give the horse his strength?” Job is made to realize that, as a human, he doesn’t even know “the season when the mountain goats give birth,” something well within his orbit of experience (Job 39:1). Although the main purpose of the questions may be to put Job in his place, God also vividly conveys that animals have their own autonomy and spheres of knowledge, irrespective of how this may or may not serve humans. Job reminds us that “the wild ass … scoffs at the tumult of the city, does not hear the shouts of the

Wisdom for those in the image of God 79 driver” (Job 39:7). The answer to God’s question “Would the wild ox agree to serve you?” is an emphatic no; neither does human knowledge cause the hawk to fly. The questions are unsettling for their lack of anthropocentrism. As a canon, then, the Hebrew Bible attests that the land and air animals— human and non-human—were all created from the same soil, all partake of living soul, and all have their own kinds of wisdom and autonomy. To be made “in the image of God” means that human animals should act in our capacity as caretaker of this whole tov meod, or very good world—including the garden, the land animals, air animals, and sea creatures.

Conclusion: a Jewish and Christian eco-theology In his famous essay on the historical roots of the ecological crisis, Lynn White Jr. blamed our modern state of industrialized devastation of the environment on the influence of Christianity, calling it “the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen” (White 1967, 1205). According to him, the Western form of Christianity has been corrupted by a biblical idea in Genesis: Man named all the animals, thus establishing his dominance over them. God planned all of this explicitly for man’s benefit and rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purposes. And, although man’s body is made of clay, he is not simply part of nature: he is made in God’s image. (White 1207) Although White may have been correct in asserting that the traditional interpretation of Genesis has lent itself to anti-environmental civilizational patterns of development, this is not inherent to the text itself. A comprehensive understanding of wisdom in the Hebrew Bible begins at the beginning of time (Die Urzeit) with humankind’s original identity as a dirtling created with the purpose “to till it and sustain it,” the “it” referring to a garden of vegan animals and fecund plants and trees (Gen. 2:15). Our role as ’adam is to care for the other offspring of the ’adamah, and even the fish of the sea. From a canonical perspective, wisdom culminates in the end of history (Die Endzeit), when “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord” as children lead a world in which babies and serpents play together and there is no hurt or destruction (Isa. 11:6–9). Meanwhile, the Bible tells stories in which human obedience to the Mosaic covenant brings fertility or, conversely, in which human wickedness leads to climate disaster and the destruction of many plants and animals. The present biblical interpretation not only challenges the traditional understanding of the Bible’s position on human dominion, wisdom, and distinctiveness, it also allows for the theological “greening” of Judaism and Christianity on solid scriptural grounds, with potent implications for pressing environmental ethics and actions.23 Given that most scientists agree we have but ten or so years to avoid planetary catastrophe, it could be quite important to recognize that since we are

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the nefesh chayyah who can burn fossil fuels, Genesis also understands humans to be the animals with the unique responsibility to use our knowledge to ensure that the planet thrives. It should also be humbling to read anew that it is the serpent, who crawls on the ground and at whose head we strike (Gen. 3:15), who once knew more than us, who perhaps handled that knowledge better than we did, and who is wiser for it.

Notes 1 For instance, centuries of Christian theology was influenced by Thomas Aquinas, who believed that the command “Thou shalt not kill” refers to humans only: “we do not take it as referring to trees, for they have no sense, nor to irrational animals, because they have no fellowship with us” (Summa Theologica II-II, q. 64). 2 While in the original setting of composition the texts in Genesis 1–3 do not envision the serpent as Satan, this idea is present in both Jewish and Christian texts beginning with the first century, such as Life of Adam and Eve 17, Wisdom of Solomon 2:24; Revelation 12:9, 20:2; Justin, Dial. 124; Origen, Princ. 3.2.1, and rabbinic literature. 3 This idea was first presented to me in conversation with Aydeet Mueller, another of J. Kenneth Kuntz’s students. May her memory be always for a blessing; this chapter is dedicated to her as well as to Ken Kuntz. 4 Consider the evidence of the Egyptian Book of the Dead (Book of Coming Out by Day; Budge 1960). 5 Following Joines 252–253, 255. 6 This papyrus is dated to the twenty-first Dynasty, ca. 1050 BCE, from Thebes (BM 10010). 7 The birds may come from the waters above the dome here, but in the second creation story they are formed from the ’adamah. See Genesis 1:21–22, 2:19. 8 For various philosophical positions of the distinction between humans and other animals see Treanor 2015. Judaism will argue over whether only humans have a neshamah. 9 This association between the serpent and wisdom continues to the late first century at least. The author of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus tell his disciples to “be as wise as serpents” (phrovimou hôs hoi opfieis; Matt. 10:16). The various Jewish Aramaic targums range from extremely negative (“the serpent was more skilled in evil” by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan) to very positive (“The serpent was wiser than all the beasts” in Targum Neofiti). See Charlesworth 292. 10 The entire episode plays on the scene in the Epic of Gilgamesh in which Enkidu, post-sexual encounter, is taught by the harlot to wear clothes for the first time after previously having run around with the animals unclothed. 11 “Him”self is inaccurate theologically since Genesis 1:27 portrays God as creating humankind in God’s image, “male and female,” but I retain the usage to translate the Hebrew pronoun hu, the default pronoun since Hebrew lacks a neuter gender option. 12 Here Meyers also points out that, compared to the man, the woman is portrayed as being more intelligent and proactive. 13 Note that I am employing the approach of canonical criticism, taking the final text as we have it, and not assuming that this passage was interpolated by later writers. However, the poetic form of the curses could account for a different stylistic hand. 14 Cf. Kitz, who sees this as a punishment against the snake. My reading is driven by the meaning of eating dust, which is not necessarily a negative outcome in this literary text. Moreover, as Kitz notes, this formula is used only twice by God in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 3:14 and 4:11, and in the second of these, when God proclaims that Cain is “cursed from the ground,” the meaning is similarly complex. 15 The word translated as “belly,” gachon, is used only twice in the Bible—here in Genesis 3:15 and in Leviticus 11:42, as contrasted with swarming animals with legs.

Wisdom for those in the image of God 81 16 We need not accept Amzallag’s whole argument here that ‘aphar is not dirt but metallic ore to see that ‘aphar has positive connotations. However, Amzallag’s contention that ‘aphar as ore is associated with wisdom is interesting. 17 Moreover, the meaning of “all the days of your life” (kol-yemey chayyecha) may draw on the meaning of day or yom as “eternity.” 18 Translation in Harkins 225–229. 19 https://cornwallalliance.org. 20 One of my students at James Madison University, Nicholas Anguiano, brought my attention to this whole system perspective during a discussion in our Religion and Ecology course. 21 Note that in the Genesis Eden story, knowledge of sex brings birth, which inevitably brings death. Thus both God and the serpent tell the truth: eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad will bring death (via birth), but not immediate death on the day that Eve and Adam touch it. 22 Not incidentally, this misremembered interpretation has shaped US climate policy. See Flannery 2016b. 23 Taylor advises us to turn from the Abrahamic religions, even “green” varieties, toward “dark green” religions that put the environment at the center, such as some neopagan and indigenous traditions. However, with over 50 percent of the world turning to the Hebrew Scriptures as an authoritative guide, further greening Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is essential to our collective future. See Taylor 2010, 180–202.

References Amzallag, Nissim. 2017. “The Forgotten Meaning of ‘a-pa-r in Biblical Hebrew.” JAOS 137, no. 4: 767–783. Batto, Bernard F. 1992. Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition. Louisville: John Knox. Bauks, Michaela. 2102. “Sacred Trees in the Garden of Eden and Their Ancient Near Eastern Precursors.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 3: 267–301. Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. 2005. The Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Budge, E. A. Wallis. 1960. The Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript of the Papyrus of ANI, the Translation into English. New York: Bell. Charlesworth, James. 2010. The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized. New Haven: Yale University Press. Davies, Le Grande. 1986. Serpent Imagery in Ancient Israel: The Relationship between the Literature and the Physical Remains. PhD diss., University of Utah. Faraone, Christopher A. 2018. The Transformation of Greek Amulets in Roman Imperial Times. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Faulkner, Raymond O. 1985. The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. Revised ed. London: British Museum. Flannery, Frances. 2016a. “’Talitha Qum!’ An Exploration of the Image of Jesus as Healer-Physician-Savior in the Synoptic Gospels in Religion to the Asclepius Cult.” In Coming Back to Life in Mediterranean Antiquity, edited by C. Daniel-Hughes and F. Tappenden. Montreal: McGill University Press. Flannery, Frances. 2016b. “Senators, Snowballs, and Scripture: The Bible and Climate Change.” In The Bible and Political Debate, edited by Frances Flannery and Rodney Werline, 61–74. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

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Habel, Norman C. and Peter Trudinger, eds. 2008. Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Harkins, Angela Kim. 2012. Reading with an “I” to the Heavens: Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions. Ekstasis 3. Berlin: De Gruyter. Handy, Lowell. 1992a. “Serpent: Religious Symbol.” In Anchor Bible Dictionary5: 1113– 1116, edited by D. N. Freedman.. New York: Doubleday. Handy, Lowell. 1992b. “Serpent: Bronze.” In Anchor Bible Dictionary5: 1117, edited by D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday. Hendel, Ronald S. 1999. “Serpent.” In Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible: Second Extensively Revised Edition, edited by K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, and P. W. van der Horst, 745–747. Leiden: Brill. IPBES. 2019. Summary for Policymakers of the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Bonn: IPBES. Joines, Karen R. 1968. “The Bronze Serpent in the Israelite Cult.” JBL 87: 245–256. Keel, Othmar, and Christoph Uehlinger. 1998. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israël, translated by Thomas H. Trapp. Minneapolis: Fortress. Kitz, Anne Marie. 2014. Cursed Are You! The Phenomenology of Cursing in Cuneiform and Hebrew Texts. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1967. The Self-Revelation of God. Philadelphia: Westminster. Linzey, Andrew. 1995. Animal Theology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. McDaniel, Jay. 1994. “The Garden of Eden, the Fall, and Life in Christ: A Christian Approach to Ecology.” In Worldviews and Ecology: Religion, Philosophy, and the Environment, edited by M. E. Tucker and J. A. Grim, 71–82. New York: Orbis. Meshel, Ze’ev. 1979. “Did Yahweh Have a Consort?” BAR 5, no. 2: 24–34. Meyers, Carol. 1988. Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Woman in Context. New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, Robert D. 2018. The Dragon, the Mountain, and the Nations: An Old Testament Myth, Its Origins, and Its Afterlives. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. Moberly, R. W. L. 1988. “Did the Serpent Get It Right?” JTS 39: 1–27. Nelson, William B.Jr. 2000. “Seraphim.” In Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, edited by D. Noel Freedman, 1186. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Scult, Allen, Michael Calvin McGee and J. Kenneth Kuntz. 1986. “Genesis and Power: An Analysis of the Biblical Story of Creation.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 72, no. 2: 113–131. Smith, Mark S. 2002. The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities in Ancient Israel. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Sweeney, Marvin A. 1996. “Seraphim.” In HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, edited by P. Achetemeier, 935–936. New York: HarperCollins. Taylor, Bron. 2010. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Berkeley: University of California Press. Treanor, Brian. 2015. “The Human Place in the Natural World.” In Being-in-Creation: Human Responsibility in an Endangered World, edited by B. Treanor, B. E. Benson, and N. Wirzba, 1–22. New York: Fordham. Von Rad, Gerhard. 1961. Genesis: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster. White, Lynn. 1967. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155, no. 3767: 1203–1207. Wray, T. J., and Gregory Mobley. 2005. The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil’s Roots. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

5

Wisdom for evangelical Christians Reading the Bible wisely in relation to climate change Chris VanLandingham

The problem Scientific data shows unmistakably that the Earth is warming, the climate is changing, the oceans are rising, and many species are in major decline. Scientific climate experts, almost to a person, find that human behavior is responsible for this data, mostly from the release of carbon into the atmosphere beginning with industrialization over 200 years ago. Atmospheric carbon levels are higher than any time in the previous 1 million years. Nearly each new year brings the news that the previous year was the hottest on record. We are now in what biologists call the sixth mass extinction, with other factors, of course, such as habitat destruction, environmental poisons, and hunting, contributing to the decline of animal species. Since the Southern Realignment and the rise of the Religious Right as a powerful voting bloc in the 1970s and 1980s, evangelicals in the United States have steadily shifted their voting preference to the Republican Party, now the home of economic and social conservatives who have largely dismissed the data on global warming, given an outsized role to oil and gas lobbies, and stymied efforts to limit carbon emissions and the transition to renewable energy. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, white evangelical Protestants are the least likely of all groups to believe that the Earth is warming due to human activity. Some groups, like the Evangelical Environmental Network, have appealed to scripture, theology, and scientific data to attempt to convince disbelieving evangelicals of the seriousness of the climate crisis. Those attempts have largely failed, if we consider that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2016, the candidate who forcefully called global warming a hoax. As President, Trump reversed over 100 environmental regulations, rolled back carbon emissions standards, and pulled the US out of the Paris climate treaty. The International Panel on Climate Change is currently revising upwards its earlier estimates of global average temperature increase, which in 2013 was likely greater than a disastrous 2-degree rise by century’s end (IPCC 2013). At this crucial crossroads for humanity, I address this chapter primarily to the 81 percent of white evangelicals who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and more specifically to future and present evangelical influencers, such as undergraduate theology students, seminarians, and ministers. I hope to show that the Bible, in the way that evangelicals understand and use scripture, and DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-8

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particularly in the very few verses to which evangelicals appeal, does not support the current evangelical indifference/skepticism on human-caused climate change.

The futility of an appeal to literal scripture I grew up as an evangelical and graduated from an evangelical college and seminary, where I focused on biblical languages and literature before obtaining my PhD in early Judaism and early Christianity in the Greco-Roman world. In my experience, many if not most ordained evangelical ministers do not study Greek and Hebrew or attend seminary. I would suggest that most evangelicals follow their parents and continue in the same theology because, seemingly, everyone in their church, family, and circle of friends believes just as they do. The same scenario plays out among Republicans, Democrats, Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, and Hindus. Religious and political ideologies are more an accident of birth than a decision of the will, something that should give us pause as we strive toward objectivity. Given my background and training, it may seem odd that I do not believe a biblical argument carries much validity or weight among evangelicals. Ironically, evangelicalism is built on the foundation of sola scriptura, the Protestant principle of scripture alone as the basis of religious authority; but in practice it is a highly mutable and selective approach to the Bible. Central to evangelicalism is the belief that the Bible is divinely inspired, a belief that is key to understanding the relative inaction of evangelicals regarding climate change. Some evangelicals are fundamentalist in outlook, in the sense that the Bible is completely inerrant on matters ranging from science and history to grammar and spelling. Apart from a few scholars and highly educated ministers, most fundamentalist-leaning evangelicals do not realize that their modern translation of the Bible represents an interpretation of a composite set of ancient texts assembled by scholars from many disparate manuscripts. Because a complete original manuscript of the Bible does not exist, biblical scholars must make thousands of textual decisions just to arrive at one composite Hebrew and Greek text that can be translated into the modern languages. Moreover, the existing manuscripts of various books, the basis of the English translation, show clear signs of scribal error and manipulation (Ehrman 2005). Unfortunately, this information is not shared in most religious communities, so that congregants operate under a misconception about what the Bible actually represents. They then take their misguided theological assumptions to the voting booths or into influential positions in government, shaping policy that ignores scientific data on global warming and its consequences for Earth’s climate. More educated evangelicals take the position that the Bible is inerrant only for faith and practice, which means that the Bible is trustworthy on the essentials of Christianity. Christians can trust the Bible in the story of salvation history, that Jesus is God’s son, that he died for their sins, and was raised up on the third day. Biblical passages that indicate the Earth is flat, immovable, and young are not worth quibbling over, and usually ignored. On issues deemed to be important,

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such as salvation and standards of Christian behavior, the Bible is still considered to be inerrant. Given this hermeneutic or interpretive lens, it is both bewildering and inconsistent that evangelicals even use the Bible, much less only a few obscure passages, to justify inaction on climate change. On the issue of climate change, evangelicals should seek an objective understanding of the Bible, without manipulation or selective reading. This task is far more difficult than it might first appear, however. Reading the Bible objectively is relatively new in Christian history, confined mostly to the modern era. For most of Christian history, allegorical interpretations prevailed in mainstream Christian commentary and interpretation. Many Christians today do not question Paul’s allegorical interpretation of Sarah and Hagar or the spiritual rock that followed the Israelites in the desert (1 Cor. 10:4), but would be shocked to learn the lengths to which allegory, numerology, and methods of subjective readings have dominated biblical interpretation since the first century, mostly because the familiar interpretations from past centuries focus on the literal reading of the Bible, such as in the Genesis creation account, the central place of the Earth in the universe, and the various miraculous events in Israel’s history. As is well known, Galileo did not run afoul of Church authorities for disagreeing with the prevailing understanding of the Song of Solomon as an allegorical interpretation of Christ’s love for the Church, but for contradicting the literal interpretation of 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalms 93:1, 96:10, and 104:5, and Ecclesiastes 1:5—passages that seem to indicate the Earth does not move. Consistent with past practice, evangelicals employ a mix of hermeneutical strategies seemingly for no other purpose than to find the most acceptable interpretation. Of course, evangelicals claim to champion the literal interpretation of scripture against liberals who attempt to allegorize into meaninglessness every fundamental and historic Christian doctrine. However, despite their claim to literalism, evangelicals clearly endorse various subjective or non-literal ways of reading the Bible. Michael Drosnin’s New York Times best seller The Bible Code (1998) is nothing close to a literal interpretation. The code is actually a way of selecting letters at equidistant intervals to find new words that reveal a hidden meaning missed by all previous generations of Christians. Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez (2000) sold 9 million copies and was awarded the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association Gold Medallion Book of the Year in 2001. Wilkinson focuses on an obscure reference in Judah’s genealogy in 1 Chronicles 4:9–10, in which his descendant, Jabez, asks and receives a blessing from God. Instead of interpreting the text as an example of how God answers an honorable man’s prayer, Wilkinson asserts that the verses contain a hidden formula for a miracle to anyone who would repeat it daily over the next 30 days. Even more successful are books that attempt to interpret biblical prophecies about the End Time. Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) was one of the best-selling non-fiction(!) books of the 1970s. Lindsey read the Bible subjectively and selectively, using a newspaper to guide his allegorical interpretation in order to track prophesied world events taking place now that the modern State of Israel has been established. Even more successful in terms of

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sales is Jerry B. Jenkins’s and Tim LaHaye’s 16-book series Left Behind (1995– 2007), published by Tyndale House, resulting in sales of over 100 million copies and the production of four movies. The series belongs to a Stephen King-like Christian horror genre that subjectively interprets obscure references in the book of Revelation. In the anxiety of the age of Y2K and 9/11, evangelicals apparently find comfort in a storyline that abandons the literal interpretation of the Bible. Aside from the demand for non-literal interpretations of the Bible, these books demonstrate that evangelicals count on a kind of deus ex machina; it is therefore no wonder they seem to lack interest in solving real existential threats. Whether the Bible is read as a code waiting to be broken or a fast-paced, sci-fi action thriller, alternative interpretations in support of the stewardship of creation are apparently less engaging. Clearly, it is more exciting to “fill the earth and subdue it” than it is to be caretakers (Gen. 1:28; 2:15). Interpretations of End-Time prophecy embrace some version of 2 Peter 3:10, based on Isaiah 65:17: But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. So why bother to pick up the neighborhood trash when a hurricane is in the forecast for tomorrow? Of course, evangelicals disagree among themselves over the interpretation of scripture. Sizeable pluralities, even majorities, have espoused deadly interpretations of scripture in the past; today it is the same with climate change. This should be seriously considered along with the fact that evangelically minded Americans have already used the Bible to justify the genocide of Native Americans; the execution of witches; enslaving Africans; enacting Jim Crow laws; practicing polygyny and the subordination of women; condemning the use of vaccines; battling nature (as in the use of lightning rods); and fighting various wars, including the use of nuclear weapons. At the same time, on almost all these issues evangelically minded Americans have at times used the Bible to try to evidence the opposite. With this inconsistent history, any appeal to scripture loses its usefulness. To complicate matters further, although ascertaining the literal meaning of scripture is supposed to be a goal of determining evangelical practice, on issue after issue these evangelicals have changed their interpretations based on shifting cultural circumstances regardless of any clear mandate in the Bible. For example, over much of the twentieth century, women in church wore a head-covering in obedience to 1 Corinthians 11:8–10. Wearing a veil or head-covering has been a universal practice for Christian women from the first century. While still normative in many churches throughout the world, American evangelical women no longer hold to this rule. It is not that scripture has changed; rather, the cultural environment in America has changed. Women have gained suffrage and started assuming a wider range of public roles; they have joined professions outside the home and gained equal rights under the law. Evangelicals recognize the difficulty

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that this change in practice poses for their biblically centered worldview; yet justifications abound for setting aside what was once a universal reading of the Bible (Grudem 2012). Another example concerns slavery in the US. Sadly, before the Civil War, Southern evangelicals began to question whether slavery—a practice that included kidnapping, assault, murder, and even rape—not as moral or immoral in itself, but whether it was biblical. Sunday after Sunday throughout the antebellum South preachers extolled from scripture that slavery was divinely ordained, that Africans were descended from Ham and therefore cursed by God (Gen. 9:25), and that they were thus deserving of their station in life. Echoing Paul’s orders, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters” (Eph. 6:5), they could claim a biblical basis for slavery. When the environment in the United States began to change on the issue of slavery, Southern evangelicals slowly and begrudgingly came to emphasize scriptures such as “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk. 12:31) and to “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matt. 7:12). Sunday, the Christian “sabbath day,” offers yet another example of ways in which evolving cultural contexts, as opposed to biblical literalism, dictated evangelical practice. However, in order to understand the evangelical American context, it is important to look back at Christian understandings of the sabbath since the early Church. In the second century, as parts of Christianity became more Gentile and less a Jewish sect, Christian writers began referring to Sunday as the Lord’s Day. In 321 CE, the Emperor Constantine made Sunday a day of rest in celebration of Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun. Thereafter, Christians began to apply the biblical commandment to rest on the sabbath (Exod. 20:8–11) to Sunday, such that a Sunday day of rest became normative during the Middle Ages (Swartley 1997). In 1619, the first meeting of the General Assembly of Virginia passed a law regarding proper sabbath observance (Wylie 1905; Blakely 1911). In time, Puritan communities would strictly observe Sunday as a day of rest. The practice expanded further following the Great Awakening, when Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians included Sunday rest in their statements of faith. By the start of the American Revolution, all colonial assemblies had adopted sabbath rest laws banning any business activity or labor short of preparing meals. The nineteenth-century Second Great Awakening led to more encompassing requirements and stricter enforcement by a range of Christian denominations (Wylie; Blakely). By the 1840s, American evangelicals became alarmed by the influx of Irish and German Catholic immigrants, whose sabbath traditions included loud and disorderly, alcohol-induced celebrations. Across the country, hundreds of local associations were founded to protect the Sunday sabbath, finally culminating in a National Lord’s Day Convention in November 1844. John Quincy Adams, president of the Convention, drew an equation between believing in the Bible, observing sabbath rest, and being American, stating: The Sabbath, like the Bible, is to a great extent embedded in our affections, in our most cherished associations, and in its social and civil observance. Almost universally, the places of business and public amusement are

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Various businesses and minority religious groups, especially Jews and Seventh-Day Adventists, challenged the so-called Sunday laws in court as an infringement of their civil and religious freedoms. Generally, however, the State supreme courts upheld Sunday laws. Typical is the opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Mohney v. Cook (1855), which illustrates how the biblical command to rest on the sabbath had been enshrined in a specifically Christian and American legal framework: The declaration that Christianity is part of the law of the land, is a summary description of an existing and very obvious condition of our institutions. We are a Christian people … Regarding [Sunday] as a day necessarily and divinely set apart for rest from worldly employments, and for the enjoyment of spiritual privileges, it is simply absurd to suppose that [Christians] would leave it without any legislative protection from the disorderly and immoral. (26, para. 342; emphasis added) In the case of Sparhawk v. Union Passenger Railway Co. (1867), Judge Strong declared on behalf of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court: [I]f Christianity is a part of the common law, it carries with it a civil obligation to abstain on the Lord’s day from all worldly labor and business, except works of necessity and mercy. Christianity without a Sabbath would be no Christianity.1 By the twentieth century, a Presbyterian minister would affirm that rest on Sunday was viewed by many as quintessentially American: Sabbath breaking is not only an offense against religion, against the Church and against the Head of the Church, but it is also a crime against the Nation and the Nation’s Divine Ruler, in that it is an assault upon an institution that has done more than any other to advance our civilization, is inwrought into the very fiber of the nation’s being, is a necessary condition of our free institutions, and cannot be abolished without producing moral, religious and political chaos. (Wylie 231) Indeed, even though some states had weakened sabbath laws by allowing the sale of certain foods and medicine, only three states had no sabbath laws at all. Sabbath laws around the turn of the century not only restricted business activity and labor, but also generally included bans on all sports, gaming of any kind, horseracing, cockfighting, shooting, hunting, fishing, and any activity that interrupts or disturbs

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others. As late as the 1960s, the US Supreme Court would take up four more Sunday law cases and uphold all the state Sunday laws. Yet even though centuries of social and religious precedent in America had cited the Bible as the basis of legal precedent for Sunday laws of rest, and although this came to be seen as quintessentially American, over the last fifty to sixty years states began to ease Sunday restrictions. Today, almost every Sunday law has been repealed by state legislatures, and, where they still exist, they mostly just ban the sale of alcohol and automobiles on Sunday. Sabbatarianism, once crucially important, was thus swept aside in modern America, just as were head-coverings and slavery. Evangelicals may voice discontent with the growing secularization in the United States, yet evangelicals themselves, with few exceptions, have voluntarily chosen not to observe a Sunday sabbath. Bible-belt evangelicals praise the restaurant chain Chick-fil-A because all its stores are closed on Sunday, only to patronize other restaurants after church. Afterwards, they may stop by Lowe’s or Walmart before heading home to do yardwork (but not Hobby Lobby, the evangelicalowned craft chain closed on Sunday), enjoy professional sports on television, or finish leftover work from the office or school. Many evangelicals work on Sundays without guilt in retail, food service, and other businesses or industries that operate seven days a week. They may take an Uber ride to a Sunday matinee, or fly to another city on Sunday. Similarly, evangelicals have adjusted their practices on birth control, vaccines, divorce, remarriage, and a host of other positions that were once regulated by the Bible. The biblical passages haven’t changed, but evangelical interpretations of plain scripture have.2 If evangelicals were able to alter how they interpret the Bible on the issues noted above, they can rethink the issue of climate change as well. After all, no fundamental doctrine is at stake. Sadly, evangelicals as a whole generally do not want to do the heavy lifting necessary to understand the Bible. Very few evangelicals are willing to grapple with the Bible in its original context, to take all the steps necessary to understand the authors on their own terms, and, most importantly, to allow the chips to fall where they may when what the biblical author intended conflicts with evangelical theology. Except for evangelical professors of religion and their students, most evangelicals do not learn Hebrew or Greek well enough to read the Bible in its original languages. For many evangelicals, the English Bible is the only book worth reading, the only book in the house, and the book that has the final say on truth in whatever field. I had to relearn this lesson after gaining my PhD in my first teaching appointment at an evangelical institution. Not realizing that one’s stance on evolution was a shibboleth on campus, a student asked me during a class discussion if I believed in evolution. I responded that, yes, reputable scholars in the fields of biology, geology, astronomy, and other acknowledge the scientific basis for evolution, and that I find science—and academics in general—to be self-correcting, and therefore trustworthy. Some students were shocked that I would agree with experts over what they perceived to be the clear words of the Genesis creation accounts. That day I learned that some evangelicals believe scientists worldwide

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were conspiring to destroy Christianity using evolution as the vehicle. Those eighteen-year-old university students truly believed that with Bible in hand they were better positioned to decide whether the facts supported evolution, over against the worldwide consensus of university biologists, geologists, and astronomers. Their premise was that experts not only should not be trusted, but they are the enemy. Ironically, expertise may be shunned in one field, but evangelicals will show up in the tens of thousands to hear Joel Osteen or purchase 100 million copies of the The Bible Code.

Sound biblical exegesis or junk theology? Some evangelicals are willing to admit that the Earth is warming, that Antarctica and glaciers are receding, that the Greenland ice sheet is melting, that North Sea summer ice melt is expanding, that oceans are rising, and that many species are not adapting quickly enough to ensure their survival. Some within this group find comfort in the Genesis Flood story, in which God promises never to flood the Earth, interpreting it to mean that God will never destroy humankind using natural means (Gen. 9:8–17). On September 23, 2019, Robert Jeffress, pastor of the megachurch First Baptist, Dallas, who served on former President Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board and White House Faith Initiative, appeared on Fox Radio’s Todd Starnes Show to discuss the United Nations climate summit and youth-led demonstrations and strikes in over 150 countries that sought to appeal to world leaders to do more to combat global warming. Jeffress had words for young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and her imaginary crisis: Somebody needs to read poor Greta Genesis, chapter 9, and tell her the next time she worries about global warming, just look at a rainbow. That’s God’s promise that the polar ice caps aren’t going to melt and flood the world again. (Christian Post, September 25, 2019) Even though connecting rainbows and ice caps seems bizarre, the problem is that the Flood story is just that, a story. Its genre is myth, not fact. Not only is there absolutely no scientific or archaeological evidence for a flood as described in Genesis, the story itself derives undeniably from Babylonian originals that date at least 1,000 years before Genesis and 500 years before the first Hebrew text appeared. I have spent the better part of my adult years trying to convince evangelicals just to read the Flood story in the older Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis Epic, and to devise a theory of biblical inspiration and inerrancy that also accounts for sources such as these. Yet those who do view the similarities between the Genesis and Babylonian accounts as proof of the factual nature of the Flood story, positing that the earlier Babylonian accounts are in error where they depart from Genesis. They hold the much later Genesis account, which they believe to have been preserved orally from Noah all the way down to Moses, to be the accurate version.

