Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Part II: The Twentieth Century - From Modernism to Post-Modernism 9783666540226, 9783525540220

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Hebrew Bible / Old Testament The History of Its Interpretation Volume III/2

Hebrew Bible / Old Testament The History of Its Interpretation Edited by

Magne Sæbø

Volume III

From Modernism to Post-Modernism (The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries)

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Hebrew Bible / Old Testament The History of Its Interpretation Volume III

From Modernism to Post-Modernism (The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) In Co-operation with

Peter Machinist and Jean Louis Ska, SJ edited by

Magne Sæbø Part 2

The Twentieth Century – From Modernism to Post-Modernism

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISBN 978-3-525-54022-0

You can find alternative editions of this book and additional material on our Website: www.v-r.de © 2015, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Bristol, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Printed in Germany. Typesetting by Dörlemann Satz, Lemförde Printed and bound by Hubert & Co, Göttingen Printed on non-aging paper

Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971) the Interpreter

Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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25. In Our Own, Post-modern Time – Introductory Remarks on Two Methodological Problems in Biblical Studies By Magne Sæbø, Oslo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Contemporary History as a Historiographical Challenge . . . . 2. On the Methodological Pluralism of Contemporary Biblical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19 21 23

A. General Prospects of Context and Approaches of Biblical Interpretation in the Twentieth Century 26. Basic Questions of Hermeneutics as Part of the Cultural and Philosophical Framework of Recent Bible Studies By Dagfinn Føllesdal, Oslo / Stanford . . . . . . . . . 1. Hermeneutics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1. Hermeneutics in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2. Canon. Theology and Law. Philosophy . . . . . . . . 1.3. Expansion to Literary and Other Kinds of Texts . . . . 1.4. Hermeneutics and Natural Science . . . . . . . . . . 1.5. The Hermeneutic Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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29 30 30 31 32 32 33 34 37 38 39 39 40 42 44

27. The Linguistic Context of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic in the Framework of Semitic Philology, Including Semitic Epigraphy By Steven E. Fassberg, Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Increasing Knowledge of the Semitic Languages . . . . . . . . 2. Discoveries in Northwest Semitic . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45 46 48

1.6. The “New” Hermeneutics. Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer 1.7. Hermeneutics of Suspicion. Habermas. Ricoeur . . . . . . 1.8. What are we after in Hermeneutics? Meaning? . . . . . .

2. What is Meaning? Quine and Davidson . . . 2.1. The Public Nature of Language . . . . . . 2.2. Problems with Perception . . . . . . . . 2.3. The Early Davidson: “Maximize Agreement” . 3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3. Discoveries in Hebrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Discoveries in Aramaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic Grammars and Dictionaries in the Light of New Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28. Institutions and Social Life in Ancient Israel: Sociological Aspects By Anselm C. Hagedorn, Berlin . . . . . . . . 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. From J. Wellhausen and M. Weber to R. de Vaux 2.1. Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) . . . . . . . 2.2. Max Weber (1864–1920) . . . . . . . . . . 2.3. Johs. Pedersen (1883–1977) . . . . . . . . 2.4. Antonin Causse (1877–1947) . . . . . . . . 2.5. Roland de Vaux (1903–1971) . . . . . . . . 3. Beyond Roland de Vaux . . . . . . . . . . 3.1. Anthropologists Discover the Hebrew Bible . .

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50 54 55

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58 61 64 64 67 74 77 81 83 83

3.2. The Study of Institutions and Social Life in Ancient Israel since 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

90

29. The Legacy of the Literary-critical School and the Growing Opposition to Historico-critical Bible Studies. The Concept of ‘History’ Revisited – Wirkungsgeschichte and Reception History By John Barton, Oxford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 1. Early Opposition to Historical Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . 97 2. Biblical Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 3. Karl Barth and the Canonical Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 4. Advocacy Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 5. Literary Study of the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 6. Postmodernism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 7. Reader-response Criticism and Wirkungsgeschichte . . . . . . . 115 8. New Historicism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 9. The Term ‘Historical Criticism’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 30. The Emergence of the Form-critical and Traditio-historical Approaches By Antony F. Campbell, Parkville, Victoria, Australia . . . . . . . 1. Introductory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Hermann Gunkel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Hugo Gressmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. In the Wake of Hermann Gunkel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1. Johannes Hempel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2. Albrecht Alt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

125 126 128 133 136 136 137

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. . . . . 5. Conclusion . . . . . .

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138 138 141 142 144 145

31. Contemporary Methods in Hebrew Bible Criticism By David J. A. Clines, Sheffield . . . . . . . . 1. Literary Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1. Genre Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2. Rhetorical Criticism . . . . . . . . . . .

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148 149 149 151 152 153 154 157 158 158 159 159 160 160 162 164 165 166 166 167 168

32. The Significance of the Old Testament in Twentieth Century Systematic Theology By Manfred Oeming, Heidelberg . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Preliminary Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Karl Barth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Hans Urs von Balthasar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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170 172 174 181 187 194

4.3. 4.4. 4.5. 4.6. 4.7.

1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 1.6.

Sigmund Mowinckel Gerhard von Rad . Martin Noth . . . Klaus Koch . . . Rolf Knierim . . .

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New Criticism / Formalism / Close Reading / Narratology Reader-response Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reception Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intertextuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. Structuralism and Poststructuralism 2.1. Structuralism . . . . . . . . . 2.2. Poststructuralism . . . . . . . 2.3. Deconstruction . . . . . . . . 3. Ideological Criticisms . . . . . . 3.1. Feminist Criticism . . . . . . . 3.2. Gender Criticism . . . . . . . 3.3. Materialist / Political Criticism . . 3.4. Postcolonial Criticism . . . . . 3.5. Minority Criticism . . . . . . . 3.6. Cultural Criticism . . . . . . . 3.7. Autobiographical Criticism . . . 3.8. Psychoanalytic Criticism . . . .

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33. Types of a Recent ‘Canonical Approach’ By Dennis Olson, Princeton, NJ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 1. Canonical Aspects in Modern Biblical Studies . . . . . . . . . 200

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2. The ‘Canonical Approach’ of Brevard S. Childs . . . . . . . . 202 2.1. Childs: Three Underlying Convictions . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 2.2. Childs: Three Touchstones in the Practice of a Canonical Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 2.3. Critiques of Childs’s Canonical Approach . . . . . . . . . . . 210

3. The ‘Canon-critical’ Position of James A. Sanders

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3.1. Sanders’ Canonical Hermeneutics: Steps in the Process . . . . . . 214 3.2. Sanders: Torah, Pentateuch, and Monotheizing . . . . . . . . . 215

4. Recent Discussions of the ‘Canonical Approach’ . . . . . . . . 216

B. Main Regional and Confessional Areas of the Twentieth Century Biblical Scholarship 34. Studies in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in the Americas of the Twentieth Century By Douglas A. Knight, Nashville, TN . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Location and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Ethnicity and Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. Religiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Sociology of Knowledge and Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . 4. History of Biblical Scholarship in the Americas since 1900 . . . 4.1. The Period from 1900 to 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2. The Period from 1940 to 1968 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . 4.3. The Period from 1968 to the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century .

221 224 224 224 226 229 235 235 239 245

35. Studies in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in Africa, Australia / New Zealand and Asia 1. The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Africa By Hendrik Bosman, Stellenbosch . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Context of Biblical Interpretation in Africa . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Bible Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. Theological Colleges, Seminaries and Faculties . . . . . . 2.3. Theological Journals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4. Academic Organizations and Societies . . . . . . . . . . 2.5. Ecclesial Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Approaches to Biblical Interpretation in Africa . . . . . . . . . 3.1. Surveys of Existing Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2. Pre-modern and Pre-critical Approaches . . . . . . . . . 3.3. Modern and Critical Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4. Post-modern and Post-critical Approaches . . . . . . . .

253 255 256 256 257 258 258 260 261 261 263 265 266

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4. Prospects of Biblical Interpretation in Africa . . . . . . . . . 2. The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Twentieth Century Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand By Mark A. O’Brien, Melbourne . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Up to the First World War of 1914–1918 . . . . . . . . . . 3. War Years and Post-war Years: 1914–1960 . . . . . . . . . . 4. From the 1960’s to the End of the Century . . . . . . . . . . 3. The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Asia By Seizo¯ Sekine, Tokyo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Japan . . . . . . . .

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269 271 272 276 281

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The Society for Old Testament Study in Japan and the Japanese Biblical Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2. Overview of International Research Achievements . . . . 1.3. Overview of Domestic Research Achievements . . . . . 1.4. Prospects of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Japan Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in South Korea . . . . . 2.1. Overview of Research Achievements . . . . . . . . . 2.2. Prospects of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in South Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in China . . . . . . . 3.1. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies as Literature: the Central Thread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament as a Small Part of Chinese Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3. Old Testament Studies as One Independent Discipline . .

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36. Biblical Scholarship on the European Continent and in the United Kingdom and Ireland By John Barton, Oxford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. The Triumph of Wellhausen . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Wellhausen’s Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Religious History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Behind or in Front of the Text? . . . . . . . . . . 8. Text and Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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285 287 290 292 293 294

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300 302 304 306 314 319 326 329 333 335

37. Biblical Scholarship in Northern Europe By Antti Laato, Aabo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 1. Early Impulses to Scandinavian Old Testament Scholarship . . . 341

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2. Understanding the Old Testament Texts from the Inside – Johannes Pedersen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Scandinavian Tribute to the Book of Psalms – Sigmund Mowinckel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. The Uppsala School and Sacral Kingship – Ivan Engnell . . . 5. Research on the Prophetic Literature . . . . . . . . . . . 6. Deuteronomistic History – The Göttingen School at Helsinki 7. The Copenhagen School – New Trends in the History of Israel 8. Methodological Pluralism – Tryggve N. D. Mettinger as an Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9. Old Testament Theology – Why Not? . . . . . . . . . .

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347 350 356 363 365

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38. Major Developments in Jewish Biblical Scholarship By S. David Sperling, New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

C. Special Fields and Different Approaches in the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament 39. Questions of the ‘History of Israel’ in Recent Research By Jean Louis Ska, Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. The Intellectual Climate in Historical Research in the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1. The “Annales School” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2. The “New Historicism” and its Impact on the Biblical Field . . . 2. The Impact of Hermann Gunkel and Hugo Gressmann . . . . 3. The Problem of the Beginning of Israel’s History . . . . . . . 4. The Discussion around the Definition of History and Historiography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. The History of Israel before 1975 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1. Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971): History or History of Salvation? . 5.2. The History of Israel of Martin Noth (1902–1968) . . . . . . .

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391 392 394 399 403

. . . . 5.2.1. The Peaceful Occupation of the Land by the Tribes of Israel . 5.2.2. The Confederation of the Twelve Tribes of Israel . . . . . .

406 409 410 412 413 414

5.3. W. F. Albright (1891–1971) and the so-called North-American School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416 5.4. Roland Guérin de Vaux (1903–1971) and the so-called French School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

6. The Debate around the so-called “Copenhagen and Sheffield School” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422 7. Histories of Ancient Israel from 1970 up till 2013 . . . . . . . 426

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8. As a Conclusion: some Open Questions . . . . . . . . . . . 428 9. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432 40. Changes in Pentateuchal Criticism By David M. Carr, New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Anticipations of the Later Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Older Questions about the Four Document Approach . . .

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2.2. Publications in the Sixties by Samuel Sandmel and Frederick Winnett

3. The Nineteen-seventies and an Emerging Crisis in Pentateuchal Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1. The So-Called “Toronto School” of Pentateuchal Scholarship . 3.2. Tremors in the Source-Critical Foundation in Europe . . . . 4. The Unfolding Debate in the Nineteen-Eighties and Nineties (Focus on Non-Priestly Material) . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Developments in Concepts of the Priestly Layer . . . . . . 6. A Trend Toward Identification of Post-Priestly Elements in the Pentateuch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Emerging Concensus in Europe and Backlash . . . . . . . 41. Historiography in the Old Testament By Walter Dietrich, Bern . . . . . . 1. Old Testament Historiography . . . 2. The Deuteronomistic Historiography . 2.1. Preliminary Remarks . . . . . . .

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2.2. Development of the Hypothesis of the Deuteronomistic History 2.3. Questioning the Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4. Variations of the Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1. The So-called ‘Block Model’ . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2. The So-called ‘Layer Model’ . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3. Compromise Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. The Chronistic Historiography . . . . . . . . . . . . .

433 433 434 435 436

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467 467 469 471 473 476 478 479 481 483 485 488

3.1. The Question of a ‘Chronistic Work of History’ and the Character of Ezra-Nehemiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489 3.2. The Question of Further Sources and the Historical Reliability of Chronicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495 3.3. Literary and Theological Ambitions of the Chronicler . . . . . . 497

42. The Prophets and the Prophetic Books, Prophetic Circles and Traditions – New Trends, Including Religio-psychological Aspects By Marvin A. Sweeney, Claremont, CA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

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2. Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Sources: Wellhausen, Duhm, and Hölscher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501 3. The Impact of Tradition-Historical Research: Gunkel, Mowinckel, Noth, and von Rad . . . . . . . . . . . 505 4. Classical Form-Critical Research: Study of Prophetic Genres and Their Social Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509 5. The Formation of Prophetic Books: Redaction- and Canonical-Critical Approaches . . . . . . . . 5.1. The Book of Isaiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2. The Book of Jeremiah . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3. The Book of Ezekiel . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4. The Book of the Twelve Prophets . . . . . . .

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515 516 519 523 525

6. Conclusions and Prospects for Future Study . . . . . . . . . . 530 43. The Psalms – Their Cultic Setting, Forms and Traditions By Corinna Körting, Hamburg / Oslo . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534 2. Form- and Genre-Critic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535 2.1. Genre according to Gunkel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537 2.2. Ongoing Research on Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540 3. The Significant Role of the Cult: Tradition- and Cult-historical Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1. Sigmund Mowinckel and the Enthronement Festival . . . . . . . 3.2. Further Research: the Cult Pattern and the Central Role of the King . 3.3. A Shift in German Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

542 542 543 546

4. Methodological Plurality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548 5. The Search for a “Theology of the Psalms” . . . . . . . . . . 549 5.1. “Zion-Theology” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551 6. “Shape and Shaping of the Psalter” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552 7. The Textual Basis – the Masoretic text, the Septuagint and the Qumran-Psalter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555 44. The Phenomenon and Literature of Wisdom in Its Near Eastern Context and in the Biblical Wisdom Books By Knut M. Heim, Bristol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566 2. A Brief History of Compendia of Ancient Near Eastern Texts . . 568 3. The Book of Proverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571 3.1. General Studies on Wisdom Literature in its Near Eastern Context . 572 3.2. Interim Summary and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579 3.3. Other Themes in Proverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580 3.4. Commentaries on Proverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

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4. The Book of Job

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4.1. Job in its Near Eastern Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585 4.2. Commentaries on Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

5. The Book of Ecclesiastes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1. Ecclesiastes in its Near Eastern Context . . . . . . . 5.2. Commentaries on Ecclesiastes . . . . . . . . . . 6. Conclusion and Outlook into the Twenty-first Century

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590 590 591 592

45. The Study of Law and Ethics in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament By Eckart Otto, Munich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594 1. The Legal History of the Hebrew Bible in the Horizon of an Ancient Near Eastern Legal History . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597 2. The Ethics of the Hebrew Bible in its Ancient Near Eastern Context 610 46. Problems and Prospects of a ‘History of the Religion of Israel’ By Joachim Schaper, Aberdeen . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. The Rise of the ‘History of Israelite Religion’ Genre in Old Testament Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Histories of Israelite Religion between the Wars and after the Second World War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Attempts at Mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. The Recent Controversy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . 622 . . . 625 . . . 631 . . . 633 . . . 634

4.1. The History of Israelite Religion and/versus the Theology of the Old Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634 4.2. History of Israelite Religion versus Old Testament Theology – which has Pride of Place? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635 4.3. The true ‘Queen’ of the Genres of Old Testament scholarship, and the History of Israelite Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639

5. Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640 47. Old Testament Theology – Preliminary Conclusions and Future Prospects By Bernd Janowski, Tübingen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Survey of Recent Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1. Theology of the Old Testament as Re-telling . . . . . . . 1.2. History of Israelite Religion as a “Summarising Discipline” . 2. Arguments for an Integrative Perspective . . . . . . . .

. . . . .

2.1. The Correlation between the History of Religion and Theology 2.1.1. The History of Israelite Religion . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2. Old Testament Theology / Theology of the OT . . . . 2.2. The Hermeneutical Function of the Canon . . . . . . . . 2.2.1. Inscripturation (Schriftwerdung) and Canonization . . . 2.2.2. Transition from Canonization to the Closure of the Canon 2.2.1.1. Canon and Theology . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .

642 647 648 652 656 657 658 662 668 669 670 671

16

Contents

3. Concluding Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672 48. Modern Theories of Translation with Special Regard to Recent Bible Translations By Jan de Waard, Amsterdam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Presuppositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Translation Equivalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Source Languages and Source Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. Source Culture and Problems of Translation . . . . . . . . . 3. Receptor Languages and Receptor Texts . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1. Typology of Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1. The Interlinear Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2. The Literal Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.3. Philological Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.4.0. Introductory Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.4.1. The Communicative Type of Translation . . . . 3.1.4.2. The Ways of Communicative Translation . . . . 3.1.4.3. The Receptors . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

674 676 677 678 682 685 685 685 687 690 692 694 696 701

49. A Brief Epilegomenon to the History of Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament By Magne Sæbø, Oslo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704 Contributors

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717 Indexes (Names / Topics / References) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

Preface With this second part of volume III of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: the History of Its Interpretation (HBOT), devoted to the relevant research and studies on the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in the twentieth century, the HBOT Project’s long road has finally reached its end, Vol. III/2 being the fifth part volume of the whole enterprise. From the first planning of the HBOT Project − around 1980 − it has been one of its main intentions to contribute to and to further the ponderous traditions of Ludwig Diestel (Geschichte des Alten Testamentes in der christlichen Kirche, 1869) and Frederic W. Farrar (History of Interpretation, 1886) in the nineteenth century as well as to continue and extend the recent studies of the history of biblical research where scholars have presented not only specialized studies in this field of research history but even handbooks and dictionaries. The first books that in the twentieth century opened for a new interest in the history of biblical research with special regard to the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament were the handbooks of modern Old Testament study history presented by Herbert F. Hahn in America (Old Testament in Modern Research, 1954) and Hans-Joachim Kraus in Europe (Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments, 1956). Towards the end of the last century and in the beginning of our own a new situation has developed, and at present there seems to be a remarkably great engagement worldwide in this area of biblical research, and the publication of individual studies and general histories here is just increasing. Among the new works special reference may be made to the monumental Bible de tous les Temps (in eight volumes, 1984–89), written by Roman-Catholic scholars, and the impressive individual opus by Henning Graf Reventlow, Epochen der Bibelauslegung (in four volumes, 1990–2001); out of many important books and actual ventures these two projects may be mentioned especially. The present situation in this field of biblical studies seems to be open in various ways; to some extent biblical scholars may be reflecting over their own position − not least in the perspective of what past generations have achieved. As for the contributions to this last part volume of HBOT, covering our recent past, it was regrettably unavoidable that some occurrences of over-lapping between near related essays came about − the relevant contexts of these cases, however, being different. In earlier research and descriptions of biblical interpretation history the borders of the actual enterprises were frequently drawn rather narrow, in this way or another; often was the long historical perspective shortened, or the broad and manifold Jewish study of the Hebrew Bible was overlooked, if not completely set aside. To a great extent, the history of biblical interpretation has been written from an European point of view, which in the present − and future − situation most likely will be replaced by perspectives that are longer and more open.

18

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The books and studies of biblical interpretation history referred to above as well as many similar ones tend to cover the whole Bible, not only the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament but the New Testament as well. Many of these books have, further, been written by single authors alone. Also at this point the situation of today has changed considerably. Because of the great and quickly growing amount of research and studies in this field there seems to be less place and possibility any longer for one-man enterprises; instead the present challenges may call for more organized team work . By closing this last volume of the HBOT Project I would like to extend, again, my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Arndt Ruprecht, of Göttingen, who as Publisher so readily accepted my first proposal and idea of the present Project and has sustained it ever since. Further, I am deeply grateful for excellent co-operation with him as also with the staff of the Department of Theology and Religion in Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, Göttingen; especially, I would like to thank those with whom I have been in direct contact for the last volume: Jörg Persch, Christoph Spill and Renate Rehkopf. Further, I would like to express my best thanks to Professor Ronald Clements, of Cambridge, for all his help as linguistic consultant. Finally, I would also express best thanks to my co-editors; for the last Volume III they are Professor Peter Machinist, of Harvard, and Professor Jean Louis Ska, SJ, of Rome. Last but not least I am deeply obliged to all the individual authors of the HBOT Project − without whose contributions there would not be any Volume III/2. Oslo, in July 2014

Magne Sæbø

Chapter Twenty-five

In Our Own, Post-modern Time – Introductory Remarks on Two Methodological Problems in Biblical Studies By Magne Sæbø, Oslo

General works: B. Albrektson, History and the Gods (ConBOT 1; Lund: Gleerup 1967). – G. W. Anderson (ed.), Tradition and Interpretation (Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study; Oxford: Clarendon Press 1979). – T. Austad, “Die Bedeutung der Kirchlichen Zeitgeschichte für die Systematische Theologie”, in: Glaube – Freiheit – Diktatur in Europa und den USA (FS für G. Besier, ed. K. Stoklosa / A. Strübind; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2007), 173–186. – J. Barr, The Bible in the Modern World (London: SCM 1973); Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism (Oxford: Oxford UP 1983); The Concept of Biblical Theology. An Old Testament Perspective (London: SCM 1999); History and Ideology in the Old Testament. Biblical Studies at the end of a Millennium (Oxford: Oxford UP 2000). – J. Barton, Reading the Old Testament. Method in Biblical Study (London: Darton Longman and Todd 1984; repr. 1989). – K. Berger, “Exegese und Kirchengeschichte im 20. Jahrhundert. Eine exemplarische und biographische Untersuchung”, in: Glaube – Freiheit – Diktatur in Europa und den USA (FS für G. Besier; 2007, s. above), 395–404. – G. Besier e.a., “Einführung der Herausgeber” [Introduction by the six editors to the new journal: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte], KZG 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1988) 3–6. – M. G. Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis? The Impact of the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1991). – B. S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1970). – R. E. Clements, A Century of Old Testament Study (Guildford / London: Lutterworth Press 1976); idem (ed.), The World of Ancient Israel. Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1989). – J. Day (ed.), In Search of Pre-exilic Israel (Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar; London / New York: T & T Clark International 2004). – G. P. Fogarty, American Catholic Biblical Scholarship: A History from the Early Republic to Vatican II (San Francisco: Harper & Row 1989). – H.- G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (Tübingen: Mohr 1960; 51986); “Hermeneutik und Historismus”, PhR 9 (1961) 241–276. – P. Gardiner, Theories of History (New York: The Free Press 1959). – H. Gese, “Geschichtliches Denken im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament”, ZThK 55 (1958) 127–145; repr. in: idem, Vom Sinai zum Zion (BEvTh 64; München: Kaiser 1974), 81–98. – L. Gottschalk, Understanding History (New York: Knopf 1950). – A. Grafton, What was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2007). – M. Greschat, Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte. Versuch einer Orientierung (ThLZ.F 16; Leipzig: Evang. Verlagsanstalt 2005). – H. F. Hahn, Old Testament in Modern Research (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press 1954; 2nd edn. 1970). – G. G. Iggers, Deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft. Eine Kritik der traditionellen Geschichtsauffassung von Herder bis zur Gegenwart (München: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag 1971; 21972). – F. Jaeger / J. Rüsen, Geschichte des Historismus. Eine Einführung (München: Beck 1992). – D. Lee / R. N. Beck, “The Meaning of ‘Historicism’”, AHR 59 (1953/54) 568–577. – O. Kaiser, “Von Stand und Zukunft der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft”, in: Congress Volume Oslo 1998 (2000; s. below), 489–507. – K. Koch, Was ist Formgeschichte? Neue Wege der Bibelexegese (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1964); ET: The Growth of the Biblical Tradition. The Form-Critical Method (New York / London 1969). – D. A.

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Knight, Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel (Third edn.; Studies in Biblical Literature 16; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2006). – H.-J. Kraus, Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1956; 41988). – Th. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962, 2nd edn. enlarged; Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press 1970). – A. Lemaire / M. Sæbø (eds.), Congress Volume Oslo 1998 (VTSup LXXX; Leiden e.a.: Brill 2000). – A. D. H. Mayes (ed.), Text in Context (Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study; Oxford: Oxford UP 2000). – W. McKane, Selected Christian Hebraists (Cambridge e.a.: Cambridge UP 1989). – J. Mehlhausen e.a., “Geschichte / Geschichtsschreibung / Geschichtsphilosophie”, TRE XII (1984), 565–698, esp. 658–674. – F. Mildenberger, Die halbe Wahrheit oder die ganze Schrift. Zum Streit zwischen Bibelglauben und historischer Kritik (BEvTh 46; München: Kaiser Verlag 1967); Geschichte der deutschen evangelischen Theologie im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (ThW 10; Stuttgart e.a.: Kohlhammer 1981). – P. R. Noble, The Canonical Approach. A Critical Reconstruction of the Hermeneutics of Brevard S. Childs (Biblical Interpetation Series 16; Leiden e.a.: Brill 1995). – M. Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien. Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament (1943; unveränd. Nachdruck, Tübingen: M. Niemeyer Verlag 1957 / Darmstadt: WBG 1957); Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1948; unveränd. Nachdruck, Darmstadt: WBG 1960). – M. Oeming, Biblische Hermeneutik. Eine Einführung (Darmstadt: WBG 1998; 2nd rev. edn. 2007). – J. C. O’Neill, The Bible’s Authority. A Portrait Gallery of Thinkers from Lessing to Bultmann (Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1991). – A. S. Peake (ed.), The People and the Book (Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study; Oxford: Clarendon Press 1925). – L. G. Perdue, Reconstructing Old Testament Theology: After the Collapse of History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2005). – K. R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (Boston: Beacon Press 1957). – R. Rendtorff, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (BZAW 147; Berlin e.a.: De Gruyter 1977). – H. Graf Reventlow, Hauptprobleme der alttestamentlichen Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert (EdF 173; Darmstadt: WBG 1982); Hauptprobleme der Biblischen Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert (EdF 203; Darmstadt: WBG 1983); Epochen der Bibelauslegung, IV. Von der Aufklärung bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (München: Beck 2001). – H. H. Rowley (ed.), The Old Testament and Modern Study. A Generation of Discovery and Research (Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study; Oxford: Oxford UP 1951; repr. 1952; see esp. Editor’s “Introduction”, xv– xxxi). – J. Rüsen, “Überwindung des Historismus?”, PhR 20 (1974) 269–286. – M. Sæbø, On the Way to Canon. Creative Tradition History in the Old Testament (JSOT.S 191; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998); “Zur neueren Interpretationsgeschichte des Alten Testaments”, ThLZ 130 (2005) 1033– 1044; “Fascination with ‘History’ – Biblical Interpretation in a Century of Modernism and Historicism”, HBOT III/1 (2013), 17–28. – R. Smend, Elemente alttestamentlichen Geschichtsdenkens (ThSt 95; Zürich: EVZ-Verlag 1968; repr. in: idem, Die Mitte des Alten Testaments. Gesammelte Studien, 1; BEvTh 99; München: Kaiser 1986, 40–84); Deutsche Alttestamentler in drei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989); Bibel und Wissenschaft. Historische Aufsätze (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2004); From Astruc to Zimmerli. Old Testament Scholarship in three Centuries (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007); Vier Epitaphe – die Basler Hebraistenfamilie Buxtorf (Litterae et Theologia 1; Berlin e.a.: 2010). – H. Wheeler Robinson, Record and Revelation (Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study; Oxford: Clarendon Press 1938). – D. Winton Thomas (ed.), Archaeology and Old Testament Study. Jubilee Volume of the Society for Old Testament Study 1917– 1967 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1967). – Wie biblisch ist die Theologie? (JBTh 25; ed. M. Ebner e.a.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2010). – D. J. Wiseman (ed.), Peoples of Old Testament Times (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1973). – A. Wittkau, Historismus. Zur Geschichte des Begriffs und des Problems (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1992; 21994). – R. Wittram, Das Interesse an der Geschichte. 12 Vorlesungen über Fragen des zeitgenössischen Geschichtsverständnisses (1958; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 31968).

The achievements of exegetical, theological as well as historical studies on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the twentieth century were both great in number and many-sided in character so that the foregoing bibliographical summary represents no more than a small part of a more extensive bibliography of the scholarly research and publications in this field, which appear with increasing rapidity.

Introductory Remarks on Two Methodological Problems in Biblical Studies

21

In regard to the distinctive character of this last period of the research history of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament the first point of note is that in the twentieth century scholars of various disciplines and traditions have been particularly concerned with the phenomenon of history and its great challenge. Although this is not altogether dissimilar from what was achieved in the immediately preceding centuries, it differed in certain respects from the biblical research of the nineteenth century, described in the first part of the present volume.1 So far as history is concerned it may, first of all, be noted as significant that this subject, more than any other of those closely related to it, has remained a central and important field of research throughout the twentieth century also. The historical aspect may even be regarded as a common denominator of widely different subject-areas and disciplines of study. The issue of history then does not represent a minor but a major point of interest and has, accordingly, formed a highly complex subject within modern biblical studies. Also, in modern research the discipline of history has been placed under the closest scrutiny, with a greater conceptual sub-division than ever before, not least in respect of methodology. To an increasing extent this may itself be the consequence of the separation of the various disciplines that relate to this field of research.2 Two problems therefore are prominent and call for special attention at this point, making it appropriate to discuss them briefly at the outset. The first is related to the use and meaning of the term ‘history’, especially when as here, this concerns ‘contemporary history’. The second problem arises from the strong plurality of methods that has become a prevalent feature of biblical studies and has caused some embarrassment among scholars.

1. Contemporary History as a Historiographical Challenge When the subject of history was brought into focus in a new way during the early Renaissance and subsequently became a significant part of many new studies in that creative period, the sense of distance in time, which included historical perspectives and a sense of different epochs, was taken to be the main feature of what was considered to constitute history. For instance the epoch of the Renaissance was closely related to the comparable period of classical Antiquity.3 However, temporal distance is a relative and complex matter, and its importance diminishes as the period in question draws closer to the time and events of the author’s present, when history takes on the character of becoming ‘contemporary history’. The concept of ‘contemporary history’ (Zeitgeschichte, l’histoire contemporaine) may seem, at least prima facie, to be a self-contradiction. However, the

1

Cf. the introduction by Sæbø, Fascination with ‘History’, HBOT III/1 (2013), 17–28. Cf. i.a. Rowley, “Introduction: Trends in Old Testament Study”, The Old Testament and Modern Study (1951), xv–xxxi, esp. xviiif: “In contrast to the large measure of unity that prevailed a generation ago, there is today an almost bewildering diversity of view on many questions, and it is necessary to speak of trends, rather than of a single trend, in our studies”. 3 See further HBOT I/2 (2000), 19–27; HBOT II (2008), 26–33. 2

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terminology is well established and indicates the most recent aspect of the long process of history. It is therefore both meaningful and functional and should be retained. Standing between the present and the past, to which it belongs, contemporary history shares the general condition of all human activities which are in perpetual transition from the past to the present, since time is in continual motion and the present becomes part of history. This endless passage of time has not always received sufficient attention by scholars; however, as a historical phenomenon it poses a major historiographical challenge, especially when the issue of ‘contemporary history’ is raised. Quite apart from the way in which its boundaries may be more narrowly defined, contemporary history not only represents the most recent aspect of history, but may in itself raise the problem that the element of historical distance becomes more restricted. In this way a feature common to all history becomes reduced in perspective. However it may be of greater significance to take into consideration the special character and context of contemporary history, even when it can only be done briefly, as here. This will also include its relationship to the most recent past as well as to the fundamental nexus of cause and effect. So far as the delimitation of the period of contemporary history is concerned the period should not be defined too narrowly in this context, but may include the whole of the twentieth century. In this there were, as is well recognized, different periods of major events and influential developments, including inter alia two world wars that made a broad and deep impact on the general cultural situation as well as on theology. Most interesting, however, these periods of intense crisis gave rise to an increased focus on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. This had a strong bearing on exegesis and its interpretation as Holy Writ for Jews and Christians which has continued up to the present. Of greatest significance in this situation is further the fact that this renewal of interest and research in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament was not only linked to Germany and central Europe where it began, but was globalized and became international in its scope.4 This was partly in the framework of a specific ‘Bible movement’.5 From being a predominantly Protestant affair it became a worldwide concern, shared by Roman Catholic and Jewish scholars, as well as others. It may be regarded most positively that the flourishing of biblical studies during the twentieth century proved to be methodically innovative in various ways and became more productive than ever before. On the other hand it poses a challenging problem for scholars that the various methodological approaches that have been used frequently differ considerably from each other.

4 See below in Part B of this volume chapters like 35 on the Americas and Canada, by D. A. Knight, and 36 on Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, by H. L. Bosman. 5 Cf. especially B. S. Childs, Biblical Theology (1970), 13–87.

Introductory Remarks on Two Methodological Problems in Biblical Studies

23

2. On the Methodological Pluralism of Contemporary Biblical Studies Current studies of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament have not only experienced an international expansion of interest and research but have also become specialized as a consequence of the increasingly plurality of methodologies. This is partly on account of the broader, and more precisely differentiated, subject of history. Increasing differences in exegetical methodology are to some extent rooted in the biblical text itself, being related to various characteristics and aspects of it. On the other hand the variety of approaches has also been rooted in divergences of methodology in modern biblical research or, in a still wider context, they have sometimes been the result of the establishing of a separate identity for various historical sub-disciplines. These factors, along with others, have affected the modern study of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in a variety of ways, not least in respect of the methods that have been employed. Biblical studies have brought to light many literary and theological features of the biblical material, as well as the many intrinsic varieties of content. These studies, being mostly historical and critical in character, are manifold and have, taken as a whole, led to the books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament being scrutinized as literary texts, in a manner that is similar to the way in which ancient texts generally have been regarded in modern times. This feature may be a common denominator of the many specialized methodological techniques that have originated, one after another, and which have, as a result, been adopted as features of ordinary exegetical work on the Bible. The basic Masoretic form of the text, as also reflected in the ancient versions, has remained as central a challenge as ever in the study of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. In its long and complex history this text exhibits many distinctive aspects and stages. Since this specific textual history fundamentally affects all other approaches in biblical studies it has especially been examined by generations of scholars, perhaps to a greater extent in the present than ever before.6 Its challenge is still considerable. As for other main methodological approaches that have been developed and practised in current study of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, the literary-critical approach was one of the first methods that received special attention and gained particular significance; it was mainly developed in the nineteenth century, but has played a key role in the twentieth as well. A chief concern of this approach has been to understand and explain the final form of the biblical books and texts as the result of a prolonged work of editorial combination of older and younger literary ‘sources’.7 This method was primarily used in the study of the five books of the Law, the Pentateuch,8 but was, to some extent, also practised in 6 Cf. in HBOT III, Part 1 (2013), Chap. 13 by R. D. Weis, 346–392, esp. 380–392, and see below Chap. 48 by J. de Waard. 7 Cf. various contributions in Part 1 of this Volume, esp. Chap. 14 by Th. Römer and Chaps. 15 and 17 by R. Smend as well as Chap. 29 below by J. Barton. 8 Cf. in Part 1 Chap 14 by Römer, and see below Chap. 40 by D. Carr.

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regard to the older and younger historical books,9 and was even applied to some prophetical books.10 The literary-critical method was practised in different ways,11 and similarly opposed in various contexts.12 Its general effect has been of great and long-lasting significance. At the end of the nineteenth century, and especially in the twentieth, the question of ‘sources’, as constitutive elements of a text, was perceived as less relevant for its interpretation, than had previously been the case. Instead, without abandoning the literary-critical perspective, more attention was given to specific literary features of form (die Gattungen) that pertain to a given text. Aside from their respective contexts, the individual forms and form elements were compared with analogous or similar forms and form elements in other texts and contexts, including texts from neighbouring peoples.13 A further issue of current interest was connected with a closer attention to the specific function that the forms and form elements might have had in their original setting (Sitz im Leben), either socially, culturally, or in a cultic sense. Correspondingly this raised questions about what these forms and form elements came to mean in their new context and how they functioned as integral parts of a different setting. The various new usages of forms and form elements showed by all this a distinct historical aspect, as the forms and form elements, in the course of a long editorial process, moved, or were moved, from the original setting to a new one. In this complex and significant historical process of creative re-use, the forms and form elements might acquire a new function and a new meaning in their new context. This whole process has been viewed and placed under scrutiny in historical categories and has generally been characterized as ‘form criticism’ (‘form history’, Ger. Formgeschichte). Closely related to this ‘form history’ the ‘tradition history’ (Ger. Traditionsgeschichte) represents another approach which also relates directly to the content of the literary units.14 This was viewed both as traditio, i.e. the process of transmission, and tradition, the literary unit that was transmitted. Since this historical process was related to − and actualized − the original location of these various forms and form elements (i.e. their respective Sitz im Leben), it also raised major questions regarding their specific social structure and background.15 That included the wider social framework of which they were a part and which called for attention as well. This was, further, also true with regard to the wider, many-sided, context of biblical studies more generally, including those contexts which were foreign to its essential nature, but covered general history, Semitic philology16 and philosophy.17

9

Cf. in Part 1 Chap.19 by K. W. Weyde, and see below Chap. 41 by W. Dietrich. Cf. in Part 1 Chap. 20 by Chr. R. Seitz, and see below Chap. 42 by M. Sweeney. 11 Cf. in Part 1 Chaps. 7–11 and 17 by J. P. Byrd, J. W. Rogerson, J. Høgenhaven, G. P. Fogarty, E. Breuer, Ch. Gafni and R. Smend, and see below Chaps. 34–38 by D. A. Knight, H. L. Bosman, M. A. O’Brien, S. Sekine, J. Barton, A. Laato and S. D. Sperling. 12 Cf. in Part 1 Chap. 18 by R. Smend, and see below Chap. 29 by J. Barton. 13 Cf. in Part 1 Chap. 16 by E. S. Gerstenberger, and see below Chap. 30 by A. F. Campbell. 14 See the preceding note and cf. K. Koch, Formgeschichte (1964/1969). 15 See below Chap. 28 by A. Hagedorn. 16 See below Chap. 27 by S. Fassberg. 17 See below Chap. 26 by D. Føllesdal. 10

Introductory Remarks on Two Methodological Problems in Biblical Studies

25

In summary, the modern history of studies on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has become decidedly more complex – and to some extent more confusing, in the last century, not least in regard to the question of the variety of the contexts of its different disciplines. At the present time there is scarcely any sign of radical change in this feature of contemporary research; rather the plurality of methods and their complexity may be still increasing.

A. General Prospects of Context and Approaches of Biblical Interpretation in the Twentieth Century

Chapter Twenty-six

Basic Questions of Hermeneutics as Part of the Cultural and Philosophical Framework of Recent Bible Studies By Dagfinn Føllesdal, Oslo / Stanford Sources: Plato, Cratylus (Jowett transl, London; Macmillan 1892 and later editions). Studies: K.-O. Apel e.a. (eds.), Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik: Theorie-Diskussion (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 1971). – E. Betti, Teoria generale della interpretazione,1–2 (Milan: Giuffrè 1955). – L. Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (Raleigh, NC: Hayes Barton Press 1872). – N. Chomsky, “A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior”, Language 35/1 (1959) 26–58. – R. W. Dasenbrock (ed.), Literary Theory After Davidson (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP 1993). – D. Føllesdal, “Hermeneutics and the hypothetico-deductive method”, Dialectica 33 (1979) 319–336; “Meaning and experience”, in: Samuel Guttenplan (ed.), Mind and Language: Wolfson College Lectures 1974 (Oxford: Oxford UP 1975) 34–35; “Developments in Quine’s Behaviorism”, American Philosophical Quarterly 48 (2011) 273–282. – H.-G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen: Mohr 1960); Truth and Method (tr. J. Weinsheimer / D. G. Marshall; New York: Continuum 1994). – N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1955). – J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 1968); “Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften”, PhR, Beih. 5 (1967); repr. in his Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften: Materialien (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 1970; expanded edn. 1984). – Van Harvey, The Historian and the Believer: The Morality of Historical Knowledge and Christian Belief (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press 1996). – M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (ed. E. Husserl), Jahrbuch für Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Forschung, VIII (1927). – E. D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale UP 1967). – L. A. Jakobovits / M. S. Miron (eds.), Readings in the Psychology of Language (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall 1967). – E. Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1973). – E. Käsemann, “Zum Thema der urchristlichen Apokalyptik”, ZThK LIX (1962) 257– 284. – J. Malpas (ed.), Dialogues with Davidson. Acting, Interpreting, Understanding (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2011). – D. Nivison, The Riddle of the Bamboo Annals (Taipei: Airiti 2009). – W. V. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1960, 2013); Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia UP 1969). – B. Ramberg, Donald Davidson’s Philosophy of Langage (Oxford: Blackwell 1989). – J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1971). – P. Ricoeur, “Ethics and Culture: Gadamer and Habermas in Dialogue”, Philosophy Today17/2 (1973) 154–155; Oneself as Another (tr. Kathleen Blamey; Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1992); Essays on Biblical Interpretation (ed. with an Introduction by Lewis S. Mudge; Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1980). – W. Stegmüller, Rationale Rekonstruktion von Wissenschaft und ihrem Wandel (Reklam Universal-Bibliothek 9938; Stuttgart: Reklam Verlag 1979). – M. S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testament (The Library of Biblical and Theological Literature; New York: Eaton & Mains / Cincinnati: Curts & Jennings 1883; 2nd edn. 1890; various later reprints).

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies have changed much during the more than two thousand years that separate Antiquity, which was the topic of volume I/1 of

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HBOT, and the twentieth century, to which this volume III/2 is devoted. Major changes have also taken place in the main auxiliary discipline that is at the center of these five volumes, the theory and practice of interpretation, or hermeneutics. Since the development of hermeneutics in connection with the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament up to 1900 has been covered in the earlier volumes of this Project, the present article will concentrate on the developments in the twentieth century and include only some main points from the earlier history of hermeneutics. I shall here not say much about hermeneutics before 1900, since this has been covered in the earlier volumes of this series, and I will therefore only briefly mention a couple of main steps in this early development of hermeneutics. After some remarks on the hermeneutic circle and the relation between hermeneutics and the natural sciences I will go on to discuss the main developments in twentieth century hermeneutics, notably Gadamer’s new approach to hermeneutics and its roots in Husserl’s phenomenology and Ricoeur’s application of hermeneutics to biblical texts. I will also present briefly two main approaches to meaning in so-called “analytic” philosophy, those of Quine and Davidson, and indicate their close connection with the classical issues in phenomenology, including Gadamer’s view on truth and method.

1. Hermeneutics Hermeneutics is often said to have begun in ancient Greece, in the efforts to interpret Homer. One story has it that the word ‘hermeneutics’ derives from the name of the Greek god Hermes, “the messenger of the gods”. His task was not only to convey the messages, but also often to interpret them, since they could be quite obscure. However, Plato has it the other way, Socrates says in Cratylus: “I should imagine that the name Hermes has to do with speech, and signifies that he is the interpreter (ʿερμηνεύς)”.1 Aristotle uses the term around 360 BC in his text Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας (“On Interpretation”); and there is a cognate in Hebrew: on Mount Sinai Moses interpreted the Jewish Law, known as haEmes (haˉ - ä͗ mät), ‘the Truth’, to the people.

1.1. Hermeneutics in China However, interpretation and reflections on interpretation started long before this. It must have begun concurrently with writing. When it became possible to leave a message whose meaning must be conjectured without immediate help from the one who left it, the need arose to figure out what it meant on the basis solely of the message and other available clues. The oldest pieces of writing seem to be the Shang “shell and bone” inscriptions from the late twelfth century BC in China. In 1979 David Nivison at Stanford discovered that an old chronicle called

1

Plato, Cratylus, 407–408; here quoted from the Jowett translation.

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the “Bamboo Annals” could be used to solve problems in dating this material and he showed how to exploit it to recover accurate historical information, especially exact dates back to the third millennium BC.2 These inscriptions and later documents were much discussed and interpreted in different ways in the early Chinese tradition. Confucius (551–479 BC) is usually regarded as the originator of the Confucian tradition, and it is common to consider his Analects as the original source of Confucianism. However, Confucius himself claimed to be only a transmitter of the old Chinese moral and social tradition, going back at least to around 2000 BC, our calendar. He looked upon himself as an interpreter. The Confucian tradition has many similarities with the Christian tradition, not only by having canonical works, but also by having two generations of them. First there are the so-called Five Classics: the Classic of Change (Yjing or I Ching), the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Classic of History (Shujing), the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), and the Record of Rites (Liji). These are often attributed to Confucius, but the available evidence goes against his being the author, editor, or even the compiler of the Classics. The Five Classics were taught from 136 BC (when Confucianism became the state ideology of China) until the early twentieth century. During the Song dynasty, more than thousand years after the Five Classics were established, the Four Books were added to the Confucian Canon: the Analects, the Mencius, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the Great Learning. The Four Books gradually came to eclipse the Five Classics, in much the same way as the New Testament came to overshadow the Old Testament in the Christian tradition.

1.2. Canon. Theology and Law. Philosophy The establishment of a canon is particularly conducive to the development of hermeneutics. Generally, the problems of interpretation become particularly acute where one is dealing with texts the correct interpretation of which is a matter of some importance, and which were written at a time or in a situation that are very different from those of the interpreter. Religious and legal texts are notable instances. Thus theology and law were the areas where hermeneutics was first systematically studied. In these two fields, interpretation was studied and debated throughout Antiquity, into the Middle Ages and modern times. Gradually interpretation and discussion of the methods of interpretation spread from religion and law to other works that were regarded as particularly important. An example is Aristotle’s philosophical work that was thoroughly discussed both in the Arab and in the Latin traditions in the Middle Ages. In these discussions, as in the Chinese tradition and also in many other cultures commentary was the main kind of scholarship. One always treated selected works with great respect. However, this did not prevent new ideas from emerging. Thus, for

2

Nivison, The Riddle of the Bamboo Annals (2009).

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example, many of Thomas Aquinas’ commentaries to Aristotle give new important insights, but Thomas always modestly reads these into the Aristotelian text: “as the Philosopher says …”. In contrast to contemporary science and scholarship, where novelty is praised and where work that lacks novelty is often made to appear new by new terminology and a lack of references to earlier similar work, commentary was the standard form of scholarship in most or all cultures through millennia. Accordingly, hermeneutics was the dominant methodology, which was refined and developed by generations of scholars.

1.3. Expansion to Literary and Other Kinds of Texts The expansion of hermeneutics from theology and law to philosophy was followed by a second major expansion two hundred years ago, when Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) established hermeneutics as a separate discipline and expanded the area of texts to be studied to include every kind of text, for example literary texts, in addition to the legal and religious and philosophical ones. A good overview of the developments of classical hermeneutics, particularly biblical hermeneutics, up to the late part of the nineteenth century is Milton S. Terry’s Biblical Hermeneutics: A treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testament (1883).3 This sadly neglected treatise gives a broad survey of the various issues in hermeneutics, amply illustrated by concrete analyses of a large variety of genres of biblical texts.

1.4. Hermeneutics and Natural Science The next major expansion of the scope of hermeneutics came with Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), who argued that hermeneutics applies to all “manifestations of the human spirit”. Dilthey also endorsed the explanation-understanding thesis that had been put forth in 1858 by the historian Johann Gustav Droysen (1808–84) to the effect that while the natural sciences aim at explanation, the humanities and in part also the social sciences aim at understanding. The difference presumably turned on whether what was being sought were causal laws or an elucidation of meaning. However, many different issues have been lumped together in this discussion and it is far from clear what the points are and how the arguments run. In any case, hermeneutics came to be conceived as the method of the humanities. Neither Droysen nor Dilthey said much about the method of the natural sciences. In 1968 Jürgen Habermas (1929–) put forward the view that the natural sciences are characterized by the use of the hypothetico-deductive method, and thereby contrast with the humanities, which use the hermeneutic method, and the social sciences, which use what Habermas calls the “critical” method.4 This is not the place to discuss this view. However, it would seem to count against it that her3 4

M. S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics (1883, 21890). J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse (1968).

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meneutics shares the two defining feature of the hypothetico-deductive method: (1) setting forth interpretational hypotheses and (2) checking whether they together with our beliefs imply consequences that clash with our material, that is, with the text we are interpreting. Examples of this abound in the interpretation of literary works. Wolfgang Stegmüller (1923–91) showed this in 1979 in his interpretation of Walter von der Vogelweide.5 Another example is some passages in Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt for which half a dozen interpretations have been proposed, most of which have afterwards been rejected because they fit poorly in with the text.6 Rather than contrasting hermeneutics and the hypothetico-deductive method, I regard hermeneutics as the hypothetico-deductive method applied to meaningful material in order to bring out its meaning. I believe that Habermas has given up this view, but I have not seen any place where this is confirmed in writing.

1.5. The Hermeneutic Circle In hermeneutics, as in the natural sciences, we go back and forth between the hypotheses and the material until we achieve a fit, or “reflective equilibrium”, to speak with Rawls.7 We may find hypotheses that fit in with part of the material, but which have to be revised because they do not fit in with other parts. A good hypothesis must fit the whole material, and so will have to be modified until we find an interpretation that fits all the parts. During this process the material itself against which the hypotheses are tested changes; passages that originally were interpreted one way come to be interpreted in another. This malleability of the material is more pronounced in hermeneutics than in natural science, but it has long been known there, too, under the title “the theory-ladenness of observation”. Going back and forth between part and whole in this way is one ingredient in the renowned “hermeneutic circle”. This expression was introduced in 1808, by the German theologian and philosopher Friedrich Ast (1778–1841). It had been noticed far earlier that when we interpret a text, our initial interpretation of a passage may come to change when we read it within the wider context of the whole text. And conversely, our interpretation of the whole text depends upon our interpretation of the parts. The hermeneutic whole-part circle includes, however, more than the text itself, for the text has to be understood within a context that comprises other works by the author, and also both its linguistic and its cultural setting. The setting helps us understand the text; the text, on the other hand, may help us see the setting in a new light, which in turn may change our interpretation of the text, etc. Further, there is a question-answer circle: when we approach a text, we approach it with certain questions that may come to change as we get a better un-

5 W. Stegmüller, “Walther von der Vogelweides Lied von der Traumliebe und Quasar 3 C 273”, in: idem, Rationale Rekonstruktion (1979), 27–86. 6 See my Hermeneutics and the hypothetico-deductive method, Dialectica 33 (1979) 319–36. 7 J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971), 20 and pass. The idea is old and was given especially clear expression in N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast (1955), 65–68.

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derstanding of the text. These new questions, in turn, may change our interpretation of the text. Finally, there is the subject-object circle: the totality that comes into play when we interpret a text comprises not only the text and its linguistic and cultural setting, but also us, the interpreters. We come to the text not only with explicit questions, but also with our whole horizon of beliefs and attitudes. Most of them we do not know, and are not even aware of, and many of them become changed as a result of our encounter with the work. These changes, in turn, alter our interpretation of the work, which in turn may lead to new changes in us, and so on. This wider circle that involves the subject’s changing anticipations is a main topic in the New Hermeneutics.

1.6. The “New” Hermeneutics. Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer The circle that involves the interpreting subject and the interpreted object is certainly the most intriguing, going to the core of how interpretation affects us and changes both subject and object. This is also the key issue between traditional and “new” hermeneutics. The new hermeneutics is usually associated with HansGeorg Gadamer (1900–2002) and his teacher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). However, its basic ideas go back to Edmund Husserl (1859–1938). Husserl’s phenomenology is largely a study of the subjective perspective, the way in which all our experience, whether it be of the physical nature, of other human beings or of their actions and the products of these actions, such as texts, is imbued with meaning: there is always a web of anticipations involved, so that what we experience goes far beyond the patterns of irritations on our sensory surfaces. We are not aware of most of these anticipations. They form a horizon, a background, which for the most part is not thematized. Husserl developed a special method for studying these anticipations, including the tacit ones that we are not normally aware of. This method, which he called the phenomenological reduction, is a special kind of reflection that makes it possible to bring our anticipations to consciousness and study their intricate structure. We can never uncover them completely, and we may make mistakes in recognizing them. Phenomenological reduction, like all other inquiries, is fallible and when we use it, we often discover that earlier findings have to be revised. This is partly because the reduction, like all other actions of ours, takes place within a horizon, which strongly affects what we observe, but which largely remains unknown to us. Husserl was especially interested in studying intersubjectivity, or what happens when we live in a society with others to whose anticipations we gradually come to adjust; the result is that our horizons become mutually attuned. This mutual adaptation mostly takes place silently and unnoticed, through common activities. However, it happens partly through actions and products of action that are intended for communication, such as speech or texts. When applied to speech or texts, the phenomenological analysis becomes meaning analysis of the kind one finds in traditional hermeneutics. However, since phenomenology extends the realm of meaning to all kinds of human experience, phenomenology becomes

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a kind of general meaning analysis, a generalized form of interpretation, or hermeneutics.8 Heidegger therefore calls his version of phenomenology, which he took over from Husserl, “hermeneutics”: “The phenomenology of Dasein [the human subject] is a hermeneutic in the primordial signification of this word, where it designates this business of interpreting”.9 Hermeneutics thereby becomes a means for getting insight into man’s existence, which is the central theme in Heidegger’s philosophy. Gadamer, in his main work Truth and Method10 and in several smaller works, applies this phenomenological conception of hermeneutics to the subject matter of traditional hermeneutics, the interpretation of texts. Husserl’s notion of the horizon becomes particularly important in this enterprise. Gadamer emphasizes that when we read a text, our reading is shaped by anticipations we bring to our reading. Following Heidegger, Gadamer sometimes calls these anticipations fore-structures or fore-meanings; he also calls them prejudices (Vorurteile), and argues that we have inherited from the enlightenment a prejudice against prejudices. Rather than being something negative, prejudices in the sense of anticipations are unavoidable, writes Gadamer. However, one unfortunate drawback of this attempt to give an old word a new sense is that Gadamer’s German word Vorurteil, like its English equivalent “prejudice”, has a strong negative flavor, and even more than its English equivalent has overtones of consciously made judgments. A most important feature of Husserl’s notion of anticipation, or better fore-meaning or fore-structure, is that it is unconscious. We are not aware of it, and this is just why it is such a challenge to hermeneutics. A main task of hermeneutics is to adapt our fore-meaning to the text. We must approach the text with openness, that is with awareness that we have fore-meanings and that the text may have a meaning that is incompatible with our fore-meaning. When we perceive a physical object we adapt our anticipations to the object: we revise anticipations that do not fit until we reach an equilibrium. Similarly, when we encounter a text, we adapt our fore-meanings to the text: we revise our anticipations of what is expressed in the text until we find an interpretation that seems to us to be true or at least reasonable. That is, we adjust our interpretation and we adjust our opinions until we get as close as we can to agreeing with the text. The criterion of understanding is this kind of “fusion of horizons” (Horizontverschmelzung). The fusion of the horizons is a central idea in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The aim of interpretation is to enable us to agree with the text. However, there are two dangers connected with striving for agreement. First, we may become too eager to adapt our own views to the text. Gadamer concentrated his own work on great classical texts, such as for example Plato’s

8 The main Husserlian texts relevant to hermeneutics are his manuscripts on intersubjectivity, which make up about 6000 pages. About one third of these texts have been selected and edited by Iso Kern in volumes 13, 14, and 15 of Husserliana, Husserl’s Collected Works: Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Texte aus dem Nachlass (1973). 9 M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (1927). 10 H.-G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (1960); Truth and Method (1994).

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dialogues. In order to learn from these classics, we have to be open and adapt our views. This was criticized by Jürgen Habermas from 1967 on, in the context of a discussion of the methodology of social science. Habermas observed that Gadamer gave us no criteria for distinguishing good authorities, with whom there was reason to agree, and others, whom we should distance ourselves from. Habermas’ criticism led to a discussion in which not only he and Gadamer took part, but also Paul Ricoeur, Karl Otto Apel, Rüdiger Bubner and others.11 The second danger when one uses agreement as the criterion for understanding is the opposite of the one warned against by Habermas: instead of adapting to the text one may try to achieve agreement by adapting the text to fit in with one’s fore-meanings. Many theologians who were inspired by Gadamer’s hermeneutics found that this criterion gave them lots of freedom to interpret the biblical texts in exciting new ways, which were engaging for Christians of our time. Engagement is, of course, of great value for the interpreter of a religious text, and engagement became a key notion in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The issue of engagement became central in the discussion of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Some ways of interpreting it made it more engaging and what could be more welcome? After all, the Letter to the Romans has been universally praised among theologians. Luther described it in the opening lines to his Preface to this letter commentary as “the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest Gospel, worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul”.12 Many of the more traditional hermeneuticists became upset by this free treatment of the text. While Gadamer himself had been trained in traditional hermeneutics, with close attention to language, cultural and social background, etc. many of those who were influenced by him, had no such ballast. And why should they? Gadamer gave no criteria for what would be a satisfactory “fusion of the horizons”. One of the many who objected to Gadamer’s lack of criteria was the theologian Ernst Käsemann (1906–98). He exclaimed: The cardinal virtue of the historian and the beginning of all meaningful hermeneutic is for me the practice of hearing, which begins simply by letting what is historically foreign maintain its validity and which does not regard rape as the basic form of engagement.13

11 Habermas’ original criticism appeared in his “Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften”, PhR, Beih. 5, 1967, and was reprinted in his Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften: Materialien (1970 and later; expanded edn. 1984). The exchange between him and Gadamer along with essays by some of the other participants in the debate have been collected in Karl-Otto Apel e.a. (eds.), Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik: Theorie-Diskussion (1971). See also Paul Ricoeur, “Ethics and Culture: Gadamer and Habermas in Dialogue”, Philosophy Today 17/2 (1973) 154–55. 12 The German text of Luther’s Preface to the Romans is available online from the Archiv der Reformatoren, maintained by Andreas Janssen in Leimen. 13 E. Käsemann, “Zum Thema der urchristlichen Apokalyptik”, ZThK LIX (1962) 262 ff.

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1.7. Hermeneutics of Suspicion. Habermas. Ricoeur While Gadamer, as the classical scholar he was, aimed at a faithful interpretation of the text, many other hermeneuticists in the twentieth century have approached the texts with much more suspicion. Habermas is an example. His criticism of Gadamer is connected with his view that many perspectives on the world, “horizons of understanding” to use Gadamer’s phrase, are seriously defective. Habermas agrees with Marx and Freud that our anticipations, “prejudices” are unconscious – we structure the world without being aware of it, and the way we structure it, depends on factors that are ingrained in our society and that we are absorbing without being aware of them or reflecting on them. For Habermas, a main aim of hermeneutics is to uncover this hidden structuring and thereby take a first important step towards freeing ourselves from it. Habermas’ “critical” hermeneutics is therefore a social parallel to Freud’s conception of psychoanalysis. In France, the influence from Husserl on hermeneutics has been stronger than in Germany, although as noted above, much of what Gadamer has learned from Heidegger stems from Husserl. Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) started out as a Husserl scholar. He translated one of Husserl’s main works, Ideas, into French and was very well aware of how much phenomenology could contribute to hermeneutics. He said himself that his variety of hermeneutics could be called “hermeneutical phenomenology”, since this label “does justice both to my allegiance to Husserl and Merleau-Ponty and to my later recognition of Heidegger and Gadamer”.14 Like Husserl, Ricoeur regards actions as an important part of what structures the world, actions like texts have meaning. Our actions in general, and not only what we write or produce, make us what we are. Hermeneutics therefore includes the phenomenological study of actions. Hermeneutics gives us insight into our actions and thereby in who we are. The hermeneutic reflection is itself action and contributes to shaping us. Like Habermas and other “hermeneuticists of suspicion” hermeneutics shall help us to overcome hypocrisy and concealment. It will thereby be a tool for bringing about what Ricoeur calls “the narrative unity of a person’s life”.15 Ricoeur was throughout his life engaged by the many different genres of texts and how to interpret them. He stressed “the heterogeneity among the innumerable language games” that “forbids any attempt to make a system of such distinctive uses of language as science, poetry, ordinary discourse, psychoanalytic discourse, religious discourse, etc.”. From 1954 on Ricoeur taught regularly in the United States. In 1967 he succeeded Paul Tillich as professor of philosophical theology at the University of Chicago. During the 25 years he stayed there his work took a stronger turn towards theology. Many texts in the Bible are of the narrative kind, and Ricoeur was concerned with their truth claim. He refers to Van Harvey’s The Historian and the Believer16 and writes “If the stories of the Old Testament are historylike, … the question of 14 This and the following quotations from Ricoeur are taken from Paul Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation (1980). I find Ricoeur’s “Reply to Lewis S. Mudge” in this volume particularly helpful. 15 See for example Oneself as Another (1992). 16 Van Harvey, The Historian and the Believer (1996).

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the referential claims of these stories remains unavoidable. The attempt to bracket reference and to keep sense, i.e., to raise only questions of meaning and to drop questions about historical reality, fails somewhere, because it runs against my main contention that even fictions are about a world”. Ricoeur considers the idea that the religious reality is something elusive, like the Kantian Ding an Sich. However, he rejects this and concludes: “The question remains open whether and to what extent the category of testimony may preserve the dialectic of sense and reference – i.e., of immanent meaning and of aboutness – without falling into any of the too well-known pitfalls. The status of historylike stories relies ultimately on the answer given to this vexing problem. I am now wrestling with the different alternatives which still remain open”.

1.8. What are we after in Hermeneutics? Meaning? Is there something to be right or wrong about in interpretation, or is everything up for grabs? This is a key question that has been discussed again and again in hermeneutics. Traditionally, hermeneutics has aimed at grasping the meaning of a text, an action or whatever else we regard as meaningful. But what is meaning? One fairly common proposal is that we are after “the speaker’s meaning”, that is, the meaning that the author had “in the head” and more or less consciously is trying to express. Some hermeneuticists, such as Emilio Betti (1890–1968) and Eric D. Hirsch (1928–),17 have argued that this is the only notion of meaning that would provide a satisfactory notion of validity in interpretation. However, this approach gets into difficulties in connection with the so-called “Humpty-Dumpty” argument, from the episode in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass (1872) where Humpty-Dumpty uses the word ‘glory’: “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’”, Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’”, Alice objected. “When I use a word”, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less”. “The question is”, said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things”. “The question is”, said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all”.18

We all agree with Alice that what words mean is not determined by the speaker, but depends on the language that is used. It is also not clear what it means that a person has something “in his head”. And further: how can we find out what this is except by interpreting what is being said, supplemented possibly by other sources of evidence, such as actions, etc.? We are getting back to this issue later, in connection with Davidson’s idea of adding observation of actions to our evidential basis for interpretation and translating of language.

17 18

Betti, Teoria generale della interpretazione (1955); Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (1967). L. Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1872).

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A further question in hermeneutics is how the language of the text should be interpreted. Among the various options that have been discussed are: (1) What the language meant to the author. (2) What the author regards as a suitable way of communicating with the audience. This often happens in popularizations or in texts written for readers with another cultural background, and it is exemplified in many biblical texts, for example Paul’s letters to communities in various countries and various cultural settings. (3) One may study how a text is interpreted at different times in different cultures. This so-called “reception theory” is an important part of hermeneutics.

2. What is Meaning? Quine and Davidson The evolution in hermeneutics we have just traced has taken place on the continent, independent of and in isolation from similar developments in so-called “analytic” philosophy, whatever that may mean. However, the same issues have been discussed intensively also in the “analytic” traditions, although often under other headings. I will here concentrate on the notion of meaning, which as we just noted is a central notion in hermeneutics. I will discuss the issues in some detail, since they are important for hermeneutics and since they tend to be neglected and even unknown in much of the discussion of hermeneutics.19 There are philosophers, like Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) and Karl Popper (1902–94), who have held that in the study of linguistic meaning we are investigating a “third world”, which is not of human making, but is akin to a Platonic realm, waiting for us to explore it. Frege’s main argument for such a third world was that without it communication would be impossible. According to Frege, communication takes place when a speaker or writer expresses a certain meaning by help of a linguistic expression and a listener or reader connects the same meaning with this expression. A similar view often seems to have been taken for granted by hermeneuticists, however, apparently without awareness of the problematic philosophical presuppositions involved. An abstract world of meanings, without an account of how we get access to this world and why it is the same for all people, does nothing to explain language learning and communication. We owe it to Quine to have seen the emptiness of such an approach to meaning and communication.

2.1. The Public Nature of Language Philosophers and linguists have always said that language is a social institution. This seems obvious. However, usually they have immediately forgotten this and have adopted notions of meaning that are not publicly accessible and where it remains unclear how such entities are grasped by us. 19

An exception is R. W. Dasenbrock, Literary Theory after Davidson (1993). See also B. Ramberg, Donald Davidson’s Philosophy of Language (1989), and J. Malpas, Dialogues with Davidson (2011).

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Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) seems to have been the first to take the public nature of language seriously and explore its consequences for meaning and communication.20 He begins with a situation where two people, each with their own language and view of the world, attempt to communicate. They have no previous translation manual to fall back on, no grammar or dictionary, but must carry out “radical translation”, where they try to establish a grammar and a dictionary that they test out by observing one another’s behavior. Quine specifies two constraints that translation manuals have to satisfy. First, a condition on observation sentences, that is sentences which the other person assents to or dissents from only in certain observational circumstances. Such sentences should be translated into sentences that we assent to or dissent from in similar circumstances. Secondly, a principle of charity. Sentences which the other person accepts should not be translated into sentences which we regard as absurd, and sentences which the other person dissents from, should not be translated into sentences that we regard as banal. As Quine points out, several different translation manuals can satisfy these constraints. Given that these two constraints are all the evidence there is for correct translation, Quine concludes that translation is indeterminate; there are several translation manuals between two languages, and they are all correct. I shall not here discuss indeterminacy of translation, but I will concentrate on Quine’s constraints on translation.

2.2. Problems with Perception I find the second of Quine’s constraints, the principle of charity, well justified. It reflects an old and well-established hermeneutic principle and Quine supports it with good arguments. The first constraint, however, the observation constraint, is very problematic. Not because observations are irrelevant to understanding and translation – their relevance will be a main theme of this section – but because Quine defines observations in terms of the behaviorist notions of stimulus and response. Our problem is not the usual arguments against behaviorism, such as those of Chomsky against Skinner.21 Chomsky’s arguments are pretty irrelevant against Quine’s more discerning behaviorism. Our problem is that we find that Quine through his focus on stimulus and response has forsaken the public nature of language. Stimuli can be empirically studied, but they are not publicly accessible. And according to Quine’s fundamental insight, the emergence and development of language, the learning of language, and the use of language in communication must all be founded on publicly available evidence. In my daily life, where I learn and use language, I cannot observe the sensory stimuli of others. And I have never observed my own. How can 20

W. V. Quine, Word and Object (1960, 2013). N. Chomsky, “A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior”, Language 35/1 (1959) 26–58; repr. with a new preface by Chomsky in: L. A. Jakobovits/M. S. Miron, Readings in the Psychology of Language (1967). 21

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I then compare the stimuli of others with those of my own, as Quine requires? The stimuli are encumbered by the same problem as Frege’s “Sinne”, they are not publicly accessible. What the child learns to associate with words, are neither “Sinne” nor stimuli, but things in the surrounding world. Quine developed his view on stimuli further in Ontological Relativity (1969)22 and ended the book with the open problem of “saying in general what it means for two subjects to get the same stimulation or, failing that, what it means for two subjects to get more nearly the same stimulation than two others”. Quine’s original proposal that stimulations should be identified with triggering of nerve endings sets us off on a wrong track. By talking about the triggering of the sensory receptors we are already going too deeply inside the skin. Language being a social phenomenon, the basis for language learning and communication should also be publicly accessible without the aid of neurophysiology.23 This is a point repeatedly emphasized by Quine himself. In fact, on page 157 of Ontological Relativity he says that homology of receptors “ought not to matter”. Also, already in the very opening sentences of Word and Object Quine stressed how language learning builds on distal objects, the objects that we perceive and talk about: “Each of us learns his language from other people, through the observable mouthing of words under conspicuously intersubjective circumstances. Linguistically, and hence conceptually, the things in sharpest focus are the things that are public enough to be talked of publicly, common and conspicuous enough to be talked of often, and near enough to sense to be quickly identified and learned by name; it is to these that words apply first and foremost.”24

Why, then, did Quine turn to stimuli? He saw, I think, clearer than it had ever been seen before, how intricate the notion of an object is. We cannot determine through observation which objects other people perceive; what others perceive is dependent upon how they conceive of the world and structure it, and that is just what we are trying to find out. When we study communication and understanding, we should not uncritically assume that the other shares our conception of the world and our ontology. If we do, we will not discover how we understand other people, and we will not notice the important phenomena of indeterminacy of translation and of reference. Already in chapter 3 of Word and Object, the chapter following the chapter where he introduces stimuli, Quine discusses the ontogenesis of reference, and the discussion of this topic takes up several of the following chapters.

22

Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (1969). For more on this see my “Meaning and experience”, in: S. Guttenplan, Mind and Language (1975), 34–35, and also my “Developments in Quine’s Behaviorism”, American Philosophical Quarterly 48 (2011) 273–82. 24 Word and Object (1960, 2013), 1. 23

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2.3. The Early Davidson: “Maximize Agreement” Donald Davidson (1917–2003) proposed a theory of interpretation that is similar to, but also interestingly different from Quine’s theory of translation. One highly important contribution of Davidson to the whole theory of understanding, understanding language as well as understanding action and the mind, is his idea of comparing the problem of separating belief from meaning in the understanding of language to the problem of separating belief from value – or desire, or generally, pro-attitude – in the explanation of action. Our understanding of linguistic expressions depends, as also Gadamer observed, on an interplay between our beliefs and our view on meaning. Similarly, our actions depend on an interplay between our beliefs and our values. Since one component in each pair, that of belief, is the same, Davidson is able to add observation of actions to our evidential basis for interpretation and translating of language. I regard this idea of Davidson as a highly important contribution to hermeneutics. I will, however, now discuss that part of Davidson’s theory of interpretation that has a counterpart in Quine’s theory of translation. In order to compare the two theories let us transform Davidson’s theory into a theory of the conditions a correlation between two languages must satisfy in order to be a translation. There are various reasons why Davidson prefers a theory of interpretation to a theory of translation manuals, but they are not pertinent to my aim in this article.25 I shall argue that there is an early and a late version of Davidson’s theory. I will here concentrate on the early theory, which is most relevant to Gadamer. Davidson held his early theory up to 1973. This early theory differs from Quine’s on the following two points: (1) Davidson replaces Quine’s systematization via grammar with a systematization by means of Tarski’s theory of truth. This change reflects the fact that the systematization concerns semantics: one wants to see how the semantic features, for example truth, of complex expressions depend upon the semantic features of their component expressions. More accurately: given that one knows, through behavioral evidence, which sentences a person assents to – that is, regards as true – and which sentences he dissents from – regards as false – we try to segment these sentences into recurrent parts, that is words, and to find extensions and references for these words that make most of the sentences that the person assents to true and most of the ones he dissents from false. This idea of interpreting the other’s sentences so as to make the sentences he assents to true, is a point of similarity between Davidson and Gadamer, although Gadamer does not mention Tarski. This proposal by Davidson could be looked upon as applying Tarski upside down. While Tarski assumed that we knew the extensions and references of the smallest components and built up from there, Davidson starts with the truth and falsehood of sentences and tries to determine the parts and their semantic features from there.26

25 26

See D. Davidson, “Radical Interpretation”, Dialectica 27 (1973) 313–28, esp. 316–17. See, e.g., Davidson, “Belief and the Basis of Meaning”, Synthese 27 (1974) 318.

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I regard this first proposal of Davidson’s as an improvement upon Quine. And Quine accepted it. (2) Davidson’s second proposal is to fuse Quine’s two constraints on translation that I outlined above into one single constraint, a sweeping principle of charity that he expresses as a maxim: maximize agreement. That is: try to correlate the two languages in such a way that the sentences to which the other person assents are correlated with sentences to which we assent, and sentences from which he dissents are correlated with sentences from which we dissent.27 This simple constraint was the only condition Davidson put on translation in his early writings. He had recognized Quine’s problems in connection with perception, and he formulates his constraint without any appeal to perception. In Davidson’s early writings there is no mention of perception as one of the factors one has to take into account when one interprets somebody else. It would certainly simplify matters if perception did not have to enter the picture. However, here is an example of a rabbit behind a tree, which brings out the problems in Davidson’s attempt to get by without bringing in perception: I am together with a person who speaks a language which I do not know, but would like to learn. He frequently uses the phrase ‘Gavagai’ and I have formed an hypothesis that it has to do with rabbits. While we are in a forest and I note a rabbit I try out the phrase ‘Gavagai’. However, my friend dissents. According to Davidson’s maxim of maximizing agreement this would be a reason against my hypothesis that ‘Gavagai’ should be translated ‘Rabbit’. If I now discover that there is a big tree between my friend and the rabbit, I immediately have an explanation for our disagreement: I take it for granted that my friend, like me, is not able to see through trees and that he therefore does not think that there is a rabbit there. I even take my friend’s dissent as confirming my hypothesis; I do not expect him to believe that there is a rabbit there.28 The maxim of maximizing agreement hence has to be modified into maximize agreement where you expect to find agreement. Here both of Quine’s constraints on translation come in, the observational and the principle of charity. Interpretation recapitulates epistemology, and Quine’s two principles reflect the two main ingredients in epistemology: perception and reason. The rabbit-behind-the-tree example illustrates how the perceptual situation which we assume the other to be in may be decisive for the beliefs we ascribe to him and thereby for how we interpret and translate what he says. When Davidson was confronted with this example, he agreed that perception is important for translation and interpretation. In his later writings Davidson gives prominence to perception. To sum up: According to Quine, communication and understanding are based on our observation of one another’s behavior, not only in the sense that the be-

27 The expression “maximize agreement” recurs in many of Davidson’s papers from this period, for example in “Truth and Meaning” (1967), where it is explained as follows: “The linguist will then attempt to construct a characterization of truth-for-the-alien which yields, so far as possible, a mapping of sentences held true (or false) by the alien on to sentences held true by the linguist” (p. 27 of the reprint in Davidson’s Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Oxford UP 1984). 28 See my “Meaning and Experience” (1975), referred to earlier (footnote 23).

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havior provides evidence upon which we can base our judgments concerning meaning, but in the much more radical sense that meaning is a product of this publicly accessible evidence. That is, meaning, unlike nature, was not there before public interaction began, waiting to be discovered, but it has been produced, and is continually being produced, through this interaction. This production is a co-operative enterprise, where previous generations and specialists on various subjects (theoreticians and practitioners) have done their part, and created the semantic construction that the learner of the language strives to master. The production process still goes on, through our introduction of new expressions and through our using old expressions in new ways, as for example in metaphors. Where the evidence leaves off, there is nothing more to be right or wrong about. This is the gist of Quine’s thesis of “indeterminacy of translation”. For Quine, epistemology and meaning are intertwined: one of our main tasks when we try to understand a text or another person is that we try to interpret the other in such a way that he comes to have views that it would be reasonable for this person to have, given the person’s background and past and present experiences. That is, when we translate what another person says or writes into our own language or idiom, we seek to translate it in such a way that we come to attribute to him beliefs that we would expect him to have, given our theory of how people acquire and alter their beliefs: “the more absurd or exotic the beliefs imputed to a people, the more suspicious we are entitled to be of the translations”.29 Though the way of arguing for it is very different, this is also essentially Gadamer’s view.

3. Conclusion To conclude: There is a striking similarity between Gadamer, Quine and Davidson in their emphasis on how truth and agreement is crucial for interpretation. Where they differ, is that Quine and Davidson find the notion of meaning deeply problematic. Given that meaning is the central notion in hermeneutics, hermeneutics cannot ignore the radical exploration into the nature of meaning that Quine and Davidson have begun.30

29

Quine, Word and Object (1960, 2013), 69. I am grateful to two of my Stanford friends and colleagues: David Nivison, who has enlightened me about Chinese philosophy in conversations for more than forty years, and Van Harvey for stimulating co-teaching of seminars on hermeneutics. 30

Chapter Twenty-seven

The Linguistic Context of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic in the Framework of Semitic Philology, Including Semitic Epigraphy By Steven E. Fassberg, Jerusalem

For general surveys on Semitic languages, see Th. Nöldeke, “Semitic Languages”, EncBr 24 (11th edn.; London 1911), 617–630. – G. R. Driver, “Semitic Languages”, EncBr 20 (14th edn.; London 1932), 314–318. – W. Leslau, “Semitic Languages”, EncBr 20 (rev. 14th edn.; Chicago 1967), 208–211. – C. Rabin, “Semitic Languages”, EncJud 14 (Jerusalem: Keter 1971), 1149–1157. – H. J. Polotsky, “Semitics”, The World History of the Jewish People: At the Dawn of Civilization, I.1 (Ramat-Gan: Jewish History Publications / Rutgers University Press 1964), 99–111, 357. – E. Ullendorff, “Comparative Semitics”, Current Trends in Linguistics, 6 (ed. T. A. Sebeok; The Hague: Mouton 1970), 261–273. – M. Cohen, “Langues chamito-sémitiques”, Les langues du monde (ed. A. Meillet / M. Cohen; Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique 1952), 82–99. – C. Brockelmann, “Stand und Aufgaben der Semitistik”, Beiträge zur Arabistik, Semitistik und Islamwissenschaft (ed. R. Hartmann / H. Scheel; Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz 1944), 3–41. – J. H. Hospers, “A Hundred Years of Semitic Comparative Linguistics”, Studia Biblica et Semitica: Th. C. Vriezen… dedicata (Wageningen: H. Veenman 1966), 138–151. – J. Huehnergard, “Languages (Introductory)”, ABD 4 (New York: Doubleday 1992), 155–170; “Semitic Languages”, Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, 4 (ed. J. M. Sasson; New York 1995), 2117–2134; “New Directions in the Study of Semitic Languages”, The Study of the Ancient Near East in the 21st Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference (ed. J. S. Cooper / G. M. Schwartz; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1996), 251– 272. – R. Hetzron e.a., The Semitic Languages (London: Routledge 1997). – S. Weninger e.a., The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, HSK 36 (Berlin / Boston: Walter de Gruyter 2011). Works on Comparative Semitic philology include Th. Nöldeke, Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner 1904); Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner 1910). – C. Brockelmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (Berlin: Reuther / Reichard 1908–1913); Précis de linguistique sémitique (Paris: Geuthner 1910). – J. Barth, Die Pronominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs 1913). – E. de Lacy O’Leary, Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (London: K. Paul, Trench, Truber / New York: E. P. Dutton 1923). – G. Bergsträsser, Einführung in die semitischen Sprachen, Sprachproben und grammatische Skizzen (München: Max Hueber 1928; ET: P. T. Daniels, Introduction to the Semitic Languages, Text Specimens and Grammatical Sketches, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1983). – L. H. Gray, Introduction to Semitic Comparative Linguistics (New York: Columbia UP 1934). – S. Moscati e.a., An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz 1964). – J. Kuryłowicz, Studies in Semitic Grammar and Metrics (Wrocław: Polska Akademia Nauk 1972). – E. Lipin´ski, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar (Leuven: Peeters 1997). – R. Bennett, Comparative Semitic Linguistics: A Manual (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1998). – R. Stempel, Abriss einer historischen Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang 1999). – A. Dolgopolsky, From Proto-Semitic to Hebrew. Phonology: Etymological Approach in a Hamito-Semitic Perspective (Milan: Centro Studi Camito-Semitic 1999). – B. Kienast, Historische Semitische Sprachwissenschaft (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz 2001). – J. Fox, Semitic Noun Patterns (HSS 52; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns

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2003). – J.-C. Haelewyck, Grammaire comparée des langues sémitiques (Bruxelles: Éditions Safran 2006). For works dealing more specifically with the relationship of the Northwest Semitic languages one to another, see Z. Harris, Development of the Canaanite Dialects: An Investigation in Linguistic History. (AOS 16; New Haven: American Oriental Society 1939). – H. L. Ginsberg, “The Northwest Semitic Languages”, The World History of the Jewish People: Patriarchs, I.2 (Givatayim: Jewish History Publications / Rutgers University Press Tel Aviv 1970), 102–124, 270. – W. R. Garr, Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000–586 BCE (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1985). – R. Voigt, “The Classification of Central Semitic”, JSS 32 (1987) 1–21. – J. Huehnergard, “Remarks on the Classification of the Northwest Semitic Languages”, The Balaam Text from Deir Alla Re-evaluated: Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Leiden 21–24 August 1989 (ed. J. Hoftijzer / G. van der Kooij; Leiden 1991), 282–293; “Features of Central Semitic”, Biblical and Oriental Essays in Memory of William L. Moran (BiOr 48; ed. A. Gianto; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute 2005), 155–203. For general works on Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, see C. Rabin, “Hebrew”, Current Trends in Linguistics, 6 (ed. T. A. Sebeok; Mouton: The Hague 1970), 304–324. – E. Y. Kutscher, “Aramaic”, Current Trends in Linguistics 6 (1970), 347–412; A History of the Hebrew Language (ed. R. Kutscher; Jerusalem: Magnes Press / Leiden: Brill 1982), 1–114. – A. Sáenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language (tr. J. Elwolde; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1993), 1–49.

The ever-growing knowledge of Semitic languages that took place in the nineteenth century1 gained momentum in the twentieth. Considerable progress was made in the analysis and description of Akkadian, and archaeological activity and field work led to the discovery of new texts, dialects, and languages. The expanding field of Semitic languages had a significant impact on the relationship of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic to the other Semitic languages, as well as the relationship of the two biblical languages to each other. The new materials engendered paradigm shifts in the family tree of Semitic languages and changed previously accepted historical reconstructions of the Semitic family. Moreover, advances in general historical linguistics were gradually applied in analyzing the development of the Semitic languages, leading some scholars to widen the scope of inquiry: the individual languages were no longer just members of the Semitic family, but rather members of a larger Afroasiatic family (formerly known as Hamito-Semitic), which included Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, Chadic, and possible additional branches.2 By the end of the twentieth century, the growing inventory of Northwest Semitic languages had spurred growing debate over the internal classification of languages in this branch of Semitic. With regard to Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, the discovery of extra-biblical materials supplemented what was known about the two languages during the First and Second Temple Periods and presented a fuller picture of the languages and their diversity.

1. Increasing Knowledge of the Semitic Languages The critical study of the Semitic languages known as Comparative Semitics thrived in the twentieth century as old data were integrated into the constant flow 1 See Chap. 6 in this volume (2013), H. Gzella, “Expansions of the Linguistic Context of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: Hebrew Among the Languages of the Ancient Near East” (134–167). 2 J. Huehnergard, “Afro-Asiatic”, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages (ed. R. D. Woodard; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2004), 138–159.

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of new information. Archaeologists unearthed epigraphic remains, librarians and archivists located and identified medieval manuscripts, and field workers recorded new dialects and languages. Hundreds of thousands of cuneiform tablets put Akkadian grammar and lexicon on a firm basis. Wolfram von Soden (1908–1996) was a central figure who helped make the field accessible for Semitists and Biblicists. His grammar, Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik,3 and dictionary, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch,4 became basic tools of research. No less important was the monumental The Assyrian Dictionary put out by the University of Chicago, whose volumes appeared over almost half a century (1956–2005).5 The age of Akkadian texts and the archaic looking structure of their language (particularly the verbal system6) led Semitists to modify their reconstruction of the Semitic languages. Arabic, which was viewed during the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century as being close to Proto-Semitic and similar to what Biblical Hebrew must have looked like at an earlier stage in its development, began to give away to Akkadian as a more accurate representative of earlier Semitic. In general one may say that over the course of the twentieth century, the pendulum swung from an Arabic-based reconstruction of Proto-Hebrew to an Akkadian-based reconstruction,7 only to be followed by a swing back to an intermediate position that reconstructed early Semitic based on both Arabic and Akkadian, as well as Ugaritic and other Semitic languages. The development of Comparative Semitic philology in the twentieth century can be traced through the prism of comparative grammars. The most comprehensive and influential grammar for most of the century remained that of Carl Brockelmann (1868–1956). His two volume Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen, which appeared between 1908 and 1913, encompassed all known languages and dialects of the time; an abridged version of the work appeared in French in 1910. Additional comparative grammars of varying length and scope appeared throughout the century: in 1923 by Evans Lacy O’Leary (1872–1957), in 1964, edited, by Sabatino Moscati (1922–1997), in 1972 by the Indo-European linguist Jerzy Kuryłowicz (1895–1978), in 1997 by Edward Lipin´ski, in 1999 by Reinhard Stempel, in 2000 by Kienast, and in 2006 by Jean-Claude Haelewyck. The grammars of Kienast and Lipin´ski also include, to varying degrees, Afroasiatic material, reflecting the importance both scholars attribute to Semitic languages as a branch of the larger Afroasiatic family. Additional scholars who worked in the last half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century and who have left a lasting mark on Comparative Semitic philology include Jakob Barth (1851–1914), Gotthelf Bergsträsser (1886–1933), and Theodor Nöldeke (1836–1930).

3 W. von Soden, unter Mitarbeit von W. R. Mayer, Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik, 3. ergänzte Auflage (AnOr 33; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute 1995). 4 W. von Soden, unter Benutzung des lexikalischen Nachlasses von Bruno Meissner (1868– 1947), Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1965–1981). 5 The Assyrian Dictionary (Chicago: Oriental Institute 1956–2005). 6 For the most recent treatment of the Akkadian verbal system in the light of Semitic, see N. J. C. Kouwenberg, The Akkadian Verb and Its Semitic Background (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2010). 7 See, e.g., the historical Semitic grammar of Burkhart Kienast (b. 1933).

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Since new data were continuously being collected and sorted, there was a reluctance on the part of scholars to attempt a comprehensive dictionary of the Semitic languages. The closest projects were initiated by David Cohen (1922–), who began publishing in 1970 a dictionary of Semitic roots that reached KTT in 2012,8 and Alexander Militarev and Leonid Kogan, who published two volumes of a Semitic etymological dictionary, one on the anatomy of man and animals, and the other on animal names.9

2. Discoveries in Northwest Semitic Before the twentieth century, the only languages known to belong to the branch of Semitic known as ‘Northwest Semitic’ were Hebrew, Phoenician and Punic, Moabite (known only from the Mesha Stele), and Aramaic. On linguistic grounds scholars divided Northwest Semitic into two related families: Canaanite (Hebrew, Phoenician and Punic, and Moabite) and Aramaic. By the end of the twentieth century, four new members joined the family: Ugaritic, the language of the Deir Alla plaster inscription, Ammonite, and Edomite. Without a doubt the most dramatic discovery in Northwest Semitic was that of Ugaritic. Discovered in 1929 at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) on the Syrian coast, tablets written in cuneiform from the 14th–13th centuries BCE revealed an unknown Northwest Semitic language. An initial decipherment of the tablets was presented just a year later by Hans Bauer (1878–1937), which was shortly followed by additional decipherment and refinement by Charles Virolleaud (1879–1968) and Paul (Edouard) Dhorme (1881–1966).10 The contents and language of the tablets drastically altered earlier views on Northwest Semitic and on Canaanite civilization. With regard to biblical literature, the tablets revealed early Canaanite epic poetry with tales of a pantheon of Gods, whose echoes were identified in the Hebrew Bible. Linguistically, Ugaritic turned out to be a Northwest language that was older and more archaic than those already attested. The study of Biblical Hebrew was revolutionized. For the first time scholars were afforded a glimpse of a closely related language that offered a view of what Hebrew might have looked like centuries earlier. The similarity to Biblical Hebrew in lexicon, poetic parallelism, meter, and grammar was striking,11 and was used to explain cruces in the language of the biblical text,12 even though the nuances of much of 8 D. Cohen, secondé par Jérome Lentin avec la collaboration de François Bron et Antoine Lonnet, Dictionnaire des racines sémitiques ou attestées dans les langues sémitiques (Paris: Mouton/ Leuven: Peeters 1970–). 9 A. Militarev/L. Kogin, with the assistance of A. Belova, Semitic Etymological Dictionary (AOAT 278/1; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag 2000–). 10 For an account of the decipherment, see E. Doblhofer, Voices in Stone: The Decipherment of Ancient Writings and Scripts (London: Paladin 1973), 203–226. 11 E.g., the similarity in word pairs provided enough examples for three volumes: M. Dahood, “Ugaritic-Hebrew Parallel Pairs”, in Ras Shamra Parallels: The Texts from Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute 1972–1981). 12 D. Sivan, “Biblical Hebrew in the Light of Ugaritic Literature”, Leshonenu La’am 43 (1992) 123–134.

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the Ugaritic lexicon was unclear and the parsing of many words debated. Biblical Hebrew was used to decipher Ugaritic grammar and vocabulary, and in return Ugaritic vocabulary was used to elucidate biblical vocabulary. The exact relationship of Ugaritic to Biblical Hebrew remained contested: some argued that the former should be classified as a Canaanite language (like Biblical Hebrew) while others proposed that it reflected a different branch within Northwest Semitic.13 Ugaritic was not the only earlier Northwest Semitic material that became known during the twentieth century.14 In the first quarter of the century scholars culled Northwest Semitic personal and geographical names from texts written in Egyptian from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE (e.g., the Execration Texts from the 20th–19th centuries).15 This material was supplemented by Amorite personal names in Akkadian texts from the 20th–18th centuries BCE from Mari16 and elsewhere, which also contained Northwest Semitic elements.17 Additional Northwest Semitic material contemporaneous with Ugaritic was supplied by the fourteenth century Amarna Tablets, which were written in Akkadian by Canaanite scribes, whose native language sometimes penetrated the Akkadian. Canaanitisms appeared occasionally as glosses to Akkadian words and at times were discerniblely part of Akkadian words. As in the case of Ugaritic, no direct line could be drawn from the Canaanite language(s) reflected in the Amarna Tablets to Biblical Hebrew, but what is attested is suggestive for what Proto-Hebrew might have looked like. The pioneering works on the subject were those of Franz M. Th. Böhl (1882–1976),18 P. Dhorme,19 and Erich Ebeling (1996–1955).20 A major leap forward was made by William L. Moran (1921–2000) in his syntactical study of the language of the letters sent from Byblos to El-Amarna,21 and building on his work, by Anson F. Rainey (1930–2011).22 Additional materials were also identified by scholars, e.g., Daniel Sivan collected and analyzed the Canaanite words attested in Akkadian texts from the 15th–13th centuries

13 For the history of the debate, see D. Sivan, “m‘md h’wgrytyt bqrb hlšwnwt hšmywt hs. pwnywt-m‘rbywt: m‘qr h. dš”, TŠWRH LŠMW’L: MH . QRYM B‘WLM HMQR’ (ed. Z. Talshir/S. Yona/D. Sivan; Jerusalem: Ben-Gurion UP/Bialik Institute 1991), 282–297. 14 An influential article on the subject was that of W. L. Moran, “The Hebrew Language in its Northwest Semitic Background”, The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (ed. G. Ernest Wright; Garden City: Anchor 1961), 54–72 15 Y. Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords in North-West Semitic (SBLDS 173; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature 1999). 16 On the relationship of Mari and early Israel, see A. Malamat, Mari and the Early Israelite Experience (Oxford: Oxford UP 1989); idem, Mari and the Bible (Leiden: Brill 1998). 17 M. P. Streck, Die Amurriter, die onomastische Forschung, Orthographie und Phonologie, Nominal Morphologie (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag 2000). 18 F. M. Th. Böhl, Die Sprache der Amarnabriefe mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Kanaanismen (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs 1909). 19 P. (E.) Dhorme, “La langage de Canaan”, RB 10 (1913) 369–393, 11 (1914) 37–59, 344–372. 20 E. Ebeling, “Das Verbum der El-Amarna-Briefe”, Beiträge zur Assyriologie und semitischen Sprachwissenschaft 8 (1910) 39–79. 21 W. L. Moran, “A Syntactical Study of the Dialect of Byblos as Reflected in the Amarna Tablets” (Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University 1950). This oft-cited dissertation was finally published in W. L. Moran, Amarna Studies: Collected Writings (ed. J. Huehnergard/S. Izre’el; HSS 54; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1993), 1–130. 22 A. F. Rainey, Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets: A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect Used by Scribes from Canaan (Leiden: Brill 1996).

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BCE found in the El-Amarna Tablets, the Ta‘anakh Tablets, and at Alalakh and Ugarit;23 and Eugen J. Pentiuc investigated Northwest Semitic material found in Akkadian texts from Emar (Tell Meskene in Syria) from the late fourteenth to early twelfth centuries.24 During the 1980’s, cuneiform tablets found at Ebla (Tell Mardikh in Syria) from the 3rd millennium BCE caused a flurry of excitement when some scholars thought their language reflected a new West Semitic language;25 today the language of the tablets is thought by most scholars to be a dialect or sub-branch of Akkadian.26 Northwest Semitic evidence from the 1st millennium BCE also became more plentiful over the course of the century.27 Many new Phoenician and Punic inscriptions were unearthed at different sites in the Phoenician homeland and diaspora (e.g., Byblos, Sidon, Karatepe, Cyprus, Carthage) and they reinforced the view that Phoenician and Hebrew were closely related Canaanite languages. The discoveries of fragmentary inscriptions in Ammonite and Edomite, which share common phenomena with Biblical Hebrew, have demonstrated the diversity of languages belonging to the Canaanite branch of Northwest Semitic.28 The language of the fragmentary Deir Alla plaster inscription from the eastern side of the Jordan River, which mentions the seer Balaam, was debated from the moment it was published in 1976. Some argued that it was written in Aramaic while others considered it to reflect a local dialect or another unknown Northwest Semitic language.29 The simple bipolar division of Northwest Semitic that existed at the beginning of the twentieth century, Canaanite vs. Aramaic, was no longer valid at the end of the century because of the new epigraphic finds. The debate now focused on whether Ugaritic was Canaanite, and whether Deir Alla was Aramaic.

3. Discoveries in Hebrew The linguistic authenticity of the Hebrew attested in the Old Testament was corroborated with each new epigraphic find. In 1903 G. A. Cooke (1865–1939) was able to include only one significant Hebrew inscription in a collection of inscriptions from the First Temple Period, that from Siloam, and from the Second Temple

23 D. Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary of the Northwest Semitic Vocables in Akkadian Texts of the 15th–13th C.B.C. from Canaan and Syria (AOAT 14; Kevelaer: Butzon und Bercker/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1984). 24 E. J. Pentiuc, West Semitic Vocabulary in the Akkadian Texts from Emar (HSS 49; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2001). 25 M. Dahood, “Ebla, Ugarit, and the Bible”, in G. Pettinato, The Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay (Garden City: Doubleday 1981), 271–321. 26 J. Huehnergard/C. Woods, “Akkadian and Eblaite”, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages (ed. R. D. Woodard; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2004), 219–287. 27 H. Donner/W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, 1/5, erweiterte und überarbeitete Auflage (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2002); S. Ahituv, Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period (Jerusalem: Carta 2008). 28 Garr, Dialect Geography (1985). 29 Huehnergard, Classification (1991).

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Period only a few inscriptions, coins, and one seal.30 Since then excavations have considerably enlarged the First Temple corpus with additional epigraphic material from sites such as Jerusalem, Gezer, Samaria, Lachish, Arad, and Yavne-Yam.31 The ostraca found at Samaria gave tantalizing evidence of a northern dialect of classical Biblical Hebrew. New inscriptional material also included weights and measures, abecedaries, jar handles, graffiti, and seals. Two inscriptions, one from from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and the other from Makkedah, revealed a linguistic crux whose interpretation may or may not have theological implications for Israelite religion.32 The inscriptional material added only a few new words to the biblical vocabulary, but more importantly it confirmed many biblical grammatical phenomena that had been thought by some scholars to be artificial forms. Epigraphic finds from the Second Temple Period also multiplied, the most important being the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls. The first of the scrolls were found at the end of the 1940’s and much of the material was published at a snail’s pace beginning in the early 1950’s up through the first decade of the twenty-first century. The slow publication of the Scrolls led to unfounded conspiracy theories that the contents of the Scrolls were being deliberately surpressed. The Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran were biblical texts, para-biblical (or “reworked” biblical) texts, and non-biblical texts, some of which were sectarian (usually thought to be Essene) and others fragments of apocryphal works.33 The language of the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls was shown to share salient features with other corpora from the Second Temple Period, in particular the language of the post-exilic biblical books (Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles). In 1959, E. Y. Kutscher (1909–1971) demonstrated the similarities in his influential work on the language of the Great Isaiah scroll (1QIsaa).34 He described the language as an attempt on the part of scribes to imitate the classical Hebrew found in the biblical books from the First Temple period. Often, however, the scribes were influenced by the spoken languages of the period, namely a form of Hebrew that looked like a precursor of Tannaitic Hebrew, and Aramaic. Kutscher’s description of the language presented an explanation for the classicisms, pseudo-classicisms, and the colloquial-looking features found side-by-side in the Scrolls. Though accepted 35 by the majority of scholars, some such as Ze’ev Ben-H . ayyim (1907–2013) and Shelomo Morag (1926–1999) ,36 chose to emphasize the colloquial nature of many features, and Elisha Qimron (1950–), in particular, argued forcefully that the mix-

30

G. A. Cooke, A Text-Book of North-Semitic Inscriptions (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1903). Collected in J. Renz/W. Röllig, Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1995–2003). For grammatical analysis of the material see S. L. Gogel, A Grammar of Epigraphic Hebrew (SBLRBS 23; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1998). 32 On the difficult lyhwh (w)l’šrth, see Ahituv, Echoes (2008), 221–224. 33 D. Dimant, “The Library of Qumran: Its Content and Character”, The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After Their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 1997 (ed. L. H. Schiffman/E. Tov/J. C. VanderKam; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society/Israel Museum 2000), 170–176. 34 E. Y. Kutscher, The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (Jerusalem: Magnes Press 1959; tr. Leiden: Brill 1974). 35 Z. Ben-H . ayyim, Studies in the Traditions of the Hebrew Language (Madrid/Barcelona: Instituto Arias Montano 1954), 77–92. 36 S. Morag, “Qumran Hebrew: Some Typological Observations”, VT 38 (1988) 148–164. 31

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ture of features reflected that of a spoken dialect.37 All scholars agreed that colloquial features penetrated the Hebrew of the Scrolls; the debate centered (and still centers) on the extent of the phenomenon: does the language of the Scrolls reflect, on the whole, a literary or a spoken Hebrew?38 In addition to the documents found in the caves behind Qumran, additional documents from the Judean Desert turned up. They belonged to a later period whose terminus ad quem was the end of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE. The documents included biblical manuscripts, legal documents, and letters sent by Bar Kochba.39 The letters were colloquial in nature and shared features with Tannaitic Hebrew. The copy of Ben Sira found at Masada in the Judean Desert40 provided early evidence for the extra-biblical work in Hebrew, and its discovery stimulated the renewed linguistic investigation into the medieval Cairo Geniza exemplars discovered at the end of the nineteenth century. Yet another discovery that shed light on the Hebrew of the Second Temple Period was the analysis by Ben-H . ayyim of the reading tradition of the Samaritan Pentateuch, for it demonstrated features that had their origins in the Second Temple Period.41 Although Wilhelm Gesenius (1786–1842) had already noted the distinction between the Hebrew of the First and Second Temple Periods, the full-fledged study of the Hebrew in the late books of the Bible can be said to have begun with Arno Kropat and his 1909 work on the syntax of Chronicles.42 The salient features of Late Biblical Hebrew were further investigated by Abba Bendavid (1911–1994),43 Avi Hurvitz (1936–),44 and Robert Polzin45 in the light of the extra-biblical sources of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira. By the end of the century it was unthinkable to analyze Late Biblical Hebrew without taking into consideration the extra-biblical sources. The study of Biblical Hebrew benefited during the past century not only from the discoveries of epigraphic remains and oral traditions, but also from the study of early transcriptions of Hebrew into Greek and Latin as attested in the Septua37 E. Qimron, “The Nature of DSS Hebrew and Its Relation to BH and MH”, Diggers at the Well: Proceedings of a Third International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls & Ben Sira, (ed. T. Muraoka/J. F. Elwolde; Leiden: Brill 2000), 233–244. 38 A. Hurvitz, “Was QH a ‘Spoken’ Language? On Some Recent Views and Positions: Comments”, Diggers at the Well (2000), 113. 39 E. Y. Kutscher, “The Language of the Hebrew and Aramaic Letters of Bar-Kosiba and His Contemporaries. A. The Aramaic Letters”, Leš 25 (1960–1961) 117–133. For the most recent edition of the letters, see Y. Yadin e.a., The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Hebrew, Aramaic and Nabatean-Aramaic Papyri (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society/Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem/Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum 2002). 40 Y. Yadin, Masada VI: Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965. Final Reports (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1999), 151–252. 41 Z. Ben-H . ayyim, A Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew Based on the Recitation of the Law in Comparison with the Tiberian and Other Jewish Traditions (Jerusalem: Magnes Press/Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2000). 42 A. Kropat, Die Syntax des Autors der Chronik verglichen mit der seiner Quellen: Ein Beitrag zur historischen Syntax des Hebräischen (BZAW 16; Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann 1909). 43 A. Bendavid, Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew (Tel-Aviv: Dvir 1967–1971). 44 A. Hurvitz, The Transition Period in Biblical Hebrew: A Study in Post-Exilic Hebrew and its Implications for the Dating of Psalms (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute 1972). 45 R. Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1976).

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gint,46 Hexapla,47 and the writings of St. Jerome.48 Even more important was the progress made in the study of the medieval vocalization traditions that preserve earlier pronunciations of the Hebrew Bible.49 Prior to the beginning of the twentieth century, the pronunciation of Hebrew was known to most scholars only from the Tiberian vocalization system, which was first attested in manuscripts from the latter part of the 1st millennium CE, though the tradition it reflected went back much earlier. Some biblical manuscripts with Babylonian supralinear vocalization system were already published in the nineteenth century, but it was during the twentieth century that the extent of the Babylonian vocalization system became evident, as more and more manuscripts were located in libraries and private collections.50 The Tiberian and Babylonian systems were joined by two additional vocalization systems. The first, the Palestinian supralinear vocalization system, was discovered in the Cairo Geniza at the close of the nineteenth century and during the twentieth century additional manuscripts came to light.51 The second new system was characterized by Tiberian vowel signs that were used to represent a Palestinian vowel inventory; this system was designated by several different names, among them the Palestinian-Tiberian system, Fuller Palestinian System, Pre-Masoretic Tradition, Proto-Tiberian Non-Receptus Tiberian Punctuation, and the Tiberian Non-Conventional System.52 Paul Kahle, who published many of the first Palestinian vocalized manuscripts believed that it preserved a more vulgar and accurate pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew in Antiquity, as opposed to the Tiberian vocalization, which he argued was a much later and partially artificial tradition. Kahle thought that Arabic influence on the Masoretes was responsible for reintroducing gutturals consonants (which had weakened and disappeared in Palestinian vocalized manuscripts) and some final vowels (the 2nd masculine singular suffix and the 3rd feminine singular suffix), whereas the Masoretic bgdkpt distinction (stop vs. fricative realizations) he attributed to Syriac influence.53 This anti-Tiberian bias influenced many scholars54 and eventually lost ground to the view that the Tiberian tradition was indeed historically

46 G. Lisowsky, “Die Transkription der hebräischen Eigennamen des Pentateuchs in der Septuaginta” (Ph.D. dissertation; Theologische Fakultät der Universität Basel, 1940). 47 E. Brønno, Studien über Hebräische Morphologie und Vokalismus auf Grundlage der Mercatischen Fragmente der zweiten Kolumne der Hexapla des Origenes (AKM 28; Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus 1943); A. Yuditsky, The Grammar of the Hebrew of Origen’s Transliterations (Ph.D. dissertation; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev 2007). 48 C. Siegfried, “Die Aussprache des Hebräischen beim Hieronymus”, ZAW 4 (1884) 34–83; A. Sperber, “Hebrew Based upon Greek and Latin Transliterations”, HUCA 12–13 (1937–1938), 103–274. 49 S. Morag, The Vocalization Systems of Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic (’s-Gravenhage: Mouton 1961). 50 See I. Yeivin, The Hebrew Language Tradition as Reflected in the Babylonian Vocalization (Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language 1985). 51 J. Yahalom, Palestinian Vocalised Piyyut Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collection (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1997), 1–27. 52 S. Morag, “The Vocalization of Codex Reuchlinianus: Is the ‘Pre-Masoretic’ Bible Pre-Masoretic?” JSS 4 (1959) 216–237. 53 P. Kahle, The Cairo Genizah (2nd edn.; Oxford: Blackwell 1959), 36–110. 54 For an early and significant dissenting voice see G. Bergsträsser, “Ist die tiberiensische Vokalisation eine Rekonstruktion?”, OLZ 26 (1924) 582–586.

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reliable and accurate. Morag, for example, demonstrated this on the basis of oral reading traditions of Hebrew as well as manuscripts of Tannaitic Hebrew.55

4. Discoveries in Aramaic The corpus of Aramaic inscriptions from the first half of the 1st millennium BCE grew significantly during the twentieth century with the discovery of inscriptions such as those from Sefire, Tell Fekheryeh, and Tel Dan. Some of these inscriptions revealed vocabulary and idioms that paralleled those found in the Hebrew Bible.56 Moreover, the language of these inscriptions provided additional evidence in the debate over the relationship between Aramaic and Hebrew in the First Temple period, in particular, the extent of Aramaic influence on early Hebrew and the status of words in archaic biblical poetry that appeared at first blush to be borrowed from Aramaic.57 The number of texts roughly contemporaneous with Biblical Aramaic also increased considerably as more Official Aramaic documents were found in Egypt. The corpora of texts found at Elephantine, Hermopolis, and elsewhere included letters, literature, accounts, lists, contracts, and ostraca.58 They helped confirm the time period in which Biblical Aramaic was written, elucidated words and expressions, and also supplied grammatical forms unattested in Biblical Aramaic (e.g., 2nd person feminine singular forms). Throughout the century the existence of dialects in Aramaic was pushed back further and further into Old Aramaic.59 Though at one time Official Aramaic had been considered by many to be uniform in nature, Kutscher demonstrated that Biblical Aramaic actually had its origin in an eastern form of the language.60 The discovery of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls presented scholars with another form of Standard Literary Aramaic, like that of Biblical Aramaic,61 though it also contained features that presaged later Palestinian Aramaic dialects.62 The Aramaic letters of Bar Kochba from the Second Jewish Revolt provided a glimpse into the colloquial language of a slightly later period. As for Biblical Hebrew, the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls together with the Egyptian documents and Biblical Aramaic

55 S. Morag, “On the Historical Validity of the Vocalization of the Hebrew Bible”, JAOS 94 (1974) 307–315. 56 See J. C. Greenfield, ‛Al Kanfei Yonah: Collected Studies of Jonas C. Greenfield on Semitic Philology (ed. S. M. Paul/M. E. Stone/A. Pinnick; Jerusalem: Magnes Press/Leiden: Brill 2001). 57 An important work on the subject of supposed Aramaisms in the oldest Hebrew sources is G. R. Driver, “Hebrew Poetic Diction”, VT.S 1 (1953), 26–39. 58 B. Porten/A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt (Jerusalem: Department of the History of the Jewish People, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1986–1999). 59 J. C. Greenfield, “The Dialects of Early Aramaic”, JNES 37 (1978) 93–99. 60 E. Y. Kutscher, “h’rmyt hmqr’yt – ’rmyt mzrh. yt hy’ ’w m‘rbyt?”, Leš 17 (1951) 119–122. 61 J. C. Greenfield, “Standard Literary Aramaic”, in: Actes du premier congrès de linguistique sémitique et chamito-sémitique, Paris, 16–19 juillet 1969 (ed. A. Caquot/D. Cohen; The Hague: Mouton 1974), 281–289. 62 S. E. Fassberg, “Qumran Aramaic”, Maarav 9 (2002) 19–31.

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revealed more evidence of the pervasiveness of Aramaic during the post-exilic period when the latest books of the Hebrew Bible were composed.63

5. Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic Grammars and Dictionaries in the Light of New Data The expanding and rapidly developing field of Comparative Semitic philology and the new data from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Northwest Semitic in general had a significant impact on the Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic grammars and dictionaries prepared during the twentieth century, though on occasion there was excessive use and misuse of comparative material.64 With regard to Hebrew, the works should be divided into those that appeared before the discovery of Ugaritic and the Dead Sea Scrolls and those that appeared after. For English speakers, both the Brown-Driver-Briggs dictionary65 from 1907 and Gesenius’ grammar66 from 1910 remained widely-used reference works throughout the entire century even though they became outdated because of new finds; the same is true for German speakers and the twenty-ninth edition of Gesenius’ grammar67 from 1909 and the seventeenth edition of Gesenius’ dictionary.68 Bergsträsser’s Hebräische Grammatik (1918–1929), which began as an update of Gesenius’ grammar, improved on its predecessor, and among other things, incorporated data from Greek and Latin transcriptions, and the Babylonian and Palestinian vocalization systems. It is still used today for its synchronic description of the Tiberian system. Paul Joüon’s Grammaire de l’hébreu biblique69 from 1923 was a noteworthy scholarly achievement for its treatment of syntax. The Historische Grammatik der hebräischen Sprache by Hans Bauer and Pontus Leander70 from 1922, which contained a lengthy excursus by Kahle on the Tiberian Masoretic tradition and the other known vocalization systems, deeply influenced and continues to influence the historical reconstruction of Biblical 63 On identifying Aramaic loanwords in Hebrew, see A. Hurvitz, “Hebrew and Aramaic in the Biblical Period: The Problem of ‘Aramaisms’ in Linguistic Research on the Hebrew Bible”, Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (ed. I. Young; London: T & T Clark 2003), 24–37. 64 James Barr (1924–2006) sharply critiqued the way in which other Semitic languages were often used to explain Hebrew words; see his Comparative Philology ad the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford UP 1968). 65 F. Brown/S. R. Driver/C. A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1907). It was originally based on a translation of Gesenius’s dictionary into English by Edward Robinson. 66 Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar as edited and enlarged by E. Kautzsch, Second English edition revised in accordance with the twenty-eighth German edition (1909) by A. E. Cowley (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1910). 67 W. Gesenius, Hebräische Grammatik (28th edn.; Leipzig: Vogel 1909). 68 Wilhelm Gesenius’ Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, in Verbindung mit H. Zimmern, W. Max Müller und O. Weber bearbeitet von Frants Buhl (17th edn.; Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel 1921). 69 P. Joüon, Grammaire de l’hébreu biblique (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute 1923). 70 H. Bauer/P. Leander, Historische Grammatik der hebräischen Sprache (Halle: Max Niemeyer 1922).

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Hebrew to this day. The ‘Mischsprache’ theory espoused in the grammar reconstructed Hebrew as a mixed language composed of an older stratum of Canaanite spoken by the indigenous inhabitants of Canaan and a younger linguistic stratum that was brought into the area with later immigrants. This theory attempted to reconcile certain doublets in the language in the light of the biblical accounts of the migrations of the Patriarchs and the conquest of Canaan. Despite the influence of the grammar, the mixed language theory was not widely accepted. No other full-scale historical grammars were attempted later in the century. Klaus Beyer (1939–) presented an interesting attempt to reconstruct Biblical Hebrew in its pre-Tiberian stage in his Althebräische Grammatik71 from 1969. Grammars and dictionaries composed in the second half of the past century began to incorporate material from Ugaritic and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as new epigraphic finds and Ben Sira. The first grammar to do so was Hebräische Grammatik by Rudolf Meyer (1909–1991), which appeared between 1966 and 1972.72 It was followed in 1990 by An Introduction to Biblical Syntax73 by Bruce K. Waltke (1930–) and Michael O’Connor (1950–2007) and by Takamitsu Muraoka in his 1991 revision and translation into English of Joüon’s grammar.74 Though expressly a grammar of Tiberian Hebrew, Muraoka occasionally incorporated other Hebrew traditions, including references to Amarna Canaanite (as did Waltke and O’Connor) as well as Tannaitic Hebrew. Ludwig Koehler (1880–1956) published in 1953 the first full-scale dictionary of Biblical Hebrew to appear in over thirty years.75 Walter Baumgartner (1887– 1970) published a second edition of the work in 1958,76 and with the aid of other scholars published a third edition between 1967 and 1996;77 an English version appeared between 1994 and 2000.78 The Koehler-Baumgartner dictionary included in the etymological and comparative remarks preceding each entry all the new sources at their disposal, including the Samaritan reading tradition of the Hebrew Bible. The new eighteenth edition of Gesenius’s dictionary, which was published between 1987 and 2010, follows the same pattern.79 An entirely different

71 K. Beyer, Althebräisches Grammatik: Laut und Formenlehre (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1969). 72 R. Meyer, Hebräische Grammatik (Sammlung Göschen; 3rd edn.; Berlin: De Gruyter 1966– 1972). 73 B. K. Waltke/M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1990). 74 P. Joüon/T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute 1991; 2nd edn. 2006). 75 L. Koehler, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros: Wörterbuch zum hebräischen Alten Testament in deutscher und englischer Sprache (Leiden: Brill 1953). 76 The second edition consisted of the first edition along with a supplement: L. Koehler/W. Baumgartner, Supplementum ad Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti libros (Leiden: Brill 1958). 77 L. Koehler/W. Baumgartner e.a., Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament, 3rd edition (Leiden: Brill 1967–1996). 78 L. Koehler/W. Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (tr. and ed. by M. E. J. Richardson; Leiden: Brill 1994–2000). 79 W. Gesenius, Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament unter verantwortlicher Mitarbeit von Udo Rüterswörden, bearbeitet und herausgegeben von R. Meyer und H. Donner (18. Auflage; Berlin e.a.: Springer 1987–2010).

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approach was adopted by The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew,80 which appeared between 1991 and 2011 and which treated together in each entry Biblical Hebrew, epigraphic Hebrew, the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Ben Sira. This was the first dictionary to aim to include all classical Hebrew corpora and to analyze them from a purely Hebrew context. Mention should also be made of the combined dictionary and concordance begun by Samuel Loewenstamm and Joshua Blau (1919), whose first volume was published in 1957;81 the dictionary was eventually finished in 2006 by Kaddari (1925–2011).82 The dictionaries mentioned above were joined in the latter half of the twentieth century by theological dictionaries, which were limited to words of theological importance. Unlike the standard biblical dictionaries, the theological dictionaries contained in-depth semantic discussions of entries. The two most important works were edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren (1917–2012),83 and of Ernst Jenni (1927–) and Claus Westermann (1909–2000).84 Both dictionaries appeared first in German and then in English. With regard to Biblical Aramaic grammars and dictionaries, Hans Bauer and Pontus Leander’s Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen from 1927 remained the most complete grammar.85 Like their Hebrew grammar, the Aramaic grammar was also diachronic and synchronic, the only one of its kind. Several smaller grammars of Biblical Aramaic appeared during the century, the most important and widely used being that by Franz Rosenthal (1914–2003), which has gone through seven editions.86 The most recent grammar is that by Elisha Qimron (1950–), published first in 1995, with a revised second edition in 2002.87 The main lexicographic works of the twentieth century, Gesenius, Brown-Driver-Biggs, and Koehler-Baumgartner,88 each included a separate Aramaic section at the end of the dictionary.

80 D. J. A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1993–2011). 81 S. E. Loewenstamm/J. Blau/M. Z. Kaddari, Thesaurus of Biblical Hebrew: Concordance and Hebrew-English Dictionary (Jerusalem: Bible Concordance Press; vol. 1 1957, vol. 2 1959, vol. 3 1968–). 82 M. Z. Kaddari, A Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew (Alef – Taw) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan UP 2006). 83 G. J. Botterweck/H. Ringgren, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer 1973–1995); ET: G. J. Botterweck/H. Ringgren/H.-J. Fabry, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (tr. J. T. Willis/D. E. Green; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1977–2006). 84 E. Jenni unter Mitarbeit von C. Westermann, Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum Alten Testament (3rd edn.; München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag/Zürich: Theologischer Verlag 1971–1979); ET: Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (tr. M. E. Biddle; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 1997). 85 H. Bauer/P. Leander, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen (Halle: Max Niemeyer 1927). 86 F. Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (PLO; 7th expanded edition; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2007). It was also translated into French. 87 E. Qimron, Biblical Aramaic (BEL; 2nd edn.; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute 2002). 88 For a review of the Aramaic section in the most recent German edition, see M. Sokoloff, DSD 7 (2000) 74–109.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Institutions and Social Life in Ancient Israel: Sociological Aspects By Anselm C. Hagedorn, Berlin

Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.1 Sources and studies: S. Ackermann, “Household Religion, Family Religion, and Women’s Religion in Ancient Israel”, in: Household and Family Religion in Antiquity (ed. J. Bodel/S. M. Olyan; The Ancient World: Comparative Histories; Oxford 2008), 127–158. – R. Albertz, Persönliche Frömmigkeit und offizielle Religion: Religionsinterner Pluralismus in Israel und Babylon (CThM A 9; Stuttgart 1978); “Social History of Ancient Israel”, PBA 143 (2007), 347–367; “Family Religion in Ancient Israel and its Surroundings”, in: Household and Family Religion in Antiquity (ed. J. Bodel/S. M. Olyan; The Ancient World: Comparative Histories; Oxford 2008), 89–112. – C. B. Andersen, Women, Ideology, and Violence: Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law (JSOT.S 394; London/New York 2004). – G. A. Anderson, Sacrifices and Offerings in Ancient Israel: Studies in Their Social and Political Implications (HSM 41; Atlanta 1987). – G. A. Anderson/S. M. Olyan (eds.), Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel (JSOT.S 125; Sheffield 1991). – J. Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (London 1986). – S. Bendor, Social Structure of Ancient Israel: The Institution of the Family (beit ’ab) from the Settlement to the End of the Monarchy (Jerusalem Biblical Studies, 7; Jerusalem 1996). – H. V. Bennett, Injustice Made Legal: Deuteronomic Law and the Plight of Widows, Strangers, and Orphans in Ancient Israel (The Bible in Its World Series; Grand Rapids 2002). – I. Benzinger, Hebräische Archäologie (Angelos Lehrbücher, 1; Leipzig 31927). – J. Berlinerblau, “The Present Crisis and Uneven Triumphs of Biblical Sociology: Responses to N. K. Gottwald, S. Mandell, P. Davies, M. Sneed, R. Simkins and N. Lemche”, in: Concepts of Class in Ancient Israel (ed. M. R. Sneed; South Florida Studies in the History of Judaims 201; Atlanta 1999), 99–120. – J. L. Berquist, Controlling Corporeality: The Body and the Household in Ancient Israel (New Brunswick 2002). – A. Bertholet, Kulturgeschichte Israels (Göttingen 1919). – J. Blenkinsopp, Sage, Priest, Prophet: Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel (Louisville 1995). – J. Bodel/S. M. Olyan (eds.), Household and Family Religion in Antiquity (Ancient World. Comparative Histories; Oxford 2008). – J. P. Brown, Ancient Israel and Ancient Greece: Religion, Politics, and Culture (Minneapolis 2003). – K. M. Campbell (ed.), Marriage and Family in the Biblical World (Downers Grove 2003). – R. P. Carroll, When Prophecy Failed: Reactions and Responses to Failure in the Old Testament Prophetic Traditions (London 1979). – D. J. Chalcraft (ed.), Social-scientific Old Testament Criticism (The Biblical Seminar 47; Sheffield 1997). – M. L. Chaney, “Ancient Palestinian Peasant Movements and the Formation of Premonarchic Israel”, in: Palestine in Transition: The Emergence of Ancient Israel (ed. D. N. Freedman/D. F. Graf; Sheffield 1983), 39–90. – R. E. Clements (ed.), The World of Ancient Israel. Sociological,

1

E. T. Hall, The Silent Language (Garden City 1959), 53.

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Anthropological and Political Perspectives (Cambridge 1989). – S. L. Cook/R. A. Simkins, “Introduction: Case Studies from the Second Wave of Research in the Social World of the Hebrew Bible”, in: The Social World of the Hebrew Bible: Twenty-Fife Years of the Social Sciences in the Academy (ed. R. A. Simkins/S. L. Cook; Semeia 87; Atlanta 1999), 1–14. – R. B. Coote/K. W. Whitelam, The Emergence of Ancient Israel in Historical Perspective (SWBAS 5; Sheffield 1987). – J. A. Crenshaw, “Education in Ancient Israel”, JBL 104 (1985) 601–615. – F. Crüsemann, The Torah: Theology and Social History of Old Testament Law (Minneapolis 1996). – U. Dahm, Opferkult und Priestertum in Alt-Israel: Ein kultur- und religionswissenschaftlicher Beitrag (BZAW 327; Berlin 2003). – J. Day e.a. (eds.), Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour of J. A. Emerton (Cambridge/New York 1995). – R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel. Its Life and Institutions (London 3 1973). – W. G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids 2001); Archaeology and Biblical Studies: Retrospects and Prospects (Evanston 1974); Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research (Seattle 1990); Who were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come from? (Grand Rapids 2003); Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids 2005). – W. G. Dever/S. Gitin (eds.), Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina. Proceedings of the Centennial Symposium, W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and American Schools of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, May 29/31, 2000 (Winona Lake 2003). – J. H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism? (GBS; Minneapolis 1993). – P. F. Esler (ed.), Ancient Israel. The Old Testament in Its Social Context (Minneapolis 2006). – I. Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem 1988). – I. Finkelstein/N. Na’aman (eds.), From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel (Washington 1994). – I. Finkelstein/N. A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York 2001); David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (New York 2006). – I. Finkelstein/A. Mazar, The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel: Invited Lectures Delivered at the Sixth Biennial Colloquium of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, Detroit, October 2005 (ed. B. B. Schmidt; Atlanta 2007). – N. S. Fox, In the Service of the King. Officialdom in Ancient Israel and Judah (HUCM 23; Cincinnati 2000). – H. Frankfort, The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East (Chicago 1972). – J. G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion (London 1918). – F. S. Frick, “Reconstructing Ancient Israel’s Social World”, in: The Social World of the Hebrew Bible: Twenty-Five Years of Social Sciences in the Academy (ed. R. A. Simkins/S. L. Cook; Semeia 87; Atlanta 1999), 233–254. – H. Gaubert, La vie familiale en Israël (Paris 1971). – S. Gitin/A. Mazar/E. Stern, Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries BCE: In Honor of Professor Trude Dothan (Jerusalem 1998). – J. M. Golden, Ancient Canaan and Israel: New Perspectives (Santa Barbara 2004). – N. K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel 1250–1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll 1979); “Preface to the Reprint”, in: The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel 1250–1050 B.C.E. (The Biblical Seminar 66; Reprint Edition; Sheffield 1999), xxvi–xlx; idem (ed.), Social Scientific Criticism of the Hebrew Bible and Its Social World: The Israelite Monarchy (Semeia 37; Decatur 1986); The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours (SBLSS; Atlanta Press 1993). – L. L. Grabbe, Priest, Prophets, Diviners, Sages. A SocioHistorical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel (Valley Forge 1995); “Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy from am Anthropological Perspective”, in: Prophecy in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context. Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Arabian Perspectives (ed. M. Nissinen; SBLSS 13; Atlanta 2000), 13–32; “Sup-Urbs or only Hyp-Urbs? Prophets and Populations in Ancient Israel and Socio-Historical Method”, in: ‘Every City Shall Be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East (ed. L. Grabbe/R. D. Haak; JSOT.S 330; Sheffield 2001), 95–123. – A. C. Hagedorn, Between Moses and Plato: Individual and Society in Deuteronomy and Ancient Greek Law (FRLANT 204; Göttingen 2004). – J. M. Halligan, “‘Where Angels Fear to Tread …’ An Account of the Development of the Social-Scientific Approach to the Study of the Ancient World”, in: ‘Imagining’ Biblical Worlds. Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan (ed. D. M. Gunn/P. McNutt; JSOT.S 359; Sheffield 2002), 202–218. – P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic (Philadelphia 1975). – G. A. Herion, “The Impact of Modern Social Science Assumptions on the Reconstruction of Israelite

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History”, JSOT 34 (1986) 3–33. – M. Herman, “Tithe as Gift: The Biblical Institution in Light of Mauss’s ‘Prestation Theory’”, AJS Review 18 (1993) 51–73. – S. H. Hooke (ed.), Myth, Ritual, and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (Oxford 1958). – L. J. Hoppe, Priests, Prophets, and Sages: Catholic Perspectives on the Old Testament (Cincinnati 2006). – R. R. Hutton, Charisma and Authority in Israelite Society (Minneapolis 1994). – D. W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socioarcheological Approach (JSOT.S 109; Sheffield 1991). – D. Janzen, The Social Meanings of Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible: A Study of Four Writings (BZAW 334; Berlin/New York 2004). – A. R. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel (Cardiff 1955). – R. Kessler, Staat und Gesellschaft im vorexilischen Juda. Vom 8. Jahrhundert bis zum Exil (VT.S 47; Leiden 1992); Sozialgeschichte des alten Israel. Eine Einführung (Darmstadt 2006); Studien zur Sozialgeschichte Israels (SBAB 46; Stuttgart 2009); “Anthropologie und Sozialgeschichte”, in Anthropologische Aufbrüche. Alttestamentliche und interdisziplinäre Zugänge zur historischen Anthropologie (ed. A. Wagner; FRLANT 232; Göttingen 2009), 69–76. – P. J. King/L. E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville 2001). – H.-J. Kraus, “Die Anfänge der religionssoziologischen Forschung in der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft”, in: Biblisch-theologische Aufsätze (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1972), 296–310. – P. Laslett, “The Wrong Way Through the Telescope: A Note on Literary Evidence in Sociology and in Historical Sociology”, The British Journal of Sociology 27 (1976) 319–342. – N. P. Lemche, Early Israel. Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy (VT.S 37; Leiden 1985). – G. E. Lenski/J. Lenski, Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology (New York 51987). – T. E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (London / Washington 1998). – J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia 1962). – B. J. Malina, “The Social Sciences and Biblical Interpretation”, Int 37 (1982) 229–242. – V. H. Matthews/D. C. Benjamin, Social World of Ancient Israel, 1250–587 BCE (Peabody 1993). – V. H. Matthews, “Honor and Shame in Gender-Related Legal Situations in the Hebrew Bible”, in: Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. V. H. Matthews e.a.; JSOT.S 262; Sheffield 1998), 97–112. – A. D. H. Mayes, The Old Testament in Sociological Perspective (London 1989). – P. McNutt, Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville 1999). – M. McVann (ed.), Transformations, Passages, and Processes: Ritual Approaches to Biblical Texts (Semeia 67; Atlanta 1995). – G. E. Mendenhall, “The Hebrew Conquest of Canaan”, BA 25 (1962) 66–87; The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore 1973). – K. Neumann, Das Fremde verstehen – Grundlagen einer kulturanthropologischen Exegese. Untersuchungen zu paradigmatischen mentalitätsgeschichtlichen, ethnologischen und soziologischen Zugangswegen zu fremden Sinnwelten, I–II (Theologie 18; Münster 2000). – P. Nolan/G. Lenski, Human Societies. An Introduction to Macrosociology (New York 81999). – M. Noth, Die Welt des Alten Testaments. Einführung in die Grenzgebiete der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft (Berlin 1962). – S. M. Olyan, Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (Princeton 2004); “Family Religion in Israel and the Wider Levant of the First Millennium bce”, in: Household and Family Religion in Antiquity (ed. J. Bodel/S. M. Olyan; The Ancient World: Comparative Histories; Oxford 2008), 113–126. – E. Otto, “Sozialgeschichte Israels. Probleme und Perspektiven. Ein Diskussionspapier”, BN 15 (1981) 87–92; Gottesrecht als Menschenrecht: Rechts- und literaturhistorische Studien zum Deuteronomium (BZAR 2; Wiesbaden 2002). – T. W. Overholt, “The Ghost Dance of 1890 and the Nature of the Prophetic Process”, Ethnohistory 21 (1974) 37–63; “Prophecy: The Problem of CrossCultural Comparison“, in: Anthropological Perspectives on Old Testament Prophecy (ed. R. C. Culley/T. W. Overholt; Semeia 21; Atlanta 1982), 55–78; Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Sourcebook for Biblical Researchers (SBLSBS 17; Atlanta 1986); Channels of Prophecy: The Social Dynamics of Prophetic Activity (Minneapolis 1989); Cultural Anthropology and the Old Testament (Guides to Biblical Scholarship; Minneapolis 1996). – S. M. Paul/W. G. Dever (eds.), Biblical Archaeology (New York 1974). – J. Pedersen, Israel. Its Life and Culture, I–IV (London/ Copenhagen 41959). – L. G. Perdue e.a., Families in Ancient Israel (The Family, Religion, and Culture; Louisville 1997); idem (ed.), Scribes, Sages, and Seers: The Sage in the Eastern Mediterranean World (FRLANT 219; Göttingen 2008). – L. G. Perdue/J. G. Gammie (eds.), The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake 1990). – D. L. Petersen, The Roles of Israel’s Prophets (JSOT.S 17; Sheffield 1981). – J. J. Pilch/B. J. Malina (eds.), Biblical Social Values and Their Meaning. A Handbook (Peabody, MA 1993). – C. Pressler, The View of Women Found in the Deuteronomic Family Laws (BZAW 216; Berlin 1993). – J. Redfield, “Classics and Anthropology”, Arion 3 (1991) 5–23. – W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (Cambridge 1885). – J. W.

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Rogerson, “The Use of Sociology in Old Testament Studies”, in: Congress Volume Salamanca 1983 (ed. J. A. Emerton; VT.S 36; Leiden 1985), 245–256; Anthropology and the Old Testament (The Biblical Seminar 1; Sheffield 22001). – D. W. Rooke, Zadok’s Heirs: The Role and Development of the High Priesthood in Ancient Israel (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford/New York 2000). – J. M. Salmon, Judicial Authority in Early Israel: An Historical Investigation of Old Testament Institutions (Ann Arbor 1969). – C. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, “Zur Funktion der Soziologie im Studium des Alten Testaments”, in: Congress Volume Oslo 1998 (ed. A. Lemaire/M. Sæbø; VT.S 80; Leiden/Boston/Cologne 2000), 179–202. – D. J. Schloen, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol. Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant, 2; Winona Lake 2001). – W. Schottroff, Gerechtigkeit lernen. Beiträge zur biblischen Sozialgeschichte (ThB 94; Gütersloh 1999); “Soziologie und Altes Testament”, VuF 19 (1974) 46–66; “Zur Sozialgeschichte Israels in der Perserzeit”, VuF 27 (1982) 46–68. – J. A. Soggin, Israel in the Biblical Period: Institutions, Festivals, Ceremonies, Rituals (tr. J. Bowden; Edinburgh / New York 2001). – G. Sprondel, “Sozialgeschichtliche Forschung am AT und ihr theologischer Ertrag”, in: Studien zur Ritual- und Sozialgeschichte im Alten Orient (ed. T. R. Kämmerer; BZAW 374; Berlin/New York 2007), 343–348. – E. Stern (ed.), Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period, 538–332 B.C. (Warminster 1982); Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, I–V (Jerusalem 1993–2008); Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, II: The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian periods, 732–332 BCE (New York 2001). – G. W. Stocking, Victorian Anthropology (New York 1987); After Tylor. British Social Anthropology 1888–1951 (Madison 1995). – W. Thiel, Die soziale Entwicklung Israels in vorstaatlicher Zeit (Neukirchen-Vluyn 21985). – T. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources (Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East, 4; Leiden 1992). – K. van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit, and Israel: Continuity and Changes in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, 7; Leiden/New York 1996). – S. Weeks, Early Israelite Wisdom (Oxford 1994). – M. Weinfeld, Judge and Officer in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, IOS 7 (1977) 65–88. – P. Welten, “Ansätze sozialgeschichtlicher Betrachtungsweise des Alten Testaments im 20. Jahrhundert”, BThZ 6 (1989) 207–221. – K. W. Whitelam, Just King: Monarchical Judicial Authority in Ancient Israel (JSOT.S 12; Sheffield 1979); “The Social World of the Bible”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (ed. J. Barton; Cambridge 1998), 35–49. – T. M. Willis, The Elders of the City: A Study of the EldersLaws in Deuteronomy (SBLMS 55; Atlanta 2001). – R. R. Wilson, “Prophecy and Ecstasy: A Reexamination”, JBL 98 (1979) 321–337; Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia 1980); Sociological Approaches to the Old Testament (GBS; Philadelphia 1984).

1. Introduction The nineteenth and early twentieth century saw a major increase in the number of travellers to Palestine and the Eastern Levant. The reports brought back from these men and women as well as the numerous archaeological finds revealed a world radically different from Europe and the United States. “At the same time, biblical scholars were trying to reconstruct the history and social contexts out of which the Bible arose in order to understand a foundational text for Western culture”.2 The vivid picture painted by the Hebrew Bible itself as well as the observance of correspondences between early modern Arab culture and behaviour triggered an interest in the social organization and social life, customs and institutions of ancient Israel.3 These approaches began to supplement the purely lit2

Whitelam, Social World (1998), 35. See e.g. W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book or, Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land (London 1887). The book is in fact 3

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erary-critical investigation of the Hebrew Bible. One of the main reasons for the increasing interest in the ‘social life’ of ancient Israel has surely been the feeling that the rather abstract nature of literary critical study does not always do justice to the rich texture of the biblical narratives. Since the Bible served as the first guidebook to Palestine it was only natural that travellers and authors should use the character and behavioural traits of the biblical persons found in the narrative as a starting point for any investigation of the social and institutional life. As such, the literary picture of the Bible determined how one looked at contemporary Arab people and culture and vice versa – the modern Arab person was seen as enshrining traits of the biblical characters. Here, Biblical scholars readily accept E. B. Tylor’s theory of survival.4 “As applied to cultural data, the doctrine of survivals drew attention to the presence of functionless crude or superstitious elements of belief or custom to be found in civilized societies, usually among the peasantry of such societies”.5 These remnants were seen as “fossilized remains” of a historical period when all of the society under scrutiny were at a stage of a less developed culture. If one wants to understand the development of human culture properly it is therefore mandatory to study its earlier forms still visible in pre-industrial peasant societies. Since E. B. Tylor had argued for a certain degree of stability of these archaic survivals in culture, this aspect of his theory served scholars well who wanted to study the daily life of ancient Israel through the customs and behaviour of the modern Arab person, since stability is a characteristic trait of the Orient. This assumed stability in customs and social life allows Western scholars to argue for a certain continuity between ancient Israel and modern Palestine.6 This approach is prevalent in the works of I. Benzinger (1865–1935), A. Bertholet (1868–1951)7 and G. Dalman (1855–1941).8 G. Dalman, who regards Jewish immigration to Palestine and British reform as the two main reasons for the destruction of the “mystery of the Orient” (Zauber des Orients)9, sets out his methodology a published form of a travel diary; Thomson describes Palestine as “one vast tablet whereupon God’s messages to men have been drawn, and graven deep in living characters by the great Publisher of glad tidings, to be seen and read of all to the end of time” (xvi). 4 On the impact of E. B. Tylor on the development of (British) Social Anthropology see G. Stocking, Victorian Anthropology (1987), and idem, Race, Culture, and Evolution. Essays in the History of Anthropology (Chicago/London 21982), 69–109. 5 Rogerson, Anthropology (2001), 23. 6 So Benzinger, Hebräische Archäologie (1927), 5. 7 Bertholet, Kulturgeschichte Israels (1919); for a biographical sketch of Bertholet see R. Smend, “Ein Göttinger Deuteronomiumskommentator: Alfred Bertholet (1868–1951)”, in: Liebe und Gebot. Studien zum Deuteronomium. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Lothar Perlitt (ed. R. G. Kratz/H. Spieckermann; FRLANT 190; Göttingen 2000), 173–189; R. Kittel, “Die Zukunft der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft”, ZAW 39 (1921) 84–99, makes the following condescending remark on Bertholet’s work: “Denn daß das an sich schöne Buch, das Bertholet jüngst unter jenem Namen ausgehen ließ, in großen Partien die Aufgabe nicht bemeistert hat, liegt für jeden wirklichen Kenner … am Tage” (99). 8 On G. Dalman see the excellent biography by J. Männchen, Gustav Dalman als Palästinawissenschaftler in Jerusalem und Greifswald 1902–1942 (ADPV 9/2; Wiesbaden 1993). 9 G. Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, Band 1, Jahresablauf und Tageslauf, 1. Hälfte: Herbst und Winter (SDPI 3/1; Gütersloh 1928), vi: “Noch hatten die wohlgemeinten Reformen der englischen Regierung und der jüdischen Einwanderung nicht allen Zauber des Orients zerstört”.

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in the preface to his detailed work Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina (1928–1942) as follows: Der biblische und der jüdisch-palästinische Stoff, auch das durch Ausgrabungen Ermittelte soll mit dem aus der Gegenwart Palästinas Entnommenen verbunden werden, ohne daß absolute Vollständigkeit dabei beabsichtigt wäre.10

If social life – according to the Oxford English Dictionary – can be defined as a person’s social interaction and activity considered as a whole,11 it is hardly surprising that the clearest expression of any social life can be found in the various institutions of a society. In the following survey, the term institution will be defined rather broadly, encompassing both aspects of private and public social life. The problem the biblical interpreter faces is that the social life he sets out to investigate is conserved in literary texts and archaeological artefacts that need to be deciphered.12 This process of deciphering bears the danger of “illegitimate totality transfer”, i.e. a procedure that uses the often sparse textual and other evidence to argue for the social environment that produced such texts and then continues to elaborate on the normative social behaviour in ancient Israel.13 We always have to keep in mind that the texts we study most likely stem from the elite of the particular society and thus do not necessarily reflect the whole spectrum of the society. In addition one studies the structures of a society from the past and that the underlying value system of such a society differs from our own. In other words, the interpreter has to resist the pitfalls of ethnocentrism.14 The following survey has a distinct historical dimension and attempts to reconstruct relevant sociological models and approaches to the institutions of ancient Israel by looking at influential scholars and concepts starting with J. Wellhausen and M. Weber.

10

Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, I/1 (1928), viii. The phrase was first used in 1689 in the English translation of B. de Spinoza’s Tractatus. Here ‘social life’ is opposed to solitary life of the human person. See also Bertholet, Kulturgeschichte (1919), 162. 12 See the critical remarks in Laslett, “The wrong way through the telescope” (1976), 319–342, who observes that “literary evidence cannot be supposed to have a temporally specific context. It is always possible that there never was a year or a century in which all or even a number of the elements referred to were present as a collection, belonging as a whole to a past present, a once-existent social structure” (323). 13 The term is taken from J. Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford 1961), 218. 14 On the problem of ‘ethnocentrism’ see M. Herzfeld, Anthropology through the looking glass. Critical ethnography in the margins of Europe (Cambridge 1987), 13–18. 11

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2. From J. Wellhausen and M. Weber to R. de Vaux 2.1. Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) Every list of influences on social scientific studies of ancient Israel must mention Julius Wellhausen …15 Works:16 Grundrisse zum Alten Testament (ed. R. Smend; ThB 27; Munich 1965); Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte. Mit einem Nachwort von Rudolf Smend (de Gruyter Studienbuch; Berlin 10 2004 [reprint of the seventh edition from 1914]); Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (de Gruyter Studienbuch; Berlin 2001 [reprint of the ninth edition from 1958]). Studies: R. G. Kratz, “Wellhausen, Julius”, TRE 35 (Berlin/New York 2003), 527–536; “Eyes and Spectacles: Wellhausen’s Method of Higher Criticism”, JTS 60 (2009) 381–402. – L. Perlitt, Vatke und Wellhausen. Geschichtsphilosophische Voraussetzungen und historiographische Motive für die Darstellung der Religion und Geschichte Israels durch Wilhelm Vatke und Julius Wellhausen (BZAW 94; Berlin 1965). – J. Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century. England and Germany (London 1984). – R. Smend, “Julius Wellhausen and His Prolegomena to the History of Israel”, in: Julius Wellhausen and His Prolegomena to the History of Israel (ed. D. A. Knight; Semeia 35; 1982), 1–20; “Julius Wellhausen”, in: idem, Deutsche Alttestamentler in drei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen 1989), 99–113; “Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte. Zur Entstehung von J. Wellhausens Buch“, in: Geschichte – Tradition – Reflexion, FS Martin Hengel, I (ed. P. Schäfer; Tübingen 1996), 35–42; Julius Wellhausen. Ein Bahnbrecher in drei Disziplinen (Themen 84; Munich 2006); “Julius Wellhausen”, in: From Astruc to Zimmerli. Old Testament Scholarship in three Centuries (Tübingen 2007), 91–102. – M. Weinfeld, The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel (VT.S 100; Leiden 2004).

J. Wellhausen presents the history of Israel as an evolution from a Hebraic paganism to the Israelite-Jewish religion of the Hebrew Bible.17 The history of the Jewish people is seen as a development from a nation in the political sense to a religious community.18

15 J. W. Flanagan, David’s Social Drama. A Hologram of Israel’s Early Iron Age (JSOT.S 73; Sheffield 1988), 54. Flanagan continues to mention W. Robertson Smith. Since his work will be treated in a separate chapter of this volume written by J. W. Rogerson, we can exclude Robertson Smith’s work from our survey; next to Rogerson’s article in the present volume see B. Maier, William Robertson Smith. His Life, his Work and his Times (FAT 67; Tübingen 2009), and on his relationship to J. Wellhausen see R. Smend, “William Robertson Smith and Julius Wellhausen”, in: William Robertson Smith: Essays in Reassessment (ed. W. Johnstone; JSOT.S 189; Sheffield 1995), 226–242. 16 A complete list of J. Wellhausen’s works is compiled by A. Rahlfs, “Verzeichnis der Schriften Julius Wellhausens”, in: Studien zur semitischen Philologie und Religionsgeschichte. FS Julius Wellhausen (ed. K. Marti; BZAW 27; Giessen 1914), 351–368. 17 He derives the cultural importance of the Israelite-Jewish religion for the present (Kultur der Gegenwart) from the fact that in it we encounter a preliminary stage of Christian Religion; see Wellhausen, Grundrisse (1965), 65. 18 Wellhausen, too, adheres to the – then common – view that we can detect parallels to earlier forms of Israelite socitey and religion in the Arabic literature of pre-Islamic times; he writes: “… den Wildling kennenzulernen auf den von Priestern und Propheten das Reis der Thora Jahve’s gepfropft ist. Denn ich zweifle nicht daran, dass von der ursprünglichen Ausstattung, mit der die Hebräer in die Geschichte getreten sind, sich durch die Vergleichung des arabischen Altertums am ehesten eine Vorstellung gewinnen lässt” (J. Wellhausen, Muhammed in Medina. Das ist Vakidi’s Kitab al maghazi in verürzter deutscher Wiedergabe [Berlin 1882], 5); on the further implications of the statement see R. G. Kratz, “Reste hebräischen Heidentums am Beispiel der Psalmen” (NAWG. Hist.-phil. Klasse, Göttingen 2004), 27–65, and R. G. Kratz, Eyes and Spectacles (2009), 384–385.

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For Wellhausen, the blood-bond and the theocratic orientation form the basis for the emerging social structure of ancient Israel.19 This structure of society as a system of families, clans and tribes remains remarkable stable and ensures the social order.20 He continues to state that the blood-bond legitimates the community and he sees such a community as the natural order of a people because this Blutsgemeinschaft is not based on pressure (Zwang).21 In turn, according to J. Wellhausen, Israel emerges as a community of tribes and clans, which unites itself under the name of and the belief in Yahweh.22 To describe this social entity more clearly, Wellhausen introduces the term Eidgenossenschaft, a characterization that will later determine much of M. Weber’s description of ancient Israel’s social structure.23 The aspect of war is added to the two pillars (blood-bond and Yahweh) of early Israelite social identity. The lack of a central political authority does not create anarchy or chaos; rather it guarantees a certain vivacity of the religion.24 On the basis of the source-critical analysis in his magisterial work Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte J. Wellhausen starts his overview of the social life in ancient Israel with the family. He advocates a monogamous marital union but states that polygamy or extramarital relationships are not regarded as deviant behaviour. The same has to be said about endogamy, since laws prohibiting it (Leviticus 18; Deut 27:20–23) are from a later period.25 The Nomadic life-style has long been abandoned and the intensity of cattle farming decreased in favour of fieldwork, which is – on the basis of Gen 2:15; 3:17 ff. – seen as the major work of the human person.26 This originally agrarian life changes with the adaptation of certain Canaanite features, especially trade (cf. Hos 12:8–9). As a result the importance of the urban settlements (cities) increases and the gulf between rich and poor widens.27 It becomes quite clear that the introduction of money and trade leads – according to J. Wellhausen – to the destruction of the old solidarity. The king, the elders, prophets and priests form the four pillars of Israelite society.28 Here, kingship remains tied to tribal allegiance but the king is not very influential in the land as a whole, because he mainly serves as first general in the case of war. Additionally this lack of central authority fosters the emergence of social problems.29 The absence of a strong political power, however, does not hinder intellectual progress,

19

Wellhausen, Geschichte (1914/2004), 20–21. Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22. 22 Ibid. 23. 23 J. Wellhausen, Geschichte (1914/2004), 23. 24 J. Wellhausen, ibid. 33. 25 Ibid. 80; see also J. Wellhausen, Grundrisse (1965), 40–41. 26 J. Wellhausen, Geschichte (1914/2004), 81. 27 “Auf allen Gebieten machte sich der materielle Fortschritt bemerkbar, die Einfachheit schwand und der Luxus nahm zu”, so Wellhausen, Grundrisse (1965), 41. 28 J. Wellhausen, Geschichte (1914/2004), 91. At this the early stage law cannot be a further institution, since custom orders the social life (ibid. 86). 29 Ibid. 20

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since the family and tribe/clan guarantee the intellectual and moral Bildung of the people.30 Despite this intellectual progress that found its clearest expression in the writings of the Yahwist, society remains collectivistic and we do not find any form of emerging individualism.31 Yahwistic religion forms the glue that kept society together32 and the relationship between Yhwh and his people manifests itself in the cult. This relationship is not yet constructed as a covenant, since this is a late idea.33 The exile is seen as a turning-point, which enables the Jewish community to lay the foundations for its continuing existence.34 The social structure of the inhabitants of the Southern Kingdom ensures their survival during the exilic period in a way the Northern Israelites never managed to do.35 Wellhausen speaks here of a Volksgemeinschaft and claims that the bloodbond, i.e. the ethnic group was able to replace the state. Judah remembers its beginnings and the elders and the heads of the families regained their importance which they had lost temporarily to the monarchy and its administrators. During the period of the restoration, the law becomes a further – and now defining – institution of the post-exilic community.36 The introduction of the law at the hand of Ezra and Nehemiah marks the end of the reformation.37 In a way, J. Wellhausen’s presentation of the (social) history of ancient Israel is the clearest expression of an evolutionary approach and it will be precisely this methodological presupposition that M. Weber will later critique, since for him the idea of a “covenant is the foundation of Israel’s social and political existence rather than a gradually emerging theological idea”.38

30

Wellhausen, Grundrisse (1965), 43. Later in his work, when he addresses “Jewish piety” he maintains: “Die Juden arbeiten für das Ganze und hoffen auf das Ganze. Ihre Gemeinschaft ging ihnen über alles” (Wellhausen, Geschichte, 1914/2004, 199). Despite such a continuity Wellhausen also sees a development towards individualism in exilic/post-exilic Judaism. He acknowledges a modification of the collectivistic concept and as a result he now regards the community as a group of indivduals: “Die gleichgesinnten Individuen halten zusammen. Die Gemeinde ist das fromme Ich” (ibid. 200). Throughout his work it becomes apparent that he values individualism above everything and it is hardly surprising when he concludes his history as follows: “Das Evangelium ist das Salz der Erde; wo es mehr sein will, ist es weniger. Es predigt den edelsten Individualismus, die Freiheit der Kinder Gottes” (Wellhausen, Geschichte, 1914/2004, 371). 32 “Religion und Volk von Israel gehören zusammen” (ibid. 65). 33 Wellhausen, Geschichte (1914/2004), 101. 34 Wellhausen, ibid. 141–142. 35 Wellhausen, ibid. 142. 36 What is meant here, is – of course – the religious law and not the rules and legal customs governing society before the exile. As such the law becomes one of the cornerstones of a theocratic system. 37 Wellhausen, Geschichte (1914/2004), 166. 38 A. Mayes, Old Testament (1989), 49. On the reception of M. Weber’s ideas of a covenant between Yahweh and his people see E. W. Nicholson, God and His People. Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament (Oxford 1986), 38–44.207–208. 31

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2.2. Max Weber (1864–1920)39 Works (selected):40 Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Das antike Judentum. Schriften und Reden 1911–1920 (ed. E. Otto; MWG I/21; Tübingen 2005);41 “Die Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum”, in: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (ed. Marianne Weber; UTB 1943; Tübingen 21988), 1–288; Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie (ed. J. Winckelmann; Studienausgabe, Tübingen 51972); Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Die Wirtschaft und die gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen und Mächte. Nachlaß-Teiland; 2. Religiöse Gemeinschaften (ed. H. G. Kippenberg; MWG I/22–2; Tübingen 2001); Zur Politik im Weltkrieg. Schriften und Reden 1914–1918 (ed. W. J. Mommsen/G. Hübinger; MWG I/15; Tübingen 1984). Biographies: D. Kaesler, Max Weber. Eine Biographie (Munich 2014). – J. Kaube, Max Weber. Ein Leben zwischen den Epochen (Berlin 22014). – J. Radkau, Max Weber. Die Leidenschaft des Denkens (Munich/Vienna 2005). Studies: D. J. Chalcraft, “Max Weber on the Watchtower: On the Prophetic Use of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 102 in ‘Politics as a Vocation’”, in: Apocalyptic in History and Tradition (ed. C. Rowland/ J. Barton; JSP.S 43; London 2002), 253–270; “Why Hermeneutics, the Text(s) and the Biography of the Work Matter in Max Weber Studies”, in: Max Weber Matters. Interweaving Past and Present (ed. D. Chalcraft/F. Howell/M. Lopez Menendez/H. Vera; Rethinking Classical Sociology; Aldershot 2008), 14–70. – F. Crüsemann, “Israel in der Perserzeit. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Max Weber”, in: Max Webers Sicht des antiken Christentums (ed. W. Schluchter; Frankfurt a.M. 1985), 205–231. – J. Deininger, “Die politischen Strukturen des mittelmeerisch-vorderorientalischen Altertums in Max Webers Sicht”, in: Max Webers Sicht des antiken Christentums. Interpretation und Kritik (ed. W. Schluchter; stw 548; Frankfurt a.M. 1985), 72–110; “Eduard Mayer und Max Weber”, in: Eduard Meyer. Leben und Leistung eines Universalhistorikers (ed. W. M. Calder III/A. Demandt; Mnemosyne Supplement 112; Leiden 1990), 132–158. – T. Fahey, “Max Weber’s Ancient Judaism”, The American Journal of Sociology 88 (1982) 62–87. – W. Gephart, Handeln und Kultur. Vielfalt und Einheit der Kulturwissenschaften im Werk Max Webers (stw 1374; Frankfurt a.M. 1998). – J. C. Gertz, “Der fremde und der ferne Gott. Max Webers Sicht der altorientalischen Religion”, ZNThG 6 (1999) 246– 263. – P. Gosh, “The Place of Judaism in Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic”, ZNThG 12 (2006) 208–261. – W. Hennis, Max Webers Fragestellung (Tübingen 1987); Max Weber und Thukydides. Nachträge zur Biographie des Werks (Tübingen 2003). – S. Kalberg, Max Weber’s Comparative Historical Sociology (Chicago 1994). – B. Lang, “Max Weber und Israels Propheten. Eine kritische Stellungnahme”, ZRGG 36 (1984) 156–165; “Prophet, Priester, Virtuose”, in: Max Webers “Religionssystematik” (ed. H. G. Kippenberg/M. Riesbrodt; Tübingen 2001), 167–191. – K. Lichtblau, “Ressentiment, negative Privilegierung, Parias”, in: Max Webers “Religionssystematik” (ed. H. G. Kippenberg/M. Riesbrodt; Tübingen 2001), 279–296. – H. Liebschütz, Das Judentum im deutschen Geschichtsbild von Hegel bis Max Weber (Tübingen 1967). – J. Love, “Max Weber’s Ancient Judaism”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Weber (ed. S. Turner; Cambridge 2000), 200–220. – A. Momigliano, “A Note of Max Weber’s Definition of Judaism as a Pariah-Religion”, History and Theory 19 (1980) 313–318. – E. Otto, Max Webers Studien des antiken Judentums. Historische Grundlegung einer Theorie der Moderne (Tübingen 2002); “Die hebräische Prophetie bei Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch und Hermann Cohen. Ein Diskurs im Weltkrieg zur christlich-jüdischen Kultursynthese”, in: Asketischer Protestantismus und der “Geist” des modernen Kapitalismus (ed. W. Schluchter/F. W. Graf; Tübingen

39 I would like to express my thanks to David Chalcraft (Sheffield) for critical comments, engagement and bibliographical help while writing the passage on M. Weber. All remaining shortcomings are of course my own. 40 Abbreviations for Max Weber’s works: MWG Max Weber Gesamtausgabe MWS Max Weber Studienausgabe RS M. Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, I–III (Tübingen 1921). WuG M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie (Studienausgabe, Tübingen 51972). 41 This important new edition contains a detailed introduction as well as numerous annotations and notes in addition to an editorial report. See also the review of H. Treiber, Der Fachtheologe (2006), 375–385.

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2005), 201–255; “Max Weber als Sozial- und Wirtschaftshistoriker der Antike”, ZABR 13 (2007) 382–390. – B. K. Quensel, “Der ‘spekulative Paria-Kapitalismus’ des Judentums. Max Webers These in wirtschaftsrechtlicher Rekonstruktion”, ZABR 11 (2005) 214–273. – F. Raphaël, “Die Juden als Gastvolk im Werk Max Webers”, in: Max Webers Studie über das antike Judentum. Interpretation und Kritik (ed. W. Schluchter; stw 340; Frankfurt a.M. 1981), 224–262. – K.-S. Rehberg, “Person und Institution. Überlegungen zu paradigmatischen Strukturen im Denken Max Webers”, in: Das WeberParadigma. Studien zur Weiterentwicklung von Max Webers Forschungsprogramm (ed. G. Albert/A. Bienfait/S. Siegmund/C. Wendt; Tübingen 2003), 371–394. – G. Roth, “History and Sociology in the Work of Max Weber”, British Journal of Sociology 27 (1976) 306–318. – C. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Stadt und Eidgenossenschaft im Alten Testament. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Max Webers Studie “Das antike Judentum” (BZAW 156; Berlin/New York 1983); “Vom Nebensatz zum Idealtypus: Zur Vorgeschichte des ‘Antiken Judentums’ von Max Weber”, in: Die hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte. FS Rolf Rendttorff (ed. E. Blum/C. Macholz/E.W. Stegemann; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1990), 419–433. – W. Schluchter, Religion und Lebensführung, 1. Studien zu Max Webers Kultur- und Werttheorie (Frankfurt a.M. 1988); Religion und Lebensführung, 2. Studien zu Max Webers Religionsund Herrschaftssoziologie (Frankfurt a.M. 1988). – G. Seibt, “Das Paria Volk. Nietzsche, Weber und die Juden”, in: Canaletto im Bahnhofsviertel. Kuturkritik und Gegenwartsbewußtsein (Springe 2005), 140–157.42 – E. Shmueli, “The ‘Pariah-People’ and Its ‘Charismatic Leadership’. A Revaluation of Max Weber’s Ancient Judaism”, PAAJR 36 (1968) 167–241. – H. Treiber, “Anmerkungen zu Max Webers Charismakonzept”, ZABR 11 (2005) 195–213; “Der Fachtheologe – einst ‘kompetentester’ Gesprächspartner Max Webers in Sachen Religionssoziologie, nunmehr kompetentester Kritiker und Editor seiner Studien zum antiken Judentum”, ZABR 12 (2006) 375–385; “Max Weber and Eugen Ehrlich: On the Janus-headed Construction of Weber’s Ideal Type in the Sociology of Law”, Max Weber Studies 8 (2008) 225–246. – H. Tyrell, “Max Webers Sozialökonomik”, ZABR 13 (2007) 373–382.

Like K. Marx from whom he takes several sociological insights,43 M. Weber is a proponent of interpreting society through the lenses of conflict theory – though we have to note that placing Weber in this tradition is slightly unhistorical.44 This implies that society or social order is understood as consisting of individuals or groups that are in constant violent or non-violent struggle to promote their interests.45 As a result, M. Weber is able to subsume under such struggle to promote

42

I thank B. M. Levinson (Minnesota) for alerting me to this essay. The relation between Weber and Marx is notoriously difficult to assess (on Weber’s discussion with K. Marx and socialism see M. Weber, Zur Politik im Weltkrieg [1984], 599–633; W. Gephart, Handeln und Kultur [1998], 147 ff, and W. Schluchter, Religion und Lebensführung, 1 [1988], 64–79). We have to note, however, that “too often Weber has been interpreted within the framework of a rather naïve contrast between him and Marx, according to which the latter was a materialist while Weber was an idealist” (Mayes, Old Testament [1989], 19). A major influence of Marx can be detected in the focus on economic processes that determine social life an societal development. In contrast to Marx, however, he never sees the economic process as mono-causal because he adds religion as a major factor to the social development. 44 Here we should note that conflict theory is not a single or consensus theory but rather a convenient label used by sociologists to describe various reactions to the then-prevailing model of structural functionalism; see J. H. Turner, The Structure of Sociological Theory (Chicago 41986, 129–212). The theory can briefly be summarised as follows: “A struggle over values and claims to scarce status, power and resources in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure or eliminate their rivals”; cf. L. A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (Glencoe/IL 1956), 8; J. H. Turner, Sociological Theory (1986), 179, and R. M. Williams, “Social Order and Social Conflict”, APSP 114 (1970) 217–225. For a recent application of the theoretical model to race-conflicts see J. M. Glaser, “Social Context and Inter-Group Political Attitudes: Experiments in Group Conflict Theory”, British Journal of Political Science 33 (2003) 607–620. For an application of the theory to a biblical text see B. J. Malina, “A Conflict Approach to Mark 7”, Forum 4/3 (1988), 3–30. 45 See Mayes, Old Testament (1989), 19. 43

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one’s interest in a series of economic, social and religious factors. This allows Weber to show how religion influences economics and how expressions of religious and social life are dependent on economic processes and social facts. For M. Weber, any social investigation is tied to the exploration of reality and must help to understand the cultural significance of social expressions.46 Conflict theory, or more precisely, the study of conflicts within social and economic settings to promote interests is only one side of the Weberian methodology. The other side is his analysis of the phenomenon of authority. In agreement to his study of social formations, M. Weber constructs ‘ideal types’ as models through which the particular tendencies of actual historical manifestations of authority might be understood.47 For Weber, ‘ideal types’ are a theoretical construction or even a figment of the imagination (Phantasiebilder),48 which serve a heuristic purpose.49 As a result Weber is able to investigate society through an analysis of social structure and authority in terms of its traditional, charismatic and legal types. These types find their clearest expression in the figures of the prophets and priests as well as in the institutions of the covenant and the law. M. Weber approaches the social world of ancient Judaism and its institutions from a comparative perspective.50 After having investigated the sociology of the Indian caste-system he moves on to study ancient Judaism and expresses his methodological presupposition that the comparison with the Indian system will allow us to understand the sociological problems of Judaism.51 Within this comparative framework, M. Weber labels the Jews a pariah people (Pariavolk).52 Though M. Weber does not invent the term to describe Judaism,53 his use of the term has been rightly criticized.54 Next to the terminological difficulties in Weber’s own language55 it is – amongst other things – a problem that he starts his 46 M. Weber, “Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis”, in: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (UTB 1492; Tübingen 71988), 146–214, 170. 47 See A. Mayes, The Old Testament (1989), 38. M. Weber develops the theory of an ‘ideal type’ in an essay published in 1904: “Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis”,146–214; see esp. p. 191. 48 See M. Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (1968), 275. 49 WuG, 10. On Weber’s concept of an ‘ideal type’ see C. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Stadt und Eidgenossenschaft (1983), 24–33. See also the definition of J. H. Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism (1993), 130: “A hypothetical idea of a phenomenon in which the phenomenon’s most characteristic features are exaggerated so as to create mutually exclusive constructs and standards against which actual historical and social phenomena can be measured”. 50 On Max Weber’s view of Judaism see T. Fahey, Max Weber’s Ancient Judaism (1982), 62–87; P. Ghosh, The place of Judaism (2006), 208–261; E. Otto, Max Webers Studien (2002); W. Schluchter, Religion und Lebensführung, 2 (1988), 127–196; J. Radkau, Max Weber (2005), 673–698. 51 MWS I/21, 13 = RS III, 2. 52 MWS I/21, 13. 53 See H. Arendt, The Jew as Pariah (New York 1978); A. Momigliano, A Note (1980), 313; E. Otto, Max Webers Studien (2002), 51–52; F. Raphaël, Die Juden als Gastvolk (1981), 224–262; E. Shmueli, The ‘Pariah-People’ (1968), 170. On Arendt’s concept see J. Ring, “The Pariah as Hero: Hannah Arendt’s Political actor”, Political Theory 19 (1991) 433–452. 54 See H. Liebschütz, Das Judentum (1967), 303–335; G. Seibt, Das Paria Volk (2005), 140–157. 55 See the slightly different description of the Jews as pariah people in WuG, 300: Here, Weber omits the term guest-people and simply mentions a “group lacking autonomous political organization”. On Weber’s use of the term see further G. Seibt, Das Paria Volk (2005), 140–157, and K. Lichtblau, Ressentiment (2001), 279–296.

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investigation with the statement what the Jews were, i.e. using the past tense even though the existence as pariah-people represents the end of a historical development in his thought. For Weber the history of the Jewish people consists of three distinct epochs: Eidgenossenschaft, monarchy, pariah people (Pariavolk). Further, despite Weber’s initial question – how did the Jews become a pariah-people56 – one gets the impression that he places much more importance on the first two epochs. Next to the problematic term ‘pariah people’, Weber also introduces the term status group to describe the post-exilic community. As such, Judaism has to be distinguished from a political party or an economic class. Rather it is seen as a group, which does not necessarily consist of economic unity but is held together by a strict adherence to a common life-style, expressed in several distinct ways.57 This definition is quite close to his description of ethnicity given in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft.58 Like several exegetical studies before him, the studies of M. Weber follow the chronology given by the biblical books and he prefaces his description by a short sketch of the geographical and political surroundings of ancient Israel.59 He highlights the contrasts given by nature and postulates that these contrasts find their expression in the economic and social structures.60 Weber begins to highlight the antagonism between the Bedouin and the city-dweller61 and regards ancient Israel even at its earliest stages already influenced by city-culture.62 Here we see that he placed the origin of ancient Israel in the social context of different if not antagonistic social structures. He mentions – next to the city dweller and the Bedouin – a third type, the peasant farmer.63 Weber observes that ancient Israel cannot be identified with any of these three types. If that is the case, the emergence of ancient Israel must be connected with a creation of a new social order that was able to overcome the existing social structures. The (early) biblical law codes reflect the manifold social tensions of Israelite society.64 In a major revision of J. Wellhausen’s dating of the idea of the covenant, M. Weber sees in the concept the earliest and probably clearest expression of Israel’s foundation charter.65 Thus Weber’s concept of ancient Judaism rests on three pil56

MWS I/21, 18. Cf. A. Mayes, The Old Testament (1989), 37. 58 WuG, 237. 59 MWG I/21, 244–251. 60 MWG I/21, 251. 61 Weber speaks here of two ends of a scale where the Bedouins occupy one end and the city the other (MWG I/21, 251.255). 62 Cf. M. Weber, Die Agararverhältnisse im Altertum (1943/1988), 34. On Weber’s concept of the city see C. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Stadt und Eidgenossenschaft (1983), 47–106. 63 M. Weber admits that we do not know anything about this type (MWG I/21, 271). 64 Following A. Merx, Die Bücher Mose und Josua: Eine Einführung für Laien (Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher für die deutsche christliche Gegenwart, Reihe 2, Heft 3,1/2, Tübingen 1907), 36, Weber dates the Covenant Code to the pre-state period (MWG I/21, 322). He maintains, however, that these early law codes do not reflect a period of an original state of the peasant farmer ignorant of city-life and monetary-systems: “[D]ie Annahme man habe es im ältesten ‘Gesetz’ (Exodus 19 ff.) mit irgendwie ‘ursprünglichen’ Zuständen zu tun, mit dem Recht eines primitiven Bauernvolkes, noch frei von allem städtischen und geldwirtschaftlichen Einschlag, ist ganz unhaltbar …” (M. Weber, Agrarverhältnisse, [1988], 84). 65 MWG I/21, 126–127. For a critique of Weber’s concept see E. Otto, Max Webers Studien (2002), 276–283. 57

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lars: an early idea of the covenant between Yahweh and his people, an Eidgenossenschaft66 that keeps the covenant and serves as a contractual partner of Yahweh and finally a distant God of election with distinct monolatrous features.67 It is precisely this concept that will be taken up by A. Alt and M. Noth in their constructions of early Israel.68 Here, especially M. Noth’s idea of an amphictyony to explain the early tribal league is close to M. Weber’s “ideal type”.69 We see that for M. Weber, Israel’s creation of a new order was determined by concrete religious-historical circumstances.70 Since the validity of ideas is judged on the level of its institutionalisation, or better on the level of the persons and concepts adhering to them, it is only logical that M. Weber now proceeds to describe the various institutions of the covenant.71 This is logical, since he believes that any institution points to the people behind it. Here he mentions amongst others the legal institutions, priests and prophets.72 M. Weber’s view of biblical law is a highly complex subject, which has recently been investigated in detail by E. Otto.73 This cannot be the place to offer an equally detailed analysis and we will limit our remarks to those instances where law is used to express or regulate aspects of social life. Already in his study on the Agrarverhältnisse M. Weber is convinced that legal texts – here especially the Covenant Code – can provide secure data for a reconstruction of pre-exilic society.74 Since this law never reflected Bedouin custom, city-culture must have always influenced Israelite legal traditions.75 The Covenant Code reflects peasant law and helps to protect the free peasant farmer. Against J.Wellhausen and others, Weber regards the social stipulations of

66 M. Weber takes the term Eidgenossenschaft from J. Wellhausen, Geschichte (1914/2004), 23 (MWG I/21, 357–358); see R. Smend, Jahwekrieg und Stämmebund. Erwägungen zur ältesten Geschichte Israels (FRLANT 84; Göttingen 21966), 22. 67 MWG I/21, 423–424; on the problem see J. C. Gertz, Der fremde und ferne Gott (1999), 246– 263. 68 See E. Otto, Max Webers Studien (2002), 277–278 with nn. 4–5. Though neither M. Noth nor A. Alt quote M. Weber verbatim (but see A. Alt, “Erwägungen über die Landnahme der Israeliten in Palästina”, KS I [Munich 41968, 126–175], 141, n. 3) the influence of Weber’s insights is apparent, see esp. A. D. H. Mayes, “Sociology and the Old Testament”, in: The Social World of Ancient Israel. Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge 1989; 39–63), 46–48.52–55. For a reception of Weber in the United States see S. Kreuzer, “Max Weber, George Mendenhall und das sogenannte Revolutionsmodell für die ‘Landnahme’ Israels”, in: Altes Testament. Forschung und Wirkung, FS H. Graf Reventlow (ed. P. Mommer/W. Thiel; Frankfurt a.M. 1994), 283–305; for the French-speaking world see F. Raphaël, “Max Weber et le judaïsme antique”, Archives Européennes de Sociologie 11 (1977) 297–336. 69 On the term see already, MWG I/21, 368; RS III, 98. 70 On Weber’s view of the political structures of Mediterranean antiquity see J. Deiniger, Die politischen Strukturen (1985), 72–110. 71 On M. Weber’s theory of institutions see K.-S. Rehberg, Person und Institution (2003), 371–394. 72 See the remarks of E. Otto in MWG I/21, 108 ff. 73 See E. Otto, Max Webers Studien (2002), 83–181 (much of the following presentation owes a lot to his careful presentation). M. Weber’s view of the legal tradition of the ancient Near East has been studied by E. Otto, “Max Weber und die mesopotamische Rechtsgeschichte mit einer werkbiographischen Interpretation der unveröfflichten Exzerpte GStA PK, VI. HA, Nl. Max Weber, Nr. 31, Bd. 2, Bl. 253–253R und 258”, Mitteilungen der Ernst-Troeltsch-Gesellschaft 15 (2002), 41– 88. 74 M. Weber, Agrarverhältnisse (1943/1988), 83. 75 MWG I/21, 328.

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the Covenant Code as a way to overcome the antagonism of the classes; as such the law is not the result of the social critique of the prophets.76 In Weber’s view, the different law codes reflect different stages of societal development, a development that goes hand in hand with a growing theologization of the law.77 For M. Weber the legal material serves as a framework for his presentation of the development of Israelite society. We see that the institution of the law is able to describe changes and conflicts in the social life of a society.78 In his work, prophecy is a multi-facetted entity and one has to distinguish between different expressions of prophetic activity.79 According to M. Weber a prophet possesses his own personal charisma that distinguishes him from other members of society.80 The demilitarization of the peasant farmers pacifies the prophets and leads to the development of two distinct traits of prophecy: prophets that support the state and independent prophets such as Elijah that can be regarded as the predecessors to the prophets of the eighth century. This development is prompted by the origin of kingship that is seen as a new epoch in the social history of ancient Israel.81 Weber is further determined to show that the prophets are simply motivated by religion and cannot be seen as social activists.82 This distinguishes a prophet from a law-giver, who is appointed in the wake of social tensions.83 Similarly, the personal call of a prophet characterizes the prophet and serves as a distinction from the priest.84 We see here that the prophet is not tied to a religious or civil institution. This, however, does not imply that the prophet acts outside the historical, political or economic realm.85 In the second part of his study on ancient Judaism, M. Weber investigates how prophecy enabled the formation of the post-exilic community. He argues that the Assyrian crisis of the eighth century bce triggered classical prophecy. Again he utilizes the conflict model to describe the engagement of

76 M. Weber follows E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, II/2 (Darmstadt 31953). On Weber’s relationship to E. Meyer see J. Deiniger, Eduard Meyer und Max Weber (1990), 132–158. 77 MWG I/21, 345. 78 On M. Weber’s sociology of law see B. Quensel, “Logik und Methode in der ‘Rechtssoziologie’ Max Webers. Ein Beitrag zur Klärung der grundlegenden Begriffe und Perspektiven”, Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie 18 (1997) 133–159, and H. Treiber, Max Weber and Eugen Ehrlich (2008), 225–246. 79 On M. Weber’s view of prophecy see B. Lang, Max Weber und Israels Propheten (1984), 156– 165; idem, Prophet, Priester, Virtuose (2001), 172–174; E. Otto, Die hebräische Prophetie (2005), 201–255, and idem, Max Webers Studien (2002), 182–245. 80 In WuG, 140 (§ 10) he defines charisma as “eine als außeralltäglich … geltende Qualität einer Persönlichkeit …, um derentwillen sie als mit übernatürlichen oder übermenschlichen oder mindestens spezifisch außeralltäglichen, nicht jedem andern zugänglichen Kräften oder Eigenschaften [begabt] oder als gottgesandt oder als vorbildlich und deshalb als ‘Führer’ gewertet wird.” 81 MWG I/21, 395. 82 This picture of the biblical prophet shows distinct traits of the modern (objective) intellectual who is not guided by interests of society; see E. Otto, Die hebräische Prophetie (2005), 203, n. 5, with reference to F. Voigt, “Das protestantische Erbe in Max Webers Vorträgen über ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf’ und ‘Politik als Beruf’”, ZNThG 9 (2002) 245–267. At the same time this view of prophecy can be seen as an anti-Marxist stance. 83 WuG, 270. 84 WuG, 268. 85 See already M. Weber, Agararverhältnisse (1988), 93 (= MWG I/6, 95) where he speaks of religious and political activity of the prophets.

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the pre-exilic prophets with the different interests and parties in Judah.86 Since prophecy is a purely religious institution for him,87 he stresses that any political involvement of the prophets is in the service of the God of the Covenant. The lack of any institutional framework or place for prophecy is reflected in the prophet’s opposition to any community.88 Prophecy begins to support the community and leads in conjunction with the Torah to the dualism of internal and external morals that becomes significant for Jewish ethics. We see that the curious lack of an institutional tie of biblical prophecy is being transformed into one of the main institutions of emerging Judaism. Prophecy and ancient ritual custom become the two pillars of Judaism.89 The conflict between priests and the urban nobility is – next to the conflict between the urban patriciate and the peasant farmers – a second socio-historical conflict that shapes the emergence of Judaism. Here, Deuteronomy is the clearest expression of the priestly interests in pre-exilic times.90 Since Weber closely connects Deuteronomy with priestly circles he needs to stress the theocratic tendencies over a secularization inherent in the book.91 The priesthood acts within the traditional framework of cult and ethos and is seen as a conservative force that determines dogmatic teaching and does so by referring to prophecy. This leads to conflicts between priests and prophets but these are generally solved by compromises because the priests tend to incorporate prophetic teaching.92 As such, the priesthood systematizes the message of the prophets. In the last section of his study on ancient Judaism, M. Weber connects this tendency towards a systematization of prophetic teaching with a waning of the charisma. The priests are seen as the police who begin to control and to suppress charismatic activity.93 Again a change in the social structure can be marked by its relation to a legal code and the development of the postexilic community under the rule of the priests is reflected in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26) and in the Priestly Writer. The exclusive character of the priestly Torah transforms post-exilic Israel into a ritual, or preferably a confessional, community. Membership in this emerging community is no longer defined by war (and the covenant) but by the correct observance of the rituals.94

86 “Diese Propheten sind mitten hineingerissen in einen Strudel von Parteigegensätzen und Interessenkonflikten”, MWG I/21, 615. 87 “Kein Prophet war … Verkünder sozialpolitischer Programme …” (MWG I/21, 622). 88 MWG I/21, 692 (= RS III, 350). 89 “Die Leistung der Prophetie wirkte zusammen mit den überkommenden rituellen Gewohnheiten Israels, um das hervorzubringen, was dem Judentum seine Pariastellung in der Welt eintrug” (MWG I/21, 692). 90 “Das Deuteronomium sucht, wie schon das alte Gesetz und wie die theokratischen Gesetztgebungen überhaupt, die Garantien gegen den Gewaltmißbrauch der Besitzenden zu steigern” (M. Weber, Agrarverhältnisse, 90). 91 On M. Weber’s view of Deuteronomy see E. Otto, Max Webers Studien (2002), 162–171. 92 WuG, 279. 93 MWG I/21, 753. 94 MWG I/21, 694.

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This process continues the movement of a ritual separation initiated by Deuteronomy.95 E. Otto has rightly observed that Weber argues that the civil faith community (bürgerliche Glaubensgemeinschaft) began to follow the priestly dictate and voluntarily moved towards the existence of a Pariah-group.96 The growing importance of the priesthood as an institution for the structure of the social life of ancient Israel is – according to M. Weber – a phenomenon that follows prophecy. As such the institution of the priesthood becomes the keeper of the prophetic ideas.97 This conservative tendency allows the continuity of religious traditions and contributes significantly to the emergence of the Jewish people. M. Weber’s studies still represent the most detailed description of the social development and social structures of ancient Israel. The actuality of his work is attested by a plethora of recent studies so that one can rightly speak of a Weber-Renaissance.98 Central to his work was the notion of sociology as a comprehensive investigation of social action. This allows for an integration of a wide set of data and makes his approach an ideal starting point for an analysis of social life and institutions that moves beyond the literary confines of the Hebrew Bible. Additionally, his focus on the subjective meanings that individuals attach to their actions and interactions in various social settings allows for a closer analysis of the social groups behind certain patterns of behaviour.

2.3. Johs. Pedersen (1883–1977)99 Johannes Peder Eijler Pedersen’s massive study, Israel. Its Life and Cultures represents in many ways a departure from older representations of Israelite social life, culture and the description of Biblical institutions.100 Influenced by the works of his Copenhagen colleague Vilhelm Peter Grønbech (1873–1948),101 Pedersen accepts that a culture has to be investigated from the inside.102 What sounds like 95 “Die rein religiöse, auf den prophetischen Verheißungen ruhende Natur der Gemeinschaft bedingte nun, daß diese konfessionelle Absonderung nach außen an Stelle der politischen trat und sich wesentlich verschärfte“, MWG I/21, 695. 96 E. Otto, in MWG I/21, 126, n. 29. 97 See the similar comments in E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums I/1 (Darmstadt 61953), 147– 148. 98 On M. Weber’s significance for a theology of the Hebrew Bible see E. Otto, “Hat Max Webers Religionssoziologie des antiken Judentums Bedeutung für eine Theologie des Alten Testaments?”, ZAW 94 (1982) 187–203. 99 For biographical information see N. P. Lemche, “Art.: Pedersen, Johannes Peder Eljer (1883– 1977)”, TRE 26 (1996), 162–164, and H. Ringgren, “Art.: Pedersen, Johannes Peder Eljer (1883– 1977)”, DBI II (Nashville 1999), 254–255. 100 The work was first published in Danish in 1920 (Vol I–II) and 1934 (Vol III–IV) and then as an English translation in 1926 (Vol I–II) and 1940 (Vol. III–IV); see also the evaluation of E. Nielsen, “Johannes Pedersen’s Contribution to the Research and Understanding of the Old Testament”, ASTI 8 (1970/71), 4–20, and R. Porter, “Biblical Classics III. J. Pedersen: Israel”, ExpTim 90 (1978), 34–40. 101 See especially V. P. Grønbech, The Culture of the Teutons (London 1931); originally published as Vor folkeæt i oldtiden, I–IV (Copenhagen 1909–1912). 102 Within this programme, J. Pedersen offers a first critique of the dominant literary-critical model as proposed by J. Wellhausen and his followers. He criticizes the rigid chronological and literary

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a plea for anthropological fieldwork carries in fact a decisive psychological tone.103 Pedersen places great importance on the concept of the soul of the individuals (and the society) under scrutiny because it is via the study of the soul that cultural traits and its religious and social manifestations can be determined. Pedersen avoids an anachronistic reading of the biblical evidence by drawing attention to the fact that biblical psychology is entirely different from our own. This dichotomy has to be maintained even though our language employs the same expressions as the Bible and in fact takes much of its vocabulary from the Bible.104 Pedersen is thus able to draw a picture of Israel that departs from traditional portraits modelled and heavily influenced by Western interpretative categories.105 Since Pedersen operates with the concept of Hebrew Thought which he sees in opposition to the Greek way of thinking he can be regarded as a forerunner to the work of Th. Boman.106 This approach, based on ancient Israel’s primitive thought process allowed Pedersen to pay close attention to the social system operating behind the texts as well as to demonstrate that every individual is integral to the social group.107 Here Pedersen mentions several traits that are later integrated into the anthropological concept of a corporate personality developed in detail by H. Wheeler Robinson (1872–1945).108 On the first ninety-six pages of J. Pedersen’s extensive study the author offers a sketch of the social life and the institutions that govern it. Like A. Bertholet in his Kulturgeschichte Pedersen begins his overview with a description of the land.109 Pedersen, however can be much more brief here, since he does not regard order of the sources because “[f]ar too frequently modern logic, in these respects, has blinded the critics and prevented them from discerning the inner logic of the narratives” (Israel, I, 27). As a result, J. Pedersen extends the possibility of oral tradition until exilic/post-exilic period. 103 Anthropology, however, is not entirely absent in Pedersen’s work. In stressing the differences between the biblical and the modern world, he takes up trends in early 20th century social anthropology and its prevailing interest in “primitive mentalities” (on the concept see Rogerson, Anthropology[2001], 46–65 and C. R. Hallpike, “Is There a primitive Mentality?”, Man NS 11 [1976], 253–270). Here Pedersen is especially influenced by those anthropologists like L. Lévy-Bruhl (1857–1939), who provided a classification of human history, based on “man’s mental progress as reflected in his loftiest and religious achievements by contemporary analogies of primitive tribes and men of civilized countries” (S. T. Kimbrough, Israelite Religion in Sociological Perspective. The Work of Antonin Causse, StOr 4, Wiesbaden 1978, 102); see L. Lévy-Bruhl, How Natives Think (New York 1925); idem, Primitive Mentality. The “Soul” of the Primitive. Primitives and the Supernatural (New York 1935); idem, La mythologie primitive (Paris 1935). On Lévy-Bruhl see Neumann, Das Fremde (2000), 69–82, sowie A. Barnard, History and Theory in Anthropology (Cambridge 2000), 105–110; F. Barth/A. Gingrich/R. Parkin/S. Silverman, One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American Anthropology (Chicago 2005), 194–199. 104 Pedersen, Israel I, 99. 105 He states in regard to language: “If European ideas are imposed upon the Semitic languages, a crippled product results, with a manner of expression which is awkward as well as uncertain and is neither European nor Semitic” (Pedersen, Israel II, 513). 106 T. Boman, Das hebräische Denken im Vergleich mit dem Griechischen (Göttingen 51968) and see also I. Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism. The A . W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1965 (Washington/London 1999), 3. 107 See already A. Maine, Ancient Law, its connection with the early history of society and its relation to modern ideas (London 121888), 183. 108 See H. W. Robinson, “The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality”; in: Werden und Wesen des Alten Testaments (ed. P. Volz, F. Stummer and J. Hempel; BZAW 66; Berlin 1936), 49–62. 109 A. Bertholet, Kulturgeschichte (1919), 1, takes up a phrase coined by R. von Ihering, when he states that geography is bound history. He continues that the earth (Boden) forces the people who

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the land as the main factor for the development of culture. Rather he views Palestine, called Canaan by him, as a cross-roads of culture where different people and their customs meet.110 As a result of such a meeting place the local culture is heavily influenced by cultural traits from neighbouring empires. Pedersen aims at a description of a social and cultural milieu in which ancient Israel developed.111 Despite the fact that Pedersen’s approach to the social history of life and his investigation into the different forms of institutions remains descriptive, he is never uncritical. His evaluation of the literary sources shows that he regarded them as later descriptions of the periods they attempted to describe.112 There is, however a certain degree of timelessness in Pedersen’s work.113 He does not work unhistorically but since he is chiefly concerned with the development of social life and culture within the framework of a “primitive mentality” actual historical developments are often sidelined.114 Since Pedersen believes that Israelite Culture in its entirety is governed by the same ‘fundamental psychological conception’ he postulates that “[e]very feature of Israel’s life, its thinking, its activities, its civil and religious institutions, was determined, and can only properly be understood, by reference to” it.115 Here, however, the fundamental institutions seem to be located outside this psychological conception. Pedersen treats the social order and more specifically tribe and city, the family and its property before he addresses the soul.116 In a way they seem to serve as prolegomena for the portrait of Hebrew thinking that will follow. Pedersen sees these fundamental institutions as the purest form of expression of Israelite social life. One gets the impression that he favours the family as the best expression of social life. This is especially apparent when he evaluates the role of the city.117 In contrast to the basic units of social life and its institutions he deals with the offices of king, prophet, and priest as well as with war after he addresses questions of “The Soul, its Powers and Capacity” and after a lengthy section on “Common Life and its Laws”.118 Again one is surprised that the religious dimension seems to be of no influence on social life. The expressions of social life are then grouped under distinctly theological headings such as peace and covenant, peace and salvation, righteousness and truth, sin and curse. Only the paragraphs on maintenance of justice and world of life and death seem to transcend the theological framework. It is here, where criticism of J. Pedersen’s work starts.119 inhabit it to adjust themselves to its peculiarities. Bertholet sees in the special ability of the Jewish people to adapt the starting point of his exercise because one has to inquire which possibilities the land offered for the development of culture. 110 “Canaan was inhabited by a heterogeneous population and became the meeting place of various cultures” (Pedersen, Israel, 1) 111 Pedersen, Israel, I, 11. 112 Ibid. I, 13. 113 Ibid. I, 26. 114 Barr, Semantics of Biblical Language (1961), 184, detects a certain “synthetic approach to Israel’s culture” in Pedersen’s work that is akin to the biblical theology movement. 115 J. R. Porter, “Biblical Classics III. Johs. Pedersen: Israel”, ExpTim 19 (1978) 36. 116 See Pedersen, Israel I, 29–96. 117 Ibid. 46. 118 For Pedersen the soul is not a metaphysical entity. Therefore action and volition are the characteristic traits of the soul (Pedersen, Israel I, 106). 119 See e.g. F. Hahn, The Old Testament in Modern Research (London 1956), 71–73.

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Throughout his two extensive volumes one can detect a certain tendency to press diverse biblical data into a single mould.120 All this is done because he wants to present ancient Israel as a (unified) social whole. This approach is not able to do justice to the distinctive features of particular social contexts that are detectable in the Hebrew Bible. When studying so called ‘primitive mentalities / societies’ generalizations are seriously distorting and tend to create a picture of the society that reflects more on the perspective of the person studying it than on the society under scrutiny.

2.4. Antonin Causse (1877–1947) Works (selected): Les “pauvres” d’Israël (Strasbourg 1922); “Du groupe ethnique à la communauté religieuse. Le problème sociologique du judaïsme”, RHPhH 14 (1934) 285–335;121 Du groupe ethnique à la communauté religieuse. Le problème sociologique de la religion d’Israël (EHPhR 33; Paris 1937). Studies: S. T. Kimbrough jr., “A Non-Weberian Approach to Israelite Religion”, JNES 31 (1972) 195–202; Israelite Religion in Sociological Perspective. The Work of Antonin Causse (StOR 4; Wiesbaden 1978).

With Antonin Causse structural functionalism is introduced into the sociological study of the Hebrew Bible.122 The influence of E. Durkheim and L. Lévy-Bruhl is especially apparent in his work and in fact Du groupe ethnique à la communauté religieuse is dedicated to Lévy-Bruhl “le maître des études sur la mentalité primitive”. A. Causse adapts E. Durkheim’s conviction that “the social group was the one independent element in history and sociology. All other phenomena of society are primarily societal functions.”123 Hence society has to be explained from within A. Causse immediately looks at the smallest social unit i.e. the family. Here Durkheim’s theory is at work that social consciousness and forms have to provide the focus for the investigation. If the social group is in fact independent it is hardly surprising that collective mentality plays an important part in A. Causse’s work. Next to M. Noth the work of A. Causse is the clearest example of an early attempt to integrate sociological and anthropological insights into the study of Israelite society. Causse explicitly wanted to move beyond a mere descriptive approach of Israelite society and its myths and institutions.124 A. Causse – like M. Weber – maintains the chronology provided by the Hebrew Bible and attributes significant changes to society to the entry into the land.125 Nevertheless the main social institutions of the nomadic, or desert existence (i.e. clans, families, and 120 Cf. P. J. Budd, “Holiness and Cult”, in: The World of Ancient Israel. Sociological, anthropological and Political Perspectives (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge 1989), 275–298. 121 An English translation of this preliminary study to Du groupe ethnique can be found in Community, Identity, and Ideology. Social Science Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (ed. C.E. Carter/C.E. Meyers; Sources for Biblical and Theological Studies 6; Winona Lake 1998), 95–118. 122 A. Causse’s contribution to a sociological understanding of the Hebrew Bible has been throughly evaluated by S. T. Kimbrough, Israelite Religion (1978) and by A. Mayes, Old Testament (1989), 78–87. Much of the following presentation owes a lot to these two works. 123 S. T. Kimbrough, A Non-Weberian Sociological Approach (1972), 197. 124 A. Causse, Du groupe ethnique (1937), 8. 125 A. Causse, Du groupe ethnique (1937), 15.

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tribes) are maintained after the settlement in Palestine.126 For A. Causse, family, clan and tribe constitute the basic social institutions of ancient Israel, forming a closely knit social structure.127 As in other ‘primitive societies’ solidarity is essential as well as being characteristic.128 The monarchy is seen as a further departure from the old tribal association.129 It is not grounded in patriarchy but based on wealth and respect. Since it is regarded as a new institution similar to the surrounding nations, the individuals are no longer bound by the duties to their kin-group but simply have to adhere to the rules set up by the authority of the king. Thus a feudal state is formed.130 Like J. Wellhausen, also A. Causse regards war as the main contributor to the origins of ancient Israel but he sees kingship as “une institution mal adapté”.131 The reason for such a negative view of the monarchy is undoubtedly derived from the picture painted in the Hebrew Bible itself and connected with the view of A. Causse that the centralization of authority and cultic activities accelerates the process of destruction of the old mystical solidarity so prominent in early Israelite society.132 Thus we have here – according to A. Causse – a double progress: on the one hand society moves towards a new social form or structure; and on the other ancient Israel reaches a higher step as far as religion is concerned. YHWH is no longer the god of the united tribes but is transformed into a national or state god. This transformation, in fact, creates a new god who is strongly Canaanized and differs significantly from the old rite.133 This development goes hand in hand with a progressive individualization of the population.134 The prophets are seen as promoters of a more and more personal expression of piety. As a result “the institutions of collective life and national religion came to have only a secondary importance”.135 Naturally the religious programme of the prophets led to a crisis of Israelite religion, since – in a way – it fostered a decline of ancient social institutions.136 It fell to the deuteronomic movement to put a halt to this decline. A. Causse readily accepts that the law book found in the Temple is indeed the Book of Deuteronomy137 and that it is a restatement of ancient laws, institutions and rites. It is through the manifold adaptations and modifications 126

Ibid. He nevertheless asserts that the blood-bond, i.e. proper blood-relations are not the guiding principle but that this bond can also be theoretical and symbolical. Thus kinship becomes a mystical link, (ibid. 23). 128 Ibid. 20; see also p. 21 with reference to Lévy-Bruhl and J. Pedersen. 129 Ibid. 32. 130 Ibid. 33. 131 Ibid. 36. 132 Ibid. 60. 133 Ibid. 54. 134 A. Causse departs from L. Lévy-Bruhl who attributed individualism to an internal change of mental structures rather than seeing it as an indication for progress from pre-logical to logical consciousness; see L. Lévy-Bruhl, L’âme primitive (Bibliothèque de Philosophie Contemporaire; Paris 2 1963). 135 A. Mayes, Old Testament (1989), 83. 136 A. Causse, Du groupe ethnique (1937), 114. 137 “Cette tôrâ était présentée come une parole ancienne retrouvée dans le temple de Jérusalem” (ibid. 121). 127

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that betray the critical situation to which it is addressed.138 As such the social and political situation of Deuteronomy reflect that of Judah in the seventh century bce. “Except for the question of centralization and the anti-idolatry struggle, Causse finds the preoccupations of the Deuteronomists oriented more towards the social side than the cultic side.”139 The elders are still important but they are forced to share much of their duties with the Levites. The old tribal organization has lost its importance and the king is no longer a transcended being mediating between the human and divine sphere but simply one of the brethren. Due to the emphasis on the centralized cult (a first step towards Judaism for A. Causse) we see a development towards a society that sharply distinguishes between the sacred sphere and the profane daily life.140 Despite wanting to put a halt to the prophetic critique, Deuteronomy, nevertheless incorporates the prophetic move from primitive collectivism to individualism.141 Additionally, “the deuteronomic lawgiver does not expect the covenant law to be obeyed simply because it is old; society has lost its ancient solidarity and people no longer unquestioningly accept what they have received from the past”.142 Here – according to A. Causse – the author of Deuteronomy displays an extraordinary psychological ability as well as insight into the internal unity of humanity when he argues that it is for the love of God that the covenant as well as the laws have to be kept.143 A. Causse continues his sociological investigation by describing the formation of the Jewish community. Here he rejects the idea that post-exilic development can simply be described in terms of a return from exile and restoration to Jerusalem. Rather he sees it as an evolutionary process that led from an ethnic group to a religious community, which will henceforth be a diaspora.144 As far as the institutions were concerned traditional forms of organization were largely abandoned. Only the family remained as a fairly stable organization but was equally not immune to change.145 The erosion of group solidarity already observed in Deuteronomy is now abandoned in its entirety.146 In a second step, the prophecy of Ezekiel introduces the concept of individual retribution and responsibility and, thus, further, detaches the individual from the destiny of the group.147 This individualism is, however, not absolute and A. Causse draws attention to several texts that keep the myth of a restoration of kol yis´ra’el alive.148

138

Cf. A. Mayes, Old Testament (1989), 83. S. T. Kimbrough, Israelite Religion (1978), 63. 140 Ibid. 153, n. 3. 141 Cf. S. T. Kimbrough, Israelite Religion (1978), 71. “A la place de l’ancienne solidarité physico-mystique, il établissait une solidarité voulue, une fraternité” (Causse, Du groupe ethnique [1937], 175). 142 A. Mayes, Old Testament (1989), 83, 143 A. Causse, Du groupe ethnique (1937), 177. 144 Ibid. 184. 145 Ibid. 189. 146 Ibid. 198. 147 For A. Causse Ezek 3:17–19 is the first statement of integral individualism. Also Ezek 18:29–30 abandons the idea of a group responsibility and should have forced Causse to rethink his Durkheimian framework – but this is never done. 148 Ibid. 201–202. 139

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The failure of immediate fulfilment of these visions, however, broadened the gulf between the exilic/post-exilic present and the future. As a result the hopes of the Jews began to detach themselves from the present as reflected in the historical reality. In that process a vision of a utopian and transcendent future began to emerge.149 Texts like Ezekiel 40–48 and the Priestly Code do not favour a just society, as Deuteronomy had done but a Church with its ritual.150 This meant that the Diaspora community focussed on those elements of Yahwistic piety that did not involve the Temple (circumcision, Sabbath, fasting). This led to the formation of a Torah-community.151 Unity is thus achieved by adherence to common practice.152 In the absence of a national state as well with the disappearance of traditional forms of social organization sects or voluntary associations started to play an important role in the religious development.153 The focus on ethical relationship rather than on the old bond of consanguinity allowed Judaism to open up and to attract new members. At the same time individualism is taken a step further: the cult is no longer a vehicle by which the primitive group confirmed its unity but rather a spiritual exercise that will lead the individual soul closer to God. Meditation on Torah, however, is a purely individual process, which becomes the truest expression of individual religion.154 As a result of A. Causse’s move beyond a mere descriptive approach of Israelite society and its myths and institutions his work offers a well structured (closed) model of interpretation. It is here where problems emerge. Since ancient Israel’s historical and social development is seen in purely linear terms there is little room for emerging conflicts or set-backs. Where these conflicts cannot be negated, A. Causse is forced to explain them as conflicts between different developmental stages of different mentalities. Such an approach, however, excludes the historical dimension and cannot explain the often complex social development of ancient Israel.155

149

Ibid. 204. A. Causse observes that despite retaining such rites like the Jubilee Year, Passah or even the observance of the weekly Sabbath, the priestly writer had, nevertheless, forgotten the significance of primitive magic (Du groupe ethnique, 1937, 227). 151 Ibid. 233–235. 152 “Les conventicules de la diaspora tendent à se grouper autour de la pratique commune” (ibid. 235). 153 A. Causse, Du groupe ethnique (1937), 237. 154 A Causse, ibid. 276. 155 C. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Stadt und Eidgenossenschaft (1983), 6, rightly states: “Methodisch bietet Causse nur ein systemimmanentes Vorgehen an, das zudem gegen eine Revision seines Ansatzes im Laufe der Untersuchung gefeit ist. Man kann nicht umhin, diesem soziologischen Vorgehen eine gewisse historische Naivität und Blindheit zu attestieren”. 150

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2.5. Roland de Vaux (1903–1971) Though not working from a sociological background,156 the detailed work Ancient Israel. Its Life and Institutions157 by the French scholar R. de Vaux158 offers the most extensive treatment of the social life and of the institutions of biblical Israel. He understands society as whole as a grand system which can be divided into several smaller sub-systems. R. de Vaux’s monograph is the first to attempt to write a study of Israelite institutions that is not part of a larger enterprise such as a history of Israel or an archaeological description of the biblical land.159 In the first paragraph of the Preface he defines what is implied, when he will speak of institutions: Institutions are the various forms in which the social life of a people finds expression. Some will take it for granted as a matter of custom; others will adopt it of its own choice; and yet others will be imposed upon it by an authority. Individuals are subject to the nation’s institutions, but the institutions themselves exist, ultimately, for the sake of the society whose welfare they promote, whether the society be small as a family, or large as a state or religious community.160

Several things are interesting about this methodological statement. First of all R. de Vaux regards every expression of social life as an institution and thus uses a fairly broad definition of the word.161 This allows him to group custom as well as official state administration under the heading of ‘institution’. Secondly, he acknowledges that individuals are subject to the institutions of a nation but he stresses that it is not the institutions that govern the people regardless of their welfare. Rather, institutions promote welfare. Thirdly, institutions are not a monolithic block made unchangeable in eternity. Instead, R. de Vaux observes that they are subject to change in time and place. This, of course, implies that institutions evolve and develop. Finally, institutions, according to de Vaux, are always the product of human will. Due to his focus on institutions, R. de Vaux’s study often lacks a historical framework and it is probably not an exaggeration when one observes that the description of Israelite social life according to its in156 This lack of explicit sociological analysis prompts C. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Stadt und Eidgenossenschaft (1983), 2, n. 2, to exclude R. de Vaux’s work (together with the studies by A. Alt and J. Pedersen) from her overview of previous scholarship; see also the critique in F. S. Frick, Reconstructing Ancient Israel’s Social World (1999), 236–237. 157 First published in two volumes in French as Les institutions de l’Ancien Testament, I–II (Paris 1958, 1960); ET: Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (by J. McHugh; London 1961). 158 On R. de Vaux see J. Briend, Art. “Vaux, Roland de (1903–1971)”, TRE 34 (Berlin/New York 2002), 555–556; R. J. Tournay, “In Memoriam Le Père Roland de Vaux”, RB 79 (1972), 4–6, and B. T. Viviano, Art. “Vaux, Roland Etienne Guérin de”, Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation K-Z, Nashville 1999, 606–607. 159 In the Preface to his work he mentions the works of I. Benzinger, A. Bertholet and J. Pedersen as predecessors to his own study and adds the treatments by J. Pirenne, A. G. Barrois and F. Nötscher. He states: “Because or these various relations with other sciences, the institutions of Israel have usually been studied as part of a larger whole” (vii). 160 R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel (1961), vii. 161 The German translation of de Vaux’s work tries to do justice to this and translates Lebensordnungen. R.Kessler, Sozialgeschichte, 23 n9 critiques the use of the term, because he feels that it contains a normative element that introduces theological categories into the sociological concept of an institution.

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stitutions contains a certain static element.162 True, already in his methodological preface he acknowledges that institutions evolve and change over time, but when changes occur and are noted, they appear oddly detached from any historical reality.163 It has, however, been noted that a form of presentation as chosen by R. de Vaux has the intrinsic advantage that it allows taking the different rhythms of the development of social institutions into account.164 History, nevertheless, is not entirely absent from de Vaux’s study.165 Here he is guided by the vivid portrait painted by the Hebrew Bible itself when he starts his work with a section on “Nomadism and Its Survival”.166 The influence of earlier anthropological work such as W. Robertson Smith’s study on Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia is apparent here. R. de Vaux traces several ancient customs back to the nomadic ideal or pre-history of Israel.167 Here he mentions the tribal organization of Israel, the law of hospitality and asylum as well as the blood-vengeance.168 After these prolegomena, de Vaux turns his attention to those institutions, which manifest themselves in an Israel firmly established in the land. His “study is perhaps the most comprehensive to date in terms of its survey of biblical material, and is still particularly useful as a source for identifying those passages in the Hebrew Bible that relate in some way to the social and religious institutions of ancient Israel.”169 R. de Vaux separates his study of the institutions into four main parts: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Family Institutions Civil Institutions Military Institutions Religious Institutions.

Like scholars before him, he starts with the (extended) family that manifests the smallest social unit.170

162

Cf. P. McNutt, Reconstructing the Society, 18. See e.g. R. de Vaux’s remarks on Deuteronomy: “This code seems designed to replace the old code by taking account of a whole social and religious evolution; it also reveals a change of spirit by its appeals to the heart and by the tone of exhortation in which its prescriptions are often couched” (ibid., 144). 164 R. Kessler, Sozialgeschichte (2006), 15. 165 In general, the biblical textual tradition is regarded as historically reliable and, just like W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. A Historical analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (London 1968), 95, he never questions the historicity of the Patriarchs; see R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel (London 1961), 289–294 and idem, Die Patriarchenerzählungen und ihre Geschichte (SBS 3; Stuttgart 1965). 166 R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel (1961), 3–15. Though the portrait of the nomad is here quite similar to the one M. Weber paints of the Bedouin (MWS I/21, 22–24 = MWG I/21251–254 = RS III, 13–16); Weber, however maintains that Israelite law does not reflect any archaic Bedouin tradition, MWS I/21, 24. 167 Again, R. de Vaux follows the argument by J. Pedersen, that nomadic elements were preserved in Israelite culture (see e.g. Israel II, 466) 168 “Blood-vengeance is a desert law, but it became a permanent institution, and the solidarity of the clan never disappeared”, R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel (1961), 13. 169 P. McNutt, Reconstructing the Society (1999), 18. 170 In contrast to earlier studies in the wake of W. Robertson Smith, the Israelite family is seen as patriarchal, but R. de Vaux does not distinguish between nuclear and extended family and defines as follows: “The family consists of those who are united by common blood and common dwelling place … The family included the servants, the resident aliens or gêrim and the ‘stateless persons’, widows and orphans, who lived under the protection of the head of the family” (R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 20). 163

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Despite its richness in detail it remains a major weakness of R. de Vaux’s study that it tends to treat socio-cultural data as a sideshow.171 Also the complete lack of the economic factor, i.e. the role played by economic processes leaves out a vast area of institutional and social life. As such R. de Vaux’s work remains a valuable compilation of social data but this data needs to be analyzed. Most of the things he presents as facts have to be scrutinized in synchronic and diachronic perspectives and then often a different picture of the social life and the institutions emerges.

3. Beyond Roland de Vaux In many ways R. de Vaux’s synthesis represents the last attempt to reconstruct Israelite social life and the role of its institutions without any references to insights from sociology and cultural/social anthropology. Also, the rise of (biblical) archaeology that is no longer tied to the Hebrew Bible and the notion that many biblical texts are simply creations from a much later period and probably historically rather unreliable make it henceforth impossible to approach the social life and structure of Israelite society simply by using the Hebrew Bible alone.

3.1. Anthropologists Discover the Hebrew Bible A first impulse to integrate new approaches, however, came from outside the field of Hebrew Bible. From the 1960s onwards several anthropologists began explicitly to apply their methods to the Hebrew Bible.172 Here we have to mention Mary Douglas (1921–2007),173 Edmund Leach (1910–1989)174 and Julien Pitt-Rivers (1919–2001).175

171

F. S. Frick, Reconstructing Ancient Israel’s Social World (1999), 237. A similar move can be observed for the field of Classics. See e.g. A. W. Gouldner, Enter Plato. Classcial Greece and the Origins of Social Theory (London 1965); C. Kluckhon, Anthropology and the Classics. The Clover Lectures at Brown University 1960 (Providence 1961); P. Walcot, Greek Peasants Ancient and Modern. A Comparison of Social and Moral Values (Manchester 1970) and the overview in S. C. Humphreys, Anthropology and the Greeks (International Library of Anthropology; London 1978) and J. Redfield, “Classics and Anthropology”, Arion III/1.2 (1991), 5–23. 173 Relevant works: Purity and Danger. An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London/New York 1966); “Deciphering a Meal” in: Implicit Meanings: Selected Essays in Anthropology (London 21999), 249–275; In the Wilderness. The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers (JSOTSup 158; Sheffield 1993); Leviticus as Literature (Oxford 1999); “Responding to Ezra. The Priests and the Foreign Wives”, BibInt 10 (2002) 1–23; Jacob’s Tears. The Priestly Work of Reconciliation (Oxford 2004); Thinking in Circles. An Essay on Ring-Composition (Terry Lecture Series; New Haven/London 2007). 174 Relevant works: Genesis as Myth and Other Essays (London 1969); “The Logic of Sacrifice”, in: Anthropological Approaches to the Old Testament (ed. B. Lang; Issues in Religion and Theology 8; London 1985), 136–150; E. R. Leach/D. A. Aycock, Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth (Cambridge 1983). 175 Relevant works: The Fate of Shechem and the Politics of Sex. Essays in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean (Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology; Cambridge 1977); Anthropologie de 172

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In her classic study Purity and Danger, first published in 1966, M. Douglas uses material from the Hebrew Bible (especially Leviticus) to clarify her theory of purity and pollution.176 Her system of classification – clearly indebted to A. A. Radcliffe-Brown’s version of functionalism – that defined “pollution” as something being out of place or being on the wrong side of a boundary as well as her grid and group model have been used frequently to illustrate biblical texts.177 The Hebrew Bible for her provides an interesting set of ethnographical data and this implies that we have to study the religion of the Bible like one studies any other religion.178 This then leads to a second step, namely to the critique of our Western and modernist assumptions or preconceptions of religion “in order to transcend the reductive dichotomies of revealed versus false religion or reason versus superstition.”179 Additionally, Douglas is aware of the complete otherness of biblical religion and postulates the need to approach the Bible and the world it portrays like an exotic entity which is new and unfamiliar to us. The impact of functionalism with its focus on social phenomena and how they shape or create a coherent social system allows Douglas to shift from grand overarching narratives to a focus on everyday custom and practice.180 Rather Douglas introduces the concept of “implicit meanings”, which can be seen as a further development of the emic/etic dichotomy because she argues that human thoughts, habits and categories are so deeply connected to the social environment that members of society are largely unaware of them. This means that “deciphering a meal” yields as much information about the social structures and the social life of the society studied as an analysis of a sacrificial system. The results of such analysis, however, always have to be seen in the larger social context. She strongly argues against “piecemeal interpretations” of isolated events: Defilement is never an isolated event. It cannot occur except in view of a systematic ordering of ideas. Hence any piecemeal interpretation of the pollution rules of another culture is bound to fail. For the only way in which pollution ideas make sense is in reference to a total structure of thought.181

What we learn from Douglas’ analysis of the various biblical texts is that details such as sexual or food taboos, matters of purity (and impurity) point us to a multivalent system of implicit meanings. The details create a symbolic system, which is l’honneur. Le mésaventure de Sichem (Pluriel; Paris 1997). On J. Pitt-Rivers see S. T. Freeman, “J. A. Pitt-Rivers (1919–2001)”, American Anthropologist 106 (2004) 216–218. 176 On M. Douglas see the biography by R. Fardon, Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography (London 1999), who states that her work can be seen as “a classic expression of British anthropological modernism” (260). 177 M. Douglas herself describes grid and group as “a method for sorting out the dramatis personae of any social situation”, C. Gosden, “Grid and Group: An Interview with Mary Douglas”, Journal of Social Archaeology 4 (2004), 275–287, 280). 178 Nevertheless there is an acute awareness on M. Douglas’ part about the limitations of her enterprise, since she is not a specialist in the field of biblical studies, see M. Douglas, Jacob’s Tears (2004), 2. 179 R. Hendel, “Mary Douglas and Anthropological Modernism”, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8 (2008) Article 8, 1–11 (2). 180 Already in 1946 E. Auerbach observes a similar trend in literature, see E. Auerbach, Mimesis. Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur (Bern 91994), 488. 181 M. Douglas, Purity and Danger (1966), 41.

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based on rules of behaviour as well as actions and meanings. All this, in turn, constitutes society as a whole. The presence of rules forms the bed-rock of society.182 M. Douglas’ focus on conceptual categories as well as on the correlation between social institutions and religious practice made her work an ideal mine for biblical scholars.183 And despite several criticisms in regard to detail her models continue to be employed.184 E. Leach’s interest in the Bible was triggered by his reading of C. Lévi-Strauss, who exercised a tremendous influence on him, even though he seems to reject all of C. Lévi-Strauss’ conclusions. He remarks at the outset of the study Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth: None of the essays in this volume could have been written if they had not been preceded by LéviStrauss’ two seminal essays, ‘The Structural Study of Myth’ and ‘The Story of Asdiwal’, but the discrepancies between the methodology developed here and that employed by Lévi-Strauss are numerous and fundamental.185

The Hebrew Bible as well as the New Testament formed a gold mine of narratives for E. Leach.186 Since he regarded these narratives as being of a mythical nature they were uniquely suitable for this way of structuralist analysis. This conviction has important bearings for his view of the Bible. The mythological nature of the narratives does not allow him to see the Bible as a historical document.187 In a way, he voices opinions here that will resurface in the debate about the historical value of the Hebrew Bible in the 1980s and 1990s.188 Leach does not negate the

182 See M. Douglas, “Critique and Commentary”, in: The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism. The Haskell Lectures 1972–1974 (by J. Neusner; SJLA 1; Leiden 1973, 137–142), 138 183 It is to the great credit of M. Douglas that she revised her work in the light of critical biblical scholarship as well as in the light of insights from classical Antiquity; see e.g. her engagement with R. Parker, Miasma. Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford 1982) in Jacob’s Tears, 159–163. 184 Out of the plethora of studies referring to M. Douglas’ work see – next to J. Milgrom’s magisterial commentary on Leviticus – P. J. Budd, “Holiness and Cult”, in: The World of Ancient Israel. Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge 1989), 275–298; J. Duhaime, “Lois alimentaires et pureté corporelle dans le Lévitique. L’approche de Mary Douglas et sa reception par Jacob Milgrom”, Religiologiques 17 (1998) 19–35; E. Firmage, “The biblical dietary laws and the concept of holiness”, in: Studies in the Pentateuch (ed. J. A. Emerton; VT.S 41; Leiden 1990), 177–208; R. Hendel, “Table and Altar: An Anthropology of Food in the Priestly Torah”, in: To Break Every Yoke: Essays in Honor of Marvin L. Chaney (ed. R. B. Coote/N. K. Gottwald; Sheffield 2007), 131–148; S. M. Olyan, “Mary Douglas’s Holiness/Wholeness Paradigm: Its Potential For Insight and Its Limitations”, The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8 (2008) Article 10, 2–9; J. F. Sawyer (ed.), Reading Leviticus. A Conversation with Mary Douglas (JSOT.S 227; Sheffield 1996); D. P. Wright, “Deciphering a Definition: The Syntagmatic Structural Analysis of Ritual in the Hebrew Bible”, The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8 (2008) Article 12, 2–9 185 E. R. Leach/D. A. Aycock, Structuralist Interpretations (1983), 1; see also E. Leach, Genesis as Myth (1969), 25, where he states that he feels “reasonable safe with Lévi-Strauss’ concept of structure” and continues to state that his essay on “The Legitimacy of Solomon” is a “limited exercise in certain of Lévi-Strauss’ methods”. 186 On E. Leach’s analysis of the Bible see the excellent biography of his former Cambridge colleague S. J. Tambiah, Edmund Leach. An Anthropological Life (Cambridge 2002), esp. 290–317. Much of the following is indebted to Tambiah’s careful analysis and presentation. 187 D. A. Aycock/E. Leach, Structuralist Interpretations (1983), 35. 188 See also his 1980 statement: “I hold that anthropologists first need to make a case for saying that no part of the Bible is a record of history as it actually happened. Then, on the positive

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literary growth of the Hebrew Bible.189 He postulates, however, that the canon was fixed in about 100 bce and since then the same structures were retained despite changes in the historical and theological environment. As a result, “this record has been substantially unchanged over a very long period. To asses these structures we do not need to know how particular stories came to assume their present form nor the dates at which they were written”.190 In a way E. Leach does final form exegesis when he treats the biblical text as a unity and analyzes its structures “regardless of the varying historical origins of its component parts”.191 This methodology makes it possible for him to compare narratives and stories that share little content and argue that even such texts share similarities and differences in regard to structure. In contrast to C. Lévi-Strauss for whom “myth increasingly became a domain insulated from its connections with ritual action and social organizational context”.192 E. Leach was always aware that myth cannot be detached from social life and organization. Without the ethnographic context any analysis of myth has to remain descriptive. In their own way, myths reflect the social structure of a society behind them and can only be properly understood by a close study of the social life behind them.193 Here E. Leach detects a set of binary opposites that seem to govern society: Israelite/Foreigner; Tent Dweller/City Dweller; Endogamy/Exogamy; Virtue/Sin.194 He is able to argue that a taboo against incest coupled with a rule of exogamy can provide the basis for the formations of matrimonial alliances between antagonistic groups within a single political community.195 For E. Leach it is natural that a political community consists of (social) groups that can be in alliance or mutually antagonistic. In contrast, rules of endogamy tend to provide the basis for the unitary solidarity of a religious community.196 How myth can function with the social life of a community is especially apparent in his study “The Legitimacy of Solomon”.197 As side, they can show that the whole of the Bible has the characteristics of mytho-history of the sort that anthropologists regularly encounter when they engage in present-day field research” (E. Leach, “Anthropological Approaches to the Study of the Bible during the Twentieth Century”, quoted in J. W. Rogerson, “Anthropology and The Old Testament”, in: The World of Ancient Israel. Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge 1989, 17–38 [19]). 189 “All scholarly opinion recognizes that the present recension of the books of the Old Testament is an assemblage of very varied writings which was finally edited and made fully canonical only around 100 bc. Likewise all agree that the purportedly ‘early’ works in the collection contain numerous interpolations which have been inserted from time to time by later editors in the interests of consistency or with a view to providing traditional support for a disputed point of political or religious doctrine”, E. Leach, Genesis as Myth (1969), 34. 190 Ibid., 33. 191 Ibid., 80. 192 S. J. Tambiah, Edmund Leach, 295. 193 This view echoes B. Malinowski’s concept of myth. Here, myths are seen not as isolated episodes or pieces of literature but as texts that merged with contexts. Additionally, myths serve a legitimating function in the present; see B. Malinowski, “Myth in Primitive Psychology”, in Malinowski and the Work of Myth (ed. I. Strenski; Princeton 1992), 77–116. 194 Leach uses texts like Jud 11:30–40 and Gen 22:1–8 which he sees as opposites (ibid., 35) and the narratives in Gen 34; Jud 9; 11:1–11; 13–14 to highlight these opposites. 195 Cf. S.J. Tambiah, Edmund Leach, 298. 196 Ibid. 197 The essay was first published in the European Journal of Sociology 7 (1966), 58–101 and is reprinted in Genesis as Myth Genesis as Myth, 25–83.

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far as the social life of ancient Israel is concerned he showed in this investigation that the succession of Solomon was a myth that mediated a major contradiction between the Israelite injunction in favour of endogamy, to preserve the identity of the Israelite people amidst numerous other ethnic groups in Palestine and the fact that exogamy was often necessary between Israelite kings and foreign women as a way to forge political alliances.198 In contrast to M. Douglas and E. Leach, J. Pitt-Rivers approaches the biblical text from the perspective of Mediterranean Anthropology.199 In contrast to Leach, Pitt-Rivers explicitly aims at taking the problem of history into account, a problem that Leach seems to evade.200 Furthermore, Pitt-Rivers is concerned with origins but does not succumb to the Tylorian proposal of ‘survival’ – a concept that he labels a “confession of defeat before the challenge to find a contemporary sense in anything”.201 Instead he sees societies as being always in transition between a former and a future state and, in turn, “their structure is always a 198 See P.F. Esler and A.C. Hagedorn, “Social-Scientific Analysis of the Old Testament. A Brief History and Overview”, in: Ancient Israel. The Old Testament in its Social Context (ed. P.F. Esler, Minneapolis 2006, 15–32), 20. 199 The field of Mediterranean Anthropology has been a hotly debated topic in Social and Cultural Anthropology since its beginnings. From the plethora of contributions see the following: D. Albera, “Anthropology of the Mediterranean: Between Crisis and Renewal”, History and Anthropology 17 (2006), 109–133. V. Argyou, “The Mediterranean? Need One Ask or Reply?”, Anthropological Journal on European Cultures 10 (2001), 25–38. J. Boissevain, “Towards a Social Anthropology of the Mediterranean”, Current Anthropology 20 (1979), 81–93. V. Bonifaçic, “Ethnology, Anthropology and Cultural History of the Mediterranean: Inside and Outside Perspectives”, Narodna umjetnost 36 (1999), 269–282. C. Bromberger, “Towards and Anthropology of the Mediterranean”, History and Anthropology 17 (2006), 91–107. J. De Pina-Cabral, “The Mediterranean as a Category of Regional Comparison: a Critical View”, Current Anthropology 30 (1989), 399–406. H. Driessen, “People, Boundaries and the Anthropologist”s Mediterranean”, Anthropological Journal on European Cultures 10 (2001), 11–23. H. Driessen, “Pre- and Post-Braudelian Conceptions of the Mediterranean Area. The Puzzle of Boundaries”, Narodna umjetnost 36 (1999), 53–63. T. Fabre, “Face to Face, Side by Side: Between Europe and the Mediterranean”, History and Anthropology 18 (2007), 353–356. D.D. Gilmore, “Anthropology of the Mediterranean Area”, Annual Review of Anthropology 11 (1982), 175–205. C. Giordano, “Is There a Mediterranean Anthropology? The Point of View of an Outsider”, Anthropological Journal on European Cultures 1 (1990), 109–124. M. Herzfeld, “On Mediterraneanist Performances”, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 1 (1991), 141–147. M. Herzfeld, “Practical Mediterraneanism: Excuses for Everything, from Epistomology to Eating”, in: Rethinking the Mediterranean (ed. V.W. Harris; Oxford 2005, 45–63). M. Herzfeld, “Taking Stereotypes Seriously; “Mediterraneanism” Reconsidered”, in: The Mediterranean Reconsidered. Representations, Emergences, Recompositions (ed. M. Peressini and R. Hadj-Moussa; Mercury Series. Cultural Studies Papers 79; Gatineau 2005, 25–37). P. Horden and N. Purcell, “The Mediterranean and ‘the New Thalassology’“, American Historical Review 111 (2006), 722–740. R. Just, “Some Problems for Mediterranean Anthropology”, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 9 (1978), 81–97. P.J. Magnarella, “Conceptualizing the Circum-Mediterranean for Purposes of Social Scientific Research”, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 2 (1992), 18–24. I. Morris, “Mediterranization”, Mediterranean Historical Review 18 (2003), 30–55. J. Portugali, “The Mediterranean as a Cognitive Map”, Mediterranean Historical Review 19 (2004), 16–24. N. Purcell, “The Boundless Sea of Unlikeness? On Defining the Mediterranean”, Mediterranean Historical Review 18 (2003), 9–29. P. Sant Cassia and I. Schäfer, “‘Mediterranean Conundrums’: Pluridisciplinary Perspectives for Research in the Social Science”, History and Anthropology 16 (2005), 1–23. C. Shore, “Anthropology, Literature, and the Problem of Mediterranean Identity”, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 5 (1995), 1–13. S. Stoddart, “Towards a Historical Ethnography of the Mediterranean”, Current Anthropology 33 (1992), 599–600. 332–348. 200 J. Pitt-Rivers, Fate of Shechem, 131. 201 Ibid., vii–viii.

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transformation of what went before”.202 J. Pitt-Rivers’ focus on the value system and more explicitly on the moral values of Honour and Shame203 within a geographical defined area (i.e. the Mediterranean) has been hugely influential in European anthropology204 and several insights of the model have been readily accepted by biblical scholars. Here the unifying tendencies of the values of Honour and Shame as well as of the Mediterranean basin have been stressed, neglecting the fact, highlighted by J. Pitt-Rivers himself that these values have to be seen within the framework of the above mentioned transformation.205 Despite the fact that the notion of Mediterranean honour as well as the concept of a Mediterranean206 unity has been rightly critiqued in anthropological circles,207 J. Pitt-Rivers is the first to elaborate in detail on the underlying value system of social life as well as of the (family) institutions described in the text. This enabled him as well as the biblical scholars using his models to decode the messages behind the texts. Texts are now seen to convey social meanings and to affirm social structures that are embedded in the language of the text but not always detectable on the surface by readers who are not part of the culture in which the text emerged.208 This allows J. Pitt-Rivers to place the Book of Genesis “at the point of transition where the age of myth begins to give way to the age of philosophy”.209 He takes the mythological character of many of the stories in Genesis seriously but realizes that the text progresses towards “the practical style of empirical reality and clear imperatives which take pride of place later in Leviticus”.210 His 202

Ibid., viii. His well known definition of honour states: “Honour is the value of a person in his own eyes, but also in the eyes of his society. It is his estimation of his own worth, his claim to pride, but it is also the acknowledgement of that claim recognised by society, his right to pride” (Ibid,. 1). See also L. Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments. Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Village (Berkeley 1986); J.K. Campbell, Honour, Family and Patronage. A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community (Oxford 1964). 204 Since the beginning of systematic anthropological research in the mediterranean lands, the terms ‘honour’ and ‘shame’ have been used to represent an enormous variety of local social, sexual, economic, and other standards” (M. Herzfeld, “Honour and Shame: Problems in the Comparative Analysis of Moral Systems”, Man n.s. 15 (1980), 339–51 [339]). While 19th century researchers often used the so called ‘honour-complex’ to describe lower stages of civilization (C. Giordano, “Mediterranean Honour Reconsidered. Anthropological Fiction or Actual Action Strategy?”, Anthropological Journal on European Cultures 10 (2001), 39–58 [39]), 20th century anthropologists employed the notion to identify a so-called circum-Mediterranean value system that, since it appears to be homogenous, seems to ignore the traditional division in Muslim and Christian cultures. 205 J. Pitt-Rivers, Fate of Shechem, viii. 206 M. Herzfeld, Anthropology through the looking glass. Critical ethnography in the margins of Europe (Cambridge 31993), 6) and also M. Herzfeld, “On Mediterraneanist Performances”, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 1 (1991), 141–147. 207 Since 1980 the theory of a circum-Mediterranean value system based on the notion of honor and shame has been repeatedly attacked and several modifications have been proposed; cf. M. Herzfeld, “Honour and Shame: Problems in the Comparative Analysis of Moral Systems”, Man n.s. 15 (1980), 339–51; C. Giordano, “Mediterranean Honour Reconsidered. Anthropological Fiction or Actual Action Strategy?”, Anthropological Journal on European Cultures 10 (2001), 39–58 ; R. Just, “On the ontological status of honour”, in: An Anthropology of Indirect Communication (ed. Joy Hendry and C.W. Watson; ASA Monographs 37, London/New York 2001, 34–50). 208 “To understand the past is like understanding another culture” (J. Pitt-Rivers, The Fate of Shechem, 169). 209 Ibid., 145. 210 Ibid., 146. 203

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test-case in Genesis 34, a text which he does not simply treat as history, i.e. an unfortunate event from the time of the patriarchs, but as a story of the transition of sexual honour in conjunction with Israel’s “first attempt to abandon the nomadic way of life.”211 In contrast to pure myth, the stories of the Hebrew Bible are the attempt by a society (or some of its members) to derive rules and guidelines for reshaping social life from the past for the present. Within his interpretation it implies that Genesis 34 expresses a change in sexual and social relations. On a wider level J. Pitt-Rivers shows that sex and the regulation of sexual relationships “is a political matter, a function of a system of status and power manifest in the idiom of honour”.212 Within a theory of transition, advocated by Pitt-Rivers, Genesis 34 further marks the transition from an elementary to a complex kinship system as well as from a closed kinship system to a system of marriage strategy that is dominated by political values. Within this process the Israelites also adopt the Mediterranean values of honour and shame which form the basis of a more complex society. Despite the obvious weaknesses of J. Pitt-Rivers’ treatment of the Hebrew Bible,213 his focus on social/moral values as well as the awareness that such values can be transformed while at the same time remaining remarkably stable made his contribution an ideal starting point for an anthropological investigation of the Hebrew Bible. Here, especially his notion of honour and shame has proven a very useful interpretative parameter for an analysis of the social structures as well as the social life behind the biblical texts. As such honour and shame can be described as reciprocal moral values that represent the integration of an individual into a group.214 Both reflect the conferral of public esteem upon a person and the sensitivity to public opinion on which the person is totally dependent.215 Therefore they are critical in societies in which all relationships are viewed mainly as dyadic.216 Obviously honour has a hierarchical aspect and is thus tied to the kinship system. Therefore it is hardly surprising that honour and blood are closely related.217 This hierarchy in turn means that only members of (perceived) equal social standing are able to challenge each other’s honour. It is hardly surprising that honour is neither a gender specific nor individual phenomenon but at the same time affects the family, kinship group or society. Therefore it was possible to talk about the so-called ‘moral division of labor’, i.e. that male and female members are responsible for the preservation of their collective hon-

211

Ibid., 161. Ibid., 170. 213 There is only limited engagement with critical biblical scholarship (he only refers to G. v. Rad; R.R. Wilson, E. Speiser, R. de Vaux and A.S. Herbert) and classic source criticism such as the existence of an Elohist is very much alive; this can be explained by Pitt-Rivers own admission that he does not know Hebrew and the fact that he deliberately approaches the Hebrew Bible from the perspective of an anthropologist. He further tends to see the stories of the patriarchs as historical events and follows the chronology outlined by the Bible itself. 214 See D.D. Gilmore (ed)., Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean, Washington 1987, 3. 215 J. Pitt-Rivers, “Honour and Social Status”, in Honour and Shame. The Values of Mediterranean Society (ed. J.G. Peristiany; The Nature of Human Society Series, Chicago 1965, 21–77), 42. 216 See J.G. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame. The Values of Mediterranean Society (The Nature of Human Society Series) Chicago 1965), 10; J.K. Campbell, Honour, 270. 217 See J.K. Campbell, Honour, 185. 212

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our and it has rightly been pointed out that the division of honour into a male and female realm tends to correspond to the division of roles in the family. Honour and shame are social evaluations and thus participate in the nature of social sanctions … Honour and shame are two poles of an evaluation. They are the reflection of the social personality in the mirror of social ideals. What is particular to these evaluations is that they use as standard of measurement the type of personality considered as representative and exemplary of a certain society.218

If one is bound to see at least some historical value in the biblical texts the models offered by M. Douglas and J. Pitt-Rivers provide a much better starting point for interpretation than the purely mythological ventures of E. Leach. We shall see in the following how social-scientific approaches to biblical social life have benefited from these anthropological insights.

3.2. The Study of Institutions and Social Life in Ancient Israel since 1970 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a biblical scholar in possession of a social scientific agenda will be in want of his senses. L. L. Grabbe

The stimuli from anthropology as well as the integration of further insights from a wide variety of social sciences prompted a revival of the sociological/anthropological study of the Hebrew Bible. This movement beginning in the 1970s has been termed “second wave” social science criticism.219 Despite the frequent use of the label ‘new’,220 many of the anthropological and sociological problems already outlined by W. Robertson Smith; M. Weber and others remain the starting point for this new mode of interpretation.221 They are, however, supplemented by a variety of interpretative models that bear witness to the increase in methodological proposals as well as to a shift away from a dominant interpretative perspective.222 In the second wave of anthropological/ sociological approaches to the Hebrew Bible characterized by methodological pluriformity equally there can be observed a distinct lack of agreement which social-scientific models are particular relevant for the study of the social life of ancient Israel.223 Further, these recent social studies

218

See J.G. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame, 9–10. See the overviews in S.L. Cook/R.A. Simkins, “Introduction”, 1–14; F.S. Frick, “Reconstructing Ancient Israel’s Social World”, 233–254 and J.M. Halligan, “Where Angels”, 202–218. According to F.S. Frick, the transitional point is the publication of G.E. Mendenhall, “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine”, BA 25 (1962), 66–87. Mendenhall proposes “not to give dogmatic answers to historical problems, but rather to suggest further fruitful lines of inquiry, and to suggest relationships between seemingly unrelated bits of information” (67). 220 R. Albertz, “Social History”, 348–352 rightly critiques the ever widening gap between American and European scholarship and notes several instances of blatant ignorance of important works. 221 Thus it is hardly surprising that J. Berlinerblau, “The Present Crisis”, 117 urges his readers to return to the classics. 222 J.W. Flanagan, David’s Social Drama, 72–73. 223 See P. McNutt, Reconstructing the Society, 26. 219

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share the methodological presupposition that the historical reliability of a biblical text has to be carefully questioned. In other words, they realize that the Bible is shaped and re-shaped by theological and ideological viewpoints and opinions that often obscure the simple historical description.224 This is not to say that the biblical text cannot serve as a historical source but it is a source that needs to be carefully evaluated and supplemented by material and other sources.225 Despite this wide variety of approaches two strands of interpretation can be observed: a) Studies that employ models derived from the social sciences as heuristic tools to describe and to interpret a society or parts thereof from the past whose set of values are entirely different from the values of the society of the interpreter.226 The social system of a group of humans can be called a model, which contains categories of knowledge and behaviour that serve to control and understand human interaction.227 Such models or social concepts that emerge from human interaction are called social science models: “The understanding and interpretation of human behavior is always based on models of how the social world works whether the person understanding and interpreting is aware of the model (explicit models) or unaware (implicit models) since human beings chunk in order to understand”.228 Moving beyond the traditional historical-critical approach, social science models try to grasp human behaviour with certain typologies229 that attempt to explain the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of a certain type of behaviour.230 b) Approaches that claim to offer a social history (Sozialgeschichte). These tend to avoid the use of social-scientific models and are mainly concerned with the applicability of the biblical text for modern times.231 Their method is dominantly descriptive without any (critical) classification of the sources.232

224 Comp. P.R. Davies, In Search of ‘Ancient Israel’ (JSOTSup 148; Sheffield 1992) 22–48 and the statement in L.L. Grabbe, Priests, 5–11. 225 P. McNutt, Reconstructing the Society, 214 rightly states that ‘history’ has been transformed into an “ongoeing conversation between past and present”. In this respect it is unfortunate that there is a tendency to reconstruct ancient Israel’s social world without any references to the Hebrew Bible; see the discussion in R. Albertz, “Social History”, 352. Equally unfortunate, however, is a tendency to use the biblical text without any investigation of its literary formation (Literarkritik) to develop a picture of the daily, i.e. social life of ancient Israel. 226 See B.J. Malina, “The Social Sciences”, 231–233 and J.H. Elliott, What is Social Scientific Criticism, 36–59. 227 B.J. Malina, “The Social Sciences”, 232 and J.H. Elliott, What is Social Scientific Criticism, 42. 228 B.J. Malina, “The Social Sciences”, 232. 229 T.F. Carney, The Shape of the Past. Models and Antiquity (Lawrence 1975), 11. 230 B.J. Malina, “The Social Sciences”, 233: “The social sciences indicate how and why meanings get imposed on and in the present.” 231 W. Schottroff, Gerechtigkeit Lernen, 23. See also the remarks in F.S. Frick, „Sociological Criticism and Its Relation to Political and Social Hermeneutics. With a Special Look at Biblical Hermeneutics in South African Liberation Theology“, in: The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Norman K. Gottwald on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (ed. D. Jobling, P.L. Day and G.T. Sheppard; Cleveland 1991, 225–238). 232 This approach is prevalent in the Sozialgeschichtliches Wörterbuch zur Bibel (ed. F. Crüsemann, K. Hungar, C. Janssen, R. Kessler, L. Schottroff; Gütersloh 2009). In the editorial statement, its authors acknowledge the difference between the biblical and the modern world but then proceed to outline three hermeneutical discourses that will determine the entries: 1. liberation-theology; 2.

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The biblical narrative still determines the focus of the investigation and a variety of sociological and anthropological studies are done on the early history of Israel but recent years have seen an increase in works dealing with the second Temple period.233 We have to note further that several recent works on the history of Israel tend to incorporate sociological observations in the presentation.234 This development goes hand in hand with the re-evaluation of the archaeological data and with a serious re-thinking about the role of archaeology in the reconstruction of a particular society.235 As a result it is often very difficult to distinguish sharply between traditional literary critical studies and social scientific enterprises and even classic historical critical studies tend to include considerations of the social location of the different authors that transcend the traditional Sitz-im-Leben approach advocated first by H. Gunkel. The collection The World of Ancient Israel, edited by R. E. Clements, lists under the heading Fundamental Institutions the following: 1. Law and legal administration; 2. prophecy and society; 3. the social world of the wisdom writers; 4. the social world of the apocalyptic writings. The collection of essays then employs a wide variety of approaches that successfully fuse literary critical and sociological advances. In a way the current volume of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament project bears witness to this interpretative change: classic institutions such as biblical law, the world of the sages and prophecy are treated in individual chapters and will reflect the change in methodology. As far as the study of biblical institutions is concerned prophecy has been one of the main subjects of focus of social-scientific investigation.236 Here we have to distinguish between two approaches: 1) Cross-cultural comparisons that aim feminist theology and 3. the changed relationship between Jews and Christians. This shows that the guiding principle – despite the introductory statement – is not a better understanding of the biblical world but an interpretation of the biblical world as represented in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in the light of a political and ideological agenda. 233 E.g. J.L. Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow. A Social and Historical Approach (Minneapolis 1995); S.L. Cook, Prophecy and Apocalypticism. The Post-Exilic Social Setting (Minneapolis 1995); D. Janzen, Witch-hunts, Purity and Social Boundaries. The Expulsion of the Foreign Women in Ezra 9–10 (JSOTSup 350; Sheffield 2002). 234 See e.g. R. Albertz, Die Exilszeit. 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie 7; Stuttgart 2001), 112–116 and the observations by L.L. Grabbe, “Some Recent Issues in the Study of the History of Israel”, PBA 143 (2007), 57–70. But see the critical remarks about social theory in I.W. Provan, V.P. Long and T. Longman III, A Biblical History of Israel (Louisville 2003), 75. 235 See e.g. I. Finkelstein, “Bible Archaeology or Archaeology of Palestine in the Iron age? A Rejoinder”, Levant 30 (1998), 167–174; C. Uehlinger, “Neither Eyewitnesses, Nor Windows to the Past, but Valuable Testimony in its own right: Remarks on Iconography, Source Criticism and Ancient Data-processing”, PBA 143 (2007), 173–228. 236 The interest was sparked by a paper by P.L. Berger, “Charisma and religious innovation: the social location of Israelite Prophecy”, American Sociological Review 28 (1963), 940–950. The literature is legion; for a distinct social-science focus see the useful overview by R.P. Carroll, “Prophecy and society”, in: The world of Ancient Israel. Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (ed. R.E. Clements; Cambridge 1989, 203–225) and the studies by J. Blenkinsopp, Sage, Priest, Prophet. Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville 1995); R.P. Carroll, When Prophecy Failed. Responeses to Failure in the Old Testament Prophetic Tradition (London 1979), and L.L. Grabbe, Priests, 64–118. The groundbreaking works by T.W. Overholt and R.R. Wilson will be discussed below; cf. also the cautionary remarks about a too narrow focus on comparative material in L.L. Grabbe, “Joseph Smith and the Gestalt of the Israelite Prophet”, in: Ancient Israel. The Old Testament in its Social Context (ed. P.F. Esler; Minneapolis 2006, 111–127); for a first attempt to iluminate ancient Near Eastern prophecy with help of social-science methods see L.L. Grabbe, “Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy from an Anthropological Perspective,” in: Prophecy

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at addressing the social psychology of biblical prophets and their interconnectedness with other members or institutions of society (T. W. Overholt) and 2) Studies that focus on the social function of prophetic activity (R. R. Wilson). All studies work with the assumption that the prophetic figure described in the texts is indeed a historical person and that we can learn something about his personality.237 The pioneer of the social-scientific study of prophecy was T. W. Overholt. True to the ethnographic interest that had been a feature of the work of W. Robertson Smith, he began to investigate examples of prophecy from other cultures. He notes the ambiguity of the term ‘prophet’ since various other roles of such diviner fit the broader category of intermediary and describes his methodology as follows:238 In my view a key requirement is a basis for comparison that focuses on intermediaries themselves but remains relatively free from culturally conditioned content of what they said … My main concern is neither the normative aspects of prophecy nor the revitalization process as a whole, but rather the social dynamics of the prophetic act itself.239

Overholt recognized the social dimension of prophecy but at the same time postulated that it is possible to discern certain general patterns in all prophetic activity. Although a cross-cultural interest was not new in itself, Overholt was innovative in two respects. Firstly, he rejected the study of prophetic movements in other cultures not so much in themselves, but merely for the light they might throw on Israelite prophets.240 Secondly, he insisted that the prophecy in question, whether from ancient Israel or elsewhere, should be studied for its own sake and not merely as an adjunct to some other interest – as for example when Israelite prophecy was considered as a trailer to some larger performance focused on the relationship between Yahweh and his people.241 He called for and practised a comparative methodology where both the cross-cultural and biblical prophetic in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context: Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Arabian Perspectives (ed. M. Nissinen; SBLSymS 13; Atlanta 2000, 13–32). 237 This has recenlty been questioned and we can observe a shift away from the ipsissima verba of a concrete prophetic person to a focus on the written book of the prophet; see e.g. U. Becker, “Die Wiederentdeckung des Prophetenbuches. Tendenzen und Aufgaben der gegenwärtigen Prophetenforschung”, BTZ 21 (2004), 30–60; J. Jeremias, “Neuere Tendenzen der Forschung an den kleinen Propheten”, in: Perspectives in the Study of the Old Testament and Early Judaism. A Symposium in Honour of Adam S. van der Woude on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday (ed. F.G. Martínez and E. Noort; VTSup 73, Leiden 1998, 122–136); R.G. Kratz, “Die Redaktion der Prophetenbücher”, in: Rezeption und Auslegung im Alten Testament und in seinem Umfeld. Ein Symposium aus Anlass des 60. Geburtstages von Odil Hannes Steck (ed. R.G. Kratz and T. Krüger; OBO 153, Fribourg/Göttingen 1997, 9–27). 238 A similar terminological move has been proposed by R.R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society, 21–28. 239 T. W. Overholt, Channels of Prophecy, 15. 240 See T. W. Overholt, “Prophecy: The Problem of Cross-Cultural Comparison”, in: Anthropological Perspectives on Old Testament Prophecy (ed. R.C. Culley and T.W Overholt; Semeia 21; Atlanta 1982, 55–78); cf. also the remarks in H.M. Barstad, “Comparare necesse est? Ancient Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy in a Comparative Perspective”, in: Prophecy in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context: Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Arabian Perspectives (ed. M. Nissinen; SBLSymS 13; Atlanta 2000, 3–11). 241 T.W. Overholt, “Prophecy”, 58.

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phenomena were examined properly in themselves prior to comparison being attempted.242 On the basis of his comparative work, T. Overholt developed a useful model of the prophetic process that integrates the prophet, the deity and the people to whom the prophet speaks. In the 1970s R. R. Wilson started to use cross-cultural approaches to Israelite prophecy.243 Two aspects of his work merit particular attention. First, while insisting (like T. Overholt) that a prophet’s social location be taken into account, he helpfully distinguished between “peripheral intermediaries”, who were active in groups within a society and tended to advance the interests of those groups and the spirits who bestowed the message on the intermediaries and “central intermediaries”, who were concerned with maintaining the established social order and with regulating the pace of change.244 R. Wilson argues that these two ‘ideal types’ are not isolated from each other and that the prophetic figure can – in the course of his life – function in both categories.245 Secondly, Wilson used the extensive social-scientific research into trances and ecstatic states to shed light on similar phenomena among Israelite prophets, from 1 Samuel 10 onwards. It is worth noting, however, that interest in the ecstatic dimensions of prophecy goes back to a monograph by G. Hölscher admittedly from a history-of-religions and not a social-scientific approach.246 Contemporary to T. Overholt, R. P. Carroll was applying a different set of social-scientific theory to a different aspect of Israelite prophecy. In a brilliant leap of social-scientific imagination, Carroll introduced the theory of cognitive dissonance first developed in the 1950s by psychologist L. Festinger to understand what happened when a prophesied event failed to occur.247 Dissonance refers to the gap between expectation and belief; yet dissonance does not necessarily mean the dropping of the belief, but in many cases simply drives its often powerful reformulation. One of Carroll’s important findings was that the disconfirmation of a prophecy (for example, as to the return of a Davidic king) led to a reinterpretation of traditions to sidestep the problem.248 It is one of the advantages of R. Carroll’s methodology that it allows for an integration of the literary development of the prophetic tradition. The conflict approach is used in P. D. Hanson’s study of the rise of apocalypticism during the second Temple period.249 He adopts and modifies an older thesis by O. Plöger,250 arguing that the social life of the post-exilic Israelite community was marked by a strong antagonism between hierocratic circles and visionaries 242 T.W.Overholt, “The Ghost Dance of 1890 and the Nature of the Prophetic Process,” Ethnohistory 21 (1974), 37–63; see alsi id., “Prophecy”, 64–66 with reference to the prophecy of Jeremiah. 243 See R.R. Wilson, “Prophecy and Ecstasy: A Reexamination”, JBL 98 (1979), 321–337. 244 See R.R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society, 38–40.83–88 245 According to R.R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society, 205 Elisha functioned in both categories. For a slighlty different anthropological view of Elisha see T.W. Overholt, Cultural Anthropology, 24–68. 246 G. Hölscher, Die Propheten: Untersuchungen zur Religionsgeschichte Israels (Leipzig 1914). 247 See L. Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford 1957) and the application of it in R. P. Carroll, When Prophecy Failed. 248 Carroll 1979: 215. 249 P.D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic. The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia 21979). 250 O. Plöger, Theokratie und Eschatologie (WMANT 2; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1962).

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who were responsible for the authorship of Trito-Isaiah. This group resembles a Gemeinschaft as defined by F. Tönnies (1855–1935) that rejects the values of the dominant society and strives to maintain a pure form of faith.251 From here it is a small step towards the emergence of sects.252 More recently, L. L. Grabbe has usefully sought to compare findings by social anthropologists into contemporary or recent prophetic phenomena with ancient Near Eastern prophecy.253 While this is an area where recently re-presented and edited prophetic texts from Mari and Neo-Assyria offer considerable material for comparison with Israelite prophecy,254 L. L. Grabbe is right to examine it from a social-scientific perspective on its own terms. He is well aware that social-scientific models are heuristic tools, allowing us to interrogate data in new ways and should not be used as a substitute for data.255

251 F. Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Abhandlung des Communismus und des Socialismus als empirischer Kulturform (Darmstadt 32005 [originally published in 1857]). 252 On the problem and for a critique of P. Hanson’s proposals see J. Blenkinsopp, “Interpretation and the Tendency to Sectarianism: An Aspect of Second Temple History”, in: Jewish and Christian Self-Definition II (ed. E.P. Sanders, A.I. Baumgarten and A. Mendelson; Philadelphia 1981, 1–26) and id., “A Jewish Sect of the Persian Period”, CBQ 52 (1990), 5–20; see also P.R. Davies, “Sect Formation in Early Judaism” in: Sectarianism in Ancient Judaism. Sociological Advances (ed. D.J. Chalcraft; BibleWorld; London 2007; 133–155) and L.L. Grabbe, “When Is a Sect a Sect – or Not? Groups and Movements in the Second Temple Period”, in: Sectarianism in Ancient Judaism. Sociological Advances (ed. D.J. Chalcraft; BibleWorld; London 2007; 114–132). 253 See L.L. Grabbe, “Sup-Urbs or only Hyp-Urbs? Prophets and Populations in Ancient Israel and Socio-Historical Method,” in: ‘Every City shall be Forsaken’: Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East (ed. L.L. Grabbe and R.D. Haak; JSOTSup 330; Sheffield 2001, 95–123) and id., “Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy”, 13–32 254 See Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East. (ed. M. Nissinen with contributions from C.L. Seow and K. Ritner, Robert; SBLWAW 12; Atlanta 2003) for texts from Mari, Assyria and other sites, including the ostraca from Lachish referring to (Yahwist) prophets. 255 L. Grabbe, “Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy”.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The Legacy of the Literary-critical School and the Growing Opposition to Historico-critical Bible Studies. The Concept of ‘History’ Revisited – Wirkungsgeschichte and Reception History By John Barton, Oxford Sources and studies (in alphabetical order): W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity. Monotheism and the Historical Process (sec. edn. with a new introduction; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1957). – R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (London: George Allen and Unwin 1981). – R. Alter/F. Kermode, The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard UP 1985). – K. Barth, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik, I: Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes, 2 (ZollikonZurich: Evangelischer Verlag) 545–546; ET: Church Dogmatics, I/2 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1956); Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie (Munich: Kaiser Verlag 1925). – J. Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (London: Oxford UP 1961). – J. Barton, The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 2007). – Bible and Culture Collective, The Postmodern Bible (New Haven/ London: Yale UP 1995). – C. E. Braaten/R. Jenson, Reclaiming the Bible for the Church (Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1995). – J. Bright, Early Israel in Recent History Writing: A Study in Method (London: SCM 1956). – R. P. Carroll, “Poststructuralist Approaches: New Historicism and Postmodernism”, in: J. Barton (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1998), 50–66. – B. S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster 1974); Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia/ London: Fortress/SCM 1979); Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (London: SCM 1985); Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (London: SCM 1992). – D. J. A. Clines, Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995). – M. Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (London: Women’s Press 1973). – J. Derrida, L’écriture et la différance (Paris: Editions du seuil 1967). – J. Ebach, Ursprung und Ziel: Erinnerte Zukunft und erhoffte Vergangenheit. Exegesen, Relexionen, Geschichten (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1986). – U. Eco, The Limits of Interpretation (Bloomington / Indianapolis: Indiana UP 1990); idem, with R. Rorty/ J. Culler/C. BrookeRose, Interpretation and Overinterpretation (ed. S. Collini; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1992). – W. Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1–3 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1933, 1935, 1939); ET: Theology of the Old Testament (London: SCM, vol. 1, 1960 [from sixth edition of the German, 1959], vol. 2, 1967 [vols. 2 and 3 in one volume, from fifth edition of the German]). – S. Fish, Is there a Text in this Class? The authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard UP 1980. – Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1982). – S. Greenblatt, Shakespearian Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1988). – W. Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1978). – H. R. Jauss, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1982). – G. Josipovici, The Book of God: A Response to the Bible (New Haven/London: Yale UP 1988. – M. Kegel, Los von Wellhausen! (Gütersloh 1923). – F. Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard UP 1979. – G. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1964). – H.-J. Kraus, Geschichte der historisch-kritischen

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Erforschung des Alten Testaments von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart (Neukirchen, Kr. Moers: Neukirchener Verlag 1956, 31982). – C. S. Lewis, The Literary Impact of The Authorised Version. The Ethel M. Wood Lecture delivered before the University of London on 20 March 1950 (London: The Athlone Press 1950). – G. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster 1984). – U. Luz, Matthew in History: Interpretation, Influence, and Effects (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1994). – P. S. Minear, The Bible and the Historian: Breaking the Silence about God in Biblical Studies (Nashville: Abingdon Press 2002). – R. W. L. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2000). – M. Noth, Überleferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1948). – M. Oeming, Gesamtbiblische Theologien der Gegenwart. Das Verhältnis von AT und NT in der hermeneutischen Diskussion seit Gerhard von Rad (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1985; sec. rev. edn. 1987). – L. Perlitt, Vatke und Wellhausen (BZAW 94; Berlin: de Gruyter 1965). – V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (sec. edn.; Austin, TX: University of Texas Press 1968; from Morfologija skazki, Leningrad 1928). – R. Rendtorff, “How to Read the Book of the Twelve as a Theological Unity”, SBL Seminar Papers (1997), 420–432; The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament (Leiden: Deo Publishing 2005). – P. Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation (ed. with an Introduction by Lewis S. Mudge; London: SPCK 1981); The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Press 1969, 349; transl. of La Symbolique du mal, Paris: Aubier 1960). – J. F. A. Sawyer, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996). – C. R. Seitz, Word without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1998). – Y. Sherwood, The Prostitute and the Prophet: Hosea’s Marriage in Literary-Theoretical Perspective (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996); A Biblical Text and its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2000); idem (ed.), Derrida’s Bible: Reading a Page of Scripture with a Little Help from Derrida (New York/Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2004). – L. Silberman, “Wellhausen and Judaism”, Semeia 25 (1983) 75–82. – R. Smend, “Nachkritische Schriftauslegung”, Parrhesia. Karl Barth zum 80. Geburtstag (ed. E. Busch/J. Fangmeier/M. Geiger; Zurich: EVZ-Verlag 1966), 215–237; also in Smend, Die Mitte des Alten Testaments (Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1986), 212–232; and in Smend, Bibel und Wissenschaft (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2004), 230–250. – W. R. Smith, “Wellhausen and his Position”, The Christian Church 2 (1882) 366–369. – K. Stendahl, “The Bible as a Classic and the Bible as Holy Scripture”, JBL 103 (1984) 3–10. – M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP 1985). – F. Watson, Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective (Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1994).

1. Early Opposition to Historical Criticism At the beginning of the twentieth century ‘higher criticism’ (Literarkritik) was in the ascendant in Old Testament studies. Through the work of Julius Wellhausen it had been established that the study of the Bible should be historical in character, and that this end was best achieved by the painstaking analysis of the sources in the Old Testament, arranging them in their correct chronological sequence. By this means a history of Israel could be written that corresponded to what had really happened, rather than being simply a retelling of the Old Testament’s own story; and the religion of Israel – its practice, and the theological ideas behind it – could be reconstructed. There had been opposition to Wellhausen’s methods and concerns, but as the new century dawned it increasingly appeared that this opposition came from conservatives who thought that ‘historical’ criticism, as it came to be known, was driven by hostility to the divine inspiration of Scripture. In England the historical-critical approach was retarded through the work of E. B. Pusey, the Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford from 1828–1882, who (though in his youth he

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had studied in Germany) came to think of German criticism as rationalistic and anti-religious. His successor, S. R. Driver, was responsible for establishing the higher criticism in English scholarship. In Germany the critical approach was strongly opposed by many. Here too some opponents were conservatives who (correctly) saw that a literal and traditional reading of the Old Testament was undermined by critical theories: such was E. W. Hengstenberg, who shared Pusey’s suspicion of rationalism. Wellhausen was subject to three other lines of attack. One, put forward by F. Delitzsch, argued that he was a Hegelian: that he saw the history of Israelite institutions as passing through a number of phases on its way to a goal, that being how human history in general developed. This allegation was repeated by W. F. Albright in the 1950s,1 and accepted by H. J. Kraus in his history of the historical-critical investigation of the Old Testament.2 It gained an impression of strength through Wellhausen’s own avowed indebtedness to Wilhelm Vatke, who certainly was a Hegelian: as M. Kegel put it in the 1920s, ‘Hegel begat Vatke, Vatke begat Wellhausen’.3 Gerhard von Rad also accepted this criticism of Wellhausen and had, as we shall see, his own theological objections to historical criticism, even though he also practised it. Already in 1835 Vatke had published his belief that P was the latest of the Pentateuchal sources, and Wellhausen of course was to make this the keystone of his own theory about the development of the religion of ancient Israel. Wellhausen claimed to have arrived at his own conclusions through the influence of Karl-Heinz Graf, but his acknowledgement of standing in the line of Vatke on this issue made it easy for critics to tar him with the Hegelian brush. Lothar Perlitt has shown convincingly that Wellhausen was in fact far from being a Hegelian,4 but the accusation undermined confidence in the Wellhausen scheme, since Hegelianism was no longer a live option by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, so that it was possible to argue that the very radical Wellhausen was in reality nothing more than a throwback to an outmoded philosophical stance. The second criticism of Wellhausen’s conclusions was that they were a kind of Darwinism applied to the Bible. In 1882 Delitzsch claimed that ‘Wellhausen’s speculations’ were “merely applications of Darwinism to the sphere of theology and criticism”.5 History was presented as an orderly development towards higher and higher forms of religion. This way of understanding Wellhausen has persisted in Anglo-American scholarship, where JEDP is often seen as a way of registering the people of Israel’s gradual ascent to a pure monotheism. This is a travesty of Wellhausen, for whom the development from JE to P via D was indeed marked by an advancing monotheism but also – and more crucially – by a descent from the spontaneity of the religion of ancient Israel into the empty formalism he believed to have characterized the post-exilic establishment represented by P. Nev-

1

Albright, From the Stone Age (1957), 88. Kraus, Geschichte (1956/1982), 257–259, 264. 3 Kegel, Los von Wellhausen! (1923), 10. 4 Perlitt, Vatke und Wellhausen (1965). 5 A comment made by Delitzsch to a Scottish visitor in Leipzig in 1882, reported in Smith, Wellhausen and his Position (1882), 366–369. 2

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ertheless the idea that Wellhausen’s criticism was evolutionary in its inner drive can still be heard on conservative lips today. Thirdly, Wellhausen came under the suspicion of being anti-semitic, not only because of the occasional anti-Jewish comment, but because the whole thrust of his work was seen as implying that Judaism as a religion did not really have an ancient pedigree (it certainly did not go back to Moses) but was invented in the post-exilic age. The higher-critical judgement that P was late, it was felt, was no innocent and harmless technical detail, but part of a sustained attempt to undermine the foundations of Judaism. Thus Wellhausen contributed to the anti-semitism that would overwhelm Germany and the whole of Europe in the twentieth century – a grave charge indeed (and one, it may be noted, that is incompatible with the charge of religious Darwinism, which would imply that later Judaism was an improvement on what went before, so that Wellhausen cannot be guilty on both counts at the same time). This accusation persists, and was argued by Lou Silberman on the occasion of the centenary of the Prolegomena, though as he points out, what Wellhausen had in his sights was probably more the institutionalization to be seen in the Christian church than anything in contemporary Judaism.6 It may underlie continuing opposition in some branches of Judaism to the higher criticism and all its works, and even the tendency of Jewish scholars to defend an early date for P, which is one of the very few areas of biblical scholarship today in which there is a characteristic difference between Jewish and Christian critics. On the whole, however, all these objections to Wellhausen and his legacy rest on misreadings of his work; and certainly those who followed him were seldom guilty on any of the three counts. Few twentieth-century critics were Hegelians, Darwinians, or anti-semites in their handling of the scriptural texts: most saw their role as much less far-reaching in its implications than had been the case with Wellhausen, who was aiming at a total explanation of “Judaism and ancient Israel in their opposition”. The historical-critical school soon moved into a concentration on the detail of the sources, and seldom lifted its eyes to the far horizon, as Wellhausen had done. Opposition during most of the twentieth century continued, but during the first two or three decades of the century it came principally from religious conservatives; and indeed there is still a conservative/fundamentalist opposition to higher criticism, though represented little in the world of academic biblical studies, where most scholars now accept the validity of the ‘higher’ criticism at least within its own limited sphere. The more characteristic complaint within theology and biblical study has been that this sphere is indeed very limited, and leaves out most of what is interesting and important about the Bible.

6

Silberman, Wellhausen and Judaism (1983).

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2. Biblical Archaeology Wellhausen’s stated aim was to reconstruct the history of Israel through his work on the biblical sources. In the middle of the twentieth century an influential movement in North America argued that this was indeed a laudable aim, but that the higher criticism was a wholly inadequate way of achieving it: what was needed was archaeology. We saw above that W. F. Albright, the creator of the American ‘biblical archaeology’ movement, suspected Wellhausen of Hegelianism. What lay behind this accusation was the sense that Wellhausen was fixated on theory in matters historical, on a general hypothesis about how human affairs develop, in detachment from attention to the actual data on the ground. If to Albright Wellhausen looked like a Hegelian, to the heirs of Wellhausen Albright and his collaborators and followers, John Bright and G. Ernest Wright, looked like positivists. They believed in ‘hard facts’, the artefacts and buildings that could be excavated from archaeological sites in Syria-Palestine. While German biblical scholars insisted, as Wellhausen had done, that one cannot reconstruct Israelite history without first untangling and dating the relevant literary sources, the biblical archaeologists tended to argue that if what could be found by digging supported the texts as they stood, then the need for higher criticism ceased to exist. This was never a fundamentalist attachment to the letter of the biblical text, for biblical archaeologists often argued that details needed adjusting in the light of their finds. But it was opposed procedurally to any insistence on getting the written record sorted out first. There were – and this can often be forgotten – many German archaeologists working in Syria-Palestine, including Martin Noth, who was one of the sharpest critics of the biblical archaeologists and engaged in controversy with John Bright in particular.7 But they saw archaeological and textual work as two separate disciplines, to be pursued each independently of the other and brought together only in a final synthesis. Certainly archaeology had no power to rewrite the conclusions of historical critics of the text. If, as Gunkel had argued, the stories of the patriarchs are legends, then no amount of archaeology can establish their veracity. And the question whether they are legends or not involves a literary judgement about genre, to which archaeology has nothing to contribute. Albright and his school were not in principle opposed to historical criticism of the Old Testament text, but they thought it carried us much less far than Wellhausen had believed. What was needed was a good dose of empirical evidence, and only archaeology was in a position to deliver that. Recent archaeology in Israel-Palestine has been less concerned than was the Albright School to argue that the Old Testament contains ‘fact’, and has certainly not followed it in proposing earlier datings for the literary sources than classical historical criticism had done. It has no opinion on the date of P, and where the pre-exilic sources J and E are concerned its tendency to argue that the society of early Israel was far too rudimentary for a large literary deposit has tended to make even Wellhausen’s datings of the text look too early. The general tendency nowadays is to regard the age 7

See Bright, Early Israel (1956).

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of Hezekiah as the earliest period from which it makes sense to look for written sources, with some thinking even that too early. This has not however affected the relative datings of J, E, D, and P. Archaeologists now tend not to follow Albright in thinking higher criticism superfluous, but see themselves as simply operating in a different sphere from textual scholars. Thus the strong opposition historical criticism evinced by Albright has softened since the demise of ‘biblical archaeology’ and its replacement by a more neutrally conceived ‘Syro-Palestinian archaeology’ which is far less interested in ‘vindicating’ the biblical text against its ‘critics’.

3. Karl Barth and the Canonical Approach The opposition of ‘biblical archaeologists’ to the higher criticism was not in the main religiously motivated. They were no fundamentalists: they simply thought that biblical critics were excessively sceptical, and that ancient texts such as we find in the Old Testament might very well prove, in the light of archaeology, to be more reliable than modern scholars believed. After all, the authors of these texts stood far nearer to the underlying events than we do! There was a kind of no-nonsense air about biblical archaeology, setting the solid evidence unearthed with trowels against the nitpicking niceties of much textual study in the higher-critical mode. And there is no doubt that some historical criticism of the Pentateuch did result in conclusions that look counter-intuitive: one thinks, for example, of Martin Noth’s contention that Moses had been added to each of the five main blocks of material that can be discerned in the Pentateuch and so was original in none of them, but a late arrival in the literature of Israel.8 All we can say about Moses is that he was the subject of a grave-tradition, which reports that the site of his grave was unknown. The kind of traditio-historical criticism that lay behind such a conclusion struck the biblical archaeologists as slightly absurd. This was not a religious so much as a commonsense reaction, felt to come from an Anglo-Saxon pragmatism opposed to continental European theorizing. But another strain of opposition to historical criticism was by contrast highly theological. Many currents feed into it, but there can be little doubt that the main influence was Karl Barth. Barth was sceptical about historical criticism of the Bible. He saw it as an attempt to go behind the text to some more important reality (what actually happened), and he believed that this was an evasion of the claim on the believer of the text as it stands: The idea we have to set our face against is one which has become very much at home in theology in connection with modern historicism. It is the idea that our concern in reading, understanding, and expounding the Bible can and indeed should be to pass over the biblical texts and attain to some facts lying behind the texts. Then, it is believed, we should recognize revelation as lying in these facts – whose factuality is now firmly established independently of the texts themselves!9 8

Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (1948). Die Vorstellung, gegen die wir uns abzugrenzen haben, ist die im Zusammenhang mit dem modernen Historismus in der Theologie weithin heimisch gewordene, als könne und müsse es beim Lesen, 9

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The mistake, Barth argues, lies in “reading the biblical canon differently from how it wishes to be read and, indeed – this is a point of convergence – can be read”.10 What biblical interpreters should have done is as follows: Theology, at least, and particularly a historical theology, one specially addressed to the biblical texts, should (let us be open about this) have had the tact and the taste to acknowledge how inextricable is the link between form and content in biblical texts, which cannot fail to be clear to it. Then it should have shrunk from the temptation to pose the inquisitive question about what may stand behind the text, and have turned with that much more attention, exactitude, and love to the texts as such.11

Barth foresaw, or at least hoped to see, a day when biblical scholars would turn from fragments to the interpretation of the whole once more: If only … the exegesis of the canonical Scriptures as such – a connected exposition of Genesis, of the book of Isaiah, of the Gospel of Matthew, and so on, in the form and extent in which they now exist – could be recognized and freshly engaged with as in the end the only possible goal of biblical studies.12

Perhaps the earliest Old Testament critic to try to work out the consequences of this, and to move beyond the historical criticism that he none the less practised, was Barth’s fellow Swiss scholar, Walter Eichrodt. In his great Theology of the Old Testament he argued that the time had come to move on beyond historical criticism and to synthesize the theological vision of the Old Testament as it stood. The historical treatment of ancient Israelite thought and practice, he wrote, reaches its high-water mark with Wellhausen and his school, and for decades diverted work on OT theology into historical channels … Of what avail was it that a Beck or a Hofmann should attempt, about the middle of the last [i.e. the nineteenth] century, to develop a system of biblical doctrine? By making use of the OT for this purpose they were indeed standing up for its vital importance for the Christian faith, but they made no headway against the rising stream of historical investigation.13

Verstehen und Auslegen der Bibel darum gehen, über die biblischen Texte hinaus zu den irgendwo hinter den Texten stehenden Tatsachen vorzustoßen, um dann in diesen (in ihrer Tatsächlichkeit nun auch abhängig von den Texten feststehenden!) Tatsachen als solchen die Offenbarung zu erkennen, Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, I: Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes, 2, = Church Dogmatics I/2 (1956). 10 den biblischen Kanon anders zu lesen, als er selber gelesen sein will und als er – denn das fällt hier zusammen – gelesen werden kann; ibid. 546. 11 Mindestens die Theologie, und zwar auch und gerade die historische, die speziell den biblischen Texten zugewandte Theologie hätte – sagen wir einmal: den Takt und Geschmack haben müssen, angesichts der Verklammerung von Form und Inhalt der biblischen Texte, um die sie doch wissen mußte, vor jener Versuchung zurückzuweichen, die neugierige Frage nach dem, was hinter dem Text stehen möchte, zu unterlassen und sich dafür mit so mehr Aufmerksamkeit, Genauigkeit und Liebe den Texten als solchen zuzuwenden; ibid. 547. 12 ob … die Exegese der kanonischen Schrift als solcher, also die zusammenhängende Auslegung des Genesis, des Jesaja-Buches, des Matthausevangeliums usw. in ihren nun einmal vorliegenden Bestand und Umfang als das schließlich allein mögliche Ziel der biblischen Wissenschaft wieder anerkannt und neu in Angriff genommen werden wird; ibid. 13 Eichrodt, Theology, I (1960), 79.

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Eichrodt goes on to argue that, though a historical approach is needed and cannot be ignored, it overlooked the need for a more systematizing and consciously theological approach: the method had a particularly fatal influence both on OT theology and on the understanding of the OT in every other aspect, because it fostered the idea that once the historical problems were clarified everything had been done. The essential inner coherence of the Old and New Testaments was reduced, so to speak, to a thin thread of historical connection and causal sequence between the two … There was no longer any unity to be found in the OT, only a collection of detached periods which were simply the reflections of as many different religions.14

Wellhausen would have said, it may be guessed, that this is precisely what the Old Testament is, and that the attempt to systematize it theologically was therefore doomed to failure. But Eichrodt sees this as part of Wellhausen’s excessive attachment to the historical at the expense of the theological. It is high time that the tyranny of historicism in OT studies was broken and the proper approach to our task re-discovered. This is no new problem, certainly, but it is one that needs to be solved anew in every epoch of knowledge – the problem of how to understand the realm of OT belief in its structural unity and how, by examining on the one hand its religious environment and on the other its essential coherence with the NT, to illuminate its profoundest meaning.15

For Eichrodt the answer to this problem was to be found in the covenant-concept. But for our present purposes what matters is not so much the solution as the posing of the problem, which at once relativizes historical criticism, dethroning it from its dominant position in Old Testament study. Similar sentiments can be found in Gerhard von Rad, also much influenced by Barth despite standing in a Lutheran rather than a Reformed tradition. Like Eichrodt, von Rad was a fully convinced biblical critic, who assumed the results of previous criticism (sources of the Pentateuch, and so on) in his own work. But he tried to move biblical study on into areas he thought more productive, that is, theological areas. How far-reaching his criticism of biblical criticism was is well summed up by Manfred Oeming, who draws close parallels with von Rad’s Heidelberg contemporary Hans-Georg Gadamer. Oeming draws out seven points on which von Rad, like Gadamer, criticised ‘historical criticism’, and of which the first six are:16 1. The historical-critical method is significant and necessary, but no more than preliminary to a full understanding of texts: “An approach to the texts through method should, it may be conceded, not be abolished or bypassed; but a grasp of the full truth of the tradition transcends any merely methodical approach”.17 14

Ibid. 30–31. Ibid. 31. Oeming, Gesamtbiblische Theologien der Gegenwart (1985), 42–44. A seventh point of contact with Gadamer – a shared Humboldtian philosophy of language, according to which language determines thought – is important but not relevant in the present context. 17 Der methodische Zugang zu den Texten soll zwar nicht abgeschafft oder übersprungen werden, aber eine Erfassung der vollen Wahrheit der Tradition transzendiert bloß methodischen Zugriff; ibid. 42. 15 16

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2. The interpreter’s assumptions (which for von Rad means his or her Christian beliefs) are a perfectly proper, indeed necessary part of the interpretation of the text. 3. The meaning of a text is linked strongly to how it has been read in the past (its Wirkungsgeschichte).18 4. Interpretation, “im Nacherzählen”, needs to focus on the tradition within which the text stands, not treating it as an isolated entity. 5. The process of the transmission of texts across time acts as a filter, allowing the best elements to persist: thus the final form of a text has a special status as against earlier stages in its growth. 6. Historical reconstruction on the basis of the text is always somewhat dubious: “Establishing historically what happened misses the point of the claim of truth which tradition poses to the reader’s present”.19 This reminds one of Barth’s opinion, cited above, that we should not always be striving to get behind the text, but should read it as it is. The ‘reconstructive’ side of historical criticism may produce historically interesting results, but it does not contribute to theological Ergiebigkeit. None of this prevented von Rad from being himself a biblical critic, who often delved beneath the text’s surface and who was quite prepared to talk of sources and of historical development underlying the text. But it does indicate a certain distancing from biblical criticism, at least as he understood it. The first readers of his great Genesis commentary felt that here was a breath of fresh air, in which the older arguments about the exact delineation of sources gave way to a theological evaluation of the finished text. The English-speaking world also had a period of ‘criticism of criticism’ in the 1940s and 1950s, in the tendencies now usually referred to as the ‘Biblical Theology Movement’: representative figures are George Ernest Wright in the USA and Alan Richardson in Britain, and a major monument was the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel. Biblical theologians (in this technical sense – many other people have been and still are interested in the theology of the Bible – argued that the time for analysis had passed, and the time had come for synthesis. They looked for concepts that united the biblical message, and tended to find an underlying biblical style of thinking which, they argued, could be found in both Testaments. Often this was referred to as ‘Hebrew thought’, and it was believed that the New Testament, despite being written in Greek, had a Hebrew way of thinking. A popular series of books called The Bible Concept of … sums up this way of thinking. Historical criticism became more or less redundant, replaced by what would nowadays be called a synchronic style of reading in which all the texts are treated as contemporary with each other, because they share in a common thought-world.

18

‘Wirkungsgeschichte’ will concern us later. Die historische Konstatierung dessen, was gewesen ist, verfehlt den Wahrheitsanspruch, den die Tradition an die jeweilige Gegenwart stellt; ibid. 19

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The Biblical Theology Movement largely collapsed in the 1960s after a body blow from James Barr in his The Semantics of Biblical Criticism,20 which showed that the whole idea of a ‘Hebrew world-view’ rested on very outdated linguistics or, in many cases, no knowledge of linguistics at all. The interest in theological themes in the Bible, by no means dependent on shaky linguistics, lived on in a rather chastened form, but the vast systematizing attempts came to an end. One of the people who accepted but also mourned the demise of the Movement was Brevard S. Childs, then teaching at Yale Divinity School, who noted that there was a risk of a return to pure historical criticism with no attempt at theological synthesis, and who tried to establish a new basis for a theological approach to Scripture. The Biblical Theology Movement, for all its faults, had at least tried to respond to Barth’s call for a theologically sensitive reading of the Bible, and Childs believed this call was still relevant and urgent. He set about constructing a new way of doing biblical theology.21 Childs’s project is known as the canonical approach – sometimes, by others but never by himself, as canonical criticism. Despite this title it is not exactly about the canon in the narrower, technical sense of the official list of books but rather, as in the title of his first book on the subject, about the Old Testament ‘as Scripture’. In a Barthian vein, the aim is to read the Old Testament not simply as a collection of ancient religious texts but as the Church’s (and the Synagogue’s) Holy Scriptures. These books are, within the community of faith, authoritative. They are also to be understood as coherent, rather than at odds with each other; and they speak to us in their final form, not through hypothetical earlier strata or sources reconstructed by critics. Childs fully accepted the procedures of historical criticism for the purposes for which they were intended (discovering the history and thought-world lying behind the text); but he argued that for faith the texts must speak to us as they stand. Otherwise, just as Barth argued, we are reading these books against the grain, not as they themselves wish to be read. To ignore the canonical claim of the biblical texts is to deprive oneself deliberately of the only context within which they can possibly make sense. The subsequent career of Childs’s schema has been complex. There are not so very many disciples, in the sense of scholars who have adopted the approach wholesale, though there are those who think it one of the most productive ideas of modern times: in Britain one may name Walter Moberly22 and Francis Watson,23 in Canada Christopher Seitz,24 and in Germany Rolf Rendtorff25 (but few others). But at a more diffuse level it has been enormously influential in placing a fresh question on the agenda of biblical studies. In late twentieth- and early twenty-first century Old Testament scholarship it has become common to ask not only about the original sense of texts or of their component parts but also about their meaning at a canonical level. Childs is not the only modern scholar to have

20 21 22 23 24 25

Barr, Semantics (1961). See Childs, Introduction (1979); Old Testament Theology (1985); and Biblical Theology (1992). Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith (2000). Watson, Text, Church and World (1994). Seitz, Word without End (1998). Rendtorff, Canonical Hebrew Bible (2005).

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favoured ‘final form’ exegesis – as we shall see, there are also literary movements that have the same interest. But he has given a theological rationale for attending to the texts just as they are, and asking not about underlying sources but about the final product. One has only to look at studies of Isaiah to see how the ground has shifted: it is now quite common to ask about the meaning of the book of Isaiah, rather than the meaning of First, Second, and Third Isaiah, and to treat the book – without in the least denying its complex history of composition – as a finished whole. Childs’s location at Yale is perhaps not an accident in all this, since he worked there alongside Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, both of them interested in what may be called a ‘post-critical’ and ‘post-liberal’ attention to Christian sources (biblical and doctrinal). By analogy with Lindbeck’s theories about doctrine,26 one may say that for Childs the Bible forms part of the ‘grammar’ of the Christian faith. Though one can go behind it, that is not the proper procedure in a theological context. Rather it should form the parameters within which Christian theological discourse takes place. The Bible, like the Creed, is a given. Whether or not to accord it authority is a meaningless question within Christian faith, since its authority is analytically part of what it means to believe. I do not say that Childs borrowed his ideas from Lindbeck, but rather that both belong within a common approach to Christian faith. The sense that ‘liberal’ criticism has taken the Church’s foundation documents away from the Church and handed them over to the academy is strong in both. This probably explains the considerable appeal that the canonical approach has had for rather conservative Christians, who feel that it is giving the Bible back to its proper owners; hence the title of a recent book on this subject, Reclaiming the Bible for the Church.27 Even apart from the specific programme of the canonical approach there are many biblical scholars, especially in the English-speaking world, who have called for a revival of a ‘theological’ interpretation of the Bible, perceiving traditional historical criticism as too secular and as insufficiently attentive to the religious claims of the biblical texts. Usually this takes the form of asking critics to move on from historical criticism, rather than to abandon it, but it does entail the belief that the historical-critical method is not enough, even if it is valid ‘as far as it goes’. Biblical criticism may have been needed in the past to challenge interpretations that had hardened under the dead hand of ecclesiastical authority. But to insist on it as the one valid approach now that the threat comes instead from the excessive secularism of the modern world is misguided. Indeed, historical criticism has by now itself hardened into a form of domination from which we need emancipating once again – a point we shall take up further in the next section. This is argued very neatly by Jürgen Ebach: The historical-critical method of exegesis originally came in to destroy illegitimate relationships of dominance whose claim to legitimacy rested on an ahistorical (or suprahistorical) and uncritical interpretation of texts – biblical texts above all. Historical-critical exegesis pursued the reconstruction of the originally intended sense of a (biblical) text, and this sprang from a critical interest in

26 27

Linbeck, Nature of Doctrine (1984). Braaten/Jenson, Reclaiming the Bible (1994).

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examining a meaning that was currently alleged to have been intended all along … The historical-critical method owes its rise and its triumph to the Enlightenment, and to the Enlightenment’s interest in criticising ideology and furthering emancipation. But thereby it participates in the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ – the conversion of emancipation into a fresh ideology, of freedom into domination, of illumination into obfuscation. A method that when left unexamined proved to be more pernickety than critical came to be concerned with its own self-affirmation. The historical-critical method arose in order to criticise rigorously the plausibility-system of ecclesiastical domination that existed in the Middle Ages and lasted well into modern times, but it became itself the theological sport of a dominant academic system, contributing to that system’s cleansing of itself from subjective forms of appropriation and modes of living. The historical-critical method arose in order to deploy historical reconstruction against the tendency of ecclesiastical hermeneutics to use biblical texts to construct stable systems, but it proved able to turn into an instrument for removing the basis of a critical-constructive appropriation of biblical texts through the very means of historical reconstruction.28

In short, historical criticism is no longer critical but simply a new form of authority – a passport into the guild of biblical studies rather than a tool for questioning authority, as it originally was. Many scholars today share Childs’s belief that it is time to move on. Or perhaps to move back. One of the salient features of the canonical approach has been its revalorizing of ‘pre-critical’ exegesis, the types of interpretation found in the Fathers, the Reformers, the Rabbis. Childs already signalled his interest in this, before he announced his canonical approach, in his large commentary on Exodus,29 where he pays close attention to the exegesis of all three groups in a 28 Die historisch-kritische Methode der Exegese trat einst an, illegitime Herrschaftsverhältnisse zu destruieren, deren Geltungsanspruch auf einer un- bzw. übergeschichtlichen und unkritischen Interpretation von – vor allem biblischen – Texten basierte. Historisch-kritische Exegese verfolgte die Rekonstruktion des einst gemeinten Sinnes eines (biblischen) Textes aus dem kritischen Interesse an der Überprüfung eines gegenwärtig für immer schon gemeinte ausgegebenen Sinnes
Die historisch-kritische Methode verdankt ihre Entstehung und ihren Siegeszug der Aufklärung und ihrem ideologiekritischen, emanzipatorischen Interesse. Doch hat sie damit teil an der ‘Dialektik der Aufklärung’, dem Umschlag von Emanzipation in Ideologie, von Befreiung in Herrschaft, von Erhellung in Verdunkelung. Selbst affirmativ wurde eine Methode, die sich unhinterfragt weiter verdrossen als kritisch bezeichnet. Angetreten, das mittelalterliche und weit in die Neuzeit reichende Plausibilitätssystem kirchlicher Herrschaft wissenschaftlich zu kritisieren, ist die historisch-kritische Methode selbst zur theologischen Spielart eines herrschenden Wissenschaftssystem geworden, an dessen Selbstreinigung von subjektiven Aneignungsformen, von Lebenspraxis sie Anteil hat. Angetreten, historische Rekonstruktion gegen systemstabilisierende kirchliche Hermeneutik biblischer Texte zu wenden, konnte historisch-kritische Exegese selbst zu einem Instrument werden, mit dem vermittels historischer Rekonstruktion kritisch-konstruktiven Aneignungswesen biblischer Texte der Boden entzogen werden soll; Ebach, Ursprung und Ziel: Erinnerte Zukunft (1986), 49–50. Cf. the comments of Minear, The Bible and the Historian (2002), 35: he argues that the publication of Ernesti’s Institutio Interpretis ‘was a new weapon in ‘the battle with stark orthodoxy’, a battle that had to be won before other advances could be made. This weapon effectively liberated scholars, widened the areas open to research, and produced vast alterations in the reconception of biblical history. Today, however, that rebellion has become a new ‘establishment’, with its own restrictive axioms. A ‘union card’ is now virtually limited to scholars who have been professionally trained to apply objective methods and to restrict their conclusions to data which can be verified by those methods”. Barth made a similar point: the historical-critical approach to the Bible is now a given for all scholars, he argued, and there is no need to keep on pushing at an open door; it is time to move on – see the comments in Smend, Nachkritische Schriftauslegung (1966), 232–233. This was in Barth, Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie (1925), 76. My own perception is that, eighty years later, the door is still not open for all who study the Bible, and biblical criticism is now by no means accepted so unproblematically as Barth was able to assume then. 29 Childs, Exodus (1974).

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way that was then novel but is becoming much more common in the twenty-first century (see below on Wirkungsgeschichte). In the heyday of historical criticism it was usual to discount ‘pre-critical’ readings of the text, or at best to set them out in order to show how we could now see them to have been mistaken. Under the influence of Childs, many biblical scholars have come to think that we can still learn from such exegesis, which may not reveal the ‘original’ sense of the text but does in many cases show much more clearly than a critical reading what it has to offer the community of faith.

4. Advocacy Readings One defence of historical criticism against its detractors has been its claim to objectivity. Whereas traditional Bible reading tends to read its own concerns into the text (what is sometimes called eisegesis), critical method ensures that the objective meaning of the text is able to emerge. Wellhausen even spoke of ‘presuppositionless’ exegesis. In the modern world there has been a certain loss of hermeneutical innocence, and few believe any longer that objectivity is attainable in the humanities (or even, some think, in the natural sciences). All interpreters bring presuppositions to the text, and the danger of striving for objectivity is that one will be blind to one’s own presuppositions rather than aware of them and so at least able to some degree to allow for them. In embracing our own subjectivity in interpretation, we can also become aware of the subjectivity of other interpreters, and so be able to see through their often specious claims to be delivering the one true meaning of the text. This line of thought has been a further important factor in leading many to question historical criticism. One sees it especially in what are sometimes lumped together as ‘advocacy’ readings of the Bible, a term which embraces primarily liberationist and feminist hermeneutics. Both begin by asking not what the text mean, but in whose interests it has been read. Liberation theologians argued that, under a claim of objectivity, the Bible was in practice read in the interests of white ruling classes, and consequently its potential to deliver a subversive and anti-colonial message was systematically blunted. Just as the poor and downtrodden needed liberation, so did the Bible itself need to be set free from its colonization by those in power and returned to the people – non-white, non-powerful, non-imperialist people. Feminists added: non-male. Advocacy readings pointed out how much biblical study had become the professional occupation of a dominant group of men with a stranglehold on the universities and other theological institutes in the affluent West and North, and how much it needed to be restored to ordinary people, including women, with no hold on the levers of power, precisely to empower them. Criticism of the historical-critical approach by advocacy readers takes a variety of forms, which one can see most clearly by looking at feminist interpretation. One possibility is to argue that the Bible is irredeemably sexist and that historical critics have either failed to be aware of this (primarily through simply not being sensitive to the issue) or have connived with it, as men will. This position often

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leads feminist scholars to abandon the study of the Bible or to treat it as a highly alien document.30 Another possibility is to hold that the Bible is indeed sexist and androcentric, but quite mildly so when read against its historical background: women in the Bible are not treated as equal with men, but there are not so unequal as their counterparts in other ancient cultures. A third option is to say that, whatever may have been the case historically, a modern reader has a duty to read the text in such a way as to accentuate any potential for the empowerment of women it may offer: hence many feminists have written works concentrating on biblical women and the more positive aspects of how they are treated in the text, or have deliberately read the Bible ‘against the grain’, producing what are sometimes called ‘resistant readings’.31 There is perhaps a certain tension in advocacy readings on the question of objectivity. Certainly there is often a rhetoric which opposes the ideal of objectivity, seeing it as a smokescreen erected by the mainstream (or what Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza calls the ‘malestream’) of biblical scholars to conceal the fact that their interpretations in fact work to their own advantage. To say that my reading is objective while yours is just subjective is the ultimate put-down, capturing the high ground and making disagreement illicit. On the other hand, feminist and liberationist readings often claim to point to features that really are in the text but which male/imperialist readers have (deliberately) overlooked. For a liberationist, the biblical emphasis on God’s ‘preferential option’ for the poor is far from being something imported into the text through a ‘subjective’ reading: it is the natural drift of the Old Testament taken as a whole, and in failing to see it non-liberationist scholars have been blind to the text’s true nature, not simply politically culpable themselves. For at least the first two types of feminist reading outlined above, attention is being paid to what is supposed to be really present in the text: its alleged ingrained sexism is not supposed to be merely in the eye of the beholder, but to be a real fact about the text and the culture that produced it. This may make us wonder whether attacks on the very notion of objectivity may not be a hostage to fortune. Advocacy readings claim to be supported by the text of the Bible, not simply to be one among other equally valid ways of reading it. This may mean that they would be wiser to support historical criticism, but to claim that it has been misused, rather than to attack it head-on. It remains the case that advocacy readers generally do express hostility to historical criticism. This is sometimes not on the basis of its claimed objectivity (a claim regarded as made in bad faith), but because of its distancing effect. Historical criticism is regarded as a way of making the biblical text irrelevant to modern concerns, especially socio-economic ones. Historical criticism, it is felt, locates the biblical texts firmly in the past and removes them from having anything to say to us today. This is perhaps another thing that is sometimes meant by ‘objectivity’ – the sense that the text is not engaged with us, but exists in a sphere far removed from our concerns, which is where critics have located it. The result is an alienation from the Bible, a loss of the belief of ‘pre-critical’ interpreters that

30 31

Daly, Beyond God the Father (1973). Sherwood, Prostitute and Prophet (1996).

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it has something immediate to say to us, not just to its original readers or hearers. The point is put eloquently by Christopher Rowland: I believe that so damaging has been a one-sided preoccupation with original meaning, as given us by historical-critical ‘experts’, that a real question arises about the proper place of historical criticism. In many circles in modern times it has been at least implicitly assumed that interpreting the Bible was about recovering its original meaning, hence the misleading idea arose that those with skills in recovering the original meaning have the key to biblical interpretation as a whole. It is vital to distinguish between the study of the Bible in the ‘Academy’ and the interpretation of scripture within the faith community. The two are related but they are not the same. Historical criticism has had some seriously undermining effects on the functioning of the Bible as scripture. Through being placed within its original setting, the Bible for many loses its immediate religious impact, and is in danger of becoming just another ancient text … The focus on analysis and on the parts at the expense of the whole erodes a sense of the coherence of scripture. Within ministerial training biblical studies can become a process of alienation rather than integration, threatening to rob ordinands of the very scripture which nurtured their faith and their sense of vocation. In these and similar ways, the functioning of scripture can be undermined and stultified.32

Thus historical criticism is felt to be about the Bible ‘back then’ rather than as a living text in the present. There can be little doubt that it is sometimes practised in a way that lends itself to such an interpretation, and advocacy readings are one way in which modern biblical scholars and others have tried to redress the balance, moving away from seeing the biblical texts in a purely historical setting and arguing for their relevance today. They have also evinced respect for the Bible reading of ordinary people who are not ‘experts’ in the technical (and sometimes arcane) discipline of biblical studies, but who wish to see the application of biblical texts to their own circumstances. The world of the Bible study and the world of biblical studies have often drifted apart, and these approaches try to reconnect them.

5. Literary Study of the Bible While advocacy readers believe that the study of the Bible has become too secular, too divorced from the living world in which believers try to live out their faith, there are others who believe it is too much part of theology, and reads the Bible in a way unlike that found in other branches of literature. Benjamin Jowett spoke of reading the Bible ‘like any other book’, but neither he nor most of his successors in the world of biblical studies have in fact done so: they have operated with a special biblical hermeneutic that ignores what the Bible has in common with other great works of world literature. Such, at least, is the belief of some modern literary critics. The last few decades of the twentieth century saw a sustained growth in the development of ‘the Bible as literature’. This idea was dismissed by the influential C. S. Lewis as ignoring the sacred character of the Bible: 32

Chr. Rowland, “Criteria in Using the Bible?”, in a study pack for a course on The Bible: Its Use and Influence in the Oxford Theology Faculty.

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There is a certain sense in which ‘the Bible as literature’ does not exist. It is a collection of books so widely different in period, kind, language, and aesthetic value, that no common criticism can be passed on them. In uniting these heterogeneous texts the Church was not guided by literary principles, and the literary critic might regard their inclusion between the same boards as a theological and historical accident irrelevant to his own branch of study … Unless the religious claims of the Bible are again acknowledged, its literary claims will, I think, be given only ‘mouth honour’ and that decreasingly. For it is, through and through, a sacred book. Most of its component parts were written, and all of them were brought together, for a purely religious purpose … in most parts of the Bible everything is implicitly or explicitly introduced with ‘Thus saith the Lord’. It is, if you like to put it that way, not merely a sacred book but a book so remorselessly and continuously sacred that it does not invite, it excludes or repels, the merely aesthetic approach. You can read it as literature only by a tour de force. You are cutting the wood against the grain, using the tool for a purpose it was not intended to serve. It demands incessantly to be taken on its own terms: it will not continue to give literary delight very long except to those who go to it for something quite different. I predict that it will in the future be read, as it always has been read, almost exclusively by Christians.33

– but it has gained in attraction none the less, and among readers who are in fact religious believers as well as among some who are not. Writers who may be mentioned are Robert Alter34 (perhaps the leading light in this field), Frank Kermode,35 Gabriel Josipovici36, and – in a more distinctive mode – Meir Sternberg.37 An interesting feature of this movement is that it overlaps in significant ways with the canonical approach, while resting on an entirely different, indeed diametrically opposed, foundation. Where the canonical approach is avowedly theological, with a Barthian pedigree, the ‘Bible as literature’ movement is unabashedly secular. Its antecedents lie in the Anglo-American ‘New Criticism’ of the early twentieth century, whose main proponents were W. K. Wimsatt, Jr., M. C. Beardsley, Cleanth Brooks, R. Wellek, A. Warren, and Allen Tate, and which was aligned in many ways also with T. S. Eliot. In the form of ‘practical criticism’ pioneered by I. A. Richards it was influential even in school curricula, encouraging a purely aesthetic reading of poetic texts just as they stood, without attention to the historical circumstances of the poet: any such interest was thought to be an example of the ‘intentional fallacy’, according to which poetry was a form of autobiography. Against this the New Critics encouraged ‘close reading’, in which a poem is seen as an artefact that can be dissected rather than as the expression of emotions that can be reconstructed. This has an obvious resemblance to the ‘canonical’ interest in the ‘final form’ of texts detached from the circumstances of their composition, even though the motivation in the two cases is entirely different. Modern literary reading of the Bible has inherited this lack of concern for the genesis of the texts. It aims to study the texts just as they are, and to detect patterns and intertextualities within them irrespective of their historical origin. A major monument to this kind of reading is the Literary Guide to the Bible, edited 33 34 35 36 37

C. S. Lewis, Literary Impact (1950). Alter, Art of Biblical Narrative (1981). Kermode, Genesis of Secrecy (1979). Josipovici, Book of God (1988). Sternberg, Poetics (1985).

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by Alter and Kermode.38 Though the various commentaries on the biblical books here are by different authors who do not necessarily see eye-to-eye on every point, the general tone is markedly anti-historical. The biblical books are on the whole read synchronically. The book of the twelve Minor Prophets, for example, is treated as a single book, not as a collection, with themes detected running throughout. Rolf Rendtorff, one of the few German biblical critics to have shown an interest in this movement, likewise reads the book of the Twelve as a unity, arguing for example that the ‘day of the LORD’ in Amos is to be interpreted in the light of its treatment in Joel, which ‘precedes’ Amos in canonical order even though the prophet after whom it is named probably lived several centuries later than Amos himself.39 The book of Isaiah is similarly treated as a finished whole, not as the amalgamation of diverse traditions and earlier collections of prophetic oracles. (This again is very similar in style to what we observed in the case of the canonical approach.) Alter pioneered the study of ‘type-scenes’ in the biblical narrative books: such narratives as the story of the meeting with a woman at a well, which are told of several biblical heroes (Abraham’s servant, Jacob, Moses: see Gen 24:10–27; 29:1– 12; Exod 2:15–22). These are literary devices that tell us nothing about history, and they can be observed without any regard to the alleged sources to which the stories belong. A type scene in a late book can be compared with one in an early book, without our needing to bother about the respective dates: this is a literary reading, not a historical one. In so far as historical criticism would rule out reading in this way, it shows itself bankrupt, since it inhibits an aesthetic reading of the text. Not only can a literary reading find patterns and parallels across many texts, it can even attempt to read the Bible as a whole. Examples of this are Josipovici’s The Book of God and Northrop Frye’s The Great Code,40 both completely synchronic in flavour and treating the Bible as a single book. One of the first things that students are taught in traditional courses on biblical criticism tends to be that the Bible ‘is not a book, but a library of books’. In literary interpretations this dictum is reversed, and the Bible is once again treated as one book, all its parts interrelated, with common themes and styles and a unified ‘message’. Such an approach renders historical criticism otiose.

6. Postmodernism Opposition to historical criticism among the newer literary critics such as Alter tends to be quiet and understated: they see no real role for the traditional kind of ‘higher criticism’, but they do not spend much time polemicizing against it. There are, however, other voices in the literary world for whom the irrelevance of historical criticism is more important. Here we are thinking of the various descendants of structuralism and formalism, who belong not to the Anglo-American but 38 39 40

Alter and Kermode, Literary Guide (1985). Rendtorff, How to Read (1997). Frye, Great Code (1982).

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to the continental European and especially to the French intellectual tradition. For those in this tradition, the authorship or date of a piece of writing is a matter of utter indifference, since texts have a life of their own quite independent of the circumstances of their production. The Russian version of formalism, influential during the first half of the twentieth century in the world of secular criticism but arriving in biblical studies in the 1960s and 1970s, in fact began by studying ‘authorless’ texts – such things as folktales and other traditional literature. Very influential here was Vladimir Propp. His work on the morphology of the folktale was mediated in the West through the structuralist school in France, which began when the anthropological insights of Claude Lévi-Strauss were applied to literature – Lévi-Strauss in turn had been influenced by the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure. One of the concerns of formalism was ‘narratology’. Narratology, as the art or science of understanding how written narratives work, is by general consent a product of the structuralism of the 1970s, associated with such names as Algirdas Greimas, Gérard Genette, and Roland Barthes; but its ultimate inspiration was certainly Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale (published in 1928 but not translated into English until 1958).41 Propp’s work was a study of oral forms, traditional stories transmitted by word of mouth, and argued that each character in a folktale belongs to one of a restricted number of classes, such as the originator of a quest, the hero, the helper, and so on, and that one can work out a set of algorithms which determine how these characters can be combined into a finite set of basic plots, which can then be set out using symbols – from an Anglo-Saxon perspective, a very ‘unliterary’ thing to do. Narratology began when it occurred to critics, mostly in France, that such an analysis could also be applied to written narratives. It was all part of the attempt by structuralists to move away from a more humanistic analysis of literature as the expression of profound thoughts and towards a quasi-scientific approach in which, in a sense, literature writes itself, given certain conditions. As can be seen, this has some affinities with the New Critical belief in texts as independently-existing entities divorced from their authors, but in its actual interpretation of such texts it moved into territory that seems strange to Anglo-Saxon readers, where everything is formal and diagrammatic and there is no place for the kind of empathy that is involved in ‘close reading’. Structuralism did not last long, and by the late 1980s was being replaced by post-structuralism and by the diffuse movement that is normally called postmodernism. Postmodernism is hard to sum up in definitions. It is characterized by relativism, scepticism, and irony. Where texts are concerned, a postmodernist reading represents a desire to debunk and ‘deconstruct’, refusing ever to take what a text says at face value but believing that beneath the surface some interest is being served which contradicts what appears on the surface. In the realm of history postmodernists do not believe in what they call ‘master narratives’, overarching schemes of interpretation that claim universal validity: on the contrary, they say, what can pass for truth is always piecemeal and particular, and relative to the stance of the interpreter. Objectivity is a complete chimaera: nothing can

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Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (1928).

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ever be known for certain, and where texts are concerned there is no one meaning, only a diversity of ‘readings’. My reading and yours can be compared to see which if either is more valuable, but there can be no question of one or other being more ‘true’. Some postmodernists follow the earlier writings of Jacques Derrida,42 who can perhaps be called the founder of the movement, in stressing the playful aspects of reading texts from this perspective. Derrida himself was heavily indebted to Jewish midrash, which likewise often plays with texts rather than looking in them for objective truth. Others see reading as a much more earnest pursuit, and that is typical, for example, of the collective that produced The Postmodern Bible – a collective, obviously, to subvert the idea of individual ‘authorship’.43 For them it is historical criticism that is rather flippant in its attitudes, since it believes in certain simple ideas such as the importance of the individual author, the centrality of historical setting, and language as the straightforward communication of thoughts, all of which postmodernism calls in question (‘problematizes’ is the preferred term). Overall postmodernists regard historical critics as naïve. It should be stressed that there is seldom any attempt to convince others of the ‘truth’ of postmodernist attitudes, for that would imply common ground, the rationality of a shared discourse, and an ability to change one’s mindset, and all those things are regarded in postmodernism as non-viable. Indeed, strictly speaking postmodernism is not a movement that can be compared or contrasted with others; it is, rather, the assertion that we live in a postmodern world, whether we know or like it or not. The quest for objective truth, which belongs to modernity – the supposedly rational world-view that has prevailed in the West since the Enlightenment – has simply disappeared, and there is no way of charming it back into life. That’s simply the way things are. Not very many biblical scholars are fully-fledged postmodernists, but the movement has had a big influence in undermining traditional historical criticism. Positively, it has pointed to many aspects of texts that historical criticism has overlooked. One important characteristic is its sensitivity to subtexts, to the games that are being played with the reader, and also to the games that readers themselves play to get texts to mean what they want them to mean. Consequently some postmodernist works have taken the form of ‘metacommentary’, a term pioneered by David Clines, who provides an example in the form of a commentary on commentaries on Amos, showing how commentators have simply assumed that Amos is right in whatever he asserts and have failed – for all their claims to be ‘critical’! – to criticise the prophet himself.44 So, for example, they have bought into the text’s assertions that eighth-century Israel was the scene of extraordinary luxury on the part of the few and oppression experienced by the many, without reflecting that this may be what the text wants us to think even though it was, perhaps, not really the case. Whether or not it was indeed the case is unknowable, but that means we should not, as commentators, write as though it were. 42 43 44

See Derrida, L’écriture (1967). Bible and Culture Collective, Postmodern Bible (1995). Clines, Interested Parties (1995).

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One of the features of postmodern writing that irritates traditional biblical critics is a tendency to very ‘difficult’ writing, full of puns and strange punctuation, with slashes and brackets in the titles of articles. Why cannot they simply say what they mean? traditionalists ask. This however somewhat misses the point. The idea that one can ‘simply say what one means’ is, from a postmodernist standpoint, one of the illusions of modernity. The provisionality of all human communication needs to be constantly before our eyes: and this is best conveyed by a tricky, elusive style of writing. In trying to write a clearly expressed section on postmodernism I betray at once that I am not a postmodernist myself, and if I succeed, then I fail, which is at least a good ironic postmodern experience. Postmodernism is perhaps the first movement to affect biblical studies that produces not so much disagreement as exasperation in the minds of historical critics, and is in its turn contemptuous of them. Mutual charity is not much in evidence. Postmodernists think (in this rather like advocacy readers) that traditional historical criticism serves the interests of a ruling clique which holds the keys to jobs and honours while not having the faintest idea how texts should really be read. Historical critics for their part tend to think postmodernists are simply playing mindless games with the text, and have abandoned the quest for truth. There are thus moral judgements being made on both sides of the divide, so that more is at stake than simple academic disagreement. Postmodernist biblical criticism has taken root mainly in the English-speaking world, despite its French origins; German scholars are rarely to be found practising it. There is a whole series of biblical commentaries now called, in a tell-tale way, Readings, and an excellent set of examples of postmodern interpretation can be found in Derrida’s Bible.45

7. Reader-response Criticism and Wirkungsgeschichte One of the characteristic moves in postmodernism is to acknowledge the role of the reader in interpretation. Traditional biblical criticism is written in the third person, reporting on what the text means in the tone of a report on a scientific experiment, as though neither the scholar nor his readers had any role but the passive one of registering what the text is saying. But at least since Schleiermacher interpreters of texts have known that this wholly ‘objective’ presentation of what is happening in exegesis is an oversimplification. Interpretation is an activity, not a mere receptiveness, and the role of the reader cannot be entirely ignored. Against the idea that the reader is neutral and that the text is allowed by exegesis to speak for itself, the late twentieth century saw the rise of ‘reader-response criticism’, in which the reader is accorded an active role in bringing the text – which after all is in itself inert – to expression in the present. Perhaps the best analogy is the performance of music. Traditional historical criticism is rather like musicology – the investigation of the circumstances of the composer and the attempt

45

Sherwood, Derrida’s Bible (2004).

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to establish exactly what he or she actually wrote. Reader-response criticism is more like the art of performance, activating the text today. Just as there can be many different performances of the same work, so there can be many different ‘readings’ of a text. In this respect reader-response criticism is at least partly an expression of some attitudes similar to those in postmodernism, but by no means all reader-response critics are committed to the full postmodernist programme – any more than are those who value different performances of music or drama. What unites all reader-response critics is a belief that reading is an active process, not simply the passive registration of meaning. In fact reader-response criticism exists in two forms, one of which may be called strong and the other weak. The strong form is exemplified by the work of Stanley Fish,46 and is definitely postmodernist in its affinities. Against historical criticism, it argues that the meaning of a text has no existence whatever apart from its appropriation or activation by a reader. For Fish, the much-quoted dictum applies that ‘a text is like a picnic to which the author brings the words and the reader the meaning’. Meaning is never discovered in texts, it is imputed or attributed to them by the reader; and not simply by the individual reader, but by a group of readers, by what Fish calls ‘interpretive communities’. In the case of the Bible (in which Fish himself is not interested) we might want to claim that the principal interpretive community is the community of faith: thus the Bible means what Christians or Jews collectively take it to mean. Such a line of thought has been quite attractive to some religious believers, and there is some potential overlap here with the canonical approach, which also argues (though on theological rather than literary grounds) that the meaning of the biblical text depends on its being read in the right context, that is, in the life of the church (or synagogue). The danger, as with all readings of a postmodernist kind, is arbitrariness: the community of readers can simply choose what the text is to mean, and there are no constraints upon them except the logic of their own position – the text itself offers no controls. In the last resort this would seem to mean that it hardly matters which text one takes as one’s Scripture: a Christian reading of Buddhist scripture would serve the Church just as well as a reading of the biblical text (and, equally, there could presumably be a Buddhist reading of the New Testament). This strong form of reader-response criticism probably strikes most biblical critics as a step too far in the direction of elevating the role of the reader. More influential has been the ‘soft’ reader-response criticism pioneered by Wolfgang Iser at the University of Konstanz.47 To pursue the analogy with music a little further, Iser recognizes the validity of many different performances, but thinks that it matters exactly which work is being performed. There are many possible interpretations – as many as there are conductors – of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but none of them is the same as an interpretation of Bach’s B-minor Mass: the notes are simply different notes. Similarly with literature, there can be many Hamlets, but none of them is Macbeth or ever could be. It is simply not true that the interpreter is one hundred per cent responsible for the meaning of 46 47

Fish, Is there a Text? (1980). Iser, Act of Reading (1978).

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a work, and in that historical criticism is correct. But for Iser the contribution of the reader is the interesting part of interpretation. He has developed a theory that texts contain ‘blanks’ and ‘stars’. No text, after all, makes everything explicit – that would be impossible. Always there are lacunae in the text, where the reader has to make connections that are not spelled out by the author. But the text also contains ‘stars’, indications of the main plot or the overall drift of what is being communicated and attention to these is what makes it possible to understand and grasp the text as a whole – not unlike joining up the dots in a child’s puzzle. Only the reader can do this: the author, after all, is no longer there to do it. Iser’s model strikes many critics as a sensible version of reader-response criticism, and it has been developed by another pioneer of paying attention to the reader, Umberto Eco.48 Eco argues that a text can mean many things, but not absolutely anything. Activating one or more of its conceivable meanings, however, is certainly a ‘readerly’ task: texts do not read themselves any more than music plays itself. The act of reading does not necessarily involve realizing how it works. Reader-response critics are in a sense not promoting a programme about how texts ought to be read, but a theory about how they are in fact read, whether we realize it or not. Reader-response criticism is not a method, in which one begins by identifying stars and gaps and seeks to connect the stars across the gaps, as a conscious process. Rather, Iser is saying, if we analyse a good piece of textual interpretation after it is complete we can see that talk of stars and gaps makes sense of it. In this reader-response criticism is not unlike traditional historical criticism, which similarly is not a matter of applying overt methods to the text, but of reading it critically with certain questions in mind. Describing what is actually going on in such reading is a metacritical activity. An interest in how readers now interpret texts is likely to go hand-in-hand with some attention to how they have done so in the past, and reader-response criticism thus connects with what is variously called reception history or Wirkungsgeschichte (sometimes unsatisfactorily translated as ‘effective history’). Here another literary critic from Konstanz is a major name: Hans Robert Jauss,49 who laid the theoretical foundations of the discipline. Like reader-response theory, reception history exists in both a hard and a soft form, but here it is probably the harder one that has had more influence in biblical studies. ‘Soft’ reception history is simply an addition to the concerns of traditional biblical criticism. Studying how old texts were interpreted in the past is as valid and unproblematic as studying what they mean against their own historical background. In the case of the Bible, we are not dealing with texts that were lost for centuries and have only just come to light, but with material that has been known and interpreted continuously for two thousand years or more, and what interpreters in the past made of it is a fascinating question. Since the rise of historical criticism it is a question that has been rather lost sight of, since critics were often concerned to show that texts did not mean what they had traditionally been taken to mean – so the history of the text’s past interpretation tended to be seen as a 48 See esp. Eco, Limits of Interpretation (1990), and his Interpretation and Overinterpretation (1992). 49 Jauss, Aesthetic Experience (1982).

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history of error. Since the work of Jauss became known in the world of biblical studies, however, many critics have found a renewed interest is how the biblical books have been ‘received’ in the Jewish and Christian communities over the centuries. In New Testament studies a pioneer has been Ulrich Luz in Switzerland,50 but in Old Testament, though there is no one name that stands out, a good many scholars have begun to practise reception history, and there is now a British commentary series, The Bible through the Centuries, of which a number of volumes have appeared so far – particularly noteworthy is that receptions critics have not restricted themselves to textual commentary on biblical books but have also begun to study reception in art and music. An outstanding contribution is Yvonne Sherwood’s study of Jonah.51 One of the first Old Testament scholars to embrace reception history was probably John Sawyer in The Fifth Gospel, a study of the reception of the book of Isaiah throughout Christian history.52 This kind of reception history seems likely to bear much fruit in years to come, and, on the face of it, it raises no theoretical issues that take us outside historical criticism: it is, in effect, the historical criticism of interpretations of texts rather than of the texts themselves. But many reception historians do have a theoretical agenda, which constitutes what I would call a ‘hard’ form of reception history. This is the belief that texts have no meaning apart from how they have been received: they mean what they have been taken to mean. In this version of reception history, which seems closer to the beliefs of Jauss himself, it becomes a kind of historically orientated type of reader-response theory. Rather than a text meaning what I (or my community) takes it to mean, it means or can mean the entire range of what those who have received it have thought it meant. Thus, by contrast with historical criticism, there can be no getting back to an ‘original’ meaning – or if we could establish such a meaning, it would have no higher status than any subsequent meaning that has been identified during the course of the text’s reception. This harder version of reception history is again easily compatible with a postmodern understanding of texts, and can indeed be seen as a subset of a postmodern approach. It also has attractive possibilities for advocacy readings, since it means (for example) that ‘resistant’ readings are just as valid as readings ‘with the grain’ of the text – indeed, it becomes impossible to say that there is such a thing as the grain of a text, texts having no determinate meaning anyway. There is no longer any distinction to be drawn between the meaning and the use of a text, and certainly a phrase such as ‘real meaning’ becomes an empty one. The text becomes a vehicle, a tool to use in putting forward one’s own point of view – many reception historians would claim that it has always been that, but that the language of objectivity has concealed the fact from readers of commentaries and, indeed, from the commentators themselves. A problem that arises with this understanding of reception is that it is hard to know how to distinguish between readings: if we cannot say that one reading is more ‘correct’ than another, can we at least say that one is ‘better’ than anoth50 51 52

See Luz, Matthew in History (1994). Sherwood, A Biblical Text (2000). Sawyer, Fifth Gospel (1996).

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er? Only, it seems, on moral grounds: some readings have used the text for bad purposes (as when theologians in South Africa used the Old Testament to justify apartheid), other for good ones (as in liberation theology). A judgement about what makes one reading bad and another good cannot be made by biblical scholars as such, but belongs to the wider world of systematic theology and ethics. I have raised a possible objection to this: why should one not promote a resistant reading of Mein Kampf, which would use that text to argue in favour of Judaism? If that is unacceptable, as most people would probably think it was, then there must be something wrong with the reception-historical theory. As with hard reader-response criticism, there seems to be a difficulty as soon as we abandon any sense that the text itself exercises a control on the interpreter. But if it is to exercise a control, there must be some way of determining what it means – and we are back with some form of historical criticism. But this is not necessarily to lose all the real insights that both reader-response criticism and reception history afford. Paul Ricoeur is a thinker who has championed the needs of the reader without abandoning historical criticism. He has developed a ‘post-critical’ theory that does not make criticism superfluous but seeks to move on from it to something more. Ricoeur adopted Karl Barth’s idea of a ‘second naïveté’, which follows biblical criticism just as the ‘first naïveté’ is found in people who have not yet faced the critical challenge. At first glance it looks as though Ricoeur, like Barth, is using the expression in order to call biblical criticism into question: he writes, “Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be called again” – as though criticism were a wholly sterile operation which we need to leave behind us if we are to be ‘called’, that is, confronted and challenged, by the Bible and its message.53 But in fact for Ricoeur criticism is a ‘desert’ not in a negative sense, but in the sense that it is the wilderness that is the necessary preparation for entry into the Promised Land. As Lewis Mudge puts it, “To participate in the history of testimony we must [according to Ricoeur] convert our naïve faith through criticism into the register of hope”.54 The true, second naïveté is available only to those who have passed through the “desert of criticism”, and it is not a matter of simply reverting to a pre-critical naïveté. It depends on a critical interpretation of the text: [In The Symbolism of Evil Ricoeur] proposes a philosophical analysis of symbolic and metaphoric language intended to help us reach a ‘second naïveté’ before such texts. The latter phrase, which Ricoeur has made famous, suggests that the ‘first naïveté’, an unquestioned dwelling in a world of symbol, which presumably came naturally to men and women in one-possibility cultures to which the symbols in question were indigenous, is no longer possible for us. But we may approximate that state – of course with a difference. For the second immediacy that we seek and the second naïveté that we await are no longer accessible to us anywhere else than in a hermeneutics; we can believe only by interpreting. It is the ‘modern’ mode of belief in symbols, an expression of the distress of modernity and a remedy for that distress.55

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The maxim is taken from Symbolism of Evil (1969), 349. Lewis Mudge, “Paul Ricoeur on Biblical Interpretation”, in Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation (1981), 28. 55 Ibid. 6. The indented paragraph is from Ricoeur, Symbolism of Evil (1969), 352. Italics throughout are mine. 54

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And most clearly of all: Thus, as Ricoeur develops the importance of critical explanation of the text, it is not to destroy faith but to open the way for it. If one of the motives of the nineteenth-century historical-critical scholars was to free the Bible from dogmatic ecclesiastical interpretations, Ricoeur in turn seeks to free the Bible from culture-bound, subjectivizing interpretations as well as from fundamentalist, objectivizing interpretations by asking us to listen carefully to what biblical discourse testifies. We have no alternative to working through criticism toward a second naïveté because the first naïveté available to us in our culture is deeply idolatrous.56

Criticism is here seen not the enemy of a contemporary appropriation of the biblical text but as its necessary precondition. Attempts to put back the clock and act as though criticism had never been are in vain: this Promised Land cannot be reached except through the desert, in which we learn to read not what we should like to be in the Bible, but what is actually there. This clearly is not compatible with a hard form of either reader-response criticism or reception history, but accords perfectly well with the softer version of either. In Ricoeur we have, not opposition to historical criticism, but a desire to move on from it to engage with what he calls ‘the world in front of the text’ – that is, to make the text come alive for the modern reader. This again has certain affinities with the canonical approach, though its evaluation of historical criticism is perhaps more positive.

8. New Historicism One of the movements that seeks to challenge traditional historical criticism has ‘history’ as part of its own name: New Historicism. This has developed since the 1980s, and is the brainchild of one person, Stephen Greenblatt,57 who first used it in studies of the Early Modern period in England., though there are affinities with the work of Michel Foucault. At first sight New Historicism looks like historical criticism. Against other postmodern tendencies, it is concerned with the detailed historical context of literature, and it believes that works can be understood only against the background of their own times. But one of its distinctive moves is to relativize the idea of ‘great works’. If we study Shakespeare, we should also study his ‘non-canonical’ contemporaries, and we should extend our concerns to cover ‘non-literary’ texts as well – pamphlets, discursive works, and legal and political records. The aim is to build up a picture of the entire social matrix of ‘literary’ works, an entrée to which may be provided as much by some physical artefact or cultural icon as by literature. Furthermore, we need to suspend our sense of literary appreciation so as not to privilege so-called great works, but to see the canonical authors as existing not in splendid isolation but as part of a wider continuum of culture. New Historicism has affinities in the world of history with the Annales school associated with Fernand Braudel, which deflects attention from 56 57

Mudge, ibid. 23. See for example Greenblatt, Shakespearian Negotiations (1988).

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the traditional concerns of historiography (great men and their political actions) and on to the lives of ordinary people in their continuity over time (“la longue durée”).58 The Annales movement has been deeply influential in recent study of the history of Israel and especially its study by archaeologists. They have abandoned the search for the major works of named kings (‘King Solomon’s Mines’, for example) and have turned their attention to the social history of Syria-Palestine, writing history without much attention to the biblical text and far more in relation to archaeological surveys. We are now about as far as could be imagined from the ‘biblical archaeology’ of Albright and his followers. But in the study of biblical literature New Historicism has yet to make a big impact. Perhaps its most important contribution so far has been less in the study of the historical matrix of ancient Israel and more in reminding us of the historical situatedness of ourselves, the interpreters. We too are part of a criss-crossing system of historical and social forces. As biblical scholars we are not immune from the pressures of our circumstances: we are no more ‘great men and women’ than are the people we study. As postmodernists of every stripe (and New Historicism can also be called postmodern) remind us, interpretation of texts is not a neutral and detached pursuit, and when we describe our findings as if they did proceed from a position of detachment we are guilty of bad faith. Everyone starts from somewhere; everyone has ‘an axe to grind’. The question for historical criticism is perhaps whether it can come to terms with that fact and yet still practise in a way recognizably continuous with its past, or whether it must be seen as simply bankrupt. The reader will have detected that I hope for the former outcome, but the challenge of such movements as New Historicism will not go away.

9. The Term ‘Historical Criticism’ Throughout this article we have been assuming that there is a phenomenon known as ‘the historical-critical method’ or ‘historical criticism’. There is not much doubt what is being referred to by these terms: the whole conglomeration of types of ‘higher criticism’, including at least source, form, redaction, and traditio-historical criticism, that dominated biblical study throughout the twentieth century, and in which all serious biblical scholars were expected to be proficient. The approaches outlined above are clearly conceived either as the next step from these or, more often, as alternatives to them, and their practitioners generally regard ‘historical criticism’ as erroneous or outmoded. There is a question, however, about how far the term ‘historical-critical method’ is the right term to describe these now threatened approaches to the biblical text. As I have argued elsewhere,59 ‘method’ gives a misleading impression, suggesting a procedure or set of procedures to be applied to the text. In practice the kind of enquiry involves is not a method, more a set of questions or concerns – 58 59

See the discussion in Carroll, Poststructuralist Approaches (1998). See my discussion in Barton, Nature of Biblical Criticism (2007).

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for the unity, genre, coherence, or historical development of the text and the traditions underlying it. Historical criticism may at time use various methods, but it is not itself a method. But even more important, perhaps, is the appropriateness of the term ‘historical’. This may be used to point to either of two tendencies in traditional biblical criticism, and they need to be distinguished. First, criticism may be called historical because it seeks to reconstruct history: the history of Israel, or the history of the texts themselves. It is clear after only brief thought that reconstructing the history of Israel has been a concern of only a subset of ‘historical critics’. Wellhausen, of course, was the prime example, and it is perhaps because of his position as a paradigm of historical criticism that it has been regarded as linked to an interest in the political or social history of Israel. But biblical critics have not in fact typically been historians in this sense. Overwhelmingly the background of biblical scholars has always lain in the study of language and literature rather than in history, and they have often been vulnerable to attack from professional historians on the grounds that they are not very good at history anyway. Certainly the genre ‘History of Israel’ has sometimes looked suspiciously like a paraphrase of the Old Testament narrative, to an extent that would have dismayed Wellhausen or, indeed, de Wette. There have certainly been sophisticated treatments of Israelite history, and the current wave of archaeological study has placed this on a far sounder footing. Nevertheless history is probably not the characteristic mode of Old Testament study, which is represented more typically by the textual commentary. This may suggest that criticism is to be called historical because it is concerned with the history of the text, and there is certainly something in this. Criticism has often been interested in genetic factors, and this is one of the things that more literary critics have questioned, arguing that there is a ‘genetic fallacy’ which wrongly supposes that explaining a text’s origins is the crucial matter, when in fact it has little to do with literary merit or importance. The whole area called in German Einleitungswissenschaft, which seeks out the historical background, authorship, and origins of a biblical book, has certainly been important, and again may be thought to have occupied too much attention as compared with weightier matters about the content and theology of the texts. Even so, this can also be exaggerated. ‘Historical’ critics have always been interested in far more than these technical questions, and a typical commentary, though it begins with issues of ‘Introduction’, typically moves on from them to ask about the meaning and interpretation of the text in question at much more length.Nor have systematizing Theologies of the Old Testament been very interested in the history of the text, and indeed they have sometimes been criticised for precisely that reason, as attempts to bypass historical issues. At least one of the classic ‘methods’ of historical criticism, form criticism, is focused on literary genre and hardly at all on historical development. So there are reasons to wonder how appropriate the term ‘historical criticism’ really is. There is a second sense in which the term can be used, and this is probably what people more often have in mind. Biblical criticism is always concerned with the meaning a text was capable of bearing in its temporal (that is: historical) context. As against some kinds of literary criticism, or even the canonical approach, ‘historical’ criticism tends to resist what it sees as an atemporal reading of texts,

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and to insist that the meaning we find in a text must be a meaning that was conceivable in the historical circumstances, including the thought-world, of its time of writing. The only one of the approaches surveyed above that really embraces this is the New Historicism, and that in a very idiosyncratic way. This implies that meaning cannot be beliebig, that is, at the whim of the reader: it must always be rooted in the time of the text’s production. If we cannot know at least roughly what that time is (that is, if the questions of Einleitungswissenschaft cannot be answered), then to that extent our knowledge of what the text means will be limited. The detailed knowledge of the Hebrew and Aramaic languages belong to historical criticism because they alone provide evidence for what the words of which the texts are composed can mean. Consequently historical critics will always need good linguistic ability. Advocacy readers will continue to stress that ordinary people with no expertise in the languages can still understand the texts profoundly, and this is both true and important: the Old Testament fares better in translation than some other ancient texts, and there is a long tradition of translations that seek to do justice to its profundity. Nevertheless, from a critical point of view there is a limit to how far the text can be understood fully without the ability to read it in the original languages (which, on the other hand, of course does not guarantee good comprehension!). Sometimes this point about the need for historical criticism is put in the terms developed by Krister Stendahl: the critic establishes what the text meant, and the modern interpreter/literary critic/preacher/theologian sets out what it means.60 Obviously an important point is being made through this vocabulary. To put it in traditional terms (which would be rejected by many today, especially perhaps by canonical critics), exegesis is separate from application, the subtilitas intelligendi from the subtilitas applicandi. But the language of meant/means can also mislead, suggesting that what the text means against its temporal background has now ceased to be its meaning for us. Stendahl used his contrast mainly to stress that the historical meaning of the text need not always constrain the use we make of it today, but it is easily misunderstood to imply that the text’s ‘original’ meaning is now no longer its meaning. This makes the word ‘meaning’ work too hard, to cover not only the text’s sense but also its wider implications, and it probably confuses as much as it clarifies. Historical criticism has always been concerned with the meaning of the text, and meaning is not ‘tensed’: application may be. To talk of ‘what the text originally meant’ is a comprehensible and sensible usage, but if applied strictly, it can suggest that texts can change their meaning over time, and this was perhaps not intended in Stendahl’s formulation. Biblical criticism is concerned to establish the meaning texts have by investigating their background, setting, and genre. To that extent it can rightly be called historical, because it sees a text as rooted in the circumstances of its composition and development. Most of the newer approaches we have surveyed here reject this, and may fairly be described as non- or anti-historical in outlook. From time to time it is asked whether historical criticism is likely to survive. On the whole,

60

See Stendahl, The Bible as a Classic (1984).

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as I write in 2013, it seems to me likely that the present pluralism in Old Testament studies will continue, and consequently that both historical and non-historical modes of criticism will all continue to be practised for the foreseeable future. The atmosphere of debate about the correct ‘methods’ for biblical studies is quite cantankerous, however, and this too I expect to continue to be the case.

Chapter Thirty

The Emergence of the Form-critical and Traditio-historical Approaches By Antony F. Campbell, Parkville, Victoria, Australia Sources (in chronological order): H. Gunkel, “Die Grundprobleme der israelitischen Literaturgeschichte”, Deutsche Literaturzeitung 27 (1906) 1797–1800.1861–1866 (repr. Reden und Aufsätze [s. below], 29–38; it was intended as a brief report on the fundamental positions of Gunkel’s piece on Israelite Literature in: Kultur der Gegenwart 1/7 (1906), 51–102, now available in a 1925 and a 1963 printing [s. below]); ET: “Fundamental Problems of Hebrew Literary History”, in: What Remains of the Old Testament and Other Essays (London: Allen & Unwin 1928), 57–68; Genesis (HKAT I/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 31910, ND 91977; ET: Macon, GA: Mercer UP 1997); Reden und Aufsätze (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1913); “Was haben wir am Alten Testament?”, Deutsche Rundschau 41 (1914) 215–241; ET: “What is Left of the Old Testament?”, in: What Remains of the Old Testament and Other Essays (London: Allen & Unwin 1928), 13–55; “Jakob”, Preussische Jahrbücher 176 (1919) 339–362; ET: Water for a Thirsty Land: Israelite Literature and Religion (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress 2001), 42–67; Das Märchen im Alten Testament (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1921; repr. Frankfurt a.M.: Athenaum 1987); ET: The Folktale in the Old Testament (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1987); Die israelitische Literatur, in: Die Orientalischen Literaturen. Kultur der Gegenwart I/7 (ed. P. Hinneberg; Berlin / Leipzig 1906, sec. print. 1925, repr. 1963); Die Psalmen (HKAT II/2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 41929, 51968); Einleitung in die Psalmen. Die Gattungen der religiösen Lyrik Israels, zu Ende geführt von J. Begrich (HKAT II, Ergänzungsband; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1933; repr. 1966); ET: Introduction to Psalms (Macon, GA: Mercer UP 1998). – H. Gressmann, Mose und seine Zeit (FRLANT 18; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1913); “Die literarische Analyse Deuterojesajas”, ZAW 34 (1914) 254– 297; “Die Aufgaben der alttestamentlichen Forschung”, ZAW 42 (1924) 1–33; contributions to Die Schriften des Alten Testaments in Auswahl (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1910–14; sec. rev. edn. 1920–25). – J. Hempel, Die althebräische Literatur (Wildpark-Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion 1930). – A. Alt, “Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts” (1934), in: idem, Kleine Schriften I (Munich: Beck 1953), 278–332; ET: “The Origins of Israelite Law”, in: idem, Essays on Old Testament History and Religion (Oxford: Blackwell 1966), 81–132. – S. Mowinckel, Psalmenstudium, I–VI (Kristiania [Oslo] 1921–24; repr. in 2 vols., Amsterdam: Schippers 1961); Offersang og sangoffer (1951; repr. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 21971); ET: The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 1–2 (tr. D. R. Ap-Thomas; Oxford: Blackwell 1962); Prophecy and Tradition (ANVAO II.1946/3; Oslo: Dybwad 1946); repr. as Chs. 1–9 in: Mowinckel, The Spirit and the Word: Prophecy and Tradition in Ancient Israel (K. C. Hanson [ed.], Minneapolis, MN: Fortress 2002). – G. von Rad, Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch (BWANT 4/26; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1938; repr. in: idem, Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament [ThB 8; Munich: Kaiser 1958], 9–86); ET: “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch”, in: The Problem of the Hexateuch, and Other Essays (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill 1966), 1–78; repr. in: From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology [Minneapolis, MN: Fortress 2005], 1–58 and 243–249 [notes]); Das erste Buch Mose. Genesis (ATD 2–4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1949, 121987); ET: Genesis (OTL; Philadelphia, PA: Westminster 1961). – M. Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien. Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament (1943, Tübingen: M. Niemeyer 1957); ET: The Deuteronomistic History (JSOT.S 15; Sheffield: JSOT, first edn. 1981, second and corr. edn. 1991), and The Chronicler’s History (JSOT.S 50; Sheffield: JSOT 1987); Überlieferungsgeschichte des

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Pentateuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1948); ET: A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1972). – C. Westermann, Das Loben Gottes in den Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1954, 41968); ET: The Praise of God in the Psalms (Richmond, VI: John Knox 1965); Grundformen prophetischer Rede (BEvTh 31; Munich: Kaiser 1960, 51978); ET: Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster 1967); Lob und Klage in den Psalmen (fifth and expand. edn. of Das Loben Gottes in den Psalmen; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1977); ET: Praise and Lament in the Psalms (Atlanta, GA: John Knox 1981). – K. Koch, Was ist Formgeschichte? Methoden der Bibelexegese (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1964, 31974); ET: The Growth of the Biblical Tradition (New York, NY: Scribner 1969). – J. Muilenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond”, JBL 88 (1969) 1–18. – R. Knierim (ed.), Forms of the Old Testament Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1981–). Studies: W. Baumgartner, “Zum 100. Geburtstag von Hermann Gunkel”, Congress Volume Bonn 1962 (VT.S 9; Leiden: Brill 1963), 1–18 (repr. in: Gunkel, Genesis, 91977, 1*-18*). – A. F. Campbell, “Form Criticism’s Future”, in: The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (ed. M. Sweeney/ E. Ben-Zvi; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2003), 15–31. – J. L. Crenshaw, Gerhard von Rad (Waco, TX: Word Books 1978; Germ. tr. Munich 1979). – Eucharisterion. Hermann Gunkel zum 60. Geburtstag (FRLANT 36; ed. H. Schmidt; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1923). – C. Hardmeier, Texttheorie und biblische Exegese: Zur rhetorischen Funktion der Trauermetaphorik in der Prophetie (Munich: Kaiser 1978). – J. P. Hyatt, “Were There an Ancient Historical Credo in Israel and an Independent Sinai Tradition?”, in: Translating & Understanding the Old Testament (ed. H. T. Frank/ W. L. Reed; Nashville, TN: Abingdon 1970), 152–170. – R. Kittel, “Die Zukunft der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft”, ZAW 39 (1921) 84–99. – W. Klatt, Hermann Gunkel. Zu seiner Theologie der Religionsgeschichte und zur Entstehung der formgeschichtlichen Methode (FRLANT 100; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1969). – R. Knierim, “Old Testament Form Criticism Reconsidered”, Int. 27 (1973) 435–468; “Criticism of Literary Features, Form, Tradition, and Redaction”, in: The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (ed. D. A. Knight/ G. M. Tucker; Philadelphia, PA: Fortress 1985), 123–165; Text and Concept in Leviticus 1:1–9: A Case in Exegetical Method (FAT 2; Tübingen: Mohr 1992). – G. von Rad, “Gerhard von Rad über Gerhard von Rad”, in: Probleme biblischer Theologie. Gerhard von Rad zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. H. W. Wolff; Munich: Kaiser 1971), 659–661. – W. Richter, “Beobachtungen zur theologischen Systembildung in der alttestamentlichen Literatur anhand des ‘kleinen geschichtlichen Credo’”, in: Wahrheit und Verkündigung, 1 (Munich: Ferdinand Schöningh 1967), 175–212. – M. A. Sweeney, “Form Criticism”, in: To Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Application (rev. and expand.; ed. S. L. McKenzie / S. R. Haynes; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 1999), 58–89. – M. A. Sweeney / E. Ben-Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2003). – H. W. Wolff, “Gespräch mit Gerhard von Rad”, in: Probleme biblischer Theologie (1971, s. above), 648–658.

1. Introductory Before we examine the emergence of what is now called ‘form criticism’ (German: Formgeschichte; “criticism” in English and “history” in German – not an insignificant difference), a preliminary observation may be important. As a general rule, reflection on movements in human awareness (correlatively, religious awareness) is usually more appropriate a century or two after the movements have ended rather than a mere century or so after they have begun. In the present case, however, it may be necessary to hazard some preliminary thoughts related to moves in the world of Older Testament study over the last century or so. Primary among these moves may be the beginnings of a slow, almost imperceptible transition, consisting in a movement from what was traditionally faith in a God who, in the biblical text, spoke through people so that one might speak of the biblical text as God’s word (with varying levels of complexity or transpar-

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ency) associated with a corresponding movement toward a possible emergence of faith in a God who, in the biblical text, was spoken of by people, articulating their experience of their God, so that one might speak of the biblical text as word of God’s people (again with varying levels of complexity or transparency). Traditionally, God “owns” this process of articulation. Through it, God’s word becomes heard. To put this in a slightly different language: a move in religious awareness may have been stirring for a century or so, and may be likely to extend for at least another century or so, that among other things involves a transition from seeing the biblical text as in some way being God’s vehicle for proclaiming to people toward seeing the biblical text as in some way being people’s vehicle for proclaiming God. Couched in simpler terms, it is not so much the biblical text emanating from God but God emanating from the biblical text; not so much the word that God proclaims as the word that proclaims God. In the bluntest and simplest of terms, these moves might be characterized as a highly sophisticated and complex modulation away from the potentially naïve notion of “a God speaking” in the direction of “a God spoken of”.1 The catch phrases are simple; the reality, in any of its detail and in the development of its implications, is massively complex. The process as a whole is subtle in the extreme and highly uneven; far advanced in some pockets, while in others it is far from begun. The parallel moves toward an increasingly widespread secularization in the Western world have probably been associated with the process. To say so is simple; to look at any aspects of detail is similarly of massive complexity. Alongside this but more recently, the world of OT scholarship has experienced the deterioration of the Documentary Hypothesis as a sure foundation for the understanding of the Pentateuch. No consensus has yet formed as to what might eventually take its place. At this point, it is important to go back to the beginnings of both form criticism and tradition history, to explore what they emerged from, what their defects were, and what insights of value they embodied. That means looking at the early twentieth century before biblical scholarship ventures too far into the twenty-first century. From an observation point some one hundred years later, the unavoidable question that must inevitably be addressed is: what captured the attention of figures such as Gunkel, Gressmann, and von Rad (and so many others) that led in their research and writing to form criticism? The question leads less to a catalogue of what they did (we have their works) but rather more to an enquiry into why they did it and how they envisioned the task. Certain questions emerge from within the texts themselves; for example, the reliability of the text (text criticism), the issue of the unity of the text, its sources, etc. (source criticism), and so on. From this point of view, form criticism is a somewhat nebulous approach to the interpretation of text, involving a concern for the recognition and classification of literary types in various texts. It is not a new set of methodical steps to be taken in the task of interpreting a text. It does not respond to questions such as the texts themselves pose directly.

1

These concerns are adumbrated in Gunkel, What Is Left, in: What Remains (1928), 13–56.

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As we shall see, form criticism emerged from a combination of at least two factors: first, frustration with current practice; second, the perception of possibilities opening up for the interpretation of biblical text, despite conservative resistance. “Current practice” in pentateuchal studies at the start of the twentieth century was dominated by literary or source criticism (German: Literarkritik; not to be confused with the criticism appropriate to literary study). The discomfort felt with it presaged more than a mere shift in academic disciplines.2

2. Hermann Gunkel Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932) is the acknowledged pioneer of the form-critical approach to Older Testament text. Within the complexity of human motivation, a major factor motivating the approach he advocated was dissatisfaction not with the achievements but with the limitations of source criticism (Literarkritik, above all in the Pentateuch). Legitimating that dissatisfaction, and prophetic for what was to come, is the realization that those limitations of the then Literarkritik have in no small measure contributed to today’s current unease with the Documentary Hypothesis. From early in the piece, it would appear that the motivation driving Gunkel included a desire to give their full worth to biblical texts and not to stop short at the dryly technical. The beauty of the legendary stories (Sagen) in Genesis has always been the delight of sensitive readers. It is not a matter of chance that artists have so gladly taken the subjects of their paintings from Genesis. Scholars have been much more backward in showing themselves touched by the beauty of these stories, probably often on personal grounds but often because aesthetic dispositions did not seem to them compatible with the seriousness of scholarship.3

Academic acceptability, compatibility with the seriousness of scholarship, was clearly an issue. In 1906, between the second and third editions of Gunkel’s Genesis commentary, biblical form criticism first emerged as an essential element of biblical interpretation with his observation that “the prime task of a history of Israelite literature must consequently be to determine the genres represented in the Old 2 I am greatly indebted to Claremont’s emeritus professor Rolf P. Knierim for long conversations about form criticism and its beginnings. At Heidelberg, he was Assistent with C. Westermann in 1958/59 and with G. von Rad in 59/60–62/63 – ‘Assistent’ in German universities was an academic post, roughly equivalent to the US assistant professor. 3 Die Schönheit der Sagen der Genesis ist von jeher das Entzücken feinfühliger Leser gewesen; nicht zufällig ist es, dass die Maler die Stoffe für ihre Bilder so gern aus der Genesis genommen haben. Viel seltener haben die Gelehrten sich von der Schönheit dieser Erzählungen berührt gezeigt, vielfach wol [modern: wohl] aus persönlichen Gründen, vielfach wol [modern: wohl] deshalb, weil ihnen ästhetische Stimmungen mit dem Ernst der Wissenschaft nicht vereinbar schienen, Genesis (1901, 1st edn.) xvii [cf. 3rd edn. xxvii]. As for the passage: “vielfach wol aus persönlichen Gründen”, Gunkel dropped this from later editions; perhaps he felt it inappropriate to intimate that colleagues may have been aesthetically challenged. The importance of going beyond disparate details to grapple with the whole echoes throughout Gunkel’s Ziele und Methoden (in: Reden [1913], 11–29), along with concern for ensuring exegetical technicity (Nüchternheit).

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Testament”.4 In his summary of his extensive and more discursive text, he mentions briefly some of the main genres, with a first division into prose and poetry. Within prose: narrative, myth, folktale, saga (Sage, better: legendary story), novella, spiritual legend (Legende), and lastly historical narrative; within poetry: wisdom saying, prophetic saying, and lyric poem (both secular and spiritual). Secular lyrics include: dirge, love song, ridiculing song, drinking song, wedding song, victory song, and royal song. Spiritual lyrics include: hymn, thanksgiving song, complaint song (individual and community), and eschatological song. Prophetic writings include numerous genres: narrative of vision, prophetic word, and discourse (including threat or promise, invective, exhortation, and many others).5 In this paper, Gunkel provides a programme for further work in Older Testament.6 In 1901, Gunkel himself had begun with the assertion of the presence in Genesis of legendary stories (Sagen; recent ET: “legends”), rather than history; in 1921 his Märchen appeared; in 1929 his Die Psalmen, followed posthumously in 1933 by his Einleitung in die Psalmen (completed by J. Begrich). Unshackled from the tyranny of history as dominant literary genre, he pointed to a future in terms of valuing the beauty and meaning of OT texts; he pointed to a past in terms of the oral world in which such traditions had flourished; and he pointed to the need for levels of classification and systematization so that research could proceed on a scholarly basis. More than that he could not do; further development had to be left to those who followed. What brings form criticism formally into the academic realm is the assertion: “Most of these types (Gattungen) have long been recognized, and it is the task of Literary History to study them systematically and scientifically. Each type (Gattung) must be studied in order to show the materials (Stoffe) with which it deals and the forms (Formen) that it necessarily assumes”.7 The work is not done, but it is called for. We note that content and form are both involved; form is not independent of content. The impetus toward these form-critical and traditio-historical approaches appears to have been rooted in Gunkel’s recognition of the limited appeal of pentateuchal source criticism (Literarkritik) to non-specialist Bible readers and the value of an aesthetic approach, which was where he believed his own particular skills predominated. In 1910, the year of the third edition of his Genesis commentary, he wrote to his publisher, Ruprecht, in connection with a more popular Genesis edition in Schriften des Alten Testaments regarding non-specialist readers: the way to the content (Inhalt, understood as involving the totality of what is there [subject, topic, plot, beauty, style, rhetoric, etc.]) lies through pleasure in the aesthetic form. It is quite different

4 Grundprobleme, Reden (1913), 31 (ET: 59). See Gunkel, Die israelitische Literatur (1906, sec. pr. 1925), 2 [54], summarized in Gunkel, Grundprobleme der israelitischen Literaturgeschichte. A 1919 comment puts Gunkel’s position in perspective: “The lengthy task of separating the documentary sources of this book [Genesis] pushed all the other problems connected with Genesis into the background”, Jakob, ET: 42. 5 Grundprobleme, Reden (1913), 31–32 (ET: 59–60). 6 S. his comment in Einleitung (1933), 20 (ET: 14). 7 Gunkel, Problems of Hebrew Literary History (1928), 60 (Reden, 1913, 32).

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with source criticism (Literarkritik) … Now it is my particular gift to have a feeling for the aesthetic, and to bring it to the fore.8

More than a decade earlier, he had written to the same publisher, “in the commentary, I will lay full worth on the unfortunately much neglected interpretation of content (Sacherklärung), while in my view up till now source criticism (Literarkritik) has been one-sidedly in the foreground”.9 We need to notice Gunkel’s insistence on “full worth”; the biblical text is not to be sold short because of academic timidity. As any reader of his Genesis commentary will know, Gunkel was no slouch when it came to the contemporary practice of source criticism (Literarkritik). In the German original, seven fonts are used to reflect the source analysis of the biblical text. (Unfortunately, this immediate visual effect has not been reproduced in the English translation, opting to omit Gunkel’s own translation.) Gunkel speaks highly and with pride of the achievements of such source criticism. An amazing expenditure of industry, of discernment, of brilliant powers of comprehension has been applied to this work. The result is a product of which future generations may be proud. It is currently possible in many cases to determine the source documents to the verse, in a few cases to the word, although, of course, much will always remain uncertain. The final decisive turn in the history of Genesis criticism was the work of Wellhausen, who taught us in his masterpiece Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels to determine the sources of Genesis chronologically and to locate them in the total course of the history of Israel’s religion.10

As the 1910 Introduction to Genesis makes clear (his “final position” on such matters – his words), Gunkel’s primary interest was in legendary story (Sage), not history (Geschichte). For Gunkel, such legendary story was from circles unaccustomed to writing, discussed personal and private matters, and was by nature poetry, seeking to gladden, elevate, inspire, and touch. (In terms of German intellectual history, the echoes of Herder, Goethe, etc. are clear.) History, on the other hand, presumed the practice of writing, had as its subject great public events, and was by nature prose, seeking to instruct concerning actual events.11 It was important to Gunkel that such legend be seen as respectable. The burden of contemporary church society weighed on the scholar: “The evangelical church and its commissioned representatives would do well not to be closed – as has so often been the case to this point – to this awareness that Genesis contains legends (Sagen), but to recognize that only this awareness makes a historical understanding of Genesis possible”.12 A brief detour is appropriate here. Biblical narrative is usually about the presentation of the past. History, in Gunkel’s sense, has its preoccupation with the past, as to what actually happened. Literature has its preoccupation with the presentation, allowing an intellectual distancing from what

8

Cf. Klatt, Hermann Gunkel (1969), 118. Cf. Klatt, Hermann Gunkel (1969), 117. 10 Gunkel, Genesis (1910/1969), LXXXI (ET: lxx). 11 Gunkel, ibid. IX–XIII (ET: viii–xi). 12 Gunkel, ibid. XII–XIII (ET: xi). As late as 1964, the issue of what might be thought shocking still surfaced frequently in Koch, Formgeschichte, ET: Growth (1969). 9

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actually happened. Two examples will help. First, the question in the biblical text: “Why has the LORD put us to rout today” (1 Sam 4:3). Why is it in the text? History answers: because of the past – the question was asked. Literature answers: because of the presentation – the question is theologically significant (and the answer is withheld until 2 Sam 6). Second, in the biblical text David has Uriah murdered not Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11–12). Why is it in the text? History: because that is what happened. Why did David do it? – good question! Literature: because it has significance in the presentation of the episode. What does the narrator mean by telling it? – good question! Gunkel’s identification of Genesis texts as “legendary stories” (Sagen) opened the way to the presentation: what is the significance of telling what is told? The presentation can be explored in ways that the past cannot.

Legend (Sage) took various forms, largely determined by content. There were ethnological legends, giving reasons for the status of peoples; etymological ones, offering the beginnings of linguistics, cultic ones, explaining the institution of worship; geological ones, explaining the origins of a locality; and more besides, left undescribed.13 Gunkel’s underlying concern is clear. It is the question, “What is the nature of these texts, what sort of texts are these?” This question is central to the form-critical approach. For Gunkel, of course, the focus was on the typical narrative (genre) of a distant past considerably removed from the individual stories (form) found in the present biblical text. Latent here are tensions that will bedevil form-critical scholarship in generations to come. There is the tension between genre and form: genre, the typical narrative often discussed in relation to the past; form, the individual story found in the present text. There is tension as regards the role played by content in the characterization of a genre. Further tension lurks in Gunkel’s prejudiced portrayal of the “poverty” of both narrator and audience in past generations and his recognition of the “extraordinary feats” and “artistic power” of those responsible for the present text. Finally, there is the practice of highlighting what are isolated elements from the past while needing to reckon with complete texts in the present. Any exposition of the past narratives, beyond the isolated elements, is necessarily speculative and subjective. The traditio-historical approach has its first stirrings with Gunkel’s affirmation of transmission from these traces of the past to the texts of the present. Above all else, Gunkel insisted on the recognition of what much of the Genesis text was not; it was not history (in Gunkel’s time: what actually happened). By this simple assertion, Gunkel grounded the query: then, what sort of a text is this? The need for form criticism emerged. Similarly, he sought to trace the transmission of material from a distant past to a present text. Although it may prove dubious, the space for tradition history was created. The noting of categories among the legendary stories was a bare beginning. Some two decades later, classification burgeoned with the publication of Gunkel’s Die Psalmen (1929), followed posthumously by his Einleitung in die Psalmen (1933). Preceding Die Psalmen was, of course, Gunkel’s early study of Israelite literature.14 It is important to note that, even at this stage, Gunkel’s emphasis is on genres. Of its essence, the genre (Gattung) lies behind the present text; the genre is the typical that, in each case, finds expression in the individual form of 13 14

Gunkel, ibid. XXI–XXV (ET: xviii–xxi). Die israelitische Literatur (1906/1963).

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the present text. A major aspect of Gunkel’s interest, at least overtly, was with the (often ancient) past from which the present text had developed. By its nature, source criticism (Literarkritik) engaged with the present text. By his predilection, Gunkel turned to the aesthetic that he claimed to find predominantly in the freedom of the past. This involvement with the ancient past necessarily brought into play the subjective and the speculative. The tension, as noted above, has long bedeviled form-critical scholarship. Gunkel’s 1921 study of Märchen (accepted English equivalent for OT: folktale) in the Older Testament is less a study of the folktale genre and more concerned with the occurrences of folkloristic qualities in passages of the OT. The comment in his Introduction is to be noted: “The elevated and rigorous spirit of biblical religion tolerated the folktale as such at almost no point and this near total eradication from the holy tradition is one of the great acts of biblical religion. It is, however, quite a different matter whether the people of whom the Bible speaks still preserved such stories”.15 Rather than a systematic study of the genre, the book’s aim is “to collate the material which comes into consideration for the folktale scholar in the Old Testament”.16 At the same time, a wide range of content categories emerges. Gunkel’s principal aim would appear to be to distance much of the Bible’s storytelling from confusion with a concern for history. The Psalms commentary opens with Gunkel’s lament that some of the most reliable and scholarly Psalms commentaries of the time were not always able to overcome a certain aridity (Trockenheit) and stolidity (Unempfänglichkeit). As he summed it up: “Criticism and linguistics are to the fore in this area; the religious and the poetic take a back seat”.17 The confusion of genre and form remained: “one of the most important tasks of genre research (Gattungsforschung) is to recognize the language of form (Formensprache)”.18 His dearest wish would be that the dam might finally break which held so many contemporaries back from a recognition of the forms (Erkenntnis der Formen) and therefore from genre research (Gattungsforschung).19 The Introduction to his Psalm commentary makes clear Gunkel’s conviction of the absolute necessity of genre research for understanding the Psalms (“genre research in the Psalms is nonnegotiable [nicht eine Liebhaberei] … the foundational work without which there can be no certainty in the remainder”).20 That needs to be coupled with his strenuous repudiation of accusations of undue subjectivity. He lays down three criteria for genre research where the Psalms are concerned: (1) setting (Sitz im Leben): belonging to a typical occasion in the worship service, or at least deriving from one; (2) content: indicating a common

15

Folktale (1987) 33 (Märchen, repr. 1987, 23). Ibid. 35 (Märchen, 24). 17 Kritik und Sprachwissenschaft stand auf diesem Gebiet im Vordergrunde, Religion aber und Dichtung traten zurück, Gunkel, Psalmen (1929) V. 18 So ist es eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben der Gattungsforschung, diese ‘Formensprache’ zu erkennen, Gunkel, ibid. IX. 19 Von Herzen möchte ich wünschen, daß der Damm, der so manche der Mitlebenden von der Erkenntnis der Formen und darum auch von der Gattungsforschung ferngehalten hat, jetzt endlich zerrisse!, Gunkel, ibid. IX. 20 Einleitung (1933) 8 (ET: 5). 16

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treasury of thoughts and moods/emotions; (3) language: a common “language related to the form”.21 The interplay of form and content is unavoidable. Form is indubitably related to the particularity of individual text, but it is not closely defined; the potential for the confusion of genre and form is not eliminated. The reality of the new directions being taken may be judged by Gunkel’s reference to the conspiracy of silent refusal on the part of representatives of the older school.22 Comparison with his predecessors shows clearly how Gunkel’s classification of the Psalms has stood the test of time. W. Baumgartner’s insight in his centenary address is central; he notes the quotation “Research is as much about art as science” and adds that, for Gunkel, “art” included instinct or intuition, sensitivity or feeling, as well as imagination.23 After a century or so, reflection is regrettably restricted to people’s publications and the relatively rare reminiscence. We know Gunkel was a man of powerful personal influence with a remarkable gift for friendship; alas, print seldom catches these qualities. Prescinding from his commentaries on Genesis and Psalms, as well as his treatment of folktale in the OT – where the broader ideas are put to the detailed test – Gunkel’s legacy revolves around two pillars: first, a programme for form-critical research (laid out in 1906 and reprinted in 1925); second, a further focus to OT research beyond the pentateuchal source criticism of the time. The future will see that focus sometimes relaxed, sometimes exaggerated. Whatever its fate, thanks to Gunkel, it is an integral part of the task of biblical interpretation. Gunkel’s legacy was not in terms of an advance in method, if method is understood as a procedure or process to attain a purpose, as so many steps to be taken to achieve a goal. On the other hand, if method is understood in more general terms, as a body of skills or techniques flowing from insight, then the form-critical approach would come under the term. First and foremost was the question: what sort of a text is this? Beyond the tyranny of history (so often assumed as genre automatically, frequently unawares), the extensive list of genres showed the need for this question. The question needed to be asked about whether pointers were available to the oral background of the text. The question was there to be asked whether patterns within a genre might serve as pointers to the meaning of a particular text. These observations and questions led beyond the scope of pentateuchal source criticism (Literarkritik). A significant shift, a sea change, had occurred in the understanding of the discipline of biblical exegesis.

3. Hugo Gressmann R. Kittel’s address to the first congress of German orientalists (Deutscher Orientalistentag) in Leipzig in 1921 is a most helpful context in which to set form criticism itself and to understand the contribution of Hugo Gressmann (1877–1927).24 21

Ibid. 22–23 (ET: 15–16). Ibid. 21 (ET: 15), evidenced by Kittel in 1921 (s. below). 23 “Forschung ist ebensoviel Kunst wie Wissen”. Und Kunst schloss für ihn das Mitwirken von Instinkt, Gefühl, Phantasie ein, Baumgartner, Zum 100. Geburtstag (1963) 14 (Genesis, 1977, 14*). 24 Zukunft der atl. Wissenschaft (1921) 84–99. 22

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The topic of R. Kittel (1853–1929) was the future of Old Testament scholarship. The timing is important to note. It is between Gunkel’s commentary on Genesis and his commentary on Psalms as well as his Introduction to the Psalms. It is several years after Gressmann’s form-critical work on the Moses material (Mose-Sagen) and his lengthy article analyzing Second Isaiah form-critically. With Kittel, the old guard is making a stand. There is much to be said about this address but perhaps these telling figures are enough: mention is made of Wellhausen’s name some twenty times; there is no mention at all of Gunkel’s name nor that of Gressmann and others – not a word (perhaps because they were among the living [cf. p. 84], but it could scarcely be that alone). For Kittel, and those of similar cast of mind, the recent contribution of the comparative religion school (religionsgeschichtliche Schule) and the genre research people (ästhetisch-folkloristische Schule) might be conceded – but without apparent emphasis or enthusiasm. The significance and achievements of genre research are not mentioned; on the other hand, the limitation of literary history is emphasized. According to Kittel, what is needed is the intellectual history of Israel (die Geistesgeschichte Israels); life before literature. For Kittel, then, it is life (the setting) that leads to understanding the literature; for Gunkel, on the other hand, it is the genre of the literature that leads to the setting in life. For Kittel, the essential source-critical work had been done – regarding the Hexateuch, the historical books, and the prophets. Nevertheless, three directions would mark the near future for Kittel, and source criticism was one of them – Literarkritik, associated above all with the name of Wellhausen.25 The decision to launch a new series of the figurehead journal, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, sent a highly symbolic and contrary signal: a stage had been achieved at which fresh directions were required to build on the new foundations that had been laid. In an article celebrating this signal, Gressmann, the new editor, referred to the past as the period of source criticism (Literarkritik); new vistas were opened up for present and future generations by what he termed the Near Eastern period – in which, following the source-critical period and now in the Near Eastern context, OT scholarship might look for fresh understandings (neue Erkenntnisse).26 After highlighting the unquestionable achievements of source-critical work, as well as a number of associated failings, Gressmann concludes: “What we need in our scholarship are not more but rather less source-critical studies”.27 Source-critical work is essential; it cannot be neglected. However, it should not be overrated; it is an aid to scholarship (Hilfswissenschaft, a loaded term), not its end.28 As Gressmann perceived the present and future, source criticism (Literarkritik) designated the past, while remaining an essential subsidiary. It had been replaced by a period to be designated by the context of the ancient Near East. Emphasis had moved from concern with language to concern with culture. Israel

25

Ibid. 90–91. Aufgaben der alttestamentlichen Forschung, ZAW 42 (1924) 1–33. 27 Wir brauchen darum in unserer Wissenschaft nicht mehr, sondern weniger literarkritische Untersuchungen, Aufgaben (1924), 8. 28 Ibid. 4. 26

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had become a part of the ancient Near East – with confidence that the Older Testament and its religion would not lose but could only benefit from this.29 What was needed was the spiritual story of the ancient Near East – not of Israel alone, but of Israel as part of its surrounding world. Looking to the present and future, Gressmann emphasized the importance of developments in areas including text criticism (with cautions), metre, grammar, syntax, lexicography, geography, and history. Source criticism (Literarkritik) escaped mention; perhaps because the needed advances in source criticism had been achieved and further progress was not needed. Conflict may not be explicit; but it is clear. Kittel subsumed genre research and associated material under the themes of aesthetics and folklore (ästhetisch-folkloristische Schule). When he comes to the area, Gressmann comments: “Genre research has nothing whatever to do with folklore and only a little to do with aesthetics”.30 The conflict is clear. The tasks of genre research are spelled out: to investigate narrative and history, song and prophecy, law and wisdom for their nature or essence (Wesen), their setting, form, content, mood (Stimmung), and history.31 Reduced to a single question: what sort of a text is this? Gressmann was coming out of substantial experience in the form-critical arena. Already in 1913, he had published a full study of the legendary Moses stories (Mose-Sagen), discussing the songs, individual stories (with the possibilities of their oral background), the collections, and the cycles.32 In 1914, his major study of Second Isaiah had appeared, with a panoply of form-critical observations.33 In these years, he was lead editor and a contributor to Die Schriften des Alten Testaments in Auswahl.34 It is not necessary here to go into Gressmann’s use of form criticism, whether in the Moses material, Second Isaiah, or elsewhere. It is enough to see that he evaluated the form-critical approach as a new way into biblical interpretation, situated within the ancient Near Eastern context. The past (source criticism) had taken giant steps; the future lay open to be explored, employing new understandings and new insights. What appears clear is that the early advocates of genre research / form criticism saw in it the potential for a new way of generating meaning from the biblical text, a way that had previously been blocked by a culturally constrained scholarship with valid but now subsidiary concerns. Form criticism was an escape into wholeness. It was not so much a stage along the path toward interpretation of the text as an opening to a wider and deeper understanding of the task of interpretation. At the end of this quarter-of-a-century or so, two activities were on the scene as absolutely necessary to any biblical interpretation: source criticism and form criticism (however the latter is named). Much more will emerge; these two re29

Ibid. 8–10. Die Gattungsgeschichte hat mit der Folkloristik gar nichts und mit der Äesthetik nur wenig zu tun, ibid. 26. 31 Ibid. 26. 32 Mose und seine Zeit (1913). 33 Analyse Deuterojesajas (1914). 34 For his personal contribution, see especially his “Die älteste Geschichtsschreibung und Prophetie Israels”, in: Schriften des Alten Testaments in Auswahl, 2. Abt., 1. Band. 30

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main. The issue of the unity or composite nature of a text must be assessed. This is the task of source criticism; but the task of interpreting a text cannot stop there. Each unit, whether of the text itself or within the text itself, must be assessed for its identity and its meaning. This is the task of form criticism. Small wonder forward-looking scholars embraced it. Romanticism, as a major movement of the human spirit, sought beauty, truth, and meaning. Idealism placed its emphasis on logic, thought, and critical analysis. Both streams are essential to the fullness of human flowering. Neither can be neglected without cost. The initial moves of the form-critical approach, spearheaded by scholars such as Gunkel and Gressmann, was to break free of the constraints of the past and seek out ways in which the human genius could be given a fuller role in the appreciation of biblical text. What others did for art and architecture, music and literature, these scholars did for biblical interpretation, emphasizing appropriate procedures such as close observation, accurate identification, and painstaking classification. As for the New Testament, a discussion of the emergence of form criticism in the New Testament would be out of place in this series on the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. It is enough to note that three of the pioneers studied with Gunkel in Berlin: Martin Dibelius, Karl Ludwig Schmidt, and Rudolf Bultmann.35

4. In the Wake of Hermann Gunkel 4.1. Johannes Hempel In 1930 (still within the Weimar Republic, and before the publication of Gunkel’s Einleitung in die Psalmen), Johannes Hempel (1891–1964) sketching the history of biblical criticism in Europe, in his Althebräische Literatur, wrote: The heritage of Herder, whose recognition of the aesthetic values of Israelite literature remained with Eichhorn and later Reuss but otherwise almost immediately had little influence (sonst aber zunächst unmittelbar nur wenig nachwirkt), should not be lost. Alongside the scholarly task (Wissenschaft) of essentially analytic research into the literary composition of individual books and groups of books came, programmatically formulated at its sharpest by Hermann Gunkel, the scholarly study (Wissenschaft) of Israelite literary history – which can never survive without the results of analysis but which sought to bind these results into a new unity … .36

It is clear that in Hempel’s book the careful identification of literary forms goes hand in hand with the exploration of the meaning of each text and the issues of religious values – insight into a rich life (in ein reiches Leben hineinsehen).37

35 36 37

S. Campbell, Form Criticism’s Future (2003) 17. Althebräische Literatur (1930) 5. Ibid. 30.

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4.2. Albrecht Alt G. W. Anderson, a careful and distinguished scholar, writes: “The work of Albrecht Alt [1853–1956] must be reckoned among the most far-reaching and fruitful influences in European Old Testament scholarship in the twentieth century”.38 It is therefore informative and confirming to find Alt, in his Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts, “The Origins of Israelite Law” (1934), sketching much the same picture of the emergence of the form-critical approach as has been presented here. Reflecting on the need for scholarly research to look at the origins of Israelite law, he remarks: Work carried out in other branches of Old Testament literature, and in particular those of lyric poetry and epic narrative, has shown that the most appropriate method of research into the pre-literary origins of the material embedded in written works is the study of their formal characteristics as related to the circumstances in which they were produced (Gattungs- or Formgeschichte).39

As Alt saw it, source-critical work seemed in the main complete; a further step was needed. He writes of “reliable methods”; I find “responsible scholarship” preferable language. Academic respectability appears to have been a bone of contention. Is “method” a largely unconscious code or shorthand for “methodical”? If so, it may be misleading but acceptable. Method can be repeated, as in the scientific validation of a procedure or experiment. Responsible scholarship can be observed and absorbed; it cannot be replicated like so many steps in a procedure. In this regard, Alt writes: Considerable use has been made of the method in these fields. It depends on the observation that in each individual literary form … the ideas it contains are always connected with certain fixed forms of expression. … The inseparable connection between form and content goes back behind the written records to the period of popular oral composition and tradition, where each form of expression was appropriate to some particular circumstance among the regularly recurring events and necessities of life.40

Rather than “the method” used “in these fields”, what is described here is a matter of observation combined with intuition. The observation: the presence of certain fixed forms of expression. The intuition: a hypothesis to explain how this presence might be accounted for. Alt was a careful and meticulous scholar, with the capacity to fascinate others. Two elements are present in his famous essay, The Origins of Israelite Law, that will be evident in later scholarship. One is the conviction that Israel’s present can only be understood from consideration of its oral past, embedded in the secular of the ancient Near East (casuistic law). The emphasis on the past will recur in the work of Martin Noth. The other is the emphasis on what is peculiarly and reli38

Essays on Old Testament (1966), biographical note. Ursprünge (1934, 11/1953, 284); Origins of Israelite Law (1966), 86–87. Here, in a footnote, he comments that “H. Gunkel, who introduced the investigation of stylistic forms (Gattungsgeschichte) to the study of the Old Testament, has left only a brief discussion of the forms of Israelite legal material”. 40 Ibid. 11/284; Origins (1966) 87. 39

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giously Israelite – the place of YHWH in apodictic law. This emphasis on the distinctive in Israel will recur equally powerfully in the work of Gerhard von Rad.41

4.3. Sigmund Mowinckel Chronologically, we have run ahead of ourselves. It is time to backtrack a little. Sigmund Mowinckel (1884–1965) studied with Gunkel in Giessen (1911/12). He returned to Oslo − then called Kristiania − becoming an associate professor in 1922; a full professorship was not available until 1933. His Psalmenstudien, I–VI date to 1921–24. Leaving aside the sorcery issue, his primary interest in the Psalms was not so much in their classification as in their role in organized worship, with a setting for many in a seldom noticed enthronement-of-YHWH aspect of the Succoth harvest festival. His work clearly assumed form criticism, acknowledged Gunkel of course and sought to go beyond him, emphasizing the “cult functional” approach and preferring the name “traditio-historical method”.42 While it attracted the eager attention of the myth and ritual school, uncertainty about hypothetical aspects of festivals relegated much of it to a position outside the mainstream development of form criticism.

4.4. Gerhard von Rad To return now to the course of events in Germany, a brief resumé is in order. Gunkel used as a key to further understanding of the biblical text the perception that often what in the Genesis text appeared to be history was better classed as legendary story (Sage). His close observation of the text led him to identify different types of legendary stories and to classify them, with attention to their mood, language, and setting. In theory, such legendary stories extended into a distant oral and poetic past. In his publications, this aspect is not to the fore in his interpretation. For Gressmann, this further understanding of the biblical text led, among other things, to an insistence on situating the biblical text within its context in the ancient Near East. Israel had become a part of the ancient Near East and the OT and its religion could only benefit from this. For Alt, the key to a further understanding of the text was provided by the study of the formal characteristics of written works correlated with the circum-

41 Alongside the work of Noth and von Rad, mention must also be made of Claus Westermann. Three works of his stand out: Das Loben Gottes in den Psalmen (1954), ET: The Praise of God in the Psalms (1965); Grundformen prophetischer Rede (1960), ET: Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech (1967); and the later Lob und Klage in den Psalmen (1977), ET: Praise and Lament in the Psalms (1981). Of Basic Forms (1967), the translator writes: “a clear example of how the form-critical method may be thoroughly and consistently applied to the study of prophecy” (9). Mutatis mutandis, the comment holds good for all three works. 42 See his Offersang og sangoffer (1951), especially the “Author’s Preface to the English Edition” in: Psalms in Israel’s Worship (1962) and passim in his Prophecy and Tradition (1946). For the preferred name, see Prophecy and Tradition, in: Spirit and the Word (2002), 20.

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stances in which they were produced, i.e. Gattungs- or Formgeschichte. “The inseparable connection between form and content goes behind the written records to the period of popular oral composition and tradition”, as cited above. In the specific instance, painstaking observation of syntax and content led to the identification of casuistic law with its secular and Canaanite associations and of apodictic law with its religious and Israelite associations. In OT circles in post-war Germany, from 1945 onward, Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971) was a major figure and a prominent promoter of form criticism. His pre-war assessment of the OT scene, however, was blunt; dissatisfaction with the resistance of past approaches to a further understanding of the text was evident. The need was felt for something more. Referring to the analysis of source documents, he wrote of: signs that the road has come to a dead end. … It may be said without exaggeration that scholars, especially the younger ones, are weary of research in hexateuchal studies. … Indeed even those who are fully prepared to recognize that it was both necessary and important to traverse these paths [of source analysis] cannot ignore the profoundly disintegrating effect that has been one result of this method in hexateuchal criticism.43

He also noted that, on almost all sides, the final form of the text was considered “barely worthy of discussion”, to be moved away from as rapidly as possible.44 A decade or so later, the pain was still evident in the foreword to the first edition of his Genesis commentary (1949): “Precisely this commentary may make one perceive that source analysis is not the final conclusion of wisdom”.45 A decade later still, Koch could write: “For centuries the dogma that the Bible is the Word of God has been understood in far too rigid a sense. A form-critical approach permits us to discover afresh the vitality of God’s word”.46 The tension between church and academe was still felt. Form criticism was seen as moving beyond the tension. Gerhard von Rad was enthusiastic for form criticism and generated great enthusiasm in its favour. Looked at from some distance, it would appear to have been less a matter of steps in an interpretative procedure and more an openness to suppositions about an ancient faith and life. The major pre-war monograph by von Rad is rightly entitled Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch, “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch”, because it is a study of the form of the Hexateuch. It seeks out small units, sees them taking shape in larger forms (Exodus, Balaam, Settlement), and traces their shaping into the final form of the Hexateuch. Gunkel in Genesis and Psalms sought to focus on shapes (genres); von Rad goes beyond shapes to their combination in the shaping of Israel’s faith. Alas, the books is also form-critical in 43 Das formgeschichtliche Problem (1938), 1 (repr. Ges. Studien [1958], 9). The classic English translation by Trueman Dicken is in: Problem of the Hexateuch (1966; repr. in: K. C. Hanson’s From Genesis to Chronicles 1, 2005); in both cases the reference is p. 1. 44 Ibid. 45 Genesis (ET 1961), 11. The sequence of the final canonical text is followed, of course, by von Rad in his Genesis commentary. Even Gunkel, at the start of the century, had privileged source criticism over canon, treating P first in each section and then J. 46 Growth of the Biblical Tradition (1969), 13; s. further sect. 4.5 below.

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another, less laudatory sense. The adjective “form-critical” is used a number of times to bolster procedures that can hardly be defended as form-critical. This is possibly no more than a pointer to a trend, but nevertheless the pointer is there. The monograph of 1938 was widely influential. It is brilliant: insightful, imaginative, and strikingly comprehensive. Unfortunately, in the light of today’s knowledge, it is wrong. Assumptions that now we would not dream of making are made so confidently so many years ago. What was so persuasive at the time seems so ingenuous now. Beyond letters on a page, von Rad reached out, not to some distant oral past, but to the faith of the ancient people expressed in the final OT text. His Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch was an imaginative masterpiece, with many significant insights. However, many of its assumptions that allowed for an attractive portrayal of salvation history (Heilsgeschichte) – with its inbuilt tension between faith and fact – could not be sustained over time. The starting point in the ancient “Credo” was reversed by Richter (but not till almost three decades later); the credo was not at the beginning of a process of faith, but emerged as the end result of that process.47 From Noth to Finkelstein, via Mendenhall and Gottwald, the settlement tradition (Landnahme) could not play the validating role claimed for it by von Rad (“the historical truth that Yahweh had continued to care for Israel on the basis established in the Settlement”).48 Among other things, today’s knowledge of the books of Joshua and Samuel does not allow for that. Insight and imagination can be risky and von Rad was aware of it – “with all the certainty that is ever attainable in such matters”.49 Little of worth does not run risks. As is so often the case with human civilizations, faith and history can be at odds. “Salvation history” (Heilsgeschichte) has an inbuilt ambiguity that can allow for illusion. Faith is not grounded in knowledge, but knowledge can sometimes remove the ground from under aspects of faith. Form criticism was to the fore in many studies in the mid-twentieth century. Whether explicitly or implicitly, the dominant question may be claimed to have been: what sort of a text are we dealing with? The approaches to an answer involved issues of form and genre, patterns of structure and language, settings whether social or literary, and so on. For many, it might be said that form criticism was the flag under which they sailed for the open sea of fuller and livelier OT interpretation. In 1943, Divino Afflante Spiritu, “Inspired by the Divine Spirit”, an encyclical letter of Pope Pius XII (believed ghostwritten by Cardinal Bea), with its “discovering and expounding the genuine meaning” of biblical text, was widely regarded as official acceptance of Roman Catholic involvement in critical biblical scholarship. The wave of form-critical studies may have been an endorsement of imaginative promise that was not matched by the satisfaction of procedural progress. In

47 Beobachtungen zur theologischen Systembildung (1967), 210–212; see also the studies noted by Hyatt, Ancient Historical Credo (1970); the Sinai issue is far from resolved. 48 Das formgeschichtliche Problem (1938/1958) 79; Problem of the Hexateuch (1966) 72; From Genesis to Chronicles (2005) 53. 49 Ibid. 58; Problem (1966) 64; From Genesis (2005) 48.

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time, the absence of procedural progress gave rise to doubt; what was felt to be real was too often found to be beyond professional reach. The language of form criticism lost much of its appeal. In all of this, von Rad was an influential figure. Yet, in his brief reflection on his scholarly life, form criticism is not mentioned.50 In Wolff’s respectful comments on von Rad’s life and role, form criticism is not mentioned.51 For both men, clearly, form criticism was not a new method, an essential discovery to be excited about and proud of. It was an attitude of mind, a readiness to interpret text that should be taken for granted. Gunkel and Gressmann felt the need to fight for it, especially in terms of academic acceptability; later OT scholars could take it for granted.