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Not recognizing the fluidity of oral traditions in every society, evangelicals read Genesis 1–11 as straightforward history rather than a foundational mythology that introduces the story of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Genesis 12–50.3 As a result, they try to encourage everyone to trust the accuracy of a supposed 1,500-year-old oral tradition about God’s covenant with Noah over and against climate change data. Science is one thing, and the biblical story is another. The centuries-old Christian war against science has not resulted in one single victory (White 1993). Fighting science from the perspective of faith only damages credibility long-term on the issues central to Christianity. Climate change conforms to natural law and is the consequence of human activity; i.e., temperatures are increasing because levels of greenhouse gases are higher than they have been for a million years. By contrast, the Flood story explains how God punished humankind on account of its wickedness through a worldwide flood—a flood that covers the entire Earth to the tops of the highest mountains is a miraculous event. Even if we were to take the Flood story as an historical event, it speaks to a completely different context and does not address climate change in our time. In response to the mounting evidence of climate change, some evangelicals find comfort in the general tenor of scripture that God is sovereign, quoting passages such as these: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matt. 10: 29–31) I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I, the LORD, do all these things. Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation may spring up, and let it cause righteousness to sprout up also; I, the LORD, have created it. (Isa. 45:7–8) Biblical assertions of God’s sovereignty, such as these, are misused to excuse humans from any responsibility for global warming and its catastrophic consequences, despite the warnings of science. Not long after the Republican Party lost the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, then White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the evangelical daughter of former Southern Baptist pastor and governor Mike Huckabee, criticized a call for legislation on climate change by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) by telling Fox Network’s Sean Hannity, “I don’t think we’re going to listen to her on much of anything, particularly not on matters that we’re going to leave in the hands of a much, much

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higher authority,” adding, in effect, that humans cannot make the planet uninhabitable because the earth is “in the hands of something and someone much more powerful than any of us” (Nichols 2019). Thus, once again, the choice is presented as acceptance of scientific data or God’s sovereignty. Likewise, in the context of former President Trump’s announcement that the US would pull out of the Paris climate accord, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) told a constituent during a townhall meeting that, while he believed climate change had been occurring since the beginning of time, “as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I am confident that if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it” (Gajahan 2017). Nowhere does the Bible state that God will solve every problem that we create for ourselves; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Smallpox, a virus created essentially from animal husbandry, part of the change in human habits that created civilization, killed somewhere around 300–500 million people, and continued killing people until vaccine programs carried out throughout the 1960s brought about its eradication by 1980. Considering so much tragedy and suffering from just this one infectious disease, divine sovereignty cannot mean that catastrophes do not happen to humankind. And, of course, people do bad things to people as well, without God intervening to stop it. World War I left 20 million dead and helped spread the H1N1 influenza, creating a pandemic that took the lives of up to 100 million additional people. World War II killed 50–80 million people. Counting only two wars and two pandemics, the human toll from these events is roughly the same number humanity may face over the next century from global warming. Why would one suppose that God’s sovereignty would prevent a future catastrophe when it did not prevent past catastrophes? Such logic or faith does not stand up to reason or facts. The story of the Exodus, with God’s miraculous intervention in history to save his people, is an inspiring tale of what we want God’s sovereignty to mean; but then there’s the historical fact of the Holocaust.4 At some level we all know this. While evangelical pundits may defer to God’s sovereignty when it comes to inaction on climate change, the US government spends $1 trillion per year on national defense precisely to prevent bad things from happening. On a personal basis, we don’t rely on God’s sovereignty alone to protect us. We wear seat belts and helmets, just in case. We purchase property insurance. We don’t take selfies with our back to the edge of the Grand Canyon. Generally, we take precautions, much like Jesus did when he refused to jump from the precipice of the Temple.

It is a great pity to be afraid of facts Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) has led the evangelical chorus against the scientific consensus on global warming. The former chair and current senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, Inhofe is best known for claiming in a Senate speech that global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. In fact, this was the title of his 2012 book, The

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Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. In 2015, Inhofe made news by tossing a snowball he collected outside the Capitol to an intern on the Senate floor. The demonstration was part of his speech proving that 2014 was not the hottest year on record, as climate data indicated, and that the planet was not warming. It goes without saying that Inhofe is not a scientist. The five-term senator and career politician with a BA in economics claims to have a better understanding of climate data (because he has given five speeches on the science) than the formally educated, full-time scientists who collect and assess climate data. Inhofe’s assertion that global warming is a hoax is also based on his understanding of God’s sovereignty: “God is still up there … [the] arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous” (Usborne 2015). Oddly, the nebulous idea that God is still up there has no influence on Inhofe’s never-ending quest to increase defense spending. To be consistent, since Inhofe opposes government efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change, then he should also oppose government efforts to provide for a strong national defense. Inhofe cannot have it both ways—either God is sovereign or he is not. Evangelicals have long rejected the consensus of scientific experts in such fields as biology, geology, and astronomy on evolution. They claim that scientists are arrogant elitists who think they are smarter than regular folk. Evangelicals do not challenge the scientific consensus as members of the academy or as those who have acknowledged credentials within the field. Rather, they challenge the scientific consensus from their standpoint as members of the clergy, or as representatives of the fossil fuel industry, or as politicians; but almost always as those without any scientific expertise on the issue. Much of the history of Christianity entails a cycle of rejecting science based on some prooftext from the Bible, eventually acknowledging the veracity of the scientific claim, followed by accepting completely new interpretations of the Bible. For example, early Christians once asserted that the biblical story of the Flood proved that humans could not live on the other side of the Earth. Since scripture is silent on the antipodes, and since it was impossible for Christ to appear at his Second Coming to peoples on both sides of the Earth, Augustine and other Church Fathers argued the antipodes must not exist. Christopher Columbus and the European explorers who followed him to the New World ushered in a period of heightened theological reflection as they discovered peoples and new species of flora and fauna that could not have been on Noah’s Ark. Similarly, whereas the Church once claimed that the Earth was immovable and at the center of the universe, in time this idea gave way to the work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. Once the Church accepted facts for facts, much previous paramount theology simply disappeared; but the Church survived, even if discredited, with a new interpretation of scripture that accounted for ancient theories of the universe. On and on the list goes, with the overturning of previous theology regarding comets, lightning, disease, vaccines and medicine, mental illness, demon possession, and witchcraft. As science disproves old conceptions by appealing to cause and effect

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within the natural universe, theology and biblical interpretation eventually have and will accommodate. Belief in climate change is vastly different from accepting that the universe rotates around the Sun, or that dinosaurs preceded humans, however, because the consequences of denying the facts of climate change are so severe. It does not matter much whether evangelicals believe in evolution; but when evangelicals use their voting power to prevent action on climate change mitigation, all life suffers.

Fools for Christ: revealed versus empirical knowledge Too many evangelicals appear proud to lack credentials to debate scientific, scholarly consensus on global warming. By relying on revelation instead of empirical knowledge, many evangelicals consider themselves better positioned to determine the truth (Hofstadter 1963; Noll 1994; Mooney 2005; Jacoby 2008; Otto 2016; Patterson 2019; Fea 2020). This argument builds on a few passages from the Bible: For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor.1:18–25) At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. (Lk. 10:21) Evangelical and non-evangelical commentators alike agree that these passages specifically pertain to the divine revelation necessary to understand Jesus’s mission and not generally to modern struggles between science and Christianity or to God’s sovereignty placed in opposition to climate change data. These passages address how one is saved from God’s wrath in the last judgment—humanity does not receive salvation by exercising human wisdom, but by acknowledging and acting upon God’s wisdom (Barrett 1968; Conzelmann 1975). In this context,

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God’s wisdom is not discovered from the use of the senses, but by being receptive to the divinely revealed message of the apostles. Historically, such passages reflect the egalitarian message of Jesus and Paul, and the fact that such a message appealed to people without status in Roman-era society. God’s wisdom is free to all without preconditions such as wealth, gender, ethnicity, or education. Nowadays, evangelicals conveniently latch onto these passages when they lack credentials to address disquieting ideas. The mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16) does not give Christians unparalleled mental abilities to win at Jeopardy! or cipher numbers like Mr. Spock. Evangelicals know they must study for years in order to be fluent in a second language. Being a fool for Christ certainly does not mean Christians should avoid schooling or seek a career in fields other than those requiring a high amount of education. Nor does it mean that Christians should not see a physician when ill, a dentist when one has a toothache, an electrician when the house needs rewiring, or a mechanic when the car’s brakes have failed. Christians rely on those with a high amount of expertise whenever they fly, seek medical attention for an injured child, watch the weekend weather forecast, or take a class in physics. Being a fool for Christ is not a reason to ignore climate data; nor is having the mind of Christ a justification to doubt or eschew experts. New Testament authors like Paul and Luke necessarily focus on the revelation of God’s wisdom given Jesus’s imminent appearance as judge of the world. At that moment, human wisdom, for all its value elsewhere, is worthless. With the last judgment around the corner, human wisdom at the time—such as the geometry of aqueducts, a recipe for concrete, the techniques of battlefield surgery, or a just law code—is not germane to the urgency and gravity of the Last Days. In a few centuries, when Christianity wins over the Empire, the Christian emperor Justinian will oversee the codification of Roman law into the Corpus Juris Civilis, which in a sense is a supreme achievement of human wisdom. Thus, the absence of secular or human wisdom in the New Testament is not a judgment on its utter uselessness: just that it served no help securing approbation at the Last Judgment.

There is a better way The anti-climate change stance claimed by most evangelicals as being faithful to God’s word is based on a misunderstanding and misapplication of scripture. Moreover, the confidence evident in their interpretation that scripture assures them that climate change will not result in catastrophic consequences for life on Earth is misplaced and undermined by the history of the how the Bible has been contested in the political and social history of the United States. Not all antebellum ministers used scripture to justify slavery: many Northern abolitionists who were just as devoted to God and reliant on scripture as their Southern counterparts emphasized other portions of the Bible in their argument against slavery. Women’s rights advocates, too, found that scripture supported their cause, and those passages were no less inspired than what moved Phyllis Schlafly’s STOP ERA crowd. So, too, some evangelicals—such as the Evangelical Environmental Network—appeal to scripture to support the idea that creation is good, that God created humans to

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be the stewards of the Earth, and that God established principles to guide how humans interact with other forms of life. A better way to address climate change from the perspective of the Bible is found in 1 Kings 4:29–34, a passage that celebrates true wisdom as the scholarly pursuit of understanding the environment: God gave Solomon very great wisdom, discernment, and breadth of understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone else, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, children of Mahol; his fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations. He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He would speak of trees, from the cedar that is in the Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall; he would speak of animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fish. People came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; they came from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom. [emphasis added] Scribal scholarship is a necessary asset for an early nation state such as Solomon’s Israel. Whereas a warrior-king was paramount in the early stage of the nation’s founding, in time the sage came to be equally important in securing Israel’s existence (Crenshaw 1981). When 1 Kings states that Solomon would “speak of trees, from the cedar that is in the Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall, and of animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fish,” we should recognize such wisdom as equivalent to the domains of expertise of today’s scientists. As the text boasts that “people came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; they came from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom,” we too should seek the advice of scientists when the problem involves science. Solomon’s renowned wisdom was worldly, observational, and experiential, but combined with, or even subservient to, his faith in God (von Rad 1972). Wisdom tells us that there are some people who know more than we do about certain subjects. Only a fool thinks he can fly a Boeing 777 without years of training, remove a brain tumor with training only in economics, or design and build the One World Trade Center listening only to the Holy Spirit. Where today is the evangelical who can wisely speak of trees like Solomon and turn that wisdom into action by advocating for preserving the Amazonian rainforest that is burning down at the rate of a football field every six seconds? (Morton 2020). Where is the evangelical who can wisely speak of animals and birds and reptiles, and apply that wisdom to reverse the rapidly accelerating sixth mass extinction in which 500 species of land animals and 40 percent of insect species are in dire threat of extinction? (Carrington 2020). Where is the evangelical who can wisely speak of fish, and then reduce his or her carbon footprint because ocean warming is bleaching and killing coral reefs and pushing marine life in a permanent migration toward the poles? (Lenoir et al. 2020). Where is the evangelical who can apply wisdom as sensibly as Solomon to solve seemingly intractable problems?

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Let us recall that just at the crucial moment when Solomon took over the throne from his father, David, God appeared to him in a dream, saying: “Ask what I should give you” (1 Kgs. 3:5). Solomon humbly recognized he was ignorant and unprepared to be king, and therefore asked for “an understanding mind … able to discern between good and evil” (1 Kgs. 3:9). Impressed, God granted Solomon’s request. Today humankind is also at a crucial moment in our history. May we, too, have the wisdom to recognize our relative ignorance compared to climate scientists regarding the consequences of inaction in addressing global warming and its disastrous and catastrophic effects on our one home, the planet Earth, which God graciously entrusted to us all.

Notes 1 See also Ex Parte Newman, 1858; Hennington v. Georgia, 1896. 2 Note the biblical justifications for birth control (Gen. 1:28, 38:8–10), smallpox vaccines (1 Chron. 16:12–13), and the use of lightning rods (Psa. 97). 3 Evangelicals recognize that the story of Jesus is told in four different gospels, demonstrating the fluidity of the story of Jesus in oral form before their composition. 4 God’s sovereignty has not protected other species from five mass extinctions, asteroid impacts, explosions of super volcanoes, or climate change.

References Barrett, C. K. 1968. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Harper New Testament Commentaries. New York: Harper. Blakely, W. A. 1911. American State Papers Bearing on Sunday Legislation, Revised and Enlarged Edition. Washington, DC: Religious Liberty Association. Carrington, Damian. 2020. “Sixth Mass Extinction of Wildlife Accelerating, Scientists Warn.” Guardian, June 1. www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/01/ sixth-mass-extinction-of-wildlife-accelerating-scientists-warn. Conzelmann, Hans. 1975. 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress. Crenshaw, James L. 1981. Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction, Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Drosnin, Michael. 1998. The Bible Code. New York: Atria Books. Ehrman, Bart. 2005. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Fea, John. 2020. Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Trump. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Gajahan, Mahita. 2017. “Republican Congressman Says God Will ‘Take Care Of’ Climate Change. TIME. https://time.com/4800000/tim-walberg-god-climate-change/. Grudem, Wayne A. 2012. Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More than 100 Disputed Questions. Sisters, OR: Multnomah. Hofstadter, Richard. 1963. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, New York: Vintage. IPCC. 2013. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by T. F. Stocker, D. Qin, G. K. Plattneret al.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jacoby, Susan. 2008. The Age of American Unreason. New York: Pantheon.

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Lenoir, Jonathan, Romain Bertrandet al.2020. “Species Better Track Climate Warming in the Oceans than on Land.” Nature Ecology and Evolution 4, no. 8: 1–16. doi:10.1038/s41559-020-1198-2. Lindsey, Hal. 1970. The Late Great Planet Earth. Nashville: Zondervan Academic. Mooney, Chris. 2005. The Republican War on Science. New York: Basic Books. Morton, Adam. 2020. “Football Pitch-Sized Area of Tropical Rainforest Lost Every Six Seconds.” Guardian, June 2. www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/02/ football-pitch-area-tropical-rainforest-lost-every-six-seconds. National Lord’s Day Convention. 1845. Abstract of the Proceedings of the National Lord’s Day Convention Held in the City of Baltimore, on the 27th and 28th November 1844. Baltimore: Evangelical Lutheran Church. Nichols, William Bradford. 2019. “What’s Really behind Evangelicals’ Climate Denial?” TheHumanist.com, April 23. https://thehumanist.com/magazine/may-june-2019/fea tures/whats-really-behind-evangelicals-climate-denial. Noll, Mark. 1994. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Otto, Shawn. 2016. The War on Science: Who’s Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It. Minneapolis: Milkweed. Patterson, Thomas E. 2019. How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Pew Research Center. 2015. “Religion and Views on Climate and Energy Issues.” October 22. www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/10/22/religion-and-views-on-climate-andenergy-issues. Swartley, Willard M. 1997. “Sabbath.” In Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, edited by E. Ferguson. Vol. 2. New York: Garland. Usborne, David. 2015. “James Inhofe: Seven Memorable Lines from US’s Most Famous (and Most Influential) Climate Change Denier.” Independent, January 8. www.indep endent.co.uk/news/world/americas/james-inhofe-seven-memorable-lines-us-s-m ost-famous-and-most-influential-climate-change-denier-9966375.html. Von Rad, Gerhard. 1972. Wisdom in Israel. Nashville: Abingdon. White, Andrew. 1993. A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus. Wilkinson, Bruce. 2000. The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life. Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books. Wylie, R. C. 1905. Sabbath Laws in the United States. Pittsburgh: National Reform Association.

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Wisdom for animals and the cosmos The Psalms and “anthropocentric religion” Iain Provan

The opening chapters of Genesis are fundamental to the biblical vision of the world. It is here we first learn to call the day-by-day reality in which we are involved Creation, rather than Nature. “In the beginning God created …” (Gen. 1:1) proclaims a God who is personal and moral, and has tremendous interest in what has been created and what is for its good. God makes the earth habitable in the course of the first three days, then goes on in the next three to provide inhabitants for each of its spheres. The spotlight in this chapter falls upon the earth rather than the heavens; on the earth, it falls upon the land creatures above all others. Among the land creatures, it falls especially upon the humans, those who are made in God’s own image and likeness. Here is the crucial moment of God’s Creation. Genesis 2 then goes on to portray human beings as the center of it all— another strategy for emphasizing the importance of human beings in the cosmos (Provan 2015, 68–69).

Anthropocentric religion The Bible’s conviction about humankind’s importance has brought it into disrepute in some quarters in recent times, as our corporate impact on what is often nowadays referred to simply as our “environment” has become an important matter of concern and debate. The reason is that the biblical story has often been characterized within the environmental movement as being marked by an Abrahamic anthropocentrism that separates humans from nature, and has thereby contributed greatly to our current ecological crisis (Taylor 2010, 75). The most famous and influential essay written along these lines is Lynn White Jr.’s “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” (Barbour 1973, 18–30). With Genesis 1 and 2 evidently in mind, White claims to describe what Christianity has taught people historically about their relationship with “the environment”: By gradual stages a loving and all-powerful God had created light and darkness, the heavenly bodies, the earth and its plants, animals, birds and fishes. Finally, God had created Adam and, as an afterthought, Eve to keep man from being lonely. Man named all the animals, thus establishing his dominance over them. God planned all of this explicitly for man’s benefit and DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-9

100 Iain Provan rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purposes. And, although man’s body is made of clay, he is not simply part of nature: he is made in God’s image. Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen. (White 1967, 1205) This perspective on the teachings of Christianity concerning Creation has resurfaced in “green” publications ever since. An early example is found in James Lovelock’s Gaia theory (described in Taylor 35–38)—Gaia being the Greek goddess of the earth—which holds that the biosphere is one self-regulating organism. Lovelock’s opinion was that “our religions have not yet given us the rules and guidance for our relationship with Gaia.” He believed that neither “the humanist concept of sustainable development” nor “the Christian concept of stewardship” was fit for purpose in this respect, because both “are flawed by unconscious hubris” (cited in Taylor 36). Human beings, in both worldviews, are conceptually simply too far up the chain of being, and that is a major problem for the planet. People who think that God has given us “dominion” over the earth are the last people who are going to take the radical steps necessary to save it. It is not the purpose here to dispute the claim that the early chapters of Genesis have often been read by Christians in ways that have fostered and supported anthropocentric religion, for it is clearly the case. Thomas Aquinas’s theology of creation, for example, has been summed up in the idea that “the entire changeable universe is finally for the sake of the human good and species” (Benzoni 2005). Echoing this, John Calvin observed that it was chiefly for the sake of humankind that the world was made and that this is “the end which God has in view in the government of it” (2011, 1.16.6). Historically, this view of Creation has often been wedded to an understanding of redemption that focuses on human salvation, but says little or nothing about the cosmos as a whole. There is indeed not much in this way of thinking that provides an incentive for looking after the environment. There is no wisdom for animals and the cosmos of the sort this chapter envisages, especially in apocalyptic circles that maintain that the world is soon going to end in conflagration anyway. This perspective is often found in Protestant dispensationalist circles, where the earth is regarded as “merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life … unimportant except as a place of testing to get into heaven,” created for the faithful to “use for profitable purposes on their way to the hereafter” (Wolf 1981, 65). However, we do not need to plunge into the depths of Protestant dispensationalism in order to encounter marked Christian anthropocentrism. Consider, for example, Pope Benedict XVI’s final encyclical, Caritas in veritate (2009), which offers a wonderful restatement of the long tradition of Christian humanism, laying out in a very helpful way our human duties and responsibilities toward one another. In doing so this papal letter encourages love and justice predominantly, perhaps entirely, toward men and women. Creation as a whole merely serves as the stage on which the human drama plays out.1

Wisdom for animals and the cosmos 101 I concede that the opening chapters of Genesis have often been read in ways that have fostered and nourished anthropocentric religion. However, the remainder of this study will argue that they ought not be read in such a manner. They are not best read in themselves in this way—and I shall spend some time establishing that this is so, although it is not the main burden of my argument in the present context. More to the point, other biblical texts that have important claims to make about Creation, especially the Psalms, direct us away from anthropocentricism. Here I shall focus on Psalm 104, which, in describing the created world, covers much the same ground as the Genesis cosmogony, and is therefore important in helping us not misread the latter. Overall, I argue that the Bible not only offers wisdom concerning human existence, but also for animals and the cosmos—for both ancient and modern times.

Genesis 1 and 2 Genesis 1 does describe the fashioning of human beings as a crucial moment of Creation. It does not imply however, in White’s words, that “no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purposes” (25). In fact, one of the recurring refrains of Genesis 1 is that all creatures are created “according to their kinds”—that is, distinct from each other within an ordered environment. As Wenham (1987, 21) puts it, “there is a givenness about time and space which God has ordered by his own decree.” This “givenness” is all part of the “goodness” of things, and it implies a God-given usefulness and dignity in the case of each individual member of the various families of creation—including plants and trees— that is not dependent upon human beings, even though humans have their own role to play within the cosmos. All creatures are God’s creatures, whatever their “kinds”; the story of God does not simply involve humans, as Job discovers at the end of his long dispute with God in Job 38–41. Here the protagonist not only learns how far that story concerns non-human creation, but how little it revolves around him.

Commonality and distinction In Genesis 1 there is already as much emphasis on the commonality that exists between humans and the rest of the animal creation as there is on distinction. We should note in this regard that humans do not have a day of creation to themselves, but that they share the sixth day with the other land creatures. Moreover, the week of Creation does not end with the creation of human beings, but on the seventh day, at which time God stops creating (“rests”). It is this sabbath rest, not the creation of humanity, that completes Creation and brings its days to the perfect biblical number seven. This sabbath rest was of course later observed weekly in Israel, on which day it was again the commonality of all creatures that was emphasized, not the usefulness of some in respect of others (Exod. 20:8–11). On the sabbath day “you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter … nor your animals” (v. 10). Genesis 2 goes on later to underline this commonality by

102 Iain Provan telling us that humans are “produced” from the earth in the same way as the other animals (Gen. 2:7, 2:19). Humans are humus, made out of soil “from the dust of the ground,” and given life by God, who breathes into us the breath of life (nishmat chayyim, 2:7) to make a person “a living being” (nefesh chayyah, 2:7). In this respect humans are no different from the other animals.2 Human beings, in Genesis 2, are only one subset of the “living beings” into whom God has breathed the breath of life. In none of this material do we find a foundation for Lynn White’s claim that “no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man’s purposes” (1205).

Misleading ideas What are we to make of White’s notion that “God planned all of Creation explicitly for humanity’s benefit and rule” (1205)? A non-human creature might well have its own purpose, but yet at the same time possess a “higher” purpose in terms of servicing the needs of human beings. Is this the case in Genesis 1–2? Here we must mention two of White’s other misleading statements, even though we will not fully discuss them in the present context (cf. Provan 2014, 31– 40, 77–103). First of all, “Man named all the animals, thus establishing his dominance over them” (White 1205). However, it cannot be established from Genesis 2 that the naming of the animals has anything to do with establishing human dominance over them. Rather, in naming the creatures in Genesis 2 the “earthling” (the ’adam who is made from the ’adamah, “ground”) is simply joining with God in creating the world by assigning other creatures roles in the world—just as in the creation myths of the surrounding ancient Near Eastern cultures, “naming” is part of the process by which something comes into existence and is assigned a function (Walton 2006, 87–92, 188–190). Second, “man shares, in great measure, God’s transcendence of nature” (White 1205). Genesis does not encourage us for a moment, however, to believe that human beings are transcendent over nature. It is true that Greek-influenced Christians have often spoken in ways that have suggested otherwise, passing down through the ages a dualism of soul and body in which there is a clear distinction between the earth-bound and the heaven-bound. However, the Hebrew understanding rooted in Genesis holds that humans are created by God as whole persons, not as a collection of “parts,” some heavenly and some earthly. It is true that these whole persons are made in the “image and likeness” of God (Gen. 1:27). We do resemble God in some ways that other creatures do not. What does this language imply, however, in its ancient context? In the ancient Near East, a king might place a statue of himself in a chosen territory in order to lay claim to it, his image representing his claim to sovereignty. The king himself (in Egypt, for example) could be considered as being made in the divine image as God’s representative on earth (Middleton 1994, 18–19). This is a particular example of the more general ancient Near Eastern idea that the images of gods placed in temples were representations of deity—mediators of their person and presence. Genesis 2:7 in fact clearly calls to mind the ancient reader who has read Genesis 1 the

Wisdom for animals and the cosmos 103 ceremonies of the ancient Near East that invested such “images” with divine “life” and enabled them to function as representations of the gods (Walton 113–118). Human beings do not share in God’s transcendence over nature, therefore. Rather, they are earthly creatures “made in God’s image and likeness” to be his representatives in and to nature.

On ruling and subduing This brings us directly to the question of “benefit and rule,” to use White’s language. It is undeniable that in Genesis 1:26–28 human beings are told to “rule” the rest of creation—they are presented as kings within their domain. But what did the vocation of kings in the ancient world involve? Certainly it involved a degree of “subduing” (1:28)—since there are always forces in the world that threaten order with chaos. At the same time, however, it was above all the king who was tasked in the ancient world with looking after the welfare of his subjects and ensuring justice for all. We see this reflected in a biblical narrative like 1 Kings 3:16–28. To denote all human beings as “kings” over the earth in Genesis 1 is therefore not to imply that these rulers have permission to exploit and ravage the earth (as many rulers historically have done). We are, after all, ruling and subduing as representatives of Yahweh, the one God who is alone truly King, but who delegates this rule to his representative image-bearers. Genesis does not have in view, then, absolute and unfettered power that can be used as human beings will, with no moral restraint. Humankind’s responsibility is rather to exercise “dominion” on behalf of the God in whose world they live—a just, peaceable dominion of the sort described in Psalm 72.

On serving and keeping Genesis 2 makes it clear what this looks like in relation to the rest of creation, when it exegetes “dominion” in terms of earth-keeping. The language of kings gives way in this chapter to the language of priests, as we find the earthling placed in God’s garden “to work it and take care of it,” literally to “serve it and keep/ guard it” (’abad and shamar). This is religious language that underlines the importance and sacred nature of the task—it is about worship and conservation.3 The dominion given to human beings in Genesis, then, is evidently not a “lording it over” the rest of creation, but is instead a sacrificial “looking after” creation. Genesis 2 suggests that one aspect of our createdness in God’s image is that we should imitate him in his creativity and in his providential care for creatures. This is not to negate the importance of “subduing” as described in Genesis 1. In the course of fulfilling the human vocation as kings and priests, subduing will be required along with caring and tending. There is no romantic view of Creationgardening here, in which planting alone without weeding will suffice. “Nature” requires governance. However, it is governance for the common good. The ruling king of Genesis 1 is at the same time the priestly servant of Genesis 2, a steward of God’s world, ever accountable in every respect to the Owner of the Garden. In the Genesis story itself, our earliest extended picture of what this looks like is

104 Iain Provan provided by Noah, “portrayed as uniquely righteous in 6:9 … [and] also the archconservationist who built an ark to preserve all kinds of life from being destroyed in the flood” (Wenham 1987, 33).