4.5. Martin Noth Leaving aside the now discarded amphictyony proposal and the still unresolved issues associated with Israel’s twelve-tribe system, the legacy of Martin Noth (1902–1968) to OT studies stands unquestionably among the foremost. Those familiar with his work in Pentateuch or Deuteronomistic History and abundantly elsewhere know him for a thorough and discerning scholar, gifted with insight and imaginative power, marshalling a wealth of knowledge, and endowed with the moderation and mature judgment essential to groundbreaking scholarship. Early in the twentieth century, present certainly in Gunkel and reaching back perhaps to Herder or beyond, we have observed a wistfulness and yearning for the distant oral past – a “lionization” of the oral.52 Hints in the text were allowed to form the basis for major hypotheses, all too often built on the sand of scholarly speculation. Noth did little of this in his work on the Deuteronomistic History (1943). He did rather too much of it in his Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch, “History of Pentateuchal Traditions” (1948). Too many of Noth’s insights there are richly imaginative but regrettably speculative. In his History of Pentateuchal Traditions, Noth rightly insisted that the Pentateuch had as its theme “all Israel”, even if the emergence of that reality (all Israel) lay beyond the scope of his book.53 In its final sections, Noth was painfully aware of the negative impact of his conclusion on the inflexibility of much traditional belief. He goes out of his way, therefore, to emphasize the pre-state solidity of Israel’s twelve-tribe system and the early entry of various tribes into the arable land of Canaan. Significant elements in the process for Noth were “the sacral covenant league” (associated with the amphictyony and the ark) and “the divine guidance into the possession of the arable land of Palestine”.54 At the end of the twentieth century, both these elements were shrouded in uncertainty, on bibli50 This is the brief 1964 reflection in which he describes his professional vocation as lesen zu lernen und lesen zu lehren – “to learn to read and to teach to read”. 51 Both may be found in Probleme biblischer Theologie (1971) 648–661. 52 See Sweeney/Ben-Zvi, Changing Face of Form Criticism (2003) 2–3. 53 Überlieferungsgeschichte (1948) 46, 277 f; History of Pentateuchal Traditions (1972) 43, 259. The difficulty of accounting for “the emergence of that reality” remains today. 54 Überlieferungsgeschichte (1948) 272 f; History of Pentateuchal Traditions (1972) 252 f.

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cal and archaeological grounds. Any reflections (even if advanced with Noth’s remarkable prudence), which took these for granted, to say nothing of other elements, could only be viewed as overshadowed by speculation and hypothesis. For Noth, the creative stage of the pentateuchal traditions lay “between the time of the occupation of the land and the beginning of the formation of the state”.55 A more complicated alternative might extend this period until considerably later. There has been no substantial follow-up to Noth in this area. One might say that tradition history ground to a halt with the failure of this major effort. History is both important and elusive. The pursuit of traditions into Israel’s past can be suspect of indulgence in speculation. In theory, transmission history – understood as attention to the history of particular literary types – may appear to have a firmer base in existing texts.56 In practice, this is often far from the case. Both approaches are desirable; regrettably, neither is trouble-free. The “remarkable terminological confusion” noted by R. Knierim may well have reflected the confusion as to what was genuinely possible.57

4.6. Klaus Koch In 1954, von Rad asked Klaus Koch (b. 1926) to write “a small guide to form criticism for our students”.58 Regretfully, as a guide for students Koch’s book, Was ist Formgeschichte?, “What is Form Criticism?” (1964), has to be judged a hindrance rather than a help. It opens with the question: “What is form criticism?”.59 Alas, the question is never directly answered. After a brief discussion of literary forms, the closest Koch came to an answer to his question is too general to be genuinely helpful, at least to the beginner: historical research has proved that the Bible is not a unit with a single literary form. Indeed the book [the Bible] contains a most remarkable assortment of literature. … The use of words, the style and construction follow correspondingly varied principles and all these must be considered before a text can be accurately interpreted. This is form criticism.60

55

Überlieferungsgeschichte (1948) 46 f; History of Pentateuchal Traditions (1972) 45. It is not surprising that, in the English-speaking world at least, Noth’s History of Pentateuchal Traditions has been highly valued for its presentation of a once widely accepted consensus regarding pentateuchal source division (JEDP) and largely ignored with regard to the core of the book, its thesis on the themes leading up to the Pentateuch. 56 See Growth of the Biblical Tradition (1969) 53. 57 Criticism of Literary Features (1985) 147. Noth’s own recognition, formulated late in his life (Könige, I. Teilband [1 Kgs 1–16]; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1968, 246), that “a literary-critical possibility is not a literary critical necessity” (Eine literarkritische Möglichkeit ist jedoch noch keine literarkritische Notwendigkeit) – what can be envisioned need not have been done – provides an insight that contributes to the uncertainty. 58 Growth of the Biblical Tradition (1969) ix. The English main title of Koch’s book (Growth of the Biblical Tradition) reflects more accurately the contents of the book; the German title does not (Was ist Formgeschichte, What is Form Criticism? – reduced in the English publication to a sub-title, The Form-Critical Method). 59 Growth of the Biblical Tradition (1969) 3. 60 Ibid. 6.

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The value of the form-critical approach is discussed and illustrated by a number of studies. Unfortunately, the approach itself is not analyzed, abstracted from the illustrative studies, and described for the benefit of students and others. The elements of the approach can be dug out; they are not laid out. The end product tends as a result to challenge or worse to mystify – not helpful to students. The discussions can be illuminating to the advanced; they may not help the beginner with the question, “What is form criticism?” and what is involved with it? There can be no doubt that, in the mid-years of the twentieth century, form criticism generated great interest and excitement, which waned with the waning of the century. Writing in 1964, Koch could say: “So much has been written under the name of form criticism that the reader sometimes feels that this field of exegesis should be kept within some sort of bounds. … Many exegetes tread with caution”.61 We are left with the questions: What caused the excitement? What caused the caution? What caused the waning of it all? He added: “Many readers will ask … What with literary criticism (Literarkritik) and its emphasis on accuracy, and the more attractive aspects of the ‘positivist’ tendency of the last century, haven’t we enough?”.62 From the beginning of the century, we have heard dissatisfied voices with the clear answer: No, we haven’t enough; we need something more. Five years later, introducing the English edition of his book, Koch wrote that “form criticism is an attempt to discover the principles underlying the language of the Bible”.63 Honesty even more than modesty demands that this claim be characterized as grandiose. The emphasis shifts slightly when Koch’s discussion moves beyond the sentence to “the larger unit of the literary type of speech, which has a definite sociological function. This applies not only to the human word, but also to the Word of God as it is found in the Bible. Thus we come to the underlying purpose of this book: to try to discover what lies behind the speech of God in the Bible”.64 Dissatisfaction with past approaches was not the whole story. Dissatisfaction with the understanding of “what lies behind the speech of God in the Bible” may have been part of it. What was the “something more” that was wanted and why has interest in it waned? Koch spoke of the “many problems of method”.65 It would seem that the promise of method (offering a degree of certainty regarding outcome) outweighed the caution suggested by the “many problems”. As the century progressed, awareness of unresolved problems predominated, coupled with inadequate generalities about method. What form criticism did, beginning with Gunkel, was pay close attention in the biblical text to more emphatically human aspects of structure and pattern, of language, content, and mood, of social and literary setting. This led to the identification of literary types and their classification. It went further in the exploration of text. All this called for imagination and insight on the part of the interpreter, as well as meticulous scholarship. Furthermore, all this drew attention to the human

61 62 63 64 65

Ibid. ix. Ibid. x. Ibid. xiii. Ibid. xiii. Ibid. ix.

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qualities evident in the biblical text. Form criticism may often have functioned as a label legitimating the moves to scrutinize the text in new and different ways, rethinking “what lies behind the speech of God in the Bible”, the Word of God.

4.7. Rolf Knierim In the latter part of the twentieth century, the standard-bearer for form criticism in North America was Rolf Knierim (b. 1928). Almost three-quarters of the way into the century, the complexity inherent in any theoretical consideration of the interpretation of literature, including biblical literature of course, was explored through a form-critical lens by Knierim with insight and depth in “Old Testament Form Criticism Reconsidered” – including the potential shake-up that form criticism must face.66 A few selections will highlight form criticism, its core, its fragility, and its outreach. Core: Concentrating on the texts of the biblical literature as literary entities, form criticism has attempted to interpret these individual entities by discovering the matrices to which they owe their existence and which they reflect. And since a matrix is assumed to be typical in nature, individual texts emerging from it can be explained as specifications of a distinct typicality. … The linguistic types underlying the individual texts are genres that arise out of a typical societal or life setting. Fragility: We are no longer so clear as to what exactly a genre is. More pointedly: It is doubtful whether this has ever been clear. Outreach: The centrality of this problem [genre] is indicated by its high visibility in different fields of research such as literature, folklore, myth and symbol, phenomenology of religion, linguistics and, most vocally, structuralism. Recent progress in the methods for interpretation of language and literature does shed new light on the problems which form criticism has faced with its own texts.67

At the end of the century, Knierim’s legacy is a multi-volume series, Forms of the Old Testament Literature. The project, complementing Koch, began with a small group – editors Knierim and Tucker, with seven other leading scholars – who met annually envisaging a one-volume encyclopedia covering the form-critical work already done on each book of the OT. The plan had to be changed when it was clear that there was not enough form-critical work on the books of the OT to make it viable. The change ended up with the present series. As a small group, meeting annually, working together on a single volume, focus could be maintained with an agreed coherence as to how form-critical issues were to be presented. The change to a multi-volume series involved greater va66 Following this 1973 article, reference is appropriate to C. Hardmeier, Texttheorie und biblische Exegese (1978) esp. 258–269; more recently, for the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible as ancient literature, see Knierim, Criticism of Literary Features (1985) and, for the interpenetration of methodology and exegesis, Knierim, Text and Concept (1992). 67 Form Criticism Reconsidered (1973), respectively to the paragraphs, 435, 436, 438, 467.

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riety and greater authorial freedom; focus and coherence was maintained by the structure required of each volume in the series. The analytical structure of each unit of text guaranteed the close observation of a text, essential to form criticism. Such an analysis could easily deteriorate into a list of contents, but ideally it was intended to be based on form (what sort of a text does this sub-unit constitute?) and relationship (how do the parts relate to form a whole?). This observation of the text must, clearly, concentrate on the present text, reversing the earlier priority given to orality; only then might study move to anything earlier. Beyond observation is the question of identity. What sort of a text is the whole that forms this unit? If observation was central to the analysis of structure and its discussion, identification was the task of the “genre” section. Along with that goes “setting”. The final section, “intention/meaning of the text”, looked at how one scholar (the modern author) saw the meaning best derived from this particular form-critical unit. The aspect of classification was left to the listing of genres, and their descriptions, at the end of each volume. As the twentieth century ended, the series was a work in progress, with Knierim and Sweeney as editors and seventeen volumes completed of twenty-seven planned. An enlightening and detailed study by Marvin Sweeney, with model interpretation of Genesis 15, closed out the century.68 What the twenty-first century will make of form criticism lies ahead.

5. Conclusion The Bible is a foundational religious text and such texts are almost always deeply intertwined and enmeshed with their culture. Interpretation never wholly escapes the cultural. The cultural has many manifestations. Among them, clearly, are academy, church, and social structure. Apart from factors of personal identity – faith, heritage, experience, and so on – constraints will come from academy (perhaps eminence or career), church (perhaps respect or esteem), and social structure (perhaps influence or standing) that may have their influence on a scholar’s interpretation of biblical text. Gunkel resisted the dominant acceptance of history as automatic literary genre in Genesis, bringing observation, identification, and classification to bear against it. In full agreement, Gressmann further resisted constraining the Bible to a single local culture, instead studying it within the wider ancient Near Eastern context. In the two studies discussed here, von Rad and Noth reached back into the past of the literature; subsequent study, however, has found the convictions that were central to both works to be speculative (often faith-based) and untenable. Knierim focused on observation, identification, and classification in relation to the patterns of the present text and “let the chips fall where they may” (a Knierim mantra).

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Form Criticism (1999).

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Scientific method and procedure are essential for progress in many areas of knowledge. These do not and cannot replace sensitivity, intuition, and flair, backed up by meticulous observation, extensive knowledge, and careful scholarship. Top physicists know this; modern biblical scholars need to be comfortable with it. A significant conclusion coming from this brief survey of the major players in the emergence of the form-critical and traditio-historical approaches to the interpretation of OT text in the twentieth century is clear beyond doubt. Form criticism is not and never was a method, in the sense of a tool in the biblical interpreter’s kit, in the exegete’s tool box, along with transmission history, redaction history, and the like – which in turn are themselves not tools but insights and approaches that may, on occasion, be valuable for unfolding and further interpreting a text. Professionals have a variety of tools available to them; well-trained workers only use the few that apply to the job in hand. The traditional approaches to biblical interpretation (or methods for interpreting biblical texts) are questions to be asked of a text, certainly not a sequence to be slavishly followed. The form-critical question, “What sort of a text is this?” – with associated decisions – helps determine what tools to use. The claim, all too frequently made, that form criticism is a method, implying a series of methodical steps to be taken in order to unlock the interpretation of a text, can place an unfair burden on form criticism by creating unreal expectations that cannot be fulfilled. Also emerging from this brief survey is clear evidence of tension between social and religious attitudes of the time and the new approaches and their consequences for biblical interpretation. It is evident with Gunkel, less explicit in Gressmann, present in von Rad’s remark about his own commentary, and still there as late as Koch’s book in the 1960s. It is important for those outside the German university system to be aware of the procedure for appointment to prestigious academic posts. Candidates did not, at the time, submit their applications for such posts; they were invited to apply. The relevant authorities within a university prepared the triad (or terna), the ranked list of three names of those considered suitable to be invited. This triad was then submitted to the appropriate government authority responsible for the university. The invitation to the favored candidate was issued by this government authority. Social, ecclesiastical, and political influence make themselves felt in almost any system. The conjunction of university and government in the process of invitation means that such influence cannot be underestimated and should not be discounted. Form criticism may have on occasion functioned as a legitimation for an activity as academic that might have been frowned upon in certain circles. The subtle shift in religious attitudes, touched on at the start of this chapter, presumably played its role.

Above all, OT form criticism was (and should be) the outcome of an attitude of mind on the part of the interpreter. It was an attitude that allowed and allows for openness to the nature of any given text. It was an attitude of mind that embraced the reality of patterns in human expression and of settings in human living and that hoped/aspired/yearned to reach these in ancient Israel through attention to the structures and language of OT text. What sort of a text is this? What meaningfully can be said about it? What flows from it that contributes to meaning? This is the stuff of form criticism. Biblical study cannot be restricted to a central focus on the analysis of composite text (Literarkritik) or on the history of ideas in the past (Geistesgeschichte),

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and not even to a central focus on the history of the past itself (Geschichte); it will always examine literature for its insights, its beauty, its religious value, and its witness to the power of thought or the play of creativity and imagination. Assuring this has been, at its best, the achievement of OT form criticism in the twentieth century. At the end of the twentieth century, OT form criticism needed: – first, to be reintegrated into the task of biblical interpretation; – second, to recover its role in assessing the nature of a text and its function; – third, alongside these, to confront issues common to all biblical interpretation and, indeed, common to any interpretation of literature.69 Among such issues were: awareness of literary genre in all its complexity; the equal complexity of the concept of setting or matrix; the interplay of structure and content in the understanding of genre; the potential interaction of both typical and individual in literature.70 The future will not lack for work.

69 See Knierim, Form Criticism Reconsidered (1973), reinforced by his Criticism of Literary Features (1985). 70 This last issue is shared by James Muilenburg early in his Form Criticism and Beyond (1969), esp. 5.

Chapter Thirty-one

Contemporary Methods in Hebrew Bible Criticism By David J. A. Clines, Sheffield General bibliography: D. J. A. Clines, “Historical Criticism: Are its Days Numbered?”, Teologinen Aikakauskirja 6 (2009) 542–558; “Methods in Old Testament Study”, in: Beginning Old Testament Study (ed. J. W. Rogerson; Philadelphia: Westminster 1982 / London: SPCK 1983), 26–43 (rev. edn., [1998] 25–48); “Psalm 23 and Method: Reading a David Psalm”, in: The Fate of King David: The Past and Present of a Biblical Icon. Essays in Honor of David M. Gunn (ed. T. Linafelt / C. V. Camp / T. Beal; Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies 500; London: T. & T. Clark International 2009), 175–184; “Reading Esther from Left to Right: Contemporary Strategies for Reading a Biblical Text”, in: The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield (ed. D. J. A. Clines / S. E. Fowl / S. E. Porter; JSOT.S 87; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1990), 22–42. – J. C. Exum (ed.), Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus (Semeia Studies; Decatur, GA: Scholars Press 1989). – J. C. Exum / D. J. A. Clines (eds.), The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (JSOT.S 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993). – D. Jasper, “Literary Readings of the Bible”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (ed. J. Barton; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1998), 21–34. – S. L. McKenzie / S. R. Haynes (eds.), To Each its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and their Application (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press 1993). – D. A. Robertson, The Old Testament and the Literary Critic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1977). – G. A. Yee (ed.), Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (2nd edn.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2007).

In the last half century, the most important feature of Hebrew Bible criticism has been the development of a wide range of critical methods and new approaches. While none of them has been designed to supplant the traditional historical-critical methods their effect has been, to some extent, to divert attention from them. In most cases, the methods and approaches have not originated from biblical scholars, but have been adaptations of methods developed in other fields, especially literary studies. The use of the new critical methods reviewed here is characteristically not confined to specialist exemplifications – such as are noted in the bibliographies in this chapter – but is much more pervasive throughout current scholarship as a confluence of methods. The hegemonic discourse of traditional biblical criticism, in the mode of historical criticism, has proved very resistant to the “new methods” (as they are commonly referred to), and has attempted to marginalize them in various ways: by judging them less scholarly or less serious than traditional methods, by regarding them – because they are relatively new – as merely fashionable or trendy, by giving them inadequate space in collective volumes, and by insisting on evaluating and treating together many very different methods that may have no more in common than the fact that they have entered the field in the last 50 years.

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In this survey there are identified three main groupings of methods that may be called “contemporary”: (1) methods related to literary criticism, (2) methods related to structuralism, and (3) methods related to ideological criticism. An assignment of a particular method to one or other of these groupings will no doubt be contentious in some cases; however, not a lot hangs on the classification, which is largely heuristic. Among the trends that may be marked out as especially promising or influential or currently favoured are: reception criticism, feminist and gender criticism, and the various ideological criticisms.

1. Literary Criticism R. Alter / F. Kermode (eds.), The Literary Guide to the Bible (London: Fontana 1987). – M. Minor (ed.), Literary-Critical Approaches to the Bible: An Annotated Bibliography (West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press 1992). – M. A. Powell, The Bible and Modern Literary Criticism: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography (New York: Greenwood Press 1992). – R. Schwartz (ed.), The Book and the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory (Oxford: Blackwell 1990).

The term “literary criticism”, and its German equivalent, Literarkritik, have in the past referred to historical criticism as directed toward texts; such literary criticism dealt with questions of authorship, sources and the like. Sometimes the term “literary-historical criticism” is used to distinguish the traditional literary criticism from what is commonly understood by “literary criticism” today. “Literary criticism” now refers to the kinds of criticism that scholars of literature – biblical and otherwise – undertake when they are considering texts as works of literature. An historical dimension is usually absent from such criticism. Such criticism sees texts as works of art in their own right. Texts are conceived of as coherent intelligible wholes more or less independent of their authors, creating meaning through the integration of their elements. Typically, literary critics approach texts as unified wholes rather than as the amalgam of sources, and study structure, themes, character, and the like. They call their approach “synchronic” rather than “diachronic”, dealing with the text as it stands rather than with its (presumed) prehistory. Sometimes this literary criticism is called a “text-immanent” approach, but that term would not easily accommodate reader-response criticism, where the focus is on the reader rather than on the text. Among the types of literary criticism that are practised we may distinguish:

1.1. Genre Criticism General: R. Boer (ed.), Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies (Semeia Studies 63; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2007). – N. Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1982). – J. Kee / A. Reinhartz (eds.), Northrop Frye and the Afterlife of the Word (Semeia 89; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2002). – F. Landy, “Ruth and the Romance of Realism, or Deconstructing History”, JAAR 62 (1994) 285–318 (= idem, Beauty and the Enigma: and Other Essays on the Hebrew Bible [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2001], 218–251). – K. L. Sparks, “Genre Criticism”, in: Methods for Exodus (ed. T. B. Dozeman; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2010), 55–94.

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Special works, on Tragedy and Comedy: J. C. Exum/J. W. Whedbee, “Isaac, Samson, and Saul: Reflections on the Comic and Tragic Visions”, in: On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (ed. Y. T. Radday/A. Brenner; Bible and Literature Series 23; JSOT.S 92; Sheffield: Almond Press 1990), 117–159. – J. C. Exum (ed.), Tragedy and Comedy in the Bible (Semeia 32; Decatur, GA: Scholars Press 1984). Tragedy: Z. Abou Absi, “Esther as a Greek Tragedy”, ThRev 24 (2003) 32–40. – M. A. Beek, “David and Absalom: A Hebrew Tragedy in Prose?”, in: Voices from Amsterdam: A Modern Tradition of Reading Biblical Narrative (ed. M. Kessler; Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1994), 155–168. – P. R. Davies, “Tragedy and Ethics: Revisiting Athens and Jerusalem”, in: Reading from Right to Left: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of David J. A. Clines (ed. J. C. Exum / H. G. M. Williamson; JSOT.S 373; London: Sheffield Academic Press 2003), 107–120. – F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, “Tragedy, Tradition, and Theology in the Book of Lamentations”, JSOT 74 (1997) 29–60. – J. C. Exum, “The Tragic Vision and Biblical Narrative: The Case of Jephthah”, in: Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus (ed. J. C. Exum; Semeia Studies; Decatur, GA: Scholars Press 1989), 59–84; Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1992). – M. I. Gruber, “The Tragedy of Cain and Abel: A Case of Depression”, in his The Motherhood of God and Other Studies (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 57; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1992), 121–131. – D. M. Gunn, The Fate of King Saul: An Interpretation of a Biblical Story (JSOT.S 14; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1980). – S. Halperin, “Tragedy in the Bible”, Semitics 7 (1980) 28–49. – L. D. Hawk, “Saul as Sacrifice: The Tragedy of Israel’s First Monarch”, BibRev 12 (1996) 20–25, 56; “Violent Grace; Tragedy and Transformation in the Oresteia and the Deuteronomistic History”, JSOT 28 (2003) 73–88. – W. J. Houston, “Tragedy in the Courts of the Lord: A Socio-literary Reading of the Death of Nadab and Abihu”, JSOT 90 (2000) 31–39. – W. L. Humphreys, The Tragic Vision and the Hebraic Tradition (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1985). – S. Nicholson, Three Faces of Saul: An Intertextual Approach to Biblical Tragedy (JSOT.S 339; London: Sheffield Academic Press 2002). – S. B. Reid, “Violence and Vengeance: Ingredients for Tragedy”, in: Encounter with the Text. Form and History in the Hebrew Bible (ed. M. J. Buss; Semeia Supplements; Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1979). – J. W. Whedbee, “On Divine and Human Bonds: The Tragedy of the House of David”, in: Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (ed. G. M. Tucker / D. L. Petersen / R. R. Wilson; Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1988) 147–165. Comedy: J. R. C. Cousland, “Tobit: A Comedy in Error?”, CBQ 65 (2003) 535–553. – R.J. Frontain, “Dinah and the Comedy of Castration in Sterne’s Tristram Shandy”, in: Old Testament Women in Western Literature (Conway, AR: UCA Press 1991), 174–203. – E. M. Good, “Apocalyptic as Comedy: The Book of Daniel”, in: Tragedy and Comedy in the Bible (ed. J. C. Exum; Semeia 32; Decatur, GA: Scholars Press 1984), 41–70. – D. McCracken, “Narration and Comedy in the Book of Tobit”, JBL 114 (1995) 401–418. – A. Portier-Young, “Alleviation of Suffering in the Book of Tobit: Comedy, Community, and Happy Endings”, CBQ 63 (2001) 35–54. – J. W. Whedbee, The Bible and the Comic Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1998); “The Comedy of Job”, in: On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (ed. Y. T. Radday / A. Brenner; Bible and Literature Series 23; JSOT.S 92; Sheffield: Almond Press 1990), 217–249. Irony: W. H. Anderson, “Ironic Correlations and Scepticism in the Joy Statements of Qoheleth?”, SJOT 14 (2000) 67–100. – J. A. Beck, “Geography as Irony. The Narrative-Geographical Shaping of Elijah’s Duel with the Prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18)”, SJOT 17 (2003) 291–302. – S. H. Blank, “Irony by Way of Attribution”, Semitics 1 (1970) 1–6. – A. R. Ceresko, “A Poetic Analysis of Ps 105, with Attention to its Use of Irony”, Bib. 64 (1983) 20–46 (= his Psalmists and Sages: Studies in Old Testament Poetry and Religion [Bangalore: St Peter’s Pontifical Institute 1994], 75–102). – A. R. P. Diamond, “Deceiving Hope. The Ironies of Metaphorical Beauty and Ideological Terror in Jeremiah”, SJOT 17 (2003) 34–48. – E. Gass, “Achisch von Gat als politische Witzfigur”, ThQ 189 (2009) 210–242. – S. Goldman, “Narrative and Ethical Ironies in Esther”, JSOT 47 (1990) 15–31. – E. M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament (London: SPCK 1965; 2nd edn.; Sheffield: Almond Press 1981). – J. Jobling, “The Right to Write: Power, Irony, and Identity in the Book of Esther”, in: Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur’an as Literature and Culture (ed. R. S. Sabbath; Biblical Interpretation Series 98; Leiden: Brill 2009), 317–333. – B. C. Jones, Howling over Moab: Irony and Rhetoric in Isaiah 15–16 (SBLDS 157; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1996). – L. R. Klein, The Triumph of Irony in the Book of Judges (Bible and Literature Series 14; JSOT.S 68; Sheffield; Almond Press 1988). – D. Luciani, “L’ironie vétéro-testamentaire. De Good à Sharp”, ETL 85 (2009) 385–410. – R. H. O’Connell, “Isaiah xiv 4b–23: Ironic Reversal through Concentric Structure and Mythic

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Allusion”, VT 38 (1988) 407–418. – C. J. Sharp, “Ironic Representation, Authorial Voice, and Meaning in Qohelet”, BibInt 12 (2004) 37–68; Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP 2009). – J.-L. Ska, “L’ironie de Tamar (Gen 38)”, ZAW 100 (1988) 261–266. – I. J. J. Spangenberg, “Irony in the Book of Qohelet”, JSOT 72 (1996) 57–69; “Jonah and Qohelet: Satire versus Irony”, OTEss 9 (1996) 495–511. – D. M. Valeta, Lions and Ovens and Visions: A Satirical Reading of Daniel 1–6 (Hebrew Bible Monographs 12; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2008). – R. Vignolo, “La poetica ironica di Qohelet. Contributo allo svilupo di un orientamento critico”, Teologia (Milan) 25 (2000) 217–240. – W. L. Holladay, “Text, Structure, and Irony in the Poem on the Fall of the Tyrant, Isaiah 14”, CBQ 61 (1999) 633–645.

In the older literary criticism, the genres of the Hebrew Bible literature were analysed, for example, as speeches, sermons, prayers, narratives, prophetic sayings, and cultic songs – that is, according to their “forms” (Gattungen). Such form-critical analyses are by no means superseded in contemporary literary criticism, but the scope of genre criticism has become rather the genres of the biblical literature from the perspective of general literature, enquiring about the larger literary forms that may be found in it, such as tragedy, the comic, irony, romance and so on. Tragedy in the Hebrew Bible, for example, as in the story of Saul, may be viewed as an example of tragedy in world literature, recognizing the common theme of hostile transcendence and human guilt as its essence. Another example of genre criticism would be to ask to what extent the Book of Job should be called a “comic” work, with its plot-line swinging upwards and its hero becoming re-integrated into his society at the end of the book. Some scholars are stressing that genres should not be regarded as ready-made categories into which literary works should be fitted, but that readers create genre categories as they read and interpret. Genre is thus a function of the reader’s activity, and a text may be perceived as belonging to several different genres.

1.2. Rhetorical Criticism L. Alonso Schökel, “The Poetic Structure of Psalm 42–43”, JSOT 1 (1976) 4–11 (orig. ‘Estructura poética del Salmo 42–43’, in: Wort, Lied und Gottesspruch: Festschrift für Joseph Ziegler, 2 [Würzburg: Echter Verlag 1972], 11–16). – D. J. A. Clines / D. M. Gunn / A. J. Hauser (eds.), Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature (JSOT.S 19; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1982). – T. B. Dozeman, “OT Rhetorical Criticism”, ABD 5: 712–715. – R. L. Foster / D. M. Howard (eds.), My Words Are Lovely: Studies in the Rhetoric of the Psalms (LHB / OTS 467; New York / London: T. & T. Clark 2008). – D. Greenwood, “Rhetorical Criticism and Formgeschichte: Some Methodological Considerations”, JBL 89 (1970) 418–426. – J. C. Exum, “A Literary and Structural Analysis of the Song of Songs”, ZAW 85 (1973) 47–79; “Aspects of Symmetry and Balance in the Samson Saga”, JSOT 19 (1981) 3–29 (errata in JSOT 20 [1981] 90); “Promise and Fulfillment: Narrative Art in Judges 13”, JBL 99 (1980) 43–59. – J. J. Jackson / M. Kessler (eds.), Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg (Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series 1; Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press 1974). – M. Kessler, “A Methodological Setting for Rhetorical Criticism”, Semitics 4 (1974) 22–36. – R. F. Melugin, “Muilenburg, Form Criticism, and Theological Exegesis”, in: M. J. Buss (ed.), Encounter with the Text: Form and History in the Hebrew Bible (Semeia Supplements 8; Philadelphia: Fortress Press / Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1979), 91–100. – J. Muilenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond”, JBL 88 (1969) 1–18. – T. H. Olbricht, “Rhetorical Criticism in Biblical Commentaries”, Currents in Biblical Research 7 (2008) 11–36. – The Bible and Culture Collective, “Rhetorical Criticism”, in: The Postmodern Bible (New Haven: Yale UP 1995), 149–186. – P. Trible, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah (Guides to Biblical Scholarship; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1994). – P. K. Tull, “Rhetorical Criticism and Intertextuality”, in: To Each its Own

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Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and their Applications (ed. S. L. McKenzie / S. R. Haynes; Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press 1999), 156–180. – M. Warner (ed.), The Bible as Rhetoric: Studies in Biblical Persuasion and Credibility (Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature; London: Routledge 1990). – D. F. Watson / A. J. Hauser, Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible: A Comprehensive Bibliography, with Notes on History and Method (Leiden: Brill 1994).

Rhetorical criticism, often operating under the banner of “the final form of the text”, concerns itself with the way the language of texts is deployed to convey meaning. Its interests are in the devices of writing, in metaphor and parallelism, in narrative and poetic structures, in stylistic figures. In New Testament studies it has sometimes had regard to the ancient rhetorical situation of the composition, and in that respect has had a historical interest. But, in the absence of source material from the ancient Near East about the practice of rhetoric, in Hebrew Bible studies rhetorical criticism has necessarily focussed upon the texts and their own internal articulation. Rhetorical criticism, which has become firmly embedded in many areas of Hebrew Bible criticism, has usually been rather descriptive and has lacked critical edge. It may be revived if the function of stylistic features in texts is brought within its scope, that is, if it begins to examine how style serves the persuasive intentions of texts (cf. Foster and Howard, My Words Are Lovely) – or if it moves in the direction of pragmatics, the study of how contexts contribute to meaning.

1.3. New Criticism / Formalism / Close Reading / Narratology R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books 1981). – Y. Amit, Reading Biblical Narratives: Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2001). – S. BarEfrat, Narrative Art in the Bible (JSOT.S 70; Bible and Literature Series 17; Sheffield: Almond Press 1989). – R. C. Culley (ed.), Classical Hebrew Narrative (Semeia 3; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1975); Perspectives on Old Testament Narrative (Semeia 15; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1979). – T. C. Eskenazi, In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra–Nehemiah (SBLMS 36; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 1988). – J. C. Exum, “Of Broken Pots, Fluttering Birds and Visions in the Night: Extended Simile and Poetic Technique in Isaiah”, CBQ 43 (1981) 331–352 (= Beyond Form Criticism: Essays in Old Testament Literary Criticism [ed. P. R. House; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1992], 349–372). – J. P. Fokkelman, Major Poems of the Hebrew Bible: At the Interface of Hermeneutics and Structural Analysis, 1–2 (SSN 37, 41; Assen: Van Gorcum 1998–2000); Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses, 1–4 (SSN 20, 23, 27, 31; Assen: Van Gorcum 1981–1993). – D. M. Gunn / D. N. Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford UP 1993). – R. Schwartz (ed.), The Book and the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory (Oxford: Blackwell 1990). – M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP 1985). – J. T. Walsh, Old Testament Narrative: A Guide to Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press 2010).

New Criticism was especially an Anglo-American movement in general literary criticism, regarding texts as unitary works of art, paying close attention to the internal characteristics of the text itself and abjuring the use of data extrinsic to a text in its interpretation (it was thus the polar opposite of historical criticism). Formalism is essentially equivalent to “New Criticism”, but was originally the term for the somewhat parallel Russian movement that explored the nature of “literariness”, affirming that the form and structure of literary works

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are not merely decorative elements, but part of their content. “Close reading” is a term for the method of New Criticism; it refers to a paying of special attention to theme, imagery, metaphor, paradox, irony, ambiguity, key words, motifs and the like. Narratology, on the other hand, is a systematic analysis of narrative: its interests are in plot and plot devices, in identifying and distinguishing narrators from implied, ideal and actual authors and readers, and in distinguishing the “story” (or, “fabula”, the sequence of events) from the “discourse” (the manifestation of the story in a text).

1.4. Reader-response Criticism D. J. A. Clines, What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament (JSOT.S 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1990). – J. S. Croatto, Biblical Hermeneutics: Toward a Theory of Reading as the Production of Meaning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1987). – R. Detweiler (ed.), Reader Response Approaches to Biblical and Secular Texts (Semeia 31; Decatur, GA: Society of Biblical Literature 1985). – R. M. Fowler, “Mapping the Varieties of Reader-Response Critical Theory”, BibInt l (1993) 1–28. – B. C. Lategan, “Reader Response Theory”, ABD, 5: 825–828. – E. V. McKnight,, Post-Modern Use of the Bible: The Emergence of Reader-Oriented Criticism (Nashville: Abingdon Press 1988). – P. Quinn-Miscall, 1 Samuel: A Literary Reading (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP 1986); Reading Isaiah: Poetry and Vision (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press 2001); The Workings of Old Testament Narrative (Semeia Studies; Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1983). – Z. Schwáb, “Mind the Gap: The Impact of Wolfgang Iser’s Reader-Response Criticism on Biblical Studies – A Critical Assessment”, LitTheol 17 (2003) 170–181. – The Bible and Culture Collective (ed.), “Reader Response Criticism”, in: The Postmodern Bible (New Haven: Yale UP 1995).

In this criticism, the focus is on the reader as the creator of, or at the very least, an important contributor to, the meaning of texts. Rather than seeing “meaning” as a property inherent in texts, whether put there by an author (as in traditional historical criticism) or somehow existing intrinsically in the shape, structure and wording of the texts (as in general literary criticism and rhetorical criticism), reader-response criticism regards meaning as coming into being at the meeting point of text and reader – or, in a more extreme form, as being created by readers in the act of reading. An obvious implication of a reader-response position is that any quest for determinate meanings is invalidated; the idea of a definitive meaning of a text disappears and meaning becomes understood as relative to the various readers who develop their own meanings. A text, in that case, means whatever it means to its readers, no matter how strange or unacceptable some meanings may seem to other readers. Reader-response criticism further raises the question of validity in interpretation. If there are no determinate meanings, no intrinsically right or wrong interpretations, if the author or the text cannot give validation to meanings, the only source for validity in interpretation has to lie in “interpretative communities” – groups that authorize certain meanings and disallow others. Validity in interpretation is then recognized as relative to the group that authorizes it, whether it is an academic or a confessional group. Of all the contemporary criticisms reviewed in this chapter, reader-response criticism is perhaps the most antithetic to traditional historical criticism. It is

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de-historicizing since the historical circumstances of the text’s composition make no difference to the meanings that readers will find in the texts, and it is postmodernist in that it countenances a plurality of meanings in the biblical texts. – See also § 1.5 Reception Criticism.

1.5. Reception Criticism General: B. Becking / S. Hennecke, Out of Paradise: Eve and Adam and their Interpreters (Hebrew Bible Monographs 30; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – J. Carruthers, Esther through the Centuries (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing 2007). – B. S. Childs, Exodus: A Commentary (London: SCM Press 1974). – E. S. Christianson, Ecclesiastes through the Centuries (Oxford: Blackwell 2007). – D. J. A. Clines / T. C. Eskenazi (eds.), Telling Queen Michal’s Story: An Experiment in Comparative Interpretation (JSOT.S 119; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991). – J. C. Exum, Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women (JSOT.S 215; Gender, Culture, Theory 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996). – S. Gillingham, Psalms through the Centuries, 1 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing 2008). – D. L. Jeffrey (ed.), A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1992). – H.-J. Klauck e.a. (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2009–). – D. M. Gunn, Judges (Oxford: Blackwell 2005). – S. M. Langston, Exodus through the Centuries (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing 2006). – R. Lemon e.a. (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature (Chichester: Blackwell– Wiley 2009). – T. C. Oden (ed.), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press 1998–). – J. F. A. Sawyer, A Concise Dictionary of the Bible and its Reception (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press 2009); The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1996). – J. F. A. Sawyer (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing 2006). Special studies: In the Arts: G. Aichele (ed.), Culture, Entertainment and the Bible (JSOT.S 309; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2000). – G. A. Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press 2001). – A. Bach, Women, Seduction, and Betrayal in Biblical Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1997). – B. Britt, Rewriting Moses: The Narrative Eclipse of the Text (JSOT.S 402; Gender, Culture, Theory 14; London: T. & T. Clark International 2004). – J. C. Exum (ed.), Beyond the Biblical Horizon: The Bible and the Arts (Biblical Interpretation Series 6; Leiden: Brill 1999); Retellings: The Bible in Literature, Music, Art and Film (Leiden: Brill 2007). – P. S. Hawkins / L. Cushing Stahlberg (eds.), From the Margins, 1: Women of the Hebrew Bible and their Afterlives (Bible in the Modern World 18; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2009). – C. A. Kirk-Duggan / T. Pippin (eds.), Mother Goose, Mother Jones, Mommie Dearest: Biblical Mothers and their Children (Semeia Studies 61; Leiden: Brill 2010). – L. J. Kreitzer, The Old Testament in Fiction and Film: On Reversing the Hermeneutical Flow (The Biblical Seminar 24; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1994). – Y. Sherwood, A Biblical Text and its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2000). In Art: M. Bal, Reading “Rembrandt”: Beyond the Word–Image Opposition (Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP 2006). – F. C. Black / J. C. Exum, “Semiotics in Stained Glass: Edward Burne-Jones’s Song of Songs”, in: Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium (ed. J. C. Exum / S. D. Moore; JSOT.S 266; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998), 315–342. – M. Brion, The Bible in Art: Miniatures, Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures Inspired by the Old Testament (London: Phaidon Press 1956). – J. C. Exum, “Lovis Corinth’s Blinded Samson”, BibInt 6 (1998) 410–425; Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women (JSOT.S 215; Gender, Culture, Theory 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996); “Seeing” the Song of Songs: Some Artistic Visions of the Bible’s Love Lyrics”, in: Das Alte Testament und die Kunst. Beiträge des Symposiums “Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne” anlässlich des 100. Geburtstags Gerhard von Rads (1901– 1971), Heidelberg, 18.-21. Oktober 2001 (ed. J. Barton / J. C. Exum / M. Oeming; Altes Testament und Moderne 15; Münster: Lit 2005), 91–127; “The Accusing Look: The Abjection of Hagar in Art”, Religion and the Arts 11 (2007) 143–175; “Toward a Genuine Dialogue between the Bible and Art”, in: Congress Volume, Helsinki 2010 (ed. M. Nissinen; Leiden: E. J. Brill 2012). – J. C. Exum / Ela Nutu

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(eds.), Between the Text and the Canvas: The Bible and Art in Dialogue (Bible in the Modern World 13; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2007). – M. O’Kane, Painting the Text: The Artist as Biblical Interpreter (Bible in the Modern World 8; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2007); idem (ed.), Bible, Art, Gallery (Bible in the Modern World 21; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – M. O’Kane / J. Morgan-Guy (eds.), Biblical Art from Wales (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 1–3 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France 1956–1959). In literature: P.-M. Beaude (ed.), La Bible en littérature: Actes du colloque international de Metz (septembre 1994) (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1997). – S. Frieling (ed.), Der rebellische Prophet: Jona in der modernen Literatur (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1999). – R.-J. Frontain / J. Wojcik (eds.), Old Testament Women in Western Literature (Conway, AR: UCA Press 1991). – C. Gellner, Schriftsteller lesen die Bibel. Die Heilige Schrift in der Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts (Darmstadt: Primus 2004). – A. Hess / D. Jasper / E. Jay (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology (Oxford: Oxford UP 2007). – D. H. Hirsch / N. Aschkenasy (eds.), Biblical Patterns in Modern Literature (Brown Judaic Studies 77; Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1984). – D. Jasper / S. Prickett (eds.), The Bible and Literature: A Reader (Oxford: Blackwell 1999). – D. L. Jeffrey (ed.), A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1992). – Sarah Nicholson, “Catching the Poetic Eye: Saul Reconceived in Modern Literature”, in: Saul in Story and Tradition (ed. C. S. Ehrlich; FAT 47; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2006), 309–33. – D. Norton, A History of the Bible as Literature (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993). – G. del Olmo Lete, “The Hebrew Bible and its Influence on Modern Literature”, JNWSL 26 (2000) 1–17. – E. Osborn (ed.), The Bible and European Literature: History and Hermeneutics. Proceedings of a Conference Held at Queen’s College, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 15–18 May, 1987 (Melbourne: Academia Press 1987). – S. Prickett, “The Bible in Literature and Art”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (ed. J. Barton; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998), 160–180. – Y. M. Sherwood, “‘Darke texts needs notes’. On Prophetic Prophecy, John Donne and the Baroque”, JSOT 27 (2003) 47–74; “The Baroque Prophets: An Encounter between the Hebrew Prophets and John Donne”, in: Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur’an as Literature and Culture (ed. R. S. Sabbath; Biblical Interpretation Series 98; Leiden: Brill 2009), 115–140. – H. Schmidinger (ed.), Die Bibel in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts, 1–2 (Mainz: Matthias-GrünewaldVerlag 2000). – M. Sjöberg, Wrestling with Textual Violence: The Jephthah Narrative in Antiquity and Modernity (Bible in the Modern World 4; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2006). – A. C. Swindell, Reworking the Bible: The Literary Reception-History of Fourteen Biblical Stories (Bible in the Modern World 30; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – E. Zenger, “Das Alte Testament in der Kunst und Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts”, in: Lebendige Welt der Bibel. Entdeckungsreise in das Alte Testament (ed. E. Zenger; Freiburg i.Br.: Herder 1997), 57–65. In music: R. Bartelmus, “Handel and Jennens’ Oratorio ‘Saul’. A Late Musical and Dramatic Rehabilitation of the Figure of Saul”, in Saul in Story and Tradition (ed. C. S. Ehrlich; FAT 47; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2006), 284–307. – A. Davies, “Oratorio as Exegesis: The Use of the Book of Isaiah in Handel’s Messiah”, BibInt 15 (2007) 464–484. – C. Dohmen, “Das Alte Testament in Oratorien und Opern”, in: Lebendige Welt der Bibel. Entdeckungsreise in das Alte Testament (ed. E. Zenger; Freiburg i.Br.: Herder 1997), 45–56. – U. Jung-Kaiser (ed.), Das Hohelied. Liebeslyrik als Kultur(en) erschliessendes Medium? 4. Interdisziplinäres Symposium der Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt a.M. 2006 (Berne: Peter Lang 2007). – H. Leneman, Love, Lust, and Lunacy: The Stories of Saul and David in Music (Bible in the Modern World 29; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010); The Performed Bible: The Story of Ruth in Opera and Oratorio (Bible in the Modern World 11; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2007). – P. McGrail, “Eroticism, Death, and Redemption: The Operatic Construct of the Biblical Femme Fatale”, in: Retellings: The Bible in Literature, Music, Art and Film (ed. J. C. Exum; BibInt 15; Leiden: Brill 2007), 405–427. – J.O. Müller, “Das Alte Testament in Bildender Kunst, Musik und Film des 20. Jahrhunderts. Eine Werkauswahl mit bibliographischen Hinweisen”, in: Das Alte Testament und die Kunst. Beiträge des Symposiums “Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne” anlässlich des 100. Geburtstags Gerhard von Rads (1901–1971), Heidelberg, 18.–21. Oktober 2001 (ed. J. Barton / J. C. Exum / M. Oeming; Altes Testament und Moderne 15; Münster: Lit 2005), 227–252. – J. W. Rogerson, “The Use of the Song of Songs in J. S. Bach’s Church Cantatas”, in: Biblical Studies / Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium (ed. J. C. Exum / S. D. Moore; JSOT.S 266; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998), 343–351. – O. H. Steck, Moses und Aron. Die Oper Arnold Schönbergs und ihr biblischer Stoff (Kaiser-Traktate 56; München: Kaiser 1981).

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In film: G. Aichele / R. Walsh (eds.), Screening Scripture: Intertextual Connections between Scripture and Film (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International 2002). – B. Babington / P. W. Evans, Biblical Epics: Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema (Manchester: Manchester UP 1993). – A. Bach, “Cracking the Production Code: Watching Biblical Scholars Read Films”, Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 7 (1999) 11–34. – A. Bach (ed.). Biblical Glamour and Hollywood Glitz (Semeia 74; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1996). – E .S. Christianson, “The Big Sleep: Strategic Ambiguity in Judges 4–5 and in Classic Film Noir”, BibInt 15 (2007) 519–48. – J. C. Exum, “Desire Distorted and Exhibited: Lot and his Daughters in Psychoanalysis, Painting, and Film”, in: “A wise and discerning mind”: Essays in Honor of Burke O. Long (ed. S. M. Olyan / R. C. Culley; Brown Judaic Studies 325; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies 2000), 83–108; “Lethal Woman 2: Reflections on Delilah and her Incarnation as Liz Hurley”, in Borders, Boundaries and the Bible (ed. M. O’Kane; JSOT.S 313; London: Sheffield Academic Press 2002), 254–273; “Michal at the Movies”, in: The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson (ed. M. D. Carroll / D. J. A. Clines / P. R. Davies; JSOT.S 200; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995), 273–292; Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women (JSOT.S 215; Gender, Culture, Theory 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996). – J. C. Exum (ed.), The Bible in Film, the Bible and Film (BibInt 14/1–2; Leiden: Brill 2006). – G. Hallbäck / A. Hvithamer (eds.), Recent Releases: The Bible in Contemporary Cinema (Bible in the Modern World 15; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2008). – B. Hertzberg, “Samson’s Moment of Truth”, BibInt 18 (2010) 226–50. – M. M. Homan, “The Good Book and the Bad Movies: Moses and the Failure of Biblical Cinema”, in: Milk and Honey: Essays on Ancient Israel and the Bible in Appreciation of the Judaic Studies Program at the University of California, San Diego (ed. S. Malena; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2007), 87–112. – R. K. Johnston, Useless Beauty: Ecclesiastes through the Lens of Contemporary Film (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2005). – J. L. Koosed / T. Linafelt, “How the West Was Not One: Delilah Deconstructs the Western”, in: Biblical Glamour and Hollywood Glitz (ed. A. Bach; Semeia 74; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1996), 167–181. – T. Linafelt, “The Wizard of Uz: Job, Dorothy, and the Limits of the Sublime”, in: The Bible in Film, the Bible and Film (ed. J. C. Exum; BibInt 14/1–2; Leiden: Brill 2006 [= BibInt 14]), 94–109. – M. O’Kane, “The Biblical King David and his Artistic and Literary Afterlives”, BibInt 6 (1998) 313–347. – E. Runions, How Hysterical: Identification and Resistance in the Bible and Film (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003). – D. Shepherd (ed.), Images of the Word: Hollywood’s Bible and Beyond (Semeia Studies 54; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2008).

Reception criticism has more commonly been known as “reception history” (Rezeptionsgeschichte), or as “the history of interpretation”, but research into how the biblical text has been interpreted over the centuries does not need to be structured historically, and it is preferable to treat the reception of the Bible as a form of literary criticism. Reception criticism explores the reaction to biblical texts – and the re-use of them – by readers from the very earliest times down to the present; their responses are enshrined not only in commentaries and other theological works but also in the arts, such as music and painting and literature. It is thus an extended example of reader-response criticism, the readers in this case being not only readers of the present but also readers of the past. In its most simple sense it reports and analyses how readers have interpreted the texts, and, indeed, most current examples of reception criticism are largely descriptive. In a more critical sense it brings the interpretation of past interpreters into the current interpretational conversation, and so relativizes to some extent the norms and conclusions of our contemporary scholarly interpretation. The term “reception criticism” names an area of research activity rather than a critical methodology. It would appear to be one of the most productive areas of Hebrew Bible research at the present time. Large-scale recent projects include the multi-volume Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series (ed. T. C. Oden), of which 14 volumes on the Hebrew Bible have appeared, the Blackwell

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Bible Commentary series (ed. J. F. A. Sawyer), of which 5 volumes on the Hebrew Bible have appeared, and the planned 30–volume Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (ed. H.-J. Klauck e.a.). The project of reception criticism is as yet imperfectly theorized. While the gathering of data is both needful and laudable, the question of how the data may be able to affect the business of interpretation is rarely discussed. It is self-evident that not all interpretations of the biblical text are of equal value, and the practical effect of reception criticism upon biblical interpretation remains an important area for further elaboration. –See further, Cultural Criticism, below.

1.6. Intertextuality G. Aichele and G. A. Phillips (eds.), Intertextuality and the Bible (Semeia 69–70; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1995). – R. P. Carroll, “Intertextuality and the Book of Jeremiah: Animadversions on Text and Theory”, in: The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (ed. J. C. Exum / D. J. A. Clines; JSOT.S 143; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1993), 55–78. – D. J. A. Clines, “Esther and the Future of the Commentary”, in: The Book of Esther in Modern Research (ed. S. W. Crawford / L. J. Greenspoon; JSOT.S 380; London: T. & T. Clark 2003), 17–30. – C. A. Evans / S. Talmon (eds.), The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (Biblical Interpretation Series 28; Leiden: Brill 1997). – D. N. Fewell, Reading between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox Press 1992). – M. Fishbane, “Types of Biblical Intertextuality”, in Congress Volume: Oslo 1998 (ed. A. Lemaire / M. Sæbø; VT.S 80; Leiden: Brill 2000), 39–44. – S. GillmayrBucher, “Intertextualität. Zwischen Literaturtheorie und Methodik”, PzB 8 (1999) 5–20. – T. N. D. Mettinger, “Intertextuality: Allusion and Vertical Context Systems in Some Job Passages”, in: Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages: Essays in Honour of R. N. Whybray on his Seventieth Birthday (ed. H. A. McKay / D. J. A. Clines; JSOT.S 162; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1993), 257–280. – K. Nielsen, “Intertextuality and Hebrew Bible”, in: Congress Volume, Oslo 1998 (ed. A. Lemaire /M. Sæbø; Leiden: Brill 2000), 17–31. – B. D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 1998). – E. van Wolde, “From Text via Text to Meaning. Intertextuality and its Implications”, in her Words Become Worlds: Semantic Studies of Genesis 1–11 (Leiden: Brill 1994), 160–199; “Intertextuality: Ruth in Dialogue with Tamar”, in: A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies (ed. A. Brenner / C. Fontaine; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1997), 426–451; “Texts in Dialogue with Texts: Intertextuality in the Ruth and Tamar Narratives”, BibInt 5 (1997) 1–28.

The term “intertextuality” denotes the use of one text by another. It is sometimes used to include biblical citations of and allusions to other biblical texts, but that is a feature of biblical texts that has been remarked upon in all periods of biblical criticism. The new term “intertextuality” is best reserved for the study of relations between texts when that relation is not conceived of in terms of literary dependence but of similarity or dissimilarity. Biblical intertextuality is a contemporary approach when it brings two (or more) biblical texts into relation to each other, seeking to discern the light that one text can shed on the other. More rarely, it is used of the relation that may be suggested between a biblical text and other literary texts of any period or milieu; such a field of enquiry is especially promising, especially in connection with reception criticism (see § 1.5).

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2. Structuralism and Poststructuralism 2.1. Structuralism P. Beauchamp, “L’analyse structurale et l’exégèse biblique”, VTSup 22 (1971) 113–128. – B. Green, Mikhail Bakhtin and Biblical Scholarship: An Introduction (Semeia Studies 38; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2000). – D. Greenwood, Structuralism and the Biblical Text (Berlin: Mouton 1985). – D. Jobling, “Structuralist Criticism: The Text’s World of Meaning”, in: Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (ed. G. A. Yee; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 22007), 90–114; The Sense of Biblical Narrative, I. Three Structural Analyses in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 13–31, Numbers 11– 12, 1 Kings 17–18) (JSOT.S 7; Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 1978); The Sense of Biblical Narrative, II. Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible (JSOT.S 39; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1986). – P. J. Milne, Vladimir Propp and the Study of Structure in Hebrew Biblical Narrative (Bible and Literature 13; Sheffield: Almond Press 1988). – D. Patte, “Structural Criticism”, in: To Each its Own Meaning. An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and their Applications (ed. S. R. Haynes / S. L. McKenzie; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press 1999), 183–200; The Religious Dimensions of Biblical Texts: Greimas’s Structural Semiotics and Biblical Exegesis (Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1990); What Is Structural Exegesis? (Guides to Biblical Scholarship; Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1976). – D. Patte (ed.), Genesis 2 and 3: Kaleidoscopic Structural Readings (Semeia 18; Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1980); Thinking in Signs: Semiotics and Biblical Studies – Thirty Years After (Semeia 81; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1998). – R. M. Polzin, Biblical Structuralism: Method and Subjectivity in the Study of Ancient Texts (Semeia Supplements 5; Philadelphia : Fortress Press 1977). – D. M. Sharon, “Some Results of a Structural Semiotic Analysis of the Story of Judah and Tamar”, JSOT 29 (2005) 259–287; The Bible and Culture Collective (eds.), “Structuralist and Narratological Criticism”, in: The Postmodern Bible (New Haven: Yale UP 1995), 70–118.

Structuralism was the first methodological innovation used within biblical criticism that ignored the historical-critical method on principle. Its foundation was F. de Saussure’s exploration of the synchronic in language, itself a departure from the traditional historical-critical philology that interested itself in the origins of words and the laws of historical linguistic change. For de Saussure, language was a system existing at a given time, rather than a sequence of events occurring over time. And meaning was not inherent in the word itself, but was determined by difference – the difference between the item in question and other similar or contrasting items. It is easy to see how applying that perspective to biblical texts challenged historical criticism. (We are still waiting for the application of de Saussure’s principle of difference to the interpretation of the Bible: if we suppose that each text has its meaning not in some intrinsic sense it itself possesses but solely in its difference from other biblical texts; the ramifications could be fascinating; cf. § 1.6 Intertextuality.) Literary structuralism concerns itself with structures deeper than the level of the text. It is not interested, for example, in the formal surface structure of a narrative (which many older critics have examined), but in what may be thought of as the grammar of narrative. The actantial analysis of A. J. Greimas is a case in point: any narrative, he claims, can be analysed in terms of a Sender transmitting an Object to a Receiver, and being helped or hindered in so doing by a Helper and/or an Opponent (these figures being the ‘actants’). Identification of such a structure can have significant interpretational value; but the method is not commonly used by biblical critics.

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2.2. Poststructuralism A. K. M. Adam, What is Postmodern Biblical Criticism? (Guides to Biblical Scholarship; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995). – R. P. Carroll, “Poststructuralist Approaches: New Historicism and Postmodernism”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (ed. J. Barton; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1998), 50–66. – D. J. A. Clines, “Varieties of Indeterminacy”, in: Textual Indeterminacy, Part Two (ed. R. C. Culley / R. B. Robinson; Semeia 63; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1995), 17–27. – R. C. Culley / R. B. Robinson (eds.), Textual Determinacy, 1–2 (Semeia 62, 71; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1995). – R. Detweiler (ed.), Derrida and Biblical Studies (Semeia 23; Missoula, MT: Society of Biblical Literature 1982). – D. Jobling / S. D. Moore (eds.), Poststructuralism as Exegesis (Semeia 54; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1992). – D. Jobling / T. Pippin / R. Schleifer (eds.), The Postmodern Bible Reader (Oxford: Blackwell 2001). – G. A. Phillips (ed.), Poststructural Criticism and the Bible: Text/History/Discourse (Semeia 51; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1990). – H. C. Pyper, David as Reader: 2 Samuel 12:1–15 and the Poetics of Fatherhood (Biblical Interpretation Series 23; Leiden: Brill 1996). – E. Runions, Changing Subjects: Gender, Nation and Future in Micah (Playing the Texts 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2001). – D. Rutledge, Reading Marginally: Feminism, Deconstruction and the Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series 21; Leiden: Brill 1996). – Y. Sherwood, The Prostitute and the Prophet: Hosea’s Marriage in Literary-Theological Perspective (JSOT.S 212; Gender, Culture, Theory 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996). – The Bible and Culture Collective (eds.), “Poststructuralist Criticism”, in: The Postmodern Bible (New Haven: Yale UP 1995), 119–48. – H. C. White, Narration and Discourse in the Book of Genesis (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1991).

Perhaps the most important aspect of poststructuralism, a movement that entered biblical scholarship from the 1960s onward, has been its contributions to our understanding of the nature of language and of meaning. A key concept in poststructuralism is indeterminacy, i.e. the idea that texts do not contain a definite meaning resident within them, as a wallet contains money. It may not be that texts themselves are indeterminate; it may simply be that the process of reading leads to multiple meanings on the part of the various readers. It matters little whether it is some property of the text that engenders the multiplicity, that is, something in the text that different readers are responding to differently, or whether it is merely a matter of different readers reading the one text differently. Other characteristics of poststructuralism are typically postmodern concerns, such as a focus on readers and the practice of textual deconstruction.

2.3. Deconstruction D. J. A. Clines, “A World Founded on Water (Psalm 24): Reader Response, Deconstruction and Bespoke Interpretation”, in: The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (ed. J. C. Exum / D. J. A. Clines; JSOT.S 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993), 79–90; “Deconstructing the Book of Job”, in: The Bible as Rhetoric: Studies in Biblical Persuasion and Credibility (ed. M. Warner; Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature; London: Routledge 1990), 65–80 (= his What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament [JSOT.S 94; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1990], 106–123; “Ethics as Deconstruction, and, The Ethics of Deconstruction”, in: The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium (ed. J. W. Rogerson / M. Davies / M. D. Carroll; JSOT.S 207; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995), 77–106; “Haggai’s Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed”, in: Second Temple Studies (ed. T. C. Eskenazi / K. H. Richards; JSOT.S 175; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993), 51–78 (= SJOT 7 [1993] 9–30). – J. C. Exum, “Samson’s Women”, in: Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives (Sheffield: JSOT Press / Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International 1993), 61–93. – E. L. Greenstein, “Deconstruction and Biblical Narrative”, Prooftexts

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9 (1989) 43–71. – D. Jobling, “Deconstruction and the Political Analysis of Biblical Texts: A Jamesonian Reading of Psalm 72”, Semeia 59 (1992) 95–127; “Writing the Wrongs of the World: The Deconstruction of the Biblical Text in the Context of Liberation Theologies”, Semeia 51 (1990) 81– 118. – P. Miscall, The Workings of Old Testament Narrative (Semeia Studies; Philadelphia: Fortress Press / Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1983). – Y. Sherwood (ed.), Derrida’s Bible: Reading a Page of Scripture with a Little Help from Derrida (Basingstoke, Hants.: Palgrave Macmillan 2004). – D. M. Slivniak, “The Garden of Double Messages: Deconstructing Hierarchical Oppositions in the Garden Story” JSOT 27 (2004) 439–60. – H. C. White, “The Joseph Story: A Narrative which ‘Consumes’ its Content”, Semeia 31 (1985) 49–69.

As against the “common sense” assumption that texts have more or less clear meanings and manage more or less successfully to convey those meanings to readers, deconstruction is an enterprise that exposes the inadequacies of texts, and shows how inexorably they undermine themselves. A text typically has a thesis to defend or a point of view to espouse; but inevitably texts falter and let slip evidence against their own cause. A text typically sets forth or takes for granted some set of oppositions, one term being privileged over its partner; but in so doing it cannot help allowing glimpses of the impossibility of sustaining those oppositions. In deconstruction it is not a matter of reversing the oppositions, of privileging the unprivileged and vice versa, but rather of recognizing the often unexamined structures of thought that texts have promulgated. The deconstruction of texts relativizes the authority attributed to them, and makes it evident that much of the power that is felt to lie in texts is really the power of their sanctioning community.

3. Ideological Criticisms R. P. Carroll, “An Infinity of Traces: On Making an Inventory of our Ideological Holdings. An Introduction to Ideologiekritik in Biblical Studies”, JNWSL 21 (1955) 25–43. – D. J. A. Clines, Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOT.S 205; Gender, Culture, Theory 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995). – D. Jobling / T. Pippin (eds.), Ideological Criticism of Biblical Texts (Semeia 59; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1992). – T. Pippin, “Ideology, Ideological Criticism, and the Bible”, Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 4 (1996) 51–78.

The methods in this group have in common a concern not with texts themselves but with texts in relation to some other intellectual or political issue. In this respect they are unlike both literary criticism and structuralist criticism, whose concern was rather with the texts (or, as in the case of reader-response criticism, with the effect of the texts upon readers).

3.1. Feminist Criticism A. Bach, “Reading Allowed: Feminist Biblical Criticism at the Millennium”, Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 1 (1993) 191–215; “The Pleasure of her Text”, in: The Pleasure of her Text: Feminist Readings of Biblical and Historical Texts (ed. A. Bach; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International 1990), 25–44. – M. Bal, Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in Judges (Chicago : University of Chicago Press 1988); Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP 1987); Murder and Difference: Gender, Genre, and Scholarship on Sisera’s Death

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(Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press 1988). – M. Bal (ed.), Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible (Bible and Literature Series 22; JSOT.S 81; Sheffield: Almond Press 1989). – R. Bauckham, “The Book of Ruth and the Possibility of a Feminist Canonical Hermeneutic”, BibInt 5 (1997) 29–45. – P. Bird, “Israelite Religion and the Faith of Israel’s Daughters: Reflections on Gender and Religious Definition”, in: The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of N. K. Gottwald on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (ed. D. Jobling / P. Day / G. T. Sheppard; Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press 1991), 97–108; Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1997); “The Harlot as Heroine: Narrative Art and Social Presupposition in Three Old Testament Texts”, in: Narrative Research on the Hebrew Bible (ed. M. Amihai / G. W. Coats / A. M. Solomon; Semeia 46; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1989), 119–139. – P. A. Bird (ed.), Reading the Bible as Women: Perspectives from Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Semeia 78; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1997). – R. Boer / J. Økland (eds.), Marxist Feminist Criticism of the Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2008). – A. Brenner, The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative (The Biblical Seminar 2; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1985). – A. Brenner (ed.), The Feminist Companion to the Bible, 1–10 (Sheffield: JSOT Press and Sheffield Academic Press 1992–1996); The Feminist Companion to the Bible,1–8 (Second Series; Sheffield: JSOT Press and Sheffield Academic Press 1998–2001). – A. Brenner / C. Fontaine (eds.), A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies (Sheffield: Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1997). – A. Brenner / F. van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series 1; Leiden: Brill 1993). – C. V. Camp / C.R. Fontaine (eds.), Women, War, and Metaphor: Language and Society in the Study of the Hebrew Bible (Semeia 61; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1993). – E. W. Davies, The Dissenting Reader: Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (Aldershot, Hants.: Ashgate Publishing 2003). – P. L. Day (ed.), Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1989). – J. C. Exum, “Feminist Study of the Old Testament”, in: Text in Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (ed. A. D. H. Mayes; Oxford: Oxford UP 2000), 86–116; “Feminist Criticism: Whose Interests Are Being Served?”, in: Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (ed. G. A. Yee; 2nd edn.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2007), 65–90; Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives (JSOT.S 163; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993); “Murder They Wrote: Ideology and the Manipulation of Female Presence in Biblical Narrative”, USQR 43 (1989) 19–40 (= The Pleasure of her Text: Feminist Readings of Biblical and Historical Texts [ed. A. Bach; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International 1990], 45–67; = Telling Queen Michal’s Story: An Experiment in Comparative Interpretation [ed. D. J. A. Clines / T. C. Eskenazi; JSOT.S 119; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991], 176–198; Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women (JSOT.S 215; Gender, Culture, Theory 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996); “Ten Things Every Feminist Should Know about the Song of Songs”, in: A Feminist Companion to the Song of Songs (Second Series; ed. A. Brenner / C. Fontaine; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2000), 22–33; Was sagt das Richterbuch den Frauen? (Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 169; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk 1997). – J. C. Exum (ed.), Reasoning with the Foxes: Female Wit in a World of Male Power (Semeia 42; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1998). – D. N. Fewell / D. M. Gunn, “Controlling Perspectives: Women, Men, and the Authority of Violence in Judges 4 and 5”, JAAR 58 (1990) 101–123. – E. Fuchs, “Biblical Feminisms: Knowledge, Theory and Politics in the Study of Women in the Hebrew Bible”, BibInt 16 (2008) 205–226; “The Literary Characterization of Mothers and Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible”, in: Narrative Research on the Hebrew Bible (ed. M. Amihai / G. W. Coats / A. M. Solomon; Semeia 46; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1989), 151–166 (also in Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship [ed. A. Y. Collins; Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1984] 117–136); “Contemporary Biblical Literary Criticism: The Objective Phallacy”, in: Mappings of the Biblical Terrain: The Bible as Text (ed. V. L. Tollers / J. R. Maier; Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP 1990), 134–142; ”Marginalization, Ambiguity, Silencing: The Story of Jephthah’s Daughter”, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5 (1989) 35–45; Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Bible as a Woman (JSOT.S 310; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2000). – H. Jahnow (ed.), Feministische Hermeneutik und Erstes Testament: Analysen und Interpretationen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1994). – C. Kirk-Duggan (ed.), Pregnant Passion: Gender, Sex, and Violence in the Bible (Semeia Studies 44; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2004). – H. Lipka, Sexual Transgression in the Hebrew Bible (Hebrew Bible Monographs 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2006). – J. McKinlay, Reframing Her: Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus (Bible in the Modern World 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2004). – J. M. O’Brien, Challenging Prophetic Metaphor: Theology and Ideology in the Prophets (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press 2008). –

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I. Pardes, Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1992). – K. M. Park / K. S. Lee, Korean Feminists in Conversation with the Bible, the Church and Society (Bible in the Modern World 24; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – D. C. Polaski, “What Will Ye See in the Shulammite? Women, Power and Panopticism in the Song of Songs”, BibInt 5 (1997) 64–81. – L. M. Russell (ed.), Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1985). – S. Shectman, Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis (Hebrew Bible Monographs 23; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2009). – S. Scholz, Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible (Introductions in Feminist Theology 13; London: T. & T. Clark 2007). – L. Schottroff M.-T. Wacker (eds.), Kompendium: Feministische Bibelauslegung (Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser 1998; 3rd edn., Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2007). – L. Schottroff / S. Schroer / M.-T. Wacker (eds.), Feministische Exegese: Forschungserträge zur Bibel aus der Perspektive von Frauen (Darmstadt: Primus 1997 [et: Feminist Interpretation: The Bible in Women’s Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1998)]). – N. Steinberg, “Feminist Criticism”, in: Methods for Exodus (ed. T. B. Dozeman; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2010), 163–192. – M. A. Tolbert (ed.), The Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics (Semeia 28; Chico, CA: Society of Biblical Literature 1983). – P. Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation”, JAAR 41 (1973) 30–48; God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1978); Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Overtures to Biblical Theology 13; Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1984).

Pride of place among ideological criticisms should be given to feminist criticism, for it was the first form of biblical criticism to take its stand outside the biblical texts and interrogate them from a perspective other than the Bible. Feminists came to recognize that in the history of civilization women have been marginalized by men and have been denied access both to social positions of authority and influence and to symbolic production (the creation of symbol systems, such as the making of texts); it followed that a feminist literary criticism would be concerned with exposing the strategies by which women’s subordination is inscribed in and justified by texts. The starting point of feminist biblical criticism was thus not the biblical texts and their concerns but the issues and concerns of feminism as a world view and as a political enterprise. In its practice, feminist biblical criticism uses a variety of approaches and encourages multiple readings, rejecting the notion that there is a “proper” way to read a text as no more than another expression of male control of texts and male control of reading. It may concentrate on analysing and detailing the evidence contained in literary texts for the ways in which women’s lives and voices have in fact been suppressed by texts. Or it may ask how, if at all, a woman’s voice can be discovered in, or read into, an androcentric text. Or it may deploy those texts, with their evidence of the marginalization of women, in the service of a feminist agenda, with the hope that the exposing of male control of literature will in itself tend to subvert the hierarchy that has dominated not only readers but also culture itself.

3.2. Gender Criticism M. Bal, Murder and Difference: Gender, Genre, and Scholarship on Sisera’s Death (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press 1988). – A. Bauer, Gender in the Book of Jeremiah. A Feminist-Literary Reading (Studies in Biblical Literature 5; New York: P. Lang 1999). – B. Becking / M. Dijkstra, On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender-Specific and Related Studies in Memory of Fokkelien van DijkHemmes (Biblical Interpretation Series 18; Leiden: Brill 1996). – A. Brenner, The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and “Sexuality” in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series

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26; Leiden: Brill 1997). – A. Brenner / F. van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series 1; Leiden: Brill 1993). – D. Carr, “Gender and the Shaping of Desire in the Song of Songs and its Interpretation”, JBL 119 (2000) 233–248. – D. J. A. Clines, “Being a Man in the Book of the Covenant”, in: Reading the Law: Studies in Honour of Gordon J. Wenham (ed. J. G. McConville / K. Möller; LHB/OTS 461; London: T. & T. Clark International 2007), 3–9; “Dancing and Shining at Sinai: Playing the Man in Exodus 32–34”, in: Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (ed. O. Creanga˘; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010), 54–63; “David the Man: The Construction of Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible”, in his: Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (JSOT.S 205; Gender, Culture, Theory 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995), 212–244; “He-Prophets: Masculinity as a Problem for the Hebrew Prophets and their Interpreters”, in: Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll (ed. A. G. Hunter / P. R. Davies; JSOT.S 348; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2002), 311–328. – O. Creanga˘ (ed.), Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – I. Fischer, Gender-faire Exegese. Gesammelte Beiträge zur Reflexion des Genderbias und seiner Auswirkungen in der Übersetzung und Auslegung von biblischen Texten (Exegese in unserer Zeit: kontextuelle Bibelinterpretation aus lateinamerikanischer und feministischer Sicht 14; Münster: Lit 2004). – C. A. Fontaine, With Eyes of Flesh: The Bible, Gender and Human Rights (Bible in the Modern World 10; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2008). – J. I. Gellman, “Gender and Sexuality in the Garden of Eden”, Theology and Sexuality 12 (2006) 319–335. – D. Guest, “Looking Lesbian at the Bathing Bathsheba”, BibInt 16 (2008) 227– 262. – A. Heacock, Jonathan Loved David: Manly Love in the Bible and the Hermeneutics of Sex (Bible in the Modern World 22; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – R. Jost, Gender, Sexualität und Macht in der Anthropologie des Richterbuches (BWANT 164; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2006). – S. T. Kamionkowski, Gender Reversal and Cosmic Chaos: A Study on the Book of Ezekiel (JSOT.S 368; London: Sheffield Academic Press 2003). – C. A. Kirk-Duggan (ed.), Pregnant Passion: Gender, Sex, and Violence in the Bible (SBL Semeia Studies 44; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2003). – S. Macwilliam, “Ideologies of Male Beauty and the Hebrew Bible”, BibInt 17 (2009) 265–287. – V. H. Matthews / B. M. Levinson T. Frymer-Kensky (eds.), Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (JSOT.S 262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). – S. Olyan, “‘And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying Down of a Woman’: On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13”, Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1994) 179–206. – A. Pazeraite, “‘Zåkhår and neqebåh he created them.’ Sexual and Gender Identities in the Bible”, Feminist Theology 17 (2008) 92–110. – Y. Peleg, “Love at First Sight? David, Jonathan, and the Biblical Politics of Gender”, JSOT 30 (2005) 171–189. – H. Pyper, “Speaking Silence: Male Readers, Women’s Readings and the Biblical Text”, JLT 8 (1994) 296–310. – D. W. Rooke (ed.), A Question of Sex? Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (Hebrew Bible Monographs 17; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2007); Embroidered Garments: Priests and Gender in Biblical Israel (Hebrew Bible Monographs 25; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2009). – D. F. Sawyer, “Disputed Questions in Biblical Studies. 3. A Male Bible?”, ET 112 (2001) 366–369. – J. J. Schmitt, “The Gender of Ancient Israel”, JSOT 26 (1983) 115–125. – D. Seeman, “‘Where is Sarah your wife?’ Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible”, HTR 91 (1998) 103–125. – K. Stone, “Biblical Interpretation as a Technology of the Self: Gay Men and the Ethics of Reading”, Semeia 77 (1997) 139–155; Sex, Honor and Power in the Deuteronomistic History: A Narratological and Anthropological Analysis (JSOT.S 234; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996). – K. Stone (ed.), Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible (JSOT.S 334; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2001); Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective (London: T. & T. Clark International 2005). – H. C. Washington, “Violence and the Construction of Gender in the Hebrew Bible: A New Historicist Approach”, Biblical Interpretation 5 (1997) 324–363.

Feminist criticism gave rise to a broader concern with the construction of sexuality, both masculine and feminine. Gender is now understood to be a social construction rather than a biological given, and therefore the analysis of gender in the biblical texts is a way of uncovering implicit assumptions of the biblical writers as well of challenging some modern-day assumptions about the roles of men and women in the world. An important form of current gender criticism is

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queer theory, which explores the theoretical implications of “homosexuality” as an “other” form of sexuality and therewith brings into challenge what is otherwise conceived of as the “normal” or the “normative”.

3.3. Materialist / Political Criticism R. Boer, Marxist Criticism of the Bible (London: T. & T. Clark International 2003); “Twenty-Five Years of Marxist Biblical Criticism”, Currents in Biblical Research 5 (2007) 298–321. – R. Boer / J. Økland (eds.), Marxist Feminist Criticism of the Bible (Bible in the Modern World 14; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2008). – R. P. Carroll, “The Myth of the Empty Land”, Semeia 59 (1992) 79–93. – M. Clevenot, Materialist Approaches to the Bible (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1985). – K. Füssel, “Materialist Readings of the Bible: Report on an Alternative Approach to Biblical Texts”, in: God of the Lowly: Socio-Historical Interpretations of the Bible (ed. W. Schottroff / W. Stegemann; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1984), 13–25; “The Materialist Reading of the Bible: Report on an Alternative Approach to Biblical Texts”, in: The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics (ed. N. K. Gottwald; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1983), 116–27. – T. Gorringe, “Political Readings of Scripture”, in: The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (ed. J. Barton; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1998), 67–80. – N. K. Gottwald, “Literary Criticism of the Hebrew Bible: Retrospect and Prospect”, in: Mappings of the Biblical Terrain: The Bible as Text (ed. V. L. Tollers / J. R. Maier; Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1990), 27–44; “Social Class as an Analytic and Hermeneutical Category in Biblical Studies”, JBL 112 (1993) 3–22; “Social Class and Ideology in Isaiah 40–55: An Eagletonian Reading”, Semeia 59 (1992) 43–57; “The Theological Task after The Tribes of Yahweh”, in: The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics (ed. N. K. Gottwald / R. A. Horsley; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1983), 190–200; The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of Liberated Israel 1050–1250 bc (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1979; repr. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1999). – D. Jobling, “Deconstruction and the Political Analysis of Biblical Texts”, Semeia 59 (1992) 95–127; “Feminism and ‘Mode of Production’ in Ancient Israel: Search for a Method”, in: The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of N. K. Gottwald on his SixtyFifth Birthday (ed. D. Jobling / P. Day / G. T. Sheppard; Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press 1991), 239– 251; “‘Forced Labor’: Solomon’s Golden Age and the Question of Literary Representation”, Semeia 54 (1992) 57–76. – J. M. Kennedy, “Peasants in Revolt: Political Allegory in Genesis 2–3”, JSOT 47 (1990) 3–14. – I. J. Mosala, “A Materialist Reading of Micah”, in: The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics (ed. N. K. Gottwald; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1983), 264–295. – M. R. Sneed (ed.), Concepts of Class in Ancient Israel (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 201; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1999), 71–86. – G. H. Wittenberg, “The Ideological/Materialist Approach to the Old Testament”, OTE 7 (1994), 167–172. – G. A. Yee, “‘She is not my wife and I am not her husband’: A Materialist Analysis of Hosea 1–2”, BibInt 9 (2001) 345–383.

As another form of ideological criticism, materialist or political criticism views texts principally as productions, as objects created, like other physical products, at a certain historical juncture within a social and economic matrix. Their literary quality is not the point here, nor is their integration of their material into a meaningful whole. The starting point of this criticism is the belief that texts exist in order to sustain the ideological world in which they are created. More narrowly, materialist criticism analyses texts in terms of their representation of power, especially as they represent, allude to or repress the conflicts of different social classes that stand behind their composition and reception.

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3.4. Postcolonial Criticism R. Boer, Last Stop before Antarctica: The Bible and Postcolonialism in Australia (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2001; 2nd edn., Semeia Studies 64; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2008). – R. Boer / G. West (eds.), A Vanishing Mediator? The Presence/Absence of the Bible in Postcolonialism (Semeia 88; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2001). – M. G. Brett, Decolonizing God: The Bible in the Tides of Empire (Bible in the Modern World 16; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2008); “The Ethics of Postcolonial Criticism”, Semeia 75 (1996) 219–228. – P. Chia, “Postcolonization and Recolonization. A Response to Archie Lee’s ‘Biblical Interpretation in Postcolonial Hong Kong”, BibInt 7 (1999) 174–181. – B. L. Crowell, “Postcolonial Studies and the Hebrew Bible”, Currents in Biblical Research 7 (2008) 217–244. – L. E. Donaldson / R. S. Sugirtharajah (eds.), Postcolonialism and Scriptural Reading (Semeia 75; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1996). – M. W. Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (St Louis: Chalice Press 2000). – W. Johnson, The Holy Seed Has Been Defiled: The Interethnic Marriage Dilemma in Ezra 9–10 (Hebrew Bible Monographs 33; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2011). – U. Y. Kim, Decolonizing Josiah: Toward a Postcolonial Reading of the Deuteronomistic History (Bible in the Modern World 5; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2005); Identity and Loyalty in the David Story: A Postcolonial Reading (Hebrew Bible Monographs 22; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2008). – A. C. C. Lee, “Returning to China: Biblical Interpretation in Postcolonial Hong Kong”, BibInt 7 (1999) 156–173. – T.-S. B. Liew (ed.), Postcolonial Interventions: Essays in Honor of R. S. Sugirtharajah (Bible in the Modern World 23; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2009). – T.-S. B. Liew / G. A. Yee (eds.), The Bible in Asian America (Semeia 90–91; Atlanta; Society of Biblical Literature 2002). – J. McKinlay, Reframing Her: Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus (The Bible in the Modern World 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2004). – J. Miles, Neighbours as the Other in Ancient Israel and the USA (Bible in the Modern World 32; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – S. D. Moore / F. F. Segovia (eds.), Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections (New York: T. & T. Clark International 2005). – M. Prior, The Bible and Colonialism: A Moral Critique (The Biblical Seminar 48; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). – K. Pui-Lan, Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (London: SCM Press 2004). – S. Scholz, “Hagar, Ruth, and Jezebel as ‘Other’ Women: Integrating Postcolonial Perspectives”, in her: Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible (Introductions in Feminist Theology 13; London: T. & T. Clark 2007). – F. F. Segovia, Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2000). – R. S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford UP 2002); Troublesome Texts: The Bible in Colonial and Contemporary Culture (Bible in the Modern World 17; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2008); idem (ed.), The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2001); idem, The Postcolonial Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). – C. Vander Stichele / T. Penner (eds.), Her Master’s Tools? Feminist and Postcolonial Engagements of Historical-Critical Discourse (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2005), 159–177. – G. O. West, “Doing Postcolonial Biblical Interpretation @home: Ten Years of (South) African Ambivalence”, Neotestamentica 42 (2008) 147–164 (= “What Difference Does Postcolonial Biblical Criticism Make? Reflections from a (South) African Perspective”, in: Liew [ed.], Postcolonial Interventions [2009], 256–273). – G. O. West (ed.), Reading Other-wise: Socially Engaged Biblical Scholars Reading with their Local Communities (Semeia Studies 62; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2007). – G. A. Yee, “Postcolonial Criticism”, in: Methods for Exodus (ed. T. B. Dozeman; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2010), 193–234. – G. West / M. W. Dube (eds.), “Reading with”: An Exploration of the Interface between Critical and Ordinary Readings of the Bible: African Overtures (Semeia 73; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1996).

Postcolonial theory is the critical scrutiny of the colonial experience from the standpoints both of the formerly colonized and of the former colonizers. By the early twentieth century, 85% of the earth had been dominated by the imperial powers of Europe, and postcolonial theory attempts to theorize the impact of that reality. There is no agreement whether the postcolonial should refer primarily to texts or to practices, to psychological states or to concrete historical processes. What is clear is that imperial ideology has imposed itself upon many

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diverse cultures, suppressing the indigenous or identifying it as the “other”, that is, as deviance from the imperial norm. Thinking and reading from the postcolonial position uncovers the assumptions of imperial ideology. In biblical studies, postcolonialism is currently focusing upon the ways in which imperial thought is embodied both in the biblical texts and in their traditional interpretations (rendering not only Eurocentric interpretation of the Bible problematic but also the Bible itself), on recovering the suppressed voices of the colonized in the Bible (e.g. the Canaanites), on reading the Bible from the perspective of postcolonial readers with all the unease that reading position engenders, on recovering the Bible’s emancipatory potential when read from a postcolonial perspective, and on probing the experience of “diasporic” interpreters, who are attempting to negotiate between the world of their origin and the alien world in which they now move.

3.5. Minority Criticism H. Avalos / S. J. Melcher / J. Schipper (eds.), This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies (Semeia Studies 55; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2007). – R. C. Bailey (ed.), Yet with a Steady Beat: Contemporary U.S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation (Semeia Studies 42; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2003). – R. C. Bailey / T.-S. B. Liew / F. F. Segovia (eds.), They Were All Together in One Place? Toward Minority Biblical Criticism (Semeia Studies 57; Leiden: Brill / Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2009). – C. H. Felder (ed.), Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1991). – J. Miles, Constructing the Other in Ancient Israel and the USA (The Bible in the Modern World 32; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – J. Pixley, “Liberation Criticism”, in: Methods for Exodus (ed. T. B. Dozeman; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2010), 131–162.

Among the latest methods offered to biblical scholars is that of minority criticism, which, in its initial formulations, has taken the perspective of certain minority groups in the USA – African American, Asian American and Latino/a American. Its concerns have been how questions of race and ethnicity, which are never fixed and given but always in process of formation, intersect with notions of class, gender, sexuality, nation, colonialism and empire. There is no reason why this approach should not be applied in many other situations worldwide, as minority groups reach the same level of conscientization or critical consciousness. The recent interest in disability criticism, that is, criticism from the perspective of disabled persons, might be usefully considered another form of minority criticism.

3.6. Cultural Criticism G. Aichele / T. Pippin (eds.), Fantasy and the Bible (Semeia 60; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1992). – A. Bach, Religion, Politics, Media in the Broadband Era (Bible in the Modern World 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2004). – B. Britt, Biblical Curses and the Displacement of Tradition (Bible in the Modern World 34; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – J. C. Exum / S. D. Moore (eds.), Biblical Studies / Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium (JSOT.S 266; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). – L. Jonker (ed.), Global Hermeneutics? Reflections and Consequences (International Voices in Biblical Studies; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2010). – T.-S. B. Liew

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/ G. A. Yee (eds.), The Bible in Asian America (Semeia, 90/91; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2002). – S. D. Moore (ed.), In Search of the Present: The Bible through Cultural Studies (Semeia 82; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 1998). – I. J. Mosala, Biblical Hermeneutics and Black Theology in South Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1999). – H. S. Pyper, An Unsuitable Book: The Bible as Scandalous Text (Bible in the Modern World 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2005). – H. Räisänen e.a. (eds.), Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Helsinki (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2000). – F. F. Segovia / M. A. Tolbert (eds.), Reading from This Place, I. Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States; II. Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective (2 vols.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995). – R. S. Sugirtharajah, Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 1991). – J. S. Ukpong e.a. (eds.), Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Cape Town (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2002). – V. L. Wimbush, African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures (New York: Continuum 2000).

Cultural criticism of the Bible addresses the Bible’s status as cultural icon and cultural commodity. In biblical studies, cultural criticism seeks to make us aware of the kinds of interaction that take place between the contemporary interpreter and the Bible as the product of a culture quite alien to our own modern or postmodern one, in spite of the manifold ways it has been naturalized. The symbiotic relationship of the Bible and Western culture and the fact that biblical concepts are entering the culture all the time with various meanings being attached to them (a process variously described as hybridization and negotiation) is an important concern of the cultural studies project in biblical studies. One of the emphases of biblical cultural criticism is the establishment of a mutually critical dialogue between the Bible and its cultural appropriations. Such a project could be understood as lending a critical edge to reception criticism when it focusses on contemporary culture. Another important emphasis is on the political, especially the appropriation of the Bible by various groups to serve their purposes (political, social, religious, etc.) – an appropriation made forceful by virtue of the authority granted to the Bible by so many different groups.

3.7. Autobiographical Criticism J. C. Anderson / J. L. Staley (eds.), Taking It Personally: Autobiographical Biblical Criticism (Semeia 72; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1995). – F. C. Black (ed.), The Recycled Bible: Autobiography, Culture, and the Space Between (Semeia Studies 51; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2006). – I. R. Kitzberger, The Personal Voice in Biblical Interpretation (New York: Routledge 1998). – I. R. Kitzberger (ed.), Autobiographical Biblical Criticism: Between Text and Self (Leiden: Deo 2002).

This criticism is the ultimate consequence of the perception that all criticism reflects to some extent at least the situation of the interpreter. Rather than speaking of readers in general (as in reader-response criticism) or identifying the social or scholarly groups to which interpreters belong (as in minority criticism, for example), this criticism consists in tracing the special interpretational perspectives of the individual scholar, as well interpreting the personal situation of the critic in the light of the texts studied. It is of greatest value when the scholar writing autobiographical criticism has an especially distinctive experience that has had a decisive impact on the interpretation offered.

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3.8. Psychoanalytic Criticism A. Cunningham, “Psychoanalytical Approaches to Biblical Narrative (Genesis 1–4)”, in: A Traditional Quest: Essays in Honour of Louis Jacobs (ed. D. Cohn-Sherbok; JSOT.S 114; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991), 115–136; “Type and Archetype in the Eden Story”, in: A Walk in the Garden (ed. P. Morris / D. Sawyer; JSOT.S 136; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1992), 290–309. – H. EfthimiadisKeith, The Enemy is Within: A Jungian Psychoanalytic Approach to the Book of Judith (Biblical Interpretation Series 67; Leiden: Brill 2004. – J. H. Ellens / W. G. Rollins (eds.), Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures, 1–4 (Westport, CT: Praeger 2004). – J. C. Exum, “Desire Distorted and Exhibited: Lot and his Daughters in Psychoanalysis, Painting, and Film”, in: “A wise and discerning mind”: Essays in Honor of Burke O. Long (ed. S. M. Olyan / R. C. Culley; Brown Judaic Studies 325; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies 2000), 83–108; “Hagar en procès: The Abject in Search of Subjectivity”, in: From the Margins, 1: Women of the Hebrew Bible and their Afterlives (ed. P. S. Hawkins / L. C. Stahlberg; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2009), 1–16; “Samson’s Women”, in her: Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives (Sheffield: JSOT Press / Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International 1993), 61–93; “Who’s Afraid of the Endangered Ancestress?”, in: her Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives (Sheffield: JSOT Press / Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International 1993), 148–169 (= The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible [ed. J. C. Exum / D. J. A. Clines; JSOT.S 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993], 91–113). – D. J. Halperin, Seeking Ezekiel: Text and Psychology (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP 1993). – W. van Heerden, “Psychological Interpretations of the Book of Jonah”, OTE 16 (2003), 718–730. – P. Joyce, “Lamentations and the Grief Process: A Psychological Reading”, BibInt 1 (1993) 304–320. – J. Kelso, O Mother, Where Art Thou? An Irigarayan Reading of the Book of Chronicles (London: Equinox 2008). – F. Landy, Beauty and the Enigma: And Other Essays on the Hebrew Bible (JSOT.S 312; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2001); Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (Bible and Literature 7; Sheffield: Almond Press 1983; 2nd edn., Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2010). – B. Lang, “Lady Wisdom: A Polytheistic and Psychological Interpretation of a Biblical Goddess”, in: A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies (ed. A. Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1997) 400–423. – A. Piskorowski, “In Search of her Father: A Lacanian Approach to Genesis 2–3”, in: A Walk in the Garden (ed. P. Morris / D. Sawyer; JSOT.S 136; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1992), 310–318. – I. Rashkow, Taboo or Not Taboo: Sexuality and Family in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2000); The Phallacy of Genesis: A Feminist-Psychoanalytic Approach (Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation; Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox 1993). – D. Reimer, “Good Grief? A Psychological Reading of Lamentations”, ZAW 114 (2002) 542–559. – E. Scheffler, “The Psychological Approach to the (Hebrew) Bible”, OTE 7 (1994) 148–159. – W. Vogels, “The Spiritual Growth of Job: A Psychological Approach”, BTB 11 (1981) 77–80.

A psychoanalytic criticism can take as its focus the authors of texts, the texts themselves, or the readers of the texts. Since authors serve their own psychological needs and drives in writing texts, their own psyches are legitimate subjects of study. It is not often we have access to the psyche of a dead author, but even if little can be said about the interior life of real authors, there is plenty to be inferred about the psyches of the authors implied by the texts. Alternatively, we can uncover the psychology of characters and their relationships within the texts, and ask what it is about the human condition in general that these texts reflect, psychologically speaking. Or we can turn our focus upon empirical readers, and examine the non-cognitive effects that reading our texts have upon them, and construct theoretical models of the nature of the reading process. Just as psychoanalytic theory has shown the power of the unconscious in human beings, so psychoanalytic criticism enables us to search for the unconscious drives embedded within texts and to make the text itself the object of our analysis, putting it in the position of the analyse and in the psychoanalytic process. We can

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view texts as symptoms of narrative neuroses, treat them as overdetermined, and speak of their repressions, displacements, conflicts and desires. Psychoanalytic criticism thus offers a valuable tool for dealing with motivation in texts and for explaining textual contradictions, aporias, inconsistencies and incongruities as inevitable results of the complex drives of a conflicted, non-unified textual subject. Important though it may be to analyse discretely the various methods and approaches in contemporary Hebrew Bible scholarship (as has been done in this chapter), it should be stressed finally that the quiet revolution in Hebrew Bible studies they have been bringing about is being effected less by any rigorous methodological precision than by their piecemeal and unsystematic adoption by scholars who find their texts illuminated by them in ways that could hardly have been imagined.

Chapter Thirty-two

The Significance of the Old Testament in Twentieth Century Systematic Theology By Manfred Oeming, Heidelberg General works: I. Fischer/B. Janowski (eds.), Wie biblisch ist die Theologie?, JBTh 25 (2011) [herein especially H. Kessler, “Wie biblisch ist die Systematische Theologie? Kritisch-kreative Traditionsvermittlung in heutigen Kontexten”, 221–240; J. Lauster, “Erfahrungserhellung. Zur Bedeutung der Bibel für die Systematische Theologie”, 207–220; D. Sattler, “Einführung: Wie biblisch ist die Systematische Theologie?”, 203–205; K. Schmid, “Sind die Historisch-kritischen kritischer geworden? Überlegungen zu Stellung und Potenzial der Bibelwissenschaften in der Theologie”, 63–78; J. Schröter, “Wie theologisch ist die Bibelwissenschaft? Reflexionen über den Beitrag der Exegese zur Theologie”, 85–104; Ch. Schwöbel, “Wie biblisch ist die Theologie? Systematisch-theologische Bemerkungen zur Themafrage”, 7–18; H. Weder, “Biblische Theologie. Konturen und Anforderungen aus hermeneutischer Perspektive”, 19–40]. – J. B. Green/M. Turner (eds.), Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids 2000). – F.-L. Hossfeld (ed.), Wieviel Systematik erlaubt die Schrift? Auf der Suche nach einer gesamtbiblischen Theologie (QD 185; Freiburg i.Br. e.a. 2001). – J. Lauster, Prinzip und Methode. Die Transformation des protestantischen Schriftprinzips durch die historische Kritik von Schleiermacher bis zur Gegenwart (HUTh 46; Tübingen 2004). – W. Schlichting, Biblische Denkform in der Dogmatik: Die Vorbildlichkeit des biblischen Denkens für die Methode der Kirchlichen Dogmatik Karl Barths (Zürich 1972). – R. Voderholzer, Die Einheit der Schrift und ihr geistiger Sinn. Der Beitrag Henri de Lubacs zur Erforschung von Geschichte und Systematik christlicher Bibelhermeneutik (Einsiedeln / Freiburg 1998). On Karl Barth (primary sources are not listed): R. Arrandale, “ ‘We are tied to these texts’: Scripture in the work of Karl Barth”, in: J. M. Court (ed.), Biblical Interpretation. The Meanings of Scripture – Past and Present (London: T & T Clark 2003), 233–249. – G. Baumbach, “Was ich bei Karl Barth gelernt habe. Anmerkungen eines Exegeten zu Barths Umgang mit der Heiligen Schrift”, in: idem, Josephus – Jesusbewegung – Judentum. Gesammelte Aufsätze (Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte, 9; Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum 2005 [first:published 1987]), 221–232. – D. Bosworth, “Revisiting Karl Barth’s Exegesis of 1 Kings 13”, Biblical Interpretation 10 (2002) 360–383. – B. Brock, “On Generating Categories in Theological Ethics. Barth, Genesis and the ‘Ständelehre’”, TynB 61 (2010) 45–67. – P. E. Capetz, “The Old Testament as a Witness to Jesus Christ. Historical Criticism and Theological Exegesis of the Bible according to Karl Barth”, JR 90 (2010) 475–506. – P. Chung, “Karl Barth regarding Election and Israel. For Jewish-Christian Mutuality in Interreligious Context”, JRefTh 4,1 (2010) 23–41. – P. Gruson, “La rencontre de Gershom Scholem et de Karl Barth. Une hypothèse impossible? ”, RSR 84 (1996) 373–391. – D. Harink, “Barth’s Apocalyptic Exegesis and the Question of Israel in ‘Römerbrief’, Chapters 9–11”, TJT 125,1 (2009) 5–18. – R. R. Keller, “Karl Barth’s Treatment of the Old Testament as Expectation”, AUSS (1997) 165–179. – B. Klappert, Israel und die Kirche. Erwägungen zur Israellehre bei Karl Barth (TEh 207; Zürich 1980); “‘Daß Jesus ein geborener Jude ist’. Das Judesein Jesu und die Israelwerdung Gottes nach Karl Barth”, in: idem, Miterben der Verheißung. Beiträge zum jüdisch-christlichen Dialog (Neukirchener Beiträge zur systematischen Theologie, 25; Neukirchen-Vluyn 2000), 148–182 [Erstveröffentlichung:1986]. – H. Köckert/W. Krötke (eds.), Theologie als Christologie. Zum Werk und Leben Karl Barths. Ein Symposion (Berlin 1988). – Ch. Landmesser, “Christus und Adam oder Adam und Christus. Anmerkungen zur Auseinandersetzung zwischen Karl Barth und Rudolf

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Bultmann im Anschluss an Röm 5”, ZDT 23 (2007) 153–171. – D. S. Long, “From the Hidden God to the God of Glory. Barth, Balthasar, and Nominalism”, Pro Ecclesia 20 (2011) 167–184. – D. L. Migliore, “Barth and Bloch on Job: A Conflict of Interpretations”, in: J. T. Butler/ E. W. Conrad (eds.) Understanding the Word. Essays in honour of Bernhard Word Anderson (FS B. W. Anderson; JSOT.S 37; Sheffield 1985), 265–280. – P. D. Molnar, “‘Thy Word is Truth’: The Role of Faith in Reading Scripture Theologically with Karl Barth”, SJTh 63 (2010) 70–92. – D. Novak, “Karl Barth on Divine Command: A Jewish Response”, SJTh 54 (2001) 463–483. – J. M. Owen, “Karl Barth and his Advent sermon, 1933”, Colloquium 37 (2005) 3–25. – A. Paddison, “Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Romans 9–11 in the Light of Jewish-Christian Understanding”, JSNT 28 (2006) 469–488. – B. Pottier, “‘La Lettre aux Romains’ de K. Barth et les quatre sens de l’Écriture”, NRTh 108 (1986) 823–844. – K. Schmid, “Karl Barths Schriftauslegung und die Bibelwissenschaft”, ThZ 66 (2010) 332–343. – R. J. Sherman, “Reclaiming a Theological Reading of the Bible. Barth’s Interpretation of Job as a Case Study”, IJST 2 (2000) 175–188. – R. Smend, “Der Exeget und der Dogmatiker – anhand des Briefwechsels zwischen W. Baumgartner und K. Barth”, in: M. Trowitzsch (ed.): Karl Barths Schriftauslegung (Tübingen 1996), 53–72; “Karl Barth als Ausleger der Heiligen Schrift”, Bibel und Wissenschaft. Historische Aufsätze (Tübingen 2004), 199–229 [first publication 1988]. – E. W. Stegemann, “ ‘Kritischer müssen mir die Historisch-Kritischen sein!’ Karl Barth als Exeget in der zweiten Auflage des Römerbriefs”, KuI 27,1 (2012) 3–17. – L. Steiger, “Die Theologie vor der Judenfrage – Karl Barth als Beispiel”, in: R. Rendtorff/E. Stegemann (eds.), Auschwitz – Krise der christlichen Theologie. Eine Vortragsreihe (Abhandlungen zum christlich-jüdischen Dialog, 10; München 1980), 82–98. – J. Thompson, “Holy Scripture and Holy Spirit in the Theology of Karl Barth”, IBSt 2,4 (1980) 193–202. – M. Trowitzsch (ed.), Karl Barths Schriftauslegung (Tübingen 1996). – J. Webster, “In the Shadow of Biblical Work. Barth and Bonhoeffer on Reading the Bible”, TJT 17 (2001) 75–91. – D. Wood, “‘Ich sah mit Staunen’. Reflections on the Theological Substance of Barth’s Early Hermeneutics”, SJTh 58 (2005) 184–198. On Dietrich Bonhoeffer (primary sources are not listed): E. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography (rev. and ed. V. J. Barnett; tr. E. Mosbacher e.a.; Minneapolis 2000), 175–186. – B. Brock, “Bonhoeffer and the Bible in Christian Ethics. Psalm 119, the Mandates, and Ethics as a ‘Way’”, SCE 18 (2005) 7–29. – F. Crüsemann, Das Alte Testament als Wahrheitsraum des Neuen. Die neue Sicht der christlichen Bibel (Gütersloh 2011). – S. Dramm, “Wo die Kirche hätte schreien müssen. Dietrich Bonhoeffer und die Juden”, Orien. 65 (2001) 148–153. – B. Klappert, “Alles menschliche Leben ist durch Stellvertretung bestimmt (D. Bonhoeffer). Oder: Siehe, das Lamm GOTTes, das die Sünde der Welt (er-)trägt (Joh 1,29)”, EvTh 72 (2012) 39–63. – W. Klausnitzer, “Discovering the Presence of Christ in the World. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Contribution to the Discussion on the Authority of the Bible in the Church”, Ecclesiology 2 (2006) 155–166. – A. Klein/M. Geist (eds.), “Bonhoeffer weiterdenken. Zur theologischen Relevanz Dietrich Bonhoeffers (1906–1945) für die Gegenwart, Theologie” (Forschung und Wissenschaft, 21, Münster 2006). – M. Kriessler, “Barmens fehlende These. Mit Bonhoeffer auf dem Weg zu einer Kirche und Theologie nach dem Holocaust”, DtPfrBl 109 (2009) 421–424. – P. D. Miller, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Psalms”, in: idem, Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology. Collected Essays (JSOT.S 267; Sheffield 2000), 345–354 [first publication 1994]. – B. Schroven, Theologie des Alten Testaments zwischen Anpassung und Widerspruch. Christologische Auslegung zwischen den Weltkriegen (Neukirchen 1995). – G. N. Paulson, “The Use of Qoheleth in Bonhoeffer’s ‘Ethics’”, Word and World 18 (1998) 307–313. – H. Süselbeck, “‘Es gehen mir täglich mehr Rätsel auf’. Dietrich Bonhoeffer und die Bibel”, DtPfrBl 104 (2004) 344–348 (= G. Brakelmann/ T. Jähnichen [eds.], Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Stationen und Motive auf dem Weg in den politischen Widerstand, [Zeitansage, 2; Münster 2005], 75–88). – J. Webster, “‘In the Shadow of Biblical Work’: Barth and Bonhoeffer on Reading the Bible”, TJT 17 (2001) 75–91. – E. G. Wendel, Studien zur Homiletik Dietrich Bonhoeffers (HUTh 21, Tübingen 1985). – S. Winter, “Word and world. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Biblical Interpretation today”, Pacifica 25 (2012) 161–175. – R. K. Wüstenberg, “Glauben als Leben. Dietrich Bonhoeffer und die nichtreligiöse Interpretation biblischer Begriffe”, FZPhTh 42 (1995) 367– 381. On Hans Urs von Balthasar (primary sources are not listed): H. H. Henrix, “Israel ist seinem Wesen nach formale Christologie. Die Bedeutung von H. U. v. Balthasar für F.-W. Marquardts Christologie”, BThZ 10 (1993) 135–153. – K.-J. Kuschel, “Theologen und ihre Dichter. Analysen zur Funktion der Literatur bei Rudolf Bultmann und Hans Urs von Baltasar”, ThQ 172 (1992) 98– 116. – D. S. Long, “From the Hidden God to the God of Glory. Barth, Balthasar, and Nominalism”,

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in: Pro ecclesia 20 (2011) 167–184. – J. Schelhas, Christozentrische Schriftauslegung: Hans Urs von Balthasar und Karl Barth im Vergleich (Freiburg 2012), 75–248. – V. Spangenberg, Herrlichkeit des Neuen Bundes. Die Bestimmung des biblischen Begriffs der „Herrlichkeit“ bei Hans Urs von Balthasar (Tübingen 1993).

1. Preliminary Remarks According to my theory of understanding1 four factors are involved in every process of interpretation: 1. The author, who aims to communicate an insight or experience from his world; 2. the text, which at least partially contains what the author intended to communicate; 3. the reader, who initiates contact to the author and his world by dealing with the text and its world (it remains to be seen whether modern readers of an ancient text are even capable of re-actualising the intention of the author, or whether they are doomed by the “abyss of history” to mistake the written intention within the context of their own interests); 4. the subject matter to which the author, text and reader are related to. Graphically, we can portray this situation as follows: Subject Matter as the Reality behind the text

Authors and their Words

Readers and their Worlds

Texts and their Worlds Whenever Systematic Theology turns its attention towards the interpretation of the Old Testament, she does not expound historic questions about the authors or their worlds. Rather, she develops insights on the text as text or on the reception of texts in the course of church history. Primarily and above all, her topic is “appropriateness”: Orientation towards the matter, i.e. the word of God, is more important than the individual character of the biblical author, their recipients, or the texts themselves. That is the reason why theological bible interpretation explicitly poses the question of general truth, or, more precisely: What is true for the present? The influence of the Old Testament on such a theology, which

1

M. Oeming, Contemporary Biblical Hermeneutics. An Introduction (Aldershot 2006), 7 f.

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is oriented towards a present validity, was enormous during the entire history of Christianity, since the Old Testament-Jewish heritage presented each dogmatics with substantial problems: How can the relationship between Israel and the Church be defined? What is the new salvation that was bestowed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? In other words: What is the central and relevant theme of the faith in Christ when faced with the revelation of God that is testified in the Old Testament? On which hermeneutical premises is a legitimate Christian understanding of Scripture that does not talk about Jesus Christ based? Pointed, A. H. J. Gunneweg described the “hermeneutical problem of the Old Testament not only as one, but as the problem of Christian theology”.2 What is the relevance of the Old Testament in the twentieth century Systematic Theology? It is not enough to determine how often the Old Testament is cited in Christian dogmatics of the last century. Such a statistic of citations is a very superficial indicator. One also has to take the breadth of the diversification into account. Further, it is necessary to examine to what extent the Old Testament is able to state its own message, instead of ‘only’ being used as decorative illustration of Christian dogmatics. Also, one has to observe diligently, if and where the Old Testament is playing a negative role within the scope of dogmatics (even if the authors try to conceal it) and serves only as a horizon or dark background for the respective author, from which he tries to distance himself and seeks to depict the Christian as a “higher” level. To really speak of a ‘significance’ of the Old Testament for dogmatic thought, the dogmatics must be shaped positively by the Old Testament in its core. In light of the vast amount of twentieth century dogmatic concepts, this article cannot aspire to be an encyclopedia of the use of Scripture in all these portrayals of Christian belief in the twentieth century. It is meant to be a selection, by means of which the significance of the Old Testament is discussed in an exemplary fashion. To meet the selection criteria, the following attributes had to be fulfilled: First, the theologian to be analyzed had to be a systematic theologian, not a ‘systematizing’ exegete like Rudolf Bultmann, who was primarily a biblical scholar. Second, a complete oeuvre of the eligible person should be able to be assessed, whereby systematic theologians that are still alive, e.g. Michael Welker or Wolfhardt Pannenberg, who both have rendered outstanding services to biblical theology, were inapplicable. And finally, the theologians should have had a broad impact on theological thinking, which is why so important figures like Carl Heinz Ratschow3 or Kornelis H. Miskotte4 cannot be considered in more detail. If one also wishes to take account a balanced confessional plurality, then it is at least necessary to choose representative Reformed, Lutheran and Roman-Catholic authors for analysis. After assessing the frequency and breadth of diversification of the use, the rootedness of the authors in the Old Testament and their reception history, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans Urs von Balthasar were chosen as adequate examples. 2

A. H. J. Gunneweg, Understanding the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1978),

5 2. 3 4

C. H. Ratschow, Von den Wandlungen Gottes (BSTh; Berlin 1986), esp. 117–139. K. H. Miskotte, When the Gods are Silent (London 1967).

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2. Karl Barth Through the course of his life, Karl Barth (1886–1968) made many and varied efforts in his theological reflections to convey a sense of the reality of and truth about God in the face of all forms of human distortion, abuse, and instrumentalization. Depending on historical circumstances and his diverse dialogue partners, Barth continually rethought his position on the Old Testament, which led to various restatements over time.5 During his studies in Basel, Berlin, Tübingen, and Marburg he was engaged in battles with liberal theology and its at times intense denigration of the Old Testament (as in the work of Adolf von Harnack, for example), while his approach changed clearly when he began to wrestle with the ‘social question’ as a pastor-in-training in Geneva and as pastor in Safenwil (1909–1921). As the leader of the new theological movement of ‘Dialectical Theology’, from the second edition of his Commentary on Romans (1922) onwards, he developed new lines of argument. This was especially true in his fight against the Deutsche Christen, the church party that tolerated or supported National Socialism and made rigorous attempts to rid the Church of anything Jewish. As a professor in Göttingen, Münster, and Bonn (1921–1935), and then Basel as of 1935, Barth defended the Old Testament vigorously with christological arguments. In dialogue with communist thought after World War II, he emphasized the transformative power of the prophetic writings, and his late work even led to a rapprochement with the natural knowledge of God in OT wisdom traditions. Barth’s interaction with the Old Testament took quite different forms. He rarely preached on OT texts, except in his later years, but there is a continuous and multi-faceted interaction with it in his academic writings, especially in the small print excursuses of his Church Dogmatics (CD, 1932–1967, unfinished). That the truth of God is revealed exclusively in Jesus Christ emerged as the main theme. In other words, the Old Testament was supposed to unfold its meaning and truth within the framework of a christological, Christ-centered interpretation of Scripture. His reading of the Old and New Testaments [treats the Biblical texts] as a canonically interconnected whole. The Bible is read as a single text, theologically interdependent, which bears the communication of the Holy One. For Barth, this is a theological reality to be confessed, not a historical judgment to be tested in the fires of criticism.6

Thus two theological methods merge in Barth: Theology is exegesis, and exegesis is doctrinal theology. His modus operandi is a doctrinal interpretation of Scripture, with exegesis as the guiding discipline, at least in theory. But exegesis needs to do justice to its subject matter, which rules out a one-sided historical exegesis. R. Smend speaks of a “post-critical interpretation of Scripture”,

5 This even includes corrections of previous positions, as Klappert demonstrates with regard to Barth’s views on Israel (B. Klappert 1986/2000). 6 K. Green-McCreight, “‘A Type of the One to Come’: Leviticus 14 and 16 in Barth’s Church Dogmatics”, in: Thy Word is Truth: Barth on Scripture (ed. G. Hunsinger; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2012), 67–85, 67.

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although perhaps a “truly critical interpretation of Scripture” would be an even more appropriate description. A certain degree of eisegesis cannot be avoided, if interpretation is to be appropriate to its referent. Unlike Rudolf Bultmann, Barth did not seek demythologization, but remained faithful to biblical modes of thought. He also ignored the Jewish character of the Old Testament and saw its extensive literary spectrum exclusively in close correlation with the witness to Christ.

There are several studies of Barth’s hermeneutics,7 including monographs,8 which vary in their evaluation of his exegesis. Among others, Krötke9 and Klappert10 bring the positive meaning of the Old Testament for Barth to the fore, while many specialized exegetes have been especially critical of his work, as have some theologians.11 Against the critique of historical specialists, Barth asserts, “The critical historian needs to be more critical”.12 One can understand only that to which one adheres! Hermeneutics cannot be limited to the aspects of author, text, and recipient, but need to include the subject matter. The truth question is part of the task of understanding. At this place the extensive analysis of Otto Bächli entitled Das Alte Testament in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik von Karl Barth will be presented as a classic overview. According to Bächli, Barth cannot be claimed by any particular school of thought as his only principle of interpretation is scriptura scripturae interpres, Scripture is its own interpreter. This principle commits him to the “biblical mode of thought”, causing him to refer also to similar passages both in the Old and the New Testament in interpreting a particular passage. Accordingly, the excursuses in CD offer multi-thematic overviews of single books, presentations of several books looking at individual issues, as well as larger sections of thematic continuity. This led to the accusation that he only presents a broad sweep “concordance and summary exegesis”.13 As the biblical texts are not in anyone’s possession, Barth is often labeled biblicistic or even “fundamentalist” (Schoch) or “almost fundamentalist” (Gloege).14 This although Barth is at pains to bring to the fore the specific message of the text under discussion, even if he often attributes too much weight to one individual aspect within a text. He repeatedly interrogates a text or several texts from the perspective of theology or ethics. At the same time he cannot conceal the problems inherent in such subsumption, and the texts continues to resist such attempts at least a little. For example, exemplifying “The Falsehood … of Man” (CD IV.3, Sect. 70), or the lie characteristic of the human person, with reference to Job, of all books, makes sense only if

7 Lauster, Prinzip und Methode (2004), Ch. 5: Prinzip statt Methode: Karl Barths Erneuerung des reformatorischen Schriftprinzips (“Principle Replacing Method: Karl Barth’s Renewal of the Scriptural Principle of the Reformers”), 258–76; Schmid, Karl Barths Schriftauslegung (2010). 8 The study Christozentrische Schriftauslegung: Hans Urs von Balthasar und Karl Barth im Vergleich by J. Schelhas is in particular worthy of mention (Freiburg e.a.: Herder 2012), 249–405 (also for further literature). 9 W. Krötke, “Karl Barth als Ausleger der Heiligen Schrift”, in: Köckert/Krötke, Theologie als Christologie (1988), 9–37. 10 Klappert, Israel und die Kirche (1980). 11 According to Lauster, the method of biblical prooftexting is in fact a variation of the allegoric interpretation. 12 K. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (Oxford e.a.: Oxford UP 1968), 8. 13 O. Bächli, Das Alte Testament in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik von Karl Barth (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1987), 101. 14 Bächli, ibid. 109.

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other prominent themes of the book are not eclipsed. Bächli observes that Barth found the biblical archeology of W. F. Albright, A. Alt, K. Galling, M. Noth, and E. Sellin unimportant. In a similar vein, comparative religious history was of only minor interest to Barth. While the historical-critical method, in contrast to the non-academic Patristic exegesis, sees a primary achievement in establishing parallels between biblical texts and their non-biblical environment, with the latter providing an invaluable commentary, Barth disagreed: relying on such parallels would not allow the Biblical texts their own say. As he addressed the Church and its theologians as his primary audience rather than the academy, the work of W. Vischer, W. Eichrodt, and G. von Rad meant much more to him than that of other exegetical specialists (CD I.2, 79 f). Barth was not interested in history for its own sake, but in faith within history. He also reacted sharply against a historical-psychological interpretation that made what he saw as futile attempts to peer into the hearts of the biblical authors. Neither did he see it as appropriate to draw on biblical texts for an exercise in textual criticism, nor for the task of historical reconstruction or for analyses based on depth-psychology. Instead, biblical texts bear testimony to God’s truth. Thus, exegesis must be theological exegesis. For that reason the true task of biblical exegesis only becomes clear at that point when most strict interpreters consider their work done. Barth’s theological exegesis assigns central importance to the concept of canon.15 The decision for or against the Old Testament canon in its entirety was at the same time a decision about the true or the false Church (CD I.2, 597 f). Barth considers recognition or rejection of the canon a status confessionis, a crucial decision about something non-negotiable. As the Church acknowledges that the New Testament holds fast to the Old, by the same token it refuses all docetism (CD IV.1, 168). Any time the theological authority of the Old Testament is under attack, docetism is an acute threat.16 “The church honors the Old Testament and the New Testament as its canon and Holy Scripture and by the same token proves to be a knowledgeable, conscientious, courageous, obedient, and believing church”.17 Barth’s understanding of history is fundamental: With reference to Deut 32 he seeks to portray Israel’s history as a history of suffering (CD IV.1, 174). For Barth, this perspective on Israel’s history results from its telos – it is interpreted christologically.18 He sees Jesus Christ as the subject of history (Bächli, ibid. 133). In the sphere of the Old Testament, the question of the goal of Israel’s history, of the ultimate purpose behind the prophetic message remains unanswered. Israel’s history – see especially the overviews in Ezekiel – is “the consistent effect of Yahweh’s work … Yahweh speaks in the events of this history and thus in his acts … Israel’s history is … the effect of Yahweh’s work”. It is revelation and nonetheless it is “inscrutable” in that “what transpired and what happened [i.e., in the sphere of the Old Testament] points to somewhere beyond itself” (ibid. 122). Barth sub15

Bächli, ibid. 84. Bächli, ibid. 114 f. 17 Ibid. 90. 18 W. Dantine criticizes this as ambiguous. Moreover, according to Dantine, the intellectual underpinnings of Barth’s concept of history lack clarification, and Barth’s characterization of history as salvation history is a Christian encroachment on other concepts of history; see Bächli, ibid. 117 f (with numerous references to various critiques of Barth’s concept of history). 16

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divides Israel’s history from Adam to Christ into four periods, thus straddling the boundary between a philosophy of history and a theology of salvation history (ibid. 126). Israel’s history is an exemplary event of universal significance (ibid. 180, n. 23). Like Vischer, also Barth argues that it is not about individual messianic passages. Instead, in its entirety, Israel’s history tends towards the consummation taking place in Jesus Christ: Even if we are not dealing with a “proper type, an adequate prefiguration of Jesus Christ’s prophecy”, even if the prophets are nothing but “messengers running ahead of the divine act of reconciliation which perfects the covenant” – “we would miss the forest for the trees if we were to negate that … we do have to take quite seriously the Old Testament witness as an authentic anticipation of the prophecy of Jesus Christ” (ibid. 128). The Spirit of prophecy is continually at work in the Church, according to Barth, but it also testifies continually that the commission of the congregation is to be carried out by facing towards society. This would be the “prophetic existence of the church”. The individual Christian and the entire Church mediate true understanding; they are messengers of the word of God for society and the world. There can be no arcane disciplines as the Word, through the sermon, calls for concrete practical application through the Church’s acts and in its political responsibility. The Psalms take place within a “Messianic setting” and convey “the witness to God’s kingdom so powerfully given in the life and acts of David” (CD IV.3, 579). Taken together, the prophets are of universal significance, in contrast to each one individually (Bächli, ibid. 129). Barth’s understanding of Wisdom literature is rooted in canonical exegesis, i.e., his interpretation is based on a synchronic reading (on Job, see below). Barth struggles with this as he suspects the dangers of natural theology (ibid. 238). According to F. W. Marquart, the fact that Barth’s theology is thoroughly political results from his deeper, more intimate understanding of the Old Testament. Apart from his encompassing concepts in the interpretation of history, the prophets, the Psalms, and Wisdom literature, Barth’s exegesis can more appropriately be called “local exegesis”, i.e., he selects texts that relate to a particular doctrinal tenet.19 Bächli highlights several of these topics, such as the problem of death. According to Barth, the Old Testament describes death in negative terms throughout, as a sign of divine judgment, a consequence of the human confrontation with God (ibid. 159). This also indicates the limitations of the Old Testament: “In Barth’s judgment it cannot provide exhaustive information about the reality of ending time” (ibid. 160). Scriptural proof supporting the hope of resurrection can only be found in the younger parts of the Old Testament. The texts do not speak of a renewal and continuation of life. Death is discussed along with Satan and the forces of chaos. The Old Testament is characterized by the absence

19 This is the reason for the criticism of “summary exegesis” (Bächli, ibid. 154), which G. Gloege (ibid. 161 f) interprets as an expression of a biblicism postulating a unified Scriptural codex free of contradictions. Konrad objects that Barth does not interpret the Scripture reference in context; instead he merely lists Scriptures uncritically and fails to do justice to tensions within the Bible. However, this is in contradiction to Barth’s own hermeneutics, according to which proper exegesis must be determined by its subject matter (ibid. 162). H. Gollwitzer views Barth’s Biblical interpretation positively as a “listening to Scripture in a concordant manner” (ibid.).

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of an independent deity of death that would compete with Yahweh for power. No one other than God is to be feared from first to last. Barth’s last statements on the subject of ‘ending time’ [CD III.2, Sect. 47.5] especially make clear that his remark about the ‘the fringe’ of the Old Testament witness [CD III.2, 619] is not a historical but a theological statement that is then supplemented in excursuses on the New Testament that transcend the Old Testament (Bächli, ibid. 161).

Another relevant example is the typological and christological interpretation of the temple cult in Lev 14 and 16 (CD II.2). The elect individual in the Old Testament … is always a witness to Jesus Christ, and is indeed a type of Christ Himself. It is He, Jesus Christ, who is originally and properly the elect individual. All others can be this only as types of Him, only as His prototypes or copies … In this sense, Jesus Christ is each of the four creatures in Lev 14 and 16.20

“The final word of all exegesis” is “indeed also here the name Jesus Christ” (Bächli, 172 f).21 Bächli summarizes Barth’s critique of Neoprotestantism: We will have to say that the congregation woke up first, before the Old Testament exegesis. Only after the church found its footing again did the theologians. Old Testament scholars such as Eichrodt, von Rad, Vischer, and others saw the indications of change and changed course, each in his own way, from which Barth profited as well (ibid. 323 f). Without tremendous external pressure this understanding of the central importance of the Old Testament for the Christian faith would not have come to be. Transcending Bächli, Johannes Schelhas analyzed Karl Barth’s understanding of the Old Testament in exemplary fashion from the perspective of doctrinal and fundamental theology. In a comprehensive approach, he expounds: According to Karl Barth, the christocentric interpretation of the Old Testament is a test case of faith. Foregoing such interpretation in any way would do great harm to the Christian recognition of revelation in the church and in academic theology. Any formally non-christocentric interpretation – whether it be non-doctrinal, Jewish, or from a history of religions perspective – would no longer be Christian, for it has fundamentally left behind the principle that its understanding was and is strictly due to revelation … The Old Testament is witness to Christ, both in formal regard due to its transcendent source and temporally since its perceptible beginnings.22

The Example of Job23 A particular example can illustrate with greater precision what has been said so far in the general overview. Barth discusses the entire book of Job in surprising detail, offering an exegesis of each of passage, even if presented in four subsections of different length in CD IV.3 − Helmut Gollwitzer appropriately edited this commentary on Job in an independent volume.24 Barth introduces Job within 20

CD II.2, 364. See also Green-McCreight, “A Type of the One to Come”. W. Baumgartner asked Barth not to expect him to support this exegesis. Indeed Barth did not insist on Baumgartner’s loyalty (Baumgartner’s letter to Barth from July 16, 1942; Barth’s reply July 18, 1942). 22 Schelhas, Christozentrische Schriftauslegung (2012), 404 f. 23 Migliore, Barth and Bloch on Job (1985), 265–280; Sherman, Reclaiming a theological reading of the Bible (2000), 175–188. 24 Karl Barth, Hiob (ed. H. Gollwitzer; Biblische Studien 49; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1964). References to this volume are indicated with Gollwitzer’s name. Embarrassingly, Gollwitzer omits the entire section on Job 42:7 ff (CD IV.3, 453–461) that discusses God’s condemnation of Job’s 21

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the theological locus of the doctrine of reconciliation, a striking and unconventional decision. Barth complements soteriology by elaborating on its counterpart, hamartiology, or the doctrine of sin. Sect. 70, “The Falsehood and Condemnation of Man”, comprises an interpretation of Job. Barth considers the human person Jesus Christ as the true witness. Barth sees in the book of Job “testimony to the reconciliation between God and humanity as it endures, and finally even overcomes, the most radical contrast and the deepest hiddenness.” (Gollwitzer, 23) On the one hand, Job is not a historical figure, but a legendary didactic personification, as it were, which serves as an example of God’s free election and sovereign disposal: Job is the free servant of the free God. On the other hand, Job is “witness to Jesus Christ.” Vischer’s influence is clearly visible at this point. The intention of the christological interpretation of the Old Testament is to secure an abiding role for it; this strategy means to affirm the value of Israel’s Bible by bringing it into close connection with God’s word, i.e., Jesus Christ. Barth argues that he chose Job for this theological aspect and not another figure – James or Peter would have been likely candidates, for example – because he was reluctant to draw again and again on the same biblical texts when “indicating the actual sources” of his theology. Barth subdivides the book into three parts: 1. The story of the “good-pleasure” (CD IV.3, 382) between God and the human person (framework narrative Job 1, 2; Gollwitzer, 31–40): Job is not an Israelite but is from the land of Uz. In other words, God elects whoever God wills, even outside of Israel. God blesses those whom God elects. That is the reason for Job’s wealth. Job is the “type of Jesus Christ” due to his relationship to God and God’s relationship to him. The suffering righteous one is not illustrated with Moses, Jeremiah, or the Suffering Servant, but with Job! 2. The hiddenness of the good pleasure (Job 3–37; Gollwitzer, 41–46): The main issue is not Job, but God, more specifically: the hidden God (deus absconditus). “Without being unfaithful to Job, God has exercised His freedom towards him by reducing to the cheerless minimum of actual preservation the blessing” (CD IV.3, 405). 3. The overcoming of God’s hiddenness (Job 38–42; Gollwitzer, 65–93): The goal of the divine speeches is Job’s recognition and embrace of Yahweh’s freedom. According to Barth, the book of Job reveals the essence of sin, which consists in the wrong human response to God’s gift of grace, more specifically in the denial, the misunderstanding of, and the more or less direct hostility towards God’s promise. The most important variety of sin is the human lie. By contrast, Jesus Christ is the mediator and the witness of truth. Barth’s commentary on Job is theological rather than strictly historical-critical in nature. While keeping in mind theories from literary criticism, his interest lies primarily with the canonical shape of the book. From the very start Barth understands Job as “the true witness”, just as Jesus Christ is the true witness par excellence. Thus, Barth ties Job closely to Christ. Job is aware that in everything that happens to him he is facing God, even if deep down he does not know in what sense he is facing God. Barth bases his interpretation of profound knowlfriends. There are three varieties of sin: pride, sloth, and falsehood (Hochmut, Trägheit, Lüge). In Barth’s eyes, the discourses of Job’s friends illustrate the sin of falsehood, or lie. Their lies consist of setting up “a theoretical and practical system of truth” (CD IV.3, 436).

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edge accompanied by simultaneous ignorance on linguistic observations: That Job knows he faces God in all suffering becomes clear from the fact that he always turns directly to the personal God rather than drawing any intermediate metaphysical conclusions about Satan or a theological determinism. Significantly, Job curses the day of his birth, but not God. He suffers terribly from the fact that he does not understand God. Yet this suffering does not terminate the relationship, but accounts for its dynamic transformation. According to Barth, Job’s fault is not that he laments and argues with God, but rather that he demands that God return to God’s former friendly, trustworthy attitude, as if God were at Job’s disposal, as if God were Job’s own God. Here the human freedom to speak comes into sharp conflict with God’s freedom to evade human speech. Barth quotes Goethe, comparing Job with the boatman who, about to crash against a rock, finds safety precisely by holding on tight to the very same rock. By contrast, Job’s restitution in 42:7 ff is of secondary interest to Barth. The mere fact that God speaks is decisive instead; that is God’s proper activity. In God’s answer to Job, the point is that God claims freedom from Job. Thus the circle closes as it opened, namely, with man’s liberation by and for the free God: by the free God, since it is He who is the Witness speaking against Job yet [even more so] for him; and for the free God, since Job, set in the wrong by Him yet [even more so] in the right, proves to be the faithful witness of this God (CD IV.3, 434).

Barth considers Job’s friends “agents of Satan” (CD IV.3, 454) since they follow an ideology in trying to impose limits on God’s freedom and capture God by means of a system. Although their role is to be Job’s friends, their speeches are based on lies. Barth casts his judgment over the friends in a dialectical framework: While right in a peculiar sense, they are ultimately wrong; while Job is wrong in a peculiar sense, but ultimately right. In isolation, the legalistic opinions of the friends are not wrong, as they point to God’s omnipotence, human guilt, as well as God’s right to judge, and insist on the sinner’s repentance. Their speeches emulate the good example of the prophets. Nonetheless, Job feels ignored and mocked by their doctrines of wisdom. Job refuses all discussion and answers with sneer and ridicule, even though their pronouncements may potentially be quite right. Barth accounts for this with the idea that, in this encounter, two different systems of orientation clash. “They speak the truth in their situation, but he in his can only treat it as falsehood and therefore reject it” (CD IV.3, 456). The friends’ argument amounts to an encroachment as they claim God’s authority: “those who imagine that they can think and speak from the standpoint of God, may be very right in what they say, as the friends of Job were right, but they are also grossly wrong. They think and speak in the garb of truth, but in this garb they think and speak untruth” (CD IV.3, 457). God’s truth can only be spoken when God and the human person meet in freedom. By contrast, the friends cage God in a rigid system of order, which knows nothing of God’s freedom. That is their lie. In this respect, Barth’s exegesis of Job is a classic piece of theological biblical interpretation as he pursues the question of truth not simply as an idle piece of literary history in an ivory tower. Yahweh has the cosmos itself give testimony,

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which remains a mystery in its details to Job, even though it is nothing less than his home. However, only Job himself is supposed to draw the ultimate conclusion that infers God’s freedom from the particular properties of the world. That is the decisive factor, as Job does not become a free person other than through this mature, independent conclusion. The open-ended character of God’s speech is the condition for Job’s liberation to embrace the freedom of God. As God turns to Job and decides to get involved with him, God chooses to be Yahweh for Job, as it were. Thus the particular achievement of Barth as a theologian of Dialectical Theology is precisely in the dialectic development in which the human person ultimately faces a God who, rather than having to reciprocate human deeds with their appropriate consequences, is open to a new beginning and freely loves the human person. The question must be raised, however, if Barth’s interpretation is indeed right. That God is free to do what God wants, rather than being compelled by a moral straightjacket to reciprocate good with good and evil with evil, also implies many problems. Can I even trust a God who is “free” in this sense? How do we tell the difference between God’s freedom and God’s caprice? If God is free to kill Job’s children indiscriminately, bring sickness and misery on him and expose him to persecution, are we then still facing a loving God? In Barth’s interpretation, Job’s pain and anger do not cease as if Job is at peace; instead, they appear justified. Barth – as is the case with many specialists in exegesis – simply ignores the aspect that Job was put to a test and that he proved himself in the ordeal. Implicitly, Job 42 is often edited out of the book.

3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) did not hold a significant position, neither a renowned chair nor an important church capacity. During his lifetime, he rather stood in the background – and still he rose to one of the most famous and influential contemporary theologians after World War II. The main reason for this was his personal witness as a martyr: He took on the ultimate consequence for his positions and died for his cause. Many of his last utterances in the death cell have the character of charismatic visions, particularly as they are often enigmatic and in need of interpretation. If one tries to name his basic theological intention, one can say that Bonhoeffer’s theological effort was mainly focused on the relationship between Christianity and worldliness – in constant retrospective dependence to the Bible. While he, during his early phase (Sanctorum communion, 1930; Act and Being, 1931), initially as a Christian wanted to be a pacifist, his theological emphasis shifted during his middle phase (Discipleship, 1937; Life Together, 1939) and he strove more towards highlighting in general what it means to take the Bible seriously in this world. He tried, again and again,25 to connect the reality of this world with the images of the Bible and to “fill” the reality with ethical suggestions from 25 Maybe this is a reflection of practices that already the young Bonhoeffer execises as a child together with his twin sister Sabine. Accordingly „war es für die jungen Geschwister bedeutsam, die ihnen überkommenen Begriffe christlicher Glaubenstradition mit eigenen und konkreten Vorstellungen zu füllen“, Süselbeck, Es gehen mir… (2004), 78.

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Scripture. The person that wants to meet the full force of biblical texts needs to have inner and outer discipline. Scripture fosters the ability to permit and endure those traumas that are a result of their comprehension, and not to ignore them. The one who withdraws oneself from their practical exercise and implementation, is at risk to merely functionalize biblical testimony in an affirmative way or virtually eliminate through narrow-mindedness. Bonhoeffer raised this problem self-critically on a youth conference, when he reproached the participants and himself: “We no longer read the Bible seriously. We read it no longer against ourselves, but for ourselves“ (DBWE 11, 377 f ). He countered this improper handling of Scripture with a praxis similar to spiritual exercises, which he outlined for his students in the Winter term of 1931/32 with the following key points: “Receiving it, allowing oneself to be addressed. To be silent in the domain of the church. Letting go of oneself […] practiced by reading the Bible, by meditation, by prayer”.26 In comparison with the chaos that reigned in the Weimar Republic, and above all the decline of values under the Nazi regime, he advocated the regulative force of the Old Testament, which he took as a model for commandment, law, and criterion for discipline and love in families, as well as for order, obedience, and justice in the state. It is fair to say that Bonhoeffer’s understanding had a lot more in common with Bucer and Calvin – even if he was a Lutheran: The Old Testament was equivalent to the New and is, as word of God, the decisive moral principle for the present age.27 In the question of the right, or even the obligation for political resistance, Bonhoeffer’s position is more characteristic for a Reformed than Lutheran theology. Beginning in 1939, he went deliberately and joined the armed resistance against Hitler, was consequently imprisoned, and on April 9th 1945 assassinated in the Flossenbürg concentration camp. In his later writings which were published posthumously (Ethics, 194928; Letters and Papers from Prison, 195129, both in the original German version edited by E. Bethge) he discovered the unity of God’s reality and the reality of the world, which is realized in Jesus Christ. Foundational is the experience “that one only learns to have faith by living in the full this-worldliness of life[”.]30 His program that religion and Christianity are not identical led to sometimes enigmatic sketch-

26

In a speech to students 1932, DBWE 12, 232. Concerning a reformed understanding of Scripture cf. Gunneweg, Understanding the Old Testament (1978), 109: “Contributory factors were Calvin’s understanding of scripture, Melanchthon’s view that, in principle, for Christians the Old and New Testaments had equal status, and finally the orthodox doctrine of inspiration which was applied to Old and New Testaments alike: Of course, the law no longer found fulfilment in the church as an institution for salvation organized along the lines of the law – this was the understanding of the Roman Catholic church (and the Eastern church, while differing, nevertheless saw itself in much the same light). It was now fulfilled in daily life and in practical sanctification, works which were well-pleasing to God. Granted, these works did not make a man righteous before God; justification was the force which made sanctifying action possible for him”. 28 Bonhoeffer, Ethik (ed. I. Tödt/H. E. Tödt/E. Feil/C. Green; DBW 6; München 1992; ET: Fortress 2008; here: DBWE 6). 29 Edited and commented by Ch. Gremmels, Gesamtausgabe (abbr. DBW), Vol. 8 (Gütersloh 1998; ET: Fortress 2010; here: DBWE 8). 30 Brief vom 21. 7. 1944 (DBWE 8, 486). 27

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es over a non-religious Christianity and the non-religious interpretation of biblical notions.31 A generic example can be found in his interpretation of the Decalogue in Bonhoeffer’s Ethics: He employed the Ten Commandments in the sense of a Usus elenchticus legis. The Decalogue calls all believers into the realization of sins and the communal confession of sin. When faced with God’s claims the debt of the individual becomes apparent:32 “The church confesses that it has not professed openly and clearly enough its message of the one God, revealed for all times in Jesus Christ and tolerating no other gods besides. […] The church was mute, when it should have cried out, because the blood of the innocent cried out to heaven. […] It did not resist to the death the falling away from faith[…]” (138). “The church confesses that it has misused the name of Christ. […] The church has looked on while injustice and violence have been done, under the cover of the name of Christ” (138). “The church confesses it is guilty of the loss of holidays, […] as well as for their [the workers’] exploitation above and beyond the workweek” (139). “The church confesses that it is guilty of the breakdown of parental authority. […] It has not dared to proclaim the God-given dignity of parents against revolutionary youth. […] Thus it is guilty of destroying countless families […,] of the self-divinizing of youth, and therefore of abandoning them to fall away from Christ” (139). “The church confesses that it has witnessed […] the suffering in body and soul of countless innocent people, that it has witnessed oppression, hatred, and murder without raising ist[its] voice for the victims and without finding ways of rushing to help them. It has become guilty of the lives of the weakest and most defenseless brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ” (139). “It has found no strong or authentic message to set against the disdain for chastity and the proclamation of sexual licentiousness” (140). “The church confesses that it has looked on silently as the poor were exploited and robbed, while the strong were enriched and corrupted” (140). “The church confesses its guilt toward the countless people whose lives have been destroyed by slander, denunciation and defamation” (140). “The church confesses that it has coveted security, tranquility, peace, property […] and therefore has not bridled human covetousness, but promoted it” (140). “The church confesses itself guilty of violating all of the Ten Commandments. It confesses thereby its apostasy from Christ“ (140). “By falling silent the church became guilty for the loss of responsible action in society, courageous intervention, and the readiness to suffer for what is acknowledged as right. It is guilty of the government’s falling away from Christ” (141). The Old Testament plays a significant role in Bonhoeffer’s theology during all phases of his work, as already his theological exegesis of the first chapters of Genesis in Creation and Fall (1934) conveys. It is absolutely clear for him that the Old Testament can only be read from a perspective within the Church, i.e. that it can only be understood from Christ alone.

31 Cf. M. Welker, “Bonhoeffers theologisches Vermächtnis in Widerstand und Ergebung”, in: idem, Theologische Profile. Schleiermacher – Barth – Bonhoeffer – Moltmann (Frankfurt a.M. 2009), 103–119. 32 Bonhoeffer, Ethik (1992).

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Yet a remarkable change takes place in his thinking – at least how many Bonhoeffer scholars see it:33 It seems, as if there is no other systematic-theological work that holds the Old Testament in such high esteem as the theology of the late Bonhoeffer. Originally, Bonhoeffer was factually very close to Das Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments, 1–2, by W. Vischer (Munich/Zurich 1934/42), and there also was a more intense co-operation with Vischer during the Kirchenkampf years, because Bonhoeffer read the Old Testament the same way as him, as a “book of Christ”. As evidence for this theological stance, one can refer e.g. to his Bible studies on David (1935),34 Ezra and Nehemiah (1936),35 or the Psalms (The Prayerbook of the Bible: An Introduction to the Psalms, 1940).36 Jesus “appropriated this prayer, and for the first time it acquired its full meaning. We can pray this psalm only in community with Jesus Christ as those who have participated in the suffering of Christ. We pray this psalm not out of our random personal suffering, but out of the suffering of Christ that has also come upon us. But we always hear Jesus Christ praying with us”.37 During his imprisonment a completely new tone arises: Now it is no longer important to read the Old Testament as a book that is oriented towards Christ, but to recognize the value of the Old Testament as a book that stands for itself, with its own meaning. He writes after six months in prison: “I have read the Old Testament two and a half times through”,38 and he attests: By the way, I notice more and more how much I am thinking and perceiving things in line with the Old Testament; thus in recent months I have been reading much more the Old than the New Testament. Only when one knows that the name of God may not be uttered may one sometimes speak the name of Jesus Christ. Only when one loves life and the earth so much that with it everything seems to be lost and at its end may one believe in the resurrection of the dead and a new world. Only when one accepts the law of God as binding for oneself may one perhaps sometimes speak of grace. And only when the wrath and vengeance of God against God’s enemies are allowed to stand can something of forgiveness and the love of enemies touch our heart. Whoever wishes to be and perceive things too quickly and too directly in New Testament ways is to my mind no Christian.39

33 Cf. M. Kuske, Das Alte Testament als Buch von Christus. Dietrich Bonhoeffers Wertung und Auslegung des Alten Testaments (Göttingen 1963). He puts the second phase under the heading “The understanding of the New Testament from the perspective of the Old” (das Verstehen des Neuen Testaments vom Alten her), 83 ff. More articulate, is B. Klappert, “Weg und Wende Dietrich Bonhoeffers in der Israelfrage – Bonhoeffer und die theologischen Grundentscheidungen des rheinischen Synodalbeschlusses”, in: W. Huber/I. Tödt (eds.), Ethik im Ernstfall. Dietrich Bonhoeffers Stellung zu den Juden und ihre Aktualität (München 1992), 77–135; E. Feil, Die Theologie Dietrich Bonhoeffers. Hermeneutik – Christologie – Weltverständnis (München 41991), 219 ff; F. Crüsemann, Das Alte Testament als Wahrheitsraum des Neuen. Die neue Sicht der christlichen Bibel (Gütersloh 2011), 56–60. 34 DBW 14 (Gütersloh 1996), 878–904. 35 DBW 14, (1996), 930–945. 36 DBWE 5 (1996), 141–177. 37 DBWE 5, 166. Cf. Miller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Psalms (2000), who works out explicitly who much the concept of incarnation has shaped Bonhoeffers understanding of the Psalms, „It’s the incarnate son of God, who has borne every human weakness in his own flesh, who here pours out the heart of all humanity before God and who stands in our place and prays for us. He has known torment and pain, guilt and death more deeply than we” (Bonhoeffer, Psalmen, 192013, 20 f). It is just the incarnational sense about the Psalms that led the New Testament writers so often to see in them a chief clue for understanding. 38 DBWE 8, 181. 39 DBWE 8, 213.

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Bonhoeffer’s entire theological work increasingly appears to be fundamentally shaped by this new view of the Old Testament. Christianity remains dependent on the things specifically pertaining to the Old Testament. Only under the condition of validity and recognition of the Old Testament as the word of God can it be appropriately Christian. Phrases like this have not been heard before, not in Barth or even Bonhoeffer himself. The crucial formulation is not easy to understand: “Whoever wishes to be and perceive things too quickly and too directly in New Testament ways is to my mind no Christian”.40 Those are statements in prison, drafted in the face of mortal danger. They are scant and wide open to many diverse interpretations, it is necessary to protect oneself from the projections of one’s own thoughts. “Bonhoeffer is well aware of the novelty, the objectionability and the far reaching consequences – inter alia for the catholic problem, the concept of ministry, use of the Bible, but especially for Ethics”.41 Bonhoeffer probably did not have any knowledge of the anti-Jewish late Luther,42 but with these letters he caused an enormous appreciation with Jewish readers. The one who possibly portrayed this “change” of Bonhoeffer in the most dramatic way, was P. Lapide: he even talks about a “conversion to Jewish thinking”, which took away from him “the peelings of Hellenism like the scales from the eyes of the proper knowledge of God” and made it possible for him to advocate “the freedom of the will for the believers of all three Abrahmitic religions” in the following of the Rabbis. By doing so, he has become “the pioneer” and “forerunner of a gradual Re-Hebraicization of the Church in our days”.43 In my opinion though, it is necessary to judge more carefully. It is not plausible that Bonhoeffer got a chance to deal in depth with Judaism in prison. What also does he mean with the term “Old Testament way of thinking”? He did not engage himself with studying the books of the Old Testament in their original intention, he did not work his way through commentaries and he did not conduct exegetical studies. It seems, as if by using the term “Old Testament way of thinking” he refers to a “material way of thinking”, a “mundane way of thinking”, maybe simply “thinking and acting pragmatically. If that is correct, then it does not imply that he wanted to rate Old Testament theologies higher in every detail, rather it would mean that through this phrase he issues a call for acting vigorously in the here and now. The term “old testament way of thinking” does not refer to the more intense effort of trying to do justice to the multiple theologies that are found in the Old Testament. It rather is a cipher with a wide interpretational range. “Old Testament way of thinking” may also mean: Bonhoeffer did no longer refer God to the hereafter, but into this world, no longer to the margins, but into the middle; he beholds God not in the harmony, but in the conflicts of this world and this life. The Old 40

See above. Bonhoeffer ist sich der Neuheit, der Anstößigkeit und der weitreichenden Folgen – ‘u. a. für das katholische Problem, für den Amtsbegriff, für den Gebrauch der Bibel, aber vor allem eben für die Ethik’ – sehr bewusst“ Crüsemann, Das Alte Testament als Wahrheitsraum (2011), 58. 42 So E. Bethge, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer und die Juden”, in: H. Kremers (ed.), Die Juden und Martin Luther (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1983), 211–248. 43 P. Lapide, “Bonhoeffer und das Judentum”, in: E. Feil (ed.): Verspieltes Erbe – Dietrich Bonhoeffer und der deutsche Nachkriegsprotestantismus, Internationales Bonhoeffer Forum, 2 (München 1979), 116 –130, here 121, 125, 129. 41

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Testament plays the crucial role in this: “Only when one knows that the name of God may not be uttered […]; only when one loves life and the earth so much […]; only when one accepts the law of God as binding for oneself […] and only when the wrath and vengeance of God against God’s enemies are allowed to stand […]”.44 The doctrine of incarnation is a prominent feature in this train of thought. The Old Testament mode of thinking and living virtually becomes the sine qua non for of the possibility for acting and believing according to the New Testament. “One can and must not speak the ultimate word prior to the penultimate. We are living in the penultimate and believe the ultimate.45 Even „the Christian hope of resurrection” – in contrast to the myths of the religions of redemption in the surrounding world – is understood in the way that she recommits the human back to his life on earth. Admittedly, in the New Testament this is understood to happen “in a completely new and, compared with the Old Testament rather intensified fashion”; at the same time New and Old Testament remain connected with each other, as is stated explicitly. The pattern of increase, in which the “underdeveloped” Old Testament culminates in the fully developed New, is here turned in a way that something typical for the Old Testament is validated entirely and even accentuated in the New. The New Testament is a radicalization of the Old, which remains unchanged in its fundamental structure though. In that case, it is impossible to allocate the difference between the second-to-last and the last things clearly between the two Testaments. This phenomenon has rightly been called “interconnection of the two Testaments”46 It seems that the Old Testament receives the highest possible esteem. Old Testament theology literally becomes the leading discipline of theology. Yet, critical queries remain: F. Crüsemann fears that even if stating differently, the last and second-to-last things are allocated between the two Testaments. Even if Bonhoeffer did achieve something extremely worthwhile for the re-evaluation of the Old Testament, an implicit devaluation remains under the surface. “When one combines this antithesis with the question concerning the two Testaments, – despite the new approach and right in the middle of it – old patterns of higher and lower, temporary and actual gain new force. How much old patterns take effect even and right in the formulation of a new approach, is shown – if one looks closely – by the sentences cited above, with which Bonhoeffer justified the necessity of the Old Testament way of thinking for the Christian faith. After all, the antitheses to the – supposedly specifically Old Testament characteristics – are pertaining to the Old Testament”.47

44

DBWE 8, 213. DBWE 8, 213. 46 Feil, Theologie Bonhoeffers (1991), 211. 47 „Wird dieser Gegensatz dann verbunden mit der Frage nach den beiden Testamenten, gewinnen trotz des Neuansatzes und mitten in ihm alte Muster von Niedrigerem und Höherem, Vorläufigem und Eigentlichem unvermeidlich neue Kraft. Wie sehr selbst und gerade in der Formulierung eines neuen Zugangs alte Muster durchschlagen, zeigen, sieht man genauer hin, gerade auch die oben zitierten Sätze, mit denen Bonhoeffer die Notwendigkeit alttestamentlichen Denkens für den christlichen Glauben begründet hat. Sind doch die Gegensätze zu den angeblich spezifisch alttestamentlichen Zügen – alttestamentlich.” Crüsemann, Das Alte Testament als Wahrheitsraum (2011), 60. 45

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4. Hans Urs von Balthasar Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905 in Luzern – 1988 in Basel) is rightly regarded as one of the most important catholic theologians and philosophers of the 20th century, even though he – like Bonhoeffer – never made a career in academics48 or the Church49. He became prominent for his role as a mediator between literature, philosophy and theology, as well as a critical observer of interdenominational and interreligious dialogue. His vast opus (about 85 books, more than 500 essays, about 100 translations from the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish and Italian plus the supervision of 13 series) classifies him as an extremely sophisticated expert and mediator between many classical and modern intellectual approaches. Starting out his career with a PhD in German literature (1928), he joined the Jesuits in 1929, studied theology and worked as university chaplain in Basel. After leaving the Jesuit Order in 1950, he officially became a diocesan priest in Chur, but actually made his living as a reader for a publishing house and as head of the “Community of John”, a Secular Institute (lay form of consecrated life that seeks to work for the sanctification of the world especially from within). His so called “Triptych” of “Glory”, “TheoLogic” and “Theo-Drama”, in other words the beauty of God, the word of God and the ceremony of God (published between 1961 and 1983 in 15 volumes plus Epilogue),50 can be regarded as an outstanding effort in cultural studies, which synthesizes a huge amount of aspects.

He was less thinking in systems, but tried to fathom the relationship between God and human beings in always new attempts with different discussion partners. He wanted to give an intellectual, faithful response to Western modernism, which has brought the world to no longer being well-disposed towards Christianity. At the same time Balthasar was continuously concerned with spiritual and practical issues. He insisted that his theology never be divorced from the mystical experiences of his long-time friend Adrienne von Speyr, a Swiss medical doctor.

48 He refused the offer for the chair for fundamental theology at the faculty for catholic theology at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen as successor of Heinrich Fries in 1960. In his stead the chair was then offered to Hans Küng. 49 His reputation rose to the extent that John Paul II asked him to be a cardinal in 1988. But he died in his home in Basel two days before the ceremony. 50 The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetic: – Vol. I: Seeing the Form – Vol. II: Clerical Styles – Vol. III: Lay Styles – Vol. IV: The Realm of Metaphysics in Antiquity – Vol. V: The Realm of Metaphysics in the Modern Age – Vol. VI: Theology: The Old Covenant – Vol. VII: Theology: The New Covenant Theo-Logic: – Vol. I: The Truth of the World – Vol. II: Truth of God – Vol. III: The Spirit of the Truth Theo-Drama: – Vol. I: Prolegomena – Vol. II: Dramatis Personae – Vol. III: Dramatis Personae – Vol. IV: The Action – Vol. V: The Last Act – Epilogue.

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Hans Urs von Balthasar did not much reflect over hermeneutical methods, but implemented his thinking directly and concretely; he dared do something highly uncommon for systematic theologians: He wrote a kind of “Theology of the Old Testament” with over 400 pages.51 The Glory of the Lord. A theological Aesthetic, Vol. III/2: Theology. 1. Old Testament (followed by a volume „New Testament“ respectively). The foundational question of the book is: “what path must have been taken by the concept of the kabod of Yahweh in order for it to be able to appear in the new covenant, in Paul and in John, as doxa Christou and doxa Theou?” (415). The monograph, which centers around the idea of „the Glory of God in the Old Covenant”, is therefore arranged chronologically and takes a route from Genesis to the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon. In addition to this temporal grid of organization, which leads in an exemplary fashion on the basis of multiple lines through the whole canon of the Septuagint, von Balthasar has also built in a systematic grid: The term “Glory” is meant to play the leading role in the treatment of all the Old Testament theological topoi and every other topic should be examined from it; kabod constitutes the substantial center; the Glory of God in its multidimensional plenty reveals itself step-by-step through completely different concepts in the partial aspects of itself. The line of thought is arranged in three main parts: 1. the Glory of God and Man (31–211), 2. the Stairway of Obedience (215–298); 3. the long Twilight (301–416). Even if it is not recognizable by the choice of these artificial titles, the three segments deal with the three parts of the Old Testament Canon, not necessarily in every detail, but at large: 1. Pentateuch and historical books, 2. Prophecy, and 3. Deuterocanonical books. This structure constitutes a biblical survey of higher order, which is supposed to reveal the plenty of the Glory of God. “The transformation in the idea of divine glory, which runs from the Pentateuch right through the Johannine writings, is remarkably great, and yet the intermediate steps are so interconnected and they so clearly point to one another that in their very variety these phases constitute a whole, the parts of which support and substantiate one another” (17). “The Old Testament itself will ever anew receive the final rank that belongs to it” from the New (23). The amount of attempts to grasp the “Glory of God” in the Old Covenant cannot be reduced to one single aspect, but they find a “final form” in the incarnation of the Word (John 1:14). From the many ideas that he deals with, and which are in part very unconventional and poetic, one can only stress a few: Most of the time, the term kabod is unfolded dialectically, with respective passages from the Torah as evidence: God’s glory ranges between knowledge and lack of knowledge, visibility and invisibility, shape and shapelessness, in “bright darkness”, in the tension between tenement and event, in the dialectic of fire. Like a pearl necklace, he strings together classic Old Testament terms in view of the divine “I”: power, word, brightness

51 Authors that are often cited, include: K. Barth; M. Buber; W. Eichrodt; W. Hertzberg; K. Koch; L. Köhler; H.-J. Kraus; M. Noth and, by far the most: G. von Rad. Von Balthasar talks about the pentateuch sources P, J and E; yet one can get the impression that he is somewhat uncritical with respect to the historical horizon. On the other hand, he often refers to extra-canonical sources like Enuma elish or other classical authors like Homer.

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and name, countenance. Broadly, he depicts the problem of the image, spanning the mental horizon for dealing with it from the creation of the human after Genesis 1 right up to the eroticism of the Song of Songs and to Ecclesiastes. Under the key word “Concrete Glory” von Balthasar illuminates the horizons of berith: covenant, sedek, sedaka: right conduct in faithfulness, mishpat: right which comes into effect as salvation, emeth, emuna: proved excellence, shalom: pacified realm of salvation. He uses the philosophical term “contemporaneity” to portray Deuteronomy as the center of the Old Testament: All is presentist: „the ‚historical’ today is only the unfolding of the primal historical ‘today’” (187): “From Deuteronomy onwards, the true kernel of glory emerges the kebod Yahweh: absolute love. And the single ones who stand their ground under this love are the ones who communicate with it” (188). Under the heading “The Stairway of Obedience” he presents the history of prophetic preaching from Abraham, via Saul, the early prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Liturgies of Lament, Job (!) up until Deutero-Isaiah. Here, the prophets are read primarily from the perspective of the broken covenant and the righteousness of God, which punishes sin. This prophecy descends step by step to sheol. “The Israel of the millenia represents the side of God’s salvific activity in which he rejects; this is the inexorable inner consequence and logic of the grace which had entered into history” (219). “Where man has utterly failed, the history of the covenant of God becomes a history of God with himself… God will construct for himself a stairway in the men whom he has chosen, a stairway that is to lead him down into the god-less darkness. A stairway constructed of obedience” (222 f) from the obedience of the prophets. The last section “The long Twilight” is devoted to the Theologia gloriae which counter-intuitively also originates from sheol, once the prophetic voice suddenly stops in the Persian period. The End of the twilight is Christ. “The three undertakings of Judaism [that] can be understood from the starting-point of the theme of glory as attempts to force the glory of God into the open, despite its elusive hiddenness” (303), are meant to fail (whereby von Balthasar borrows a term from Bultmann’s theological classification of the Old Testament): 1. “The proclamation of a messianic-historical glory of God […;] it was for this reason that prophecy broke down”(303). 2. Apocalypticism fails, because it tries to see the glory of God in an ahistorical way mystically “in Heaven ‘above’ or in the anticipation of the (second) heavenly aeon” (303). 3. Hellenistic theology of wisdom, which “does not seek to get hold of glory either in a purely futuristic sense or in a purely mystical-eschatological sense, but seeks rather to see and experience it contemplatively out of the totality of creation and salvation-history” (303). This attempt also fails, because it loses “its feeling for the sharp distinctiveness of what Israel had experienced as the event of the glory of God” (303). “Without messianism, apocalyptic and wisdom theology, there would be no New Testament: all three are indispensable mediators, because they permit the historical form of Israel to become transcendent in three directions. But where they propose themselves as solutions with their function of broadening, they at once

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obstruct the place for God’s solution and become its opponents – the same is true precisely within Christianity too. It is only by accepting the providential mediation of Judaic theology with its inherent oscillation that one can link ancient Israel’s experience of glory with the Christians’ experience of glory” (303). Von Balthasar differentiates in this theologia gloriae 1. The “Glory Ahead”, which encompasses the theology of Zion, messianic hope and a theology of the poor; 2. The “Glory Above”, which adds a dimension that was missing in the hope of glory for the purely temporal future: “This newly-opened space that takes its life from the tremendous tensions of the heavenly action, that is filled with transcendental powers of history and catches up what happens in the world into the transcendence, in a way that serves only to intensify yet further the impact of the temporal-eschatological pressure as the gaze is directed vertically on high” (321). The apocalyptic visions of Daniel (Dan 7 ff) describe the experiences of glory of a mystic in the heavenly world to come. “Since the glory from on high does not shine through” the “darker sides” of humanity, “the latter imperceptibly become more important than the former” (334). “This superior glory does not penetrate the final judgment. The dualism is posited in a definitive and absolute way” (339). Many are dammed. Only a few belong to the ‘rest’. The concept of predestination takes on greater significance in the late years, but is stiffened similar to the concept of judgment. 3. The “Glory Anticipated”, this third form of reaching out, signifies the end of the old covenant in the form of wisdom, because it implies a world-historical broadening of the constricted Israel towards the encompassing global culture of Hellenism in language and patterns of thought. The broadening was necessary, “because the drama of the history of the people, played between God and Israel, had come to a standstill since the exile, and this seemed to permit a contemplative distance to the historical covenant relationship” (345). The even later scriptures Ben Sira and Book of Wisdom “stand for their part in a difficult and exposed situation within salvation history which makes it virtually impossible for them to speak of the entire glory of God otherwise than in a (formal) anticipation of what is to come, although the materials at their disposal cannot suffice to give an account of this: for how were they to sense anything of the cross of Christ? Their contemplation, therefore, brings to a close what is not in fact brought to a close: and in this, they inevitably practice a theologia gloriae in a manner that can be criticised on the basis of the new covenant” (346). They are lacking the dimensions of the glory ahead and above. Instead, they recognize the glory everywhere. “They are amazed at the ever greater wisdom of God, just as the Greek philosopher is astounded at the marvels of being; but they do not know the depths of wisdom on which Job’s Sibylline gaze was fixed (Job 28)” (347). Towards the end, the Old Testament – in the eyes of von Balthasar – gradually grows into the testimony of great misery: The present day without glory (365–401) shows how the urgent want of glory grew immensely during a time of emptiness. The remnant, which returns from exile, thought very little of itself, no longer as “the embodiment of the chosen people; rather, in order to give itself such a consciousness, it must first fashion an entire ideology for itself. (Chronicles)” (365). With Ezra and Nehemiah they tried once more, to construe the present as the sequel to the sacred history. The Book of Chronicles covers past material. “The Books of Maccabees do not succeed in portraying anything other

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than the secular history of a religious war carried out with pious enthusiasm and heroic idealism” (370). They belong to the canon, but are situated on a lower level of salvation history. “Sacred history in the ancient sense begins again only with John the Baptist” (370). Von Balthasar links the distress and misery to two motifs of the late years: First, the Priestly Source (advocated in its extreme form through the Essenes from Qumran according to von Balthasar); texts like Ex 35–40, Lev 1–10, Num 28–29 e.a. want the empty time to have a stake in God’s time. The Qumran-texts have the same tendency! “But then it is logical also to follow P in the Pentateuch by treating the kabod of Yahweh only as one arbitrarily applicable seal of the attestation of a king among the diverse cultic institutions – something that means that the true glory has passed from God to the institution” (372). The second motif is the imminent eschatological expectation together with the attempts to calculate its exact moment (Qumran; also Daniel). “The empty time is always on the point of going over into fulfilled time” (372). However, two factors remained to be important (appealing to bygone times would certainly not have been enough to preserve the knowledge of God’s salvific action in the people of Israel): First, the word of God, a speech event, and second, the blood of man and animal, the blood event, which is unfolded in a theology of sacrifice and its internalization. “When blood and word stand together, then the blood certainly stands in the place of the last word, which perhaps can no longer be uttered, and can only be whispered or shouted […]. The blood events of the old covenant, taken together, form a gallery of larger-than-life parables, which together fail to produce a form that can be interpreted definitively, because their centre seems as if held in reserve. […] The centre, which is the aim of all this, is released only in the new covenant” (392 f). The work is concluded by considerations on the significance of the Old Testament for the Christian faith (402–416). On the whole, von Balthasar’s book on the theology of the Old Testament is a vast homage to Gerhard von Rad; it mostly follows his concept of theology as a diachronic analysis of transmission history via the unfolding of different traditions (historic, prophetic-apocalyptic, psalmistic, sapiental) and adopts also von Rad’s patterns of the entire Bible, whereupon fulfillment and conclusion are not reached within the Old Testament itself, but rather in the New, through Jesus Christ.52 Von Balthasar’s understanding of the Old Testament and Israel, as just portrayed based on his theology of the Old Testament, was newly analyzed in a detailed, fundamental-theological habilitation dissertation by Johannes Schelhas published in 2012.53 In his widely read analyses, Schelhas puts forward the following theses: von Balthasar obtains his understanding of Scripture primarily 52 Von Balthasar often spoke on the question of the relationship between Church and Judaism: “Mysterium Judaicum”, in: Schweizerische Rundschau 43 (1943/44) 211–221; “Martin Buber und das Christentum”, in: Wort und Wahrheit 12 (1957) 653–665; “Die Wurzel Jesse, in: Sponsa Verbi. Skizzen zur Theologie, II (Einsiedeln 1961), 306–316; “Aktualität des Themas ‘Kirche aus Juden und Heiden’”, IkaZ 5 (1976) 239–245; “Theodramatik”, II/2 – Die Personen in Christus (Einsiedeln 1978), 340–368 (“Israel”);“Die Einheit des Alt- und Neutestamentlichen Bundes”, in: IkaZ 16 (1987) 9–11. Monographies: Einsame Zwiesprache. Martin Buber und das Christentum (Köln/Olten 1958; Freiburg 21993). 53 Schelhas, Christozentrische Schriftauslegung (2012), 75–248.

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through studying Henri de Lubac.54 For Lubac, the historical-critical method of interpretation is destined to fail in its very approach, because it does not presuppose Jesus Christ as the very core and substance of all of Scripture. It is certainly possible to read the Old Testament in its original historical context, but one cannot play off this reading “remoto Christi”, against the christological point of view. The initial, natural meaning must not overrule the christocentric, supernatural meaning. With Romano Guardini, von Balthasar picks up the Kierkegaard’s concept of concurrence, but does not understand it as an individual experience, but rather as a sacramental event, an incarnation of the history of Jesus that comes to pass in the history of each individual. For von Balthasar, the oneness of Scripture under the guidance of the analogizing principle is decisive. The reading of the individual text onto the whole and from the whole is identical to a christocentric interpretation of Scripture. The Jesuit Erich Przywarra imprints the concept of the analogia entis on von Balthasar, equivalent to the Greek prepositions ana (=”up”) and kata (=”down”): the descent of God to humankind and the ascent of humankind towards God have to correspond. Especially by examining the church fathers Augustine, Origin and Irenaeus, von Balthasar comes to a form of Christocentric exegisis, which interleaves the Kata-logy (allegorical interpretation) and the Ana-logy (literal sense) with each other. That begins already, when one understands individual Old Testament narratives as paradigms, i.e. when one ascribes an overarching, symbolic depth to these narratives, e.g. Israel’s Exodus narrative. Von Balthasar calls this pneumatic sense. Accordingly, von Balthasar assumes the oneness of Old and New Testament, which is effected through Christ. In the first part of his trilogy, he describes the aesthetic Gestalt character of all of reality (Glory), which becomes accessible in the second part (Theo-Drama) like a reflection of the Son became flesh. In the second part von Balthasar pursues the entire history of salvation from Abraham via Moses and Joshua up to the prophets, to prove the oneness of Scripture in the one, who is identical to the “Servant of God” (promised in Deutero-Isaiah), the unsurpassable “figure of glory”, who reveals the meaning and reason of all reality in the finitude of a singular, human existence. Jesus Christ is not any construct, not a Weltanschauung or a world-shaking doctrine, but rather a historical event. Especially on Holy Saturday, when God descends into the contrary of God’s self, into sin and the reign of death, God is manifest. That is the reason why – so von Balthasar – the often autocratic “reaching out into the future [messianism], into the heaven above [apocalypticism], and into the surrounding cosmos [wisdom literature]” (365) are not the significant factors, but rather, as a precursor of the figure of glory, the rites of atonement in the post-exilic temple cult. From here, von Balthasar criticizes exegetes, especially Bultmann, who consider the historical Jesus only necessary insofar as he is either seen as a vehicle of the kerygma or on the level of each individual believer, who is existentially affected by him. He also criticizes catholic theologians like Karl Rahner or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. For von Balthasar, history can not only be an addition or an attachment to the interpretation of 54 Henri de Lubac, Glauben aus der Liebe (Catholicisme 1938); Die Deutung der Heiligen Schrift (tr. H. U. von Balthasar; Einsiedeln 1970). This book is regarded as the foundation for von Balthasar’s entire theology. Cf. R. Voderholzer, Die Einheit der Schrift (1998).

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form, but an integral feature. Mere historical facts are still historical facts, even if one tries to transcend them symbolically. Would the exegetes’ researching reason emancipate itself from the faith in Christ and the faith of the Church, it would have degraded its subject to a death object of the past. Protestant tradition calls Christ and the Bible “Word of God”. For von Balthasar, the word of God is solely the inner-Trinitarian logos or the logos which became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Von Balthasar emphasizes the sole efficacy of the Spirit: Solely the Holy Spirit creates comprehension; solely the Holy Spirit bestows faith in justification through grace alone. Like Karl Barth, von Balthasar makes the Bible itself to a subject, which has authority and acts of its own accord; the Bible renders itself into the canon and imposes itself onto the Church. The emergence of the canon and of the Church is the result of the work of the Spirit alone. Even the comprehension and the appropriation of the biblical texts are totally dependent on the Spirit’s work. Many protestant exegetes, who comprehend themselves as being anti-Barthian, stress the fact that God wanted the conflict of interpretation, that the plurality of Christianity is not the consequence of schisms, but characteristic for the earliest forms of Christianity. They talk about an, on principle interminable process of interpretation, which must not be shortened or channeled by any church. Von Balthasar thinks that these fundamental principles of Protestantism are incompatible with the sacramental form of life in Catholicism. It is not possible to gain comprehension of Jesus Christ outside the Church. His main argument is the reality of the Church in Protestantism: The uncountable number of denominations, free churches, movements and orientations of Protestantism are a single history of the falsification of the protestant scriptural principle. Obviously, right from the beginning protestant exegetes were unable to perform the expected task of clarifying the foundations of the Church through the exegesis of Scripture. The Spirit manifests itself – so von Balthasar over and over – not in an invisible gospel, which brings about the canon of the Church and that is to be comprehended in ever new events of interpretation. Rather, the Bible is a product of tradition, i.e. the written codification of tradition. It is impossible, if it is to be foundational for the Church and not for a sect, to interpret the Bible apart from the tradition of the Church. According to the analysis of Johannes Schelhas, this hermeneutic is normative already for the authors of the New Testament books: “Master form of Christocentric scriptural interpretation is the way, how the disciples understand the resurrected one throughout the forty days, how they – through this timespan – understand the acts and the words of the resurrected one in light of the acts and words of Jesus during his life on earth”.55 The Sitz im Leben of the Christian exegesis is first and foremost the Eucharist! Von Balthasar recognizes in Jesus Christ not only the reiteration of the history of Israel, but also its destiny. He is convinced that Jesus Christ is the one through whom the sonship of the holy people arises. Jesus did obey and fulfill the commandments that God had assigned Moses for his people. 55 Urmodell christozentrischer Schriftauslegung ist die Weise, wie die Jünger den Auferstandenen vierzig Tage hindurch verstehen, wie sie während dieser Zeitspanne die Taten und Worte des Auferstandenen im Blick auf die Taten und Worte des Jesus der irdischen Lebenszeit verstehen, Schelhas, 216.

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Thus, Jesus Christ is the destiny – not the substitution! – of Israel’s election. God’s will in Jesus Christ is so specific that one can no longer mistake him with one’s own ideas or projections. But that also means for each Jew, who does not recognize the expected Messiah in Jesus: in the same way that he follows the Torah, is he on the way to Christ, even when he denies that fact on the reflexive level. Christ, the one who wanted nothing else than being totally determined by the will of God, is a Jew. But that does not exhaust his significance. To a greater degree he is the savior for all people at all times.

5. Conclusion “Systematic theology needs a biblical theology which is historical-critical without any restrictions and, at the same time, devotional-interpretative, taking account of the fact that it deals with matters of ultimate concern.”56 The Old Testament indeed appears at the three chosen systematic theologians as something that is of ultimate concern! All three, especially Bonhoeffer, emphasize the necessity, to think more intensely in categories pertaining to the Old Testament. Correspondingly, one can find theological interpretations of Old Testament texts in great numbers; von Balthasar even provides a completely developed theology of the Old Testament. Ever anew and with always changing terms, the Old Testament is taken consideration for all the topoi of the Christian dogma. But one can justifiably doubt the real significance of the Old Testament in all three examples. The decisive normative statements are taken either from the New Testament or from the doctrinal tradition of the Church. The Old Testament is only taken seriously insofar as it points to Jesus Christ – or as it serves him; its role is that of a witness for Christ. That is why one must ask, if they nevertheless all lack the last piece of appreciation for the Old Testament. Especially problematic is the relationship with Israel and Judaism. As long as Israel is seen as the prequel, the penultimate or the precursor, the feeling of equality and deep respect cannot be very strong. Admittedly, the oneness of salvation history, i.e. the indissoluble continuity of “Old” and “New” Covenant and therefore the affiliation of Jesus Christ and the church to the history of the election of Israel and the lasting closeness to Judaism, is affirmed and emphasized. But, the Old Testament only contains narrations of sin and rupture of the covenant, of guiltiness and failure, and it ultimately ends in an extreme longing that refers to something outside itself. In its despair, Israel knows nothing of the resurrection. The Law is something that is imposed only outwardly; post-biblical Judaism is only an utopistic-apocalyptic element of the unrest and the messianic expectation without knowledge of fulfillment. It is important to reflect the legacy of the Old Testament in its foundational function for the Christian faith. As a result, the systematic reflection of the Christian images of God, world and humanity are substantially enriched. The

56

P. Tillich, Systematic Theology, I (Chicago 1973), 36.

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Old Testament contains an asset that is only and exclusively found there and that would otherwise be missing in Christianity. In opposition to the New Testament belief in devils and demons, the Old Testament is the monotheistic conscience, it contains the book of prayer for Christians (Psalms), it is the source of Wisdom, i.e. a developed theology of creation and society (Proverbs, Psalms) and almost philosophical theological skepticism (Job, Ecclesiastes). It opens up a positive theological approach towards eroticism or enables the appreciation of religious experiences of others.57 What I myself – as a systematizing Old Testament scholar – expect is a real equality of the Testaments. We eventually have to learn to recognize the intrinsic value of the Old Testament without having to “renounce Christological ownership”! The Old Testament is in many ways a witness to different paths towards God, which have a high value in addition to and in dialogue with the Christological testimony of God in the New Testament.58 For Christian systematic theology the intrinsic value of the Old Testament is still to be found!

57 Cf. to the intrinsic value of the Old Testament: Haag, “Vom Eigenwert des Alten Testaments”, ThQ 160 (1980) 2–16; M. Oeming, Das Alte Testament als Teil des christlichen Kanons (Zürich 32001), 240–245; G. Theissen, “Der Eigenwert des Alten Testaments. Überlegungen eines Neutestamentlers aus reformierter Tradition”, in: M. Oeming/W. Böes (eds.), Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft und kirchliche Praxis (FS Jürgen Kegler; BVB 18; Münster 2009), 15–27. 58 Cf. the programmatic essay by M. Oeming, “Viele Wege zu dem Einen. Die ‘transzendente Mitte’ einer Theologie des Alten Testaments im Spannungsfeld von Vielfalt und Einheit”, in: St. Beyerle/A. Graupner/U. Rüterswörden (eds.), Viele Wege zu dem Einen. Historische Bibelkritik – Die Vitalität der Glaubensüberlieferung in der Moderne (BThSt 121; Neukirchen-Vluyn 2012, 83–108.

Chapter Thirty-three

Types of a Recent ‘Canonical Approach’ By Dennis Olson, Princeton, NJ Bibliography: G. Aichele, The Control of Biblical Meaning: Canon as Semiotic Mechanism (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity 2001). – I. Baldermann e.a. (eds.), Zum Problem des biblischen Kanons (JBT 3; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1988). – E. Ballhorn/ G. Steins (eds.), Der Bibelkanon in der Bibelauslegung: Methoden-reflexionen und Beispielexegesen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2007). – J. Barr, “Childs’ Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture”, JSOT 16 (1980) 12–23; Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism (Oxford: Oxford UP 1983); “The Theological Case Against Biblical Theology”, Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (ed. G. M. Tucker e.a.; Philadelphia: Fortress 1988), 3–19; “The Literal, the Allegorical, and Modern Biblical Scholarship”, JSOT 44 (1989) 3–17; “Allegory and Historicism”, JSOT 69 (1996) 105–120; The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress 1999). – J. Barthel, “Die kanonhermeneutische Debatte seit Gerhard von Rad: Anmerkungen zu neueren Entwurfen”, Kanonhermeneutik: Vom Lesen und Verstehen der christlichen Bibel (ed. B. Janowski; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2007), 1–26. – C. Bartholomew e. a. (eds.), Canon and Biblical Interpretation (Biblical Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, 7; Grand Rapids: Zondervan 2004). – J. Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 1997; 1st edn. 1984); “Canon and Old Testament Interpretation”, In Search of True Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament Interpretation in Honour of Ronald Clements (ed. E. Ball; JSOT.S 300; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic 2000), 37–52; “Intertextuality and the ‘Final Form’ of the Text”, VT.S 80 (2000), 33–37; “Canonical Approaches Ancient and Modern”, The Biblical Canons (ed. J.M. Auwers/ H. J. De Jonge; BETL 163; Leuven: Leuven UP 2003), 199–209. – J. Blenkinsopp, Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins. – E. BLUM, “Formgeschichte – A Misleading Category? Some Critical Remarks”, The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (ed. M. Sweeney/ E. B. Zvi (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2003), 3–45. – P. Brandt, Endgestalten des Kanons: Das Arrangement der Schriften Israels in der jüdischen und christlichen Bibel (BBB 131; Berlin: Philo 2001). – M. Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis? The Impact of the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1991); “The Future of Old Testament Theology”, VT.S 80 (2000), 465–488. – W. Brueggemann, “Against the Stream: Brevard Childs’s Biblical Theology”, ThTo 50 (1993) 279–284; Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress 1997). – A. Budde, “Der Abschluss des alttestamentlichen Kanons und seine Bedeutung für die kanonische Schriftauslegung”, BN 87 (1997) 39–55. – H. von Campenhausen, Die Enstehung der christlichen Bibel (Tübingen: Mohr 1968). – R. Carroll, “Canonical Criticism: A Recent Trend in Biblical Studies?”, ET 92 (1980) 73–78. – S. Chapman, The Law and the Prophets: A Study in Old Testament Canon Formation (FAT 27; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck 2000); “A Canonical Approach to Old Testament Theology? Deuteronomy 34:10–12 and Malachi 3:22–24 as Programmatic Conclusions”, HBT 25 (2003) 121–145; “Reading the Bible as Witness: Divine Retribution in the Old Testament”, PRSt 31 (2004) 171–190; “Reclaiming Inspiration for the Bible”, Canon and Biblical Interpretation (ed. C. Bartholomew e.a.; Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderman 2006). – B. S. Childs, “Jonah: A Study in Old Testament Hermeneutics”, SJTh 11 (1958) 53–61; Myth and Reality in the Old Testament (SBTh 27; 2nd edn.; London: SCM 1960); “Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of Contemporary Hermeneutics”, Int. 12 (1958) 257–271; Memory and Tradition in Israel (SBTh 37; London: SCM 1962); “A Study of the Formula, ‘Until This Day’”, JBL 82 (1963) 279–292; “Interpretation in Faith: The Theological Responsibility of an

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Old Testament Commentary”, Int. 18 (1964) 432–449; “The Birth of Moses”, JBL 84 (1965) 109–122; “Deuteronomic Formulae of the Exodus Traditions”, Hebräische Wortforschung (FS W. Baumgartner; ed. G. W. Anderson e.a.; Leiden: Brill 1967), 30–39; Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis (SBTh II/3; London: SCM 1967); “Psalm 8 in the Context of the Christian Canon”, Int. 23 (1969) 20–31; Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster 1970); “A Traditio-historical Study of the Reed Sea Tradition”, VT 20 (1970) 406–418; “Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis”, JSS 16 (1971) 137–150; “Midrash and the Old Testament”, Understanding the Sacred Text (ed. J. Reumann; Valley Forge, PA: Judson 1972), 45–59; “The Old Testament as Scripture of the Church”, CThM 43 (1972) 709– 722; “A Tale of Two Testaments”, Int. 26 (1972) 20–29; The Book of Exodus: A Critical Theological Commentary (Louisville: Westminster 1974); “The Etiological Tale Re-examined”, VT 24 (1974) 387–397; “Reflections on the Modern Study of the Psalms”, Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God: Essays on Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. E. Wright (ed. F. M. Cross e.a.; New York: Doubleday 1976), 377–388; “The Sensus Literalis of Scripture: An Ancient and Modern Problem”, Beiträge zur alttestamentlichen Theologie (FS W. Zimmerli; ed. H. Donner e.a.; Göttingen: Vandenhock & Ruprecht 1977), 80–93; “The Canonical Shape of the Book of Jonah”, Biblical and Near Eastern Studies: Essays in Honor of William Sanford LaSor (ed. G. Tutde; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1978), 122–128; “The Canonical Shape of the Prophetic Literature”, Int. 32/1 (1978) 46–55; “The Exegetical Significance of the Canon for the Study of the Old Testament”, VT.S 29 (1978) 66–80; Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress 1979); “On Reading the Elijah Narratives”, Int. 34 (1980) 128–137; “A Response [to James Mays et al.]”, HBT 2 (1980) 199–211; “Response to Reviewers of Introduction to the OT as Scripture”, JSOT 16 (1980) 52–60; “Differenzen in der Exegese: Biblische Theologie in Amerika”, Evangelische Kommentare 14 (1981) 405–406; “Some Reflections on the Search for a Biblical Theology”, HBT 4 (1982) 1–12; “Wellhausen in English”, Semeia 25 (1982) 83–88; The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction. (Philadelphia: Fortress 1984); Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress 1985); “Gerhard von Rad in American Dress”, The Hermeneutical Quest: Essays in Honor of James Luther Mays on his 65th Birthday (ed. D. G. Miller; Allison Park, PA: Pickwick 1986), 77–86; “Die Bedeutung des Jüdischen Kanons in der Alttestamentlichen Theologie”, Mitte der Schrift: ein jüdisch-christliches Gespräch – Texte des Berner Symposions vom 6.-12. Januar 1985 (ed. M. Klopfenstein e.a.; Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang 1987), 269–281; “Die theologische Bedeutung der Endform eines Textes”, ThQ 167 (1987) 242–251; “Biblische Theologie und christlicher Kanon”, Zum Problem des biblischen Kanons (JBTh 3; ed. I. Baldermann e.a.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1988), 13–27; “Analysis of a Canonical Formula: ‘It Shall be Recorded for a Future Generation’”, Die hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte (ed. E. Blum e.a.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1990), 357–364; “Critical Reflections on James Barr’s Understanding of the Literal and the Allegorical”, JSOT 46 (1990) 3–9; Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress 1992; tr. Die Theologie der einen Bibel, 1: Grundstrukturen; 2: Hauptthemen; Freiburg: Herder 1994–1996); “Die Bedeutung der hebräischen Bibel für die biblische Theologie”, ThZ 48 (1992) 382–390; “Die Beziehung von Altem und Neuem Testament aus kanonischer Sicht”, Eine Bibel – zwei Testamente: Positionen biblischer Theologie (ed. C. Dohmen/T. Söding; Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 1995), 29–34; “Old Testament Theology”, Old Testament Interpretation: Past, Present and Future: FS Gene M. Tucker (ed. J. L. Mays e.a.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1995), 29–34; “On Reclaiming the Bible for Christian Theology”, Reclaiming the Bible for the Church (ed. C. Braaten/R. Jenson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1995), 1–17; “Retrospective Reading of the Old Testament Prophets”, ZAW 108 (1996) 362–377; “Does the Old Testament Witness to Jesus Christ?”, Evangelium, Schriftauslegung, Kirche: FS Peter Stuhlmacher (ed. J. Aadna e.a.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1997), 57–64; “Toward Recovering Theological Exegesis”, ProEccl 6 (1997) 16–26; “Jesus Christ the Lord and the Scriptures of the Church”, The Rule of Faith: Scripture, Canon, and Creed in a Critical Age (ed. E. Radner/G. Sumner; Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse 1998), 1–12; “The Nature of the Christian Bible: One Book, Two Testaments”, The Rule of Faith (1998), 115–125; “The One Gospel in Four Witnesses”, The Rule of Faith (1998), 51–62; “Toward Recovering Theological Exegesis”, ExAud 16 (2000) 121–129; Isaiah: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2001); “Critique of Recent Intertextual Canonical Interpretation”, ZAW 115 (2003) 173–184; The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2004); “The Canon in Recent Biblical Studies: Reflections on an Era”, ProEccl 14 (2005) 26–45; “Speech-act Theory and Biblical Interpretation”, SJTh 58 (2005) 375–392; The Church’s Guide for Reading Paul: The Canonical Shaping of the Pauline Corpus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2008). – J. J. Collins, “Is a Critical

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Biblical Theology Possible?”, The Hebrew Bible and its Interpreters (ed. W. Propp e.a.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1990), 1–17; Encounters with Biblical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress 2005). – E. Davis, “Critical Traditioning: Seeking an Inner Biblical Hermeneutic”, AThR 82 (2000) 733–751; “Teaching the Bible Confessionally in the Church”, The Art of Reading Scripture (ed. E. Davis/ R. Hays; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2003), 9–26. – C. Dohmen, “Der Kanon des Alten Testaments: Eine westliche hermeneutische Perspektive”, Das Alte Testament als christliche Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht (ed. I. Z. Dimitrov e.a.; WUNT 174; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2004), 277–297. – C. Dohmen/ F. Mussner (eds.), Nur die halbe Warheit? Für die Einheit der ganzen Bibel (Freiburg: Herder 1993). – C. Dohmen/M. Oeming, Biblischer Kanon – warum und wozu? Eine Kanontheologie (QD 137; Freiburg: Herder 1992). – C. Dohmen/ T. Söding (eds.), Eine Bibel – zwei Testamente: Positionen biblischer Theologie (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 1995). – C. Dohmen/G. Stemberger, Hermeneutik der Jüdischen Bibel und des Alten Testaments (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1996) . – D. Driver, Brevard Childs: Biblical Theologian for the Church’’ s One Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2010). – R. Feldmeier/H.Spiekermann, God of the Living: A Biblical Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor UP 2011; tr. of Der lebendige Gott. Eine Einführung in die biblische Gotteslehre; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2011). – S. Fowl, “The Canonical Approach of Brevard Childs”. ET 96 (1985) 173–176. – H. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale UP 1974); The Identity of Jesus Christ: The Hermeneutical Bases of Dogmatic Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress 1975). − N. Gottwald, “Social Matrix and Canonical Shape”, ThTo 42 (1985) 307–321. – J. Groves, Actualization and Interpretation in the Old Testament (SBLDS 86; Atlanta: Scholars 1987). – B. Hägglund, “Die Bedeutung der ‘regula fidei’ als Grundlage theologischer Aussagen”, StTh 12 (1958) 1–44. – R. Harrisville/ W. Sundberg, The Bible in Modern Culture: Baruch Spinoza to Brevard Childs (2nd edn.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2002). – C. Helmer/C. Landmesser (eds.), One Scripture Or Many? Canon from Biblical, Theological and Philosophical Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford UP 2004). –H. Hübner, “Vetus Testamentum und Vetus Testamentum in Novo Receptum: die Frage nach dem Kanon des Alten Testaments aus neutestamendicher Sicht”, JBTh 3 (1988) 147–162. – B. Janowski (ed.), Kanonhermeneutik: Vom Lesen und Verstehen der christlichen Bibel (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2007). – S. Krauter, “Brevard S. Childs’ Programm einer Biblischen Theologie: Eine Untersuchung seiner systematisch-theologischen und methodologischen Fundamente”, ZThK 96 (1999) 21–48. – J. Kugel/R. Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster 1986). – W. Lyons, Canon and Exegesis: Canonical Praxis and the Sodom Narrative (JSOT.S 352; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic 2002). – N. Macdonald, “Israel and the Old Testament Story in Irenaeus’s Presentation of the Rule of Faith”, JThI 3 (2009) 281–298. – Idem, Metaphysics and the God of Israel: Systematic Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2007). – J. G. Mcconville, “Biblical Theology: Canon and Plain Sense”, SBET 19 (2001) 134–157. – P. D. Miller, “Der Kanon in der gegenwärtigen amerikanischen Diskussion”, Zum Problem des biblischen Kanons (ed. I. Baldermann e.a.; JBTh 3; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1988) 13–27. – R. W. L. Moberly, “The Church’s Use of the Bible: The Work of Brevard Childs”, ET 99 (1988) 104–109; The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2000); “The Canon of the Old Testament: Some Historical and Hermeneutical Reflections from a Western Perspective”, Das Alte Testament als christliche Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht (ed. I. Dimitrov e.a.; WUNT 174; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2004), 239–257; The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2009); Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2013). – D. F. Morgan, “Canon and Criticism: Method Or Madness?”, AThR 68 (1986) 83–94. – J. Neusner, Midrash in Context (Philadelphia: Fortress 1983). – P. R. Noble, “The Sensus Literalis: Jowett, Childs, and Barr”, JTS 44 (1993) 1–23; The Canonical Approach: A Critical Reconstruction of the Hermeneutics of Brevard S. Childs (BIntS 16; Leiden: Brill 1995). – M. Oeming, Gesamtbiblische Theologien der Gegenwart: Das Verhältnis von AT und NT in der hermeneutischen Diskussion seit Gerhard von Rad (2nd edn.; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1987); “Text – Kontext – Kanon: ein neuer Weg alttestamentlicher Theologie? Zu einem Buch von Brevard S. Childs”, JBTh 3 (1988) 241–251; Das Alte Testament als Teil des christlichen Kanons? Studien zu gesamtbiblischen Theologien der Gegenwart (3rd edn.; Zürich: Pano 2001); “Canonical Interpretation of Scripture”, Contemporary Biblical Hermeneutics: An Introduction (Burlington, VT: Ashgate 2006), 65–70. – D. Olson, “Biblical Theology as Provisional Monologization: A Dialogue with Childs, Brueggemann and Bakhtin”, BibInt 6 (1998) 162–180; “Zigzagging through Deep Waters: A Guide to Brevard Childs’s Canonical Exegesis of Scripture”, WW 29 (2009) 348–356. – L. Per-

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due, “Old Testament Theology Since Barth’s Epistle to the Romans”, Biblical Theology: Introducing the Conversation (ed. L. Perdue e.a.; Nashville, TN: Abingdon 2009), 55–136. – I. Provan, “Canons to the Left of Him: Brevard Childs, His Critics, and the Future of Old Testament Theology”, SJTh 50 (1997) 1–38. – R. Rendtorff, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (BZAW 147; Berlin: de Gruyter 1977; tr. The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch; JSOT.S 89; Sheffield 1990); “Zur Bedeutung des Kanons für eine Theologie des Alten Testaments”, Wenn nicht jetzt, wann dann? Aufsätze für Hans-Joachim Kraus zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. H.-G. Geyer; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1983), 3–11; Canon and Theology: Overtures to an Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress 1993); “Canonical Interpretation: A New Approach to Biblical Texts”, ProEccl 3 (1994) 141–151; “Review of Brevard Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments”, JBTh 9 (1994) 359–369; “How to Read the Book of the Twelve as a Theological Unity”, Reading and Hearing the Book of the Twelve (ed. J. Nogalski/M. Sweeney; Atlanta, GA: SBL 2000), 75–87; Theologie des Alten Testaments: ein kanonischer Entwurf, 1–2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1998–2001; tr. The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament (Leiderdorp: Deo Publishing 2005). – K. Rowe, “Biblical Pressure and Trinitarian Hermeneutics”, ProEccl 11 (2002) 295–312; “For Future Generations: Worshipping Jesus and the Integration of the Theological Disciplines”, ProEccl 17 (2008) 186–209. – J. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa) (DJD 4; Oxford: Clarendon 1965); “Cave 11 Surprises and the Question of Canon”, New Directions in Biblical Archaeology (ed. D. N. Freedman/J. C. Greenfield; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1969), 101–116; Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972; 2nd ed. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2005; “Adaptable for Life: The Nature and Function of Canon”, Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God: Essays on Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. E. Wright (New York: Doubleday 1976), 531–560; Canon and Community: A Guide to Canonical Criticism (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock 1984); From Sacred Story to Sacred Text: Canon as Paradigm (Philadelphia: Fortress 1987); “Stability and Fluidity in Text and Canon”, Tradition of the Text (ed. G. J. Norton/S. Pisano; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1991), 203–217; “The Hermeneutics of Text Criticism”, Textus 18 (1995) 1–26; “The Exile and Canon Formation”, Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions (ed. J. M. Scott; Leiden: Brill 1997), 37–61; “The Task of Text Criticism”, Problems in Biblical Theology: Essays in Honor of Rolf Knierim (ed. H. Sun/K. Eades; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1997), 315–327; “Intertextuality and Canon”, On the Way to Nineveh: Studies in Honor of George M. Landes (ed. S. Cook/S. Winter; Atlanta, GA: Scholars 1999), 316–333; “The Scrolls and the Canonical Process”, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, 2 (ed. P. Flint/J. VanderKam; Leiden: Brill 1999), 1–23; “Canon as Dialogue”, The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation (ed. P. W. Flint/T. H. Kim; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2001), 7–26; “The Issue of Closure in the Canonical Process”, The Canon Debate (ed. L. McDonald/J. Sanders; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 2002), 252–263; “The Modern History of the Qumran Psalms Scroll and Canonical Criticism”, Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. S. Paul e.a.; Leiden: Brill 2003), 393–411. – C. Scalise, “Canonical Hermeneutics: Childs and Barth”, SJTh 47 (1994) 61–88; Hermeneutics as Theological Prolegomena: A Canonical Approach. (StABH 8; Macon, GA: Mercer UP 1994); From Scripture to Theology: A Canonical Journey into Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity 1996). – J. Scheetz, The Concept of Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel (Cambridge: James Clarke 2012). – E. Schnabel, “Die Entwürfe von B. S. Childs und H. Gese bezüglich des Kanons”, Der Kanon der Bibel (ed. G. Maier; Giesen/Basel: Brunnen 1990), 102–152. – M. Seckler, “Über die Problematik des biblischen Kanons und die Bedeutung seiner Wiederentdeckung”, ThQ 180 (2000) 30–53. – I. L. Seeligmann, “Voraussetzungen der Midraschexegese”, VT.S 1 (1953) 150–181. – C. Seitz, Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1998); Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 2001); Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2007); The Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets: The Achievement of Association in Canon Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2009); The Character of Christian Scripture: The Significance of a Two-Testament Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2011). – C. Seitz/K. Greene-Mccreight (eds.), Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1999). – J. Scheetz, The Concept of Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel (Cambridge: James Clarke 2012). – G. T. Sheppard, “Canon Criticism: The Proposal of Brevard Childs and an Assessment for Evangelical Hermeneutics”, Studia Biblica et Theologica 4 (1974) 3–17; Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study of the Sapientializing of the Old Testament

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(BZAW 151; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1980); “Canonization: Hearing the Voice of the Same God Through Historically Dissimilar Traditions”, Int. 36 (1982) 21–33; “The’Scope’ of Isaiah as a Book of Jewish and Christian Scriptures”, New Visions of Isaiah (ed. R. Melugin/M. Sweeney; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic 1996) 257–281; “Biblical Wisdom Literature and the End of the Modern Age”, VT.S 80 (2000) 575–584. – F. Spina, “Canonical Criticism: Childs versus Sanders”, Interpreting God’ s Word for Today: An Inquiry into Hermeneutics from a Biblical Theological Perspective (ed. W. McCown/J.E. Massey; Anderson, Ind.: Warner 1982), 165–194. – G. Steins, Die Chronik als kanonisches Abschlussphänomen: Studien zur Entstehung und Theologie von 1/2 Chronik (BBB 93; Weinheim: Beltz Athenaum 1995); “Torabindung und Kanonabschluß: zur Entstehung und kanonischen Funktion der Chronikbücher”, Die Tora als Kanon für Juden und Christen (ed. E. Zenger; HBSt 10; Freiburg: Herder 1996), 231–256; Die “Bindung Isaaks” im Kanon (Gen 22): Grundlagen und Programm einer Kanonisch-Intertextuellen Lektüre (HBSt 20; Freiburg: Herder 1999); “Das Lesewesen Mensch und das Buch der Bücher”, StZ 221/10 (2003), 689–699; “Der Bibelkanon als Denkmal und Text: Zu einigen methodologischen Aspekten kanonischer Schriftauslegung”, The Biblical Canons (ed. J.-M. Auwers/H. J. De Jonge; BETL 163; Leuven: Leuven UP 2003), 177–198; “Kanonisch lesen”, Lesarten der Bibel: Beiträge zur Theorie der Exegese des Alten Testaments (ed. H. Utzschneider/E. Blum; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2006), 45–64; “Der Kanon ist der erste Kontext: Oder, Zurück an den Anfang!”, BK 62 (2007) 116–121; “Kanon und Anamnese: Auf dem Weg zu einer Neuen Biblischen Theologie”, Der Bibelkanon in der Bibelauslegung: Methodenreflexionen und Beispielexegesen (ed. E. Ballhorn/G. Steins; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2007), 110–129; “Kanonisch-intertextuelle Bibellektüre – My Way”, Intertextualität: Perspektiven auf ein interdisziplinäres Arbeitsfeld (ed. K. Herrmann/S. Hubenthal; Aachen: Shaker 2007), 55–68. – P. Stuhlmacher, “Der Kanon und seine Auslegung”, Jesus Christus als die Mitte der Schrift: Studien zur Hermeneutik des Evangeliums (ed. C. Landmesser e.a.; ZNW 86; Berlin: de Gruyter 1997), 263–290. – J. Taschner, Die Mosereden im Deuteronomium: Eine kanonorientierte Untersuchung (FAT 59; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008). – G. Tucker e.a. (eds.), Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (Philadelphia: Fortress 1988). – L. B. Wolfenson, “Implications of the Place of the Book of Ruth”, HUCA 1 (1924) 151–178. – C. Xun, Theological Exegesis in the Canonical Context: Brevard Childs’s Methodology of Biblical Theology (StBL 137; New York: Peter Lang 2010).