The book of Psalms In sum, Genesis 1 and 2 are not best read in themselves for fostering and nourishing anthropocentric religion. Nor do we receive any encouragement to do so from other biblical texts. These include the Psalms—at first sight only a loosely organized anthology of compositions designed for singing and praying, but in reality much more than that. The Psalms as a book Several scholars (Whybray 1996; DeClaissé-Walford 1997; Mitchell 1997; Wenham 2012) have become convinced that the book of Psalms is in fact much more intentionally arranged than earlier scholars thought, and intended for a particular purpose. This purpose is stated up front, in Psalm 1. Here we read of the “blessed” person who walks on the right path through life. This path is defined negatively, first of all, in terms of three actions designed to encompass the whole of life. The blessed person does not walk, sit, or stand in certain ways—does not walk, first, in the counsel of the wicked, or stand, secondly, in the way of sinners, or sit, thirdly, in the seat of scoffers. In verse 2, positive activities are juxtaposed with these negatives: the blessed delight in the instruction of Yahweh and meditate on it day and night, hoping to internalize it so that it can be lived out consistently. In verse 3, the person who proceeds in this way is like a tree planted by streams of water—well-rooted, fruitful, and able to withstand even the fiercest storms. The wicked, on the other hand, walk a different path. They are consequently like “chaff” (v. 4)—the husks of various crops that pre-modern farmers hoped would blow away in the breeze during the winnowing of the harvest, leaving only the good grain behind. Whereas the righteous are rooted in the reality of God, like trees, and are undisturbed by even the fiercest winds, the lives of the wicked are insubstantial, and, like chaff, they are blown away by the most gentle breeze. The end of their journey is described in verses 5 and 6. It should be noted that this opening Psalm is not a prayer, but a blessing—a blessing on those who follow the right way (the righteous and the wise, in the remainder of the Psalter), in contrast to those who do not (the evil-doers and the fools, in the remainder of the book). That is to say, the reader of the Psalter is greeted at its outset, not in the first instance as a praying or a singing person but as the recipient of God’s instruction—a walking, sitting, standing person who is on a journey. And this reader of the book of Psalms, we should further note, is greeted at the outset precisely as an individual. It is private, individual meditation that is commended in Psalm 1, not corporate worship. This is the gateway through which readers of the Psalter enter the territory of the Psalms, guided as they do so in how to read the book—as wisdom for the pilgrim, in Israel’s post-exilic period,

Wisdom for animals and the cosmos 105 who is on an important journey. Take the first steps here, we are told, on the right path, avoiding the other one, which leads to destruction. Join the pilgrim band, the disciplined community of piety that believes that God’s good commandment stands at the center of life, and set off on the quest that will lead you at the other end of the Psalter to the praise of your Creator (Pss. 144–150). In just this way does Psalm 1 set the agenda for everything that follows. It does so in the first instance in Book 1 (Pss. 1–41), which is where we find, not coincidentally, nearly half of the references to the “wicked” and about one-third of the references to the “righteous.” In other words, Book 1 of the Psalter pursues with intensity this idea of the two possible pathways through life. The most extensive account of these two ways outside of Psalm 1 is to be found near the end of Psalm 37. Psalm 40 further consolidates in v. 8 the message of Psalm 1 by picking up from Psalm 1:2 the verb “delight” (chapets). This verb appears in the Psalter specifically in relation to law-keeping only in these two verses. So Psalms 37 and 40 appear to close out the theme of the two ways in Book 1 of the Psalter, before the remainder picks it up again and develops it. And then at the core of Book 1 one finds a carefully constructed cluster of compositions from Psalms 15–24 that are also centered on God’s instruction. The mid-point is Psalm 19, which lays out the positive character of God’s instruction and the benefits for those who study and keep it. So it is that the reader is invited in the first book of the Psalter to set off on this great spiritual journey whose perimeters are obedience (at the beginning) and praise (at the end). The final destination is Psalm 150—the only hymn of praise in the entire book that does not specify reasons or motivations for our praise. In the words of Brueggemann, it is, simply, a “lyrical self-abandonment before God” (1991, 67). 4

Psalm 8 and humanity What is included in the wisdom offered by the Psalms for life’s journey? First of all, as in Genesis 1 and 2, there is wisdom concerning our humanity. This is most obviously the case in Psalm 8, which explicitly addresses the question: “What is a human being?” (mah ’enosh). The question is embedded in a hymn of praise constructed using an inclusio, or “envelope construction”—a well-known rhetorical device whereby an author indicates by way of similarly worded “bookends” that everything in between should be read in the light of what they have to say. So it is in Psalm 8. The question of our human identity is to be considered in the context of the majesty of God’s name in all the earth: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (vv. 1 and 9). It is to be considered in the context of the story of who the living God is and what he has done in his various acts of creation in the heavens and upon the earth. This is a story, verse 2 proposes, that only certain kinds of persons understand. These “babes and infants” symbolize human weakness and humility; and yet—when they take the name of God on their lips—they possess a strength greater than that of God’s enemies. Verse 2 thereby sets the stage for what is to follow. The universe is vast, and it communicates to humans gazing upon it a sense of their own insignificance (vv. 3–4). What is a human being, then?

106 Iain Provan Ancient Mesopotamian cosmogonies taught that the world came into being along with, and for the benefit of, the gods. The world was fundamentally where the gods lived. The skies were regarded as the home of the great gods: the sun and the moon gods, for example. Here, too, the stars went about their business in their various movements, controlling human destiny. The order of the heavens was then also reflected on earth: first, in the ordered life of cities, which were constructed for the gods; and, secondly, in the order and symbolism of the particular temples in which the gods lived. And, as discussed above, a cult-image marked the presence of a particular deity in a particular temple. As a figure closely associated with the gods in his city-state, the king himself could be “imaged” in a similar way, his sculpted features conveying “qualities of ideal, divinely-sanctioned rulership, not just personhood” (Winter 1997, 373). But how were human beings generally conceived? They were regarded as the slave labor necessary for the maintenance of the orderly cosmos; that is why the gods had brought them into being (Walton 214–215). So the Mesopotamian answer to the question “What is a human being?” would have been “nothing, or very little—only a slave.” The Psalmist’s answer is quite different. The particular thing the “children” in Psalm 8 understand, and which the powerful (including Babylon) do not, is that a human being is made “a little lower than God” (v. 5). It is the case that some translations here refer to “angels,” but without good reason. Divinity is both in the background and the foreground of the Psalmist’s thoughts—for he tells us that we are “crowned … with glory and honor.” These are two of God’s own attributes in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Exod. 40:34; Num. 14:10; Pss. 96:9, 104:1). So it is that in Psalm 8 human beings are elevated from the position of slaves to the position of near gods. This is simply a different way of saying what Genesis 1 says. Human beings are no longer to serve the images of the gods in the temples and on the royal throne; they themselves have become images of the one living God, who has brought everything into being not for his own divine benefit but for the benefit of his creatures. These creatures do not need to feed the gods, as the priests in the ancient temples were compelled to do; instead, as Genesis 1 makes clear, God blesses all creatures with food. Other gods do not exist. The sun and the moon, in particular, are not divine, but merely “two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night” (Gen. 1:16). It is not surprising that Psalm 8 then proceeds to develop, like Genesis 1, the idea of human rule over the rest of Creation: You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet; all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. (Psa. 8:6–8) Just as the image of an ancient king represented and mediated the king’s rule within his territories, so our human vocation, underlying any other particular vocation one might pursue in life, is to rule over Creation.

Wisdom for animals and the cosmos 107 All of this represents a radical idea about the human person, unparalleled in the ancient world. It is an idea that is fundamentally humanistic and democratic at its core; and it has had radical effects over the course of time in those parts of the world where it has been embraced. Each and every human life in particular, bearing as it does God’s image, is deeply significant—is indeed inviolable—and each and every human being is a participant in the governance of God’s creation. Since the beginning, this message has changed individual lives and whole societies, as it has seeped out into various cultures and has impacted them for the good— sometimes suddenly, and sometimes gradually. The broader Creation The Psalter thus offers us wisdom concerning our humanity along the same lines as Genesis 1–2. Similarly, it also offers wisdom concerning the rest of Creation. It tells us early on, for example, that “the earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it” (Psa. 24:1). The earth does not belong to its human creatures. As we have seen, this is already the implication of the image-bearing language of Genesis 1 itself, especially as developed by the earth-keeping language of Genesis 2. Humans may “rule” over “all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,” and so on, but they do so as representatives of the divine King, to whom all creatures belong as “the works of your hands” (Psa. 8:6–8). Psalm 95 says more about this: “In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land” (vv. 4–5). These various aspects of Creation certainly do not belong to any of God’s creatures. The ancient Israelites were expected to adopt this posture also with respect to their own particular land, which is evidently presented in the OT as a kind of microcosm within the larger macrocosm: “the land is mine,” God reminds them in Leviticus 25:23, “you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.” In the same way, all of God’s creatures across the whole of Creation are, in the Psalms, “neighboring tenants of the same landlord” (Allen 2002, 46). Consistent with this picture, God is not only represented in the Psalter as the One who has created, but also as one who continues to create. Psalm 65 is striking in this regard, especially vv. 9–13. No doubt righteous humans also care for the land and water it, and no doubt they also grow crops; but it is God’s actions in the created world that undergird these human actions. Particularly noteworthy in this Psalm is the response of praise, which comes not from the human beneficiaries of the flocks and the grain, but from the meadows and the valleys that host these good things. Humanity may rule over the remainder of Creation, but all of God’s creatures possess their own purposes and destinies in the great economy of Creation, independently of their relationships with humans; God retains his own relationships with them all. So it is that Psalm 96 can exhort the heavens to rejoice, the earth to be glad, the sea to resound, the fields and everything in them to be jubilant, and the trees of the forest to sing for joy (vv. 11–13; see also 98:7–9). Psalm 103 can also say this: “Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion” (v. 22).

108 Iain Provan Later, as the Psalter draws to a close, we encounter Psalm 147, where God’s intimate and ongoing relationship with Creation is outlined in vv. 8–9 and 16–18. It is Yahweh who, among other things, “covers the sky with clouds … supplies the earth with rain … makes grass grow on the hills … provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call.” All Creation is exhorted to respond in praise in Psalm 148, including sun, moon, and stars (v. 3), the “great sea creatures and all ocean depths” (v. 7), and “wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds” (v. 10). As Psalm 150 concludes (v. 6): “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.” Psalm 104 Psalm 104 merits special attention. It has long been noted that this composition shares a number of points in common with the early fourteenth-century BCE Egyptian hymn of Amenhotep IV (Pharaoh Akhenaten). Addressed to the sun disc (Aten), the source of life, the hymn reflects Akhenaten’s short-lived flirtation with a kind of monotheism. It may well be that our biblical author used this Egyptian text in order to emphasize the wonder of Yahweh, the only God, in relation to the surrounding gods. The kingship of Yahweh Be that as it may, Psalm 104 certainly fills out our understanding of the wisdom offered by the Psalms in respect of “animals and the cosmos.” It begins in verses 1– 4 with a vision of the ongoing kingship of Yahweh, “clothed with splendor and majesty.” This is the rule under which all image-bearers govern; such is the “splendor” (hadar, rendered as “honor” in Psa. 8:5) that is reflected in the countenance of human creatures, who are made in God’s image. These images do not have clouds, wind, and lightning as their servants (vv. 3–4). These images did not stretch out “the heavens like a tent” (v. 2) or build a palace for themselves above the celestial waters in v. 3 (cf. Gen. 1:6–7). The entire sequence of the material in Psalm 104’s description of Creation is indeed much the same as in Genesis 1 (light, the concept of the heavenly waters, the draining of the waters from the earth, vegetation, the sun and moon as timekeepers, sea creatures, and the provision of food), and the overlap of vocabulary is also extensive (Allen 41–42). The importance of Yahweh’s sovereign control over the waters is particularly emphasized in Psalm 104:5–13, for without God’s control the earth would not exist at all. This calls to mind the Enuma Elish, in which the watery chaos that existed at the beginning of time had to be subdued by the gods in order for the cosmos to come into being. Specifically, it recounts a great battle between Marduk and Tiamat, in which Marduk slays Tiamat and forms the cosmos from her corpse. Neither Genesis 1 nor Psalm 104 indicates anything of a primeval war among divinities out of which the cosmos emerged (see Day 1985, 49). Here in Psalm 104, as in Genesis 1, the waters are effortlessly put in their proper places, so that they are capable of doing good rather than evil. In both passages the theme of the

Wisdom for animals and the cosmos 109 hostility of “the deep” is much underplayed, which serves to emphasize Yahweh’s creative power. The waters simply run away at God’s approach: “at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them” (vv. 7–8). In the language of Psalm 33:9, “he spoke, and it came to be.” So it is that the waters were not simply once defeated, “back then”; to this day they still serve useful purposes. The potential enemy of land-based life now sustains this life: the springs give “water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the sky nest by the waters; they sing among the branches” (vv. 11–12). There is an order to creation; it works. In the language of Genesis 1, it is good. Kindness to animals The next section of the poem in Psalm 104:14–23 develops the idea that Yahweh looks after all of animal creation’s needs: “He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate—bringing forth food from the earth.” Both kinds of animal, human and non-human, are important; each one finds its own place in Yahweh’s creation. The “places” are various, and each is suitable for its own inhabitants: the “birds make their nests” in the cedar trees (v. 17) and “the stork has its home in the junipers. The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the hyrax” (vv. 17–18). God not only provides a suitable environment for human beings, but looks after all his creatures in this way. All earthbound creatures benefit from his arrangements in the heavens, where he has “made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down” (v. 19). Genesis 1 also touches on this matter, and both texts thereby relegate the major gods of the ancient pantheons, the sun and the moon, to subservient roles in the cosmos. As Samuel Terrien once put it, over against Egyptian sun-worship in particular, Psalm 104 reduces “the sun to the role of an obedient slave who knows exactly the moment when he must get off the stage” (Terrien 1966, 122–123). It is in the consequent cycles of light and darkness, both good in their own ways, that all of God’s creatures flourish. Human beings do their work in the full light of day, attending “to their labor until evening” (Psa. 104:23); it is then that they produce the “wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts” (v. 15). But the evening and the nighttime are important for other creatures. It is then that “all the beasts of the forest prowl” and “the lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God” (vv. 20–22). This is not a world that has been designed only with the interests of human beings in mind. In terms of space, it is not humans who live up in cedar and juniper trees, on high mountains where the goats dwell, or on the crags belonging to the hyrax. In terms of time, it is not humans who hunt in the nighttime. God looks after all creatures. This includes the sea-creatures described in Psalm 104:25–26, “teeming … beyond number” in the “vast and spacious” sea. Here we encounter the giant “Leviathan,” who in this biblical text is not the chaos monster of the sea found in other ancient Near East traditions, but simply a demythologized marine

110 Iain Provan creature, perhaps a whale (cf. Gen. 1:21). “All creatures, great and small, depend providentially on Yahweh for food and for life itself” (Psa. 104:27–30; Allen 47). “All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time” (Psa. 104:27). Here “Yahweh’s own breath is the secret of physical life” (cf. Gen. 2:7, 6:17), and “[w]henever this life-force is withdrawn, the animate reverts to dust” (cf. 3:19; Job 34:14–15). “When you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (Psa. 104:29–30). Creation, we realize once again, is not a once-and-for-all event, but an ongoing process, and a reason for praise (104:31–35). The theology of the Psalm Two dimensions of Psalm 104 are worth underlining in terms of a theology that will help us avoid poor interpretations of the early chapters of Genesis. First of all, the world is clearly God’s creation; but it is equally a world made up of what we nowadays call “natural processes.” It is “designed”; but at the same time it is a world in which grass grows, and other things happen through like processes. This is important. In contemporary discussions among Bible-readers about faith and science, it is not uncommon for people to assert that this or that aspect of the created order is explicable only in terms of God’s design, and not in terms of natural or evolutionary processes. However, biblical faith does not lend any support to such a distinction. In Psalm 104, we notice God’s work in the world is undertaken in and through natural processes, and not separately from them. All of God’s creatures look to God “to give them their food at the proper time” (Psa. 104:27), and God does so. However, this does not mean that lions roaring for their prey (v. 21) are sitting around under a tree with their arms folded, waiting for manna (or antelopes) to fall from the sky. Rather, God is providentially involved in the world in and through what is natural and instinctual—hunting, for example. Likewise, in Psalm 139 a baby grows naturally in its mother’s womb; it evolves therein. It is of this same process, however, that the Psalmist can say, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psa. 139:13–14). It is of the human being that began life as a single cell inside its mother’s body that Psalm 8:5 claims: “You made him a little lower than God and crowned him with glory and honor.” There is natural process; but it is all part of a grand design. Order emerges in, through, and at the end of natural process—an order in which lions, as well as human beings, have their assigned places, and an order that is not just once-designed but also providentially sustained in an ongoing manner. Secondly, creation remains good, even after the events described in Genesis 3. Here it is important to recognize that Psalm 104 describes the created world along exactly the same lines as Genesis 1, even after humans have embraced evil in Genesis 3. Other Psalms recognize the serious ways in which evil has worked its way deeply into human existence in particular; yet in Psalm 104 and other texts the world as a whole remains fundamentally God’s good world, even if it has

Wisdom for animals and the cosmos 111 been touched by evil in many ways. Many biblical prophetic texts then proceed to inform us that in the future our present Creation will transition into something even better. Isaiah 11:6–9, for example, imagines a day when even predatory and non-predatory animals will lie down together in peace. This is not a feature of God’s good world as we know it now, as Psalm 104 confirms in the course of its celebration of God’s many creative acts. All of God’s creatures look to God “to give them their food at the proper time” (Psa. 104:27), and this applies as much to the “lions [that] roar for their prey” (v. 21) as to any other creature. Here is a wonderful Creation functioning as it should under God’s sovereign care. “In wisdom you made them all” (v. 24)—and for the Psalmist this includes carnivores. As one commentator has rightly said, “The predatory lions are not an evil (unless they prey on the flock!)” (Collins 2006, 165; Provan 2014, 231–232).

Conclusion Taken together and read attentively, Genesis 1–2 and the Psalms certainly do not provide any basis for embracing anthropocentric religion. Perhaps anthropocentric religion has arisen in Christendom partly because they have not been taken together—because, in discerning what “the Bible says” about the environment, Bible readers have tended to deduce the answer mainly from Genesis 1–2, to the exclusion of other texts. Yet as we have seen, when read attentively, Genesis 1 and 2 already resist anthropocentrism. The Psalms only confirm what we ought to have deduced already from Genesis, and both together profoundly challenge the contemporary idea in some quarters that the wisdom that the Bible offers pertaining to environmental concerns is useless to us because it is too narrow in its focus. On the contrary, the Bible is exceedingly useful precisely because of the breadth of its vision. It finds an important place for both human and non-human Creation in the story of existence it narrates. It does not encourage anthropocentricism; but neither does it diminish the importance of the human in maintaining shalom on the earth. Increasingly, sections of the environmental movement are indulging in this diminishment in striking ways, as if the removal of the human from the equation would solve the problem with the planet. Yet at all the Earth summits ever held, the delegates have been drawn from only one species. This is not because their organizers were themselves problematically anthropocentric in their thinking, but because among all of God’s creatures it is only human beings who possess the kind of agency that is capable of drastically changing the world for good or for ill, and it is only human beings who might even be concerned or worried about doing so. Maya Angelou once quite rightly remarked on the obligation she felt as a creation of God “to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.” The point is, though, that it is only human beings who can possibly be obligated “to realize and remember” such things. “Dominion” is in this sense not only a theological category, but also a biological reality. The only question is how we are going to exercise dominion, and why. The Bible itself offers great wisdom concerning both the how and the why. At the core of the why is

112 Iain Provan precisely that “the environment” is not merely that, but exists in reality as sacred, created space for whose wellbeing our Creator holds us accountable. Those who truly believe this will not be the last people to take the radical steps necessary to save the planet, but will very likely be among the first.

Notes 1 By way of contrast, consider Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, a passionate call for action on behalf of the whole of Creation. 2 Genesis 1:20 uses the same phrase—“living being”—for sea creatures, and 2:19 uses it for land animals and birds. Genesis 7:22 speaks of the flood as destroying everything that had the breath of life in its nostrils (nishmat-ruach chayyim). 3 Note in particular Numbers 3:7–8: “They are to perform [shamar] duties for him and for the whole community at the Tent of Meeting by doing the work [’abad] of the tabernacle. They are to take care of [shamar] all the furnishings of the Tent of Meeting, fulfilling the obligations of the Israelites by doing the work [’abad] of the tabernacle.” 4 Many of the individual Psalms in the Psalter are much older than the post-exilic period, of course, but the book as whole certainly dates from the later period. Psalm 137 famously begins, “by the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept,” looking back on the days of exile that followed the fall of Judah to the Babylonians in the early sixth century BCE.

References Allen, Leslie C. 2002. Psalms 101–150. WBC 21. Dallas: Word Books. Barbour, Ian G., ed. 1973. Western Man and Environmental Ethics. Reading, PA: AddisonWesley. Benzoni, Francisco. 2005. “Thomas Aquinas and Environmental Ethics: A Reconsideration of Providence and Salvation.” JR 85: 446–476. Brueggemann, Walter. 1991. “Bounded by Obedience and Praise: The Psalms as Canon.” JSOT 16: 63–92. Calvin, John. 2011. Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeill, translated by Ford L. Battles. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Collins, John J. 2006. Genesis 1–4: A Linguistic, Literary and Theological Commentary. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing. Day, John. 1985. God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DeClaissé-Walford, Nancy L., ed. 1997. Reading from the Beginning: The Shaping of the Hebrew Psalter. Macon: Mercy University Press. Middleton, J. Richard. 1994. “The Liberating Image? Interpreting the Imago Dei in Context.” CSR 24, no. 1: 8–25. Mitchell, David C. 1997. The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the Books of Psalms. JSOT 252. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Provan, Iain. 2014. Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters. Waco: Baylor University Press. Provan, Iain. 2015. Discovering Genesis: Content, Interpretation, Reception. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Taylor, Bron. 2010. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Wisdom for animals and the cosmos 113 Terrien, Samuel L. 1966. “Creation, Cultus, and Faith in the Psalter.” Theological Education 2, no. 4: 116–128. Walton, John. 2006. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Wenham, Gordon J. 1987. Genesis 1–15. WBC 1. Waco, TX: Word Books. Wenham, Gordon J. 2012. Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Songs Ethically. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. White, Lynn. 1967. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155: 1203–1207. Whybray, Norman. 1996. Reading the Psalms as a Book. JSOTSup 222. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Winter, I. J. 1997. “Art in Empire: The Royal Image and the Visual Dimensions of Assyrian Ideology.” In Assyria 1995, edited by S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting, 359–381. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Wolf, Ron. 1981. “God, James Watt, and the Public Land.” Audubon 83: 58–65.

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Wisdom for the silenced Reading Psalm 32 as cautionary counsel in response to 2 Samuel 13–19 Charles A. Packer

While Francis Bacon may have remarked that silence is “the sleep that nourishes wisdom,” and silence is often upheld as a virtue to which the prudent might aspire, the biblical writers do not unequivocally equate silence with wisdom. Ecclesiastes 3.7b states that there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” Psalm 32 clearly favors the latter in its negative assessment of keeping silence. The Psalmist comes to the conclusion that, in fact, the wiser path is in breaking silence. The superscription to Psalm 32 connects it to the person or life of David. It is also one of seven so-called penitential psalms within the Christian religion, designated as such by Cassiodorus’s 6th-century CE commentary, which emphasizes the confession of sin and the potential for forgiveness. In the case of another poem also attributed to David, Psalm 51, the superscription relates it to the particular circumstance in which David is confronted by the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12 following the king’s sexual relations with Bathsheba. Formally, the psalm has been described as both a thanksgiving song and a wisdom poem. This study considers Psalm 32 as a wisdom text, linked to the figure and life of David, which emphasizes the importance of giving voice to sin—whether witnessed, known, or perpetrated—and which provides instruction to those who have not yet done so. Furthermore, it explores the potential for breaking silence as a means of disclosing knowledge or wisdom that can prove beneficial to the silence breaker and to the wider community to which the silence breaker belongs.

Psalm 32 and the wisdom genre Psalm 32 defies categorization. Most consistently, Psalm 32 has been considered an individual song of thanksgiving in accordance with form-critical typology (Botha 2014, 12–13; Cheung 2015, 137–147; Potgieter 2014, 1–2). However, Gunkel affirms the presence of wisdom elements contained within the composition, pointing to wisdom themes and teachings in the composition (Gunkel 1967, 135; see also Potgieter 1–2). Mowinckel characterizes certain psalms as being the work of those who practiced “learned psalmography,” and although he did not incorporate Psalm 32 in his list of “non-cultic poems,” he does cite wisdom influence on the blessing formula (ashrei) at the opening of the psalm (Mowinckel 1955, 205–224). Avoiding the designation “Wisdom Psalm,” Crenshaw cites minimal DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-10

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wisdom influence on Psalm 32, asserting that vv. 8–9 of the poem represent merely “scattered verses” of the whole psalm that reflect didactic interest (Crenshaw 1981, 184). Variations of this perspective became the dominant way in which the psalm was viewed, although at points the didactic aspect of the psalm is brought to the fore. Murphy, Kuntz, and Perdue are among the earliest proponents of the existence and formal classification of Wisdom Psalms and include Psalm 32 among their number. Each argues that various verbal, formal, and rhetorical features found within Psalm 32 support this claim. Murphy sees vv. 1–2 and 8–11 as containing significant sapiential material and as enveloping the rest of the psalm, thereby justifying the label of Wisdom Psalm (Murphy 1963, 162). Kuntz applies his criteria for distinguishing Wisdom Psalms on the basis of thematic, formal, and rhetorical elements to Psalm 32, and concludes his analysis by declaring the poem to belong to the sub-type of “integrative wisdom psalms” that display a “strophic delineation” that indicates “an existing continuity of thought” (Kuntz 1974, 220). Perdue also establishes sub-groups for Wisdom Psalms and cites the ashrei sayings at the opening of the psalm as determining its sapiential character, using Proverbs 3:13– 18 as a similar example of a poem being shaped by the presence of the ashrei formula (Perdue 1977, 299, 301, 339). The debate remains active over whether the psalm is more accurately regarded as a thanksgiving or wisdom poem, as there exists no scholarly consensus for how to relate the thanksgiving portion of Psalm 32:3–7 to the wisdom dimension in the text. Cheung situates Psalm 32 “at the very periphery of the ‘wisdom psalm’ family” (Cheung 137–147). He accords with placing the psalm in proximity to the thanksgiving songs, noting the central focus on thanksgiving in vv. 3–7 and its “‘distress-prayer-rescue’ plotline.” Though he is not convinced that “a partial didactic intention and an erratic use of so-called wisdom vocabulary alone” affix Psalm 32 as a wisdom poem, Cheung acknowledges that this “plotline … embraces the double intention to give thanks and to teach” (147). By contrast, Potgieter contends that, because of the homogeneity and structure of Psalm 32, it should be clearly read as a wisdom text. He asserts that Psalm 32, with its dual thanksgiving and wisdom language, ought to be considered a cohesive whole and not a composition with different elements pieced together (1). Potgieter draws this conclusion from the repetition of the title “Lord,” the employment of different terms for sin and forgiveness, and a chiastic design that creates an inversive structure, with movements among stanzas from general pronouncements to direct address and the reverse (5). Although they stand in opposition as to what type of poem Psalm 32 represents, Cheung and Potgieter each affirm the significant roles that both thanksgiving and wisdom play in the overall rhetorical effect and meaning of the psalm. Paying considerable attention to verbal and thematic links, Botha’s findings convincingly secure the location of Psalm 32 as a wisdom poem exhibiting intertextuality with Proverbs. Botha examines in depth the similar concerns of Psalm 32:5 and Proverbs 28:13–14 with regard to the prosperity and blessedness of the one who does not conceal transgressions, but confesses them (Botha 5). Botha

116 Charles A. Packer posits that Psalm 32:1–5 and 9 “constitute a response to Proverbs 28:13–14” and goes further to speculate that Job 31 is a reply to all of it (6). He further identifies other common imagery and phraseology, such as the depiction of the deity as a wisdom teacher who intends to “counsel” the willing penitent in Psalm 32:8–9 in a similar way as is described in Proverbs 4:11–27 and other poems in the Psalter (Botha 6–7). Approaching the animal imagery in Psalm 32:9, in which the behavior of a horse or mule without understanding is declared unworthy of emulation, Botha theorizes that Proverbs 26:3 serves as the background for the psalm’s imagination, in that the proverb compares the instruments of correction—the whip, bridle, and rod for the horse, the mule, and the fool, respectively (7). Botha’s work is especially helpful in pointing to multiple levels of intertextuality that one might pursue with regard to Psalm 32. For one thing, he indicates that the superscription refers to David being somehow involved in the subject matter of the poem, whether it is something to do with David’s life or role in Israel or the literature that reflects on him (Botha 4). Botha goes on to advise on the possible fruitfulness of a comparison of the language of Psalm 32 with other psalms attributed to David (4). As there are many compositions in Book One of the Psalter that reference David in their superscription, Psalm 32 happens to be one of these that does not express a particular life setting or circumstance behind its writing, such as is found in Psalms 3, 7, 18, and 34. The image of David in the psalms that bear his name in their superscription, taken as a whole, makes available aspects to his identity that are not necessarily accessible, or submitted for reflection, in the narratives in the books of Samuel and Kings. Rendtorff surveys psalms that mention David in the superscription, giving a more thorough reading to those that offer more detail and that suggest a context, including Psalms 3, 7, 18, and 34 (Rendtorff 2005, 53–64). Rendtorff concludes that “only in a minority of psalms is the ‘historical David’ portrayed as king,” but rather more often he is depicted as vulnerable, penitent, or as “the righteous one who serves and helps his people” (62–64). I propose that the picture of David as vulnerable, penitent, and seeking to be righteous aptly applies to the poet of Psalm 32, particularly as represented in vv. 3– 7, but, more importantly, points to a wider intertextual frame of reference—the Deuteronomistic History’s stories of David’s life and family. Siding with Kuntz that this is a Wisdom Psalm, with Potgieter’s argument that there is an intentional structure in Psalm 32 that frames the poem as a wisdom text, and with Botha in asserting that a fuller understanding of Psalm 32 as a Wisdom Psalm requires an awareness and appreciation of intertextual references, this study will now offer a reading of the psalm against the background of David’s troubled familial relationships as portrayed in 2 Samuel 13–19, in particular with the initial breakdown of these relationships in 2 Samuel 13. While I am not arguing that Psalm 32 shows literary dependence on the stories as articulated specifically in the Deuteronomistic History, an intertextual interplay between the psalm’s attribution to David and stories of the royal family in 2 Samuel can lead the reader of this psalm to envision some of the characters in the narrative voicing part or all of Psalm 32 as their own prayer. This reader-response approach illuminates the trauma induced by the

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silence described at the beginning of Psalm 32, especially that endured by Tamar, and imagines the healing that might have been experienced by Absalom and David had they been able to pray the words of the Psalm and, in exercising their agency, break the silence. The reader of Psalm 32 is invited to consider possibilities beyond Tamar’s silenced retreat in the narrative, to hear and value her description of what has happened to her. In his treatment of the ending to the New Testament gospel of Mark in 16:8, Fowler addresses the scene in which the group of women who discover an empty tomb where Jesus is supposed to have been interred, where the text indicates that “trembling and astonishment had come over them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid” (Fowler 1991, 249). As Fowler explains this reaction, the women “were so frightened by their experience that the story of the empty tomb was never told” (249). However, [Though the] women may never tell the story of which they are a part … the reader has read their story and can respond to it in a multitude of ways, among them the option of telling the story of the story that was never told. (Fowler 250) In a similar way, the reader of Psalm 32 might also be able to listen to Tamar and others in 2 Samuel 13–19 whose perspectives have been lost in the silence of the narrative. Further, through such a reading that perceives the Psalm uttered by individuals struggling with issues of trauma, helplessness, despair, and complicity, the reader is encouraged to interact with Psalm 32 in such a manner that, in processing the events of 2 Samuel 13–19, he or she might also come to know the healing effect of giving voice to his or her own unspoken pain.