1. Canonical Aspects in Modern Biblical Studies The terms “canonical approach”, “canonical method”, or “canonical criticism” refer to a variety of methods or orientations to the scholarly study of Scripture that emphasize the density of theological reflection evident in latter stages of shaping, composition and formation of biblical traditions and biblical books. Topics include adaptation and reshaping of old traditions in new contexts, arranging and editing books, categorizing and redefining the place of biblical books within larger canonical collections (Daniel among the Prophets versus the Writings, Old Testament alongside the New). Canonical interpreters tend to be explicitly Christian in their orientation. A persistent and challenging issue for Christian canonical scholars is defining the nature of the proper relationship and interaction between the Hebrew Bible (the canon of the living Jewish community of faith) and the Old and New Testament (the canon of a living Christian community of faith). A primary concern for many canonical interpreters is how to use wisely the valuable tools of historical-critical exegesis in such a way that honors the ancient voice of biblical texts while also honoring Scripture as an ongoing theological voice for contemporary communities of faith. Canonical approaches were born out of frustration that earlier forms of biblical theology had tended to

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align with historical criticism and its preference for the earlier layers and forms of biblical traditions as most generative of meaning while discounting later stages of editing, shaping, selecting and arranging of biblical texts, books and canons as not having significant theological import. Canonical approaches, in contrast, view the latest stages of editing as the most fruitful arenas for theological interpretation of biblical texts. The two primary scholars starting in the 1970’s who promoted an explicitly “canonical” agenda in biblical exegesis and hermeneutics were Brevard Childs and James Sanders.1 Although markedly different in their approaches, Childs and Sanders were both reacting to a number of developments in the last quarter of the twentieth century: the collapse of the so-called Biblical Theology movement in the U.S., new discoveries in the Dead Sea Scrolls that impacted the understanding of canon, new insights on Jewish midrashic and inner-biblical interpretation, the struggle to discern the true unity of Scripture in face of its enormous diversity, the lack of conversation between biblical scholars and systematic theologians, and a perceived gulf between professional biblical scholarship and the use of Scripture in living communities of faith. Increased interests in literary methods, reader-response approaches, and hermeneutics in biblical interpretation also encouraged scholarly engagement with the final form of biblical texts and the hermeneutical interplay of biblical traditions and communities of interpretation. A good number of scholars in North America, Europe and elsewhere have continued to extend and adapt the canonical perspectives of Childs and Sanders. One important example is the German scholar Rolf Rendtorff who, under the influence of Childs and Gerhard von Rad, developed his own distinctive program of theological interpretation with a focus on the later stages of the “canonical composition” of Old Testament books.2 Robust critiques of the canonical program have also been offered from a number of vantage points since the 1970’s to the present (see below). One recurring critique stems from a misunderstanding of what “canon” means for Childs, Sanders and others. The word “canon” has been used in two senses in biblical scholarship, one narrow and one broad. The narrow definition of “canon” involves a faith community’s final, definitive decision about an authoritative list of books – which books are in and which are out for a given community. In this sense, “canonical” refers to an external human decision imposed upon the biblical literature. A general scholarly consensus agrees that the earliest formal Christian canon understood narrowly as a list of Old and New Testament books approximating its current form dates back to the Alexandrian bishop Athanasius and other authorities in the fourth century C.E. Some critiques of the canonical approach to biblical interpretation assume this narrow definition of canon and thus criticize as anachronistic any application of the term “canon” or “canonical” to anything before the fourth century C.E.3 Moreover, critics claim that a canonical interpreter like Childs simply assumes the Protestant Christian canon

1 2 3

Childs, Biblical Theology (1970); Sanders, Torah (1972). Rendtorff, Canonical (2005). See selected essays in L. McDonald and J. Sanders, Canon (2002).

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as the norm and ignores the quite different canons or lists of books in the Bibles of other traditions (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish).4 However, Childs and Sanders consistently employ a second and broader historical understanding of the term “canon” which is explicitly present in the second century C.E. and, they argue, was present implicitly much earlier in the Old Testament itself. This broader notion of “canon” came to be intertwined with the Christian “rule of faith”, an normative summary of the content of the faith that emerged as a consensus in the early church. This “rule of faith” functioned as a guide to how the Old and New Testaments could be read together as one witness to one divine reality who was both the God of Israel and the God of Jesus Christ as revealed through Scripture through the witness of the Holy Spirit.5 The word “canonical” as used by Childs, Sanders and others does include the narrow sense of canon as a list of authoritative books which has a degree of fluidity depending on the given tradition (Protestant, Jewish, Roman Catholic and the like). For Childs and Sanders, however, the term “canonical” also involves a much broader theological framework for a community’s reading of its scriptures as traditions that are passed down from generation to generation. Childs and Sanders understand this “canonizing” or “canon consciousness” to have occurred throughout much of the long history and many stages of the collecting, shaping, editing, and ordering of biblical traditions and biblical books up until the final form of the canon.6

2. The ‘Canonical Approach’ of Brevard S. Childs Brevard Childs sought to reinvigorate the theological interpretation of the Bible through a broad and complex program that he called a “canonical approach” to interpreting the Bible as Scripture for the Christian Church. He endeavored to build bridges between historical-critical and theological study of Scripture, between biblical studies and systematic theology, between North American and European biblical scholarship, between Jewish and Christian traditions of interpreting the Bible, between ancient and modern interpreters, and between the academy and contemporary communities of faith.

4 Thus, L. Perdue observes that “Childs’s theology comes under criticism in many circles for his confusing definition of canon, canonical approach, and believing community and for his failure to include Judaism and history in his theological work” along with a failure “to adjudicate between the three major canons of Catholicism, Judaism, and Protestantism, which hold differences in the collection of books and in the order of their arrangement”; Perdue, Old Testament (2009), 114. 5 See Hägglund, Bedeutung (1958), 39, and further discussion below. 6 On “canon consciousness” early in the growth of biblical literature, see Seeligmann, Voraussetzungen (1953), 150–81, and discussion below. See also Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 70–71, and Sanders, Sacred (1987), 83. In some of his later work, Childs acknowledged that the term “canonical” had “engendered confusion” and that he could conceivably have called his approach “kerygmatic” or “post-critical”: “Whether one calls a new approach ‘canonical’ or ‘kerygmatic’ or ‘post-critical’ is largely irrelevant”; see Childs, Isaiah (2001), xii; Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 99.

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Childs (b. 1923) spent most of his career as an Old Testament professor at Yale University in New Haven, CT from 1958 until 1999, serving in both the divinity school and the university. He remained a prolific scholar until his death in 2007 at the age of 83. Baptized as an Episcopalian and raised as a Presbyterian, Childs first studied at the University of Michigan and then Princeton Theological Seminary, while also taking some course work at Yeshiva University in New York City. He did his doctoral studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland under W. Eichrodt and W. Baumgartner with primary training as a biblical form critic in the tradition of Hermann Gunkel.7 His Basel dissertation on myth in Genesis 1–11 became the basis for his first book and already showed his interest in exploring the challenges of modern historical criticism in relating “history” to revealed divine reality as mediated through the Scriptures of the Jewish and Christian traditions.8

Childs published a number of form-critical and tradition-historical studies in the 1960’s, but it was his 1970 monograph entitled Biblical Theology in Crisis? that began in earnest his exploration of a new way forward in the theological interpretation of Scripture.9 Childs chronicled the slow dissolution of the American Biblical Theology movement in the 1950’s, a movement based on untenable arguments for a distinctive biblical mentality (Hebraic versus Greek) and other contrasts between the Bible and its larger cultural environment. Leaning on Karl Barth’s model of close biblical exegesis in his Church Dogmatics, Childs offered the shape of a new biblical theology that centered on its context within the canon of Christian Scripture. This Christian canon was composed of a distinctive Old Testament witness and a distinctive New Testament witness, both of which in dialogue provide the arena for the ongoing encounter with the living God of Jesus Christ through the witness of the Holy Spirit as guided by the Church’s “rule of faith”. Childs continued to develop his canonical approach by writing commentaries on the books of Exodus and Isaiah, historical-critical and theological introductions to every book of the Old Testament and the New Testament in two separate volumes, an Old Testament theology, a full biblical theology of both Old and New Testaments, a history of the Christian interpretation of the book of Isaiah, and a theological reading of the New Testament letters and narratives of the apostle Paul which was published posthumously.10

2.1. Childs: Three Underlying Convictions Three core convictions stand out in Childs’s canonical framework of interpretation. The first conviction is that the final form of biblical texts and books is the end result of theological and religious shaping and editing of texts that often obscured earlier social and political conflicts or perspectives. Vestiges of earlier 7 In various prefaces to his books, Childs listed alongside Eichrodt and Baumgartner other “unforgettable teachers” from the intense post-World War II European context such as Gerhard von Rad, Walther Zimmerli, Oscar Cullmann, Günther Bornkam, and Karl Barth. See Driver, Childs (2010), 37. 8 Childs, Myth and Reality (1960). 9 Childs, Biblical Theology (1970). Earlier studies included Memory and Tradition (1962) and Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis (1967). 10 Childs, Exodus (1974); further: Isaiah (2001); OT Introduction (1979); NT Introduction (1984); OT Theology (1985); Biblical Theology (1992); Struggle (2004); Paul (2008).

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divisive social and political dynamics may certainly be detectable in the text, but in most cases they have been rendered mute. In regard to the Old Testament, Childs argues, Beginning in the pre-exilic period, but increasing in significance in the post-exilic era, a force was unleashed by Israel’s religious use of her traditions which exerted an influence on the shaping of the literature as it was selected, collected and ordered. It is clear from the sketch of the process that particular editors, religious groups, and even political parties were involved… . But basic to the canonical process is that those responsible for the actual editing of the text did their best to obscure their own identity… . Increasingly the original sociological and historical differences within the nation of Israel – Northern and Southern kingdom, pro- and anti-monarchical parties, apocalyptic versus theocratic circles – were lost, and a religious community emerged which found its identity in terms of sacred scripture. Israel defined itself in terms of a book! The canon formed the decisive Sitz im Leben for the Jewish community’s life, thus blurring the sociological evidence most sought after by the modern historian.11

While Childs’s earlier form-critical training had focused on the “life setting” (Sitz im Leben) of the earliest stages of a given biblical tradition, Childs came to fix his attention on the life-setting of the later and final stages of biblical texts and books as being the most fruitful site for theological interpretations. This late pre-exilic and post-exilic religious “textualization of the tradition … transmitted by scribal schools” increasingly claimed the spotlight for Childs.12 In this, Childs was influenced early on by Isac Seeligmann’s argument for proto-midrashic exegesis within the Hebrew Bible itself as, for example, in the Chronicler’s reinterpretation of 1–2 Kings and elsewhere. Seeligmann understood these inner biblical interpretations as evidence of an internal and vibrant “canon consciousness” (Kanonbewußtsein) already evident in the post-exilic period, centuries before the emergence of a full Jewish canon (understood in a narrow sense as a list of authoritative books).13 A second core conviction undergirding Childs’s canonical program is that biblical texts and traditions originally aimed at particular audiences in a given historical situation were intentionally re-shaped and edited so that they would continue to address future generations in new times and places as a word of the living God and a continuing guide for faithful living in the world. This re-shaping toward accessibility for future generations across boundaries of time and space could occur at various stages of the tradition’s development and through a host of different strategies. Thus, for example, the original cultic setting of ancient Israel’s worship gave rise to many of the individual psalms in the book of Psalms.

11

Childs, Introduction (1979) 78. Childs, Future Generation (1990), 360. This move from form to final form makes one of two major turns in Childs’ career. See Driver, Childs (2010), 15, 136. Nevertheless, Childs also saw some methodological continuity in his career in that his focus on the final or canonical form of the biblical text remained an exploration of genre or form and its proper setting and expectations: “In one sense, I have simply extended the insights of the form critical method which called for an exact description of the material’s literary genre”; see Childs, Response (1980), 52. The second major move was from a focus on midrash to a focus on the distinctively Christian mode of figural, spiritual or allegorical interpretation in moving from ancient text to contemporary appropriation (see below). 13 Seeligmann, Midraschexegese (1953), 150–81. See an extended discussion regarding Seeligmann and Childs’ evolving understanding of the relationship of midrash, inner-biblical interpretation and canonical interpretation in Driver, Childs (2010), 160–205. 12

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This early cultic setting, however gradually gave way and was left behind as the psalms were selected, arranged, written down, and collected into a written book with a new introduction (the Torah Psalm of Psalm 1) urging readers to study and meditate on this book of Psalms as the Torah of the living God: “These prayers now function as the divine word itself. The original cultic role of the psalms has been subsumed under a larger category of the canon. In an analogy to Israel’s wisdom collection the study of the Psalter serves as a guidebook along the path of blessing”.14 The entire 688–page Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (1979) was dedicated to two primary tasks. First of all, the Introduction summarized the key historical-critical issues of the day for each of the 66 books of the Old Testament, demonstrating Childs’s consistent commitment to never leave the discerning use of fruitful modern historical-critical methods behind. The second task was to provide abundant and specific illustrations of the wide diversity of different “canon-conscious” strategies used by later editors to re-shape each of the biblical books (once anchored in the historical past) so as to make them accessible to future generations as written Scripture.15 A third core conviction underlying the canonical approach of Childs is the confessional affirmation of the reality of the living God of Jesus Christ who continues to speak to the Church and the world in and through the bounded but creative arena of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, as testimony to the one gospel of the one God of Jesus Christ through the enlivening power of the Holy Spirit. This confessional affirmation makes a truth claim within a deep and broader understanding of real “history” that includes the affirmation of an historically-active divine reality in the world. Such a confessional affirmation of the truth of a divine reality is ruled out of bounds in some modern Enlightenment-bound definitions of history or historical criticism. In the canonical approach, the role of the Bible is not being understood simply as a cultural expression of ancient peoples, but as a testimony pointing beyond itself to a divine reality to which it bears witness. To speak of the Bible now as scripture further extends this insight because it implies its continuing role for the church as a vehicle of God’s will. Such an approach to the Bible is obviously confessional. Yet the Enlightenment’s alternative proposal which was to confine the Bible solely to the arena of human experience is just as much a philosophical commitment. In sum, the paradox of much of Biblical Theology [in the past] was its attempt to pursue a theological discipline within a framework of Enlightenment’s assumptions which necessarily resulted in its frustration and dissolution.16 14 Childs, Introduction (1979), 513. Many other hermeneutical moves are evident in the canonical shaping of the psalms beyond the addition of Psalm 1: the division of the Psalter into five sections mirroring the five-fold Torah, the dense anthologizing of earlier biblical traditions together into one psalm now rendered in the form of an interpretive poem (Psalm 86), the shift in referent in the royal psalms from their origins during a time of historical monarchy in ancient Israel to the post-exilic hope for a future royal messiah, or the later addition of titles to many of the psalms and offering a new framework for interpreting the psalms (for example, the confessional Psalm 51 being placed into the mouth of a humanized, flawed and repentant King David with whom the reader could relate). See Childs, Introduction (1979), 514–523; Childs, Psalm Titles (1971), 137–50. 15 In order to sample some of the diversity of “canon-conscious” strategies detected by Childs, a reader could compare his treatments of Deuteronomy, Amos, Haggai and Daniel. See Childs, Introduction (1979) 211–24, 399–410, 467–71, 613–22. 16 Childs, Biblical Theology (1979), 9. Childs’ diagnosis of the negative impact of the Enlightenment’s views of history on modern attempts to interpret the Bible theologically was informed by the work of his Yale colleague, Hans Frei; see Frei, Eclipse (1974). At the same time, it should be

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A related issue concerns Childs’s view of the relationship of the one God of the Jewish Scriptures and, in Childs’ view, the same Christian God of Jesus Christ revealed through the Christian Bible. Childs was interested in and respectful of the ongoing life of Jewish faith communities and Judaism’s venerable tradition of biblical interpretation. Childs argued that Christianity ought to use the Hebrew Bible in its Jewish canonical form (rather than the Greek Septuagint) in order to emphasize “the ontological relationship between Christianity and Judaism” and in order that the distinctive witness of the Old Testament as ancient Israel’s Scripture not be drowned out by the New Testament witness but placed in a proper theological dialectic.17 In Childs’s judgment, Rashi and Ibn Ezra were included among the “giants” of biblical interpreters. He diligently sought out opportunities to deepen his knowledge of Jewish interpretation. Childs spent “two summers at the Jewish Theological Seminary, four years of attending Judah Goldin’s midrash seminars, and a year at the Hebrew University studying midrash” along with interactions with the work of James Kugel and Jacob Neusner on Jewish midrash and interpretation.18 Early on, Childs assumed a rough correlation between Jewish and Christian views on the nature of the entire Old Testament as Scripture, the preference for the “plain sense” or sensus literalis over later interpretive tradition, and Jewish midrash as a rough equivalent to Christian figural, spiritual or allegorical interpretation. D. Driver’s insightful study of Childs’ canonical program argues that one of the two major turns in Childs’ career was his growing realization of the significant differences in Jewish and Christian views of the relationship of the Bible and tradition. For Jews, the written Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy) has a higher authority than other parts of the Hebrew Bible; for Christians, the whole Old Testament is deemed equally authoritative, including the Prophets. For Jews, the tradition of interpretation embodied in the Oral Torah (post-biblical ethical traditions of halakhah and other rabbinic midrashic traditions) functions alongside the written Torah as an essential authority. For most Christian expressions (especially among Protestants), Scripture (including the entire Old and New Testaments) is the primary authority and the Church’s tradition is secondary. Thus, Childs moved away from the use of “midrash” as a corollary to Christian interpretive traditions and focused more on exploring the dynamics of the distinctive Christian use of figural, spiritual or allegorical interpretations of Scripture.19 These core differences between Jew and Christian heightened for Childs the “mystery of Israel” (Romans 9–11) and the question of how best to describe the relationship revealed in Scripture of the one God of ancient Israel, contemporary Judaism, and the Church while still holding on to a strongly Christological view as a confessional Christian: emphasized that Childs affirmed the necessity and judicious use of historical-critical tools in biblical exegesis that could be valuable in a number of ways in discerning more clearly the canonical meaning of the text; see Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 104–105. But Childs also sought to “’complexify’ what counts for history in the first place. After the final form, there is the long history of effects in ‘the community of faith’ – synagogue as well as church”; see Driver, Childs (2010), 17. 17 Childs, Introduction (1979), 659–71. 18 Childs, New Testament (1984), xv. 19 Driver, Childs (2010), 160–205. Two important sources that contributed to Childs’s re-thinking were Neusner, Midrash (1983), and Wolfenson, Implications (1924), 151–78.

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A major point to emphasize is that Christianity can make no proper theological claim to be superior to Judaism, nor that the New Testament is of a higher moral quality than the Old Testament. Human blindness envelops the one as much as the other. Rather, the claim being made is that the divine reality made know in Jesus Christ stands as judge of both religions. This assertion means that Judaism through God’s h. esed has indeed grasped truth from the Torah, even when failing to recognize therein the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. Conversely, Christianity, which seeks to lay claim on divine truth in the name of Christ, repeatedly fails to grasp the very reality which it confesses to name. In a word, two millennia of history have demonstrated that Jews have often been seized by the divine reality testified to by their Scriptures, but without recognizing its true name, while Christians have evoked the name, but failed to understand the reality itself.20

So whether from a Jewish or Christian faith perspective, Childs would affirm a shared core conviction that the divine reality and divine truth are mediated through an authoritative written Scripture (the Torah – both Written and Oral – for Jews, the two-testament Bible – both Old and New – for Christians).

2.2. Childs: Three Touchstones in the Practice of a Canonical Interpretation Childs’ exegetical and hermeneutical program of Christian canonical interpretation is intended to be more of an interactive set of orientations rather than a step-by-step method or “criticism” alongside other criticisms (form, source, redaction).21 As an illustration of his canonical approach, Childs once offered three dialectically-related touchstones that might orient a biblical interpreter working in a canonical mode with whatever methods or theories might be brought to the exegetical and interpretive task. These three touchstones are not sequential steps but interactive and dialectical guides to the complex process of exegesis and theological interpretation in response to the following exegetical question: “How does one read the scriptures in respect to its chief referent who is God?”22 The first touchstone is the foundational and continuing normative role of the “plain sense” (sensus literalis) of the text throughout the exegetical process. It is “absolutely necessary to interpret each passage within its historical, literary and canonical context” in order “to hear the voice of each biblical witness in its own right” and with its own integrity.23 Childs contends that this first orienting element reflects “a wide consensus within the church and academy” through the centuries, even among those who use allegory or other figural modes of interpretation, that the “plain sense” of a text was the necessary launching point for interpretation and the touchstone for subsequently evaluating any figural or other creative readings of the scriptural text.24 The “plain sense” of the text includes

20

Childs, Witness (1997), 63–64. Childs, NT Introduction (1984), xvii: “In the end I would rather speak of a new vision of the text rather than in terms of method”. See also Childs, OT Introduction (1979), 82. 22 Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 379–383. Childs also offers a helpful guide to canonical exegesis as applied specifically to New Testament texts in Childs, NT Introduction (1984), 48–53. 23 Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 379. 24 Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 379. See also the formative early essay by Childs, Sensus Literalis (1976), 80–93. 21

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understanding the ancient text in its ancient Near Eastern or Greco-Roman environment and its history of development and editing in so far as the evidence allows, but the focus will be the text’s diverse forms of distinctive theological shaping in ways that made it accessible to future generations, a shaping which most often occurs at a later stage of the text’s development within a given biblical book of one testament or another, either Old or New.25 What is involved is careful cross-cultural listening and honoring of the voice of the “other”, in this case, the ancient biblical “other” through whom the voice of the living God may be heard in ways that follow the grain of the text’s own ancient theological and hermeneutical shaping. Recognizing that all exegesis will be provisional, contested, and in need of ongoing critique and correction, Childs nevertheless held on to an exegetical goal of some rough approximation of “canonical intentionality” or “authorial intent” as one element of interpretation.26 This commitment to use the best available tools of scholarship to study the Bible as fully human and historically contextualized in a given time and place is grounded for Childs in the Christian doctrine of the incarnation (Jesus as fully human and fully divine). The Bible in its human, fully time-conditioned form, functions theologically for the church as a witness to God’s divine revelation in Jesus Christ. The church confesses that in this human form, the Holy Spirit unlocks its truthful message to its hearers in the mystery of faith. This theological reading cannot be simply fused with a historical reconstruction of the biblical text, nor conversely, neither can it be separated… . In a word, the divine and human dimensions remain inseparably intertwined, but in a highly profound, theological manner. Its ontological relation finds its closest analogy in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, truly man and truly God.27

A second touchstone in Childs’s canonical approach incorporates an intertextual dialogue between the Old and New Testament witnesses. “This reading”, Childs observes, “proceeds from the fact of a two part canon, and seeks to analyze structural similarities and dissimilarities between the witness of both testaments”.28 This is not a matter of tracing a history of ideas or development of traditions in a linear way from Old to New Testaments. Childs envisions an open-ended and dialogical analysis of the distinctive similarities or differences evident in comparing diverse Old and New Testament witnesses as related to a given referent (in this case, God) or a given topic, motif or theological claim. “Specifically in terms of an understanding of God, what features do the two testaments hold in common respecting the mode, intention, and goal of God’s self-manifestation? A comparison is being made, but neither witness [OT or NT] is absorbed by the other, nor their contexts fused”.29 The diverse witnesses may agree, disagree, create a dialectical tension, complement one another, fill a gap left by the other, or overwhelm and render mute another witness. A key concern is that both the Old and New Testaments are allowed their full and distinctive voices as Scripture and as witnesses to the God of Jesus Christ.

25 26 27 28 29

Childs, OT Introduction (1979), 78. Childs, Critique (2003), 177. Childs, Canon (2005), 44–45. Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 380. Ibid.

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The Church has always confessed that the Old Testament is an integral part of the Christian Bible because of its witness to Jesus Christ. Of course, just how this confession has been understood has varied in the history of the church. Yet the newness of the New Testament is its witness to Jesus Christ is of a different order from that of the Old Testament. The gospel is neither simply an extension of the old covenant, nor is it to be interpreted merely as a commentary on the Jewish Scriptures, but it is an explosion of God’s good news. The theological paradox is that the radically new has already been testified to by the Old (cf. Mk 1:12; Heb 1:1).30

A third touchstone in a canonical approach involves the constructive theological reflection on Old and New Testaments that moves “from the dual witness of scripture to the reality of God to which the witnesses point”.31 The exegete combines the detailed study of particular written texts of the Church’s Scripture with hearing the text’s distinctive voice and role within the larger chorus of Scripture in its canonical context. This collection of scriptural testimonies forms the primary arena for encountering the living God within ongoing communities of faith. Unlike biblical prophets and apostles who claimed to have received revelations from God apart from the mediation of a written Scripture, post-biblical communities of faith encounter the revealed God primarily within the arena of the Church’s Scripture.32 This encounter with a divine reality is facilitated by a creative but disciplined shift or extension of the plain or literal sense of the biblical text to some kind of “figural” or analogical interpretive move that enables the biblical text to address contemporary hearers and communities across boundaries of time, space, cultures, and testaments.33 What guides this move from the plain sense to a figural interpretation to test its faithfulness and truth? For Childs, the “rule of faith” (regula fidei) or “rule of truth” provides an indispensable norm and is an essential element of what Childs means by the word “canon”.34 In line with the church father Irenaeus, Childs understood the “rule of faith” as a summary of the apostolic faith that was held as central to the church’s confession. It provided the grounds of the church’s faith and worship over against deviant Gnostic speculation. The rule was not identical with scripture, but was that sacred apostolic tradition, both in oral and written form, that comprised the church’s story … [The rule of faith was] a holistic rendering of the apostolic faith according to its proper order.35

The rule of faith is the church’s shared framework of how the Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament may be understood as a coherent and interlocking unity with the New Testament witness to Christ. The framework seeks to preserve both the

30

Childs, Canon (2005), 45. See also Childs, Witness to Jesus (1997), 57–64. Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 380. 32 Ibid. 381. 33 Driver, Childs (2010), 155–57. On figural reading from a canonical perspective, see Seitz, Figured (2001). 34 For a helpful discussion of this broad understanding of canon not just as a list of authoritative books but as inclusive of the norming “rule of faith” of the early church, see Driver, Childs (2010), 249–54. Driver notes that alongside Karl Barth, other scholars on which Childs relied for his insights on the relationship of canon and the rule of faith include von Campenhausen, Entstehung (1968), and Hägglund, Bedeutung (1958), 1–44. 35 Childs, Struggle (2004), 47. 31

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distinctiveness of the two different testamental witnesses while also preserving their interlocking testimony to one and the same subject matter, the God of Jesus Christ.36 On one hand, canon and the rule of faith play a negative role in preventing heretical readings of texts. On the other hand, canon and the regula fidei work positively to provide the necessary boundaries and framework within which the freedom and creativity of the Spirit can work.37 Childs reflected on this dialectic of canonical boundaries and creativity in light of the recent shifts in the gravitational pull of global Christianity toward the Southern Hemisphere and the explosion of Pentecostal and Spirit-based churches: From the perspective of many of the Third World churches there is a renewed interest in the creative role of the Spirit in bringing forth new forms of the church’s life and mission. In this context one is reminded of the resistance of the early Jewish Christians to Paul’s new ministry to the Gentiles and how acceptance of his case only came when it was argued that God had given the Gentiles “the Holy Spirit just as he did to us” (Acts 15:8). “Why then do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples?” (v. 10). One of the great concerns of the modern ecumenical Church is to respond to a growing awareness that the future life of the Church cannot be any longer identified with its dominant Western shape, but to welcome and encourage indigenous forms of Christian response. Perhaps the major contribution of Biblical Theology to this complex issue [of the identity and mission of the Church] is to illuminate the full diversity of the biblical witness regarding the church. Clearly no one form of polity has the sole claim to biblical warrants. Yet at the same time to make clear the fixed parameters which are drawn by Scripture outside of which the same threats of Gnosticism, Judaizers, and paganism are ever present in new forms. No Christian theologian should question the decisive role of the Holy Spirit in revitalizing older forms and creating new. However, the basic contribution of dogmatic theology will lie in insisting that the role of the Holy Spirit be understood as the Spirit of Jesus Christ and that the Spirit not be assigned an independent role in the service of private groups, racial or sexual identity, or national ideology.38

2.3. Critiques of Childs’s Canonical Approach Two British scholars, J. Barr and J. Barton, leveled some of the harshest criticisms of Childs’s canonical approach.39 In spite of Childs’s clear comments to the contrary, Barr and Barton repeatedly characterized Childs’ canonical program as merely literary formalism, New Criticism or structuralism applied to the Bible. Childs, they argued, read the text in a purely literary mode without substantive attention to historical critical issues and in effect returned to a pre-critical mode of studying the Bible. Such a method, they argued, would give support to 36

Kugel and Greer, Early (1986), 151. Childs, OT Introduction (1979), 83: “In one sense the canonical method sets limits on the exegetical task by taking seriously the traditional parameters. In another sense, … the canon establishes a platform from which exegesis is launched rather than a barrier by which creative activity is restrained”. 38 Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 448–49. 39 Barr, Introduction (1980), 12–23; Barr, Holy Scripture (1983), 132–71; Barr, Concept (1999), 48–49, 393–434; Barton, Reading (1997), 77–103, 140–79; Barton, Canon (2000), 37–52; Barton, Intertextuality (2000), 33–37; Barton, Canonical (2003), 199–209. 37

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fundamentalist readings of Scripture, a claim that Childs repeatedly found baffling since it ignored his explicit and frequent attention to historical-critical issues throughout his commentaries and biblical-theological publications.40 Some proponents of ideological criticism and semiotics have raised concerns about the canonical approach’s commitment to an authoritative canon which, they argue, may function in some ancient contexts as a hegemonic tool to preserve the position of elite power-brokers (e.g., priests, scribes, political groups). Thus, Gottwald proposed that semiotics or sociolinguistics will be increasingly vital both to a proper social criticism and a proper canonical criticism. How do the special interests of groups get articulated and how are they given compelling currency in particular genres and aggregations of texts? What is the social status of texts that seek to give large-scale interpretations of the origins, meanings, and obligations of communities? … What are the different kinds of socially perceived texts signifying, really signifying: that one should do or not do certain things, think or not think certain thoughts, obey or not obey certain leadership claims, side with or oppose this or that interest group, social tendency, or governmental act or regime?41

Childs acknowledged that many ancient biblical texts arose within a matrix of competing social, religious and political interests and conflicts. Vestiges of such conflicts, he readily admitted, are detectable in the final canonical form of texts. Such vestiges require a “multi-layered reading of a biblical text” in which “the exegete is thus given the challenge by the form of the text itself neither to flatten its voice into a monotone, nor to claim such signs of dissonance within the levels of the text as to call into question any coherent meaning or authoritative role within a community of faith”.42 The competing and often self-critical witnesses across the entire canon of Scripture offer resources that mitigate against the potentially oppressive tyranny of any one ideological position. Studies by M. Brett, P. Noble, W. Lyons, and G. Steins have all offered suggestions for reconstructing Childs’s program in one direction or the other to overcome what they discern is a divided or schizophrenic Childs: on one hand, Childs as an “authoritarian hermeneutical monist” who argues for definitive historical-critical positions and authorial intent in biblical texts versus, on the other hand, a pluralist Childs who is open to reader response and appreciates the diverse interpretations evident in the history of biblical interpretation.43 These

40 Barton, Reading (1984), 98–99. Barr also complained about Childs’s imprecision and “incoherence” in his use of the term “canon” to define his method of biblical exegesis. In doing so, however, Barr ignored Childs’s repeated arguments for his broad use of “canon” and Childs’s reminder that he was not offering a specific exegetical method but an orientation or approach within which one could use a variety of methods. For a concise set of responses to his critics, see Childs, NT Introduction (1984), 37–47. 41 Gottwald, Social Matrix (1985), 316; see also Aichele, Control (2001). 42 Childs, Biblical Theology (2010), 105. Moreover, for Childs, “the theological resources of the whole Christian canon serves as a major check against ideologies which often have some biblical rootage, but are made to function in such a way as to obviate large parts” of the Bible’s message; Childs, NT Introduction (1984), 42. 43 Brett, Biblical Criticism (1991), 11, 52–57, 68–71, 133; Noble, Canonical Approach (1995), 328– 370; W. Lyons, Canon (2002), 28–42, 82–85, 266–75; G. Steins, Bindung (1999), 27–36, 45–83, 130, 214–17. See an analysis of these proposals by Driver, Brevard Childs (2010), 49–58.

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suggested reconstructions attempt to push Childs’s canonical approach either toward a more “objectivist” or “author-intentioned” position or toward a more open “reader response” perspective (using Gadamer, Fish, Iser, Bakhtin or Kristeva). These proposed adaptations, however, miss the balanced dialectic at play in the canonical approach of Childs: I do not wish to suggest that the canonical shaping provides a full-blown hermeneutic as if there were only one correct interpretation built into every text which a proper canonical reading could always recover. The canonical shaping provided larger contexts for interpretation, established the semantic level, and left important structural and material keys for understanding. Nevertheless, exegesis also involves the activity of the interpreter who from his [or her] modern context must also construe the material. There is an important dimension of “reader competence” which reacts to the coercion exercised by the text itself.44

Nevertheless, it is true that Childs, a gracious human being in person, did often assume a heavily authoritative tone in his writing which may give the impression that he alone offered the one proper and objective theological interpretation of a given book or text. It is also true that Childs’s arguments against a wide range of biblical interpreters likely engendered resistance to his proposals from scholars who might otherwise have been more sympathetic to his overall goals.

3. The ‘Canonical-critical’ Position of James A. Sanders James Sanders was born in 1927 and attended Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt Divinity School in Memphis, Tennessee. He spent a year (1950–51) on a Fulbright grant studying the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament in Paris with A. Dupont-Sommer and O. Cullmann. Sanders returned to the U.S., was ordained as a Presbyterian pastor, and earned a doctorate from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, in Hebrew Bible and post-biblical Judaism. While teaching at Colgate Rochester Divinity School (1954–65), he was commissioned to publish the important Psalms scroll from cave 11 at Qumran.45 His work on the Psalms scroll offered new insights into the shape of the Jewish biblical canon in the late Second Temple period and solidified his interests in issues of canon and textual criticism. Sanders discovered that the collection of Psalms at Qumran contained a number of significant differences in arrangement, deletions and additions when compared with the book of Psalms in the standard Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible that had become normative for later Judaism. At the same time, considerable overlap and similarity existed between the Qumran Psalms scroll and the Masoretic textual version of the Hebrew Bible. This led Sanders 44 Childs vs. Barr (1984), 69. Childs recognized the need for different interpreters to bring their own conception frameworks or theoretical perspectives to the exegetical task; his concern was that they not overwhelm and mute the text’s own voice within its canonical context. See Childs, Biblical Theology (1992), 42, 78 where he discusses Aquinas and his skillful use of Aristotle’s philosophical framework in exegeting Scripture. On the balance of creativity and discipline in biblical exegesis, see Chapman, Reclaiming Inspiration (2006), 167–206. 45 Sanders, Cave (1969), 101–16.

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to ponder what would become one of the central themes in his development of what he called “canonical criticism”, namely, the interplay of stability and fluidity among the different canons evident in varied ancient Jewish communities in the Second Temple period and the ways in which biblical canons continued to hold together remarkable stability with equally remarkable creativity and fluidity in later transmission and interpretation in both Jewish and Christian communities. “The concept of canon is located in the tension between two poles: stability and adaptability… . Hermeneutics must be viewed as the midterm of the axis that lies between stability and adaptability”.46 Sanders’ insights offered a new vision that challenged earlier assumptions of canon and interpretation in the Second Temple period and beyond. Sanders moved to a teaching position at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1965–77) and there published his programmatic work, Torah and Canon, and several individual essays on canon, the meaning of Torah, hermeneutics and textual criticism later collected in a volume entitled From Sacred Story to Sacred Text: Canon as Paradigm.47 Sanders then took a teaching post at Claremont School of Theology from 1977 until his retirement in 1997 where he helped establish the Ancient Biblical Manuscripts Center. He published a practical guide to what he called “canonical criticism” in 1984.48 Childs resisted calling his program “canonical criticism”, but Sanders embraced the phrase as a particular method alongside other helpful “criticisms” that could be applied to biblical texts. “Tradition criticism, redaction criticism, canonical criticism, and comparative midrash must operate together in dialogue and must operate in that order of priority”.49 Sanders complained that biblical scholarship had tended in the past to focus on reconstructed earlier layers and traditions of biblical material in ways that put distance between lay people and professional biblical scholars. Earlier historical-critical scholars tended to privilege earlier and original forms of biblical texts (a kind of “primitivism) while ignoring the more important and more accessible shaping and process of interpretation evident in the later canonizing stages of scripture. In particular, Sanders focused on the hermeneutical processes and dynamics associated with the later stages of the formation of biblical texts in their interaction with communities of faith in contexts of crisis and identity. Moreover, Sanders extended these processes as useful and ongoing hermeneutical guides for biblical interpretation to the present day alongside other critical methodologies (tradition, form and redaction criticism).50 Sanders shared many concerns with Childs including attention to the diversity of traditions within the one canon of Scripture, the focus on the formation of biblical books and blocks within the Bible including the final canonical stages, and the interpretive interaction of canon and community from generation to generation with a theological focus. However, while Childs was primarily focused on the final written form and shape of biblical books as the definitive guide to

46 47 48 49 50

Sanders, Sacred (1987), 11. Sanders, Torah (1972); Sanders, Sacred (1987). Sanders, Canon (1984). Sanders, Torah (1972), xx. Sanders, Stability (1991), 203–17.

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their interpretation, Sanders was primarily focused on reclaiming his reconstruction of the ancient hermeneutical process of canonical interpretation as a model for contemporary communities of faith and their use of Scripture.51 The key to the canonical process for Sanders involved the dynamics both of making prior traditions normative (stability) and at the same time adapting prior traditions (fluidity) for new contexts. Canonization was a historical process that took place in the early believing communities over a period of time between the sixth century B.C.E. and the second century B.C… .The primary character of canon or authoritative tradition, whatever its quantity or extent, is its adaptability; its secondary character is its stability. This is the reason I hesitate to focus as much on the “final literary text” as does Childs”.52

Sanders lifted up this interplay of the adaptability and stability of canonical traditions as a model for contemporary canonical hermeneutics as communities continued to interpret their Scripture for new contemporary contexts.

3.1. Sanders’ Canonical Hermeneutics: Steps in the Process Sanders’ model of “canonical hermeneutics” or what he also called “comparative midrash” has several clearly defined steps. The first step is the recognition of the dense pluralism of voices in the biblical canon that correct one another. The true shape of the Bible as canon consists of its unrecorded hermeneutics which lie between the lines of most of its literature. Quests for canonical shape in the text itself or in its forms result repeatedly in observations about canonical pluralism. For almost every assertion one can find its contra-positive. The richness of the canon in this regard needs to be celebrated rather than ignored… Actually, it is one of the canon’s most precious gifts that it contains its own self-corrective apparatus. No theological construct imposed on the Bible as canon escapes the scrutiny and critique of something else in it.53

Sanders notes several examples of this dialogical pluralism in the Bible. The exclusion and condemnation of the self-righteous in Luke 14 is balanced by the inclusion and welcoming of the self-righteous in the story of the prodigal in Luke 15. Isa 2:4 promises that swords will be turned into plowshares, but Joel 3:10 commands the opposite. Isa 43:18 urges, “Remember not the former things, but Isa 46:9 urges the reader to in fact “Remember the former things”. Qoheleth’s pessimism (“all is vanity”) puts into question the optimism of the human ability to manipulate reality and achieve success embodied in the book of Proverbs. Sanders observes, “There are many contradictions within the Bible; it is a highly pluralistic document. Hence, no tyranny can be established on its basis, for there

51 See Sanders’ extended review of similarities and differences with Childs’ program in Sanders, Sacred (1987), 153–74. 52 Ibid. 83. 53 Sanders, Canon (1984), 46.

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is always something in it to challenge whatever is constructed on it. Its full context is very broad and very wide and sponsors serious dialogue”.54 A second distinctive step in Sanders’ canonical hermeneutics is to identify in any given biblical text “two types of precursor’ material: homegrown, native traditions, on one hand, and borrowed, international traditions (wisdom, legal, narrative, parables), on the other. Once identified, “the next step is to discern the hermeneutics by which those identified traditions function in the passage, how they were adapted, represented, and resignified”.55 This double affirmation is grounded in the double theological claim that God is both Creator of all peoples (affirming international traditions), as well as Redeemer in Israel and in Christ (affirming native traditions). A third step in Sanders’ canonical criticism is to discern if and how five recurring elements have often been interwoven into the canonical hermeneutics of many biblical texts: One, the Bible is a monotheizing literature. Two, it betrays a broad theocentric hermeneutic. Three, much of it celebrates the theologem errore hominum providential divina (God’s grace works in and through human sinfulness). Four, in it God betrays a divine bias for the weak and dispossessed. Five, there is a fourfold hermeneutic process by which [the Bible] adapted international wisdom.56

The Bible’s fourfold hermeneutical process of adapting international wisdom involved the following: “the ancient biblical thinkers depolytheized what they learned from others, monotheized it, Yahwized it, and then Israelitized it”.57

3.2. Sanders: Torah, Pentateuch, and Monotheizing The three most significant insights advanced by Sanders include the meaning of Torah, the canonical shape of the Pentateuch, and the centrality of “monotheizing”. The first insight involves the meaning of Torah. The Hebrew word “Torah” is commonly translated as Law, but Sanders notes that the Torah of Genesis-Deuteronomy is primarily not law but an extended story with law embedded within it, a combination of mythos that defines the identity of the faith community and ethos that defines how the community is to live. “Torah may mean simply the Pentateuch; or it may have the extended meaning of divine revelation generally” in which case it extends to the whole of the Bible, whether the Hebrew Bible for Jews or the First and Second Testaments which constitute the “Torah-Christ story” for Christians.58 Torah always retains both story and ethics, law and gospel, as essential components for both Jewish and Christian communities. A second canonical insight by Sanders was his account of how the present shape of the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) arose. Sanders argued that an 54 55 56 57 58

Sanders, Sacred (1987), 30; Sanders, Canon (2001), 7–26. Sanders, Canon (1984), 47. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 56. Sanders, Sacred (1987) 43, 58.

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earlier pre-exilic version of Israel’s national story led from the exodus out of Egypt to the wilderness wandering and culminated in the conquest of the land of Canaan (Genesis-Joshua). In the final canonical version of the Pentateuch, this longer story was truncated in response to the crisis of the Babylonian exile in 587 BCE. The truncated Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) no longer included the conquest of the land of Canaan; at the end of Deuteronomy, Israel stands at the edge of but still outside the boundary of Canaan. In response to the crisis of the exile, Sanders argued that the final form of the Pentateuch was altered in order to offer to the Jewish community an identity-creating Torah that no longer included or required possession of the land, a temple or a king as constitutive of God’s people, Israel. Adapted to the exile, the Torah story and its laws became the center of Israel’s identity, not the land, the king or the temple. Similarly, with the Roman destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, rabbinic Judaism emerged with a renewed Torah-centered identity which replaced the physical temple, allowing it to survive again through a second major tragedy.59 A third insight important to Sanders is what he called the Bible’s consistent concern to monotheize which runs counter to humans’ pervasive temptation to be polytheists. To monotheize is a context of polytheism, whether it was Iron Age types of polytheism, Persian dualism, or Hellenistic polytheism, is the principle paradigm the Bible as canon exercises and recites. To monotheize is not just to believe that there is only one God of all creation and of all peoples. On the contrary, the canonical commandment to monotheize is not only the first of the Ten Commandments, it is first in terms of the challenge it presents to the modern mind. For truly we are polytheists in our modes of thinking every bit as much as cluding most Israelites. Our situation is perhaps worse in that because of the Judeo-Christian roots of Western civilization we think we are monotheists whereas we fragmentize truth in most of our modes of thinking. To pursue the oneness of God or the Integrity of Reality is perhaps the greatest challenge the human mind and spirit have ever encountered.60

4. Recent Discussions of the ‘Canonical Approach’ The influence of the canonical approaches of Childs and Sanders has continued to resonate and develop in new directions among a number of scholars in North America, Europe and beyond. The following survey does not pretend to be exhaustive but only illustrative. Building on Childs and von Rad, R. Rendtorff has provided a number of important contributions to “canonical” interpretation: proposals for the theological significance of the final stage of editing and unifying of the Pentateuch, the unity of the book of Isaiah, the canonical shaping of the book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, robust engagement as a Christian biblical theologian with Jewish interpreters (both ancient and modern), the unifying role of recurring cross-canonical formulae (covenant formula, grace formula, prophetic speech formula and the like), and a major theology of the canonical

59 60

Sanders, Torah (1972) 1–30. Sanders, Sacred (1987) 187.

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Hebrew Bible.61 One of Rendtorff’s major disagreements with Childs was with the latter’s claim that the Old Testament contained, from a canonical perspective, a distinctive witness to Christ alongside the New Testament. Rendtorff thought it proper only to make theological claims from the Old Testament with which a faithful Jew would agree, thus excluding any understanding of the Old Testament’s function as a witness to Christ.62 A number of American scholars have taken up the canonical project in several directions. E. Davis. C. Scalise and C. Seitz have extended the discussions on theological exegesis in alignment with Childs’s canonical perspective.63 Seitz has also built upon Childs’s approach to figural interpretation of the Bible along with the canonical hermeneutics of interpreting the Prophets (Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve).64 S. Chapman has explored the deeply embedded canonical interplay between the Law and the Prophets along with J. Blenkinsopp.65 G. Sheppard studied the editing of Qohelet as the canonical interplay of wisdom and Torah as well as the canonical shape of Isaiah.66 Scheetz borrowed from both Sanders and Childs as he studied the book of Daniel through what he called a lens of “canonical intertextuality”.67 K. Rowe, D. Nienhuis and R. Wall have done theological readings of New Testament texts within a canonical interpretive framework.68 D. Driver has written a wide-ranging analysis of Childs’s canonical approach, his critics, and the ways in which Childs’ work continues to influence theological interpretation of Scripture.69 The European reception has been mixed with strong critiques but also a number of scholars who have embraced significant dimensions of the canonical approach of Childs or Sanders. From Great Britain, Nathan MacDonald, R.W. L. Moberly, and Neil MacDonald are among those who have engaged Childs’s work with appreciation and some modification.70 A number of German scholars have carried on robust conversations on canonical hermeneutics and theological interpretation. Along with R. Rendtorff, scholars such M. Oeming, C. Dohmen, T. Söding, G. Steins, and J. Barthel have engaged in significant ways with Childs’s canonical approach.71 On the other hand, the redaction-critical studies of the 61

Rendtorff, Pentateuch (1977); Canon (1993); How to Read (2000); Canonical (2005). Rendtorff, Review (1994) 359–69. W. Brueggemann joined Rendtorff in critiquing Childs for reading Christ into the Old Testament. See Brueggemann, Theology (1997) 89–93. 63 Davis, Critical Traditioning (2000) 733–51; Teaching (2003) 9–26; Scalise, Hermeneutics (1994); From Scripture (1996); Seitz, Word (1998); Character (2011); Seitz and Green-McCreight, Theological Exegesis (1999). 64 Seitz, Figured Out (2001); Prophecy (2007); Goodly Fellowship (2009). 65 Blenkinsopp, Prophecy; Chapman, Law (2000); Reclaiming (2006). 66 Sheppard, Wisdom (1980); Scope (1996) 257–281; Biblical Wisdom (2000) 369–98. 67 Scheetz, Concept (2012). 68 Nienhuis and Wall, Reading (2013); Rowe, Biblical Pressure (2002) 295–312; Future Generations (2008) 186–209. 69 Driver, Brevard Childs (2010). 70 Nathan MacDonald, Israel (2009) 281–98; Moberly, Church’s Use (1988), 104–09; The Bible (2000); Canon (2004); Theology of Genesis (2009); Old Testament Theology (2013); Neil MacDonald, Metaphysics (2007). 71 Oeming was highly critical of Childs in his published dissertation: Oeming, Gesamtbiblische Theologien (1987) 195–96, 208. Later, Oeming and his wife Christiane Childs’s Biblical Theology (1992) of sufficient worth to translate it into German in two volumes: Die Theologie der einen Bibel (1994,1996). See also Dohmen and Oeming, Biblischer Kanon (1992); Dohmen and Söding, Eine 62

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Psalms and other books by E. Zenger, F. Hossfeld, O. H. Steck, K. Koenen, N. Lohfink and others have more affinities with Sanders’s canonical criticism as a late stage redaction-critical method than with the approach of Childs.72 A recent biblical theology by R. Feldmeier and H. Spiekermann integrates historical-critical exegesis, cross-testamental theological interpretation, and a theo-centric focus; its content and method are in many ways compatible with a canonical approach.73 In addition, recent publications in biblical studies have included increased interest in the history of the Bible’s reception and interpretation across the centuries, a field of inquiry that resonates with canonical interpreters.74 As is clear, the work of Childs and Sanders has continued to influence and stimulate research in a number of directions among new generations of scholars who continue to combine rigorous critical scholarship with lively theological interpretations of Scripture in the context of Christian communities of faith.

Bibel (1992); Dohmen and Stemberger, Hermeneutik (1995); Dohmen, Der Kanon (2004) 277–97; Söding, Einheit (2005); Steins, Die Chronik (1995); Torabindung (213–56); Die “Bindung Isaaks” (1999). See the survey of canon discussion in Germany in Barthel, Die kanonhermeneutische Debatte (2007) 1–26. See also Childs’s own survey and assessment in Childs, Canon (2005) 26–45. 72 See survey by Oemig, Biblical Hermeneutics (2006) 66–67. See also the essays in Ballhorn and Steins, Bibelkanon (2007) and in Janowski, Kanonhermeneutik (2007). 73 Feldmeier and Spiekermann, God of the Living (2011). 74 See recent and emerging volumes of the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception project (de Gruyter), the Blackwell Bible Commentary series (Blackwell), the Ancient Christian Commentary series (IVP Academic), and others.

B. Main Regional and Confessional Areas of the Twentieth Century Biblical Scholarship

Studies in the HBOT in the Americas of the Twentieth Century

Chapter Thirty-four

Studies in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in the Americas of the Twentieth Century By Douglas A. Knight, Nashville, TN Sources and studies: M. I. Aguilar, The History and Politics of Latin American Theology, 1–3 (London: SCM 2007–2008). – G. Aichele e.a., The Postmodern Bible (The Bible and Culture Collective; New Haven/London: Yale University 1995). – B. Albrektson, History and the Gods: An Essay on the Idea of Historical Events as Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (ConBOT 1; Lund: Gleerup 1967). – R. Alter/F. Kermode (eds.), The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard UP 1987). – W. F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books 1949); The Excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim, AASOR 12 (1930–1931); 13 (1931–1932) 55–127; From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 1940; 2nd edn., Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1957); “New Light on Early Recensions of the Hebrew Bible”, BASOR 140 (1955) 27–33. – F. R. Ames/C. W. Miller (eds.), Foster Biblical Scholarship: Essays in Honor of Kent Harold Richards (SBLBSNA 24; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature/Leiden: Brill 2010). – P. R. Andiñach, “Liberation in Latin American Biblical Hermeneutics”, in: Boer/Segovia (eds.), The Future of the Biblical Past (2012), 137–147. – H. Avalos/S. J. Melcher/J. Schipper (eds.), This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies (SBLSS 55; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2007). – A. Bach, Women, Seduction, and Betrayal in Biblical Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University 1997). – R. C. Bailey, “Academic Biblical Interpretation among African Americans in the United States”, in: Wimbush (ed.), African Americans and the Bible (2000), 696–711. – R. C. Bailey (ed.), Yet with a Steady Beat: Contemporary U.S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation (SBLSS 42; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2003). – R. C. Bailey/T. B. Liew/F. F. Segovia (eds.), They Were All Together in One Place? Toward Minority Biblical Criticism (SBLSS 57; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2009). – J. Barr, The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress 1999); Old and New in Interpretation: A Study of the Two Testaments (London: SCM 1966); The Semantics of Biblical Language (London: Oxford University 1961). – F. Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget 1969). – R. N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America”, Daedalus 96 (1967) 1–21. – F. C. Black, “Reading the Bible in ‘Our Home and Native Land’”, in: Boer/Segovia (eds.), The Future of the Biblical Past (2012), 239–262. – R. Boer (ed.), Tracking “The Tribes of Yahweh”: On the Trail of a Classic (JSOT.S 351; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2002). – R. Boer/F. F. Segovia (eds.), The Future of the Biblical Past: Envisioning Biblical Studies on a Global Key (SBLSS 66; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2012). – A. F. Botta/P. R. Andiñach (eds.), The Bible and the Hermeneutics of Liberation (SBLSS 59; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2009). – J. Bright, The Authority of the Old Testament (Nashville/New York: Abingdon 1967); Early Israel in Recent History Writing: A Study in Method (SBTh 19; London: SCM 1956); A History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster 1959; 4th edn., with introduction and appendix by W. P. Brown (Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2000). – M. J. Brown, Blackening of the Bible: The Aims of African American Biblical Scholarship (Harrisburg, PA/London/New York: Trinity Press International 2004). – J. P. Byrd, “The ‘New World’ of North America and Canada – and the Globalization of Critical Biblical Scholarship”, in: HBOT, III/1 (2013), 171–202; Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution (Oxford/New York: Oxford University 2013). – A. D. Callahan, The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible (New Haven/London: Yale University 2006). – B. S. Childs, Biblical

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Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster 1970); Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress 1992); Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress 1979). – D. R. Clark/V. H. Matthews (eds.), One Hundred Years of American Archaeology in the Middle East: Proceedings of the American Schools of Oriental Research Centennial Celebration, Washington, DC, April 2000 (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research 2003). – J. S. Croatto, Liberación y libertad: Pautas hermenéuticas (Buenos Aires: Mundo Nuevo 1973; rev. edn., Lima: CEP 1978); ET: Exodus: A Hermeneutics of Freedom (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis1981). – F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 1973); “The Contribution of the Qumrân Discoveries to the Study of the Biblical Text”, IEJ 16 (1966) 81–95. – F. M. Cross, Jr./D. N. Freedman, Early Hebrew Orthography (American Oriental Series 36; New Haven: American Oriental Society 1952); Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (SBLDS 21; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975; submitted in 1950 as a dissertation at The Johns Hopkins University). – F. M. Cross/S. Talmon (eds.), Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University 1975). – R. C. Culley, “Exploring New Directions”, in: Knight/Tucker (eds.), The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (1985), 167–200; Oral Formulaic Language in the Biblical Psalms (Toronto: University of Toronto 1967); Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative (Semeia Supplements; Philadelphia: Fortress/Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1976). – W. G. Dever, “SyroPalestinian and Biblical Archaeology,” in: Knight/Tucker (eds.), The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (1985), 31–74. – C. H. Felder (ed.), Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress 1991). – D. N. Freedman, Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1980). – F. S. Frick/N. K. Gottwald, “The Social World of Ancient Israel”, in: The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics (ed. N. K. Gottwald/A. C. Wire; Berkeley: Community for Religious Research and Education [Radical Religion] 1976), 110–119. – R. W. Funk, “The Watershed of the American Biblical Tradition: The Chicago School, First Phase, 1892–1920”, JBL 95 (1976) 4–22. – C. H. Gordon, The Pennsylvania Tradition of Semitics: A Century of Near Eastern and Biblical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (SBLBSNA 13; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1986). – N. K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours (SBLSS; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1993); The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1979); idem (ed.), The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1983). – G. Gutiérrez, Hablar de Dios desde el sufrimiento del inocente: Una reflexión el libro de Job (Lima: Instituto Bartolomé de Las Casas and Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones 1986); ET: On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1987); Teología de la liberación: Perspectivas (Lima: CEP 1971); ET: A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1973). – T. J. Hornsby/K. Stone (eds.), Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship (SBLSS 67; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2011). – W. J. Hynes, Shirley Jackson Case and the Chicago School: The Socio-Historical Method (SBLBSNA 5; Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1981). – P. J. King, American Archaeology in the Mideast: A History of the American Schools of Oriental Research (Philadelphia: American Schools of Oriental Research 1983). – D. A. Knight, “Politics and Biblical Scholarship in the United States”, in: Ames/Miller (eds.), Foster Biblical Scholarship (2010), 83–100; Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel (3rd edn.; SBLSBL 16; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2006). – D. A. Knight/G. M. Tucker (eds.), The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (Philadelphia: Fortress/Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1985). – G. N. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1–9 and 1 Chronicles 10–29 (Anchor Bible 12/12A; New York: Doubleday 2003–2004); Two Nations under God, 1–2 (Atlanta: Scholars Press 1993–1994). – T. B. Liew (ed.), The Bible in Asian America (Semeia 90/91; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2002). – G. Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York/Oxford: Oxford University 1986); The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy (New York/Oxford: Oxford University 1993). – B. M. Levinson, “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (FAT 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008). – J. Macpherson, “A History of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies”, in: Canadian Biblical Studies (ed. N. E. Wagner; Waterloo, Ontario: Canadian Society of Biblical Studies 1967; updated version of the 1962 CSBS Presidential Address), 1–16. – G. E. Mendenhall, “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine”, BA 25 (1962) 66–87. – C. L. Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York/Oxford: Oxford University 1988). – J. P. Miranda, Marx y la biblia: Crítica a la filosofía de la opresión (Mexico: Río Hondo 1971); ET: Marx and the Bible: A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1974). – P. D.

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Miller, Jr./P. D. Hanson/S. D. McBride (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress 1987). – J. S. Moir, A History of Biblical Studies in Canada: A Sense of Proportion (SBLBSNA 7; Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1982). – J. Morgenstern, “The Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis”, JBL 61 (1942) 1–10. – J. Muilenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond”, JBL 88 (1969) 1–18. – C. A. Newsom/S. H. Ringe (eds.), The Women’s Bible Commentary (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox 1992; 3rd edn., co-edited with J. E. Lapsley, 2012). – M. Noth, “As One Historian to Another”, Int. 15 (1961) 61–66; “Der Beitrag der Archäologie zur Geschichte Israels”, VT.S 7 (1960) 262–282. – S. M. Olyan, Social Inequality in the World of the Text: The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible (JAJ.S 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2011). – H. R. Page, Jr. (ed.), The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Minneapolis: Fortress 2010). – P. J. Paris, “The Bible and the Black Churches”, in: The Bible and Social Reform (ed. E. R. Sandeen; Philadelphia: Fortress/Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1982), 133–154. – D. Patte (ed.), Global Bible Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon 2004). – W. C. Peden/J. A. Stone, The Chicago School of Theology: Pioneers in Religious Inquiry, 1–2 (Studies in American Religion 66; Lewiston/Queensto/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen 1996). – J. Pixley, Éxodo: Una lectura evangélica y popular (Mexico: CUPSA 1983); ET: On Exodus: A Liberation Perspective (New York: Orbis 1987); “Liberating the Bible: Popular Bible Study and Its Academia Allies”, in: Boer/Segovia (eds.), The Future of the Biblical Past (2012), 167–178. – G. von Rad, Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch (BWANT, IV/26; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1938; ET, 1966); Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1–2 (Munich: Kaiser 1957/60). – J. M. Sasson, “Albright as an Orientalist”, BA 56 (1993) 3–7. – E. W. Saunders, Searching the Scriptures: A History of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1880–1980 (SBLBSNA 8; Chico CA: Scholars Press 1982); “On Choosing Models for Recreating Israelite Pre-monarchic History”, JSOT 21 (1981) 3–24. – S. Scholz (ed.), Biblical Studies Alternatively: An Introductory Reader (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall 2003). – M. Schwantes, Das Recht der Armen (BBET 4; Frankfurt a.M.: P. Lang 1977). – J. D. Seger (ed.), An ASOR Mosaic: A Centennial History of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1900–2000 (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research 2001). – F. F. Segovia/M. A. Tolbert (eds.), Reading from This Place, 1: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States; 2: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress 1995). – E. C. Stanton, The Woman’s Bible (New York: European Pub. Co. 1895 and 1898; reprinted frequently). – K. Stone (ed.), Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible (JSOT.S 334; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 20001). – M. A. Taylor/H. E. Weir (eds.), Let Her Speak for Herself: NineteenthCentury Women Writing on Women in Genesis (Waco, TX: Baylor University 2006). – T. L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (BZAW 133; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1974). – P. Trible, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation”, JAAR 41 (1973) 30–48; God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress 1978); Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah (Minneapolis: Fortress 1994). – G. M. Tucker, “Ecological Approaches: The Bible and the Land”, in: Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David L. Petersen (ed. J. M. LeMon/K. H. Richards; SBLRBS 56; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2009), 349–367; “Rain on a Land Where No One Lives: The Hebrew Bible on the Environment”, JBL 116 (1997) 3–17; “The Modern (and Postmodern?) Society of Biblical Literature: Institutions and Scholarship”, in: Ames/Miller (eds.), Foster Biblical Scholarship (2010), 31–52. – J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven/London: Yale University 1975); In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven: Yale University 1983). – L. Wallis, Sociological Study of the Bible (Chicago: University of Chicago 1912). – R. J. Weems, Battered Love: Marriage, Sex, and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets (Minneapolis: Fortress 1995). – L. White, Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”, Science 155/3767 (10 March 1967) 1203–1207. – J. G. Williams, The Times and Life of Edward Robinson: Connecticut Yankee in King Solomon’s Court (SBLBSNA 19; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 1999). – V. L. Wimbush (ed.), African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures (New York/London: Continuum 2000). – F. V. Winnett, The Mosaic Tradition (Toronto: University of Toronto 1949); “Re-Examining the Foundations”, JBL 84 (1965) 1–19. – G. E. Wright, God Who Acts: Biblical Theology as Recital (SBTh 8; London: SCM 1952). – G. E. Wright/R. H. Fuller, The Book of the Acts of God: Contemporary Scholarship Interprets the Bible (Anchor Book A222; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1960). – G. A. Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress 2003).

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1. Introduction Twentieth-century scholarship on the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in the Americas has proceeded, for the most, in the larger context of international scholarship, but in certain settings more provincial or parochial dimensions have also been evident. Most academic journals and books in the field have been available without respect to national borders, although the language in which each is written can limit some persons’ access to it. For the first two thirds of the century North American scholars generally read German and French and sometimes another modern language or two. Still to the present day, graduate students in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament are widely required to read at least two modern research languages beyond English, although there are indications that proficiency may have waned in some circles during recent decades. Throughout the twentieth century vastly more scholarly works have been translated into English than have English publications been translated into other languages, especially European languages. In some cases this circumstance reflects the more widespread ability of non-English speakers to work with English than of native-English-speakers to read other languages comfortably, but another factor may also be in play. North Americans have readily consumed learning from overseas, and until ca. 1970 books from Germany, France, England, and Scandinavia belonged to the core curriculum of North American biblical students to a much greater extent than was the reverse the case. North Americans tended during the period 1900–1970 to look to Europe for their scholarly heritage. However, the last third of the century witnessed a dramatic shift in this respect, as we will discuss shortly. Yet, while embedded in international scholarly discussions, Americans have often approached the academic undertaking in distinctive ways, and this essay aims to identify those characteristic elements in American biblical scholarship from ca. 1900 forward. To be sure, their contributions to historiography, philology, exegesis, archaeology, religious history, social history, cultural studies, and more belong to the larger international discussions in these areas. Yet in what respects does the scholarship of the Americas – North America and Latin America – differ noticeably from the approaches and results of research elsewhere? An obvious obstacle to answering this question lies in the very diversity present in American biblical scholarship, which in turn reflects the demographic variety of the individual scholars’ origins. In fact this lack of homogeneity – in starting points, in goals, in working methods, in identities – constitutes a major feature of the cultures of the Americas, and its effect on scholarship should not be surprising.

2. Location and Culture 2.1. Ethnicity and Location The great ethnic diversity found in the Americas accounts for many of the differences in perspective and agenda among the peoples, which in turn is reflected in their cultures, including the interpretation of classic and canonical texts such

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as the Bible. First, however, the relatively recent shift in the understanding of “ethnicity” must be noted since it is especially evident among Americans. While Herodotus famously considered three factors essential to a people’s or nation’s identity – common blood or ancestor, common language, and common religion – Norwegian anthropologist F. Barth’s seminal essay in 1969 led to a fundamental rethinking of the category of ethnicity, which he describes as a far more complex and ambiguous category than Herodotus and others had thought. Social groups are fluid, dynamic, and unstable, and stereotypical or essentialist classifications of actual people rarely survive scrutiny. In addition, how a group understands itself can vary substantially from how they are described by others, whether by their neighbors or by scholars; such a distinction is expressed in the emic/etic division in anthropology. Complicating the analysis even further is the recent research into DNA, which can reveal ties among distant ancestors that may no longer be evident or operative in today’s social groups. The Americas display such complexities as much as any region on the globe, and it has had a wide-ranging effect on the political and economic lives of people as well as on the intellectual pursuits of scholars. Until ca. 1500 the northern and southern continents of America were inhabited by indigenous peoples, but beginning in the sixteenth century they became overrun by conquerors and immigrants from Europe. The Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores invaded South America, while the early colonizers and explorers of North America stemmed mainly from Spain, England, and France. Other European immigrants have come in waves from colonial times until the present. The large numbers of Africans in the Americas entered for the most part by force as enslaved persons. Aside from the Filipinos who came starting in the sixteenth century, most of the Asian immigrants to the Western Hemisphere arrived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And the process continues to unfold, not only from other parts of the world to the Americas but also internally within the Americas as well. In the United States alone during 2010, over one million legal immigrants arrived, and many others entered the country without official visas – which has in itself become a major legal and political issue for many in the country. The result of these five centuries of immigration from all directions is an ethnically diverse, multicultural, multilingual, and often conflictual accumulation of peoples. Dividing simply between the immigrants and the indigenous is now inadequate because of the considerable intermarriage and intermixing that have occurred over the generations. Individuals tend to associate themselves with some specific group or groups, which in turn lends them personal and social identity. From this circumstance springs the methodological concept of situated reading, that is, that persons read and interpret texts informed by perspectives and principles basic to the group(s) in which they are situated and with which they identify.1 Diversities of many sorts have played a key role throughout the history

1 A good example is Segovia/Tolbert, Reading from This Place (1995), which discusses and exhibits the variations in biblical interpretations possible among groups within the United States (vol. 1) and among groups within the international community (vol. 2). The situation changed even further as the end of the twentieth century approached and North America’s influence in the world needed to yield to the increased prominence, both economically and politically, of countries in east and south

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of the Americas, accounting for the varied readings as well as many of the new methods in biblical criticism that appeared from the 1970s until the present, as will be discussed below.

2.2. Religiosity As is evident in Byrd’s descriptions of biblical scholarship in North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,2 religiosity has been a defining part of American cultures not only during those centuries but in fact from the pilgrim period forward. Religious convictions, coupled with cultural and personal propensities, appear in the controversies over slavery, over science, and over critical scholarship at various points during this history. Such religious sentiments continue with full vigor throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries as well, not only in private expressions of faith but also in public debates and political controversies. This picture of religiosity is significant for our purposes because biblical scholarship, especially in North America, has been conducted within the context of cultural attitudes that range from suspicion, hostility, and anti-intellectualism to curiosity, support, and affirmation. While the public has an appetite for the findings and opinions of biblical scholars, the media feed this taste with at times sensationalist news reports – archaeological discoveries, contentious issues among researchers, and scholarly positions that many in the wider public find objectionable if not even scandalous. More so than is probably the case in any other country, biblical scholars in the United States are frequently approached by journalists to comment on such contemporary issues as race, poverty, environmentalism, economic practices, voting rights, medical ethics, biomedical research, labor rights, health-care access, and many more topics. The effect on scholarship takes several forms: Scholars have the chance to affect public discussion and even legislative action; at the same time they are also held accountable for their opinions, as many who have lost their employment over contentious issues know well, especially in more conservative religious institutions; and contemporary social issues, such as the status of women, sexual orientation, the racial divides, immigration, and poverty, have also emerged as topics that can be investigated in biblical antiquity as well.3 Statistics from surveys in the early twenty-first century provide a comparative picture of religiosity in the Americas and other international contexts. In a Gallup survey of 114 countries in 2009, interviewees were asked the question, “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” Of the respondents in the United States, 65 percent said that religion was important to them. In Canada, however, only 42 percent responded Yes to this question. At 73 percent Mexi-

Asia; for the effects on biblical studies see Boer/Segovia, The Future of the Biblical Past (2012). Patte, Global Bible Commentary (2004), shows the effects of ethnicity and social location on the reading of a range of biblical texts. 2 Byrd, The ‘New World’ of North America and Canada (2013); and Sacred Scripture, Sacred War (2013). 3 For more discussion, see Knight, Politics and Biblical Scholarship in the United States (2010).

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cans indicated a higher level of religiosity than United States residents, and between both of these countries were the Chileans and Argentinians. Most of the rest of South and Central America showed percentages in the 80s; for example, Panama and Guatemala are both at 88 percent. In contrast, responses in many of the European countries, the breeding ground of most biblical scholarship through the nineteenth century, approximated levels closer to that of Canada, a number of them considerably lower.4 Two other surveys investigated the extent to which respondents believed in the existence of a God or a spirit or life force. One sponsored by the European Commission reports the findings of a survey conducted in 2005 among Europeans: 52 percent believed there is a God, and 27 percent envisaged some type of spirit or life force; a greater proportion of the countries in Eastern Europe have a lower-than-average percentage than do Western European nations.5 In the United States, 92 percent of those interviewed in a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center responded that they “believe in God or a universal spirit”.6 Two changes in the overall religious picture have recently emerged, according to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center: For the first time in modern United States history the proportion of the number of Protestants has declined to less than half the population – 48 percent; the drop occurred among white adults, mainstream and evangelical alike, but not among minorities.7 Second, the number of persons in the United States not affiliated with traditional religious groups increased from 15.3 percent to 19.6 percent during the period 2007–2012.8 The twentieth century, on the whole, showed a markedly higher level of religiosity than is evident after the beginning of the twenty-first century. Of the numerous other questions in such surveys, one in particular has direct bearing on the place of the Bible in United States culture. Recognizing that the interviewees belonged to a variety of different faith traditions, the Pew Research Center asked for each person’s view of Scripture, be it the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, or another “Holy Scripture” venerated in one’s religion. It is noteworthy that the responses from the general population were almost evenly divided in three categories: 33 percent held their Scripture to be literally the word of God, another 27 percent considered it the word of God but not literally so, and 28 percent thought it was written not by God but by humans. In addition, 35 per-

4 Gallup, “Religiosity Highest in World’s Poorest Nations”, (10 Nov. 2012). Quite similar findings appear in other polls, e.g. that of the Pew Research Center, “The American – Western European Values Gap”, Complete Report (released 17 Nov. 2011 and updated 29 Feb. 2012), (16 Oct. 2012). 5 Special Eurobarometer 225 (June 2005), “Social Values, Science, and Technology”, (16 Oct. 2012), 9–11. 6 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant”, Report 2 (June 2008), (27 Sept. 2012), 26–30. 7 Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, “‘Nones’ on the Rise: One-inFive Adults Have No Religious Affiliation”, Full Report (Oct. 2012), (25 Oct. 2012), 13–15, 41–63. 8 Ibid. 9–15.

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cent indicated they read their Scripture at least once a week outside of religious services, while 45 percent said they read it seldom or never.9 Different surveys may, for a variety of reasons, report different numbers on these issues, but the picture is largely the same: the Americas have long been among the most religious areas in the world, even though the significance of religion for many in North America seems to be declining in recent years. The nature of United States religiosity may, though, be rather distinctive. Adopting a phrase from Jean-Jacques Rousseau10 and drawing on statements by the country’s founders and former presidents, sociologist R. Bellah characterized the form of religion in the United States as a type of “civil religion”, according to which religious symbols and expressions have become incorporated into the rhetoric of politicians and legislators while, at the same time, religious persons often express their beliefs with a patriotic fervor. In Bellah’s words: Behind the civil religion at every point lie Biblical archetypes: Exodus, Chosen People, Promised Land, New Jerusalem, Sacrificial Death and Rebirth. But it is also genuinely American and genuinely new. It has its own prophets and its own martyrs, its own sacred events and sacred places, its own solemn rituals and symbols. It is concerned that America be a society as perfectly in accord with the will of God as men can make it, and a light to all the nations.11

Civil religion does not denote an established or state religion, which is forbidden by the United States Constitution and by court cases, but it represents the often intricate and subtle, though sometimes also blatant and contentious, manner in which religion and politics are intertwined in popular culture as well as in electoral politics. Nowhere do researchers and teachers in biblical studies work in a vacuum, disconnected from social, political, and religious forces around them. Not all scholars will share their culture’s sentiments, but they cannot be unaffected by them even if they themselves are not affiliated with religious groups. During the twentieth century, religiosity in the United States has promoted scholarly work on the Hebrew Bible just as it has at times also challenged it by questioning its aims and legitimacy, especially when the positions of biblical scholars seem to run counter – for example, on issues of evolution, civil rights, poverty, abortion, sexual orientation, and environment – to the opinions held by certain religious believers. Conservative issues such as biblical inerrancy and authority appear in the press as they do also in the home and the classroom, and scholars have to be prepared to deal with the polemics. Two distinctively North American movements that we will discuss shortly, Biblical Theology and Biblical Archaeology, also bear the marks of this religiosity, just as their demise was effected in part by an appeal to a broader, more inclusive approach to both Bible and archaeology.

9 Pew Research Center, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Beliefs and Practices” (2008), 30–31, 49. 10 J. J. Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book 4, Chapter 8. 11 Bellah, Civil Religion (1967), 18. Sasson, On Choosing Models for Recreating Israelite Pre-monarchic History (1981), 12–13, draws attention to the influential nineteenth-century American historian G. Bancroft, whose ten-volume History of the United States (1854–1882) was crafted in line with key moments in Israel’s history.

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3. Sociology of Knowledge and Scholarship Several learned societies have emerged in the Americas to advance biblical scholarship. The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) is currently the world’s largest association of scholars devoted to biblical and cognate studies. It was founded in 1880 as the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis (the name was shortened to its present form in 1962), and by the end of that first year there were 44 members in total, virtually all from the northeastern region of the United States. By its centennial in 1980 the number of members had increased to approximately 5,000, and even further to more than 8,700 in 2012. Another radical change is the makeup along lines of race and gender (the following percentages are based on the profiles completed by members): starting as an all-male, all-white organization, the SBL membership in 2012 was 23 percent women and, in terms of ethnicity or race, 7 percent Asian, 4 percent African American, 3 percent Hispanic or Latino/a, 82 percent white, and 5 percent other. The membership in 2012 represented all regions of North America, and approximately 30 percent of the members stemmed from some 60 countries other than the United States; 60 members were from Latin America. The SBL originally held its meetings in the northeastern states, normally in New York City. It first convened in June 1880 with 18 persons in attendance to hear and discuss six papers.12 By comparison, the 2010 annual meeting in Atlanta had 4,795 members in attendance, of whom 1,878 (not unique but total) made presentations. This staggering increase in 130 years is due not only to the role of religion in American life but – just as significantly – also to the support shown by universities, colleges, private foundations, donors, and governmental programs for the academic study of antiquity and the history of the Bible’s reception to the present.13 Other professional societies have complemented the work of the SBL. Established in 1842 as one of the oldest learned societies in the United States, the American Oriental Society (AOS) encompasses a much broader region of study, from western to eastern Asia. Some of its membership overlaps with that of the SBL, especially among those who focus on ancient Near Eastern studies and archaeology. In 1900, the SBL together with the AOS and the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) founded the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), which has become the foremost American professional society of archaeologists and historians of the Levant. Membership by 2012 totaled 1,600, of whom roughly one quarter came from outside the United States and approximately 10 percent of them from Canada. About 90 universities, colleges, and seminaries counted as institutional members. Attendance at the annual meetings of ASOR grew to almost 1,000 by 2012, with almost one third from outside North America; ca. 450 separate (unique) presenters delivered papers. The ASOR and SBL have a long history of cooperation in projects, publications, and meetings. Another sister so12 Information about the first two meetings in 1880 derives from the proceedings first published in the Fiftieth Anniversary Number of the JBL 50 (1931) xxiv, xlviii–xlix. 13 For further description of the history of the SBL, see Saunders, Searching the Scriptures (1982); and especially for the period since ca. 1970, see Tucker, The Modern (and Postmodern?) Society of Biblical Literature (2010).

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ciety, the Association of Biblical Instructors in American Colleges and Secondary Schools, originated in 1909; its name was changed in 1922 to the National Association of Biblical Instructors, with its acronym (NABI, Hebrew for “prophet”) carrying special significance for biblical scholars. A more radical change occurred in 1963 when NABI was renamed the American Academy of Religion to reflect its expansion to all fields in the study of religion, not only biblical studies. With a membership approaching 10,000 in 2010, the AAR complements the SBL with methodological and substantive discussions and research of mutual interest. Yet another organization with overlapping membership and purpose is the Catholic Biblical Association of America, founded in 1936. In 1969, the SBL joined six other professional societies to organize the Council on the Study of Religion, which publishes Religious Studies Review. There are a number of additional groups reflecting various interests or regional identities, and some of them plan their annual meetings to coincide with those of the SBL. Also indicative of SBL’s range of involvement, since 1929 the Society has been a member of the American Council of Learned Societies, the prestigious assemblage of learned societies in the humanities and related social sciences. In Canada, a professional society was formed in 1933 to “stimulate the critical investigation of the classical biblical literatures, together with other related literature, by the exchange of scholarly research both in published form and in public forum”, as stated in the constitution of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies / Société canadienne des Études bibliques. At the time not many Canadian scholars could travel to SBL meetings, especially due to financial constraints from the Depression. CSBS members have resided predominately in Canada, in addition to some Canadian scholars dwelling elsewhere. The founding membership of 46 in 1933 expanded to some 330 by the end of 2012, and they stem now from across Canada rather than just mainly from Ontario and Québec. At the start there was a significant difference between the generations, as John Macpherson noted in his presidential retrospective in 1966: “although most of the older members of 1933 had been trained abroad, several of their younger colleagues were representatives of the first generation of Canadian-trained Biblical scholars. Another stimulus doubtless derived from the pioneer nature of the project itself. This was the first Canadian interconfessional scholarly society concerned with the religious sciences, deliberately aiming from the outset to be national in scope”.14 The Society began publishing The Bulletin in 1935 with a few scholarly papers often included, but a “lack of outlets for Canadian scholarly work” persisted through the War years and for some time thereafter.15 In 1939 a Canadian section of the SBL was inaugurated at the instigation of thirty-three CSBS members, and the two groups continued co-existence if not co-operation until the Canadian section in SBL was closed in 1977. A sign of the close linkage among North American scholars, several Canadians served as presidents of SBL: Shirley Jackson Case (1926), T. J. Meek (1944), William A. Irwin (1958), R. B. Y. Scott (1960), Frederick V. Winnett (1964), Frank W. Beare (1969), and Harry M. Orlinsky (1970). Canadians were thus in leadership positions at the time of the Society’s reform and the consti14 15

Macpherson, A History of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (1967), 2–3. Moir, A History of Biblical Studies in Canada (1982), 69–70.

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tutional revision in 1969. Also of significance was the formation in 1943 of the Association catholique des études bibliques au Canada, which has since then held annual conferences on a variety of biblical subjects and has encouraged the rise of a new generation of Roman Catholic biblical scholars.16 The role and impact of these learned societies are not to be underestimated. They have fostered biblical studies in the Americas and beyond through their meetings, projects, and publications, both journals and books. For example, the SBL’s flagship journal, the Journal of Biblical Literature,17 has been published since 1881, increasing its size from eleven articles and 212 pages in that first year to 47 articles and 832 pages in 2010. The essays are peer-reviewed through a blind process by an editorial board. While book reviews have long been included in the printed issues, many of the more recent reviews and bibliographical essays have appeared in supplementary volumes in the series Critical Review of Books in Religion (1988–1998) and in Review of Biblical Literature (since 1999), the latter also available in digital form on the SBL website. This remarkable increase in participation and activity within SBL circles did not occur as a steady and gradual process. Rather, a radical turn taken in the late 1960s redefined the Society and, with it, the nature of biblical studies in North America, which in turn has had an impact on international scholarship. The leadup to this shift is chronicled by E. W. Saunders under the rubric “Shaking the Foundations”,18 in which he points to several influential factors: the Holocaust and post-Holocaust scrutiny; geopolitical engagements and realignments following World War II; social and political developments, especially the Civil Rights Movement in the United States; the discovery of documents at Qumran, Nag Hammadi, and elsewhere; and the contributions and debates involving a whole generation of biblical scholars. Saunders’s characterization of the SBL during the decades from 1945 to 1967 is relevant, in fact, for all of the preceding decades as well: “It was essentially an east coast establishment based in New York City consisting of a small staff of officers and a regional attendance at the meetings”.19 In his Presidential Address to the SBL on 29 December 1941, three weeks after the United States entered the War, Julian Morgenstern had issued a stern rebuke to the Society for its staid structure and ways, and he urged it to “arouse itself from its long lethargy and become once again alert and progressive”.20 Some significant steps in reorganization were taken after the conclusion of the War, but the most radical shift away from traditional ways occurred in 1968 – a challenge somewhat akin to the assault in the society at large on cultural and political authority in response to both the Vietnam war and systemic racism. Dissatisfaction with the SBL’s seeming indifference to newer research methods and issues instigated a group of younger scholars to act, among them Robert W. Funk, Robert A. Kraft, Norman E. Wagner, James M. Robinson, Brevard

16

Ibid. 79–90, for more details about the two Canadian societies. From 1881 through 1888 the periodical bore the title Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis. 18 Saunders, Searching the Scriptures (1982), 41–55. 19 Ibid. 41. 20 Morgenstern, The Society of Biblical Literature (1942), 9. 17

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S. Childs, Walter Harrelson, Kendrick Grobel, Helmut Koester, and George W. MacRae, with support from a number of more senior scholars. Having secured appointment to key SBL committees or tasks, they proceeded to reorganize the Society in its structure, meetings, publications, and research groups. As a consequence, vitality and participation began a dramatic leap forward, as did also membership – from 2,679 in 1967 to nearly twice that size by the time of the Centennial Meeting in 1980. No longer would the meetings take on “the club atmosphere where each knew the other on a personal basis”.21 Several of Morgenstern’s criticisms in 1941 were addressed directly: that the SBL had “mired itself in a steadily deepening rut”, was not “an altogether efficient organization”, and held annual meetings that “fail to stimulate as they should and to not a few of our members seem even empty and boring”.22 The radical reforms Morgenstern had desired came in 1968. As the SBL continued to expand over the following years, one would eventually hear individual members complain about the oversized, excessively complex character of later plenary meetings, but there is little disagreement that the Society has greatly enhanced the field of biblical studies through all the activities it has organized and sponsored during the last third of the twentieth century. The reorganization initiated after 1968 focused heavily on SBL’s publishing program. The founding of Scholars Press in 1974 through the actions of SBL and AAR and under the leadership of Robert W. Funk, New Testament scholar and director of the press until 1980, followed the principle of “scholars publishing for scholars”. Members were recruited or volunteered to edit series, review manuscripts, serve on publications committees, and assist in the production process. Many of the books at the outset were printed from “camera-ready copy” and sold for surprisingly low prices at the time, such as US$2.00 or $3.00 each. The SBL Dissertation Series was among the first new endeavors, complementing the SBL Monograph Series, which then became an outlet for more senior scholars. It was said that the Dissertation Series served to make the careers of more junior biblical scholars than was accomplished by any other publishing vehicle, and at the same time this series put into wide circulation many studies that otherwise may have had little chance to contribute to scholarly discussions. By 2010 over twenty distinct series were actively producing monographs in the areas of ancient Near Eastern studies, archaeology, early Judaism, early Christianity, history of research, Septuagint, Philo, textual criticism, literature of the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world, women’s studies, and global perspectives. In conjunction with SBL’s 1980 Centennial, four series on the role of the Bible and the history of biblical scholarship were initiated: Biblical Scholarship in North America (ed. K. H. Richards), The Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (ed. D. A. Knight), Biblical Scholarship in Confessional Perspectives (eds. A. Y. Collins, K. H. Richards, and G. M. Tucker), and the Bible in American Culture (eds. E. S. Gaustad and W. Harrelson). Semeia, “an experimental journal devoted to the exploration of new and emergent areas and methods of biblical criticism”,23 was 21 22 23

Saunders, Searching the Scriptures (1982), 46. Morgenstern, The Society of Biblical Literature (1942), 6–8. This self-description is included on the inside front cover of Semeia issues.

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founded by Funk in 1974 and continued until its ninety-first issue in 2002, and over the course of those three decades it became the primary organ in the Americas for introducing and exploring a wide range of new methods and issues in biblical studies. The total number of books published by SBL until 1970 was slight; from ca. 1970 to 2010, however, approximately 950 books appeared in print. In addition, a total of 625 journal issues were published from the founding of SBL in 1880 until 2010. In 2010 the annual publication budget exceeded one million United States dollars, and the revenues were nearly that high as well. Yet numbers do not tell the whole story, though they are indicative of an unprecedented level of activity. More importantly, the SBL fostered a new surge in enthusiasm and vitality within biblical studies that many colleagues attending from outside North America found to be exceptional. The takeover of leadership in the late 1960s led to an explosion of interest as more and more members participated in the meetings through delivering papers. In particular, the decision by SBL to form regional groups – at present a total of eleven – throughout the United States had an enormous impact on the Society’s vitality because their annual meetings offered more intimate settings for members, from graduate students to seasoned scholars, to present and discuss their work. In the process younger scholars found a convenient entrée to the much larger world of national and international collegial connections, and many also moved into leadership roles in the general SBL.24 The Society also looked beyond its traditional North American habitat. In 1983 it instituted the SBL International Meetings with its first gathering in Salamanca, Spain. Each year since then it has reconvened in different cities, usually in Europe but also in Australia, South Africa, Israel, New Zealand, and Singapore. The 2011 meeting in London had 972 attendees. These conferences were especially effective in drawing those residing in the respective areas to the international meeting to meet with others from around the globe, which in turn provided the opportunity for attendees to broaden their perspectives and collegial range. The SBL was also instrumental in the formation of research groups focusing on various literary corpora. The International Organization of Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) came into existence in 1968 with a journal and annual meetings for specialists in Septuagintal and related research. In 1972 the International Organization for Masoretic Studies was initiated at the instigation of Harry M. Orlinsky. The text-critical seminars for both Hebrew and Greek texts augmented the work of international groups, especially in the wake of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library. A research section on the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature has long been studying texts outside the Jewish and Protestant canons. And in a project that would prove to be essential to virtually all who study biblical and extrabiblical antiquity, the SBL was instrumental, beginning in the late 1970s, in fostering computer-assisted research capabilities – from the development of Hebrew and Greek computer fonts to the building of digital libraries of ancient resources often inaccessible and 24 Saunders, Searching the Scriptures (1982), 73–76, details the initial resistance to expanding the Society’s activities beyond the northeastern area of the United States, and he shows the gradual and then, after 1968, rapid move toward regional inclusivity.

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difficult to search and manipulate. Such ground-breaking work has changed the ways in which scholars work, teach, and publish. One further consequence of the reorganization that began in 1968 has considerable significance for the nature of biblical scholarship in the Americas, especially in North America. While several joint projects had appeared earlier, the reorganized SBL intentionally established and supported collaborative research among its members, setting aside times at the annual meetings of the Society for these groups to convene and advance their joint research. Scholars in the humanities, including biblical studies, have traditionally conducted their work separately from each other and then reported their results in published form or in conferences, but now the new leaders of SBL encouraged specialists to join with each other in developing working-groups on specific subjects or methods. As stated in James M. Robinson’s initial announcement in 1970, the Committee on Research and Publications aimed “to concentrate its activity upon long-range, basic team research which can be better organized through a learned society than through individual initiative alone”.25 A structure featuring three types of program units emerged and remains to this day roughly similar in form and purpose: 1) consultations with a term of only a few years to give parties a chance to explore the viability of and interest in a subject; 2) sections, of longer duration, also focused on a specific subject but usually with one session open for unsolicited papers and another session organized by the group to deal with a selected aspect of the subject; and 3) seminars, also with a multi-year term, requiring active participation by members working on a well-defined research project or topic. These groups must apply to the SBL for approval to meet at the Society’s annual meetings, and the Program Committee also approves the groups’ leaders. Auditors who are not ongoing members of the groups can attend, and usually these program units conclude with one or more collaborative publications. By way of example of the vitality of these collaborative sessions, the annual SBL meeting in 2010 included a total of 162 such program units, up from 92 in 2001, on topics in Hebrew Bible, New Testament, early Judaism, and cognate studies.26 Several reasons stand out to explain this level of activity in biblical studies, especially in the United States since 1968. First, as described above, religion in general and the Bible in particular have long played leading roles in American life, and this public and political interest feeds scholarly efforts to increase the understanding of biblical antiquity. Second, the constraints set by the United States Constitution and courts against state establishment of religion have not inhibited but actually freed religious inquiry as well as religious expression. At the same time, the secular and humanistic study of history and culture, including the Bible’s influences for both good and ill, has flourished. Third, the remarkable diversity – racial, ethnic, ideological, cultural – among the American population has given voice to a wide range of perspectives and interpretations on biblical traditions. And fourth, institutions of higher education have readily incorporated biblical studies in their curricula. Seminaries and private universities and colleges 25

Cited in Saunders, Searching the Scriptures (1982), 60 n. 1. Two successive executive directors of the SBL, Kent Harold Richards and John F. Kutsko, together with their staff kindly provided most of the statistics cited above. 26

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have long offered courses on the Bible, and state universities since the 1960s have been legally permitted to support such teaching and research so long as it is not confessional in character or intent. In the United States alone there are approximately 4,500 institutions of postsecondary education, very many of them small colleges scattered throughout the country, and in all likelihood most of them offer at least one course on the Bible. American biblical scholars in SBL and related learned societies stem primarily from these institutions of higher education.

4. History of Biblical Scholarship in the Americas since 1900 Due to the multiplicity of its contexts and approaches, the history of scholarship of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in the Americas does not lend itself to easy or clear periodization for the first two thirds of the twentieth century, although it does so for the final stage, 1968–2000. Several new critical methods emerged in this latter period, even while the traditional approaches from earlier in the century continued to hold sway among certain groups to the present. On the other hand, the first two thirds of the twentieth century witnessed more continuity than change in comparison to the last third. Still, enough distinctiveness is evident to warrant a division into three periods of biblical scholarship: 1900–1940, 1940–1968, and 1968–2000 and beyond.

4.1. The Period from 1900 to 1940 The study of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in North America in the early twentieth century proceeded under two strong influences – European scholarship on the one hand and conservative religious traditions on the other. Three controversies during this period, all rooted in the nineteenth century, provide insight into the biblical scholarship of the time. The first involved conservative Christian beliefs, a continuation of cultural proclivities reaching back to early colonial times, as described by Byrd. It had reached a climax of sorts in the controversy between Charles A. Briggs on the one side and Archibald Alexander Hodge, Benjamin Warfield, and other conservative apologists on the other over the place of biblical scholarship in the Christian church, in particular the question of whether the critical approach stemming especially from Europe undermined religious belief in the sanctity and authority of the Bible. Briggs, the Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology at Union Theological Seminary, had tried to walk a fine line between practicing higher criticism of the Bible and affirming the divine authority of Scripture. But because he allowed for certain critical positions (e.g., attributing authorship of biblical books to others than those traditionally associated with them, such as Moses or Isaiah), he was investigated, tried, and convicted of “heresy” in 1893 in a Presbyterian Church court. Other scholars of the Hebrew Bible faced similar opposition and distrust. The controversy did not abate in the course the twentieth century – on the one side antagonism toward critical scholarship, on the other side skepticism or dismissal

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of conservative and fundamentalist religion, and thus insufficient conversations between the two camps. To be sure, the situation is much more complex than this picture of polar opposites suggests; scholars and non-specialists position themselves all along the spectrum between two extremes, or form some distinctive combination of elements not easily placed on the spectrum. The point, at any rate, is that no consensus prevails about the place of critical scholarship and the role of religious belief in the United States. As described by Moir, Canada during the early twentieth century underwent a similar though not identical conflict between modernism and fundamentalism.27 A second controversy became even more widely known than the Briggs-affair. In 1925 John T. Scopes, a public school teacher, was tried and convicted of violating a state law that forbade teachers “to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals”. The case, popularly known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, drew national attention to the small community of Dayton, Tennessee, and in 1960 it eventuated in the well-known movie Inherit the Wind. The controversy was less between critical scholarship and conservative religion and more a cultural rebuke of the theory of evolution advanced by Charles Darwin. Not until 1968 did the United States Supreme Court rule that such state laws were unconstitutional, yet other cases have continued until present times to appear in other states. Surprisingly, a poll taken in 2010 showed that 40 percent of the United States population believed that God created humans in their present form, while another 38 percent could accept some form of the notion of evolution if God was regarded as guiding the process.28 Without explicitly opposing biblical scholarship, this climate of opinion has posed obstacles to the efforts of academics to increase understanding of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, the evolution vs. creationism conflict has, if anything, become considerably more political in the course of the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. The third controversy goes even more explicitly to the heart of biblical interpretation. In 1895 and 1898 a group of some two dozen women, headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, published The Woman’s Bible, in which they took issue with a wide range of texts in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament that in their view denigrated women – texts that dealt explicitly with women or in which “women are made prominent by exclusion”. A few in the group were familiar with Hebrew or Greek; others focused on historical and textual evidence; and others contributed in varying ways to writing the commentary. Reference was made occasionally to the writings of biblical scholars. The result was a set of observations and interpretations that were poignant, passionate, radical, often scathing, and sometimes humorous. On the whole the book amounted to an indictment both of specific biblical texts and of biblical interpreters, including the ancient and modern societies that fostered the disparagement of women.29 The Woman’s

27

Moir, A History of Biblical Studies in Canada (1982), 7–66. Gallup, “Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design,” (4 Dec. 2012). 29 There was considerable precedent for women commenting on biblical passages, as is evident in Taylor/Weir, Let Her Speak for Herself (2006), which compiles excerpts of numerous nineteenth-cen28

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Bible elicited a storm of protest from religious circles, although many individuals also spoke out in support of it. The National American Woman Suffrage Association, meeting in 1896, even passed a resolution distancing itself from the book, apparently on the grounds that it might retard the process of gaining suffrage for women. Despite – or perhaps because of – the public debate, virtually no biblical scholars at that time engaged its provocative interpretations of individual texts or its overall critique of the bias against women found in the Bible and in its reception history. The Woman’s Bible lay virtually dormant for some seventy-five years until it reemerged in the feminist biblical scholarship of the final decades of the twentieth century. The number of women in the profession during that intervening period was also very low. In 1992, almost a century after the 1895 publication, a comparable volume by a new group of women scholars, the Women’s Bible Commentary, edited by C. A. Newsom and S. H. Ringe, appeared, marking further contributions by feminists to the kinds of issues engaged by Stanton and her colleagues. Biblical scholarship in the period 1900–1940 played out against the social, political, and religious background that fostered these controversies. Other factors, especially World War I and the Great Depression, weighed heavily during this period as well. But to what extent did the study of the Hebrew Bible in North America take a distinctive direction, different from the research found elsewhere? To a great extent, the answer is: only minimally. European biblical scholarship, in particular that from Germany and England, was imported and incorporated into the research and publications of North American scholars, a number of whom had studied at European universities or spent research leaves in connection with colleagues there. Briggs himself, the controversial proponent of biblical criticism until his death in 1918, had studied for three years in Berlin under Isaak A. Dorner and Ernst W. Hengstenberg. This indebtedness to German scholarship persisted despite the widespread popular repudiation of most things German during the time of World War I, just as would later be the case during World War II as well. North American scholars, parallel to their counterparts in Europe, pursued historical, comparative, text-critical, philological, and exegetical questions. Their ranks included both established specialists as well as newcomers whose influence would continue for several more decades: Henry Preserved Smith, German-born Paul Haupt, Morris Jastrow, Jr., George Barton, William H. P. Hatch, Charles A. Briggs, J. M. Powis Smith, Hinckley G. Mitchell, C. C. Torrey, A. T. E. Olmstead, Charles Foster Kent, George Foot Moore, Theophile James Meek, Frederick V. Winnett, R. B. Y. Scott, William Ewart Staples, W. G. Jordan, William Andrew Irwin, James A. Montgomery, Max L. Margolis, Theodor H. Gaster, J. Coert Rylaarsdam, George E. Mendenhall, Samuel L. Terrien, and Cyrus H. Gordon – to name just some of the prominent scholars. Most were located at universities such as the University of Pennsylvania, founded in the eighteenth century at the instigation of Benjamin Franklin, which has one of the oldest and most distinguished programs in Semitic studies, including biblical studies, in the Americas. Gordon tury women authors. Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness (1993), 138–166, traces centuries of biblical criticism by women, including the nineteenth-century writings of Sarah Moore Grimké, her sister Angelina, Stanton, and others.

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has provided an overview of its personnel and contributions, based heavily on his own first-hand experiences after becoming a student there in 1924. In Canada, research during this early part of the twentieth century centered mainly at the University of Toronto, especially in its Department of Orientals in University College under the leadership of James Frederick McCurdy, sometimes called “the father of biblical studies in Canada”.30 The early decades of the twentieth century saw the appearance of the Social Gospel movement in North America, led by Walter Rauschenbusch and others and rooted in part in the British movement of Christian Socialism from the latter part of the nineteenth century. The Social Gospel movement, combined with the [University of] “Chicago School” of sociology from that period, prompted an interest in the social contexts of biblical religion, signaling a turn from the typical historical-critical, exegetical style inherited from European researchers. R. W. Funk in fact considered it the “watershed” of American biblical scholarship, although it was pursued then more in New Testament studies than in scholarship on the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament.31 Drawing on the American pragmatism of William James and the analysis of social processes by the early sociologists, biblical scholars sought to understand the communities of ancient Israel as well as first-century Christianity. One was Louis Wallis, whose 1912 study represented – in his words – the “pure science” of the new field of sociology, which led him to engage in comparative study of kinship, economics, religion, and the prophetic attention to justice. He noted that the Chicago scholar Shailer Mathews, writing in 1895, was apparently the first to use the term “biblical sociology”, and Wallis drew attention to a handful of other publications prior to his own, several by American scholars, devoted to the social history of ancient Israel.32 Wallis operated under notions current in his time regarding nomadism, social groups, and religious history. His work was followed by several other surveys of Israelite society, all of which were more descriptive than analytical and thus fell short of the systematic sociological study of Israel undertaken later in the twentieth century. Archaeology of the Southern Levant piqued interest in the Americas ever since Edward Robinson conducted his surveys of that region in 1838 and 1852, identifying more than one hundred biblical sites.33 While archaeologists usually launched their excavations from bases in various universities or religious entities, in 1900 there was a move in North America to formalize the discipline with the creation of a learned society devoted to the archaeological investigation of the Middle East – the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). As noted above, the SBL, AOS, and AIA collaborated to bring the ASOR into existence, and throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century it has been the 30

Moir, A History of Biblical Studies in Canada (1982), 25. Funk, Watershed (1976); see also Pedan/Stone, Chicago School (1996); and Hynes, Shirley Jackson Case and the Chicago School (1981). In addition, Funk (7) ventured that “the organization and development of the early biblical faculty at Chicago is paradigmatic for that remapping of the contours of biblical study which has affected the shape and course of that scholarship down to the present day”. 32 Wallis, Sociological Study (1912), ix, 299. 33 See Byrd, The ‘New World’ of North America and Canada (2013), 180–181; and for a biography, Williams, The Times and Life of Edward Robinson (1999), especially 207–261. 31

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premier North American society to promote and publish archaeological work in the larger region, with special focus on the Southern Levant. In founding this society North Americans joined other national groups devoted to archaeology of the Levant and the wider region – British, German, French, and others including, of course, local Jordanian, Syrian, Cypriot, Egyptian, and similar centers. ASOR expanded its operations by opening archaeological schools or institutes in various settings: Jerusalem (1900), Baghdad (1923), Amman (1968), Nicosia (1978), and Carthage (1970s), as well as affiliating with the American Research Center in Egypt. Complementing the United States-based ASOR, the American Schools of Oriental Research in Canada was established in 1990 to support Canadian archaeological projects and researchers in the Near East. Throughout its existence ASOR has not only sponsored a wide variety of field projects in the region but has also promoted archaeological literacy among biblical scholars and the wider public. The Jerusalem School, in particular, was a hub of archaeological excavations and innovations during the 1920s and 1930s, in large part because of its collegial associations with leaders of expeditions based in European institutions. Much of its impact owes to the work of William Foxwell Albright, director of the Jerusalem School in 1920–29 and again in 1933–36. He organized educational programs and working field trips for residents at the School as a means of promoting knowledge of historical geography, and he also became intimately involved in digs as well. Perhaps his greatest achievement, one that had an enormous impact on the field, came during his years as director of the excavation at Tell Beit Mirsim in 1926–32. Drawing on the work of Clarence S. Fisher and others, Albright classified the site’s pottery remains and organized them into a chronological sequence, dating them relative to each other if not with respect to absolute dates. His finds ranged from the Early Bronze period to the Iron Age.34 The result of this painstaking effort was a ceramic typology and chronology that became a standard resource for generations of archaeologists of the land of Israel, which in turn influenced the efforts to date many of the biblical texts.

4.2. The Period from 1940 to 1968 American biblical criticism of the first four decades of the twentieth century had largely carried forward the conventional methods of historical criticism derived from European scholarship, even despite differences in the intellectual and cultural climates. In his Presidential Address to the SBL in December 1941, however, J. Morgenstern saw a different present and future because of the war that had by then fully engulfed the region. Germany, in his view, was “the cradle of biblical science. There it was born and tenderly nourished for over one hundred years”. But by 1941, he noted, both the Old and New Testaments were “discredited and spiritually proscribed”, which meant that “in Germany biblical science is doomed”. In this “atmosphere of hostility toward the Bible” and 34

Albright, The Excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim, AASOR, 12 (1930–1931) and 13 (1931–1932), 55–127.

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… with the consequent disorganization of academic life, biblical science must soon be stifled and must inevitably succumb. Our friends and fellow-workers, not only in Germany but also in the occupied countries, will be, of this we may be sadly certain, for the present stage of biblical science at least, the last generation of Bible scholars…. It follows from all this that, for the present and the immediate future, America, i.e. the United States and Canada, must become the major center of biblical research, and that here Bible studies must be fostered wisely and devotedly, if biblical science is to endure and progress despite the present world-cataclysm. How prepared are we for this responsibility?35

This ominous prediction, as legitimate as it may have seemed from outside Europe at that moment, was eventually found to have been miscalculated since scholarship on the Hebrew Bible continued in Europe during the 1940s and recovered substantially during the 1950s and 1960s, both in Germany and in other European countries. It is, nonetheless, a revealing indication of the North American ethos that one of its foremost scholars felt that the weight of biblical scholarship had shifted to North American shoulders. Morgenstern also set the problem in more intellectual terms. According to him, the “techniques of documentary analysis of the OT are being increasingly outmoded”, and the tenets of the Documentary Hypothesis as well as those of form criticism were “becoming more and more subject to question”.36 This observation is reminiscent of the assessment rendered by G. von Rad only three years prior when, speaking of Hexateuchal research at the time, he asserted: “Man wird nicht sagen können, daß die theologische Erforschung des Hexateuchs sich in unseren Tagen in einer Krise befinde. Viel eher ließe sich behaupten, daß ein Stillstand eingetreten ist, den mancher mit einer gewissen Sorge wahrnimmt. Was ist nun zu tun?”.37 Morgenstern did not call for a traditio-historical study of the literature as did von Rad, but rather for more attention to the “ideas, institutions and movements which [the biblical documents] mirror, especially when coordinated with the unfolding historical picture”. He perceived the tension to lie primarily between “biblical science” (his term) and archaeology, the latter having met with such exceptional results in the preceding decades that it threatened to overwhelm the valid and significant work of biblical criticism. What was instead needed was “a friendly and constructive synthesis of biblical science and archaeology”.38 To a considerable extent this challenge became the central focus for numerous American scholars during the next quarter century in the movements known as “Biblical Archaeology” and its cousin, “Biblical Theology”.39 The previous year had seen the publication of a book that laid out the rudiments of this movement, Albright’s From the Stone Age to Christianity. Expressing more theological conservatism than he had displayed in his earlier archaeological writings, this son of Methodist missionaries to Chile sought to develop what he called an “organismic philosophy of history”, by which he meant that cultures can be viewed as wholes that assume distinctive characteristics, evolve 35

Morgenstern, The Society of Biblical Literature (1942), 4–5. Ibid. 1–2. 37 von Rad, Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch (1938), 1. 38 Morgenstern, The Society of Biblical Literature (1942), 2–3. 39 The two are not identical but are intertwined, the one emphasizing more archaeological evidence and the other focusing more on theological interpretations. 36

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over long spans of time, and can come to a conclusion and be replaced by new cultural forms. Focusing on the southern Levant, he described six distinct stages throughout the sweep of history from the Paleolithic to modern times, the pinnacle for him being the period from 400 BCE to 700 CE: “the Graeco-Roman civilization of the time of Christ represented the closest approach to a rational unified culture that the world has yet seen and may justly be taken as the culmination of a long period of relatively steady evolution”.40 Albright displayed a confidence that his data, much of it from archaeology, gave him license to make grand judgments about cultures and periods, as in this tendentious pronouncement about the “charismatic age” of early Israel: “Thus the Canaanites, with their orgiastic nature-worship, their cult of fertility in the form of serpent symbols and sensuous nudity, and their gross mythology, were replaced by Israel, with its pastoral simplicity and purity of life, its lofty monotheism, and its severe code of ethics”.41 He found ethical monotheism in the time of Moses, threats to the “pristine purity” of Yahwism during the monarchic period, necessary interventions by the prophets to sustain Yahwistic morality until the “pure ethical monotheism of Deutero-Isaiah”, and finally the coming of Jesus and the “integrated organismic pattern” of Christianity.42 A prolific writer, Albright was not an advocate of biblical literalism or inerrancy, both of which have long been amply evident among Christian apologists in America. He was convinced, however, that the biblical account of much of Israel’s history, e.g. the periods of the ancestors, the exodus, and Joshua’s conquest, is historically reliable and that archaeology has delivered the material proof. In a later book he spoke of a “dovetailing between archaeological and literary evidence” leading to the possibility of fixing dates with considerable certainty. For example, he paired the statement that the battle between Barak and Sisera was fought “at Taanach by Megiddo’s waters” (Judg 5:19) with the archaeological evidence about the occupation of the two sites and their pottery remains, and he then concluded that the battle and the Song of Deborah should be dated to ca. 1125 BCE.43 As suggested by J. M. Sasson, Albright’s confidence in such historicity “feeds on the centrality of the Bible in the American vision, a vision that cuts across creed, color, and gender. Albright himself puts it bluntly in his writing. ‘In the center of history’, he wrote in his autobiographical notes, ‘stands the Bible’”.44 This certainty about archaeological findings and their capacity to corroborate biblical details became typical of the Biblical Archaeology Movement, and with it the more confessionally inclined Biblical Theology Movement. J. Bright, student of Albright at The Johns Hopkins University, emphasized the historical side through his widely used A History of Israel, which he intended as a resource not just for students of the Bible but also for the church. He engaged the issue of historicity in a shorter publication, Early Israel in Recent History Writing, focusing his critique especially on M. Noth’s analyses of the books of Genesis through

40 41 42 43 44

Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (1940), 121. Ibid. 281. Ibid. 301, 329, 401. Albright, Archaeology of Palestine (1949), 117–118. Sasson, Albright as an Orientalist (1993), 6.

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Joshua. For Bright, archaeology may fall short of being able to provide irrefragable proof of details in the biblical narrative, but external evidence can tip the “balance of probability” in favor of the veracity of the biblical stories. He occasionally used popular oral traditions from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century North America to advocate that oral traditions in ancient Israel could similarly preserve memories of real events and processes. Noth, as might be expected, responded firmly: “what is scientifically at stake is not whether we use ‘external evidence’ but whether we have ‘external evidence’”, which he doubted to be much the case.45 Another prominent member of the “Albright School” was the accomplished archaeologist G. E. Wright. While Bright was especially interested in the historical side of Biblical Archaeology, Wright turned to religion and theology. In both God Who Acts and The Book of the Acts of God, Wright argued that the Hebrew Bible relates grand actions by the divine on behalf of the Israelites, such as the call of Abraham, the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the giving of the law, the conquest of the land, and the establishment of the monarchy. To his mind, these actions not only indicate the nature of the biblical God but also reveal the character of the biblical literature – as narrative traditions that the Israelites recited in cultic settings and retold among themselves. These divine acts are so central to the Hebrew Bible, in his view, that he had trouble fitting the wisdom tradition into the picture, and he consequently charged that there was a “pagan source of wisdom in which society and the Divine work in history played no real role”. Bright’s position was similar: wisdom material was “only peripherally” related to and even questioned the historically oriented core of the Old Testament.46 Wright’s notions seem on the surface extremely close to von Rad’s idea of Heilsgeschichte, which was being developed during this same period.47 The difference, though, is notable: Wright seemed to be treating these divine “acts” as actual events that the ancient Israelites were remembering, whereas von Rad regarded them more as traditions believed and continuously retold by the Israelites but not necessarily as empirical, provable occurrences. The Biblical Archaeology and Biblical Theology Movements found great appeal among scholars as well as the interested public in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, especially in Christian circles. However, both were for many effectively laid to rest by the end of the 1960s and early 1970s because of responses and new developments on several fronts, much of it from other North American scholars. Biblical Archaeology came under severe attack for its historicity claims, for example by T. L. Thompson and J. Van Seters, both focused on the so-called ancestral period, and later by others dealing with other periods. Furthermore, its celebration of monumental archaeology as a sign of ancient Israel’s preeminence in the region became undercut by the introduction of the methods of “New Archaeology”, which employed interdisciplinary means to uncover all

45 Noth, Der Beitrag der Archäologie zur Geschichte Israels (1960), 271 n. 1; see also his As One Historian to Another (1961), as well as the discussion in Knight, Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel (2006), 148–151. 46 Wright, God Who Acts (1952), 104; Bright, Authority (1967), 136. 47 See especially von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1–2 (1957/60).

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possible evidence of the past, most of it not products of Israel’s powerful and elite leaders.48 Biblical Theology, for its part, took a devastating blow first with J. Barr’s seminal linguistic study, The Semantics of Biblical Language, which demonstrated the illegitimacy of attributing too much theological weight to specific words and concepts as was typical in the Movement, and he also challenged the effort to synthesize a theological “unity” in the Bible, the Old and New Testaments.49 Then B. Albrektson pointed out the obvious – that, contrary to the thesis of Biblical Theology’s advocates, there was nothing distinctive or unique about Israel’s belief in a “God who acts”, for many if not most other ancient Near Eastern cultures also envisioned their gods acting in history on behalf of their adherents. And finally, in his 1970 book B. S. Childs shifted the agenda – at least for himself and some others – when he assessed the causes of the Movement’s erosion and then proposed that biblical theology should instead be conducted from within the context of the canon of the Christian church. Childs thereafter produced several studies developing a theological structure that pointedly took both Testaments into consideration, shifting the emphasis from historical criticism of the biblical text to a canon criticism that attends both to the process of canonization and also to the postbiblical history of the Bible’s interpretation and significance as canonized scripture. In a much later volume, The Concept of Biblical Theology, Barr evaluated this and other efforts to devise a biblical theology, which he found to have been used in confusingly divergent ways over the years, and he concluded that the subject may continue to be useful if it remains open to the history of religion, to Jewish interpretations and thought, and to social and cultural settings during the biblical periods. Albright also made an impact on epigraphy, orthography, and paleography, not the least though his influence on two other doctoral students, F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, who together authored two joint dissertations, Early Hebrew Orthography and Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry. Drawing on their reconstruction of early orthographic patterns they identified in Northwest Semitic languages, they analyzed specific poetic texts (Exod 15:1–18; Gen 49:1–27; Deut 33:2–29; and 2 Sam 22:5–51 = Ps 18) and declared them to be dated, respectively, in the twelfth-tenth centuries BCE, the late period of the Judges, the eleventh-tenth centuries, and the ninth-eighth centuries. The confidence with which they pronounced these dates, much like Albright’s dating of the Song of Deborah to ca. 1125 BCE as noted above, is not untypical of this period in American scholarship when biblical texts were readily connected with specific early points in time. In contrast, many recent scholars, inclining toward the Persian or Hellenistic periods for the finalization if not even the composition of the biblical texts, have become more reluctant to venture specific dates and definitive interpretations due to the paucity and indeterminacy of the “evidence”. Both Cross and Freedman built on their early work in different ways – Cross in his investigations

48 See Dever, Syro-Palestinian and Biblical Archaeology (1985), especially 36–53. He indicates that the excavation at Gezer in 1966 was the first to use an interdisciplinary team in the Southern Levant. 49 See also Barr, Old and New in Interpretation (1966).

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of the early epics and myths as windows on Canaanite and Israelite religions,50 and Freedman in his further studies of early poetry.51 Cross’s theory of local texts is another distinctive American biblical contribution to the history of the text of the Hebrew Bible. Following a lead from Albright, he proposed three different locales where the various text traditions developed – Babylon, Palestine, and Egypt. The Qumran and the Samaritan texts arose in the Palestinian context, while Egypt was the provenance of the Septuagint. The Proto-Massoretic text, on the other hand, stemmed from the Jewish community in Babylon. These three text families emerged slowly during the period from the fifth to the first centuries BCE, and only later did they come into contact with each other.52 This theory has proved useful in explaining some of the textual differences, but it has also been subjected to refinement and criticism by other textual historians. Biblical research in Canada during this period ran somewhat parallel to that in the United States. However, it also bears distinctive features due on the one hand to the presence of the two dominant cultures, one Anglophone and the other Francophone, each with a different origin and history, and on the other hand to the ongoing existence of the “First Nations”, the indigenous peoples in the country. This diversity has affected Canadians in ways that are not always acknowledged or appreciated outside Canada; they make of the country not a “melting pot”, as is typically claimed for the United States, but a population that is pronouncedly multicultural.53 Even in this situation, many Canadian scholars have functioned in ways comparable to their counterparts in the United States, for example by studying at similar institutions in North America as well as in Europe. They published in the same venues and attended SBL and ASOR meetings in common. But Canadians also aligned with each other, as evident especially in the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, in existence since 1933. The quarter century after 1940 saw another momentous change following the issuance in 1943 of the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu by Pope Pius XII. It encouraged Roman Catholic scholars to engage more in the study of the Bible, and critical work began to take hold among them in both French- and English-speaking sections of Canada. Universities supported this research, and the Université du Québec à Montréal opened a Ph.D. program in biblical studies. Throughout this period and later, the study of ancient languages became a trademark of much of Canadian scholarship. During the 1960s, the rise of numerous university departments of religious studies with more of a secular than religious approach to the study of religion marked a crucial shift quite similar to that which was occurring at the same time in the United States.54 Canadian scholars during these years and to the present have made distinctive contributions, such as F. V. Winnett’s SBL 50

See also the wide-ranging essays in Miller/Hanson/McBride, Ancient Israelite Religion (1987). For example, Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973); and Freedman, Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy (1980). 52 Albright, New Light on Early Recensions of the Hebrew Bible (1955); Cross, The Contribution of the Qumrân Discoveries to the Study of the Biblical Text (1966); and essays in Cross/Talmon, Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text (1975). 53 Black, Reading the Bible in “Our Home and Native Land” (2012). 54 Moir, A History of Biblical Studies in Canada (1982), 79–97. 51

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presidential address in 1964, in which he proposed dating much of the J source of Genesis to the postexilic period, thus presaging the work of later critics who argued for late dates of Pentateuchal sources; R. C. Culley’s focus on narrative and poetic literary style; and P. C. Craigie’s studies on Ugarit, the prophets, and war. In addition, a number of Canadians have made their contributions to the study of the Hebrew Bible while residing in the United States, such as J. Van Seters who has written on comparative historiography and the Pentateuch; G. N. Knoppers who has researched both the Deuteronomistic History and the books of Chronicles; S. M. Olyan who has studied the cult and social inequality; and B. M. Levinson who has contributed to the understanding of biblical law. The quarter century of North American biblical scholarship from 1940 to c. 1968 thus saw considerable activity and innovation, and much of its results continued to thrive in the following period as well – so much so that its later echoes seem at times to be connected more to the later developments then to this period prior to 1968. Nonetheless, the year 1968 marked a dividing line, and the distinctive innovations that followed could scarcely have been anticipated in preceding periods.

4.3. The Period from 1968 to the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century As noted above in the discussion of the sociology of knowledge and scholarship in the Americas, momentous changes occurred in the 1960s and, particularly and symbolically, in 1968. Against the background of assassinations, the Civil Rights Movement, the war in Vietnam, student unrest, new musical forms, and progressive literary publications, scholarship in the humanities experienced a sea change, and biblical scholarship followed when it did not in fact lead some of these transformations. The Society of Biblical Literature altered its very way of functioning as it opened its doors to new ideas and new populations, resulting in a resurgent interest that was felt throughout the membership and the institution itself. Historical-critical methods gave way to a variety of novel methods, and underrepresented groups were encouraged to become scholars and contribute their own perspectives to the growing stock of critical approaches to the Bible. To be sure, many of the earlier methods and notions continued to be present, but the addition of new ways of thinking inevitably changed the landscape of scholarship.55 Most of these innovations did not stem exclusively from American scholars, as other chapters in the present volume indicate; here we call attention primarily to contributions that are, if not unique, then at least prominently advocated by scholars in the Western Hemisphere. One of the first new methods to draw on the cultural unrest was feminist hermeneutics. The women’s suffragette movement had begun in the mid-nineteenth century, and Stanton’s The Women’s Bible (1895–98) sought to promote the rights of women by drawing attention to the parts of the Bible that were especially problematic in their portrayal of women. In the early 1970s issues regarding the

55

The Postmodern Bible (G. Aichele e.a.; 1995) exhibits as well as advances these developments.

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views and status of women in the Hebrew Bible again came to the fore, as they did in disciplines such as literary studies, philosophy, sociology, legal studies, and political studies. One of the very first biblical scholars to publish on the subject was P. Trible, in her essay “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation”, and its programmatic statement anticipates issues that subsequent feminist scholars were to pursue, albeit often with different starting-points and conclusions: Let me not be misunderstood: I know that Hebrew literature comes from a male dominated society. I know that biblical religion is patriarchal, and I understand the adverse effects of that religion for women. I know also the dangers of eisegesis. Nevertheless, I affirm that the intentionality of biblical faith, as distinguished from a general description of biblical religion, is neither to create nor to perpetuate patriarchy but rather to function as salvation for both women and men. The Women’s Movement errs when it dismisses the Bible as inconsequential or condemns it as enslaving. In rejecting Scripture women ironically accept male chauvinistic interpretations and thereby capitulate to the very view they are protesting. But there is another way: to reread (not rewrite) the Bible without the blinders of Israelite men or of Paul, Barth, Bonhoeffer, and a host of others. The hermeneutical challenge is to translate biblical faith without sexism.56

In her article Trible calls special attention to the feminine imagery of YHWH in the Hebrew Bible, and comments on several key elements in Genesis 2–3, such as the generic rather than only a gender-exclusive meaning of ’aˉ daˉ m, the equality intended by the word “helper” (‘eˉzer), the independence and intelligence of the woman in the conversation with the snake in Genesis 3 in contrast with the man who is “belly-oriented”, … “passive, brutish, and inept”, and the nature of the curses not as mandates but as descriptions of an alienated and discordant state of being.57 She then comments on the liberating and affirming aspects in the Song of Songs, which depicts a strong woman and mutuality between the partners. Trible subsequently expanded this article to a widely read book, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, in which she examines several other examples: reh. em (“womb”) as metaphor, feminine images and YHWH, again on Genesis 2–3 and the Song of Songs, and finally the story of Ruth. Not all later feminist interpreters followed Trible in her effort to reinterpret the biblical text or find in it liberating dimensions for women; others took an approach closer to Stanton’s forceful repudiation of texts regarded as unacceptable or brutal depictions of women. On the whole, the years since the early 1970s have witnessed a wide array of feminist studies of biblical materials, an effort pursued in many different cultures now and not just by North American scholars. The historian G. Lerner sought the roots of patriarchy in early ancient Near Eastern times and maintained that it was socially constructed and that it should, therefore, be possible for “women and men to free their minds from patriarchal thought and practice and at last to build a world free of dominance and hierarchy, a world that is truly human”.58 Drawing on her archaeological work, C. L. Meyers directed attention away from the biblical text and to the everyday lives of ancient Israelite women, whom she found to be much more crucial contribu-

56 57 58

Trible, Depatriarchalizing (1973), 31. Ibid. 35–42. Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (1986), 229.

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tors to society than the male-dominated and elite-oriented texts of the Hebrew Bible would have us believe. R. J. Weems focused on the prophets’ use of specific metaphors, especially that of marriage, to argue that violence used in punishment in the Hebrew Bible can have severe after-effects: “Not only does the image of the promiscuous wife have the potential to reinforce violence against women. It also has the potential to exclude whole segments of the population from hearing and responding to the biblical message”, especially when as in Hosea 2 the husband rages brutally against his faithless wife, parallel to God’s punishing actions against Israel.59 And G. A. Yee includes other “wicked women” – Eve, the two sisters in Ezekiel 16 and 23, the foreign woman in Proverbs 7, as well as Gomer in Hosea – in her argument that “the focus on gender and the sexism embedded in the symbolizations of woman as evil masked sexism’s complex interlinkages with classism, racism, colonialism, heterosexism, and so forth”.60 Such studies of the status of women in ancient Israel as well as the portrayal of women in the Hebrew Bible and its ongoing effect on later readers will only proliferate in coming years. As the feminist movement was getting underway, a second distinctive method and emphasis emerged from Latin America. Until this point, biblical scholarship in this vast region received little notice as the Bible served mainly the spiritual needs of the wider population, and most written material about the Bible was largely didactic or devotional in nature. In 1971 G. Gutiérrez published Teología de la liberación (English translation in 1973, A Theology of Liberation). A Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest, Gutiérrez joined the wave of protest throughout the Latin American continent aimed at the gross inequality of wealth and power, and he along with numerous “revolutionary priests” targeted especially the long-running complicity of the Roman Catholic Church with the system backed by the political and economic elites. During the 1960s many bishops took a stand of resistance to the injustices, advocating publicly on behalf of the masses of poor and often risking personal harm to themselves. The 1968 conference of bishops at Medellín resulted in a statement expressing solidarity with the oppressed, criticism of the basis of the capitalistic system, affirmation of a more socialistic arrangement to reconcile justice with private ownership, and encouragement of grass-roots organizations of believers and justice workers. Liberation, thus, could assume a radical, revolutionary form, and Gutiérrez stressed the absolute necessity of the Church’s support of reform. He based his argument distinctly on traditions from the Hebrew Bible, in particular creation, exodus, covenant, and eschatological promises, but for him “the Exodus experience is paradigmatic”,61 a point elaborated later in the studies of Exodus by J. Pixley and J. S. Croatto. In a compelling interpretation of Job, Gutiérrez read the book in terms of the suffering of the poor, who constituted the majority of the Latin American population. Another significant study came from Mexican J. P. Miranda, who studied in Germany and Rome before returning to his home country to 59 60 61

Bible.

Weems, Battered Love (1995), 115–16, 45–52. Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve (2003), 164. Gutiérrez, Theology of Liberation (1973), 159; see 153–168 for his discussion of the Hebrew

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teach and work with the poor. His book Marx y la biblia: Crítica a la filosofía de la opresión (1971; English translation in 1974, Marx and the Bible) appeared the same year as that of Gutiérrez and drew much more heavily than the latter on the Hebrew Bible to make the point that to know Yahweh is to do justice. Other Latin American scholars have continued this direction in their own work.62 Liberation theology and liberation ethics have been appropriated from this context and inserted deliberately, though not always with full appreciation of its Latin American roots, in other justice movements and methods, including feminism, race and minority studies, critique of poverty, and ecology.63 The third method to emerge in the 1970s is the analysis of society, whether in the form of historical sociology, social history, historical anthropology, Marxist analysis, or other approaches. One of the first studies to appear was the article co-authored in 1976 by F. S. Frick and N. K. Gottwald, “The Social World of Ancient Israel”. After sketching the pedigree of the social studies of biblical materials – W. R. Smith, J. Wellhausen, M. Weber, the Social Gospel movement and the “Chicago School” (discussed above), form criticism, M. Noth, A. Causse, J. Pedersen, A. Alt, and W. F. Albright – they note the paucity of current work in this field and the general disregard for sociological analysis until just prior to their article.64 In this same period, in 1975, a continuing, collaborative group called The Social World of Ancient Israel began to meet in the Society of Biblical Literature, followed later by various other groups devoted to such analysis. This early call for new work on Israel’s society was answered in 1979 with the publication of Gottwald’s magnum opus, The Tribes of Yahweh. Focusing on the period 1250–1050 BCE, Gottwald scrutinized the textual records, Israel’s social units, the question of pastoral nomadism, socioeconomic morphemes, and the notion of tribe. Based in part on a proposal raised by G. E. Mendenhall, he argued that Israel arose as a peasant uprising against Canaanite city-states and that the peasants who then settled in the highland areas formed an egalitarian society to cope with their environmental, political, and economic circumstances. The Yahwistic religion, in his view, was a “societal ‘feedback’ servomechanism”. As much as the book was later criticized in certain circles, it more than any other single effort initiated a still-ongoing study of society through all of Israel’s history, not just during its early phase.65 Few studies now disregard the social context and social history, and they generally take into consideration the larger societal structure, not just an isolated setting. Two monograph series attending greatly to social history began in the 1990s, one primarily in the United States and the other in Europe: the Library of Ancient Israel (ed. D. A. Knight, published at Westminster John

62 See Aguilar, The History and Politics of Latin American Theology (2007/08); Andiñach, Liberation in Latin American Biblical Hermeneutics (2012); Pixley, Liberating the Bible (2012); and Schwantes, Das Recht der Armen (1977). A bibliography of Latin American and Caribbean publications on the Bible is now available online: Bibliografia Bíblica Latino-Americana. 63 For compilations of examples showing the influence of liberation theology, see Gottwald, The Bible and Liberation (1983); and Botta/Andiñach, The Bible and the Hermeneutics of Liberation (2009). 64 Gottwald’s The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours (1993) contains multiple additional sociological and sociohistorical studies by him. 65 For several review essays, see Boer, Tracking “The Tribes of Yahweh” (2002).

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Knox Press) and Biblische Enzyklopädie (ed. W. Dietrich and W. Stegemann, published at Verlag W. Kohlhammer and, in English translation, by the Society of Biblical Literature). The former is organized according to areas of study (e.g., societal organization, politics, religion, literacy, law, ethnicity, economics, material culture, leadership, canon formation), and the latter follows a chronological structure with each volume treating a separate period and juxtaposing the literary texts with the material, historical, and social evidence. The fourth method from this decade has its roots in the Presidential Address delivered by James Muilenburg at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in 1968 and published in 1969, “Form Criticism and Beyond”. Muilenburg acknowledged both the benefits and inadequacies of Hermann Gunkel’s form-critical method and then proposed a new turn to stylistics or aesthetic criticism or, to use his term, “rhetorical criticism”. His “canon”, as he called it, was this: “a responsible and proper articulation of the words in their linguistic patterns and in their precise formulations will reveal to us the texture and fabric of the writer’s thought, not only what it is that he thinks, but as he thinks it”.66 He then drew attention to a variety of compositional techniques in Hebrew narratives and poetry: repetitions, strophes, particles, rhetorical questions, keywords, and more. Yet as he stressed at the end of the article, his point was not to abandon or replace form criticism but to supplement it with more attention to a piece’s literary features. A flood of literary studies followed over the following years, many of them disregarding Muilenburg’s admonition that form criticism not be ignored. Often this new literary criticism (not to be confused with source criticism) was presented as an alternative to historical criticism, which was judged to be over-confident of its findings and distracting from the reader’s experience with the text. But in general this new appreciation of stylistic details led to a focus on not just what the text means but how it means. A student of Muilenburg, P. Trible laid out the methodological details in her Rhetorical Criticism, using the book of Jonah to illustrate her points. Canadian scholar R. C. Culley was especially influential with his various studies of narrative and oral traditions.67 An overview of all the books of the Bible in terms of their literary character, with articles by many scholars, is found in The Literary Guide to the Bible (1987), edited by R. Alter and F. Kermode. Discrimination and oppression along ethnic and racial lines have been a blight on the history of the Americas, and their impact has also reached biblical scholarship. Broadly, African American experience in the United States and elsewhere in the Americas began with forced relocation from Africa and centuries of enslavement. Later in the United States, Jim Crow laws inscribed a second-class status on African Americans along with Asian and Latino/a Americans by largely barring them from access to economic advancement, adequate education, and proper health care, and often even targeting them for incarceration. Each of these groups resisted repressive measures over the course of their histories; among the better known are the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the resistance ef66

Muilenburg, Form Criticism and Beyond (1969), 7. Culley, Oral Formulaic Language in the Biblical Psalms (1967); Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative (1976); and Exploring New Directions (1985), 168–180. 67

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forts led by Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Latin America and Cesar Chavez in California. The Bible has been an important influence in some of these struggles. As the biblical academy gradually lowered barriers to training, these groups brought distinctive interpretive modes to the guild. The importance of the Bible in African American religion and culture has been widely acknowledged but until recent times little studied.68 African American biblical scholars, however, have been scarcely present; by one count there were only nine holding doctorates in Hebrew Bible in 1991, and of them only two were women.69 The number of African Americans (i.e., those who self-identified as African Americans) has now increased to 4 percent of the total membership of the Society of Biblical Literature. In the years since the 1970s African American interpretation has also developed into both a critical method and a subject of study in its own rights. Growing out of the larger context of African American religious studies, a number of biblical scholars found common ground at conferences and meetings where they could collaborate in ways not possible when isolated in separate universities without a critical mass of similar colleagues, and they produced both anthologies and monographs on the basic task and method of the distinctive field of African American biblical interpretation, deliberately pursuing its own path apart from the course set by European antecedents. Stony the Road We Trod, edited by C. H. Felder, includes articles identifying the hermeneutical problems that African American scholars seek to address, including the presence of race and Africans in the Hebrew Bible. In Yet with a Steady Beat, edited by R. C. Bailey, eleven more authors continued the discussions with further treatments of specific texts as well as larger issues. In 2004 M. J. Brown devoted a monograph, Blackening of the Bible, to tracing the history of African American biblical scholarship, in the process helping to define the key subjects and approaches. The work of womanist scholars, R. J. Weems among them, has focused especially on the situation and perspectives of African American women. Finally, The Africana Bible, edited by H. R. Page, Jr., treats in separate chapters all the books of the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha as well as selected pseudepigraphic writings. The volume does not intend to be a typical commentary on the Bible; instead, each chapter highlights some critical issues in the respective biblical book and identifies parts that have been especially problematic for the African diaspora. This inclusion of the worldwide African diaspora, not just of African Americans, makes its contribution all the more significant. Biblical criticism by other marginalized groups has also resulted from the changes that occurred during the final third of the twentieth century. Beyond the African American criticism just mentioned, there has been interest in studying Asian American interpretations of the Bible, and an increasing number of Asian American scholars have published on the topic; one example is The Bible

68 For overviews, see Paris, The Bible and the Black Churches (1982); Callahan, The Talking Book (2006); and the extensive resource book edited by Wimbush, African Americans and the Bible (2000). 69 Bailey, Yet with a Steady Beat (2003), 1; Felder, Stony the Road We Trod (1991), 1; see also Bailey, Academic Biblical Interpretation (2000), including on p. 707 a list of 21 Hebrew Bible specialists as of the date of writing (ca. 2000). The number of African American scholars of the New Testament was only slightly higher.

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in Asian America, edited by T. B. Liew. Latino/a biblical criticism has also continued, rooted in the early liberation thought described above. Queer readings of the Bible have taken their place alongside other approaches, as evidenced in Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible, edited by K. Stone, and Bible Trouble, edited by T. J. Hornsby and K. Stone. Also in the discussion now are disability studies, which views physical disabilities in light of social and political and not just biological conditions; This Abled Body, edited by H. Avalos, S. J. Melcher, and J. Schipper, is one of several studies now bringing these considerations to biblical texts and methodological discussions. Other underrepresented groups have similarly emerged and claimed a place in the enterprise of biblical interpretation. It should not surprise, therefore, that the very subjects of “minorities”, “otherness”, and “marginalization” have acquired the status of problematics of their own, as is evident in the volumes Biblical Studies Alternatively: An Introductory Reader, edited by S. Scholz; and They Were All Together in One Place? Toward Minority Biblical Criticism, edited by R. C. Bailey, T. B. Liew, and F. F. Segovia. A further subject of interest is the study of ecology and the Bible. In a widely read article published in 1967, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”, L. White, Jr., addressed the question of humanity’s impact on the natural environment. He found the roots of the current ecologic crisis to be largely religious, in particular what he called the “orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature”, a posture he attributed not directly to the Bible but to the centuries of misinterpreting biblical traditions about creation and the world.70 Referencing White’s essay, G. M. Tucker delivered his Presidential Address to the SBL in 1996 (published in JBL in 1997) on the topic, calling upon biblical scholars to attend more to the question of the Bible’s understanding of the environment. The command in Gen 1:28 to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” can easily be misconstrued as legitimizing the exploitation of the earth, and Tucker demonstrated the problems with such a reading. For him, texts such as Job 38–39 and Psalm 104 underscore the limits of human power and knowledge as well as the wonders of nature and the distinctive place of humans in it.71 In the face of ongoing stress on the environment and further exploitation of natural resources, studies of this kind will likely increase in the future and should link with similar interests elsewhere in the world. Most of these new methods and approaches from the final third of the twentieth century in the Americas represent a shift away from the historical-critical methods basic to the long history of biblical scholarship. To a substantial extent they issue, whether directly or indirectly, from the cultural upheavals and challenges to authority during the 1960s and later, but just as important a factor has been the spread and upsurge of minorities and other underrepresented populations, including women. Such groups have, with good reason, been dissatisfied with the critical methods they inherited, and their response has taken two general forms: either an ideological-critical suspicion of past biblical studies and the biblical tradition itself or an effort to recover unheard voices in the text and in the cultural context. These two directions – the hermeneutic of suspicion and the 70 71

White, The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis (1967), 1207. See also Tucker, Ecological Approaches (2009).

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hermeneutic of recovery – are not discreet alternatives, and whether singly or combined they have provided biblical scholars in the Americas with the means to venture into previously uncharted terrain. They also represent the close ties American scholars have had with scholars elsewhere on the globe who apply the methods of postmodernism, ideological criticism, postcolonialism, cultural studies, and related approaches. The distinctive experiences of those living or rooted in the Americas has led to the distinctive contributions from these two continents to the ongoing course of international biblical scholarship.72

72 I express my gratitude to several colleagues who kindly read sections in this essay with which they had special familiarity: Annalisa Azzoni, James P. Byrd, Robert C. Culley, Gary N. Knoppers, Robert A. Kraft, John F. Kutsko, Herbert R. Marbury, Patrick D. Miller, Kent Harold Richards, Jack M. Sasson, Fernando F. Segovia, and Andrew G. Vaughn.

Chapter Thirty-five

Studies in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in Africa, Australia / New Zealand and Asia 35.1. The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Africa By Hendrik Bosman, Stellenbosch Bibliographies: K. Holter, Tropical Africa and the Old Testament: A Select and Annotated Bibliography (University of Oslo / Faculty of Theology: Bibliography Series 6; Oslo 1996). – G. LeMarquand, “A Bibliography of the Bible in Africa”, The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (eds. G. O. West/M. W. Dube; Leiden: Brill 2000), 639–800. Studies: S. O. Abegunde, A Philosophy and Method of Translating the Old Testament into Yoruba (PhD Diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville 1985). – S. O. Abogundrin, “Biblical Research in Africa: The Task ahead”, African Journal of Biblical Studies 1 (1986) 7–24. – D. T. Adamo, Explorations in African Biblical Studies (Eugene: Wipf & Stock 2001); Africa and Africans in the Old Testament. (Benin City: Justice Jeco Press 2005); idem (ed.), Biblical Interpretation in African Perspective (New York: UP of America 2006). – J. O. Akao, “Nigerian Association for Biblical Studies”, Bulletin for Old Testament Studies in Africa 8 (2000) 5–7. – C. G. Baeta (ed.), Christianity in Tropical Africa: Studies Presented and Discussed at the Seventh International Seminar, University of Ghana, April 1965 (Oxford: Oxford UP 1968). – H. L. Bosman, “Cartographers, Canons and Cuckoos – Historiography of the Study of the Old Testament”, Skrif en Kerk 14 No 2 (1993)134–145. – J. J. Burden, “Are Shem and Ham Blood Brothers? The Relevance of the Old Testament to Africa”, Old Testament Essays 1 (1983), 49–72. – D. Chidester, “Dreaming in the Contact Zone: Zulu Dreams, Visions and Religion in Nineteenth Century South Africa”, JAAR 76 (2008) 27–53. – R. W. Cowley, Ethiopian Biblical Interpretation: A Study in Exegetical Tradition and Hermeneutics (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1988). – K. A. Dickson, “The Old Testament and African Theology”, Ghana Bulletin of Theology 4 (1973) 31–41; “Continuity and discontinuity between the Old Testament and African life and thought”, in: K. Appiah-Kubi / S. Torres (eds.), African Theology en route (New York: Orbis 1979), 95–108. – K. A. Dickson / P. Ellingworth, Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs (London: Lutterworth Press 1969). – J. A. Draper, “The Bible as Poison Onion, Icon and Oracle: Reception of the Printed Sacred Text in Oral and Residual-oral South Africa”, Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 112 (2002) 39–56. – M. Dube, “Post-Colonial Interpretations”, DBI K-Z (ed. J. H. Hayes; Nashville: Abingdon Press 1999), 299–309. – J.-M. Ela, “A Black African Perspective: An African Reading of Exodus”, Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World (ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah; Maryknoll: Orbis 1991), 256–266. – E. M. Ezeogu, “Bible and Culture in African Christianity”, International Review of Mission 87 (1998) 25–38. – E. Farisani, “The Ideologically Biased Used of Ezra-Nehemiah in a Quest for an African Theology of Reconstruction”, Old Testament Essays 15 (2002) 628–646. – D. Fiensy, “Using the Nuer culture of Africa in Understanding the Old Testament”, JSOT 38 (1987) 73–83. – P. Gifford, “The Bible in Africa: A Novel Use in Africa’s New Churches”, Bulletin of SOAS 71 (2008) 203–219. – C. T. Gilkes, “Colonialism and the Biblical Revolution in Africa”, The Journal of Religious Thought 41 (1985) 59–75. – F. W. Golka, The Leopard’s Spots: Biblical and African Wisdom in Proverbs (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1993). – Paulos Mar Gregorios, “Coptic Orthodox Church”, EncChr 1, A – D (ed. E. Fahlbusch e.a., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1999). – I. Himbaza, Transmettre la Bible: Une Critique exegetique de la traduction de l’AT: Le cas du Rwanda (Rome: Urbaniana UP 2001); “La recherche

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scientifique et la contextualization de la Bible”, Bulletin for Old Testament Studies in Africa 13 (2002) 2–7. – K. Holter, Contextualized Old Testament Scholarship in Africa (Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2008). – P. Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity. Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford UP 2006). – A. Kabasele Mukenge, “Association Panafricaine de Exegetes Catholiques”, Bulletin for Old Testament Studies in Africa 8 (2000) 3– 5. – O. Kalu, African Pentacostalism. An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford UP 2008). – L. Kalugila, The Wise King: Studies in Royal Wisdom as Divine Revelation in the Old Testament and its Environment (CB.OT 15; Lund: Gleerup 1980). – L. P. Kimilike, Poverty in the Book of Proverbs: An African Transformational Hermeneutic of Proverbs on Poverty (Bible and Theology in Africa, 7; New York: Peter Lang 2007). – H. W. Kimoti / J. M. Waliggo, The Bible in African Christianity: Essays in Biblical Theology (Nairobi: Acton Publishers). – J. H. Le Roux, A Story of Two Ways. Thirty years of Old Testament Scholarship in South Africa (Pretoria: Verba Vitae 1993). – T. S. Maluleke, “African Culture, African Intellectuals and the White Academy in South Africa – Some Implications for Christian Theology in Africa”, Religion and Theology 3 (1996) 19–42. – E. Martey, African Theology. Inculturation and Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis 1993). – M. Masenya, How Worthy Is the Woman of Worth? Rereading Proverbs 31:10–31 in Africa – South Africa (Bible and Theology in Africa, 4; New York: Peter Lang (2004)). – M. Masoga, “How Indigenous Is the Bible? Challenges Facing 21st Century South African Biblical Scholarship”, Journal for Semitics 13 (2004) 139–158. – J. S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Nairobi: Heineman 1969); Bible and Theology in African Christianity (Nairobi: Oxford UP 1992). – Mikre-Sellassie Gebre-Amanuel, “The Bible and its Canon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church”, BiTr 44/1 (1993) 111–123. – A. O. Mojola, “The Social Sciences and the Study of the Old Testament: Some Methodological Considerations”, Interpreting the Old Testament in Africa (ed. M. N. Getui e.a.; Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2001), 89–99; “Bible Translation in Africa. What Implications does the New UBS Perspective Have on Africa?”, Bible Translation in Africa (ed. J. Naude e.a.; Bloemfontein: Acta Theologica Supplementum 2, 2002), 202–213. – I. J. Mosala, Biblical Hermeneutics and Black Theology in South Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1989). – J. N. K. Mugambi, African Christian Theology: An Introduction (Nairobi: Heineman 1989). – N. A. Mundele, Bildsprache und mündliche Tradition in Deuterojesaja: Zur Exegese von Jes 42:6–7 aus afrikanischer Perspektive (EHS 23, 764; Frankfurt: Peter Lang (2003)). – E. Mveng / R. Z. Werblowsky (eds.), The Jerusalem Congress on Black Africa and the Bible (Jerusalem: Anti-Defamation Leugue of B’nai B’rit 1972). – N. I. Ndiokwere, Prophecy and Revolution: The Role of Prophets in the Independent African Churches and in Biblical Tradition (London: Acton Publishers 1981). – E. G. Newing, “A study of Old and New Testament Curricula in Eastern and Central Africa”, Africa Theological Journal 3 (1970) 80–98. – B. A. Ntreh, “Ghana Association of Biblical Exegetes”, Bulletin for Old Testament Studies in Africa 11 (2001) 21–22. – P. Nyende, “Institutional and Popular Interpretations of the Bible in Africa: Towards an Integration”, ET 119 (2007) 59–66. – T. C. Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind. Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (Downer’s Grove: IVP Books 2007). – M. Oduyoye, The Sons of the Gods and the Daughters of Men: An Afro-Asiatic interpretation of Genesis 1–11 (Ibadan: Daystar Press/Maryknoll: Orbis 1984). – K. Owan, “The Fundamentalist’s Interpretation of the Bible: A Challenge to Biblical Exegetes in West Africa”, West African Journal of Ecclesial Studies 5 (1993) 1–15. – J. Parrat, Reinventing Christianity. African Theology Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1995). – J. Platvoet / H. J. van Rinsum, “Is Africa Incurably Religious?: Confessing and Contesting an Invention”, Exchange: Journal of Missiological and Ecumenical Research 32/2 (2003) 123–153. – J. Punt, “Reading the Bible in Africa: Accounting for Some Trends. Further Prolegomena for a Discussion”, Scriptura 71 (1999) 313–329. – R. Rorty, “The historiography of philosophy: four genres”, in: R. Rorty / J. B. Schneewind / Q. Skinner (eds.), Philosophy in History. Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1984), 49–75. – F. F. Segovia, “Biblical Criticism and Postcolonial Studies: Toward a Postcolonial Optic”, in: R. S. Sugirtharajah (ed.), The Bible and Postcolonialism (Sheffield: Academic Press 1998), 49–65. – S. S. Simbandumwe, A Socio-religious and Political Analysis of the Judeo-Christian Concept of Prophetism and Modern Bakongo and Zulu African Prophet Movements (African Studies, 28; Lewiston/New York: Edwin Mellen Press (1992)). – P. Tempels, Bantu Philosophy (Paris: Presence Africaine 1959). – J. S. Ukpong, “Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Modern Africa”, Missionalia 27 (1999) 313–319. – F. von Hammerstein (ed.), Christian-Jewish Relations in Ecumenical Perspective, with Special Emphasis on Africa (Geneva: World Council of Churches 1978). – H. W. Waweru, “Reading the Bible Contrapuntally: A Theory and Methodology for a Contextual Bible Interpretation in Africa”, Swedish Missiological Themes 94 (2006) 333–348. – G. O. West, Biblical Hermeneutics of

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Liberation: Modes of Reading the Bible in the South African Context (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications 1991). – G. O. West / M. W. Dube, The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (Leiden: Brill 2000). – G. O. West, “Doing Postcolonial Biblical Intepretation @Home: Ten Years of (South) African Ambivalence”, Neotestamentica 42.1 (2008) 147–164. – J. J. Williams, Hebrewisms of West Africa: From Nile to Niger with the Jews (London: Allen & Unwin 1930). – H. De Wit e.a., African and European Readers of the Bible in Dialogue: in Quest of a Shared Meaning (Leiden: Brill 2008). – E. M. Yamauchi, Africa and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2004). – G. L. Yorke, “Biblical Hermeneutics: An Afrocentric Perspective”, Religion and Theology 2 (1995) 145–158. – V. Zinkuratire, “Association for Biblical Scholarship in Eastern Africa”, Bulletin for Old Testament Studies in Africa 8 (2000) 9–10. – E. Zulu, An Ngoni Assessment of the Roles of Ancestors within Israelite Wordviews and Religion in Genesis 11–50. (Unpublished DTh dissertation, University of Stellenbosch, 1998).

1. Introduction The historiographer of the study of the Bible in Africa must not fall into the trap of functioning as a cartographer of the “progress” of Biblical interpretation from the “dark ages” of colonialism to the “enlightenment” of the postcolonial era during the past century; or to use a historical survey of Biblical scholarship to establish a reputable canon of predecessors that undergird his / her position; nor to become an academic cuckoo who is unable to produce anything original and therefore uses other colleagues to hatch a survey of scholarship.1 Any historiography of an academic discipline must do without honorific hagiographies of illustrious scholarly ancestors and rather aim to establish different and competing canons of scholarship that inculcate a sense of historical contingency and critical self-awareness.2 A survey of Biblical scholarship in Africa must realize that with about one billion people living on more than 30 million sq km and subdivided into 54 states, this continent is the second most populous and second largest continent after Asia. Though generalizations are inevitable, the sheer size of Africa cautions one not to use terms like “African” without giving it proper thought.3 Without resorting to fanciful etymological word games, “Africa” can be traced back to the Roman province of which Carthage was the capital. In this contribution “Africa” is a geographical concept that refers to a landmass stretching for 8000 km from Ras ben Sakka in the North (Tunisia) to Cape Agulhas in the South (South Africa); from Ras Hafun in the East (Somalia) to Cape Verde in the West (a distance of about 7400 km).4 Besides it huge size Africa is also known for its diversity – according to UNESCO around 2000 languages are spoken in this most multilingual continent of all.

1

Bosman, Cartographers, canons and cuckoos, 134–145. Rorty, The historiography of philosophy (1984), 49–75. 3 Mugambi, African Christian Theology (1989), 3 f. 4 When one reflects on Africa, the adjacent large island of Madagascar (Malagasy Republic) must also be taken into account – not only due to its geographical proximity but also because of its cultural and historical continuity with the continent of Africa. 2

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The history of Africa is pockmarked by slave trade and colonialism: for the past 1300 years the Arab slave trade was responsible for taking about 18 million African slaves, while the European slave trade took about 12 million from the fifteenth century onwards. Besides slavery one should also consider colonialism as the main cause that Africa is today the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continent with 80% of its population living on less than $2.50 per day resulting in endemic poverty. Africans and Native Americans share a popular saying that reflects on the impact of colonialism: “When the white man came, he had the Bible and we had the land; now we have the Bible and they have the land”.5 Africa is a continent of stark contrasts which makes the interpretation of the Bible a daunting challenge. Despite its mind numbing poverty and rampant HIV / AIDS, Africa is also widely regarded as the cradle of humanity with the discovery of hominid remains dating back millions of years. Africa is also the continent on which Christianity has grown the fastest during the past century.

2. Contexts of Biblical Interpretation in Africa 2.1. Bible Translation Over many centuries Africa has been the site of many important Bible translations, to mention but a few: the Septuagint, the Old Latin translation, as well as the Coptic (Sahidic and Bohairic versions) and Ethiopian (Ge’ez) versions of the Old Testament. This contribution will focus on the last two centuries. On the one hand Christian mission was closely linked with colonialism and imperialism, but on the other hand the history of Christian mission in Africa is intimately intertwined with the history of Bible translation. For more than 700 African languages at least one book of the Bible has been translated and there are complete translations in about 160 languages. Currently there are no less than 170 Bible translation projects in African languages that indicate that many new African readers will soon have access to the Old Testament in their own language.6 As Ph. Jenkins remarked: “Once the Bible is in a vernacular, it becomes the property of that people. It becomes a Yoruba Bible…a Zulu Bible…”.7 Since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s an era of interconfessional Bible translation was introduced with Bible translation teams comprising of Catholic and Protestant members – by and large done by native speakers with limited non-native participation.8 In the past many translators worked from English or French Bibles, but a growing number of African translators are now making use of the Hebrew and Greek source texts.9 The presence of native speakers in translation teams across the continent has addressed the problem of so many older 5 6 7 8 9

Gilkes, Colonialism and Biblical Revolution in Africa (1985), 62. http://www.ubs-translations.org/about_us/ Jenkins, The new faces of Christianity (2006), 24–25. Mojola, Bible translation in Africa (2002), 204–205. Ibid. 207.

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African Bible translations that are literal in nature. These older translations are revered by the readers but reflect the grammatical and syntactical structures of the English and French or only in a few cases the Hebrew and Greek source texts. Idiomatic vernacular translations based on the Hebrew and Greek source texts are high on the agenda for the twenty-first century. Several Old Testament scholars have made valuable contributions with regard to Bible translation in African languages: Solomon Abegunde criticized the existing Yoruba translation of the Old Testament (a literal translation of the English King James version) and has suggested a new dynamic equivalent translation in which the cultural and linguistic parallels between Biblical Hebrew and Yoruba are made use of.10 Innocent Himbaza focused on the relationship between biblical text and translation context by making use of two Rwandan translations. In a fascinating monograph he points out the influence of English and French translations on the Rwandan translations and how the target translations convey the Hebrew source text in a way sensitive to Rwandan traditional culture.11

2.2. Theological Colleges, Seminaries and Faculties The oldest centre for theological training in sub-Saharan Africa is Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone that was founded in 1826 to train African assistants for missionaries from Britain.12 As far as theological seminaries are concerned, the Stellenbosch theological seminary started by the Dutch Reformed Church in 1859 can be considered to be first in sub-Saharan Africa. During the colonization of Africa south of the Sahara very few institutions of tertiary education were established and this inhibited the scientific study of the Old Testament. In 1960, just before many African colonies became independent, only fifteen universities were in existence – a mere six north of South Africa. Since political independence swept across the African continent, scores of universities were established, many with departments of Religious studies that focused on religion in general and not on the Bible in particular. In a survey of Old Testament studies in East and Central Africa during the late nineteen sixties E. Newing established that higher criticism was used in most institutions; that the vast minority offered modules in Biblical Hebrew and that the tuition of Old Testament was not all that relevant for Theology as a whole or for the cultural, political, and socio-economical context of a country in particular.13 Almost forty years later P. Nyende attempted to examine how the Bible was interpreted in African theological institutions, churches and homes and his conclusions echo to a remarkable degree what Newing had already established: “institutional interpretations of the Bible in Africa are done historical-critically but with the aim of relating the outcome of the interpretation to some African context or reality. As a

10 11 12 13

Abegunde, A philosophy and method of translating the Old Testament in Yoruba. Himbaza, Transmettre la Bible (2001). Holter, Contextualized Old Testament Scholarship in Africa (2008), 90. Newing, A study of Old Testament curricula in Eastern and Central Africa (1970), 80–98.

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result, we could say that what guides the study of the Bible in these institutions is the relevancy, applicability or usefulness of the text in Africa today”.14 Most African Old Testament scholars are not allowed the same extent of disciplinary specialization that their colleagues in the Northern hemisphere have. In departments of Religion and Theology across Africa scholars with doctorates in Old Testament are held responsible for many other teaching responsibilities – ranging from Biblical Hebrew to Science of Religion.

2.3. Theological Journals Initially African academic articles on the Old Testament were published in journals of religious studies, like Orita in Nigeria as well as the Journal of Religion in Africa published in the Netherlands – both from 1967. There are also journals of a more general theological focus, like the African Ecclesial Review (1959) the Catholic journal from East Africa, the Lutheran African Theological Journal from 1968 in Tanzania and the Ghana Bulletin of Theology from 1969, as well as African Christian Studies from 1984. One should also take note of the first journal for biblical studies published in Tropical Africa, the African Journal for Biblical Studies from 1986 by the Nigerian Association for Biblical Studies.15 In South Africa several journals publish research from all theological disciplines, including the Old Testament: Hervormde Teologiese Studies (1943); Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif (1959); In die Skriflig (1966); Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (1972); Scriptura (1980); Acta Theologica (1980); Religion and Theology (it started in 1967 as Theologia Evangelica and changed title in 1994); Journal for Contextual Theology (1998); Verbum et Ecclesia (initially as Skrif en Kerk from 1980 and with its current name from 2001). In 1995 the Journal of Constructive Theology started and eventually focused on Gender, Religion, Theology and the interpretation of the Bible. The only South African journal concentrating on Old Testament research is Old Testament Essays from 1983; while the Journal for Northwest Semitic Languages (1971) and Semitica (2000) have a more general focus on Semitic languages. Special mention must be made of the remarkable networking done amongst Africa Old Testament scholars by K. Holter from Stavanger, Norway, who took the initiative to establish at first a Newsletter on African Old Testament Scholarship that eventually became Bulletin for Old Testament Studies in Africa (currently an online journal).

2.4. Academic Organizations and Societies The first academic organization established for the study of the Old Testament on the African continent was the “Old Testament Society of South Africa” that

14 15

Nyende, Institutional and popular interpretations of the Bible in Africa (2007), 61. Holter, Contextualized Old Testament Scholarship (2008), 98, 106.

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was founded in December of 1957.16 Historical criticism took several decades before it became common practice by scholars like Ferdinand Deist and his students who did not shy away from acknowledging the historical divide between ancient text and current reader, but who also grappled with the realities embedded in the present-day African context in a diachronic manner. From the 1970’s a more immanent or synchronic approach to the Old Testament was developed by W. Prinsloo, J. Loader and their students. These scholars focused on the rigorous reading of the final form of the Old Testament’s Hebrew text and this exegetical methodology became acceptable to many theological students who entered the ministry because it did not lead to the critical alienation of the biblical text.17 To the north of South Africa the organization of the academic study of the Old Testament was initiated by several academic conferences in the 1960’s: “Christianity in Tropical Africa” in 1965 in Ghana and “Biblical revelation and African beliefs” in Nigeria in 1966.18 Although the focus of both conferences was on the development of “a theology that was related to African thought, ideas and life”, specific mention was made of the need to stimulate “Africanized biblical scholarship”.19 This was followed in the 1970’s by two international conferences in Jerusalem that focused on biblical scholarship and the African context: “The Jerusalem Congress on Black Africa and the Bible” in 1972 and “Christian-Jewish relations in Ecumenical Perspective with Special Emphasis on Africa” in 1977.20 Academic networking with regard to the study of the Old Testament in Africa took a significant step forward with the establishment of organizations focused on biblical studies. The first and thus far only pan-African organization for biblical scholarship was established in 1984 as the “Pan-African Association of Catholic Exegetes” (PACE) with the explicit aim of promoting contextual biblical scholarship in the African Roman Catholic Church by means of conferences every two years as well as the publication of its conference papers.21 On a more regional level the Nigerian Association for Biblical Studies (NABIS) was founded in 1985 and it set out to promote contextual biblical research in Africa by holding annual conferences that stimulated the study of the Bible from an African perspective. S. Abogunrin, J. Akao and D. Adamo have played a leading and constructive role to provide a scholarly platform for Old Testament studies relevant to Africa.22 In 2000 the Association for Biblical Scholarship in Eastern Africa was established as well as the Ghana Association for Biblical Exegetes.23

16

Le Roux, A Story of two Ways (1993), 11. Ibid. 350–353. Baeta (ed.), Christianity in Tropical Africa (1968); Dickson/Ellingworth (eds.), Biblical Revelation and African Beliefs (1969). 19 Holter, Contextualized Old Testament Scholarship (2008), 95. 20 Mveng/Werblowsky (eds.), The Jerusalem Congress on Black Africa and the Bible (1972); von Hammerstein (ed.), Christian – Jewish Relations in Ecumenical Perspective (1978). 21 Kabasele Mukenge, Association Panafricaine des Exegetes Catholiques (2000), 3–5. 22 Abogunrin, Biblical research in Africa (1986), 7–24; Akao, Nigerian Association for Biblical Studies (2000), 5–7; Adamo, Explorations in African Biblical Studies (2001). 23 Zinkuratire, Association for Biblical Scholarship in Eastern Africa (2000), 9–10; Ntreh, Ghana Association of Biblical Exegetes (2001), 21–22. 17 18

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2.5. Ecclesial Contexts The interpretation of the Old Testament in Africa seldom strives to understand the biblical text for its own sake or due to idle scholarly curiosity. In most instances African Old Testament scholarship is explicitly contextual and even confessional in nature and thus the ecclesial contexts are important for the comprehension of biblical scholarship on the African continent. One of the oldest but also most neglected ecclesial contexts in Africa is the Coptic Church in Egypt that preserves biblical interpretation in its rich hymnody that is rooted in the Patristic period. As a minority religion in Egypt (ca. 10m out of 80m) the Coptic Church has a long history of martyrdom and suffering and this has caused that the hymn about the suffering of the friends of Daniel in the fiery furnace became the most beloved item in their modern hymn book.24 Biblical interpretation is nurtured in several institutions in Egypt: two seminaries in Alexandria and Cairo, as well as the Higher Institute of Coptic Studies that was established in 1954.25 The many references to Egypt in the Old Testament play an important role in the Coptic tradition and current experiences of oppression are related to texts with judgment on the politics and religion of the pharaohs (e.g. Ezekiel 29–30).26 Related to the Coptic Church is another of the few pre-colonial churches in Africa, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Although the church was established in the fourth century it only gained autonomy from the Coptic Church in 1948 and in contrast to the Coptic Church constitutes the majority religion in Ethiopia. The biblical canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church consists of no less than 81 books, including Enoch, Jubilees and the three books of the Meqabyan (Ethiopic Maccabees).27 When an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian experiences problems or afflictions, a whole hierarchy of angelic messengers and saints is available to convey the prayers to God resembling the apocalyptic sections of their larger than usual Old Testament. The Old Testament also influenced the architecture of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church since in the inner sanctum of any church the “tabot” or ark dedicated to the patron saint of that particular church can be found.28 Besides the reading of Scripture during the weekly services, the commemoration of several holy days entail prolonged singing, dancing and feasting reminiscent of Old Testament festivals. In contrast to the religious feasts much emphasis is placed on fasting, as part of the commemoration of significant past events mentioned in Scripture – one of the more interesting Old Testament examples is the “fast of Nineveh” during the third week before Lent in remembrance of the preaching of Jonah. To summarize: the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has much in common with Orthodox Judaism by following dietary laws similar to 24

Jenkins, New Faces of Christianity (2006), 32. Paulos Mar Gregorios, Coptic Orthodox Church, EncChr 1 (1999), 687. 26 Holter, Contextualized Old Testament Scholarship (2008), 89. Information about Coptic Old Testament interpretation has been difficult to access, but in many ways overlaps with the following discussion of Ethiopian Orthodox hermeneutics. 27 Mikre-Sellassie Gebre-Amanuel, The Bible and its Canon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (1993), 111–123. 28 The presence of a “tabot” or ark in every church is related to the claim of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church that the original Ark of the Covenant is kept in Church of the Lady Mary of Zion. 25

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Jewish Kashrut (prohibition of pork and strict rules with regard to the slaughter of animals); separating the seating of men and women in church and all worshippers are required to remove their shoes when entering the church (in view of Exod 3:5 when Moses had remove his shoes while viewing the burning bush). There are obvious similarities between exegesis in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the ancient Antiochene tradition that accepted the literal historicity of the Bible with no questions posed with regard to the historicity of events in the Bible. Teachers of the Bible recite the traditional interpretation (andemm) from memory and expect their students to memorize the recited interpretation and therefore little is committed to paper with an obvious dependence on oral tradition.29 One must not loose sight of one of the fastest growing ecclesial contexts in Africa, i.e. African Pentecostalism that is often linked with prosperity theology. According to Ogbu Kalu prosperity theology emphasizes “that God’s promised generosity, as demonstrated with Abraham, is available for every believing Christian…As the covenant was a legal contract, so is the promise part of a spiritual contract”.30 The Old Testament also plays a major role in the Pentecostalistic explanation of poverty: religious apostasy tops the list and is illustrated by not keeping the Sabbath; the neglect of cultic requirements in the Old Testament and the failure to tithe; but poverty is seen as the direct result of laziness, drunkenness and a wasteful life style – in many ways echoing the Old Testament perspectives in this regard.31 P. Gifford has found that the Bible in the fast-growing Pentecostal sector of African Christianity is not perceived as a historical text but is accepted as a contemporary document of God’s commitment to the present with the emphasis on achievement, hope and success. This performative and declarative use of the Bible should not be considered to be “fundamentalist” because although the Bible is assumed to be “inerrant” it focuses on the promises to individuals and not on historical or scientific claims like the exodus or evolution.32 Besides considering the contexts provided by so-called mainline churches, one must also take into account the African Independent Churches (also referred to as African Initiated Churches) where the interpretation of the Bible is closely interwoven with healing ministries.

3. Approaches to Biblical Interpretation in Africa 3.1. Surveys of Existing Approaches Ch. Townsend Gilkes distinguishes three phases in what she considers to be the biblical revolution as a response to colonialism in Africa: (a) The reception and

29

Cowley, Ethiopian Biblical Interpretation (1988), 373–382. Kalu, African Pentecostalism (2008), 255. 31 Kalu, ibid. 257–266, summarizes African Pentacostalism’s hermeneutics as developing from an initial rigid literalism to emphasizing the immediacy of the Old Testament text as well as the freedom to interpret according the experiential, relational and emotional aspects of the interpreter. 32 Gifford, The Bible in Africa: A novel use in Africa’s new churches (2008), 203, 214. 30

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appropriation of the Bible without any significant critique of colonialism; (b) the questioning of colonialism by African communities due to the contradictions between missionary preaching and the stark realities of colonialism; (c) the impact of African hermeneutics combined with the appropriation of biblical criticism to work towards an authentic African Theology.33 J. Mbiti identified three areas in which African theology and its interpretation of the Bible can be subdivided: (a) A written theology which is the result of the educated elite who articulate their interpretation of the Bible not in a local vernacular but in English, French or German – it entails the primary focus of this contribution; (b) an oral theology which is produced in African languages and that can be discerned in prayers, sermons and songs – this is probably the seedbed of written theology and deserves much more academic attention; (c) symbolic theology that manifests in art, dance, rituals and symbols – an area that invites creative interdisciplinary research.34 The influential Nigerian scholar, J. Ukpong, has made a useful distinction between three phases in African Old Testament scholarship: (a) In an early reactive phase (1930’s – 1970’s) comparative studies legitimized African culture and religion in relation to western scholarship; (b) in the following reactive – proactive phase (1970’s – 1990’s) African contexts were used as resources for the interpretation of the Bible; (c) subse-quently a third pro-active phase emerged that made the African context the explicit subject and focus of biblical interpretation.35 Another well known Nigerian scholar, D. Adamo, also divides the historical development of Old Testament interpretation in Africa in three periods: (a) From 1930–1969 colonialism was the pervasive presence on the African continent during which so-called Western exegetical methodology became the norm and little attention was given to the research and teaching of African indigenous religion and culture; (b) in the period 1970–1989 African biblical studies emerged that gave much more appreciative attention to the influence exerted by African culture and experience on the process of the interpretation of the Bible; (c) from 1990 onwards African biblical scholarship became characterized by the use of comparative approaches to the interpretation of the Bible as well as appreciation for the contribution of so-called “ordinary readers” for the understanding of the biblical text.36 The following threefold division between pre-modern, modern and post-modern approaches to the interpretation of the Old Testament in Africa must not be seen as three consecutive stages in chronological order, since they can co-exist within the same period of time and within the same cultural or geographical setting. (i) Pre-modern approaches are closely linked with the pre-critical interpretation of the Old Testament that constituted an almost seamless continuation of the initial missionary biblical interpretation that was characterized by a theologically

33

Gilkes, Colonialism and Biblical Revolution (1985), 63. Mbiti, Bible and Theology in African Christianity (1986), 46–47. 35 Ukpong, Developments in biblical interpretation in modern Africa (1999), 313–329. This important article was published with minor variations in other journals (Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 2000, 3–18) and collected essays (West/Dube, The Bible in Africa, 2000, 11–28). 36 Adamo, Biblical Interpretation in African Perspective (2006). 34

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conservative and evangelical approach. At the same time a pre-critical (which is not synonymous with uncritical) continuity develops between traditional African religions and the seemingly familiar Old Testament. (ii) Modern approaches resonate with the more critical interpretation of the Old Testament that resulted in the quest for an African Theology undergirded by critical biblical exegetical strategies. Reading strategies for the Old Testament now became based on critical interpretive models like historical criticism. Readers of the Old Testament who were trained in the Northern Hemisphere were expected to be objective, decontextualized and impartial readers of texts, toeing the methodological line determined by the guild of Old Testament scholars. (iii) Post-modern approaches are slowly emerging where the cultural diversity of the African continent is taken seriously and therefore attempting to articulate authentic African interpretations of the Old Testament that make sense in local contexts and that do not aspire to be equally valid in all cultural contexts on the African continent. Therefore the reception of flesh-and-blood African readers of the Old Testament entail taking serious cognizance of their local social locations without aspiring to be relevant for the African continent as a whole.37 These local readings of the Old Testament are usually liberative in nature striving towards constructive theological discourse that allows diversity and pluralism, emphasizing human dignity for those in the centre and in the margins of society, allowing critical dialogue for those in asymmetrical power relations.

3.2. Pre-modern and Pre-critical Approaches Although the Old Testament has been studied in North Africa for two millennia, the focus of this survey is on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The scholarly engagement of the Old Testament by ancient scholars from Africa like Origen and Augustine has already been discussed in previous volumes of the HBOT. Several scholars have detected a remarkable resonance between African Christians and the Old Testament and the reasons suggested for this phenomenon are: (a) a common appreciation of life as a whole and that religion and the Bible addresses life as an indivisible entity;38 (b) the Old Testament focus on the widow, the orphan and the poor is very attractive for African societies suffering economic hardship during both the colonial and postcolonial periods;39 (c) the emphasis on legal instruction (torah) in the Old Testament was encouraged by the theologically conservative missionaries and according to some scholars Africans seemed to have “a natural penchant” for this attitude.40 37

Segovia, Biblical Criticism and Postcolonial Studies (1998), 49–51. Tempels, Bantu philosophy (1959), influenced many subsequent studies with his view that for the Bantu people of Africa everything is focused on a so-called principle of life force that permeates the whole of a human being. 39 Burden, Are Shem and Ham Blood Brothers? (1983), 57–59, links the solidarity with the afflicted with the sense of community in both Africa and the Old Testament. Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy (1969), 108, summarized the importance of community as follows: “I am because we are”. 40 Dickson, Continuity and discontinuity between the Old Testament and African life and thought (1979), 97–98. One of the earliest studies done in this regard was by Williams, Hebrewisms of West 38

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During the colonial period in Africa several issues were at stake in the interpretation of the Old Testament.41 Some of these issues were: Can indigenous perceptions of a Supreme Being (like uNkulunkulu or the “Great-Great-One” for the Zulu) be related to Yahweh or Elohim in the Old Testament?42 The role of ancestors were also controversial because it is often difficult to distinguish between worship and adoration as well as to appreciate a more extensive understanding of family – a deceased family member maintains a presence that has to be respected and questions arose as to what implications the Old Testament references to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (all venerable ancestors) have for the appreciation of ancestors?43 During the past century world views prevalent in many African cultures still accept the presence of benevolent spirits and malevolent demons similar to what is considered to be pre-modern in Europe or North America. Against this background the interpretation of the Old Testament is often combined with a concern for healing, both physical and spiritual. In close conjunction with the African worldviews one must also keep in mind that colonialism contributed to a “decline in standards of living, health and mortality” and this made biblical promises of healing and wholeness of being all the more appealing.44 The Bible is also used as a sacred object that requires no interpretation but whose physical presence is enough to ward off evil spirits, sorcery and witchcraft. Thus the Bible is kept under pillows at night or taken in handbags when travelling to provide protection and ensure safety.45 Any reflection on the role of the Old Testament in Africa should not presuppose a literate majority. In most cases, up the present, the Old Testament is more “heard” than “read” in Africa and thus the influence of the Old Testament as oral tradition must also be taken into account. The Old Testament does not function primarily as a printed text in Africa because the biblical text is the starting point for the oral performance of the Bible when it is read as part of a sermon, or sang aloud (often while dancing) or prayed during healing ceremonies. In oral format the Old Testament is related to the everyday realities of African communities by means of repetition and elaborative additions.46 According to Jenkins the most popular passages in the Old Testament “are those that most closely recall their or-

Africa (1930), who claimed to have found parallels (based on questionable comparative methodology) between the Ashanti in Ghana and the so-called Hebraic culture with regard to language, religious customs like circumcision and blood sacrifice, as well as jurisprudence in matters related to marriage and purification. These similarities were identified after a highly speculative reconstruction of Jewish migration into Africa. 41 In this regard one is reminded by the generalizations about African cultures that they are pervasively religious and that they were not introduced to religion and the experience of supreme beings by missionaries or colonial administrators. Platvoet/van Rinsum, Is Africa Incurably Religious? (2003), 123–153. 42 Chidester, Dreaming in the Contact Zone (2008), 41–44. 43 Zulu, An Ngoni assessment of the role of ancestors (1998). 44 Gilkes, Colonialism and Biblical Revolution (1985), 65. 45 Jenkins, New Faces of Christianity (2006), 37. 46 J. A. Draper, “Confessional Western Text-Centered Biblical Interpretation and an Oral or Residual – Oral context”, Semeia 59–77.