2 Samuel 13, wisdom, and silence An examination of the intertwined themes of wisdom and silence in 2 Samuel 13 will provide the window through which the resonances of this narrative with Psalm 32 can be perceived. Whybray, in his analysis of 2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2, devotes a significant portion of his attention to the wisdom influence on this material. He observes that “[g]reat prominence is given in the Succession Narrative to wisdom … and its practical expression in counsel” (Whybray 1968, 57). Whybray highlights this particular aspect of wisdom as “a purely intellectual and orally neutral quality,” as demonstrated by the advice Jonadab gave to his friend and cousin, Amnon, in encouraging him to pursue the object of his desire, Tamar (2 Sam. 13:3–5; Whybray 58). Jonadab is characterized as clever or wise (chakam), which the NRSV translates as “very crafty” (2 Sam. 13:3). Regarding this kind of wisdom, Whybray reasons: “The wits which had been sharpened, and the skills which had been acquired, through the scribal education could be made to serve private as well as public ends, whether good or evil” (58). In the case of Jonadab’s prompting of Amnon to realize his lust, one can argue that this application of wisdom fits the latter category. Jonadab suggests to Amnon a clever plot in which

118 Charles A. Packer Amnon would fake illness that required his father, David, to send his sister, Tamar, to tend to him. While condemning his morality, Trible recognizes Jonadab’s unique gifts at machination: Jonadab is indeed cunning. Having elicited from Amnon a confession that seeks license, he schemes to gratify the prince. The skills of a counselor he employs to promote illness. He would use the father to overcome the obstacle of the brother and secure the sister. Around Amnon, then, his speeches weave a net of friendship that ensnares Tamar, Absalom, and David. (Trible 1984, 41) Whybray (60) classifies Jonadab as a “wicked counsellor” and likens him to the one described in Proverbs 16.29: “A man of violence entices his friend, / And leads him into a way which is not good.” Jonadab is not the only counselor in 2 Samuel 13, as Tamar herself, when Amnon’s true intentions are made evident, becomes a spokesperson for wisdom. It is her voice that interrupts the trajectory in order that a different kind of counsel might be given and an alternative wisdom might be heard. Tamar’s appeal to Amnon’s pragmatism is expressed “in a uniquely strong voice for a female character in the biblical narrative tradition” (Van der Walt 2012, 183). Trible also notes the effect of Tamar’s powerful voice, stating: In the presence of a rapist, Tamar panics not. In fact, she claims her voice. Unlike Amnon’s brisk commands, her deliberations slow the movement of the plot, though they are unable to divert it. If Amnon used the vocative to seduce her, she returns it to summon him to sense. (Trible 45) In Tamar’s speech, she implores Amnon not to carry out the sexual assault he has planned, labeling the act a foolish one (’et-hannebalah hazzot; 2 Sam. 13:12). She cautions him that if he pursues this course of action, he will be considered among the foolish ones in Israel (ke’achad hannebalim beyisra’el; 2 Sam. 13:13). Instead, Tamar presents an option for Amnon that would perhaps suit his purposes, namely, speaking to the king, claiming that she is confident the king will not keep her from him. Whether or not this is accurate, she shrewdly refers to the “king” rather than to her “father,” leaving Amnon to discern the twin benefits of royal sanction and fatherly blessing in contrast to being declared a “fool.” Higgins further suggests that, “By referring to David by title, not name or relation … she reminds the prince that there is still someone to whom he is answerable, should he mistreat the princess” (Higgins 2016, 5–6). Higgins distinguishes this speech as “not just catharsis” on Tamar’s part, but “rhetoric, a kind of ‘calculated eloquence’ seen often in poetic speech” (5–6). Tamar’s attempt to present a viable—if not ideal—alternative to prevent the immediate violence that is threatened against her is certainly a valiant one. Unfortunately, Tamar’s wisdom is not heeded and Amnon follows through on his attack. Two contrasting perspectives are presented

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as wise counsel in this chapter, and the one that leads to broken bodies, lives, and families is ultimately the one that is pursued. After Amnon rapes Tamar, there is one more verbal exchange between them. From the standpoint of language, the poetry is becoming less eloquent and more urgent. Amnon’s lust has turned to hatred and he sends Tamar away, pushing her to one last effort to persuade Amnon to amend his series of errors. Higgins, refusing to finesse the language, deliberately offers an awkward rendering of Tamar’s response to Amnon’s dismissal in 2 Samuel 13:16: “Don’t, about this great wrong, than the other you did to me, to send me away” (Higgins 8; literal translation). Trible assesses this point in the narrative as a degeneration of form and content that indicates “irreparable damage to the characters” (Trible 47). Higgins concurs, stating that “Tamar’s words have gone from something like poetry to something like prose to something inarticulate” (8). With Amnon’s final refusal of Tamar’s counsel, wisdom is silenced. Trible entitles her chapter on Tamar in Texts of Terror “The Royal Rape of Wisdom,” an apt description for what happens in 2 Samuel 13 (Trible 37). The articulation of wisdom speech and the forcible silencing of the voice of wisdom are both evident in this narrative. The silencing of Tamar by Amnon is a physical silencing that takes place not only as he declines to accept the wisdom offered by Tamar, but also as he moves in direct contradiction to her insistence that he not proceed. However, Trible observes that the silencing of Tamar actually initiates at the start of the verbal exchange between the half-siblings and is the result of the narrator’s use of the pronoun “she” to introduce Tamar’s speech instead of using her proper name, as is done in the case of male characters (46). Furthermore, when Tamar first appears in the narrative, she is described as the sister of Absalom (2 Sam. 13:1). Though the first portion of 2 Samuel 13 centers significantly on Tamar and Amnon, “Absalom overshadows the scene from the very start” (Conroy 2006, 26). This serves to further silence Tamar’s agency in the narrative, as “Tamar is not presented as an independent personage but as Absalom’s beautiful sister” (26). Tamar is, from the opening of the narrative, described in terms of her relation to men, including Absalom. Following her rape, other characters in the text also serve to diminish and silence Tamar’s voice, even as she continues to attempt to be heard. Amnon refuses to listen to her, saying: “Put this woman out of my presence, and bolt the door after her” (2 Sam. 13:17). Once the door has been shut behind her, both actually and symbolically, instead of running or hiding, Tamar immediately makes herself a spectacle of grief to signify that her status has changed. As she tried in vain to preserve her future—and that of Amnon—by convincing him to avoid this outcome, she knows that her options now have become much more limited. Tamar in 2 Samuel 13:19 is said to have taken four actions to display her grief, three of which were visual and one of which was auditory to anyone nearby: she applies ashes to her head; she tears the long robe with sleeves that was typically worn by virgin daughters of the king, as detailed in 2 Samuel 13:18; she places her hand on her head; and she cries loudly enough so that others would hear. It should be mentioned that the reference to her “crying” (veza‘aqah; 2 Sam. 13:19) might

120 Charles A. Packer not only be a vocalization of her internal anguish and distress, but also a plea for justice (Lipka 2006, 217). From a 21st-century psychological health perspective, Tamar’s impulse to express herself and the precise steps that she takes to make known her condition and what has happened to her would be considered a normal, and likely healthy, response to trauma. Tamar’s trauma is profound and warrants a personal, emotional, and physical reaction. The inquiry into the nature and dynamics of trauma has opened new avenues for interpreting human experience, and theological studies is but one field of research that has benefited from it. Jones identifies three critical conditions necessary for initiating the steps toward healing from trauma: First, the person or persons who have experienced trauma need to be able to tell their story … Second, there needs to be someone to witness this testimony, a third-party presence that not only creates the safe space for speaking but also receives the words when they finally are spoken … Third, the testifier and the witness … must begin the process of telling a new, different story together which means that one can begin to pave a new road through the brain. (Jones 2009, 32) Throughout 2 Samuel 13, movement is made toward realizing the first phase of the process. There are certainly ways in which Tamar begins to give expression to what she has endured. For instance, Tamar’s immediate response to what has happened to her is that of a mourning ritual (2 Sam. 13.19). This is carried out publicly, so that it is evident to any witness that might observe her that her status has changed and that something destabilizing has taken place. Tamar is able to, at least temporarily, tell her story through her demonstrable act of grieving. Lipka rightly declares the rape to be “a transgression against both communal and personal boundaries” (222). With regard to the latter, the author of 2 Samuel 13 “depicts what transpires as a deeply traumatizing experience for Tamar from which she never recovers, illuminating for his audience the terrible emotional consequences of such acts for the victim” (222). Citing Ken Stone’s observations, Lipka clarifies that “this is the only biblical text in which an act of sexual coercion is presented from the woman’s point of view” and “[b]y allowing Tamar to speak and express what she feels, the author permits his audience to perceive both an act of sexual assault and its consequences from the victim’s point of view” (Lipka 222–223). While Amnon refuses to hear his sister, such that “he would not listen to her” (2 Sam. 13:16), the text allows her a brief period of testimony before she is silenced by another brother. Tamar is granted potential refuge in the form of another brother, Absalom, who encounters her grief, at which point he perceptively inquires as to Tamar’s state, asking particularly if it was because Amnon had assaulted her. Absalom might have functioned here as that “third-party witness” who “not only creates the safe space for speaking but also receives the words” (Jones 32). However, the text does not record her answer to his question, as Absalom already knows the answer and does not give her time to answer, immediately instructing her: “Be silent [hacharishi], my

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sister” (2 Sam. 13:20). This explicit silencing is not meant to be threatening. On the contrary, it seems intended to support and provide comfort for Tamar in this time of need. Absalom’s further advice would perhaps have been difficult for Tamar, as much as it is for 21st-century hearers informed about the importance of witnessing to trauma. He reminds her of her relational bond with Amnon, that he is her brother (2 Sam. 13:19). Much like Tamar’s allusion to “the king” and his authority when trying to motivate Amnon to abandon his plot (2 Sam. 13:13), Absalom’s reminder is designed to recall for her the social, and possibly political, implications of announcing the rape. It is easy to consider Absalom’s message to Tamar as one of delegitimization in the interest of preserving unity and peace, as Trible acknowledges that, “[o]n the surface, his words appear to countenance the rape … In the name of family loyalty, Absalom would silence Tamar, minimize the crime, and excuse Amnon” (51). His final words of advice to her, while perhaps meant to be soothing, also raise questions about Absalom’s full understanding of what has been done to Tamar, as he urges her to “not take this thing to heart” (’al-tashit ’et-libbek ladabar hazzeh; 2 Sam. 13:20). Tamar, though unlikely to find it possible to follow this counsel, does take refuge in the home of her brother, living out the rest of her life in desolation (2 Sam. 13:20). However, Absalom’s insistence on Tamar’s silence seems to have another motivation: to serve an agenda of vengeance against Amnon for his violation of Tamar. As Tamar has lost her voice at this point in the narrative, the text now moves its attention to Absalom’s plan of retribution against Amnon, which is carried out in 2 Samuel 13:23–29. This, in turn, sets in motion another chain of events that will lead to more family division and strife. David, the father of Absalom, Amnon, and Tamar, finally responds to all that has been taking place in his children’s lives. In 2 Samuel 13:21, David initially plays into Amnon’s hands and sends Tamar to prepare food for Amnon, who feigns illness. When David receives word about what Amnon has done to Tamar, the king is “angry.” It is unclear in the Hebrew Masoretic text to whom David’s anger is directed, but other manuscripts, such as one found at Qumran, point to his conflicted feelings toward Amnon, declaring David’s love for him as his first-born (2 Sam. 13:21 from 4Q51 Samuel). It is likely that David’s own sexual misdeeds with Bathsheba, which involved the arranged murder of her husband Uriah, in 2 Samuel 11, restrict his tongue to speak harshly about Amnon’s transgression, despite his anger. As Brueggemann comments, “David says nothing. He does nothing. The narrative knows that David himself is so compromised by his own action he can do nothing” (Brueggemann 1990, 289). David’s reported anger does not lead to any satisfactory or just resolution to the crime that has occurred against Tamar. For the rest of the story of David’s family, David is completely silent on the matter of Amnon’s rape of Tamar. Yet Amnon’s rape of his sister Tamar begins a cycle of violence and silence that continued to plague David’s household and kingship. The silencing of Tamar, first by Amnon and then by Absalom, is followed by Absalom’s intentional personal silence toward Amnon, as “Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad; for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had raped his sister Tamar” (2 Sam. 13:22).

122 Charles A. Packer Absalom sustains his silence toward Amnon for two years, during which time he nurses his disdain toward Amnon and slowly plots to take his revenge. Absalom arranges for Amnon and all of the king’s sons to go with him to a sheepshearing, which involves much feasting and drinking.1 Absalom has to convince David to allow this to happen, which he does without disclosing the true purpose behind the event. Now, silence conceals violence that is yet to take place, in this case the arranged murder of Amnon by Absalom (13:23–29). There is further confusion when David learns of Absalom’s deceit; and, for a period of time, David believes, incorrectly, that Absalom killed all of his other sons, not just Absalom (13:30). His response is one of deep distress, and he leads his servants in the removal of the tearing of their garments (13:31). Jonadab revises the report to specify that only Amnon was slain, and it is stated twice that Absalom fled (13:32–34, 37). As David’s sons return, the king finds a measure of relief, which is displayed by the raising of voices and weeping, again by David and all of his servants (13:35–36). There is no direct communication between David and Absalom, now because of Absalom’s self-imposed exile to Geshur, which is said to have lasted three years (13:37–38). David proceeds to mourn for his son, presumably Amnon, but after his consolation for Amnon’s death, he despaired also over the loss of Absalom (13:37, 39). The details regarding David’s mourning and grieving, despite the initial confusion over the extent of the violence, suggest a healthy processing of loss; but the text emphasizes the continued distancing that occurs between Absalom and David, begun in the aftermath of Tamar’s rape. Moreover, David’s grief extends toward all of his “sons,” but David never explicitly mourns for Tamar’s losses; nor does he encourage her own processing of grief. The relational chasm between father and son widens, and Tamar is essentially removed from future narrative documenting the family’s history, with the possible exception being the mention that Absalom names his daughter after her (14:27). Though David does send for Absalom and brings him back to Jerusalem, the king enforces physical, and by extension personal, distance between them, instructing Joab: “Let him [Absalom] go to his own house; he is not to come into my presence” (2 Sam. 14:21–24). Absalom lives in Jerusalem two years without seeing his father (14:28). Even after this period comes to a close and there seems to be an instant of reconnection (14:33), Absalom continues to plot, scheme, and manipulate the affections of the people of Jerusalem for his own gain, and to his father’s detriment (15). The emotional estrangement between David and Absalom becomes so severe that the son works to usurp his father as king of Israel. The struggle between Absalom and David ultimately takes a tragic and unusual turn. While Absalom is riding a mule, he comes close to an oak tree and his head becomes stuck. As the mule goes on and leaves him hanging, he is at the mercy of Joab and his enemies, who take advantage of the opportunity and claim his life, despite David’s wish that he be spared (1 Sam. 18:9–33). The death of Absalom, which David sought to avoid, is devastating to the king, who has been exiled while Absalom sought his throne. David’s futile attempt to preserve Absalom’s life here is ironic in light of the several missed moments in the narrative in which distance might have been bridged, reconciliation might have occurred, and the

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silence surrounding the rape of Tamar could have given way to make room for restoration to take place, thus circumventing the felt need for further animosity, vengeance, and injury. This crisis in David’s family and kingdom is sustained by silence about hard truths, instituted first by Amnon, then by Absalom, and finally by David. The result of this ongoing pattern of silence and violence is David being rendered impotent to repair his broken family, hold on to his kingdom, or save his sons.

Reading Psalm 32 with 2 Samuel 13 and 18 As a wisdom poem, Psalm 32 begins with authorial attribution to David and poetically presents the negative outcomes of keeping silence (charesh, “to keep silent”). Reading the psalm with 2 Samuel 13–19 points to a potential contextual framework to facilitate greater understanding by the psalm’s hearers or readers of the possible inner thoughts not only of David but also potentially of Tamar and Absalom. The expression of trauma translated into the words of the prayer in Psalm 32 brings the silenced suffering of each of these characters to the surface and then permits the healing process to move forward. This opens for the reader the option of writing a new story that interrupts the cycle of silence and violence. Early in the psalm, there is a direct declaration of the unfavorable effects of keeping silent. Following the opening blessing formula (v. 3), the poor condition of the Psalmist before breaking silence is conveyed: “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long” (ki-hecherashti balu ‘atsamay besha’agati kol-hayyom; Psa. 32:3). It is revealed in the first-person account that the Psalmist’s body wasted away in the process of keeping silent. This emphasis on the deterioration of physical function related to spiritual disease is not uncommon in the book of Psalms. Here, the Psalmist is explaining how keeping silent has caused great damage to the body. In the words of Miller (1994, 251), “[T]he failure to open up and declare one’s sin affects the self … [U]ndeclared and unreconciled sin has its effects that continue beyond the act itself.” The physical consequences of keeping silent in Psalm 32:1–3 include the body deteriorating, groaning, feeling the heaviness (kabod) of the deity’s presence, and having one’s energy and strength depleted. Wessels and Coetzee evaluate the statements made in Psalm 32 with regard to the condition of the human body of the unrepentant who has kept silent, noting “The psalmist’s bodily pain becomes part of the focal point of his experience.” There is also a social dynamic involved in the articulation of pain, as “[t]he psalmist, based on his own negative bodily experience, instructs his community to confess their sins in order to prevent the societal body from similar negative experiences of bodily dys-appearance” (Wessels and Coetzee 2013, 5). The means by which the body is restored is conveyed to the community by instruction, so that “what [the psalmist] experienced personally is didactically transferred to the societal body” and that body is “encouraged … to confess their sins as failure to do so could cause the individual and the societal bodies to be un-whole” (5). With this understanding of the dynamic between the

124 Charles A. Packer individual and the community, Psalm 32 offers both a personal testimony about keeping silent and counsel on how to avoid similar consequences. Through the repeated silencing of Tamar—beginning with Amnon, again by Absalom, and implicitly by David—the violation that was inflicted on her externally moves internally. With no license or opportunity to voice her pain, her devastation, and her sorrow, she physically withdraws her whole self into the shadows, living in desolation in Absalom’s home. The removal of Tamar’s ability to express herself freely as she had previously—administering ashes on her head, tearing her robe, and placing her hand on her head and crying—forces her to migrate that grief inward, which necessarily produces somatic consequences. Her desolation is a complete one, encompassing mind, body, and spirit. The effects of unexpressed grief and remorse are reflected in the second phrase that explains the state of the Psalmist who has kept silent in Psalm 32:4: “For day and night your hand was heavy upon me/my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer” (ki yomam walaylah tikbad ’alay yadeka/nehpak leshadi becharboney qayits). In the first portion, the heaviness of the hand of the Lord is felt on the Psalmist. In the second line, the experience is likened to being “desolate” (becharboney), as in the time of summer heat or drought. The reference to desolation and drought to describe the sensations of the Psalmist who keeps silent is reminiscent of Tamar’s state following her rape and expulsion from Amnon’s chamber. It is said in 2 Samuel 13:20 that “Tamar remained desolate” (veshomemah) in the home of her brother Absalom’s house. Although different words are used in Psalm 32:4 and 2 Samuel 13:20 for desolation, they are within the same semantic field, producing the image of barrenness. Callaway, in her analysis of terminology for barrenness in biblical Israel, points out that 2 Samuel 13:20 contains the only pre-exilic use of the term shomemah, which describes the desolate condition of Tamar as a consequence of the rape. Callaway further elaborates that when shomemah describes a woman, it indicates the woman’s communal standing (Callaway 1986, 68). For Tamar, unable to be married to her half-brother, but in need of marriage in order to fulfill the commandment set forth in Deuteronomy 22:28–29, which requires betrothal in the case of the rape of a virgin, it means that she “was therefore defiled, not marriageable, and would live out her days in solitude, without husband or children” (Callaway 68). This condition and circumstance of desolation will be without a set ending point for Tamar. She will stay in desolation, in effect, for the balance of her life. These effects of desolation reach beyond Tamar’s own body, and extend to Absalom and David as well. Absalom intentionally isolates himself from his brother in 2 Samuel 13:22, where Absalom’s hatred for Amnon means that he not only silences Tamar but also himself in not saying a word to Amnon. David, apparently unaware or unconcerned with Absalom’s distancing from Amnon or Tamar’s desolate condition, never publicly makes any declaration about the rape. He, too, stays at a distance from all of his children with regard to Amnon’s violation of Tamar and Absalom’s anger. Neither Tamar nor Absalom are invited to share their internal distresses. Further, Absalom purposefully endeavors to keep his inner thoughts to himself and turns to violence and deception to work out his feelings.

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Absalom is in exile for many years, followed by David, and Absalom’s relationship with his father turns to distrust and disdain. Though “the heart of the king went out, yearning for Absalom,” David, for his part, remains separated from Absalom and does not reach out physically or socially (2 Sam. 13:39). Tamar’s desolation foreshadows the desolation experienced throughout the family, culminating in David crying out in utter anguish after failing to heal his relationship with Absalom, “O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (19:4). At this point, because of Absalom’s death, David’s desolation becomes permanent. Unlike the silencing of the members of David’s family, the Psalmist’s desolation is reversible in Psalm 32:5. It is through the breaking of silence and the confessing of sin in a penitential prayer (Werline 1998) that the speaker’s desolation is transformed. The psalm suggests the potential for a more hopeful outcome, so that others might avoid the condition of desolation experienced by Tamar, and later Absalom and David. This consequence rests in the expression of the sin that was perpetrated against Tamar, as well as the suppression of Tamar’s own voice in speaking her truth. One might imagine the effect of such confession uttered from the lips of Amnon perhaps, but certainly also by Absalom and David. The psalm invites a consideration of the impact such a declaration of repentance might have had on the life of Tamar and the entire house of David, leading away from further desolation, violence, and bloodshed and instead fostering an openness that could have brought about the repair of damaged relationships. In Psalm 32, several later passages speak of “surrounding” (from sabab, “to surround”) taking place. Psalm 32:7c reads, “you surround me (tesobebeni) with glad cries of deliverance.” Again, in Psalm 32:10b, it is said that “steadfast love surrounds those (yesobebennu) who trust in the Lord.” In the first case, it is the Psalmist speaking in the first person about being surrounded by “glad cries of deliverance.” The second passage is in the third-person voice, indicating that steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. This leads into the concluding verse of the psalm (v. 11), which is a call to be glad and rejoice. These texts show the resolution of the plight of earlier voices in which the speaker remains silent in sin, rejects understanding, and suffers for it. They offer the possibility of security in right relationship with the deity. This way of reading Psalm 32 also creates a narrative context for understanding the instruction of wisdom in the poem, thus making the statements of the Psalmist more relevant for the student. Psalm 32, processed in reference to 2 Samuel 13, offers readers alternative paths for responding to trauma, giving the possibility for healing through the unobstructed expression of hurt, suffering, and remorse, while cautioning against a silencing that does nothing but create further harm and brokenness.

Reading Psalm 32 and 2 Samuel 13 in the #MeToo era As evidenced in 2 Samuel 13 and the counsel of Psalm 32, the consequences of maintaining silence, particularly in a context of sexual misconduct and rape, are diverse, far-reaching, and devastating. The opening decades of the 21st century have brought the issue of destructive silence to the fore in very public ways. The first decade illuminated more than ever before the tragedy of silence about sexual

126 Charles A. Packer abuse within Christian communities. The latter half of the second decade has enabled the voices of many women to be heard individually and in concert, the result being the revelation of widespread sexual transgressions perpetrated against both females and males within the entertainment industry, politics, the media, education, sports, business, and many other industries and institutions. It is not surprising that Time magazine’s designated “Person of the Year” for 2017 was, collectively, “The Silence Breakers,” highlighting the many women who had stepped forward and disclosed their struggles, many after years of remaining silent. The effect of the unprecedented breaking of silence that is the #MeToo Movement has opened the door for many victims of sexual harassment, violence, and discrimination to tell their stories. It has affected many aspects of culture and society, and disrupted the processes that preserved the silencekeeping status quo for generations. The American journalist Rebecca Solnit asserts: Silence is what allowed predators to rampage through the decades unchecked. It’s as though the voices of these prominent public men devoured the voices of others into nothingness, a narrative cannibalism. They rendered them voiceless to refuse and afflicted with unbelievable stories. Unbelievable means those with power did not want to know, to hear, to believe, did not want them to have voices. People died from being unheard. (Solnit 2017, 4) It is in the recovery of the potential to tell one’s story, to offer one’s accounting of the trauma that has been experienced in one’s own words “the recovery of a narrative” (Rambo 2010, 21), that healing might commence, both for the individual sufferer and for the broader community that sustains the oppression that fosters silence. Tamar is unable to complete the telling of her story. She never has her #MeToo moment, and her voice is progressively muted throughout the narrative of 2 Samuel 13. Her full testimony remains unheard. Yet the wisdom poetry of Psalm 32 presents the potential for redemption through the expression of pain and remorse. In the healing of trauma, the reader becomes Tamar’s witness, so that “the testifier and the witness … must begin the process of telling a new, different story together which means that one can begin to pave a new road through the brain” (Jones 32). Psalm 32 offers the possibility of a new story for Tamar, one written with an alternative ending imagined for the house of David, one of hope instead of despair, of healing instead of woundedness, of embrace instead of desolation, and of freedom instead of suppression.

Note 1 For an analysis of the connection between sheepshearing in Israel and the settling of grudges, see Geoghegan (2006).

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References Botha, Phil J. 2014. “Psalm 32 as a Wisdom Intertext.” HTS 70, no. 1: 1–9. Art. #2710. doi:10.4102/hts.v70i1.2710. Brueggemann, Walter. 1990. I and II Samuel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Callaway, Mary. 1986. Sing, O Barren One: A Study in Comparative Midrash. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Cheung, Simon Chi-chung. 2015. Wisdom Intoned: A Reappraisal of the Genre “Wisdom Psalms”. London: Bloomsbury, T&T Clark. Conroy, Charles. 2006. Absalom Absalom! Narrative and Language in 2 Samuel 13–20. Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico. Crenshaw, James L. 1981. Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction. Atlanta: John Knox. Fowler, Robert M. 1991. Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark. Minneapolis: Fortress. Geoghegan, Jeffrey C. 2006. “Israelite Sheepshearing and David’s Rise to Power.” Biblica 87, no. 1: 55–63. Gunkel, Hermann. 1967. The Psalms: A Form-Critical Introduction. Minneapolis: Fortress. Higgins, Ryan Stephen. 2016. “A Desolate Woman: From Skilled Speech to Silence in 2 Samuel 13.1–22.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Antonio, Texas, November 19. Jones, Serene. 2009. Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1974. “The Canonical Wisdom Psalms of Ancient Israel: Their Rhetorical, Thematic, and Formal Dimensions.” In Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, edited by J. J. Jackson and M. Kessler, 186–222. PTMS. Pittsburgh: Pickwick. Lipka, Hilary. 2006. Sexual Transgression in the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix. Miller, Patrick D. 1994. They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer. Minneapolis: Fortress. Mowinckel, Sigmund. 1955. “Psalms and Wisdom.” In Wisdom in Israel and the Ancient Near East, edited by M. Noth and D. W. Thomas, 205–224. Leiden: Brill. Murphy, Roland E. 1963. “A Consideration of the Classification ‘Wisdom Psalms’.” VT 9: 156–167. Perdue, Leo G. 1977. Wisdom and Cult: A Critical Analysis of the Views of Cult in the Wisdom Literature of Israel and the Ancient Near East. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Potgieter, J. Henk. 2014. “The Structure and Homogeneity of Psalm 32.” HTS 70, no. 1: 1–6. Art. #2725. doi.org/10.4102/hts.v70i1.2725. Rambo, Shelly. 2010. Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox. Rendtorff, Rolf. 2005. “The Psalms of David: David in the Psalms.” In The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception, edited by P. D. Miller and P. W. Flint, 53–64. Leiden: Brill. Solnit, Rebecca. 2017. “Silence and Powerlessness Go Hand in Hand: Women’s Voices Must Be Heard.” Guardian, March 8. Trible, Phyllis. 1984. Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Philadelphia: Fortress. Van der Walt, Charlene. 2012. “Hearing Tamar’s Voice: Contextual Readings of 2 Samuel 13:1–22.” OTE 25 no. 1: 182–206. Werline, Rodney. 1998. Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism: The Development of a Religious Institution. SBLEJL 13. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

128 Charles A. Packer Wessels, Cornelius J. J. and Johan H. Coetzee. 2013. “The Rhetorical Purpose of Israel’s Notion of the ‘Whole Body’ as the Ideal Body in the Psalms: A Comparative Study of Selected Psalms from Four Different Genres.” Verbum et Ecclesia 34, no. 1: 1–6. Art. #766. doi:10.4102/ve.v34i1.766. Whybray, R. N. 1968. The Succession Narrative: A Study of II Samuel 9–20 and I Kings 1 and 2. London: SCM Press.