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igins in oral transmission, the stories and parables, hymns and wisdom literature, psalms and proverbs”.47 One should, however, also be very circumspect in the way that pre-modern approaches to biblical interpretation are related to pre-critical interpretations of the Old Testament. One example will have to suffice to illustrate that pre-critical does not imply uncritical: during the writing of John W. Colenso’s critical work on The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined in 1862, he was challenged by critical questions posed by his assistant William Ngidi when reading about the unlikely co-existence of animals (antelopes and carnivores) in Noah’s ark.48 In his analyses of popular interpretations of the Bible in Africa P. Nyende argues that these interpretations are conducted for the sake of the appropriation of the Bible in the lives of the readers. He suggests that there are at least three different ways of effecting this appropriation of the Bible: a) by means of allegory, typology and symbolism biblical texts are understood to represent something else; b) themes are commonly picked out of a text of the Bible and applied to the life of the audience after some amplification and illustration; c) a passage of the Bible is read in a literal manner with scant regard for the literary and historical context of the text in question, but drawing on the religious convictions and cultural assumptions of the interpreter.49

3.3. Modern and Critical Approaches When describing modern approaches to the study of the Old Testament in Africa, one is confronted with the thorny and sensitive issue whether South African scholarship can be incorporated in the survey. Up to the 1980’s influential scholars like John Mbiti (1986) was of the opinion that white South African biblical scholarship was “still European” and “closed to the realities of African presence”; therefore he did not include “this strand of Christianity” in his discussion of the Bible in African Christianity.50 Itumeleng Mosala is a good example of a critical approach to Biblical Studies as an academic discipline and to the Bible itself. He critiques the exegetical point of departure found in most Black Theology – the Bible as the revealed Word of God. The Bible provides glimpses of the liberation of the oppressed despite the fact that it was written by the oppressor. Therefore Black Theology must be informed by both the Bible and African history and culture to the extent that it provides an indication of class struggle and resistance against oppression.51

47

Jenkins, New Faces of Christianity (2006), 30. Ibid. 178–179. Nyende, Interpretations of the Bible in Africa (2007), 61–62. 50 Mbiti, Bible and Theology (1992), 17–18. Maluleke and Nadar (2004), 16, argue that studies by white male scholars of black scholarship amount to “fake” academic discourse that serves as a “pretext for the exoneration of White and male guilt”. 51 Mosala, Biblical Hermeneutics and Black Theology (1989). G. O. West, Biblical Hermeneutics of Liberation: Modes of Reading the Bible in the South African Context (Pietermaritzburg, Cluster 48 49

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In the first decade of the twenty-first century some tension is still experienced between a compliance with northern hemisphere biblical scholarship (diachronic historical criticism from Germany and the Netherlands as well as more synchronic literary criticism from North America) and a growing willingness to be held accountable by social, economical and political realities of communities across Africa. Despite legitimate concerns in the past the presence of an emerging concerned Old Testament scholarship in South Africa led to the decision to include it in the current survey.52 It is very difficult to pigeon hole African scholarship in different categories or periods of time because in some instances contributions overlap – one example will be given where the article incorporates critical as well as post-critical elements. In a short but stimulating contribution Humphrey Mwangi Waweru draws upon the work of Edward Said who used the musical metaphor of “contrapuntalism” to describe the connection of disparate practices of culture, empire, history and the present. According to Waweru a contrapuntal reading of the Bible must give priority to the context of the reader; establish a critical distance between the reader and the situational context of the reader as well as the context of the Bible, while maintaining an “emic” position as reader within the community of faith.53

3.4. Post-modern and Post-critical Approaches Musa Dube succeeded in developing an impressive postcolonial feminist interpretation of the Bible that was firmly embedded in liberation hermeneutics due to her observation that a certain interpretation of the Bible facilitated imperialism and therefore require postcolonial critique.54 A word of caution came from Gerald West who does not dismiss Postcolonial discourse but argues for cautious appropriation that forms part of a “countermovement” or a “new gospel of the future”.55 It is ironical that the modern emphasis on the Old Testament as a written text has been transformed by pervasive oral cultures all over Africa. The cultural appropriation or inculturation of the Bible in Africa has predominantly been oral in nature and might yet prove to be the most significant development for the future influence and importance of the Old Testament in Africa.56 In the ongoing debate about the relationship between African culture and the Bible, it has been suggested that the real Old Testament in Africa is the traditional religion (myths, legends and stories) and folk wisdom (idioms, proverbs and wise Publications 1991) also made a creative and critical contribution by rooting his biblical interpretation in the struggle for liberation. 52 Oden, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind (2007), 69, suggests that “if a text was written in Africa it will be treated as African. That is a simple and straightforward criterion, much clearer than speculations about ethnicity or pigment as decisive criterion for Africanness”. 53 Waweru, Reading the Bible contrapuntally (2006), 334–348. 54 Dube, Post-Colonial Interpretations (1999), 299–309. 55 West, Doing Postcolonial Biblical Intepretation (2008), 147–164. 56 Draper, The Bible as Poison Onion, Icon and Oracle (2002), 39–56.

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sayings) that has prepared African communities to embrace Christianity and the Bible.57 The impact of “modernity, individualism, privatization and the rise of a scientific worldview” has been taken into account in theories about secularization that anticipate a decline in the influence of the Bible and the religion in general.58 These secularization models have been successful in Western Europe but inadequate in the United States – the jury is still out on how it will explain the emerging post-modern trends in the African interpretation of the Old Testament. Perhaps one should also take into account what effect the massive process of urbanization across Africa will have on the interpretation of the Old Testament with its current abundance of rural and agricultural metaphors that will become increasingly incomprehensible for the well educated urban elite.

4. Prospects of Biblical Interpretation in Africa Despite the risk prophets have to run making predictions about the future, the following tentative prospects for Biblical interpretation in Africa are suggested: The interface between academic and popular interpretations of the Old Testament will remain an important concern for most African members of the guild of Biblical scholarship. This inevitable emphasis on reception, however valid, cannot afford any blanket disdain for matters related to the critical investigation of the text as a literary and as a historical phenomenon. There is much room for the critical engagement by biblical scholars who want to explore the contested spaces created by diverging modes of scholarship. Old Testament scholarship in Africa should not aspire to establish one common method in biblical interpretation but rather to develop models of interpretation that reflect cultural and religious diversity and make sense to local interpretive communities. Political correctness should not lull African biblical scholarship into a complacent rejection of any dissenting voices. Many a disastrous socio-economical and political experiment was allowed to come into fruition in Africa with little significant challenges forthcoming from critically engaged biblical scholarship. In the past cultural concerns dominated biblical scholarship in East and West Africa, while socio-economic problems were of prime concern in Southern Africa. One dangerous form of political correctness in the interpretation of the Old Testament is “Afrocentric exaggeration” that claims that African Theology “became normative for all aspects of ancient ecumenical Christianity” without engaging with these sources in a critical and constructive manner.59 Except for the

57 Jenkins, New Faces of Christianity (2006), 58–59. Gifford, The Bible in Africa (2008), 203, contends that African theology revolve around two poles: the rehabilitation of African culture and religion and the critique of the western impact on Africa. 58 Jenkins, New Faces of Christianity (2006), 187–188. 59 Oden, How Africa shaped the Christian Mind (2007), 76–77. Yamauchi, Africa and the Bible (2004), rejects any Eurocentric approach that disallows an African presence in the Bible and he also

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Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches the majority of African Christians have very little knowledge or interest in the “early African patristic intellectual heritage” and the best way to access this heritage is “through their profound understandings of Scripture texts”.60 Amidst a diversity of societies in Africa, patriarchy in different shapes and sizes has disallowed a strong female voice in African Old Testament scholarship. This under-representation of women as students and scholars is in stark contrast to the overwhelming majority of women sitting in the pews of churches across the African continent. In conclusion: In various academic disciplines writing about Africa has been burdened with pessimistic and formulaic representations about a continent bogged down in a supposed quagmire of disease, poverty, superstition and an endemic lack of academic infrastructure and endeavor. Africa, however, is the continent where Christianity grows the fastest and where the Bible still has a special place in worship. Time will tell whether interpretive communities in Africa will succeed to create interpretations of Scripture that address the wholeness of live from the perspective of a wholeness of being – an ability that has been lost in many other parts of the globe where academic specialization and a fragmentation of being have taken its toll. May this contribution perform the function of a cuckoo – laying an egg in the nest of others, but reminding a global community that a spring is taking place across Africa where the Old Testament is read and lived.

rejects certain Afrocentric biblical interpretations that assume that all Africans were black and that everything of value originated in Africa. 60 Oden, ibid. 82.

Chapter Thirty-five

Studies in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in Africa, Australia / New Zealand and Asia 35.2. The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Twentieth Century Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand By Mark A. O’Brien, Melbourne General works: R. Abba, The Nature and Authority of the Bible (Cambridge, James Clarke 1958). – V. Buckley, “Intellectuals”, Australian Civilisation (ed. P. Coleman; Melbourne: F. W. Chesire 1962), 89–104. – R. Banks, “Fifty Years of Theology in Australia, 1915–1965, Part Two”, Colloquium 9.2 (May 1977) 7–16. – I. Breward, A History of the Australian Churches (St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin 1993); Grace and Truth. A History of Theological Hall, Knox College, Dunedin, 1876–1975 (Theological Education Committee; Dunedin: Presbyterian Church of New Zealand 1975); A History of the Churches in Australasia (Oxford History of the Christian Church; ed. H. and O. Chadwick; Oxford: Oxford UP 2001). – B. Chant, “Wesleyan Revivalism and the Rise of Australian Pentecostalism”, Reviving Australia: Essays on the History and Experience of Revival and Revivalism in Australian Christianity (ed. M. Hutchinson / S. Piggin; Sydney: Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity 1994), 97–122. – A. C. Dixon e.a. (eds.), The Fundamentals: a Testimony to the Truth (Chicago: Testimony Publishing Company 1910–1915). – B. R. Doyle, Biblical Studies in Australia. A Catholic Contribution. A Short Survey and Bibliography (Melbourne: David Lovell Publishing 1990). – J. England e.a. (eds.), Asian Christian Theologies: A Research Guide to Authors, Movements, Sources, 1. Asia Region 7th – 20th Centuries; South Asia; Austral Asia (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2002–2004). – J. Harris, “Anglicanism and Indigenous Peoples”, Anglicanism in Australia. A History (ed. B. Kaye; Melbourne: Melbourne UP 2002), 223–246. – G. Hebert, Fundamentalism and the Church of God (London: SCM 1957). – H. Jackson, “Religious Ideas and Practice in Australian Congregationalism 1870–1930: Part I, Part II”, Journal of Religious History 12,1–4 (1982–83) 266–286, 438–444. – G. C. Jenks (ed.), Directory of Graduate Studies and Research in Theology and Religion. Australian and New Zealand Institutions, 6. (ed. ANZSTS; Brisbane 1996). – S. Liberman, A Bibliography of Australian Judaica (2nd rev. edn. by L. Gallou; Mandelbaum Trust and the University of Sydney Library 1991). – J. N. Molony, The Roman Mould of the Australian Catholic Church (Melbourne UP 1969). – S. Piggin, Evangelical Christianity in Australia. Spirit, Word and World (Oxford UP 1996). – J. Stenhouse, “Science Versus Religion in Nineteenth Century New Zealand: Robert Stout and Social Darwinism”, Pacifica 2.1 (1989) 61–86. Special Studies: F. I. Andersen / D. N. Freedman, Hosea (AB 24; New York: Doubleday 1980); Amos (AB 24A; New York: Doubleday 1989); Micah (AB 24E; New York: Doubleday 2000). – M. E. Andrew / J. J. Stamm, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research (Studies in Biblical Theology, 2nd ser. 2; London: SCM 1967); M. E. Andrew, The Old Testament and New Zealand Theology (Dunedin: Faculty of Theology, Otago University 1982); Responding in Community: Reforming Religion in Aotearoa New Zealand (Dunedin: Faculty of Theology, Otago University 1990); The Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand (Wellington: Distance Education Formation and Training Unit [DEFT] 1999). – J. Binney, Redemption Songs. A Life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki (Auckland UP 1995). – R. Boer, Jameson and Jeroboam (Semeia Studies; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1996); Novel Histories. The Fiction of Biblical Criticism (Playing the Texts 2; Sheffield: Sheffield

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Academic Press 1997); Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Biblical Limits; London: Routledge 1999). – S. Boorer, The Promise of the Land as Oath: A Key to the Formation of the Pentateuch (BZAW 205; New York: de Gruyter 1992). – M. G. Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis? The Impact of the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1991); idem (ed.), Ethnicity and the Bible (Leiden: Brill 1996); Genesis: Procreation and the Politics of Identity (London: Routledge 2000). – A. F. Campbell, The Ark Narrative (1 Sam 4–6; 2 Sam 6): A Form-critical and Traditiohistorical Study (SBLDS 16; Missoula: Scholars 1975); Of Prophets and Kings: A Late Ninth-Century Document (1 Samuel 1–2 Kings 10) (CBQMS 17; Washington: The Catholic Biblical Association of America 1986); idem / M. A. O’Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1993); Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History. Origins, Upgrades, Present Text (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000). – K. W. Carley, The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (CBC; London: Cambridge UP 1974); Ezekiel Among the Prophets: A Study of Ezekiel’s Place in Prophetic Tradition (London: SCM, 1975); “Prophets Old and New”, Prophets of Melanesia: Six Essays (ed. G. W. Trompf; Port Moresby: The Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies 1977), 238– 266. – E. W. Conrad, Reading Isaiah (Overtures to Biblical Theology 27; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1991); Zechariah (Readings, a new Biblical Commentary; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1999). – W. J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: A Theology of Old Testament Covenants (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House 1984). – B. Elsmore, Like Them That Dream: The Maori and the Old Testament (Tauranga: Moana Press 1985); Mana from Heaven: A Century of Maori Prophets in New Zealand (Auckland: Reed 1999). – N. C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM 1985); The Land is Mine – Six Biblical Land Ideologies (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995). – A. Harper, The Book of Deuteronomy (The Expositor’s Bible; London: Hodder and Stoughton 1895). – J. Havea, “The future stands between here and there: towards islandic hermeneutics”, The Pacific Journal of Theology, Ser. II No. 13 (1995) 61–68; “Shifting the boundaries: house of God and the politics of reading”, The Pacific Journal of Theology, Ser. II No. 16 (1996) 55–71. – T. Hayden, “The Primitive History in Genesis”, ACR 12 [old series] (1906) 470–482. – J. Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book of Jeremiah MT (Biblical Interpretation Series 40; Leiden: Brill 1999). – G. A. F. Knight, A Christian Theology of the Old Testament (London: SCM 1959); Ruth and Jonah: Introduction and Commentary (London: SCM 1950); Deutero-Isaiah: A Theological Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (Nashville: Abingdon 1965); idem (ed.), International Theological Commentary (Edinburgh / Grand Rapids: Handsell and Eerdmans). – J. J. Lewis, Koru and Covenant: Reflections on Hebrew and Maori Spirituality in Aotearoa (Orewa: Colcom Press 1995). – J. J. Lias, The Principles of Biblical Criticism (London: Eyre & Spottiswode 1893); “The Authorship of the Pentateuch”, The Churchman 11 (1897) 1–9, 177–184; 12 (1898) 68– 75, 169–175, 345–356; 13 (1898–99) 57–67, 292–298, 393–401, 513–522, 626–634. – J. E. McKinlay, Gendering Wisdom the Host: Biblical Invitations to Eat and Drink (JSOTSup 216; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996). – T. Muraoka, Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew (Hebrew University: Magnes Press 1985); Melbourne Symposium on Septuagint Lexicography (ed. T. Muraoka; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1990). – M. A. O’Brien, The Deuteronomistic History Hypothesis: A Reassessment (OBO 92; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989). – Rainbow Spirit Elders, Rainbow Spirit Theology: Towards an Aboriginal Theology (Blackburn: Harper Collins 1998); The Rainbow Spirit in Creation: A Reading of Genesis 1 (J. Corowa, artist; N. Habel, translator and editor for the Rainbow Spirit Elders; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 2000). – H. Ranston, The Old Testament Wisdom Books and their Teaching (London: Epworth 1930). – J. T. E. Renner, Hosea (Chi Rho Commentary; Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House 1979); Psalms (Chi Rho Commentary; Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House 1980); Genesis (Chi Rho Commentary; Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House 1984); Jeremiah (Chi Rho Commentary; Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House 1989). – J. J. Scullion, Genesis: A Commentary for Students, Teachers and Preachers (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1992); Isaiah 40–66 (Old Testament Message: Wilmington: M. Glazier 1982). – T. J. Smith, Studies in Criticism and Revelation (London: Epworth 1925). – J. A. Thompson, Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries; London: IVF 1974); The Book of Jeremiah (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1980). – R. J. Thompson, Penitence and Sacrifice in Early Israel (Leiden: Brill 1963); Moses and the Law in a Century of Criticism since Graf (Leiden: Brill 1970). – H. N. Wallace, The Eden Narrative (HSM 32; Atlanta GA: Scholars Press 1985). – D. J. Wynn-Williams, The State of the Pentateuch: A Comparison of the Approaches of M. Noth and E. Blum (BZAW 249; New York: Gruyter 1997).

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1. Introduction The story of twentieth century Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Wirkungsgeschichte in Australia and New Zealand, as with other elements in their respective histories, revolves around three key factors. Both were colonies of the British Empire, both developed into independent multi-cultural societies, both have indigenous populations that posed and continue to pose considerable challenges. These factors contributed significantly to the environment in which a majority of Christian and a minority of Jewish settlers sought to plant their different Bibles – with their different canons, different translations and, it hardly needs to be said, different interpretations. As the immigrant population of each country grew, these denominations and their differences came into contact with each other, and at times conflict. They also came into contact with the indigenous population, bringing them their Bibles and their faiths. The traffic was not all one way; indigenous peoples, their cultures, languages and religions have had their own impact on the immigrant population and their understanding of the Bible. As these differing ingredients were stirred in the melting pot of history, one can discern in both countries three key stages vis-à-vis the proclamation and reception of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. The indigenous peoples were initially displaced and sometimes destroyed to make way for the newcomers. Various Christian churches carried out missionary work among the remainder who reacted to the Bible (as presented) with a mixture of curiosity, acceptance or resistance. In time the newcomers became established and began to think of themselves as ‘indigenous’, though of course in quite a different way to the original inhabitants. An integral part of their self-understanding was the Bible as it had been ‘planted’ in these new lands. When ‘higher criticism’ arrived on the scene as an outsider, the now well-established churches reacted with a mixture of curiosity, acceptance, resistance and even hostility. But in time they were ‘colonized’ by the outsider to a greater or lesser degree. As the century unfolded, theological colleges belonging to an increasing number of the churches taught and promoted the new methods of Bible study. This in turn had an impact on the churches. In the third and most recent stage, the indigenous peoples of both countries have returned from the fringes to which they had been banished or fled and are beginning to ‘colonize’ or have an impact on the rest of the population. Indigenous Bible study is challenging the churches to examine the history of Bible proclamation in both countries – how much was it mired in the empirical colonial agenda, how accurate or distorted was the understanding of the Bible presented to indigenous people, how can it be authentically presented in countries that are multi-cultural and in which a significant component of that multi-culturalism is a resurgent indigenous culture? This sketch may give the impression that the history of both countries is pretty much the same; a fortiori the history of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in both is also the same. Australians and New Zealanders would be quick to assert that this is not the case. They would also point to the following basic differences that have helped to shape the particular history of each country. To begin with, the countries are vastly different geographically. New Zealand comprises principally two geologically young, mountainous, well-watered and

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fertile islands whereas Australia is the oldest, smallest, flattest and driest inhabited continent on earth. They also have strikingly different indigenous peoples. It is estimated that at the time of British occupation Aborigines had been in Australia for up to 60,000 years; they were spread out over a continental land mass in relatively small tribes, each speaking versions of a family of languages that differ from each other as much as Indo-European languages. By comparison the Maori of New Zealand were themselves relative new comers (11–13th century), they were concentrated mainly in the north island, they were more closely united by language and, despite rivalries and differences, were able to mount an effective coalition against the British that resulted in the treaty of Waitangi (1840). No treaty was ever negotiated with Aborigines. A third notable difference is that Australia began as a penal colony with a significant proportion of its convicts being Irish Catholics. The Celts were also well represented in New Zealand but they were mainly Presbyterian settlers from Scotland – New Zealand was never a penal colony. Although Anglicanism was the major denomination in each country, the different Celtic mix has played a significant role in ecclesiastical, missionary and scholarly affairs. A fourth difference is that, partly because of its barren interior, Australia by the late nineteenth century was already a highly urbanised society, the two main cities being Melbourne and Sydney. In contrast, ‘New Zealand was a collection of isolated coastal towns and small cities’ and this shaped the development of church life and scholarship.1 The story of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in Australia and New Zealand falls into three recognisable periods. The first reaches from the turn of the nineteenth century to eve of the First World War. In many ways the early twentieth century was still part of the nineteenth century world. The second embraces the wars and post-war years: so from 1914 to around 1960. The third stage opens with the turbulent 1960’s and runs to the end of the century. An article length study cannot do justice to all the different factors that shaped twentieth century Hebrew Bible / Old Testament study in Australia and New Zealand; it can only examine the more significant ones.

2. Up to the First World War of 1914–1918 A snapshot of the Christian scene in Australia and New Zealand at the end of the nineteenth century shows the more dominant churches with well-established theological colleges, qualified staff, libraries, and a student body – a local version of the European original. The Protestant denominations provided the majority of these institutions. Within Australia, the main ones for the Anglican Church (the largest confessional body) were Moore Theological College in Sydney (founded in 1856 following the closure of an earlier St. James College), Trinity Theological College in Melbourne (1878), St Barnabas’ College in Adelaide (1881) and Brisbane Theological College (1897). For the evangelical or dissenting churches the

1

Cf. Breward, A History of the Churches in Australasia (2001), 97.

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respective colleges were the College of Victoria, Melbourne (1862) and Camden College, Sydney (1864) being Congregationalist; Theological Hall, Melbourne (1865) and Sydney (1873) being Presbyterian; further, Queen’s College, Melbourne, 1888 (Methodist); Whitley College, Melbourne, 1891 and Morling College, Sydney, 1916 (Baptist); College of the Bible, Melbourne, 1897 (Churches of Christ); Avondale College, Sydney, 1898 (Seventh Day Adventist); Concordia College, Victoria 1892; Immanuel College, Adelaide 1923 (Lutheran); Officer Training College, Sydney, 1883 (Salvation Army). Unlike Europe and the United States, universities in Australia were secular by charter and so did not teach theology or religious studies; this was part of the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, churches were able to establish residential colleges for university students on or near university campuses. These became the sites for theological centres where ministers for the respective churches undertook their studies. Trinity Theological College became part of the already established Trinity College at Melbourne University, Moore College moved to Sydney University, the Presbyterian Theological Halls to Ormond College (Melbourne University) and St. Andrew’s College (Sydney University) respectively. Other cities experienced similar developments somewhat later. The ministerial candidates of these various churches could pursue secular courses at university but there were no theological degrees available. Partly for this reason the General Synod of the Anglican Church established the Australian Council of Theology (ACT) in 1891, an examining body that granted awards that were recognised within the international Anglican communion. A similar development took place in New Zealand. G. Selwyn, first Anglican bishop of Auckland, founded the college of St. John the Evangelist in 1843 for the training of clergy; this was well before Auckland University in 1883. The Presbyterians established Knox Theological Hall in 1876 in the southern city of Dunedin partly because the University of Otago did not provide theological education. In 1909 the hall relocated to the new Knox residential college on the university campus. Selwyn College opened in 1893 as an Anglican theological hall of residence and the first university hostel at Otago. These theological colleges are important for the course of Biblical studies in Australia and New Zealand on two counts. One is that they had staff (though few) that came from overseas or had been trained there and were well informed about current debates in the field of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament.2 Prominent among these were historical critical analysis, exemplified in the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis for the composition of the Pentateuch, the impact of evolution and science on the biblical accounts of creation, and the inerrancy and authority of the Bible. The second is that the man in the pew tended to see his church as a chip off the old block, one of the more solid signs in a new land of continuity with the mother country. New ideas about the Bible could be unsettling for this sense of solidity and continuity. Although the ideas debated were imported, the nature of the debate in the colonies took on quite a local colour. 2 A notable exception to this traffic into Australia and New Zealand was the Australian Jewish scholar Joseph Jacobs who spent most of his academic life in the United Kingdom and from 1900 was revising editor of the Jewish Encylopedia.

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An illustrative example was the 1890’s dispute between T. J. Smith, A. Harper and J. L. Rentoul, all members of the faculty of Theological Hall, Ormond College, Melbourne. Smith attacked Harper and Rentoul over their support of the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis.3 Unlike the universities, Australia at that time did not have scholarly journals in theology or Biblical studies, or learned societies. This, plus the importance of the sermon or address in the Protestant tradition, may explain why debates in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Australia often found their way into newspapers, journals and pamphlets which were readily available to the wider public. Melbourne, the leading antipodean city of the day, had a vigorous print media and a well-read public. While Smith, Harper and Rentoul in Melbourne were generating quite a lively debate, it does not seem to have engaged colleagues in Sydney. J. J. Lias of Moore College, for example, was at this time publishing a series of scholarly articles against the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis in an English journal – The Churchman – presumably because there was no scholarly equivalent in Australia. Lias accepted the possibility of later additions to a text but he was adamant that the Pentateuch could not be divided among four late authors, “a Jehovist, an Elohist, a Deuteronomist and a priestly writer”.4 The respective stances of these scholars mark a line that runs through the history of Protestant Christianity in Australia and has at times caused considerable tension; the difference between a more ‘liberal’ view of the Bible and a more strictly evangelical view. Even though there are exceptions it would be true to say that Trinity and Ormond Colleges in Melbourne have tended to promote the more liberal approach whereas Sydney’s Moore College was and remains staunchly evangelical. In relation to this it is significant that Ridley College, a rival Anglican college to Trinity, was established in 1910 in Melbourne to provide some evangelical ‘balance’. Protestant scholars in New Zealand experienced similar debates and challenges to established views of the Bible. A particularly significant case is the one between R. Stout, who became Premier of the country, and scholars such as W. Salmond, first professor of Divinity at Knox Theological Hall. Stout championed a version of Darwinism to dismiss the Bible’s view of creation and humanity in favour of an evolutionary view in which the civilised and progressive Europeans were destined to displace and replace the Maori (and any others judged ‘unfit’ for progress). The real agenda was appropriation of Maori land (similar arguments were mounted in Australia). Salmond was in principle not against evolution but argued that Genesis taught the unity and equality of the human race. The Maori were just as capable of taking their place in the modern world as any other races.5

3 Harper gained international recognition for a critical commentary on The Book of Deuteronomy (1895). Smith later published his more conservative line of thought in: Studies in Criticism and Revelation (1925). 4 Lias, The Authorship of the Pentateuch, The Churchman 11 (1897), 1–9, 177–184; 12 (1898) 68–75, 169–175, 345–356; 13 (1898–99) 57–67, 292–298, 393–401, 513–522, 626–634. The quotation is from p. 75 of vol. 12. Lias had earlier published The Principles of Biblical Criticism (1893). 5 For a study of the debate see Stenhouse, Science Versus Religion in Nineteenth Century New Zealand (1989), 61–86.

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An area in which New Zealand was significantly different to Australia was the way the Maori interpreted the story of Israel in relation to their own situation; their suffering at the hands of invaders, exile from their own land, the hope of a Messiah like king who would come and bring peace between themselves and the ‘Pakeha’ (white people).6 A number of Maori leaders cast themselves in the mould of biblical prophets and founded communities (churches) that combined traditional Maori and Christian symbols and rituals.7 Here we have clear examples of Wirkungsgeschichte, the Bible being received, studied and applied in ways that transformed elements of Maori society–not always in ways that pleased Pakeha Christians. In contrast, the missions among Aborigines struggled against distance, neglect, misunderstandings and the decimation of the population from European diseases. As a result a parallel experience to that of the Maori has only been possible for Aborigines in more recent times. The separation of church and state took a quite different turn within the Roman Catholic Church. Although St. John’s was established at Sydney University in 1857 as a residential college for Catholic students, it never took on the dual role of its Protestant equivalents, educating both university and theological students. Roman Catholic clergy received their formation and their legitimacy in the church by fulfilling Vatican requirements. Vatican policy sought to shape the clergy in new ‘missionary’ lands such as Australia and New Zealand firmly in the Roman mould. After some earlier attempts and considerable negotiation the policy bore enduring fruit with the opening of St. Patrick’s seminary in 1889 at Manly.8 It was about as far from the university as one could get in Sydney in those days. A Melbourne equivalent, Corpus Christi seminary, was founded in 1923 at Werribee, well away from the city and university. In New Zealand Holy Cross College was founded in 1900 at Mosgiel, again outside the city (Dunedin). The establishment of seminaries ‘outside’ cities says something about how the Catholic Church saw itself in relation to societies dominated, in its eyes, by Protestant Churches. It looked to Rome as its source and centre and not to the British Empire. In Australia, this Roman mould was combined with a predominantly Irish congregation that had its own issues with both Protestants and the empire. At the turn of the century, Sydney’s first cardinal, the Irishman Patrick Moran, could not resist a dig at the perceived divisions and discomfort that ‘higher criticism’ was causing Protestant Churches. [I]n the pursuits of higher criticism, gifted men who hold exalted positions in the Anglican church or are prominent for learning among the various Nonconformist sectaries, have practically undermined the popular reverence for the Bible, and sweptaway its authority, and further, that Protestantism admitted that the Bible, as a whole, could not be defended, but only selected passages of it.9

6

Cf. Breward, Churches in Australasia (2001), 144–154. One of the most fascinating was Te Kooti (died 1893) who compiled 2 diaries, numerous letters and hymns and employed three secretaries (cf. Binney, Redemption Songs [1995]). 8 For a study of Vatican policy in relation to Australia see Molony, The Roman Mould of the Australian Catholic Church (1969). 9 “Cardinal Moran and the Bible”, Southern Cross 19 (8) n.s. (23 Feb. 1900), 213. 7

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For a Catholic like Moran, the papal Syllabus of Errors (1864) and the subsequent anti-modernistic encyclical Lamentabili (1907) had exposed the erroneous nature of higher criticism. An early lecturer at St. Patrick’s seminary, Rev. T. Hayden, published an article on the book of Genesis utilising critical biblical analysis and was obliged to defend himself.10 The more strictly evangelical stream in the Protestant Churches shared something of the Catholic Church’s anxieties about the influence of Modernism. Australia became a federation of states in 1901 and New Zealand was granted dominion in the same year. The theological colleges of the various churches were no doubt keen to make their contribution to these new nations. In relation to Hebrew Bible / Old Testament studies, the Protestant Churches were clearly in the forefront. Critical analysis of the Bible was taking place and being debated. There were conflicts and divisions but, in the main, the churches in Australia avoided the deep divisions that occurred in America. Unlike America however, they lacked university status and recognition for their courses. Because of this and perhaps spurred on by federation momentum the Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Methodist Churches sought a theological faculty at Melbourne University. The negotiations were presided over by the Anglican Archbishop Clarke. Instead, what the churches got in 1910 was the Melbourne College of Divinity (MCD), a degree granting body (rather like the ACT referred to above) established by a separate act of parliament. It had to be funded by the churches, but its awards enjoyed tertiary status in Australia and the United Kingdom. The MCD marked a stage in the cooperation of these three evangelical churches that would reach a high point in their eventually forming the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977.

3. War Years and Post-war Years: 1914–1960 Not surprisingly, the First World War diverted attention and resources away from pursuit of the theological disciplines. Enrolments in theological colleges in both countries dwindled and a number of staff went off to become military chaplains. One might have expected a post-war surge in scholarship but, in Australia at least, this does not appear to have been the case. I. Breward’s more general comment can be taken to include the situation in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament study: “Though a number of theological books were published in Australia between 1920 and 1945, they lacked depth, and added little to the churches’ message to the nation”.11 Within the Protestant Churches, pre-war fault lines between liberal and evangelical approaches to the Bible reappeared. These differences were no doubt a factor in the failure of church union in the 1920’s and the very public spat between the liberal New Testament professor at St. Andrew’s theological hall, Samuel Angus, and his adversaries. At the 1922 Victorian Methodist Conference there was a proposal to remove Peake’s Commentary on the Bible from the 10 11

See Hayden, The Primitive History in Genesis (1906), 470–482. Breward, Churches in Australasia (2001), 250.

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reading list at Queen’s College because of its (moderate) use of critical methods. Professor A. Albiston at Queen’s College was able to convince the conference otherwise and the venerable commentary remained on the list. Nevertheless, in the judgement of Breward, the liberal-evangelical differences in Australia and New Zealand, though at times sharp, never experienced the bitter conflicts that occurred in America.12 In general, one could say that Melbourne continued to represent the more liberal wing of Biblical and theological scholarship, whereas Sydney maintained the evangelical stream. But there were notable exceptions, in particular the group of Harper (who had moved from Melbourne to Sydney), Angus, A. H. Garnsey, K. Edward, and G. W. Thatcher who formed what was known as the Heretics’ Club. Thatcher, principal of Camden College and an expert in Semitic languages, was involved in the compilation of what became the standard Hebrew-English Dictionary (Brown, Driver, Briggs). The post-war period saw cross fertilisation between Australia and New Zealand. The professor of Old Testament studies at Knox, S. F. Hunter, was Scottish by birth and an Australian citizen who studied at Glasgow. He edited the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia with J. Orr; he also contributed to the Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society. At St. John’s in Auckland, H. Ranston published The Old Testament Wisdom Books and their Teaching.13 Another Old Testament professor at Knox during this period, J. Cumming, commenced studies in England but gained his doctorate from Melbourne (MCD). In a sense he marked the end of an era, being one of the last pupils of A. B. Davidson (1831–1902) under whom most Presbyterian Hebrew Bible / Old Testament scholars throughout the British Empire had studied.14 Within the Catholic Church the period from 1900 to 1942 is well summed up by B. R. Doyle as “the dark ages of biblical studies”.15 As already noted, the anti-modernist stance of the papacy had effectively ruled out critical biblical analysis for Catholic scholars. Some, such as Rev. F. Bennett of Holy Cross College turned to apologetics, engaging in a lengthy and lively newspaper debate with Hunter of Knox College over the status of the Bible. Perhaps the most significant development, in relation to Hebrew Bible / Old Testament studies in the post-war period, was the formation of Bible Colleges in the evangelical mould. Once again, this phenomenon reflected what was happening or had already happened overseas, particularly in America. In relation to liberal-evangelical debates within Protestant Churches, S. Piggin notes that these new colleges “took the heat out of theological disputation, by leaving the older theological colleges to liberals who were then in the ascendancy”.16 The reason for this, following Piggin, is that the colleges were not founded to counter liberal thought but to foster the missionary and revivalistic enthusiasms that began 12

Breward, A History of the Australian Churches (1993), 120–121. Ranston, The Old Testament Wisdom Books (1930). So Breward, Grace and Truth (1975), 34. Davidson’s Hebrew Grammar was the standard text book for generations. 15 Doyle, Biblical Studies in Australia (1990), 4. On the same page Doyle notes there was “a reluctance to write in the area of biblical studies; a tendency for articles, when written, to be geographical, philological or liturgical, rather than exegetical”. 16 Piggin, Evangelical Christianity in Australia (1996), 91. 13 14

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around the turn of the century and gathered pace in the post-war period. The first one, Angas College, was established in Adelaide, South Australia in 1893. The Sydney Missionary and Bible College was founded in 1916, the Melbourne Bible Institute (now the Bible College of Victoria) in 1920, New Zealand Bible Training Institute (now the Bible College of New Zealand) in 1922, and the Perth Bible Institute in Western Australia in 1928. The ethos of these colleges vis-à-vis Bible study is well summed up in the following policy statement: The Melbourne Bible Institute stands four-square for the wholehearted acceptance of the entire sacred volume of the Old and New Testaments as from God. This is God’s book for the plain man, and to such He will interpret its full meaning progressively by His Holy Spirit.17

At first glance this statement would appear to obviate the need for a textbook or teacher, let alone a college, but the words “progressively” and “interpret” would seem to allow that the Holy Spirit may choose to illuminate a plain man’s understanding through the mediation of one or more of the above. A textbook that played a role in this progressive interpretation was the American sourced The Fundamentals, published in 12 volumes between 1910 and 1915 and distributed free to Protestant clergy around the world.18 Among other things these tomes targeted Darwinism, historical critical analysis and liberal theology as enemies of evangelicalism. Although The Fundamentals sought to present an authentic evangelicalism, there was a downside. Evangelicalism in the antipodes became “saddled with the negative overtones of fundamentalism: obscurantism, anti-intellectualism, intolerance, pietism and separatism”.19 Even though Bible Colleges did not conform to the reigning academic model, they produced missionaries for both domestic and overseas fields who transformed peoples’ lives – and both givers and receivers no doubt believed the change was for the better. The colleges therefore contributed in a significant and at times striking way to the Wirkungsgeschichte of the Bible. The way the Bible is presented is an influential factor in the way that it is received, the impact that it has. For example, the Baptist minister J. Kemp founded a Bible Training Institute in Auckland that “exerted a powerful influence in congregations, through young men and women who became local leaders, teachers in youth groups, and workers in Christian education. Many became missionaries overseas”.20 The lean years of the Great Depression meant that theological colleges, like the rest of society, had to struggle to stay afloat. Whatever resources were available went to needy causes. However, the latter part of this period was marked by the establishment of a graduate BD degree at Sydney University in 1937 and at Otago University in New Zealand a decade later. A significant development, these degrees gave the churches something they had been hankering for, university status for theological study. The theological colleges in Sydney (Moore, St. Andrews, 17

Quoted in Piggin, ibid. 92. The Fundamentals: a Testimony to the Truth (1910–1915). The American influence was also felt through the writings of Charles Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield at Princeton Theological Seminary. 19 Piggin, ibid. 80. 20 Breward, Churches in Australasia (2001), 255. 18

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St. Pauls) responded by providing academic staff and students although most Moore students continued to obtain an English BD because of its more biblically oriented curriculum. Biblical studies were introduced into Queensland University in 1938, with a BD degree available in 1953. In 1936 at Oenpelli, a remote settlement far from Australia’s urban centres, for the first time in an Anglican church and almost 150 years after European colonization, the Bible readings for Christmas were in an Aboriginal language (Gunwinggu).21 By contrast, in New Zealand, the Bible was being translated and read in Maori as early as the 1840’s during the time of Selwyn, first Anglican bishop of Auckland. Australian intellectual life after World War II has been characterised by V. Buckley as “disappointingly unprolific of any work of substantial proportions”.22 Certainly, critical, creative work on the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament during this period was not particularly significant, but there are reasons for this. One is that returned service men and women may have felt that academic opportunity had passed them by. The long war years had taken a considerable slice out of their lives. There was also the urgent need for post-war reconstruction. In contrast, those who had grown up during or after the war were able to go overseas for higher studies in a world (a western one at least) that gradually regained stability and wealth. These became the scholars whose careers belong to the last part of our survey, from the 1960’s to the turn of the century. Another factor is that historical critical approaches had, to some extent at least, been incorporated into the mainstream of Biblical studies in the major churches and their colleges. It was not so much that they were welcome, “it was more that ministers had learned to live with them”.23 The post-war period was marked principally by institutional developments. New theological and bible colleges were established such that, by 1963, Australia had 56 of them representing the various denominations. Standards at the key Protestant degree granting bodies, the MCD and the ACT, were improved and in the late 1940’s Melbourne University established a department of Semitic Studies under the Jewish scholar M. Goldman: it was later renamed the Department of Middle Eastern Studies under J. Bowman, who was followed by T. Muraoka from Japan.24 Although the differences between liberals and evangelicals continued in the post-war period, the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948 provided an example, once again from abroad, of different denominations in cooperation and dialogue. The Reformed Theological Review commenced publication in Melbourne in 1942 and in 1953, under the initiative of Goldman, the Fellowship for Biblical Studies was established with Jewish, Protestant and Catholic membership. Its Australian Biblical Review became a forum for pursuing and debating critical analysis. The major Catholic seminary of St. Patrick’s, Sydney,

21

Harris, Anglicanism and Indigenous Peoples (2002), 238. Buckley, Intellectuals (1962), 100. 23 Jackson, Religious Ideas and Practice (1982–83), 439. 24 Among Muraoka’s publications, two from his term at Melbourne University are: Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew (1985) and Melbourne Symposium on Septuagint Lexicography (1990). 22

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became a Pontifical Faculty of Theology in 1954, able to offer post-graduate Roman degrees. This, plus the 1943 encyclical of Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, which allowed Catholic scholars to apply modern critical analysis to the Bible, provided the impetus for Catholic Biblical scholarship in Australia to emerge from the preceding ‘dark ages’. W. Leonard, long time lecturer at St. Patrick’s (1924 to 1959), was a key figure in advancing the cause. His writings on Hebrew Bible / Old Testament and New Testament appeared mainly in the Australasian Catholic Record between 1929 and 1961.25 America’s crucial role in the Pacific theatre of the war meant that it became a major influence on Australia and New Zealand in the post-war period. The biblical theology movement commenced in America in 1940 as a way of combining modern theology with critical study of the Bible. Its influence emerged in Australia in the publications of G. Hebert (Anglican) and R. Abba (Congregationalist) who “attempted to find some synthesis of the views of biblical-theology or neo-orthodoxy with the traditional position” (i.e., conservative evangelical).26 Though seeking to steer a moderate course, their works generated considerable debate in journals such as the Reformed Theological Review and the Australian Church Quarterly. As the titles of their books indicate, Hebert and Abba were writing about the Bible in general rather than the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in particular. This task was carried out very effectively by G. A. F. Knight at Knox Theological Hall in New Zealand: his A Christian Theology of the Old Testament “is one of the few attempts by an English scholar to write a comprehensive theological account of the Old Testament books”.27 This and a number of other publications established him as the leading exponent of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament biblical theology in Australasia.28 The highly successful crusade by Billy Graham in Australia took place in 1959. Its success no doubt built on the hard work of bible colleges, and of popular revivalist movements reaching back to the nineteenth century. One example of this that is still growing vigorously is the Pentecostal movement.29 From an evangelical perspective it would have been quite reasonable to think that the crusade, coupled with the growth in membership of the denominations, the number of theological institutes and the graduates emerging from them, signalled a bright future for Christianity in the antipodes. But, writing from the perspective of 1996 Piggin concludes that the crusade marked “a peak achievement of the evangelical synthesis in Australia, rather than the harbinger of a brilliant new period

25 For a full listing see Doyle, Biblical Studies in Australia (1990), 43–44. The Australasian Catholic Record (ACR) was launched in 1885 by Cardinal Moran, lapsed in 1913 and resumed in 1924. 26 Banks, Fifty Years of Theology in Australia, 1915–1965 (1977), 11. The relevant works are G. Hebert, Fundamentalism and the Church of God (1957), and R. Abba, The Nature and Authority of the Bible (1958), written shortly after Abba left Australia. 27 Breward, Grace and Truth (1975), 63. 28 Knight, A Christian Theology of the Old Testament (1959). Among his other publications are: Ruth and Jonah (1950), and Deutero-Isaiah (1965). He was also an editor of the International Theological Commentary (Edinburgh and Grand Rapids). W. J. Dumbrell, of Moore College, represents a somewhat later take on biblical theology in Australia; cf. his Covenant and Creation (1984). 29 See Chant, Wesleyan Revivalism and the Rise of Australian Pentecostalism (1994), 97.

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of achievement for it”.30 Much the same could be said for other denominations. What eventuated during the period from the 1960’s to the turn of the century was often not what was expected. It was a period of at times frenetic change and, as in previous periods, much of the impetus driving change in Australia and New Zealand came from outside – but this time from two different directions. One was the familiar phenomenon of the import challenging the established local product. The other was a challenge from a different and rather unexpected quarter, the indigenous people whose views and concerns returned from their exile on the fringes of society’s awareness to take up a more central position.

4. From the 1960’s to the End of the Century The variety and rapid pace of change during this period is well documented and there is no need to rehearse it here. A few pertinent comments will suffice. On the international scene, significant developments were multiculturalism, women’s liberation, the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council which encouraged ecumenism and dialogue with other churches and other faiths, the enormous increase in international travel and the wealth that this reflected, an explosion in the number of books and journals debating existing and new theories about the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, and electronic forms of communication. Those who had grown up during and after the war were able to pursue higher studies within this environment (now women as well as men). They formed the vanguard of scientific, critical scholarship from the 1960’s on. On the Australian scene, the government report on higher education in 1964 (the Martin Report) had a significant impact on theological studies. These were now judged to be topics that could be pursued in a critical manner by those inside and outside the confessional domains. The prospect of jobs and some government funding for students encouraged universities besides Sydney and Queensland to employ staff and commence degrees in theology and related disciplines. As one might expect, research in the biblical arena ranged wider than Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. For example, A. Crown at Sydney University specialised in Samaritan studies, M. Lattke at Queensland in the Odes of Solomon. Nor did all ventures turn out as initially expected; some theological departments were later considerably reduced or absorbed into humanities. Overall however, biblical studies in Australia and New Zealand have benefited considerably from the contribution of the universities. This period was also marked by the foundation of a number of Ecumenical colleges of divinity which obtained their accreditation via affiliation with a university or via a special act of parliament, as had happened in 1910 with the Melbourne College of Divinity (MCD). In New Zealand an affiliation was established in 1972 in Dunedin involving Otago University, Knox Theological Hall, Holy Cross College, Selwyn College and Glenleith Church of Christ College, while in Auckland the Auckland Consortium for Theologi30

Piggin, Evangelical Christianity (1996), 171. As understood by Piggin, the three key ingredients of the synthesis are the Spirit, the Word (Bible) and the world.

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cal Education (ACTE) was formed in 1985 by St. John the Evangelist College, Trinity Methodist College and Carey Baptist College. In 1988 the University of Auckland approved in principle the establishment of a Bachelor of Theology administered by a Joint Board of Studies between the university and ACTE. Prompted by developments at the Vatican Council, Catholic seminaries began moving from the outskirts into the cities and a number became affiliated with the colleges of divinity. The Australian Catholic Biblical Association (ACBA) was founded in the 1960’s with the aim of promoting the best of modern Biblical scholarship; it welcomes scholars from other churches. The Council of Christians and Jews was established in 1985 in Melbourne and in 1988 in Sydney and publishes the journal Gesher (Bridge). The spirit of cooperation reached across the Tasman with the establishment in 1968 of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools (ANZATS) and its journal Colloquium. In addition to these developments a home-grown Bible commentary was launched by the Lutheran church in Adelaide, to which J. Renner contributed a number of volumes on the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament.31 Within this period one can trace the development and interaction of a variety of new and ‘old’ approaches to the study of the Bible. That earlier troublesome import – historical critical analysis – had by this time succeeded, except for a few pockets of remaining resistance, in colonising both countries. Writing in 1970, The New Zealander R. J. Thompson judged that the majority in the field favoured the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis for the composition of the Pentateuch.32 Not surprisingly, considerable variation had developed in the way historical critical analysis was applied. The Baptist scholar J. A. Thompson favoured a more cautious and conservative approach, exemplified in his well-respected commentaries on Deuteronomy and Jeremiah.33 A more vigorous promotion of German historical critical scholarship was the work of the Jesuit J. J. Scullion in the MCD and M. E. Andrew at Knox Theological Hall. Of particular note are Scullion’s translations of Westermann’s three-volume commentary on Genesis and Rendtorff’s Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch.34 Andrew, who studied under von Rad, worked with J. J. Stamm to translate Der Dekalog im Lichte der neueren Forschung.35 Biblical studies in America became increasingly influential in the second half of the twentieth century. F. I. Andersen, a specialist in Hebrew language, collaborated with David Noel Freedman in a number of commentaries for the Anchor Bible series.36 Within the MCD, another Jesuit, A. F. Campbell, combined German and American scholarship with a doctorate under Rolf Knierim at Claremont Graduate School.37 Campbell subsequently joined Knierim’s Forms of Old Testament Literature project (FOTL) and undertook the 31

Renner, Hosea (1979), Psalms (1980), Genesis (1984) and Jeremiah (1989). Thompson, Moses and the Law (1970). Thompson had earlier published an historical analysis of Penitence and Sacrifice in Early Israel (1963). 33 J. A. Thompson, Deuteronomy (1974), The Book of Jeremiah (1980). 34 Scullion published commentaries on Genesis and Second-Isaiah: Genesis (1992), Isaiah 40–66 (1982). 35 Andrew/Stamm, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research (1967). 36 See the Anchor Bible commentaries on Hosea (1980), Amos (1989), Micah (2000). 37 Campbell, The Ark Narrative (1975). 32

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commentary on the books of Samuel. His research resulted in a new hypothesis of a ninth century BCE Prophetic Record as the foundational document for the books of Samuel and Kings.38 H. N. Wallace, completed his doctoral studies at Harvard while S. Boorer graduated from Emory university.39 This pool of internationally trained scholars began to attract students to undertake doctorates in Australian and New Zealand institutes. For example, a number have successfully completed and published doctoral dissertations under the supervision of Campbell.40 All these publications utilise historical critical analysis in varying degrees. As is well known, intense debate developed in late twentieth century Hebrew Bible / Old Testament study about the value of historical critical analysis and some of its leading hypotheses.41 The focus of attention shifted to the present text rather than its stages of composition and on the role of the reader rather than the author. E. Conrad, at Queensland University, has applied reader response theory to the study of Isaiah and Zechariah.42 The role of the reader has been taken up by feminist and post-colonial analysis to critique established interpretations and applications of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, particularly in relation to the indigenous populations of both countries. Andrew has published a number of works that explore how the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament can best be read in the New Zealand context.43 More specifically in relation to the Maori context, there are the publications of J. J. Lewis and B. Elsmore.44 J. McKinlay applied a feminist critique to the way in which a particular image of Wisdom was used in both Old and New Testaments.45 K. W. Carley, a specialist in Ezekiel, has extended the indigenous focus to the surrounding Polynesian and Melanesian contexts.46 From the early colonial period, Australian and New Zealand missionaries operated in the Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian islands. The impact of the Bible on a Polynesian reader, and vice versa, has been explored by J. Havea, the first doctoral scholar from Tonga, now lecturing at the United Theological College in Sydney.47 Turning to Australia, a vigorous promoter of contextual analysis of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament has been the Lutheran scholar N. Habel, based at the Adelaide College of Divinity which is affiliated with Flinders University. Habel

38

Of Prophets and Kings: A Late Ninth-Century Document (1986). Wallace, The Eden Narrative (1985); Boorer, The Promise of the Land as Oath (1992). O’Brien, The Deuteronomistic History Hypothesis (1989); Wynn-Williams, The State of the Pentateuch (1997); Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book of Jeremiah MT (1999). 41 In relation to this debate, Campbell and O’Brien contributed: Sources of the Pentateuch (1993) and Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History (2000); Brett, of Whitley College, contributed: Biblical Criticism in Crisis? (1991). 42 Conrad, Reading Isaiah (1991), Zechariah (1999). 43 See The Old Testament and New Zealand Theology (1982), Responding in Community: Reforming Religion in Aotearoa New Zealand (1990), The Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand (1999). 44 Lewis, Koru and Covenant: Reflections on Hebrew and Maori Spirituality in Aotearoa (1995), Elsmore, Like Them That Dream: The Maori and the Old Testament (1985), and Mana from Heaven (1999). 45 McKinlay, Gendering Wisdom the Host: Biblical Invitations to Eat and Drink (1996). 46 Carley, The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (1974), Ezekiel Among the Prophets (1975), Prophets Old and New (1977), 238–266. 47 Havea, The future stands between here and there: towards islandic hermeneutics (1995), 61–68, and Shifting the boundaries: house of God and the politics of reading (1996), 55–71. 39 40

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showed his ability to wield historical critical analysis in a 1985 commentary on the book of Job.48 Subsequent work with Aborigines led him to explore biblical notions of land and their application to Australia. This resulted in The Land is Mine – Six Biblical Land Ideologies and participation in Rainbow Spirit Theology, a work in which indigenous elders reflected on how they interpret the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament from within their cultures.49 Habel has undertaken to edit five volumes of The Earth Bible to be published by Sheffield Press. Contributors will analyse biblical texts from the perspective of one or more six ‘ecojustice principles’ that Habel and The Earth Bible team have articulated: they are the principles of intrinsic worth, interconnectedness, voice, purpose, mutual custodianship and resistance. The principle of custodianship draws on the politics of Aboriginal presence and land rights. An Earth Bible Commentary series is also proposed. M. Brett at Whitley Baptist College has engaged post-colonial analysis to study the impact of culture on the presentation and reception of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament.50 R. Boer at Monash University in Melbourne is more eclectic, utilising a variety of current/post-modern approaches to critique past analyses and point a way to the future.51 These contributions from a variety of contextual and reader oriented perspectives are of course not unique to Australia and New Zealand; they are part of a much broader movement. Except for Havea and the Aboriginal elders in Rainbow Spirit Theology the studies listed are by authors of European stock. As with the earlier gender imbalance, it is hoped that this imbalance will be corrected in years to come. As one might expect, there are some churches, colleges and Hebrew Bible / Old Testament scholars who resist these new approaches. Loyalty to customary ways of reading the Bible is maintained; the age-old debate goes on as indeed it should. But there have been some significant developments in what mainstream Hebrew Bible / Old Testament scholarship would regard as the conservative wing. A number of the Bible Colleges have joined the ecumenical Colleges of Divinity established towards the end of the century. A major example is the Assembly of God / Pentecostal Southern Cross College that now has the single largest enrolment of students within the Sydney College of Divinity (SCD). As with the mainstream Protestant churches a century ago, there is a desire to obtain state recognised accreditation for their study programmes, a readiness to mix it in the supermarket of contemporary theological education but without losing their distinctive identity and loyalty.

48

Habel, The Book of Job (1985). The Land is Mine (1995); Rainbow Spirit Elders, Rainbow Spirit Theology: Towards an Aboriginal Theology (1998); see also: The Rainbow Spirit in Creation: A Reading of Genesis 1 (2000). 50 Brett, Ethnicity and the Bible (1996), and Genesis: Procreation and the Politics of Identity (2000). 51 Boer, Jameson and Jeroboam (1996), Novel Histories. The Fiction of Biblical Criticism (1997), and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (1999). 49

Chapter Thirty-five

Studies in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in Africa, Australia / New Zealand and Asia 35.3. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Asia By Seiko¯ Sekine, Tokyo This essay presents an overview of the history and prospects of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Japan, South Korea, and China. The section on Japan is my own original work. For the section on South Korea, I have relied primarily on the English research results of Hyung-Won Lee (Professor of Korea Baptist Theological University/Seminary), and I have also received helpful suggestions from Heon Wook Park (Professor of Tokyo Union Theological Seminary) and Sang-Kook Lim (Assistant Professor of Methodist Theological Seminary, Seoul, Korea). At my request, Liu Ping (Assistant Professor of Fudan University, P. R. China) wrote the section on biblical studies in China. I am reproducing his work here with my own editorial modifications. Finally, J. Randall Short (Assistant Professor of Tokyo Christian University) assisted me with the English wording of the whole. I am deeply grateful to these friends for their cooperation. I alone, however, assume final responsibility for the present work.

1. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Japan. 1.1. The Society for Old Testament Study in Japan and the Japanese Biblical Institute Bibliography: Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute (Tokyo: Japanese Biblical Institute 1975–). – T. Ishida, The Royal Dynasties in Ancient Israel: A Study on the Formation and Development of Royal-Dynastic Ideology (BZAW 142; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1977); History and Historical Writing in Ancient Israel: Studies in Biblical Historiography (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East 16; Leiden/Boston: Brill 1999). – P. Joüon/T. Muraoka, Hebrew/Aramaic Index to the Septuagint: Keyed to the Hatch-Redpath Concordance (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books 1998). – T. Muraoka (ed.), Melbourne Symposium on Septuagint Lexicography (Septuagint and Cognate Studies Series 28; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1990); A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Subsidia Biblica 27; Roma: Pontificio Istituto Biblico 1991, 2006). – K. Kida, Kyuˉyaku seisho no chuˉshin [The Heart of the Old Testament] (Tokyo: Shinkyoˉ Shuppansha 1989); Heiwa no mokushi: kyuˉyaku seisho no heiwa shisoˉ [Revelation of Peace: Peace in Old Testament Thought] (Tokyo: Shinkyoˉ Shuppansha 1991); Kyuˉyaku seisho no yogen to mokushi: sono honshitsu to keifu [Prophecy and Revelation in the Old Testament: Its Essence and Genealogy] (Tokyo: Shinkyoˉ Shuppansha 1996).

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– F. Kohata, Jahwist und Priesterschrift in Exodus 3–14 (BZAW 166; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1986); Kyuˉyakugaku kenkyuˉ [Old Testament Studies] (Mitaka: Society for Old Testament Study in Japan 2004–). – H. Miyamoto, Junan no imi: Aburahamu, Iesu, Pauro [The Meaning of Suffering: Abraham, Jesus, Paul] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press 2006). – K. Nakazawa, Daini Izaya kenkyuˉ [Deutero Isaiah Studies] (Tokyo: Yamamoto Shoten 1962, 4th edn. 1977). – K. Namiki, Kodai Isuraeru to sono shuˉhen [Ancient Israel and its Environs] (Tokyo: Shinchi Shoboˉ 1979); Heburaizumu no ningen kankaku: “ko” to “kyoˉdoˉsei” no benshoˉhoˉ [Sense of Humanity in Hebraic Thought: The Dialectic of the “Individual” and “Communality”] (Tokyo: Shinkyoˉ Shuppansha 1997); Yobu-ki-ron shuˉsei [Studies on the book of Job] (Tokyo: Kyoˉbunkan 2003). – T. Odashima, Heilsworte im Jeremiabuch: Untersuchungen zu ihrer vordeuteronomistischen Bearbeitung (BWAT 125; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer ˉ sumi, Die Kompositionsgeschichte des Bundesbuches Exodus 20,22b–23,33 (OBO 105; 1989). – Y. O Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1991). – Seisho gaiten giten (Biblical Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha) (Tokyo: Kyoˉbunkan 1975–1982). – Seishogaku ronshuˉ [Japanese Biblical Institute] (Tokyo: Japanese Biblical Institute 1962–). – M. Sekine, Isuraeru shuˉkyoˉ bunkashi [Religious Cultural History of Israel] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten 1952); Sekine Masao chosakushuˉ [Collected Works of Masao Sekine], 1–20 (Tokyo: Shinchi Shoboˉ 1979–1989). – S. Sekine, Die Tritojesajanische Sammlung (Jes 56–66) redaktionsgeschichtlich untersucht (BZAW 175; Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter 1989); Transcendency and Symbols in the Old Testament: A Genealogy of the Hermeneutical Experiences (BZAW 275; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1999); transl. of idem: Kyuˉyaku ni okeru choˉetsu to shoˉchoˉ: kaishakugaku-teki keiken no keifu (Tokyo: Tokyo UP 1994); A Comparative Study of the Origins of Ethical Thought: Hellenism and Hebraism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2005); transl. of idem, Rinri shisoˉ no genryuˉ: Girishia to Heburai no baai (Tokyo: Hoˉsoˉ Daigaku Kyoˉiku Shinkoˉkai 2001); Kyuˉyaku seisho to tetsugaku: gendai no toi no naka no isshinkyoˉ [The Old Testament and Philosophy: Questioning Monotheism in the Modern World] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten 2008); Shikai monjo: tekisuto no hon’yaku to kaisetsu [The Dead Sea Scrolls: Translation and Commentary] (Tokyo: Yamamoto Shoten 1963). – Y. Suzuki, Shinmeiki no bunkengaku-teki kenkyuˉ [Philological Studies of Deuteronomy] (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyoˉdan Shuppankyoku 1987). – A. Tsukimoto, Untersuchungen zur Totenpflege (kispum) im alten Mesopotamien (AOAT 216; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker / Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1985).

The Society for Old Testament Study in Japan was established in 1933. It is the oldest of Japan’s academic societies related to scholarship on Christianity, and it has been ecumenical from the beginning. The foundation of HBOT studies in Japan was built upon and through this academic society, which, at the time, was comprised of approximately twenty HBOT scholars who came together for monthly meetings. The society’s regular meetings were frequently interrupted during World War II, not only because many of the members were called to serve in the military, but also because many of them were engaged in the translation and editing of the Japanese Colloquial Bible (Koˉgo-yaku seisho), which eventually replaced the Classical Japanese Bible (Bungo-yaku seisho). Regular meetings resumed after the war, and the society continued its monthly meetings until 1965, when it began holding its regular meetings twice a year. The society has remained active up to the present day, with approximately 150 members and the regular publication of the society’s journal, Kyuˉyakugaku kenkyuˉ [Old Testament Studies], since 2004. The society’s presidents have included Zenta Watanabe, Jun’ichi Asano, Yoshishige Sakon, Masao Sekine, Koˉki Nakazawa, Kiyoshi Sakon, Ken’ichi Kida, Toshiaki Nishimura, Koˉichi Namiki, and Akio Tsukimoto. Kiyoshi Sakon divided the history of the Society for Old Testament Study in Japan into four periods: (1) the cradle period, 1933–1950; (2) the formative period, 1950–1967; (3) the developmental period, 1967–1979; and (4) the reconstitution period, 1979–1988. If we accept this periodization, then we must

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now add (5) the redevelopment period, 1988–2000; and (6) the stability period, 2000–. The Japanese Biblical Institute (JBI) was founded in 1950 and has held regular monthly meetings up to the present day. In the typical meeting of JBI, one HBOT scholar and one New Testament scholar present the results of their research. Whereas the Society for Old Testament Study in Japan provides forums for the sharing of research among people whose interest in the Old Testament is largely related to their regional pastoral work, JBI is centered in Tokyo with the chief aim of promoting biblical research of a more academic nature. JBI has published Seishogaku ronshuˉ [Anthology of Biblical Studies] annually since 1962 (with a few exceptions), and, with the aim of reporting the research results of Japanese biblical scholarship to a global audience, it has published the Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute (AJBI) every year since 1975. Japanese biblical scholarship has received some level of international recognition as a result. JBI has also stimulated interest in the Bible domestically through its translation and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1963, first edition) and the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (1975–1982, 7 volumes and 2 supplemental editions).1 Tsutomu ˉ nuki have served Oshio, Masao Sekine, Sasagu Arai, Ken’ichi Kida, and Takashi O as JBI’s directors. Currently, JBI has approximately seventy fellows and ninety members. I reviewed approximately eighty articles from thirty-five accessible volumes of Seishogaku ronshuˉ’s forty volumes from 1962 to 2008. In doing so, I categorized all the articles according to their hermeneutical methods and theological interests, and I identified the various western hermeneutical methods that have been applied and introduced by Japanese Old Testament scholars. For instance, many articles employ diachronic methods such as redaction criticism (six), form criticism (three), tradition criticism (six), and source criticism (three). Some follow synchronic methods such as literary criticism (one), rhetorical criticism (four), canonical criticism (one), and structural criticism (five); and some follow sociological methods (four). Many scholars adopt more than one of the above methodologies in a single article, and many others follow none of them, choosing, instead, to engage in comparative linguistics, case studies, overviews of research history, reflections on the very question of methodology, or archaeological inquiries.

1.2. Overview of International Research Achievements Now, the contributions of numerous individuals can be introduced. Masao Sekine was among the first Japanese HBOT scholars to interact with other biblical scholars at the international level. After receiving his Th.D. from Halle University for his dissertation Die Einzigkeit Gottes im Alten Testament (1944), M. Sekine returned to Japan, where he helped to forge the direction of HBOT

1

Shikai monjo [The Dead Sea Scrolls] (1963); Seisho gaiten giten [Biblical Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha] (1975–1982).

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studies among his countrymen, partly in his capacity as director of the Japanese Biblical Institute from 1958 to 1988, and as president of the Society for Old Testament Study in Japan from 1970 to 1979. He twice gave lectures by invitation to the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT).

His representative work is Isuraeru shuˉkyoˉ bunkashi [Religious Cultural History of Israel], published in 1952; unfortunately, it has not been translated into any European languages. This monograph comprises five chapters: “Covenant”, “Law”, “the Problem of Culture”, “Prophets”, and “the Establishment of Judaism”. M. Sekine discusses these five themes while incorporating the latest results of Western biblical scholarship and, in particular, drawing on the sociological perspectives of M. Weber’s Ancient Judaism.2 M. Sekine finds it highly significant that, within Israel’s earliest twelve-tribe alliance, the relationship between Yahweh and Israel was understood as a “covenant”. The Torah was the law of the community founded upon this covenant. Israel developed into a monarchy in the settled land, but this brought problems of a secularized culture. It was the prophets who stood firmly within the stream of covenant ideology and criticized these cultural problems. The Babylonian exile brought the kingdom to its end, but after the exile, Israel rebuilt a theocratic state based not upon covenant but upon the Law. M. Sekine saw in this the establishment of Judaism as a religion of law, and, at the same time, it looked forward to the emergence of Christianity with the promise of a “new covenant”. M. Sekine’s contribution to Japan’s world of ideas related to the HBOT was enormous. His writings have been collected and published in twenty volumes, including the fresh and succinct perspective on the Old Testament introduced above, which he wrote as a younger man; many articles and commentaries on the Old Testament as well as his writings in a monthly magazine that he privately published as a minister of the Mukyoˉkai (“non-church”) movement. He also translated and published the entire Old Testament. After M. Sekine, two other Japanese have been invited to deliver IOSOT lectures. One of them is Tomoo Ishida. His doctoral dissertation at Hebrew University, The Royal Dynasties in Ancient Israel: A Study on the Formation and Development of Royal-Dynastic Ideology, was the first volume by a Japanese scholar to be published in W. de Gruyter’s BZAW series (1977). Ishida’s published work also include his History and Historical Writing in Ancient Israel (1999). The third Japanese HBOT scholar invited to deliver an IOSOT lecture is Seizoˉ Sekine, the son of M. Sekine. S. Sekine’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Munich, Die Tritojesajanische Sammlung (Jes 56–66) redaktionsgeschichtlich untersucht, was also published in the BZAW series (in 1989), as was his Transcendency and Symbols in the Old Testament (in 1999). The latter is a translation of Kyuˉyaku ni okeru choˉetsu to shoˉchoˉ (1994), which won the Prize of the Japan Academy. Many of S. Sekine’s other writings have been published in European languages, including A Comparative Study of the Origins of Ethical Thought:

2

M. Weber, Das antike Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr 1921); ET: Ancient Judaism (New York 1952).

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Hellenism and Hebraism (2005). Let us consider briefly only his Transcendency and Symbols in the Old Testament. The subject of this monograph is the elucidation of various aspects of, and the explication of a solution to, a fundamental problem of the “Old Testament” – namely, where does one encounter “transcendency” – through reading the HBOT text as “symbol”. As the subtitle “A Genealogy of the Hermeneutical Experiences” indicates, this reading is developed by confronting the extensive body of traditional HBOT research that is historical and objective with the hermeneutical approaches of Gadamer and Ricoeur, among others, that are philosophical and subjective. The first chapter critically assesses the possibilities presented by the history of interpretation of the Decalogue in the field of HBOT studies and by ethically rooted approaches from I. Kant to Tetsuroˉ Watsuji. Based on this assessment, the locus of the fundamental problem that runs through this monograph, i.e., the question of when and where the hidden God becomes manifest, can be identified. The second chapter identifies Qoheleth as a nihilist according to the definitions of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and from that perspective it examines enigmatic texts in minute detail. Having identified his argument of how to overcome nihilism, and its limitations, the third chapter moves beyond it through a consideration of sin, forgiveness, and atonement in the incident of David’s adultery and murder, while engaging discussions by R. G. Collingwood, S. Hatano, and M. Goulder. The fourth chapter considers the origin of human sin in dialogue with P. Ricoeur, P. Tillich, and others concerning symbolic interpretations of the Adam myth. Finally, while attending to the details of redaction-historical research, and while challenging Weber’s argument concerning theodicy, the fifth chapter discusses the formation of redemptive thought in Deutero-Isaiah. Deutero-Isaiah understood the redemptive servant as the future Messiah, but one of his disciples, a redactor, identified the servant as the suffering and righteous Deutero-Isaiah, who had, in reality, already appeared. Through this shift in thinking, his disciples recognized their sins and God’s forgiveness. This shift alone is the essential point inherited in the New Testament’s understanding of redemption, and it is the author’s contention that it should provide a sufficient solution to the criticisms against atonement raised by Kant and the young Hegel, and to the questions concerning atonement that were left unresolved in the third and fourth chapters. S. Sekine’s most recent monograph, his 2008 Kyuˉyaku seisho to tetsugaku [The Old Testament and Philosophy], is expected to appear soon in English translation. In the BZAW series, one can also find Fujiko Kohata’s source-critical analysis of Exodus 3–14, Jahwist und Priesterschrift in Exodus 3–14 (1986). Among other dissertations published as the result of doctoral research in the West by Japanese scholars, we may mention Akio Tsukimoto’s Untersuchungen zur Totenpflege (kispum) im alten Mesopotamien (1985); Taroˉ Odashima’s Heilsworte im Jeremiˉ sumi’s Die Kompositionsgeschichte des Bundesbuches abuch (1989); and Yuˉichi O Exodus 20,22b–23,33 (1991). Besides these, many other Japanese have completed their doctoral work abroad and laid a foundation as individual HBOT scholars, including Yutaka Ikeda (Heˉ tomo brew University), Akio Moriya (Hebrew Union College), and Satoru O

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(Kirchliche Hochschule, Wuppertal/Bethel). Particularly notable is Takamitsu Muraoka’s work at Western universities as a leading scholar in ancient translations of the HBOT and Semitic linguistics, such as that represented in Melbourne Symposium on Septuagint Lexicography (1990), A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (1991, 2006), and Hebrew/Aramaic Index to the Septuagint (1998).

1.3. Overview of Domestic Research Achievements In discussing HBOT scholars working chiefly in Japan, the names of Koˉki Nakazawa, Kiyoshi Sakon, Ken’ichi Kida, and Koˉichi Namiki are to be mentioned. Nakazawa has closely followed, and continually introduced in Japan, Western scholarly interpretations of Deutero-Isaiah’s songs of the suffering servant. Furthermore, he has made a sincere contribution in Deutero-Isaiah studies with his own philological interpretation in his monograph on the whole of Deutero-Isaiah.3 Sakon, who died suddenly at around age 60, published several collections of essays probing the modern message of the Old Testament, as well as precise philological research on the Psalms, among other writings. His scholarly articles and sermons have been collected into five volumes. K. Kida has published three volumes of collected essays: Kyuˉyaku seisho no chuˉshin [The Heart of the Old Testament] in 1989; Heiwa no mokushi [Revelation of Peace] in 1991; and Kyuˉyaku seisho no yogen to mokushi [Prophecy and Revelation in the Old Testament] in 1996. The whole comprises three parts. Part One is an introduction to the essence and historical development of prophecy and revelation in the Old Testament. Part Two treats these four subjects in detail; and Part Three presents three essays concerning practical issues for modern Christians. Kida views the religion of the Old Testament as “prophetic”. He first defines the prophets as “individuals who, as ‘founders’ of a religion with a universal character that is generally termed ‘revealed religion’, disclosed a new religious realm while questioning foundational problems of the world from a transcendental standpoint”. Though one must reject religious studies that propose simplistic objective comparisons of various religions, one cannot accept theology that absolutizes subjective Christian faith. On this issue Kida stresses the position of G. Mensching’s so-called “religious studies of understanding”, which sublated both of these. That is, it is none other than “the position of understanding while respecting the character of ‘revelation’ that contains some manifestation of ‘the holy’ in each religion”. Criticizing scholarship from Wellhausen to Gunkel, to Noth and von Rad, Kida argues that modern Old Testament scholars of the prophets have not sufficiently reflected on this sort of standpoint. And in the course of considering the positions of Buber and other Jewish scholars, Kida seeks an integration of “religious studies of understanding” and theology.

3

Nakazawa, Daini Izaya kenkyuˉ [Deutero-Isaiah Studies] (1977).

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Kida contends that “the holy” in ancient religion – a phenomenon that can be found throughout the history of human religion – and the system constructed around it supported the established ruling powers. The fundamentally distinctive characteristic of “prophetic religion” is that it created an egalitarian “covenantal community” and opened a way to a direct relationship between the transcendent being and humans by rejecting the ruling powers’ authority structure at the foundational level. Kida sees in this criticism of power the essence of prophetic religion, and he argues that this is the ideal form of the whole of Old Testament religion, as well as the ideal form of religion today. This view is the central claim that runs through this work of Kida’s. K. Namiki, whose previous work includes Kodai Isuraeru to sono shuˉhen [Ancient Israel and its Environs] (1979) and Heburaizumu no ningen kankaku [Sense of Humanity in Hebraic Thought] (1997), has recently translated and researched the book of Job, culminating in his significant contribution in Yobu-ki-ron shuˉsei [Studies on the Book of Job] (2003). In this monograph, Namiki considers the uniqueness of the book of Job, which does not cease to inspire new writings even today, and he examines the various conditions for its interpretation. Seven essays treat the mentality reflected in the book of Job, its literary nature, the theodicy of questioning, two-way textual interpretation, the righteousness of God and humans, interpretation of Job in the Jewish world, and problems raised by the Jewish thinker M. Susman.4 Namiki views the main part of the book of Job as dramatic poetry wherein Job, Job’s friends, and God reciprocate sharp words, and he argues that behind this dimension of dramatic poetry are the various problems of evil in the world, God’s sovereignty and human dignity and freedom, and the individual and the people group. According to Namiki, the book of Job throws into question the interpreter’s disposition towards each of these problems. For that reason, the book of Job is extremely difficult to interpret, and it is impossible for readers to avoid reading into the text their own personal historical and human historical experiences. Since Auschwitz, in particular, many Jews have read the book of Job not as an account of personal suffering, but as being about the suffering of the Jewish people. This sharply opposes Christological readings within Christianity. Along these lines, Namiki presents Job as a book that causes its readers to discover the meaning of self and the world. In addition to the above overview, I must also mention the work of several others who have helped to strengthen the foundation of HBOT studies in Japan. Yoshihide Suzuki’s dissertation at Claremont Graduate University in the U.S. was published in Japanese in 1987 as Shinmeiki no bunkengaku-teki kenkyuˉ [Philological Studies of Deuteronomy]. Hiroya Katsumura, who studied at Heidelberg University, has steadily contributed a significant amount of philological research in Psalms studies and wisdom literature. Hisao Miyamoto’s research includes a series of studies on Hebraic philosophical interpretations of Jeremiah’s confessions and the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. Finally, Toshiaki Nishimura and Tetsuo Yamaga, respectively, have translated into Japanese numerous works of French and German research on the HBOT. 4

M. Susman, Das Buch Hiob und das Schicksal des jüdischen Volkes (Zürich: Steinberg Verlag 1946).

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In the area of Bible translation before and after M. Sekine’s personal translation, the ecumenical New Interconfessional Bible (Shin kyoˉdoˉ-yaku seisho) was published by the Japan Bible Society in 1987 through the work of K. Kida and K. Sakon, among others. From 1997 to 2004, the academically annotated Iwanami Bible (Iwanami-yaku seisho) was published through the collaboration of Y. Ikeda, A. Tsukimoto, and S. Sekine, among others.

1.4. Prospects of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in Japan The historical-critical approach to the HBOT has been the predominant approach in Japan’s short history of HBOT studies, with Japanese scholars having learned chiefly in the West and having developed their research largely in dialogue with western scholars. One might simply consider the themes of the Society for Old Testament Study in Japan’s fall symposiums over the past five years: “the Final Form of the Old Testament Text”, “Problems Surrounding Deuteronomism”, “the Old Testament and Monotheism”, “Problems Surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls”, and “the Status Quaestionis of Prophets Research”. In fact, Japanese HBOT scholars have learned from the West and followed its lead. And they must reconsider their tendency, at times, to engage in academic debates and criticism of selected issues in the local language of Japanese in ways that do not contribute or stand accountable at the international level. As was pointed out by Namiki, the president of the Society for Old Testament Study in Japan for many years around the turn of the century, it is fine to establish a philological foundation by means of a doctoral dissertation, but one must not evade important issues thereafter by engaging only in philological commentary on ancient texts. Behind every word and phrase in the HBOT, there are concrete historical, social, political, philosophical, and traditional settings. These words and phrases point to particular types of thought.5 But that must not be all. It is impossible for the interpreter to be thoroughly and entirely objective. If a Japanese, then the interpreter cannot help but to fuse the horizon of the text with that of a Japanese. Japanese interpreters, therefore, must make the Japanese horizon transparently clear to themselves and others; alongside the work of objective exegesis, they must proceed to the point of reading into the text the subjective perspective of modern Japanese life. Otherwise, they will be unable to achieve academic research that is truly responsible. M. Sekine is one Japanese scholar who self-consciously pursued his research in this way. For example, one may consider his attention to negative intermediation in his early years; his semantic theory based upon dialectical thinking in his middle years; and his attention to the presence of breaks in Hebrew poetry in his later years. Consider, too, the work of S. Sekine, who, having been influenced by M. Sekine, attended to Kitaroˉ Nishida’s philosophy of the self-identity of absolute contradiction, which can be found at the root of Eastern and Western religion, and examined Tetsuroˉ Watsuji’s interpretation of the Decalogue based on his ethics of the whole and the part. 5

S. Yagi, K. Namiki, e.a., “Zadankai: gakkai no kako to gakkai no mirai” Colloquium: Past and Future of the Society (of Christian Studies), in: Nihon no shingaku 41 (2002) 247, 249.

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One might add here the work of H. Miyamoto, who proposes his “Hayatology” (Hebraic Ontology) in confrontation with Western ontology and theology proper since Auschwitz and Hiroshima.6 The above works merit attention as scholarship that suggests possibilities for HBOT interpretation by Japanese as Japanese. Within today’s intellectual currents, the Jewish and Christian faiths are themselves facing severe criticisms, among other reasons, because of ongoing disputes among monotheistic faiths and skepticism vis-à-vis faith in a personal God, which collides with scientific knowledge. In the area of HBOT studies, we are seeing a trend in appeals for the necessity of philosophical and subjective hermeneutics in addition to historical-critical scholarship, which stands as a rough analogy to natural science in its advocacy for objectivity. In the face of these challenges, Western HBOT studies are being questioned from their foundations, and it cannot help but engage with diverse values that exist in rivalry with traditional scholarly approaches. In response to these challenges, or standing together with others in the midst of them, it will be important in the future to consider the possibilities of distinctive contributions and counter-arguments presented by Japanese scholars. We may make a similar statement about HBOT studies in other Asian countries. Let us turn, now, to consider the situations in South Korea and China.

2. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in South Korea Bibliography: Bible and Theology (Seoul: Korea Evangelical Theological Society 1983–). – E. K. Kim, “The Retrospect of Old Testament Theology in the 20th Century and Its Prospect for 21st Century” [Korean], in: Theology of World 41 (1998) 44–54. – J. W. Kim, “A History of Korean Old Testament Studies and Historical Critical Studies in the 20th Century” [Korean], in: Ministry and Theology 126 (1999) 208–219, and Ministry and Theology 127 (2000) 186–197. – Korean Journal of Christian Studies [Korean] (Seoul: Korea Association of Christian Studies). – Korean Journal of Old Testament Studies [Korean] (Seoul: Korean Society of Old Testament Studies 1995–). – H. W. Lee, Introduction to the Old Testament Criticisms [Korean] (Daejeon: Korea Baptist Theological University / Seminary Press 1991); “Trends in Old Testament Studies in Korea and Proposals for the Future”, in: Korean Journal of Christian Studies 57 (2008) 5–24. – T. S. Lim, Israel and Korean Church in Postmodern Era [Korean] (Seoul: Korea Theological Study Institute 2004). – Y. J. Min, “Old Testament Theology in 1970’s” [Korean], in: Theological Idea 36 (1982) 5–36. – H. S. Moon, History of Old Testament Hermeneutics in Korean Churches: 1900–1977 [Korean] (Seoul: Christian Literature Society of Korea 1978).

Korean biblical scholars7 have, for some time, reflected critically on their acceptance of Western scholarship. In 1973, for instance, several scholars who attended a Korea Theological Study Institute symposium on “Korean Church and Biblical Studies” affirmed the value of modern biblical criticism for Korean Christians, in particular, by asserting that “we can make the western biblical understandings of the 2000 years to become our own, by analyzing thoroughly the western tradi-

6

H. Miyamoto, Junan no imi [The Meaning of Suffering] (2006). As noted in the introduction, I have based my survey of HBOT research in South Korea chiefly on the work of Lee, Trends in Old Testament Studies in Korea and Proposals for the Future (2008). 7

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tions of biblical methodology, and then by beginning our own biblical studies in relation to our own reality”.8 In a publication a few years after this symposium, Hui Suk Moon, having introduced articles, theses, monographs, and translations by Koreans from 1900 to 1977, divided the history of HBOT studies in Korea into four periods: (1) the beginning period, 1900–1929; (2) the establishment of fundamentalist biblical interpretation, 1930–1940; (3) the period including pre-independence, post-independence, and the Korean War, 1941–1956; and (4) the establishment of modern biblical hermeneutics, 1957–1977.9

2.1. Overview of Research Achievements Almost twenty-five years later, Jung Woo Kim culled through 1,744 publications related to the HBOT over the past century. Of these many publications covering a wide range of topics, Kim determined that 307 could be classified as thematic studies; 173 treated issues related to biblical hermeneutics; 151 engaged in or discussed Bible translation; 134 were general Bible studies; and 121 focused on doctrinal issues. Based on his review, Kim divided the past century of Korean HBOT scholarship into the following five periods: (1) the period of germination, 1900–1927; (2) the period of taking root, 1928–1956; (3) the period of branching out, 1957–1972; (4) the period of bearing blossoms, 1973–1989; and (5) the period of bearing fruit, 1990–1999. The third period of scholarship in Kim’s rather poetic schema, that is, the years of “branching out”, was when biblical scholars introduced Western historical-critical scholarship in the Korean language, especially to Christians. Korean churches, however, reacted negatively. In the 1970s and 1980s (Kim’s period of “blossoming”), therefore, many scholars addressed various limitations of diachronic approaches to the HBOT in order to overcome them and, in their place, adopt newer literary criticism, canonical criticism, and other synchronic approaches. Korean biblical scholarship in the last decade of the twentieth century, in Kim’s view, closely resembles scholarship in Europe and the U.S. in terms of methodologies adopted, directions pursued, and topics researched.10 Hyung-Won Lee has reviewed nearly three hundred articles from three prominent peer-reviewed journals in Korea: Korean Journal of Old Testament Studies (approximately two hundred articles from 1989 to 2007), Korea Journal of Christian Studies (fifty-two articles from 1989 to 2007), and Bible and Theology (thirty-three articles from 1983 to 2007). Lee classified the articles according to their hermeneutical methods and theological interests. His findings demonstrate that Korean HBOT scholars have largely applied and introduced a variety of 8 Moon, History of Old Testament Hermeneutics in Korean Churches (1978), 107; quotation from Lee, Trends in Old Testament Studies (2008), 14. 9 Moon, History of Old Testament Hermeneutics in Korean Churches (1978), 41–99; from Lee, Trends in Old Testament Studies (2008), 14. 10 Kim, A History of Korean Old Testament Studies and Historical Critical Studies in the 20th Century (1999), 208–219, and (2000), 186–197; from Lee, Trends in Old Testament Studies in Korea (2008), 15–16.

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hermeneutical methods that they have learned in the West. Sociological methods were taken up in sixty-three articles, more than for any other method. In terms of general approach, diachronic methods were applied in more articles than synchronic methods, but the latter were certainly not underrepresented, and, in fact, their number is increasing. For instance, among diachronic approaches, source criticism was represented in ten articles, form criticism in nineteen, and redaction criticism in twenty-seven. In contrast, among synchronic approaches, structural criticism was represented in six articles, rhetorical criticism and canonical criticism in thirteen each, and newer literary criticism in thirty-one. Lee’s research shows that the synchronic methods most prevalent in Europe and America during the 1970s and 1980s came to represent nearly half of the articles in the above Korean publications in the 1990s. Apart from these approaches, feminist criticism was represented in seven articles, and psychological criticism in one.11 Another significant finding from Lee’s research is that most of the HBOT scholars whose articles he reviewed in these journals tend to limit themselves to a single methodology. This raises the concern of whether these scholars can interpret the HBOT in a comprehensive manner, which requires familiarity with a variety of methods. As Lee indicates, multi-faceted approaches are increasingly necessary for addressing the diverse range of questions and perspectives that readers are bringing to the biblical text in our postmodern era.12 Exactly one-third of the articles in Bible and Theology (eleven out of thirty-three) show interest in dogmatic issues. According to Lee, these reflect sectarian agenda of the contributing scholars. In contrast, none of the articles in the other two journals pursue dogmatic interests, and approximately one-half of them treat historical-critical concerns, including many studies comparing the HBOT with other ancient Near Eastern texts. It is surprising that, in Lee’s estimation, none of the articles attempted to identify “the center” of the HBOT, nor were any concerned with over-arching systematic issues of a theological or philosophical nature, such as can be found in many Japanese studies of the HBOT (e.g., the works of M. Sekine, S. Sekine, and K. Kida). Instead of broadly systematic approaches, many scholars have sought to advance research on various HBOT themes. Lee views this as a positive trend because such thematic approaches by the Korean scholars whom he has surveyed tend to address various practical issues related to the life and faith of modern believers.13 And while one may take the position that biblical scholars bear the responsibility of seeking out the meaning of the biblical text in its ancient context independent of modern faith communities and individual believers, it is important to recognize and understand the intimate relationship between biblical scholarship and church life in South Korea that is reflected in the scholarly concerns of Lee and other Korean scholars.14

11

Lee, Trends in Old Testament Studies in Korea (2008), 17–20. Lee, ibid. 20. 13 Lee, ibid. 21. 14 Tae Soo Lim, for instance, argues that Old Testament studies in Korea should become more practically applicable for pastors and lay people in the second century of Korean biblical scholarship, in: Lim, Israel and Korean Church in Postmodern Era (2004), 272; from Lee, Trends in Old Testament Studies in Korea (2008), 17. 12

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2.2. Prospects of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in South Korea Lee concludes his review by expressing his hopes that Korean HBOT scholars from diverse theological backgrounds will mature academically and take on leadership roles in Asian and other international academic communities. They can do so in part, he suggests, through deeper engagement in scholarly discourse both domestically and abroad, especially by contributing more frequently to leading peer-reviewed publications.15 Once again, the reflections concerning one Asian context applies equally to all.

3. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies in China Bibliography: Gu Xiaoming (ed.), You Tai Wen Hua Xi Lie [The Series of Jewish Culture] (Shanghai: Shanlian Publishing House 1989). – Huang Ximu, Sheng Jing Xi La Wen Wen Fa [A Grammar of Biblical Greek] (Shanghai: Eastern Normal UP 2008). – Liang Gong, “Sheng Jing Wen Xue Yan Jiu De Li Lun Yu Shi Jian” [The Theory and Practice of Biblical Literature Studies], in: Sheng Jing Wen Xue Yan Jiu [Biblical Literature Studies] (no. 1; 2007), 35–40. – Liang Gong/Lo Lung Kwong (eds.), Sheng Jing Wen Hua Jie Du Shu Xi [The Series of Biblical Culture Reading] (Beijing: Religious Culture Press 2003). – Liu Hengxian (penname of Liu Ping)/Wang Zhongxin (eds.), The Western Contemporary Biblical Studies Series (Chinese) (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press 2008). – C. L. Seow, Sheng Jing Xi Bo Lai Wen Wen Fa [A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew]; Fei Gaoyin / Lu Sihao (trans. Liu Ping; Shanghai: Eastern Normal UP 2008). – Sun Yi, Sheng Jing Dao Du [An Introduction to the Bible] (Beijing: Renmin University of China Press 2005). – You Bin, Xi Bo Lai Sheng Jing De Wen Ben: Li Shi Yu Si Xiang Shi Jie [An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible: Its Literary, Historical, and Thought World] (Beijing: Religious Culture Press 2007). – Zhu Weizhi, “Xi Bo Lai Wen Xue Jian Jie: Xiang Wen Xue Tan Xian” [A Brief Introduction to Hebrew Literature: Exploration of the Old Testament as Literature), in: Wai Guo Wen Xue Yan Jiu [Foreign Literature Studies] (1980), no. 2.

The past thirty years (1978–2008) have seen major breakthroughs in HBOT studies at colleges and universities in Mainland China. The year 1978 was one of the most significant years of the twentieth century, for it marked the end of Maoist times (1949–1978), which had suppressed religious studies and activities as superstitious and as the opiate of the masses, and it marked the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s reform, during which time the HBOT made its slow but historical arrival to the academic stage. Although it is difficult to summarize thirty years of academic research, several clear and important threads have emerged during this time, allowing us to make some general observations that may be helpful.

3.1. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies as Literature: the Central Thread In 1980, Zhu Weizhi (1905–1999), late professor of Nankai University in Tianjin, broke thirty years of cold and ice for HBOT studies in Mainland China with his 15

Lee, ibid. 22.

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publication of A Brief Introduction to Hebrew Literature.16 After that, several Mainland Chinese scholars began writing or translating works on the HBOT as literature. In particular, they widely introduced HBOT literature to Mainland Chinese scholars and non-specialists alike through twelve monographs translated from English in the Series of Jewish Culture, and three original works by Chinese scholars in the Series of Biblical Culture Reading.17 These works, among others, treat three broad areas of study: analyzing and interpreting the literary characteristics of the HBOT; the relationship between the HBOT and world literature; and religious thought in the HBOT.18 They introduce a comprehensive picture of the HBOT as literature; the histories of ancient Israel, early Judaism, and early Christianity; and the complicated connection between the HBOT and religious traditions. This new research – beginning with Zhu Weizhi and continuing in these series of publications – built confidence in the academic community concerning the possibilities of researching the HBOT in the same ways as any kind of literature and thereby enriching Chinese scholarship. This approach set an important standard to which scholars might appeal for understanding the context and content of the HBOT, as well as the New Testament.

3.2. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies as a Small Part of Chinese Theology By the end of the 1980s, the field of HBOT studies had been established by Mainland Chinese scholars. With the promotion of Liu Xiaofeng, who worked for the Institute of Chinese Christian Culture in Hong Kong (Xiang Gang Han Yu Ji Du Jiao Wen Hua Yan Jiu Suo), some scholars began to study Christian theology at various universities and colleges from the perspective of humanistic philosophy.19 They spent much time and energy for translating western Christian theological works and for introducing basic Christian ideas. This project can be referred to as Chinese Theology (“Han Yu Shen Xue”) in the narrow sense.20 We can trace the path of Chinese Theology’s development over roughly thirty years and recognize that the scope of consideration tends to be narrowly focused on Christian theologies. HBOT studies is affiliated with Chinese Theology as a basic source, but only as a small part of it. In fact, few scholars touch on biblical theology or religious thought in the HBOT. For instance, Zhao Dunhua, a senior professor at Beijing University, takes 700 pages to introduce the history of Christian philoso16

Zhu, Xi Bo Lai Wen Xue Jian Jie [A Brief Introduction to Hebrew Literature] (1980). Twenty volumes were originally planned for the series of translated works, but only twelve have been published; Gu (ed.), You Tai Wen Hua Xi Lie [The Series of Jewish Culture] (1989); Liang/Lo (eds.), Sheng Jing Wen Hua Jie Du Shu Xi [The Series of Biblical Culture Reading] (2003). 18 See Liang, Sheng Jing Wen Xue Yan Jiu De Li Lun Yu Shi Jian [The Theory and Practice of Biblical Literature Studies] 1 (2007) 35–40. 19 Currently in Mainland China, Christian theology appears as Christian philosophy because the term “theology” (“Shen Xue”) is very sensitive for the main ideology, that is, Chinese Marxism. In essence, Christian philosophy as a Chinese version of Christian theology is not connected with theology at all, but represents, rather, a branch of humanism. 20 See D. Yeung (ed.), Han Yu Shen Xue Chu Yi [Debates on Chinese Theology] (Hong Kong: The Institute of Chinese Christian Culture 2000). 17

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phy from patristic times to the late Middle Ages in his Christian Philosophy 1500 Years.21 Only fifteen pages, however, are given to his treatment of the basic biblical ideas of Christianity. In the view of current Chinese theologians, the HBOT is, at most, merely one source for their theological structures, or one unclear horizon for them in their own constructions of theological systems. Even when Mainland Chinese scholars retrace the history of Christian philosophy in China, they do not leave any pages for discussing biblical thought.22

3.3. Old Testament Studies as an Independent Discipline At the threshold of the twenty-first century, we find more and more junior scholars working to establish HBOT studies as an independent discipline in the staterun education system. They aim to become the heirs of Western biblical studies, and to bridge biblical studies and Chinese tradition and culture, which, they perceive, needs biblical guidance for both academic studies and everyday life. Some scholars have published their original textbooks on biblical studies to introduce basic historical contexts and theological content. You Bin’s The Literary, Historical and Thought World of the Hebrew Bible: An Introduction is the first academic textbook to describe the entire HBOT on the basis of modern biblical criticism.23 Before it was published, Sun Yi’s An Introduction to the Bible offered the big picture of the HBOT and New Testament in plain language.24 Their attempts are a decisive move from the importing of foreign works of biblical studies to independent Chinese writing. While Huang Ximu published his own grammar of biblical Greek, Liu Ping translated and published the biblical Hebrew grammar by C. L. Seow of Princeton Theological Seminary.25 Professors are using these two textbooks for training young scholars to read the original biblical texts behind Chinese and English Bible versions.26 Liu Hengxian (penname of Liu Ping) and Wang Zhongxin co-edited the Western Contemporary Biblical Studies Series. In 2008, the following four volumes were been published in this series: The Canon of the Scripture by F. F. Bruce (1910–1990); The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance by Bruce M. Metzger (1914–2007); From Paradise to the Promised Land: An Introduction to the Main Themes of the Pentateuch by T. Desmond Alexander; and The New Testament: An introduction to its Literature and History by Gresham Machen (1881–1936).27 All of the 21 Z.S Dunhua, Ji Du Jiao Zhe Xue 1500 Nian [1500 Years of Christian Philosophy] (Beijing: People’s Press 1994), 45–60. 22 Sun Xiangyang/Liu Zhongkun, 20 Shi Ji Xi Fang Zhe Xue Dong Jian Shi: Ji Du Jiao Zhe Xue Zai Zhong Guo [A History of the Eastward Permeation of Western Philosophy in the 20th Century] (Beijing: Capital Normal UP 2002). 23 You, Xi Bo Lai Sheng Jing De Wen Ben [An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible] (2007). 24 Sun, Sheng Jing Dao Du [An Introduction to the Bible] (2005). 25 Huang, Sheng Jing Xi La Wen Wen Fa [A Grammar of Biblical Greek] (2008); Seow, Sheng Jing Xi Bo Lai Wen Wen Fa [A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew], (tr. Fei Gaoyin/Lu Sihao; Liu Ping; 2008). 26 There is still no Hebrew or Greek edition of the biblical text published in Mainland China. Chinese scholars and other readers can obtain various Chinese and English versions, such as the CUV, NIV, and NKJV. 27 These four books were published by Shanghai People’s Press in 2008.

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above-mentioned publications indicate that HBOT studies has come into its own beside literature and philosophy, and they present a powerful case for both the width and depth of HBOT studies as an independent discipline. Thus even when the main thread woven chiefly by senior scholars has a strong impact on academic research and non-specialists, these works largely by junior scholars have changed and will continue to change the trend of HBOT studies. The past thirty years of HBOT studies in China has been characterized by great transition. First, literary approaches offered HBOT studies an official title and safe wing. Next, HBOT studies branched out beyond the field of literature to occupy a place in that of philosophy, or theology. Finally, HBOT studies have come to find their own place within the state-run education system. We have been able to trace the rise and development of HBOT studies according to a clear and neat chronological schema. In the future, however, interrelated elements, both ideological and ecclesiastical, will make it more and more difficult to analyze the various schools, ideas, and movements. More and more Chinese scholars welcome these difficulties as challenges that will enrich our understanding of Yhwh’s word in the Chinese context.

Chapter Thirty-six

Biblical Scholarship on the European Continent and in the United Kingdom and Ireland By John Barton, Oxford Bibliography: M. G. Abegg / P. Flint / E. C. Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1999). – R. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period (London: SCM 1994). – W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (Garden City NY: Doubleday 1957). – A. Alt, Die Staatenbildung der Israeliten in Palästina: verfassungsgeschichtliche Studien (Leipzig: A. Edelmann 1930); Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts (Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1934). – R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (London: George Allen & Unwin 1981); The World of Biblical Literature (New York: Basic Books 1992). – G. W. Anderson (ed.), Tradition and Interpretation: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1979). – J. Barr, The Symbolism of Names in the Old Testament (Manchester: John Rylands Library 1969); The Typology of Literalism in Ancient Biblical Translations (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1979). – H. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos (Leiden: Brill 1984). – R. Barthes, Analyse structurale et exégèse biblique (Neuchâtel 1971). – E. Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (BZAW 189; Berlin: de Gruyter 1990). – G. Braulik, Deuteronomium (Würzburg: Echter Verlag 1992); Studien zur Theologie des Deuteronomiums (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1988). – J. Bright, A History of Israel, (London: SCM 1959); Early Israel in Recent History Writing: A Study in Method (London: SCM 1956). – R. P. Carroll, When Prophecy Failed: Cognitive Dissonance in the Prophetic Traditions of the Old Testament (New York: Seabury 1979). – B. S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (London: SCM 1979); Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (London: SCM, 1985); The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster 1974). – R. E. Clements, A Century of Old Testament Study (Guildford: Lutterworth Press 1976; rev. edn. 1983); Abraham and David: Genesis XV and its Meaning for Israelite Tradition (London: SCM Press 1967); Prophecy and Covenant (London: SCM Press 1965); Prophecy and Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell 1975). – F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA / London: Harvard UP 1973). – P. R. Davies, In Search of ‘Ancient Israel’ (Sheffield: JSOT Press 1992). – J. Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2002). – Friedr. Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel (Leipzig 1905). – W. G. Dever, Did God have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2005). – W. Dietrich, Prophetie und Geschichte: eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1972). – M. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1969). – S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark 1891). – H. Duesberg / P. I. Fransen, Les scribes inspirés (Maredsous: Éditions de Maredsous 1966). – B. Duhm, Israels Propheten (Tübingen: Mohr 1916; 2 1922). – W. Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1–3(Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs 1933–39). – O. Eissfeldt, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Tübingen: Mohr 1934); ET: The Old Testament: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell 1965). – J. Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative: An Introductory Guide (Lousiville, KY: Westminster John Knox 2001). – N. K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel 1250–1050 BCE (London: SCM 1980). – H. Gunkel, Das Märchen im Alten Testament (Tübingen: Mohr 1921); Die Psalmen (Göttingen 1925–26); The Legends of Genesis (Chicago: Open Court 1901). – J. A. Hackett, The Balaam Text from deir ‘alla (Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1984). – A. O. Haldar, Associations of Cult Prophets among the Ancient

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Semites (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells 1945). – P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress 1975). – R. S. Hendel, The Text of Genesis 1–11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition (New York: Oxford UP 1998). – S. Herrmann, A History of Israel in Old Testament Times (London: SCM 1975). – G. Hölscher, Geschichtsschreibung in Israel: Untersuchungen zum Jahvisten und Elohisten (Lund: Gleerup 1952). – S. H. Hooke, Myth, Ritual and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (London: SPCK 1935). – A. R. Johnson, The Cultic Prophet in Ancient Israel (Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1979); The Vitality of the Individual in the Thought of Ancient Israel (Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1949). – C. Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1–9. Eine form- und motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung unter Einbeziehung ägyptischen Vergleichsmaterials (WMANT 22; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag 1966). – O. Keel, “Rechttun oder Annahme des drohenden Gerichts?”, BZ NF 21 (1977) 200–218. – K. Koch, The Prophets (London: SCM 1982–83); Um das Prinzip der Vergeltung in Religion und Recht des Alten Testaments (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1972). – H.-J. Kraus, Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments (Munich: Kaiser Verlag 1962); Worship in Israel: A Cultic History of the Old Testament (Oxford: Blackwell 1966). – E. R. Leach, Genesis as Myth and Other Essays (London: Cape 1969). – A. Lemaire, Les écoles et la formation de la Bible dans l’ancien Israël (Fribourg: Éditions universitaires / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1981). – N. P. Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988). – C. LéviStrauss, Les structures élémentaires de la parenté (Paris: Mouton 1967). – J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Blackwell 1962). – A. Malamat, Mari and the Bible (Leiden: Brill 1998). – A. D. H. Mayes (ed.), Text in Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Oxford: Oxford UP 2000); idem, Israel in the Period of the Judges (London: SCM Press 1974). – W. McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark 1986– 96); Proverbs: A New Approach (London: SCM 1970). – G. E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Pittsburgh: The Presbyterian Board of Colportage of Western Pennsylvania 1955); The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 1973). – A. Merx, Die Prophetie des Joel und ihre Ausleger von den ältesten Zeiten bis zu den Reformatoren (Halle 1879). – R. W. L. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2000). – S. Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien I–VI (Kristiania: J. Dybwad 1921–24); Offersang og sangoffer: salmediktningen i Bibelen (Oslo: Aschehoug 1951; 2nd impr. Universitetsforlaget 1971); ET: The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (Oxford: Blackwell 1962). – R. D. Nelson, The Double Redaction in the Deuteronomistic History (Sheffield: JSOT Press 1981). – E. W. Nicholson, God and his People: Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1986); Exodus and Sinai in History and Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell 1973); The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford: Oxford UP 1998); Deuteronomy and Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell 1967). – M. Nissinen, Prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern Context: Mesopotamian, Biblical and Arabian Perspectives (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2000). – M. Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien I (Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft 18/2; Halle 1943; 2nd edn. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer 1957); Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1948); Geschichte Israels (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1950). – E. Otto, Das Deuteronomium im Pentateuch und Hexateuch: Studien zur Literaturgeschichte von Pentateuch und Hexateuch im Lichte des Deuteronomiumrahmens (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2000); Das Deuteronomium: politische Theologie und Rechtsreform in Juda und Assyrien (Berlin: de Gruyter 1999). – A. S. Peake (ed.), The People and the Book: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1925). – J. Pedersen, Israel, its Life and Culture (London: Oxford UP 1928–40). – L. Perlitt, Bundestheologie im Alten Testament (WMANT 36: Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1969); Vatke und Wellhausen: geschichtsphilosophische Voraussetzungen und historiographische Motive für die Darstellung der Religion und Geschichte Israels durch Wilhelm Vatke und Julius Wellhausen (BZAW 94; Berlin: A. Töpelmann 1965). – O. Plöger, Theokratie und Eschatologie (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag 1959). – G. von Rad, “The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel”, in: The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh and London: T. & T. Clark 1965), 1–42; idem, Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch (BWANT iv: 13; Stuttgart 1934), also in: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (Munich 1958); idem, Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1–2 (Munich: Kaiser Verlag 1958– 60). – O. S . Rankin, Israel’s Wisdom Literature: Its Bearing on Theology and the History of Religion (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark 1936). – L. J. Regt / J. de Waard / J. Fokkelman, Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in the Hebrew Bible (Assen: Van Gorcum 1996). – R. Rendtorff, Das überlief-

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erungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (Berlin: de Gruyter 1977); idem, The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament (Leiden: Deo 2005). – H. Graf Reventlow, Liturgie und prophetisches Ich bei Jeremia (Gütersloh: G. Mohn 1963). – W. Richter, Exegese als Literaturwissenschaft: Entwurf einer alttestamentlichen Literaturtheorie und Methodologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1971). – P. Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation (London: SPCK 1981). – H. W. Robinson (ed.), Record and Revelation: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1938); idem, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel (new edition, Philadelphia: Fortress 1980). – T. H. Robinson,“The Methods of Higher Criticism”, The People and the Book (ed. A. S. Peake; Oxford: Clarendon Press 1925), 151–182. – J. W. Rogerson, “The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality”, JTS 21 (1970), 1–16; idem, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany (London: SPCK 1984). – M. Rose, Deuteronomist und Jahwist: Untersuchung zu den Berührungspunkten beider Literaturwerke (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag 1981). – L. Rost, Die Überlieferung von der Thronnachfolge Davids (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1926). – H. H. Rowley (ed.), The Old Testament and Modern Study: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1951); H. H. Rowley/M. Noth /D. W. Thomas (eds.), Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill 1960). – H. H. Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag 1976); idem, Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit: Eine Untersuchung zur altorientalischen und israelitischen Weisheitsliteratur (Berlin: A. Töpelmann 1966). – J. S. Semler, Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Kanon (Halle 1771–75). – Y. Sherwood, Derrida’s Bible: Reading a Page of Scripture with a Little Help from Derrida (New York/Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2004). – R. Smend, Die Entstehung des Alten Testaments (Stuttgart/Berlin/Mainz: Kohlhammer 1981). – M. S. Smith, The Early History of God:Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (San Francsico/ London: Harper & Row 1990). – J. A. Soggin, A History of Israel: From the Beginnings to the Bar Kochba Revolt, AD 135 (London: SCM 1984). – I. Soisalon-Soininen/A. Aejmelaeus/R. Sollamo, Studien zur Septuaginta-Syntax (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia 1987). – T. L. Thompson, The Origin Tradition of Ancient Israel (Sheffield: JSOT Press 1987). – E. Troeltsch, Das Ethos der hebräischen Propheten (Tübingen 1916). – J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven/London: Yale UP 1975). – W. Vatke, Die Religion des Alten Testaments nach den kanonischen Büchern entwickelt (Berlin 1935). – R. de Vaux, Histoire ancienne d’Israël (Paris: Gabalda 1971–73); idem, Les Institutions de l’Ancien Testament (Paris: Éditions de Cerf 1958–60). – T. Veijola, Das Königtum in der Beurteilung der deuteronomistischen Historiographie: eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia 1977); idem, Die ewige Dynastie:David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie nach der deuteronomistischen Darstellung (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia 1975) . – F. Watson, Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective (Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1994). – A. C. Welch, The Code of Deuteronomny: A New Theory of its Origin (London: J. Clarke 1924). – J. Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (Berlin: G. Reimer 1899); idem, Geschichte Israels: In zwei Bänden. Erster Band (Berlin: G. Reimer 1878); 2nd edn.: Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Berlin: G. Reimer 1883); ET: Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black 1885); repr. as Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (New York: Orbis Books 1957); idem, Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte (Berlin 1894). – R. N. Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study (Sheffield: JSOT Press 1987); idem, Wisdom in Proverbs: The Concept of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9 (London: SCM 1965). – R. R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress 1980). – H. Winckler/ E. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (Berlin 1903). – H. W. Wolff, Studien zur Prophetie: Probleme und Erträge (Munich: Kaiser Verlag 1987).

1. The Triumph of Wellhausen At the beginning of the twenty-first century Old Testament studies is in a state of what may optimistically be called pluralism, pessimistically chaos. There are no agreed positions on anything, and debate has become a free-for-all. At the be-

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ginning of the twentieth century the picture could not have been more different: there was a single model or paradigm around which biblical scholars could unite.1 That model was produced by the genius of one man, Julius Wellhausen. Wellhausen2 had adopted from Karl-Heinz Graf, anticipated in this by Wilhelm Vatke,3 the slogan lex post prophetas: the law (meaning by this primarily the laws in what we now call P) came later than the (great classical) prophets. By comparing the priestly legislation in the Pentateuch with the evidence provided by the historical books from Joshua to 2 Kings, Wellhausen had shown that the legal requirements laid down in P were unknown in the pre-exilic period. Hence, he argued, P was not the first of the four Pentateuchal sources, but the last. Only after the Exile of the sixth century did a religion come into existence whose life was grounded on the priestly legislation, a religion that can rightly be called Judaism. The religion of earlier times was characterized by the worship of the God Yahweh, but it did not have the distinctive marks of later Judaism: it was simply the Israelite version of a common type of religion found all over the Semitic world, in which the chief god was regarded as the protector of his people. How did Israel move from this kind of religion to the ethical, monotheistic religion that became Judaism? Wellhausen’s answer was that this came about through the work of the great prophets. It was they who came to think of the fate of Israel as depending on its ethical response to God: to them we owe the Ten Commandments and the whole idea of ethical devotion to the one God. P codified their insights. But in the process much was lost of the spontaneity of the earlier religion, which the prophets had managed to maintain. Obedience to God ceased to be a matter of the devotion of the heart, and came to be seen as the observance of ever more detailed ritual and dietary regulations. The prophets thus represented a high water mark in the development of Israelite religion, from which it declined into ‘Pharisaism’. The tragedy of Israel was that it was unable to keep the vision of the prophets alive, and instead codified it into a dead legalism. The result was that the Old Testament taken as a whole was less inspiring than its early parts taken alone: hence the motto from Hesiod which Wellhausen prefixed to his Prolegomena: pleon hemisu pantos, “the half is more than the whole”. Whether or not Wellhausen was right in this assessment, it cannot be denied that he had a total view of the Old Testament, as evidence for a religious development unique in the ancient world. It explained the progression from one source to the next in the Pentateuch (and Wellhausen had also contributed very significantly to identifying just what was in each source4); it accounted for the rise of Judaism; and it gave the prophets a prominent place in the history of Israelite religion as creative geniuses. Wellhausen had plenty of critics. On the Christian side, some were scandalized by the idea that the Pentateuch was not by Moses 1 The development of Old Testament scholarship through the twentieth century can be traced through the survey volumes published about every twenty-five years by the British and Irish Society for Old Testament Study: Peake, People and Book (1925); Robinson, Record and Revelation (1938); Rowley, Old Testament and Modern Study (1951); Anderson (Tradition and Interpretation (1979); and Mayes, Text in Context (2000). See also the useful work by Clements, Century (1976). 2 Wellhausen, Geschichte Israels (1878). 3 Vatke, Religion des Alten Testaments (1835). 4 Wellhausen, Composition des Hexateuchs (1899).

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(though that had been implied in most Pentateuchal criticism for at least a century before Wellhausen), and even those who could accept that were unhappy about the idea that the religion of Israel developed over time rather than having been revealed in early ages. On the Jewish side, the late dating of P was felt to be implicitly anti-Semitic, turning Judaism into a religion that was in effect invented after the Exile; and Wellhausen’s scornful attitude towards ‘Jewish legalism’ rankled, as it still does today. It was not long before the developmental aspect of Wellhausen’s theory came to be seen as inspired by the theory of evolution, while his acknowledged debt to Vatke was felt to imply that he, like Vatke, was a Hegelian. Yet the majority of scholars in continental Europe soon came to see Wellhausen’s model as the best explanatory framework for the Old Testament. In Britain acceptance came more slowly: scholars there were sceptical of German higher criticism, widely seen as a form of anti-religious rationalism. But through the work of S. R. Driver5 its results came increasingly to be accepted in the British Isles too. It would be fair to say that until very recently Old Testament scholarship, even where it differs from Wellhausen, has had to take his work as its starting point. The twentieth century thus began with what J. W. Rogerson aptly calls ‘the triumph of Wellhausen’.6

2. Wellhausen’s Agenda We may identify three themes and three assumptions in Wellhausen’s work that set the agenda for Old Testament scholarship in the twentieth century, and these will give shape to the account of this scholarship that follows. First there is the central importance of identifying the Pentateuchal sources, and of applying the same kind of source criticism to other books such as those of the prophets and the histories. Wellhausen of course did not initiate the search for the sources lying behind the present text: traditionally one thinks of Jean Astruc in the eighteenth century as the initiator of this quest, though even he was anticipated in part by others such as Spinoza and Hobbes. But Wellhausen did set the identification of the sources on a firm foundation by meticulous attention to the detail of the text. He did not think he had said the last word on the subject, and would not have been surprised that others would refine the analysis further. As we shall see, the twentieth century saw a profusion of theories about the Pentateuchal sources, and also the elaboration of comparable theories about the other narrative books of the Bible. But it was not until late in the twentieth century that critics in Europe began to question the very hypothesis that there were sources underlying the Pentateuch: the exact results of source criticism might differ from one scholar to another, but it still seemed the obvious approach to adopt in principle. Secondly, for Wellhausen the aim of the documentary hypothesis was to establish a sound historical progression among the ‘sources’ and so to obtain evidence 5 6

Driver, Introduction (1891). Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism (1984).

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for the life, thought, and religion of Israel in different periods. The word ‘source’ has in fact subtly changed in meaning since his day. Wellhausen was trying to establish sources for the history of Israel, comparable to the sources for writing Greek or Roman history that were being studied by the great classical historians of the nineteenth century. His point was that the Pentateuch was not a single historical source, but four historical sources, which needed to be disentangled before they could function as source-material for the historian of Israel. Subsequently ‘source’ came to mean ‘underlying document’, so that we could speak of ‘the sources of the Pentateuch’. In English what is still called Literarkritik in German came to be known as ‘source criticism’. For Wellhausen, however, the four major documents in the Pentateuch were ‘sources’ primarily in the sense that they were four bodies of evidence for different phases in the history of Israelite religion. The twentieth century has seen an explosion of interest in this history, and the biblical material has come to be augmented by a huge body of relevant material from other quarters, notable Mesopotamia, Egypt, and even Syria-Palestine itself, which was largely unknown to Wellhausen. But it was he who established that one task of the Old Testament scholar is to study the religion of Israel in its development. For him the study of the religion of Israel largely replaced ‘Old Testament Theology’, which he saw as a confessional discipline rather than as part of a wissenschaftlich study of the Bible; this question has been much debated in subsequent scholarship, and is still not resolved. Thirdly, Wellhausen’s model lays great weight on the role of the prophets. Before Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the like, the religious consciousness of Israel was orientated towards Yahweh as primarily the ‘helper’ of the nation. The prophets enunciated for the first time the idea that the relationship between Yahweh and Israel was contractual. On Wellhausen’s model the notion of the covenant between God and the nation as not simply a promise by God but a two-sided agreement, in which Israel must keep its side of the bargain, derives essentially from the prophets: it has been read back into the Mosaic history by the Pentateuchal narrators, especially E. The prophets were the discoverers of what came in scholarship to be known as ethical monotheism. The high point of this development was the prophet we know as Deutero-Isaiah, the author of Isaiah 40–55. In him the monotheistic impulses of earlier prophets reach their climax. Though it was already known that there were people something like the biblical prophets in other cultures in Antiquity, for example in ancient Greece, on the whole the emphasis fell on the uniqueness of the prophets of Israel. The question how far this is true was to be a major issue in twentieth century scholarship. Apart from these three major themes, we can identify three assumptions, matters that for Wellhausen were methodologically evident or even self-evident. One was the aptness of a historical method for studying the Old Testament. Wellhausen was a historian, not a theologian, and his aim was to write a history of Israel – to which his textual and source-critical studies were, as he made explicit, to be seen as prolegomena. To explain the Old Testament was to explain it historically. History as a major category for biblical studies came to be much discussed in the course of the subsequent century, with historical methods at times coming under attack and also at times leading to extremely radical reconstructions of ancient Israel (though Wellhausen’s own reconstruction was radical enough in its day).

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How far the study of the Old Testament is correctly seen as a form of history remains hotly debated. The second assumption is that the Old Testament is to be read primarily as evidence for the reality to which it gives us access – in Paul Ricoeur’s expression, to study the world behind the text7 – rather than as a finished work in its own right. One might say that Wellhausen was faced with a situation in which people on the whole did read the Bible as a finished whole, and one of his tasks was to show that it was a highly composite work from which one could rediscover religious movements and attitudes that had been glossed over by the final canonizers. R. Alter8 has popularized the use of an archaeological model to describe higher criticism as practised by Wellhausen and his followers: the critic ‘digs up’ the text and discovers the various layers that have contributed to it, much as archaeologists excavate a tell. The apparent unity of the finished Old Testament conceals a rich variety of religious standpoints, and the business of the critic is to lay them bare in all their diversity – in a sense to undo the work of those who canonized them in their composite form. In this Wellhausen is the heir of J. S. Semler.9 More recent scholarship has started to take an interest in what Ricoeur calls the world ‘in front of’ the text – that is, Scripture as it engages with us as its readers. But biblical scholarship in Europe has traditionally been uneasy with this approach. In Britain it has had some importance, largely through influence from North America, but in continental Europe it has been a more minor theme until the present day. Thirdly, Wellhausen like all scholars of his time believed that it was crucial to have an accurate text of the Bible. He worked with the Hebrew Bibles that were available in his day, but made many (often brilliant) proposals for textual emendation, and he drew on the ancient versions as well as on the Massoretic text. The twentieth century saw a massive expansion of knowledge about both the Hebrew text and the versions, and European scholars were in the forefront of developments in this field.

3. Sources The first development after Wellhausen was, naturally enough, the attempt to refine further his documentary analysis of the Pentateuch. The details of this in the first few decades of the twentieth century are set out by R. Smend in his chapter above – for the beginning of the twentieth century is an arbitrary cut-off point, and the immediate heritage of Wellhausen may be considered to belong intellectually to the nineteenth. New developments arrived when scholars began to question the dates Wellhausen had assigned to the sources, arguing that in some cases they were later than he supposed, and also when the possibility suggested itself that we could go behind the sources to earlier traditions. G. Hölscher, for example, argued that E was considerably later than Wellhausen thought, and that 7 8 9

Ricoeur, Essays (1981). Alter, Art of Biblical Narrative (1981). Semler, Abhandlung (1771–75).

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the sources in general ran on into the historical books (not just as far as Joshua, as Wellhausen had thought), which would have to mean that the Pentateuch was part of a larger, and later, whole.10 So far as going back behind the four sources is concerned, Eissfeldt suggested that there was a further, and very early, source, which he called L (Lay-source), even further removed from the legalism and sacerdotalism of P than J – a witness to the simple and ‘profane’ character of early Israel that Wellhausen had discovered.11 (It was supposed to contain, for example, the stories of the drunkenness of Noah and of Lot.) Further development of source analysis was more or less confined to the German-speaking world. In Britain scholars felt pressed to justify and explain the Documentary Hypothesis, rather than to elaborate it, since it was still regarded by many in the churches as suspect (and remains so in more conservative Christian circles to this day). On the whole British scholars grasped Wellhausen’s point that Pentateuchal criticism could lead one to the reconstruction of Israel’s religious history, but they missed his proposal that P marked a decline from the earlier religion of Israel as consummated by the prophets, and saw the development instead in terms of progression and advance. Where Wellhausen was deeply ambivalent over P, seeing it as monotheistic yet also as legalistic, British scholarship generally celebrated P as the climax of the Pentateuch and as the goal of a ‘progressive revelation’. Source criticism had as its goal the elucidation of the stages through which God had led his people in their quest to understand him better, and the sublime monotheism of Genesis 1 is the high point of that quest. This would have been altogether too ‘pious’ for Wellhausen, ignoring the downside of the post-exilic priestly religion which for him marked a decline from, not an advance upon, the religion of the prophets. In striving to get the results of higher criticism accepted in Britain, scholars such as S. R. Driver and John Skinner, and above all perhaps A. S. Peake, presented its results as beneficial to religious faith, rather than as challenging to it, a tendency that has persisted in British Old Testament scholarship. One way of going back ‘behind’ the four sources is, as with Eissfeldt, to posit even earlier sources than J. But a more radical suggestion arises from the work of H. Gunkel, and that is to ask about the originally oral tales on which even our earliest written sources depend.12 Wellhausen had not thought that even J wrote simply out of his own head: he acknowledged that he must have known traditional stories. But such stories were unrecoverable: we had only the written versions. Gunkel, drawing analogies with Norse legends, argued that it might in principle and even in practice be possible to reconstruct the underlying materials on which J drew. The patriarchal stories, for example, were for Wellhausen simply the product of Israel under the monarchy, with its concerns and interests reflected back on to ancient times ‘like a glorified mirage’, as he put it. Gunkel thought this too pessimistic. In the folk literature of any nation – one may think of the stories collected by the Grimms – there are tales that go back well before any fixing in writing, and one can trace their basic motifs and themes through the 10 11 12

Hölscher, Geschichtsschreibung (1952). Eissfeldt, Einleitung (1934). Gunkel, Legends (1901), Märchen (1921).

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centuries. The stories often have common shapes and patterns, and from this one can build up a picture in each case of an underlying oral genre or Gattung. Hence there developed the discipline known as Gattungsgeschichte, Formgeschichte, or sometimes Formkritik, usually ‘form criticism’ in English. This had a major influence in Gospel criticism through the work of R. Bultmann, but it was also strongly influential in the study of the Old Testament in the two areas in which Gunkel himself applied it: Pentateuchal and Psalms13 study. In both cases the influence of Scandinavian scholarship is very marked, and Gunkel was strongly indebted to the Danish anthropologist V. Grønbech, who worked on the mentality of ‘primitive’ cultures. The idea that we might be able to establish an oral development behind the existing texts blossomed in what is usually called tradition history or traditio-historical criticism, which dominated German scholarship in the period between the World Wars and influenced British study of the Old Testament both then and on into the 1960s. Tradition history supposes that it is possible to get behind the finished text and to trace the stages by which it developed both orally and in written form: it is thus a refinement of both source and form criticism. The two great exponents of the approach were Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad, who both worked not only on the Pentateuch but also on the ‘Deuteronomistic History’ (the historical books or what the Hebrew Bible dubs the Former Prophets – Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings).14 Noth argued that underlying both the early sources J and E was a Grundschrift, G, which explained the overlap between them (rather as Q explains the overlaps between Matthew and Luke in the New Testament). What G showed was that the stories of early Israel had developed over a long period, just as Gunkel had argued, and that it was possible to reconstruct ever earlier stages in their development. Noth famously claimed that G had consisted of five great cycles of tradition, such as the stories of the patriarchs and the events at Sinai, and that the figure of Moses, who seems to the ordinary reader so central to the Pentateuch, was originally peripheral to each of them. In British and especially in North American scholarship this was widely seen as mere scepticism about the historicity of the Pentateuchal stories, but for Noth it represented a gain in historical knowledge, taking us back into an earlier period before the great Moses was imposed on stories that had originally not known him. Such an approach coheres well with the study of folklore, in which it is well known that famous figures tend to take over stories originally told of some more local hero. By stripping away the accretions of later times one can get back to the original tale. Gerhard von Rad also tried to get back to an original core of the Pentateuch in his work on the so-called ‘cultic credo’ which he identified in Deut 26:5–11. His proposal was that these formulaic words, though recorded within a specific context in Deuteronomy, originally formed a more or less credal text which was recited on various occasions in ancient Israel, and which constituted the basis upon which the whole Pentateuch was constructed. He drew attention to the 13

Gunkel, Psalmen (1925–26). Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien (1943), Überlieferungsgeschichte (1948); von Rad, Das formgeschichtliche Problem (1934). 14

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fact that the formula omitted any mention of the law-giving on Sinai and argued that therefore the Pentateuchal narrative had not originally included that element, but had been pure Heilsgeschichte – an account of the mighty acts of God on Israel’s behalf and not of any obligations incumbent on them. More recent scholarship has tended to see the ‘credo’ as a late summary of the Pentateuchal Heilsgeschichte rather than as underlying it, and consequently as a late and deuteronomistic digest, which omits the lawgiving precisely because it is interested only in the events of salvation, not because it did not know about them. But von Rad’s theory attracted a great deal of interest, chiming as it did with contemporary and later North American concern for the ‘mighty acts of God’ in the so-called Biblical Theology movement. This kind of tradition history also had influential followers (not uncritical ones) in the United Kingdom and Ireland, such as E. W. Nicholson,15 R. E. Clements,16 and A. D. H. Mayes.17 Martin Noth extended his researches from the Pentateuch into what he was the first to call the ‘Deuteronomistic History’, which he saw mainly as a creative compilation from existing source-material, some oral, some written, made by a single author during the exilic period in Judah, probably in the entourage of Gedaliah at Mizpah. In his study of this work he effectively passes from tradition history to something more like what is now usually called redaction criticism, the study of how a later editor has shaped, not older oral tradition, but pre-existing written sources. For example, the Deuteronomistic History incorporates the story of the rise of David in 1 Samuel and the ‘Succession Narrative’, as it was called by Leonhard Rost,18 in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings. Both works are generally thought to have existed already in a fairly finished literary form; the compiler of the Deuteronomistic History has at most tweaked them to make them fit in his narrative. At the same time there are other places where he is more an author than a compiler or redactor, for example in providing reflections in his own words on the fall of Israel and the decline of Judah (2 Kings 21:10–15; 24:3–4), and in inventing speeches in deuteronomistic style to be uttered by significant characters in the history, such as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and Solomon. Here again we see the basic category of ‘source’ much developed from the sense it has in the Documentary Hypothesis and covering a range of literary types, both oral and written. Since the work of Noth and von Rad attitudes towards Pentateuchal and other sources have moved in a more sceptical direction. One sees this in the work of R. Rendtorff.19 Rendtorff is critical of Noth’s approach, though in a way he also builds on Noth’s own scepticism about the literary unity of the various stories in the Pentateuch and his isolation of five major themes. He argues that the various narrative blocks in the Pentateuch, such as the stories of the patriarchs, originally existed and developed independently of other traditions, such as the exodus. This undermines the idea of four sources running as it were horizontally through the whole Pentateuch, and suggests instead that the various blocks of material were

15 16 17 18 19

Nicholson, Exodus and Sinai (1973). Clements, Abraham and David (1967). Mayes, Israel in the Period of the Judges (1974). Rost, Thronnachfolge (1926). Rendtorff, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem (1977).

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linked together relatively late, with only rather faint redactional hands being demonstrable. This leaves the Documentary Hypothesis in tatters. The task of the critic is to study the literary growth of each individual theme, rather than to look for macro-structures running through the Pentateuch. The traditional ‘sources’ exist only as redactional touches to the material as it developed, and their dating remains vague and unclear. On this basis there is no longer a J or a P source at all. The effect on Wellhausen’s grand model can be imagined. British scholars contributed little to Pentateuchal criticism of an original kind, though they produced excellent guides to it, notably that by E. W. Nicholson.20 However, in one case we do find a contribution which goes even further than Rendtorff, R. N. Whybray’s The Making of the Pentateuch, which argues against sources altogether.21 For Whybray the Pentateuch is the product of an author in the modern sense: someone who wrote freely, though sometimes drawing on existing stories whose prehistory is, however, wholly lost to us. The discrepancies and doublets in the story, which were the bedrock of the Documentary Hypothesis, Whybray explains as stylistic variation. Few other scholars in Britain or Continental Europe have followed Whybray: the closest parallels can be found in some North American writers such as R. Alter. The major development in more recent years can be seen in the work of E. Blum, who tries to carry through the programme adumbrated by Rendtorff.22 He begins by arguing that the story of the patriarchs developed through redaction and rewriting over a period of about five hundred years, beginning as early as the reign of Jeroboam I (earlier than Wellhausen dated any of the sources). No discrete J and E elements can be distinguished in this development. At some point, however, the complex was subjected to a D-editing, which can be discerned throughout the Pentateuch. Priestly material, on Blum’s view, continues to be distinct from the other hands in the Pentateuch, but it is essentially again a redactional framework that has been applied to the existing texts rather than a source, in the strict sense, originally existing independently. The conclusion of Blum’s very detailed work is that there is a pre-priestly strand (“vor-priesterliche Komposition”, KD) and a priestly strand (“priesterliche Komposition”, KP): all other supposed sources fail to stand up to scrutiny. Both KD and KP derive from the Persian period, probably from the fifth century BCE. KP edited the existing Pentateuchal material, KD, to impose on it the priestly dominance that Wellhausen had seen as characteristic of P. In the work of Blum, Noth’s traditio-historical approach finds a thoroughgoing application to the Pentateuch, and results in the rejection of the traditional sources altogether, in favour of the idea of gradually growing corpora of material eventually knitted together by a priestly redactor. We see here a literary development of the idea of tradition history in what is known in German as Fortschreibung, for which no English equivalent exists (‘accretion’, perhaps?). This refers to the practice whereby a scribe takes an existing text and adds to it, developing it perhaps in a new direction but without destroying what is already there. Where 20 21 22

Nicholson, The Pentateuch (1998). Whybray, Making (1987). Blum, Komposition (1990).

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the traditional Documentary Hypothesis thinks of discrete sources which have been subsequently woven together – a simple two-stage process – an emphasis on Fortschreibung conceives of texts growing by gradual accretion, as one scribe after another copies the text and makes additions to it, to produce what W. McKane in his Jeremiah commentary23 describes as a “rolling corpus” – a snowball. By the end of the twentieth century there was a general consensus that one can be sure of only two things about the sources of the Pentateuch. One is the existence of P in some form: the priestly material is easily discerned, and has a coherent theology and chronology. The other, which follows analytically, is the presence in the Pentateuch of ‘non-P’, stories and laws that do not show the hand of the priestly writer or redactor. But the dating and exact stratification of the non-priestly material is now entirely a matter of dispute. Fortschreibung may be seen at work in the production of the Deuteronomistic History, according to the work of the ‘Göttingen School’ (R. Smend,24 W. Dietrich,25 and T. Veijola26). Against Noth’s theory that this work had a single author, these scholars propose three stages of composition: a basic core (DtrG), a prophetic redaction (DtrP) and a ‘nomistic’ redaction (DtrN), all taking place during the exilic period and aligning the work with the successive emphases of different groups. British scholars have tended to follow the American (Cross School’s) double redaction theory, which thinks of a pre-exilic DtrH revised during the exile but does not see the exilic redaction as multiple.27 But British scholarship has not added much of its own to the evidence for either theory. Despite all the redating of Pentateuchal material since the days of Wellhausen, one thing has remained constant: the relative lateness of P in relation to the other sources. This continues even in Blum, for whom KP is seen as a redactional element superimposed on the earlier KD. The only scholars who have seriously proposed that P is earlier than the other sources – which undoes Wellhausen’s entire model – are Jewish scholars, mainly in North America or Israel, and so outside the scope of this survey. The late date of P remained a cornerstone of Pentateuchal studies in Europe throughout the twentieth century. The same cannot be said, however, of the date of D. This source, almost identical with the book of Deuteronomy and supposed to predate the ‘deuteronomistic’ material in the Former Prophets, has traditionally been identified with the law book found in the Temple in the reign of Josiah, and this identification provided the fixed point around which the whole of the Documentary Hypothesis revolved. In the earlier part of the twentieth century it came under scrutiny from A. C. Welch, who argued that Deuteronomy was in fact much earlier than the other sources: he dated it to the period of the judges.28 This theory found few adherents, and the general drift in more recent study has been to question whether the book can really be as early as the sixth century BCE, at least in its

23 24 25 26 27 28

McKane, Jeremiah (1986–96). Smend, Entstehung (1981). Dietrich, Prophetie und Geschichte (1972). Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975); Königtum (1977). Cross, Canaanite Myth (1973); Nelson, Double Redaction (1981). Welch, Code (1924).

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present form, which can be seen as ‘utopian’ and radically unrealistic. Its ideal for Israel may be seen as more visionary than political, a little like the idea of the new Jerusalem in Ezekiel 40–48. That might argue for an exilic or even post-exilic date, though if it could be shown to be later than P, then Wellhausen’s model would again be called in question. The general consensus is that the solution to the problem of Deuteronomy lies in seeing it too as the product of a multiple redaction: G. Braulik29 and M. Rose30 argue for four or five stages, the first even earlier than the sixth century and associated with Hezekiah, but the last exilic or early postexilic. That parts of the book at least must be no later than the seventh century has been argued by E. Otto on the basis of the correspondence between sections of Deuteronomy and the vassal treaties of Esar-haddon.31 Deuteronomy may be called ‘mono-Yahwist’ rather than monotheistic, and a dating in the seventh/sixth century of the crucial sections of the book has the effect of retaining Wellhausen’s basic idea that Israelite religion developed from polytheism through monolatry to monotheism. Nearly all scholars nowadays see elements of redaction and Fortschreibung in Deuteronomy. For those who, unlike Blum, continue to believe in a separate J the question of its dating has again been of interest. Wellhausen saw it as deriving from the pre-exilic monarchy, but by the middle of the twentieth century von Rad had moved the date back to the early monarchy and placed it in the age of the ‘Solomonic Enlightenment’.32 He argued that it manifested a particular theology, in which God worked by largely hidden means, whereas in the stories of the judges (presumably earlier still?) he had intervened much more obviously. But since von Rad J has steadily moved to a later and later period, and by the 1980s H. H. Schmid argued that the J texts presupposed the classical prophets (the call of Moses is modelled on those of Isaiah and Jeremiah) and so must be significantly later than von Rad supposed.33 Together with the Canadian scholar J. Van Seters he mounted a case for a post-exilic J, not significantly older than P, and dependent on D rather than presupposed by it.34 What can be said of the scholarly approach to sources since the days of Wellhausen, if we concentrate on the European scene? First, there has been a substantial minority of scholars who have questioned the very existence of the four sources J, E, D, and P. Doubts about E surfaced first, and many Old Testament scholars today probably think more of ‘pre-P’ than of discrete J and E sources; and it may be remembered that Wellhausen himself talked mostly of the ‘Jehovist’, that is, RJE, the work of the “Redakteur” of JE, rather than of the two sources alone. In British scholarship it was usual until very recently to teach students the pure unadulterated Documentary Hypothesis, but very many biblical specialists in practice took more interest in the Jehovist than in J and E separately. But more recent studies have severely questioned whether even RJE exists as a

29 30 31 32 33 34

Braulik, Theologie des Deuteronomiums (1988); Deuteronomium (1992). Rose, Deuteronomist und Jahwist (1981). Otto, Deuteronomium (1999). von Rad, Beginnings of Historical Writing (1965). Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist (1976). Van Seters, Abraham (1975).

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separate strand in the Pentateuch, and Blum’s great scheme according to which there is a ‘priestly’ and a ‘non-priestly’ (deuteronomistic) corpus commends itself to many. By the end of the twentieth century the tendency in the study of both the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets was to think of successive layers of redaction rather than of fixed literary sources. This provides a nuanced explanation of many of the features that led to the Documentary Hypothesis in the first place, such as the diversity of the divine names and the existence of doublets. Secondly, where dating is concerned there is now flux rather than fixity. Wellhausen in any cases did not attempt to date the sources precisely, and subsequent attempts to be more precise, such as von Rad’s theory of a Solomonic J, have not commended themselves. But D was traditionally the fixed point, reflecting the age of Josiah, and the twentieth century saw certainty about this gradually eroding though, as Otto’s work shows, the idea of at least a core from the seventh century or even earlier is not dead.35 The non-negotiable element in Wellhausen’s scheme is the late date of P, which must be no earlier than the late exilic age if his theory of the development of Yahwism into Judaism is to stand. This, it may be noted, is not in contention for most Christian and secular scholars, though it is regarded as improbable by many Jewish scholars. Of course most no longer share Wellhausen’s negative evaluation of post-exilic Judaism as a Pharisaic legalism; but that the religion of the Second Temple was different from that of pre-exilic Yahwists there is not much serious doubt. Thirdly, British scholarship has mostly relinquished its belief in progressive revelation, which seemed to many in the early twentieth century to validate the facts disclosed by documentary criticism.36 Because this was thought to be tied up with Wellhausen’s ordering of the four Pentateuchal sources according to an evolutionary scheme, rejection of progressive revelation has often led to a rejection of the Documentary Hypothesis. British students of the Old Testament have often thought that Wellhausen believed P to be an advance on J because it is monotheistic, failing to see that he thought of it as in most respects marking a decline into a hard legalism. The identification of Wellhausen as a kind of Darwinian in matters of religion was proposed by W. F. Albright,37 and unfortunately endorsed in a German context by H.-J. Kraus,38 and it dies hard despite the refutation by L. Perlitt.39 But generations of students in Britain have been taught that the P account in Gen 1:1–2:4a represents an advance on the J account in Gen 2:4b–25, and have come to assume that the Documentary Hypothesis is therefore evolutionary in character. Where they have then come to think that an evolutionary approach to religion is false, they have commonly thrown out the baby with the bathwater and rejected JEDP as an outmoded scheme. Thus the unitary picture presented by the Documentary Hypothesis began to break down during the course of the twentieth century; but many fruitful ideas have arisen in its place, and it cannot be said that the legacy of Wellhausen is al-

35 36 37 38 39

Otto, Deuteronomium (2000). Robinson, Methods of Higher Criticism (1925). Albright, Stone Age (1957). Kraus, Geschichte (1962). Perlitt, Vatke und Wellhausen (1965).

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together lost. Above all his sense that the sources, properly dated, could provide illumination on the history of the religion of Israel has not dissipated, and it has proved to be still valuable.

4. Religious History Wellhausen’s reconstruction of the religion of Israel and its development, from a simple belief in Yahweh as the helper of Israel to the sophisticated (for him, over-sophisticated) theology of the priestly corpus, depended entirely on internal evidence from the Old Testament itself. It followed, he believed, from his dating of the Pentateuchal sources in relation to the evidence provided for early times by the Former Prophets and for the postexilic age by the work of the Chronicler. But the later years of Wellhausen’s life coincided with the flourishing in Germany of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule, which paid attention to empirical evidence for the religions of the ancient East and in due course began to influence the study of the Old Testament. The ‘Babel-Bible’ controversy in the early years of the twentieth century, sparked off by a lecture given by Friedrich Delitzsch,40 placed the similarities between Israel’s religion and that of its ancient Near Eastern contemporaries firmly on the scholarly map. Whereas it had been traditional to believe that the religion of ancient Israel was unique, divinely revealed to Moses and his successors, Delitzsch and others argued that it was simply one among many competing religions in the ancient world, and that other religious cultures had arrived at many of its tenets – such as the creatorship of God – long before it, as could be seen from Mesopotamian and other texts that were now becoming known. This chimed in well enough with Wellhausen’s own thinking, but it achieved a success de scandale because it reached the ears of the general public with more force than questions about the Pentateuchal sources. From then on the study of the history of religion became an essential component in Old Testament studies. To trace the history of the religion of Israel it was essential to know about the religious development of the environing cultures. It became commonplace to compare the biblical creation stories with the Babylonian Enuma elish, the Flood stories with Gilgamesh, and so on. The publication and increasing knowledge of the myths from Ras Shamra in Ugaritic similarly enthused Old Testament scholars. The study of the religion of ancient Israel became a permanent part of biblical studies. This is one of the few areas to which British scholars made a distinctive contribution. Led by S. H. Hooke,41 the ‘Myth and Ritual’ school of scholarship argued for very close connections between Israelite and other ancient Near Eastern religious belief and practice, so close that any distinctive features in the religion of Israel were played down, to a greater extent than was usual in German scholarship. Yahweh was said to have been a sun-god, and Solomon’s Temple was so constructed that the sun’s rays beamed into the Holy of Holies on one of the ma40 41

Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel (1905). Hooke, Myth (1935).

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jor festivals. Scandinavian scholarship joined in the Myth and Ritual enterprise, with S. Mowinckel arguing that the Israelite cult ‘must have’ included features known from Mesopotamian religious practice. His studies of the Psalms42 from a form-critical perspective, much influenced by Gunkel, set out a comprehensive theory of the festival system in ancient (pre-exilic) Israel: it included a new year festival at which Yahweh was solemnly enthroned, even though this was not directly attested in the Old Testament, on the grounds that there was such a festival in Mesopotamia and some of the Psalms could easily be accounted for as intended for a celebration of divine enthronement (e.g. Psalms 93, 97, 99, all of which begin ‘Yahweh is/has become king’: Mowinckel argued for the translation ‘has become’). British and Scandinavian scholarship was on the whole less concerned for the distinctiveness of the religion of Yahweh than were many in the German tradition, though there too of course the parallels were known and acknowledged. It may be, again, that the characteristically British idea of progressive revelation played a part here: there was no problem in thinking that Israel borrowed very much of its religion from the surrounding cultures, since it was simply part of the ‘education of mankind’, gradually growing towards truer and truer insights into the divine nature. There was not the sense of a more radical break with what had gone before that was more characteristic of German Protestant theology ( – this difference would become quite marked later in discussions of biblical theology). The British-Scandinavian axis can also be seen in a related question, that of the world-view or mentality of ancient Israel. On the whole Wellhausen had assumed that the ancient Israelites were very like their contemporaries in other cultures in their overall outlook on the world. Something really new emerged only with the great prophets, who introduced the idea of ethical obligation into the national religion, together with the beginnings of monotheism, and then again with the priestly writers, who codified but also hardened the religion of the prophets to produce Jewish legalism. But Wellhausen did not think of all this as operating at the level of a distinctive mind-set. In the work of J. Pedersen, however, the religious thinking of Israel was presented as dependent on a particular and distinctive way of looking at the world.43 For Pedersen, Israel saw the world with different eyes from other cultures, especially modern western ones. For example, thinking was far more corporate than in the modern individualistic West, and group solidarity mattered far more. Pedersen’s work represents the first reading of the Old Testament from the standpoint of what would now be called social anthropology, and this has continued to be a theme favoured in Scandinavian and British scholarship: one may think, towards the end of the twentieth century, of the work of Mary Douglas on the food laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and on the mind-set displayed in the priestly and deuteronomistic schools respectively.44 The application of social science in biblical studies has been common from about the 1970s onwards, but it had its anticipation in Pedersen’s work. Also to be noted is the work of H. W. Robinson on ‘corporate personality’ in ancient Israel,45 42 43 44 45

Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien (1921–24), Offersang (1951), Psalms in Israel’s Worship (1962). Pedersen, Israel (1928–40). Douglas, Purity and Danger (1969). Robinson, Corporate Personality (1980).

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which argued that people in ancient Israel did not see themselves as individuals but as parts of a larger whole – now widely seen as an exaggeration;46 and later but similar work by A. R. Johnson.47 This survey already shows that there has been a tension in Old Testament studies between those who stress the continuity between Israel and its wider environment, and those who think of Israel as in some sense unique or special (which of course is the Old Testament’s own presentation of the matter). This issue was at the forefront of much writing about the Old Testament throughout much of the twentieth century. Adverse reaction to the religionsgeschichtliche Schule operated at a popular level in a feeling that these people were taking the Bible away from believers by making it nothing more than a pale imitation of the literature of Egypt or Babylonia, but at a more intellectual level in a sense that its religious distinctiveness was being played down to an implausible extent. Even when all the parallels are acknowledged, is there not something unique about the religion of ancient Israel? Strict monotheism may be a late arrival, and Israel may have borrowed many things from its neighbours; yet surely there was something distinctive about the religion of Yahweh from quite early times? This could be simply a general sense of unease with the incorporation of Israel into a comparativistic framework, but it could also have a sharper theological focus. Here we have to reckon with the influence of Karl Barth on biblical scholarship from about the middle of the twentieth century. For Barth, to describe what the Old Testament witnesses to as ‘religion’ is to sell the pass to secularism and scepticism. The Old Testament is part of Israel’s witness, not to its religious environment, but to the Word of God – God’s unique input into the human situation. What matters about the Old Testament is not what we can reconstruct from it (going ‘behind’ the text) but how it can confront us (standing ‘in front of’ the text, to use Ricoeur’s terms). What matters is not its religion but its theology, understood to mean its direct communication of divine truth. Barth’s influence can be seen in many ways in twentieth-century Old Testament scholarship, but perhaps above all in the tendency in the period between the Wars and down into the 1960s to abandon the study of the religion of Israel in favour of the theology of the Old Testament. Wellhausen had had little time for Old Testament theology as a discipline. As a historian, he was not interested in generalizing systems of thought, but in the particularities of Israel’s life as it passed through its various phases – though indeed his eventual synthesis is itself quite generalizing in some ways. But later Old Testament scholars came to think that the theologically authority of the Old Testament as part of the Christian Bible was being compromised through historical-critical work on the text. Both the two great Theologies of the Old Testament produced in the twentieth century, those of Eichrodt and von Rad, bear witness to the influence of Barth’s thinking.48 For both it is important to identify a central concept around which the diverse material in the Old Testament can be seen as ordered – in itself a major break 46 47 48

See Rogerson, Hebrew Conception (1970). Johnson, Vitality (1949). Eichrodt, Theologie (1933–39); von Rad, Theologie (1958–60).

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with the tradition of Wellhausen, for whom the bifurcation into pre- and postexilic styles of religion forbids the finding of any single theme to unite the whole. Eichrodt identifies the covenant as such an overarching theme. So far from being the discovery or invention of the great prophets, the covenant idea is genuinely ancient and goes back to Moses. It can be understood in terms of the relationship between God and other entities, schematically taken as Israel, the individual, and the world. This is an admirably flexible scheme that enables Eichrodt to include comments on nearly all parts of the Old Testament. Eichrodt’s reconstruction of Israel’s religious thought is very conservative by comparison with that of Wellhausen: he sees no major caesura at the Exile, and traces the distinctive ideas of Israelite theology back into the pre-Settlement period. He is concerned to move beyond historical criticism and to synthesize the theological data of the Old Testament, rather than to study them in their historical development. In this it is fair to see an influence from the radically antihistorical emphases of Barth’s theology. There is no ‘progressive revelation’ here! Rather, God’s timeless Word is spoken into the human situation and appears as unparalleled and unique, having no connection with the ‘natural’ religion(s) of humanity. Eichrodt is thus at an opposite pole from the history-of-religions approach favoured in British and, to an extent, Scandinavian tradition. Nevertheless, his work is not doctrinaire in tone and spends much of its time in simply cataloguing the religious ideas of the Old Testament, so that it remains perhaps the most useful guide to Old Testament theology yet written. Von Rad takes as his leading theme the Heilsgeschichte, which he sees as underlying all the historical books as they have come down to us. The Barthian influence is perhaps more obviously apparent in his work than in Eichrodt’s, especially in his denial that what matters is the history of Israel as it actually happened (as Wellhausen had thought), and his assertion that it is the history as confessed that signifies for faith. Von Rad never enters into the issue of whether the great saving events of Israel’s history (exodus, settlement, etc.) actually occurred. His emphasis is always on Israel’s confession of faith, which he sees as summed up in the cultic credo of Deuteronomy 26 (discussed above). Because this concentrates on the mighty acts of God and omits the lawgiving on Sinai, it downplays the element of necessary human response which is inherent in the covenant-concept: it places the stress on divine prevenience, and some have seen in this a reflection of von Rad’s Lutheranism, alongside the influence of Barth. It proved hard to incorporate the legal texts in the Pentateuch, especially those in P, into this framework, and notoriously difficult to say much about the wisdom literature, which was a problem child throughout most of the twentieth century, and not only for those influenced by von Rad. The history of Israelite religious practice was of no great interest for von Rad, except in so far as it expressed faith in the mighty acts of God, and he had little or nothing to say about the sacrificial system, for example. An element of Wellhausen’s model that did continue to resonate for von Rad was the importance of the prophets, and he divided his great Theology into two parts, one dealing with the histories (including the Pentateuch), and the other the prophets. They were crucial because they had defended and celebrated the Heilsgeschichte, and in its light had judged Israel in their day: they had spoken of the acts of God on Israel’s behalf and the response Israel should have made (and

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here the element of obligation is taken account of). But von Rad was clear that Israel’s faith as expressed in historiography and prophecy was something unique in the ancient world, not indebted to the environing culture. In his commentary on Genesis he sought to show how even the features that had been borrowed, such as the doctrine of creation, had been thoroughly ‘Yahwized’; and indeed that the whole mythological realm of creation was a secondary arrival in Israel, whose faith had rested originally on the acts of God in exodus and settlement. He thus held that there had been a time when Israel did not know God as creator, but only as redeemer, and he tried to show that even as late as Deutero-Isaiah redemption predominated over creation. Many Old Testament scholars have judged this idea implausible, since all cultures in the ancient Near East had creation stories from as long ago as we have any evidence, but for von Rad Israel was distinctive in this respect and long remained so. The later years of the twentieth century saw a reaction against confessional theologies of the Old Testament and the resurgence of interest in the history of Israelite religion. A major contributor to this is R. Albertz, who argued that the history of religion is the proper task of the Old Testament scholar, while biblical theology belongs to the world of systematic theologians.49 The history of Israelite religion can be studied irrespective of the scholar’s own confessional position – and indeed it has begun to be practised by a number of scholars with no religious commitment. By the end of the century training in Semitic languages, archaeology, and ancient history was supplanting the kind of theological education that many Old Testament scholars of earlier years had had, and this made the history of religion much more interesting than ‘theology’, understood to mean the intellectual expression of a faith-commitment. Even a subject such as the rise of monotheism, to which older scholars gave a positive evaluation as the inauguration of the kind of religion they themselves still espoused, came to be studied in a theologically neutral way: one may think of the important work of M. S. Smith50 and W. G. Dever51 in the USA, and of J. Day52 in the United Kingdom. The old enthusiasm for the rise of monotheism, which had seemed one of the great contributions of the Old Testament to the religious development of mankind, is now more muted: monotheism is simply another religious option which some ancient people followed, and should not be ‘privileged’ by the interpreter above the various polytheisms that were in evidence in Israel as well as in the surrounding cultures. This renewed interest in a theologically somewhat neutral study of the history of Israelite religion represents in its way a return to Wellhausen. He of course was himself a monotheist, as are many of the more recent students of the rise of monotheism, but he did not see the study of the subject as a religious or confessional activity in itself.

49 50 51 52

Albertz, Israelite Religion (1994). Smith, Early History (1990). Dever, Did God have a Wife? (2005). Day, Yahweh (2002).

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5. Prophecy The third critical element in Wellhausen’s model was the centrality of the great prophets, especially Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and Deutero-Isaiah, in establishing Yahwism for the first time as an ethical religion in which the God Israel worshipped as helper came to be seen as the covenant-partner who demanded a moral response – thus founding what scholarship came to refer to as ‘ethical monotheism’. Scholarship throughout the twentieth century continued to be marked by an intense interest in the prophets. Some of this interest centred on source-critical questions – attempts to discover just which passages in the prophetic books really go back to the prophet whose names the books bear. A consensus established itself, which largely lasts until this day, that the original classical prophets had been chiefly prophets of doom: hopeful passages such as the epilogue to Amos were widely seen as later additions, coming from after the Exile when the disaster foretold by the pre-exilic prophets was felt to have been accomplished. This would be consistent with the fact that post-exilic prophetic books such as Zechariah are generally hopeful about the future of the nation. In addressing to Israel a message of doom, it was thought, the great prophets were highly original, since before their time Yahweh had been seen as Israel’s ‘helper’, as Wellhausen put it, not as even potentially the nation’s enemy. Amos began the tradition of rebuking Israel for sin and foretelling its downfall, and even the apparently milder Hosea thought that redemption could come only on the other side of judgement. In the case of Isaiah it became usual to excise all the hopeful material as secondary, leaving only some passages in 1–12 and 28–32 as at all likely to go back to the prophet himself. This picture of Isaiah as exclusively a prophet of disaster lasted until very recently, when the work of R. Kratz and others reversed the trend and started to argue for his having been exclusively a prophet of salvation! A much-discussed issue in the study of the prophets has been the question whether they were primarily social critics or prognosticators of the future. British scholarship often used the contrast ‘foretellers’ and ‘forthtellers’ to mark the distinction between these two possibilities, generally holding that the core of the prophets’ activity was the denunciation of national sin and analysis of the social and political situation, rather than the foretelling of the future. The prophets did of course foretell the future – usually the immediate future, not the far distant future as in traditional Christian readings of them – but as the inevitable consequence of the wrong choices their contemporaries were making, rather than as something determined in advance by the will of God. There was a great desire to remove any impression that God’s determination of the future was in any way arbitrary, to stress that it was what the people deserved and therefore that it could have been foreseen by any observer as astute as the prophets evidently were. It is this picture of the prophet as primarily a social critic that has carried over into the popular use of ‘prophet’ for anyone who analyses the ills of society and warns of dangerous consequences if there is no reform. This picture of the prophets can also be found in German scholarship, but it is not so common there. A majority of German scholars have seen the foretelling of the future as the primary task of the prophets, who felt impelled by God to utter

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threats but then, secondarily, justified those threats by pointing to national sin. Wellhausen certainly took this line, arguing that what prompted the prophets to speak was not an awareness of sin – which was never lacking! – but the conviction that God was about to do great deeds, deeds hostile to his own nation, Israel. Divine judgement appeared on the surface more arbitrary than British scholars tended to think, though in the end the prophets succeeded in pointing to sins that were calling it forth. Without wanting to paint the contrast too strongly, it would be fair to say that German scholarship has been readier than British to accept that the prophets at least began as non-rational ecstatics, who felt they had a message to deliver that had in no sense arisen from their own ability at social analysis, where in Britain there has been a long tradition of seeing the prophets as rather rational and cool-headed social critics who thought it only reasonable that God would avenge the kinds of sins they saw all around them. K. Koch53 and H. W. Wolff54 in particular represent the German tradition here. There can be little doubt that the general religious stance of the interpreter tends to be a factor in this debate, with a British liking for ‘rational’ religion confronting a German Protestant emphasis on the strangeness of the acts of God, their unpredictability on the basis of any human analysis of the world. O. Keel,55 from a Catholic perspective, has argued that the refusal in some German scholarship to see the prophets as preachers of repentance similarly stems from a Protestant belief in the determination of history by God without regard to human reaction. That said, many German scholars do think that the prophets preached repentance, but there is no denying that it has been a more minor theme in the German scene than in Britain, where it is generally taken for granted that the prophets were trying to reform society. Linked with all this is the question of the prophets’ political engagement. In the early years of the century there was a dispute between E. Troeltsch56 and H. Winckler57 over how far the prophets should be seen as politicians. Winckler argued that they had been entirely political figures, whose religious explanations of the coming future were a mere veneer, while Troeltsch maintained in response that they depended on the contrary on a theological a priori. In an extreme form Winckler’s idea was probably not very plausible: for example, the suggestion that Jeremiah was actually a Babylonian agent, though there is material in the book that might lead one to that conclusion and his contemporaries seem to have suspected it, is probably an exaggeration. But there is plenty to associate at least some prophets with the court: Isaiah is a salient example of a prophet who may as many think have been a royal counsellor. If so, however, it is remarkable how atypical his message is of what one might expect from a politician, since he tells more than one king of Judah to refrain from political activity and simply trust in Yahweh. To reduce the prophets’ message to a political one is, as Troeltsch argued, a mistake. But accepting this tends to move one closer to the characteris-

53 54 55 56 57

Koch, Prophets (1982–3). Wolff, Studien zur Prophetie (1987). Keel, Rechttun (1977). Troeltsch, Ethos (1916). Winckler/Schrader, Keilinschriften (1903).

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tically German perception of the prophets as less political and social analysts than mouthpieces for a divine prediction of disaster. The distinctiveness of the prophets’ message, however, does not imply that Israelite prophecy as a phenomenon was a new thing in the ancient world. A great deal of twentieth-century scholarship has concentrated on ‘prophetism’ in Israel and the ancient Near East – and this has implications for the issues we have just discussed. In the nineteenth century it was already known that there had been prophet-like figures in the classical world, but the twentieth century discovered texts that showed that prophecy had existed also in Mesopotamia and Syria. Many texts found at Mari spoke of the activities of prophets and prophetesses,58 and at Deir Allah in Syria texts written on walls were found that related to the prophet Balaam,59 known from Numbers 22–24 and from Micah 6:5. The study of prophets as a social phenomenon on the basis of such texts has been undertaken in Britain and Germany as well as in North America, but it is above all an area in which Scandinavian and French scholars have contributed significantly. One feature that had not been suspected very strongly in the nineteenth century is the attachment of prophets to temples and thus to the cult. Earlier Old Testament scholars had tended to see the growth of cultic prophecy as a post-exilic phenomenon, applying to Joel or to the later strata in earlier books, such as Isaiah. But what the twentieth century discovered was the intimate connection of prophets with the cult from the earliest times. Monographs by A. O. Haldar60 and A. R. Johnson61 described the role of cultic prophets in Israel and in other Semitic cultures. Many of the prophetic figures in the historical books could be seen as conforming to this type, especially those gathered around Elisha, or the 450 prophets of 1 Kings 22. Some argued that such prophets were everything the classical prophets were not, and that the latter represented a wholly new phenomenon; but in both Britain and Scandinavia the view gained ground that the difference was only one of degree. And there followed studies arguing that the classical prophets themselves had been cult functionaries (Reventlow,62 Barstad63). The work of J. Lindblom64 summarized this work, and presented a balanced view of it. This interpretation tends somewhat to bolster the idea that the prophets were ecstatic visionaries first and social analysts only second, for we know from the various texts referred to above that prophets in the ancient Near East had it as their primary task to bring messages from the gods about what the future held. The normal recipient of these messages was the king, much as in the case of Isaiah and of many of the prophets in the historical books, such as Samuel, Nathan, and Elijah. And the prophets received their messages through trance and other paranormal states of consciousness, not by analysing the ills of society. As the Mari texts have become more widely known, most scholars have come to think that 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

See Malamat, Mari (1998). See Hackett, Balaam Text (1984). Haldar, Associations (1945). Johnson, Cultic Prophet (1979). Reventlow, Liturgie (1963). Barstad, Religious Polemics (1984). Lindblom, Prophecy (1962).

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the classical prophets are examples, albeit highly unusual examples, of the same type, rather than a wholly unparalleled phenomenon. This does not mean that there was nothing unusual about the classical prophets, or imply that they were not great thinkers who may indeed have been a crucial factor in moving Israel in the direction of ‘ethical monotheism’. One feature that is definitely unusual is the intercessory function of Israelite prophets, attested in most periods: there is no evidence to suggest that this was a role undertaken by prophets elsewhere in the ancient Near East. It implies that the Israelite prophets were mediators between God and people, who could not only bring messages from the divine world into the human world but could deliver messages from the king or the people to God. And such a mediating role marks them out as unique by contrast with their peers in other cultures. Other ancient Near Eastern prophets did not, like Ezekiel, ’stand in the gap’ between God and people to try to avert the disaster they predicted (in any case, ancient Near Eastern prophets often, though not without exception, prophesied victory, like the band of prophets in 1 Kings 22). They did not have the sense that comes over clearly from all the classical prophets of being pastorally responsible for the people. Thus the study of prophetism in other cultures, while it has anchored the Israelite prophets as a solid ancient reality, has not altogether diminished the sense of them as highly unusual figures, nor knocked out the third pillar from Wellhausen’s model. Another strand in twentieth-century study of the prophets did, however, call Wellhausen’s theories more seriously into question. This, related to the cultic understanding of prophetism, emphasized the prophets’ role as tradents of an earlier religious tradition. For Wellhausen, as we have seen, the injection of an ethical note into Yahwism was a late development, much indebted to the prophets: such moral digests as the Ten Commandments were a summary of their teaching, not texts they presupposed. But twentieth-century study of the covenant in ancient Israel tended, at least for a time, to undermine this idea. Studies of the Ten Commandments began to see them in their present form as a late version of an originally much shorter text, the Urdekalog, which might go back well before the monarchy. As they stand, the Commandments are presented as the terms of a covenant or contract between God and Israel, the kind of solemn agreement of which the book of Deueronomy is an elaboration. Suppose the covenant, like the original form of the Commandments themselves, were an early idea too? Then the present rationale of the Commandments might be its original one. And covenants, so it was argued, were not a late arrival in the ancient Near East. The American scholar G. E. Mendenhall suggested that the covenant owes it shape to the political treaty, of which there are examples from as long ago as the Hittite empire of the thirteenth century BCE (perhaps the period of Moses?).65 These treaties all have a section spelling out the obligations of the vassal towards his overlord, as well as a section identifying the overlord’s claim on the vassal, and the Decalogue fits this model, beginning by identifying Yahweh as the God who had brought Israel out of Egypt and going on to lay down Israel’s consequent obligations.

65

Mendenhall, Tenth Generation (1973).

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If the covenant, with a set of basic moral demands, was as early as this, then one could no longer ascribe the discovery of the moral obligations of the covenant relationship to the classical prophets, and that leg of Wellhausen’s three-legged stool collapses. There is no doubt that the prophets did speak a lot about ethics, but they must have done so as spokesmen for a much older tradition. One possible model was that of the ‘covenant-mediator’, proposed largely on the analogy of the medieval Icelandic ‘law speaker’.66 Deut 31:9–13 suggests that the covenant was re-enacted in Israel on a regular basis, and that the laws were solemnly rehearsed to the people. Someone must have recited them; and a possible candidate to do so would be a prophet. Perhaps the classical prophets were heirs of this tradition, spokesmen for God in a solemn ritual where the people regularly pledged themselves to keep God’s laws. If so, then when they condemn the people for various sins they are in effect reminding them of the moral laws to which they had committed themselves at the covenant-renewal ceremony. The prophets were tradents rather than original thinkers. They really did constitute a line of succession from Moses, as the Old Testament itself suggests in a number of places. This thesis was argued by R. E. Clements.67 Later in the century belief in the very ancient character of the covenant waned. It was noticed that the parallels with Hittite treaties were less marked than those with the seventh-century Assyrian vassal treaties of Esarhaddon, which bear an uncanny resemblance in many ways to the book of Deuteronomy, and it came to be suggested that the covenant idea in Israel might indeed have been, as had been thought earlier, the work of the great prophets. L. Perlitt68 and E. W. Nicholson69 pointed out that the word covenant does not occur as a designation of the relationship between God and Israel until the book of Hosea. Meanwhile H. H. Schmid had argued that so far from the prophets being made in the image of Moses, Moses was described in ways that presupposed knowledge of the prophets.70 The idea of prophets as ancient covenant-mediators thus tended to collapse, leaving us in some ways back where we were in the days of Wellhausen. What has changed since Wellhausen’s day is the vastly greater knowledge we have of prophetism as a phenomenon in the ancient world, and the implications of that for Old Testament studies. One question that this raises is how central prophecy actually was to the society of ancient Israel. Even if we concede that it was central to the growth of certain ideas, most of all monotheistic faith, was it central as an institution? Here a social-scientific approach can be useful. R. R. Wilson in the USA made a careful study of the ‘social location’ of the prophets,71 and this has been influential in Europe too. He showed that the social centrality of particular prophets may have varied: some were very marginal to society, almost what we might call sectarian, while others – Isaiah, perhaps – were a significant part of the national institutions. It was perhaps the more sectarian types of 66

Cp. Alt, Ursprünge (1930). Clements, Prophecy and Covenant (1965). Clements modified his position in Prophecy and Tradition (1975). 68 Perlitt, Bundestheologie (1969). 69 Nicholson, God and His People (1986). 70 Schmid, Der sogennannte Jahwist (1976). 71 Wilson, Prophecy and Society (1980). 67

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prophecy that eventually developed into apocalypticism, as argued by O. Plöger72 and then by P. D. Hanson.73 But prophecy can have been central without that implying the whole system of ‘covenant mediators’ discussed above: it may simply be that prophets were major figures in society, as one might expect given their apparent power to predict the future and so help people to make decisions about their future actions, in the manner of the Delphic Oracle. What happened when the prophets’ predictions did not come true is an interesting question. One might expect that the prophets would have been discredited, but in fact the growth of prophetic books suggests that other reactions occurred instead, as argued on the basis of L. Festinger’s theory of ‘cognitive dissonance’ by the Irish scholar (working in Scotland), R. P. Carroll.74 Carroll showed that the failure of prophecy to ‘come true’ often resulted in its being projected into the more remote future. Perhaps this is the origin of some ‘messianic’ prophecies, as the new king predicted by the prophets failed to materialize, and the prophecies came to be interpreted as intended for the longer term. There are parallels to this in the tendency of modern ‘end of the world’ sects to recalculate the date of the end when an original calculation is proved to have been false. It is also possible for the specificity of an original prophecy to be softened so that it becomes a wise saying applicable in all circumstances. If much twentieth-century study of the prophets has thus been sociological or phenomenological in tone, the theological importance of the prophets as proposed by Wellhausen has not gone away. Von Rad’s Old Testament Theology is perhaps the best illustration of the continuing centrality of prophecy to understanding the development of theological thought in ancient Israel. For von Rad the prophets are not important so much for their possible social role in ancient Israel as for their theological witness to God as the saviour and redeemer of the people, in parallel with the presentation of the Heilsgeschichte in the Pentateuch and the historical books. The prophets are Israel’s theologians, setting out the implications of the special relationship between the people and its God and, as von Rad saw it, paving the way for the further working out of this relationship through Christ in the New Testament. Von Rad seldom makes his Christological focus explicit, but it is always there for those with eyes to see. His work is as far removed as it could be from the sociological emphasis of someone like Carroll, seeing the prophets’ lasting importance as lying in their contribution to biblical theology. Alongside the Pentateuch, the prophets were probably the major concern of Old Testament study in the twentieth century. Psalms, as we have seen, were significant mainly for what they might tell us about the religious life of ancient Israel and were studied form-critically and in the light of our increased knowledge of cultic life in the rest of the ancient Near East, and the work of S. Mowinckel and H.-J. Kraus75 in particular made a significant impact. But it did not occur to anyone to write a Theology of the Old Testament taking the Psalms as its central 72 73 74 75

Plöger, Theokratie (1959). Hanson, Dawn (1975). Carroll, When Prophecy Failed (1979). Kraus, Worship (1966).

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focus: Pentateuch and Prophets remained the centre. Still more is this true of the wisdom literature, which was scarcely mentioned by von Rad in his Old Testament Theology (though later in his life he was to write a whole volume on it76). For most nineteenth-century scholars wisdom had been seen as a late post-exilic addition to the national literature of Israel, since it was supposed that all interest in the individual rather than the group was a late arrival, following the ‘individualism’ propounded (so it was thought) by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In the twentieth century a number of scholars argued that much wisdom could be pre-exilic, especially the ‘sentence literature’ in Proverbs 10–29. C. Kayatz77 and R. N. Whybray78 proposed a layering in Proverbs 1–9, with a pre-exilic core successively added to by later scribes (a kind of Fortschreibung), and W. McKane79 argued that it was possible to isolate three stages in the development of wisdom: a primitive eudaemonism, a later moralism, and finally a theological stage in which for the first time Yahweh was involved. Few scholars have thought that this development could be substantiated: it seems an a priori theory about what is likely to have happened. But in any case none of these studies succeeded in moving wisdom to anything like the centre of Old Testament theology, though O. Rankin showed that it had in fact much to contribute to theological thinking. The sociological study of wisdom attracted more interest, with many proposing the existence of wisdom schools in ancient Israel on the analogy of Egyptian and Mesopotamian training schools for scribes – another area in which French scholarship played a particular role.80 If there were learned scribes in ancient Israel, it seems unlikely that they would have had no contact with other groups, and thus it came to be argued that the prophets might show evidence of wisdom influence: Isaiah was a particular candidate for this, given his evident links to the court. Wisdom influence on various parts of the Old Testament was much studied in the 1950s and 1960s,81 but it seems no longer the focus of much interest at the beginning of the twenty-first century. One major contribution, however, was that of H. H. Schmid, who radically changed the way scholars think about Old Testament theology in relation to wisdom. Schmid argued, as few would deny, that the wisdom literature is focused not on Heilsgeschichte (until a late work such as Sirach there is hardly a mention of the history of Israel in wisdom books), but on ‘world order’ (Weltordnung).82 The so-called ‘act-consequence relationship’, whereby sin is followed by retribution, does not reflect a God who intervenes, as in the ‘mighty acts’ such as the exodus, but rather an order built in to the universe (quite likely by God – that is not the issue) whereby people get what they deserve. K. Koch, indeed, had argued that there is no divine retribution in the Old Testament at all, but that events unfold according to inexorable laws;83 and though that is widely regarded as an exagger76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

von Rad, Wisdom (1972). Kayatz, Proverbien 1–9 (1966). Whybray, Wisdom in Proverbs (1965). McKane, Proverbs (1970). See Duesberg/Fransen, Les scribes (1966), and Lemaire, Les écoles (1981). See Rowley/Noth/Thomas, Wisdom in Israel (1960). Schmid, Wesen und Geschichte (1966). Koch, Um das Prinzip (1972).

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ation, the sense that one gets one’s just deserts without direct divine intervention is certainly a feature of much wisdom (particularly in the proverbial sayings that McKane attributes to his first stage). Schmid’s remarkable proposal was that the world order celebrated in wisdom is in fact the central motif in the Old Testament and ought to be at the core of an Old Testament theology. This really would radically change our basic model for understanding the Old Testament, making the religious culture of ancient Israel much more like that of the other cultures from which it borrowed so extensively, not least in the area of wisdom literature. An Old Testament Theology that took the wisdom literature as its guiding light has yet to be written, but Schmid has presented a new agenda for Old Testament theologians that ought not to be neglected. It is not hard to see why twentieth-century Old Testament study sidelined wisdom, even after it had been discovered that it was by no means as late as Wellhausen and his generation had believed. The norm for more or less all scholars in the twentieth century was provided by the centrality of the historical aspect of the Old Testament God, and a more ‘philosophical’ aspect such as that provided by the wisdom literature did not command general interest. Once the influence of Barth came to be felt, it was never likely that the wisdom literature, which contains Israel’s ‘natural theology’, would be regarded as important, and indeed many saw it as quite marginal to the religious concerns of ancient Israel. If Schmid is correct, however, Israel was much more like other nations in the ancient Near East, and the wisdom literature summed up what most Israelites thought about life and providence. Concerns for Heilsgeschichte and the like were probably active in the minds of only a few. Some small confirmation of that may be seen in the proper names of people referred to in the Old Testament:84 these are very often theophoric and refer to various characteristics of God (as saviour, judge, helper, and so on), but they scarcely ever mention any aspects of the Heilsgeschichte. The kind of Old Testament theology put forward by von Rad was probably part of the thinking of a small elite: for people in general the wisdom literature gives us a better indication of how they thought. Thus by the end of the century there were moves that could have dethroned the prophets from their central place in ancient Israelite thought, though as yet there is little sign that that has happened. Recent decades have seen a renewed interest in matters such as the cult and a downplaying of the prophets’ opposition to it, but they are still regarded by most scholars as central to the interpretation of the Old Testament.

6. History Wellhausen’s aim was to write a history of Israel, though he never completed the task: the Prolegomena was followed much later by Israelite and Judaean History,85 but this is little more than a sketch. But in his wake many twentieth-century 84 85

See Barr, Symbolism of Names (1969). Wellhausen, Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte (1894).

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scholars attempted to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel, taking their cue from his insight that this should not be a matter of simply retelling the biblical story, but of basing their account on a critical evaluation of the sources. In European scholarship there has been a general acceptance of Wellhausen’s verdict that “we attain to no knowledge of the age of the patriarchs”, despite the influential Albright school in the USA that thought evidence from the texts found at Mari and Nuzi tended to confirm the historicity of the stories of the patriarchal age. In the 1950s and 1960s this became a major area for dispute between John Bright,86 an Albright pupil, and Martin Noth,87 disciple of Albrecht Alt. British scholarship, as so often, stood on the sidelines over this debate. The French archaeologist and biblical scholar Roland de Vaux contributed substantially to the debate, in a conservative direction.88 On the whole, however, German scholarship has never accepted any great element of historicity in the stories of the patriarchs. But things are different when it comes to somewhat later history, the history of the settlement and conquest of Canaan. Here European scholars entered vigorously into an attempt to reconstruct the history from a critical perspective. Albrecht Alt was the first to challenge the idea that the entry of the Israelites into Palestine was a co-ordinated assault in which cities were sacked and devastated and the native population put to death – the picture suggested by the book of Joshua.89 Building on hints in Judges of a less radical assault, Alt developed the theory that the Israelite ‘conquest’ had in reality been an infiltration, in which the incomers at first took control of the hill country, and only later moved into the Canaanite cities of the plains. Joshua presented an ideological version of the events, far removed from the reality on the ground. This reconstruction was widely accepted in European scholarship, though disputed by the Albright school: Bright and Noth again went head to head on the issue.90 But as the century developed Americans too came to see the ‘united onslaught’ approach as simplistic, and through the work of G. E. Mendenhall91 and N. K. Gottwald92 there developed the socalled ‘peasants’ revolt’ theory, which proposed that even Alt’s idea did not go far enough. The ‘incoming’ Israelites were really there already: they were native Canaanites who revolted against their overlords and moved out of the cities into the hills. The subsequent development of this theory belongs in an account of American biblical scholarship, but it should be noted that some European scholars have pushed it even further in the direction of what is now sometimes referred to as minimalism. Ph. Davies of Sheffield93 and N. P. Lemche94 of Copenhagen (allied with the American Th. L. Thompson95) have developed a theory that

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

See Bright, History (1959). Noth, Geschichte (1950). de Vaux, Histoire (1971–3). Alt, Staatenbildung (1930). See Bright, Early Israel (1956). Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation (1973). Gottwald, Tribes of Yahweh (1980). Davies, In Search of ‘Ancient Israel’ (1992). Lemche, Ancient Israel (1988). Thompson, Origin Tradition (1987).

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doubts whether there is really any evidence at all about early Israel. By ‘early’ they understand everything before the Exile (and even the historicity of that is left uncertain). Certainly, they argue on the basis of archaeology that the ‘judges’ period did not involve any conquest, and that the stories of Joshua’s assault on the Promised Land are simply fiction. They believe that the only reliable evidence we have for the period is archaeological, and that indicates no significant population change in the twelfth or eleventh centuries. But even the period of the monarchy is obscure, with the biblical accounts being late fictions from the Persian or even Hellenistic age. Archaeology shows the Jerusalem of ‘David’ too has been little more than a village: the glorious accounts of his reign and that of Solomon are like the tales from the Arabian Nights, not material with which any historical reconstruction could be attempted. Despite theoretical discussions of these matters, Histories of Israel were produced throughout the twentieth century, and most in practice adopted quite a conservative approach to the biblical text, allowing it to dictate the periodization of the history and containing sections on the early years of Israel’s life. At least until the rise of minimalism, scholars have normally believed that there was history to be extracted from, or with the help of, the Old Testament text, whose stories however embroidered and elaborated by later writers were not thought to have been made of whole cloth. Perhaps the most optimistic evaluation was that of von Rad, who saw in the stories of the court of David accounts based on eye-witness reminiscences, and also the work of excellent historians who recorded the events without introducing any heavy theological bias.96 Von Rad in this as in so many things was noticeably more optimistic than Wellhausen had been about the reliability of the Old Testament record. But since von Rad’s work scepticism has returned, with most scholars regarding the books of Samuel as very much redacted and worked over as part of the compilation of the Deuteronomistic History. By the end of the century there were few who would share von Rad’s optimism about getting back to the world of David. At the beginning of our period, history meant political history: the story of kings and empires. This was true for ancient as for modern historians, and biblical scholars were no exception. As the twentieth century progressed, however, there came to be more interest in social history: the lives of ordinary people, the institutions of society, social mores and customs. One of the earliest attempts at a sociology of ancient Israel was R. de Vaux’s Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions,97 but J. Pedersen’s Israel had already paved the way by examining what held Israel together as a people across the vicissitudes of its political history. Sociology and social anthropology began to make their presence felt in biblical studies in the 1950s and 1960s, an early example being Edmund Leach’s study of kinship structures in the Old Testament,98 which, even though based on some very faulty ideas about the text (for example, he analysed the King James Version of the genealogies in Genesis), nevertheless put social anthropological work on the agenda for

96 97 98

von Rad, Beginnings of Historical Writing (1965). de Vaux, Les institutions (1958–60). Leach, Genesis as Myth (1969).

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Old Testament study in Britain. In France the structuralist work of Levi-Strauss99 was similarly influential, and again kinship structures were at the heart of the matter. The attempt was being made to analyse Israel as very like many other ‘early’ or ‘primitive’ societies; in the process some distinctives emerged, but on the whole this was a secular mode of study that did not regard Israel as somehow theologically privileged. Social science continues to play a large role in biblical study. In more recent times there has been influence from the French annales school, with its emphasis on la longue durée, features of the life of peoples that persist through many political changes and affect matters such as diet, social structures, and material culture. It is in part the influence of this approach that has been responsible for revising our understanding of early Israel. Archaeology since the 1980s has veered away from the search for major artefacts (still less ‘treasures’) and started to be interested in evidence for food consumption and for settlement patterns over wide areas, rather than concentrating on the excavation of tells. Aerial photography has facilitated this. It is such study that has helped to establish the continuity of social life material culture in many areas where the Bible suggests sudden population changes, tending to support the theory that ‘Israelites’ were in origin simply Canaanites, perhaps of a particular social class, not violent (or even peaceful) incomers.

7. Behind or in Front of the Text? ‘Historical’ work on the Bible has thus been of various kinds. But in the late nineteenth century, and through into the first part of the twentieth, it was generally agreed by biblical scholars that the historical method was the indispensable tool to use in studying the Old Testament. To ask about the meaning of the biblical text was to ask about its historical sense, placing it in the matrix of the time in which it was written: that was why dating and source-analysis were such an essential element in biblical study, since until we know when a text was written we cannot know what it means – so it was believed. It was the historical character of critical biblical study that made it intellectually respectable; and in British scholarship it became normal to defend biblical criticism on precisely these grounds, arguing that the Old Testament often seemed incoherent or meaningless when read uncritically but that the possibility of dissecting it into coherent separate sources which could then be dated made it instead a clear and satisfactory source for our knowledge of how the understanding of God developed in ancient times. Down into the 1960s it was normal to describe biblical criticism as the historical-critical method, and to take history as the natural category for understanding the text.100

99

Lévi-Strauss, Strctures élémentaires (1967). Thus in the title of H.-J. Kraus’s history of biblical criticism, Geschichte der historischkritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments (1962). 100

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Challenges to this approach, however, can be seen in Karl Barth, who thought that the focus on history was to the detriment of a theological understanding of the text. Barth criticised the idea that the text was a source for something else, namely the history of Israel or the ideas of a particular writer at a given moment: on the contrary, for him the text conveyed the word of God, and historical method had a deadening and secularizing effect on it. Barth’s influence can be seen in the work of both von Rad and Eichrodt, who envisage the task of the Old Testament scholar as concerned with presenting the message or (one might say) kerygma of the Old Testament, rather than laying it out as a field of historical development. Neither of these scholars was opposed to history, and as we have just seen von Rad in particular was convinced of the historical accuracy of much in the Old Testament. But for faith the history that mattered was the Heilsgeschichte, the salvation history proclaimed (rather than merely attested) by prophets and historical writers as the basis for Israel’s relationship to its God. Thus we see already in the middle of the twentieth century a certain sense that historical criticism should not be the be-all and end-all of biblical study. Beyond criticism, there was room for asking theological questions. In terms developed by Paul Ricoeur, biblical criticism of the older sort was a quest for what lies behind the text. For Wellhausen this was obvious. The text of the Old Testament presents a muddled and also an ideologically driven account of ancient Israel, and the task of the critic is to get behind it to the actual historical realities. In the twentieth century this approach was called in question in the wider intellectual world by movements denying that ‘what actually happened’ could ever be established. But Old Testament scholars on the whole did not share this wider scepticism about historiography. What they did come to feel, in many cases, was that historical reconstruction, though possible, was the least interesting or important part of reading the Bible. It was in many ways reading it against the grain; for the Bible had been written ‘from faith to faith’, and a ‘merely’ historical reading did not do justice to its theological dimension. Ricoeur himself, though affirming historical criticism, called for the scholar and indeed everyone to be interested not only in what lies behind the text but also in what lies ‘in front’ of it: that is, to interact with the text as something that speaks to the reader and makes an existential claim. Here there was a major influence from existentialist philosophy on someone who was also a skilled biblical critic. But not all attempts to move beyond historical criticism have been inspired by existentialism. The Barthian criticism of the historical approach has come to resonate with more and more biblical scholars since the work of von Rad, and can be seen in the influential movement known as the canonical approach (or method), developed by Brevard Childs in the USA.101 Here the concern is for the final form of the biblical text as the form that was canonized in Judaism and in the early Church, which is claimed to have an authority much greater than that of any component pieces into which it can be broken down by historical criticism. Childs’s claim was that the Bible should be read ”as Scripture” as it stands, and

101

See Childs, Introduction (1979), and Old Testament Theology (1985).

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not merely as evidence for something else – the history of Israel or the development of ideas. Interestingly, this essentially Barthian approach has not been nearly so influential in the German-speaking world as in North America, though it has been enthusiastically taken up by Rolf Rendtorff.102 In the United Kingdom there are proponents of versions of the canonical approach: one may think of Walter Moberly103 and Francis Watson.104 But there is no clear ‘school’ committed to the approach. On the other hand, well beyond the bounds of committed advocates of canonical method there has been a general trend since the early 1970s, when Childs began to put forward his programme, to ask about the theological thrust of the finished form of the biblical text in ways that would have astonished Wellhausen. To his mind, and that of those who followed him, the whole fascination of the Old Testament was the insight it could provide us (studied with a critical eye) into the life and experience of ancient Israel. Furthermore its expression of faith could be ‘criticised’ in the everyday sense of that word: we could express our opinions about the adequacy or otherwise of Old Testament formulations. He was forthright in his criticism of priestly religion, and believed that his own source analysis of the Pentateuch made it possible to see that there had once been an alternative to this somewhat decadent and inadequate system in the religion of earlier times, especially as seen in the thought of the great prophets. The canonical approach wholly rejected this way of proceeding, just as Barth himself had done. It saw all such attempts to criticise Scripture as reflecting a secularized attitude towards the Bible, and as failing to take the Bible seriously as the Church’s Scripture. For canonical critics, exegesis of the Bible is a ‘churchly’ task. Secular critics can learn much about the Bible, but they will always miss its heart. In a way the canonical approach reflects the failure of historical criticism to establish itself in the churches at large as a fruitful way of reading the Bible. From its very beginnings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it has been suspect to many Christians, and the canonical approach internalizes this suspicion within the world of biblical scholarship itself, challenging biblical scholars to return to seeing the Bible as the Bible, not as a collection of interesting ancient texts from which historical information about ancient Israel can perhaps be gleaned. That said, most canonical critics maintain that they are not against historical method (Barth said the same) but only against its imperialistic designs on the minds and hearts of believers. On its own terms it is worthwhile, but it leaves out of its sights the most important thing about the Bible, its theological claim. The approach pioneered by Childs was the major theological attempt in the twentieth century to turn from asking what lies behind the text to concentrating on the text itself. But there were also non-theological movements that denied the value of looking behind the end-form of the Bible, and these came from literary circles. We have already mentioned structuralism in its social-anthropological form, but there was also in the 1960s and 1970s an influential literary structuralism: Levi-Strauss was again an important player, but one may think also of 102 103 104

Rendtorff, Canonical Hebrew Bible (2005). Moberly, The Bible (2000). Watson, Text, Church and World (1994).

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R. Barthes, A. Greimas, and G. Genette.105 This was a Paris-based movement, but it had an important influence on Anglo-Saxon biblical scholarship in Britain and the USA – less in Germany, where on the whole traditional biblical criticism has tended to continue its reign. Structuralists looked, unsurprisingly, for structures in texts, in this a little like advanced redaction critics: they were interested in how texts were patterned and shaped; they tended to argue that this was not the result of creative writers, but of the literary system as such. Though there are here formal parallels to the (somewhat later) canonical approach, in that both are concerned with the text as we now encounter it rather than with hypothetical layers underlying it, the thought-world is a completely different one. Structuralists were not concerned with the theology or the ‘message’ of the text, but with how it conveyed the meaning it did, and they saw this as coming about through the arrangement of the words, as though that was an autonomous process. There was a great liking in structuralism for anonymous texts, in which one could not reconstruct an author even if one wanted to, and the Bible is naturally an important example of such a text: the anonymity which is such a problem for traditional biblical critics becomes in structuralism a positive advantage. That said, many structuralists were not interested in the Bible at all (many were Marxists), Barthes being a great exception; but some biblical scholars adopted a structuralist approach in their own work, though more commonly in North America than in Europe. There are two home-grown European approaches that have a certain amount in common with structuralism. In Germany the work of Wolfgang Richter106 adopted a rigorously scientific approach to the analysis of biblical texts, arguing that the scholar must work through a catechism of questions in seeking to perform exegesis: what is the form of the smallest unit of the text, what is its genre, how has it been combined with other short forms, and so on? In the Netherlands, at the same time, Amsterdam was the centre of an important literary approach which also concentrated on the end-form of the text without asking questions about authorship: important structural analyses can be found in the work of Jan Fokkelman.107 Structuralism did not last long; by the 1980s it was being replaced by various post-structuralist movements such as can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida,108 and by the whole intellectual shift in perspective normally called postmodernism. The last years of the twentieth century saw postmodernist approaches to the Bible gaining importance, though again more obviously in North America than in Europe. One postmodernist attitude that has had a kind of reflection in biblical studies, however, is the ‘turn to the reader’. Postmodernist criticism takes it for granted that meaning in texts is generated not by the author but by the language-system in collaboration with the reader: it is ultimately in the reader’s control to decide on the sense of a text. This results in what is known as reader-response criticism. This in turn has two forms: a ‘hard’ form associated 105 106 107 108

See Barthes, Analyse structural e (1971). Richter, Exegese als Literaturwissenschaft (1971) See Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative (2001). On Deridda’s influence on biblical study see Sherwood, Derrida’s Bible (2004).

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with Stanley Fish, in which the meaning of a text depends entirely on the reader, though the reader is always situated within an ‘interpretive community’ that permits some kinds of reading and rules out others; and a ‘soft’ form, associated with Wolfgang Iser, in which the meaning emerges from a dialogue between text and reader. Biblical scholars tend on the whole to prefer the ‘soft’ version, but even that is far more radical than traditional biblical criticism has ever allowed. By the end of the century there were not yet many reader-response commentaries on the Bible, but whole series were being planned. But reader response has had an important spin-off in encouraging an interest in what biblical texts have been taken to mean in the past. Whereas for nineteenthand earlier twentieth-century critics the traditional reading of a text is often exactly what the scholar needs to discard in order to detect the true meaning, by the late twentieth century it had become common to say that all the meanings a text has been thought to have remain possible readings of it. And this has stimulated an interest in what is called in German Wirkungsgeschichte, the ‘history of the text’s effects’ or ‘effective history’ as it is sometimes badly translated into English, or Rezeptionsgeschichte, ‘reception history’. The end of the twentieth century saw reception history enjoying popularity in wider literary studies, with books on the history of the performance of Shakespeare, for example; and biblical scholars have not been slow to follow. Reception history was by no means unknown in the past: to take a striking example, A. Merx’s commentary on Joel from 1879109 contains a long section on how the book was interpreted by the Fathers. Brevard Childs’s commentary on Exodus110 similarly surveys the interpretation of Exodus in the Fathers, the Rabbis, and the Reformers. But as a conscious programme reception history is novel, and it seems certain to continue well into the twenty-first century.

8. Text and Versions All biblical scholars agree that no good work can be done on the Old Testament without sound editions of the text and a grasp of the ancient translations into Greek, Latin, and Syriac. At the beginning of the twentieth century much progress had been made in these areas, but as the century progressed there were major breakthroughs and massive publishing ventures to secure a better understanding of them. The Hebrew text mostly used in 1900 was still the so-called Second Rabbinic Bible (Bomberg edition) published in the sixteenth century. But a desire to recover an earlier and more correct version led in the 1920s to the publication of Biblia Hebraica, based on the Leningrad (St Petersburg) manuscript of 1008 (L). It was Paul Kahle who was foremost in showing that L was the best available manuscript from the Masoretic tradition. Subsequent editions, of which the widely used Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS, 1966–77) is the fourth, have 109 110

Merx, Prophetie des Joel (1879). Childs, Exodus (1974).

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maintained the first BH’s practice of producing what is essentially a diplomatic edition of L, though an edition produced by the Hebrew University follows the somewhat earlier Aleppo Codex where it is extant (the entire Torah is missing). Most of the editors of BHS were German, with just two from the British Isles – D. Winton Thomas and Theodore H. Robinson. All the editions of BH have extensive apparatuses recording variants in other manuscripts and evidence from the ancient versions, especially the Greek Septuagint, Latin Vulgate, and Syriac. After the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls their evidence was included in an apparatus of its own in BH3, and integrated into the general apparatus in BHS. But Old Testament study has until recently remained firmly attached to the idea of diplomatic editions, very unlike the situation in the study of the New Testament text where the object is normally to produce an eclectic text based on evaluation of manuscripts and emendation where necessary. Only in the last decade has there been a serious attempt to produce a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible in the new Oxford Bible (Oxford University Press in New York), of which Ronald S. Hendel’s edition of Genesis 1–11 has so far appeared.111 Biblia Hebraica Quinta, now being published in fascicles, follows the principle of reproducing the Masoretic text according to L, though with much extended critical apparatuses. It may be that the absolute ‘canonization’ of the Masoretic text as found in L has had an effect on the mentality of Old Testament scholars, inclining them more to a canonical reading, as surveyed above, than has been the case for New Testament scholars, who know that every edition of the Greek New Testament is only a ‘best guess’ at a supposed original text. In the Old Testament the idea of the ‘final form’ of the text is more clearly enshrined in printed books – even though, on reflection, one must see that this final form is a text of the late first millennium CE, rather than exactly reproducing anything that goes back into biblical times. The importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls in opening up the possibility of revising the traditional Hebrew text cannot be emphasized too highly. Fragments of almost all biblical books have been found at Qumran, and in the case of some books, such as Isaiah and the Psalms, there are several different manuscripts. The Oxford University Press project Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, now nearing completion, offers a critical edition of them all under the general editorship of Emanuel Tov, and there is a useful English translation of all extant biblical texts under the title The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible.112 Even more strongly than the ancient versions, the Scrolls show that there was not a single ‘canonical text’ in Antiquity, but a variegated textual tradition. In broad outline they mostly support the general drift of the Masoretic text – they are clearly versions of the same books that we have in L, not widely variant. But at the level of textual detail there are thousands of points at which it becomes clear that the Masoretic text was not current in its present form at the time the Scrolls were copied. Where the versions are concerned, the twentieth century also saw much progress. The late nineteenth-century Cambridge Septuagint (LXX) had followed one manuscript for each book, mostly the Codex Vaticanus, with an apparatus reporting on other manuscripts: thus it was essentially a diplomatic edition like 111 112

Hendel, Text of Genesis 1–11 (1998). Abegg/Flint/Ulrich, Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (1999).

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BH. But the major edition of the LXX ongoingly being produced in Göttingen is a critical edition, in this resembling most editions of the New Testament. Most progress on it was made after 1940, with Ziegler producing the major prophetic books and Job, and Wevers the Pentateuch. Almost all scholars now use the Göttingen edition. Evidence from Qumran has shown that the LXX sometimes witnesses to a pre-Masoretic Hebrew text, and throughout the twentieth century the LXX has been treated with respect as having its own integrity as much more than merely a rendering of MT. Study of the LXX has flourished particularly in Finland, where the names of Soisalon-Soininen, Aejmelaeus, and Sollamo113 are noteworthy, but in Britain James Barr especially contributed to LXX studies with his work on the nature of the translation.114 The Syriac version was also the subject of work throughout the century, with Brill in Leiden publishing a series of volumes to form a critical edition, something that has never existed before. There has also been extensive study of the Aramaic Targums, including the Targum Neofiti, not known until modern times, which was discovered in 1956. The Dead Sea Scrolls include targums on Job and Leviticus. Work on all these texts has involved collaboration between European and North American scholars, but in the area of textual study Europe has been pre-eminent.

9. Conclusion The twentieth century saw major progress in biblical research, but also its fragmentation from the starting-point around the beginning of the century when there was a much wider consensus not only about which questions were important but also about their probable answers. European study of the Old Testament was not, of course, isolated from work being done in North America, but it had its own distinctive features, not least a concern for philology and for historical questions about the biblical text. For most of the century the German-speaking area was dominant, though Scandinavian scholarship also contributed distinctively; British scholarship tended to swing between the concerns of Germany and of North America, though in one area – the history of Israelite religion – there was an alliance with Scandinavian scholars for a time. By the end of the century European biblical scholarship shared in the global fragmentation of the discipline, with many theories and no agreed agenda. Nevertheless the achievements of twentieth-century European study of the Old Testament have been manifold, and will continue to bear fruit into the next century.

113 114

Soisalon-Soininen/Aejmelaeus/Sollamo, Studien zur Septuaginta-Syntax (1987). Barr, Typology of Literalism (1979).

Chapter Thirty-seven

Biblical Scholarship in Northern Europe By Antti Laato, Aabo Bibliographies: K. Holter, Old Testament Research for Africa: A Critical Analysis and Annotated Bibliography of African Old Testament Dissertations, 1967–2000 (Bible and Theology in Africa 3; New York: Peter Lang 2002); Tropical Africa and the Old Testament: A Select and Annotated Bibliography (Faculty of Theology: Bibliography series 6; Oslo: University of Oslo 2006). − D. Kvale/D. Rian (eds.), Sigmund Mowinckel’s Life and Works: A Bibliography (Småskrifter utgitt av Institutt for bibelvitenskap, Universitetet i Oslo 2; Oslo: Oslo Universitet 1984) [reprinted in SJOT 2 (1988) 95–168]. General Works and Studies: A. Aejmelaeus, Parataxis in the Septuagint: A Study of the Renderings of the Hebrew Coordinate Clauses in the Greek Pentateuch (AASF B Diss 31; Helsinki 1982); The Traditional Prayer in the Psalms (BZAW 167; Berlin: de Gruyter 1986); On the Trail of the Septuagint Translators, Collected Essays (Kampen: Kok 1993). − A. Aejmelaeus/R. Sollamo (eds.), Ilmari Soisalon-Soininen, Studien zur Septuaginta-Syntax. Zu seinem 70. Geburtstag am 4. Juni 1987 (AASF B 237; Helsinki 1987). − A. Aejmelaeus/U. Quast (eds.), Der Septuaginta-Psalter und seine Töchterübersetzungen. Symposium in Göttingen 1997 (Mitteilungen des Septuaginta Unternehmens XXIV; Göttingen 2000). − G. W. Ahlström, Psalm 89: Eine Liturgie aus dem Ritual des leidenden Königs (Lund: Gleerup 1959). − B. Albrektson, Studies in the Text and Theology of the Book of Lamentations with a Critical Edition of the Peshitta Text (STL 21; Lund: Gleerup 1963); History and the Gods (ConBOT 1; Lund: Gleerup 1967). − H. M. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos. Studies in the Preaching of Am 2:7b–8, 4:1–13, 5:1–27, 6:4–7, 8:14 (VT.S 34; Leiden: Brill 1984); A Way in the Wilderness. The “Second Exodus” in the Message of Second Isaiah (JSSM 12; Manchester: Manchester University 1989); The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archaeology of Judah during the ‘Exilic’ Period (Oslo: Scandinavian UP 1996); The Babylonian Captivity of the Book of Isaiah. Exilic Judah and the Provenance of Isaiah 40–55 (The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, Serie B. Skrifter 102; Oslo: Novus 1997); “Comparare necesse est? Ancient Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy in a Comparative Perspective”, in: M. Nissinen (ed.), Prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern Context. Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Arabian Perspectives (SBL Symposium Series, 13; Atlanta, GA 2000), 3–11; “Den gammeltestamentlige profetismen belyst ved paralleller fra Mari”, in: T. Stordalen/O. Skarsaune (eds.), Professor, dr. theol. Arvid Tångberg (1946–2000) in Memoriam, TTK 72:1–2, Oslo (2001) 51–67. − K. Berge, Die Zeit des Jahwisten: Ein Beitrag zur Datierung jahwistischer Vätertexte (BZAW 186; Berlin: de Gruyter 1990); Reading Sources in a Text: Coherence and Literary Criticism in the Call of Moses. Models – Methods – MicroAnalysis (ATSAT 54; St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag 1997). − H. Birkeland, Zum hebräischen Traditionswesen: Die Komposition der prophetischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (Oslo: Dybwad 1938); Die Feinde des Individuums in der israelitischen Psalmenliteratur (Oslo: Grøndahl 1938); The Evildoers in the Book of Psalms (Oslo: Dybwad 1955). − A. J. Bjørndalen, Untersuchungen zur allegorischen Rede der Propheten Amos und Jesaja (BZAW 165; Berlin: de Gruyter 1986). − R. A. Carlson, David, the Chosen King: A Traditio-Historical Approach to the Second Book of Samuel (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1964). − R. P. Carroll, When Prophecy Failed: Reactions and Responses to Failure in the Old Testament Prophetic Traditions (London: SCM Press 1979). − M. Cheney, Dust, Wind and Agony: Character, Speech and Genre in Job (ConBOT 36, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1994). − R. C. Culley/T. W. Overholt (eds.), Anthropological perspectives on Old Testament prophecy (Semeia 21; Chico 1981). − W. Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments, I-III (Leipzig 1933–39). − G. Eidevall, Grapes in the Desert: Metaphors, Models, and

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Themes in Hosea 4–14 (ConBOT 43; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1996). − I. Engnell, Gamla Testamentet: En traditionshistorisk inledning. Första delen (Stockholm: Svenska Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokförlag 1945); “Till frågan om Ebed Jahve-sångerna och den lidande Messias hos ‘Deuterojesaja’”, SEÅ 10 (1945) 31–65; “Profetia och tradition: Några synpunkter på ett gammaltestamentligt centralproblem”, SEÅ 12 (1947) 110–139; The ‘Ebed Yahweh Songs and the Suffering Messiah in “Deutero-Isaiah” (repr. from BJRL 31 [1948] 54–93; Manchester: The Manchester University 1948); Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Blackwell 1967); Critical Essays on the Old Testament (tr. from Swedish and ed. by J. T. Willis with the Collaboration of H. Ringgren; London: SPCK 1970). − I. Engnell (ed.), Svenskt Bibliskt Uppslagsverk, I-II (Stockholm: Nordiska Uppslagsböcker 21962–63). − B. Ericsson, Han var föraktad: Forskningen i Sverige under 1900-talet kring Jesajabokens s.k. tjänaresånger med en utblick mot övriga Skandinavien (AUU/Studia Biblica Upsaliensia 2; Uppsala: Uppsala University 2006). − L.O. Eriksson, “Come, children, listen to me!” Psalm 34 in the Hebrew Bible and in Early Christian Writings (ConBOT 32, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1991). − I. Finkelstein/N. A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed. Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: The Free Press 2001). − B. Gerhardsson, “Hur Svenskt Bibliskt Uppslagsverk kom till”, SEÅ 63 (1998) 7–18. − G. Gerleman, Zephanja: Textkritisch und literarisch untersucht (Lund: Gleerup 1942); Studien zur alttestamentlichen Theologie (Franz Delitzsch Vorlesungen NF 2, Heidelberg: Schneider 1980). − V. Grønbech, Vor folkeæt i oldtiden I-IV (København 1909–1912); Primitiv Religion (Stockholm 1915); The Culture of the Teutons, I-III (Copenhagen 1931). − R. Gyllenberg, “Die Unmöglichkeit einer Theologie des Alten Testaments”, In piam memoriam Alexander von Bulmerincq (Abhandlungen der Herder-Gesellschaft zu Riga VI:3, Riga 1938), 64–68. − A. Haldar, Associations of Cult Prophets among the Ancient Semites (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell 1945). − E. Hammershaimb, “Johannes Pedersen: 7. November 1883 – 22. December 1977”, Oversikt over det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Virksomhed 1978–79 (Copenhagen 1979), 76–106. − M. R. Hauge, “Sigmund Mowinckel and the Psalms – A Query into His Concern”, SJOT 2 (1988) 56–71. − S. Hidal, “Johannes Lindbloms syn på Israels profeter: Ett exempel på samverkan mellan olika teologiska miljöer”, STK 65 (1989) 16–20. − S. Hjelde, Sigmund Mowinckel und seine Zeit: Leben und Werk eines norwegischen Alttestamentlers (FAT 50, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2006). − K. Holter, Second Isaiah’s Idol-fabrication Passages (BBET 28, Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang 1995); Deuteronomy 4 and the Second Commandment (New York: Peter Lang 2003); Yahweh in Africa: Essays on Africa and the Old Testament (Bible and Theology in Africa 1; New York: Peter Lang 2000, 2001); Contextualized Old Testament Scholarship in Africa (Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2008). − K. Holter (ed.), Interpreting the Old Testament in Africa: Papers from the International Symposium on Africa and the Old Testament, Nairobi 1999 (Bible and Theology in Africa 2; New York: Peter Lang 2001) [Republished as: Interpreting the Old Testament in Africa (Biblical Studies in African Scholarship; Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2001). − K. Holter (ed.), Interpreting Classical Religious Texts in Contemporary Africa (Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2007). − K. Holter (ed.), Let my People Stay! Researching the Old Testament in Africa (Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2006). − S. H. Hooke (ed.), Myth and Ritual (London: Oxford UP 1933); Myth, Ritual and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1958). − K.-J. Illman, Thema und Tradition in den Asaf-Psalmen (PRIÅA 13, Åbo 1976); Old Testament Formulas about Death (PRIÅA 48, Åbo 1979). − B. Johnson, Die hexaplarische Rezension des 1. Samuelbuches der Septuaginta (STL 22; Lund 1963); Die armenische Bibelübersetzung als hexaplarischer Zeuge im 1. Samuelbuch (ConBOT 2; Lund 1968); Hebräisches Perfekt und Imperfekt mit vorangehendem we (ConBOT 13; Lund 1979); Rättfärdigheten i Bibeln (Göteborg: Gothia 1985). − S. Kahle, H. S. Nyberg: En vetenskapsmans biografi (Svenska akademiens minnesteckningar; Stockholm 1991). − O. Kaiser, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (4. erw. Aufl.; Gütersloh 1978). − A. Kapelrud, Joel Studies (UUÅ 1948:4; Uppsala: Lundequistska/ Leipzig: Harrassowitz 1948); Baal in the Ras Shamra Texts (Copenhagen: Gad 1952); Central Ideas in Amos (SNVAO II 1956:4; Oslo: Dybwad 1956); The Violent Goddess: Anat in the Ras Shamra Texts (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 1969); The Message of the Prophet Zephaniah: Morphology and Ideas (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 1975). − M. Kartveit, Motive und Schichten der Landtheologie in I Chronik 1–9 (ConBOT 28, Stockholm: Almqust & Wiksell 1989). − J. Keinänen, Traditions in Collision: A Literary and Redaction-critical Study on the Elijah Narratives 1 Kings 17–19 (PFEC 80, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2001). − D. A. Knight, Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel: The Development of the Traditio-Historical Research of the Old Testament, with Special Consideration of Scandinavian Contributions (SBL and Scholars Press

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1975); Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel (Atlanta: SBL 2006). − M. Köckert/M. Nissinen (eds.), Propheten in Mari, Assyrien und Israel (FRLANT 201; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003). − L. Köhler, Theologie des Alten Testaments (Tübingen 1936). − T. Kronholm, Der kommende Hiskia: Erwägungen zur zeitgeschichtlichen bzw. messianischen (christologischen) Interpretation der Immanuelweissagung Jes 7,14 im Licht der altjüdischen Haggada (manuscript 1982); “Den kommende Hiskia: Ett försök att förstå den messianska interpretationen (Matt 1,18–25) av Immanuelsprofetian (Jes 7,14) i ljuset av några rabbinska texter”, SEÅ 54 (1989) 109–117; De Tio Orden (Stockholm: Verbum 1992). − A. Laato, Who Is Immanuel? The Rise and the Foundering of Isaiah’s Messianic Expectations (Åbo: Åbo Akademi Förlag 1988); “DtrN och återställandet av David’s dynasti. Ett svar till prof. Timo Veijola”, TA 94 (1989) 156–157; Josiah and David Redivivus: The Historical Josiah and the Messianic Expectations of Exilic and Postexilic Times (ConBOT 33; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1992); The Servant of YHWH and Cyrus. A Reinterpretation of the Exilic Messianic Programme in Isaiah 40–55 (ConBOT 35; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1992); History and Ideology in the Old Testament Prophetic Literature. A Semiotic Approach to the Reconstruction of the Proclamation of the Historical Prophets (ConBOT 41; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1996); A Star Is Rising: The Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Ideology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations (International Studies in Formative Christianity and Judaism, Atlanta: Scholars Press 1997); “About Zion I will not be silent”. The Book of Isaiah as an Ideological Unity (ConBOT 44; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1998); “Making History for Israel – Foundation, Blocking and Policy”, SEÅ 70 (2005) 145–176; “Beloved and lovely! Despised and rejected. Some reflections on the death of Josiah”, in: J. Pakkala/M. Nissinen (eds.), Houses Full of All Good Things. Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola (Helsinki/Göttingen 2008), 115–128. − A. Laato/J. C. de Moor (eds.), Theodicy in the World of the Bible (Leiden: Brill 2003). − K. Latvus, God, anger, and ideology: The Anger of God in Joshua and Judges in Relation to Deuteronomy and the Priestly Writings (JSOT.S 279; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). − A. Lauha, Zaphon: der Norden und die Nordvölker im Alten Testament (AASF B 49:2; Helsinki 1943); Die Geschichtsmotive in den alttestamentlichen Psalmen (AASF B 56:1; Helsinki 1945); “Uusi vanhatestamentillinen koulukunta”, Vartija (1947), 60–63; “Några anmärkningar till diskussionen om kungaideologien i Gamla Testamentet”, SEÅ 12 (1947) 167–175; Kohelet (BKAT 19; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1978). − N. P. Lemche, Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Society Before the Monarchy (VT.S 37; Leiden: Brill 1985); Ancient Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1988); The Canaanites and Their Land. The Tradition of the Canaanites (JSOT.S 110; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1991); Die Vorgeschichte Israels. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ausgang des 13. Jahrhunderts v. Chr (BE 1; Stuttgart/Berlin/Köln: Kohlhammer 1996). − J. Lindblom, Profetismen i Israel (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell 1934); The Servant Songs in Deutero-Isaiah: A New Attempt to Solve an Old Problem (LUÅ 47:5; Lund: Gleerup 1951); Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Blackwell 1962). − F. Lindström, Suffering and Sin: Interpretations of Illness in the Individual Complaint Psalms (ConBOT 37; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1994); Det sårbara livet: Livsförståelse och gudserfarenhet i Gamla testamentet (Lund: Arcus 1998). − T. N. D. Mettinger, Solomonic State Officials (ConBOT 5; Lund 1971); King and Messiah (ConBOT 8; 1976); “Die Ebed-Jahwe-Lieder: Ein fragwürdiges Axiom”, ASTI 11 (Leiden: Brill 1978), 68–76; The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies (ConBOT 18; Lund: Gleerup 1982); A Farewell to the Servant Songs: A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom (Lund: Gleerup 1983); Namnet och Närvaron: Gudsnamn och Gudsbild i Böckernas Bok (Örebro: Libris 1987); In Search of God: The Meaning and Message of the Everlasting Names (Philadelphia: Fortress 1988); “The Elusive Essence: YHWH, El and Baal and the Distinctiveness of the Israelite Faith”, in: E. Blum e.a. (eds.), Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte (FS Rendtorff; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1990), 393–417; “Intertextuality: Allusion and Vertical Context Systems in some Job Passages”, in: H. A. McKay/D. Clines (eds.), Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages (FS Whybray; JSOT.S 162; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993), 257–280; No Graven Image: Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context (ConBOT 42; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1995); The Riddle of Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East (ConBOT 50; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 2001); “Om gudsbildens gåtor: Rapport från ett forskarliv”, STK 80 (2004) 17–26; “Cui Bono? The Prophecy of Nathan (2 Sam. 7) as a Piece of Political Rhetoric”, SEÅ 70 (2005) 193–214; The Eden Narrative: A Literary and Religio-historical Study of Genesis 2–3 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2007); “Ämnesval och impulser under ett forskarliv”, in: G. Samuelsson/T. Hägerland (eds.), Så som det har berättats:

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Om bibel, gudstjänst och tro. En hyllning till Lennart Thörn på hans 65-årsdag (Örebro: Libris 2007), 129–139; “Cui Bono? The Prophecy of Nathan (2 Sam. 7) as a Piece of Political Rhetoric”, in: J. Pakkala/M. Nissinen (eds.), Houses Full of All Good Things: Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola (Publication of the Finnish Exegetical Society 95; Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society/ Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2008), 271–299. − S. Mowinckel, Der Knecht Jahwäs (Giessen 1921); Psalmenstudien, I-VI (Kristiania [Oslo]: Dybwad 1921–1924; repr. Amsterdam: Schippers 1961); Prophecy and Tradition: The Prophetic Books in the Light of the Study of the Growth and History of the Tradition (Oslo: Dybwad 1946); “Die vermeintliche ‘Passahlegende’ Ex. 1–15 in Bezug auf die Frage: Literarkritik und Traditionskritik”, StTh 5 (1951) 66–88; Han som kommer. Messiasforventningen i Det gamle testamente og på Jesu tid (København: Gads forlag 1951); ET: He That Cometh (tr. G. W. Anderson; Oxford: Blackwell 1956); Offersang og sangoffer. Salmediktningen i Bibelen (Oslo: Aschehoug 1951; 21971); ET: The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, I-II (tr. D. R. Ap-Thomas; Oxford: Blackwell 1962); “Fragmenter”, in: Norsk litteraturvitenskap i det 20. århundre (FS Francis Bull; Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag 1957), 117–130. − E. Nielsen, Oral Tradition (SBT 11, London 1954); Schechem: A Traditio-Historical Investigation (Copenhagen 1955); “Johannes Pedersen’s Contribution to the Research and Understanding of the Old Testament,” ASTI 8 (1972), 4–20. − K. Nielsen, There is Hope for a Tree. The Tree as Metaphor in Isaiah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1988); Satan – den fortabte søn? (Frederiksberg: Anis 1991). − P. M. K. Niemelä, Antti Filemon Puukko: Suomalainen Vanhan testamentin tutkija ja tulkitsija (Suomen eksegeettisen seuran julkaisuja 74; Helsinki 1999). − M. Nissinen, Prophetie, Redaktion und Fortschreibung im Hoseabuch: Studien zum Werdegang eines Prophetenbuches im Lichte von Hos 4 und 11 (AOAT 231, Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker 1991); References to Prophecy in Neo-Assyrian Sources (SAAS 7, Helsinki: Helsinki UP 1998); Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (Atlanta, GA: SBL 2003); M. Nissinen (ed.), Prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern Context: Mesopotamian, Biblical, and Arabian Perspectives (Atlanta, GA: SBL 2000). − S. Norin, Sein Name allein ist Hoch. Das Jhw-haltige Suffix althebräischer Personennamen untersucht mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der alttestamentlichen Redaktionsgeschichte (ConBOT 24; Lund 1986); “Jô-Namen und Jehô-Namen”, VT 29 (1979) 87– 97; “Yw-names and Yhw-names. A Reply to A R Millard”, VT 30 (1980) 239–240; “Die Wiedergabe JHWH-haltiger Personennamen in der Septuaginta”, SJOT 1 (1988) 76–95; “Personnamn, epigrafi och religion”, Mellan himmel och jord. Föreläsningar vid det nya Theologicums invigning i september 1990 (Religio 35; Lund 1991), 109–116; “Onomastik zwischen Linguistik und Geschichte”, Congress Volume Oslo 1998 (Leiden 2000), 161–178; “Baal, Ashera och himmelens hela härskara. Om kult i Jerusalem under 600-talet f.Kr.”, SEÅ 65 (2000) 33–41; “Personnamn på El och Jahve i Gamla Testamentet. Från 1 Mos till 2 Kung”, RoB 60–61 (2001–2002) 55–66; “Kinderopfer und ‘über die Schwelle springen’”, in: H. Irsigler (ed.), Wer darf hinaufsteigen zum Berg JHWHs?, Festschrift für Sigurdur Örn Steingrimsson zum 70. Geburtstag (ATSAT 72; St. Ottilien 2002), 75–100; “Ba‘al i Gamla Testamentet”, RoB 65 (2006) 7–24. − H. S. Nyberg, Studien zu Hoseabuch (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1935); Irans forntida religioner: Olaus-Petri-föreläsningar vid Uppsala universitet (Stockholm: Svenska Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokförlag 1937); Die Religionen des alten Iran (MVÄG 43; Leipzig: Hinrichs 1938); “Smärtornas man: En studie till Jes. 52,13–53,12”, SEÅ 7 (1942) 5–82; “Die schwedischen Beiträge zur alttestamentlichern Forschung in diesem Jahrhundert”, VT.S 22 (Congress Volume Uppsala 1971; Leiden: Brill 1972), 1–10. − B. Otzen, Studien über Deuterosacharja (Acta theologica Danica 6; Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1964). − T. W. Overholt, Prophecy in CrossCultural Perspective (SBL 1986). − J. Pakkala, Intolerant Monolatry in the Deuteronomistic History (PFEC 76; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1999). − S. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (SAA 9, Helsinki: Helsinki UP 1997). − J. Pedersen, Hebræisk Grammatik (Copenhagen 1926); Der Eid bei den Semiten in seinem Verhältnis zur verwandten Erscheinungen sowie die Stellung des Eides im Islam (Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients; Strassburg: Trübner 1914); “Scepticisme Israelite”, CRHPhR 10 (1931) , 317–370; Israel, I-II: Sjæleliv og samfundsliv (København: Branner og Korch 1920); Israel, III-IV: Hellighed og guddommelighed (København: Branner og Korch 1934); Israel, Its Life and Culture, I-II and III-IV (Copenhagen: Branner og Korch 1926, 1940); “Passahfest und Passahlegende”, ZAW 52 (1934) 161–175. − K. Peltonen, History Debated: The Historical Reliability of Chronicles in Pre-critical and Critical Research (Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 64; Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society 1996). − A. F. Puukko, Das Deuteronomium: Eine literarkritische Untersuchung (BWAT 5; Leipzig 1910); idem, “Är den gammaltestamentliga forskningen på villovägar? Några randanmärkningar till Ivan Engnell’s bok ‘Gamla Testamentet. En traditionshistorisk inledning’”, TA 52 (1957) 64–70. − H. Ringgren, Word and

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Wisdom: Studies in the Hypostatization of Divine Qualities and Functions in the Ancient Near East (Lund: Håkan Ohlsson 1947); “Oral and Written Transmission in the O.T. Some Observations”, StTh 3 (1949) 34–59; Fatalism in Persian epics (UUÅ 1952:13; Uppsala: Lundequistska Bokhandeln 1952); Messias konungen (Uppsala: Lindblad 1954); Studies in Arabian fatalism (UUÅ 1955:2; Uppsala: Lundequistska Bokhandeln 1955); Messiah in the Old Testament (SBTh 18; London: SCM Press 1956); H. Ringgren/Å. V. Ström, Religionerna i historia och nutid (Stockholm: Svenska kyrkans diakonistyrelses bokförlag 1957); Israelitische Religion (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1963); Israelite Religion (London: SPCK 1966); Främre orientens religioner i gammal tid (Stockholm: Bonnier 1967); Religionens form och funktion (Lund : Gleerup 1968); Die Religionen des Alten Orients (Grundrisse zum Alten Testament; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1979); Forntida religioner i Mellanöstern (Löberöd: Plus Ultra 1987);“Vad blev det av Uppsalaskolan?”, in: Teologiska Fakultetens vid Åbo Akademi 60-årsjubileum den 1 Oktober 1984 (ed. F. Cleve/ H. Karjalainen; Åbo 1985), 11–20; Psaltaren 42–89 (Kommentar till Gamla testamentet; Stockholm: EFS-förlaget 1994); Psaltaren 90– 150 (Kommentar till Gamla testamentet; Stockholm: EFS-förlaget 1997). − L. G. Rignell, Die Nachtgesichte des Sacharja. Eine exegetische Studie (Lund: Gleerup 1950); A Study of Isaiah Ch. 40– 55 (LUÅ 52; Lund: Gleerup 1956). − M. Sæbø, Sacharja 9–14: Untersuchungen von Text und Form (WMANT 34; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1969); Ordene og Ordet: Gammeltestamentlige studier (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 1979); On the Way to Canon: Creative Tradition History in the Old Testament (JSOT.S 191; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998); “Crossing Borders: On Five Norwegian Bible Scholars”, VT.S 80 (Leiden: Brill 2000), 1–16. − P. Särkiö, Die Weisheit und Macht Salomos in der israelitischen Historiographie: Eine traditions- und redaktionskritisiche Untersuchung über 1 Kön 3–5 und 9–11 (SFEG 60; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1994). − I. P. Seierstad, Die Offenbarungserlebnisse der Propheten Amos, Jesaja und Jeremia: Eine Untersuchung der Erlebnisvorgänge unter besonderer Berücksichtung ihrer religiös-sittlichen Art und Auswirkung (SNVAO Oslo: Dybwad 1946; Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 21965). − E. Sellin, Alttestamentliche Theologie auf religionsgeschichtlicher Grundlage (Leipzig 1933). − J. Z. Smith, “Dying and Rising Gods”, in: M. Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion, 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago 1987), 521– 527. − M. S. Smith, “The Death of ‘Dying and Rising Gods’ in the Biblical World”, SJOT 12 (1998) 257–313. − I. Soisalon-Soininen, Die Textformen der Septuaginta-Übersetzung des Richterbuches (AASF B 72; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia 1951); Der Charakter der asterisierten Zusätze in der Septuaginta (AASF B 114; Helsinki 1959). − R. Sollamo, Renderings of Hebrew Semiprepositions in the Septuagint (AASF Dissertationes Humanarum Litterarum 19; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia 1979). − T. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden: Genesis 2–3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature (CBETh 25; Leuven: Peeters 2000). − K. Tallqvist, Babyloniska hymner och böner (Populärvetenskapliga skrifter utgivna av Finska Orient-Sällskapet. Svensk serie, No. 5; Helsinki 1953). − S. Tengström, Die Hexateucherzählung: Eine literargeschichtliche Studie (ConBOT 7, Lund: Gleerup 1976); Die Toledotformel und die literarische Struktur der priesterlichen Erweiterungsschicht im Pentateuch (ConBOT 17, Lund: Gleerup 1982). − H. J. Tertel, Text and Transmission. An Empirical Model for the Literary Development of Old Testament Narratives (BZAW 221; Berlin: de Gruyter 1994). − T. Thompson, The historicity of the patriarchal narratives. The quest for the historical Abraham (BZAW 133; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1974); The Origin Tradition of ancient Israel. The literary formation of Genesis and Exodus 1–23. (JSOT.S 55. Sheffield: JSOT Press 1987); Early History of the Israelite People: From Written and Archaeological Sources (Leiden: Brill 1992). − J. H. Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania 1982); J. H. Tigay (ed), Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania 1988). − K. A. Tångberg, Die prophetische Mahnrede: Form- und traditionsgeschichtliche Studien zum prophetischen Umkehrruf (FRLANT 143; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1986). − T. Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie. David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie nach der deuteronomistischen Darstellung (AASF B 193; Helsinki 1975); Das Königtum in der Beurteilung der deuteronomistischen Historiographie. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (AASF B 198; Helsinki 1977); Verheissung in der Krise. Studien zur Literatur und Theologie der Exilszeit anhand des 89. Psalms (AASF B 120; Helsinki 1982); “Remarks of an Outsider Concerning Scandinavian Tradition History with Emphasis on the Davidic Traditions”, in: K. Jeppesen/B. Otzen (eds.), The Productions of Time: Tradition History in Old Testament Scholarship. A Symposium at Sandbjerg Manor, Denmark, May 1982 (Sheffield: Almond Press 1984), 29–51; Dekalogi: Raamatullisen etiikan perusteita (Suomen eksegeettisen seuran julkaisuja 49; Helsinki 1988); Vanhan testamentin tutkimus ja teologia (Suomalaisen teologisen kirjallisuusseuran julkaisuja 167; Helsinki

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1990); “Bundestheologische Redaktion im Deuteronomium”, in: T. Veijola (ed.), Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen (SFEG 62; Göttingen: Vandenhoech & Ruprecht 1996), 242–276; Moses Erben: Studien zum Dekalog, zum Deuteronomismus und zum Schriftgelehrtentum (BWANT 149; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2000). − Å. Viberg, Symbols of Law. A Contextual Analysis of Legal Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament (ConBOT 34; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1992); Prophets in Action: An Analysis of Prophetic Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament (ConBOT 55; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 2007). − K. W. Weyde, Prophecy and Teaching: Prophetic Authority, Form Problems and the Use of Traditions in the Book of Malachi (BZAW 288; Berlin: de Gruyter 2000). − R. N. Whybray, “Review: Das Königtum in der Beurteilung der deuteronomistischen Historiographie: eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung. By Timo Veijola”, JThS 31 (1980) 121–123. − G. Widengren, The Accadian and Hebrew Psalms of Lamentation as Religious Documents: A comparative Study (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell 1936); Psalm 110 och det sakrala kungadömet i Israel (UUÅ 1941:7,1; Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell 1941); “Det sakrala kungadömet bland öst- och västsemiter”, RoB 2 (1943) 49–75; Till det sakrala kungadömets historia i Israel (HS I 3; Uppsala 1947); “Hieros gamos och underjordsvistelse: Studier till det sakrala kungadömet i Israel”, RoB 7 (1948) 17–46; Literary and Psychological Aspects of the Hebrew Prophets (UUÅ 1948:10; Uppsala, Leipzig 1948); The King and the Tree of Life (UUÅ 1951:4; Uppsala 1951); Sakrales Königtum im Alten Testament und im Judentum (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1952); “King and Covenant”, JSS 2 (1957) 1–32; “Early Hebrew Myths and Their Interpretation”, in: S. H. Hooke (ed.), Myth, Ritual and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1958); “Oral Tradition and Written Literature among the Hebrews in the Light of Arabic Evidence, with Special Regard to Prose Narratives,” AcOr 23 (1959) 201–262; “Tradition and Literature in early Judaism and in the early Church”, Numen 10 (1963) 42–83. − R. R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1980).

Biblical scholarship in Northern Europe in the twentieth century may be characterized by the epithet Babel-Bibel. The epithet implies that research then concentrated on the relationship between the Bible and the ancient Near Eastern documents. Concepts such as divine or sacral kingship and cultic ritual patterns in Israel modeled on ancient Near Eastern rites are prominent features of Scandinavian Old Testament exegesis. Today all exegetes are familiar with the names of Sigmund Mowinckel, Ivan Engnell and Helmer Ringgren. In the mid- twentieth century, however, many learned the Scandinavian languages in order to read what scholars from Northern Europe had written. How can we explain this interest in the ancient Near East and the many new innovative methodological applications which were devised in Northern Europe during the twentieth century? This article seeks to illustrate this important question.

1. Early Impulses to Scandinavian Old Testament Scholarship At the end of the nineteenth century previously lost written documents became available to biblical scholars when the cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts of Mesopotamia and Egypt were deciphered. This material enabled Old Testament texts to be interpreted as a part of a common ancient Near Eastern heritage. At the beginning of the twentieth century Old Testament scholarship in Northern Europe did not have as strong traditions as in Germany where Julius Wellhausen had laid the foundation for the understanding of the evolution of the Israelite religion. His famous Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israel was so influential that it was difficult to overlook its logical presentation. But in Northern Europe biblical

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scholarship was still seeking a direction and new innovative theories emerged. In particular, the Ras Shamra texts, found in 1929, played a major role because now for the first time the Canaanite religion became known from primary sources and not from biblical critical viewpoints or through very late Greek authors. So the situation allowed for the discovery of new paths to understand the Old Testament writings, superseding the literary critical method so influential in German scholarship from the end of the eighteenth century onwards.1 It is worth noting that Finland was somewhat hindered by the Scandinavian language barrier and had close contacts with Germany. This explains why typical Scandinavian approaches were less influential in Finland. A. W. Puukko studied in Germany and adopted literary critical methods.2 This tradition continued through A. Lauha’s and, in particular, T. Veijola’s published research.3 Nevertheless, in Scandinavia there were other modes of interpretation which began to influence biblical scholarship. An important influence for Scandinavian scholarship came from the comparative religious studies of V. Grønbech.4 In his early works he sought to present the intellectual and psychological world view of ancient Nordic culture.5 Later he wrote a similar work on ancient Greek culture.6 This concept made a strong impression on J. Pedersen who produced a similar volume on Israel. Grønbech’s studies on primitive religion postulated that the main emphasis of ancient society was not on individuals but on corporate ritual. Human beings experienced their relation to nature as important and, therefore, group rituals were essential for them.7 This aspect of ritual and its significance then found its formulation in S. Mowinckel’s magnificent work on the Psalms. Another impulse in the development of Scandinavian scholarship was derived from different emphases on kingship and its common ancient Near Eastern pattern. These speculations were skilfully set out in S. H. Hooke’s volume Myth and Ritual.8 Hooke argued that there was a common ancient Near Eastern mythical

1 See H. S. Nyberg, Die schwedischen Beiträge zur alttestamentlichern Forschung in diesem Jahhundert, VT.S 20 (1972), 1–10. Nyberg notes that Erik Stave was influenced by Wellhausen’s ideas but there was little enthusiasm for German style literary criticism and corrections to the Masoretic text. 2 A dissertation on A. Puukko in Finnish is available: P. M. K. Niemelä, Antti Filemon Puukko: Suomalainen Vanhan testamentin tutkija ja tulkitsija (1999). Puukko’s most famous study Das Deuteronomium: Eine literarkritische Untersuchung (1910) illustrates well his exegetical approach and the influence of literary critical method over his scholarship. 3 T. Veijola’s scholarship will be treated below. A. Lauha’s exegetical works received many impulses from German exegesis but literary critical method plays only minor role in his production. His main works are Zaphon (1943); Die Geschichtsmotive in den alttestamentlichen Psalmen (1945); Kohelet (1978). 4 The importance of Vilhelm Grønbech has been emphasized by Nyberg (Die Schwedischen Beiträge, 1972, 7) and by H. Ringgren in his article “Vad blev det av Uppsalaskolan?” (ed. F. Cleve/H. Karjalainen; Teologiska Fakultetens vid Åbo Akademi 60-årsjubileum den 1 Oktober 1984; Åbo 1985), 11–20. 5 V. Grønbech, Vor folkeæt i oldtiden, I-IV (København 1909–1912) [ET: The Culture of the Teutons, I-III, Copenhagen 1931). 6 V. Grønbech, Hellas, I-V (København 1942–1953). 7 These ideas are precisely formulated in V. Grønbech, Primitiv Religion (Stockholm 1915). 8 S. H. Hooke (ed.), Myth and Ritual (1933).

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and ritual pattern which could be found in Mesopotamia and in diverse forms also in Canaan and Egypt. Hooke’s work opened a wonderful panorama, setting Old Testament rituals against their ancient Near Eastern background. This book greatly impressed Ivan Engnell who refers to it in his book Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East.9 It may also be mentioned the fact that the textual basis of the Old Testament studies in Scandinavia received strong impulses from reliance on the Masoretic text. It was common at the turn of the twentieth century for many commentaries to contain corrections to the Hebrew text introduced by the phrase “ich lese”, or even conjectures which were based loosely on the Greek Septuagint and other ancient translations.10 Scandinavian scholars began to emphasize the Masoretic text, the primus motor behind this trend being H. S. Nyberg.11 Nyberg wrote an essay on the Book of Hosea where he discussed the reliability of the Masoretic text.12 It is well-known that the Hebrew of the Book of Hosea contains many problems. Scholars have often wanted to correct it but Nyberg argued vehemently that the

9 This connection was also emphasized in a new, revised edition of Myth and Ritual which included G. Widengren’s article on “Early Hebrew Myths and Their Interpretation”, S. H. Hooke (ed.), Myth, Ritual and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (1958). In his article “Myth and Ritual: Past and Present” Hooke writes (3): “Ten years after the appearance of Myth and Ritual, Professor Ivan Engnell published his book Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East, in which he expressed his agreement with the position outlined in Myth and Ritual, and developed it with a great wealth of illustration from the relevant sources. He did not, however, deal with the question of kingship in the Old Testament, promising a further book on that aspect of the subject”. 10 As Nyberg (Die schwedischen Beiträge, 1972, 6) puts it in an ironical way: “… woher haben die hohen Herren all ihre tiefgründige Weisheit der Texte und der Sprache, die sie berechtigt, die armen jüdischen Gelehrten, die doch auch Hebräisch gekannt haben mussten, der Stümperei, der Ignoranz, des Mangels an Logik zu zeihen? Waren die Herren vielleicht in einer Präexistenz Zeitgenossen von Moses und den Propheten gewesen, oder hatte der Heilige Geist selber ihnen die korrekte Sprache, die ursprüngliche Lesart zugeflüstert?”. 11 There is a biography on H. S. Nyberg written in Swedish: S. Kahle, H. S. Nyberg: En vetenskapsmans biografi (Svenska akademiens minnesteckningar, Stockholm 1991). 12 H. S. Nyberg, Studien zu Hoseabuch (1935). It is impossible for me in this relatively short article to deal more closely with the important textual critical studies in Northern Europe during the twentieth century. However, in this connection we may mention the most important studies in this field. In Lund there was a strong tradition to study the transmission of the Old Testament texts. G. Gerleman wrote several studies on Old Testament textual history (Zephanja: Textkritisch und literarisch untersucht, 1942) and the Septuagint (Job, Chronicles, Proverbs in the series: LUÅ) and contributed to Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Job). B. Johnson has published studies on both the Septuagint and the Armenian translation of the Old Testament: Die hexaplarische Rezension des 1. Samuelbuches der Septuaginta (1963); Die armenische Bibelübersetzung als hexaplarischer Zeuge im 1. Samuelbuch (1968). Also his Hebräisches Perfekt und Imperfekt mit vorangehendem we (1979). B. Albrektson, Studies in the Text and Theology of the Book of Lamentations with a Critical Edition of the Peshitta Text (1963) may be noted. The Septuagint studies of Helsinki and Göttingen (where A. Aejmelaeus was professor): I. Soisalon-Soininen, Die Textformen der Septuaginta-Übersetzung des Richterbuches (1951); Der Charakter der asterisierten Zusätze in der Septuaginta (59); R. Sollamo, Renderings of Hebrew Semiprepositions in the Septuagint (1979); A. Aejmelaeus, Parataxis in the Septuagint: A Study of the Renderings of the Hebrew Coordinate Clauses in the Greek Pentateuch (1982); On the Trail of the Septuagint Translators, Collected Essays (Kampen 1993); A. Aejmelaeus/ R. Sollamo (eds.), Ilmari Soisalon-Soininen, Studien zur Septuaginta-Syntax. Zu seinem 70. Geburtstag am 4. Juni 1987 (1987); A. Aejmelaeus/ U. Quast (eds.), Der Septuaginta-Psalter und seine Tochterübersetzungen. Symposium in Göttingen 1997 (2000).

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Hebrew text can almost always be understood without changes. The consonantal text became for Nyberg almost “sacrosanct”. Isa 53:11 provides a good example of how Nyberg could characterize ancient translations which contain readings different from the Masoretic text. In an article written in 1942 – i.e., before the scroll of Isaiah was discovered at Qumran – he warns that it is unacceptable to construct the Hebrew text with the aid of the Septuagint reading here because this derives from the translator’s interpretation and not the Hebrew conjectured Vorlage of the Septuagint.13 It is easy to see that Nyberg could not have written in this fashion after the discovery of the scrolls of Qumran. The importance of the Masoretic text went hand in hand with the emphasis on oral tradition. Even here Nyberg plays a major role. His studies of the ancient Persian religions and the role of oral tradition in this together with the oral transmission of Avesta literature, the Qur’an and Arabic literature were crucial for the understanding of Old Testament writings.14 Ringgren notes that the role of oral tradition in the transmission of the Old Testament texts was discussed at Nyberg’s seminars and H. Birkeland incorporated many of these ideas into his book Zum hebräischen Traditionswesen.15

2. Understanding the Old Testament Texts from the Inside – Johannes Pedersen Johannes Pedersen was an eminent scholar who was chiefly concerned with Semitic philology but who nevertheless also contributed to Scandinavian Old Testament scholarship.16 He published not only a Hebrew grammar but also other important studies related to the Old Testament.17 Without question his main contributions were two massive volumes in Danish (published in 1920 and 1934) where he treated the psychological and social dimensions of the culture and life of

13 H. S. Nyberg, Smärtornas man: En studie till Jes. 52,13–53,12 (1942) 5–82, spec. 26–27. Nyberg writes (p. 27): “Mot ett sådant förfaringssätt måste bestämt varnas; allt talar för att jvV har sin grund i översättarnas textinterpretation och ej i förlagan.” 14 Nyberg wrote a massive volume on Iran’s ancient religions: Irans forntida religioner: Olaus-Petri-föreläsningar vid Uppsala universitet (1937) where he describes the role of oral tradition in the transmission of the religious texts, in particular the literature of Avesta (9–15). See also the German translation: Die Religionen des alten Iran (1938). 15 H. Birkeland, Zum hebräischen Traditionswesen: Die Komposition der prophetischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (1938). See Ringgren, Uppsalaskolan (1985), 13–14. 16 See, in particular, E. Nielsen, Johannes Pedersen’s Contribution to the Research and Understanding of the Old Testament (1972), 4–20. Nyberg writes (Die Schwedischen Beiträge, 1972, 7): “Bei uns ist Pedersens Grundauffassung für die ganze folgende alttestamentliche Forschung massgebend geworden”. A good biography of Pedersen which deals with his scientific production is E. Hammershaimb, Johannes Pedersen: 7. November 1883 – 22. December 1977 (1979), 76–106. 17 J. Pedersen, Hebræisk Grammatik (1926). Other important contributions are Der Eid bei den Semiten in seinem Verhältnis zur verwandten Erscheinungen sowie die Stellung des Eides im Islam (1914) and his work on Ecclesiastes (first appeared in the Norwegian periodical Edda in 1915): Scepticisme Israelite (1931), 317–70.

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ancient Israel.18 These volumes were translated into English under the title Israel: Its Life and Culture.19 The influence of V. Grønbech is fully evident in Pedersen’s Israel. The Danish Israel, I-II, was dedicated to him “I Venskab tilegnet” (In friendship dedicated). In addition, the Danish volume contains an interesting note (Israel, I-II, 397–403) which is not preserved in the English translation.20 This note also includes a long discussion of Israelite psychology which Pedersen compares with that of other pre-Hellenistic nations. Pedersen emphasizes that Herder’s study Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie – Eine Anleitung für die Liebhaber derselben, und der ältesten Geschichte des menschlichen Geistes (1782–83) introduced a new phase in the study of Old Testament writings as literature which bears witness to the ancient Israelites’ life, ideals and thought. In Pedersen’s view it is important that a scholar is able to describe the psychological life, culture and thought of ancient peoples by approaching them from the inside and not by applying modern philosophical theories. In this respect he approved of Vilhelm Grønbech’s four-volume study Vor folkeæt i Oldtiden.21 Nielsen has neatly described Pedersen’s way of reading Old Testament texts from the inside. He has this to say of Israel. Its Life and Culture:22 Johs. Pedersen attaches to a psychological understanding of the Old Testament texts, their authors and the subjects of their narratives and the relationship between the individual and the greater unity to which he belongs and from which he has come forth.

Pedersen’s knowledge of ancient Semitic cultures was extensive. He also lectured on the Old Testament at the Theological Faculty of Copenhagen University during 1916–21 and the first volume of his Israel obviously appeared at that time (1920). He was a well trained philologist and recognized the historical problems behind Old Testament texts. The “inside-approach” to the Old Testament texts implied also that Pedersen could not follow literary-critical principles where different literary sources were distinguished. This does not mean that he could not perceive any development of ideas inside the Old Testament. But he emphasizes that Old Testament writings must be read as testimony to ancient Israelite culture. They reflect the way in which the ancient Israelites interpreted their own existence in relation to other

18 Israel, I-II: Sjæleliv og samfundsliv (1920) and Israel, III-IV: Hellighed og guddommelighed (1934). 19 Israel. Its Life and Culture, I-II and III-IV (1926, 1940). 20 Note the Foreword in Israel, Its Life and Culture, I-II, where Pedersen writes: “I have left out a brief survey given in the Danish edition of the treatment of the psychology of Israel, and its relation to the general psychology of peoples as developed during the 19th century”. 21 Pedersen, Israel, I-II, 401: “Skal disse Synspunkter føres helt igennem, da kræver de af Forskeren at han helt skal kunne gaa ind i den fremmede Kultur, føle med den og skildre den paa dens egen Grund”. 22 Nielsen, Pedersen’s Contribution (1972), 10. See also Hammershaimb, Johannes Pedersen (1979), 84–85: “… evnen til at forstå et primitivt folk ud fra dets egne forudsætninger og derved vinde klarhed over dets opfattelse af så centrale begreber som forholdet mellem den enkelte og slægten, mellem mennesket og omverdenen og mellem mennesket og de bagved alt liggende guddomskræfter.”

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Israelites and other peoples. Pedersen’s treatment of the transmission of the Old Testament texts is fittingly illustrated by “the paschal legend” in Exodus 1–15. He discusses this story complex in Excursus I of his Israel, III-IV (549–555). He has also presented a special study of this account in an article.23 He emphasizes that this is a core narrative which is linked with all other material in the Pentateuch. These chapters contain Yahweh’s mystic campaign against his enemies and even though the narrative itself has passed through a long process of transmission Pedersen regards it as impossible to distinguish any literary layers therein. Such an anti-literary-critical attitude toward Old Testament texts becomes central in Ivan Engnell’s approach. Pedersen’s Israel, I-II, describes the psychological mentality in ancient Israel. The first part deals with the soul, its powers and capacity. The soul is regarded as an organism with a centre which can be filled, or emptied and destroyed. Blessing provides the power to live which can increase the power of the soul while cursing, in turn, can decrease it. The name is interpreted by Pedersen as “the appellation characterizing each individual soul” (245).The identity between the name and the soul explains why the name can act in many Old Testament texts: It is the name of Yahweh who supports the king (Ps 20:2). While many of the texts containing the words soul and name are often interpreted dynamically in modern translations Pedersen emphasizes that we must try to understand how the ancient Israelites wrote their texts in Hebrew. It is clear that Pedersen has presented a significant approach to the Old Testament texts. The attempt to understand Old Testament texts linguistically and psychologically from the inside is an approach which is often neglected in the Old Testament scholarship and no other study has been written which could supersede Pedersen’s outstanding contribution. In his Israel, III-IV, Pedersen deals with the question of how the Israelite mentality confronted Canaanite culture with its many forms and how new features were developed in Israel and prepared the way for early Judaism. Pedersen’s Israel played a crucial role in Scandinavian scholarship.24 E. Nielsen gives a fair summary of Pedersen’s influence:25 In everything he has written, he has known, as no other contemporary scholar, how to make the ancient texts speak their own language, just as he has always endeavoured to defend them against being interpreted according to various ways of presenting the problems alien to the texts themselves. His efforts to read and understand the texts from the inside have not, however, sprung from specific, visionary gifts, which would allow scholars of other opinions to accuse his research of having a tendency to subjectivism. His research is built on a solid historical foundation.

23

Pedersen, Passahfest und Passahlegende (1934), 161–75. I. Engnell adopted many of Pedersen’s ideas. Mowinckel’s writings demonstrate a positive attitude to Pedersen’s ideas. Personally I still recommend Pedersen’s Israel to my students. They convey an accurate picture of Hebrew thought and the way in which Hebrew concepts have been used. Modern translations are always dynamic in some sense. 25 E. Nielsen, Pedersen’s Contribution (1972), 19. 24

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3. Scandinavian Tribute to the Book of Psalms – Sigmund Mowinckel Sigmund Olaf Plytt Mowinckel was a productive scholar who wrote many monographs.26 It would be impossible to try to cover all his production here.27 I shall concentrate on his innovative contribution to the Book of Psalms because his studies of that topic are beyond question regarded as outstanding, and all his main works are available in German and English. As stated above Mowinckel’s studies on the Psalms were strongly influenced by Grønbech’s works.28 Already in his 1916 monograph in Norwegian, Kongesalmerne, Mowinckel argued that kingship is prominent in many Psalms. He accepted all the royal psalms of Gunkel but, in addition, regarded Gunkel’s “laments of the individual” Psalms 28; 61 and 63; “laments of the people” Psalms 44, 60, 80 and 83, as well as Psalms 66; 68; 84 and 118 as royal. This broader aspect, including many other psalms as royal, became characteristic of Scandinavian scholarship. Mowinckel’s own development in this question teaches us a valuable lesson.29 In his Psalmenstudien, I (1921) he interpreted many individual laments according to Gunkel’s suggestion that the setting is cultic but not royal (137–140). But in his foreword to the 1961 edition he notes that Birkeland’s study on the enemies of the individual made a deep impression so that he felt obliged to change his interpretation and regard many other psalms as royal as well.30 Mowinckel explains his changed opinion in the following terms: Dass Irrtum war aber, dass ich an Gunkels rein mechanischer Unterscheidung zwischen IchPsalmen und Wir-Psalmen noch festhielt, und infolgedessen sämtliche Ich-Klagepsalmen als Krankheitspsalmen deutete. Durch H. Birkelands Die Feinde des Individuums in der israelitischen Psalmenliteratur, Oslo 1933, habe ich mich darüber belehren lassen, dass es viele Ich-Klagepsalmen, darunter besonders die sogenannten Vertrauens-Psalmen, in denen die Not nur noch als drohende Gefahr vor den Augen des Betenden steht, gibt, in denen das Ich nicht ein beliebiger “Jedermann”, sondern der König des Volkes ist, und die Feinde somit nationaler, politischer Art sind, die aber in Ausdrücken, die ursprünglich Zauberer und Dämonen bezeichnen, charakterisiert werden, – der von Gunkel und Balla verkannte Wahrheitskern des Smends’chen “kollektiven Ichs”.

Birkeland’s study, Die Feinde des Individuums, was dedicated to Mowinckel, his teacher. Nevertheless, he presented many critical remarks on Mowinckel’s explanation of certain psalms – an excellent indication of a true teacher-pupilrelationship which does not oblige a scholar simply to repeat what his teacher 26 A complete bibliography of S. Mowinckel can be found in D. Kvale/ D. Rian (eds), Sigmund Mowinckel’s Life and Works: A Bibliography (1984) which is reproduced in SJOT 2 (1988) 95–168. See further the bibliography of Mowinckel in S. Hjelde, Sigmund Mowinckel und seine Zeit (2006), 323–341. 27 S. Hjelde has written his biography: Sigmund Mowinckel und seine Zeit (2006). See also A. S. Kapelrud’s presentation of Mowinckel in D. Kvale/D. Rian, Sigmund Mowinckel’s Life and Works, I-IX; cf. further Mowinckel’s autobiography: Fragmenter (1957), 117–130, and contributions in SJOT 2 (1988). 28 See Ringgren, Uppsalaskolan (1985), 12; Nyberg, Die schwedischen Beiträge (1972), 7; M. R. Hauge, Sigmund Mowinckel and the Psalms (1988), 56–71. 29 Note, in particular, M. R. Hauge, Sigmund Mowinckel and the Psalms (1988). 30 See H. Birkeland, Die Feinde des Individuums in der israelitischen Psalmenliteratur (1938).

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has written. On the other hand, Birkeland also scrupulously noted every possible point on which he can agree with Mowinckel. In particular, he refers to Mowinckel’s Kongesalmerne i det gamle testamente. Birkeland carefully examined all the Psalms where confrontations between an individual and his enemies are described. He argues that the individual, speaking as “I” in these psalms must be the king who represents the whole people. He uses extra-biblical material which could provide similar expressions.31 Birkeland’s study influenced Mowinckel’s later modifications of his theories. In his Offersang og sangoffer (1951) he modified his positions in Psalmenstudien in two essential points. He followed Birkeland’s viewpoints in Die Feinde des Individuums and argued that eschatological aspects play a significant role in Autumn- and New Year psalms.32 In addition, Mowinckel also observed that V. Grønbech’s and Johs. Pedersen’s socio-psychologically oriented religious studies have influenced his understanding of “I” in the Psalms. Mowinckel’s observation that form historical method is blind to these aspects of “I” in the Psalms is interesting.33 For the English speaking world it is worth noting that the Norwegian edition of 1951 contains one chapter which deals with the use of the psalms in the Christian Church.34 This chapter was not included in the English two-volume edition The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (1962). Mowinckel comments in the foreword to the English edition (xxiii) that this chapter “was strongly coloured by having been written during enemy occupation”. In this chapter Mowinckel discusses, for example, that the Psalms contain much hostility toward barbarian enemies as well as prayers that they will be destroyed. Nevertheless, he remains that when Christians experience such feelings in their heart they should remember what Jesus taught that Christians should even love their enemies.35 Indeed, this would be a good lesson even today. It is a pity that Mowinckel no longer regarded this chapter as relevant in his 1962 edition. Mowinckel is best known for his theory about enthronement psalms (in particular, Pss 47; 93; 96–99) which are connected with the harvest and the New Year festival in autumn. This theory was presented already in his Psalmenstudien (1921) and was one of the principal reasons for the perception of parallels between Israelite religion and ancient Near Eastern culture. Mowinckel’s theory on

31 Birkeland later wrote another volume The Evildoers in the Book of Psalms (1955) where he answers those who had criticized his position. 32 Mowinckel, Offersang og sangoffer (1951), V-VI: “Den nogenlunde orienterte leser vil imidlertid se at jeg på viktige punkter har modifisert mitt syn i “Psalmenstudien”; det gjelder ikke minst opfatningen i PsSt I, hvor H. Birkelands “Die Feinde des Individuums in der israelitischen Psalmenliteratur” har kastet nytt lys over fiendene. Jeg har også utdypet mitt syn på høst- og nyårsfestsalmene; disse inneholder tildels virkelig et “eskjatologisk” moment, som ikke kom frem i PsSt II.” 33 Mowinckel, Offersang og sangoffer (1951), VI: “Det gjelder f. eks. R. Smends opfatning av det talende “jeg” i Salmene, som inneholder en sannhetskjerne som den rent formhistoriske metode ikke kunde se. Her har den sosialpsykologisk orienterte religionsforskning, som er så glimrende representert både av Vilh. Grønbech og av Johs. Pedersens ‘Israel I-II’, vist veien”. 34 Mowinckel, Offersang og sangoffer, 470–490. 35 Mowinckel, ibid. 479: “Vi vet hvad det vil si å ha rett og bli undertrykt, hånet, pint, av den oplagte urett; vi vet hvad det er å se vårt dyreste eie, vår åndsart og vår moralske og religiøse kultur, vårt åndelige liv, truet…”.

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Yahweh’s enthronement ritual was not accepted without reservations. H. Ringgren, who in his many studies made known many significant conclusions of Scandinavian scholarship, deals with Mowinckel’s theory in several contexts. In his Israelite Religion Ringgren compares Mowinckel’s Yahweh’s enthronement ritual with the covenant festival (discussed by A. Weiser and G. von Rad). He observes that there is no reference to Yahweh’s enthronement ritual in the Law or the historical books, but continues:36 Perhaps the two interpretations are not mutually exclusive. In all probability, the celebration of Yahweh’s kingship is of Canaanite origin; in this context we find the motifs of creation and battle, which cannot be harmonized easily with the theory of a covenant festival, have good parallels elsewhere in the ancient Near East. The renewal of the covenant, on the other hand, is specifically Israelite; in this context we find the theophany and the motif of blessing and cursing – for these there are no parallels in the ancient Near East. From these two roots, then, the Israelite New Year’s festival arose, as it can be reconstructed from the psalms as one aspect of the feast of booths.

In his commentary on the Psalms (in Swedish) Ringgren presents the same two theories concerning the autumn festival.37 But he also remarks in the interpretation of Psalm 93 that the term “enthronement psalm” may be misunderstood and, therefore, should perhaps be avoided.38 Beside Mowinckel there were other scholars who discovered ancient Near Eastern parallels to the Book of Psalms. G. Widengren wrote a study on Akkadian parallels to the Hebrew lamentations.39 K. Tallqvist – who was professor of Assyriology at Helsinki University – translated many Babylonian hymns and prayers into Swedish.40 The strong emphasis on ancient Near Eastern patterns which dominated Mowinckel’s scholarship in the Psalms was not reiterated in later approaches. We could mention here K.-J. Illman’s studies which deal with inner-biblical exegesis of the Psalms.41 In A. Aejmelaeus’ work comparative aspects to Mesopotamian parallels are mentioned but nevertheless play a minor role in the examination.42 In his study on Psalm 34 LarsOlov Eriksson refers to Brevard Childs’ opinion that research on Psalms could pay more attention to the complete canonical form of the Book. This perspective was used to justify the relevance of examining how Psalm 34 was interpreted in the New Testament and early Christian literature.43 F. 36

H. Ringgren, Israelite Religion (1966), 190–195; the quotation is from p. 195. H. Ringgren, Psaltaren 42–89 (1994), 379. H. Ringgren, Psaltaren 90–150 (1997), 511: “Beteckningen tronbestigningspsalm kan lätt missförstås, och det är kanske bättre att tala om psalmer om Herrens herravälde”. 39 G. Widengren, The Accadian and Hebrew Psalms of Lamentation as Religious Documents (1936). 40 K. Tallqvist, Babyloniska hymner och böner (1953). 41 K-J. Illman, Thema und Tradition in den Asaf-Psalmen (1976); Old Testament Formulas about Death (1979). 42 A. Aejmelaeus, The Traditional Prayer in the Psalms (1986). She writes on p. 14: “The similarities between the Babylonian and the Israelite psalms have often been underlined by scholars. Nevertheless, there are also clear differences between them. Since prayer always correlates with the theology – with the conception of God – a closer picture of the psalm prayers may also be expected to reveal particular Israelite characteristics and differences in comparison with the Babylonian parallels. This comparison is, however, regarded as subordinate to the main theme of the present study”. 43 LO Eriksson, “Come, children, listen to me!” Psalm 34… (1991). 37 38

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Lindström approaches the Book of Psalms with a theological question concerning the relationship between sickness and sin in the individual laments. He notes that retribution theology played a dominant role in the Psalms’ theology and anthropology, but discusses this axiom critically.44

4. The Uppsala School and Sacral Kingship – Ivan Engnell “According to recent scholarship, that is according to the Uppsala School, that is according to me”. This anecdote I could still hear when I began my theological studies at Åbo Akademi University. The anecdote was Ivan Engnell’s energetic way of presenting his ideas on the Old Testament.45 It conveys a vivid picture of Engnell’s personality and obvious arrogance which may have undermined his attempt to find wider support for his ideas among scholars outside Scandinavia.46 It is no easy task for non-Scandinavians to seek out Engnell’s contribution to Old Testament scholarship because the majority of his important writings were published in Swedish.47 The task is even difficult for a scholar like me who can easily read Swedish books. After all Engnell’s production was incomplete when he died suddenly on January 10 1964 at the age of 57. There are two main problems in presenting Engnell’s contribution. First, he observes in his most famous work on Divine Kingship that he plans to deal with kingship in Israel in his coming study. His preface states:48 My original intention of including here the Israelite material with the exception of the psalms, to which a special study should then be devoted, proved impracticable. I have therefore been obliged to soon find, however, that numerous threads lead from the latter direct to the Old Testament; and my treatment of the Old Testament material has also as a matter of fact been anticipated in several places in the form of references, remarks and special notes.

But this study on Old Testament kingship failed to appear. However, he edited a massive two volume biblical handbook Svenskt Bibliskt Uppslagsverk where he 44

F. Lindström, Suffering and Sin (1994). Ringgren notes in the Foreword of I. Engnell, Critical Essays on the Old Testament (1970) ix: “Though Ivan Engnell energetically denied the existence of an ‘Uppsala school’ in Old Testament exegesis, he himself was the primary reason that such a term was created and that it spread in the circles of biblical scholarship. Undoubtedly, more than anyone else, he has contributed to the particular approach to most Old Testament problems that is characteristic of several young scholars from Uppsala, as well as from other parts of Scandinavia”. 46 B. Gerhardsson writes (Hur Svenskt Bibliskt Uppslagsverk kom till, 1998, 7–18, p. 17, n. 7) that A. R. Johnson has said that he ignored all Engnell’s studies in divine kingship in his Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel because he did not regard him as a gentleman. 47 A good introduction to Scandinavian Traditio-historical method is D. A. Knight, Rediscovering the traditions of Israel (2006) which is in its essential parts identical with his Rediscovering the traditions of Israel: The Development of the Traditio-Historical Research of the Old Testament, with Special Consideration of Scandinavian Contributions (1975). 48 I. Engnell, Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East (1967), vii; see also p. 3: “At the same time I wish, however, again to emphasize that its purpose is entirely conditioned by my approach to the Israelite problem-complex, of which this work is intended merely as a preliminary investigation and basis”. 45

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dealt with the subject of Israelite kingship among other issues.49 So some information is available in Swedish. Fortunately, several of Engnell’s most important contributions, as presented in this biblical handbook, have been translated into English.50 Secondly, Engnell wrote an introduction to the Old Testament in Swedish of which only the first volume (published already in 1945) is available.51 He notes in his foreword that the second volume is already in press and that he hopes he can soon publish it.52 But it never appeared. Gerhardsson can help us on this point. He comments that Engnell himself did not consider the second volume of his Introduction worthy of publication because many of his ideas were included in SBU.53 Nevertheless, still in his 1948 publication Engnell notes that the second part of his Gamla testamentet: En traditionshistorisk inledning will soon appear in an English edition and there he will deal with Isa 52:1–10 inter alia.54 Scholars who evaluate Engnell’s scholarship must, therefore, be careful not to underestimate the fact that much of his production is available only in Swedish, and that his scholarly project was not completed. We no longer have the possibility of examining all his innovative ideas. The timing of Engnell’s doctoral dissertation Studies in Divine Kingship was good. The Ras Shamra texts had been found and published shortly before the appearance of his study and he could use this new material to describe the sacral kingship in the ancient Near East. Ugaritic material brought the idea of sacral kingship closer to Israelite culture and religion.55 Engnell summarizes the leitmotif of his dissertation in his article from 1948 as follows:56 “One of the main purposes of my own dissertation was to show that the Tammuz line and royal cult line are in reality merely two aspects of one and the same thing; they are, ultimately, ‘identical’”. Engnell described his approach to the Old Testament as a “traditio-historical method” (“traditionshistorisk syn”); but this method should not be associated with the German Überlieferungsgeschichte or the English ‘oral tradition’. For Engnell this method includes several factors. Primarily he followed Scandinavian

49 The first volume of SBU was published in 1948 and the second in 1952 and it was edited by I. Engnell and A. Fridrichsen. Nyberg was earlier responsible for the Old Testament part but he was rejected because of his passivism. This led to bitter struggles between Nyberg and Engnell. This bitterness is echoed in Engnell’s article from 1948. The updated version of SBU was edited by Engnell in co-operation with B. Gerhardsson and contains many of Engnell’s own exegetical ideas and innovations. This volume is available only in Swedish: Svenskt Biblisk Uppsalgsverk, I-II (ed. I. Engnell; 1962–63). 50 Through the index of I. Engnell, Critical Essays on the Old Testament (1970), it is possible to find much material illustrating how Engnell understood the kingship in ancient Israel. 51 I. Engnell, Gamla Testamentet: En traditionshistorisk inledning. Första delen (1945). 52 Engnell, Gamla testamentet (1945), 5: “Den andra delen, av vilken det mesta redan nu föreligger I korrektur, och som jag därför hoppas ej skall låta alltför länge vänta på sig…”. 53 Gerhardsson, Hur Svenskt Bibliskt Uppslagsverk kom till (1998), 17. 54 See I. Engnell, The ‘Ebed Yahweh Songs (1948). Engnell writes concerning his analysis on the Book of Isaiah (12): “It recurs in a detailed way in part II of my work ‘The Old Testament. A Traditio-historical Introduction’ which in the near future will appear in an English edition”. 55 Another Scandinavian scholar who has studied Ugaritic material is A. Kapelrud, Baal in the Ras Shamra Texts (1952); The Violent Goddess: Anat in the Ras Shamra Texts (1969). 56 Engnell, The ‘Ebed Yahweh Songs (1948), 5, n. 1.

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scholars such as Nyberg, Pedersen and Birkeland in emphasizing oral tradition in the transmission of the Old Testament texts.57 But he also drew attention to the mythical and cultic traditions which shaped these texts. Moreover, the traditio-historical method includes different techniques of composition (e.g., the pattern in prophetic literature where doom and salvation alternate; epic laws, parallelismus membrorum in poetry and prose) and ideological factors such as comparative material from Israel’s neighbours.58 In his Gamla testamentet (47– 108) Engnell deals with different traditio-historical forms in poetry and prose. For example, in prophetic literature he distinguishes between the divan-type (oral prophetic tradition) and the cultic or liturgical type (which may have been in written form).59 Engnell’s traditio-historical method may be illustrated by his characterization of the Pentateuch.60 After condemning the literary-critical view of the Pentateuch he turns to Nyberg’s definition:61 Moseböckerna, som icke kunna vara skrivna av Mose och icke ens själva ge sig ut för att vara det, äro en stor kompilation av traditionsstoff från olika tider; det är möjligt att deras slutgiltiga litterära hopredigering måste sättas relativt sent, men själva stoffet är genomgående gammalt och på ingen punkt yngre än konungatiden.

Engnell argues that two major tradition complexes can be discerned: Genesis-Numeri and Deuteronomy – 2 Kings which have a theme in common. Engnell interprets doublets and variants as indicative of oral transmission. Engnell argues that the aim of the traditio-historical method is to separate smaller tradition units inside these larger complexes.62 He states, for example, that Exodus 1–15 is one central tradition complex which has incorporated other related material such as, for example, the Desert wandering and Sinai traditions.63 Different law complexes like the Covenant Book (Exod 20:23–23:19), Exod 34:17–26 and the Holiness Code (Lev 17–26) can be discerned but even they were transmitted beside larger sections of tradition. It is worth noting that in Finland Engnell’s work Gamla Testamentet: En traditionshistorisk inledning was reviewed critically by R. Gyllenberg, A. Puukko and A. Lauha.64 Gyllenberg was most positive but even he criticized Engnell’s wholly unspecified assumption that the Pentateuch received its final form during

57 E. Nielsen was also influenced by the idea that many Old Testament traditions were transmitted orally; see E. Nielsen, Oral Tradition (1954); Schechem: A Traditio-Historical Investigation (1955). 58 See Engnell, Gamla testamentet (1945), 39–44; Critical Essays on the Old Testament (1970), 3–11. 59 Engnell, Critical Essays on the Old Testament (1970), 123–179. 60 Engnell, Gamla testamentet (1945), 209–259. 61 Engnell quotes (Gamla testamentet, 209) Nyberg’s Swedish article. 62 Engnell, Gamla testamentet (1945), 213–214: “Det framstår likväl som den traditionshistoriska forskningens närmaste uppgift att söka utskilja de mindre enheterna och särtraditionerna. Denna uppgift är emellertid synnerligen vansklig och kan oftast ge blott approximativa resultat”. 63 Here Engnell is clearly dependent on Pedersen. 64 R. Gyllenberg in TA 51 (1946) 151–160; A. F. Puukko, “Är den gammaltestamentliga forskningen på villovägar? ” TA 52 (1957) 64–70; A. Lauha, “Uusi vanhatestamentillinen koulukunta” (1947); “Några anmärkningar till diskussionen om kungaideologien i Gamla testamentet” (1947).

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the exilic and post-exilic periods, but at the same time it is cited as a development from the Canaanite literature thus implying a much earlier date. Similar criticisms were voiced in Norway where Mowinckel published his methodologically important work Prophecy and Tradition (1946).65 He criticized Engnell’s unilateral favouring of oral tradition and was the first to treat methodologically the relationship between tradition-history (a term he used in his earlier writings) and literary criticism (a method which he had learnt from his teacher and friend Gustav Hölscher). Mowinckel says of Engnell’s method (18): “… it refers above all to the mere stressing of the fact that the composition of the original units (separate traditions) and the compilation and elaboration of the present books have been the oral, not literary work of the transmitting circles”. He emphasizes that tradition-history cannot be contrasted with literary criticism as Engnell had done (35): “With a slogan ‘traditio-historical point of view’ as an antithesis to literary criticism and literary-critical methods, little if anything is gained. It is the history of the traditions themselves that is important to grasp”. Mowinckel demonstrated that the Old Testament prophetic books contained references to the articulation of prophecies so that we may speak of “the interaction between oral and written transmission” (64). Mowinckel also wrote an article criticizing Pedersen’s view on the “Passover legend” in Exodus 1–15; moreover he there explained his support of literary critical analysis together with his emphasis on tradition history.66 Engnell wrote a rebuttal in which he criticizes Mowinckel who had wholly misunderstood his statement in Gamla Testamentet: En traditionshistorisk inledning that transmission would have been only oral.67 Engnell rightly refers to his work (29; 40–41) and emphasizes that the modes of transmission varied in different forms of literature.68 Pedersen gave his answer to Mowinckel in his English translation of Israel, III-IV, where he argued that the narrative of Exodus 1–15 must be interpreted as a whole, not in separate literary strata. Beside Engnell we must also mention his contemporary Geo Widengren who contributed in many ways to Scandinavian scholarship. He was professor of religious studies at the University of Uppsala. Engnell once said of Widengren that “if I had Geo’s memory and my intelligence then I would be someone”.69 Widengren refuted the primacy of oral tradition which was emphasized so strongly by Nyberg and Engnell. Instead he argues energetically that the emphasis on oral tradition is based simply on misinterpretation of the data available from ancient Near Eastern cultures.70 The whole study of Literary and Psychological Aspects 65

Prophecy and Tradition (1946). S. Mowinckel, Die vermeintliche ‘Passahlegende’ Ex. 1–15 in Bezug auf die Frage: Literarkritik und Traditionskritik (1951), 66–88. 67 I. Engnell, Profetia och tradition (1947), 110–139. 68 See Engnell, ibid. 127–128, n. 38. 69 “Om jag skulle ha Geos minne och min intelligens då skulle jag vara någon”. I have heard this anecdote from my father-in-law Jukka Thurén, emeritus professor in New Testament exegesis. He studied in Uppsala in the beginning of 1960’s. 70 G. Widengren, Literary and Psychological Aspects of the Hebrew Prophets (1948); Oral Tradition and Written Literature among the Hebrews in the Light of Arabic Evidence, with Special Regard to Prose Narratives (1959); Tradition and Literature in early Judaism and in the early Church (1963), 42–83. 66

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of the Hebrew Prophets was dedicated to the examination of the relationship between oral and written tradition. Widengren began his study by referring to Nyberg’s Studien zum Hoseabuche and then to Birkeland’s Zum Hebräischen Traditionswesen. Widengren writes (122–123): “As to myself, I am no opponent of literary criticism per se, but only of the methods hitherto used by the representatives of this literary criticism”. However, Widengren may represent the Uppsala School because he supported the theory of sacral kingship in Israel and wrote several articles on the subject before Engnell’s Divine Kingship.71 Two doctoral dissertations were produced which were heavily influenced by Engnell’s theories. The first was Gösta Ahlström’s study on Psalm 89.72 Ahlström argues that the Sitz im Leben of Psalm 89 is the New Year Festival when the king participates in a cultic drama of the deus incarnatus who must suffer and die and then rise again in order to guarantee fertility in the coming year. This attempt to apply Engnell’s favorite ideas to the text of a particular Psalm alerted the world of scholarship to perceive the significance of this pattern of sacral kingship. Can the wording of Psalm 89, in fact, support such reading? The history of research has shown that the answer must be “no”.73 Ahlström’s dissertation was in a sense a mortal blow to Engnell’s divine kingship pattern.74 The second dissertation which was produced under Engnell’s tutelage but was published only after his death was A. Carlson’s work on David in 2 Samuel.75 He sought to perform a traditio-historical analysis of 2 Samuel which involved compositional analysis (13): “Compositional analysis aims at showing the nature of the structural patterns used to build up a unit or complex of units”. With the help of different compositional techniques (repetition, key words, association, ring composition) he demonstrates how 2 Samuel received its final form. He distinguishes between 2 Sam 2–7 where David is under a blessing and 2 Sam 9–24 where he is under a curse. The history of David was thereby presented in terms of Deuteronomic covenant theology. Carlson postulates that the pardoning of Jehoiachin at the end of the Deuteronomistic History (2 Kgs 25:27–30) was regarded as a positive sign from Yahweh (267): “The pardoning of Jehoiachin is no more than a foretaste of Yahweh’s expected intervention”. Overall Carlson’s application of Engnell’s traditio-historical method is a more balanced exegetical analysis than Ahlström’s.

71 Widengren’s most important studies in this area are: Psalm 110 och det sakrala kungadömet i Israel (1941); Det sakrala kungadömet bland öst- och västsemiter (1943), 49–75; Till det sakrala kungadömets historia i Israel (1947); Hieros gamos och underjordsvistelse: Studier till det sakrala kungadömet i Israel (1948); The King and the Tree of Life (1951); Sakrales Königtum im Alten Testament und im Judentum (1952); King and Covenant (1957). 72 G. W. Ahlström, Psalm 89: Eine Liturgie aus dem Ritual des leidenden Königs (1959). 73 Very illustrative criticism is voiced by T. Veijola, Remarks of an Outsider Concerning Scandinavian Tradition History with Emphasis on the Davidic Traditions (1984). 74 Ahlström writes in the Foreword (7): “Die Untersuchung ist eine Frucht der inspirierenden Forschungsrichtung, die, von Herrn Prof. Dr. Ivan Engnell herrührend, immer den Gottesdienst, als die Herzader der israelitischen Religion betrachtet. Dieses Arbeitsprogramm hat sich nicht nur als ausserordentlich fruchtbar, sondern in manchen Fällen auch als völlige Erneuerung unserer Wissenschaft erwiesen”. 75 R. A. Carlson, David, the Chosen King (1964).

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Even though Engnell’s tendency to see sacral kingship everywhere in the Old Testament caused problems with practical interpretations, as demonstrated so clearly in Ahlström’s dissertation, there were many vital points in his programme. In particular, the Uppsala School demonstrated that comparative aspects may be of value when they are not used too rigidly. One Scandinavian scholar who succeeded in incorporating this comparative aspect in the Old Testament exegesis was H. Ringgren. In his many studies he showed how ancient Near Eastern material can contribute to the interpretation of the Old Testament and was able to convey the principles of the Uppsala School to a wider academic audience as the influence of the Old Testament’s ancient Near Eastern heritage.76 This heritage is presented in many of Ringgren’s studies (delete this sentence as repetition). First of all we should mention Theologisches Wörterbuch Zum Alten Testament which has been translated (and to some extent edited) into English as the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. It contains much information about ancient Near Eastern texts and linguistic parallels to the vocabulary and beliefs presented in the Old Testament. Secondly, his many studies on religious history of ancient Near Eastern religions and Israelite religion shed light on the possibility of identifying contacts between different cultures which influenced religious systems.77 Third, he published many books on the Israelite kingship and religious background of certain Old Testament passages.78 Another important study on the Israelite kingship and its ideological development in accordance with the messianic expectations was S. Mowinckel’s Han som kommer (1951), which was translated and published as He That Cometh (1956).79 Mowinckel argues that the term “Messiah” has been used anachronistically. In its proper sense it implies the end of the Davidic dynasty and can only refer to an eschatological figure. He argues that many prophetic texts concerning the future Davidic king reflect exilic and postexilic expectations. While Engnell used Messiah to denote the Israelite king in the pre-exilic period Mowinckel redefined the term. Mowinckel’s definition of the term “Messiah” is also accepted in A. Laato’s presentation A Star Is Rising but his version differs in many details. For example, the eighth century prophetic traditions in the Books of Isaiah, Micah, Hosea and Amos are adjudged to reflect the political situation when small kingdoms in Palestine sought a powerful counter candidate to the Assyrian king. An analogous history can be discerned among the Aramean tribes.80

76 Ringgren ends his article “Uppsalaskolan” by emphasizing the common ancient Near Eastern cultural inheritance which should and must be considered in modern Old Testament scholarship (19–20): “Israel levde inte i ett isolerat rum; det skedde ett ständigt utbyte av idéer mellan Israel och de omgivande folken”. 77 Following works of H. Ringgren may be mentioned, many of them in Swedish and in different editions: Word and Wisdom: Studies in the Hypostatization of Divine Qualities and Functions in the Ancient Near East (1947); Fatalism in Persian epics (1952); Studies in Arabian fatalism (1955); Religionerna i historia och nutid (1959); Israelitische Religion (1963; transl. even into English and Swedish); Främre orientens religioner i gammal tid (1967); Religionens form och funktion (1968); Die Religionen des Alten Orients (1979); Forntida religioner i Mellanöstern (Löberöd: Plus Ultra 1987). 78 See the following books: Messias konungen (1954); Messiah in the Old Testament (1956); a three-volume commentary on the Book of Psalms: Psaltaren 1–41; 42–89, 90–150 (1987–1997). 79 S. Mowinckel, He That Cometh (1956) 80 A. Laato, A Star Is Rising (1997), 104–130.

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Engnell’s traditio-historical method was never widely accepted by Old Testament scholars. One reason was apparently his emphasis on oral tradition. The simple fact that Widengren criticized this aspect was enough to convince scholars that the role of oral tradition was exaggerated. Even Ringgren has criticized it even though he also admits that textual differences between parallel texts in the Old Testament may well be explained by oral transmission.81 It is worth noting that in recent scholarship Engnell’s traditio-historical viewpoint can be combined with the so-called empirical perspective where emphasis is not on the oral tradition per se but on the literary activities where earlier written versions have not been preserved intact. The empirical perspective goes back to J. H. Tigay and among the scholars of Northern Europe A. Laato has argued along these lines.82

5. Research on the Prophetic Literature The scholarship concerning Old Testament prophetic literature in Northern Europe has provided several important impulses to the understanding of the phenomenon of prophecy in early Israel, together with the interpretation of the prophetic literature and its redaction history. In 1934 Johs. Lindblom presented a large study in Swedish, Profetismen i Israel, where he laid down the religio-historical understanding of prophecy. He began his study by adducing the empirical evidence of the existence of prophets in the sources outside the Old Testament in order to determine who was a prophet and what was his/her mission? Lindblom emphasizes that it is far better to allow reality to speak than devise different psychological theories.83 He discusses Asian shamanism, Islamic prophecy, nomadic seers, Finnish sleeping preachers84 and Saint Birgitte.85 This early work of Lindblom is not available in English. He later published Prophecy in Ancient Israel (1962) but this work was wholly rewritten 81

See H. Ringgren, Oral and Written Transmission in the O.T. Some Observations (1949), 34–59. Concerning the Gilgamesh Epic see J.H. Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (1982). Other studies in empirical models which present methodological consequences to the literary evolution of the texts are: J. H. Tigay (ed.), Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (1988); H. J. Tertel, Text and transmission (1994); A. Laato, History and Ideology in the Old Testament Prophetic Literature (1996), 62–147. 83 J. Lindblom, Profetismen i Israel (1934), 31: “Bättre än psykologiska utredningar i största allmänhet är att låta verkligheten själv tala”. 84 It is worth noting that Johs. Lindblom was professor at Åbo Akademi University during the years 1924–1930 and he came to know the phenomenon of sleeping prophets, in particular, one female sleeping prophet Helena Konttinen. Kaarlo Sarlin who followed her life closely has written a biography of Helena Konttinen where even paraphrases of many of her sermons have been preserved: K. Sarlin, Eräs meidän aikamme profeetta [A Prophet of Our Time] (Ristiina: Parikanniemi Säätiö 1973). A Swedish version of this book En profetissa i våra dagar was published in 1920–21 and was available to Lindblom. 85 S. Hidal Johannes Lindbloms syn på Israels profeter (1989), 16–20, has made several interesting notes on Lindblom’s work. Lindblom’s brother Andreas was an expert on Saint Birgitte – which explains why she plays so central a role in the work. Swedish exegetes (and Lindblom was among them) used to make trips to the Orient and received many impulses from these journeys (see J. Lindblom, Genom öknen till Sinai [Stockholm 1930]). Lindblom was greatly influenced by Gustav Hölscher but was also critical of his views, in particular, in the question of mysticism. Hidal also notes Einar 82

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as noted in the foreword:86 “The present volume, however, is an entirely new work and has hardly a single sentence in common with its predecessor”. In this English edition Lindblom could also draw on his many studies of the prophetic literature published after 1934. Lindblom’s study has influenced the way in which scholars have dealt with prophecy across cultural boundaries.87 Lindblom argues that the prophets possessed a strong awareness from the divine world that they had to proclaim the word of God:88 In the light of all that has been said above, a prophet may be characterized as a person who, because he is conscious of having been specially chosen and called, feels forced to perform actions and proclaim ideas which, in a mental state of intense inspiration or real ecstasy, have been indicated to him in the form of divine revelations.

I. P. Seierstad’s study on the revelatory experiences of Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah was another contribution to the psychological dimension of the Old Testament prophets.89 He attempted to understand these experiences as they are presented in the text and in this respect he refers, in particular, to Johs. Pedersen’s studies “Israel”.90 He concludes that the ecstatic-enthusiastic experiences of the prophets were not in focus. Rather the prophets were depicted as individuals who had so clear an awareness of the will of God that they will act according to it as to their own.91 Seierstad concludes (245): Nach all dem können wir feststellen: Nicht erst von Jeremia gilt es, dass das Subjekt dabei ist und die Verkündigung in den Willen aufnehmen muss. Sondern dies gehört zum Wesen der alttestamentlichen Prophetie, soweit sie sich auf der durch Amos und die folgenden Gerichtspropheten vertretenen Linie bewegt. Es spiegelt sich vor allem wieder erstens in der von allen zentralen Funktionen des Wachbewusstseins getragenen, persönlichen Ausformung der prophetischen Botschaft, und zweitens in dem lebenslänglichen Berufgehorsam der Propheten.

Billing’s and Nathan Söderblom’s influence on Lindblom (20): “Lindblom utgår från Hölschers nyorientering av problemställningen, men modifierar den. 86 J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (1962), vii. 87 See e.g. R.R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (1980); R. C. Culley /T.W. Overholt (eds.), Anthropological perspectives on Old Testament prophecy (1981); T. W. Overholt, Prophecy in Cross-Cultural Perspective (1986). 88 Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (1962), 46; a similar formulation is found in Profetismen i Israel, 101 (italics by Lindblom): “En profet är en person som under intrycket av ett oemotståndligt kallelsemedvetande känner sig tvingad att förkunna de ingivelser han mottagit i en med extatiska eller subextatiska (revelatoriska) tillstånd förbunden religiös inspiration”. 89 I. P. Seierstad, Die Offenbarungserlebnisse der Propheten Amos, Jesaja und Jeremia (1946). 90 Seierstad, Die Offenbarungserlebnisse (1946), 35: “Dass das Erleben der Propheten seinen letzten Quellort in einer extrapsychischen transzendenten Existenzsphäre hatte, – da zu beweisen ist keineswegs unsere Aufgabe. Es ist vielmehr eine Voraussetzung, von der wir nicht loskommen können …”. 91 Seierstad, Die Offenbarungserlebnisse (1962), 221: “Wo die Rede irgendwie ausdrücklich als Wort Jahves gekennzeichnet ist und diese Kennzeichnung von den Propheten selbst herrührt, dürfen wir ein spezifisches Erlebnis des Offenbarungsempfanges voraussetzen, bei dem ihnen eine klare Erkenntnis der Gedanken und des Willens Gottes geschenkt wurde”. See further M. Sæbø, Crossing Borders. On Five Norwegian Bible Scholars (2000), 1–16, esp. 12–13.

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M. Sæbø presented a well-balanced, evergreen methodological approach to the study of a biblical text in his dissertation on Zechariah 9–14.92 He developed a methodology whereby he starts from the extant text and then goes back to earlier forms of tradition (20): “Darum ist es methodologisch gewiss gerechtfertigt, mit dem Text als solchem anzufangen, also den methodischen Ansatzpunkt im Text selber zu suchen”.93 He examines Zechariah 9–14 first with the help of textual criticism, then from a form-critical perspective. The advantage of this method is apparent inasmuch as it presupposes that the present form of the text must be intelligible in its own light. It shows the validity of the Scandinavian protest against the literary-critical method which is based on the view that, when a text is unintelligible because of its inner tensions a new set of new subtexts which break up its syntax must be created.94 I. Engnell wrote an article on “Bildspråk” (metaphor) in Svenskt Bibliskt Uppsalgsverk.95 He there mentions tree-metaphors in the Book of Isaiah inter alia. Several major contributions on prophetic metaphors have since been published. A. J. Bjørndalen wrote a study on metaphorical and allegorical speech in Amos and Isaiah.96 Kirsten Nielsen discussed the metaphor of tree in the Book of Isaiah.97 Moreover, she was also a second tutor for G. Eidevall who in 1996 defended his thesis on metaphors in the Book of Hosea.98 Ancient Near Eastern parallels to the phenomenon of prophecy were described in the context of the Uppsala School by A. Haldar.99 He dealt with Mesopotamian (in particular the titles baˉrû and mahhû) and West-Semitic parallels. Discussion of this subject derived considerable benefit from the publication of Mari and neo-Assyrian prophetic texts. Professor of Assyriology at Helsinki University, S. Parpola, published neo-Assyrian prophecies and there analyzed many important prophetic texts.100 Parpola lists parallels to the Old Testament prophecies but also presents far-reaching parallels to very late literature, e.g., Jewish mystic literature, Kabbalah – something which many scholars would regard as irrelevant because iconic similarity or analogy rarely implies genealogy. But the fact is that experts on Old Testament prophetic literature acquired a virtual gold mine in that volume.101 It is worth noting that already Haldar touched on some neo-Assyrian 92

M. Sæbø, Sacharja 9–14: Untersuchungen von Text und Form (1969). Sæbø’s important contributions to Tradition History of the Old Testament are nicely collected in M. Saebø, On the Way to Canon: Creative Tradition History in the Old Testament (1998). 94 On Deutero-Zechariah was also published another dissertation.at about the same time: B. Otzen, Studien über Deuterosacharja (1964), where Otzen argued that much material could be derived from the pre-exilic situation. 95 SBU 2, 283–320. According to B. Gerhardsson (Svenskt Bibliskt Uppsalgsverk, 7–18) the article was his suggestion to Engnell. Engnell’s article represented pioneering research in the area. 96 A. J. Bjørndalen, Untersuchungen zur allegorischen Rede der Propheten Amos und Jesaja (1986). 97 K. Nielsen, There is Hope for a Tree. The Tree as Metaphor in Isaiah (1988). The original dissertation was in Danish: Der er håb for et træ. Om træet som metafor i Jes 1–39 (København 1986). 98 G. Eidevall, Grapes in the Desert: Metaphors, Models, and Themes in Hosea 4–14 (1996). 99 A. Haldar, Associations of Cult Prophets among the Ancient Semites (1945). 100 S. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (1997). 101 The following studies deal with neo-Assyrian prophecies: M. Nissinen, Prophetie, Redaktion und Fortschreibung im Hoseabuch (1991); Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (2003); M. Nissinen (ed.), Prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern Context (2000); M. Köckert/M. Nissinen 93

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prophecies which were published in Parpola’s edition. Beside Parpola’s edition M. Nissinen deals with references to prophecy in neo-Assyrian sources.102 Parpola’s and Nissinen’s studies provide a basis for the recent discussion of ancient Assyrian parallels to Old Testament prophecy. In this connection we should also mention K. A. Tångberg’s valuable contribution to the prophetic words of exhortation (“Mahnrede”) in that he cites ancient Near Eastern parallel material. He argues that these parallels indicate that the Old Testament prophecy was intimately connected with the cult.103 Prophetic symbolic acts constitute a theme of long standing in scholarly discussion. Engnell mentioned this phenomenon in SBU.104 He interpreted these symbolic acts so that “their purpose is not merely to illustrate the event which is announced, but also to influence directly this event in the channel intended” (150). Engnell observes that “the prophetic word by its very nature is creative potency: filled with divine power, it molds that which takes place according to the will of Yahweh. Thus, in reality, the word is the act, and therefore the distinction between the word and the symbolic act is flexible” (150). The symbolic acts of prophets were recently analyzed by Å. Viberg who dealt with similar themes earlier when he wrote his dissertation on juridical symbolic acts.105 Viberg also discusses ancient Near Eastern parallels to prophetic symbolic acts. Festinger’s cognitive psychological theory became popular in the interpretation of the Old Testament prophetic literature through R. Carroll’s study When Prophecy Failed.106 This socio-psychological theory was applied in A. Laato’s dissertation on Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy. He argues that the prophecy (as well as Isa 8:23b–9:6 and Isa 11:1–9) referred to an ideal king who would replace Ahaz and his royal house. When these prophecies were not fulfilled there was a tendency to apply them to Hezekiah instead.107 Different scholarly approaches to the Old Testament prophetic literature indicate that there is no established school of interpretation. Old Testament exegesis has become fragmentary and influences have been received from different quarters. One crucial issue concerns our ability to comprehend the proclama(eds.), Propheten in Mari, Assyrien und Israel (2003); A. Laato, History and Ideology in the Old Testament Prophetic Literature (1996); H. Barstad, “Comparare necesse est? Ancient Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy in a Comparative Perspective”, in: M. Nissinen (ed.), Prophecy in its Ancient Near Eastern Context (2000), 3–11; “Den gammeltestamentlige profetismen belyst ved paralleller fra Mari”, in: T. Stordalen/ O. Skarsaune (eds.), Professor, dr. theol. Arvid Tångberg (1946–2000) in Memoriam, TTK 72,1–2 (Oslo 2001), 51–67. 102 M. Nissinen, References to Prophecy in Neo-Assyrian Sources (1998). 103 K. A. Tångberg, Die prophetische Mahnrede (1986). 104 See SBU 2, 581–582. An English translation of this article “Profeter” can be found in Engnell, Critical Essays 123–179, esp. 150–152. 105 Å. Viberg, Symbols of Law. A Contextual Analysis of Legal Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament (1992); Prophets in Action: An Analysis of Prophetic Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament (2007). 106 R. P. Carroll, When Prophecy Failed (1979). 107 A. Laato, Who Is Immanuel? (1988). The Hezekiah = Immanuel interpretation in rabbinical documents were dealt in T. Kronholm’s unpublished manuscript Der kommende Hiskia: Erwägungen zur zeitgeschichtlichen bzw. messianischen (christologischen) Interpretation der Immanuelweissagung Jes 7,14 im Licht der altjüdischen Haggada (1982). He wrote an article in Swedish about this: “Den kommende Hiskia: Ett försök att förstå den messianska interpretationen (Matt 1,18–25) av Immanuelsprofetian (Jes 7,14) i ljuset av några rabbinska texter”, SEÅ 54 (1989), 109–117.

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tion of the historical prophets.108 Some scholars, in particular, emphasize that it is methodologically meaningful to deal with the problems inherent in reconstructing the proclamation of the historical prophets. Historical and religio-historical problems connected with the Old Testament prophetic books have been closely studied by Hans Barstad.109 In his dissertation Barstad used the texts in Amos to reconstruct the 8th century BC Israelite religion. His first monograph on Deutero-Isaiah discussed texts containing references to wilderness, water, and way. He argued that they have been mistaken for allusions to a second Exodus. In his second monograph on Isaiah 40–55 he tried to prove that the arguments in favour of a Babylonian setting of Isaiah 40–55 are untenable. A. Laato treated the problem of how scholars have argued when they discussed the Old Testament historical prophets and their proclamation. He used Peirce’s semiotics to illustrate differences between the methodological approaches used in scholarly studies.110 K. W. Weyde’s doctoral dissertation on the Book of Malachi makes an important contribution to late postexilic prophecy where connections between older traditions and prophetic message come to the fore.111 We could close our discussion by dealing with different theories concerning how Isaiah 53 has been interpreted by the scholars of Northern Europe.112 Nyberg argued vehemently that the MT must be regarded as the original version while the Septuagint translation contains later theological ideas which appear in the Wisdom of Solomon 2–5 and refer, in particular, to the life after death. The MT version describes the man who is a leper (naˉ gûa‘ in 53:4). The servant’s fate belongs to the past but his sufferings and death have meaning in the present. Nyberg deals with the traditio-historical background of the servant motif and discerns three concepts: the suffering Tammuz, the sacral kingship and the royal humiliation in the New Year festival as well as the tribal father ideology. This image of the suffering and dying servant was adopted during the exile in order to depict the distress of the people. The servant is the tribal father and may refer to the individual (e.g., prophets) or the collective (people). The servant suffered vicariously, therefore the people has a new future. The servant will continue to live among his people.113 108 It is worth noting, for example, that A. S. Kapelrud published several monographs on the Old Testament prophets. This first study was more greatly influenced by the ideas of the Uppsala-school: Joel Studies (1948) than his later ones: Central Ideas in Amos (1956); The Message of the Prophet Zephaniah: Morphology and Ideas (1975). 109 H. M. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos. Studies in the Preaching of Am 2:7b–8, 4:1– 13, 5:1–27, 6:4–7, 8:14 (1984); A Way in the Wilderness. The Second Exodus in the Message of Second Isaiah (1989); The Babylonian Captivity of the Book of Isaiah. Exilic Judah and the Provenance of Isaiah 40–55 (1997). 110 A. Laato, History and ideology in Old Testament Prophetic Literature. See further A. Laato, “About Zion I will not be silent.” The Book of Isaiah as an Ideological Unity (1998) where the Book of Isaiah has been seen as one literary and ideological unity. 111 K. W. Weyde, Prophecy and Teaching: Prophetic Authority, Form Problems and the Use of Traditions in the Book of Malachi (2000). 112 Note also the overview of research on the interpretation of Isaiah 53 in Sweden and Scandinavia: B. Ericsson, Han var föraktad: Forskningen i Sverige under 1900-talet kring Jesajabokens s.k. tjänaresånger med en utblick mot övriga Skandinavien (2006). 113 Nyberg, “Smärtornas man”. On p. 77 Nyberg writes: “Tjänaren lever vidare i sitt folk, släktled efter släktled, en talrik och långlivad ätt, som det går väl i världen, som skördar stor vinst av stamfad-

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Engnell argues that Servant Songs must be read in their context. He finds frequent references to Near Eastern royal motifs. In particular, he lists many parallels to Tammuz liturgies which were current even among West Semites as the Ugaritic texts show.114 Engnell emphasizes that there is no direct loan from Tammuz liturgies:115 We see now that it is not a question of a superficial influence from outside, from Babylonia, but of an idea autochthonic with the western Semites, too, inherently bound up with the sacral kingship pattern in Canaan, and taken over there by Israel … The parallels are not even intended to show a direct Accadian influence; they ‘merely’ support, as pointed out once before, a factual internally Israelite world of thoughts with a distinctive cultic background.

The death and resurrection of the Servant are not historical events but reflect the royal cultic drama. The subsequent chapters, Isaiah 54–55, describe the consequences of the Servant’s resurrection and exaltation (p. 38): “the restoration of Zion and the erection of the new Jerusalem on the basis of Davidic covenant, fulfilled in ‘Ebed Yahweh.” Mowinckel argues that the Servant songs must be distinguished from other texts in Deutero-Isaiah. They describe the call of the prophet (Isa 42:1–4), the prophet’s own view of his mission (Isa 49:1–6), and his suffering while fulfilling his task (Isa 50:4–9; 52:13–53:12). As far as the suffering, death and resurrection of the Servant are concerned Mowinckel perceives that they were influenced by the royal cultic drama of the New Year Festival. However, the prophets themselves must be prepared to suffer for the sins of the people, and this is exactly the fate of the Servant. By speaking to the prophets Yahweh can destroy their personal life. Mowinckel took Jeremiah and Ezekiel as examples. But this royal cultic drama served to create a new theological hope of resurrection. Mowinckel emphasizes that the Servant figure replaces the royal Messiah figure and introduces an idea which came to play a vital role in Christianity: “It is, therefore, with justice that the Church has from the very beginning seen in Jesus Christ the true fulfilment of these prophecies”.116 Johs. Lindblom deals with the literary character of the Servant Songs and argues that they are allegories to which an interpretation has been added. Thus Isa.42:5–9 is an interpretation of 42:1–4; 49:7 of 49:1–6; 50:10–11 of 50:4–9. In the fourth Servant Song the interpretation comes first in 52:13–53:1 and only then the vision or allegory in 53:2–12.117 Thus “the decisive question is no longer: Who is the Ebed Yahweh in the Songs? but: What are the historical facts which are to be elucidated by the symbols employed.”118 Lindblom argues then that the Servant is regarded as an individual but is an allegory for Israel. erns lidanden och som har sådan framgång bland folken, att den får utskifta byte med de stora och mäktiga.” 114 I. Engnell, Till frågan om Ebed Jahve-sångerna och den lidande Messias hos Deuterojesaja, SEÅ 10 (1945) 31–65; this article is substantially same as that published in English: “The ‘Ebed Yahweh Songs and the Suffering Messiah in ‘Deutero-Isaiah’,” BJRL 31 (1948) 54–93. 115 Engnell, ‘Ebed Yahweh Songs (1948), 29. 116 S. Mowinckel, Der Knecht Jahwäs (1921); He That Cometh (1951), 187–257 – quotation is from 257. 117 J. Lindblom, The Servant Songs in Deutero-Isaiah (1951). 118 Lindblom, Servant Songs (1951), 51.

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In his analysis of the so-called Servant Songs L.G. Rignell maintained that they belong in their context so they can be interpreted as referring to Israel. This is also the case in Isaiah 53 where it is inferred that the suffix in laˉ mô in verse 8 is plural.119 T. N. D. Mettinger argues forcefully that the Servant Songs cannot be separated from their literary context. He proposes that the Servant is Israel who during the exile has suffered much for the benefit of the whole people.120 Mettinger summarizes his analysis (p. 43): The “we” who speaks in the central part of this text refers to the Gentiles. Further, also in this text the Servant is the people of God, his Israel, and in particular the exiled community. Thus it is sufferings of the Exiles which are symbolized by the agony and death of the Servant.

A. Laato published two long, connected monographs in 1992. The first dealt with Josiah, and the second with the Servant of Yahweh and Cyrus in Isaiah 40–55. The reason for the appearance of these two volumes in the same year was that he studied in Lund in 1989 and sought to complete his manuscript on Isaiah 40–55. However, he then realized that his background chapter on Josiah needed more care and attention. In consequence the background chapter was enlarged to 400 pages of research into Josiah and his influence on the Old Testament royal ideology. The research project was therefore postponed until 1992.121 Laato agrees with Engnell and Mettinger that the so-called Servant Songs must be read in their context. He argues that Josiah’s dramatic death at Megiddo was a disaster for Judah. Many lamentations were offered for him as indicated in Jer 22:10–12 and 2 Chr 35:24–25. In particular, the Chronicles’ account confirms that the death of Josiah became a popular theme in lamentations which were known many centuries after his death. 2 Kgs 23:25–27 states that Josiah was the most righteous king in Judah but because of the sins of Manasseh Yahweh caused the catastrophe of the exile and the destruction of Jerusalem. This connection implied that Josiah had to suffer because of the sins of the people, and Laato proposes the hypothesis that this theme is reflected in lamentations on Josiah. These lamentations then loomed behind Isaiah 53, not that the Servant is Josiah but rather that his fate and death are used to describe the sufferings of the Israelites in the exile. The Servant is a collective group of righteous Israelites whose suffering will benefit the whole people.122 Laato also deals with the problem with a literary-critical approach in order to discern some older literary forms behind the so-called Servant texts of Isaiah 40–55 which may have reflected the exilic messianic expectations. But as a good Nordic scholar Laato does

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L. G. Rignell, A Study of Isaiah Ch. 40–55 (1956). T. N. D. Mettinger, Die Ebed-Jahwe-Lieder: Ein fragwürdiges Axiom (1978), 68–76; A Farewell to the Servant Songs (1983). 121 A. Laato, Josiah and David Redivivus (1992); The Servant of YHWH and Cyrus (1992). 122 A summary of Laato’s ideas can be found in two articles with different focus: A. Laato, “Theodicy in the Deuteronomistic History”, in: A. Laato/J. C. de Moor (eds.), Theodicy in the World of the Bible ( 2003), 183–235; “Beloved and lovely! Despised and rejected. Some reflections on the death of Josiah”, in: J. Pakkala/M. Nissinen (eds.), Houses Full of All Good Things. Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola (2008), 115–128. 120

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not emphasize unduly the possibility of reconstructing the older literary layers behind the present form of the text.123

6. Deuteronomistic History – The Göttingen School at Helsinki A valuable contribution to the Deuteronomistic History emerged at Helsinki University under the tutelage of T. Veijola. R. Smend and W. Dietrich developed a theory that the Deuteronomistic History has undergone three redactions. The historical redactor (DtrH) collected older material and wrote the first version. This was later supplemented by the redactor who was interested in prophetic accounts (DtrP). Finally, the nomistic redactor (DtrN) wished to emphasize the role of the Torah. Veijola applied this redaction theory to the Books of Samuel and later also to Psalm 89.124 In his two early works (1975, 1977) Veijola distinguished between DtrH (the true historiographer) and DtrN (the Nomistic redactor) whose attitudes toward the kingship were different. DtrH regarded the kingship as wholly unproblematic. Texts like Judg 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25 and the promise of a dynasty in 2 Sam 7 are from this redactor. In contrast, the Nomistic redactor, DtrN, was a true antimonarchist who adopted texts such as Judg 9:8–15 and 1 Sam 8:10 ff, from northern circles. These two texts show a critical attitude toward kingship as a social institution. DtrN incorporated them in the Deuteronomistic History and, in addition, justified his antimonarchic attitude by reference to the notion of theocracy: Yahweh is Israel’s true king. Veijola notes that DtrN was the first to condemn kingship as a violation of the concept of theocracy (Judg 8:23, 1 Sam 8:7 and 12:12). Furthermore, the conditional formulations of the dynastic promise in 1 Sam 13:13–14 and in 1 Kgs 2:4; 8:25; 9:4–5 originate, according to Veijola, from DtrN.125 Veijola’s opinion of DtrN’s attitude to the re-establishment of the Davidic kingship is less easy to discern. In his monographs from 1975 and 1982 he gives two different answers without taking adequate note of their divergence. In 1975 Veijola observes that, like DtrH, DtrN expected the restoration of the Davidic kingship126 while DtrP rejected these restorationist views.127 In 1982 Veijola com123 Laato, The Servant of YHWH and Cyrus (1992), 249–280. For the limits of the literary criticial method see Laato, History and Ideology (1994), 62–147. 124 The most important studies are Timo Veijola’s famous trilogy: Die ewige Dynastie. David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie nach der deuteronomistischen Darstellung (1975); Das Königtum in der Beurteilung der deuteronomistischen Historiographie. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (1977); Verheissung in der Krise. Studien zur Literatur und Theologie der Exilszeit anhand des 89. Psalms (1982). The list could be the inclusion of many important articles and the first part of the ATD commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy. 125 Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975), 127–142; Das Königtum (1977), 115–122; Verheissung in der Krise (1982), 143–161. 126 “DtrN wiederum teilt vollinhaltlich die dynastische Theologie des DtrG [=DtrH], interpretiert sie jedoch im Geiste seiner nomistischen Grundhaltung (1Sam 13:13–14) und bezieht auch das Volk Israel in den Segensbereich der Verheissung ein (2Sam 7:6.11a.22–24)”. Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975), 80; see also 79 and 142. 127 See Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975), 138–142. “Historisch gesehen hat allerdings allein DtrP recht behalten: Die Daviddynastie ist tatsächlich nie in der erwarteten Form wieder zu Ehren gekommen”. (142).

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mented that DtrN argues against the restoration of the Davidic kingship by adducing the notion of theocracy, and by interpreting the promise of a dynasty collectively as referring to Israel and only to Israel.128 It seems that Veijola’s 1982 work modifies his earlier redaction critical hypothesis in order to eliminate the tension129 which existed between his studies from the years 1975 and 1977 he refers to a review by Whybray130 and to a remark by Kaiser131 both of which commended on this tension.132 Without question Veijola’s last study of the “trilogy”, i.e., Verheissung in der Krise, is the clearest articulation of his perception of the approaches of the three Deuteronomistic redactors. The study gives a neat overview of the dynamics of the exilic theology when the promise of the dynasty was placed at risk. Many scholars who predate the dynastic promise to the pre-exilic period still find Veijola’s analysis useful on many points. In his later studies Veijola developed further the concept of the Deuteronomistic redaction history. DtrB is the redactor who edited many passages in Deuteronomy concerning the covenant.133 Many of Veijola’s students in Helsinki University followed his reasoning in order to understand Deuteronomistic history.134

128 See Veijola, Verheissung in der Krise (1982), 159–161. That Veijola has changed his view can be also seen in the way he interprets the following texts redacted by DtrN: (i) 2Sam 5:12b; (ii) the parts of 2Sam 7; (iii) 1Kgs 11:36; 15:4 and 2Kgs 8:19; and (iv) 2Sam 22:51 and 2Sam 23:1–7. In Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975) these texts are interpreted as referring to the reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty even though DtrN regarded this promise as pertaining also to the people. But in 1982 they refer only to the reinterpretation of the promise given to the Davidic dynasty. See (i) Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975), 142 and Verheissung in der Krise (1982), 144, 160 f; (ii) Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975), 79–80, and 1982, 144 f, 150; see also Verheissung in der Krise (1982), 62–65; (iii) Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975), 118–119, 142. In 1982 Veijola writes the following concerning these passages: “Damit dem Knecht Jahwes David für immer eine ‘Leuchte’ in der erwählten Stadt Jerusalem bliebe, wird Juda ungeachtet der Gottlosigkeit seiner Könige eine Zeitlang von der Strafe verschont (1Kön 11,36; 15,4; 2Kön 8,19)”. Veijola, Verheissung in der Krise (1982), 158. (iv) Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie (1975), 122–124, 142. In Veijola, Verheissung in der Krise (1982) there is no mention of how these two texts should be interpreted as far as the reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty is concerned. In all likelihood they do not refer to the reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty something which, however, is indicated in the study from 1975. See further A. Laato, “DtrN och återställandet av David’s dynasti. Ett svar till prof. Timo Veijola”, TA 94 (1989) 156–157. 129 I.e. DtrN expected the reestablishment of the Davidic dynasty (the conclusion drawn in Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie, 1975) and was antimonarchist (the conclusion in Veijola, Das Königtum, 1977). 130 R. N. Whybray, “Review: Das Königtum in der Beurteilung der deuteronomistischen Historiographie: eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung. By Timo Veijola”, JThS 31 (1980) 121–123. 131 O. Kaiser, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (41978), 148, n. 14. 132 See the note in Veijola, Verheissung in der Krise (1982), 160, n. 81, and 1988, 411, where he refers to this aspect of his study from 1982. 133 T. Veijola, Bundestheologische Redaktion im Deuteronomium (1996), 242–276 [printed also in T. Veijola, Moses Erben: Studien zum Dekalog, zum Deuteronomismus und zum Schriftgelehrtentum ( 2000), 153–175]. 134 M. Nissinen, Prophetie, Redaktion und Fortschreibung im Hoseabuch; K. Latvus, God, anger, and ideology: The Anger of God in Joshua and Judges in Relation to Deuteronomy and the Priestly Writings (Sheffield 1998; the Finnish version was published in 1993); P. Särkiö, Die Weisheit und Macht Salomos in der israelitischen Historiographie (1994); J. Pakkala, Intolerant Monolatry in the Deuteronomistic History (1999); J. Keinänen, Traditions in Collision (2001).

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7. The Copenhagen School – New Trends in the History of Israel The methodological problems relating to the reconstruction of the history of “Israel” comprise one of the principal topics in the Old Testament research of the 1980s and 1990s. Many studies written in Northern Europe pertained to historical problems in the Old Testament.135 But the real focus on this question and new significant challenges were revealed only by the scholars of the so-called Copenhagen School. This school was founded as a result of studies by Niels-Peter Lemche.136 He presented significant methodological criticism of the relationship between the Old Testament sources and the actual history of “Israel” in the Land of Canaan. Lemche rightly observed that scholars must pay attention to the fact that the biblical narratives emerged from religious circles which sought to justify their own existence. The biblical writings should first be evaluated from these sociological and anthropological preconditions; only thereafter can these traditions be used in historical reconstructions. The chief aim of Lemche’s Early Israel (1985) was to show how scholars’ reconstructions of early Israel are hypothetical, and derived from a general consideration of the extrabiblical parallels. In the first part of his study Lemche deals with Mendenhall’s and Gottwald’s “revolution hypothesis”, Alt’s and Noth’s immigration concept and Albright’s conquest theory together with Geus’ picture of the social structure in the period of the Judges. He scrutinizes these scholars’ viewpoints and shows their hypothetical natures. However, this is not to say that Lemche regards all these theories as untenable. Indeed, he admits that “it is still possible to defend Alt’s hypothesis” (412). But he goes on to allege on p. 413 that Alt’s “hypothesis still lacks any sort of foundation in the sources, both the written and the archeological ones. Thus it is at best a construction.” A vital part of Lemche’s study consists in his discussion of the formation of the Israelite historical tradition (306–385). He deals with the biblical traditions which reflect Early Israel and their manifestations elsewhere in the Old Testament writings (the prophetic texts and the Psalms) and comments that these account vary. This being the case, the traditions concerning Early Israel took shape in the eighth century BC at the earliest. Lemche emphasizes that “The gap between written fixation and the ‘underlying events’ is too great to permit us to accept the tradition as a primary source for our reconstruction of the past” (377–378). This viewpoint, together with other critical remarks, lead Lemche to dismiss Mendenhall’s and 135 We may mention, for example, H. M. Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land (1996). In their studies Sven Tengström and Kåre Berge have dealt with the Mosaic traditions and the date of sources in the Pentateuch; S. Tengström, Die Hexateucherzählung (1976); Die Toledotformel (1982); K. Berge, Die Zeit des Jahwisten (1990); Reading Sources in a Text: Coherence and Literary Criticism in the Call of Moses. Models – Methods – Micro-Analysis (1997). Even some contributions to the Book of Chronicles could be mentioned: M. Kartveit, Motive und Schichten der Landtheologie in I Chronik 1–9 (1989); K. Peltonen, History Debated (1996). Finally, we should also mention B. Albrektsson’s study History and the Gods (1967) where he argues that the way in which the Old Testament connects history and the divine world is typical even for other ancient Near Eastern cultures. 136 In particular, Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Society Before the Monarchy (1985); Ancient Israel (1988); see also The Canaanites and Their Land. The Tradition of the Canaanites (1991).

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Gottwald’s studies as failing “to distinguish between ideology and reality. By this I mean that they confuse Israel’s self-understanding with history” (409). In conclusion Lemche defines three axioms which should govern scholars’ mode of interpreting the Old Testament as an historical source as far as the history of Early Israel is concerned (414–416): Axiom 1: “our most important duty is to acknowledge our ignorance.” Axiom 2: “once we have acknowledged the state of our ignorance we are in a position to acknowledge what we really do know.” Axiom 3 concerning the Old Testament as legendary: “a saga or legend is ahistorical until the opposite has been proved; it is not historical until its ‘historical’ contents have been disproved.”

These three axioms accurately define the programme which Lemche seeks to discern in the Old Testament historical books. This becomes evident in his later studies from 1988 and 1991. In his Ancient Israel (1988) Lemche describes his method of interpreting the history of Israel with the help of extrabiblical sources and the Old Testament texts.137 It is a pity that Lemche’s critical discussion was soon polarized in futile rhetoric where the term critical inquiry was used to denote “objective” examination of the Old Testament as an unhistorical source contra apologetic, conservative or fundamentalistic (or whatever rhetorical adjective came to hand) approaches, which emphasized that the Old Testament nevertheless contains historically reliable data about Early Israel. Such rhetoric is illustrated by Thomas Thompson’s studies.138 Thompson’s critical inquiry into the history of Israel was in some sense an attempt to block scholarship. It was stipulated that certain viewpoints must be accepted in order that a scholar can become “critical”. One example of such an approach is Thompson’s study from 1992 where he argues inter alia that David was not an historical figure. This scientific finding was offered in the name of the critical Old Testament scholarship. Such an extreme opinion concerning David has not been accepted among scholars who are otherwise very dubious of the possibility that the Old Testament contains historical material about Early Israel.139 This being the case this second step raises the crucial issue of the role which the scholar plays in every reconstruction. It is important to differentiate critical from uncritical examination, but in a corresponding way critical should also be distinguished from hypercritical. The use of the word critical invariably pertains to control. Scholarship always requires a control mechanism which makes a critical viewpoint relevant. One does not need any special skill to be critical but the critic who can demonstrate that he/she has controlled her/his criticism will be taken seriously.140 137 Similar tendencies are detectable in Lemche’s study Die Vorgeschichte Israels. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ausgang des 13. Jahrhunderts v. Chr (1996). 138 Early History of the Israelite People: From Written and Archaeological Sources (1992). See also his earlier studies: The historicity of the patriarchal narratives. The quest for the historical Abraham (1974) and The Origin Tradition of ancient Israel. The literary formation of Genesis and Exodus 1–23 (1987). 139 See, e.g., I. Finkelstein/N.A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (2001), 129–130. 140 Elsewhere I have published a more detailed evaluation of this important contribution by the Copenhagen School: A. Laato, Making History for Israel – Foundation, Blocking and Policy, SEÅ 70 (2005), 145–176.

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8. Methodological Pluralism – Tryggve N. D. Mettinger as an Example Tryggve N. D. Mettinger is a good example of a modern exegete who uses different methods to solve exegetical problems. He has described with his own exegetical career in two articles. Even though he warns us that such a treatment may be egocentric the fact remains that it is essential to have such personal testimony to one’s own exegetical career.141 Mettinger’s exegetical studies illustrate from the outset a desire to connect the Old Testament with other ancient Near Eastern material. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the officials of Solomon. The text material consists mainly of 2 Sam 8:15–18; 20:23–26 and 1 Kgs 4:1–20. Parallels were available from Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources.142 This study was followed up in Mettinger’s second work where he discusses the origin and development of the royal ideology.143 Mettinger here accepts the theory of the triple redaction of the Deuteronomistic school along the lines of the Göttingen School but is more aware of the older traditions behind the redactional layers of DtrH. He argues, for example, that the promise of Nathan in 2 Samuel 7 contains a pro-Solomonic layer.144 Such studies, where Old Testament material is illustrated with the aid of ancient Near Eastern documents, frequently appeared in Northern Europe during the twentieth century. Many similar examples could be mentioned. The composition of the biblical books and the integration of certain texts in the structure of wholeness is a theme on which Mettinger dwelt in his studies concerning the Servant Songs in Deutero-Isaiah. Duhm established an axiom in 1892 that the four Servant texts in Isaiah 40–55 were inserted later. Mettinger argued that these texts can be regarded as an integral part of the macrostructure of Isaiah 40–55.145 A new stage in Mettinger’s career began when he became interested in images of gods and divine representations. His search for parallels between the Old Testament and Near Eastern documents and iconography continued in new research areas. Even methodological frameworks were different. In his Dethronement of Sabaoth (1982) he deals with three different theological concepts to understand the presence of Yahweh in the Temple of Jerusalem: Sabaoth as enthroned God, the Name of Yahweh and the Glory of Yahweh. Mettinger argues with the aid of Festinger’s socio-psychological theory of cognitive dissonance that the latter two theologies, in particular, were adopted during the exile when the difficult hermeneutic problem of the destruction of the abode of Yahweh was discussed. 141 See T. N. D. Mettinger, Om gudsbildens gåtor: Rapport från ett forskarliv, STK 80 (2004) 17–26; Ämnesval och impulser under ett forskarliv, in: G. Samuelsson/T. Hägerland (eds.), Så som det har berättats: Om bibel, gustjänst och tro (2007), 129–139. 142 T. N. D. Mettinger, Solomonic State Officials (1971). 143 T. N. D. Mettinger, King and Messiah (1976). 144 Mettinger dealt later with 2 Samuel 7 in an article: Cui Bono? The Prophecy of Nathan (2 Sam. 7) as a Piece of Political Rhetoric, SEÅ 70 (2005), 193–214. This last version appeared in J. Pakkala/M. Nissinen (eds.), Houses Full of All Good Things: Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola (2008), 271–299. 145 T. N. D. Mettinger, Die Ebed-Jahwe-Lieder: Ein fragwürdiges Axiom (1978), 68–76; A Farewell to the Servant Songs: A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom (1983).

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The aim of Deuteronomistic Shem and the Priestly (Ezekelian) Kabod theology was to emphasize that the palace of Yahweh was not destroyed, only the temple dedicated to his Name or the site of the presence of his Glory.146 Mettinger’s major next project dealt with divine names: Namnet och Närvaro (In Search of God). He compiled a very instructive and pedagogically well written manual in Swedish, which was translated into English, where he discussed how the divine names had been developed in the Old Testament traditions.147 While this study was constructive and theological, based on the religio-historical background, Mettinger also devoted a more historically oriented article to Yahweh, El and Baal names and the differentiation of the Israelite religion from Canaanite religious systems.148 Another Nordic scholar who discussed, in particular, the divine names is Stig Norin. In his studies he examined the divine names in the Old Testament sources together with epigraphic evidence. It is clear that Norin reckoned with a much broader basis for historical conclusions in a very complicated question.149 In his book No Graven Image Mettinger drew on a wide range of archaeological material to illustrate that there was a de facto tradition of aniconism in the ancient Near East. The biblical normative injunction against making graven images of God is based on this de facto tradition. In particular, Mettinger argued that the Temple of Jerusalem practiced an aniconic cult.150 Mettinger’s book provoked an intensive international debate. He observes that some scholars have found it strangely difficult to distinguish between de facto tradition and normative tradition.151 Mettinger’s next study treated the theologically important theme of dying and rising gods: The Riddle of Resurrection.152 The first impulse for this study came already in 1984 when he read H. M. Barstad’s doctoral dissertation on Amos. Barstad there argued against the view that the dying and rising gods played any part in ancient Near Eastern mythologies.153 Other scholars too had recently condemned such a theory.154 Mettinger found that these recent theories, which 146

T. N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth (1982). T. N. D. Mettinger, Namnet och närvaro (1987); In Search of God (1988). 148 T. N. D. Mettinger, The Elusive Essence: YHWH, El and Baal and the Distinctiveness of the Israelite Faith, in: E. Blum e.a. (eds.), Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte (1990), 393–417. 149 S. Norin, Sein Name allein ist Hoch (1986); Jô-Namen und Jehô-Namen (1979), 87–97; Ywnames and Yhw-names, A Reply to A R Millard (1980), 239~240; Die Wiedergabe JHWH-haltiger Personennamen in der Septuagintag (1988) 76–95; Personnamn, epigrafi och religion (1991), 109–116; Onomastik zwischen Linguistik und Geschichte (2000), 161–178; Personnamn på El och Jahve i Gamla Testamentet. Från 1 Mos till 2 Kung (2001–2002), 55–66. This epigraphic material gives Norin a good historical background to evaluate the nature of the Israelite religion in different historical periods; see, e.g., S. Norin, Baal, Ashera och himmelens hela härskara. Om kult i Jerusalem under 600-talet f.Kr. (2000), 33–41; Baal, Kinderopfer und ‘über die Schwelle springen’ (2002), 75–100; Ba‘al i Gamla Testamentet (2006), 7–24. 150 T. N. D. Mettinger, No Graven Image (1995). 151 T. N. D. Mettinger, Om gudsbildens gåtor (2004), 20: “Vissa forskare har haft en förvånadsvärd oförmåga att se skillnaden mellan de facto-anikonism och programmatiskt bildförbud”. 152 T. N. D. Mettinger, The Riddle of Resurrection (2001). 153 H. M. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos (1984). 154 In particular, Mettinger refers to J. Z. Smith, Dying and Rising Gods, in: M. Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion 4 (1987), 521–527, and to the expert in Ugaritic texts M. S. Smith, The Death of 147

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attempt to nullify one of the fundamental principles of the Scandinavian tradition of sacral kingship (e.g., the Uppsala School) cannot be verified by scrutiny of the sources. It is significant that Mettinger does not refer to Engnell’s study Divine Kingship even though the idea of the dying and rising god is central there. The only references are to Engnell’s two articles “Gud” (God) and “Lidande” (Suffering) in SBU.155 Mettinger’s latest monograph The Eden Narrative deals with Genesis 2–3 from the narrative viewpoint. At the same time he also compares its content with the Mesopotamian parallels, viz. the Adapa and Gilgamesh epics. His aims were to examine how the narrative in its present form could be understood, and whether it is feasible to regard the episode of the Tree of Life as a later insertion. Indeed, Mesopotamian parallels as well as the Adamic myth in Ezekiel 28 indicate that the problem of eternal life connected with wisdom was deeply rooted in the minds of the ancients.156 Mettinger’s study is strongly based on Terje Stordalen’s analysis of Genesis 2–3. Stordalen argues energetically that the two trees were an integral part of the narrative.157 Among other of literary theory studies Mettinger also wrote an article on intertextuality where he deals with the Book of Job.158 The scholars of the Northern Europe who have concentrated on intertextuality in their studies are M. Cheney and Kirsten Nielsen. Cheney wrote his dissertation on the Book of Job in Lund, and Mettinger received inspiration for an article from his findings.159

9. Old Testament Theology – Why Not? We could conclude this survey by asking why there is no obvious example of Old Testament theology in the biblical scholarship of Northern Europe.160 One reason may be that biblical scholarship was strongly influenced by religio-historical studies. The Old Testament writings were set in their ancient Near Eastern context. With such an approach it is difficult to see the theological scope of the Old Testament books. This is illustrated by R. Gyllenberg’s article from 1938 which tells the whole story. The title is “Die Unmöglichkeit einer Theologie des Alten

‘Dying and Rising Gods’ in the Biblical World (1998), 257–313. 155 See Meetinger, The Riddle of Resurrection (2001), 26, n. 32. 156 T. N. D. Mettinger, The Eden Narrative (2007). Mettinger notes (124): “It should be clear by now that sound principles of paradisiacal forestry require an Eden Narrative with two special trees. The idea of a one-tree narrative that was subsequently enriched to include the other tree as well is no longer tenable”. 157 T. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden (2000). 158 T. N. D. Mettinger, Intertextuality: Allusion and Vertical Context Systems in some Job Passages (1993), 257–280. 159 K. Nielsen, Satan – den fortabte sön? (1991); M. Cheney, Dust, Wind and Agony (1994). 160 G. Gerleman wrote a short study Studien zur alttestamentlichen Theologie (Franz Delitsch Vorlesungen NF 2, 1980) but it contained only three brief papers on the Old Testament themes: root kpr, the word berît and the Servant of the Lord in Deutero-Isaiah. It is clear that this work was no way a presentation of the Old Testament theology.

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Testaments.”161 In this short article Gyllenberg evaluates Sellin’s, Eichrodt’s and Köhler’s studies of Old Testament theology and regards them as representing mainly Israelite-Jewish religious history.162 Despite Gyllenberg’s pessimistic attitude to reconstruction of the Old Testament theology various attempts have been made to envisage some aspects of the Old Testament theology. We could mention here M. Sæbø’s163 and T. Veijola’s164 contributions. Both of them condemn Gyllenberg’s nihilistic approach to Old Testament theology. Some important thematic studies on the Old Testament theology have been published. One of the best examples is Bo Johnson’s study of the concept of righteousness.165 Others present biblical ethics, e.g., Veijola’s and Kronholm’s studies of the Decalogue.166 The problem of theodicy and evil is treated by some scholars.167 Finally, it could be mentioned that Knut Holter recently published and edited many studies dealing with the reception of the Old Testament in an African context.168

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The article was published in: In piam memoriam Alexander von Bulmerincq (1938), 64–68. E. Sellin, Alttestamentliche Theologie auf religionsgeschichtlicher Grundlage (1933); W. Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments, I-III (Leipzig 1933–39) – only two first volumes had been published when Gyllenberg wrote his article; L. Köhler, Theologie des Alten Testaments (1936). 163 See the articles of M. Sæbø in the volume Ordene og Ordet: Gammeltestamentlige studier (1979). In particular, we may mention the article: “Hvem var Israels teologer? Om struktureringen av ‘den gammeltestamentlige teologi’” (24–41); note also M. Sæbø, On the Way to Canon (1998). 164 T. Veijola, Vanhan testamentin tutkimus ja teologia (1990), 61–108. 165 B. Johnson, Rättfärdigheten i Bibeln (1985). 166 T. Veijola, Dekalogi (1988); T. Kronholm, De Tio Orden (1992). 167 K. Nielsen, Satan – den fortabte sön? (1991); F. Lindström, Det sårbara livet: Livsförståelse och gudserfarenhet i Gamla testamentet (1998); A. Laato /J. C. de Moor (eds.), Theodicy in the World of the Bible (2003). 168 Holter wrote his dissertation on Second Isaiah’s Idol-fabrication Passages (1995). His other publication on OT exegesis is Deuteronomy 4 and the Second Commandment (2003). Among his many works on Old Testament and Africa could be mentioned: Yahweh in Africa: Essays on Africa and the Old Testament (2000, 2001); Contextualized Old Testament Scholarship in Africa (2008). He has also published two bibliographies: Old Testament Research for Africa: A Critical Analysis and Annotated Bibliography of African Old Testament Dissertations, 1967–2000 (2002); Tropical Africa and the Old Testament: A Select and Annotated Bibliography (2006). Holter edited many studies on this topic: Interpreting the Old Testament in Africa: Papers from the International Symposium on Africa and the Old Testament, Nairobi 1999 (2001) [Republished as: Interpreting the Old Testament in Africa (2001); Interpreting Classical Religious Texts in Contemporary Africa (2007); Let my People Stay! Researching the Old Testament in Africa (2006). 162

Chapter Thirty-eight

Major Developments in Jewish Biblical Scholarship By S. David Sperling, New York Bibliography: C. Gordon, The Pennsylvania Tradition of Semitics: A Century of Near Eastern and Biblical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (Atlanta: Scholars 1986). − D. Ellenson, After Emancipation (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press 2004). − H. Orlinsky, Essays in Biblical Culture and Bible Translation (New York: KTAV 1974), 287–332.− F. Greenspahn, “The Beginnings of Jewish Studies in American Universities”, Modern Judaism 20 (2000) 209–225. − P. Ritterband/H. Wechsler, Learning in American Universities:The First Century (Bloomington: Indiana UP 1994). − J. Sarna, American Judaism (New Haven: Yale UP 2004). − N. Sarna, Studies in Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 2000), 173–207. − A. Reinhartz, “Jewish Women’s Scholarly Writings on the Bible”; The Jewish Study Bible (ed. A. Berlin/ M. Brettler; New York: Oxford UP 2004), 2000–2005. − I. Schorsch, “Coming to Terms with Biblical Criticism”, Conservative Judaism 57 (2005) 3–22. − S. D. Sperling, Students of the Covenant. A History of Jewish Biblical Scholarship in North America (with contributions by B. A. Levine and B. Barry Levy; Atlanta: Scholars 1992); “Modern Jewish Interpretation”, The Jewish Study Bible (1908–1919).

The history of Jewish biblical scholarship in the twentieth century is bound up with the larger history of the Jews, especially their emigration, both voluntary and compulsory, from older centers of Jewish population. The political revolutions that roiled Western and Central Europe in 1848 followed later in the century by the continual decline in the position of Eastern European Jewry swelled Jewish immigration to America. Increased anti-Semitism in Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Ukraine and elsewhere reached its climax in the annihilation of millions of European Jews in the 1940’s. The same decade witnessed the rise of the state of Israel, to which many survivors of the holocaust immigrated, swelling its earlier pre-state Jewish population. Against that historical background we can outline the development of Jewish biblical studies. Modern critical biblical scholarship began as a mostly Protestant enterprise in the late eighteenth century and became increasingly refined throughout the nineteenth. Bible critics questioned the reliability of the received biblical texts, denied the historicity of their contents1 and through literary analysis uncovered diverse sources in books that had been attributed to a single author for almost two millennia by Jews and Christians. But Jewish critical study of the Hebrew Bible lagged behind that of its Christian counterpart for about half a century. In

1 Thanks to the work of Ch. Lyell in geology and Darwin in biology the biblical accounts of creation and the age of the world could no longer be considered authoritative. Increasing understanding of the laws of nature made it difficult to believe in biblical miracles on the order of Joshua’s successful command to make the sun stand still or Jesus’ virgin birth and resurrection.

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order to account for that cultural lag we must briefly survey Jewish institutions and intellectual currents on the eve of the twentieth century. Serious study of the Bible by Jews is an important aspect of Jewish modernity. In contrast to the situation that had prevailed between the ninth to early sixteenth century when Jewish scholars from Saadia Gaon (882–942) to Obadiah Sforno (ca. 1475–1550) devoted much intellectual energy to biblical study, the next two centuries saw little such activity, especially among Ashkenazim (central and eastern European Jews) who comprised the majority of the Jewish population. For the Ashkenazim, the Bible was a liturgical and homiletical text, rather than an object of serious study. In the largely autonomous Jewish communities, membership in which was compulsory, Rabbis served mostly as judges rather than spiritual leaders. To function effectively these men needed to be versed in the laws, customs and traditions2 derived mostly from the Babylonian Talmud3 and codified in the sixteenth century Shulhan Arukh legal code of J. Caro (1488– 1575), supplemented by M. Isserles (1520–1572). In contrast, the Bible for all its acknowledged sanctity, was not really a required subject for Rabbis in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.4 The gradual emancipation5 of the Jews of Europe beginning in the late eighteenth century changed the situation radically. Emancipation removed the coercive power of the Jewish community so that adherence to Jewish law and membership in the Jewish community became an individual choice. Jews whose inclinations led them into Jewish learning found that their intellectual curiosity need not be directed to mastery of the legal codes. As the number of Jews attending universities increased, Jewish scholars began to apply the philological–historical tools that had proved effective in the study of history, Indo-European linguistics and Classical literature to the classics of Judaism and its history, giving rise to the movement known as Wissenschaft des Judent(h) ums (Science of Judaism). The movement’s members were strongly anti-clerical and quite pessimistic about the survival of Judaism after Emancipation. At best, their work was to be a salvage operation meant to demonstrate that Judaism’s past deserved the same respect as the dead civilizations of Greece and Rome.6 In theory, the Wissenschaft movement aimed to document the entire heritage of Judaism from the biblical period to modern times. In practice, the Wissenschaft movement neglected the critical study of the Bible at the same time that Christian scholars were revolutionizing the field.7

2 Bible was taught to very young boys and sometimes girls. By the age of eight, promising boys would be moved to the study of Talmud, which had much more prestige. 3 See J. Neusner, “The hermeneutics of the Law”, HBOT I/1 (1996), 303–322. 4 This still holds true for the contemporary haredi yeshivas (ultra-Orthodox schools) in which “learning Torah” means studying the Babylonian Talmud, not the Pentateuch. 5 See B. Dinur, “Emancipation”, EncJud2 6, 374–386. 6 The great bibliographer M. Steinschneider (1816–1907) reputedly said “our only task is to give the remnants of Judaism honorable burial”. See A. Bein, The Jewish Question: Biography of a World Problem (Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson UP 1990), 666. Similar funerary language was used by A. Geiger (1810–1874). See Levine apud Sperling, Students of the Covenant (1992), 26. 7 See Levine apud Sperling, Students of the Covenant (1992), 15. Levine observes (ibid. 26) the irony that nineteenth century traditionalists directed more attention to Torah literature than the liberals. Although their writings were pre-critical or anti-critical, the very fact that these traditionalists

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The reasons for this neglect are not far to seek. First, many Jewish scholars with university training who sought acceptance and academic legitimacy in the gentile world and were opposed to Jewish nationalism, were drawn to subjects that demonstrated Jewish intellectual creativity among gentiles in earlier periods. As such, Philo, Maimonides and Judah Halevi were better role models for nineteenth century Jews than the ancient Hebrew monarchs, David, Hezekiah or Josiah, whose very existence in their own land underscored Jewish separateness. Zionists and nationalists, likewise anti-clerical, accepted the scholarly premises of Wissenschaft but tended to avoid biblical criticism precisely because it was too “European” and might lead to assimilation and the abandonment of Jewish nationalism or the sense of Jewish peoplehood.8 Yet another factor was the tone of much of Christian biblical criticism. Non-orthodox9 Jews had no problem with denying the attribution of Ecclesiastes to King Solomon or the Psalms to David. In theory, denying the attribution of the Pentateuch to Moses and analyzing the Pentateuch into “documents” or “sources” would not have been any more problematic had it not been for the way in which the analysis and its conclusions were framed. J. Wellhausen (1844–1918), the Bible critic most closely associated with the Documentary Hypothesis, had notoriously said of the (priestly) law, in his analysis a product of the post-exilic period, that “it takes the soul out of religion and spoils morality”.10 Other Christian Bible scholars tended to denigrate “pharisaical” Jews and a “legalistic” Judaism so far removed from the spirit of the great early Hebrew prophets that a completely new revelation in the person of Jesus was required. This kind of language was viewed by Jewish scholars, even those who did not live by traditional Jewish law, as supersessionist Christianity in academic garb, or as anti-Semitism masquerading as science.11 This last factor was probably the most significant in the initial rejection of biblical criticism, especially when directed to the Pentateuch, by the leaders of the first non-orthodox seminaries in the United States, I. M. Wise (1819–1900) and Solomon Schechter (1847–1915). At the Hebrew Union College (HUC), the Reform seminary which he founded in Cincinnati, Wise permitted only the teaching of “exegesis”. Wise once walked into a class taught by Moses Buttenwieser (1862–1935),12 professor of Bible, and forced him to cut off a lecture on biblical criticism.13 As president of Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS; Conservative) engaged the Bible indicate a significant shift from the scholarly priorities of the centuries immediately preceding. 8 See D. Engel, “Hebrew Nationalism and Biblical Criticism: The Attitude of Peretz Smolenskin”, Ki Baruch Hu. Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and Judaic Studies Presented to Baruch A. Levine (ed. R. Chazan e.a.; Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 1999), 483–507. 9 When reference is to institutions or people connected to the Orthodox groups or institutions, “Orthodox” will be in upper case. Lower case “orthodox” or “non-orthodox” will be used to describe beliefs or attitudes. 10 J. Wellhausen, “Israel”, appended to idem, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (Cleveland, OH: repr. Meridian 1961), 509. 11 See e.g., S. Schechter, “Higher Criticism – Higher Anti-Semitism”, in: idem, Seminary Addresses and Other Papers (Cincinnati: Ark 1915), 36–37. 12 M. Buttenwieser The Psalms, Chronologically Treated with a New Translation (1938; repr. New York: KTAV 1969), may still be consulted with profit. 13 See S. Blank, “Bible”, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion at One Hundred Years (ed. S. Karff; Cincinnati: Hebrew U. College Press), 194.

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Schechter did not allow courses in Pentateuch criticism, a practice that persisted for a half-century after his death. Yet, Jewish scholars could not simply dodge the critical issues. Even Schechter, despite his characterization of higher criticism as higher anti-Semitism and his exclusion of it from the JTS curriculum, accepted the Documentary Hypothesis in the Jewish Encyclopedia article, “Law, Codification of” which he wrote in collaboration with the talmudist L. Ginzberg.14 But it took a handful of scholars to make critical study of the Bible palatable to Jewish audiences in the early twentieth century. The most important of these was A. B. Ehrlich. Ehrlich (1846–1919) was born in Polish-speaking Russia. Married at the age of fourteen, Ehrlich, like many Jews of his generation felt stifled by the Jewish orthodoxy of Eastern Europe. He left his wife and two daughters for educational opportunities in Germany. Attending classes at the University of Leipzig, Ehrlich was drawn by Lutheran missionaries into the circle of Franz Delitzsch (1813–1890), a student of both biblical and post-biblical Jewish literature.15 Under Delitzsch’s influence, the twenty-three year old Ehrlich converted to Christianity and aided his teacher in translating the New Testament into Hebrew in furtherance of converting other Jews. Ehrlich’s conversion cannot have been that profound because soon after his immigration to America, he chose to return to Judaism under the auspices of a bet din (ecclesiastical court) convened by Rabbi G. Gottheil of New York’s leading Reform congregation Temple Emanuel.16 Ehrlich was never appointed to a real academic post probably because Jews saw him as an apostate and Christians as a Polish Jew. All together Ehrlich published eleven volumes in biblical studies: the three-volume Hebrew Mikrâ ki-Pheschuto17 (1899–1901), the German Die Psalmen (1905) and the seven-volume Randglossen zur Hebräischen Bibel (1908–1914). Mikrâ was written in Hebrew to introduce critical study of the Bible to a Jewish audience. Because Ehrlich’s concerns are mainly philological, he makes no direct mention of the Documentary Hypothesis in the volume on the Pentateuch, but it is clear that he accepts it in some form:

14

JE 7, 635–647. Delitzsch often defended Jews against anti-Semitism. While he also was depicted as a philoSemite, the reality is more complex. See A. Levenson, “Missionary Protestants as Defenders and Detractors of Judaism: Franz Delitzsch and Hermann Strack”, JQR 92 (2002) 383–420. 16 Ehrlich practiced Christianity between 1869–1876. In Ehrlich’s German letter addressed to the Jewish ecclesiastical court he attributes his conversion to Christianity to mental instability. In contrast, the English “minute” recorded by Rabbi Gottheil gives opportunism as the reason. For both documents see R. Gottheil, The Life of Gustav Gottheil: Memoir of a Priest in Israel (Williamsport, PA: Bayard 1936), 76–77. 17 The title is based on talmudic en mikra yotze midde peshuto (b.Shab. 63a; b.Yeb. 11b, 24a), “a [biblical] verse cannot escape its context completely” (see HBOT I/I, 291). Medieval Jewish scholars understood peshuto as the plain sense of the verse (see HBOT I/2, 323). The KTAV edition of 1969 translated the title as “The Bible According to its Literal Meaning”. Ehrlich himself translated the title as “Die Schrift nach ihrem Wortlaut”, better rendered as “Scripture According to its Wording”. 15

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No faith has remained in me to contort the verses in deference to tradition. Instead I say that the Torah was given scroll by scroll.18 Not only that, but there are many years between the scrolls, and between one and the next there may be some two hundred years.

In American and European institutions of higher learning Bible19 had historically been a Christian preserve, and this continued to hold for much of the twentieth century. Jewish scholars with an interest in Bible were much more welcome in departments of Near Eastern languages. One such scholar was M. Jastrow, Jr. (1861–1921)20 who was brought to America at an early age and grew up in Philadelphia. He returned to Europe and earned the doctorate at Leipzig with a thesis on Judah Hayyuj, the medieval Jewish grammarian. Jastrow taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1885 until his death. Although Jastrow’s primary fields were Assyriology and Mesopotamian religion he published books on Ecclesiastes, Job and Song of Songs, as well as numerous articles on biblical subjects.21 A wide-ranging comparatist, Jastrow edited the Bible division of the Jewish Encyclopedia (JE).22 He was the first Jewish president of the Society of Biblical Literature (1916), and was outspoken in his defense of higher criticism. M. Margolis (1866–1932) was born in Meretz, a Polish speaking area of Russia, and came to the United States in 1889. Like Jastrow, he earned a doctorate in Semitics. His doctoral thesis (Columbia 1891) written under R. Gottheil (1862–1936)23 was in talmudic text-criticism, but at HUC where he taught from 1892–1897, Margolis was persuaded by Wise to move into biblical studies.24 He left HUC for Berkeley where he taught Semitics between 1897–1905, when he returned to HUC for two disappointing years. Between 1908–1917 Margolis worked as editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society’s Bible translation, 18 Ehrlich here quotes an opinion cited in b.Git. 60a according to which Moses received the Torah in individual scrolls before combining them into the extant Torah, but recontextualizes the statement so that it applies to the Documentary Hypothesis. 19 “Bible” for Christians included New Testament. Professors of Bible, especially at the smaller American colleges were expected to teach both Old and New Testament. Study of the New Testament for non-polemical purposes was a longstanding taboo in most Jewish circles until it was gradually broken in the twentieth century. (The appointment of Joseph Klausner [1874–1958] to a chair in history at the Hebrew University was denied because of his books on Jesus.) Ehrlich, along with I. E. Salkinson and Chr. D. Ginsburg, were all converts to Christianity who studied New Testament in order to translate it into Hebrew for the purpose of missionizing Jews. 20 For an appreciation see J. Morgenstern, “Morris Jastrow, Jr. as a Biblical Critic”, JAOS 41 (1921) 321–327. For a photo of Jastrow see ibid. 323. 21 For bibliography see JAOS 41 (1921) 337–344. 22 The Jewish Encyclopedia (12 volumes; New York: Funk and Wagnalls 1901–1906. The work is now available online at JewishEncyclopedia.com). The layout of the Bible articles in JE reflected the gingerly attitude of Jewish scholarship toward biblical criticism. First, most of these articles were written by gentile scholars. Secondly, the articles were divided in three sections: a) biblical data, that is, summaries and paraphrases of biblical books or subjects; b) comments on the biblical data extracted from rabbinic literature; c) critical view. This division made it easy for readers to skip the potentially offensive section. 23 Gottheil’s scholarly publications were mostly in Syriac studies but he taught many Bible courses at Columbia. In addition to Margolis, Gottheil trained J. Bewer, E. and C. Kraeling and I. Mendelsohn; see S. D. Sperling, “The Bible at Columbia University”, in: S. Yona (ed.), Or Le-Mayer. Studies…Mayer Gruber (Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University 2010), 179–201. 24 For a complete bibliography see L. Greenspoon, Max Leopold Margolis: A Scholars’ Scholar (Atlanta: Scholars Press 1987), 135–186; see also the review by S. D. Sperling, JBL 108 (1989) 132–133.

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which appeared in 1917. The JPS Holy Scriptures served as the quasi-official Bible of English-speaking Jews for the next half-century. An outstanding text-critic, Margolis was quite conservative in his attitude toward higher criticism. He served as Professor of Biblical Philology at the non-sectarian Dropsie College until his death.25 J. Morgenstern (1881–1976) was born in Illinois, and ordained at HUC in 1902.26 He then studied Assyriology at Berlin and Heidelberg with such luminaries as Friedrich Delitzsch (son of Franz Delitzsch), B. Meissner and C. Bezold, and received the doctorate from Heidelberg.27 He joined the faculty of HUC in 1907 and served as president from 1922–1947. From the time of his appointment onward, Morgenstern’s published work shows little continued interest in Assyriology. Instead, he wrote voluminously on Pentateuchal law, the Hebrew calendar, prophecy and the history of the cult. He freely, perhaps too freely, emended biblical texts and rearranged verses and chapters. It is probably fair to say that among the early twentieth century Jewish Bible scholars he was the most systematic exponent of the documentary hypothesis. Morgenstern claimed to have discovered in the Pentateuch an additional source which he termed K(enite). By 1941 though, Morgenstern’s presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), then The Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, would refer to “the increasingly outmoded documentary techniques”, and call for the application of archaeology, folklore studies and comparative religion to biblical studies.28 Morgenstern called on the Reform rabbinate to take a public stand in favor of the Documentary Hypothesis and against Mosaic authorship because that would support the stand of the Reform movement that the laws of the Torah were not binding. Outside of the United States Jewish Bible scholars born in the later nineteenth century also made significant contributions in the twentieth. Among these we may single out A. Kahana (1874–1946). An autodidact born in Russia, Kahana began his collaborative effort to produce a Jewish critical commentary on the entire Bible in 1903, twenty years before he immigrated to mandatory Palestine. Kahana himself wrote several of the commentaries29 and enlisted among others, M. Margolis (Zephaniah, Malachi), H. P. Chajes (1876–1927; Amos, Psalms) and F. Perles (1874–1933; Lamentations).30 The full series was never completed but the seven volumes published between 1903/04–1929/30 made use of the ancient versions, archaeological sources that had come to light, comparative Semitics and the Documentary Hypothesis. Until 1990, when the Israeli series Mikra-le-Yis25 Later, Dropsie University, then the Annenberg Institute for Judaic and Near Eastern Studies and at present the Center for Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania; see M. Ben-Horin and D. Goldenberg, “Dropsie College”, EncJud2 6, 25–26. 26 For biographical information see M. Lieberman, “Julian Morgenstern – Scholar, Teacher and Leader”, HUCA 32 (1961), 1–9; Blank, “Bible” (1976), 295–298; idem, DBI 2, 163–164; Sperling, Students of the Covenant (1992), 52–53. 27 The thesis was published as The Doctrine of Sin in the Babylonian Religion (1905). 28 J. Morgenstern, “The Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis”, JBL 61 (1942) 1–10. The original address was delivered at Union Theological Seminary in New York on Dec. 29, 1941. 29 Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ezra-Nehemiah. 30 Perles was highly regarded as a textual critic for his Analekten zur Textkritik des Alten Testaments (1895). The bibliographies in the ongoing Anchor Bible series cite Analekten regularly.

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rael31 began to appear, Kahana’s Torah, Nevi’im Ukhetuvim im Perush Mada`i (The Bible with a Critical Commentary) was the only collaborative multi-volume critical commentary written in Hebrew. The opening of the Hebrew University in Palestine in 1924–25 meant that the Bible could be studied by speakers of Hebrew in the land of its origin but Orthodox opposition to biblical criticism presented formidable obstacles. Chajes was rejected because of his critical stance and the appointment went to the more conservative M. H. Segal (1876–1968).32 Tellingly, Segal was named lecturer in parshanut, biblical exegesis, rather than Bible (mikra) proper.33 A contemporary of Chajes and Segal was N. H. Tur-Sinai (b. H. Torczyner; 1876–1973). Born in Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine), Tur-Sinai was raised and educated in Vienna. In 1933 he settled in Palestine. Although he had been considered for a position in Bible at Hebrew University, his views were not in line with Orthodox doctrine. As a result Torczyner was appointed to the less-controversial professorship in Hebrew Language.34 He wrote commentaries on Job in German, Hebrew and English,35 in which he maintains that most of the book’s textual difficulties can be solved by positing that Job was badly translated from an Aramaic original. Most of Tur-Sinai’s contributions were philological. These are often ingenious; sometimes overly so. The title of his multi-volume Peshuto shel Mikra (The Plain Sense of the Bible; 1962–1968) is an acknowledgment of indebtedness to A. B. Ehrlich. In the realm of higher criticism Tur-Sinai did not attempt to analyze sources. Instead, he argued that our surviving biblical literature is derived from compilations of tales, poems, prophecies and legends organized around the lives of ancient heroes such as Moses, David and Samuel.36 U. M. D. Cassuto (1883–1951)37 was born in Florence, Italy. He was trained as a Rabbi at Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, and earned a doctorate at the University of Florence, where he studied under H. P. Chajes. Although most of his

31

The general editors are Shmuel Ahituv and Moshe Greenberg. Segal allowed that biblical criticism outside the Torah was legitimate, a view that prevailed at JTS until 1996 and is now tolerated at the Orthodox Bar-Ilan University in Israel. In M. H. Segal, The Pentateuch: its Composition and Authorship (Jerusalem: Magnes 1967), the author attempts to demonstrate the essential Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, while allowing for additions by authors after the time of Moses. 33 It was not until 1940 that Bible gained the full status of an academic department. See S. Japhet, “The Establishment and Early History of the Department of Bible, 1925–1949” (Hebrew), in: H. Lavsky (ed.), History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A Period of Consolidation and Growth (Jerusalem: Hebrew U. Magnes Press 2005), 283–303. 34 From 1953– 1973 Tur-Sinai served as president of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, an entity established by the Knesset (Parliament) to prescribe standards for Modern Hebrew in keeping with the historical development of the Hebrew language. 35 The first was the German Das Buch Hiob (1920); the second the Hebrew Sefer Iyyob (1941; revised edition 1954); the third the English N. H. Tur-Sinai (H. Torczyner), The Book of Job. A New Commentary (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher 1957; 21967). For an account by the author see ibid. i–vi. 36 Most of Tur-Sinai’s articles including those originally written in English or German can be found in Hebrew in N. H. Tur-Sinai, The Language and the Book (3 vol.; Jerusalem: Bialik 1954–1959). 37 For a biographical sketch see I. Abrahams/C. Roth, EncJud2 5, 510–511; for a complete bibliography see M. Cassuto Salzman, S. E. Loewenstamm (eds.), Studies in Bible Dedicated to the Memory of U. Cassuto on the 100th Anniversary of his Birth (Jerusalem: Magnes Press 1987), 9–42. For English translations of his most important works in biblical and related literature see ibid. 37–38. 32

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early scholarship was devoted to the history of the Jews of Italy, Cassuto’s appointment in Hebrew language and literature to the faculty of the University of Florence (1925–1933) caused him to redirect his efforts into Semitics. He moved to the University of Rome in 1933 and served there until 1938 when he was dismissed under the Racial Laws of Fascist Italy. In 1939 Cassuto settled in Palestine where he became Professor of Bible at Hebrew University. He was a founding editor of Entziqlopediah Mikra’it (Encyclopedia Biblica; 9 volumes, 1950–1989). A lover of bel canto and Dante, Cassuto viewed the Documentary Hypothesis as too mechanical to be sound.38 In addition, his studies of Ugaritic literature from Syria of the late second millennium BC led him to emphasize the cultural continuity between ancient Israel and the wider ancient Near East. Cassuto advocated what would come to be called “synchronic” or “holistic” reading of the biblical text, anticipating the “Bible as literature” movement, which became popular some two decades after Cassuto’s death and did not begin its decline until the end of the twentieth century.39 Y. Kaufmann (1889–1963) was, like his younger contemporary J. Morgenstern, a strong proponent of the documentary hypothesis. Kaufmann however, challenged Wellhausen’s relative dating of the literary sources of the Pentateuch. In tacit acceptance of the notion of Wellhausen and Christian scholars in general that earlier biblical material was superior to later, Kaufmann argued that the P(riestly) source was written earlier than the D(euteronomic) source and was not a postexilic creation of (a caricatured) legalistic Judaism. By challenging Wellhausen’s chronology of the sources, Kaufmann also denied that the monotheism of the Pentateuch had evolved out of the ethical monotheism of the pre-exilic prophets. Instead, he claimed that monotheism arose out of the Mosaic revolution, which had eradicated polytheism from early Israel in one fell swoop. In fact, claimed Kaufmann, the religious elites and the masses of ancient Israel were in fundamental agreement that there was no god but Yahweh in existence, and therefore no other gods to worship. Kaufmann’s work40 severed the connection between source criticism and the negative evaluation of Judaism with which it had been associated, and found eager acceptance among non-Orthodox Israelis and American religious moderates, notably at JTS.41 Particularly attractive to many was that the secularist Kaufmann,42 attributed monotheism to an original intuition, which demonstrated He-

38 Although Cassuto was orthodox, it must be observed that observant Italian Jews were much more relaxed than their East European brethren. In contrast to Segal, Cassuto did not insist on essential Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. 39 Unfortunately, some of the better-known figures in “Bible as literature” (Robert Alter comes readily to mind) did not emulate Cassuto in seriously examining the broader Near Eastern background. 40 For critiques of Kaufmann see M. Greenberg, “Kaufmann on the Bible”; J. D. Levenson, “Yehezkel Kaufmann and Mythology”, Conservative Judaism 36/2 (1982) 35–43; M. Greenberg, Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 1995), 175–188 (reprint of a 1964 article with one additional note); S. D. Sperling, in: D. Snell (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Blackwell 2005), 408–420. 41 See Schorsch, Coming to Terms (2005), 9–19. 42 Kaufmann was much more conservative with regard to the Bible’s historicity than his younger colleague at Hebrew University I. L. Seeligmann (1907–1982), a practicing Orthodox Jew who taught

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brew religious genius without appealing to supernaturalism. Because Kaufmann wrote mostly in Ivrit (Modern Hebrew) at a time when few non-Jewish Biblicists could read it, his magnum opus, Toledot ha-Emunah ha-Yisre’elit43 was mostly ignored outside of Jewish circles.44 The number of Jewish biblical scholars grew gradually between WWI and WWII. Scholars born in the twentieth century benefited from the expansion of Near Eastern archaeology, which was recovering the real world in which the Bible had been produced. “Biblical archaeology” had a generally positive attitude to the Bible’s historicity, and scholars identified with biblical archaeology45 attempted to provide historical validation for among others, the patriarchal age, the Egyptian servitude and the conquest of Canaan. So long as the major traditions of the biblical narrative could be seen as essentially historical, religious moderates, Christian and Jewish,46 could tolerate minor annoyances on the order of internal inconsistencies and contradictions, outlandish longevity of biblical characters, exaggerated population numbers and fantastic wonder tales. Criticism that demonstrated, for example, that our extant texts about the patriarchs were written centuries after these figures were supposed to have lived did not undermine the possibility that the original “narratives were brought from Mesopotamia by the patriarchs themselves”.47 This approach was warmly embraced by the American Bible scholar, Assyriologist and archaeologist E. A. Speiser (1902–1965).48 Trained in text study by Margolis at Dropsie, Speiser attempted bold syntheses of biblical material with archaeological data. Speiser’s claim, which for a time enjoyed broad popularity, was that the editors of the Bible preserved ancient traditions, which they often misunderstood and garbled in the process of transmission. In this view, the doublets and contradictions identified by source critics did not subvert the creditability of biblical traditions. On the contrary, argued Speiser and other adherents of biblical archaeology, when read in the light of what archaeology has revealed

Bible from 1950–1976. For example, while Kaufmann considered Moses a historical figure, Seeligmann was highly skeptical. 43 Y. Kaufmann, Toledot ha-Emunah ha-Yisre’elit mi-me Qedem `ad Sof Bayit Sheni (The History of the Israelite Faith from Ancient Times till the End of the Second Temple Period) (4 books in 8 vols.; Tel-Aviv: Dvir 1937–1957). The first seven volumes were abridged and translated by M. Greenberg as History of the Religion of Israel; From its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press 1960). The first part of vol. 8 was translated by C. Efroymson as The Babylonian Captivity and Deutero-Isaiah (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations Press 1970). 44 This was finally remedied by T. Krapf, Die Priesterschrift und die vorexilische Zeit: Yehezkel Kaufmanns vernachlässigter Beitrag zur Geschichte der biblischen Religion (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1992). 45 Two important Jewish biblical archaeologists were the American Nelson Glueck (1900–1971) and the Israeli Benjamin (Maisler) Mazar (1906–1995). 46 For Jewish and Christian believers in biblical inerrancy the Bible validated itself requiring no support from archaeology, and “general historicity” was insufficient. It is fair to say that as a group the Christian biblical archaeologists were more religious than their Jewish counterparts. 47 So, G. E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology (Philadelphia: Westminster 1987), 45. 48 For biographical details see Sperling, Students (1992), 71–73; M. Greenberg, DBI 2, 496–497. For Speiser’s bibliography see J. J. Finkelstein/M. Greenberg (eds.), Oriental and Biblical Studies. Collected Writings of E. A. Speiser (Philadelphia: U. Pennsylvania Press 1967), 587–603.

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about the history and institutions of the ancient Near East, the variant literary sources testify to the antiquity of biblical traditions and to the integrity of the transmitters who preserved them.49 Another scholar who benefited from the results of archaeology was the brilliant philologist Harold Louis (or, as he preferred, H.L.) Ginsberg (1905–1990).50 Born in Montreal, Canada, Ginsberg moved to mandatory Palestine where he became interested in Semitic languages. Because the Hebrew University had not yet opened,51 Ginsberg moved to London, and earned the doctorate at the University of London with a thesis on the Biblical Hebrew verb. He returned to Palestine where he continued his education studying at the newly opened Hebrew University with the talmudist J. N. Epstein (1878–1952),52 and working in the company of W. F. Albright, B. Mazar, and N. H. Tur-Sinai. In 1936 he published a pioneering Hebrew translation and grammatical study of ancient Ugaritic tablets unearthed in Syria in 1929. Ginsberg was one of the first to employ the Ugaritic tablets in the recovery of forgotten grammatical features and “lost” words in Biblical Hebrew. He also demonstrated the value of Ugaritic in textual criticism. Ginsberg’s arrival at JTS in 1936 transformed the Seminary’s role in Jewish Bible Studies. Although JTS then had no Ph.D. program, at least two generations of Jewish Bible scholars received their “basic training” and inspiration while studying Bible under Ginsberg in the Seminary’s rabbinical program and its Teachers Institute.53 Ginsberg employed philology both for its own sake and as a means of reconstructing inner-biblical literary and ideological development. For most of his scholarly career Ginsberg championed and publicized the view of Y. Kaufmann that “D(euteronomy)” was later than “P(riestly Code)”. However as he began to concentrate on Torah, his studies of biblical diction demonstrated to him that Wellhausen had been substantially correct.54 The results of much of Ginsberg’s work are available to the larger public because he served as an editor and translator of the first two sections of NJPS. He was also Bible editor of the first 49 For characteristic examples see Oriental and Biblical 62–8, ibid. 123–142; E. A. Speiser, Genesis (AB; Garden City: Doubleday 1964). For critiques of Speiser with regard to specifics and of his method in general see M. Greenberg, “Another Look at Rachel’s Theft of the Teraphim”, JBL 81 (1962) 239–248; S. Grengus, “Sisterhood Adoption at Nuzi, and the Wife Sister in Genesis”, HUCA 46 (1975), 5–31; B. Eichler, “Another Look at the Nuzi Sistership Contracts”, in: M. de J. Ellis (ed.), Essays on the Ancient Near East in Memory of J. J. Finkelstein (= Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 19 [1977]), 45–59; T. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (Berlin: de Gruyter 1974); J. van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale 1975). 50 For biographical information see the necrology by B. Levine, PAAJR 57 (1990–91), 5–7; M. Greenberg/S. D. Sperling, Students (1992), EncJud2 7, 609–610. For bibliography through 1978, see J. Tigay, ErIsr 14 (1978) 13–27 (Hebrew section) 51 At the time of its opening 1924–1925, Hebrew University was not a degree granting institution but a scholarly institute. 52 Although most of Epstein’s work is devoted to rabbinic literature, his earlier academic interests were in Semitic philology. His initial appointment at the Hebrew University was in talmudic philology rather than Talmud proper. 53 One such Teachers Institute student was Tikva Frymer-Kensky (1943–2006), a member of the pioneer generation of Jewish women biblicists. JTS did not admit women to its rabbinical school until 1985. 54 See H. L. Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America 1982); Schorsch, Coming to Terms (2005).

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edition of Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971), to which he contributed original articles far more documented and detailed than is usual in contemporary encyclopedias. H. M. Orlinsky (1908–1992),55 like Ginsberg, was Canadian by birth. He earned his Ph.D. at Dropsie and spent most of his teaching career at HUC in New York City (at the time of his appointment the independent Jewish Institute of Religion.) His 1967 study on the “Suffering Servant” in Deutero-Isaiah is a classic of modern scholarship.56 Most of Orlinsky’s work however, was in textual studies and translation.57 Especially noteworthy are his numerous studies on the Greek Septuagint translation. Orlinsky advocated for years in behalf of a Jewish translation to replace the 1917 JPS and was ultimately successful. He served as editor –in–chief of the New JPS Torah (1961) and as an editor for the Prophets and Scrolls sections (1969).58 Orlinsky was the only Jewish scholar involved in the Protestant RSV translation of the Old Testament (1952) and its revision the NRSV (1989).59 The work of scholars trained between the 1930’s and the Vietnam war (ended 1975) points in the growing direction of a “Jewish school”, whose members shared a similar educational profile. Because there were virtually no university programs in Judaic Studies until the end of this period, almost all the scholars of this period, now senior, emeriti or deceased, had studied or taught at rabbinical seminaries, Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and to a slightly lesser extent, Hebrew Union College (HUC), and had been exposed to the Jewish exegetical tradition. In contrast to Christian seminaries, the Jewish seminaries emphasized historical method and philology rather than theology. That and the Christian orientation of advanced biblical studies, led most of these men60 to Near / Middle Eastern departments where they studied the ancient languages and cultures of Western Asia, and sometimes of Egypt and Iran, and wrote theses on topics only indirectly related to the Bible. The rise of the State of Israel (1948) provided another commonality, interaction between American and Israeli scholarship. United in their common knowledge of Modern Hebrew, Americans and Israelis studied and taught in each other’s countries. A number of American scholars immigrated to Israel, most maintaining their American connections. A smaller number of Israeli biblicists settled in America,61 but maintained the Israeli connections. Jewish Bible scholars on both sides of the globe emphasized the impor-

55

For biographical details see the necrology by S. D. Sperling, PAAJR 58 (1992), 23–25. H. M. Orlinsky, Studies in the Second Part of the Book of Isaiah. The So-Called ‘Servant of the Lord’ and ‘Suffering Servant’ in Second Isaiah (2nd edn. with corrections; Leiden: Brill 1977). 57 See the bibliography by P. Miller in ErIsr 16 (1982) xii–xxviii. 58 NJPS was published in sections before the appearance of the complete work in 1985. For marketing reasons the Jewish Publication Society issued The Five Megillot and Jonah in 1969 because these six short books are read in synagogues on Jewish festivals. 59 It must be observed that no gentile scholars were involved in NJPS. 60 The only woman scholar in this period was the Assyriologist Hildegarde Lewy (neé Schlesinger; d. 1967), wife of fellow Assyriologist Julius Lewy (1896–1963). Both Lewy’s fled Nazi Germany. Each published some articles of importance to biblical studies. Julius taught at HUC until his death whereupon Hildegarde was named visiting professor and taught her husband’s classes. 61 A prominent example was M. Held (1924–1984), a student of Cassuto in Israel, who wrote his doctorate under Albright at Johns Hopkins. Held spent most of his career at Columbia but his adjunct position at JTS led many students into Semitics at Columbia. 56

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tance of interpreting difficult biblical Hebrew texts in the light of other languages, particularly Ugaritic and Akkadian, and of interpreting biblical institutions, laws and narratives in light of “extra-biblical parallels”. Another phenomenon of the period was the rise to prominence of Jewish scholars in Torah-criticism, a prominence that continues to this day. All the volumes in the non-sectarian Anchor Bible are by Jewish scholars:62 The Americans E. A. Speiser (Genesis),W. Propp (b. 1958; Exodus), J. Milgrom (1923–2010; Leviticus), B. Levine (b. 1930; Numbers), and the late Israeli scholar M. Weinfeld (1925–2009; Deuteronomy).63 Milgrom64 and Levine,65 in contrast to the gentile pioneers of Pentateuch criticism, have shown real appreciation and understanding of the ancient Israelite cult, as has the Israeli M. Haran.66 The two most influential Bible scholars of the later twentieth century have been M. Greenberg (1928–2010) and N. Sarna (1923–2005). Moshe Greenberg, a graduate of JTS, and a protégé of E. A. Speiser at the University of Pennsylvania, was a pioneer in making use of rabbinic midrash and medieval Jewish commentaries in pursuit of the plain sense of the biblical text.67 Early in his career Greenberg began to call for an approach that moved beyond source analysis to “holistic interpretation”, which proceeds with the working assumption that a book under study is a product of intelligent design.68 That approach was a harbinger69 of “the Bible as literature” movement, and legitimated literary-aesthetic study even among mainstream biblicists who accepted source-criticism. An outstanding and dedicated teacher, Greenberg was co-editor of Mikra le-Yisrael, a multi-volume commentary in Hebrew designed to bring biblical scholarship to scholars as well as the larger Israeli public.70 After teaching at Penn (1954–70) Greenberg joined the Hebrew University faculty.71

62 In the Jewish JPS Torah Commentary series Genesis and Exodus are by N. Sarna, Leviticus by B. Levine, Numbers by J. Milgrom and Deuteronomy by J. Tigay 63 For bibliography through 2003 see C. Cohen e.a. (eds.) Sefer Moshe. The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 2004), xxv–xlvi. 64 For bibliography through 1994 see D. Wright e.a. (eds.), Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical. Jewish and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (Winona Lake. IA: Eisenbrauns 1995), xiii–xxv. 65 For bibliography of Levine through 1997, see R. Chazan e.a. (eds.), Ki Baruch Hu (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 1999), xix–xxvii. 66 For biographical details see S. D. Sperling, EncJud2 8:344. For bibliography of Haran’s publications through 1995, see M. Fox, A, Hurowitz e.a. (eds.). Texts, Temples, and Traditions. A Tribute to Menahem Haran (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 1996), xxiii–xxxv. 67 Greenberg realized that even a fanciful midrash often raised explicit and implicit questions that alerted the critical scholar to problems in the text that otherwise might have been missed. 68 For a clear statement of his approach see M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (Anchor Bible 22; Garden City: Doubleday 1986), 26. 69 Although others, notably Cassuto, could claim priority, the fact that Greenberg wrote in English gave his work far greater influence. 70 For a recent example of Greenberg’s strong feelings about how to get secular and religious people to take the text with “existential seriousness”, see his statement in: D. Glatt-Gilad/N. Fox (eds.), Mishneh Todah. Studies in Deuteronomy and its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 2009), 509. 71 For bibliography through 1997 see B. Cogan e.a., Tehillah le-Moshe. Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 1997), xxiii–xxxviii.

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N. Sarna grew up in London and settled in the United States in 1951, earning the Ph.D. in biblical studies and Semitics at Dropsie College72 under Cyrus Gordon (1908–2001).73 He shared with Greenberg a true appreciation of classical rabbinic and medieval Jewish commentaries. Sarna was, like Greenberg, a born teacher. His pedagogical skills are exemplified in Genesis in the JPS Torah Commentary, a masterful synthesis of textual study, archaeological data and rabbinic tradition. A prescient essay “Psalm 89. A Study in Inner Biblical Exegesis”74 brought the notion of “inner-biblical exegesis” to the attention of scholars. At Brandeis University Sarna trained large numbers of students, including M. Fishbane (b. 1943), who developed the notion further,75 and M. Brettler.76 J. Tigay is surely correct in his statement, “No scholar has done as much as Sarna to educate English-speaking Jewry about the Bible”.77 The last three decades of the twentieth century were momentous for Jewish biblical scholarship in terms of numbers, demography and diversification of approaches. In the United States the academic legitimation of ethnic studies made possible the establishment of programs and departments of Jewish studies, which almost always included Bible. Further growth was facilitated by court decisions that permitted the teaching of religion in publicly funded schools. Of enormous consequence was the feminist movement, which brought women into a field which had been virtually all male. Women scholars began to address questions that men had largely ignored, influencing male scholars to do the same.78 Among the prominent American women scholars of this first generation we mention A. Berlin (b. 1943), T. Eskenazi,79 T. Frymer-Kensky (1943–2006),80 C. Meyers (b. 72 For biographical details see M. Brettler, DBI, 438–39; Sperling, EncJud 18:59–60; Tigay in: N. Sarna, Studies in Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: JPS 2000), ix–xxii; for bibliography ibid., 431–436. 73 For biographical details see EncJud2 7:767 (unsigned); For bibliography see M. Lubetski e.a. (eds.), Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World. A Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon (= JSOT.S 273; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998), 533–554. His most important work was on the medieval Aramaic magic bowls and on Ugaritic. Gordon championed the cause of “Mediterranean Studies”, regularly drawing comparisons between the Near Eastern and the Aegean world, many of which were regarded as facile by other scholars. He trained several generations of academics. 74 Sarna, Studies (2000), 377–94 (reprint of 1963 article). 75 See M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1985); see further, B. Sommer in: Berlin/Brettler, 1829–35. 76 For examples of his work see M. Brettler, God is King: Understanding an Israelite Metaphor (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1990); The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (London: Routledge 1995); The Book of Judges: Old Testament Readings: London: Routledge 2001). 77 Apud Sarna, Studies (2000), xviii. 78 For example, among scholars who take the Bible as a guide to their personal lives it is difficult to find a male scholar over sixty troubled by the prophetic metaphor of Israel as the adulterous, whoring wife of Yahweh. See Moshe Greenberg’s response to J. Galambush and Fokkelien Van-Dijk Hemmes in: M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37 (AB; New York: Doubleday 1997), 493–494. 79 Much of her work studies the Persian Period. See e.g., T. Eskenazi, In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra –Nehemiah (Atlanta: Scholars, 1989); idem, “The Missions of Ezra-Nehemiah”, in O. Lipschits/M. Oeming (eds.), Judah and the Judaeans in the Persian Period (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 2006), 509–529. She is also preparing the Ezra-Nehemiah Commentary for Anchor Bible. Of interest as well is the popular idem/A. Weiss (eds.), The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (New York: URJ Press 2008). 80 See T. Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Faith (New York: MacMillan-Free Press 1992); Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories (New York: Schocken 2002); Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism

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1942)81 and S. Niditch. Important Israeli female scholars are Y. Amit (b. 1941),82 and S. Japhet (b. 1934).83 Another significant demographic change is the small but increasing number of Orthodox Jews, at least in Israel, who engage the central questions of textual criticism, literary history, and historicity, applying critical method even to the Pentateuch. This last had been a taboo subject even at Conservative JTS for most of the twentieth century. Among these are V. (Avigdor) Hurowitz,84 I. Knohl,85 and B. J. Schwartz.86 Likewise novel is the appearance of Jewish scholars in biblical theology, or Jewish theology based on the Bible. A pioneer in this area was the Israeli M. Goshen-Gottstein (1925–1991). More recent entrants are J. Levenson87 at Harvard, M. Brettler at Brandeis,88 Ben Sommer at JTS,89and Marvin Sweeney90 at Claremont. Before the expansion of Judaic Studies in universities, most Jewish Biblicists were exposed to classical and medieval scholarship in yeshivas, seminaries and supplementary colleges of Jewish studies,91 where Jewishness was a given. As such (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 2005). For a complete annotated bibliography see D. Sharon, Nashim 13 (2007) 259–260. 81 See e.g. C. Meyers, The Tabernacle Menorah: A Synthetic Study of a Symbol from the Biblical Cult (Cambridge: ASOR 1976); idem/E. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8 (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1987); Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford UP 1988); idem/E. Meyers, Zechariah 9–14 (AB; New York: Doubleday 1993); Exodus (New Cambridge Bible Commentary; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2005). 82 See e.g. Y. Amit, The Book of Judges: The Art of Editing (Leiden: Brill 1992); Hidden Polemics in Biblical Narrative (Leiden: Brill 2000); Reading Biblical Narratives (Minneapolis: Fortress 2001). 83 Japhet’s work concentrates on the Persian period. The 1100 page S. Japhet, I and II Chronicles- A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia 1993) is unlikely to be superseded for a generation. She has also worked on medieval Jewish commentary. For her extensive bibliography see M. Bar-Asher e.a. (eds.), Shai le-Sara Japhet, Studies in the Bible, (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute 2007), 13–20 (Hebrew pagination). 84 See e.g. his review of Milgrom’s Leviticus in AJSReview 19 (1994) 213–236. 85 Knohl’s thesis written under Moshe Greenberg in 1988 is entitled, “The Conception of God and Cult in the Priestly Torah and the Holiness School”, published as H. Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence (Jerusalem: Magnes 1992; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press 1995); the book follows Kaufmann in arguing for a pre-exilic “P” but understands “H” as a revision of “P” completed after the exile. 86 See e.g. B. J. Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Jerusalem: Magnes 1999). The book was originally a dissertation written under Moshe Greenberg. No Orthodox scholar would have published a book with this title thirty years earlier. Schwartz is a staunch supporter of the Documentary Hypothesis in Wellhausen’s classic formulation. 87 See e.g., J. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis: Winston Press 1985); Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (New York: Harper and Row 1988); The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville, KY/Westminster: John Knox Press 1993). 88 See e.g. M. Brettler, “Biblical History and Jewish Biblical Theology”, in: The Journal of Religion 77 (1997), 563–583, 89 See e.g. B. Sommer, “Revelation at Sinai and in Jewish Theology”, JR 79 (1999) 422–451; “Ein neues Modell für biblische Theologie”, in: B. Janowski (ed.), Theologie und Exegese des Alten Testaments (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk 2005), 187–212. 90 See e.g. M. Sweeney, “Why Jews are Interested in Biblical Theology: A Retrospective on the Work of Jon D. Levenson”, Jewish Book Annual 55/56 (1997–1999) 114–168. 91 This includes Jewish women Biblicists of the first generation. Although no Jewish seminary admitted women to its rabbinical program before 1972, at JTS (which did not ordain a woman until 1985) for example, women could study Bible with H. L. Ginsberg, M. Held, Sh. Paul and Y. Muffs in the JTS Teachers Institute or its Seminary College of Jewish Studies. At the same institution they would be exposed to classes in Midrash and Talmud. The same was true of supplementary schools

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they had little need to ask the questions common in the later twentieth century about the specifically Jewish character92 of their work.93 At the same time the larger university setting provided approaches far beyond literary-historical criticism and comparative philology.94 Borrowing from comparative literature, Jewish biblicists, like their gentile counterparts, applied structuralism, deconstruction,95 narrative criticism, feminist criticism,96 ideological criticism97 and reader-response criticism98to read the Bible as literature.99 J. Berlinerblau is successfully applying rigorous sociological theory to biblical studies.100 Susan Niditch has made much progress in bringing the serious study of folklore and oral and traditional literature to the elucidation of the Bible,101 as can be seen most recently in her commentary to Judges.102 While the newer approaches are of great value, they have not come without a cost, especially to younger scholars. The earlier Christian domination of biblical studies impelled would-be Jewish biblicists to earn degrees in such areas as text criticism, ancient Near Eastern languages and Semitic philology and bring these to bear on their biblical scholarship. Ironically, for literary readings to be valuable they must be based on accurate texts, good philology and access to the languages and cultures of the world in which the Bible was produced. Fortunately, there have been some compensatory trends, which have managed to integrate the older with the newer. The work of the American M. V. Fox (b. 1940) has broadened the application of Egyptology to biblical studies particularly in regard to Canticles and Proverbs, while attending to text criticism, rhetoric and ideo-

without rabbinical programs such as Gratz College in Philadelphia, Boston Hebrew College and Baltimore Hebrew College among others. 92 See M. Greenberg, “Can Modern Critical Bible Scholarship Have a Jewish Character”?, Immanuel 15 (1983) 7–12; Sommer “Revelation” 1999; M. Brettler, How to Read the Bible (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 2005). 93 The distinctions between Jewish and Gentile Biblicists with regard to the Israel connection and knowledge of Ivrit have largely disappeared. Gentile Biblicists now regularly spend time in Israel, and learn Ivrit including the Hebrew cursive script. 94 See the survey by Berlin/Brettler in: Jewish Study Bible (2004), 2084–2096. 95 See D. Jobling, “Structuralism and Deconstruction”, DBI II, 509–514. 96 See V. C. Phillips, “Feminist Interpretation”, DBI I, 388–398 97 See G. Yee, “Ideological Criticism”, DBI I, 534–537. 98 See E. V. McKnight, “Reader-Response Criticism”, DBI II, 370–373. 99 It has been observed more than once that the phrase ”the Bible as literature” is itself an indication that the Bible is not literature. Cf. J. Berlinerblau, “The Bible as Literature?”, Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 9–26; see further the earlier critique by S. Geller, “Some Pitfalls in the ‘literary Approach’ to Biblical Narrative”, JQR 67 (1987) 66–79. 100 See J. Berlinerblau. The Vow and the “Popular Religious Groups” of Ancient Israel: A Philological and Sociological Inquiry. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); idem, “Some Sociological Observations on Moshe Greenberg’s Biblical Prose Prayer as a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel”, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 12 (1995); idem, 1–14 “Preliminary Remarks for the Sociological Study of Israelite ‘Official Religion,’” in R. Chazan et al (eds.) Ki Baruch Hu… Studies …Baruch Levine (Eisenbrauns: Winona Lake, 1999) 153–170; 101 See e.g. S. Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore (New York: Harper and Row 1987); idem, Folklore and the Hebrew Bible (Augsburg: Fortress 1993; idem, Oral World and Written Word; Ancient Israelite Literature (Louisville: Westminster 1996) 102 S. Niditch, Judges A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2008);In this vein see J. Sasson, Ruth, A New Translation and Philological Commentary and a Formalist-Folklorist Interpretation (Sheffileld: JSOT Press, 1989).