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Wisdom for all Reading the liberating “I” of the psalms Beth LaNeel Tanner

When I think about Kenneth J. Kuntz, I think of a scholar who is kind, brave, and an ambassador of the ancient texts. His kindness is what I remember most. When I was a graduate student and one of the few women in a room full of men, Ken Kuntz treated me as an equal. After a conversation with him, I felt supported and acknowledged as a scholar. Professor Kuntz is also brave. Brave enough to defend the entire genre of wisdom psalms when another scholar took issue with his work. His response was measured, thoughtful, and gracious. Finally, he is also an ambassador for the Hebrew Bible. He taught at the University of Iowa for many years. Many of us teach in graduate theological institutions where we are “preaching to the choir.” Ken Kuntz taught generations of college students of all faiths, making his reach much broader and more ecumenical than many other scholars. Here I offer a work that I hope is also kind, brave, and ecumenical. The genesis of this chapter came from three troubling questions that nagged me for much of my career. The first question was one of method: “Was it possible to write a feminist interpretation of the psalms?” In my first semester as a professor, a well-known feminist scholar assured me it was not, because of the masculine character of the Psalms and their focus on kings and violence. I mulled over her statement from time to time over the years but continued to consider the possibility of applying a feminist approach. I knew what the psalms meant to me and many of my students, both male and female, but a feminist methodology was a more complicated matter. The second question expands on the first. I teach in a seminary in which most of the students are African American, Caribbean, Afro-Caribbean, from the Global South, and female. I see and hear about the intersectionality of racism, sexism, gender discrimination, and classism in their lives and in their communities. The culture of this country is such that beautiful and talented people are somehow less than or other because of the color of their skin, their gender, or their economic status. Was I doing enough to lead students in providing a word of strength and liberation for those who need it? At the same time, was I doing enough to challenge the systemic paradigms of privilege that value some and devalue most? The final question arose from the classroom. One afternoon in class, I was explaining for the umpteenth time why David did not write the psalms. I realized that, while I was challenging the students to change the way they DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-11

130 Beth LaNeel Tanner thought, I was not providing alternative paradigms. The standard position of the academy is to remove David and instead use “the Psalmist,” who writes the psalms, prays the psalms, and experiences all the emotions expressed in them. The question I asked was: “Why remove David only to replace it with the academic “Psalmist?” Does this academic exercise provide the liberation and accountability sought from the first two questions? Is the Psalmist any more liberating than King David? Who is the Psalmist anyway? When we are honest, the current methodologies are not remarkably liberating. The first problem lies with the nature of Hebrew grammar. The culture was patriarchal and, while race was not an issue, tribal nations often waged war and claimed to destroy each other. The pronouns are all masculine, and the psalms are full of enemies and violent descriptions of harm. The text is also a product of the upper classes in Judah and Israel. Meyers (1997, 4) notes, “Most biblical authors, as far as they can be identified, were urban-dwelling elites. As such, they are several social and economic levels removed from the lives of most Israelites.” According to Kraus (1988, 66), “We should start with the assumption that the vast majority of the psalms were the work of the priests and the temple singers, who drew up liturgies and formularies.” Because these are places where all women and most men were excluded, it is no wonder a feminist scholar finds no place to stand here. Finally, the academic study of the psalms over the last century has focused on the cult-functional method, which primarily ignored the poetic messages of psalms and looked rather at a particular psalm’s function within the temple cult. In other words, it focused on what the psalm meant to the Jerusalem cult, not what it meant and means for generations of the faithful. The question of a liberating word in the psalms, if asked at all, would be a framed as liberation for ancients as part of temple worship. Recently, scholars have challenged this dominant paradigm. Their work helps us understand the use of psalms in communities. They focus on the use of psalms in the diaspora and during the final shaping of the Hebrew Bible in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Gerstenberger (1988, 33) places the final form of the psalms in “the small organic group of family, neighborhood and community” and “Israel’s secondary organizations” during the Persian and Hellenistic periods.” In other words, the psalms may have had a cultic beginning, but in their final form were shaped in family and diasporic community worship settings. Croft (1987, 133) notes that the existent psalms were culled into the book of Psalms in the postexilic period by “temple groups” to pass on the best of the collection to future generations. But these temple groups are more than curators. Croft states that they “should be seen as the medium for the transmission of the spiritual traditions of the people” (178). The psalms were selected and shaped into their final forms both within and outside the cult. The final collection and its poetic prayers were neither purely cultic nor purely formed in the family or diaspora settings. If Gerstenberger and Croft are taken seriously, then the psalms—like the rest of the biblical text— cannot be the end-product of David, or the Psalmist, or temple personnel, or even post-exilic communities. Many hands in many different settings have edited them.

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The psalms as we now have them have withstood the test of time in multiple communities over centuries. Sanders (1995) refers to this process as “canonical hermeneutics,” in which biblical writers did what today’s theologians and preachers are called upon to do. He writes, “the process began in high antiquity the first time an idea was repeated/ recited, became a so-called ‘tradition,’ and thence got on a tenure track toward canon” (59). In other words, each psalm and the content of the book were an “editable tradition” from their creation into the Hellenistic period. This activity removes us even further from a single psalmist. It opens up the possibility that the psalms were edited and arranged within a broader circle of believers than Jerusalem’s temple cult. Sanders goes even further in drawing a line from the biblical period to the present. He writes (62): Canonical criticism, as I understand the term, modifies Western cultural understandings of authority by affirming the impact of reality, or with Richard Simon, the Holy Spirit, all along the path of canonical process and formation, instead of only on original moments and individuals only, or on final forms of the text. The Bible is full of internal dialogue, both within each Testament and between the two. The range of that dialogue and the canonical hermeneutics by which the constant re-appropriations took place provide a paradigm by dynamic analogy for the continuing canonical process in believing communities today. Notice Sanders’ apparent intention to modify traditional understandings of western authority, and instead draw a direct line to the preachers, professors, teachers, and students of scripture in their contexts today. Each exposition of scripture continues the reinterpretation of scripture seen within the Bible itself. Each act is a contextualization of the ancient text for current believers. The criticism often raised of this methodology is the “Well, that means anything goes” defense; without rules and authority, the Bible can say anything. This is true and can be proven by putting any biblical passage into the YouTube search engine. The range of sermons and studies move from the ridiculous to the sublime. Interpretation is and always has been subjective. Even the interpretations of great scholars were never objective, but produced in a particular place and time with a particular set of rules. Their interpretations were steeped in the imperialism, racism, and sexism of their culture. As Bailey (1998, 79) states, we need this other way of reading our sacred texts because “there is, on the one hand, a problem in the Eurocentric interpretation that has been rendered to the text. In many instances, we [Afrocentric Christians] have adopted those readings of the text and let them be used against ourselves.” Bailey is referring to the complex ways externalized imperialism and racism becomes internalized by theological fiat in Christian churches. In many communities, that western authority needs to be excised and replaced with liberating words. This has been obvious in psalms study for the past 200 years. As noted above, a western form-critical methodology dominated the study of the psalms for the past century (Miller, 1986, 3). This method places the focus on the function of

132 Beth LaNeel Tanner a psalm and its author, the Psalmist. However, in this methodology, a psalm became an artifact to be examined and detailed, and measured and compared with other psalms. This method looked at a psalm as an object, something to be studied. The addition of the Psalmist made it a poem-prayer of another. It became the words of the Psalmist, whoever he was.

A genre like no other The narratives of the Hebrew Bible create a world through the telling of stories about God and humans. If they were presented on a stage, we would be the audience watching the plot line unfold. Deuteronomy and the prophets are narrated by an authority figure whose words are sermonic. We would still be in the audience listening to an orator. The psalms, however, are human words directed toward God. The psalms invite us to stand onstage ourselves and make their ancient words our own. As DeClaissé-Walford and colleagues explain, The psalms, like all theological witness, compromise a truth that wishes to grab hold of readers, shake them vigorously, and leave them forever changed. The truth of the psalms does not wish to be held at arm’s length, considered dispassionately, and then set aside. (DeClaissé-Walford et al. 2015, 43) The psalms can give voice to the faithful. Ekblad has observed this first hand in his work with the imprisoned: “As people enter the language of the [P]salmist, the alienating distance and fear they once felt with God is gradually subverted by the [P]salmist’s surprising honesty and intimacy” (2005, 128). This quote demonstrates both the potential for reading the psalms as liberation and our addiction to making them the words of someone else. The sentence above could have easily substituted the word “psalm(s)” for “Psalmist.” The question is, “Is that just semantics, or is it something more?” Why must an imposed authority figure speak the words of the psalms? Do the psalms need to be mediated through the embodiment of another? This act of mediation changes the psalms’ unique genre from subject, “I” and “we,” to object, the words of another. The psalms now function like Deuteronomy and the prophets. They become the utterance of another, instead of the internalized words of the reader. Is that why a feminist scholar could not see a liberating word for women in the Psalter? We have placed a figurehead as the authority who teaches us to read, speak, and feel the psalms. We have made the psalms fit the mold of all the other biblical texts, instead of focusing on their uniqueness as an internalized word. Is it possible that the psalms are so unique that we, as humans, worked to force them to fit the mold that was more comfortable for us? Are the psalms something we needed to manage? Are the genre and words to God so intimidating that we need for them to belong to another? Why is this authoritative middleman here at all? He is certainly not part of the canonical psalms. One might be able to argue that the historical superscriptions tell us to read the psalms in this way, but the

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superscriptions are not consistent or original to the prayers. However the Psalmist or David is undoubtedly a substantial part of the tradition we have inherited in the church and the academy. We have learned to talk about the psalms as the words of David or the Psalmist. Indeed, we have learned this lesson so well it is automatic, and we pass it from generation to generation. As Bailey noted above, is this one of the Eurocentric interpretations we have adopted, even if it completely ignores the liberation genre of the psalms?

Liberation without the middleman At the heart of the psalms, to borrow from Martin Buber, is the I–Thou relationship. The person stands “face-to-face,” so to speak, with God. The “I” and the “we” of the psalms are placeholders for an individual or a group of individuals. Those words are where liberation begins. A person, any person, can stand before God and dance and praise or scream and yell. The “I” provides a direct line from the reader to God, without a David or a Psalmist. The “I” is made in the image of God. The world may grind a person down and define them by what they are not. But this relationship with God can help a woman rise to her full self. The psalms can speak to a man weary of the world’s measurement of his skin color instead of his character. Indeed, the first line of Psalm 1 tells what it is like to be the one before God: Happy is the one … whose delight is in the instruction of the Lord, who meditates on God’s instruction day and night. This one is like a tree planted by streams of water, which produces fruit in its season, whose leaves do not wither, but who prospers in everything. (Psa. 1:1–3) Granted, this is a modern interpretation of Psalm 1 because the original Hebrew states “Happy is he,” and also uses masculine pronouns for God—but that is the state of biblical literature. A conscious decision was made to update the language to include both males and females. Was this the intent of the original communities who preserved these psalms? I do not know definitively, but women were undoubtedly part of family worship, and it is hard to imagine the original text did not have them in mind. This issue with language demonstrates that liberation in the psalms does not keep the world and its values away even within the canon. Indeed, it is in the psalms that rage against those exclusionary values can find fullthroated voice. The book of Psalms, like the rest of scripture, comes from a patriarchal culture. One can argue about how far one changes the original text for a modern audience; but, as James Sanders argued, these discussions are as old as the biblical texts themselves. Canonical criticism is the process of a dialogue between the biblical text and us, no matter who the “us” is or when. So ancient poems, written with exclusionary language, are also revolutionary language because of the I–Thou relationship they represent. It seems in some ways that this poetry is deconstructing the values of the culture every time they are prayed. But this

134 Beth LaNeel Tanner relationship is subverted by the Psalmist middleman. Traditional scholarship places that I–Thou relationship with the Psalmist while the rest of us are sent back to the audience to watch. Scholars and pastors have pointed out how the psalms, especially the laments, can reach people in ways other texts cannot. Ekblad notes that many feel they are not worthy to stand before God as themselves. Their internalized theologies of inadequacy or sin have put up a barrier between them and God. Ekblad states: “The rawness of emotion and reckless pleas and graphic description of hardship make these prayers credible to those submerged in difficulties … That … cries are in the Bible at all helps a marginalized reader trust the Scriptures” (2–3). I, like Ekblad, begin with the laments because that is there where the relationship is most transparent. After reading Psalm 22 at full volume, I ask the students how many people in their lives they would speak to in that way. Yet, you can stand before God, the Creator of the Universe and the Author of Life, and scream: “Why have you forsaken me?” The psalms bring the whole of life into a conversation between a single human or community and God. Instead of teaching about poetic doublets, the forms of biblical poetry, and a psalmist, we can enter a discussion of what emotions and images the psalms provide the hearer. What did you feel, not what did the Psalmist or David feel? What I am suggesting is that we begin a study of the psalms by taking their genre seriously. Let the genre lead the discussion. We can still talk of poetic structure and the forms of the psalms, but those take a backseat to the emotional roller-coaster that is the psalms spoken instead of overheard. When the psalms are read as we do in worship, as our words, they open us up to conversation with the divine. The psalms invite you to be part of the conversation, even if the conversation is painful. You are deemed worthy of this conversation simply because you are created by God. These prayers, with more laments than praise songs as a collection was called tellihim, or praises, in part because the conversation, no matter how difficult, is praise. As Pleins (1993, 15) explains, Words of anger at God are terribly uncomfortable, but … worship will remain a shallow affair if the worshiper’s rage is left outside the sanctuary. This willingness to give expression to the agony of the sufferer is, in biblical terms, an act of worship. The laments ground the praise, so they become more profound and sincere. The praise is more powerful because it is set amid real life. Indeed, it is as if the very psalms themselves are engaging in a conversation between lament and praise. We are invited to lift our voices as our lives become a conversation between our own lament and praise. If the laments demonstrate the depth of the I–Thou relationship, the praise psalms offer hope. As Jacobson (2000, 377) notes, praise creates a worldview, praise evokes a world that does not exist in the same way when praise is not spoken. Praise assumes a world where God is an

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active agent, and then praise evokes this world by naming God as the agent responsible for specific actions and blessing. Psalm 103:1–4 is an excellent example of speaking a worldview into view: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless the holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget God’s benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Praise psalms often evoke the memory of God’s care in the past as proof for a future, linking the past to a tomorrow. Praise changes the way we view the world. It causes us to stop seeing the world in strictly human terms. We know the world that God desires, not the world as it is. Praise inspires hope, and hope lifts the soul. It is hope for the one praying, and there is no need for that middleman. Hope does not reside exclusively in the life of the Psalmist, but in the life of the one praying—no matter where or when.

Liberation is an equalizer The “I” of the psalms, whether in praise or lament, is also a social equalizer. It does not distinguish between king and farmer, queen and child. Take, for example, Psalm 8:4–5: What are human beings that you consider them, mortals that you visit them? Yet you made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. This psalm describes who the person praying is created to be. All are crowned with glory and honor. Psalm 8 describes how God sees the “I” and how we should do the same. Granted, when psalms were the songs of exclusive temple circles this may not have been the case; but, as Gerstenberger notes (33), the psalms became the prayers of the people. The psalms, for lack of a better term, became democratized. Indeed, the individual psalms remain an equalizer today—for they are no more or no less than the prayers of the person who picked up the book and read the words. Whether this was the purpose of the prayers long ago no longer matters; it is how they have continued to function. The proud royalty occupies no more space than anyone else as the “I” in the I–Thou relationship. This is the liberating voice of the psalms. Likewise, the collective “we” speaks with one voice united in praise or lament, even when the king is part of the people. Kraus notes, “It is beyond doubt that in Israel’s worship, the king was not the object of veneration. Not even rudiments can be found of any veneration offered to him” (1992, 111). Even a coronation psalm uses words of the “we,” reminding the king of his responsibilities to the

136 Beth LaNeel Tanner people. Psalm 72:1–2 states, “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice.” The “we” will hold the king accountable for the way the least of society are treated. When the “we” speaks, it is with a single voice of praise or lament. All become equal in the voice of the “we.” Likewise, the “we” holds everyone in the community accountable to God and each other. In the book of Psalms, the “we” also lifts both lament and praise. The community can stand before God and lament the injustice of the world and the seeming inaction of God. The community can also “remember” God’s presence in the past to build trust in the future. In other words, the psalms as conversation and worship reflect an ongoing conversation between the human and God. Liberation as conversation is lost when David or the Psalmist is the one lifting the words to God. The “I” is moved from center stage to the audience. I am listening in on a conversation, not participating in it. Another is like the tree planted in Psalm 1. The Psalmist is crowned with glory and honor in Psalm 8. This genre, like no other, should not be domesticated or handled by adding another. If psalms as described above are liberative as they stand in the canon, why have we not read them that way in the church and the academy? This chapter that began with three questions, years later has come to a resolution. Yes, there is a place for women in the psalms. The psalms themselves still come from a patriarchal culture, but the I–Thou relationship deconstructs that very culture. The psalms, when their genre is taken seriously, do offer liberation for those who feel marginalized. Finally, instead of criticizing my student’s David and teaching them to replace it with the Psalmist, we learn to leave both behind and engage the psalms as written. This study argues that the psalms are a liberating word for the one speaking them into being in the ancient world and today. This reading takes seriously Sanders’ argument that the conversation that began in the psalms themselves is still going on for those who approach them. It takes seriously the genre of the psalms as human conversation with God. Finally, it removes the interjected authority figure. The task in this methodology is to unlearn what comes as second nature to the church and the academy.

References Bailey, Randall. 1998. “The Danger of Ignoring One’s Own Cultural Biases.” In The Postcolonial Bible, edited by R. S. Sugurtharajah, 66–90. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Croft, Steven. 1987. The Identity of the Individual in the Psalms. JSOTSup 44. Sheffield: JSOT Press. DeClaissé-Walford, Nancy L., Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner. 2015. The Book of Psalms. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Ekblad, Bob. 2005. Reading the Bible with the Damned. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Gerstenberger, Erhard. 1988. Psalms: Part 1, with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

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Jacobson, Rolf A., 2000. “The Costly Loss of Praise.” Theology Today 57, no. 3: 375–385. Kraus, Hans-Joachim. 1988. Psalms 1–59, translated by Hilton Oswald. Minneapolis: Augsburg. Kraus, Hans-Joachim. 1992. Theology of the Psalms, translated by Keith Crim. Minneapolis: Fortress. Meyers, Carol. 1997. “The Family in Early Israel.” In Families in Ancient Israel, edited by Leo Perdueet al., 1–47. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Miller, Patrick. 1986. Interpreting the Psalms. Philadelphia: Fortress. Pleins, David. 1993. The Psalms: Songs of Tragedy, Hope, and Justice. Maryknoll: Orbis. Sanders, James A. 1995. “Scripture As Canon for Post-Modern Times.” BTB 25, no. 2: 56–63.

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Wisdom for the imagination Hammering heaven in William Blake’s illuminated books Rachel Wagner

Disorganiz’d, rent from Eternity, Los beat on his fetters of iron; And heated his furnaces & pour’d Iron sodor and sodor of brass The Book of Urizen (1794)1

As Rowland notes, the Bible dominated William Blake’s “imaginative world.” Yet, at the same time, Blake was “one of the Bible’s fiercest critics.” Rather than “see himself as an exegete” who “expounded the Bible on the basis of received wisdom,” Blake composed new poetic works which would “show up the problems that [he believed] already existed in the Bible” (Rowland 2010, 87). Blake used the Bible as “a stimulus rather than a template” (9). As a result, for Blake the Bible was “less an object to be explained” than a means to explore “the imaginative space that biblical texts may offer” (242). Such is the case also with Blake’s reorientation of biblical wisdom. Inspiration and allusion from the Bible are recast within Blake’s own mythic poetic landscape to support his personal vision of wisdom, one which draws from the Bible but then redefines its precepts in compelling ways. This perspective is what makes Blake’s engravings of Job such fertile ground for Rowland’s study of biblical influence. The engravings, completed in 1825, critique “false religion” as “dominated by respect for the [sacred] book and lacking the immediate apprehension of God, which comes through vision”—that is, which comes through human imagination as a poetic expression (Rowland 3). Rowland accurately concludes that Blake “inveighed against a theology which viewed God as a remote monarch and lawgiver” (2), and this critique shows up in how Blake depicts Job. Blake’s Job engravings, with embedded texts swimming around the images on the page, reveal that, for Blake, the biblical Job is “a victim of habit” who exhibits a “lack of awareness of the way in which the ‘memory’ of received wisdom has informed his life” (16). Rowland observes that, despite quoting Job extensively, Blake omits the words that come after God confronts Job in the whirlwind: “and [I] repent in dust and ashes.” This omission is notable. For Blake, “there is no subscription here to the notion of humanity having to grovel before a transcendent deity” (Rowland 60). Blake’s Job learns not to bow before a transcendent God, but to DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-12

Wisdom for the imagination 139 trust in the process of his own materializing vision. Blake’s reading of biblical Job was in fact a rather narrow one, out of sync with possibilities of the sort that Roddy and Flannery point out in their introduction to this volume. Nonetheless, in response to the restricted portrait of Job that Blake read into the Bible, Blake’s renewed Job in the engravings expresses “insight, not submission” (60). Job—like all of Blake’s liberated characters—learns to express himself with passion, rather than wait for divine permission. Job, like so many of Blake’s poetic characters, must learn for himself that wisdom is the process of materializing divinity within one’s creative and poetic life. To Blake, the biblical Job is passive not active, receptive not exuberant or creative. Blake expresses his revision of the biblical Job by refusing to have Job listen to God inveigh from the whirlwind. Instead, Blake’s new Job becomes the whirlwind—and thus becomes the creative energy of God (Rowland 48). Indeed, the face of God and Job’s face are presented as identical in Blake’s illustrations (52). Job’s sense of God “changes from transcendent monarch to immanent divine presence” (61). Blake uses the figure of Job to push against the notion that wisdom can be gleaned by anything other than the poet who takes responsibility for his or her own redemptive vision. Blake’s emphasis on the personal experience of divine wisdom is most obvious in the materialization of inspiration that demands muscular action by the poet himself. Blake’s poems are unique material objects marked by the specialized processes that brought them into being. Blake doesn’t write words with simple ink; he casts words through the intrinsically material forms of burning, scratching, hammering, and biting of copper plates. Blake scholars like Viscomi (1993, 2012, 2019) and Phillips (2018) have noted the places in Blake’s poetry where he seems to be referencing the relationship between the materiality of his printing process and the actions of the characters within the poems. None, however, go so far as to suggest we should see the copper plates themselves as a physical environment for the entities Blake created. I am suggesting exactly this: that Blake saw the materiality of his etching process as an argument for the tactility of creation, and he saw himself as actually materializing wisdom within the plates. Blake’s acid-bitten plates constitute a material environment in which hypostases like “Reason” and “Imagination” dwell personified, not unlike the famous figure of Wisdom in Proverbs 8—except that, in Blake’s vision, insight always comes from within the poet. For Blake, a poetic text is not just a transcript of experience: it is a corporeal process of inscribing metals with needles and acid, creating the physical imprint from which visual and textual worlds emerge. Readers are invited to enter into those spaces, to encounter the text as pointing at once to the imaginary world of Blake’s words and also back into the material world of the embodied reader. Viscomi has observed of Blake’s books, “As attention is focused on the page as picture, the book becomes more fully experienced as a physical and sensual artifact, and not merely as a vehicle for an illustrated narrative” (1993, 161). As we are encouraged to see Blake’s books as material artifacts, we are also to recognize ourselves as embodied readers. We are called to wisdom as vigorous material action.

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Blake’s life: biblical wisdom, visionary wisdom Blake was born in 1757 in London. His father was a hosier, and young William grew up on the perilous edge of educated society in the midst of a predominantly Christian culture. At age four, he reported seeing God in his window. At age nine, he claimed to have seen angels perching in trees. He began studying drawing when he was ten, and at fourteen he was apprenticed to the engraver James Basire with the hopes of developing a sustainable career. At Basire’s shop, Blake developed his remarkable skills as an engraver, including how to cut large sheets of copper, how to bevel the edges with a hammer to square the edges, how to prepare the copper surface with cleaning and polishing, and how to apply the “ground” or acid-resistant finish that prepared the plate for fine etching for book illustrations (Viscomi 1993, 48–50). At age twenty-one, Blake began studying painting at the Royal Academy of Art, and also finished his apprenticeship to become a journeyman copy engraver. Not long after marrying Catherine Boucher, Blake began to turn from engraving illustrations for other authors to creating his own inspired “prophetic” books. In 1789, Blake published Songs of Innocence, followed by Songs of Experience in 1794. These works were among the first of his “illuminated” works, created by a method that scholars now refer to as “relief etching”—but which Blake seems to have pioneered by himself around 1788, claiming it was taught to him by his dead brother’s spirit. Rowland observes that one of Blake’s early works, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), has “obvious affinities with the Wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible, especially Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and, in the Apocrypha, the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)” (Rowland 89). A key section in the poem is called “Proverbs of Hell,” and it obviously reflects the aphoristic style of wisdom literature, although it transforms that wisdom to function within Blake’s own universe. John Villalobos argues that the “Proverbs of Hell” should be categorized as “a satire, parody, and criticism of the so-called books of wisdom that were often published in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, which consisted of collections of Old Testament verse and prose” (1990, 258). Blake appears to have been drawing on popular eighteenth-century biblical criticism about wisdom literature in depicting the proverbs as “sayings used in a nation” to “mark its character” (“Proverbs of Hell”). Villalobos explains: Matthew Henry, a popular biblical commentator writing an exegesis of the Book of Proverbs in the early eighteenth century, discusses—in language that suggests that Blake may have been borrowing from the commentary—how proverbs represent the essence of a nation: “Much of the wisdom of the ancients has been handed down to posterity by proverbs; and some think we may judge of the temper and character of a nation by the complexion of its vulgar proverbs.” … Blake’s prefatory comment to the “Proverbs of Hell” indicates that he was drawing upon the tradition of wisdom literature, a much studied “kind” of literature in the eighteenth century. It is reasonable to suppose, then, that the voluminous biblical commentaries analyzing both the

Wisdom for the imagination 141 form and the content of the Proverbs influenced the “Proverbs of Hell,” and, thus, they must be viewed contextually, with an understanding of how eighteenth-century biblical critics interpreted the Proverbs as the archetype of wisdom literature. (Villalobos 248; internal note/citation omitted) As Rowland notes, in biblical wisdom we can find practical advice praising “good order and propriety, involving avoidance of folly and anything which will lead people astray from the paths of righteousness” (89). Blake’s aphorisms, by contrast, “recommend learning by doing, including doing ‘Enough! Or Too Much’ … and doing it spontaneously with faith in an inner gospel that what one wants is what one needs” (Eaves et al. 1998, 126). This perspective helps us make sense of later work in Blake’s corpus too, since these poems often exhibit “interpolations, digressions, or interruptions in the linear narrative,” with Blake’s own kind of wisdom aphorism used to “interrupt the sequence with a gnomic comment or proverbial aside” (Villalobos 257). Wisdom serves as a mode of reorientation in these circumstances, a reminder of Blake’s larger activity. This larger activity is, in part, the attempt to unsettle the reader by rejecting the worship of a transcendent deity and reorienting readers toward the divine impulses of human artistry. As the narrator of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell announces in one of its brief aphorisms: “The worship of God is. Honouring his gifts in other men each according to his genius. and loving the greatest men best, those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God” (Plate 23).2 There is no God but the one who makes beautiful art, the one who is embodied within the exuberant poet himself.

Blake’s method: materializing wisdom The unexpected divine wisdom channeled through the artist is marvelously exhibited in Blake’s own corrosive arts, the disintegration of acid on metal plates to create a space for divinity to dwell, temporarily embedded within the artist’s material vision. Perhaps not surprisingly, Blake describes this process most explicitly in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, within an obscure vision that functions best as a metaphor for the energetic process of artistic creation itself. Blake alludes to his method for relief etching in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where he describes “printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid” (Plate 14). It is impossible to know for certain what kind of acid Blake used, which is one of the reasons it has been so hard to reproduce his method. He could have used acetic acid (vinegar, ammoniac, bay salt, and verdigris) or maybe nitric acid (also known as aquafortis), made of purified nitre and vitriol, i.e. sulphuric acid. Nitric acid fits with interpretations of the perplexing descriptions of printing in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where Blake describes an eagle “with wings and feathers of air” making the interior of a “cave” become “infinite” while eagle-like men build “cliffs” (79). The “infinite” cave in this

142 Rachel Wagner reading is the metal plate itself, and the “cliffs” are the edges made by the corrosive action of the acid on the plate. The bubbles produced by nitric acid on metal were typically brushed from the plate with a feather (Viscomi 1993, 80–81). For Blake, Hell is a place of fiery creativity, an appropriate location for the biting and burning of plates into divine designs. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, we see Blake’s “printing house in Hell,” which consists of six “chambers,” each of which describes activities related to Blake’s method of relief etching (Plate 15). Already we see the sense that Blake’s plates are not dead textual forms, but vessels created by living creatures casting metal into which to place vibrant imagined entities: In the first chamber was a Dragon-Man, clearing away the rubbish from a caves mo[u]th; within, a number of Dragons were hollowing the cave. In the second chamber was a Viper folding round the rock & the cave, and others adorning it with gold, silver and precious stones. In the third chamber was an Eagle with wings and feathers of air; he caused the inside of the cave to be infinite; around were numbers of Eagle like men, who built palaces in the immense cliffs. In the fourth chamber were Lions of flaming fire raging around & melting the metals into living fluids. In the fifth chamber were Unnam’d forms, which cast the metals into the expanse. There they were reciev’d by Men who occupied the sixth chamber, and took the forms of books & were arranged in libraries. (Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 15) Each “chamber” aligns with a step in the creative process of etching and writing described in chronological form: (1) polishing the plate (“clearing away the rubbish from a cave’s mouth”); (2) writing on the plate (“adorning” the “rock & the cave” with stop-out varnish) and etching the plate with acid; (3) inking on top of the drawing for reinforcement, or possibly clearing away bubbles from the acid (“Eagle with wings and feathers of air” are likely either quills or the feathers used for clearing bubbles); (4) applying a second acid treatment (“Lions of flaming fire” that are “melting” metals); finally, (5) printing (casting “the metals into the expanse”) and (6) publishing (arranging books in libraries) (Viscomi 2019). The metaphor of a Dragon-Man “hollowing out” the “chambers” and “caves” seems to reflect the corrosive effects of Blake’s application of acid on the metal plates. Eagles, or perhaps their feathers, make the caves not just “hollow” but also “infinite”—as if their production entails the discovery of an expanse that awaits habitation. Viscomi says that, for Blake, the “infinite” appears to consist of the drawing on the plate, “which was literally hidden only when the acid began to turn deep blue and gas bubbles covered the exposed metal” (1993, 81). This reading is not wrong; but, as I suggest here, it is also possible—and preferable—to read Blake’s “infinite” as the blank plate itself, a void awaiting divine entry, a world-space carved out. The materialization of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is

Wisdom for the imagination 143 the materialization of wisdom, literally carved into the plate as a metaphor for wisdom’s personified entry into our own world. Producing poetry is visceral, hot, and corrosive. The process of relief etching that Blake developed was the reverse of the typical process of etching or engraving. Rather than drawing with acid to bite the plate, Blake would draw a design on the plate using “ink” that would prevent acid from biting into the plate. With this method, Blake drew with brushes and pens “as easily as if on paper” (Viscomi 1993, 63). Viscomi explains: “By combining pens, needles, scrapers, and burins, and by working additively and subtractively, Blake imbued his drawing method with a degree of elasticity characteristic of sketching” (64). This was a flexibility in technique simply not possible with more traditional engraving methods. Internal evidence suggests that Blake wrote backwards on the plates, part of the price for his unique etching style. When the writing and design were finished, acid would be used to “bite” down the un-inked areas, leaving the original inked areas raised in relief and ready for color printing. Viscomi says of the reverse writing pictured in Jerusalem, Plate 41, “The scroll [in the image] is also a tablet or stone, suggesting that Blake’s writing is permanently inscribed and that [Blake’s own] technique [of inscription] is [also] divinely inspired, even of biblical importance” (Viscomi 1993, 59). The corollary of this process is that Blake’s etched plate is also like a tablet or scroll, so we can read his art as placed within the rigid metal plate as if in stone. We can also see the allusions to acidic materialization of otherworldly entities in The Book of Urizen, where Blake initially depicts Urizen suspended in a dark, fluid environment. Blake writes of Urizen’s delusions as his “delight” is “obscured more & more,” as he is “hiding in surgeing / Sulphureous fluid his phantasies” (Book of Urizen, Plate 9). This is an obvious reference to Blake’s process of acid etching, and ought to be taken much more literally than previous scholars have. As Urizen, Reason itself becomes ensconced within the acid on the material plate, rigid but placed now in earthly conversation with other more effusive human powers—and more accessible to readers. The Book of Urizen has twenty-eight plates, with a narrative organized by chapters and arranged visually in two columns, like some bibles. Ten of the plates are movable illustrations, appearing in different places in different copies. No single order of plates exists for The Book of Urizen, and some copies are missing plates completely (Viscomi 1993, 280). This presentation of a “movable” text suggests that Blake wanted his work to be perceived as in motion, and even alive. As Rowland notes, even though Blake “set great store by the effectiveness of his illuminated texts,” he worried that they could end up “being considered an authoritative text” just like the Bible often is—and thus subject to the same fixed interpretations that some of his contemporaries embraced. Therefore, Blake “attempted to problematize his text by producing differing versions, varying both the order and the color of the illuminations.” Blake used the juxtaposition of text and image “as a way of enhancing and problematizing one by way of the other” (Rowland 4). Blake pushes against the rigidification that writing itself requires, as

144 Rachel Wagner the pages themselves seem to shift in protest. In this way, he also pushes against a rigidification of biblical interpretation that reading via reason alone invites. Jerome McGann thinks the variable order of plates in Blake’s books represent “anomalies” that are “part of a deliberate effort to critique the received Bible and its traditional exegetes from the point of view of the latest research findings of the new historical philology” (McGann 1986, 324). In Blake’s lifetime, biblical criticism was just heating up in Europe, making people aware for the first time that the stories in the Bible circulated as oral versions long before the text was written. Blake’s fluctuating order of plates can easily be read as a criticism of rigid readings of the Bible and an awareness of new theories about its multi-authored, highly redacted nature; but it also gestures toward the vibrancy, fluidity, and liveliness of the stories that Blake himself wants to tell. In his poetry and illustrations, Blake “seeks to criticise any pattern of religion that has at its centre scriptural literalism and devotion to a transcendent deity” (Rowland 22). Blake’s “Eternals” resist reified order, even as they are inscribed within the earthly, rigid metal plates. Once printed onto paper, they shift and groan, gesture and complain as they move about within the book. Perhaps the numerous rearrangements of plates and alterations of texts and designs were another way that Blake could gesture against the material fixedness that poetic creation requires—and perhaps also against the fixedness of the social system in which humans found themselves in a period of intense rationalization. For a poet, to create is to bring worlds into being—but it is also to make words (and thus the entities described by those words) unmovable on the page. This process is, of course, required for basic communication with one’s readers, and thus it is also required for the delivery of a message of wisdom. Poetic creation is, by unavoidable design, both energetic and catastrophic. The figure of Urizen (as Reason) is a central one in Blake’s mythology. Rowland notes that, throughout his poetry, Blake posed a “challenge to the hegemony of reason” (9). Often referring directly to three major English intellectuals—Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke—Blake “saw in their work a displacement of the imagination by reason and a reduction of all things to the material” (11). The embodiment of divine energies within the plates of Blake’s poems represents the reduction of Reason to the material world, but also its rehabilitation in the physical form of Blake’s poetic plates, alongside the Imagination. Blake’s personified entities shrink, temporarily, to fit within his text; and, by so doing, they promise to lift readers up beyond the text to their own creative exercise of wisdom. In The Book of Urizen, Blake blends the image of Reason (Urizen) alongside another entity—Los as a blacksmith and “Eternal Prophet”—and invokes the relief etching process itself as the means by which reunification can occur. Los is commonly interpreted as Blake’s personification of Imagination, so it is not surprising to see Los here taking part in the process of plate production as a mode of world building: And Urizen (so his eternal name) His prolific delight obscured more & more In dark secresy hiding in surgeing

Wisdom for the imagination 145 Sulphureous fluid his phantasies The Eternal Prophet [Los] heaved the dark bellows. And turn’d the restless tongs; and the hammer Incessant beat; forging chains new & new Numb’ring with links, hours days & years The eternal mind bounded began to roll Eddies of wrath ceaseless round & round And the sulphureous foam surgeing thick Settled, a lake, bright. & shining clear (Book of Urizen, Plate 4) Urizen has become ensconced within the etched plate through Blake’s artistic processes, and Los, as Blake’s proxy, keeps reason within its proper bounds. Everything is metaphor for Blake here: Reason (Urizen) becomes contained within the very text of Blake’s etched poetry, shaped by Imagination (Los). They are only temporarily so contained, however. Rowland notes that at the climax of Blake’s epic Jerusalem, “the hitherto infernal trinity of Newton, Bacon and Locke [representatives of Reason] are caught up in the ‘Chariots of the Almighty’ to take their rightful place in an eternal dialectic with imagination, and other facets of human intellectual life” (J98:8–12, E257; Rowland 11). Exuberance, in this sense, is salvation. Los, as Imagination, must also be controlled and shaped, as is evident in other explicit references to the process of etching. Los represents the prophetic artist in a fallen world, laboring with poetic production in the hopes of prompting societal transformation (Jerusalem Plates 6 and 10). Although Blake wouldn’t have used hammering for affecting all of his designs, his illuminated works would likely have been hammered to prepare the plate for relief etching and to dull the edges.3 For The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake cut large sheets of copper into four smaller pieces (Viscomi 1993, 47). Copper sheets were cut by scoring the plate with a needle and burin and snapping between two boards, or they were cut by hammer and chisel on top of an anvil. Viscomi notes that this hammer and chisel method was likely Blake’s choice, as evidenced by some of the printed impressions of The Marriage that contain hints of “ragged edges” from the plates (1993, 48). Blake, like Los, hammered as part of the manufacture of tangible blank spaces—worlds—into which to place the “Eternals” who populated his imaginative landscape. So Blake the poet, like Los the poet, used a hammer to engage in material production of the worlds into which divine characters are summoned. Hammering wisdom, Blake’s poetry enacts its message of creative tension and material action. For Blake, Imagination is bound by the same artistic processes as Reason. Both exist within the material product that consists of Blake’s handcrafted metal plates and printed books. Elsewhere in The Book of Urizen, Blake mentions “nitre” and “pitch” swirling around Los in “whirlwinds” that swim around a “sulphureous Perturbed Immortal mad raging” (Plate 7, cited in Connolly 2002, 81). Pitch was an ingredient common to the stop-out varnish Blake likely used to control the action of the acid and moderate it. So we can read this account with both

146 Rachel Wagner metaphorical and literal processes in mind, as Blake subjects Los to a whirlwind of nitre and pitch that would bubble and swirl on the plate. Again, poetry is the material process of fixing words (and thus human energies) into firm forms of unique and exuberant wisdom. The physical process may matter more than the product even, since it is Blake’s own unique artistic expression that results in the material plates that produce, in time, the printed page, read by others. Blake’s meticulous images draw on his distinctive view of wisdom as the means by which humans come to know their appropriate place in creation as both divine and material beings in their own right. The taming of Reason we see in The Book of Urizen has real-life implications. Blake was openly critical of what he saw as the narrowness of rationalism during his lifetime, exemplified best in the excesses of Newtonian science. Blake’s sense of “wisdom” is grounded in the belief that humans need not only rational thinking, but also poetic insight. For Blake, we must consciously employ art to balance out more rigid scientific thinking. He writes, “If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic Character, the Philosophic and Experimental would soon be at the Ratio of all things; and stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again” (There Is No Natural Religion 1:8). Without poetry, we may repeat facts, but not care about what they mean for real people. We may lack enlivening wisdom. Blake sought to use his poetry to bring rationalism back into balance with imagination. As a type of Los, Blake “hammers” reason back into place, forcing it into a relationship with vision and inspiration. In a famous image from his poem Europe (1794) Blake depicts a solemn, naked, white-haired man reaching down from within a glowing globe, perhaps the sun, holding a compass with which to measure what is below—we must presume the earth. Most interpreters see this visage as Blake’s depiction of Urizen as God; that is, Reason as a Deistic divinity separate from its creation and interacting only to quantify it. But Urizen is not just measuring any old world, or even our world. Urizen is also measuring the copper plate itself as potential world, as a void into which a world may be placed. Urizen measures the world in which he is to be bound, the plate into which he is to be placed, and the book in which he himself eventually appears, a copy of which Blake knew his readers would hold in their actual hands. To bring this deity into relationship with others would be to yank him down from the heavens and put him in the muck of things with creation—to incarnate him and force him to feel things and do things. For Blake, the fall can be read as a fall into such restrictedness, into creation itself—and a fall quite explicitly into the copper plates themselves, where the “Eternals” of Blake’s imaginative vision take on material form with one another. Blake’s poetry and the plates on which it is inscribed become the material means of reconciliation. The acid-etched copper plates function for Blake as an actual physical environment, a materially restrictive space. Blake’s wisdom message required the unavoidable rigidifying of vibrant eternal Poetic activity into material streams of word and design—which nonetheless strain against their material confines. Like wisdom literature, Blake’s poetry is controlled and careful, thoughtful and creative—a balance of precision, invocation, and vigorous call to action. For Blake, poetry is infused with contradiction and tension.

Wisdom for the imagination 147 Blake’s awareness of Kabbalah could have encouraged his view of creation as a necessary but limiting form of divine expression. Leslie Tannenbaum (1982, 283) argues that we can see specific evidence of Blake’s knowledge of Kabbalah in the preface “To the Jews” in Jerusalem, where Blake seems to be referencing the Kabbalistic concept of Adam Qadmon. Blake could also have learned something about Kabbalah from Emanuel Swedenborg’s writings on Jacob Boehme, who in turn was influenced by the Christian Kabbalist Balthasar Walther. Frederick Tatham, a contemporary friend of Blake’s, said that his library included books that were “well thumbed”—including volumes in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Italian, and the works of Boehme. Tatham claimed that Blake’s “knowledge was immense, his industry beyond parallel.” Blake also identified with the Avignon Society, which studied “alchemical lore, cabbalistic numerology, mesmerist séances, [and] Swedenborgian spiritualism” (Wecker 2009). The Jewish Kabbalistic creation story posits a god who must retract in order to create space for the world. This space is then filled with material creation, including Adam Qadmon: an enormous anthropomorphic entity that (like Blake’s Albion) represents all of humanity. Kabbalistic creation requires the projection of divine will into a void, not unlike the way that Blake describes creation in The Book of Urizen. Urizen says that he is “consum’d Inwards, into a deep world within,” resulting in: A void immense, wild dark & deep Where nothing was: Natures wide womb And self balanc’d stretch’d o’er the void I alone, even I! the winds merciless Bound; but condensing, in torrents They fall & fall; strong, I repell’d The vast waves, & arose on the waters A wide world of solid obstruction, (Book of Urizen Plate U 4:19–23, E 7) Just as Kabbalah posits a void into which God thrusts creation itself, so we can think of Blake’s freshly polished plates as a void awaiting the installation of a new world. And in both Kabbalah and in The Book of Urizen, the process of creation brings with it inherent catastrophe. Blake repeatedly uses words like “dividing” and “sund’ring” in reference to the “fall” of the “Eternals” into the created world of his poems. Blake’s divine entities are “divided” from one another, and also “divided” into separate material environments as they are fixed within individual copper plates. And yet, there is hope for eventual reunification within an original godhead. This reunification can also be interpreted—for Blake at least—as the appropriate reunification of Reason and Imagination, a trope he returns to again and again. Connolly points out that Los’s “binding” of Urizen is evocative of “the limitation inherent in all creation” (84). If we read “creation” here not just as referring to the cosmos in which we all live but to the process of engraving as well, then perhaps the “binding” of Urizen is not just symbolic, but also refers to the actual placement of Urizen within the metal plate. The “solid obstruction” that Urizen has created can

148 Rachel Wagner be read as the tablets of the Ten Commandments or as The Book of Urizen itself. I would argue it also can be read as the actual copper plates that become the “Rock” upon which Urizen (Reason) attempts to “unfold [his] darkness” and laws (Book of Urizen I, 4). Urizen is not just restrained within the text of the story; he is also physically bound within the very book of poetry that Blake is producing to tell his story. Blake seems to be saying that reason is limited when poetry is fixed. Instead, we need creativity and imagination to think beyond rational formulas and acquire wisdom. In Blake’s time, the confidence of Enlightenment values had rendered the imagination a dangerous distraction. Today, we seem to lean more on imagination than on reason, on meaningful stories than on hard rational argumentation. But Blake would argue that both must work together. Reason is not rejected in Blake’s universe; it is simply placed in appropriate balance with the imagination. We can view Urizen’s “rational” activity as he “divided & measur’d Space by space” (Book of Urizen I, 2:8–10) as analogous to Blake’s careful preparation of the copper plates. Los responds to Urizen’s fall by casting “nets” and “forging chains” that cause the “eternal mind” to “roll” in “Eddies of wrath” as a “sulphurous foam” surges into a lake and a humanoid figure is enclosed within liquid “sodor” (IVb, 2:19–30). Put another way, Blake’s Reason (Urizen) preps the copper plate; then his Imagination (Los) places the Eternals within the plate using swirling, foaming acid. Once we have the metaphor of acid-based relief etching in mind, it’s hard not to read the poem as explicitly referring to this method as part of Blake’s creative process. Wisdom is not just intellectual—it is visceral and creative.

Blake’s illuminations: constraining the Eternals My novel interpretation of the copper plate as material space also helps make sense of one of Blake’s favorite themes, namely, the shrinking of the senses symptomatic of Albion’s fall. When we see the shrinking of the Eternals into the “void” we are also seeing them enter into Blake’s relief etching, where they flail in acid, are bound in nets, and appear skeletal like the ridges that appear when acid bites the plate. In The Book of Urizen (10), we see “orbs” (or eyes) that are made rigid, “fixed in two little caves” by the fall. The senses are “inward rush’d, shrinking beneath the dark net of infection.” The Eternals are “bound down to earth by their narrowing perceptions” (IX, 1:29–34). In order to be pressed into metal plates, Blake’s Eternals must lose some of their sight. The theme of shrinking senses shows up in Europe too, where the “earth-born man” experiences a painful limitation when his eyes become “two stationary orbs, concentrating all things” and his nostrils become “golden gates shut / Turn’d outward, barr’d and petrify’d against the infinite” (10:14–17, E). If we view plate corrosion as the carving out of space for habitation by divine entities, then the plate itself—and the pages printed from it—literally reduce vision—in the sense in which these divine entities themselves actually see—to a two-dimensional form. Insofar as these Eternals represent Blake’s artistic vision, that too is bound by the page itself, a necessary constriction for the art to take material form. This theme recurs in Blake’s Milton (1804–1810), where we observe the creation of the first

Wisdom for the imagination 149 human-like entity, who sinks into an “Abyss,” resisting “bones of solidness” with two orbs again “closed in two little Caves” (2[b]:14–15). The senses, Connolly notes, are “cut off from the infinite, and also from the self and other senses” as each is “confined to its separate province, the eyes stationary, the ears downward, the nostrils outward, they can no longer perceive the self, nor work together to perceive synaesthetically” (74). In the fall, the Eternals are closed off from one another within the actual copper plate, where the senses have been shrunk through the condensation required by the physical act of relief etching. They cannot even turn their heads and see one another, so restricted are they within the materiality of the work itself. Connolly comes closest to grasping this interpretive approach when she describes Blake’s theme of “eternal, vast, expanded sense organs becoming tragically, painfully narrowed.” She recognizes that these changes are “characterized by solidification, paralysis, and enclosure, after what seems a swift, unreasonably flexible, even painful movement from the point of view of that stiff mortal body” (73, 74). The physical language at work here—“solidification,” “paralysis,” “enclosure”—mirrors what happens to the Eternals when they are imprinted within the copper plate and what happens to our own world when human insight is paralyzed. Ethereal bodies are solidified and paralyzed, enclosed within the metal. At the same time, Blake’s own imagination is externalized and concretized within the plate, the only means by which it can be shared with others. Insight, it seems, depends upon artistry—but if we stop with passive reception of another artist’s text, we will never become artists and develop our own exuberant wisdom.

Conclusion Blake argues for a mode of religion in which “experience, not uncritical acceptance of the wisdom of tradition, is the motor of theological and ethical change” (Rowland 16). For Blake, wisdom is earned through active human experience, not through reception of preexisting biblical interpretation. Blake objected mightily to “the use of the Bible as an instrument of social control, a handbook of divinely ordained texts of moral virtue” (Rowland 2). Blake wanted to show how new vision “can wean a viewer away from the simplistic theological nostrum that if one acts justly and accepts received wisdom one will be rewarded” (Rowland 15). Instead, wisdom must be owned and acted out by the individual who, enlivened by the imagination, tames reason to work in concordance with inspiration. Wisdom is a doing, more than a knowing, and poetry is an essential component of its realization. We would do well to recognize this call for action today, using Blake’s work as a buoy for our own creative solutions to social problems calling for both reason and imagination. Blake sought what Frye (1949, 31) has called a “unified mental vision of experience” in which all facets of the human psyche (especially Reason and Imagination) cooperate and recognize one another’s value, and human and divine are integrated. Blake’s vision of a purified Albion involved the hope that the Eternals

150 Rachel Wagner would be released from material expression into the hearts of devoted readers who, themselves liberated, would bring about a reunification of Reason and Imagination, and also of matter and (Poetic) spirit. To understand what Blake was up to in the material expression of his poetry is to enact the reunification that he demands. It is to acknowledge the paradox that creation is restriction, and, in so doing, to create the necessary conditions for new exuberance and artistic freedom of readers who ultimately will leave the text behind. It is to respond to the narrowness of Reason with the rush of Imagination. It is to hammer heaven itself, and to rebuild the material world in heaven’s image. This inherent tension in Blake’s material creation may explain why we have no remaining examples of his original copper plates. Perhaps he destroyed the plates in an attempt to free the divine poetic forces from their material prison.

Notes 1 Blake’s works are cited from The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (1988) unless indicated otherwise. 2 To appreciate this observation by the “Devil” fully, one must recognize that Blake’s Devil is more trustworthy than the angels that flit about in presumed purity. 3 The technique of repoussage involves using a hammer to make a “small punch” or “mend a specific area” of an engraving by hitting the plate from the reverse side. Repoussage can be detected by matching hammer marks on the verso side of a plate with engraved lines on the recto side (Sung 2009, 51). Because Blake’s illuminated works (as opposed to his traditional engravings) were shaped primarily by acid wash, this part of the process did not typically reflect repoussage activity.

References Blake, William. 1988. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, edited by David V. Erdman. New York: Anchor. Connolly, Tristanne J. 2002. William Blake and the Body. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Eaves, Morris, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, eds. 1993. William Blake: The Early Illuminated Books. Vol. 3. London: William Blake Trust/Tate Gallery. Frye, Northrop. 1949. Northrop Frye’s Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake, edited by Nicholas Halmi. Collected Works of Northrop Frye 14. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. McGann, Jerome J. 1986. “The Idea of an Indeterminate Text: Blake’s Bible of Hell and Dr. Alexander Geddes.” Studies in Romanticism 25, no. 3: 303–324. doi:10.2307/25600606. Phillips, Michael. 2018. “‘Printing in the Infernal Method’: William Blake’s Method of ‘Illuminated Printing’.” Interfaces: Image Texte Language 39: 67–89. Rowland, Christopher. 2010. Blake and the Bible. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sung, Mei-Ying. 2009. William Blake and the Art of Engraving. History of the Book 4. London: Pickering & Chatto. Tannenbaum, Leslie. 1982. Biblical Tradition in Blake’s Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Villalobos, John. 1990. “William Blake’s ‘Proverbs of Hell’ and the Tradition of Wisdom Literature.” Studies in Philology 87, no. 2: 246–259. Viscomi, Joseph. 1993. Blake and the Idea of the Book. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wisdom for the imagination 151 Viscomi, Joseph. 2012. “Blake’s Invention of Illuminated Printing, 1788.” Branch. www.bra nchcollective.org/?ps_articles=joseph-viscomi-blakes-invention-of-illuminated-printing1788. Viscomi, Joseph. 2019. “Archive Exhibition: Illuminated Printing by Joseph Viscomi.” William Blake Archive. www.blakearchive.org/exhibit/illuminatedprinting. Wecker, Menachem. 2009. “Did Blake Know Hebrew?” Forward, December 2. http:// forward.com/culture/120109/did-william-blake-know-hebrew/.

10 Wisdom for haters Wisdom as an antidote for othering Nicolae Roddy

Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body. (Prov. 3:7–8)

In late autumn of 2009, the phrase “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8” suddenly blazoned across various social media platforms and novelty merchandise items, including T-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and the like. Those who took a moment to look up the biblical reference found the words: “May his days be few and another assume his office,” a petition that at once delighted President Obama’s detractors and annoyed his supporters. Some people were alarmed by the potentially terroristic implications of the next verse: “May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow” (Samuelson 2009). Such disquieting use of Psalm 109 is one of many examples of the Bible being subverted for political ends (Flannery and Werline 2016); but, whatever its original purpose, its rhetorical effectiveness— along with other imprecatory passages in the Psalms (e.g., Pss. 58, 69, 137:8–9, 139:19–24)—is achieved through the process of “othering,” a sociopsychological strategy intended to frame and distance an individual or group through devaluation and exclusion from one’s own reference group by assailing the dignity or worth of an “Other” (Schwalbe et al. 2000; Powell 2017). The exclusivist and devaluative language of othering is enshrined in religious literature, political speeches, and various culture-specific metanarratives—any medium that seeks to promote in-group identity or superiority. Nowadays the strategy of othering proliferates in everyday discourse, as partisan social media comments traded between so-called “Repugnicans” and “DemocRATS” abundantly demonstrate. The most benign forms of othering express judgment of the other as somehow “less than,” while the most extreme forms extend to complete dehumanization and even murder, as evidenced in the ongoing struggle against racist and gender-based violence. At the very least, collective othering exacerbates social division by fueling mistrust of human beings perceived not only as different, but threateningly so. In the hands of politicians, othering is often weaponized by means of maliciously coded “dog whistles” and generalized innuendos aimed at the cultivation of fear, insecurity, and ignorance for the purpose of solidifying a certain base, breeding a perception of self-victimization that cultivates hate (Haney 2015). DOI: 10.4324/9781003041580-13

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Part of the effectiveness of othering is found in its faceless and baseless ambiguity, evidenced by the fact that Psalm 109:8 survived the Obama presidency and was recycled in 2017 as a popular internet meme re-directed toward President Obama’s successor, ironically a man at once publicly lauded and loathed for his own unabashed use of divisive, demeaning, and dehumanizing language. These few pages explore the phenomenon of biblical othering, examining the underlying aims, motivations, and potentially violent forms it takes. Specifically, it will consider how biblical wisdom challenges the insider/outsider dichotomy without violating biblical Israel’s covenantal, in-group boundaries, demonstrating how wisdom’s timeless principles can effectively counter rampant social othering without threatening or disaffirming healthy identity distinctions in our own day.