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logy.103 The work of W. Hallo (b. 1928) who taught at Yale,104 and his student P. Machinist at Harvard (b. 1944) moved far beyond their predecessors in their sophisticated application of Assyriology to biblical studies.105A. Berlin’s (b. 1943) JPS commentary on the book of Esther106 is a masterful example of the disciplined synthesis of philology, text and historical criticism of the literary approach. In Israel, A. Rofé (born Pisa, Italy, 1932) makes extensive use of the ancient versions, showing how they often reflect ideological revisions of bibli103 For bibliography see R. Troxel et al (eds.), Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients. Essays Offered to Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 2005), v–xxiv. 104 For bibliography through 1992 see M. Cohen et al (eds.), The Tablet and the Scroll. Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo (Bethesda: CDL 1993), xi–xvi. 105 See e.g. P. Machinist, “Literature as Politics: The Tukulti-Ninurta Epic and the Bible”, CBQ 38 (1976), 455–82; idem, “Assyria and Its Image in the First Isaiah”, JAOS 103 (1983). 719–37; idem, “The Question of Distinctiveness in Ancient Israel: An Essay,” in M. Cogan and I. Eph’al (eds.), Ah, Assyria…Studies in Assyrian History and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography Presented to Hayim Tadmor (Scripta Hierosolymitana 33;Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991), pp. 196–212; idem, “Outsiders or Insiders: The Biblical View of Emergent Israel and Its Contexts”, in L.J. Silberstein/R.L. Cohn (eds.), The Other in Jewish Thought and History. Constructions of Jewish History and Identity (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1994), pp. 35–60); idem, “Hosea and the Ambiguity of Kingship in Ancient Israel,” in Chaim Stern/S. David Sperling (eds.), Signs of Democracy in the Bible (The Resnick Lectures of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, Chappaqua, N.Y. 1995), pp. 25–63; idem, “The Rab Shaqeh at the Wall of Jerusalem: Israelite Identity in the Face of the Assyrian ‘Other’”, Hebrew Studies 41 (2000), 131–68. A. Berlin, JPS Commentary Esther (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 2001). Of particular merit is Berlin’s use of classical sources to demonstrate how closely the depictions of the Persians in Esther correspond with their depictions by Greek writers. She is also the author of Zephaniah (AB; Doubleday: New York 1994) and Lamentations A Commentary (Westminster: John Knox 2002). See e.g. A. Rofé, ”Textual Criticism in the Light of Historical-Literary Criticism: Deuteronomy 31:14–15”, ErIsr 16 (1982), 171–76; idem, “The Onset of Sects in Postexilic Judaism: Neglected Evidence from the Septuagint, Trito-Isaiah, Ben-Sira, and Malachi”, in J. Neusner et al (eds.), Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee. The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress 1988) 39–49; idem, “The Nomistic Correction in Biblical Manuscripts and its Occurrence in 4QSama”, RdQ 54 (Dec, 1989), 247–54”; (Dec, 1989), ; idem, “The Name YHWH SEBA’OT and the Shorter Recension of Jeremiah”, in R. Liwak/Siegried Wagner (eds.), Prophetie und geschichtliche Wirklichkeit im alten Israel. Festschrift für Siegfried Hermann zum 65. Geburtstag (Berlin: Kohlhammer 1991), 307–15; idem, “The Historical Significance of Secondary Readings”, in C. Evans and S. Talmon (eds.), The Quest for Context and Meaning. Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (Leiden: Brill 1997), 393–402. See e.g., B. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1997); idem, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2008); idem, “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008). For bibliography see N. Fox et al (eds.), Mishneh Todah. Studies in Deuteronomy and its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2008), xxvii–xxxiv. Cohen is at work on the forthcoming Companion to the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament(=CHALOT). For an introduction to the book and examples of the Held Method see C. Cohen, “New Directions in Modern Biblical Hebrew Lexicography”, in idem et al (eds.), Birkat Shalom. Studies in the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature and Postbiblical Judaism Presnted to Shalom M. Paul on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Winona lake: Eisenbrauns 2008), 441–73. 106 A. Berlin, JPS Commentary Esther (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 2001). Of particular merit is Berlin’s use of classical sources to demonstrate how closely the depictions of the Persians in Esther correspond with their depictions in Greek sources. She is also the author of Zephaniah (AB; Doubleday: New York 1994) and Lamentations A Commentary (Westminster: John Knox 2002).

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cal texts. Rofé also combines classical source criticism with the literary-aesthetic approach.107 B. Levinson’s work synthesizes text criticism, Assyriology and comparative law with literary sensitivity.108 Ch. (Harold) Cohen continues and expands the “Held method” of the use of interdialectal distribution in comparative Semitic lexicography.109 The writings of J. Tigay (b. 1941) combine Semitics, and rabbinic literature with close attention to realia, ancient and modern.110 The work of E. Tov in textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible has been monumental.111 A. Hurvitz (b. 1936) has refined the study of Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH).112 Limitations of space preclude more than cursory reference to such important scholars as A. Cooper (b. 1950),113 S. Geller,114 E. Greenstein (b. 1949),115 R. E. Friedman,116

107 See e.g. A. Rofé,”Textual Criticism in the Light of Historical-Literary Criticism: Deuteronomy 31:14–15”, ErIsr 16 (1982), 171–76; idem, “The Onset of Sects in Postexilic Judaism: Neglected Evidence from the Septuagint, Trito-Isaiah, Ben-Sira, and Malachi”, in J. Neusner et al (eds.), Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee. The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress 1988) 39–49; idem, “The Nomistic Correction in Biblical Manuscripts and its Occurrence in 4QSama”, RdQ 54 (Dec, 1989), 247–54; idem, “The Name YHWH SEBA’OT and the Shorter Recension of Jeremiah”, in R. Liwak/Siegried Wagner (eds.), Prophetie und geschichtliche Wirklichkeit im alten Israel. Festschrift für Siegfried Hermann zum 65. Geburtstag (Berlin: Kohlhammer 1991), 307–15; idem, “The Historical Significance of Secondary Readings”, in C. Evans/S. Talmon (eds.), The Quest for Context and Meaning. Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (Leiden: Brill 1997), 393–402. 108 See e.g., B. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1997); idem, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2008); idem, “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008). 109 Cohen is at work on the forthcoming Companion to the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament(=CHALOT). For an introduction to the book and examples of the Held Method see C. Cohen, “New Directions in Modern Biblical Hebrew Lexicography”, in idem et al (eds.), Birkat Shalom. Studies in the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature and Postbiblical Judaism Presented to Shalom M. Paul on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 2008), 441–73. 110 For bibliography of Tigay see N. Fox et al (eds.), Mishneh Todah. Studies in Deuteronomy and its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2008), xxvii– xxxiv. 111 For Tov’s bibliography until 2002 see S. Paul et al (eds.), Emanuel, Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (Leiden: Brill 2003), xix–xxxvi. 112 For bibliography see S. Fassberg et al (eds.), Mehqarim be-Lashon (Jerusalem: Hebrew U. Press 2008), 21–27. 113 See e.g., A. Cooper, “Divine Names and Epithets in the Ugaritic Texts,” in S. Rummel (ed.), Ras Shamra Parallels Vol. 3 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute 1981), 33–469; idem,”Narrative Theory and the Book of Job”, Studies in Religion 11 (1982), 35–44; idem, “On Reading Biblical Poetry”, MAARAV 4 (1987), 221–241; idem (with B. Goldstein). “The Festivals o Israel and Judah and the Literary History of the Pentateuch”, JAOS 110 (1990), 19–31; idem, “The Message of Lamentations”, JANES 23 (2002), 1–18; idem, “ ‘The Lord Grants Wisdom’: The World View of Proverbs 1–9”, in K. Kravitz/D. Sharon (eds.), Bringing the Hidden to Light Studies in Honor of Stephen A. Geller (Winona Lake, IA 2007 ), 29–43. 114 For Geller’s bibliography see Kravitz/Sharon (eds.), Bringing the Hidden to Light, ix–xi. 115 Of Greenstein’s voluminous publications in comparative Semitics, linguistics and literary analysis, see e.g., E. Greenstein, Essays in Biblical Method and Translation (Atlanta: Scholars 1989); idem. “The Book of Exodus,” in H. Attridge (ed.), The Harper Collins Study Bible (San Francisco: Harper Collins 2006), 83–149. Greenstein is preparing the JPS Commentary on Lamentations. 116 See e.g., R. E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (San Francisco: Harper 1987); idem, The Bible with Sources Revealed (San Francisco: Harper 2003); idem, Commentary on the Torah (San Francisco: Harper 2003).

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Mayer Gruber (b. 1944),117 G. Rendsburg,118 B. Halpern,119 D. Marcus (b. 1941),120 S. Olyan,121 J. Sasson (b. 1941),122 S. D. Sperling (b. 1941)123 and Z. Zevit.124 It is difficult to predict the profile of Jewish biblical scholarship as the twenty-first century unfolds. Jewish scholars and their gentile counterparts will have the best texts of the Bible available for study. The Hebrew University Project (HUBP) begun in 1955 and currently under the editorship of Sh. Talmon (1920– 2010)125 is well underway to providing, at long last, a true critical edition of the Hebrew Bible produced under Jewish auspices. The HUBP is based on the Aleppo Codex where extant, and incorporates Judaean Desert Scroll variants and biblical quotations from classical rabbinic literature in its critical apparatus, along with the witness of the ancient translations and medieval manuscripts.126 Along with their gentile colleagues, Jewish scholars will benefit from greater accessibility to online sources and their retrieval, and to computer aided analysis of texts. Paradoxically, we can probably expect to see more Orthodox Jewish scholars openly embracing critical scholarship at the same time that the differences between Jewish and gentile biblical scholarship gradually disappear. This is a consummation devoutly to be wished!

117 His Columbia thesis written under Moshe Held, published as M. Gruber, Aspects of Non-Verbal Communication in the Near East (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute 1978) is now a classic. See further, idem, The Motherhood of God and other Studies (Atlanta: Scholars 1992); idem, Rashi’s Commentary on the Psalms (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 2007). 118 See e.g. G. Rendsburg, The Redaction of Genesis (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 1986); idem, Diglossia in Ancient Hebrew (New Haven: American Oriental Society 19900: idem; Israelian Hebrew in the Book of Kings (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2002). 119 See e.g., B. Halpern, The First Historians, The Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco: Harper and Row 1988); idem, David’s Secret Demons. Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans 2001). 120 Marcus is an outstanding close reader, grammarian and textual critic. See e.g., D. Marcus, A Manual of Akkadian (Latham, MD: University Press of America (1981); idem, Jephthah and His Vow (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech U. Press 1986); idem, From Balaam to Jonah: Anti-Prophetic Satire in the Hebrew Bible (Atlanta: Scholars 1995); idem, Ezra and Nehemiah (BHQ 20; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft 2006). 121 See e.g., S .Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 2001); idem, Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2004); idem, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (New York: cambridge U. Press, 2008). 122 See e.g., Jonah (AB; New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1995). Sasson, an extremely prolific scholar, is the editor of CANE, arguably the most important resource for the ancient Near Eastern background of the Bible. 123 See e.g., S. D. Sperling, The Original Torah.The Political Intent of the Bible’s Writers (New York; New York U. Press 1998. Sperling also served as the Bible editor of EncJud2.. 124 See e.g., Z. Zevit, Matres Lectionis in Ancient Hebrew Epigraphs (Cambridge, MA: ASOR 1980); idem, The Anterior Construction in Biblical Hebrew (Atlanta: Scholars 1998); idem, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Paralactic Approaches (New York: Continuum 2001). 125 For Talmon’s voluminous bibliography see M. Fishbane et al (eds.), Sha`arei Talmon Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemearyahu Talmon (Winona Lake, IA: Eisenbrauns 1992), xv–xxix. 126 As is true of the ongoing Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ), HUBP is a diplomatic edition. An eclectic critical edition is also underway. See R. Hendel, “The Oxford Hebrew Bible: Prologue to a Critical Edition”, VT 58 (2008), 324–51.

C. Special Fields and Different Approaches in the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament

Chapter Thirty-nine

Questions of the ‘History of Israel’ in Recent Research By Jean Louis Ska, Rome 1. The Intellectual Climate in Historical Research in the Twentieth Century “Only novelists can write history because truth resides not in the facts, but in the imagination of the facts”.1 This paradoxical statement is a fitting way to introduce this short survey on the way the History of Ancient Israel was conceived during the twentieth century. Two elements are present in the background of D. Fernandez’s affirmation. First, the discovery that ‘facts’ in history are never ‘hard facts’ or ‘pure facts’, but that they are always filtered by the historian’s perception of events and personalities. Second, the observation that there is no history without a work of imagination and reconstruction from the side of the historian. This was already present in a sentence by J. Wellhausen: “But history, it is well known, has always to be constructed …. The question is whether one constructs well or ill”.2 In the twentieth century, however, scholars will sometimes go much further than Wellhausen and come to extreme assertions such as Paul Veyne’s famous axiom: “History is not a science …; it does not explain and has no method”.3 As D. Fernandez, several historians consider now that the difference between a novel and a work of history tends to disappear. Not everyone agrees with this statement, obviously, but the tendency to underscore the part of imagination and subjective reconstruction in a work of history is notable in the field of historical research, although every serious historian is aware that he or she speaks about “true” persons and “true” events, and not about “fictions”. This evolution started after the First World War and can be divided, for practical purposes, into two main phases. The first can be best characterized by the ideas promoted by the French so-called École des Annales (“Annales School”). 1 D. Fernandez, L’art de raconter (Paris: Grasset 2006), 75: “Seuls les romanciers peuvent écrire l’histoire, car la vérité réside non pas dans les faits, mais dans l’imagination des faits”. 2 J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Berlin: Reimer 21883; repr. Berlin: de Gruyter 2001), 365: “Konstruiren muß man bekanntlich die Geschichte immer
. Der Unterschied ist nur, ob man gut oder schlecht konstruirt”. ET: Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Reprints and Translations; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1994), 367. 3 P. Veyne, Comment on écrit l’histoire. Essai d’épistémologie (Paris: Seuil 1971), 9 : “L’histoire n’est pas une science …; elle n’explique pas et elle n’a pas de méthode”. He adds: “L’histoire est un roman vrai” or “un récit d’événements vrais qui ont l’homme pour acteur” – “History is a true novel” or “history is a narrative of true events, the actor of which is humanity”.

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The second phase is more difficult to define since it contains several, and sometimes contradictory, tendencies. One could call it “postmodern”, but this begs the question. It is preferable, in my opinion, to speak of a subjective and linguistic turn, and of a “New Historicism” although this expression also requires some explanations, as we will see.

1.1. The “Annales School” Studies: G. Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press 1984). – P. Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School 1929–89 (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 1990). – S. Clark (ed.), The Annales School: Critical Assessments, 1–4 (London: Routledge 1999). – A. Burguière, L’École des Annales. Une histoire intellectuelle (Paris: Odile Jacob 2006) = Annales School: An Intellectual History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2009).

This school of French origin takes its name from a periodical founded in 1929 in Strasburg by Marc Bloch and Lucien Fèbvre. Its influence was stronger in continental Europe and in Latin America than in the United Kingdom and in North America. In biblical research, it impinged directly or indirectly on several histories of Israel, especially in what is sometimes called the “Copenhagen School” and this is one of the main reasons it is worth mentioning. One of the major tenets of this school is the conviction that real changes in history are not brought about by sudden events. There is a history that is interested mainly in political, diplomatic, and military events. But societies and mentalities are affected only superficially by these events. The several revolutions that shook Europe at the end of the eighteenth and during the nineteenth century, as well as the revolutions and World Wars that took place in the twentieth century, had only a limited impact on the societies involved. Real changes take much more time and cannot be registered by a simple chronicle of spectacular events. For this reason, the representatives of the Annales School distinguish three types of history. First, they distinguish a “histoire événementielle” or the “courte durée”, i.e. a short term history interested above all in political, diplomatic, and military events. This is a classical type of history with its lists of kings, princes, and battles. The Annales School prefers the two other types of history, namely the “moyenne” or “longue durée” (“medium” and “long term history”) which focuses on slow, if not imperceptible, changes in societies and cultures.4 This can be summarized in a sentence by George Duby: the history he taught “relegated the sensational to the sidelines and was reluctant to give a simple accounting of events, but strove on the contrary to pose and solve problems and, neglecting surface disturbances, to observe the long and medium-term evolution of economy, society and civilization”.5

4 See L. Fèbvre, Philippe II et la Franche-Comté. Étude d’histoire politique, religieuse et sociale (Paris: Honoré Champion 1912; Paris: Flammarion 1970). The title is typical of the new tendency, with the inclusion of the word “social”, and because the topic is no longer Paris, but a remote province of France under a foreign monarch, Philip II of Spain. 5 G. Duby, Le dimanche de Bouvines, 27 juillet 1214 (Paris: Gallimard 1973), Foreword.

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These scholars also speak of “histoire totale” (“total history”) because they want to combine the traditional historical inquiry with other disciplines, as for instance sociology, economy, geography, and even botanic and geology. A similar evolution occurred in the field of archaeology when scholars abandoned searching only for treasures, large monuments, or spectacular discoveries, and practiced the so-called “field survey” or “fieldwork” that collects on a given site and on a large scale all possible artifacts and traces of human activities to reconstruct the daily life of the population that occupied this site.6 Another essential point for the Annales School is its affirmation that there are no “facts” in history, but “testimonies” or “witnessed facts”. In other words, facts do not exist if they are not experienced by human beings or collectivities, and transmitted by witnesses. This means that the fact cannot be totally separated from the human filters and human experiences. Historians deal with living beings and not with impersonal events.7 A third element in this new kind of research is the importance of collectivities. The real actors of history are no longer individuals, kings or military commanders, but families, societies, and nations. This is to some degree connected with the disappearance of four imperial powers at the end of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire, and the empires of Russia, Prussia, and Austro-Hungary. Nations had rebelled against their monarchs, especially in Russia (the October Revolution) and Germany (the Wilhelmshaven mutiny and the so-called Novemberrevolution) whereas strikes and ethnic upheavals had seriously weakened Austro-Hungary.8 The Ottoman Empire had known similar problems, especially the rise of nationalistic feelings among its numerous subject peoples. It comes as no surprise, in these circumstances, that historians take more seriously into account the role of nations in shaping their own destiny. Nationalistic feelings grew very strong elsewhere too during the nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth century. The impact of the Annales School was not felt immediately since exegesis develops in its own world and evolutions are slow. An important work that followed the method advocated by this school in a systematic way was the volume written by R. B. Coote and K. W. Whitelam on “The Emergence of Early Israel”.9 Other historians such as N. P. Lemche, R. Albertz, and E. A. Knauf, among others, owe some of their methodological assumptions to the direct or indirect influence of the Annales School.

6 See, for instance, E. B. Banning, Archaeological Survey (New York: Kluwer Academic Press 2002); E. B. Banning/A. Hawkins/S. T. Stewart, “Detection Functions for Archaeological Survey”, American Antiquity 71 (2011) 723–742. 7 See especially M. Bloch, Apologie pour l’histoire ou métier d’historien (Paris: Armand Colin 1949, 1974); see also L. Fèbvre, Pour une histoire à part entière (Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS 1962, 1982); F. Braudel, Écrits sur l’histoire (Paris: Flammarion 1969, 1977). 8 See, among others, P. Broué, The German Revolution 1917–1923 (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books 2006). 9 R. B. Coote/K. W. Whitelam, The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective (Sheffield: Almond Press 1987).

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1.2. The “New Historicism” and its Impact on the Biblical Field Studies on history: H. White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP 1973); Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP 1978); “Historicism, History, and the Figurative Imagination”, History and Theory 14 (1975) 48–67; “The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory”, History and Theory 23 (1984) 1–33. – P. Veyne, Comment on écrit l’histoire. Essai d’épistémologie (Paris: Seuil 1971; 21998). On anthropology: C. Frevel (ed.), Biblische Anthropologie. Neue Einsichten aus dem Alten Testament (Quaestiones disputatae 237; Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder 2010). – B. Janowski/ K. Liess (eds.), Der Mensch im alten Israel. Neue Forschungen zur alttestamentlichen Anthropologie (HBSt 59; Freiburg: Herder 2009). On sociology: M. Clauss, Gesellschaft und Staat in Juda und Israel (München: Minerva 1985). – A. D. H. Mayes, “Sociology and the Old Testament”, in: The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1991), 39– 66. – R. Kessler, “Frühkapitalismus, Rentenkapitalismus, Tributarismus, antike Klassengesellschaft. Theorien zur Gesellschaft des alten Israels”, EvTh 54 (1994) 413–427; Studien zur Sozialgeschichte Israels (SBAB 46; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 2009). – P. McNutt, Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1999). – P. Esler, Ancient Israel: The Old Testament in Its Social Context (Biblical Studies; London: SCM 2005). Works of Max Weber: M. Weber, Das antike Judentum, in: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, III (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1921); ET: Ancient Judaism (New York: The Free Press 1952); FT: Le judaïsme antique (Paris: Librairie Plon 1970); Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen: das antike Judentum. Schriften und Reden 1911–1920, 1– 2 (ed. E. Otto, unter Mitwirkung von J. Offermann; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2005; Studienausgabe: Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008). On Max Weber: Marianne Weber, Max Weber: Ein Lebensbild (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1926, 3 1984); ET: Max Weber: A Biography (New Brunswick: Transaction Books 1988). – R. Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (San Francisco, CA: University of California Press 1977). – R. Swedberg, Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1998). – H. H. Bruun, Science, Values, and Politics in Max Weber’s Methodology: Rethinking Classical Sociology (Aldershot: Ashgate 2007). – J. Radkau, Max Weber. Die Leidenschaft des Denkens (München: Carl Hanser Verlag 2005); ET: Max Weber: A Biography (Cambridge, UK: Polity 2009).

As the Annales School is – to a certain extent – the result of a reflection on the new situation created by the First World War, the New Historicism has to be understood in the intellectual context of the years following the Second World War and the students’ movements in 1968. Strong ideologies, liberal and Marxist, dominated the political debates and, at the same time, a growing skepticism developed in reaction against dogmatic positions. The three “masters of suspicion”, K. Marx, S. Freud and F. Nietzsche, had more and more success in intellectual circles. Another phenomenon that took place in the late sixties of last century is the so-called “murder of the fathers” that affected several areas of academic life, and biblical studies as well. As for the History of Ancient Israel, W. F. Albright first, M. Noth and R. de Vaux afterwards, underwent sharp criticism. The main movement which influenced the field of history was called New Historicism. Some also speak of a “linguistic turn”, since the major impulses came from studies in linguistics. One can identify five major methodological tenets of this movement. 1. Writing history is creating a verbal fiction, the content of which is at the same time discovered and invented. Its forms are closer to literature than to sciences. There is also much of rhetoric in historiography, i.e. literary strategies aiming

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at convincing. For this reason, the classical and Aristotelian difference between “fact” and “fiction” is blurred, but does not disappear entirely either.10 On the other hand, even moderate historians have shown in the past that historiography cannot be limited to a series of dates and material data. The work of synthesis requires a creative intervention from the historian. Nonetheless, the historian does not invent the data he or she uses in the reconstruction of the past.11 Hence the difference between history and fiction, even historical novels, remains essential.12 2. According to Jacques Derrida and his “Deconstructionism”, there is no reality outside of the text.13 The world of the text does not exist outside of itself, i.e. the text refers only to itself. Derrida and his disciples speak of novels, and not of history. History is however different from novels because it is based on documents and testimonies that must be sifted and interpreted, but cannot be forged. History is not only a fruit of the historian’s imagination. There is a question about biblical texts and documents, however, which is connected with this kind of problematic. Are the “events” recounted in some biblical books, especially in the Pentateuch and in Joshua – Judges, historical documents or simply the product of their authors’ ideologies and theologies? In this second case, they have no precise referent in a “real world”. This is, of course, one of the main questions raised by historians since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.14 3. For Michel Foucault, there is no reality, there is only language.15 Therefore, there are no “truths”, there are only ideologies. It is also impossible to reach certainties in any field of human knowledge. Objectivity is impossible because what is considered objective truth cannot be separated from the subjective mindset of the thinker in general and of the historian in particular. Along the same line, historians sometimes quote F. Nietzsche’s famous aphorism, “There are no facts, there are only interpretations”.16 Other theorists admit that history cannot reach metaphysical truths. Nevertheless, there is an intention of truth in history and every historian endeavors to present a valid interpretation of the documents analyzed and of the period studied. Otherwise we have no criterion to judge the historian’s work and to qualify it in any way. Discussion would be impossible and it would be equally impossible either to verify or to falsify any historical reconstruction.17 10 H. White, “The Fictions of Factual Representation”, in: The Literature of Fact: Selection of Papers from the English Institute (ed. A. Fletcher; New York: Colombia UP 1976), 21–44 (21); cf. H. M. Barstad, “‘Fact’ versus ‘Fiction’ and Other Issues in the History Debate, and their Relevance for the Study of the Old Testament”, in: Vergegenwärtigung des Alten Testaments. Beiträge zur biblischen Hermeneutik (FS R. Smend; ed. C. Bultmann/W. Dietrich/C. Levin; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2002), 433–447 (439). 11 See, for instance, H.-I. Marrou, De la connaissance historique (Paris: Seuil 1954). 12 This is recognized by H. White, Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP 1999), 20, quoted by Barstad, Fact versus Fiction (2002), 441–442. 13 J. Derrida, De la grammatologie (Paris: Minuit 1967) 227; cf. Barstad, Fact versus Fiction (2002), 437. 14 See P. Ricœur, Temps et récit, III (Paris: Seuil 1985), 252–283, esp. 253. 15 M. Foucault, Les Mots et les Choses. Archéologie des sciences humaines (Paris: Gallimard 1966). 16 F. Nietzsche, Nachlass. Kritische Studienausgabe, 12 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 21980), 7[60]. 17 See, for instance, E. D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1967); idem, The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago, IL: Chicago UP 1976).

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4. “The author is dead, long life to the reader”.18 The death of the author is part of a recent trend in literary criticism that enhances the active role of the reader. Nobody obviously denies that texts originate in the work of writers. The problem is that texts are not univocal. They conceal as much as they reveal since they are full of gaps, indeterminations, presuppositions, and contradictions. Texts are instable and their meaning is a process that requires a constant dialogue with their audience and their “intertexts”, namely all the texts with which every writing is connected, explicitly or not. In other words, meaning is, created by the reader in every act of reading. This theory – as all theories of the same kind – requires certain qualifications. For instance, one could say that the principle itself can be “deconstructed” in favor of an interpretation that takes its object into more consideration. Otherwise, we have no criteria to distinguish good from better and even from false interpretations. The reader “makes” the meaning, of course, but this is always the meaning either of a fact or a text. To put it with U. Eco, “The limits of interpretation coincide with the rights of the text (which does not mean with the rights of its author)”.19 To use an image – which itself is open to interpretation – a text is like a score of music. There is music when a musician plays (or when a singer sings) the music of the score. A simple photocopy of the score is no music at all. On the other hand, there are as many interpretations as there are musicians or singers. But the freedom of the musician is limited by the content of the score. Improvisation is possible, for instance, but only when it is indicated by the score and in the space allowed to it by the score. And, as every one knows, dissonances exist and singers can be out of key. A comparison between score and performance is sufficient to establish this. In very simple words, interpretation is always interpretation of “something” that is given.20 5. We must sound the death knell of the “Great History”. For several modern historians, we have to leave behind the glorious histories of the past, exalting sovereigns, describing battles and conquests, and neglecting common people and common concerns. First of all, we possess only fragments of reality, as in the conclusion of the novel The Name of the Rose by U. Eco.21 For this reason it 18 This is the “rallying cry” of Reader-Response-Criticism; see, among others, S. R. Suleiman/I. Crosman (eds.), The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP 1980); J. P. Tompkins (ed.), Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP 1980); E. V. McKnight, Postmodern Use of the Bible. The Emergence of Reader-Oriented Criticism (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press 1988); E. Freund, The Return of the Reader: Reader-Response Criticism (New York: Methuen 1987); E. W. Davies, “Reader-Response Criticism and the Hebrew Bible”, in: Honouring the Past and Shaping the Future : Religious and Biblical Studies in Wales (ed. R. Pope; Leominster: Gracewing 2003), 20–37. In literary criticism, some of the most influential works are W. Iser, Der Akt des Lesens. Theorie ästhetischer Wirkung (Uni-Taschenbücher 636; Munich: Wilhelm Fink 1976, 41994); ET: The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP 1978, 51991); S. E. Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1983, 2003). 19 U. Eco, I limiti dell’interpretazione (Milano: Bompiani 1990), 14; ET: The Limits of Interpretation (Bloomington – Indianapolis, IN: Indiana UP 1990), 6–7. 20 U. Eco, “Il pensiero debole vs i limiti dell’interpretazione”, Dall’albero al labirinto. Studi storici sul segno e l’interpretazione (Torino: Bompiani 2007), 517–536, 535: the world is “already given” (già dato) and not simply asserted. 21 “It is cold in the scriptorium, my thumb aches. I leave this manuscript, I do not know for whom: I no longer know what it is about: stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus” [“The old rose survives in its name, we have only mere [naked] names”], U. Eco, The Name of the Rose (1980).

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is very difficult to reconstruct a single valid history of a certain period or of a certain nation. There will necessarily be several rival histories reflecting the ideologies of different groups or collectivities. The second aspect of this new trend in historical research is a major attention to social, cultural, and economic factors. History cannot be limited to decisions taken by kings or princes, or descriptions of important battles. History should move from palaces and battlefields to cities and villages, and visit farms, households, shops, fields, stores, and workshops. “History from below” is the new watchword of historians, and it certainly corresponds to certain tendencies in theology, for instance, “Christology from below”. Sociology and anthropology are becoming more and more important in this respect.22 Sociology and anthropology developed as sciences in the nineteenth century. Among the founders of modern sociology, we must list names such as Karl Marx (1818–1883), Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), Max Weber (1864–1920), Georg Simmel (1858–1918), and Herbert Spencer (1820– 1903). Each of them has had an influence, either directly or indirectly, on biblical studies. The most important personalities, however, are Émile Durkheim and especially Max Weber. According to É. Durkheim, “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, i.e., things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them”.23 Durkheim underscores the collective function of common opinions, i.e. beliefs, and common practices, i.e. rites, in the formation of religious shared identity. Basic to every religion is the distinction between sacred and profane. Sacred persons, objects (totems, for instance), and institutions, are separated from the profane world and protected by prohibitions. Durkheim’s influence was not felt immediately, but we can say that studies on the evolution of beliefs and rituals in Israel owe him more than is commonly acknowledged. Furthermore, even if very rarely quoted in biblical studies, his ideas influenced – often indirectly – studies on Israel’s formation as a collective phenomenon rather than the sole result of initiatives taken by “great personalities” such as kings or religious leaders. More important and more directly influential is Max Weber, especially because he dedicated an important study on Israel, Das antike Judentum, translated into English under the title Ancient Judaism.24 Everyone knows M. Weber’s ideas about the influence of religion on culture and economy. The relationship between capitalism and Protestant ethics is famous.25 The basic idea is that there is a close 22 See N. P. Lemche, The Old Testament between Theology and History: A Critical Survey (Louisville, KY/London: Westminster John Knox 2008), 101–109. 23 É. Durkheim, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Le système totémique en Australie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1912), 65; ET: The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (London: G. Allen & Unwin/New York: Macmillan 1915, 62; new editions: New York: Free Press 1995, and Oxford’s World Classics; Oxford/New York: Oxford UP 2001, 2008). 24 On M. Weber, see especially Bendix, Max Weber (1977) and the biographies by M. Weber and J. Radkau. 25 M. Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (Tübingen: Mohr 1905, 2 1920); ET: Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: George Allen & Unwin/New York: Scribner 1930).

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relationship between religion and economy. M. Weber’s method is more interpretative than Durkheim’s positivism and distinguishes more clearly his hermeneutics from the methods of natural sciences. He leaves therefore more room to the role of human social actions. Among the main ideas promoted by M. Weber in his Ancient Judaism, three will reveal themselves as more influential. (1) The religion of Israel is highly rational. It excludes therefore magic, superstitious, and irrational quests for salvation and insists, on the contrary on an ethic of social behavior: “… free of magic and esoteric speculations, devoted to the study of law, vigilant in the effort to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord in the hope of a better future, the prophets established a religion of faith that subjected man’s daily life to the imperatives of a divinely ordained moral law. In this way, ancient Judaism helped create the moral rationalism of Western civilization”.26 (2) The relationship between the divinity (Yhwh) and his people is regulated by a legal system, and M. Weber speaks of the “Laws as an Index to Social Development”.27 As a result, ancient Judaism was committed to changing the world according to moral and rational principles. The legal system of ancient Judaism was a factor of development, whereas religion is usually used to justify the status-quo or to offer ways to escape this world for a better world or an afterworld. (3) The unifying factor in ancient Israel was the covenant (berith). Contrary to Wellhausen for whom covenant theology was introduced by Deuteronomy, M. Weber dates it from the time of the Judges.28 The different groups living together in Israel at that time, tribes of warriors, merchants, slaves, nomads, foreigners, shepherds, tradesmen, did not conclude a covenant with each other. They decided to conclude together a covenant with the same divinity, Yhwh, and put themselves under God’s judgment. The divinity is not a protector of the tribes and an avenger in case of perjury by one of the partners, the deity is the main partner in the covenant. “Hence, in avenging the violation of the covenant He insisted on His own violated treaty rights and not only on the claims of the contract observing party placed under His protection”.29 This is the origin of Israel’s “confederation” (Eidgenossenschaft).30 This idea will be extremely fruitful, for instance in M. Noth’s idea of the amphictyony,31 or in G. E. Mendenhall’s and N. K. Gottwald’s theory on the origins of Israel.32 Let us mention that Weber was among the first scholars to doubt the identification of the hab/piru (Chabiri) of the Amarna letters with the Hebrews, and this for philological reasons.33 What can we say about this new trend in historical research? Besides their irrefutable merits, it is obvious that sociological studies have to work within cer26

Bendix, Max Weber (1977), 256. Weber, Ancient Judaism (1952), 61. Weber, ibid. 75–77. 29 Weber, ibid. 78. 30 Weber, ibid. 78–89. 31 M. Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels (BWANT 52; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1930 = Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1966). 32 G. E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins UP 1973); N. K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 BCE (London: SCM 1979/The Biblical Seminar 66; Sheffield: Academic Press 1999). 33 Weber, Ancient Judaism (1952), 75. 27 28

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tain limits. First, ancient societies did not function as modern societies. The influence of rulers and political, cultural, and economic elites was more important than in recent times. This does not mean that we have not to take into account other factors. It simply means that the same factors, economic and social, had a different bearing in ancient and in modern times. Second, sociology, anthropology, and psychology are modern sciences that can be applied to modern societies because we have a sufficient amount of data at hand. This is not always the case for ancient societies. Data are scarce, and often open to discussion. Archaeology, fortunately, developed new methods of investigation, such as field work, and is now able to supply more information. The situation is nonetheless often tricky since, most of the time, we have to recompose a whole mosaic with the help of a few pieces retrieved by excavators. The task is surely complicated and historians are surely aware of this.

2. The Impact of Hermann Gunkel and Hugo Gressmann Major works of H. Gunkel:34Was bleibt vom Alten Testament? (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1916); ET: What Remains of the Old Testament and Other Essays (tr. by A. K. Dallas; New York: Macmillan 1928); Das Märchen im Alten Testament (Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbücher für die deutsche christliche Gegenwart, II, 23/26; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1921; Frankfurt a.M.: Athenäum 1987); ET: The Folktale in the Old Testament (Sheffield: The Almond Press 1987); Genesis (HKAT; Göttingen 31910, ND 1977); ET: Genesis / translated and interpreted by Hermann Gunkel (Mercer Library of Biblical Studies; Macon, GA: Mercer UP 1997); The Stories of Genesis (ed. W. R. Scott; Vallejo, CA: Bibal Press 1994) [A translation of the third edition of the introduction to Hermann Gunkel’s commentary on the book of Genesis]. Bibliography on H. Gunkel: W. Baumgartner, “Zum 100. Geburtstag von Hermann Gunkel”, in: Congress Volume. Bonn 1962 (ed. G. W. Anderson e.a.; VT.S 9; Leiden: Brill 1962), 1–18. – P. Gibert, Une théorie de la légende: Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932) et les légendes de la Bible (Paris: Flammarion 1979). – W. Klatt, H. Gunkel. Zu seiner Theologie der Religionsgeschichte und zur Entstehung der formgeschichtliche Methode (FRLANT 100; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1969). – H.-P. Müller, “Hermann Gunkel”, in: Theologen des Protestantismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, II (ed. M. Greschat; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1978), 241–255. – H. Graf Reventlow, Epochen der Bibelauslegung, IV. Von der Aufklärung bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (München: Beck 2001), 327–346; ET: History of Biblical Interpretation, 4: From the Enlightenment to the Twentieth Century (Resources for Biblical Study 63; Atlanta, GA: SBL 2010 / Leiden: Brill 2011). – H. Schmid (ed.), Eucharisterion: Studien zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments. FS Hermann Gunkel, 1–2 (FRLANT 36; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1922). – R. Smend, “Hermann Gunkel”, Deutsche Alttestamentler (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989), 160–172; ET: From Astruc to Zimmerli: Old Testament Scholarship through Three Centuries (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007), 118–131. – K. von Rabenau, “Hermann Gunkel”, in: Tendenzen der Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert. Eine Geschichte in Porträts (ed. H. J. Schulz; Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag 1968), 80–87; “Hermann Gunkel auf rauhen Pfaden nach Halle”, EvTh 30 (1970) 433–444.

Hermann Gunkel and Hugo Gressmann are often hailed as innovators in the field of biblical studies. They are the fathers of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule and of the Formgeschichtliche Schule. Too little is said, in my opinion, on their role in 34

On H. Gunkel see A. F. Campbell, “The Emergence of Form-critical and Traditio-historical Approaches”, Chap. 31, Sect. 2, in the present Volume, HBOT III/2.

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the field of history. Several recent authors, such as T. L. Thompson for instance, quote Gunkel and Gressmann among those who inspired them in their research. Other scholars are convinced that the German school represented mostly by Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth tried to save the prehistory of Israel – in a few words the traditions going back from the time of David and Solomon up to the exodus from Egypt and the Patriarchs – from the consequences of Gunkel’s new methodological position. The same holds true for the so-called American School of W. F. Albright, G. E. Wright, and J. Bright which endeavored to demonstrate the historicity of the Israel’s early history against Gunkel and his disciples and even against Noth. It is therefore worth dedicating some space to Gunkel’s reflection on the differences between folktales and history in the introduction to his commentary on the Book of Genesis. The sharpness of Gunkel’s insights will emerge on closer scrutiny and it is not difficult to understand the reason why it became much more difficult to affirm the historicity of the Patriarchs and of other figures and events in the Old Testament after the publication of his writings. Here is a short summary of Gunkel’s eight principles for distinguishing history from legend or popular folktale. 1. “Uncivilized peoples do not write history” (vii).35 For Gunkel historiography supposes a political organization, something similar to a modern “state”, with a high level of culture and literacy. For this reason, history cannot exist in Israel before the kingdom of David and Solomon.36 References to historical events may be present in songs and popular legends (Sagen), but then we are in the realm of poetry, not of history. 2. “Legend is not a lie”.37 Legends and fairy-tales convey a special kind of truth, but not exactly historical truth. Legends and popular tales are more suitable to express ideas and ideals, especially religious ideas, than dry historical chronicles. Some object that Jesus and his disciples believed in the historicity of a certain number of OT narratives, for instance in the story of Jonah in the belly of a fish. Gunkel answers this objection saying that, on that point, the NT shares the conviction of that time on these matters and one cannot, therefore, use it as criterion to decide whether an OT narrative contains historical facts or not. 3. “Legend usually originated as an oral tradition, history in written form”.38 We find here one of the most original and fruitful insights of Gunkel, namely

35

Gunkel, Genesis (1910/1977), vii: “Die unkultivierten Völker schreiben nicht Geschichte”. This is the reason why J. A. Soggin, for instance, affirms that the history of ancient Israel begins with David. See J. A. Soggin, An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah (London: SCM 1984, 21993, 31999), although he has more and more questions about David’s and Solomon’s kingdoms; see L. L. Grabbe, “Alberto Soggin’s Storia d’Israele: Exemplifying Twenty Years of Debate and Changing Trends in Thinking”, in: Enquire of the Former Age: Ancient Historiography and Writing the History of Israel (ed. L. L. Grabbe; Europena Seminar in Historical Methodology 9/LHBOTS 554; London/New York: T&T Clark 2011), 253–260. 37 Gunkel, Genesis (1910/1977), viii: “Man [hat], unverständiger Weise, Sage mit Lüge verwechselt …”. 38 Gunkel, ibid. vii–viii; ET, viii. See, on this point, the basic work of S. Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1996), who corrects Gunkel on certain points. On the use of writing in ancient Israel, see D. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socio-Archaeological Approach (JSOT.S 36

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the distinction between oral tradition and written texts. There will be much discussion about this distinction after Gunkel,39 but nobody will deny that legends, on the one hand, are more at home in oral cultures, and that historiography, on the other hand, hardly exists but in written form. Of course, what we have in the Book of Genesis is the final written form of old legends, but they speak of a remote past and cannot be used by a historian. For sure, the legends in Genesis were not written by the patriarchs themselves. This appears clearly in the expression “until this day” in the mention of the kings of Edom preceding Israel’s kingdom (Gen 36:31–39), and in the references to the Canaanites living in the land (Gen 12:6; 13:7), as if they were no longer present in the land when the stories were put into writing. 4. Historians are interested in public events, especially in kings and wars.40 Legends and popular traditions, on the contrary, are fond of personal and private matters. With the exception of Genesis 14, the stories in Genesis contain mostly anecdotes about family and country life, about struggles within a family, and conflicts about wells and cattle, all topics that do not generally awaken the interest of the historian. We notice here that Gunkel surely speaks of ancient historians or of historians of his time, not of historians belonging to the École des Annales. 5. What are the conditions of credibility of a report? Gunkel mentions at least two of them.41 First, the temporal distance between the event or the supposed event and the report should not be too considerable and, anyway, it should be possible to trace the pathway leading from the eyewitnesses to the reporter or the writer. Now a span of 400 years separates the events recounted in Genesis and those recounted in Exodus, according to Gen 15:13; Exod 12:40. There is no record whatsoever about these four centuries. Oral tradition, according to Gunkel, is unable to preserve memories and the minute details of the past for so long a time with accuracy. Second, we may question whether certain stories can stem from eyewitnesses. For instance, the creation of the world in Genesis 1 begins when there were no eyewitnesses. The first human couple was created on the sixth day only. Who was there before and observed God’s activity? Similar questions are raised about the Flood story (Genesis 6–9). Who measured the height of the waters during the flood? And how could the narrator know the intimate thoughts of God himself (Gen 1; 2:18; 6:3, 6–7; 11:6–7)? In modern literature, one speaks in these cases of interior monologues and of an omniscient narrator,

109; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991). The point is discussed, noticeably. See, for instance, R. S. Hess, “Literacy in Iron Age Israel”, in: Windows into Old Testament History: Evidence, Argument, and the Crisis of ‘Biblical Israel’ (ed. V. P. Long/D. B. Baker/G. J. Wenham; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2002), 82–102; I. M. Young, “Israelite Literacy and Inscriptions: A Response to Richard Hess”, VT 55 (2005) 565–568; J-S. du Toit, Textual Memory: Ancient Archives, Libraries and the Hebrew Bible (Social World of Biblical Antiquity, 2/6; Sheffield: Phoenix 2011); A. Demsky, Literacy in Ancient Israel [Hebrew] (The Biblical Encyclopaedia Library 28; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute 2012). 39 See, for instance, the basic work by P. G. Kirkpatrick, The Old Testament and Folklore Study (JSOT.S 62; Sheffield: Academic Press 1988), who shows that the two pillars of Gunkel’s study on oral tradition, namely literary genre and Sitz im Leben, are not stable entities. 40 Gunkel, Genesis (1910/1977), viii; ET: ibid. 41 Gunkel, ibid. viii–ix; ET: viii.

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a stylistic device common in novels, but not in historiography.42 Gunkel adds to this that Israel is a late-comer among Ancient Near Eastern civilizations. The temporal distance between events such as creation, flood, or the tower of Babel, is therefore very large. 6. “The most obvious characteristic of legends is that it frequently reports extraordinary things incredible to us”.43 Gunkel does not think especially of miracles or apparitions of divine beings. He mentions affirmations that contradict our modern knowledge of the world. For instance, among many other examples, it would have been impossible to accommodate all animal species in Noah’s ark or in any ship, and Mount Ararat is not the highest mountain of the earth. The representation of the world in Genesis 1 and 2 is childish. More important, the representation of God differs noticeably from ours. Anthropomorphisms are current everywhere since God is represented most of the time as a human person. Gunkel concludes: “We can understand such accounts as the naiveté of ancient people, but we hesitate to believe them”.44 7. The difference between legend and history is already present in the Old Testament, according to Gunkel. A comparison between the patriarchal narratives and the narrative of Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15–18: “… the precious jewel of ancient historiography in Israel”) is very instructive.45 In 2 Samuel, miracles, apparitions, oracles are absent, and the deity almost never appears as personage on the stage. All the decisions are taken by human characters and human causality explains the course of events most of the time. Therefore we do not impose on the Bible a distinction foreign to it. Moreover, several legends in Genesis have their parallels in other cultures, especially in Mesopotamia. This is the case for the creation and the flood accounts and this confirms their legendary character. 8. “Historiography, which wants to instruct about actual events, is by nature prose. Legend, however, is by nature poetry. It seeks to gladden, elevate, inspire, touch”.46 Therefore, for Gunkel, the difference in style and tone implies a different intention. Legends do not address the intellect only, their intention is not to provide us with accurate pieces of information about the past. Legends address the sensibility and imagination of their audience. This is the reason why we are on the wrong path when we read legends with an historian’s eye, and we miss their real intention. Gunkel adds a few words about Genesis 22, Abraham’s test, saying, “Whoever has the heart and the sensitivity must observe, for example, that the narrative of Isaac’s sacrifice is not concerned with establishing some historical facts. Instead, the hearer should feel the heartrending pain of the father who is 42 On the concept of omniscience in literature, see P. Lubbock, The Craft of Fiction (London: Jonathan Cape 1921), 115. 43 Gunkel, ibid. x: “Das deutlichste Kennzeichen der Sage ist, daß sie nicht selten Dinge berichtet, die uns unglaubwürdig sind“. ET: ix–x. 44 Gunkel, ibid. x; ET: ibid. 45 Gunkel, ibid. x–xi; ET: ibid. See also H. Gunkel, “Geschichtsschreibung im AT”, in: RGG II, 1348–1354; G. von Rad, “Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung im alten Israel,” in: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 32 (1944) 1–42; repr. in idem, Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (ThB 8; München: Kaiser 1958), 148–188. 46 Gunkel, ibid. xii; ET: ibid.: “Die Geschichtsschreibung, die über das wirklich Geschehene belehren will, ist ihrer Natur nach Prosa; die Sage aber ist ihrer Natur nach Poesie: sie will erfreuen, erheben, begeistern, rühren”.

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to sacrifice his own child with his own hand and, then, his infinite thankfulness and joy when God frees him from his heavy sacrifice”.47 Gunkel adds this scathing judgment: “Whoever has recognized the unique poetical charm of these old legends becomes angry at the barbarian – and there are also pious barbarians [“fromme Barbaren”] – who thinks that he can value these accounts if he treats them as prose and history”. H. Gressmann, in an arresting article, developed his colleague’s insights.48 On two main points, his contribution goes somewhat further than Gunkel. First, he comes to the conclusion that Abraham’s journey from Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan is a later literary construction that goes back to the compilers of the patriarchal narratives. Hence any effort of reconstructing a historical migration of the patriarchs from Mesopotamia to Canaan remains without solid foundation. Second, he insists on the fact that “there is no history in the desert”, namely that the patriarchs live as nomads or semi-nomads. Therefore they hardly left behind any visible and datable signs of their existence. In conclusion, as we will see, most of the issues and arguments used in the discussion about the historicity of biblical narratives are already present in these first pages of Gunkel’s introduction to his commentary on Genesis, and in Gressmann’s methodological reflections. Both scholars insist on the literary genre – poetry, not prose –, on the intention of the texts, on the temporal distance separating the written texts from the supposed events they describe, and on some basic criteria of credibility. Gunkel is convinced that the legends in Genesis cannot be used for the reconstruction of a history of Israel’s origins. Not everyone will be convinced, of course, and after a century the matter is not yet completely settled. Unfortunately, Gunkel’s insights on the historicity and the real nature of the patriarchal narratives took a long time before they were accepted by OT scholars. His caveat about the unreliability of oral tradition did not find much echo among scholars and was even used to reconstruct the stages of Israel’s history earlier than the first written documents. Gunkel had more success with his study on literary genres and Sitz im Leben. But we may say, without being entirely off-target, that his distinction between history and poetry, between historical truth and religious truth, is one of the most fruitful achievements of OT exegesis at the dawn of the twentieth century.

3. The Problem of the Beginning of Israel’s History Basic bibliography: B. Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Berlin: Baumgärtel 1887–1888). – M. Vernes, Précis d’histoire juive depuis les origines jusqu’à l’époque persane (Paris: Hachette 1889). – A. Kuenen, Historisch-critisch Onderzoek naar het Ontstaan en de Verzameling van de Boeken des Ouden Verbonds (Leiden: Engels en Zoon 1861–1865, 21887–1889); ET: An Historico-critical Inquiry

47 Gunkel, ibid. xii (German original: xi–xii). Gunkel has excellent reasons to say that the hearer must feel the “heartrending pain” (herzzerreißenden Schmerz) and the “infinite thankfulness and joy” (unendliche Dankbarkeit und Freude) since the narrative itself does not say a word about Abraham’s feelings, either before, or during, or even after the sacrifice. 48 H. Gressmann, “Sage und Geschichte in den Patriarchenerzählungen”, ZAW 30 (1910) 1–34.

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into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch (Pentateuch and Book of Joshua) (London: Macmillan 1886). – G. von Rad, “Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung im alten Israel”, in: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 32 (1944), 1–42; repr. in: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (ThB 8; München: Kaiser 1958), 148–188; ET: “The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel,” in: From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology (ed. K. C. Hanson; Fortress Classics in Biblical Studies; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress 2005), 125–153. – B. Halpern, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row 1988; University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 1996). Major works of Eduard Meyer: Geschichte des Alterthums, 1–5 (Stuttgart: Cotta 1884–1902; 21907); Die Entstehung des Judenthum. Eine historische Untersuchung (Halle: Niemeyer 1896); Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme. Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen. Mit Beiträgen von B. Luther (Halle: Niemeyer 1906). Short bibliography on Eduard Meyer: G. Audring, Gelehrtenalltag. Der Briefwechsel zwischen Eduard Meyer und Georg Wissowa (1890–1927) (Hildesheim: Weidmann 2000). – W. M. Calder III/ A. Demandt, Eduard Meyer. Leben und Leistung eines Universalhistorikers («Mnemosyne» Supplementband 112; Leiden: Brill 1990). – J. Jantsch, Die Entstehung des Christentums bei Adolf von Harnack und Eduard Meyer (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt 1990). History of research on this period: J. A. Soggin, An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah (London: SCM 31999), 35–40. – N. P. Lemche, “The Scholar’s Israel: Hunting a Ghost Society”, in: The Israelites in History and Tradition (London: SPCK/ Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 1998), 133–161. – W. G. Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids, MI/ Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans 2003), 129–143.

Three factors influenced the writing of Israel’s history at the end of the nineteenth century: (1) The progress of historical-critical methods and the identification of several documents in the Pentateuch and the so-called historical books of the OT made it impossible to read the biblical texts as first-hand testimonies of “what really happened”. (2) The discovery and decipherment of ancient Near Eastern documents widened the historian’s horizon and made it necessary to confront biblical data with extra-biblical pieces of information (Mari, Ugarit, the Mesha Stele, Qumran, Kuntillet Ajrud, Khirbet el-Qom, Ebla, Tel Dan, etc.). (3) Archaeological excavations provided the historian with a new set of data that called for a revision of the image of ancient Israel given by the Bible. In this context, the usual way of beginning a history of Israel either with Abraham or the exodus became more and more problematic. The principle is aptly defined – once again – by J. Wellhausen: “The history of a people cannot be traced, beyond the people itself, back to a period when this people did not exist at all”.49 Or, as J. A. Soggin puts it: “Where, then, does a history of Israel and Judah begin? In other words, is there a time after which the material in the tradition begins to offer verifiable accounts, information about individuals who existed and events which happened (or at least which are probable, given the state of our knowledge), relevant facts in the political and economical sphere?”.50 Soggin himself proposes to start with David’s and Solomon’s ‘empire’, in spite of all the problems inherent in this early stage of Israel’s history. He adds that the problem is not new, referring to A. Kuenen and B. Stade. We propose to add the names of Eduard Meyer, Max Weber, and Maurice Vernes. 49 J. Wellhausen, Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte (Berlin: Reimer 1894) 10; quoted and translated by N. P. Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition (Library of Ancient Israel; London: SPCK/Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 1998), 134, 210. 50 J. A. Soggin, Introduction (31999), 32.

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Abraham Kuenen (1828–1891), one of the pioneers of the historical-critical method and of the documentary hypothesis,51 must also be remembered for his contribution to the history of Israel. As early as 1869, he came to the conclusion that the real history of Israel cannot begin before we possess the first written documents, which means the ninth or eight century BCE and the beginning of the divided monarchy. A. Kuenen wrote before the discovery of the Mesha stele which mentions Omri and Ahab, kings of Israel, and could have buttressed his argument. B. Stade (1887–1888) preferred the solution adopted later by J. A. Soggin as well. For him, the history of Israel cannot begin before the kingdom of David and Solomon.52 Other scholars adopted more radical positions. One of this kind was E. Meyer, perhaps the last author to attempt to write a “universal” history of Antiquity, in his Geschichte des Althertums (5 vols.) where he described historical developments in ancient Near Eastern civilizations, in Egypt, and in Greece up to 366 BCE. In his volume on Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme (“The Israelites and their neighboring tribes”; 1906), he makes this very sharp statement:53 Besides, I continue to consider as scientifically mistaken and out of question any attempt of answering these queries [about the relationship of the Israelites and the non-Israelite southern tribes with Egypt] or, moreover, to turn arbitrarily [“nach beliebter Manier”] the Israelite legends [“Sagen”] into history. Generally one starts by skipping – without realizing how daring the venture is – half a millennium and plainly treating the oldest narratives that we can reach as useful historical sources, in spite of their recentness, and after one has trimmed them by rationalistic tools. One even sees in them the unshakeable foundation of Israel’s national identity and religion.

In this way, E. Meyer dismisses most of the traditions about Israel’s origins as reliable sources for the historian, in particular all traditions that precede the monarchy, because they are too remote from the events they are supposed to describe. Even M. Noth, often criticized by recent scholarship, is aware of the problem when he states, in his study of the organization of the tribes before the monarchy: “Usually [institutions] are not mentioned in documents until the stage of official record-making has begun and that stage was not reached in Israel until the rise of the monarchy”.54 In an article that had much echo in its time, G. von Rad saw the beginning of history-writing in Israel in the so-called Succession Narrative (2 Samuel 9–20 – 1 Kings 2), and even in the Gideon story (Judges 6–8).55 M. Weber, as we will see, is very close to a proposal picked up afterwards by M. Noth. For M. Weber, Israel’s history begins with the founding of a confederation of tribes, united by a ‘covenant’ (berith) concluded with a unique God, Yhwh. This means that the history of Israel starts with the period of the Judges. A much more radical position – very close to that adopted recently by T. L. Thompson and N. P. Lemche – is put forward by an unknown French scholar, Maurice Vernes. He affirms that the Old Testament was composed only in the 51

On this point, see Soggin, ibid. 32–33. Stade, Geschichte (1887–1888). 53 Meyer, Die Israeliten (1906), 50; quoted by Lemche, The Israelites, 154 (I slightly modified Lemche’s translation). 54 Noth, History, 97. 55 von Rad, The Beginnings of Historical Writing. 52

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late postexilic, Persian, period. He came to this conclusion after studying the hypotheses attached to the famous names of Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen. For Vernes, these giants did not draw the last consequences from their discoveries. This proposal, however, was completely forgotten.56 J. A. Soggin – to come back to him – remains faithful to his first idea, namely that the history of Israel begins when Israel came to be, and this happened with the so-called ‘empire’ of David and Solomon. But he is somewhat hesitant: “… prefer to begin with the empire of David and Solomon, even if there are quite a number of factors in favour of beginning at the end of the ninth century BCE (when Israel and Judah are mentioned on the stele of Mesha king of Moab, a text that Kuenen did not yet know), or with the eighth century (when Israel appears in the Assyrian annals), and again, more radically, only with the Deuteronomistic work”.57 J. A. Soggin’s suggestion to start with the Deuteronomistic History came perhaps from a book by B. Halpern, a work that became soon very controversial, The First Historians.58 For B. Halpern, the Deuteronomists are real historians primarily because their intention was to create a past from the documents at hand in order to demonstrate their thesis, namely that Israel’s history exemplifies and illustrates a divine intention. B. Halpern’s thesis is therefore double: the Deuteronomistic History is a true historiographical work; the Deuteronomists can be called ‘historians.’ These are the different positions, which range from the early patriarchal period, around 1800 BCE until the late postexilic, Persian and even Hellenistic, period between 400 and 200 BCE. Scholars also look either for the beginning of Israel’s history or of Israel’s history-writing, which is definitely not the same. This means, in simple words, that reliable or commonly shared criteria are lacking, and that much work is still needed before historians agree on this point.

4. The Discussion around the Definition of History and Historiography Short bibliography: E. Ben Zvi, “General Observations on Ancient Israelite Histories in Their Ancient Contexts,” in: Enquire of the Former Age: Ancient Historiography and Writing the History of Israel (ed. L. L. Grabbe; LHBOTS 554; European Seminar in Historical Methodology 9; New York/London: T&T Clark 2011), 21–39. − M. Z. Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (London: Routledge 1995). − D. V. Edelman, “Clio’s Dilemma; The Changing Face of History-Writing,” in: Congress Volume Oslo 1998 (ed. A. Lemaire/M. Saebø; VT.S 80; Leiden: Brill 2000), 247–255. − L. L. Grabbe, “Who Were the First Real Historians? On the Origins of Critical Historiography”, in: Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and the Scripture in the Hellenistic Period (ed. L. L. Grabbe; JSOT.S 317; Sheffield: Academic Press 2001), 156–181. − B. Halpern, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row 1988; University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 1996). − R. Smend, Elemente alttestamentlichen Geschichtsdenkens 56

Vernes, Précis, 7–9; see Lemche, The Israelites, 156–158. Soggin, Introduction (31998), 34. Halpern, The First Historians, first edition in 1988; reprinted in 1996. On B. Halpern, see, among others, M. Z. Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (London: Routledge 1998). 57 58

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(ThSt 95; Zürich: EVZ Verlag 1968), 3–37, = idem, Die Mitte des Alten Testaments. Gesammelte Studien, I (BEvTh 99; München: Kaiser 1986), 160–185, = idem, Die Mitte des Alten Testaments. Exegetische Aufsätze (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2002), 89–114. − T. L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources (Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East 4; Leiden: Brill 1992). − J. Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven, CN: Yale UP 1983; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997).

“To a large extent, the matter is one of definitions. For instance, if critical history as understood today is the yardstick, then there is no doubt that there is no history in the entire ancient Near East. Significantly, classicists inform us that if that yardstick is held, there is no history in ancient Greece either”.59 This statement by E. Ben Zvi makes it clear that most of our discussions depend on the definition of history with which we work, implicitly or explicitly. A few examples will illustrate the fact. A first example comes from J. Van Seters who compares the work of biblical writers with that of Greek historiographers, such as Hecataeus of Miletus or Herodotus: “On the basis of narrative style and technique alone the Old Testament and Herodotus share a great deal in common and ought to be studied together”.60 The Deuteronomist – a thesis that J. Van Seters shares with M. Noth – is for him “the first known historian in Western civilization to deserve this designation”.61 This supposes a personal definition of history, and J. Van Seters borrows it from the Dutch historian J. Huizinga (1936): “History is the intellectual form in which a civilization renders account to itself of its past”.62 The definition is fully developed in the first pages of his work.63 B. Halpern goes along the same line, referring however to H. White: “History is not how things happened, but an incomplete account, toward a specific end, of selected developments … . [A]ll history is fictional, imaginative, as the literary critics say. The distinction is between history and romance, or fable; it is a distinction in authorial intention, in the author’s adherence to sources”.64 For B. Halpern, the Deuteronomists’ work corresponds to this definition and can be compared to the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius. For M. Brettler, the situation is slightly different: “I propose defining a historical narrative within biblical studies as “a narrative that presents a past”. The group of “narratives that present a past” delimits a meaningful corpus of biblical texts which may be distinguished from other corpora, such as law, proverbs, psalms, and (most of prophecy)”.65 Needless to say that M. Brettler’s definition allows him to work within the biblical corpus and does not really grapple with the problem of historiography as such.

59

Ben Zvi, General Observations (2011), 22. Van Seters, In Search of History (1983/1997), 39. 61 Van Seters, In Search of History (1983/1997), 362. The same idea is developed by B. Halpern. 62 Van Seters, In Search of History (1983/1997), 1; quoted from J. Huizinga, “A Definition of the Concept of History”, in: R. Klibansky/H. J. Paton (eds.), Philosophy and History: Essays Presented to Ernst Cassirer (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1936) 9. 63 See Ben Zvi, General Observations (2011), 31. 64 Halpern, First Historians, 7–9. 65 Brettler, Creation of History, 12; cf. Ben Zvi, General Observations (2011), 31. 60

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D. V. Edelman’s definition also remains rather general: “Historiography is a broad category that includes a number of genres of literature, whose subject matter deals with current or past people, events or reality. History-writing is a genre that needs to be subdivided into ancient and modern types because of differences in critical standards and in the understanding of causation. Ancient history-writing is a narrative genre that describes current or past reality, events or people, based on one or more sources of information, which creates meaning by attempting to answer the question “why”. In ancient history-writing causation tends to be associated with both humans and the divine …”.66 We may notice that most of these definitions leave aside the crucial problem of method. How did biblical writers deal with the documents they quote? In what spirit did they “construct” the past? Another question is also essential. J. Huizinga speaks of “civilizations” whereas most of the authors quoted here speak of “nation”. History in the Bible – if there is history, a point much debated today – is a national history, and this kind of history is more often affected by either conscious or unconscious patriotic motivations than other types of history-writing. The purpose of national histories is rarely limited to presenting the facts “as they really happened”, but – most of the time – tends first of all to create a strong sense of belonging to a given nation. Several authors will stress this latter point and distinguish history written with critical spirit from other forms of representing the past, as for instance that of the antiquarian. To quote T. L. Thompson: “Historians ask the question of historicity and critically distinguish and evaluate their sources. They “understand” history, and therefore at times slip into tendentious ideologies or theologies. The antiquarian on the other hand shows the more ecumenically pluralistic motivations of the librarian: classifying, associating, and arranging a cultural heritage that is both greater than the compiler or any single historiographical explanation”.67 For T. L. Thompson the biblical writers are more on the side of the antiquarians than on that of historians. The main reason is that they often compile different sources or versions of the same event without trying to select the more reliable one.68 This is the case, for instance, in 2 Kings 19–20, where the different versions of Sennacherib’s invasion are simply juxtaposed. We may believe that the biblical writers preferred the longer and more miraculous version of the story, but why did they not cancel the other versions? To complete the picture, let us mention a less recent contribution by R. Smend (1968) who shows that biblical authors do not write history “for the sake of history”, but for a different purpose.69 This purpose is double, first aetiological and, second, paradigmatic. In the first case, writers use ancient traditions to explain or justify an institution, a custom, or a present state of affairs. In the second case, the ancient biblical narratives provide their addressees with lessons about the past in order to guide them in their behavior.

66

Edelman, Clio’s Dilemma, 253; cf. Ben Zvi, General Observations (2011), 31–32. Thompson, Early History, 377. 68 On this point, see J. L. Ska, ““Historien” ou “antiquaire” – Historian ou Antiquarian ?”, Regards croisés sur la Bible. Études sur le point de vue (LD; Paris: Le Cerf 2007) 405–415. 69 Smend, Elemente alttestamentlichen Geschichtsdenkens. 67

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The criteria used by scholars are very different, as we can see from this short overview. This explains for the most part the reason why the discussion about history-writing in the Bible is so bewildering for the time being.

5. The History of Israel before 1975 Some major ‘Histories of Israel’ written between 1900 and 1950: W. F. Albright, From Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1940, 21957). − A. Bentzen, Israels Historie (Copenhagen: Haase & Søns Forlag 1930). − M. A. Beek, Geschiedenis van Israël van Abraham tot Bar-Kochba (Gent/ Leuven: Academische Bibliotheek 1960); GT: Geschichte Israels von Abraham bis Bar Kochba (Kohlhammer Urban-Taschenbücher 47; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1961, 21966, 31973, 41976, 51987). − I. Benzinger, Geschichte Israels bis auf die griechische Zeit (Sammlung Göschen; Leipzig: Göschen’sche Verlagshandlung 21908). − J. Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster/London: SCM 1959, 21972, 31981); idem, A History of Israel. With Introduction and Appendix by William P. Brown (4th edn.; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 2000 [Bright’s third edition of 1981, with two sections by W. P. Brown: Introduction (1–22) and Appendix (465–485). − F. Buhl, Det israelitiske Folks Historie (Copenhagen – Kristiania: Gyldendalske Boghandels Nordisk Forlag 1893, 21922). − E. L. Ehrlich, Geschichte Israels von den Anfängen bis zur Zerstörung des Tempels (70 n. Chr.) (Sammlung Göschen 231/231a; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1958). − H. Guthe, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Grundriss der Theologischen Wissenschaften 2.3; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1899, 21904, 31912). − R. Kittel, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Gotha: Perthes 1888–1892, 21909–1912, 61923); Studien zur Hebräischen Archäologie und Religionsgeschichte (BWAT 1; Leipzig: Hinrichs 1908). − M. Noth, Geschichte Israels (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1950, 21954, 61966); ET: The History of Israel (London: Adam & Charles Black 21960). − S. Oettli, Geschichte Israels bis auf Alexander den Grossen (Die Geschichte Israels 1; Calw/ Stuttgart: Vereinsbuchhandlung 1905). − T. R. Robinson/ W. O. E. Oesterley, A History of Israel, 1: From the Exodus to the Fall of Jerusalem, 586 B.C., by T. H. Robinson; vol. 2: From the Fall of Jerusalem, 586 B.C. to the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, A.D. 135, by W. O. E. Oesterley (Oxford: Clarendon 1945). − R. L. Ottley, A Short History of the Hebrews to the Roman Period (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1901). − E. Sellin, Geschichte des israelitischen-jüdischen Volkes, 1–2 (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer 1924–1932).

Every division is arbitrary, and this one is arbitrary too. We propose nonetheless to distinguish two main periods in the 20th century, and to conclude the first period with the year 1974, with the publication of T.L. Thompson’s book on the Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives and, the following year, of J. Van Seters’ volume on Abraham.70 In this first period, from 1890 until 1975, the most important ‘Histories of Israel’ were those by R. Kittel first and M. Noth afterwards in continental Europe, and that of J. Bright in English-speaking countries. Two main elements characterize the Histories of Israel written at that time. First, the influence of J. Wellhausen is strongly felt, so much so that historians spend much energy in dealing with source-criticism. Many ‘histories of Israel’ classify biblical, especially Pentateuchal, texts according to the documentary hypothesis and propose dates for each of them. Even such a great spirit as E. Meyer is a prisoner of this mentality and dedicates dozens of pages to source-critical 70 T. L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (BZAW 133; Berlin – New York 1974); J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1975).

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studies. The second characteristic is that most of the histories of Israel tend to be mere secular paraphrases of the biblical text. To use an expression of E. Meyer, historians ‘trim’ the biblical text ‘by rationalistic tools’, telling a history without oracles, miracles, and divine interventions.71 This is surely the case with the most popular history of ancient Israel during this period, that by R. Kittel.

5.1. Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971): History or History of Salvation? Works of G. von Rad cited in this article: G. von Rad, “Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung im alten Israel,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 32 (1944) 1–42 = Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (TB 8; München: Kaiser 1958) 148–188; ET: “The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel,” From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology (ed. K. C. Hanson; Fortress Classics in Biblical Studies; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress 2005) 125–153; “Das Alte Testament ist ein Geschichtsbuch,” in: Probleme alttestamentlicher Hermeneutik. Aufsätze zum Verstehen des Alten Testaments (Hrsg. C. Westermann; CTB 11; München: Kaiser Verlag 1960) 11–17 (Auszüge aus: G. von Rad, “Typologische Auslegung des Alten Testaments,” EvTh 12 [1952/53] 17–33); ET: “Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament,” in: Essays on Old Testament Interpretation. Trans. and edited by J. L. Mays (ed. C. Westermann; Richmond, VA: John Knox Press; London: SCM 1963) 17–39; Theologie des Alten Testaments. I: Die Theologie der geschichtlichen Überlieferungen Israels (München: Kaiser Verlag 1957); ET: Old Testament Theology. I: The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd/New York: Harper & Row 1962). Articles on G. von Rad: R. Smend, Deutsche Alttestamentler in drei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989) 226–254; M. Oeming/K. Schmid/M. Welker (Hg.), Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne (Münster: LIT 2004), with several articles on G. von Rad, especially R. Smend, “Gerhard von Rad,” 13–24; B. M. Levinson, “Reading the Bible in Nazi Germany: Gerhard von Rad’s Attempt to Reclaim the Old Testament for the Church”, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 62 (2008) 238–254.

We mention Gerhard von Rad in this context because of his massive influence on biblical scholarship, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. In the field of the history of Israel, von Rad tried to solve in his own way a crucial problem, namely the conflict between the results of historical-critical exegesis on the one side, and, on the other side, a more theological exegesis of the Old Testament, especially a reading attentive to the development of Israel’s faith. In other words, is Israel a nation like any other nation or is Israel a unique nation of believers, with a unique destiny? G. von Rad is influenced by the dialectical theology of Karl Barth, and he found in this theology an answer to the challenges of some secular ideologies of his time, namely the national-socialist and the Marxist-Leninist ideologies. For this reason he accentuated the difference between “faith” and “reason”, “supernatural religion” and “natural religion”, “history” and “revelation.” In a certain sense, this distinction overlaps that of Gunkel between “historiography” and “poetry.” For K. Barth and G. von Rad, however, the two categories are exclusive of each other. It turns out to be impossible to reconcile both readings of the biblical texts, as becomes clear in the following quotation: This implies that in principle Israel’s faith is grounded in a theology of history. It regards itself as based upon historical acts, and as shaped and re-shaped by factors in which it saw the hand of

71

Meyer, Die Israeliten, 50.

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Jahweh at work. […] Both at this point and in the sequel, we are of course thinking, when we speak of divine acts in history, of those which the faith of Israel regarded as such – that is the call of the forefathers, the deliverance from Egypt, the bestowal of the land of Canaan, etc. – and not of the results of modern critical scholarship, to which Israel’s faith was unrelated.72

“History”, in this quotation, has little to do with “historiography” in the common meaning of the word. G. von Rad has “history of salvation”, “confessed history”, in mind and does not think of history as reconstructed by critical historians. G. von Rad is certainly aware of the problem, as the following quotation makes obvious: This raises a difficult historical problem. In the last 150 years critical historical scholarship has constructed an impressively complete picture of the history of the people of Israel. As this process took shape, the old picture of Israel’s history which the Church had derived and accepted from the Old Testament was bit by bit destroyed. Upon this process there is no going back, nor has it yet indeed come to an end.73

This process is “irreversible” according to G. von Rad, and recent developments in the field confirmed his prophecy. The distance from what the Bible tells about Israel’s history, from the origins until the reconstruction of the temple after the return from the exile, kept on growing in most recent publications. The historicity of everything or almost everything, up to Ezra and Nehemiah, has been questioned. It is worth mentioning G. von Rad for this reason, and not only because he foretold what was going to happen in the field, but also because he contributed himself to these developments. In a certain sense, to point out only one example, the division of M. Liverani’s history of ancient Israel into two parts, a “normal history” and an “invented history”, can be related to the dichotomy pinpointed by G. von Rad. In the same way, we find an echo of G. von Rad’s antithesis in a recent title by N. P. Lemche, The Old Testament between Theology and History.74 G. von Rad expounded his ideas in two articles, one more general and the other one more specific. The first article, published in 1952, reasserts in a very clear way G. von Rad’s theological conception of “biblical history”. The first paragraph is worth quoting since it contains the author’s thesis: “The Old Testament is a book of history [Das Alte Testament ist ein Geschichtsbuch]. It expounds a history directed by God’s word that begins with the creation of the world and ends with the coming of the Son of Man. It is not superfluous to observe that the prophetic books are “books of history” as well since they do not want to convey truths, teachings, etc., but present eschatological events in advance.”75 It is obvious that G. von Rad has a theological vision of “history”. For instance, he mentions from the start that he speaks of a history directed by God’s word (“eine von Gottes Wort gewirkte Geschichte”). This makes it clear that his concept of history is different from that of a normal historian. Other concepts such as “creation” or “eschatological events” are foreign to usual historical research too. 72

Von Rad, Old Testament Theology I, 106. Ibid. 74 N. P. Lemche, The Old Testament between Theology and History: A Critical Survey (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press 2008). 75 Von Rad, Das Alte Testament ist ein Geschichtsbuch, 11. 73

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In an earlier article, G. von Rad expounds a similar view. He speaks of the “Beginning of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel” in an article published for the first time in 1944.76 A first affirmation is distinctive of his way of thinking: “[…] there are only two people in antiquity who really wrote history – the Greeks and long before them the Israelites” (126). This affirmation is to be understood in the context of the Second World War, and of the contraposition between Aryan and Jewish cultures. G. von Rad affirms in this case that history was born in Israel a long time before it appeared in Greece. This, of course, aims at showing the superiority of the Bible over Greek (and, implicitly, Aryan) literature, a consequence that complies with his ‘dialectical theology.’ G. von Rad finds ‘history’ in the narrative about Gideon (Judges 6–8) and in the so-called Succession Narrative (2 Samuel 9–20; 1 Kings 1–2). The reason alleged is that God remains ‘in the wings’ in both cases. The real actors are human actors. Nonetheless, these narratives show that “[…] for [Israel] history is under God’s management. He sets the process in motion by his promise. He sets its limits according to his will, and watches over it. All history has its course in God, and takes place for God” (128). This final statement is typical of a certain way of approaching biblical history albeit it would be more in place in a theological than in a historical study. This is what most readers of G. von Rad would retort to him in the present day.

5.2. The History of Israel of Martin Noth (1902–1968) Major works of M. Noth: M. Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels (BWANT 52; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1930; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1966); Geschichte und Gotteswort im Alten Testament (Bonner Akademische Reden 3; Krefeld: Scherpe-Verlag 1949); Geschichte Israels (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1950, 21954); ET: The History of Israel (London: Adam & Charles Black 1958, 21960); Italian translation: Storia d’Israele (Biblioteca di cultura religiosa 25; Brescia: Paideia 1975); French translation: Histoire d’Israël (Bibliothèque historique; Paris: Payot 1954); Spanish translation: Historia de Israel (Barcelona: Garriga 1966); Die Ursprünge des alten Israel im Lichte neuer Quellen (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. Geisteswissenschaften 94; Köln: Westdeutscher Verlag 1961); Die Welt des Alten Testaments. Einführung in die Grenzgebiete der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft (Sammlung Töpelmann. Zweite Reihe: Theologische Hilfsbücher 3; Berlin Töpelmann 1940, 21953, 31957, 41962); ET: The Old Testament World (London: Adam & Charles Black 1966); Spanish translation: El mundo del Antiguo Testamento. Introduccion a las ciencias auxiliares de la Biblia (Biblioteca Biblica Cristiandad; Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1976); Aufsätze zur biblischen Landes- und Altertumskunde (Hg. von H. W. Wolff). Bd. 1: Archäologische, exegetische und topographische Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Israels. Bd. 2: Beiträge altorientalischer Texte zur Geschichte Israels (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1971). Critical studies on M. Noth: J. A. Soggin, “Ancient Biblical Traditions and Modern Archaeological Discoveries,” BA 23 (1960) 95–100; C. H. J. De Geus, The Tribes of Israel: An Investigation into some of the Presuppositions of Martin Noth’s Amphictyony Hypothesis (Studia Semitica Neerlandica 18; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1976); R. de Vaux, “Method in the Study of Early Hebrew History,” in: The Bible in Modern Scholarship (ed. J. P. Hyatt; Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press 1966) 15–29; Id., Histoire ancienne d’Israël. V.2: La période des Juges (Études bibliques; Paris: J. Gabalda 1973); O. Bächli, Amphiktyonie im Alten Testament : Forschungsgeschichtliche Studie zur Hypothese von Martin Noth

76 Von Rad, Der Anfang der Geschichtsschreibung im alten Israel, 1–42 = Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, 148–188; ET: The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel, in: From Genesis to Chronicles, 125–153

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(Basel: Reinhardt 1977); S. L. McKenzie – M. P. Graham (eds.), The History of Israel’s Traditions: The Heritage of Martin Noth (JSOTSS 182; Sheffield: Academic Press 1994); N. P. Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition (Library of Ancient Israel; London: SPCK – Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 1998) 138–141; U. Rüterswörden (Hg.), Martin Noth – aus der Sicht der heutigen Forschung (Biblisch-theologische Studien 58; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 2004).

One of the most successful histories of ancient Israel is that by Martin Noth. This history has also become one of the most discussed in the last part of the 20th century. To understand M. Noth’s work, it is indispensable to read it in its historical context. The first edition was published in Germany in 1950, just five years after the end of the Second World War. Now, M. Noth remained all his life long opposed to what had been the dominant ideology of his country, that of the national-socialist party. In this, he remained faithful to his teacher A. Alt. To a certain extent, this background contributed to the development of two of his main ideas about the origins of Israel. The other exegete that influenced M. Noth is R. Kittel who taught him in Leipzig. 5.2.1. The Peaceful Occupation of the Land by the Tribes of Israel First, M. Noth considers that the settlement of Israel in the Promised Land is a totally peaceful process: “When one looks at the whole range of the Israelite settlements in Palestine it is immediately obvious that the tribes of Israel entered those parts of the country that had only been inhabited sparsely or not at all in the Bronze Age. They occupied the various parts of the mountains west of the Jordan as well as the central section of the highlands east of the Jordan whilst the plains on which nature had bestowed its blessings remained in the hands of older Canaanite population which was concentrated in cities and alongside which the tribes now lived as a new element in the population. This fact in itself shows very clearly that the Israelite occupation did not ensue from a warlike encounter between the newcomers and the previous owners of the land.”77 Thus there is no war of conquest, no destruction of cities, and no massive extermination of native populations: “[…] the occupation of the land by the tribes took place fairly quietly and peacefully […]”.78 M. Noth explains the settlement as a slow process of sedentarization. The first Israelites were nomads who used to move regularly with their flocks from the desert to Canaan to find pasture grounds during the dry season – “the so-called change of pasture.”79 Little by little, they settled in the non-occupied areas, in the hills for instance, at a certain distance from the Canaanite cities, until “the day comes when they do not return to their winter pastures in the steppe and desert but settle down permanently in the agricultural countryside”.80 This “complicated process […] must have passed through several stages and covered a fairly long period of time”.81 Moreover, we

77 78 79 80 81

Noth, History, 68. Noth, History, 69. Ibid. Ibid. Noth, History, 70.

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must abandon the idea of a “single, self-contained operation”.82 On the contrary, each tribe entered at a different time and in a different area of Palestine. The occupation of the land is part of a “wider historical movement” that took place during the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age, proceeding from the Syrian-Arabian desert into the bordering agricultural lands. It is therefore natural to call the movement ‘Aramaean migration’ and it is perfectly in order to do so provided one remembers that it was not in fact a uniform and deliberately planned process”.83 For this reason, M. Noth rejects the former hypothesis that connected the settlement in the land with the Hyksos.84 M. Noth – as we know – was obliged to serve in the German army from 1939 till 1941, and from 1943 till 1945. His library in Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, was destroyed during that time. We can understand some of the reasons why M. Noth had little sympathy for a theory postulating a military conquest of the Promised Land.85 Another point about M. Noth’s theory deserves a certain attention. For M. Noth, there is no “patriarchal age”. For him, the historical background of the patriarchal narratives, of the Book of Joshua, and of the main parts of the Book of Judges is exactly the same. All these narratives are to be referred to the pacific infiltration of nomads into the Promised Land during the seasonal transhumance. In this way, M. Noth tried to solve the question raised by H. Gunkel and his disciples about the historicity of the patriarchal narratives. H. Gunkel denied their historicity, and M. Noth tried to save some of this historicity in identifying the patriarchs with the first settlers of the land of Canaan, during what is called the time of the Judges. M. Noth’s theory remained very popular for a certain time, until “field work” in archaeology questioned some of his assumptions. The main problem is that there is no real continuity between the pottery – and cultural remains – of the Transjordan and Cisjordan areas. Most specialists tend today to adopt a theory even more removed from biblical traditions, namely that the ancestors of Israel were indigenous inhabitants.86 5.2.2. The Confederation of the Twelve Tribes of Israel The second very influential theory of M. Noth is that of the “Amphictyony” and was defended for the first time in 1930.87 The idea has to be explained against the background of M. Noth’s attempts to reconstruct an early history of Israel, prior to the monarchy. This is again a way of answering the objections against the his82

Noth, History, 73. Noth, History, 83. 84 Noth, History, 84. 85 On M. Noth, see especially R. Smend, “Martin Noth, 1902–1968”, in: Deutsche Alttestamentler in drei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989) 255–275; ET: From Astruc to Zimmerli: Old Testament Scholarship through Three Centuries (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007) 198–211. 86 See, for instance, I. Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society 1988); I. Finkelstein – A. Mazar, The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature 2007). 87 M. Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels (BWANT 52; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1930; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1966). 83

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toricity of everything the Bible tells about the period preceding the monarchy. M. Noth takes into account the results of former studies and comes to the conclusion that “‘Israel’, which, according to Old Testament tradition, was an association of twelve separate tribes, cannot really be grasped as a historical entity until it becomes a reality living on the soil of Palestine. […] the history of Israel, in the strict sense of the history of a more or less definable entity, only begins on the soil of Palestine.”88 This is the way M. Noth answers the basic question, when does ancient Israel’s history begin? For him, there is no real history of Israel before there is an “Israel” in Palestine. All that precedes this period is not what we can call “history,” although M. Noth recognizes that Israel’s traditions speak of an earlier period. But these traditions received their definitive form only after the tribes had settled in the land and they presuppose a certain number of conditions that did not exist in earlier times. The main elements of M. Noth’s amphictyony are three. (1) The twelve tribes of Israel were organized in a way similar to the Greek amphictyonies, especially that of Delphi. The number twelve is essential, although there are different ways of arriving at this number.89 (2) There was a central sanctuary, that of Shechem, before it was transferred to Bethel, Gilgal, and eventually Shiloh. The twelve tribes regularly gathered in this sanctuary for common celebrations “which evidently included a public profession of faith in Yahweh, an act of covenant-making and a proclamation of the statutes of the law.”90 (3) The tribes were united in a confederation and had some common institutions, common celebrations, a permanent priesthood, “judges” that had various political and administrative functions, but that did not include the usual administration of justice. In some cases, they united in some common punitive expeditions, such as the one described in Judges 20–21 against the tribe of Benjamin. A fundamental text about the origin of the amphictyony or confederation of the twelve tribes is Joshua 24, the covenant of Joshua and Israel with Yahweh at Shechem. These conclusions are drawn from a study of biblical sources and traditions. Although M. Noth went to Israel from 1964 till 1968, and became the director of the Deutsches Evangelisches Institut für Altertumswissenschaft des Heiligen Landes in Jerusalem, little of his historical research is based on archaeological discoveries.91 Most of his work is literary work: “All these are conclusions based on the presence of traditions concerning the twelve-tribe system, compared with other similar traditions from outside Israel”.92 To a large extent, M. Noth’s historical method was exactly the opposite of that espoused by the North-American school led by W. F. Albright which resorted mostly to archaeology and epigraphy to reconstruct Israel’s past. M. Noth, for instance, mentions the discovery of

88

M. Noth, The History of Israel (London: Adam & Charles Black 1958, 21960) 53. M. Noth observes that H. Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, I (Göttingen: Dieterich 31864) 528–531, noticed the presence of a twelve or six tribe system in the OT itself (Gen 22:20–24; 25:13–16; 36:10–14; 36:20–28). 90 Noth, History, 92. 91 M. Noth died on the 30th of May, 1968, during an excursion in the Negev, at Shivta, and is buried in Bethlehem. 92 Noth, History, 90 (italics mine). 89

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Rash Shamra (Ugarit), but does not use these texts when speaking of Canaanite culture.93 Needless to say that M. Noth’s theory is abandoned today by almost all historians and exegetes. Joshua 24 is a very late text, according to most recent studies in the field.94 There are no biblical texts to buttress the idea of common military actions of the twelve tribes. It is difficult to verify which was the common sanctuary and which were the common institutions of pre-monarchical Israel. Eventually, the system of the twelve tribes is a very late construction without real support in early biblical traditions.95 M. Noth will be criticized for this assumption by two groups. Some will accuse him of being a “reductionist” because he renounces to find “history” in the Hexateuch. Others, later on, will criticize him because they consider that Israel’s history begins much later. Anyway, we must acknowledge that M. Noth is surely honest and rigorous, given the state of exegetical, historical, and archaeological research in his time. Moreover, M. Noth clearly asks the basic question of the beginning of Israel’s history, a question that will be debated hotly henceforth. M. Noth’s work is surely not flawless. On at least one point, however, he must be commended. I mean the intellectual probity with which he deals with biblical sources. One quotation will suffice to illustrate his basic mind-set: “The Old Testament tradition provides us with almost no direct information about the life and functions of the Israelite twelve-tribe association, and it is only possible to a limited degree to draw indirect conclusions from various scattered data.”96

5.3. W. F. Albright (1891–1971) and the so-called North-American School Bibliography of W. F. Albright. For a complete bibliography, see D. N. Freedman (ed.), The Published Works of William Foxwell Albright: A Comprehensive Bibliography (Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research 1975); for the period till 1941: H. M. Orlinsky (ed.), An Indexed Bibliography of the Writings of William Foxwell Albright. Published in Honor of his Fiftieth Birthday by a Committee of his Former Students (New Haven, CN: American Schools of Oriental Research 1941); see also G. E. Wright (ed.), The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1961) Bibliography: 363–389. Major Works: W. F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible (New York: Fleming H. Ravell 1932); “Archaeology Confronts Biblical Criticism,” American Scholar 7 (1938) 176–188; From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press 1940); Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press 1942); “Abram the Hebrew: A New Archaeological Interpretation,” BASOR 163 (1961) 36–54; The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (New York: Harper Torchbooks 1963); History, Archaeology and Christian Humanism (New York: McGraw-Hill 1964); Archaeology, Historical Analogy, and Early Biblical Tradition (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press 1966); Yahweh and the 93

Noth, History, 19–20, and 99 notes 1 and 2. T. Römer, “Das doppelte Ende des Josuabuches: einige Anmerkungen zur aktuellen Diskussion um ‘deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk’ und ‘Hexateuch’,” ZAW 118 (2006) 523–548; E. A. Knauf, “Bundesschlüsse in Josua”, in: Les dernières rédactions du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Ennéateuque (éd. T. Römer/K. Schmid) (BETL 203; Leuven: Peeters 2007) 217–224; 95 See especially R. de Vaux, La période des Juges; see also the section dedicated to this topic in the bibliography. 96 Noth, History, 96 (italics mine). 94

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Gods of Canaan. Jordan Lectures, London, 1965 (London: Athlone Press 1968); The Archaeology of Palestine (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith 1971). Monographs and Articles on W. F. Albright’s Work: G. W. Van Beek (ed.), The Scholarship of William Foxwell Albright: An Appraisal. Papers Delivered at the Symposium “Homage to William Foxwell Albright”, Rockville, MD, 1984 (HSS 33; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1989); W. G. Dever, “What Remains of the House that Albright Built?” The Biblical Archaeologist 56,1 (1993) 25–35; J. S. Cooper – G. M. Schwartz (eds.,), The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1996); P. Machinist, “William Foxwell Albright: The Man and His Work,” in The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1996) 385–403; T. Levy – D. N. Freedman, “William Foxwell Albright 1891– 1971: A Biographical Memoir,” Copyright 2008, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/albright5.shtml. Major Works from Albright’s School: J. Bright, Early Israel in Recent History Writing: A Study in Method (Studies in Biblical Theology 19; London: SCM 1956, 21960); Id., A History of Israel (OTL; London: SCM 1960, 21977, 31986; London: SCM – Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 42000); Id., The Authority of the Old Testament (London: SCM 1967). G. E. Wright, The Pottery of Palestine from the Earliest Times to the End of the Early Bronze Age (Publications of the Jerusalem School. Archaeology 1; New Haven, CT: American Schools of Oriental Research 1937); Id., God Who Acts: Biblical Theology as Recital (Studies in Biblical Theology 8; London: SCM 1954); G. E. Wright/F. V. Filson (eds.), The Westminster Historical Atlas to the Bible. With an Introductory Article by W. F. Albright (London: SCM 1946, 31949, 41956) = German translation: Kleiner historischer Bibelatlas. Deutsche Bearbeitung von Theodor Schlatter (Stuttgart: Calwer 1960); G. E. Wright, The Old Testament against Its Environment (Studies in Biblical Theology 2; London: SCM 1950); G. E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press 1957, 21962); abridged edition (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster 1960); Id., Shechem: The Biography of a Biblical City (London: Duckworth 1965); F. M. Cross/W. E. Lemke/P. D. Miller (eds.), Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright (New York: Doubleday 1976); bibliography of G. Ernest Wright: 579–593. N. Glueck, The Other Side of the Jordan (New Haven, CT – Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research 1945, 21970); Id., The River Jordan: Being an Illustrated Account of Earth’s Most Storied River (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster 1946; New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company1968); Id., Rivers in the Desert: The Exploration of the Negev: An Adventure in Archaeology (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1959); complete bibliography of N. Glueck: J. A. Sanders (ed.), Near Eastern Archaeology in the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of Nelson Glueck (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1970) 383–393. P. J. King – L. E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 2001); J. D. Schloen (ed.), Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2009); bibliography of L. E. Stager: xix–xxii. F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1973); F. M. Cross E. A., Biblical Archaeology Today: Proceedings of the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, April 1984 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society 1985); Id., From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University 1998).

W. F. Albright was a polymath who mastered several disciplines, such as archaeology, Assyriology, and biblical exegesis; he also mastered ancient and modern languages – up to twenty-six, it seems –, such as Hebrew and Assyrian, Latin, Greek, English, Spanish, French, German, and Modern Hebrew. He was at the same time orientalist, archaeologist, historian, and exegete. His bibliography, compiled after his death, counts almost 1,100 items, mostly articles and monographs. For a long while he was the leading figure in biblical studies in North America and in several English speaking countries. He influenced the curriculum of studies in most Divinity Schools and in the Biblical or Ancient Near Eastern

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Departments in US Universities. Most of the chairs in biblical studies in the US were occupied by W. F. Albright’s disciples or by teachers who adopted his main line of thinking. T. L. Thompson complained more than once that he did not find any employment in the US because he criticized W. F. Albright.97 His influence started losing ground only in the late seventies of last century. W. F. Albright’s starting point is to a large extent a reaction against the dominant German scholarship, especially the documentary hypothesis made popular by J. Wellhausen, and H. Gunkel’s form-criticism. These studies on the written texts and oral traditions in the Hebrew Bible undermined in many ways the historicity of biblical figures, places, and events. The late date of the texts cast doubts on their reliability when reconstructing Israel’s origins. Oral traditions, as we saw, are of very little use in historical research. Along the same line as A. Alt and M. Noth, but using different tools, W. F. Albright introduces a new paradigm in biblical scholarship. Resorting not only to internal and textual, but mostly to external evidence coming from epigraphy and archaeology, he investigated the historical underpinnings of the Hebrew Bible. His comparative approach, based on ancient texts and remains of material culture, aimed at establishing the historical “truth” of the Bible. W. F. Albright’s attitude towards A. Alt and M. Noth’s research, although similar on some points, is nonetheless very negative and he criticized them scathingly. The political atmosphere at that time was very tense – the Second World War had its effects on exegesis as well. For instance, W. F. Albright speaks of “the nihilistic attitude of Alt and Noth toward the early history of Israel.”98 The adjective “nihilistic” and some others of the same kind will – unfortunately – reappear in the debates about the origins of Israel. Basically, W. F. Albright probably thought that one cannot undermine the historicity of ancient biblical traditions without jeopardizing Christian faith and doctrine. His methodology in archaeology is probably one of his main and more lasting achievements. He fostered the now very much criticized discipline of “biblical archaeology” which is often rooted in a rather literal interpretation of biblical texts. We must recognize, in spite of all the legitimate criticism, that archaeology became an essential part of the biblical scholarly landscape thanks – for the most part – to W. F. Albright and his school. The importance of archaeology grew considerably when W. F. Albright established it as a precise tool of dating layers, artifacts, and monuments with the help of ceramic. He introduced the principle of “seriation” and a precise typology of vessels and even potsherds. In this field, he inherited some principles from the Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie and refined them to a great extent. Recently, some specialists criticized W. F. Albright for relying too much on loci with uniform ceramic objects, i.e. not mixed with material 97 T. L. Thompson, The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past (London: Jonathan Cape, 1999) = The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (New York: Basic Books, 1999) xi–xvi. 98 W. F. Albright, “The Israelite Conquest of Canaan in the Light of Archaeology,” BASOR 74 (1939) 11–23; Id., “Jethro, Hobab and Reuel in Early Hebrew Tradition,” CBQ 25 (1963) 1–11; Id., History, Archaeology and Christian Humanism (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company 1964) 140–142; G. E. Wright, “Archaeology and Old Testament Studies,” JBL 77 (1958) 39–51. See Thompson, 5, n. 15.

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from several periods and for not taking enough into account from debris deposits. W. F. Albright, however, brought order and established firm criteria with respect to a key element of ancient Near Eastern material culture. He studied not only complete vessels, but also potsherds, and introduced the use of the highest quality photography. Chronology became a very precise exercise and some used to speak of W. F. Albright’s “clock of pottery”. With this, archaeology became a science instead of a more or less haphazard search for sensational discoveries. One of the important contributions of W. F. Albright is the dating of the Nash Papyrus.99 This papyrus was acquired in Egypt by W. L. Nash, secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology in 1898, and now in possession of the library of the University of Cambridge. The papyrus consists of four fragments containing the Decalogue and the first part of the Shema‘ Israel (Deut 6:4). In 1903, S.A. Cook dated it to the 2nd century CE. W. F. Albright, after a closer study of the fragments and especially of its type of writing, came to the conclusion that it was more ancient and went back to the 2nd century BCE. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nash Papyrus was the most ancient manuscript of the Bible. A second – discussed – theory that made W. F. Albright famous is that of the patriarchs as participating in trade characterized by donkey, not camel, caravans.100 There was, according to W. F. Albright, an intense commercial activity between Egypt and South West Asia during the Middle Bronze I Age (2100–1800 BCE). The route passed through the Negev, from well to well, and is strewn with flints. For W. F. Albright, Abraham who lived in the Negev (Gen 20:1) was engaged in this kind of trade.101 A third theory is to be mentioned because it was unusually successful for a certain time, namely the so-called “Amorite Hypothesis” that connects the migration of the patriarchs from Mesopotamia to Canaan with the migrations of the Amorites or Proto-Aramaeans in the early Second Millennium, around 1800 BCE. The theory achieved wide acceptance in several textbooks and standard “Histories of Israel”.102 W. F. Albright’s methodology was severely criticized, mostly because of his basic tendency to prove the historicity of most biblical traditions about Israel’s origins: “[Wright and Albright’s] historical interpretation can make no claim to be objective, proceeding as it does from a methodology which distorts its data by selectivity which is hardly representative, which ignores the enormous lack of data for the history of the early second millennium, and which willfully establishes hypotheses on the basis of unexamined biblical texts, to be proven by such (for this period) meaningless mathematical criteria as the ‘balance of probability’ 99 W. F. Albright, “A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabean Age: The Nash Papyrus,” JBL 56 (1937) 145–176. 100 W. F. Albright, “Abram the Hebrew: A New Archaeological Interpretation,” BASOR 163 (1961) 36–54; idem, “Midianite Donkey Caravans,” in: H. T. Frank (ed.), Essays in Honor of Herbert G. May: Translating and Understanding the Old Testament (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press 1970) 197–205. 101 The theory was criticized by E. A. Speiser, “The Verb SH . R in Genesis and Early Hebrew Movements,” BASOR 164 (1961) 23–28. 102 See Thompson, Historicity, 4–5; on this point see now T. Hiebert, “Israel’s Ancestors Were Not Nomads,” in: Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager (ed. J. D. Schloen; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2009) 199–205.

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[…].”103 The criticism is valid, of course, but the study of the history of ancient Israel would not be what it is without W. F. Albright’s contribution, in particular in the field of archaeology. W. F. Albright never wrote a History of Israel. He left it to his disciple J. Bright and probably thought that this book contained the best of his ideas. J. Bright’s history was very successful and was re-edited three times, the last one recently (1959, 21972, 31981, 42000).104 He demonstrates the historicity of the Patriarchs, Exodus, the conquest, and David and Solomon. His approach is also very close to M. Noth in spite of some polemical remarks.105 One unexpected offshoot of the American school is an original theory about the origins of Israel as a peasant revolution against the Canaanites cities.106 The tribes were oppressed by the military powers of the Canaanites cities until they united in their common faith in Yahweh and concluded a covenant with him. After this, they left the cities to settle in the hill country. The theory is now abandoned by almost all exegetes because it lacks a solid fundamentum in re.

5.4. Roland Guérin de Vaux (1903–1971) and the so-called French School Major works of R. de Vaux: R. de Vaux, “Les patriarches hébreux et les découvertes modernes,” RB 53 (1946) 321–348; 55 (1948) 321–347; 56 (1949) 5–36; German translation: Die hebräischen Patriarchen und die modernen Entdeckungen (Düsseldorf: Patmos Verlag 1961); “Les patriarches hébreux et l’histoire,” RB 72 (1965) 5–28; German translation: Die Patriarchenerzählungen und die Geschichte (SBS 3; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1965); ET: “The Hebrew Patriarchs and History,” ThD 12 (1964) 227–240; “Method in the Study of Early Hebrew History,” in: The Bible in Modern Scholarship (ed. J. P. Hyatt; Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press 1966) 15–29; Les institutions de l’Ancien Testament. V. 1: Le nomadisme et ses survivances. Institutions familiales. Institutions civiles. V. 2: Institutions militaires. Institutions religieuses (Paris : Cerf 1958–1960); ET: Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company 1961); Bible et Orient (Paris: Cerf 1967); ET: The Bible and the Ancient Near East (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1971); Histoire ancienne d’Israël. V.1: Des origines à l’installation en Canaan; V.2: La période des Juges (Études bibliques; Paris: J. Gabalda 1971–1973); ET: The Early History of Israel to the Exodus and Covenant of Sinai (London: Darton, Longman & Todd 1978). Some articles and opinions on R. de Vaux: J. Briend, “Roland de Vaux,” in: Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Vol. 1. (eds. L. H. Schiffman/J. C. VanderKam; Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000) 202–203; M. Liverani, rev. of Histoire ancienne d’Israël, Oriens Antiquus 15 (1976) 145–159; T. L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (BZAW 133; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1974; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002) 17– 22 and passim.

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Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives, 6–7. On J. Bright, see for instance N. P. Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition, 141–145, who entitles his analysis, “In Defense of the Bible: John Bright.” 105 On W. F. Albright’s and J. Bright’s attitude toward A. Alt and M. Noth, see B. O. Long, Planting and Reaping Albright: Politics, Ideology, and Interpreting the Bible (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press 1997). 106 G. E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press 1973); N. K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 BCE (London: SCM 1979; The Biblical Seminar 66; Sheffield: Academic Press 1999). On this hypothesis, see, among others, A. J. Hauser, “Israel’s Conquest of Palestine: A Peasants’ Rebellion?” JSOT 7 (1978) 2–19 (and 46–49, an answer to N. K. Gottwald). 104

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Without exaggeration, it could be said that R. de Vaux’ work – The Early History of Israel – is a kind of swansong. This monumental work (674 p. plus 159 p.; a third volume never appeared because of R. de Vaux’s death in 1971) covers the very first period of Israel’s origins, from Abraham till the settlement in the Promised Land, and the second volume (published after R. de Vaux’s death) covers the period of the Judges. Some will say today that Israel did not exist yet at that time and that the title of the book is therefore misleading because one cannot speak of ‘history’ in this case. Be that as it may, this is one of the last attempts to deal with the patriarchal period in a way that reminds of M. Noth and W.F. Albright at the same time. R. de Vaux himself declared explicitly that he wanted to use both the tools of literary criticism and those of archaeology and epigraphy in his reconstruction of Israel’s remote past. R. de Vaux’s explicit purpose was to defend the basic historicity of the Bible and this for theological reasons: “[…] for if the historical faith of Israel is not founded in history, such faith is erroneous, and therefore our faith is also”.107 About the patriarchs, he adopted the so-called Amorite hypothesis and proposed to identify the migrations of the Abraham with that of the Proto-Aramaeans. It is nonetheless noteworthy that R. de Vaux remained very cautious in his conclusions: “All that we have tried to do in this chapter has been to find a possible date for the first entry of Israel’s ancestors into Canaan”.108 The same holds true for the religion of the patriarchs. The historian can reach only limited and probable conclusions.109 Coming to the sojourn of some Israelite groups in Egypt and the Exodus, R. de Vaux is still very prudent and even undecided. Several groups went down to Egypt, and at different times, and this may have lasted several centuries. There were also several “exoduses”, one of them connected with the expulsion (cf. Exod 11:1) of the Hyksos around 1550 BCE and a second one, the Exodus of Moses, under Ramses II, around 1250 BCE. This second exodus is an escape (cf. Exod 14:5). About the entrance into the land, R. de Vaux supposes that a first group (Simeon – Judah) entered from the South, whereas other tribes entered from the East, crossing the Jordan. R. de Vaux’s efforts to save the historicity of the Bible are indeed noteworthy. The reader has the feeling, however, that he is often piling up indications, or bits and pieces of evidence, without arriving at solid conclusions. We remain in the realm of possibilities or probabilities, and R. de Vaux honestly acknowledges it: “The study of history is a humane science and always open to a degree of uncertainty. This means that the historian’s conclusions can only ever be more or less probable. In the case of the religious history of Israel, however, there is also the factor of ultimate ignorance, so that the historian, whether he is a believer or an unbeliever, must often hesitate on the threshold of its mystery”.110 We may criticize R. de Vaux’s method, but not his integrity.

107 De Vaux, The Hebrew Patriarchs and History, 22; Les patriarches hébreux et l’histoire, 7: “[…] si la foi historique d’Israël n’est pas fondée dans l’histoire, cette foi est erronée et la nôtre aussi”. Quoted by Thompson, Historicity, 327. 108 De Vaux, Early History of Israel, 266. 109 De Vaux, Early History of Israel, 267–287. 110 De Vaux, Early History, xi.

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6. The Debate around the so-called “Copenhagen and Sheffield School” Major works of Thomas L. Thompson: T. L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (BZAW 133; Berlin: de Gruyter 1974; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International 2002); The Settlement of Sinai and the Negev in the Bronze Age (Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. B, Geisteswissenschaften 8; Wiesbaden: Reichert 1975); The Settlement of Palestine in the Bronze Age (Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. B, Geisteswissenschaften 34; Wiesbaden: Reichert 1979); The Origin Tradition of Ancient Israel: I. The Literary Formation of Genesis and Exodus 1–23 (JSOT.SS 55; Sheffield: Academic Press 1987); Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources (Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East 4; Leiden: Brill 1992); “A Neo-Albrightean School in History and Biblical Scholarship,” JBL 114 (1995) 683–698; The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past (London: Jonathan Cape 1999) = The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (New York: Basic Books 1999); T. L. Thompson/S. Khadra Jayyusi (eds.), Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition (JSOT.SS 381; London: T&T Clark 2003); “The Role of Faith in Historical Research,” SJOT 19 (2005) 111–134; “Why Talk About the Past? The Bible, Epic and Historiography,” in: D. Burns/J.W. Rogerson (eds.), Far from Minimal: Celebrating the Work and Influence of Philip R. Davies (LHBOTS 484; New York – London: T&T Clark 2012) 1–19; Biblical Narrative and Palestine’s History (Copenhagen International Seminar. Changing Perspectives 2; London – Oakville, CT: Equinox 2013). Major works of Niels Peter Lemche: N. P. Lemche, Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society before the Monarchy (SVT 37; Leiden: Brill 1985); Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (The Biblical Seminar 5; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1988); The Canaanites and their Land: The Tradition of the Canaanites (JSOT.SS 110; Sheffield: Academic Press 1991); “The Old Testament – A Hellenistic Book?” SJOT 7 (1993) 163–193; Die Vorgeschichte Israels: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ausgang des 13. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie 1; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1996); ET: Prelude to Israel’s Past: Background and Beginnings of Israelite History and Identity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 1998); The Israelites in History and Tradition (London: SPCK 1998); Historical Dictionary of Ancient Israel (Lanham, MD – Oxford: The Scarecrow Press 2004); “Conservative Scholarship on the Move,” SJOT 19 (2005) 203–252; The Old Testament between Theology and History: A Critical Survey (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press 2008); Biblical Studies and the Failure of History (Copenhagen International Seminar. Changing Perspectives 3; Sheffield – Oakville, CT: Equinox 2013). Major works of Philip R. Davies: P. R. Davies, In Search of “Ancient Israel” (JSOT.SS 148; Sheffield: Academic Press 1992); “Method and Madness: Some Remarks on Doing History with the Bible,”, JBL 114 (1995) 699–705; Whose Bible is it Anyway? (JSOT.SS 204; Sheffield: Academic Press 1995); Scribes and Schools: The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 1998); The Origins of Biblical Israel (LHBOTS 485; London – New York: T&T Clark 2007); Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History – Ancient and Modern (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press 2008); On the Origins of Judaism (Bible World; London: Equinox 2011). Bibliography of Philip R. Davies: D. Burns/J. W. Rogerson (eds.), Far from Minimal: Celebrating the Work and Influence of Philip R. Davies (LHBOTS 484; New York – London: T&T Clark 2012) xviii–xxix. Other works of the same school: R. B. Coote/K. W. Whitelam, The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective (The Social World of Biblical Antiquity Series 5; Sheffield: The Almond Press 1987); R. B. Coote, Early Israel: A New Horizon (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press 1990); K.W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge 1996). Major works using a different methodology: V. P. Long/G. J. Wenham/D. W. Baker (eds.), Windows into Old Testament History: Evidence, Argument, and the Crisis of “Biblical Israel” (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2002); K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans 2003); I. W. Provan/V. P. Long/T. Longman III, A Biblical History of Israel (Louisville, KY – London: Westminster John Knox 2003). Major works of William G. Dever: W. G. Dever, “Archaeology and the Current Crisis in Israelite Historiography,” in: Joseph Aviram Volume (ed. A. Biran) (Eretz-Israel. Archaeological, Historical

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and Geographical Studies 25; Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society 1996) 18*-27*; What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?What Can Archaeology Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2001); Who Were the Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2003); Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2005); The Lives of Ordinary People in Ancient Israel: Where Archaeology and the Bible Intersect (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2012); see also: W. G. Dever/S. Gitin (eds.), Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palestina: Proceedings of the Centennial Symposium W. F. Albright Institue of Archaeological Research and the American Schools of Oriental Research Jerusalem, May 29–31, 2000 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2003). On the controversy between the different schools: J. R. Bartlett, The Bible: Faith and Evidence: A Critical Enquiry into the Nature of Biblical History (London: British Museum 1994); B. Becking/L. L. Grabbe (eds.), Between Evidence and Ideology: Essays on the History of Ancient Israel Read at the Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oud Testamentisch Werkgezelschap, Lincoln, July 2009 (Leiden: Brill 2011); M. Z. Brettler, “The Copenhagen School: The Historiographical Issues,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 27 (2003) 1–21; L. L. Grabbe (ed.), Enquire of the Former Age : Ancient Historiography and Writing the History of Israel (LHBOTS 554; European Seminar in Historical Methodology 9; New York/London: T&T Clark 2011); J. B. Kofoed, Text and History: Historiography and the Study of the Biblical Text (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2005); I. W. Provan, “Ideologies, Literary and Critical: Reflections on Recent Writing on the History of Israel,” JBL 114 (1995) 585–606; T. L. Thompson, “A Neo-Albrightean School in History and Biblical Scholarship,” JBL 114 (1995) 683–698.

Two important works published in the mid-seventies of last century had an immediate effect on biblical scholarship, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives by Thomas L. Thompson (1974) and Abraham in History and Tradition by John Van Seters (1975).111 The two works are very different, but come to similar conclusions with respect to the patriarchal narratives. Both deny their basic historicity, J. Van Seters chiefly for literary reasons – the narratives are late compositions – and T. L. Thompson for historical and archaeological reasons – no extra-biblical document can support this historicity. Both authors met with strong opposition from different parts. T. L. Thompson, for his part, was not allowed to defend his thesis written at the Catholic Faculty in Tübingen. One of the members of the faculty was Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. T. L. Thompson had also a hard time finding a position in a University in the US presumably because of his criticism of the Albright School until he was invited to teach in Copenhagen by his colleague N. P. Lemche.112 The positions of the so-called Copenhagen School are shared by scholars teaching in Sheffield. There are sometimes called “minimalists” by their adversaries. This derogatory term was coined for the first time by W. W. Hallo, it seems.113 In reaction, the Copenhagen School dubbed their critics “maximalists”. The po-

111 Thompson, Historicity; J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven, CT – London: Yale University Press, 1975). On the latter work, see the review by H. Cazelles in VT 28 (1978) 241–255. 112 See Thompson, The Mythic Past, xi–xvi, for more details about his academic autobiography. 113 W. W. Hallo, “The Limits of Skepticism”, JAOS 110 (1990) 187–199, here 193; see also W. G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know, 9; K.W. Whitelam, “Representing Minimalism: The Rhetoric and Reality of Revisionism”, in: A. G. Hunter/P. R. Davies (eds.), Sense and Sensitivity: Essays on Reading the Bible in Memory of Robert Carroll (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2002) 194–223, here 195, n. 3.

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lemical tone of several publications on both sides can explain the use of this unfortunate terminology. The main theses of the Copenhagen School are two. First, the Bible does not contain reliable documents that can enable a historian to reconstruct Israel’s past. Second, the term “Israel” itself is problematic since it does not correspond to any historical reality. It represents rather the projection of a religious ideal born in the Hellenistic period when the books of the Bible were composed. A few quotations will exemplify these theses: The writers of ancient Israel knew little or nothing about the origin of Israel, although the Scriptures can provide much information relevant to the investigation of early Israel. The period under discussion, therefore, does not include the period of the patriarchs, exodus, conquest, or judges as devised by the writers of the Scriptures. These periods never existed.114 In history, neither Jerusalem nor Judah ever shared an identity with Israel before the rule of the Hasmoneans in the Hellenistic period. In short, the only historical Israel to speak of is the people of the small highland state which, having lost its political autonomy in the last quarter of the eighth century, has been consistently ignored by historians and Bible scholars alike.115 […] we should give up the hope that we can reconstruct pre-Hellenistic history on the basis of the Old Testament. This is simply an invented history with only a few referents to things that really happened or existed. From an historian’s point of view, ancient Israel is a monstrous creature. It is something sprung out of the fantasy of biblical historiographers and their modern paraphrasers, i.e., the historical-critical scholars of the last two hundred years.116 I am inclined to see biblical composition as driven by antiquarian motives. The present form of the canonical books are the products of a tradition of commenting on, collecting and classifying by topic and genre a considerable breadth of literature – a process that is particularly appropriate to the transmission of a multi-variant and discursive intellectual heritage.117 Biblical narrative presents itself as instruction and discourse. Its identification with the past is ever vicarious. Traditions are opened and fragments presented for discussion and illustration.118

These quotations make it clear that the aforementioned authors use a strict methodology and apply it rigorously to the biblical texts. They reject theses based on analogies and correspondences as the disciples of W.F. Albright used to do, as they reject the reconstructions dear to the historical-critical method. They find a firm ground for historical research on Israel’s history only in the Hellenistic period, close to the time of the first Qumran documents. Moreover, the purpose of biblical texts is not to inform about the past, but to create a common consciousness and a sense of belonging to a religious community called “Israel”. The biblical writers are similar to antiquarians who collect memories about the past, but without much critical sense. These scholars also insist on a logical consequence

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Coote, Early Israel, 2–3. Thompson, The Mythic Past, 190. 116 N. P. Lemche, “On the Problem of Reconstructing Pre-Hellenistic Israelite (Palestinian) History,” JHS 3 Article 1 (2000) 10. 117 Thompson, Why Talk About the Past? 7. 118 Thompson, Why Talk About the Past? 19. 115

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of their research. The “history of Israel” is not about a “unique” nation with a particular destiny that distinguishes it from all other nations in the world. The meaning of this history is, on the contrary, metaphorical and universal. In other words, it teaches its readers lessons about the destiny of humanity as such: “This identification [of postexilic Judaism with ‘Israel’] reflects the universal rather than nationalist character of so many characters within this literature – from Noah and Abraham to Saul and David, Job and Jonah, which render it attractive across many cultures, which have variously found a more particularist point of departure”.119 The adversaries retort to these affirmations that biblical texts are reliable testimonies to the past unless they can be falsified. Or, to put it with K.A. Kitchen, who repeats a well-known axiom of logic, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”.120 The authors of A Biblical History of Israel (the title is already a program) justify their viewpoint in this way: We do indeed offer a biblical history of Israel in following pages. That is, we depend heavily upon the Bible in our presentation of the history of Israel, but not because we have “theological motivations” (although we return to that question shortly). It is rather because we consider it irrational not to do so. Here we find literature that is unique in the ancient world in its interest in the past – literature that, in particular, provides us with the only continuous account of ancient Israel’s past that we possess. We see every reason to take its testimony about the past seriously, and, as we have argued to this point, no reason to set its testimony aside in advance of the consideration of its claims. In principle, no better avenue of access to Israel’s past is available. […] Even a “paraphrase of the biblical text” would be likely a surer guide to the real past, in our view, than the replacement story offered by those who systematically avoid the biblical text in seeking to speak about the past – although, of course, not every “paraphrasing” in the past has been exactly of the same kind and of equal merit”.121

Much can be said and much has been said about this attempt to write a “Biblical History of Israel”.122 The main question is a question of method. When writing a “history of Israel”, is it not necessary to use the tools of historiography and to comply with the usual and reasonable requirements of historiographical writing in the academic world? And if there are different kinds of “paraphrasing” of the biblical text, what criteria should we use to distinguish what is acceptable from what is not? And especially what kind of criteria should we use? Two remarks only to conclude this short review. First, the two points of view are incompatible because of fundamental divergences about what historical evidence is and how to write “history”. Second, there are still some problems which remain unsolved. For instance, given that the Bible uses the past to create an ideal future, what kind of “past” did biblical writers use? Given that the biblical writers were guided by antiquarian motivations, why did they start working only in the Hellenistic period? On the other hand, if we can paraphrase the Bible, should we also paraphrase its tensions and contradictions? And what shall we do when there are clear tensions between the biblical and archaeological data, or between biblical and extra-biblical texts? 119 120 121 122

Thompson, Why Talk About the Past? 5. Kitchen, Reliability, passim. Provan – Long – Longman, Biblical History, 98–99 (italics original). See, for instance, the discussions in Grabbe, Enquire of the Former Age.

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7. Histories of Ancient Israel from 1970 up till 2013 For an overview of recent Histories of Israel: L. L. Grabbe, “Writing Israel’s History at the End of the Twentieth Century,” in: Congress Volume Oslo 1998 (eds. A. Lemaire/M. Sæbø; SVT 80; Leiden, Brill 2000) 202–218; J.W. Rogerson, “Setting the Scene: A Brief Outline of Histories of Israel”, Understanding the History of Israel (ed. H. G. M. WilliKamson; Proceedings of the British Academy 143; Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007) 3–14; J. L. Ska, “L’histoire d’Israël de Martin Noth à nos jours. Problèmes de méthode,” Comment la Bible saisit-elle l’histoire ? XXIe Congrès de l’ACFEB (Issy-les-Moulineaux, 2005) (éd. D. Doré) (LD 215; Paris: Le Cerf 2007) 17–56. Main Histories of Ancient Israel from 1970 until 2000: G. W. Ahlström, The History of Ancient Palestine from the Palaeolithic Period to Alexander’s Conquest (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press / Minneapolis: Fortress 1993); F. Castel, Histoire d’Israël et de Juda: des origines au II siècle après Jésus-Christ (Dossiers pour l’animation biblique; Paris: Le Centurion 1983); English translation The History of Israel and Judah in the Old Testament (New York: Paulist Press, 1985); H. Cazelles, H., Histoire politique d’Israël des origines à Alexandre le Grand (Petite Bibliothèque des sciences bibliques, 1; Paris: Desclée 1982); M. Clauss, Das Alte Israel: Geschichte, Gesellschaft, Kultur (C.H. Beck Wissen in der Beck’schen Reihe 2073; München: Beck 1999); R. E. Clements (ed.), The World of Ancient Israel. Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives. Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989); H. Donner, Geschichte des Volkes Israel und seiner Nachbarn in Grundzügen. Teil 1: Von den Anfängen bis zur Staatenbildungszeit. Teil 2: Von der Königszeit bis zu Alexander dem Großen. Mit einem Ausblick auf die Geschichte des Judentums bis Bar Kochba (Grundrisse zum Alten Testament, 4/1–2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1984/1986, 32000/ 2001); G. Fohrer, Geschichte Israels von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Uni-Taschenbücher 708; Wiesbaden: Quelle & Meyer 1977, 21979, 31982, 41985, 5 1990, 61995); G. Garbini, Storia e ideologia nell’Israele antico (Biblioteca di storia e storiografia dei tempi biblici 3; Brescia: Paideia 1986); ET: History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (London: SCM 1988); Grabbe, L. L. (ed.), Can a ‘History of Israel’ Be Written? (JSOT.SS 245; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1997); A. H. G. Gunneweg, Geschichte Israels bis Bar Kochba (Theologische Wissenschaft 2; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1972, 31979, 41982, 51984, 61986); Hayes, J. H./J. M. Miller (eds.), Israelite and Judaean History (OTL; London: SCM 1977); J. H. Hayes/J. M. Miller, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster 1986, 22006); S. Herrmann, Geschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit (München: Kaiser 1973, 21980; ET: A History of Israel in Old Testament Times (London: SCM – Philadelphia, PA: Fortress 1975, 21981); H. Jagersma, Geschiedenis van Israël in het Oudtestamentische Tijdvak (Kmapen: Kok 1984); ET: A History of Israel to Bar Kochba (London: SCM 1985, 21994); E. A. Knauf/A. de Pury, Geschichte Israels im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Texte und Bilder von Merenptha bis Bar Kochba (Kohlhammer Studienbücher Theologie 2; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1999); N. P. Lemche, Ancient Israel. A New History of Israelite Society (The Biblical Seminar, 5; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1988); Id., The Israelites in History and Tradition (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press 1998; J. M. Miller/J. H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Second revised edition (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress – London: SCM 1986; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 22006); C. Saulnier/C. Perrot, Histoire d’Israël III. De la conquête d’Alexandre à la destruction du temple (331 a.C. – 135 a. D.) (Paris: Le Cerf 1985); J. A. Soggin, Storia d’Israele. Dalle origini a Bar Kochbà (Biblioteca di cultura religiosa, 44; Brescia: Paideia 1984); Id., Storia d’Israele: introduzione alla storia d’Israele e Giuda dalle origini alla rivolta di Bar Kochbà (Biblioteca di cultura religiosa, 44; Brescia: Paideia 22002); ET: An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah (London: SCM, 21993); An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah. Third edition (London: SCM, 31999); German translation: Einführung in die Geschichte Israels und Judas. Von den Ursprüngen bis zum Aufstand Bar Kochbas (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1991); R. de Vaux, Histoire ancienne d’Israël. Vol. I: Des origines à l’installation en Canaan. Vol. II: La période des Juges (EtBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1971–1973); ET: The Early History of Israel (London: Darton, Longman and Todd – Philadelphia, PA: Westminster 1976). Series Biblische Enzyklopädie: R. Albertz, Die Exilszeit 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie, 7; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2001); ET: Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. (SBL Biblical Encyclopedia 5; Atlanta, GA: SBL 2003 – Leiden: Brill, 2004); W. Dietrich, Die frühe Königszeit in Israel: 10. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie, 3; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1997); English translation (updated): The Early Monarchy in Israel: The

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Tenth Century B.C.E. (SBL Biblical Encyclopedia 3; Atlanta, GA: SBL – Leiden: Brill 2007); V. Fritz, Die Entstehung Israels im 12. und 11. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie 2; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1996); ET: The Emergence of Israel in the Twelfth and Eleventh Centuries B.C.E. (SBL Biblical Encyclopedia 2; Atlanta, GA: SBL 2011 – Leiden: Brill 2012); E. S. Gerstenberger, Israel in der Perserzeit. 5. und 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie, 8; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2005); ET: Israel in the Persian Period: The Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E. (SBL Biblical Encyclopedia, 8; Atlanta, GA: SBL – Leiden: Brill, 2011); E. Haag, Das hellenistische Zeitalter. Israel und die Bibel im 4. bis 1. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie, 9; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2003); N. P. Lemche, Die Vorgeschichte Israels: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ausgang des 13. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie 1; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1996); ET (updated): Prelude to Israel’s Past. Background and Beginnings of Israelite History and Identity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 1998); A. Schoors, Die Königreiche Israel und Juda im 8. und 7. Jahrhundert v. Chr.: die assyrische Krise (Biblische Enzyklopädie, 5; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1998). Main Histories of Ancient Israel published after 2000 (in chronological order): P. Bordreuil – F. Briquel-Chatonnet, Le temps de la Bible. Préface de Javier Teixidor (Folio/Histoire; Paris: Gallimard 2000); M. D. Coogan (ed.), The Oxford History of the Biblical World (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press 1998, 2001); D. Kinet, Geschichte Israels (Die Neue Echter Bibel, Ergänzungsband 2 zum A.T.; Würzburg: Echter 2001); I. Finkelstein/N. A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: The Free Press 2001); German translation: Keine Posaunen vor Jericho. Die archäologische Wahrheit über die Bibel (München: C. H. Beck, 2002, 22003); K. R. Veenhof, Geschichte des Alten Orients bis zur Zeit Alexanders des Großen (Grundrisse zum Alten Testament. Das Alte Testament Deutsch. Ergänzungsreihe 11; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2001); K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2003); V. H. Matthews, A Brief History of Ancient Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 2002); M. Liverani, Oltre la Bibbia. Storia antica di Israele (Storia e Società; Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2003); ET: Israel’s History and the History of Israel (Bible World; London: Equinox 2005); L. L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. Volume 1: Yehud: A History of the Persian Province of Judah (Library of Second Temple Studies 47; London/New York: T&T Clark 2004); Barbara E. Organ, Is the Bible Fact or Fiction? An Introduction to Biblical Historiography (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press 2004); R. Kessler, Leben zur Zeit der Bibel. Eine Soziale Geschichte Israels (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2006); ET: The Social History of Ancient Israel: An Introduction (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press 2008); L. L. Grabbe, Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? (London: T&T Clark International 2007); L. L. Grabbe (ed.), Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIa (c. 1250–850 B.C.E.). Volume 1: The Archaeology (LHB/OTS 491; European Seminar on Historical Methodology 7; London/New York: T&T Clark 2008); R. Kessler, Leben zur Zeit der Bibel. Eine Soziale Geschichte Israels (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2006); ET: The Social History of Ancient Israel: An Introduction (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press 2008); L. Mazzinghi, Storia d’Israele dalle origini al periodo romano (Studi biblici 56; Bologna: EDB 2007); P. Abadie, L’histoire d’Israël entre mémoire et relecture (LD 229; Paris: Cerf 2009); G. Garbini, Scrivere la storia d’Israele. Vicende e memorie ebraiche (Biblioteca di storia e storiografia dei tempi biblici 15; Brescia: Paideia 2008); M. Clauss, Geschichte des Alten Israel (Oldenbourg Grundriss der Geschichte, 37; München: Oldenbourg 2009); L. L. Grabbe (ed.), Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIa (c. 1250–850 B.C.E.). Volume 2: The Texts (LHB/OTS 521; European Seminar on Historical Methodology, 8; London & New York: T&T Clark 2010); M. Weippert (Hrsg.), Historisches Textbuch zum Alten Testament (Grundrisse zum Alten Testament 10; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2010); M. B. Moore/B. E. Kelle, Biblical History and Israel’s Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2011); A. F. Rainey, Teaching History and Historical Geography of Bible Lands: A Syllabus (Jerusalem: Carta 2011); Barbara Schmitz, Geschichte Israels (Uni-Taschenbücher 3547; Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 2011); E. A. Knauf, Geschichte Israels (Studienbücher Theologie; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2012); K. L. Noll, Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: An Introduction (The Biblical Seminar, 83; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001); Id., Noll, Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: A Textbook on History and Religion. Second revised edition (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark 2013); N. P. Lemche, Biblical Studies and the Failure of History (Copenhagen International Seminar. Changing Perspectives 3; London: Equinox 2013); T. L. Thompson, Biblical Narrative and Palestine’s History (Copenhagen International Seminar. Changing Perspectives 2; London – Oakville, CT: Equinox 2013).

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8. As a Conclusion: some Open Questions At the beginning of the 21st century we may say that almost every step in the history of Israel is problematic. In this last paragraph I do not intend to be exhaustive. The bibliography will also remain succinct. The works I will refer to contain more complete bibliographies. A short comparison between the first and the second period of the 20th century has shown that the number of ‘histories of ancient Israel’ almost doubled between 1975 and 2000. A simple look at what has been published from 2000 up to now is astonishing as well. After perusing some of these works, it is clear that scholars continue to defend very different positions on similar points, and that the tone is often – regrettably – very polemical. Here is a short list of the main questions treated in recent times. 1. Who were the Israelites and where did they come from? Is there any historical element in the biblical traditions about a sojourn of Israelite tribes in Egypt? Did some groups enter the land of Canaan from the desert? Did they enter from the south or from the east? What can we say about Mount Sinai/Horeb and about Qadesh? Was there ever a conquest of the land? Have we to choose between a progressive sedentarization of nomadic groups, a partial military conquest, a peasant revolution,123 or did the ‘Israelites’ always inhabit the country (endogenous ethnogenesis)?124 2. There are also different, even contradictory theories about the early monarchy in Israel (Saul, David, and Solomon). Was there ever a united monarchy or were the two kingdoms always separated? Or were there several distinct chiefdoms? Why the kingdom of David and Solomon is never mentioned in ancient Near Eastern documents? What were the dimensions of this kingdom, if it ever existed?125 3. Besides the problems of chronology, the monarchy of Israel and Judah raises several questions.126 There are problems about the size of Jerusalem, its role in the region, and its relationship to Samaria.127 Other problems concern the relations of

123 Theory of Mendenhall, The Tenth Generatio; Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh. On this theory, see R. Boer (ed.), Tracking The Tribes of Yahweh: On the Trail of a Classic (JSOT.SS 351; London: Sheffield Academic Press 2002). 124 See K. van Bekkum, From Conquest to Coexistence. Ideology and Antiquarian Intent in the Historiography of Israel’s Settlement in Canaan (Culture and History in the Ancient Near East 45; Leiden: Brill 2011); A. J. Frendo, “Five Recent Books on the Emergence of Ancient Israel: Review Article,” PEQ 124 (1992) 144–155; W. G. Dever, William G., Who Were the Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2003); J. Day (ed.), In Search of Pre-exilic Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (JSOTS 406; London: T&T Clark 2004); L. L. Grabbe, Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? (London – New York: T&T Clark, 2007); A. J. Frendo, Pre-Exilic Israel, the Hebrew Bible, and Archaeology: Integrating Text and Artefact (LHBOTS 549; London – New York, T&T Clark International 2011). 125 See, among others, G. N. Knoppers, “The Vanishing Salomon: The Disappearance of the United Monarchy from Recent Histories of Ancient Israel,” JBL 116 (1997) 19–44; I. Finkelstein – N. A. Silberman, David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of Western Tradition (New York : Free Press, 2006). 126 B. Becking, From David to Gedaliah: The Book of Kings as Story and History (OBO 228; Fribourg: Academic Press – Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2007). 127 See, for instance, T. L. Thompson – S. Khadra Jayyusi (eds.), Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition (JSOT.SS 381; London: T&T Clark 2003); I. Hjelm, Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty:

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the Northern kingdom with its neighbors and with the rising Assyrian empire. There is no biblical record of the battle of Qarqar (853 BCE), a battle in which Ahab was part of the coalition confronting Assyria, or of the fact that Jehu was a vassal of Salmanassar III since he is represented as a tributary prostrated before the Assyrian king on the Black Obelisk. There are questions about the fall of Samaria, its chronology and its effects.128 4. The reign of Hezekiah was the object of several studies, in particular about Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah and the siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE.129 What is historical in the biblical accounts in 2 Kings 18–20 and Isaiah 36–38? Did Hezekiah save the city paying a huge tribute (1 Kgs 18:13–16) or was he saved by some external factor that obliged Sennacherib to abandon the siege? Were there one or two campaigns? Did Hezekiah become a vassal of Assyria? Is there anything historical in Hezekiah’s religious reform (1 Kgs 18:1–4)?130 5. King Manasseh is, according to biblical tradition, one of the worst kings of Judah. His reign, however, was very long, peaceful, and even prosperous. Recent studies tend to rehabilitate this “bad king.”131 6. King Josiah’s reign and reform have become a disputed area as well. Was there a real reform under Josiah and what was its nature? Or is this another case of ‘religious propaganda’? Are the texts about the centralization and the purification of the cult in Jerusalem confirmed by archaeology? How far can we rely on the narrative in 2 Kings 22–23? What is the exact connection between the ‘book’ found in the temple and Deuteronomy? Tot opiniones quot autores, here as elsewhere.132 8. Some recent studies question the existence of a Deuteronomistic History, a hypothesis going back to M. Noth. The differences between the different books are too important to postulate a common design in the compilation of the block Joshua – 2 Kings. Others reply that there are essential threads going through the different books and redactional interventions bearing the marks of the same ideology or of the same school of thought.133 Zion and Gerizim in Competition (JSOTS 404; London – New York: T&T Clark 2004); N. Na’aman, “Jerusalem in the Tenth and Fifth-Fourth Centuries BCE,” Bib 93 (2012) 21–42. 128 S.J. Park, “A New Historical Reconstruction of the Fall of Samaria,” Bib 93 (2012) 98–106. 129 W. R. Gallagher, Sennacherib’s Campaign to Judah: New Studies (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East 18; Leiden: Brill 1999); L. L. Grabbe (ed.), ‘Like a Bird in a Cage’: The Invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BCE (JSOTSS 363; London: Sheffield Academic Press 2003). 130 R. A. Young, Hezekiah in History and Tradition (SVT 155; Leiden: Brill 2012). 131 F. Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities (BZAW 338; Berlin – New York: de Gruyter 2004); L. L. Grabbe, (ed.), Good Kings and Bad Kings (JSOTSS 393; London: T&T Clark 2005). 132 Some recent studies in the field: N. Na’aman, “The King Leading Cult Reforms in his Kingdom: Josiah and Other Kings in the Ancient Near East,” ZAR 12 (2006) 131–168; L. A. S. Monroe, Josiah’s Reform and the Dynamics of Defilement: Israelite Rites of Violence and the Making of a Biblical Text (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011); N. Na’aman, “The ‘Discovered Book’ and the Legitimation of Josiah’s Reform,” JBL 130 (2011) 47–62; M. Pietsch, Die Kultreform Josias. Studien zur Religionsgeschichte Israels in der späten Königszeit (FAT 86; Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen 2013). 133 See, among others, P. Guillaume, “Étude Critique. L’historiographie deutéronomiste: No Future!” ETP 135 (2003) 47–57; K.L. Noll, “Deuteronomistic History or Deuteronomic Debate? (A Thoughtful Experiment),” JSOT 31 (2007) 311–345; T. Römer, (ed.), The Future of the Deuteronomistic History (BETL 147; Leuven: Peeters 2000); Id., The So-called Deuteronomistic History. A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London: T&T Clark 2006); C. Westermann, Die

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9. The fall of Jerusalem is a well-documented event since we have both a biblical report and a Babylonian chronicle. The exile is surely a ‘historical fact’ and nobody seriously questions this. There are other problems, however. Was there ever an ‘empty land’ or is this a myth created by some biblical traditions?134 What was the importance of the exile? Some authors tend to minimize its importance, in part because the exile has become – for some exegetes – the most important event of Israel’s history and one of the most fruitful period of literary activity. If the land was not left empty, and there are some good reasons to believe so, then what can we say about the people who remained in the land? Can we attribute to them some literary activity? What was the social, economic and political situation during this period?135 10. The Persian period is for the time being the period of ancient Israel’s history that attracts more attention and provokes more discussions. Four areas are of major importance. First, there is a debate about how the province of Yehud was organized. What was the importance of the Persian governor? What was the importance of the temple and of the Judaean priesthood?136 Second, what really happened when the golâ (the exiled, the returnees) came back from Babylon? What was the reaction of the “people of the land,” those who had remained in Judah during the exile? Was there ever a compromise or can we speak of violent conflicts?137 Third, the vexing question of Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s missions has not yet found a completely satisfactory solution. Some even doubt the very existence of an Ezra.138 Fourth, there is a growing tendency to consider the Persian period as the most important periods for the compilation and/or the composition Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testaments. Gab es ein deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk? (TBü 87; Gütersloh: Kaiser Verlag 1994). 134 H. M. Barstad, Myth of the Empty Land : A Study in the History and Archaeology of Judah During the “Exilic Period” (Symbolae Osloenses. Fasciculum suppletorium 28; Oslo: Scandinavian University Press 1996); L. L. Grabbe (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive: ‘The Exile’ as History and Ideology (JSOT.SS 278; European Seminar in Historical Methodology 2; Sheffield: Academic Press 1998; E. Ben Zvi – C. Levin (eds.), The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and Its Historical Contexts (BZAW 404; Berlin – New York: de Gruyter 2010); J. J. Ahn, – J. Middlemas (eds.), By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon: Approaches to the Study of the Exile (LHBOTS 526; London – New York: T&T Clark 2012). 135 O. Lipschits – J. Blenkinsopp (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2003); B. Becking e.a., From Babylon to Eternity: The Exile Remembered and Constructed in Text and Tradition (BibleWorld; London: Equinox 2010); J. J. Ahn, Exile as Forced Migrations: A Sociological, Literary, and Theological Approach on the Displacement and Resettlement of the Southern Kingdom of Judah (BZAW 417; Berlin: de Gruyter 2011). 136 L. L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. Volume 1: Yehud: A History of the Persian Province of Judah (Library of Second Temple Studies 47; London – New York: T&T Clark 2004); J. L. Berquist, (ed.), Approaching Yehud: New Approaches to the Study of the Persian Period (Semeia Studies 50; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature – Leiden: Brill 2007); J. W. Cataldo, A Theocratic Yehud? Issues of Government in a Persian Period (LHBOTS 498; New York – London: T&T Clark International 2009); M. Heltzer, The Province Judah and Jews in Persian Times: (Some Connected Questions of the Persian Empire) (Tel Aviv: Archaeological Center Publications 2008); O. Lipschits – G. N. Knoppers – M. Oeming (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2011). 137 Besides the works cited in the previous footnote, see T. Willi, Juda – Jehud – Israel. Studien zum Selbstverständnis des Judentums in persischer Zeit (FAT 12; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1995). 138 See, among others, J. Blenkinsopp, Judaism, the First Phase: The Place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Origins of Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2009).

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of biblical literature. The Pentateuch, the Historical Books, and most of the Prophetic Books obtained their final or quasi-final shape during this period. Other specialists object that the Persian period is one of the poorest times of Israel’s history from a cultural and economic point of view. This is their major objection against a late date for the redaction of biblical books.139 11. The Hellenistic period is becoming the crucial period for the formation of Israel’s identity for some scholars, especially those belonging to the so-called Copenhagen School.140 For these scholars, the Hebrew Bible is mostly a product of the Hellenistic period of Israel’s history. A second major problem is connected with the evolution of the Jerusalem priesthood. Several studies were dedicated to its importance and there is a tendency to affirm that the High Priest acquired a key role in the Jewish community only during the Hellenistic period.141 12. A last intricate question is whether it is still possible to write a History of Israel or not. Have we enough reliable documents to undertake the adventure? Or must we renounce that enterprise because we are walking all the time on marshy ground and in murky regions? What are the requirements for writing a ‘history of Israel’ and do the biblical documents match these requirements? Is there ‘history’ in the strict sense of the word in the Bible, or have only a presentation of a mythic past?142 This is a challenge, and scholars’ answers are diametrically opposed to each other.143

139 See, for instance, K. Schmid, Literaturgeschichte des Alten Testaments (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2008); ET: Old Testament: A Literary History (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress 2012); W. M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004); K. van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2007); D. Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press 2011). 140 N. P. Lemche, “The Old Testament – A Hellenistic Book?”, SJOT 7 (1993) 163–193; L. L. Grabbe (ed.), Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period (JSOTS 317; Sheffield: Academic Press 2001); H.M. Barstad, “Is the Hebrew Bible a Hellenistic Book? Or: Niels Peter Lemche, Herodotus, and the Persians”, Trans 23 (2002) 129–151; L. L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. Volume 2: The Early Hellenistic Period (335–175 BCE) (Library of the Second Temple Studies; London – New York: T&T Clark 2008); L. L. Grabbe – O. Lipschits (eds.), Judah between East and West: The Transition from Persian to Greek Rule (ca. 400–200 BCE) (London: T&T Clark 2011). 141 J. C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press 2004); M. Brutti, The Development of the High Priesthood during the pre-Hasmonean Period: History, Ideology, Theology (JSJS 108; Leiden: Brill 2006); A. Hunt, Missing Priests: The Zadokites in Tradition and History (LHBOTS 452; London – New York: T&T Clark 2006); M. Leuchter – J.M. Hutton (eds.), Levites and Priests in History and Tradition (Ancient Israel and Its Literature 9; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature 2011). 142 See, for instance, T. L. Thompson, The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past (London: Jonathan Cape 1999) = The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (New York: Basic Books 1999); G. Garbini, Mito e storia nella Bibbia (Studi biblici 137; Brescia: Paideia 2003); ET: Myth and History in the Bible (JSOTS 362; London: Sheffield Academic Press 2003). 143 See especially Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? What Can Archaeology Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2001); L. L. Grabbe, (ed.), Can a ‘History of Israel’ Be Written? (JSOTS 245 – European Seminar in Biblical Methodology; Sheffield: Academic Press 1997); Id., Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? (London – New York: T&T Clark, 2007); K.A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans 2003); J. Oswalt, The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 2009).

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9. Conclusion It is difficult to draw solid conclusions about recent developments in what has been written on the history of ancient Israel in the last century. Three elements, however, seem to emerge with a certain clarity from the mass of publications. First, it has become more and more problematic to write a history of Israel paraphrasing the biblical narratives. Second, the situation is becoming very complex and, therefore, studies are more and more fragmented. Several recent studies are dedicated to only one period of the history of Israel or to a series of problems.144 Third, there is a growing tendency to separate more carefully the biblical data from ancient Near Eastern materials, especially in the first stages of Israel’s ancient history. One example is M. Liverani’s history which distinguishes a “normal history” based mostly on ancient Near Eastern – but not exclusively – documents, and an “invented history,” the history constructed by biblical writers.145 The overall impression is, however, that there is still much work to be done before scholars come to a common ground and agree on common methods to unearth Israel’s past. The reason has become clearer, it seems. The first purpose of the biblical writers was not to write a critical history of their people. They were nonetheless greatly interested in the past and wanted by all means to root their present in times of yore. To do so, however, they adapted and transformed ancient traditions into an etiological and paradigmatic narrative. “Any prehistory of the tradition has lost its roots in its own transforming revision […] to see the past in the light of eternity.”146 Or to put it with the Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, “Nothing is created, nothing is lost, and everything is transformed.”147

144 See, for instance, P. Gibert, “Histoire biblique et conscience historienne. De la Genèse au 2e livre des Rois,” RSR 93 (2005) 355–380; V. H. Matthews, Studying the Ancient Israelites: A Guide to Sources and Methods (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic 2007); H. M. Barstad, History and the Hebrew Bible: Studies in ancient Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Historiography (FAT 61; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008). 145 Liverani, Oltre la Bibbia = Israel’s History and the History of Israel. On this work, see the articles by J. Blenkinsopp, “A Different Kind of Minimalism: M. Liverani’s Oltre la Bibbia” and P.R. Davies, “”Way Beyond the Bible – But Far Enough?” in: Grabbe, Enquire of the Former Age, 179–185; 186–193; and M. Liverani’s response (194–196). 146 Thompson, Why Talk About the Past, 9 and 15. 147 Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Fragments and Testimonia. A Text and Translation with Notes and Essays by Patricia Curd (Toronto – Buffalo – London: University of Toronto Press 2007). The original saying recites: “Nothing arises nor perishes, but already things are combined and then separate again.”

Chapter Forty

Changes in Pentateuchal Criticism By David M. Carr, New York (Union Theological Seminary)

1. Introduction Select Bibliography of Overall Studies: C. Houtman, Der Pentateuch: die Geschichte seiner Erforschung neben einer Auswertung (CBET 9; Kampen: Kok Pharos 1994). – O. Kaiser, “Pentateuch und Deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk”, in: idem, Studien zur Literaturgeschichte des Alten Testaments (Forschung zur Bibel 90; Würzburg: Echter 2000), 70–133. – E. Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford: Clarendon 1998). – C. Nihan / T. Römer, “Le débat actuel sur la formation du Pentateuque”, in: T. Römer e.a. (eds.), Introduction à l’Ancien Testament (Geneva: Labor et Fides 2004), 85–113. – A. de Pury / T. Römer, “Le Pentateuque en question: position du problème et brève histoire de la recherche”, in: A. de Pury / T. Römer (eds.), Le Pentateuque en Question (Geneva: Labor et Fides 1989), 9–80. – T. Römer, “Le pentateuque toujours en question: bilan et perspectives après un quart de siècle de débat”, in: A. Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume: Basel 2001 (VT.S 92; Leiden: Brill 2002), 343–374. – L. Schmidt, “Zur Entstehung des Pentateuch: Ein kritischer Literaturbericht”, VF 40 (1995) 3–28. – J. L. Ska, Introduction à la lecture du Pentateuque (tr. Fréderic Vermorel; Brussels: Editions Lessius 2000), 182–234; ET: Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch (tr. P. Dominique; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2006), 127–164. – K. L. Sparks, The Pentateuch: An Annotated Bibliography (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books 2002).1

Up through the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, historical scholars of the Pentateuch could rely on a consensus about the broad contours of the development of the Pentateuch that originated within Protestant European scholarship of the nineteenth century (see chapters 14–17). With some impor1 I benefited in writing this essay from a discussion of a draft of this paper with nearby colleagues and Ph.D. students at NYU on Nov. 30, 2009 and from prior email correspondence with several scholars involved in Pentateuchal research over the last forty years, including John Van Seters, Erhard Blum, Konrad Schmid (who also consulted with his father, Hans Heinrich Schmid), Thomas Römer, Rolf Rendtorff, Israel Knohl, Baruch Schwartz, and Joel Baden and a phone interview with Albert de Pury. My deep thanks go to these colleagues for their help in clarifying and correcting numerous details of the following narrative and for help in improving this essay overall. Where a specific email was important for portions of a given paragraph, I have referred to it by date. I bear full responsibility, of course, for any errors in reporting on these communications and/or overall synthesis. I also acknowledge that, especially in giving history of such recent scholarly debate of which one is a part, it is impossible to achieve perfect balance and the following represents a specific take on a lively discussion still underway. Nevertheless, the aim here was to provide enough indicators of points of debate, names of participants, and initial bibliography for readers to explore further and form their own opinions.

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tant exceptions (to be noted below), most agreed that the first written sources of the Pentateuch were a tenth century Judean ‘Yahwistic’ document featuring a Yahwistic decalogue (Exod 34:10–28) on the one hand (J), and a somewhat later (probable early eighth century?) Northern ‘Elohistic’ document featuring an early ‘covenant code’ (Exod 20:22–23:19) on the other (E). These early sources, it was held, were united into a yet later ‘Yehovist’ in the South, perhaps around the time that the Northern kingdom was destroyed (late eighth century). Sometime in the eighth or early seventh century an early form of the book of Deuteronomy was composed, was revised and served as the basis of Josiah’s reform, and was eventually united with the Yehovistic composition to form a new whole: JED. Finally, during the exile or post-exile the Priestly document was written separately from these early compositions (built partly around yet another legal code, an exilic ‘Holiness Code’ [H] found largely in Leviticus 17–26) before this Priestly Document too was integrated into the present Pentateuch (JEDP). This basic four source theory for the formation of the Pentateuch, whose origins and details are discussed in earlier chapters of this book, could be presupposed as given by most scholars writing on Pentateuchal topics for over a hundred years. It held sway over virtually all academic biblical scholarship, particularly in Euro-American contexts more or less linked to Protestant Christianity, from the rise of the Wellhausenian synthesis in the late nineteen hundreds to the later decades of the twentieth century. This essay traces the collapse of consensus on this model and the emergence of a debate surrounding virtually every aspect in it over the last four decades. This debate no longer is confined to questions of the date of ‘J’ or the existence of ‘E’. It also involves fundamental questions about the scope of ‘P’ and whether there ever was a pre-Priestly document that included materials now found in Genesis and Exodus, Numbers. Many now think that the ‘H’/Holiness code material is not a building block for P, but part of a broader expansion of Priestly (and possibly non-Priestly) materials. And this is just a sampling of some of the most important questions raised about the basic documentary model that provided the basis for over a century of scholarship on the Pentateuch. Debate surrounding such questions can easily lead to despair about the possibility of progress, but some trends have emerged in the range of studies offering alternatives to the four source approach to the Pentateuch. After tracing the origins and contours of recent debates about the formation of the Pentateuch, this essay will conclude with an overview of those general trends along with an outline of the chief lines of debate between those advocating a return to the four document approach and those advocating alternatives to that approach.

2. Anticipations of the Later Crisis Sources: A. Bentzen, Introduction to the Old Testament (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad 1948–1949). − U. Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch: Eight Lectures (Jerusalem: Magnes 1961). − B. D. Eerdmans, Die Komposition der Genesis, Alttestamentliche Studien, 1 (Giessen: Töpelmann 1908). − K. Galling, Die Erwählungstraditionen Israels (BZAW 48; Giessen: Töpelmann 1928). − K. H. Graf, “Die sogenannte Grundschrift des Pentateuchs”, in: Archiv

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für die wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testaments, 1 (1869) 466–477. − J. Hempel, Die althebräische Literatur und ihr hellenistisch-jüdisches Nachleben (HWL; Wildpark Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion 1930). − J. Hoftijzer, Die Verheissungen an die drei Erzväter (Leiden: Brill 1956). − B. Jacob, Das erste Buch der Tora: Genesis (Berlin: Schocken Verlag 1934); ET: The First Book of the Bible: Genesis (tr. W. Jacob; New York: Ktav Pub. House 1974); Das zweite Buch der Tora: Exodus (Berlin: Schocken Verlag 1945); ET: The Second Book of the Bible: Exodus (tr.Y. Elman; Hoboken, NJ: Ktav 1992). − A. Jepsen, “Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der Vätergestalten”, in: Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl-Marx Universität Leipzig, Gesellschafts- und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe, 3 (1953–1954), 265–281. − Y. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (tr. and abridg. M. Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1960). − S. Mowinckel, Erwägungen zur Pentateuch Quellenfrage (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 1964). − B. D. Napier, Song of the Vineyard: A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper 1962). − R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper 1941).− J. F. Pustkuchen, Historisch-kritische Untersuchung der biblischen Urgeschichte: Nebst Untersuchungen über Alter, Verfasser und Einheit der übrigen Theile des Pentateuch (Halle: Karl Grunert 1823). − W. Rudolph, Der “Elohist” von Exodus bis Josua (BZAW 68; Berlin: Töpelmann 1938). − S. Sandmel, “Haggada within Scripture”, JBL 80 (1961) 105–122. − W. Staerk, Studien zur Religions- und Sprachgeschichte des alten Testaments (Berlin: Reimer 1899). − P. Volz / W. Rudolph, Der Elohist als Erzähler ein Irrweg der Pentateuchkritik? An der Genesis erläutert (BZAW 63; Giessen: Töpelmann 1933). − C. Westermann, “Arten der Erzählung in der Genesis”, in: Forschung am Alten Testament. Ges. Studien (Munich: Kaiser 1964), 9–91. − R. N. Whybray, “The Joseph story and Pentateuchal Criticism”, VT 18 (1968) 522–528. − F. Winnett, The Mosaic Tradition (Near and Middle East Series, Toronto; University of Toronto Press 1949); “Re-examining the Foundations”, JBL 84 (1965) 1–19.

2.1. Older Questions about the Four Document Approach There have always been questions about the Newer Documentary Hypothesis, as there have been about the possibility and utility of studying the formation of the Pentateuch at all. Early on, the most substantial critiques came from Jewish scholars such as Jacob, Cassuto, and Kaufman, with Jacob and Cassuto questioning the very differentiation of sources and Kaufman arguing against the late dating of priestly material that was so central to the Wellhausian synthesis. Across the twentieth century isolated scholars raised questions about specific parts of the hypothesis, questions that did not end up being shared by most of their contemporaries. In 1933 P. Volz and W. Rudolph published an extensive critique of the idea that there was an ‘Elohistic’ document in Genesis, followed in 1938 by Rudolph’s critique of the same hypothesis for the rest of the Hexateuch. Generally, however, aside from a few publications that advanced a non-source approach to the growth of the non-Priestly Joseph story (e.g. Jepsen in 1953; Sandmel 1961; Mowinckel 1964 and Whybray 1968), most major academic studies up through the nineteen seventies held on to the Elohistic portion of the Newer Documentary hypothesis. Similarly starting with Eerdmans’ alternative analysis of P in 1908 and continuing with proposals by Volz (1933) and Pfeiffer (1941), several scholars raised doubts about whether P ever existed as a separate source,2 but none of their proposals found immediate followers. 2 Eerdmans’ proposal was distinguished from most others later on in working with a ‘P’ that was more limited in textual scope than typical definitions. The idea that P was an expansion of earlier materials rather than a separate source was raised already in 1869 by Graf (“Die sogenannte Grundschrift des Pentateuchs”, in: Archiv für die wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testaments 1

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Meanwhile, a number of proposals anticipated the later trend toward seeing the origins of the Pentateuch in separate, non-parallel compositions focusing on different parts of the story. Hempel in 1930, Pfeiffer in 1941, Bentzen in 1949, and Napier in 1955 separately raised questions about whether the non-Priestly primeval history was an original part of the hypothesized ‘J’ document, while most of their colleagues still took the non-P primeval history as a reliable source for the ‘theology’ of the J document. Similarly, in 1928 Galling noted the remarkable independence of the ancestral and exodus traditions, but saw them as separated primarily on a preliterary level. In addition, some studies raised early questions about the dating of the theme of the promises to the patriarchs and the extent to which that theme – so important in linking different pentateuchal traditions with each other – was deeply rooted in the stories where it appeared. Already in 1899 Staerk had noted that datable references to Abraham and the covenantal promise of the land to the patriarchs begin with the prophet Ezekiel (though that prophet’s audience seems to know it as an established tradition). Moreover, Hoftijzer argued in a monograph in 1956 that the theme of the promise was secondarily added to many of the ancestral narratives of Genesis. Nevertheless, it would be decades before this sort of insight would lead a broader range of scholars to see the promise texts and other pentateuchal cross-references to be among the later connecting layers of the Pentateuch. Thus we see precursors to later critiques of the documentary hypothesis in a variety of loci in the previous century, but none crystallized into a broader scholarly movement. Instead, North American scholars, particularly those educated at Johns Hopkins or Harvard in the Albrightian tradition broadly construed, advanced various forms of the documentary hypothesis, while scholarship on the European continent built on various forms of the documentary hypothesis synthesized by Noth, von Rad, and others. Many Jewish biblical scholars remained resistant to the documentary approach in general, while those that did endorse some form of the source hypothesis usually argued (following on Kaufman and others) for a dating of P before the other strata.

2.2. Publications in the Sixties by Samuel Sandmel and Frederick Winnett Two publications in the 1960’s anticipated the broader breakdown in this consensus that would begin to occur much later, both of which were authored by scholars coming from outside the traditional boundaries of pentateuchal criticism. The first was a 1961 Society of Biblical Literature Presidential address by Samuel Sandmel, whose previous work had focused primarily on Philo and other traditions of Second Temple Judaism. His presentation, published in the Journal of Biblical Literature as “The Haggada Within Scripture”, took as its point of departure questions about E raised by Volz and Rudolph and about the dating of

[1869] 466–477) and revived by other authors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The above, however, covers more recent deviations from the documentary consensus.

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P by Kaufman.3 Yet he went on to propose that elements assigned by past source critics to E, P and even J were not the remnants of once independent sources, but instead bore the signs of haggadic revision of earlier traditions – resolving ethical problems, adding theological accents, etc. For example, parallel to but apparently independent of an earlier essay by Jepsen (1953), Sandmel argued that anti-Reuben (e.g. Gen 35:22; 49:3–4) and pro-Judah elements in Genesis were late Judean haggadic expansions, not remnants of an early Yahwistic source. Furthermore, he proposed that this Yahwistic source “never was a long, connected document”. Indeed, the Abraham materials so central to J bore signs of relatively later origin than the Jacob materials. As a result, Sandmel urged more attention to the independence and distinctive characteristics of the four major parts of Genesis: primeval history, Abraham, Isaac and Joseph materials. Another major call for rethinking the documentary hypothesis came from Frederick Winnett, who had focused most of his career on pre-Islamic Arabic traditions. Though he also wrote occasionally on biblical texts (e.g. his 1949 book on The Mosaic Tradition), it was his 1964 presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature on “Rethinking the Foundations” that laid out a broader critique of the documentary hypothesis. This essay follows Sandmel in several particulars, such as his argument that many non-P Abraham materials in Genesis 12–19 appear to be relatively late, his agreement with Sandmel’s thesis that supposed ‘E’-elements in Genesis 20–22 are expansions upon the non-P materials that precede them (not parts of a once separate ‘E’-source), and his critique of the ‘E’ hypothesis in the Jacob and Joseph materials as well. He also agreed that the primeval history, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph materials probably developed independently, going on to suggest that the link between non-P ancestral and Moses traditions was priestly at the earliest.4 Different from Sandmel was Winnett’s argument that the non-P primeval history showed signs of being a late, independent composition and his hypothesis that the bulk of Genesis was created by what he termed a “late Jahwist”, who was responsible for the addition of many linking promise elements in Genesis, such as Gen 12:1–3; 13:14–17; all of Genesis 15 and many elements of the Jacob and Joseph stories in addition. Though both Sandmel and Winnett’s contributions were SBL Presidential addresses and published in a prominent American journal, The Journal of Biblical Literature, they did not immediately influence the shape of pentateuchal scholarship in the United States, let alone worldwide. Neither scholar was well known as a pentateuchal specialist, and most of North American critical scholarship remained dominated by models derived from W. F. Albright and then developed by his students (especially Frank Moore Cross’s theory of the early Israelite epic tradition). Such scholarship was distinguished from its Continental European counterparts by its particular focus on establishing and exploring the early origins of biblical traditions, especially those in the Pentateuch (or Hexateuch more broadly), often with the help of data from archaeology and Near Eastern epigraphy. Thus, for example, ancient Near Eastern comparisons were adduced by North American scholars to support the antiquity and authenticity of traditions regard3 4

Sandmel, Haggada (1961), 106–107, including his response to Volz and Rudolph in note 3. Winnett, Foundations (1965), 17–18.

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ing Abraham. Such arguments were aimed at repudiating trends in Continental European scholarship to portray biblical Abraham traditions as mere tenth century (or much later!) literary productions, or, at best, the products of somewhat earlier cultic processes of oral tradition production.

3. The Nineteen-seventies and an Emerging Crisis in Pentateuchal Scholarship Sources: B. Diebner / H. Schult, “Argumenta e silentio: das grosse Schweigen als Folge der Frühdatierung der ‘alten Pentateuchquellen’”, in: K. Rupprecht (ed.), Sefer Rendtorff: Festschrift zum 50sten Geburtstag von Rolf Rendtorff (DBAT Beiheft 1; Dielheim 1975), 23–34; idem, “Edom in Alttestamentlichen Texten der Makkabäerzeit”, DBAT 8 (1975) 11–17; idem, “Die Ehen der Erzväter”, DBAT 8 (1975) 2–10. − B. Diebner, “‘Isaak’ und ‘Abraham’ in der alttestamentlichen Literatur ausserhalb Gen 12–50: Eine Sammlung literaturgeschichtlicher Beobachtungen nebst einigen überlieferungsgeschichtlichen Spekulationen”, DBAT 7 (1974) 38–50. − R. Kessler, “Die Querverweise im Pentateuch: Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der expliziten Querverbindungen innerhalb des vorpriesterlichen Pentateuchs” (Heidelberg: Heidelberg Universität 1972). − L. Perlitt, Bundestheologie im Alten Testament (WMANT 36; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1969). − D. B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37–50) (VT.S 20; Leiden: Brill 1970). − R. Rendtorff, “Traditio-Historical Method and the Documentary Hypothesis”, in: Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies (1969), 5–11; Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (BZAW 147; Berlin: de Gruyter 1977); ET: The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch(tr. J. J. Scullion; JSOT.S 89; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1990); “The ‘Yahwist’ as Theologian: The Dilemma of Pentateuchal Criticism”, JSOT 3 (1977) 2–9. − H. H. Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag 1976); “In Search of New Approaches in Pentateuchal Research”, JSOT 3 (1977) 33–42. − T. L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives; The Quest for the Historical Abraham (BZAW 133; Berlin: de Gruyter 1974). − J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University 1975); “Confessional Reformulation in the Exilic Period”, VT 22 (1972) 448–459; Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 1992); “The Yahwist as Theologian? A Response”, JSOT 3 (1977) 15–20. − H. Vorländer, Die Entstehungszeit des jehowistischen Geschichtswerkes (Europäische Hochschulschriften: Reihe 23, Theologie 109; Frankfurt a. M.: Lang 1978). − N. E. Wagner, “Abraham and David”, in: J. W. Wevers / D. Redford (eds.), Studies on the Ancient Palestinian World (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto 1972), 117–140; “Pentateuchal Criticism: No Clear Future”, CJTh 13 (1967) 225–232. − H. W. Wolff, “Das Kerygma des Jahwisten”, EvTh 24 (1964) 73–98 (ET: “Kerygma of the Yahwist”, Int. 20 [1966] 131–158).

3.1. The So-Called “Toronto School” of Pentateuchal Scholarship Several works written in the early seventies (and published in the mid-seventies) began to undermine the dominance of this approach to biblical scholarship in North America. One of them, a Tübingen dissertation by Th. Thompson (The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives, 1974), focused exclusively on critique of the archaeological and comparative arguments often used to support the historical veracity of biblical narratives, but did not feature much specific discussion of the growth and development of biblical literature. Another, however, J. Van Seters’ Abraham in History and Tradition (1975) offered both a critique of comparative

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arguments for the early date and veracity of Abraham traditions and – building on Winnett’s presidential address – an alternative reconstruction of the development of those traditions. The early seventies were a time when many cherished orthodoxies in North American culture and scholarship were being challenged. Both Thompson’s and Van Seters’ works stood as significant challenges to what was perceived by many at the time as the dominance of Albrightian orthodoxy across the landscape of North American biblical scholarship. What is sometimes misunderstood, however, is how Van Seters’ critique developed in relation to previous work by Winnett and his students. Though Van Seters had done undergraduate work from 1954–58 at Toronto, where Winnett taught, and had even taken some language courses with Winnett, his link to Winnett’s pentateuchal scholarship does not stem from that period of early study. Rather, Van Seters’ interest in pentateuchal scholarship was first awakened by a seminar with Brevard Childs at Yale in 1959, and continued with a seminar offered by von Rad when von Rad was visiting Princeton in 1961. It was in the seminar with Childs that Van Seters first encountered Winnett’s initial work on The Mosaic Tradition from which he took two ideas: “1) there was little good reason for believing in an E document in Exodus-Numbers, and 2) the supplemental approach to the development of the Pentateuch”.5 After completing his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies at Yale in 1965, Van Seters secured his first position at Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfred Laurier University), where one of Winnett’s doctoral students, Norman Wagner, was working. During his time there (1965–67) he read Wagner’s dissertation, which offered a more wide ranging critique of the documentary approach than Winnett had published so far, and he also read and was persuaded by many aspects of Winnett’s 1964 presidential address. As he began to develop his critique of the Albrightian approach to the Abraham traditions, he was able to benefit from numerous dialogues with Wagner at Waterloo Lutheran University and later with Winnett, when Van Seters took a position in 1970 at Toronto one year before Winnett’s retirement. In this roundabout way somewhat of a Canadian school of pentateuchal scholarship emerged, albeit not one structured by simple relationships of Doctorvater and student. To be sure, Wagner worked directly under Winnett during the years leading up to Winnett’s address, and his dissertation reflected that relationship. Nevertheless, the thesis was never published, and Wagner’s main publications to pentateuchal scholarship, “Pentateuchal Criticism: No Clear Future” (1967) and “Abraham and David?” (1972), were not widely recognized. At around the same time, a colleague of Winnett’s at Toronto, the Egyptologist D. Redford, published a book on the Joseph story that followed Sandmel’s suggestion that many of the pro-Judah elements of the Joseph story resulted from a late Judean extension of the Joseph story (thus there was no ‘J’ source in the Joseph story), a story which, in turn, Redford dated relatively late.6 Meanwhile, Van Seters worked across the early stages of his post-graduate career on pentateuchal themes. An important initial outgrowth of this work was his article on “Confessional Reformulation” (1972), where he buttressed Winnett’s arguments about a late connection of an5 6

This quote comes from personal email correspondence from John Van Seters, July 23, 2009. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (1970).

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cesteral and Moses traditions through an argument that the idea of a “promise to the fathers” referred originally during the late pre-exile (e.g. in Jeremiah and Ezekiel) to a promise of land to the fathers in Egypt. According to Van Seters, the idea of a promise of land only emerged in the exilic period, including some late exilic additions of “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” to various mentions of an oath promise of land in the Deuteronomistic history.7 In addition, Van Seters continued to develop his ideas for the Abraham project, completing first his critique of comparative arguments for early Abraham traditions before moving, particularly during his first research leave in 1973, to development of a multi-layered approach to the Abraham story. Van Seters’ full study of the Abraham traditions was published by Yale University Press in 1975, and soon commanded significant attention.8 According to Van Seters, an exilic ‘Yahwist’ was the first to produce a larger Abraham story out of a small three-episode pre-Yahwistic stage (Gen 12:1, 4a, 6a, 7, 10–20; 13:1*-2; 16:1–3a, 4–9, 11ab, 12; 13:18; 18:1a, 10–14; 21:2, 6–7) supplemented by an Elohistic story about Abraham in Philistia (20:1–17; 21:25–26, 28–31a). This Yahwistic work then was further supplemented by various Priestly episodes and genealogical and chronological additions, none of which were remnants of a once separate ‘P’ source. Thus, of the three main tetrateuchal sources (J, E, P) of the documentary approach, only a much later, exilic ‘J’ was left. This exilic ‘J’ was Van Seters’ correlate to the ‘Late J’ advocated by Winnett a decade before, though its contents were adjusted significantly. Though both Thompson’s and Van Seters’ arguments were initial greeted with some fierce critique, they succeeded in initiating a shift away from past attempts to establish the early date and veracity of biblical traditions using the comparative method. Van Seters’ proposals about the literary development of the Abraham tradition, however, was comparatively less influential, at least initially in North American scholarship. To be sure, he continued to develop his approach, in particular adding an emphasis on potential relations between exilic biblical historiography (including the exilic ‘Yahwist’) and early Greek historiography. Nevertheless, few North American scholars initially appropriated his alternative model for the development of traditions about Abraham and other pentateuchal themes.

3.2. Tremors in the Source-Critical Foundation in Europe During the years that Redford, Wagner and Van Seters were publishing their alternatives to the documentary approach to the Pentateuch, a series of scholars working in the originating heartland of the documentary approach, Germany, began raising their own questions. One of the first was Rolf Rendtorff, who, starting with a lecture at the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in 1969, suggested that a consistent application of the tradition-historical

7 8

Van Seters, Confessional Reformulation (1972). Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (1975).

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approach rendered the bulk of the documentary hypothesis superfluous.9 This lecture was a prelude to several further contributions by Rendtorff to the discussion that will be discussed shortly. Just a year later, in 1970, H. Vorländer began developing his wide ranging critique of the early dating of non-P materials, published eight years later as Die Entstehungszeit der jehowistischen Geschichtswerks (1978). This critique took as its starting point the basic source approach to the Pentateuch, but – following on the heels of Staerk’s much earlier survey of non-tetrateuchal references to the promise – argued that the central themes of the non-P material (which Vorländer still referred to as JE) were not in circulation before the exilic period. The next step in undermining of the documentary hypothesis is often overlooked. In the early seventies, a doctoral student of H. W. Wolff in Heidelberg, Rainer Kessler, began a systematic study of the Querverweise (“cross-references”) in the Pentateuch.10 In 1964 Wolff had published an essay on the Das Kerygma des Jahwisten (“the kerygma of the Yahwist”) which attempted to reconstruct the theological core of the hypothesized Yahwistic source through study of key linking texts assigned to that source. Kessler began his study as an attempt to explore which pentateuchal linking texts could be assigned to the Elohist, as a preliminary to a similar theological exploration of the hypothesized Elohistic source. As sometimes happens with research projects, however, this one took an unexpected turn. Following somewhat on the lines of Hoftijzer’s much earlier study (1956) of the ancestral promises, Kessler concluded that the cross-references throughout the non-Priestly material (whether promises or other) were late, secondary additions to their contexts. They could not be used to reconstruct the theology of an eighth century Elohist, nor indeed that of a tenth or ninth century Yahwist. Indeed, many of the threads once thought to unite these supposed early pre-exilic ‘J’ and ‘E’ sources were far too late to have served that function. And this, in turn, raised the question of whether the formation of a broader non-priestly pentateuchal narrative might have originated much later than source critics generally held. Though Kessler’s study was accepted as a dissertation at Heidelberg in 1972, it deviated too far from the accepted models of pentateuchal scholarship of the time and was never published. Nevertheless, it did influence later scholarship indirectly by way of Rolf Rendtorff, also teaching at Heidelberg, who read the dissertation as he continued to develop his own questions about the documentary approach. Following up on his above-mentioned 1969 lecture, Rendtorff taught several seminars on pentateuchal criticism at Heidelberg, while serving for almost two years as Rector of Heidelberg University during a tumultuous time in that university’s history (January 1970 to November 1972). On the one hand, he was working hard to mediate differences between the conservative faculty and the reform demands of the student union. On the other hand, during his seminars

9 Rendtorff, Traditio-Historical Method (1969), 5–11. Interestingly, in this lecture he still reckoned (p. 10) with the probability of the existence in the Pentateuch of fragments of what once was separate Elohistic tradition. This supposition was completely absent from his contributions to the discussion a few years later. 10 Kessler, Die Querverweise im Pentateuch (1972).

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he was developing ever more critical views toward past models and methods of pentateuchal criticism. These ideas crystallized during and after a Forschungssemester in Jerusalem in the Winter of 1973 devoted to development of a more thoroughly consistent tradition-historical approach to the formation of the Pentateuch. Rendtorff presented his ideas regarding this problematic to European colleagues at the 1974 meeting in Edinburgh of the International Society for the Study of Old Testament, focusing particularly on how the problems he illustrated undermined the search for a ‘Kerygma’ of the Yahwist once focused on by Wolff and (initially) by Kessler. The last fifth of Rendtorff’s presentation then offered a tradition-historical analysis of the development of pentateuchal promise texts, one building in several respects on Kessler’s 1972 analysis of cross-references but also on observations (made in Jerusalem) about shifts in the formulation of the ancestral promises.11 Soon Rendtorff published a monograph, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (1977), where he offered a much fuller tradition-historical analysis of the development of ancestral traditions and unfolded his critique of traditional source criticism. In particular, he argued that one could detect multiple layers of reworking and linking of the Abraham, Jacob and Isaac materials with each other, particularly layers evident in various promise formulations. Meanwhile, the core texts in the Exodus, Numbers tetrateuchal tradition were joined by other means, showing a conspicuous lack of focus on the theme of ancestral promise, even at places – such as YHWH’s announcement to Moses of leading the Israelites back into the land (Exod 3:8) where one would expect such a focus. The few Exodus and Numbers texts that did show clear links to ancestral traditions were either texts traditionally assigned to the Priestly source (which Rendtorff saw instead as a compositional layer added onto earlier tradition) or a layer of late references to YHWH’s oath promise of land to the ancestors that extended to the end of the Hexateuch (Joshua 24) and had some connection to the Deuteronomic tradition (Rendtorff left open whether it was proto- or post-Deuteronomic). This led Rendtorff pointedly to critique initial attempts by Schmid, scholars associated with Toronto (e.g. Winnett, Van Seters, Wagner), and those closer to him in Heidelberg (Schult and Diebner) merely to redate the non-P material.12 Instead, he called for a fundamental reorientation of

11 “Der ‘Jahwist’ als Theolge: zum Dilemma der Pentateuchkritik”, in Congress Volume Edinburgh 1974 (Leiden: Brill 1975), 158–166. Erhard Blum (per email August 12, 2009) remembers Rendtorff inviting the younger Old Testament scholars, including his assistant K. Rupprecht, C. Machholz, H. Schult, B. Diebner, E. Blum (then serving as his student assistant), and others to his house to narrate his findings during his time in Jerusalem. His report focused particularly on his finding a key to the development of the ancestral tradition in the gradual growth of promise formulations (a growth that he thought could have happened on either the oral or written level of the tradition), which he presented in nuce in his 1974 Edinburgh lecture and then more fully developed in his 1977 monograph. 12 Per email from E. Blum (August 12, 2009), this was already an ongoing debate in Heidelberg circles in the early seventies. Schult and Diebner argued for ever later datings, eventually advocating a Hellenistic dating for key pentateuchal traditions. Rendtorff, however, was resistant to this impetus. It was through Schult and Diebner, so Blum, that Rendtorff’s attention eventually was called to work in North America by Van Seters and Winnett, but the generating impetus for Rendtorff’s work was completely independent of the Toronto group.

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pentateuchal criticism around the tracing the Pentateuch’s formation from small independent units to its final form, without any presupposition of documentary sources. Rendtorff’s call met a mixed reception. For example, the first issue of the Journal for the Study of Old Testament (1977) featured an English translation of Rendtorff’s Edinburgh IOSOT lecture along with responses to Rendtorff’s essay by Whybray, Van Seters, de Pury, Schmid, and Coats.13 Interestingly Van Seters was the most critical of Rendtorff’s presentation, both for what Van Seters took to be an uncritical endorsement of a tradition-historical paradigm and its use of von Rad as an example of the conflict between the source-critical and tradition-historical response.14 The other respondents – many of whom would join Van Seters in playing an important role in discussions of Pentateuchal criticism (e.g. Whybray, Schmid, de Pury), were generally more hospitable to Rendtorff’s questions, without fully endorsing them. This guarded openness to Rendtorff’s essay in the JSOT issue, however, contrasted with the generally cold reception that both his essay and his longer statement in his 1977 monograph received initially in Europe. Though Rendtorff, in contrast to Kessler, was an established scholar, he was perceived by some in the German academic establishment as tarnished by his perceived support, while working as Rector at Heidelberg University, of the student movement at the time. Perception of him as a sympathizer with student revolutionaries, undermined, for some, his promotion of revolutionary views regarding the development of the Pentateuch and scholarship about it. Nevertheless, other European scholars shared Rendtorff’s skepticism about the documentary approach and developed their own critiques in the mid-seventies. In particular, at the Spring 1975 meeting of the Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Theologie, a Swiss scholar, H. H. Schmid, presented a critique of the theory of an early pre-exilic Yahwist, a critique that was expanded and published in book form as Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung in 1976. Schmid’s prior work had focused on the importance of creation and wisdom traditions in Old Testament theology. Yet such traditions often were dismissed by biblical scholarship of his time, which held that Israel’s covenantal “history of salvation” was the early kernel around which other biblical traditions later coalesced. One major monograph from the late sixties, Lothar Perlitt’s Heidelberg Habilitationschrift Bundestheologie im Alten Testamen (1969, dedicated to Perlitt’s teacher Hans Walter Wolff), already had struck a blow against such an approach in arguing that the theme of “covenant” was not an early traditio-historical kernel of tradition, but instead a relatively late development in the Deuteronomic-Deuteronomistic tradition. Schmid’s paper and eventual monograph expanded on this approach, arguing that many central texts and themes in the non-Priestly Pentateuch – the call of Moses, the passage through the Reed Sea, episodes of wilderness wandering, the Sinai pericope, and the promises to the fathers, bore clear signs of being late Deuteronomistic developments. They could not be pillars of an early Yahwist (or Elohist). These findings led him in the conclusion to his monograph not only to raise questions 13 14

Rendtorff, The ‘Yahwist’ as Theologian (1977), 2–9. The responses were published on pp. 10–42. Van Seters, The Yahwist as Theologian? A Response (1977), 15–20.

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about the early dating of large portions of the Yahwistic tradition, but also to point to several Grundprobleme (“foundational problems”) in Pentateuchal criticism, such as the failure of prior source-critics to attend sufficiently to the formal coherence of narratives that they separated and questions raised by Rendtorff as well about the methodology of Literarkritik and the need to attend more to uncovering the process by which relatively independent pentateuchal themes (e.g. ancestors, exodus, wilderness) were literarily processed and connected.15 The final part of Schmid’s conclusion, however, points to a particular aim of his: revision of the history of the religion of Israel away from the past obsession of much biblical scholarship with Geschichtstheologie (“theology articulated through history”).16 In this way Schmid’s critique of past pentateuchal scholarship was part of a broader opposition to the dominance of a “history of salvation” approach in German biblical scholarship, much as Van Seters’ pentateuchal revisionism was part of his opposition to central elements of the Albrightian approach in North American biblical scholarship. Notably Schmid and Van Seters developed a productive collaborative relationship in the wake of publication of both of their books. The two projects had been written independently of each other, with Schmid only able to cursorily read and cite Van Seters’ earlier Abraham in History and Tradition in the final stages of revision of his monograph. Nevertheless, Schmid read Van Seters’ book more thoroughly in the summer of 1977, the two exchanged correspondence, and met in person in 1981 when Van Seters was on the way back from participating in excavations in Egypt that summer. Van Seters later arranged for a North American lecture series for Schmid in 1984, while Schmid organized a European lecture tour for Van Seters during Van Seters’ Oxford sabbatical in 1985–86.17 Though Schmid ended up shifting focus in his later career, devoting many of the final years of his work to serving as Rector for the University of Zurich, contacts such as these began to unite what were once separate North American and European investigations into a inter-continental dialogue.

4. The Unfolding Debate in the Nineteen-Eighties and Nineties (Focus on Non-Priestly Material) Sources: R. Albertz, Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit (GrAT 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1992). − J. Blenkinsopp, “A Post-exilic lay source in Genesis 1–11”, in: J. C. Gertz/ K. Schmid/ M. Witte (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin: de Gruyter 2002), 49–61; The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible (AB Reference Library; New York: Doubleday

15 Much of this background here and in the rest of the paragraph comes from Hans Heinrich Schmid’s son, Konrad Schmid, personal email of July 30, 2009. 16 On this see also H. H. Schmid, In Search of New Approaches in Pentateuchal Research (1977), 40, where he responds to Rendtorff’s charge that he merely redates parts of the Yahwist without raising more fundamental questions about the whole Yahwistic model. 17 The information for the prior two sentences comes from a personal email by John Van Seters, August 2, 2009.

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1992). − E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1984); “Noch einmal: Jakobs Traum in Bethel–Genesis 28,10–22”, in: S. McKenzie/ T. Römer (eds.), Rethinking the Foundations: Historiography in the Ancient Near East and the Bible – FS John Van Seters (Berlin: De Gruyter 2000), 33–54; “Der kompositionelle Knoten am Übergang von Josua zu Richter: ein Entflechtungsvorschlag”, in: M. Vervenne/ J. Lust (eds.), Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature: FS Brekelmans (BETL 133; Louvain: Peeters 1997), 181–212; Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (BZAW 189; Berlin: de Gruyter 1990). − H. J. Boecker, “Überlegungen zur Josephsgeschichte”, in: J. Hausmann/ H.-J. Zobel (eds.), Alttestamentlicher Glaube und Biblische Theologie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1992), 35–45. − S. Boorer, The Promise of the Land as Oath: A Key to the Formation of the Pentateuch (BZAW 205; Berlin: de Gruyter 1992). − A. Campbell/ M. O’Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations (Minneapolis: Fortress 1993). − D. M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 1996). − G. W. Coats, From Canaan to Egypt: Structural and Theological Context for the Joseph Story (CBQ.MS 4; Washington: Catholic Biblical Association 1976). − R. B. Coote/ D. Ord, The Bible’s First History (Philadelphia: Fortress 1989). − R. B. Coote, In Defense of Revolution: The Elohist History (Minneapolis: Fortress 1991). − F. Crüsemann, Der Widerstand gegen das Königtum: die antiköniglichen Texte des Alten Testaments und der Kampf um den frühen israelitischen Staat (WMANT 49; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1978); “Die Eigenständigkeit der Urgeschichte: Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion um den ‘Jahwisten’”, in: J. Jeremias/ L. Perlitt (eds.), Die Botschaft und die Boten: Festschirft für H. W. Wolff (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1981), 9–29; Die Tora: Theologie und Sozialgeschichte des alttestamentlichen Gesetzes (München: Kaiser Verlag 1992). − F. H. Cryer, “On the Relationship Between the Yahwistic and the Deuteronomistic Histories”, BN 29 (1985) 58–74. − W. Dietrich, Die Josephserzählung als Novelle und Geschichtsschreibung: zugleich ein Beitrag zur Pentateuchfrag (BThSt 14; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1989). − H. Donner, Die literarische Gestalt der alttestamentlichen Josephsgeschichte (Heidelberg: Winter 1976). − T. B. Dozeman, God on the Mountain: A Study of Redaction, Theology and Canon in Exodus 19–24 (SBL.MS 37; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1989); God at War: Power in the Exodus Tradition (New York: Oxford UP 1996). − J. A. Emerton, “The Origin of the Promises to the Patriarchs in the Older Sources of the Book of Genesis”, VT 32 (1982) 14–32. − G. Fleischer, “Jakob träumt: eine Auseinandersetzung mit Erhard Blums methodischem Ansatz am Beispiel von Gen 28,10–22”, BN 76 (1995), 82–102. − J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis: Specimens of Stylistic and Structural Analysis (Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991). − P. Frei, “Zentralgewalt und Lokalautonomie im Achämenidenreich”, in: P. Frei/ K. Koch (eds.), Reichsidee und Reichsorganisation im Perserreich (OBO 55; Freiburg/ Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1984), 9–43; “Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary”, in: J. Watts (ed.), Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (tr. J. Watts; SBL.SS 17; Atlanta: SBL 2001), 5–40. − J. C. Gertz/ K. Schmid/ M. Witte (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin: de Gruyter 2002). − J. C. Gertz, Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch (FRLANT 186; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2000). − T. Hiebert, The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel (New York: Oxford UP 1996). − W. L. Humphreys, Joseph and his Family: A Literary Study (Studies on personalities of the Old Testament; Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1988). − H. Hupfeld, Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung von neuem untersucht (Berlin: Verlag von Wiegandt und Grieben 1853). − N. Kebekus, Die Joseferzählung: literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Genesis 37–50 (Internationale Hochschulschriften; Münster/New York: Waxmann 1990). − M. Köckert, Vätergott und Väterverheißungen: eine Auseinandersetzung mit Albrecht Alt und seinen Erben (FRLANT 142; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1988). − R. G. Kratz, Die Komposition der erzählenden Bücher des Alten Testaments: Grundwissen der Bibelkritik (UTB für Wissenschaft; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2000). − C. Levin, Der Jahwist (FRLANT 157; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1993). − N. Lohfink, Die Väter Israels im Deuteronomium (OBO 111; Freiburg/ Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1991). − R. E. Longacre, Joseph: A Story of Divine Providence: A Text Theoretical and Textlinguistic Analysis of Genesis 37 and 39–48 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1989). − S. E. McEvenue, “The Elohist at Work”, ZAW 96 (1984) 315–332; “A Return to Sources in Genesis 28,10–22”, ZAW 106 (1994) 375–389. − E. Nicholson, “The Pentateuch in Recent Research: A Time for Caution”, Congress Volume Leuven 1989 (VT.S 43;

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Leiden: Brill 1991), 10–21; The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford: Clarendon 1998). − E. Otto, “Stehen wir vor einem Umbruch in der Pentateuchkritik?”, VuF 22 (1977) 82–9. − R. Rendtorff, “Jakob in Bethel: Beobachtungen zum Aufbau und zur Quellenfrage in Gen 28:10–22”, ZAW 94 (1982) 511–523. − M. Rose, Deuteronomist und Jahwist: Untersuchungen zu den Berührungspunkten beider Literaturwerke (AThANT 67; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag 1981). − T. Römer, Israels Väter: Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition (OBO 99; Freiburg/ Göttingen, Universitätsverlag/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1990). − L. Schmidt, Literarische Studien zur Josephsgeschichte (BZAW 167; Berlin: de Gruyter 1986); “Väterverheissungen und Pentateuchfrage”, ZAW 104 (1992) 2–27. − W. H. Schmidt, “Ein Theologe in salomonischer Zeit: Plädoyer für den Jahwisten”, BZ 25 (1981) 82–102; “Elementare Erwägungen zur Quellenscheidung im Pentateuch”, Congress Volume Leuven 1989 (VT.S 43; Leiden: Brill 1991), 22–45. − H.-C. Schmitt, Die nichtpriesterliche Josephsgeschichte: ein Beitrag zur neuesten Pentateuchkritik (BZAW 154; Berlin: de Gruyter 1980). − H. Seebass, “Gehörten Verheissungen zum ältesten Bestand der VäterErzählungen?”, Bib. 64 (1983) 189–210; Geschichtliche Zeit und theonome Tradition in der JosephErzählung (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlashaus Gerd Mohn 1978); “Que reste-t-il du Yahwiste et de l’Élohiste”, in: A. d. Pury/ T. Römer (eds.), Le Pentateuque en Question (Geneva: Labor et Fides 1989), 199–214. − J. L. Ska, “Un nouveau Wellhausen?”, Bib. 72 (1991) 253–263. − M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP 1985); “The Structure of Repetition in Biblical Narrative: Strategies of Informational Redundancy (Hebrew)”, in: Hasifrut 25 (1977) 109–150. − P. Weimar, Die Berufung des Mose: literaturwissenschaftliche Analyse von Exodus 2,23–5,5 (OBO 32; Freiburg/ Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1980); Untersuchungen zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Pentateuch (BZAW 146; Berlin: de Gruyter 1977). − C. Westermann, Genesis 1–11 (BKAT I/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1974 [ET: 1984]; Genesis 12–36 (BKAT I/2; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1977 [ET: 1985]; Genesis 37–50 (BKAT I/3; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener 1982 [ET: 1986]). − R. Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study (JSOT.S; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1987). − I. Willi-Plein, “Historiographische Aspekte der Josefsgeschichte”, Henoch 1 (1979) 305–331. − M. Witte, Die biblische Urgeschichte: Redaktions- und theologiegeschichtliche Beobachtungen zu Genesis 1,1–11,26 (BZAW 265; Berlin: de Gruyter 1998). − D. J. Wynn-Williams, The State of the Pentateuch: A Comparison of the Approaches of M. Noth and E. Blum (BZAW 249; Berlin: de Gruyter 1997). − E. Zenger e.a., Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Kohlhammer Studienbücher Theologie, 1; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1995). − E. Zenger, “Auf der Suche nach einem Weg aus der Pentateuchkrise”, ThRev 78 (1982) 353–362; Israel am Sinai: Analysen und Interpretationen zu Exodus 17–34 (Altenberge: CIS-Verlag 1982).