Exclusivity and inclusivity in the Hebrew Bible The book of Genesis extols the creation of human beings (’adam), male and female, as a single divine fiat and the progeny of a united couple. However, it does not take long before a spectrum of distinctions, divisions, and exclusivity arises in Israel’s foundational narratives. These are reflected in the genealogies, eponymous lineages, and shameful etiologies (e.g., Gen. 19:30–38) of the Primeval Narrative (Genesis 1– 11); the exclusivity of the Priestly account of God’s covenant with Abraham’s circumcised offspring in Genesis 17; and the foundational story of the Exodus, which pits Hebrews against Egyptians (despite the fact that Moses is raised as an Egyptian). All of these distinctions arise from biblical understandings of holiness, the Hebrew root of which, qodesh, appears in verbal, nominal, or adjectival form well over 800 times throughout the Hebrew Bible. Terms most associated with holiness include badal (to divide), nazar (to set apart), and others (Wright 1992). The Pentateuchal Priestly writings (P) reflect a ritually structured social order rooted in a hierarchy of holiness, which Jenson (1992) sees as key to understanding the Priestly worldview (although Anderson 1994). For Jenson, social roles and categories are determined in relation to the cult (147). Within Israel, the various gradations of the holy priesthood and people play out spatially in relation to the Tabernacle (136), with priests of the Aaronid-Zadokite line standing perilously in closest proximity to the Holy of Holies. Although P is primarily interested “in the cult and Israel’s behaviour as a nation called to holiness and obedience” (Jenson 145), the Priestly writer(s) could not ignore the fact that Israel is surrounded by other nations. Indeed, many ritual laws—most notably pertaining to dietary restrictions (Lev. 11, 20:22–26) and the ritual distinction between clean (tahor) and unclean (tamei) throughout Leviticus 11–15—clearly divide (badal) outsiders from insiders: “For I am the Lord that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (20:24; cf. 11:44, 19:2, 20:25–26, 22:32). The Priestly codes of the Pentateuch stand in stark contradistinction to Deuteronomic jurisprudence. It is neither appropriate nor possible to go into detail here over the similarities and differences in religious and civil jurisprudence; but, generally speaking, the centrality of ritual holiness in the Priestly codes and narratives are of lesser importance to Deuteronomic advocates of a social order and ritual system

154 Nicolae Roddy largely based on prophetic justice, reflected in such passages as Deuteronomy 21:1– 9. The Priestly writings view holiness as something dynamic, dangerous, and having a power all its own (in the phenomenological sense of tabu), thus requiring highly specialized technicians and restricted access. By contrast, in the Deuteronomic code, holiness is not so much a dangerous power as it is a status one acquires through the dedicated application of wisdom, morality, and justice (Regev 2001). Based on prophetic texts such as Hosea, it is a status that can also be lost: When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are no longer my people and I am no longer your God.” (Hos. 1:8–9) Distinctions between what is holy or profane are not in question; rather, it is the essential constitution of holiness that distinguishes one from the other. In sum, both Priestly schools shared concerns—albeit in different ways—regarding the setting apart (nazar) of Israel within its own society and the dividing (badal) of Israel from the nations (hagoyim). Rightly established insiders make up the community of the Covenant (berith), distinguished on the one hand by the circumcision of its males and its harmonious hierarchy of inherent holiness (P), and the acquisition of the status of holiness by way of practicing wisdom and an unwavering ethic of justice in the Deuteronomist source (D) on the other hand. Meanwhile, outsiders range from: (1) certain privileged enculturated groups living in the nation (e.g., the so-called resident alien, or ger);1 (2) near outsiders, who are foreign but culturally and linguistically similar (e.g., Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites); and (3) far outsiders, who are often portrayed with bitter enmity (e.g., Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians). To be sure, some biblical texts reflect attitudes inclined toward inclusivity. The Yahwist portrays an immanent, anthropomorphized deity who, in contrast to Priestly sources, addresses both men and women (Eve, Sarah, Hagar, and Rebekah), and Israelites and foreigners. A number of non-Israelite women find a role in David’s lineage, namely Tamar, whose undisclosed ethnicity is contextually Canaanite (Gen. 38); Rahab, also a Canaanite (Josh. 2); and Ruth, a woman of Moab (Ruth 1:1–5). Other foreigners are shown to revere YHWH, including Jethro/Reuel (Exod. 18) and Balaam (Num. 22–24). The Deuteronomistic History (DH),2 which, according to Cross (1973), was written in the late seventh century BCE and revised in the sixth century BCE, makes concessions for the ger, or “resident alien”—a member of a marginalized social group apparently subject to local social and religious obligations, including public worship (Van Houton 1991). Less integrated into the holy community is the toshab, a temporary sojourner (1 Chron. 29:15; Psa. 39:12), and the nokri, a complete foreigner abiding in the land but sharing no benefits or obligations with the covenant community (Tromp 2011). These various categories of non-insiders are nevertheless accepted and tolerated to different degrees within Israelite society. Finally, prophetic literature also contains texts that suggest openness toward outsiders. These include the book of Jonah, which expresses the view that God is compassionate and concerned with all

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creation, including the wicked Assyrians and their animals; and Isaiah 56, which stands in direct opposition to Ezekiel 44:6–9 in welcoming outcasts and foreigners as worship participants in the new Temple (de Hoop 2008; Awabdy 2012). Indeed, prophetic literature goes furthest in challenging traditional concepts of holiness, leveling the playing field by distinguishing between authentic obedience to the Torah through justice and righteousness (mishpat vezedaqah) and the mere semblance of the practice of cultic religion. Amos, a charismatic rural prophet, warns Israelites of the approaching Day of the Lord in light of their failure to manifest justice and righteousness in the land (Amos 5:18–24). Hosea is particularly hostile to the cult, equating it with idolatry and apostasy (see Krispenz 2016). Ezekiel, an exiled Aaronid priest, roots the fundamental human predicament in Judah’s collective impurity resulting from the failure to keep YHWH’s statutes and ordinances, profaning the sabbaths and worshiping idols (Ezek. 20). Last, but certainly not least, Jeremiah’s scathing indictments against Jerusalem are generously scattered throughout the book of Jeremiah (e.g., 4:23–28, 5:14–17, 6:22–30, 8:1– 2, 15:2–3). It is a premier hallmark of these harbingers of divine judgment that no one remains exempt from YHWH’s wrath. However, beyond the prophetic critique of cult, wisdom literature meets the general challenge of otherness head on. First- and second-generation Judahites of the Babylonian exile undoubtedly experienced the tension of maintaining traditional cultural and religious observances within a socially diverse environment.3 Viewed from the relative safety and familiarity of one’s own insular minority culture, the languages and customs of the other ignite human curiosity and evoke a response conditioned by perceived benefits or threats arising from the encounter (see Tajfel and Turner 1979, 1986). This is a markedly different sort of othering than that exhibited by the dominant privileged majority culture. Speaking anecdotally for a moment, immigrant communities in the United States are eager to learn how to make accommodations for differences in language and culture vis-à-vis the dominant culture. Meanwhile, attitudes towards nonwhite minorities range from condescending toleration to outright dehumanization and violence. Tragically, it has become an unfortunate historical milestone that the US, once a haven for immigrants and refugees, came to separate babies from their mothers and confine refugees to cages, depriving the powerless of basic humanitarian needs (Cumming-Bruce 2019). While there is no scholarly consensus concerning the actual origins or literary parameters of biblical wisdom, it is reasonable to see the Judahite encounter with the Other in the age of empires as a crucible for the forging of the Wisdom corpus’s principle of inclusivity. Ironically, under the Persians, the exiled Priestly class that returned to Jerusalem strove to reestablish itself as the dominant culture, strengthening its minority identity by condemning mixed marriages and expelling foreigners (Neh. 13).

Imprecatory psalms The book of Psalms (Heb: sefer tehillim, or “book of praises”) is a rich and varied collection of poetry and prayers giving voice to thanksgiving, praise, and lament

156 Nicolae Roddy expressed from both personal and corporate points of view (Allen 2002; Craigie 2005; Tate 2005). Even individualized psalms, which are easily identified through their use of first-person pronouns, were produced and preserved by scribal communities working within certain social, cultural, and theological norms. The result is a literary mosaic of Israelite voices extolling a wide variety of human experience in the world, including tesserae belonging to an indeterminate category known as imprecatory psalms—characterized by their use of condemnatory language and appeals for divine vengeance and retribution against a perceived enemy (Martin 1972; Day 2002). Psalm 109, for example, which C. S. Lewis (1967, 146) styled “as unabashed a hymn of hate as was ever written,” dominates the category; however bathing one’s feet in the blood of one’s enemies (Psa. 58:10) and dashing their children against a rock (137:9) would seem to be no less malign. There is little agreement about which psalms to designate as imprecatory psalms. The number of potential candidates ranges from fourteen to twentyeight, depending on the number of lines and severity of malediction (Sheppard 1991; Simango and Krüger 2016, 583). Imprecatory psalms usually reflect some personal or social injury, but it is still not clear what gave rise to them or how they may have functioned. Sheppard (64) argues that imprecatory psalms were intended to be recited publicly, to be heard by friend and foe alike. The question arises over whether these imprecatory verses (vv. 6–19) are the words of the implied Psalmist or his enemies. The NRSV and JPS versions depart from traditional English translations, emending the Hebrew text by adding “They say” at the beginning of the curses (v. 6), thus attributing the words to the enemy. Compelling arguments have been made in favor of this emendation, but they need not detain us here. Instead, I will simply accept Wright’s argument (1994, 393–395; cf. Creager 1947) that the words are indeed those of the implied Psalmist, based on the fact that other imprecatory statements are not so apologetically amended; case in point, Psalm 139:19–24: O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me— those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 58:6–11 provides another example of the Psalmist condemning an Other:

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O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord! Let them vanish like water that runs away; like grass let them be trodden down and wither. Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime; like the untimely birth that never sees the sun. Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away! The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth.” Wounds of enmity arise out of pain and anguish, demanding retribution, as Psalm 137:8–9 graphically illustrates: O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! Sometimes antipathy comes from a treacherous former friend, as in Psalm 55:12–15: It is not enemies who taunt me— I could bear that; it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me— I could hide from them. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company; we walked in the house of God with the throng. Let death come upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol; for evil is in their homes and in their hearts. On the basis of my research into Romanian amulet texts (Roddy 2001, 96–99; 2012), I am inclined to agree with Wright (1994), who, on the basis of Hittite models, suggests that Psalm 109 served a ritual function in which analogical language is used to control the reality of potential conflict with a hostile other. My collection of early modern period Transylvanian spells, charms, and incantations bears several examples conducive to the idea that Psalm 109, along with other imprecatory literary units, functioned ritually through the use of spoken analogical language in originally popular and domestic contexts, with perhaps later

158 Nicolae Roddy appropriation and legitimatization by Priestly scribal communities (Gunkel 1933, cited in Cheung 2015, 3; Kuntz 1974), to control the reality of conflict with a real or imagined hostile other in domestic environs, the marketplace, and even the sanctuary. Also, if imprecatory psalms and verses do indeed function as charms, spells, or incantations, their use for warding off evil and maintaining proper social relationships is likely to be proactive, rather than reactive. In any case, they appear to counter perceived human threats as thaumaturgical or miracle-working formulae for the purpose of invoking acts of divine protection, such as Psalm 109:6–15 implores: Appoint a wicked man against him; let an accuser stand on his right. When he is tried, let him be found guilty; let his prayer be counted as sin. May his days be few; may another seize his position. May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg; may they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit. May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil. May there be no one to do him a kindness, nor anyone to pity his orphaned children. May his posterity be cut off; may his name be blotted out in the second generation. May the iniquity of his father be remembered before the Lord, and do not let the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, and may his memory be cut off from the earth. These examples illustrate radical social brokenness—gaps among human beings that demand justification for wrongs committed, followed by pleas for divine judgment that would set things right even if it means calling for the perceived other’s violent death. In today’s world, social media platforms struggle to find ways to deal with threatening comments—especially on platforms that permit anonymity—while accommodating and protecting US First Amendment rights to free speech. Some people may be looking for ways to bridge the brokenness caused by insecurity and a sense of victimization, real or imagined, that leads to fear and hate in any generation. It is here that biblical wisdom readily stands by, offering itself to those seeking strength and inspiration for bringing personal and social healing to fruition, providing an effective antidote to the poison of othering, and a weighty counterbalance to the imprecatory psalms.

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The wisdom antidote Biblical Israel’s cultural accumulation of homegrown and borrowed wisdom (h ̣okmah)—conveyed through time-worn pithy maxims, didactic verse, moralizing tales, and philosophical treatises—offers up a treasure trove of time-tested observations and advice for negotiating the pitfalls of everyday existence. Wisdom lays out a straight and level path upon which to tread life’s way (Job 23:11; Prov. 3:6, 4:26– 27; cf. Isa. 26:7; Jer. 31:9); it invites those who have yet to acquire it (hapethim) to feast upon its lavish banquet (Prov. 9:1–6); and it offers itself as the ultimate prosperity (Job 28:16; Prov. 3:15, 8:11, 16:16). Those who respond to Wisdom’s call enjoy its rich bounty and assume the obligation of passing along the ideals, values, and traditions of the elders embodied in the Torah and expressed in the affirmation that fear of the Lord is where it begins (Prov. 1:7, 9:10, 15:33; Psa. 111:10). For the priests and sages of the exilic period (who learned a few things from their Babylonian counterparts), the everyday application of practical wisdom from lived experience, which governs proper social interaction and relationships, is ultimately rooted in the orderliness of the cosmos. Eventually they came to assert that this orderliness derives from the fact that Wisdom itself has fashioned the world (Zimmerli 1964; Perdue 1994, 34, 48). The fact that Thomas Paine could write in 1794 “there is a revelation. The word of God is the creation we behold” (Hoffman 2013, 298) suggests the cosmos continued to provide an adequate model for human behavior into the modern world, and that failing to ignore the perceived harmony of the cosmos invites the sort of social conflicts and all-out wars that plagued Europe over many centuries. Although modern physics no longer holds to a concept of a static, predictable universe set in motion by a divine Watchmaker, the Psalmist nevertheless extols, “How manifold are your works, O Lord, in wisdom you made them all” (Psa. 104:24). One need not reject physics to agree with the Psalmist’s proclamation, or that of Jeremiah, for that matter, who asserts: “It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens” (Jer. 10:12; cf. 51:15). Proverbs 8:27–31 goes further in assigning agency to Wisdom, giving voice to Wisdom’s own self-representation: When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

160 Nicolae Roddy Presupposed in all of this is the close relationship between wisdom and the Torah. Although wisdom language exhibits an apparent aloofness from cultic terminology and generally avoids specific references to Israel, a close connection with the Torah remains apparent (Schipper and Teeter 2013). Proverbs 3:19–22, for example, associates cosmic wisdom with instruction for life, doing so in a way that calls to mind the apparent use of rolled silver amulets inscribed with words of the Torah and likely worn about the neck, such as those discovered at Ketef Hinnom in 1979 (Barkay et al. 2004). The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew. My child, do not let these escape from your sight: keep sound wisdom and prudence, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. (Prov. 3:19–22) The book of Deuteronomy also negotiates the universal dimensions of ancient Near Eastern wisdom with the particularities of Torah observance, and situates the Torah within the framework of wisdom as an indicator of a “wise and discerning people”: See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” (Deut. 4:5–6) While Torah observance distinguishes the Israelites from the nations, wisdom in which it participates is something that is recognized by all peoples. Moses’s address to the Israelites reveals an underlying assumption that non-Israelites can also be discerning subjects of YHWH’s cosmic governance: And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven. (Deut. 4:19) Wise and discerning people trod the world in measured, consistent, and orderly ways, emulating wisdom’s cosmic framework, which holds all things in the balance of their divinely appointed places by preserving distinctions while eschewing

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divisions. The sage’s affirmation of an inherent orderliness to the world is sure, resting upon an inviolable, divinely ordered standard of justice and righteousness (mishpat vezedaqah) that, as Job learns, is beyond human ability to fathom and challenges the hubris of the ego-self. As such, wisdom can place all the seemingly insurmountable cares of life in their proper perspective in the grand scheme of things. I have often suggested to my students, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that if they get up in the morning, face the rising sun, and read Wisdom Psalm 104 aloud, they cannot possibly have a bad day. Biblical wisdom’s all-inclusive embrace of the cosmos has implications for relationships among members of the single human race. Its anthropological perspective is not unique to biblical Israel, but is rooted in the ancient Near Eastern societies’ shared conviction that human beings derive from the ground and remain inextricably bound to it. In Genesis 2, the first biblical human being (’adam) is formed from the earth (’adamah), something akin to saying the earthling was created from the earth or that the human was created from the humus (fertile soil). Several other mythologies posit the creation of humans from the dark, reddishbrown clay that gods like the Sumerian Enki or the Egyptian Khnum infused with blood or water and animated. In the Gilgamesh epic, Aruru forms Enkidu from the clay to be a companion for the wandering king, and in the Babylonian Enuma Elish human beings sprout from drops of a slain chaos monster’s blood encased in dust. Finally, iconography of pharaonic Egypt shows great sensitivity to ethnic distinctions. Its written records indicate that foreigners were often well integrated in Egyptian society, even holding high-ranking offices in a manner reminiscent of the Joseph cycle: “were it not by their occasional description as aamu (Asiatic), nehesi (Nubian) or lieu (Libyan) in their own monuments, nothing in their looks, titles, names or cultural markers would reveal any particular ethnic identity” (Moreno García 2020). Although Greek culture is evident in the Levantine archaeological record from the early first millennium BCE, it was not until the conquests of Alexander the Great that inclusivist traditions of the ancient Near East were forced to compete with the more ethnocentric sociocultural attitudes of the Hellenists, which deviated even from classical examples like the myth of Prometheus (Tarazi 2017). The likely Alexandrian synthesis of biblical and Hellenistic views of wisdom is observable in later wisdom writings, especially Ecclesiastes, Ben Sira, and the Wisdom of Solomon, where the Torah is fully affirmed. Wisdom’s resilience to the particularities of ethnicity and cult allowed for unimpeded expansion of wisdom traditions throughout the Near East. As Gunkel observed, priesthoods are ever wont to co-opt popular wisdom (Gunkel and Begrich 1933, 394; cited in Cheung 3), seeking to specialize and incorporate it into their domain, confining it to the purview of their gods as a means of exerting control over it. However, authentic wisdom will have none of that, rising instead above the particularities of cult to accommodate a broader horizon of possibilities. Biblical wisdom, which is firmly rooted in fear (as awesome reverence) of the Lord (Job 28:28; Prov. 9:10, 15:33, Psa. 111:10; Eccl. 12:13), emerges in exilic and post-exilic texts in the form of a universalized divine presence no longer confined to a house. Even before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (586 BCE), the

162 Nicolae Roddy visions, oracles, and sign-acts of the ecstatic, altar-deprived, displaced priest Ezekiel began to transform the localized national deity of Judah into a universalized god, whose glory (kabod) travels back and forth between Jerusalem and Babylon (Ezek. 18:10–22, 43:2) and seeks his lost sheep from among the nations (34:11–13). Meanwhile, the exilic and post-exilic period schools of Isaiah envisioned a time when the God of Israel would become the God of all peoples (Isa. 55:1–5, 56:6), and even Egypt’s wisdom will be confounded (19:11–12) and replaced by the knowledge and presence of YHWH (19:19–21): On that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the center of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; when they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a savior, and will defend and deliver them. The Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians; and the Egyptians will know the Lord on that day, and will worship with sacrifice and burnt offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. Thus, after the exilic period and post-exilic periods, wisdom texts rarely identify the deity as the God of Israel; nor do they include any other divine name indicative of particular election (Perdue 35; Zimmerli). Instead, the wisdom corpus employs universalizing epithets like Maker (‘asah; e.g., Job 35:10; Psa. 95:6; Prov. 14:31, 17:5), Creator (bara; Eccl. 12:1), and God of Heaven (El hashamayim; Psa. 136:26; Jonah 1:9; Ezra 5:12, 7:21–23), returning to the universalizing anthropology of Genesis 1:26–28 and finding expression in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: The Lord created human beings out of earth, and makes them return to it again. He gave them a fixed number of days, but granted them authority over everything on the earth. He endowed them with strength like his own, and made them in his own image. He put the fear of them in all living beings, and gave them dominion over beasts and birds. Discretion and tongue and eyes, ears and a mind for thinking he gave them. He filled them with knowledge and understanding, and showed them good and evil. (Sir. 17:1–7, 14b) In asserting that all human beings are but “dust and ashes” (Sir. 17:32; cf. Job 42:6), Ben Sira leads us to another important way wisdom literature universalizes humankind: by calling to mind that great leveler of humanity, namely, sheol—the shadowy netherworld waiting for all human beings beyond this life. As Qoheleth observes,

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the same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice. As are the good, so are the sinners. (Eccl. 9:2) In the harsh light of death-mindfulness, wishing calamity upon one’s perceived enemies is mitigated by acknowledging one will experience a similar fate. As many ancient and present-day indigenous cultures know, words can be powerful weapons (e.g., Micah’s mother’s curse in Judges 17:2 or Eliphaz’s curse in Job 5:3–5). In the form of curses, they are dangerous and can backfire, especially if leveled at the poor and vulnerable. But they are also the last recourse for the poor (‘anav), who, left with no earthly resources, must rely on YHWH to requite the evil done to them, such as we find in Exodus 22:23 (Ben Dov 2006). As regards Psalm 109, Ben Dov calls vv. 6–19 “a fine example of Hebrew curse poetry relating to the lack of justice” (448). By contrast, biblical wisdom values measured speech and affirms Torah’s concern for the poor (e.g., Prov. 13:23; 14:21, 31; 17:5; 19:17), appealing to “a universal orientation to faith and ethics” (Perdue 34).

Conclusion In Genesis 2–3, Eve recognizes that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad is not only good for food and a delight to the eyes, but desired to make one wise. The allure of wisdom not only leads humans to the harsh world outside Paradise, where everything is Other, but also provides the antidote for survival for those who would avail themselves of it. Wisdom reveals the true nature of things, which lies beneath the veneer of illusion in the practical activities of everyday existence, and especially in human interaction. To be sure, variations of this principle are apparent in all the world’s great philosophical and religious traditions; but for biblical sages wisdom is rooted in the created cosmos, itself creating and sustaining the world with its holistically integrative energy that continues to bring forth plants and nourish animals, à la Psalm 104. For this reason, biblical wisdom offers an effective model for creating and sustaining positive human relationships—among one another and together with the environment. The operating principle of Wisdom creates an interconnected world in which plant, animal, and human have their proper roles. This implies radical action is necessary on the part of humans to help preserve Wisdom’s differentiation-in-unity among all living things, both floral and faunal. With biblical wisdom’s eye toward the big picture, social and inter-societal relationships are cast in a truer, more expansive and encompassing light, exposing the systemic injustice of exclusivity and privilege based on social constructions of race, class, gender, and nation. Being fearlessly open and accepting of the world, the Bible’s wisdom literature affirms human dignity and worth, transcending fears and insecurities that compel humans to disregard the dignity and humanity of Others. Wisdom is discriminating in all its judgments, yet inclusively welcomes possibilities and potentials even for fools (Prov. 9).

164 Nicolae Roddy In recent years, the resurgence of extreme populism and white nationalism in the US and Europe has arisen to threaten principles of democracy and basic human rights, denying freedom and security to those perceived to be Other. While purporting to unify under the banner of some imagined Golden Age, populist movements resurrect dangerous histories of disenfranchisement and exclusion in the US and Europe. By contrast, wiser persons have always distinguished between patriotism and nationalism. Those who insist on making a public display of “My country, right or wrong” often support policies that deny relief and opportunities for the poor and marginalized among us. At the time of this writing, the COVID-19 pandemic rages across America as people take to the streets in protest at police abuses against people of color, who are already disproportionately affected by the virus. Moreover, overt acts of violence against peaceful protesters, Muslims, Jews, LGBTGIA+, and others are at an all-time high as white nationalism arises emboldened. Perhaps not since the Civil War has an antidote for othering been more urgently needed. A nation whose Constitution ironically claims “all men [sic] are created equal,” and whose iconic Liberty Island statue pleads “Give me your tired, your hungry, your poor,” nevertheless has separated children from their families and committed them to wire enclosures (Graham 2018; Sacchetti 2019; Soboroff and Ainsley 2019), leaving us to ask with Job: “where is wisdom to be found? Where does understanding dwell?” (Job 28:12). The wisdom literature of the Bible offers itself as a beacon, in whose light legislators might discriminate between just and unjust laws and practices, and the rest of us rise above our differences—differences that diminish in the face of Wisdom’s ineffable majesty.

Notes 1 Somewhat problematic are the bene hanekar, translated as aliens or foreigners, who appear in varying contexts and seem to vacillate in degrees of acceptance (compare Isa. 56:6 and Ezek. 44:6–9, for example). 2 The Deuteronomistic History includes the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings, with the book of Deuteronomy as prologue. 3 Such would be the experience of every immigrant family’s offspring, as my own childhood as a second-generation Romanian Orthodox Christian informs me.

References Allen, Leslie C. 2002. Psalms 101–150. WBC. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Anderson, Gary A. 1994. “Review of Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World, by Philip Peter Jenson.” JBL 113, no. 2: 424. Awabdy, Mark A. 2012. “Yhwh Exegetes Torah: How Ezekiel 44:7–9 Bars Foreigners from the Sanctuary.” JBL 131, no. 4: 685–703. Barkay, Gabrielet al.2004. “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation.” BASOR 334: 41–71. Ben Dov, Jonathan. 2006. “The Poor’s Curse: Exodus XXII 20–26 and Curse Literature in the Ancient World.” VT 56, no. 4: 431–451. Cheung, Simon Chi-chung. 2015. Wisdom Intoned: A Reappraisal of the Genre “Wisdom Psalms”. London: T&T Clark.

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Craigie, Peter C. 2005. Psalms 1–50. WBC. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Creager, H. L. 1947. “Note on Psalm 109.” JNES 6: 121–123. Cross, Frank M. 1973. “The Themes of the Book of Kings and the Structure of the Deuteronomistic History.” In Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel, edited by F. M. Cross, 274–289. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cumming-Bruce, Nick. 2019. “U.N. Rights Head ‘Shocked’ by Treatment of Migrant Children at the Border.” New York Times (July 8). www.nytimes.com/2019/07/08/ world/americas/michelle-bachelet-unhcr-migrants-border.html. Day, John N. 2002. “Imprecatory Psalms and Christian Ethics.” BS 159: 166–186. De Hoop, Raymond. 2008. “The Interpretation of Isaiah 56:1–9: Comfort or Criticism?” JBL 127, no. 4: 671–695. Flannery, Frances, and Rodney A. Werline, eds. 2016. The Bible in Political Debate: What Does It Really Say?New York: T&T Clark. Graham, David A. 2018. “Are Children Being Kept in ‘Cages’ at the Border?” The Atlantic (June 18). www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/ceci-nest-pas-une-cage/ 563072/. Haney, Ian Lopez. 2015. Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hoffman, David C. 2013. “‘The Creation we Behold’: Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason and the Tradition of Physico-Theology.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 157, no. 3: 281–303. Jenson, Philip P. 1992. Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World. JSOTSup 106. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic. Krispenz, Jutta. 2016. “Idolatry, Apostasy, Prostitution: Hosea’s Struggle Against the Cult.” In Priests and Cults in the Book of the Twelve, edited by L.-S. Tiemeyer, 9–30. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Kuntz, J. Kenneth. 1974. “The Canonical Wisdom Psalms of Ancient Israel: Their Rhetorical, Thematic, and Formal Dimensions.” In Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, edited by J. J. Jackson and M. Kessler, 186–222. PTMS. Pittsburgh: Pickwick. Lewis, C. S. 1967. Christian Reflections, edited by Walter Hooper. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Martin, Chalmers. 1972. “Imprecations in the Psalms.” In Classical Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation, edited by W. C. Kaiser, 113–132. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker. Moreno García, Juan Carlos. 2020. “Coping with Ethnicity in Pharaonic Egypt.” Ancient Near East Today 8, no. 5. www.asor.org/anetoday/2020/05/ethnicity-phara onic-egypt. Perdue, Leo G. 1994. Wisdom and Creation. Nashville: Abingdon. Powell, John A. 2017. “Us vs. Them: The Sinister Techniques of ‘Othering’—and How to Avoid Them.” Guardian (November 8). www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/ 08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them. Regev, Eyal. 2001. “Priestly Dynamic Holiness and Deuteronomic Static Holiness.” VT 51, no. 2: 243–261. Roddy, Nicolae. 2001. The Romanian Version of the Testament of Abraham: Text, Translation, and Cultural Context. EJL 19. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Roddy, Nicolae. 2012. “Visul Maicii Domnului (‘The Dream of the Mother of the Lord’): New Testament Romanian Amulet Text.” In The Canon of the Bible and the Apocrypha in the Churches of the East, edited by V. S. Hovhanessian, 43–49. New York: Peter Lang.

166 Nicolae Roddy Sacchetti, Maria. 2019. “‘Kids in Cages’: House Hearing Examines Immigration Detention as Democrats Push for More Information.” Washington Post (July 10). Samuelson, Tracey D. 2009. “Biblical Anti-Obama Slogan: Use of Psalm 109:8. Funny or Sinister?” Christian Science Monitor (November 16). Schipper, Bernd, and D. Andrew Teeter, eds. 2013. Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of “Torah” in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill. Schwalbe, M., D. Holden, D. Schrock, S. Godwin, S. Thompson, and M. Volkomir. 2000. “Generic Processes in the Reproduction of Inequality: An Interactionist Analysis.” Special Forces 79, no. 2: 419–452. Sheppard, G. T. 1991. “‘Enemies’ and the Politics of Prayer in the Book of Psalms.” In The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Norman K. Gottwald, edited by D. Jobling, P. L. Day, and G. T. Sheppard, 61–82. Cleveland: Pilgrim. Simango, Daniel, and P. Paul Krüger. 2016. “An Overview of the Study of Imprecatory Psalms: Reformed and Evangelical Approaches to the Interpretation of Imprecatory Psalms.” OTE 29, no. 3:581–600. doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2016/v29n3a13. Soboroff, Jacob, and Julia Ainsley. 2019. “Migrant Kids in Overcrowded Arizona Border Station Allege Sex Assault, Retaliation from U.S. Agents.” NBC News (July 9). www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/migrant-kids-overcrowded-arizona-bor der-station-allege-sex-assault-retaliation-n1027886. Tajfel, Henri, and John C. Turner. 1979. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, edited by W. G. Austin and S. Worchel, 33–37. Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole. Tajfel, Henri, and John C. Turner. 1986. “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior.” In Psychology of Intergroup Relations, edited by W. G. Austin and S. Worchel, 7–24. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Tarazi, Paul Nadim. 2017. The Rise of Scripture. Minneapolis: OCABS Press. Tate, Marvin E. 2005. Psalms 51–100. WBC. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Tromp, K. J. 2011. “Aliens and Strangers in the Old Testament.” Vox Reformata: Australian Journal for Christian Scholarship 76: 5–24. Van Houten, Christina. 1991. The Alien in Israelite Law. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Wright, David. 1992. “Holiness: OT.” In Anchor Bible Dictionary 3: 237–249, edited by D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday. Wright, David. 1994. “Ritual Analogy in Psalm 109.” JBL 113, no. 3: 385–404. Zimmerli, Walther. 1964. “The Place and Limit of the Wisdom in the Framework of the Old Testament.” SJT 17: 146–158.

Index of Biblical References

Genesis 1 5, 6, 69, 74, 99, 101, 102–111 1–2 69, 99, 101–105, 107, 111 1–3 65–66, 69, 73, 74, 80n2 1–11 153 1:1 99 1:6–7 108 1:16 106 1:20 112n2 1:20–21 69 1:21 110 1:21–22 80n7 1:24 70 1:24–25 69 1:26–27 65, 102 1:26–28 103 1:27 75, 80n11 1:28 75, 76, 86, 97n2 1:29–30 76 1:30 70 2 70, 74, 99 2–3 1, 72, 75 2:5 74 2:7 69, 70, 102, 110 2:7–8 74 2:15 74, 79, 86 2:19 65, 80n7, 102, 119n2 3 72, 110 3:1 70, 72 3:4 72, 73 3:5 7 3:6 4, 71 3:7 67, 71 3:8–13 73 3:12 73 3:13 73 3:14 73, 80n14 3:14–15 73 3:15 80

3:19 73, 110 3:22 71, 72 3:24 72 4:1 70, 71 4:7 71 4:8 76 4:11 80n14 4:17–22 71 6:5 76 6:17 110 7:22 119n2 8:21–22 76 9 90 9:1–2 76 9:8–17 90 9:12–17 77 9:25 87 17 153 19:30–38 153 28:12 77 28:23–24 77 38 154 Exodus 4:1–5 68 18 154 19: 5–6 4 20:8–11 87, 101 22:23 163 23:20–22 4 23:21 4 23:26–30 4 32:8 67 34:19 5 37:7–9 67 40:34 106 Leviticus 2:14 5

168 Index of Biblical References 3:7 39 3:12 39 6:7 39 7:2 39 11 153 11–15 153 11:42 80n15 11:44 153 19:2 153 20:22–26 153 20:24 153 20:25–26 153 22:32 153 25:23 107 Numbers 3:7–8 112n3 14:10 106 21:6–7 67 22–24 154 22:21–39 78 22:23–35 78 Deuteronomy 4:5–6 1, 4, 160 4:19 160 8:11–20 6, 17n3 8:15 67 21:1–9 154 21:8 67 21:9 67 22:28–29 124 28 3, 77 28:1–14 4 28:15–68 4 34:9 1 Joshua 2 154 18:1 75 Judges 17:2 163 Ruth 1:1–5 154 1 Samuel 8:7–8 6 18:9–33 122 2 Samuel 9–20 117 9:8 55

11 121 11:1 6 12 114 13 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 125, 126 13–19 114–128 13:1 119 13:3 117 13:3–5 117 13:12 118 13:13 118, 121 13:16 119, 120 13:17 119 13:18 119 13:19 119, 120, 121 13:20 121, 124 13:21 121 13:22 121, 122 13:23–29 121 13:39 125 14:21–24 122 14:28 122 18 123 1 Kings 1–2 117 1–11 33n8 3 40 3:3–14 57 3:5 97 3:9 97 3:9–10 57 3:11–13 4 3:16–28 103 4:29–34 33n8, 96 5:4 75 6:23–28 67 6:29 67 6:35 (FF 4) 7:25 67 7:29–36 67 8:6–7 67 9:6–9 5 12:25–13:22 67 13:1–2 17n2 18:46 11 19:9–13 12 2 Kings 11:23–23 (LH 9 fn15) 14:21–30 59n15 18:4 67 19:34 6 24:12–15 24 24:14 24

Index of Biblical References 169 24:16 24 25:29 24 Isaiah 1:19–20 4 6 72 6:2 68 6:2–6 68 11:1–5 1 11:6–9 78, 79, 111 14:29 68 19:11–15 1 26:7 159 30:15 1 32:1–5 1 40–55 9, 27, 30, 31 40:2 9, 27 40:12–14 30, 31 40:20 31 40:26 31 40:28 31 41:20 31 42:5 31 43:13 31 43:22–28 7 44:24 31 44:25 31, 32 45:7 31 45:7–8 91 45:9 30, 32 45:18 6 47:10 31 48:13 31 49:5–7 7 49:24 30 53 33n9 55:1 30 53:1–12 7, 27 54:7–8 7 55:1–5 162 55:8 30 55:8–9 6 56 155 56:6 162, 164n1 65:17 86 Jeremiah 4:23–28 155 5:14–17 155 6:22–30 155 7:3–4 6 8:1–2 155 10:9 31

10:12 159 15:2–3 155 23:13–14 7 24:1–10 24 29:4–7 7 31:9 159 50:35 31 51:15 6, 159 51:57 31 52:20 67 52:28–29 24 52:33 24 Ezekiel 1 29 1:4 29 1:10 67 3:15 29 4:14 28 4:20 28 5:12 29 6:12 29 7:26 29 8:1 24 8:12 29 10:14 67 12:22 28 14 29 14:13–19 29 14:14 28 14:20 28 15:2 28 16:44 28 16:51 7 18 26 18:2 28 18:10–22 162 20 155 27:8–9 33n7 28 29 28:3 29 28:4 29 28:5 29 28:7 29 28:12 29 28:17 29 37 30 37:7–10 29 37:14 13 43:2 162 44:6–9 155, 164n1 47:9 30 47:12 30

170 Index of Biblical References Hosea 1:2 17n3 1:8–9 154 2:20 77 4:3 77 14:9 1 Amos 3:3–6 1 5:18–24 155 Jonah 1:9 162 Psalms 1 59n14, 104, 105, 133, 136 1–41 105 1:1–3 133 3 116 7 116 8 105–107, 135, 136 8:1 105 8:2 105 8:3–4 105 8:4–5 135 8:5 108 8:6–8 106, 107 15–24 105 18 116 19 105 22 134 24:1 107 32 59n14, 114–117, 123–126 32:1–2 115 32:1–3 123 32:1–5 116 32:3 123 32:3–7 115 32:4 124 32:5 115, 125 32:7 125 32:8–9 115 32:8–11 115 32:9 116 32:10 125 32:11 125 33:6 6 33:9 109 34 59n14, 116 37 59n14, 105 40 105 44 24 49 59n14 51 114

55:12–15 157 58 155 58:6–11 156 58:10 156 65 107 65:9–13 107 69 24, 26, 27, 157 69:35 26 72 103 72:1–2 136 74 24 79 24 89 24 93:1 85 95 107 95:6 162 96 107 96:10 85 96:11–13 107 97 97n2 98:7–9 107 103:1–4 135 103:22 107 104 6, 101, 108, 110–111, 161, 163 104:1–4 108 104:3–4 108 104:5 85 104:5–13 108 104:14–23 109 104:15 (IP 13) 104:17–18 109 104:21 109, 111 104:23 109 104:24 6, 33n10, 111, 159 104:25–26 109 104:27 110, 111 104:27–30 110 104:29–30 110 109 155, 156, 157, 163 109:6–15 158 109:6–19 163 109:8 155 111:10 159 112 59n14 127 59n14 128 59n14 133 59n14 136:26 162 137 7, 24, 112n4 137:8–9 155, 157 137:9 156 139 110 139:13–14 110 139:19–24 155, 156

Index of Biblical References 171 147 108 147:8–9 108 147:16–18 108 148 108 148:3 108 148:7 108 148:10 108 150 105 150:6 108 Proverbs 1–9 25 1:1 53 1:7 159 1:8 54 1:10 54 2:6 65 3:6 159 3:7–8 152 3:13–18 115 3:15 159 3:19–20 30 3:19–22 160 4:11–27 116 4:13–19 6 4:26–27 159 8 139 8:11 159 8:15–16 54 8:22–31 30 8:27–31 159 9 163 9:1–6 159 9:5 30 9:10 159, 161 9:10–11 5 9:12 54 10:1 53 10:8 5 11:8 5 12 70 12:16 70 12:23 70 13:23 163 14:21 163 14:28 54 14:31 162, 163 15:33 159, 161 16:4 6 16:10–15 54 16:16 159 16:29 118 17:5 162, 163 18:19 54

19:10 54 19:17 163 20:2 54 20:8 54 21:1 54 22:11 54 22:17–23:11 48 23:1–3 54 24:21–22 54 25:1 53, 59n13 25:2–3 54 25:4–5 54 25:6 54 25:15 54 26:3 116 28:2 54 28:12 54 28:13–14 115, 116 28:15 54 28:16 54 29:14 54 29:26 54 30:22 54 30:31 54 31:1–9 53 31:17 18n6 Job 1–2 26 1:1 27 1:1–2:13 9 1:5 27 1:6–12 9 1:8 9, 12 1:13–19 9, 29 1:21 14 2:1–7 9 2:3 9, 12 2:7–8 9 2:9–10 9 2:10 10, 15 2:13 29 3:1–3 10 3:1–42:6 9 3:13–14 54 5:3–5 163 7:17–19 14 8:5–6 10 9:2–12 31 9:4 31 9:8 31 9:10 31 9:12 31, 32 9:22 10

172 Index of Biblical References 10:11–12 29 11:6 11 12:3–4 11 12:9 31 12:17 32 12:17–21 54 12:24–25 54 13:3 10, 12 13:20–25 14 13:22 10, 12 14:7 15 15:4–6 11 15:24 54 16:10 11 17:1 11 18:14 54 19:13 27 19:26 15 21:19–20 29 22:13–14 29 22:27–30 29 23:3–5 10, 12 23:11 159 25:2–4 32 27:14–15 29 28:12 164 28:13 14 28:16 159 28:23 13 28:28 161 28:29 13 28:31 13 29:25 54 31 116 31:35–37 13 32–37 26 32:1 13 32:6–35:3 13 32:18 13 32:22 13 33:4 13 33:9 10 34:14–15 110 34:17–20 54 34:34–37 14 34:37 14 35:10 162 38 11 38–41 14, 101 38:1 29 38:2 11 38:2–3 11 38:4 11 38:31 11

38:37 11 38:4–39:27 30 39:1 78 39:7 79 39:26 11, 78 40:2 11 40:3–5 11 40:7–8 11 40:15–34 12 41:1–34 17 42:3 12, 14 42:4 12 42:5 14, 15 42:6 14, 162 42:5–6 14 42:6 12 42:7 12 42:7–8 12, 14 42:7–17 9, 26 42:8 12 42:10 9 42:12–13 10 Ecclesiastes 1:1 17n4 1:2 7 1:4 3 1:5 85 1:13 15 2:9 9 2:11 7 2:24 8 3:4 8 3:7 114 3:11 3 3:13 8 3:14 15 3:14–15 15 3:16 55 3:17 7 3:20 9 4:1 8 4:13 7 4:13–16 55 7:15 8, 9 8:2–9 55 8:14 1 9:2 163 9:3 9 9:4 55 9:7–10 52 9:10 9 9:11 8, 14 9:12 8

Index of Biblical References 173 9:13–16 55 9:18 55 10:4 55 10:5–6 55 10:16 55 10:20 55 12:1 162 12:1–7 9 12:1–8 15 12:12 8 12:13 161 12:13–14 9 Ezra 5:12 162 7:21–23 162 Nehemiah 13 155 Daniel 6 40 9 40 12 16 12:1–3 16 12:2–3 4 1 Chronicles 4:9–10 85 16:12–13 97 16:30 85 28:18 67 29:15 154 2 Chronicles 1:2–13 57 3:7 67 3:10–13 67 3:14 67 5:7–8 67 Ben Sira 1:27 45 2 43 2:7–11 44 2:10 44 2:17 44 3:17–21 45 4:15 56 7:4–5 56 7:15 38 7:22 38 8:2 56 10:1–3 56

10:4 56 10:7–8 56 10:14–17 56 11:5–6 56 17:1–7 162 17:14 162 17:17 56 17:32 162 28:1–5 43 33:10–13 56 33:18 38 35:20–26 45 36:1–22 46 36:12 56 37: 13–15 42 37:15 42 38:24 38, 46n3 38:25 38 38:25–26 38 38:27–28 38 38:29–30 38 38:31–32 38 38:34 39 38:34–39:4 56 38:34–39:11 38 39:1 39 39:1–3 39 39:5 39 39:6 40 39:15 40 40:1–5 56 41:17–18 56 47:3–1 56 47:7–8 56 44–50 56 45:1–5 56 45:6–22 56 46:1 56 46:5 44 46:13 56 46:16 44 46:16–18 56 47:3–6 56 47:5 44 47:7–8 56 47:8 56 47:9–11 56 47:11 56 47:13 56 47:14–17 56 47:18 56 47:19–20 56 47:21 56 47:23 56

174 Index of Biblical References 47:23–25 56 48:12 56 48:17–21 56 48:22 56 49:2–3 56 49:4 56 49:11–12 56 51 40 51:13–14 36, 40

12:13–15 57 15:1 57 15:3 57

Wisdom of Solomon 1:1 57 2:24 79n2 3:8 57 5:15–16 57 5:16–20 57 6:1–3 57 6:4–8 57 6:9–11 57 6:22–25 57 7:1–22 57 8:1–4 57 9:5–7 57 11:10–11 57

Mark 12:31 87 16:8 117

Matthew 6:14–15 43 7:12 87 10:16 80n9 10:29–31 91

Luke 10:21 94 John 3:14–15 67 Revelation 12:9 80n2 20:2 80n2

Index of Modern Authors

Allen, Leslie C. 107, 108, 110, 156 Amzallag, Nissim 73, 81n16 Argall, Randal A. 37, 39, 46n2 Arnold, Russell C. D. 36 Asad, Talal 36, 41 Awabdy, Mark A. 155 Baeck, Leo 16 Balentine, Samuel E. 13 Bailey, Randall 131, 133 Barbour, Ian G. 99 Barkay, Gabriel 160 Barrett, C. K. 94 Batto, Bernard F. 72 Bauks, Michaela 74, 75 Bell, Catherine 36 Ben Dov, Jonathan 163 Benzoni, Francisco 100 Blakely, W. A. 87 Boda, Mark 23 Botha, Phil J. 114, 115–116 Bourdieu, Pierre 36, 41–42 Boyer, Pascal 36 Brinks-Ream, Christina 31 Brueggemann, Walter 24, 25, 33n1, 33n2, 105, 121 Bryce, Glendon E. 48, 50, 51 Buber, Martin 16, 133 Budge, E. A. Wallis 80n4 Calduch-Benages, Nuria 41, 43–44, 46 Callaway, Mary 124 Callender, Gae 59n10 Camp, Claudia V. 23, 25 Carrington, Damian 96 Charlesworth, James (FF) Charvát, Petr 48 Cheung, Simon Chi-chung 114, 115, 158, 161

Clayton, Peter A. 57, 58n4, 59n8 Clements, Ronald E. 23, 25, 30 Clifford, Richard J. 2, 55, 57, 58n2, 58, n3 Clines, David J. 3, 12, 13, 18n7 Coetzee, Johan H. 123 Cogan, Mordechai 24 Cohen, Arthur A. 16 Cohen, Shaye J. D. 2 Cohen, Yoram 52 Collins, John J. 111 Connolly, Tristanne 145, 147, 149 Conroy, Charles 119 Conzelmann, Hans 94 Craigie, Peter, C. 156 Creager, H. L. 156 Crenshaw, James L. 1, 3, 7, 55, 58n3, 96, 114 Croft, Steven 130 Cross, Frank M. 6, 154 Cumming-Bruce, Nick 155 Dalley, Stephanie 52, 59n11 Davidson, A. B. 33n5 Davies, Le Grande 65, 72 Day, John 26, 108, 156 DeClaissé-Walford, Nancy L. 104, 132 De Hoop, Raymond 155 Dell, Katharine J. 2, 6, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30 Di Lella, Alexander A. 38, 46n2, 46n4, 56 Drosnin, Michael 85 Eaves, Northrop 141 Ehrman, Bart 84 Ekblad, Bob 132, 134 Erman, Adolf 49, 50, 59n7, 59n10 Falk, Daniel K. 37, 40 Faraone, Christopher A. 68 Faulkner, Raymond O. 59n7, 68

176 Index of Modern Authors Favard-Meeks, Christine 51 Fea, John 94 Flannery, Frances 2, 68, 81n22, 139, 152 Fohrer, Georg 30, 59n13 Fowler, Robert M. 117 Frandsen, Paul John 51 Frankfort, Henri 51, 59n10 Frye, Northrop 149 Gajahan, Mahita 82 Geoghegan, Jeffrey C. 126 Gerstenberger, Erhard 130, 135 Gilbert, Maurice 37, 41, 42, 43 Goff, Matthew 2, 17n1 Graham, David 164 Green, Anthony 59n12 Greenberg, Irving 16 Greenstein, Edward L. 52 Grudem, Wayne A. 87 Gunkel, Hermann 114, 158, 161 Habel, Norman C. 59n16, 70, 76 Hallo, William W. 51 Handy, Lowell K. 2, 53, 67, 68 Harkins, Angela Kim 81 Harris, J. Rendel 53 Heaton, E. W. 33 Hendel, Ronald S. 66, 68, 72 Heschel, Abraham Joshua 16 Higgins, Ryan Stephan 118, 119 Hoffman, David C. 159 Hofstadter, Richard 94 Holland, Dorothy 36, 41 Hornung, Erik 50, 51 Jacobson, Rolf A. 134 Jacoby, Susan 94 Jenson, Phillip P. 153 Joines, Karen R. 67, 68, 80n5 Jones, Serene 120, 126 Joyce, Paul M. 26, 28, 29 Keel, Othmar 66 Klawans, Jonathan 43 Knauf, Ernst Axel 53 Kramer, Samuel Noah 51 Kraus, Hans-Joachim 130, 136 Krispenz, Jutta 155 Krüger, P. Paul 156 Kugler, Robert A. 36 Kuhrt, Amélie 49 Kushner, Harold S. 8 Kuntz, J. Kenneth 1, 33n6, 55, 58n1, 59n14, 72, 115, 116, 158

Kwon, JiSeong James 23, 32 Kynes, Will 1, 2, 23, 31, 33n11, 58n2 Lambert, W. G. 48, 58n3 Lasine, Stuart 59n15 Lawson, E. Thomas 36 Lenoir, Jonathan 96 Lewis, C. S. 156 Lichtheim, Miriam 49, 50, 51, 59n7, 59, n10 Lindenberger, James M. 53 Linzey, Andrew 65, 70 Lipka, Hilary 120 Livingstone, Alasdair 51 Macatangay, Francis M. 53 Mahmood, Saba 36, 41, 42 Martin, Chalmers 156 Mauss, Marcel 36, 41 Mazzinghi, Luca 57 McCauley, Robert N. 36 McDaniel, Jay 65 McGann, Jerome J. 144 McKane, Wililam 49, 50, 51, 53, 58n3, 58n6 McKeon, Richard 55 Meeks, Dimitri 51 Meshel, Ze’ev 66 Meyers, Carol 71, 73, 80n12, 130 Michalowski, Piotr 52 Miller, Patrick D. 123, 131 Miller, Robert D. 67 Mitchell, David C. 104 Moberly, R. W. L. 71 Mobley, Gregory 66 Mooney, Chris 94 Moreno García, Juan Carlos 161 Morton, Adam 96 Mowinckel, Sigmund 114 Mullins, Terence Y. 58 Murphy, Roland E. 2, 3, 7, 115 Nelson, William B., Jr 67, 68 Newburg, Andrew 36 Newman, Judith H. 37, 40, 41, 46n3 Newsom, Carol A. 3, 12, 13, 18n5 Nicholas, William Bradford 81 Nickelsburg, George W. E. 56, 57 Noll, Mark 94 Noth, Martin 6 Otto, Shawn 94 Patterson, Thomas E. 94 Penner, Jeremy 37, 40

Index of Modern Authors 177 Perdue, Leo G. 26, 35, 55, 56, 57, 58n2, 59n13, 59n16, 115, 159, 162, 163 Perry, Richard 38 Pfeiffer, R. H. 31 Phillips, Michael 139 Pleins, David 134 Pope, Marvin H. 54, 59n16 Potgieter, J. Henk 114, 115, 116 Powell, John A. 152 Pritchard, James B. 49, 50, 59n7 Provan, Iain 99, 102, 111 Rankin, Oliver Shaw 53, 58n2 Regev, Eyal 154 Rendtorff, Rolf 116 Roddy, Nicolae 6, 139, 157 Rost, Leonard 57 Rowland, Christopher 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 145, 149 Rowley, H. H. 53, 59n13 Rubenstein, Richard 16 Saccheti, Maria 164 Samuelson, Tracey D. 152 Sandars, N. K. 52 Sanders, James A. 131, 133, 136 Saur, Markus 59 Schipper, Bernd 160 Schoors, Antoon 56 Schwalbe, M. D. 152 Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ludger 55 Scott, R. B. Y. 48, 53 Scult, Allen 71, 76 Sellin, Ernst 59n13 Selz, Gebhard J. 52 Seow C. L. 3, 13, 14, 18n5 Sheppard, G. T. 156 Simango, Daniel 156 Simpson, William Kelly 49, 50, 59n7, 59n10 Skehan, Patrick W. 38, 46n2, 46n4 Smith, Mark S. 72 Solnit, Rebecca 126 Stokes, Ryan E. 9 Sneed, Mark 1, 2, 23, 26 Sung, Mei-Ying 150n3 Swartley, Willard M. 87 Sweeney, Marvin A. 67

Tajfel, Henri 155 Tarazi, Paul Nadim 161 Tate, Marvin E. 156 Taylor, Bron81n23, 99, 100 Teeter, Andrew 160 Teeter, Emily 51 Terrien, Samuel 31, 109 Treanor, Brian 80n8 Trible, Phyllis 118, 119, 121 Tromp, K. J. 154 Trudinger, Peter 70 Turner, John C. 155 Uehlinger, Christoph 66 Usborne, David 93 Van de Mieroop, Marc 52 Van der Walt, Charlene 118 Van Leeuwen, Ray 31, 33n7 Vílchez Líndez, José 53, 58n2 Villalobos, John 140–141 Viscomi, Joseph 139, 140, 142, 143, 145 Von Rad, Gerhard 33n4, 70, 96 Walther, Balthasar 147 Walton, John 102, 103, 106 Ward, James J. 33n9 Wecker, Menachem 147 Weeks, Stuart 1, 23, 28 Wenham, Gordon J. 101, 104 Werline, Rodney A. 36, 37, 40, 125, 152 Wessels, Cornelius J. J. 123 White, Andrew 91 White, Lynn 79, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103 Whitehouse, Harvey 36 Whybray, R. N. 23, 29, 31, 104, 117, 118 Wiesel, Elie 16 Wilkinson, Bruce 85 Winston, David 59 Winter, I. J. 106 Wolf, Ron 100 Wray, T. J. 66 Wright, Benjamin G., III 2, 17n1, 37, 40, 41 Wright, David 153, 156, 157 Wylie, R. C. 87, 88 Zimmerli, Walther 162

Subject Index

Absalom 117, 118, 119–123, 124–125 Adam 70, 73, 81n21, 99; ‘adam and ‘adamah 69–79, 102, 161 Admonitions of Ipuwer 51 Ahiqar 53, 58n2 Alexander the Great 161 Amenemope 48 Amenemhet I 50 Amenemhet III 50 Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) 108 Ammonites 154 Amnon 117–125 anthropocentrism 65, 70, 79, 99–101, 104, 111 Antiochus IV 16 Anubis 66 apocalypticism 16, 17; 37, 100 Aquinas, Thomas 70, 80n1, 100 Aristotle 38, 55 Assurnasirpal II 67 Aten 108 Atrahasis, Epic of 33, 90 Babylonian: cosmogony 5, 31, 33n3; destruction of Jerusalem 6, 7, 24, 26–28; texts 32, 33n3, 90, 161 Bacon, Francis 114, 144, 145 Balaam 78, 154 Bastet 51 Behemoth 12 Bildad 10–32 Blake, William 138–150 Book of the Dead 68, 80n 4 Book of Urizen 138, 143–147, 148 Cain 71, 80n14 Calvin, John 100 Caritas in veritate (Benedict XVI) 100 Cassiodorus 114

Chantress of Amun 88 cherubim 67, 72 Civil War (American) 87, 164 Climate change 15, 83–86, 89, 91–92, 93–97, 97n4; activism 90; biblical 79, 81n23, 96, 111; International Panel 83; Paris accord 92; policy 81n22 Complaints of Khakheperre-sonb 51 Constantine 87 Covenant 2–17, 76–77, 79. 91, 153, 154; Ark of 67 COVID-19 164 Creation of Adam (Michelangelo) 65 Cyrus the Great 30 David 4, 6, 44, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59n14, 97, 114, 116–117, 118, 121–125, 126, 129–133, 134, 136, 154 Dead Sea Scrolls 2, 36, 37, 40, 75 Deuteronomistic history 5, 6, 7, 116, 154, 164n2 Earth Bible 70 Eden, Garden of 67, 70–73, 74–75, 81n21 Edomites 154 El 72 Elihu 10, 13–14, 18, 26, 54, 59n16 Eliphaz 10, 11, 12, 29, 54, 163 Enki 161 Enkidu 52, 80n10, 161 Enoch, book of 37, 39, 46, 75 Enuma Elish 5, 33n3, 108, 161 Environmental crisis (see also climate change) 79, 83, 99 Epic of Gilgamesh 33n3, 52, 59n11, 72, 80n10, 90, 161 Europe (Blake) 146, 148 Eve 70, 73, 74, 81n21, 99, 154 Exile 7, 9, 16, 23–24, 25–26, 27

Subject Index 179 Flood story 76–77, 90–91, 93, 104, 112n2 Gaia 100 Galileo 85, 93 global warming (see climate change) Great Awakening 87; Second Great Awakening 87 Hagar 85, 154 Hathor 66 Hellenistic period 3, 7, 24, 53, 55, 56, 57, 130–131, 161; Hellenism 56 hevel hevelim 7 Hezekiah 56, 59n13, 67 holy of holies 67, 153 Horus 51 I-Thou relationship 133–136 image of God 65–66, 74–76, 79, 80n11, 99–100, 102–103, 107, 133 Instruction of Amenemope 48 Instruction of Ankhsheshonq 48, 51 Instruction of King Amenemhet 50 Instruction of Papyrus Insinger 51 Instruction of Prince Hardjedef 49 Instruction of Ptahhotep 49 Instructions of Shuruppak 51 Islam 3, 17, 52, 81n23 (see also Muslim) Israel, kingdom of 25, 27, 58, 66–67, 96, 130, 153–154 Jesus of Nazareth 80n9, 84, 92, 94–95, 117 Jim Crow laws 86 Jonadab 117–118, 122 Judah, kingdom of 24, 26, 53, 56, 58, 112n4, 130, 155, 162; tribe 85 justice (mišpat) 31, 45, 100, 103, 154–155, 161; in the afterlife 4; of rulers 49–50, 55, 136 Kabbalah 147 Khety 38, 49 Khnum 51, 66, 69, 161 Kuntillet Ajrud 66 LGBTQIA 164 Letter of Aristeas 57 Leviathan 12, 17, 109 Life of Adam and Eve 80n2 Ludlul Bel Nemeqi (Poem of the Righteous Sufferer) 26, 27 Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Blake) 140–142 Merikare 49–50

#MeToo Movement 15, 125–126 Middle Kingdom 51, 58n6 Moabites 154 Mosaic law 2 Murashu tablets 24 Muslim 42, 84, 164; see also Islam Muthetepti of Thebes 68–69 Nechustan 67 nefesh 69–70, 76, 80, 102 Nicomachean Ethics 38 Ninhursag, Temple of 66 Noah 28, 77, 90–91, 104 Obama, Barack 152–153 Old Kingdom 51 Osiris 51 paideia 41 Paine, Thomas 159 Persian empire 24, 53, 55; period 3, 7, 23, 24, 32, 130, 155 Philo Judeus 56 prayer 36–47, 115–116, 123, 125, 130–135 Priestly writer (P) 5, 26, 153–154; community 155, 158 Primeval narrative 153 prophecy ex eventu 4, 17n2 Prophecies of Neferti 51 Proverbs of Hell 140, 141 Psalms of Solomon 36 Ptah 66 Ptolemaic period 48, 51, 56; dynasty 57 Qoheleth 3, 7–9, 10, 14, 54–55, 162 Rahab 154 Re 50, 51 Religious Right 83 Republic (Plato) 38, 55 righteousness (zedakah) 155, 161 ritual 36–46, 49, 120, 153–154, 157 ruach 6, 13 Ruth 154 Sabbatarianism 89 sabbath 87–89, 101, 155 Sarah 85, 154 Satan 9, 15, 66, 70, 80n2 scribal pedagogy 41, 44–45 Sekhmet 51, 66 seraphim 67–68, 72 Second Temple period 36, 37, 40

180 Subject Index Senusret I 50 Servant songs 7, 27 serpent 65–66, 67–68, 70–73, 74, 77, 79, 80, 80n2, 80n9, 81n21 Sesostris I 50 Sheol 8, 9, 16, 54, 157, 162 Shoah (Holocaust) 16, 92 Sol Invictus 87 Solomon 4–5, 43, 53–58, 58n2, 96–97 Succession narrative 117 Swedenborg, Emanuel 147 Tabernacle 112n3, 153 Tamar 117–127, 154 Temple 5, 6, 23–24, 46, 67–68, 92, 130–131, 155, 161 Thoth 66

Thunberg, Greta 90 Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad 66, 70, 71, 72, 81n21, 163 Tree of Life 66, 72, 73 Trump, Donald 83, 90, 92 Ur-Ninurta 51 Utnapishtim 52, 72 vaticinium ex eventu (see prophecy ex eventu) Wisdom corpus 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 16, 17n1, 32, 58n2, 78, 155, 162 Wisdom psalms 1, 33n6, 53, 55, 59n14, 114, 115, 116, 129, 161 Zophar 10–11