Questions about the formation of the Pentateuch, particularly its non-Priestly material, continued to grow in the late seventies and eighties, especially among scholars working in German-speaking countries. To some extent, scholars applied a redaction-critical approach to many problems that, in the past, had received source-critical solutions, subtracting ever greater amounts of material from what were supposed to be the original source documents (e.g. Weimar 1980, Zenger 1982). In addition, though the source approach to the Joseph story and other texts still had its defenders (e.g. Seebass 1978, L. Schmidt 1986), an ever increasing number of scholars saw the non-P Joseph story as essentially unified (Coats 1976, Donner 1976, Crüsemann 1978, Weimar [1977], Willi-Plein 1979, Westermann 1982, Blum 1984, Humpheys 1988, Longacre 1989, Carr 1996), or (following Jepsen and Sandmel) an early layer expanded by pro-Judah additions (Dietrich 1989, Kebekus 1989, Van Seters 1992) or an early Judah-focused story with various additions focused on Reuben (Schmitt 1980, Boecker 1992, Levin 1993). Neither of these aforementioned trends in scholarship, however, represented a fundamental departure from past source analyses. The Joseph story

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had long been recognized by source-critics as a text less amenable to their approach than many others in Genesis.18 Moreover, the proposal of later redactional elements in ‘J’ or ‘E’ represented only a decrease in amount of material assigned to those sources, not a fundamental shift in models of formation from work of past scholars (who likewise had identified late elements in the J and E strata).19 In contrast, the three-volume Commentary on Genesis published by Claus Westermann from 1966–1982 (especially the volume on Genesis 12–36 in 1974 and the volume on Genesis 37–50 in 1982) was an early example of how the ferment in pentateuchal criticism influenced a publication in one of the most central reference-commentary series in Europe, BKAT. Having worked in the past outside the Pentatuech (especially on form-criticism of the Psalms) and situated in the same context, Heidelberg, as Kessler and Rendtorff, Westermann came to his work on Genesis with an open mind about the potential productivity of the traditional source approach to the non-Priestly material. By the end of his commentary, he still had not found sufficient evidence of the Elohistic document. Instead, he felt he could explain the features of the non-priestly material in Genesis as resulting exclusively from other dynamics of development and combination of tradition, along with layers of redaction. While Westermann was completing his commentary on Genesis, another scholar working at the time in Heidelberg, Frank Crüsemann, extended past proposals about the independence of the non-P primeval history (e.g. Sandmel, Winnett, Kessler, Rendtorff). In particular, he directly attacked past arguments that the non-P primeval history was firmly connected to J by Gen 12:1–3. In a Festschrift article for von Rad, who was among the foremost scholars arguing for theological continuity across the non-P primeval history and Gen 12:1–3, Crüsemann observed a number of distinctions which he believed separated the perspectives of these two blocks of text.20 Though several past scholars had suggested the original independence of the primeval history in much briefer form (e.g. Hempel 1930, Pfeiffer 1941, Bentzen 1949, Napier 1955, Winnett 1961, Clark 1971, Kessler 1972), Crüsemann’s direct engagement with past source-critical arguments for the coherence of J across Genesis 1–12 proved especially important in Germany, and his work was taken as foundational for several additional studies arguing for the independence of non-P primeval history materials (e.g. Blum 1984 and 1990, Köckert 1988, Albertz 1992, Levin 1993, Carr 1996, Witte 1998). At the other end of the Pentateuch, further questions were being raised about the relationship between Deuteronomy and material in the Tetrateuch that it seemed to presuppose. Past studies generally had taken Deuteronomy to contain late-exilic or exilic back-references to an early pre-exilic J or (often) E, including the promise of land to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and a variety of narratives in the non-P Exodus and Numbers Moses story. The perspective on the promise of land

18 Rendtorff comments on this in: Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (1977), 87 (ET: 109). 19 Already Rendtorff in 1977 could speak of a widespread tendency to assign masses of material to the exilic and post-exilic periods (Rendtorff, Problem des Pentateuch, 170 [ET: 202]). 20 Crüsemann, Die Eigenständigkeit der Urgeschichte (1981), 9–29.

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already was questioned by Van Seters in his 1972 “Confessional Reformulation” article (and reinforced in Rendtorff’s 1975 monograph), but this critique received a much more thorough and expansive elaboration in Th. Römer’s dissertation on Israels Väter started under Rendtorff in Heidelberg and completed in Geneva in 1988 under de Pury (as Rendtorff’s interests turned more synchronic) in the late eighties.21 In the meantime, in the late seventies, M. Rose completed a Habilitationsschrift (submitted winter 1979–80; published 1981) while working as assistant to H. H. Schmid. In it he argued that virtually all of the tetrateuchal materials regarding Moses post-dated their parallels in Deuteronomy.22 These proposals received a vigorous response, especially Lohfink’s book-length critique of Römer’s proposal (1991, including a response by Römer) and Suzanne Boorer’s argument for the priority of tetrateuchal promises of land by oath over their Deuteronomic counterparts (1992).23 Nevertheless, most scholars working in tetrateuchal and deuteronomic studies in subsequent years no longer presuppose that every tetrateuchal narrative is earlier than its deuteronomic/deuteronomistic counterpart (see, for an example of a mediating position, Blum 1990). By the early 1980’s, the above-mentioned studies had raised significant questions in many scholars’ minds about the documentary hypothesis, at least as it was traditionally held. To be sure, several scholars mounted vigorous defenses of its foundations, such as E. Otto (1977), H. Seebass (1983, 1989), L. Schmidt (1986, 1992, 1995), and W. H. Schmidt (1981, 1991). Nevertheless, there were some significant indicators that the balance in European penteauchal scholarship was beginning to shift. For example, Erich Zenger, who had pursued a consistent source-critical approach in his 1971 Würzburg dissertation, stated in 1982 that “Pentateuchal research, once a keystone of critical exegesis, is noticeably stuck in the midst of a deep crisis”.24 In some cases, pentateuchal studies redefined and dated later the key ‘Yahwistic’ strand that stood at the foundation of the documentary approach (e.g. Van Seters 1975, also Schmid 1976). In other cases, especially Rendtorff, more profound questions were raised about the source model for the formation of the Pentateuch. Nevertheless, even Rendtorff’s sketch of a tradition-historical approach in his Edinburgh presentation and (in expanded form) his monograph hardly constituted a systematic alternative to the documentary approach. It was left to Rendtorff’s student Erhard Blum to develop such a new model for the formation of the Pentateuch.

21 T. Römer, Israels Väter (1990). Emails from both Römer (Aug. 3, 2009) and Blum (Aug. 12, 2009) mention this trend in Rendtorff’s scholarship, while Römer also mentions this as a background for his switch from starting his dissertation under Rendtorff to finishing it under de Pury (after being hired as de Pury’s assistant in Geneva in 1984, as per Aug. 29, 2009 phone interview with de Pury). 22 M. Rose, Deuteronomist und Jahwist (1981); note also F. H. Cryer, On the Relationship Between the Yahwistic and the Deuteronomistic Histories (1985), 58–74, who extends this perspective into the DtrH, arguing that numerous materials found there actually originate from the same authors of the post-D tetrateuchal materials. 23 N. Lohfink, Die Väter Israels im Deuteronomium (1991), and S. Boorer, The Promise of the Land as Oath (1992). 24 E. Zenger, Auf der Suche nach einem Weg aus der Pentateuchkrise (1982), 353 (translation by this author: “Die Pentateuchforschung, einst Prunkstück der kritischen Exegese, ist zusehends in eine tiefe Krise geraten”); repeated in: Zenger, Israel am Sinai (1982), 16.

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Blum was not commissioned for the task.25 His first acquaintance with Rendtorff had come in a course on rabbinic midrash that Rendtorff co-taught with Israeli scholar Pnina Naveh-Levinson at the outset of Blum’s theological study (and during Rendtorff’s work as Rector). Stimulated by the opportunity to work so informally with a professor, impressed with Rendtorff’s respect for the transmitted Hebrew text, and appreciative of support that Rendtorff provided him in arranging the first of his study years in Jerusalem (1972–73; the other was in 1983–4), Blum returned to further study with Rendtorff, including an upper-level seminar on Exodus 15, and was hired in 1973 as Rendtorff’s student assistant. When Blum completed his theological exams in 1976, Rendtorff took him on as a doctoral student, and Blum began two years of work on a dissertation focused on the semiotics of the temporal system of the Hebrew verb.26 It was at the outset of this process, around 1976, that the seeds of Blum’s future work on pentateuchal criticism were planted. In the process of helping Rendtorff prepare at the time for a seminar on the Bethel story, Blum developed the structural observations about that story which would form the beginning point for his later work on ancestral traditions. He further developed his ideas about the story in the process of aiding Rendtorff in the writing of an essay on the Bethel story for a Festschift for Seeligmann, an essay eventually published in ZAW.27 In 1978 Blum changed his dissertation focus and began concentrated work on a study which he initially thought would focus exclusively on the Jacob story. Blum’s dissertation, completed in 1982 and published in slightly revised form in 1984, expanded to include the ancestral narratives as a whole, but it began where Blum had begun his own work on Pentateuch, with Gen 28:10–22. Blum’s treatment of Gen 28:10–22, a text that played a strategic role in Hupfeld’s initial arguments for ‘E’,28 begins with a detailed synchronic analysis of patterns uniting it, particularly a chiastic pattern uniting what Blum believed to be a traditio-historically earlier Bethel story lacking the promise speech often assigned to the Yahwist (28:13aγβb–15). This pattern united elements assigned in the past to both Yahwist and Elohist (28:10–13aα, 16–19a). The balance of the book then executes Rendtorff’s program of tracing the gradual formation of the ancestral narratives into their present form, moving from the identification of the contours and major compositional elements of once independent Jacob and Joseph stories in the Northern kingdom of Israel, to the joining of these stories initially in the North (reflected especially in Gen 48:1–2, 8–14, 17–20) and then South (e.g. 34:1–31; 35:21–22a; 37:36–38:30 and Gen 49:1b–28), the further expansion of this complex through the late pre-exilic addition of the Abraham-Lot cycle of traditions (in much of Genesis 13, 18–19), and the later, exilic expansion of the whole including 25 Information in this paragraph comes particularly from personal emails from Blum of Aug. 12 and 14, 2009. 26 Now developed into an article, E. Blum, “Das althebräische Verbalsystem: Eine synchrone Analyse”, in: O. Dyma/A. Michel (eds.), Sprachliche Tiefe – theologische Weite (BThSt 91; Neukirchen-Vluyn, Neukirchener 2008), 91–139. 27 R. Rendtorff, Jakob in Bethel (1982). As Blum notes (Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte [1984], 9, n. 6), he made his central structural observations about Gen 28:10–22 without knowledge of this article by Rendtorff which he assisted on. 28 H. Hupfeld, Die Quellen der Genesis (1853), 38–40.

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early forms of Genesis 12, 16, 21:8–21 and 22 and various related additions to the latter half of Genesis.29 These elements confined to the ancestral history are then contrasted with two broader layers of additions to it with links to the broader Pentateuch, a set of layers of D traditions (and related stories) which Blum dated in the early post-exilic period and a still later layer of Priestly tradition (not a source).30 Blum continued his work on Pentateuch in the later eighties while working as Rendtorff’s assistant, though the major players in pentateuchal discussion at Heidelberg of the time had moved on (e.g. Rendtorff to more synchronic-theological studies, Schult and Diebner to later datings of pentateuchal material).The resulting Habilitationsschrift and second book, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (1990) reflected an evolution in Blum’s approach. Though Blum devotes a few pages (208–18, also 176–88) to discussion of indicators of the existence of an early Moses composition pre-supposed by (a form of) Deuteronomy (and a possible additional stream of Moses tradition reflected in Exodus 3–4 and 18), the bulk of the book focuses on only two layers, what Blum terms the D-Komposition (found across much of the non-P material in Exodus and Numbers) and a subsequent P-Komposition spanning the Pentateuch as a whole. Indeed, in a footnote to his discussion of the D-Komposition, Blum stated that he would be even more qualified than he already was in his Vätergeschichte book about the prospect of precise reconstruction of prior individual narratives and that he – following on some observations by Köckert (1988) – discarded the distinction he once held between two major layers of the Abraham story (the Abraham-Lot cycle [Blum’s Vg1] and a broader, exilic expansion [Blum’s Vg2]).31 Moreover, in Studien he went beyond his earlier book in arguing for a mixed model of priestly Komposition rather than mere Redaktion, where Priestly authors appear to have used preceding traditions and/or Priestly drafts of individual narratives in the process of developing their expansion of the pre-existing D-Komposition.32 In a proposal parallel to Frei’s Reichsautorisation hypothesis (though initially developed prior to it), Blum suggested that a Persian governmental role could explain

29 Conspicuously absent from Blum’s analysis, however, was Rendtorff’s strong emphasis on purported contradictions in the history of scholarship (e.g. a contradiction between von Rad’s theory and a documentary approach). Moreover, Blum, unlike Rendtorff, saw his study as focused exclusively on the literary development of the traditions. It may be noted that the overall contours of Blum’s model for the development of the ancestral traditions was paralleled somewhat by roughly contemporary work by Z. Weisman, see his “Diverse Historical and Social Reflections in the Shaping of Patriarchal History (Heb.)”, Zion 50 (1985) 1–13; “The Interrelationship between J and E in the Jacob narratives – Re-examined (Heb.)”, in: Proceedings of the 9th World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, Aug 1985 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies 1986), 35*-42* (ET: “The Interrelationship between J and E in Jacob’s Narrative”, ZAW 104 [1992] 177–197). 30 Here again Blum’s 1984 work represented a divergence from Rendtorff, who related the Priestly promise texts together as an “El Shaddai” layer, but disputed their connection with other supposed Priestly material in the ancestral narratives, e.g. the birth and death framework notices and genealogical material. 31 Blum, Studien (1990), 214, n. 35. He refers to M. Köckert, Vätergott und Väterverheißungen: eine Auseinandersetzung mit Albrecht Alt und seinen Erben (FRLANT 142; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1988, 250 ff). 32 Examples include Blum, Studien (1990), 250–252 on the plagues, 260–262 on the Reed Sea, and 280–285 on the flood.

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the Priestly adherence to and often awkward expansion of the D-Komposition.33 Presented with the opportunity to receive some sort of Persian endorsement of local law, the priests, so Blum, were not in a position to disregard the D-Komposition and lay leaders who endorsed it. Instead, they created a new whole out of that composition, one that both preserved the bulk of the D-Komposition and balanced it with Priestly traditions and perspectives. It was this P-Komposition then, that was eventually expanded through various post-Priestly redactions into the Pentateuch(s) preserved in various ancient manuscript traditions. In the wake of Blum’s work, one major reviewer, J.-L. Ska, raised the question of whether Blum might be “un nouveau Wellhausen”,34 but his books proved too extensive and too complicated to receive the kind of wide reception that Wellhausen’s broad synthesis once did, and Blum’s association with Rendtorff, who remained controversial among some, may also have influenced the reception of his work. A few attempted refutations of Blum’s Vätergeschichte through attacking his analysis of Gen 28:10–22, as if Blum’s entire analysis rose or fell on that single text.35 D. Wynn-Williams attempted to reconstruct, word-for-word, the various layers postulated in Blum’s analysis,36 and found them less complete and convincing than a similar word-for-word reconstruction of Noth’s sources, this despite Blum’s own cautions about the impossibility of any such verbatim reconstruction of earlier materials.37 Most scholars, especially in the English speaking world, perceived Blum’s work as a straightforward unfolding of Rendtorff’s prior statements, especially his monograph translated into English in 1990, rather than seeing the numerous ways in which Blum’s work, though an execution of Rendtorff’s general program, represented a substantial departure both from Rendtorff’s starting point (analysis of methodological contradictions within German pentateuchal scholarship) and central theses. By the mid-nineteen ninties, however, it was becoming increasingly clear that the once existing consensus on the documentary hypothesis, at least as traditionally construed, was gone, especially in the European context where it once had dominated. Chr. Levin’s Göttingen Habilitationsschrift, published in 1993 as Der Jahwist, is indicative of the tendency of much German scholarship of the time toward late dating of all biblical material, including the remnants of what Levin stilled wished to term a ‘Yahwist’. Levin’s Yahwist, however, was an editor, not an

33 As per an email from Blum, August 28, 2009, Blum presented an initial version of his thesis in East Berlin in 1983, a year prior to publication of Frei’s initial formulation “Zentralgewalt und Lokalautonomie im Achämenidenreich”, in: P. Frei/K. Koch (eds.), Reichsidee und Reichsorganisation im Perserreich (OBO 55; Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1984), 9–43. Frei’s work, including his organization of ideas under the Reichsautorisation concept, did prove helpful as Blum continued to develop his own approach. For a more recent formulation of Frei’s approach, see “Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary”, in: J. Watts (ed.), Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (tr. J. Watts; SBL.SS 17; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2001), 5–40. 34 Ska, Un nouveau Wellhausen? (1991), 253–263. 35 See especially McEvenue, A Return to Sources in Genesis 28,10–22 (1994), 375–389, and G. Fleischer, Jakob träumt (1995), 82–102. For a reply, see Blum, Noch einmal: Jakobs Traum (2000), 33–54. 36 Wynn-Williams, The State of the Pentateuch (1997). 37 See, for example, Blum’s explicit cautions on this point in Vätergeschichte (1984), 127.

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author; an editor writing in exile, not in the tenth or ninth century, and only responsible for a small portion of the present Pentateuch – mostly parts of Genesis and the first chapters of Exodus. Another index of the state of scholarship in the early nineties came from E. Zenger, who had started as a source critic in the early seventies and qualified his position in the early eighties. In 1995 he published an Einleitung in das Alte Testament that now advanced a claim for some kind of pre-exilic Jerusalemite historical work of more limited scope and contents than the past J and E.38 This introduction, which proved popular in German-speaking contexts, showed the persistence in many circles of the hypothesis of some sort of Priestly source (more on this shortly) along with the continuing belief by many in a pre-Priestly composition spanning the Pentateuch. Nevertheless, it also illustrated the progressive abandonment of recognizable forms of the older ‘Yahwistic’ and especially ‘Elohistic’ documents. Increasingly, whatever ‘Yahwist’ one met was profoundly different in delimitation from the ‘Yahwist’ documents assumed up through the mid-sixties, while the ‘Elohist’ had disappeared altogether. North American scholarship, however, was in a very different place. Building somewhat on European precedents such as Fokkelman’s 1975 study of the Jacob traditions,39 but especially on models of “new literary criticism” being taught in University English departments, a series of studies in the late seventies and early eighties began to argue for a “literary approach” to the present biblical text that purported, at times, to offer a different model for resolving the sorts of doublets, tensions, and shifts in perspective that had been interpreted as signs of literary growth by older forms of German Literarkritik. R. Alter’s influential Art of Biblical Narrative (1981) admitted the probability of growth of biblical texts over time, but urged attention to the artistry (“composite artistry”) involved in the combination of sources and layers. M. Sternberg’s monumental Poetics of Biblical Narrative (1985) offered a 75 page chapter offering literary interpretations of various forms of repetition (an expansion of an earlier, 1977 article on the subject) sometimes used by (old style) literary critics to identify literary strata.40 In the wake of such literary studies and a new impetus from B. Childs and others to focus theological exegesis on the final shaping of the text, an increasing number of North American biblical scholars proclaimed that a focus on formation of the biblical text, including and especially the Pentateuch, was a fruitless distraction. Especially in light of the emerging chaos of pentateuchal criticism (much of which was published in a language, German, that many North American scholars could not read easily) such scholars felt that methodological certainty could not be found in reconstruction and interpretation of hypothetical pre-stages of the biblical text. These developments combined with a longstanding American ambivalence toward higher biblical criticism to encourage a widespread abandonment of study of the formation of the Pentateuch and increasing focus on the present form(s) of the biblical text.

38 E. Zenger e.a., Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Kohlhammer Studienbücher Theologie, 1; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1995), 112–119. 39 Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (1991). 40 Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (1985), 365–440. The earlier article (in Hebrew) was Sternberg, The Structure of Repetition in Biblical Narrative (1977), 109–150.

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Many scholars outside Europe who still maintained interest in pentateuchal formation proved resistant to trends in European scholarship toward discarding of the once trustworthy documentary approach. Some scholars educated in the post-Albrightian tradition at Harvard advanced forms of the documentary hypothesis that took little account of recent European developments. Examples are R. Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible (1987) and R. Coote’s The Bible’s First History (1989) and In Defense of Revolution: The Elohist History (1991).41 From a different perspective, the Australian scholars A. Campbell and M. O’Brien published an annotated English translation of the documentary sources as identified by Martin Noth in 1948,42 and Campbell supervised two dissertations that offered critiques of Rendtorff’s and Blum’s proposals (Boorer 1992 and Wynn-Williams 1997). S. McEvenue, a Canadian scholar, published a major critique of Blum’s analysis of the Bethel story (1994)43 and defense of the Elohist,44 and the British scholars J. Emerton and E. Nicholson published detailed critical responses to new trends in pentateuchal criticism (in 1982 and 1984, 1991 and 1998 respectively). Up through the nineties there were some isolated exceptions to this trend in English-language scholarship toward avoidance of questions of pentateuchal formation or retreat to the security of the documentary hypothesis. Th. Dozeman published two monographs, in 1989 and 1996, that took account of recent European scholarship, discarding the J and E hypothesized sources of the older documentary hypothesis and treating the Priestly layer of the Pentateuch as a redactional strand. J. Blenkinsopp published an Introduction to the Pentateuch (1992) that summarized several recent developments in pentateuchal scholarship and argued for the post-priestly character of the non-P − formerly ‘Yahwistic’− portions of the primeval history. D. Carr (the author of this chapter) spent a year in Heidelberg, Germany, under the sponsorship of B. Janowski, R. Rendtorff, and E. Blum, and produced a book Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (1996) that aimed to overcome some of the divides characteristic of biblical (especially pentateuchal) scholarship up to that point. Though Carr maintained a fairly traditional view of the priestly material in Genesis as a separate source (dated to the late exile or early post-exilic period), he incorporated alternative ideas advanced in recent pentateuchal scholarship for the development of non-priestly material, particularly the abandonment of the J and E sources, endorsement of the idea of an independent non-P primeval history, and adaptation of Blum’s model for the development of the Jacob and Joseph 41 Note also the appendix: “Late for a Very Important Date”, to R. E. Friedman, The Hidden Book in the Bible (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco 1998), 361–378, where Friedman largely focuses his engagement with European scholarship on the positions expressed by Blum at a 1994 panel which both he and Friedman attended. Note also Hiebert, The Yahwist’s Landscape (1996) which briefly notes literary objections to the documentary hypothesis and a few studies raising questions from a critical side (p. 25), but then proceeds with a traditional definition of sources since “some position must be assumed as a starting point for the study of Pentateuchal traditions”. Another study supporting an Elohist from the same broader scholarly genealogy is J. S. Burnett, A Reassessment of Biblical Elohim (SBL.DS 183; Atlanta, GA: SBL 2001; publication of a 1999 Johns Hopkins dissertation supervised by P. Kyle McCarter). 42 Campbell/O’Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch (1993). 43 McEvenue, A Return to Sources in Genesis 28,10–22 (1994), 375–389. 44 McEvenue, The Elohist at Work (1984), 315–332.

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traditions. Moreover, in dialogue with recent literary approaches in the United States, Carr argued that certain basic insights into the growth of biblical texts like Genesis could prove helpful in literary and theological analysis of their final form.

5. Developments in Concepts of the Priestly Layer Sources: G. Auld, “Leviticus at the Heart of the Pentateuch”, in: Reading Leviticus: A Conversation with Mary Douglas (JSOT.S 227; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1996), 40–51. − E. Aurelius, Der Fürbitter Israels: eine Studie zum Mosebild im Alten Testament (ConBOT 27; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1988). − G. Barkay e.a., “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation”, BASOR 334 (2004) 41–70. − G. Barkay, “News From the Field: The Divine Name Found in Jerusalem”, BAR 9:2 (1983), 14–19. − M. Bauks, “La signification de l’espace et du temps dans ‘l’historiographie sacerdotale’”, in: T. Römer (ed.), The Future of the Deuteronomistic History (BETL 147; Louvain: Peeters 2000), 29–45. − J. Blenkinsopp, “An Assessment of the Alleged Pre-Exilic Date of the Priestly Material in the Pentateuch”, ZAW 108 (1996) 495–518. − A. F. Campbell, “The Priestly Text: Redaction or Source?”, in: G. Braulik (ed.), Biblische Theologie und gesellschaftlicher Wandel: Für Norbert Lohfink SJ, e.a. (Freiburg: Herder 1993), 32–47. − A. Cholewin´ski, Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium: eine vergleichende Studie (AnBib 66; Rome: Biblical Institute Press 1976). − F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic; Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 1973). − K. Elliger, “Heiligkeitsgesetz”, RGG 3 (31959), 175–176; Leviticus (HAT I/4; Tübingen: Mohr 1966). − J. Emerton, “The Priestly Writer in Genesis”, JTS 39 (1988) 381–400. − C. Frevel, “Kein Ende in Sicht? zur Priestergrundschrift im Buch Levitikus”, in: H.J. Fabry/ H.-W. Jüngling (eds.), Levitikus als Buch (Berlin/ Bodenheim: Philo 1999), 85–123; Mit Blick auf das Land die Schöpfung erinnern: zum Ende der Priestergrundschrift (HBSt 23; Freiburg: Herder 2000). − P. Guillaume, Land and Calendar: The Priestly Document from Genesis 1 to Joshua 18 (Library of Hebrew Bible 391; New York: T&T Clark 2009). − M. Haran, “Behind the Scenes of History: Determining The Date of the Priestly Source”, JBL 100 (1981) 321–333; “The Law-code of Ezekiel 40–48 and its Relation to the Priestly School”, HUCA 50 (1979), 45–71; Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into Biblical Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977). − A. Hurvitz, “The Evidence of Language in Dating the Priestly Code”, RB 81 (1974) 24–57; A Linguistic Study of the Relationship Between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel: A New Approach to an Old Problem (Paris: Gabalda 1982); Once Again: The Linguistic Profile of the Priestly Material in the Pentateuch and its Historical Age: A Response to J. Blekinsopp”, ZAW 112 (2000) 180–191. − S. Japhet, “The Laws of Manumission of Slaves and the Question of the Relationship Between the Collections of Laws in the Pentateuch”, in: Studies in Bible and Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Rubinstein 1978), 231–249. − W. Johnstone, “The Use of Reminiscences in Deuteronomy in Recovering the Two Main Literary Phases in the Production of the Pentateuch”, in: J. C. Gertz/K. Schmid/ M. Witte (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin: de Gruyter 2002), 247– 273. − E. A. Knauf, “Die Priesterschrift und die Geschichten der Deuteronomisten”, in: T. Römer (ed.), The Future of the Deuteronomistic History (BETL 147; Leuven: Peeters 2000), 100–118. − I. Knohl, “The Priestly Torah Versus the Holiness School: Sabbath and the Festivals”, HUCA 58 (1987), 65–117; Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress 1995). − K. Koch, “P-kein Redaktor! Erinnerung an zwei Eckdaten der Quellenscheidung”, VT 37 (1987) 446–467. − M. Köckert, “Leben in Gottes Gegenwart: Zum Verständnis des Gesetzes in der priestschriftlichen Literature”, JBTh 4 (1989), 29–61. − N. Lohfink, “Die Priesterschrift und die Geschichte”, in: Congress Volume Göttingen 1977 (VT.S 29; Leiden: Brill 1978), 189–225. − C. Machholz, “Israel und das Land: Vorarbeiten zu einem Vergleich zwischen Priesterschrift und Deuteronomistischem Geschichtswerk” (Hab.schrift; Heidelberg 1969). − J. Milgrom, “Profane Slaughter and a Formulaic Key to the Composition of Deuteronomy”, HUCA 47 (1976), 1–17; Leviticus: A New Translation With Introduction and Commentary (AB 3–3B; New York: Doubleday 1991–2001). − C. Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the

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Book of Leviticus (FAT 25; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007). − E. Otto, “Gesetzesfortschreibung und Pentateuchredaktion”, ZAW 107 (1995) 373–392; “Forschungen zur Priesterschrift”, ThR 62 (1997) 1–50. − L. Perlitt, “Priesterschrift im Deuteronomium”, ZAW 100 (1988) 123–143. − T. Pola, Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift: Beobachtungen zur Literarkritik und Traditionsgeschichte von Pg (WMANT 70; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1995). − R. Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose (HSM 12; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1976). − A. Ruwe, “Heiligkeitsgesetz” und “Priesterschrift”: literaturgeschichtliche und rechtssystematische Untersuchungen zu Leviticus 17,1–26,2 (FAT 26; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1999). − M. Sæbø, “Priestertheologie und Priesterschrift. Zur Eigenart der priesterlichen Schicht im Pentateuch”, in: Congress Volume Vienna 1980 (VT.S 32; Leiden: Brill 1981), 357–374. − L. Schmidt, Studien zur Priesterschrift (BZAW 214; Berlin: de Gruyter 1993). − B. J. Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai”, in: M. Fox e.a. (eds.), Texts, Temples, and Traditions: FS Haran (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1996), 103–134; The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Heb.) (Jerusalem: Magnes 1999). − J.-L. Ska, “Quelques remarques sur Pg et la dernière rédaction du Pentateuque”, in: A. de Pury (ed.), Le Pentateuque en Question (Geneva: Labor et Fides 1989), 95–125; “De la relative indépendance de l’écrit sacerdotal”, Bib. 76 (1995) 396–415. − M. S. Smith, The Pilgrimage Pattern in Exodus (JSOT.S 239; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1997); J. Stackert, Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation (FAT 52; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007). − P. Stoellger, “Deuteronomium 34 ohne Priesterschrift”, ZAW 105 (1993) 25–51. − S. Tengström, Die Toledotformel und die literarische Struktur der priesterlichen Erweiterungsschicht im Pentateuch (ConBOT 17; Lund: Gleerup 1982). − M. Vervenne, “The ‘P’ tradition in the Pentateuch: Document and/or Redaction? – The ‘Sea Narrative’ (Ex 13:17–14:31) as a Test Case”, in: C. Brekelmans/ J. Lust (eds.), Pentateuchal and Deuteronomistic Studies (BETL 94; Louvain: Leuven University 1990), 67–90. − P. Volz, “Anhang: P ist kein Erzähler”, in: P. Volz / W. Rudolph, Der Elohist als Erzähler: ein Irrweg der Pentateuchkritik? An der Genesis erläutert (BZAW 63; Giessen: Töpelmann 1933), 135–142. − V. Wagner, “Zur Existenz des sogenannten Heiligkeitsgesetzes”, ZAW 86 (1974) 307–316. − M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon 1972); “Social and Cultic Institutions in the Priestly Source Against Their Ancient Near Eastern Background”, in: Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies 1981 (Jerusalem; World Union of Jewish Studies, 1983; 95–138). − E. Zenger, “Priesterschrift”, TRE 27 (1997), 435–446. − Z. Zevit, “Converging Lines of Evidence Bearing on the Date of P”, ZAW 94 (1982), 481–511.

Much of the preceding survey has focused on debates surrounding the formation of non-Priestly material, but the crisis surrounding pentateuchal study increasingly has involved priestly material (broadly construed) as well. To start, a number of Jewish scholars continued to resist the relative and absolute late dating of the priestly layer common in Christian biblical scholarship. Already in the fifties and sixties Y. Kaufmann had proposed a radically different synthesis of the history of Israelite religion that posited priestly tradition toward the outset, not the conclusion, of the development of Israelite religion.45 Nevertheless, during the seventies a number of new sorts of arguments were adduced in support of an early dating of P, especially in relation to parallel D traditions. In a series of publications starting in the early seventies, A. Hurvitz argued that the Hebrew found in Priestly texts was not post-exilic Hebrew and (so Hurvitz) pre-dated the late pre-exilic/early-exilic Hebrew found in Ezekiel.46 At around the same 45

Perhaps most accessible as Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel (1960). Hurvitz, The Evidence of Language in Dating the Priestly Code (1974), 24–57; A Linguistic Study of the Relationship Between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel (1982). Cf. Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew (1976); also the response to this trend in Blenkinsopp, An Assessment of the Alleged Pre-Exilic Date of the Priestly Material in the Pentateuch (1996), 495–518, and Hurvitz’s rejoinder, Once Again: The Linguistic Profile of the Priestly Material in the Pentateuch (2000), 180–191. 46

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time, J. Milgrom began advancing textual and cult-historical arguments for the chronological priority of P over D, particularly the proposal that in three loci where Deuteronomy features the formula ‫דבר‬/‫נשבע‬/‫“( צוה כאשר‬as he commanded, swore, spoke”) it is referring back to prior Priestly regulations.47 Weinfeld added to these arguments both in his 1972 treatment of Deuteronomy and a series of articles establishing that cultic institutions and texts of the sort found in P were not mere late developments in the ancient Near East (as Wellhausen was taken to propose) but very early.48 Haran (1977, 1979, 1981) gathered other arguments for the relatively early date of P, including the idea that the Priestly texts were not more reflected in early datable prophetic and others texts because they represented the initially secret, sectarian and utopian teaching of pre-exilic priests. By 1982 Ziony Zevit could write an article on “converging lines of evidence bearing on the date of P”, summarizing many of these developments and arguing that a decisive shift was underway.49 And certainly there was a longterm trend toward appreciation of the potential antiquity of individual priestly traditions and away from the sorts of caricatures of priestly tradition found in much earlier scholarship. The trend toward potentially early dating of individual priestly traditions was further encouraged by the finding of the Ketef Hinnom amulets in 1979 (announced in 1983), amulets dated to the late pre-exilic period that contain the Aaronide blessing found in a relatively late stratum of priestly supplements to the Sinai pericope (Num 6:24–26).50 Nevertheless, the confessional divide in dating of the broader priestly tradition has persisted, with virtually all advocates of an early dating being Jewish scholars, while advocates of a post-D and/or exilic/post-exilic dating of P being mostly, though not exclusively, non-Jewish (and often Christian). These controversies over the date of P were relatively old, but the seventies saw the opening of a relatively new debate about whether the Priestly stratum of the Pentateuch had ever existed separately as a source. The source character of P was taken for granted in the earliest stages of source criticism (eighteenth and nineteenth century) when it often was seen as the document standing at the outset of the formation of the Pentateuch, but this idea of a P source had been continued in the wake of the Graf-Kuenen-Wellhausen reversal of dating, with Martin Noth even maintaining that P was preserved more completely in the late redaction of the Pentateuch than the earlier non-P sources that RP used – so Noth – to supplement it. Once again, Sandmel’s 1961 article (along with an above-mentioned study by Volz) anticipated trends in later scholarship in proposing that much Priestly material, such as the account of Isaac’s blessing and sending forth of Jacob (Gen 28:1–5) was a haggadic extension of prior non-P material (in this

47 Milgrom, Profane Slaughter and a Formulaic Key to the Composition of Deuteronomy (1976), 3–16; note also Japhet, The Laws of Manumission of Slaves (1978), 231–249. 48 Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (1972), and e.g. Social and Cultic Institutions in the Priestly Source (1983), 95–138. 49 Zevit, Converging Lines of Evidence Bearing on the Date of P (1982), 481–511. 50 Initially announced in Barkay, News From the Field: The Divine Name Found in Jerusalem in BAR 9:2 (1983), 14–19, with a full edition now available, G. Barkay e.a., The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom (2004), 41–70.

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case Gen 27:1–45) rather than remnants of a once separate source.51 Nevertheless, more extensive arguments for this position did not appear until Rendtorff’s 1969 World Congress of Jewish Studies lecture and later publications (especially the 1977 monograph), Machholz’s 1969 Heidelberg Habilitationsschrift, Cross’s 1972 essay on P as a redaction in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and Van Seters’ 1976 book on Abraham in History and Tradition.52 Mostly these publications pointed to major gaps in the supposedly continuous Priestly document, such as P’s remarkably incomplete Jacob and (especially) Joseph story or the complete absence of an introduction of the figure of Moses in P. In addition, Cross, followed especially by Tengström (1981) noted how the priestly toledot superscriptions in Genesis often seem to function in relation to sections composed virtually exclusively of non-P material.53 Finally, studies such as those by Ska (1982, 1989), Vervenne (1990) and especially Blum (1984, 1990) argued that there are a variety of places where central priestly narratives were constructed to function in relation to the non-Priestly narratives surrounding them. Soon studies focusing on other themes, such as those by Dozeman (1989) and Smith (1997), took as their starting point the concept of Priestly material as a supplement to the non-Priestly material. Nevertheless, a broad series of studies also appeared that responded to this trend and argued vigorously that some form of P once had existed separately (e.g. Lohfink 1978, Koch 1987, Emerton 1988, W. H. Schmidt 1991, L. Schmidt 1993, Campbell 1993, Carr 1996, Schwartz 1996, Nicholson 1998). Blum’s later work responded to the complex mix of data raised by both sets of studies to propose the above-mentioned P as Komposition (not redaction) model, where Priestly authors, working in the context of Persian governmental authorization, created a hybrid priestly (and non-Priestly) Torah through expanding a prior D Komposition with their own traditions, preliminary drafts of episodes and broader concepts (e.g. “nearness of God”).54 With time, however, most scholars have reverted to the idea that some form of a Priestly source once existed, albeit a source that may have known and responded in a complex way to prior non-Priestly materials.55 The extent of that prior Priestly source, however, is under intense dispute, especially with regard to where it ends. Already Martin Noth’s work on the Deuteronomistic History in general and Joshua in particular, had made many doubt the existence of P beyond the Pentateuch, say in potential P fragments such as Josh 4:19; 5:10–12; 18:1 and 19:51. Moreover, a number of Christian scholars, with Noth being a prominent example, had raised major questions about how much of the Priestly legislation had belonged originally to the P Grundschrift.

51

Sandmel, Haggada (1961), 112. See earlier n. 3 for prior studies with this view. Rendtorff, Traditio-Historical Method (1969), 10; Machholz, Israel und das Land (1969), 38–39; Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973), 301–321; Van Seters, Abraham (1975), 279–295. 53 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973), 301–305, and Tengström, Die Toledotformel und die literarische Struktur (1982), 17–59. 54 Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (1990), 221–360. 55 See, for example, the summary in Nihan/Römer, Débat actuel (1989), 93–94, and Ska’s discussion of the evolution of his position, in: Ska, De la relative indépendance de l’écrit sacerdotal, Bib. 76 (1995) 402–405. Notably, B. Schwartz (esp. in: The Holiness Legislation, 1999) represents an energetic opponent of the view that P knew of or responded to other materials in the Pentateuch. 52

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Up through the eighties, however, most scholars thought that P at least extended up to a few fragments preserved in Deuteronomy (Deut 1:3; 32:48–52; and especially 34:1*, 7–9). Nevertheless, an influential 1988 study by Perlitt (note also Stoellger 1993) persuaded many that the supposed P fragments in Deuteronomy linked in multiple ways to non-Priestly materials, with some P fragments serving as an editorial frame for Deuteronomy itself. They were not parts of any once-independent P document.56 This essay, along with some studies suggesting post-priestly origins for several priestly narratives in Numbers, led Pola, in a 1991 Tübingen dissertation (published in 1995) to argue that the original Priestly narrative extended only up to the completion of the tabernacle in Exodus 40 (Exod 40:33).57 Soon others followed his lead, whether finding the end where he did somewhere in Exodus 40 (Auld 1996 and 2003, Bauks 2000 and 2001, Kratz 2000, Nihan-Römer 2004), earlier in Exodus 29 (Otto 1997), or later in Leviticus 9 (Zenger 1996, Nihan 2007). This impetus toward seeing the original P narrative exclusively in the first books of the Pentateuch has met with some critical response (especially L. Schmidt 1993, 241–251; Frevel 1999, 2000), and even has been balanced by some recent attempts to revive identification of P in Joshua (e.g. Knauf 2000, Guillaume 2009). Nevertheless, it seems to have gathered momentum among those who still think it possible to reconstruct an early, separate P source with some precision. One other issue with bearing on the contents of P is the discussion that has arisen around H, what was once thought to be a legislative code preserved mostly in Leviticus 17–26, but also found in fragments scattered through other parts of P as well. From the time of this code was initially hypothesized by Klostermann (1877) up through the sixties, many scholars supposed that the “Holiness” material found in much of Leviticus 17–26 pre-existed the Priestly document and constituted one of its most important sources. Then, starting with Elliger’s RGG article in 1959 and commentary in 1966, and then continued by a dissertation by Cholewin´ski (1976), a growing number of scholars began to see the material in Leviticus 17–26 as a Priestly supplement post-dating the earliest Priestly narrative, even if it pre-dated subsequent layers added by the priestly school (Ps). At about the same time as Cholewin´ski, Wagner wrote an article (1974) that noted multiple connections between the Holiness material of Leviticus 17–26 and the material that precedes it in Leviticus, connections which militated against a concept of Leviticus 17–26 as an originally independent body of material.58 At least initially, these observations contributed to the efforts of some to treat Leviticus 17–26 once again as an integral part of the Priestly layer, albeit a priestly layer that was a compositional extension and modification of non-Priestly materials (e.g. Blum 1990, Crüsemann 1992, and Ruwe 1999). Nevertheless, up through the eighties, these reflections on H material focused almost exclusively on the 56 Perlitt, Priesterschrift im Deuteronomium, ZAW 100 (1988) 123–143; Stoellger, Deuteronomium 34 ohne Priesterschrift, ZAW 105 (1993) 25–51. See the summary in Pola, Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift (1995), 13–14, 106. 57 Pola, Ursprüngliche Priesterschrift (1995); note also E. Aurelius’s tentative proposal several years earlier of an ending of the original Priestly source in the Sinai pericope, Der Fürbitter Israels (1988), 187–188. 58 Wagner, Zur Existenz des sogenannten Heiligkeitsgesetzes (1974), 307–316.

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character and history of formation of Leviticus 17–26 and a handful of texts with similarities to that material. In 1983, however, Israel Knohl, a doctoral student focusing on Talmud at Hebrew University, began work on a study of festivals in H and P as part of an independent study that would lead to a more far reaching model for the role of H in the formation of the Pentateuch. Using methods he had learned in his doctoral study of Talmud (and lacking prior training in Bible), he argued that Leviticus 23 was an H revision of earlier P synopsis of the themes and obligations of the festivals, a synopsis paralleled by a more extensive P list of the sacrifices to be offered at each festival found in Numbers 28–29.59 Changing the focus of his doctoral work from Talmud to Bible, Knohl then wrote a dissertation under M. Greenberg (1988) followed by a monograph (1992 Hebrew, 1995 English) that extended the terminological and conceptual distinctions that he had found in Leviticus 23 to identify a far-reaching layer of Holiness material across the Tetrateuch, one that both shaped early Priestly materials and joined them with non-Priestly materials as well. In other words, Knohl argued that the Holiness material found with particular density in Leviticus 17–26 (the former “Holiness code”) was, in essence, part of the last and major redaction of the Pentateuch.60 Furthermore, though he used the term “Priestly Torah” (PT) for the preceding priestly materials, the PT materials identified by Knohl did not connect with each other and were not conceived by Knohl as constituting a single source.61 Rather, Knohl dissolved what was once taken to be a P source into 1) a series of separate priestly compositions on various topics from a single perspective and 2) an H compositional layer that reshaped many of those compositions and combined them with the non-P pentateuchal material into a broader Pentateuch.62 Knohl’s approach proved conceptually and exegetically compelling to many. J. Milgrom adopted a revised form of Knohl’s model in his massive and influential commentary on Leviticus, even as he dated both the PT and HS (Holiness school) layers earlier than Knohl, diverged from Knohl on the extent to which he distinguished the Priestly and Holiness schools, and identified somewhat differ-

59

The initial study was published as Knohl, The Priestly Torah versus the Holiness School, HUCA 58 (1987), 65–117. Much of the information here and in the rest of the paragraph originates from emails from Knohl on Aug. 14, 2009. 60 Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence (1995). 61 Note the panel on Nov. 26, 1996 at the New Orleans SBL meeting: “Models for P: Composition and Dating” where Knohl appeared with a basket containing many pieces of paper rolled to resemble scrolls. These, he suggested, were what ‘PT’ would have looked like, a set of scrolls on various topics from a single, priestly point of view. 62 The terminology of H and P somewhat obscures the similarity of Knohl’s approach to others developed around the same time. For example, there is a similarity between Knohl’s ‘H’ (combined with its PT sources) and the ‘P’ of several scholars working in the nineties such as Blum (also Albertz 1992, Crüsemann 1992) who worked with a concept of a broader ‘P’ compositional stratum that included H materials and linked to non-P materials. The difference was that Blum’s discussion did not sharply distinguish, as Knohl’s did, between a redactional layer within P (identified by Knohl as ‘HS’) and a set of priestly sources for that layer (Knohl’s ‘PT’) dominated by a set of concepts distinct from that redactional layer. Partly as a result, Blum saw this broader stratum as dominated with concerns that Blum signaled with the term “Gottesnähe”, rather than holiness per se.

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ent texts as belonging to the HS layer.63 Within Jewish circles, Knohl’s proposal represented a significant and persuasive alternative to Kaufman’s reconstruction of the history of Israelite religion. But Christian and other non-Jewish scholars also found potential in his model. As a result of Knohl’s and others’ work it was increasingly clear that much of Leviticus 17–26 and similar material represented a layer of legal composition that bridged between independent priestly instruction (however conceived) and non-Priestly legal materials, such as the covenant code (Exod 20:22–23:33) and especially Deuteronomy (e.g. Otto 1995 and 1997, Stackert 2007, Nihan 2007). As such, whether as a late extension of priestly materials written in knowledge of non-P materials (and thus anticipating later compositional combination with such non-P materials) or as one of the layers written actually to connect those non-P with P materials, the Holiness texts in Leviticus 17–26 and elsewhere stand as important potential sources for study of one of the forms of conceptuality that led to the combined P/non-P Pentateuch now preserved in the various manuscript traditions.

6. A Trend Toward Identification of Post-Priestly Elements in the Pentateuch Sources: R. Achenbach, Vollendung der Tora: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Pentateuch (BZAW 3; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2003). − O. Artus, Etudes sur le livre des Nombres: récit, histoire et loi en Nb 13,1–20,13 (OBO 157; Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag/ Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1997). − S. Bar-On, “The Festival Calendars in Exodus XXIII 14–19 and XXXIV 18–26”, VT 48 (1998) 161–195. − E. Blum, “Das sog ‘Privilegrecht’ in Exodus 34,11–26: ein Fixpunkt der Komposition des Exodusbuches?”, in: Studies in the Book of Exodus: Redaction, Reception, Interpretation, (ed. M. Vervenne; BETL 126; Louvain: Peeters 1996), 347–366. − T. B. Dozeman/ K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL.SS 34; Atlanta: SBL 2006). − D. M. Carr, “Genesis in Relation to the Moses Story: Diachronic and Synchronic Perspectives”, in: A. Wénin (ed.), Studies in the Book of Genesis (BETL 155; Leuven: Peeters and Leuven UP 2001), 273–295; “Method in Determination of Direction of Dependence: An Empirical Test of Criteria Applied to Exodus 34,11–26 and its Parallels”, in: M. Köckert/ E. Blum (eds.), Gottes Volk am Sinai: Untersuchungen zu Ex 32–34 und Dtn 9–10 (Veröffentlichungen der wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie, 18; Gütersloh: Kaiser, Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2001), 107–140. − J. C. Gertz/K. Schmid/ M. Witte (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin: de Gruyter 2002. − J. C. Gertz, Tradition und Redaktion in der Exoduserzählung: Untersuchungen zur Endredaktion des Pentateuch (FRLANT 186; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2000). − B. Gosse, “La tradition yahviste en Gn 6,5–9,17”, Henoch 15 (1993) 139–153. − J. Ha, Genesis 15: A Theological Compendium of Pentateuchal History (BZAW 181; Berlin: de Gruyter 1989). − R. G. Kratz, Die Komposition der erzählenden Bücher des Alten Testaments: Grundwissen der Bibelkritik (UTB für Wissenschaft; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2000). − T. Krüger, “Das menschliche Herz und die Weisung Gottes: Elemente einer Diskussion über Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Tora-Rezeption im Alten

63 J. Milgrom, Leviticus: A New Translation With Introduction and Commentary, AB 3–3B, New York, Doubleday, 1991–2001, 13–35. Note also the perspective on H in B. Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Heb), Jerusalem, Magnes, 1999, especially 17–24 (and later articles), who likewise sees H as later than P, but argues that H (along with the rest of P) is created independently of other pentateuchal sources.

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Testament”, in: Rezeption und Auslegung im Alten Testament und in seinem Umfeld: Ein Symposium aus Anlas des 60. Geburtstags von Odil Hannes Steck (Fribourg/ Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1997), 65–92. − E. Otto, “Die Paradieserzählung Genesis 2–3: Eine nachpriesterschriftliche Lehrerzählung in ihrem religionshistorichen Kontext”, in: A. A. Diesel e.a. (eds.), “Jedes Ding hat seine Zeit”: Studien zur israelitischen und altorientalischen Weisheit (FS D. Michel; BZAW 241; Berlin: de Gruyter 1996), 167–192. − A. de Pury, “Le cycle de Jacob comme légende autonome des origines d’Israël”, in: Congress Volume Leuven 1989 (VT.S 43; Leiden: Brill 1991), 78–96; “Hosea 12 und die Auseinandersetzung um die Identität Israels und seines Gottes”, in: W. Dietrich/ M. Klopfenstein (eds.), Ein Gott allein? JHWH-Verehrung und biblischer Monotheismus im Kontext der israelitischen und altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte (OBO 139; Fribourg/ Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1994), 413–439. − T. C. Römer, “Genesis 15 und Genesis 17: Beobachtungen und Anfragen zu einem Dogma der ‘neueren’ und ‘neuesten’ Pentateuchkritik”, DBAT 26 (1989–90) 32–47; “Das Buch Numeri und das Ende des Jahwisten: Anfragen zur ‘Quellenscheidung’ im vierten Buch des Pentateuch”, in: J. C. Gertz/ K. Schmid/ M. Witte (eds.), Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion (BZAW 315; Berlin: de Gruyter 2002), 215–231. − T. Römer/ M. Z. Brettler, “Deuteronomy 34 and the Case for a Persian Hexateuch”, JBL 119 (2000) 401–419. − T. Römer/ K. Schmid (eds.), Les dernières rédactions du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Ennéateuque (BETL 203; Leuven: Leuven UP/Peeters 2007). − K. Schmid, Erzväter und Exodus: Untersuchungen zur doppelten Begründung der Ursprünge Israels innerhalb der Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testaments (WMANT 81; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1999); “The Late Persian Formation of the Torah: Observations on Deuteronomy 34”, in: O. Lipschits/ G. Knoppers/ R. Albertz (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century BCE (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2007), 237–251. − H.-C. Schmitt, “Die Josephsgeschichte und das deuteronomistische Geschichtswerk. Genesis 38 und 48–50”, in: M. Vervenne/ J. Lust (eds.), Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature (FS C. H. W. Brekelmans; BETL 138; Leuven: Peeters 1997), 391–405; “Redaktion des Pentateuch im Geiste der Prophetie: zur Bedeutung der ‘Glaubens’-Thematik innerhalb der Theologie des Pentateuch”, VT 32 (1982) 170–189; “Das spätdeuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk: 1–2 Regum 25 und seine theologische Intention”, in: J. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume Cambridge 1995 (VT.S 66; Leiden: Brill 1997), 261–279. − M. Witte, Die biblische Urgeschichte: Redaktions- und theologiegeschichtliche Beobachtungen zu Genesis 1,1–11,26 (BZAW 265; Berlin: de Gruyter 1998).

One final trend in recent pentateuchal scholarship has been the tendency to identify an ever larger amount of pentateuchal material as belonging to a post-Priestly layer of composition. Previously, most scholars had assumed that the RP redaction that combined Priestly with non-Priestly materials was, in many ways, the “final” redaction of the Pentateuch. Only some isolated and idiosyncratic texts, such as Genesis 14, were seen as post-dating this crucial conflation. From the eighties onward, however, scholars have argued on various grounds for the post-Priestly origins of a variety of non-P texts. On the one hand, much of this initial discussion has argued for the post-priestly character of a number of compositionally important non-P texts such as the non-P primeval history in Genesis (Blenkinsopp 1992 and 2002; Gosse 1993; Ska 1994; Krüger 1997; see also Otto 1996 on Genesis 2–3 and see Witte 1998), Genesis 15 (Römer 1989–1990; Ha 1989; Schmid 1999; cf. Gertz 2002), the so-called “Yahwistic/cultic decalogue” in Exod 34:11–26 (Blum 1990 and 1996, Bar-On 1998, Carr 2001), and (portions of) Deuteronomy 34 (Brettler and Römer 2000, Schmid 2007).64 On the other 64 On this, see also, e.g., essays by H.-C. Schmitt that identify a range of other texts as a prophetically-oriented final redaction of the Pentateuch, e.g. “Redaktion des Pentateuch im Geiste der Prophetie: zur Bedeutung der ‘Glaubens’-Thematik innerhalb der Theologie des Pentateuch”, VT 32 (1982) 170–189; “Das spätdeuteronomistische Geschichtswerk: 1–2 Regum 25 und seine theologische Intention”, in: J. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume Cambridge 1995 (VT.S 66; Leiden: Brill 1997),

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hand, with the ever expanding growth of non-P texts identified as post-P, there has been a corresponding tendency (already alluded to in the discussion of P in Deuteronomy) to label as post-P a number of texts once assigned to P (e.g. Artus 1997). In general, the more texts − whether non-P or P − that have been assigned to a late post-P stage of composition, and the more these texts are used to derive a lexicon of expressions and concepts characteristic of such post-P literary activity, the more the corpus of postulated post-P texts has grown.65 For example, some recent studies have identified the entire book of Numbers as consisting of layers of post-Priestly composition bridging between an early P document and some form of Deuteronomy (Römer 2002, Achenbach 2003). One particular place where the question of post-priestly dating has proven to have strategic significance is in analysis of the links between the ancestral and Moses traditions. Already in 1965 Winnett had proposed that the compositional connection between the non-P materials in Genesis and Exodus post-dated the P document.66 Moreover, this idea received some initial support from Van Seters and Römer’s studies that argued that back-references to the three patriarchs in the Moses story were late additions to their contexts and from studies by de Pury in the early nineties (stimulated substantially by dialogue with his assistant in Geneva, Römer) arguing that the early Jacob and Moses traditions were treated as competing, not contiguous origin traditions in potentially pre-exilic texts such as Hosea 12.67 Nevertheless, the late dating of the link between ancestors and Moses textual materials gained new momentum with some studies in the late nineties, including Gertz’s 1998 Göttingen Habilitationsschrift on the Exodus traditions (published in 2000) and particularly Schmid’s Zürich Habilitationsschrift (published 1999; begun as a paper in 1997).68 These studies converged in arguing that all of the non-P texts seen as linking the ancestral and Moses traditions, including Genesis 15 but also Gen 46:1–5; Exod 3:1–4:18; and the non-P bridge between Genesis and Exodus (Gen 50:24; Exod 1:6, 8; etc.) were dependent on P and post-Priestly. Furthermore, Schmid extended de Pury’s initial survey to argue that a long series of biblical traditions treated the ancestral and Moses traditions as distinct and separate wholes. The implication of their arguments was that there never had been a pre-Priestly proto-Pentateuch joining ancestral and Moses traditions. Though Gertz and Schmid allowed that earlier writers almost certainly 261–279, and “Die Josephsgeschichte und das deuteronomistische Geschichtswerk. Genesis 38 und 48–50”, in: M. Vervenne/J. Lust (eds.), Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature (1997), 391–405. 65 For a collections of examples of this trend in scholarship, see particularly T. Römer/K. Schmid (eds.), Les dernières rédactions du Pentateuque, de l’Hexateuque et de l’Ennéateuque (BETL 203; Leuven: Leuven UP/Peeters 2007). 66 Winnett, Re-examining the Foundations (1965), 18, n. 25. 67 J. Van Seters, Confessional Reformulation (1972); T. Römer, Israels Väter (1990); A. de Pury, “Le cycle de Jacob comme légende autonome des origines d’Israël”, in: Congress Volume Leuven 1989 (VT.S 43; Leiden: Brill 1991), 78–96; DePury, “Hosea 12 und die Auseinandersetzung um die Identität Israels und seines Gottes”, in: W. Dietrich/M. Klopfenstein (eds.), Ein Gott allein? JHWH-Verehrung und biblischer Monotheismus im Kontext der israelitischen und altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte ( OBO 139; Fribourg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1994), 413–439. The telephone interview with de Pury on Aug. 29, 2009 emphasized the catalytic effect of Römer’s and de Pury’s dialogue (starting in 1984) on de Pury’s move away from the more traditional source-critical views of his first publications. 68 Gertz, Exoduserzählung (2000), esp. 384–391, and K. Schmid, Erzväter und Exodus (1999).

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knew of both tradition complexes, the author of P was the first to have produced a single composition featuring both the three ancestors (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and material about Moses. This set of proposals proved to be a crystallization point for focused discussion about the existence of a pre-Priestly proto-Pentateuch, a discussion that came to be termed a debate about the existence of a ‘Yahwist’. In 1999 one of the foremost advocates of a late ‘Yahwist’, Chr. Levin, invited Schmid, Gertz and Witte to Munich for a symposium on the “Nature and Status of the Yahwist”. Though Levin remained firm in his belief in the existence of such a Yahwist, the bulk of his invited participants had come to question the existence of any pre-Priestly Tetrateuch or Pentateuch that could be construed as a correlate to the old Yahwist. Gertz, Schmid and Witte then collaborated on producing a 2002 volume, Abschied vom Jahwisten, that contained published forms of contributions to the 1999 conference along with several additional essays on the topic by other scholars active in pentateuchal research.69 This volume well demonstrated the distance pentateuchal scholarship had traveled in the quarter century since the trio of major publications in the mid-seventies that initiated a broader movement in Pentateuchal criticism (Van Seters, Schmid and Rendtorff). No longer was there serious discussion of an ‘Elohist’, and virtually all scholars agreed that the connection between ancestral and Moses textual traditions was exilic at the earliest. What was up for debate was whether that connection was late non-priestly or priestly and whether several other major portions of the non-P Tetrateuch (e.g. the non-P primeval history, Numbers) had any pre-priestly existence.70 This volume, along with a follow-up volume of essays published in English (Farewell to the Yahwist, 2006) showed that this framing of the question was no longer confined to a single school of scholars, nor place (e.g. Heidelberg). It represented a broad trend among a variety of scholars in Europe and North America, most working in Christian seminary contexts and steeped in the full range of pentateuchal developments up to that point. One final index of these shifts in pentateuchal criticism is the transformation wrought in the debate about Pentateuch versus Hexateuch. Older source-criticism often posited a continuation of early Pentateuchal sources into Deuteronomy and Joshua, especially since the land promises in Genesis seemed to anticipate the sort of gaining of the land narrated in Joshua. This tendency largely was ended with Noth’s work on the Deuteronomistic history, but Noth and others still generally posited that the early pentateuchal sources once had some kind of land-acquisition narrative, a narrative then lost when they were connected to the Deuteronomistic history. Several decades later Rendtorff anticipated contemporary trends in stressing that the main layer with evidence of stretching across the whole of the Pentateuch, was not P but a D layer emphasizing God’s promise of 69

Gertz/Schmid/Witte, Abschied vom Jahwisten (2002). For some arguments that the connection between ancestral and Moses-exodus traditions was (late but) pre-priestly, see D. M. Carr, “Genesis in Relation to the Moses Story: Diachronic and Synchronic Perspectives”, in: A. Wénin (ed.), Studies in the Book of Genesis (BETL 155; Leuven: Peeters and Leuven UP 2001), 273–295, and the contributions by Carr, Van Seters and Levin to T. B. Dozeman/K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL.SS 34; Atlanta: SBL 2006). 70

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the land by oath, a layer extending well into the Deuteronomistic history. Rendtorff’s published work was not clear on whether this layer was pre- or post-P.71 Nevertheless, Blum took part of Rendtorff’s idea and developed it into a theory of a post-Priestly “Joshua 24” redaction extending from the death and embalmment of Joseph in Gen 50:24 to his burial in Joshua 24. It is this post-priestly Hexateuch, according to Blum, that is meant by the Torah of Elohim referred to in Josh 24:26, a term consciously distinguished from a prior Torah of Moses that these texts extended through links with Joshua.72 In subsequent years some have attempted to revive the idea of a pre-priestly Hexateuch albeit of sharply reduced and different scope from earlier proposals (e.g. Kratz 2000), while others have shared Blum’s view that such a hexateuchal corpus was a post-priestly development.73

7. Emerging Consensus in Europe and Backlash Sources: J. Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch (FAT 68; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009). − J. S. Burnett, A Reassessment of Biblical Elohim (SBL.DS 183; Atlanta, GA: SBL 2001). − R. E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit 1987); The Bible With Sources Revealed: A New View into the Five Books of Moses (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco 2003); The Hidden Book of the Bible (San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco 1998). − A. Graupner, Der Elohist: Gegenwart und Wirksamkeit des transzendenten Gottes in der Geschichte (WMANT 97; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2002). − T. Hiebert, The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel (New York: Oxford UP 1996). − B. J. Schwartz, “What Really Happened at Mount Sinai? Four Biblical Answers to One Question”, BR 13 (1997) 20–30, 46. − T. Yoreh, “The Elohistic Source: Its Structure and Unity [Hebr.]” (Ph.D. Diss., Jerusalem: Hebrew University 2003).

Certainly the landscape of pentateuchal criticism has shifted in the roughly fifty years since Sandmel’s 1961 essay, though many of the fault lines between parties have been merely reconfigured. Up through the sixties the documentary approach was developed and defended primarily by Protestant German scholars, while both Jewish scholars and Christian scholars in the United States, particularly Albright and others loosely associated with his approach, frequently were skeptical about the ways that approach dated much pentateuchal material to a late period, particularly priestly legislative material deemed by Wellhausen and others to anticipate later Judaism. Now the positions largely are reversed. Though there remain a handful of defenders of the documentary approach in continental Europe (e.g. Graupner’s attempt to revive E in Der Elohist, 2002), the most vigorous promoters of a documentary approach in the present day are Jewish and/ or scholars from the United States educated in the Albright and post-Albrightian

71

For discussion, see K. Schmid, Erzväter und Exodus, 13. Blum, Studien, 363–65, also “Der kompositionelle Knoten am Übergang von Josua zu Richter: ein Entflechtungsvorschlag,” in M. Vervenne and J. Lust (eds.), Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature: FS Brekelmans, BETL, Louvain, Peeters, 1997, 181–212. 73 See, for example, T. Römer, “Le pentateuque toujours en question: bilan et perspectives après un quart de siècle de débat,” in A. Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume: Basel 2001, VTSup 92, Leiden, Brill, 2002, 357–59. 72

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tradition (broadly construed) at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. For example, from the late eighties up to the present day R. Friedman has advanced his own form of the documentary hypothesis, one that now includes a “J” that extends into the Deuteronomistic history. Similarly, B. Schwartz, building on prior work (much of it unpublished) by his teacher M. Haran, both has launched his own project to clarify the strengths of a documentary approach (e.g. 1997) and sponsored a new generation of students, both at Harvard and in Israel, in developing that approach (e.g. Chavel 2007, Baden 2009).74 Notably, though Friedman, Schwartz and others have reminded others of some of the textual observations undergirding the documentary approach, this latter group has not yet engaged (in print) the broad range of recent pentateuchal scholarship in a detailed way.75 Moreover, both their use of isolated phrases/terms to assign texts to sources and their citations of (English language) documentary scholarship from the turn of the century, show that they reflect a version of the source approach prior to its being mixed – in the time of Gunkel, Gressmann and others – with tradition history and form criticism. In general, many advocating a return to the documentary hypothesis have conveyed a sense that it is true until proven false, offering a level of simple clarity and elegant explanation of textual data that is lacking amidst the plurality of revisionist options under discussion. Meanwhile, a new overall framework for pentateuchal criticism seems to be emergent in Europe and a number of other parts of the world. For those involved in that discussion, the most fundamental division in the early development of pentateuchal narrative traditions is not that between hypothesized J and E documents (which few in this discussion still believe once existed), but between originally separate compositions that focused on different portions of the story, particularly composition(s) focusing on ancestors on the one hand (especially Jacob, but possibly also Abraham and/or Joseph) and Moses-exodus on the other (possibly including wilderness). Moreover, legal traditions now play a bigger role in study of the formation of the Pentateuch than they have since Graf, Kuenen and Wellhausen. The difference from that earlier period is that there is more focus now on legal traditions that reflect the latter stages of the development of the Pentateuch, particularly the layer of tradition that goes under the designation “H”. Finally, there is widespread agreement that the D/Deuteronomistic tradition remained an important source of pentateuchal conceptuality and phraseol-

74 As per Aug. 24, 2009 email from Schwartz. For a preliminary example of his broader analysis, see especially Schwartz, The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai (1996), 103– 134. Baden’s 2009 monograph is based on a 2007 Harvard dissertation (“Rethinking the Supposed JE Document”) that officially was supervised by P. Machinist, but it was initiated while Schwartz was a visiting scholar at Harvard in the spring and summer of 2004 and Schwartz continued to play a major supervisory role on Baden’s committee as an outside reader (as per emails from J. Baden, Aug. 23, 2009, and B. Schwarz on Aug. 27, 2009; also the acknowledgments in J, E and the Redaction of the Pentateuch). Schwartz was second reader for Simeon Chavel’s dissertation (supervised by Knohl), ‫( בתורה סיפורי שאילתות בארבעה וסיפורת חוק‬Hebrew University 2006), which agreed in numerous respects with Schwartz’s model for the development of the Pentateuch. 75 Schwartz has a long essay underway steps in that direction (published since the main body of this essay was complete) include Joel Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (Anchor Bible Reference Library; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012) and idem. The Promise to the Patriarchs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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ogy into the exile and even later, even if scholars diverge on how to speak of late textual elements that show links to such semi-D/post-D (and P)/Deuteronomistic materials (late ‘Yahwist’, D composition, etc.). Thus, while a few are attempting a return to source criticism as it was before tradition history, the bulk of contemporary pentateuchal scholarship ultimately has followed Rendtorff in undertaking a tradition-historical reinvestigation of the formation of the Pentateuch/Hexateuch – reconstructing the formation of the Pentateuch from its smaller units to its broader extent – even if more recent studies have not followed many of his early proposals (e.g. Rendtorff’s sharp critique of the idea that P ever was a coherent, originally independent source, the detailed history of development of promise formulations). Most who are involved in the contemporary discussion agree that the formation of the Pentateuch began with separate compositions focusing on different parts of the story (e.g. ancestors, Moses-exodus), unfolded to include compositions that featured different bodies of legal material (especially P on the one hand, and some form of Deuteronomy on the other), and eventually included layers of connective tradition (especially post-P layers of redaction). What remains to be clarified − in so far as it is possible − is the extent and character of these early, originally separate compositions (at each stage) and the process by which they were joined.

Chapter Forty-one

Historiography in the Old Testament By Walter Dietrich, Bern 1. Old Testament Historiography Sources and studies: Y. Amit, “The Dual Causality Principle and its Effects on Biblical Literature”, VT 37 (1987) 385–400. – E. Blum/W. Johnstone /C. Markschies (eds.), Das Alte Testament – ein Geschichtsbuch? (Münster: LIT-Verlag 2005). – J. Bright, Early Israel in Recent History Writing. A Study in Method (SBTh 19; London: SCM Press 1956). – N. Calduch-Benages/J. Liesen (eds.), History and Identity. How Israel’s Later Authors Viewed Its Earlier History (Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, Yearbook 2006; Berlin: de Gruyter 2006). – R. C. Dentan (ed.), The Idea of History in the Ancient Near East (New Haven: American Oriental Society 1983). – W. G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know it? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2001). – W. Dietrich, Art. “Geschichtsschreibung (Altes Testament)”, RGG4 III (2000), 807. – D. V. Edelman (ed.), The Fabric of History. Text, Artefact and Israel’s Past (JSOT.S 127; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1991). – S. Herrmann, “Geschichtsbild und Gotteserkenntnis”, in: Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (ThB 75; München: Kaiser 1986), 9–31. – J. Krecher/H.-P. Müller, “Vergangenheitsinteresse in Mesopotamien und Israel”, Saeculum 26 (1975) 13–44. – V. P. Long/D. W. Baker/G. J. W enham (eds.), Windows into Old Testament History (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2002). – S. L. McKenzie/M. P. Graham (eds.), The History of Israel’s Traditions (JSOT.S 182; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1994). – J. Nunes Carreira, “Formen des Geschichtsdenkens in altorientalischer und alttestamentlicher Geschichtsschreibung”, BZ NF 31 (1987) 36–57. – J. W. Rogerson, “Setting the Scene: A Brief Outline of Histories of Israel”, Understanding the History of Israel (ed. H. G. M. Williamson; Oxford/New York: Oxford UP 2007), 3–14. – I. L. Seeligmann, “Erkenntnis Gottes und historisches Bewußtsein im alten Israel”, in: Beiträge zur Alttestamentlichen Theologie. FS Walther Zimmerli (ed. H. Donner/R. Hanhart/R. Smend; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1977), 414–445. – R. Smend, “Elemente alttestamentlichen Geschichtsdenkens”, in: Die Mitte des Alten Testaments (BEvTh 99; München: Kaiser 1986), 160–185; Deutsche Alttestamentler in drei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989); Epochen der Bibelkritik. Gesammelte Studien, 3 (BEvTh 109; München: Kaiser 1991); Bibel, Theologie, Universität. Sechzehn Beiträge (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1997); Bibel und Wissenschaft. Historische Aufsätze (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2004). – J. Van Seters, “Is there any Historiography in the Hebrew Bible? A HebrewGreek Comparison”, JNWSL 28 (2002) 1–25. – M. Witte, “Von den Anfängen der Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament. Eine forschungsgeschichtliche Diskussion neuerer Gesamtentwürfe”, in: Die antike Historiographie und die Anfänge der christlichen Geschichtsschreibung (ed. E.-M. Becker; BZNW 129; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2005), 53–81.

Gerhard von Rad coined the phrase: “The Old Testament is a history book”. This is only partly correct and only in a particular way. Large parts of the Hebrew bible – such as the law codices, most of the prophetical books and the Psalter, as well as Job, Proverbs and the Song of Songs – contain no historical writing. And where such writing can be found it does not conform to the rules and norms of

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enlightened historiography – the biblical historical books often contain not so much author literature but rather tradition literature, which seeks to mediate in an actual way knowledge which has been handed down; the writers are as much editors as authors and as individuals retreat behind their texts. Furthermore there is not only inner but also a supernatural causality: the God who guides history also makes a personal appearance now and again, most often in the speech of active persons or in the value judgements of the authors. In this respect and in general in Old Testament historiography the boundaries between historical facts and literary fiction are fluid. The history of research into Old Testament historiography has, therefore, never followed an entirely linear course. In a pre-critical, pre-Enlightenment period it was, of course, entirely natural to take the historical descriptions of the Bible as factually accurate: the history of Israel was unfolded as depicted in the Bible. Traces of this approach remain to this day: amongst fundamentalist-minded persons (for instance, readers of the Bible yet also, at times, archaeologists). The Enlightenment and its critical-scientific approach began to undermine this view; with ever-increasing clarity pictures emerged, which differed from the biblical picture, as to how the history of Israel really unfolded.1 In the history of research it has first been the practice to exercise criticism of the pre-history and early history of Israel as found in the Pentateuch; the names of Baruch de Spinoza2 and G. E. Lessing3 were important here at the beginning. In the nineteenth century J. Wellhausen undertook, on the basis of the preliminary work of others, the re-ordering of the “Law” behind the prophets. In the twentieth century, not least through the impetus of sociological and archaeological insights, there was a revision of the violent view of the conquest of the land, as described in the book of Joshua (appreciably by A. Alt4). Biblical monotheism revealed itself, not least as the result of archaeological finds, as a late fruit and not as the starting point of the religious history of Israel.5 More recently historical doubt has been expressed as to the biblical depiction of the Davidic-Solomonic double monarchy and the Babylonian exile. Contemporary research discussion moves between the poles of a sceptical hyper-criticism and an unbroken trust in the reliability of biblical historical writing. On the one hand one thinks that it is only possible to write the history of Israel without or against the Bible and on the other hand one follows to a large degree the biblical view of history. The truth lies between these two poles. An avoidance of the use of biblical historical records is no less appropriate than their extensive and uncritical use. Many details provided by the Old Testament are plausible or 1 An informative outline of the discoveries made in the process and the proposed hypotheses – from H. Prideaux and J. G. Herder via W. M. L. de Wette, H. Ewald, J. Wellhausen, B. Stade, C. Steuernagel, H. Winckler and W. Wundt as far as to A. Alt and M. Noth – can be found in Rogerson, Outline of Histories (2007). 2 Cf. S. M. Nadler, Spinoza: a Life (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1999); “The Bible Hermeneutics of Baruch de Spinoza”, HBOT II (2008), 827–836. 3 See Smend, Bibel und Wissenschaft (2004), 71–113. 4 Cf. Smend, Deutsche Alttestamentler (1989), 182–207. 5 See for instance W. Dietrich/M. A. Klopfenstein, Ein Gott allein? YHWH-Verehrung und biblischer Monotheismus im Kontext der israelitischen und altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte (OBO 139; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1994).

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have already been verified by extra-biblical sources, but many are fictional and have already been proven to be false through external evidence. There is therefore a need to find the appropriate balance of critical evaluation of biblical sources and a reasonable reconstruction of history. Not unimportant for the assessment of the reliability of biblical historiography is the question of when a source originated as this will also give an indication as to the historical time and ideological colouring of a particular source. It appears that history was written throughout the whole of the literary history of the Old Testament. The epic song of Deborah (Judges 5) originates presumably in its core from pre-state times. Legends and stories about the Patriarchs, early war heroes and the first kings were collected very soon after the founding of the state. During the age of the kings there emerged ever greater outlines of history: in Northern Israel the Jacob saga (Genesis *25–35), the Moses story (Exodus *1–19), a book on Israel’s saviours (Judges *3–12), the Samuel-Saul-history (1 Samuel *1–14), as well as the prophetic cycles of Elijah und Elisha (1 Kings *17–19; 2 Kings *3–8), then in Judah a wreath of legends surrounding Abraham (Genesis *13–19), a court narrative about the early kingdom (*1 Samuel 1–1 Kings 2 or 11) and a prophetic narrative about Yhwh’s fight against Baal (*1 Kings 17–2 Kings 10). At the same time annals of the kings were written at court. With the exile there began the period of extensive works of history. The Deuteronomistic History came together in several stages (Deuteronomy-2 Kings) and was later combined with the Pentateuch; the result was the so-called Enneateuch (Genesis-2 Kings). The post-exilic books of Ezra-Nehemiah were placed before the (perhaps already Hellenistic influenced) books of the Chronicles, and in this way the period from the creation to the community of the Second Temple was described. From the beginning to the end, biblical historiography is characterised by a combination of historical, aesthetic, and theological objectives, which is a reason for its uniqueness and its attractiveness. The same applies to the two great works of Old Testament historiography – the Deuteronomistic and the Chronistic history writing. This material has received great attention and has produced an enormous amount of research and a wealth of insights and theses.

2. The Deuteronomistic Historiography Research accounts: A. N. Radwajane, “Das deuteronomistische Geschichtswerk. Ein Forschungsbericht”, ThR 38 (1974) 177–216. – H. Weippert, “Das deuteronomistische Geschichtswerk. Sein Ziel und Ende in der neueren Forschung”, ThR 50 (1985) 213–249. – H. D. Preuss, “Zum deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk“, ThR 58 (1993) 229–264. 341–395. – S. L. McKenzie/M.P. Graham (eds.), The History of Israel’s Traditions. The Heritage of Martin Noth (JSOT.S 182; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1994). – T. Veijola, “Deuteronomismusforschung zwischen Tradition und Innovation”, ThR 67 (2002) 273–327; 67 (2002) 391–424; 68 (2003) 1–44. – C. Frevel, “Deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk oder Geschichtswerke?”, Martin Noth – aus der Sicht der heutigen Forschung (ed. U. Rüterswörden; BThSt 58; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2004), 60–95. – W. Thiel, “Grundlinien der Erforschung des ‚Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks’”, in: idem, Unabgeschlossene Rückschau. Aspekte alttestamentlicher Wissenschaft im 20. Jahrhundert (BThSt 80; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2007), 63–81.

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Studies: R. Albertz, Die Exilszeit. 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie 7; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2001). – A. G. Auld, Kings without Privilege (Edinburgh: Clark 1994). – A. F. Campbell/M. A. O’Brien, Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History. Origins, Upgrades, Present Text (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress 2000). – F. M. Cross, “The Themes of the Book of Kings and the Structure of the Deuteronomistic History”, in: idem, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1973), 274–289. – W. Dietrich, Prophetie und Geschichte. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk (FRLANT 108; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1972); “Deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk”, RGG4 II (1999), 689–692; Von David zu den Deuteronomisten. Studien zu den Geschichtsüberlieferungen des Alten Testaments (BWANT 156; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2002); “Vielfalt und Einheit im deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk”, in: Houses Full of All Good Things. Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola (ed. J. Pakkala/M. Nissinen, Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2008), 169–183. – O. Eissfeldt, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Tübingen: Mohr 31964). – E. Eynikel, The Reform of King Josiah and the Composition of the Deuteronomistic History (OTS 33; Leiden: Brill 1996). – G. Fohrer, Einleitung in das Alte Testament ([Sellin-Fohrer]; Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer 111969). – R. E. Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative. The Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Priestly Works (HSM 22; Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1981). – J. C. Geoghegan, The Time, Place, and Purpose of the Deuteronomistic History. The Evidence of “Until This Day” (Brown Judaic Studies 347; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies 2006). – J. Harvey, “The Structure of the Deuteronomistic History”, SJOT 20 (2006) 237–258. – H.-D. Hoffmann, Reform und Reformen. Untersuchungen zu einem Grundthema der deuteronomistischen Geschichtsschreibung (AThANT 66; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag 1980). – A. Jepsen, Die Quellen des Königsbuches (Halle: Niemeyer 21956). – E. A. Knauf, “L‘Historiographie Deutéronomiste’ (DtrG) existe-t-elle? ”, Israël construit son histoire (ed. A. de Pury; Geneva: Labor et Fides 1996), 409–418. – G. N. Knoppers, Two Nations under God (HSM 52.53; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1993/94). – R. G. Kratz, Die Komposition der erzählenden Bücher des Alten Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2000). – J. R. Linville, Israel in the Book of Kings. The Past as a Project of Social Identity (JSOT.S 272; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). – N. Lohfink, “Kerygmata des Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks”, in: idem, Studien zum Deuteronomium und zur deuteronomistischen Literatur, II (SBAB 12; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1981), 125–42. – A. D. H. Mayes, The Story of Israel between Settlement and Exile. A Redactional Study of Deuteronomistic History (London: SCM Press 1983). – S. L. McKenzie, Art. “Deuteronomistic History”, ABD 2 (1992), 160–168. – A. Moenikes, Die grundsätzliche Ablehnung des Königtums in der Hebräischen Bibel (Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum 1995). – E. T. Mullen Jr., Narrative History and Ethnic Boundaries (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1993). – R. D. Nelson, The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History (JSOT.S 18; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1981, 21983). – J. Nentel, Trägerschaft und Intentionen des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks. Untersuchungen zu den Reflexionsreden Jos 1; 23; 24; 1 Sam 12 und 1 Kön 8 (BZAW 297; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2000). – K. L. Noll, “Deuteronomistic History or Deuteronomic Debate? (A Thought Experiment)”, JSOT 31 (2007) 311–345. – M. Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien. Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament ([1943]; Tübingen: Niemeyer 21957); ET: The Deuteronomistic History (JSOT.S 15; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1981, 21991). – M. A. O’Brien, The Deuteronomistic History Hypothesis: A Reassessment (OBO 92; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989). – J. Pakkala, Intolerant Monolatry in the Deuteronomistic History (Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1999). – B. Peckham, The Composition of the Deuteronomistic History (HSM 35; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1985). – R. F. Person, “The Deuteronomic History and the Books of Chronicles: Contemporary Competing Historiographies”, Reflection and Refraction. Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld (VT.S 113; ed. R. Rezetko/T. H. Lim/ W. B. Aucker; Leiden/Boston: Brill 2007), 315–336. – I. Provan, Hezekiah and the Book of Kings (BZAW 172; Berlin: de Gruyter 1988). – T. Römer (ed.), The Future of the Deuteronomistic History (BETL 147; Leuven: UP 2000); The So-Called Deuteronomistic History. A Sociological and Literary Introduction (London/New York: T & T Clark 2005/2007). – H. Rösel, Von Josua bis Jojachin. Untersuchungen zu den deuteronomistischen Geschichtsbüchern des Alten Testaments (VT.S 75; Leiden: Brill 1999). – W. Roth, Art. “Deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk/Deuteronomistische Schule”, TRE 8 (1981), 543–552. – U. Rüterswörden, “Erwägungen zum Abschluss des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks”, in: Ein Herz so weit wie der Sand am Ufer des Meere (FS Georg Hentschel; ed.

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S. Gillmayr-Bucher; Würzburg: Echter 2006), 193–203. – L. S. Schaering/S. L. McKenzie (eds.), Those Elusive Deuteronomists. The Phenomenon of Pan-Deuteronomism (JSOT.S 268; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1999). – K. Schmid, Literaturgeschichte des Alten Testaments. Eine Einführung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2008). – H. Schulte, Die Entstehung der Geschichtsschreibung im Alten Israel (BZAW 128; Berlin: de Gruyter 1972). – R. Smend, “Das Gesetz und die Völker. Ein Beitrag zur deuteronomistischen Redaktionsgeschichte”, in: Probleme biblischer Theologie (FS G. von Rad, ed. H. W. Wolff; München: Kaiser 1971), 494–509 = R. Smend, Die Mitte des Alten Testaments. Gesammelte Studien (BEvTh 99; München: Kaiser 1986), 124–137; Die Entstehung des Alten Testaments (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1978, 41988). – P. S. F. van Keulen, Manasseh through the Eyes of the Deuteronomists. The Manasseh Account (2 Kings 21:1–18) and the Final Chapters of the Deuteronomistic History (OTS 38; Leiden: Brill 1996). – B. van Putten, “Er starb gleich dem Wort YHWHs”. Das Auftreten des Propheten Elija während der Regierung des israelitischen Königs Ahasja (1 Kön 22,25 – 2 Kön 1,18): eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Diss. Utrecht 2005). – J. Van Seters, In Search of History. Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical Historiography (New Haven: Yale UP 1983; repr. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1997): The Edited Bible. The Curious History of the “Editor” in Biblical Criticism (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2006). – T. Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie. David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie nach der deuteronomistischen Darstellung (AASF.B 193; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia 1975); Das Königtum in der Beurteilung der deuteronomistischen Historiographie. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (AASF.B 198; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia 1977); Moses Erben. Studien zum Dekalog, zum Deuteronomismus und zum Schriftgelehrtentum (BWANT 149; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2000). – S. Wälchli, “Yhwhs Zorn als Element deuteronomistischer Geschichtsdeutung. Ein Überblick und offene Fragen”, Diasynchron. Beiträge zur Exegese, Theologie und Rezeption der Hebräischen Bibel (FS Walter Dietrich, ed. T. Naumann/R. Hunziker-Rodewald; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2009), 403–414. – H. Weippert, “Die ‘deuteronomistischen’ Beurteilungen der Könige von Israel und Juda und das Problem der Redaktion der Königsbücher”, Bib. 53 (1972) 301–339. – C. Westermann, Die Geschichtsbücher des Alten Testaments (ThB 87; München: Kaiser 1994). – M. Witte e.a. (eds.), Die deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke. Redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven zur “Deuteronomismus” – Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten (BZAW 365; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2006). – H. W. Wolff, “Das Kerygma des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks”, ZAW 73 (1961) 171–186. – E. Würthwein, Studien zum Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk (BZAW 227; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1994).

2.1. Preliminary Remarks The books Deuteronomy through to 2 Kings form an unmistakable continuum. Deuteronomy accounts, in its narrative frame sections, how Israel leaves Horeb/ Sinai (Deut 1:6–18), survives the trials of the wandering in the wilderness (Deut 1:19–3:20) and finally arrives at Moab, where Moses proclaims the ‘Second Torah’ and then dies just before the entry into the Promised Land (Deut 1:1–4; 3:21–28; 34:1–12). Meanwhile the handing over of the sceptre from Moses to Joshua has been regulated, under whose leadership the occupation and settlement of the land is to take place (Deut 1:8; 3:21–28; 34:1–4, 9). This is then chronicled in Joshua: after the conquest of the West Jordan (Joshua 1–12) the land is divided between the tribes (13–22); Joshua makes the final decrees and dies. The beginning of the book of Judges is still very much engaged in the occupation of the land (Judg 1:1–2:5), before it reports on the life of the tribes in the land: of the threat of external enemies and its liberation by ‘great saviours’ (*2:6–16:31) and the regency of the ‘minor judges’ (10:1–5; 12:8–15), and finally the sinking of Israel into religious, moral and political chaos (17–21). The last two judges, Eli and Samuel, appear in the first book of Samuel (1 Samuel 1–7); Samuel assists the first king,

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Saul, to ascend to the throne (8–12) and then attends to his fall (13–15) and David’s rise to power (16–31). David’s kingdom is the subject of the second book of Samuel (2 Samuel 1–24), that of his son and successor Solomon the subject of the beginning of the first book of Kings (1 Kings 1–11), from which the history of the kings (and the prophets!) of Israel and Judah unfolds up to the time of the Babylonian Exile (1 Kings 12–22; 2 Kings 1–25). In this way the books of Deuteronomy through to 2 Kings depict the history of Israel from the occupation and settlement of the land to the loss of the land. Alongside the continuous, overarching plots of several epochs of the history of Israel exists a series of further clips which link the books of the Former Prophets to each other and with Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 6 Israel is called upon to honour Yhwh alone, in Deuteronomy 12 to serve him in only one single cultic place. Meant is Jerusalem, which David conquers (2 Sam 5:6–11), in order to place the holy Ark there (2 Samuel 6), which in turn is deposited by Solomon in the Holy of Holies of the Temple which he had built (1 Kings 8). It is finally Josiah who installes the Temple of Jerusalem as the only legitimate cultic site (2 Kings 23). The Kingdom is a further theme which runs through the complete body of the text: beginning with the attempt of its constitutional regulation (Deut 17:14–20) through to reflections on its dispensability or indispensability at the time of the judges (Judg 8–9; 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) and contradictory estimations of its usefulness in the context of its introduction (1 Samuel 8–12) up to the long double series of Israelite and Judean kings (1–2 Kings). Striking are, in particular, the close, at times identical, equivalents between the deuteronomic royal law and the accounts of the induction of the first king, Saul (cf. Deut 17:14–15 with 1 Sam 8:5; 10:24) on the one hand, and on the other hand of the reign of the third king, Solomon (cf. Deut 17:16–17 with 1 Kgs 5:6; 10:14, 26–29; 11:1–3). Almost parallel to the succession of kings runs a long line of prophets. They are announced in the law of the prophets Deut 18:9–22. Samuel appears then as the first (1 Sam 3:20), he is the critical counterpart to Saul. The deuteronomistic view of the prophets is marked out by the fact that their words unerringly come true (cf. 2 Sam 12:11, 14 with 2 Sam 12:15 and 16:21–22; 1 Kgs 11:30–39 with 1 Kgs 12:1–15; 1 Kgs 14:10–16 with 1 Kgs 14:17 and 15:29; 1 Kgs 16:1–4 with 16:12; 2 Kgs 1:6 with 2 Kgs 1:17 etc.). In Deuteronomy 20 laws are passed relating to the conduct of wars, including the regulations about the so-called ban; in Joshua 7; 1 Samuel 15 and 1 Kgs 20:35–43 we read how Israel comes into conflict because of the harshness of the order. In Deut 25:17–19 Israel’s unforgiving hostility towards Amalek in particular is inculcated. Much later on it is shown how the behaviour towards the Amalekites determines the fate of the first kings, Saul and David (1 Samuel 15; 30; 2 Samuel 1). According to Josh 6:26, God forbids against heavy penalty the rebuilding of the city after the conquest of Jericho; according to 1 Kgs 16:34, however, the city is rebuilt which led to severe punishment. In Deut 19:1–13 the establishment of a total of six refugee cities is ordered to enable the escape of those killers threatened by blood feud; Joshua 20 reports on the execution of this law. In Deuteronomy Moses again and again seeks to bring home to the Israelites that they should do “what is right in the eyes of Yhwh” or rather “not to do what is evil in the eyes of Yhwh” (Deut 6:18; 12:25; 13:19; 21:9 or 4:25; 17:2; 31:29); in the frames of the saviour tales it is repeatedly stated that the Israelites “do what is evil in the eyes of Yhwh” (Judg 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1; already in 2:11), and in the framework of 1–2 Kings that the kings “do what is evil in the eyes of Yhwh”, and, in rare cases, “do what is right in the eyes of Yhwh” (e.g. 1 Kgs 11:6; 16:30; 2 Kgs 13:2; 15:9; 21:2; 23:37; 24:9, 19 or 1 Kgs 15:11; 2 Kgs 12:2; 18:3; 22:2). This distinctive feature, which runs from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, is the result of a clear redactional effort, as it is never to be found in primary traditions but only in secondary components. The strictest linking of the books of the Former Prophets is effected by an elaborate chronological system. In principle it is completely reliable because the synchronistic dates of the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah can be related in some points with events surrounding Israel which are

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testified by extrabiblical evidence. With their help we can trace, with only little uncertainty, back from a particular case “in the 37th year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah” (i.e. 562 BCE, 2 Kgs 25:27) back via the downfall of Jerusalem (587/86) and the conquest of Samaria (722) to the disintegration of the Davidic-Salomonic personal union (926). From this point the data becomes less precise, it appears that it is often rounded-up or just an estimation. It is said that Solomon (1 Kgs 11:42) and David each reigned for 40 years (33 years in Jerusalem and seven, respectively seven and a half, in Hebron: 1 Kgs 2:11; 2 Sam 5:4), likewise the judges Eli (1 Sam 4:18) and Othniel (Judg 3:11); Samson on the other hand is given 20 years (Judg 16:31), Jephthah only six (Judg 12:7). Strangely precise appear on the other hand the details of the minor Judges (Judg 10:1–3; 12:8–11). By contrast it is simply said of Joshua that he is 110 and of Moses that he is 120 years old (Josh 24:29 or Deut 34:7). Even so we arrive more or less at the end of the thirteenth century BCE.

All these continuous lines and overarching clips point to the fact that with the Former Prophets (including Deuteronomy) we are not dealing with a random and accidentally-derived text conglomerate but rather with a well thought through and planned text composition. Who could be responsible for this? Well into the twentieth century one thought as a matter of course that it must be the same authors as one held to be responsible for the establishment of the Pentateuch: the authors of the so-called source texts. Eissfeldt (Einleitung, 1964) for example or Schulte (Geschichtsschreibung, 1972) belong to the last of those who sought to prove that the Pentateuch sources could be traced all the way into the books of the Kings. The reasons that led to this belief are respectable: especially the occupation of the land, as described in the book of Joshua, would seem indispensable to the plot of the Pentateuch. Furthermore there exist an impressive number of older traditions both in the Pentateuch as well as in the Former Prophets evidently from the time of the Kings which would very much support such a view with its chronological coincidences and factual convergences; why is it, for example, that the Israelites are (almost) only referred to as ‘Hebrews’ in Ex and in 1 Sam, why is it that the reign of Solomon is, in so many ways, similar to that of Pharaoh? Further in the Former Prophets there is the coming together of so-called twofold traditions, which is very difficult for a literary critic not to associate with two narrative strands (e.g. Judges 4/5; 1 Samuel 9–10/11; 1 Samuel 16/17; 1 Sam 18:10–11/19:10–11; 1 Samuel 24/26; 1 Sam 21:11–16/27:1–7; 1 Samuel 31/2 Samuel 1). Hence interpretative models were not so far from the mark, whereby one deuteronomistic redactor (RedJE) at the end of the monarchy era drew together two older historical works – one Yahwistic, with its origin in the time of Solomon, from Genesis 2 until about 1 Kings 2 and one Elohistic, from the eighth century and continuing as far as 2 Kings 17 – to form an early ‘Enneateuch’, which was later elaborated with P-material (and this not only in Genesis to Numeri, but even in Joshua!). Admittedly, the plausibility of such a model is directly dependent on that of its forerunners in the Pentateuch criticism; and this plausibility has in the meantime almost entirely disappeared.

2.2. Development of the Hypothesis of the Deuteronomistic History In the year 1943 Martin Noth (Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien, 1943) explained, in a fundamentally new and, for all subsequent research, defining way,

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how the canonical section ‘Former prophets’ came into being: a redactor or author, ‘the Deuteronomist’, had in the sixth century recorded the history of the people of Israel from the occupation of the land to its dispossession in one great, comprehensive “deuteronomistic work of history”, encompassing the books of Deuteronomy through to Kings. This thesis has attracted an unusually broad consensus in the academic world, but also, as was to be expected, some objection as well as undergoing various modifications. Noth’s work meant an overturning of the perspective, which until then had held sway: instead of seeking to examine the historical traditions of Israel and determine how the actual events are mirrored in the oldest, then in the newer sources and then in late, historically hardly usable reworkings, he resolutely turned his attention to the last link in this chain. The centre of his interest was completely focussed on the redactional and literary activity of ‘the Deuteronomist’. The last event on which he reports, the pardoning of the exiled king Jehoiachin (2 Kgs 25:27–30), takes place in the year 562; therefore he can be placed soon thereafter, i.e. in the middle of the Exilic era. From this vantage point Noth looks back on the history of Israel. ‘The Deuteronomist’ does not simply use his own imagination to put together this history but rather draws on older sources for his work (such as the deuteronomic Law or a collection of legends relating to the occupation of the land in Joshua or tales of David’s ascendancy and succession to the throne in 1–2 Samuel or the kings’ annals or collections of prophetic literature in 1–2 Kings). He joins these documents together through redactional connecting pieces. This leads to an unmistakable linguistic-intellectual unity from Deuteronomy through to 2 Kings. One can recognise a typical deuteronomistic language (with phrases such as “give heed to the Torah”, “the land which I promised to your fathers”, “to burn incense on the heights”, “to run after foreign gods” etc). The language expresses a particular theology and sight of history with a strong emphasis on religious factors, such as the command to honour Yhwh alone. To this comes a comprehensive chronological framework based on episodes of 40 to 400 years. After making these seminal explanations Noth proceeds to work through the books Deuteronomy to Kings and makes a detailed study of the range, type and objective of the deuteronomistic redactional work: once Dtr only frames and connects that which he feels is worth taking on, e.g. the literary works relating to the early kingdom, once he brings individual material in a self-contained form (such as the political and prophetical literature in Kings through the kings frame), once he supplies a mere collection of tales with an historical-theological direction (such as the saviour stories in Judges through the framing and the intermediary pieces, by which older material is fitted into a chronology and into a theologically thought through overall picture). When it comes to historical breaks, Dtr introduces extensive self-formulated pieces, which he likes to place in the mouth of the leading protagonists and through whom he very clearly expresses his own opinion and assessments (Joshua 1; 23; Judges 2; 1 Samuel *7–12; 1 Kings 8; 2 Kings 17). Noth outlines his observations under the heading “The Character of the Work”: whose “authoral uniqueness” lies in the fact that the final author also allows older texts to speak for themselves. “However, by his construction of the work as a whole and by the sustained development of certain central ideas, Dtr.

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achieved that measure of unity which is so striking today. This work, if scrutinized carefully, stands out from the rest of the Old Testament as something individual and distinct from other writings“ (121). As far as “historical presuppositions” (122), Dtr began to work some shortly after 562 in the Babylonian occupied Judah, presumably in Bethel or Mizpah (there are many references to both these places in the work). His thought appears heavily influenced by Josiah’s reform, which at the time would already have been more than half a century old, and the shock of the end of the state of Judah, which had nevertheless taken place. Noth describes the “attitude towards the material in the traditions” (128) as fundamentally positive, although he intervenes into the inherited material in a way which is selective, connective, compensatory and corrective. A “central theological idea” (134) is the identification of the faith with a fair retributive attitude of God and the demand for unconditional obedience towards the deuteronomic Torah. “Dtr. has centred his history on the theme of worship of God as required by the law“ (137). Towards cult in the narrow sense of the word Dtr appears to have developed “a strongly negative attitude” (137); Ark and Temple are not important to him as the place to encounter God but rather only as a negative yardstick. Dtr is silent about the possible future of his people; he has merely drawn out of the past the proof of God’s manifold waste and thereby delivered an aetiology or doxology of doom; “the possibility of the destruction of the people, already envisaged by the Deuteronomic law as punishment for disobedience, was now for Dtr. an accomplished historical reality” (143–44). Paradoxically it was the unbroken faith in Yhwh – albeit in the punishing Yhwh – which gave Judah the necessary support to cope with the chaos of a world of nations and religions brought into turmoil by the Assyrians and Babylonians. Not least because of Dtr the biblical Israel as the people of Yhwh was able to survive the worst calamity in its history. A number of scholars largely follow Noth’s line yet place (arguably too onesided) emphases. Hoffmann (Reform und Reformen, 1980) regards the current text of the historical work, namely Kings, as widely formulated by Dtr himself and characterised by his ideology. By no means did Dtr seek to communicate historical information, derived from older sources, to a general readership but only and solely to religious teachers. The climax and goal of his depiction is the report authored by himself, from the first to the last line, on Josiah’s reform (2 Kings 22–23). The ideal Yhwh faith and cultic practice presented here is set against the partly negative, partly positive portrayal of other kings and epochs so that the impression emerges of a continuous up and down in the (faith) history of Israel. Van Seters (In Search, 1983/1997) sees the work of Dtr as a freely invented historical novel, written more or less at the same time as Thucydides was writing in Greece. Neither of them in anyway conserved source material but rather both developed their work completely freely. What appears as diverse linguistic styles, disparate material etc. is purely the result of the author’s pleasure in producing a varied work. All attempts to extract historical dates and facts from the portrayed time are naive. At the most they give information on the time of origin albeit only fragmentary. Albertz (Exilszeit, 2001) would like to situate the work of history more precisely social-historically than did Noth. He assumes that the authors (despite maintaining the unity of the text he prefers to speak of more than one author rather than only one) are in the Babylonian Gola. As members of an old upper class they have developed a restorative historical theology: albeit ready to confess as far as the obvious mistakes of the past are concerned, but otherwise full of hope of a restitution of the pre-state conditions. Unlike the dtr compilers of the book of Jeremiah, who allow them-

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selves to be impressed by the radical prophetic message of doom, the dtr historians do not break with the established conviction of the unbreakability of the divine covenant, the divine favour of the Davidic dynasty and the omnipresence of Yhwh on Zion. Thus in their work they not only emphasise the negative aspects but also the positive features about the past.

2.3. Questioning the Hypothesis Martin Noth’s hypothesis had an unparalleled triumphal march in Old Testament research. At the same time it attracted, already from the beginning, doubts and criticism, which have only increased more recently. Naturally this has affected scholars who have wished to hold on to the theory of the continuous Pentateuch-sources in the Former Prophets.6 But even from those who agreed in principle questions were raised. Wolff (Kerygma, 1961) for example disputes that Dtr only proclaims a doom-kerygma; unmistakable were also the call to repentance and coupled with it the hope that God will turn his attention anew towards Israel. G. von Rad believed (in a review) that so much disparate material is processed between Deuteronomy and 2 Kings and so many different intentions recognisable that it would be better not to reckon with one work of one author but rather with various dtr redactors or compilations of individual biblical books. More recent criticism of Noth’s thesis goes partly in the same direction. Westermann (Geschichtsbücher, 1994) emphasises that individual passages of the supposedly coherent work are strikingly different from each other; that the application of the description only with the occupation of the land (and not already with Exodus) is not credible; that Noth did not sufficiently reckon with the flowing in of oral tradition into the final text; that the texts taken from older text sources which he identifies as ‘deuteronomistic’ have been sporadically added and are neither linguistically nor intellectually coherent; that they do not contain any recognisable intention to be real history writing but rather only pious instruction. Rösel (Josua, 1999) likewise maintains the separate formation of each of the books from Joshua to Kings and accounts for this on the one hand through the different theological convictions in the layers of compilation (for example in relation to sin and punishment), on the other hand with the differences in intensity of the redactional compilation of, for example, Samuel and Kings (a well-known fact which Noth explained with the different sources and the way they are deployed). Others take a very different approach. Auld (Kings, 1994) postulates one work for the exilic period, which (only) encompasses the timeframe from David until the downfall of Jerusalem and which is gradually expanded in two directions in the post-exilic period: on the one hand to dtr, on the other hand to chr historiography. Linville (Israel, 1998) categorically denies the existence of a dtr work of history and takes the view that the books of Kings came into being on their own and not until the Persian period. Mönikes (Ablehnung, 1995), by contrast,

6 Eissfeldt, Einleitung (1964); Fohrer, Einleitung (1969); Schulte, Geschichtsschreibung (1972). It is Eissfeldt who coined the lovely phrase that Noth is “actually the father of the deuteronomistic history” (323).

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reckons with a relatively early preliminary stage to the current text: a “Ephraimitic work of history” (Joshua 24–1 Samuel 12) and a “Hezekian work of history” (1 Kings 15–2 Kings 19) from the eighth century, as well as a “Josianic work of history” (Deuteronomy 1–2 Kings 23) from the seventh century which was expanded in the sixth century as far as 2 Kings 25. Eynikel (Reform, 1996) on the other hand sees the books of Kings having originated on their own, and also by stages or blocks: 1 Kings 3–2 Kings 18 in the eighth century, 2 Kings 21–23 in the seventh century, 2 Kings 24–25 in the sixth century. Only at this last stage the history of the kings was linked with the pre-state period, which itself is comprised of blocks, each of which have their own pre-history (Joshua 1–1 Samuel 12 and 1 Samuel 13–1 Kings 2). Kratz (Komposition, 2000) does not (only) look at the books of the Former Prophets (and Deuteronomy) but rather the entire Enneateuch from Genesis to Kings. He regards this as coming into being via several stages from the mid-kings period right through into the late Persian period. In the area of the Former Prophets remnants exist, which go back to the period of the Kingdom of Israel in Joshua 2–8, Judges 3–16 and 1 Samuel 1–14, extended in the seventh century to Joshua 2–12 and 1 Samuel 1–1 Kings 2; alongside originated the “Diaries of the Kings” 1–2 Kings. A first dtr redaction in the exilic period produced only the block 1 Samuel 1–2 Kings 25. The second dtr redaction in the post-exilic period produced the link to Hexateuch narrative, as well as redactionally re-working the older core in Joshua and Judges and making it a bridge between the history of the people and the kings. Even later on a number of diverse dtr and post-dtr additions, sometimes quite substantial, were added. Schmid (Literaturgeschichte, 2008) postulates several stages of development of the “deuteronomistic works of history”: the beginnings in Samuel-Kings during the late Assyrian, an enlargement in 2 Kings 24–25 during the Babylonian, and the compilation of many older traditions into the huge historiographic work Genesis-2 Kings during the Persian Period. All these objections and contradictions threaten to literally break apart Noth’s great vision without, until now, providing convincing new schemes as to the origins of the Former Prophets. On the other hand it is not to be disputed that Noth’s scheme possesses its own simplicity, which in part gives it its suggestive power but also makes it vulnerable to attack. The large text unit Deuteronomy-2 Kings in no way presents itself as closed and smooth as Noth’s depiction would have us believe. Certainly the sharp eye of the doyen will not have failed to notice the manifold rough transitions, breaks and tensions in the enormous (even for the circumstances of the ancient world) work. His answer to this was twofold: with Dtr’s given mode of working – his respect for the incorporated source material and his very precise declarative intentions, which allow him to overlook much and to omit much – it would not be possible to produce a work which was “completely rounded”. Noth postulates that where, even taking into account these pre-conditions, the contradictions are too great and the transgressions too apparent there must have been someone at work adding material, explanations, glosses etc, whereby the original transparent order of ‘Dtr’ was disturbed. It is precisely at this point that serious questioning can be applied. There exist within passages, which can without serious doubt be assigned as ‘dtr’, factual (and linguistic) dissonances which are really difficult to accept. And there are

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sections, which a sole-responsible editor – notwithstanding the fact that source material contained therein may have been re-worked – should have been able to imbue with clarity and save from ambiguity. Here are some examples: The occupation of the land in Joshua 1–12 is essentially portrayed as a grandiose triumphal procession of the unified Israel under the leadership of Joshua through the entire East and West Jordan, by which the whole autochthonous population is driven out or exterminated. However, in Joshua 13 and in Judges 1 there is, surprisingly, talk of unconquered parts of the land and of numerous unconquered cities. And in Joshua 23, in unmistakable dtr tones, we find the declaration that the most important concern of the Torah is, that Israel should not be open to, and mix with, the peoples, whom God has not yet banished from in front of them. In Judges 2–3 can also be found the reasoning of authors, who in their thinking and writing are clearly dtr, reflecting on the purpose of the remaining foreign peoples (and gods!) in the middle of the territory of Israel. Evidently differing notions as to the occupation of the land existed. Apparently there were also different views as to the institution of the monarchy, which cannot be traced back to a difference between source(s) and redaction. In 1 Samuel 7–12 it would appear that there are within dtr text sections views both for and against the statehood of Israel and the monarchy. In the dtr reflection on the demise of the Northern Kingdom 2 Kgs 17:7–20, a central dtr text, there exist manifold repetitions and tensions, which can lead one to think that several hands were at work here; e.g. the prophets soon appear as admonishers to reprimand the people, as preachers of repentance, who should have prevented the doom but who are soon seen as prophets of doom, who are there to announce it. One can also recognise mismatches in relation to the end of Judah. Is there at all a reckoning with the catastrophic events of 587/86 in the passages which we can take to be redactional? If yes, should this be seen as the final end of history or is there hope of a new beginning beyond the end? How is it to be understood that in obviously dtr contexts there is talk of the ‘eternal’ Davidic dynasty and of the lasting election of Jerusalem (e.g. 2 Sam 7:24–25, 29; 2 Kgs 19:34), although in 2 Kings 25 the downfall of both is described?

These and similar tensions are clearly responsible for the aforementioned challenges to Noth’s theory; they have also led to attempts to differentiate this theory.

2.4. Variations of the Hypothesis Whoever finds the arguments for a literary connectedness from Deuteronony to 2 Kings convincing and yet regards the tensions which can be observed within these text passages as too grave as to assume only one author or redactor, is likely to consider whether or not several authors could have been involved with this work. Most contemporary scholars would support this possibility. The problem rests, as might be expected, with the fact that they cannot agree as to how many authors, when and with what means and intentions have been at work on the material. On the contrary the suggestions have accumulated to such an extent and are so divergent that the observer is likely not only to lose the overview, but also patience and confidence.

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2.4.1. The So-called ‘Block Model’ The ‘Block model’ assumes that in principle the dtr history is made up of blocks, which originated at different times. Important is that one (or maybe even two) of these blocks can be dated back to the period of the kings whilst a further has been added from the exilic period. This would mean giving up on Noth’s assumption of one single author and posing the assumption that one (more or less greater) part of the redaction goes back to pre-exilic times. Cross (Themes, 1973) was the initiator of this train of thought.7 Cross’ argumentation is not so much literary-critical but rather purely textual-factual: the dtr work of history does not in toto run to the abandonment of history of 587/86, it rather looks back on the past in a largely positive way and looks optimistically towards the future. Particularly the prophecy of the eternal nature of the Davidic dynasty 2 Samuel 7 is nowhere revoked. On the contrary, in the very positive depictions of some Davidians, especially Josiah, the promise is confirmed. The work naturally has a very bleak view of the Northern Kingdom, which since its foundation carries the “sin of Jeroboam” (the cult in Bet-El and Dan) and finally goes to ground because of it. Though this negative plot runs to a negative goal in 2 Kings 17, it leads to a positive goal in 2 Kings 23 where Josiah deconsecrates the discredited altar of Jeroboam in Bet-El. After Josiah there is, of course, a deep censure. His several successors are only briefly and severely condemned, and with the rapid inner decline followed almost inevitably the outward downfall. This second, smaller ‘block’ was added in the middle of the exilic period, meanwhile the main work arose at the time of Josiah as “a propaganda work of the Josianic reformation and imperial program”. Nelson (Double Redaction, 1981, 21983) developed further the rough hewn sketch of his teacher Cross. After a short dispute with the already established research of his days, he lists a series of reasons as to why a first edition of the work of history must have already existed in the pre-exilic period: the formula which repeatedly appears ‘up to this day’, which in no way points already to exilic period issues and customs; the improbability that one would have so many historical sources to hand in exile; the lack of a theological reflection on the end of the Southern Kingdom in 2 Kings 25 – particularly if this is to have been the aim of the entire work; the existence of literary repetitions and contradictions; above all: the unconditional dynastic prophecies, which do not assume the end of the rule of the Davidic house; finally: the entire characteristic style, which right up to King Manasse (2 Kings 21) does not allow for an inescapable forthcoming judgement. Thereupon Nelson highlights that a high degree of flexibility can be recognised in the royal formulae up to Josiah, thereafter though they just appear rigid and pejorative. An important innovation is the assumption that the second, pessimistic redaction is not only to be felt in the last, short ‘block’ after Josiah’s death, rather much earlier (whereby the designation ‘block model’ is somewhat questionable): its attribution is a tendency to be taciturn and a shortened portrayal (cf. the succinctness of 2 Kgs 25:22–26 with Jeremiah 40–41); a crass negative judgement of the monarchy (already in 1 Samuel 8); the inclusion of the people in the burden of sin, which leads to a bitter end; the announcement of said end long before it happens (for example in Deuteronomy 4; 29; Joshua 23; Judges *1–2; 1 Kgs 8:44–53; 9:6–9; 2 Kgs *17; 21:3, 15; 23:4b, 19–20, 25–30). In contrast the first Dtr believes firmly in the unbreakable future of the Davidic dynasty (2 Samuel 7; 1 Kgs 11:36; 2 Kgs 8:19); he knows a conditioning of the David prophecy only in the time of Solomon and there it is not focussed on the Exile but on the division of the kingdom. Friedman (Exile, 1981) sought to redress a small but obvious defect of the block model: that the supposedly very negatively coloured second block finishes with a section which is essentially positive such as the pardoning of the exiled King Jehoiachin (2 Kgs 25:27–30). He explains this passage without hesitation as a tertiary appendix to the secondary block. He seeks to back this up by adding a few further observations: that following the passage on Josiah, David is no longer called upon as the ideal king and that the pattern of prophecy or threat and fulfilment no longer appears. 7

He was preceded in a number of significant points by several great scholars from earlier epochs of research history: Heinrich Ewald, Abraham Kuenen, Julius Wellhausen.

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Weippert (Beurteilungen, 1972) backs up the theory not of a two-stage but rather a three-stage formation of the books of Kings. The earliest block, 1 Kgs 21:41–2 Kgs 17, dates from the time of Hezekiah; it was expanded during the time of Josiah to 1 Kgs 11–2 Kgs 23:25, and to this was added 2 Kgs 23:26–25:30 in the exilic period. These blocks can be recognised through the way they differ from each other in the kings frame formulae.8 Provan (Hezekiah, 1988) similarly sees in the depiction of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18–20) a turning-point within the dtr history, certainly not in the sense of a historical stage of formation but rather in a literary sense: the earliest ‘block’ went as far as 1 Samuel 1 to 2 Kings 20, but did not emerge until the time of Josiah. With it the young Josiah is to be encouraged to that reform which then took place in the year 622. This work has a positive view of the history of Israel, most clearly tangible in the unconditional acceptance of the Davidic ruling house. In the revised version from the Exilic period were not only a few dynasty prophecies nomistically conditioned, the monarch-critical passages 1 Samuel 7–12 and the book of Judges were also added alongside the block 2 Kings 21–25 and thereby a link was produced to the already existing block Deuteronomy-Joshua.

The aforementioned scholars – together with many others, above all from an Anglo-American background, who work from the same premises – have indeed put together many perceptive text observations to explanatory models, which appear at first sight to give a very illuminatory explanation for the compilation of the existing texts from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings. Yet a closer look reveals serious weaknesses in this approach: For proof of the postulated ‘blocks’ or text levels there would need to be rifts or seams between the blocks which could be plausibly verified. However, many of the indices mentioned above can be explained as variations within one and the same text stage. It is particularly conspicuous by the kings frame formulae: they do indeed reveal differences yet they do not justify the claim of deep censures behind Hezekiah or Josiah. A motive for assuming a dtr foundational layer already in the pre-exilic period is the conscious or unconscious wish to predate broad text pieces which have been dated (relatively) late by Noth and thereby to acquire them as reliable historical sources for the period of the kings. Whereas Noth’s ‘Dtr’ was – notwithstanding his use of older sources – a literary and historical theologian, who looked back on the statehood epoch from a certain temporal and inner distance, the ‘Dtr I’ in the so-called block model is its direct and positive witness. It would seem obvious, but in truth is both epistemologically as well as theologically questionable, to deduce from biblical texts (or biblical text stages) in each case the period in which they were written, with the view that they somehow portray the communis opinio. Yet, sombre thoughts do not only emerge in sombre times, just as hopes only in hopeful times. Concretely: positive statements about the monarchy or the Davidic dynasty do not necessarily need to come from the pre-exilic period, nor more precisely from the time of the (supposedly) successful King Josiah; and conversely not all Jews in the exilic period needed to be negative or pessimistic. The first and the second Isaiah are just such counter-examples. One should also not take dtr authors a priori as mouthpieces of the (supposedly) prevailing mood of the times: under Josiah propagandists of expansion and in the exilic period propagandists of depression. Why cannot the 8

Similar recently also M. A. Sweeney, I & II Kings. A Commentary (OTL; Louisville, KY/London: Westminster John Knox 2007), 4–26.

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exact opposite be possible: that the dtr writers of history critically reflect on the particular historical situation to hand and interpret it anticyclically? Cross depicts already sharply-drawn ‚blocks’ in the quite basic version of his model: a large one up to Josiah and a smaller one from Josiah on. His successors have sought and found the post-Josiah stage already in the pre-Josiah material; the traces of the Exile which are discernible throughout the dtr work of history wreck the allegedly propaganda-smooth surface of the first block. The original block model has changed heavily: there are, all over the dtr history, a pre-exilic and an exilic text layer and it is only in the last two chapters of 2 Kings that the latter clearly dominates (whereby the last passage, 2 Kgs 25:27–30, with its optimistic focus does not really fit, of course). Thereby one is in truth no longer working with a ‘block’-model but rather with older (pre-exilic) and younger (exilic) text layers stacked one on top of the other – therefore essentially with a ‘layer’-model. Methodologically one has arrived in the immediate vicinity of the second model which now needs to be discussed. One could say somewhat pointedly, that the differentiation of Noth’s hypothesis can only be a layer-model; the alternative lies essentially only in the time-setting: pre-exilic – exilic or exilic – post-exilic. 2.4.2. The So-called ‘Layer Model’ The model described here exhibits two main features: it does not assume (contrary to the block model but consistent with Noth) a first redaction of the dtr work of history in pre-exilic times but rather (diverging from Noth, but to a certain extent close to a modified block model) with several redactional compilations from the mid-exilic period. All proponents of this hypothesis differentiate between a first edition of the work, which emerged soon after 562 BCE, which already comprised the basic stock of Deuteronomy 1 to 2 Kings 25 and carries the siglum DtrH (for an historian characterized by Deuteronomy), and a later redactional phase, which followed in the late exilic and/or post-exilic period and places strong emphasis on the exact adherence to the dtn Torah and carries the siglum DtrN (for a nomism based on Deuteronomy). Between these two redactional layers some proponents of this hypothesis see a third redactional layer, which brought prophetic traditions more intensively into the work, as well as adding its own texts with prophetic content and therefore carries the siglum DtrP (for a Deuteronomist who combines Deuteronomy and prophecy). Smend (Das Gesetz und die Völker) gave in the year 1971 the impetus to this direction in research by showing that in the transitions from Deuteronomy to Joshua and from Joshua to Judges within clear dtr text passages divergent understandings of the occupation of the land exist: once they appear as completely total and radical, another time as partial and tendentially more peaceful. A second version interprets a list of unconquered cities in Judges 1 historically-theologically to the effect that God sought to test Israel in its reliability and faithfulness to the Law through the non-Israelites left in the land. This emphasis on the Law and its obedient fulfilment can also be found in Joshua 23 and Josh 1:7–8. The last passage is particularly revealing: Joshua’s and Israel’s success may appear only conditional, yet an older dtr layer in Josh 1:1–6 contains an unconditional promise. The second (incidentally not particularly unified!) text layer clearly draws heavily on the first, is linked to it but pushes its central message in a significantly different direction. That is how the idea of a successive ‘historical’ and a ‘nomistic’ redaction came about.

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Dietrich (Prophetie und Geschichte, 1972) found this gradation confirmed in the books of Kings, but did not, however, follow them consecutively but rather from case to case. (More recently this has been followed up through the evaluation of further works based on the layer model: Von David zu den Deuteronomisten, 252–71.) The main focus is, of course, directed towards a different phenomenon: the strong presence of prophecy in the work of history. Alongside older prophetic traditional material, a larger number of stereotypically formulated texts catch the eye, which reveal a prophetic and dtr mixed-vocabulary and are from their content increasingly critical towards the various royal houses, including the Davidic, i.e. they reveal a decidedly antimonarchic attitude. Furthermore there is a constant recurring structure of prophecy and fulfilment, which can be linked to a corresponding view of a prophet in Deut 18:15–22. This view of prophecy was secondarily implanted in the work of history – not yet on the level of DtrH, but also not only on the level of DtrN. Meanwhile Dietrich is of the opinion that the entire Elijah and Elisha tradition had not yet been incorporated into DtrH but rather first DtrP.9 And the initially claimed relatively early placing of the three compilations at the beginning, middle and end of the exilic period is now replaced in favour of a dating of DtrH in the middle of the exilic period, DtrP in the late exilic period and DtrN in the early post-exilic period. Veijola (Ewige Dynastie, 1975; Beurteilung des Königtums, 1977) broadened the ‘layer model’ to include the books of Judges and Samuel, whereby the attitude towards the monarchy serves as a leitmotif. Noth had divided up the central passage in this question, 1 Sam 7–12, between older, pro-monarchic traditions and the anti-monarchic compilations of his ‘Dtr’. Whereas Veijola placed the anti-monarchic attitude firstly by DtrN, whilst he saw DtrH – mark you: after the downfall of the state! – pro-monarchic minded. He believes that pro-monarchic and pro-dynastic passages can be assigned not only to 1 Samuel 8 and 10:17–27, but also to the so-called appendix of the book of Judges Judges 17–21, as well as to the David tales; the notion of an ‘eternal dynasty’ centred on the Nathan prophecy of 2 Samuel 7 is distinctive of DtrH. The passages critical of the monarchy not only in 1 Samuel 8, 10 and 12, but also in Judges 8–9 and in 1 Kgs 2:2b–4, were first inserted by DtrN. For Veijola – partly together with Dietrich – DtrN has in terms of criticism of the monarchy already done the preliminary work of DtrP, who he sees at work in 1 Sam 3:11–14; 15; 28; 2 Samuel 12; 24. In more recent work Veijola has discerned these layers also in Deuteronomy, though alongside them also a weighty “national theological redaction” (DtrB), whose starting-point can be set still later than DtrN10 and forms a transmission and theological-literary bridge to the world of scholars such as Ezra or also Ben Sira.11 Veijola’s view of the matter has an impressive scope. Up to the middle of the exilic period DtrH was still quite positive, even hopeful, in his writing and reflections on the institution of the monarchy – in the way that the older sources had, of course, specified. However, towards the end of the exilic period and thereafter an anti-monarchic and anti-state tendency asserted itself in the dtr circles, which already anticipates the Temple community which is no longer state-organised and on the way to orthodox Judaism.

The ‘layer model’, which has found its followers above all in Europe, specifically in the German-speaking world, can, like the ‘ block model’, explain a variety of text phenomena. In particular the opening of the dtr epoch downwards to the post-exilic Persian period is attractive, which in terms of the Old Testament literary formation was certainly as productive as the exilic Babylonian era. Though therein already lay the problems of the model. The difficulties which have existed from the beginning in relation to the demarcation and profiling especially of the DtrN-layer – how many hands were at work on the text? for what length of time were they operative? – have led many

9

Dietrich, Von David zu den Deuteronomisten (2002), 236–251. Veijola, Moses Erben (2000), 153–175. 11 Ibid. 192–240. 10

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authors to consider that there were tendentially countless individual redactions rather than one or two coherent complete compilations of the work of history.12 Many scholars – also those who are sympathetic towards the layer model13 – express difficulty with identifying DtrP as an individual, definable layer distinct from DtrH. Is it conceivable that the foundational text did not yet contain any or maybe very little prophetic texts? Are the seams which suggest a subsequent insertion clear enough? Could not DtrH have consciously seen and depicted history also from a prophetic vantage point? Could it be that he had a certain ambivalence towards the monarchy and the state and hence mixed both pro-dynastic texts and texts critical of the kings in his work? Anyway, both the layer and the block model raise the critical question, whether such literary-critical differences between authors, who have ultimately imposed a coherent sense stamped with Deut, is realistically possible and helpful in relation to what one gains. Perhaps the solution lies in finding a compromise between these two basic models? 2.4.3. Compromise Models Occasionally there are attempts to find a compromise between the two aforementioned alternatives. As a rule this involves equating the DtrH of the layer model with the preexilic redactor of the block model but the latter’s second, exilic, redactor with the DtrN-layer. (DtrP is, however, then lost.) Mayes (Story of Israel, 1983) begins with Deuteronomy. Its core – the collection of laws with some preaching-like applications (Deuteronomy 6–25) – was framed by historical flashbacks at the time of Josiah by a “dtr historian” (Deuteronomy 1–3; *5; *31; *34: one has no difficulty to recognise DtrH). This version of Deuteronomy was made into the prelude to the work of history he intended. Now Deuteronomy contains alongside ‘historical’ passages clearly also ‘nomistic’ ones (e.g. in Deuteronomy 4; 28–30), which where added by a younger “deuteronomistic editor” (easily identifiable as DtrN). Its main themes are the immediate and close connection between Yhwh and Israel, the election and the covenant; this redactor comes so close to Deutero-Isaiah that he can be categorised as exilic. These two redactional strands continue after Deuteronomy: in Joshua and Judges in the form of the two layers discovered by Smend, in Samuel and Kings above all in 1 Samuel 7–12 (at this point Mayes partly follows Veijola) and 2 Kings 17 (the reflection on the downfall of Northern Israel). The prophetic speeches in 2 Kgs 21:10–15; 22:16–20 are attributed not to a DtrP but rather to the exilic “editor” – in the same way as the entire close of the book of Kings from 2 Kgs 23:26 onwards (the second ‘block’ of the block model). O’Brien (Hypothesis, 1989) in an overview of research, exercises criticism of the block as well as the layer model and attempts a “reassessment” of the problem. Already at the outset he presents, in the form of a structure table, that which he identifies as belonging to the first edition of the work of history: the core from Deuteronomy 1 to 2 Kings 23:23 (whereby the perspective of the time of Josiah is declared from the outset); through textual gaps in the table later expansions of the core text are signalled (naturally from the exilic period). The result of this individual investigation reveals that the first compiler, ‘DTR’, drew on a collection of, in part, very extensive sources:

12 So e.g. Würthwein (Studien, 1994), also Nentel (Trägerschaft, 2000), who instead of DtrN speaks of a late dtr redactional layer to which he assigns quite a number and diverse texts. 13 Etwa van Keulen, Manasseh (1996).

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Deuteronomy, stories of the conquest of the land in Joshua 1–12, an already extensively edited history of the period of judges (Judges 2–9 – that is including the guilt-punishment scheme in Judges 2), a form of “Prophetic Record”14 reaching from 1 Samuel 1 to 2 Kings 10 which already after 722 was extended with “the chronicles of the kings of Israel”, and finally a Judaic document on the kings of the Southern Kingdom from the division of the kingdom up to Hezekiah. DTR introduced specific dtn-dtr themes into this source material, namely the centralistic, pure Yhwh cult; trust in God instead of the desire to go to war; David as the ideal king; the reign of Solomon as the culmination of the appropriation and securing of the land, but also as a transition to new dangers; the history of the kingdom definitively as a history of the people of Israel; a scheme of prediction and fulfilment which functioned in history (Dietrich’s DtrP). In this way much which is deemed as exilic in both the unity and layer models, is reclaimed for the pre-exilic period. But then the ‘layer model’ is given a chance in a surprising way: O’Brien reckons with three redactional compositions for the exilic and early post-exilic times which he expressly links with DtrH, DtrP and DtrN: soon after 587 a first ‘amender’ continued to write the history of Josiah’s death and the four successive kings up to 2 Kgs 25:21; theologically he does not have much to say, the unexpected disaster after Josiah’s death leaves him largely speechless. It was not until the next compiler that new theological categories were developed: through prophetic predictions (2 Kgs 21:10–15; 22:19–20) he introduced the perspective of the exile to the depiction of Manasseh and Josiah, created the link between 1 Kings 13 and 2 Kgs 23:16–18 and brought more examples for the correlation between prediction and fulfilment, whereby an “anti-monarchic” tendency is unmistakeable (recognisably Dietrich’s DtrP). This compiler is willing to risk saying negative things not only about the kings of Northern Israel and King Manasseh, but also about other members of the Davidic dynasty (even Hezekiah, which would never have occurred to DTR). Finally texts are ascribed to the third compiler, which in the layer model are reserved for DtrN, above all Deuteronomy 4; 29–30; Josh 1:7–9; 23; 1 Samuel 12; 2 Kgs 17:7–19. Römer (Deuteronomistic History, 2005/2007) develops the idea of a threefold layered work. The first version would have originated in the period of Josiah (around 620 BCE), the second in the (early) exilic period, and the third in the (early) post-exilic period. The editorship is a ‘deuteronomistic school’, which emerged in the seventh century from high court circles, namely the scribes; above all names such as Hilkiah and Shaphan, mentioned in 2 Kgs 22:8–20, are ascribed to this school by Römer. This circle was carried off to Babylon with the first wave of deportations in the year 597, where they continued to work. Their descendants continued to cultivate this intellectual inheritance of their forebears as members of the intellectual elite until the time of the Persian period, before it retreated behind the evolving Torah around 400 BCE and with time became divided into the many books which we find in the canon today. The first Josianic version of the dtr history writing did not yet consist of a complete thoughtthrough work but of several smaller pieces: a core-Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy *6–28), an ancient book of Joshua (Joshua *5–12 [*13–21]) and a first book of Kings (*1 Samuel 1–2 Samuel 8 plus 1 Kings *3–11 plus a relatively brief chronicle of Israelite and Judean kings in *1 Kgs 12:1–2 Kgs 23:15). Distinctive characteristics are the existence of similar literary genres – contract texts, descriptions of conquests, annals – amongst the Assyrians; these were the occupying forces in Judah up to the early part of Josiah’s reign and one sought to set oneself off against them with a national-Judean restoration programme. In effect these works present the propaganda literature of the Jerusalem court. The second exilic version is the first continuous dtr work of history. It joins together the Josianic part pieces into a history of Israel from the occupation of the land to losing it.15 This time span was divided into epochs through long speeches or summaries (Deuteronomy *1–30; Joshua 1; 23; Judg

14 This is a borrowing by A. Campbell, Of Prophets and Kings. A Late Ninth-Century Document (1 Samuel 1–2 Kings 10) (CBQ.MS 17; Washington, DC: The Catholic Biblical Association of America 1986). 15 The end lies with 2 Kön 25:21, the news of the deportation of Judah.

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2:6–3:6; 1 Samuel 12; 1 Kings 8; 2 Kings 17).16 Moreover many of the connecting passages between the earlier pieces first needed to be created, namely the so-called period of the judges which is a dtr creation arising out of the deployment of older material. The main elaborations at this second stage in the evolution of the dtr work of history are to be found in Deuteronomy 1–3; 5; 17–18; 31:1–8; 34:*1–6; Joshua 1; 3–4; 6–7; *10–11; 23; Judges *2–11; 1 Samuel 7; 8; 10:17–27; 12; 15; 1 Kings 2:1– 4; 3:1–15; 8; 9:1–9; *11; 16:23–34; *21; 22:39–54; 2 Kings *1:1–2, 17–18; 3:1–3; 8:16–29; 9:1–10:36; *11–12; 17; *21–25. In terms of content, the main new features can be found in the inclusion of the downfall of Jerusalem in the historical perspective of the Deuteronomists. What emerges could be called a type of crisis literature, aimed at helping the overthrown Judean elite come to terms with their fate. Great plans for the future cannot be expected in this situation. The third post-exilic version introduces three essential points of view into the exilic work, which are of significance for the emerging Jewish religion: the demand for a strict separation of the people of Yhwh from their neighbours; the advancement of a monolatrism (the exclusive honouring of Yhwh without calling into question the existence of other gods) to a strict monotheism (the existence of other gods is denied and any form of reverence of such gods by the people of Yhwh is vehemently opposed); finally the extending of the horizon over and beyond the (Babylonian) Gola with the spreading of the Jewish Diaspora. The most important textual additions are to be found in Deuteronomy 4; 7; 10:14–22; 12:20–28; *14; 23:1–9; 30:1–14; Josh 22:9–34; 23:4–12; 1 Kings *8; 2 Kgs 25:27–30. Possibly at this stage the tale of an heir to the throne emerged which throws David into a disadvantageous light (2 Samuel *9–19). The emerging dtr work of history was divided into a series of books in 400 BCE. They were separated from Deuteronomy and the ‘Torah’ was added. On the edge of the books further material grew, which in the long term disturbs the view of a continuous work of history, especially the appendices of the books of Judges and Samuel (Deuteronomy *32–34; Joshua 2; 24; Judges 1,1–2,5; [13–16;] 17–21; 1 Samuel *2; 2 Samuel 21–24). Similarly the tales of the arch of the covenant (1 Samuel 4–6) as well as of Elijah und Elisha (*1 Kings 17–2 Kings 7) and other prophets (e.g. 1 Kings 13; 20; 22) are post-dtr additions.

As praiseworthy and irenic as these works are they come across as too general and above all they fail to remove the main differences between the block and layer models: either a pre-exilic dtr work of history existed or it did not. (Römer seems to avoid this question by maintaining that in the period of Josiah there was not one work of history but rather several text pieces.) A work of history at the time of monarchy would still be untouched by the catastrophe of the exile and would therefore fail to fulfil the basic criteria which Noth deems essential for describing the work as that of ‚Dtr’: the working through of this very catastrophe. This does, however, have significant, also theological, consequences: it makes an enormous difference as to whether a work of history is to be regarded as a piece of royal propaganda literature (such as Römer expressly claims for his earliest textual layer) or as an attempt to understand and cope with a crisis which was the result of the collapse of the monarchy and the state.

2.5. Conclusions The above offered presentation of the research discussion gives little reason to hope that the academic world will soon be able to agree how the part of the canon ‘ former prophets’ (including Deuteronomy) came about. Therefore one 16

One sees that Römer mixes much which in the layer model is ascribed to DtrN with DtrH material.

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will have to continue to live with a certain variety of attempts and alternatives of explanation for the foreseeable future. There is no need to regard this as all too burdensome as the former prophets (and Deuteronomy) can be read and indeed also be understood to a certain extent without constantly needing to ask how they emerged. There is a suspicion that a too rigid fixation on the so-called diachronic analysis can skew the view on the advantages which a so-called synchronic reading of these biblical books can provide. The verdict as to the literary and theological quality of the David and Elijah stories is only to a small extent dependent on the knowledge as to who and when and where exactly these tales were told or written down. Nonetheless the historic depth of focus which the diachronic perspective seeks to provide is indispensable not only for answering historical questions but also for the interpretation of texts. For an understanding of the texts it is not unimportant to know in which situations they arose and in which thereafter they were operative again and again. Now it is not the case that the diachronic research approach to the former prophets or to the dtr work of history has not come to any firm or, at least, to any probable insights. In effect all scholars agree that the books Joshua to Kings have undergone a more or less far-reaching re-working in the spirit of Deuteronomy. This does, however, mean that the decisive phase of the formation of this part of the canon is to be situated in the post-dtn period. Over the preceding epochs – the time of the Kings and the pre-state period – one learns, at the most, something indirectly: about the sources which fed into the final text. Nevertheless there exists widespread agreement that the former prophets are not simply a relatively young historic novel but rather to a large extent are drawn from older sources and so form in fact a history writing – though, of course, one of a particular kind. It is shaped by the principles of Deuteronomy: the belief that everything that Israel has, or rather had (its identity and security, the land, the state, the temple), is due to the goodness of God; that Israel’s God was kind but not indulgent, rather expected the strict adherence to his commandments; that within these commandments the first commandment was to be given the highest priority and that God essentially steered history according to how Israel particularly adhered to this commandment. This mindset is usually expressed in a particular language which even the partly trained eye can recognise as dtr, i.e. influenced by Deuteronomy. There may exist unanimity that all the books of the former prophets (and also that of Deuteronomy) have in this way been dtr re-worked, yet there is still controversy as to whether the re-working is continuous, that is whether there is such a thing as a comprehensive dtr work of history. It is a fact that certain divergences can be identified from book to book (and in part within individual books), though these can largely be explained by the differences in the particular sources which have been deployed. On the other hand there are especially in the dtr sections from Deuteronomy to Kings many overlapping elements, which can be traced through two or more or even all of the books.17 This very much speaks for a literary unity in which Deuteronomy and the former prophets are bound together.

17

See Dietrich, Vielfalt und Einheit (2008).

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There are, however, differences which remain – again also in the dtr sections – which make it difficult to believe that the complete work is the composition of only one author. Admittedly there is a certain attraction (and can be justified particularly from a didactic point of view) to overlook the tensions and irregularities and to regard the entire text as that which it is: a sprawling work of history, which builds up a wide but coherent span and is shaped by a particular way of thinking, namely dtr. Yet with this, one hardly reaches into the exilic, even less the pre-exilic period, but rather only in the post-exilic period; this dtr work of history is a witness to the newly constituted Judaism which emerged out of the catastrophe – and has as such its undeniable validity. Nevertheless it is difficult to understand why one should wish to surrender the attainable knowledge about the time between the youngest sources used in this work of history and its final completion, which is the century between the late period of the Kings and the early Persian period. Even less so, because the last passage of the work of history leads almost exactly into the middle of this century: to the year 562. At that time, or rather just after, in any case before the end of the exilic period, at least one redactor worked on the text. It is very probable that this is the first compiler of the entire work – even if many believe it is in fact the second compiler and that the first compiler was already at work in the Josianic period. Arguably many irregularities in the work of history could be explained if one were to assume this double redaction – and yet neither are all explained nor is this necessarily the only form of explanation. Pre-exilic text passages in the work of history are undisputed; yet they are the result not of the redaction but rather of the use of sources. The positive aspects of the portrayal, which appear unaffected by the catastrophe, could be the result of these sources – or they could be due to the political and theological insight of later redactors, that Israel had great chances in the course of its history and that the God of Israel did not only have misery in mind for his people from the beginning. This view corresponds dialectically with the others: that Israel’s sin which it had accumulated over time should not go unpunished. Other insights came to be added: that prophecy was essential to Israel and the secret motor of its history; that the Torah was the greatest gift of God to his people – not the monarchy nor the state, not Zion nor the temple – and that everything in the past and in the future depends on Israel’s attitude towards the Torah. These and other views apparently found increasing emphasis and expression in the work of history: more the result of larger, individual revisions than the work of many hands. The question that remains is where did the work of history originate: in the land of Judah (Noth, Veijola) or in the Babylonian exile (Albertz)? Again the reasons predominantly support the first. – Not only source texts but also particularly dtr sections point to a good knowledge of the country (e.g. Deut 1:1–2; 34:1–3; Josh 7:26; 1 Sam 7:11–12; 1 Kgs 11:7; 2 Kgs 25:4–6). – Especially typical dtr passages are often located in the land or around Jerusalem (1 Samuel 8; 12; 2 Samuel 7; 1 Kings 8; 2 Kings 21–25). – The numerous sources which were obviously used in the compilation of the work probably belonged to a library, which one can most likely imagine being in Jerusalem; that it was brought to safety somewhere in the country before the destruction of the city seems far more likely than that the exiles dragged it with them to Babylonia.

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However, one must not exaggerate the alternatives. There was a brisk exchange between Judah and the Gola (cf. Jeremiah 13; 29; Ezekiel 8; 22; 33:21), and it is not by chance that the work closes with news from Babylonia (2 Kgs 25:27–30). The late-dtr redaction layer clearly shows signs of intellectual influences from the Gola,18 which possibly reveals the presence of returnees amongst the dtr circles of Judah. Ezra, the ringleader of a later wave of returnees, seems on the other hand to be the ‘heir’ of dtr thought.19

3. The Chronistic Historiography Research accounts: A. Bea, “Neuere Arbeiten zum Problem der biblischen Chronikbücher”, Bib. 22 (1941) 46–58. – E. Jenni, “Aus der Literatur zur chronistischen Geschichtsschreibung”, ThR 45 (1980) 97–108. – J. W. Kleinig, “Recent Research in Chronicles”, Currents in Research. Biblical Studies, 2 (1994), 43–76. Studies: P. R. Ackroyd, The Chonicler in his Age (JSOT.S 101; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991). – A. G. Auld, Kings without Privilege (Edinburgh: Clark 1994). – J. Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow. A Social and Historical Approach (Minneapolis: Fortress 1995). – R. L. Braun, “Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Theology and Literary History”, Studies in the Historical Books of the OT (ed. J. A. Emerton; VT.S 30, 1979), 52–64. – S. J. De Vries, 1 and 2 Chronicles (FOTL 11; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1989). – K. Galling, Studien zur Geschichte Israels im persischen Zeitalter (Tübingen: Mohr 1964). – E. S. Gerstenberger, Israel in der Perserzeit. 5. und 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie 8; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2005). – J. Goettsberger, Die Bücher der Chronik oder Paralipomenon übersetzt und erklärt (Bonn: Hanstein 1939). – M. P. Graham/K. G. Hoglund/S . L. McKenzie (eds.), The Chronicler as Historian (JSOT.S 238; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1997). – M. P. Graham/ S. L. McKenzie/G. N. Knoppers (eds.), The Chronicler as Theologian. Essays in Honor of Ralph W. Klein (London/New York: Clark International 2003). – S. Japhet, “The Supposed Common Authorship of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah Investigated Anew”, VT 18 (1968) 330–72; “The Historical Reliability of Chronicles”, JSOT 33 (1985) 83–107; The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought (BEATAJ 9; Frankfurt a.M.: Lang 1989, 2 1997); “The Relationship; Freiburg: Herder 2002, 2003). – J. Jarick, “The Temple of David in the Book of Chronicles”, Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel (ed. J. Day; London: Clark 2005), 365–381. – I. Kalimi between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah”, Congress Volume Leuven 1989 (VT.S 43; ed. J. A. Emerton, Leiden: Brill 1991), 298–313; I & II Chronicles (London: SCM Press 1993); 1 Chronik. 2 Chronik (HThKAT, Zur Geschichtsschreibung des Chronisten (BZAW 226; Berlin: de Gruyter 1995). – J. Kegler / M. Augustin, Synopse zum chronistischen Geschichtswerk (BEATAJ 1; Frankfurt a.M.: Lang 1984, 21991). – J. W. Kleinig, The Lord’s Song: The Basis, Function and Significance of Choral Music in Chronicles (JSOT.S 156; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993). – G. N. Knoppers, I Chronicles 1–9; I Chronicles 10–29 (AncB 12; New York: Doubleday 2004). – H.-P. Mathys, “Chronikbücher und hellenistischer Zeitgeist”, in: idem, Vom Anfang und vom Ende. Fünf alttestamentliche Studien (BEATAJ 4; Frankfurt a.M.: Lang 2000), 41–155. – S. L. McKenzie, The Chronicler’s Use of the Deuteronomistic History (HSM 33; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press 1985). – S. L. McKenzie/M. P. Graham (eds.), The History of Israel’s Traditions. The Heritage of Martin Noth (JSOT.S 182; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1994). – R. Mosis, Untersuchungen zur Theologie des chronistischen Geschichtswerkes (FThSt 92; Freiburg: Herder 1973). – S. Mowinckel, “Erwägungen zum chronistischen Geschichtswerk”, ThLZ 85 (1969) 1–8. – M. Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien. Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament ([1943]; Tübingen: Niemeyer 21957); ET: The Chronicler’s History (JSOT.S 50; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1987). – M. Oeming, Das wahre Israel. Die “genealogische Vorhalle” 1 Chronik 1–9 (BWANT 128; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1990). – K. Peltonen,

18 19

Cf. Dietrich, Von David zu den Deuteronomisten (2002), 252–271. Cf. Veijola, Moses Erben (2000), 192–242.

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History Debated: The Historical Reliability of Chronicles in Pre-Critical and Critical Research, 1–2 (Helsinki/Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1996). – O. Plöger, Theokratie und Eschatologie (WMANT 2; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1959 = 31963). – K.-F. Pohlmann, Studien zum dritten Esra. Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem ursprünglichen Schluß des chronistischen Geschichtswerkes (FRLANT 104; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1970). – H. N. Richardson, “The Historical Reliability of Chronicles”, JBR 26 (1958) 248–261. – J. W. Rothstein/J. Hänel, Kommentar zum I. Buch der Chronik (KAT 8.2; Leipzig: Deichert 1927). – W. Rudolph, Die Chronikbücher (HAT 1.21; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1955). – A. Ruffing, Jahwekrieg als Weltmetapher. Studien zu den Jahwekriegstexten des chronistischen Sondergutes (SBB 24; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1992). – M. Sæbø, “Messianism in Chronicles?”, HBT 2 (1980) 85–109; Art. „Chronistische Theologie/Chronistisches Geschichtswerk“, TRE 8 (1981) 74–87; “‘Ne bis idem’? Theologische und Kanonische Aspekte der Parallelität von Deuteronomistischem und Chronistischem Geschichtswerk”, in: Biblischer Text und theologische Theoriebildung (ed. S. Chapma n/C. Helmer/C. Landmesser; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 2001), 27–51. – G. Steins, Die Chronik als kanonisches Abschlussphänomen (BBB 93; Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum 1995); “1 Chr 1–10 – das Set Up der Chronikbücher”, in: Textarbeit. Studien zu Texten und ihrer Rezeptionsgeschichte aus dem Alten Testament und der Umwelt Israels (FS P. Weimar, ed. K. Kiesow/T. Meurer; AOAT 294; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag 2003), 483–504. – T. Veijola, “Die Deuteronomisten als Vorgänger der Schriftgelehrten. Ein Beitrag zur Entstehung des Judentums”, in: idem, Moses Erben (BWANT 149; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2000), 192–240. – G. von Rad, Das Geschichtsbild des chronistischen Werkes (BWANT 54; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1930). – J. P. Weinberg, The Citizen-Temple Community (JSOT.S 151; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1992). – J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Berlin: Reimer 61905). – P. Welten, Geschichte und Geschichtsdarstellung in den Chronikbüchern (WMANT 42; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1973). – T. Willi, Die Chronik als Auslegung. Untersuchungen zur literarischen Gestaltung der historischen Überlieferung Israels (FRLANT 106; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1972); Juda – Jehud – Israel. Studien zum Selbstverständnis des Judentums in persischer Zeit (FAT 12; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck 1995); “Das davidische Königtum in der Chronik”, in: Ideales Königtum. Studien zu David und Salomo (ABG 16; ed. R. Lux; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2005), 71–87; Chronik (BKAT 24/1: 1 Chr 1–10:14; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2009). – H. G. M. Williamson, Israel in the Books of Chronicles (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1977); 1 and 2 Chronicles (NCB; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1982); Studies in Persian Period History and Historiography (FAT 38; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2004). – J. W. Wright, “The Legacy of David: The Narrative Function of 1 Chronicles 23–27”, JBL 110 (1991) 229–242. – E. Zenger e.a., Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 72008). – L. Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden, historisch entwickelt (Berlin: Asher 1832 = Frankfurt a.M.: Kauffmann 21892).

Alongside the deuteronomistic work of history one finds a further biblical account of the history of Israel in the books 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah: this time not from the occupation of the land to its loss but rather from creation through to the period of the Second Temple. Thereby 1–2 Chr covers the period from the creation up to the end of the Babylonian Exile, Ezra-Nehemiah that of the post-exilic period: the return of the captive exiles, the restoration of Judah in the Persian province of Jehud, the re-building of the Temple and the resettlement and fortification of Jerusalem.

3.1 The Question of a ‘Chronistic Work of History’ and the Character of Ezra-Nehemiah It was Leopold Zunz who in 1832 first suggested the theory that the books 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah once formed a continuous historical account, which had now been pulled apart and been included in the (Hebrew) canon in the wrong order.

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This hypothesis is primarily supported by the (apparent or actual) continuous coherence between the four biblical books. Furthermore there are a series of other arguments, which have with some variation since Zunz, been deployed again and again: – In the last verses of 2 Chronicles (36:22–23) and the first of Ezra (1:1–3a), as well as, in other versions, in Ezra 6:3–5 reference is made to the so-called Kyros-Edict.20 – Moreover the 3rd book of Ezra (which only exists in the LXX) provides a rendering of Ezra *1–5 and Nehemiah *7–8 preceded by 2 Chronicles 35–36.21 – There are a number of linguistic and stylistic similarities between 1–2 Chronicles and EzraNehemiah.22 – Finally corresponding theological positions were repeatedly pointed out: the focus on Judah, Jerusalem and especially on the – first and second – temple, the strict legal understanding of Judaism, the synopsis of internal secular, political military etc. and transcendental, religious, divinely-governed etc. procedures.

The theory of a coherent Chronistic work of history continued to enjoy a nearly canonical authority well beyond the middle of the twentieth century. Yet since then one has become more and more aware of the opposing arguments.23 – The doubling-up of the end of Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra can just as well signify non-coherence. It is altogether possible to imagine that the work invoked the Kyros-legacy as an almost legendary salvific date in order to avoid the former history ending negatively and to give the new history a more positive beginning. – The 3rd book of Ezra, which is the epitome of both books in question, can hardly be seen as proof of an original coherence between the two.24 – The linguistic similarities are no surprise, when considering the development of late Hebrew at the time, and stand in opposition to the serious differences which exist.25 In particular the language of Chronicles, differently to Ezra-Nehemiah, is full of deuteronomistic language – even though in a completely individual way.26 – The theological consensus in the writings in question, which are not far apart, not in terms of time, nor locality or milieu, come as no surprise. Astonishing are far more the strong differences: not only in terms of orientation towards the older history here and the newer history there but in the primary focus on the Davidic monarchy and the prophecy here and the priesthood and the Levites there. Noticeable is the striking difference between a certain universalism here and a rigid particularism there (separation of mixed-marriages, the holiness of the Sabbath).

Therefore 1–2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah are not parts of an overarching Chronistic work of history but rather two works from different writers. Although it is recognisable that in many aspects they have been influenced by the same spirit, there is nevertheless in terms of content (and presumably also time)

20 This was taken by Noth, Studien (1943), 2, for example, as a strong indication of the coherence of the writings. 21 Zunz, Vorträge der Juden (1832), 20–21, had already seen therein an indication of unity; cf., with more recent studies, above all that of Pohlmann, Studien zum dritten Esra (1970). 22 Listed, for example, in: S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark 1891 = 41892), 502 ff. 23 Here it has above all been the work of Japhet (Authorship, 1968), Willi (Auslegung, 1972) and Williamson (Israel, 1977) which has led the way; cf. the summary by Sæbø (Chronistische Theologie, 1981). 24 Cf. Williamson, Israel (1977), 12–36, in position against Pohlmann, Studien (1970). 25 Cf. Japhet, Authorship (1968), and Williamson, Israel (1977), 37–59. 26 Cf. already von Rad, Geschichtsbild (1930), with a reprint re-worked by Willi, Auslegung (1972).

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a considerable gap.27 Whilst in Ezra-Nehemiah (or at least in the sources which can be found therein) we can still see how cataclysmic the new developments in Judaism, as a result of Persian rule had been, we find that 1–2 Chronicles is based on these developments and seeks to define the particular historical place of Judaism in the – Persian28 or already Hellenistic29 – ecumenism of races. Here we shall cast a glance to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah (in fact not two but rather one book!). They also narrate history but they do not form such a comprehensive historiography, nor are they structured along such clear principles and lines as the dtr or the chr work of history. The double-writing can be divided into four parts: Ezra 1–6 deals with the return of the exiles and with the re-building of the temple after the Babylonian Exile, Ezra 7–10 covers the call and work of Ezra, in particular the implementation of the ‘Law’, Nehemiah 1–7 is about the work of Nehemiah, especially the building of the city walls and the restoration of the city in Jerusalem, Nehemiah 8–13 deals with the co-operation between Nehemiah and Ezra to secure internal order in the newly established province of Jehud. In all there is no attempt to follow a strict historical narrative (cf. only the doubling up of Ezra 2/Nehemiah 7 and Ezra 8/Nehemiah 8).30 Apparently the author is not seeking to produce a smooth chronology but rather to produce a complete picture of the re-organisation of Israel after the exile.31 This took place in their view in three stages which each time began with the sending out of commissaries from the Persian court (Ezra 1; 7; Nehemiah 1) and ended with an improvement of the conditions in Judah (Ezra 6:13–22; 10; Nehemiah 13). One particular problem of a chronological kind has remained unsolved to this day:32 was Ezra really in Jerusalem before Nehemiah, as the present version of Ezra-Nehemiah suggests, or was it the other way around? The problem is that the declaration to be found in Ezra 7:8, which has Ezra being sent out in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, may refer to Artaxerxes I. Longimanus (465–424, i.e. in the year 458 BCE) but could just as well refer to Artexerxes II. Mnemon (404–358, that is 397 BCE). What is particularly revealing is that the passages Ezra 4:6–6:18 and 7:12–26 are written in Aramaic, the reason being that in Ezra 4:7, 11; 7:11 there is the conscious reproduction of documents – one royal decree (7:13–26) and four letters (4:11–16; 4:17–22; 5:7–17; 6:6–12) – in their original language: a clear demonstration of historiographical ambitions.33 Older sources also seem to have been deployed in the Hebrew sections of Ezra (or have they been freely invented?): a list of re-

27 This speaks against the suggestion found in Willi, Auslegung (1972), 180, and Welten, Geschichte (1973), 4, and taken up, for example, by Oeming, Das wahre Israel (1990), 42–43, that in 1–2 Chr and Ezra-Neh we have two works but they stem from one and the same author. 28 Such as, amongst others, recently Gerstenberger, Perserzeit (2005), 117–129. 29 As, for example, Noth (Studien, 1943, 155) and programmatically Mathys, Chronikbücher (2000). Also Welten, Geschichte (1973), 199–200, and Ruffing, Jahwekrieg (1992), 302, argue that a dating to the Hellenistic era is more likely, as the many chr descriptions of war describe very unsettled circumstances, which were less characteristic of the Persian period than of the time of the Diadochian battles. 30 Admittedly there have been attempts amongst scholars to restore the ‘original order’ but these remain arbitrary. W. Rudolph, Esra und Nehemia samt 3. Esra (HAT 1.20; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1949), XXII, for example, postulate the original sequence to be Ezra 1–8; Neh 7:72b–8:18; Ezra 9:1–10:44; Neh 9:1–10:40; 1:1–7:72a; 11:1–13:31, which produces, in his eyes, an “account of attractive coherence”. 31 G. Steins, in: Zenger, Einleitung (72008), 267. 32 For the intense debate cf. already H. H. Rowley, “The Chronological Order of Ezra and Nehemiah” (1948) = idem, The Servant of the Lord and other Essays (Oxford: Blackwell 21965), 135–168. 33 W. T. In der Smitten, Esra. Quellen, Überlieferung, Geschichte (SSN 15; Assen: Gorcum 1973). The authenticity of the letters is strongly called into question by D. Schwiderski, Handbuch des reichsaramäischen Briefformulars. Ein Beitrag zu Echtheitsfrage der aramäischen Briefe des Esrabuches (BZAW 295; Berlin: de Gruyter 2000).

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turned temple implements (1:9–11); two lists of names of returning exiles in 2:1–70 (cf. Neh 7:6– 72); 8:1–14; a list of precious metal offerings to the temple (8:26–27); a list of Jewish men, who had to dismiss their wives (10:18–44); besides that the so-called Cyros-Edict, once in Hebrew (1:2–4), once in Aramaic (6:3–5). A particularly comprehensive and, according to the large majority of scholars, an especially unified and authentic source34 is to be found in the ‘Denkschrift’ of the governor Nehemiah (Neh 1:1–7:3). That a series of texts in Ezra appear to be written in the first person (Ezra 7:12–8:36; 9–10; Nehemiah 8) has led to the assumption that there also exist personal records from him; but this could just be the result of literary convention or an imitation of the Nehemiah texts.

So it cannot be disputed that we also find a type of historical writing in Ezra-Nehemiah – which can in another way be also said of Jeremiah 37–44 and, again in a different way, of Jonah or Esther or of Psalms 78 or 136. But it is not the type of historical writing as in the dtr or the chr historiographies. We now wish to cast our gaze principally on the chronistic work of history, which comprises a comprehensive account of large epochs of the history of Israel. With regard to the canonical sources the Chronicler differentiates, as it were, between a primary and a secondary level (whilst himself as historian operating on a tertiary level).35 At a primary level, there are prophetic witnesses to which the Chronicler alludes by the mention of names of supposed authors: Samuel, Nathan, Gad, Ahia, Jedo and Jehu. The historical account found in the Pentateuch and in the Deuteronomistic History represents a secondary layer. The Chronicler for his part wishes through his work to interpret anew these two intertwined textual layers. The Chronicler’s way of dealing with the biblical sources may now be exemplified in the way he treats the figure of David.36 What can be recognised at first glance is that a selection has been made from the books of Samuel. Extended passages have been ignored: for example David’s conflict with Saul or that with his sons.37 As for the reasons for this omission can only be speculated. Maybe it troubled the Chronicler that in these sections David did not cut a very brilliant figure. Possibly it dealt in his eyes too much with Northern Israel, which he largely sought to circumvent through silence. Perhaps it was also clear to him, that his readership already knew the old David stories and he just wished to place them in a new light.38 Other passages from the books of Samuel can be found again more or less word for word in Chronicles: for example the lists of wars and warriors (2 Samuel 22 and 23) as well as the tales about Nathan (2 Samuel 7) or the finding of the site to 34 Critical on this point is J. L. Wright, Rebuilding Identiy: The Nehemiah-Memoir and Its Earliest Readers (BZAW 348; Berlin: de Gruyter 2004). 35 Cf. these gradations in 2 Chr 20:34; 32:32; cf. also Willi, Auslegung (1972), 115–141. 36 Cf. for the following Dietrich, David (2006), 73–84. 37 Interestingly the psalmody 2 Samuel 22–23 is also missing. With regard to the main intention of the Chronicler it is possible that he did not ignore these psalm-songs but rather did not yet find them in his version of the book of Samuel. There are scholars who assume the same with regard to the large gap in 2 Samuel 11–1 Kings 2, yet this is so unlikely as to be possible, because the so-called Succession History is after all an integrated component of the dtr history and already of the pre-dtr books of Samuel. 38 He also strongly encourages them to read the complete history of David “in the books of the seers Samuel and Gad and of the prophet Nathan”.

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build the temple (2 Samuel 24).39 One can be certain that the Chronicler valued particularly highly these excerpts taken from the traditional stories about David. Finally there are sections whereby the older tradition is heavily re-worked or elaborated. An example of the former is the story of the transportation of the ark to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6). The Chronicler breaks it into two parts: the first of which he places relatively far in front (1 Chr 13:1–14), arguably to portray the first, dismally failed attempt to bring the ark to the holy city as premature and mistaken. Admittedly, David had in exemplary fashion gained the agreement of the people or ‘congregation’ (13:1–4; in unmistakeable fashion we can see how the post-exilic congregation’s structure had developed, as it would have been unthinkable for an oriental monarch to have taken such a proto-democratic approach – and in 2 Sam 6 it is not in fact the issue). At once, however, it is clear that it will still require extensive preparations in order to move the devout people to a satisfactory conclusion: at first the king needed to fully establish himself in Jerusalem (1 Chr 14:1–7) and dispel the Philistines from the country (1 Chr 14:8–16). The resulting divine terror over all the nations (1 Chr 14:17) gave him the calm to build up his city and erect a tent shrine for the ark (1 Chr 15:1). A further aspect needs to be clarified which had not been given consideration the first time: who may carry and be custodian of the holy object? It becomes clear to David: it should only be the Levites (1 Chr 15:2; elsewhere in 1–2 Chronicles the Levites also have a prominent role). Before the people who have gathered in Jerusalem enact this significant moment (1 Chr 15:3), David allows the Levites to take possession – there follows one of the lists so loved in Chronicles, in which the names of the addressees can again partly be found (1 Chr 15:4–10). In a short address, David emphatically explains that it was the absence of Levites which had been responsible for the bad feeling the first time around, whereupon those responsible raised up the ark on their shoulders with the poles (1 Chr 15:11–15). Yet here should also be mentioned the musicians which accompany the procession – there follows a list of the singing and instrumental specialists (1 Chr 15:16–24, clearly it deals with groups who are responsible for enriching the cultic practice of the Second Temple). Then at last the procession takes place (1 Chr 15:25–28). The conflict scene between David and Michal about his behaviour is reduced to one sentence (1 Chr 15:29). After the setting down of the ark inside the tent and the offerings of the people, David again orders Levitical singers (1 Chr 16:1–6) and at the same time allows a first, to a certain extent paradigmatic hymn to be intoned, to which the congregation responds periodically (1 Chr 16:7–3640). Finally David orders the priests, singers and guards for the cult of the ark (1 Chr 16:37–43).

It is palpable to see how in the Chronicles, in comparison to the Samuel Vorlage, is a shift to the cult, more precisely to the cultic practice and worship of the Second Temple. J. Wellhausen observed with derision a remarkable change between the image of David in Samuel and in Chronicles:41 What has become of David in Chronicles! The founder of the kingdom has become the founder of the Temple and worship, the king and hero at the head of his comrades in arms has become the cantor and celebrant at the head of a swarm of priests and Levites, his sharply drawn figure has become a matt, holy icon, shrouded in a cloud of incense.

39 Nevertheless the Chronicler does not allow this last tale to begin with God (so 2 Sam 24:1) guiding David to undertake the census which then becomes so heavily punishable but rather he depicts Satan as the guiding hand (1 Chr 21:1). Already this one change reveals much about the Chronicler’s view of God and the world. 40 The hymn, which has no counterpart in 2 Samuel 6, comprises pieces from Psalms 96; 105; 106; 107. Amazingly not one of these psalms is attributed to the psalms of David. Presumably the ‘davidisation’ of the Psalter took place after the time of the Chronicler. 41 Wellhausen, Prolegomena (61905), 176 f.

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Perhaps it is not just a cloud of incense which surrounds the David of Chronicles but a whiff of the idea of a world empire which could flourish in the post-exilic Judaism.42 Whereas the Assyrian and Babylonian Kings had severely crushed the people of God in Israel and Judah43 and scattered them across the world, a consolidation had taken place during the Persian era, which had continued under the Ptolemies. In this way the occupying rulers could appear to the Chronicler as the representatives of an (almost) ideal theocracy – in which David had preceded them. He and his successors were responsible for the First Temple, the foreign rulers for the Second. Whilst these granted the various members of the twelvetribe-people the right of abode in their extensive kingdom, David did so as ruler of all Israel and Judah – but with the advantage that he personally worshiped the God of Israel. His kingship carries with it a certain messianic tone: the ideal king fulfils, to some extent at least, the will of God on earth. Insofar it is pointless to reflect to what extent the chronistic image of David is removed from reality. The Chronicler does not seek to draw a historically accurate but rather an ideal picture. Thus he portrays David, so to speak, in the role of leader of the whole Jewish congregation. As such he appears infinitely believable and pleasing in the sight of God: not only because of the transportation of the Ark into the Holy City (1 Chronicles 15–16) but also through the provision of the materials needed to build the Temple (1 Chronicles 22), through the exact ordering of people into the guilds of Levites, priests, cantors and gatekeepers (1 Chronicles 23–26),44 through the accuracy in every detail with which he commands Solomon to see through the building of the Temple (1 Chr 28:11–21) and finally through an extensive prayer of thanksgiving to round of his pious plans (1 Chr 29:10–19). The substantial amount of chronistic ‘special material’ which portrays David as the solicitous founder of the Jerusalem cult, who leaves nothing to chance, stands in contrast to other passages which place greater emphasis on his ruling side. Already as king of the city of Ziklag he had gathered a large throng of capable comrades-in-arms from the tribes of Israel around himself, all of whom the Chronicler knows to list by name (1 Chr 12:1–22). As king in Hebron he has a large army with contingents from all the tribes of Israel at his disposal (1 Chr 12:23–38). And in Jerusalem it is not mercenaries from all over the world who surround him but rather guardsmen from the twelve tribes who protect him on a monthly basis (1 Chr 27:1–15). The population willingly pay him their taxes to enable him to fulfil his manifold duties (1 Chr 12:39–41). He finishes with being the largest landowner in the country and possesses an unimaginable amount of property, estates and herds, for which he has specialists – partly from abroad – to administrate (1 Chr 27:25–34).45

42

For the following cf. Willi, Königtum (2005). The Chronicler offers an ideal overall view of the entire people of God in the genealogies of 1 Chr 1–9. 44 Earlier research preferred to regard the lists in 1 Chronicles 23–26 (and 27) as secondary. By contrast is the emphatic and convincing argument of Wright, Legacy of David (1991). 45 Mathys, Chronikbücher (2000), 111–118, disputes, with good reason, the authenticity of this list and maintains that it is “artificial” (n. 273). He believes that the “graphic and convincing” picture 43

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In three scenes towards the end of the first book of Chronicles we see the coming together of the two sides of the chronistic image of David, the pious and the ruling side, when the king throws all power and all possessions in the balance for his great spiritual work, which has been the focus of his life and which now his son should see through to completion. The great finale of the chronistic portrayal of David begins with a gathering of all the dignitaries, officers and civil servants from across the kingdom. The king turns to them in a speech: he actually wanted to build a Temple for the Ark. God had denied him this wish because he had too much blood on his hands – a notable insight! – but now his son Solomon has been chosen in order to bring this work to fruition. It all now depends on everyone, the leaders of the nation and his successor Solomon to remain faithful to the Torah and get to grips with the building of the Temple (1 Chr 28:1–10). Later David calls together the ‘whole congregation’ of Israel and makes a solemn speech: he has made all the necessary preparation for the building of the Temple. He is now ready to donate his entire personal wealth – 3000 talents of gold and 7000 talents of silver46 – for the interior work to be done in the house of God. The people and the dignitaries are moved to follow his example and for their part donate 5000 talents of gold, 10000 Dareike (the famous first large coin of the Persian era!), 10000 talents of silver, 18000 talents of copper and 100000 talents of iron. “Then the people rejoiced because these had given willingly… King David also rejoiced greatly” (1 Chr 29:1–9). Finally, Solomon is installed as David’s successor: neither in an intrigue-laden atmosphere nor through a coup d’etat (according to 1 Kings 1), but rather within the context of a public ceremony. The “whole congregation of the people” is present, thousands of sacrifices and burnt offerings are offered (at the expense of the king certainly, whose huge possession of livestock had now come to be known), the people feast with great delight and anoint Solomon as king and Zadok as (High) priest (as opposed to Zadok anointing Salomon as in 1 Kgs 1:39). Thereafter all the people and dignitaries rendered homage to the new king (1 Chr 29:20–25).

3.2. The Question of Further Sources and the Historical Reliability of Chronicles Throughout Chronicles one finds chronistic ‘special material’, especially speeches and prayers, but also battle descriptions, which can be explained in terms of the ideological intentions of the Chronicler. In such passages he is writing, as it were, as a free author. However, this explanation does not cover every addition, as in 2 Chronicles versus 1–2 Kings, who has more to do with less ideological ‘hard facts’. On the one hand, they are made up of lists – the fortifications built under King Rehoboam (2 Chr 11:5b–10a) and the conquest of cities by the Philistines against King Ahaz (2 Chr 28:18) – on the other, a series of individual pieces of historical news: about wars, including that which Amaziah is said to have conducted against the Philistines (2 Chr 25:6–8a); about a three year payment of tributes of the Ammonites to Jotham (2 Chr 27:5); about the building of the Siloah-Tunnel under Hezekiah (2 Chr 32:30);47 about the expansion of Jerusalem to the west outwards from Ophel under Manasseh (2 Chr 33:14a) as well as the closer circumstances of Josiah’s death (2 Chr 35:20–24).

which it gives of David as an “incredibly wealthy landowner” relies on a good knowledge of the land and of older biblical writings (116, 118). 46 Whereby a ‘talent’ (Hebr. kikkar) weighs between 30 and 50 kg depending on which estimate one reads. 47 This note is rewritten into a story in 2 Chr 32:2–4 and elaborated – perhaps also based on source material – with fortification measures of Hezekiah in 32:5.

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All these accounts appear unexpected in relation to what one otherwise knows of the intellectual world of the Chronicler. Nevertheless they fit in well with what we know about the respective historical situation and have in part been clearly proven archaeologically. This suggests that they are hardly a figment of the Chronicler’s imagination. Yet how did he then come by them? Research suggests three possibilities: a) the Chronicler did not draw on the version of the books of Kings known to us, but rather on their source material;48 b) the Chronicler used, alongside 1–2 Kings, (only!) one further source;49 c) he used a more recent source than the one used for the extended version of 1–2 Kings which we know.50 The second solution is the most likely. The Chronicler can be seen as an author wishing to write serious history by the way in which he draws on older sources (and repeatedly does so in an identifiable way). He does not wish to narrate fairy-tales nor legends, nor does he wish to preach, but rather convey what has taken place – from creation onwards – so that what, in his eyes, is most important of all can come to pass: the post-exilic Jewish community, determined by the Yhwh-faith and centred on the cultic practice of the (Second) Temple of Jerusalem. Critical research has not appraised the historical source value of Chronicles very highly until now. Indeed, it has often been begrudging even derogatory in its estimate. This is neither justified nor appropriate.51 It must, however, be said that the value of the chronistic work of history lies less in its offering of hitherto unknown information (although this is the case!) but rather in how he evaluates the information which has come his way – which of course reveals more about the time in which this work was written than about the period it describes. The Chronicler writes centuries later about long-forgotten epochs. And it is more important to him to present his readership with an instructive view of these epochs than (see the paragraph to follow) historical accuracy in the modern-enlightened sense or even in an ancient-classic sense. Thus, it is entirely possible to find accounts which lack historical authenticity. Hitherto there has been made mention of – the theological or ideological conditioned – recasting of the image of David in Chronicles. The figure of King Manasseh provides a further example. In the dtr account (2 Kings 21) he is depicted as the most sinful and cruel ruler Judah ever had. That he nevertheless remained in power for 55 years is drily reported. But this fact gives rise to doubts

48 Thus Rothstein/Hänel, Kommentar (1927), XLVI; Goettsberger, Chronik (1939), 10, 161, amongst others. The idea that in Chr much has been retained which was overlooked by the dtr historians in relation to their excerpts from sources ties in with the above mentioned theory of Auld of a common source for Samuel-Kings and 1–2 Chronicles. 49 Thus Noth, Studien (1943), 139–142. 50 So Rudolph, Chronikbücher (1955), XI. 51 Against the sharp criticism of in particular Wellhausen and his followers there has already early on been persistent doubt. Peltonen, History Debated (1996), 423–623, depicts these in a lengthy chapter: “Critical Assessment of the Criticism of the Historical Reliability of Chronicles”. From amongst the long and colourful list of scholars presented therein only some will be mentioned here: Sayce, Schrader, Winckler, Klostermann, Baudissin, Kittel, Ball, Barnes, Cook, Albright, Myer, Kaufmann, Goldingay, Kugler, Goettsberger. These and more besides are united in the view formulated by Rothstein/Hänel (Kommentar [1927], LXIX) that “the verdicts propagated by de Wette und Wellhausen and so generally accepted […] should be vigorously opposed”.

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to the Chronicler. From the perspective of a strict retaliation ideology it is problematic that such a godless king can rule for so long, whilst others, who are much more favourably regarded, were on the throne just briefly. The Chronicler overcomes this difficulty by having Manasseh captured by the Assyrians and dragged off to Babylon (!), where he then repents and so can be re-installed in his office (2 Chr 33:10–13). This example illustrates that when in doubt the Chronicler places theological considerations above historical accuracy.

3.3. Literary and Theological Ambitions of the Chronicler That which until now has been widely overlooked in the controversy about the historical accuracy or inaccuracy of the Chronicles is recently receiving more attention, namely their literary character. After all their author had to cope with a vast amount of material and had to bridge enormous time spans. He has done so by deploying literary and compositional techniques, which are amazingly sophisticated.52 We can find the deliberate use of repetition of certain expressions, even of complete passages, as well as puns and keywords. Parallel or opposing statements are consciously placed unconnectedly alongside each other. Some longer passages appear to be arranged chiastically.53 The creation of a new psalm in 1 Chr 16:8–36 by joining three prayers from the Psalter reveals a striking mixture of faithfulness to the sources as well as artistic licence. The entire work reveals a well thought through structure, when the genealogies in 1 Chronicles 1–9 are understood as the salvific formation of Israel in its country, the historical depiction in 1 Chronicles 10–2 Chronicles 36 as the steady loss of this salvific condition, and the statement in 2 Chr 36:21, that the seventy years of exile were a substitute for those Sabbath years which had been held back from the country, as the declaration of a restitutio ad integrum.54 An eschatological analogy arises when the depiction of the tribal epoch and the early monarchy (1 Chronicles 1 – 2 Chronicles 9) are read not only as a description of the past, but rather as a promise of the future: the deplorable situation in which Judah alone has to represent the whole of Israel (2 Chronicles 10–36) will be transformed into a restitutio ad integrum by the restoration of Israel in its entirety. Besides, there is more theology hidden in the genealogical introduction of 1 Chronicles 1–9 than catching the eye at first when reading through this apparently dry material. M. Oeming recognises therein a definition of the essence of ‘true Israel’, namely in respect of geography, ethnics, politics, theology and cultic practice. A fourfold focus can be delineated: from the world via Israel and Jerusalem right through to the Temple.55 Th. Willi sees this chapters not just as a “genealogical entrance hall” but rather as “the Holy of Holies itself”,56 insofar as 52 For this see Kleinig, Research (1994), 49–51. Amongst the commentaries that of Williamson (1982) and Japhet (English 1993, German 2002–03) place the most emphasis on this aspect of Chronicles. 53 For the latter see for example 1 Chronicles 11–12 or 2 Chronicles 1–9. 54 This represents according to De Vries, Chronicles (1989), the composition of the whole work. 55 Oeming, Das wahre Israel (1990), esp. 208–210. 56 Willi, Juda (1995), 121.

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not the pre-history of Israel is depicted therein but rather Israel in its very being as the chosen people of God ever since the creation. Creation has as its centre Israel, and Israel has as its centre the Temple of Jerusalem. In order to develop full impact on the salvation of Israel, the cult which is practised there would need to be free of any rapprochement with foreign religions or illegitimate cultic practice in order – which was never the case and, according to the Chronicler, is not now.57 The insistence on cultic purity, the manifold depictions of cultic celebrations and rituals, the numerous negative verdicts in relation to cultic transgression: all this reflects the presence of the Chronicler. As in earlier times Israel or Judah is threatened with losing its special status as the people of God and squandering the gifts of grace which it has been granted – occupancy of the land, the legitimate order of worship. As before, the consequences will be political coercion and military catastrophe. In order to secure the future of Israel there will need to be a conscious turning of the people to God and the reconciling turning of God to his people.58 Without difficulty behind all this can be recognized the beleaguered situation of the small Jewish community in a global world of many nations, and not least the competition in relation to Samaria.59 The unmistakable conservatism of the Chronicler appears to find a severe expression in the often lamented fixation on a supposedly rigid “dogma of retribution”. The aforementioned depiction of King Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33 is an example of this. Significantly though, here as in other cases, a positive retaliation is meant and not a negative retribution. According to Williamson behind this is a clearly thought through doctrine of reconciliation, which is encapsulated in 2 Chr 7:14. Accordingly there are four possibilities to escape the wrath of God: repentance, prayer, worship, and actual amendment. The Chronicler seeks to instruct and to enable his contemporaries to pursue these four ways.60 Sara Japhet stresses that transgressors are in the Chronicles regularly warned by prophets in order to safeguard them from the negative consequences of their actions. God is, according to the Chronicles, far more interested in the reprieve of the guilty than in their punishment.61 R. W. Klein concludes, more generally, that the Chronistic view of God is in relation to other canonical writings by no means a negative one. Indeed, God appears herein the same: active, helpful, full of grace and reliable.62 One of the much discussed questions in research is whether the Chronicler nurtures a positive, even messianic expectation of the future or whether in fact he 57

Cf. the respective chapter in Japhet, Ideology (1989), 199–265. Cf. Johnstone, “Guilt and Atonement: The Theme of 1 and 2 Chronicles”, in: A Word in Season (ed. J. Martin/P. Davies; JSOT.S 42; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1986), 113–138. 59 This does not necessarily, but it can mean that the Chronicler is writing after the formal schism under Alexander the Great. 60 Williamson, Israel (1982), 225–226; cf. also Sæbø, Chronistische Theologie (1981), 84. 61 Japhet, Ideology (1989), 176–191. 62 R. W. Klein, “The God of the Chronicler”, in: And God Saw That It Was Good. Essays in Honor of Terence E. Fretheim (ed. F. J. Gaiser/M. A. Throntveit; St. Paul, MN: Word & World 2006), 120–127. Cf. already Sæbø, Chronistische Theologie (1981), 85: “Thus the God of Israel is an everlasting and mighty, a just and trustworthy God, who has not only called his people into life and created means of salvation for them but rather will also secure them a future of salvation”; in a word, Chr offers “a deep religious message of hope”. 58

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represents a presentist eschatology, which sees everything which can be achieved being achieved through the Temple and the cultic practice. Were it possible to divide post-exilic Judaism into two camps – one eschatologically and one theocratically disposed – then it is clear that the Chronicler would be part of the latter,63 as he does see salvation present in the Temple and in the Jewish community gathered around it. Moreover he does not portray a picture of the Davidic monarchy which one would spontaneously call ‘messianic’. Even David is not without sin (cf. 1 Chronicles 21), he commits cultic mistakes (1 Chronicles 15:13) and has blood on his hands (cf. 1 Chr 22:8; 28:3). And Solomon, at the end of his portrayal, gives the appearance of a potentate, addicted to prestige and splendour (2 Chronicles 9).64 But there is the opposite line of argument:65 the dynastic promises to David (1 Chr 17:7–14) are strengthened in an inalienable way through Solomon’s willingness to build the Temple and install the Temple cult (cf. 2 Chr 7:12–18; 13:5). And the altogether very positive portrayal of David and Solomon66 as well as the strong interest in the Davidic line of kings (whilst completely ignoring the Israelite monarchy) could imply a silent hope in the restitution of the Judaic monarchy.67

63

As is the case with Plöger, Theokratie und Eschatologie (31968), 140–141. Cf. the extensive case made in Japhet, Ideology (1989), 493–504; likewise J. P. Weinberg, “Der König im Weltbild des Chronisten”, VT 39 (1989) 415–437, summarised 436. 65 Thus an earlier version of Chronicles according to Sæbø, Messianism (1980). More generally Williamson, Chronicles (1982), 132–134, as well as H. G. M. Williamson, “The Dynastic Oracle in the Books of Chronicles”, in: Essays on the Bible and the Ancient World. Isaac Leo Seeligman Volume, III (ed. A. Rofé/Y. Zakovitch; Jerusalem: Rubenstein 1983), 305–318. 66 In 1 Chr 28:5; 29:23 we find the extraordinary statement that Solomon has received the “throne of Yhwh over Israel”. 67 According to Mosis (Theologie [1973], 16) the Chronicler opens up in those episodes of the history of the Judaic monarchy a general future perspective for Judah and Israel. 64

Chapter Forty-two

The Prophets and the Prophetic Books, Prophetic Circles and Traditions – New Trends, Including Religio-psychological Aspects By Marvin A. Sweeney, Claremont, CA

1. Introduction Bibliographies: J. H. Hayes, An Introduction to Old Testament Study (Nashville: Abingdon 1979), 249–283. – A. J. Hauser (ed.), Recent Research on the Major Prophets (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix 2008). – D. A. Knight, Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel (SBL.DS 9; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1975). – W. E. March, “Prophecy”, in: J. H. Hayes (ed.), Old Testament Form Criticism (San Antonio, TX: Trinity University 1974), 141–177. – G. M. Tucker, “Prophecy and Prophetic Literature”, in: D. A. Knight / G. M. Tucker (eds.), The Hebrew Bible and its Modern Interpreters (Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1985), 325–368. Studies: J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (Rev. edn.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1996). – A. J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper and Row 1962). – J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress 1962). – D. L. Petersen, The Prophetic Literature: An Introduction (Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2002). – M. A. Sweeney, The Prophetic Literature (IBT; Nashville: Abingdon 2005); Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress 2008).

The study of prophecy and prophetic literature demonstrates a marked shift in emphasis during the course of the twentieth century. By the late nineteenth century, scholars viewed the prophets of the Hebrew Bible as iconoclastic religious geniuses who, based on their direct experience of the divine, advocated monotheism and ethical action as the quintessential values of true Israelite religion. In order to recover the original or authentic words of the prophets, late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century scholars employed the tools of source criticism to strip away later material added to the original prophetic statements by editors and scribes. Such editors and scribes were generally viewed as self-serving figures, who misunderstood and misrepresented the original prophetic words. As the twentieth century unfolded, scholars increasingly recognized the need to read the prophetic literature in relation to the historical, social, intellectual, and literary contexts in which it was written, functioned, and read. Such concerns led to greater attention to the roles that prophets played in ancient Israelite/Judean and ancient Near Eastern societies; the means by which prophetic oracles were

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transmitted in ancient Israel/Judah; the various theological and institutional interests that informed the theological world views of the individual prophets and the prophetic books; and the religious, cultural, and historical contexts in which the prophetic literature has been read and interpreted. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, scholarly interpretation focuses much more on the reading of prophetic books rather than on attempts to reconstruct the original words and persons of the prophets. The course of this development may be traced through early twentieth century source critics, the challenges posed to source criticism by tradition-historical research, the impact of mid-twentieth century form criticism on the construction of prophetic speech, the recognition of the interpretative roles of the later redactors and tradents who produced and transmitted the prophetic literature, and the late-twentieth century interest in the canonical forms and functions of the prophetic books.

2. Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Sources: Wellhausen, Duhm, and Hölscher Studies:B. Duhm, Die Theologie der Propheten als Grundlage für die innere Entwicklungsgeschichte der israelitischen Religion (Bonn: A. Marcus 1875); Das Buch Jesaia (HKAT III/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1892; 51968); Das Buch Jeremia (KHAT XI; Tübingen/ Leipzig: Mohr Siebeck 1901); Das Buch Habakuk (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1906); Israels Propheten (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 21922. − G. Hölscher, Die Profeten. Untersuchungen zur Religionsgeschichte Israels (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich 1914); Hesekiel, Der Dichter und das Buch. Eine literarkritische Untersuchung (BZAW 39; Töpelmann 1924). − J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israel (Berlin: G. Reimer 1883); Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des alten Testaments (Berlin: G. Reimer 1889).

The study of prophecy and prophetic literature is invariably influenced by currents in the broader field of Hebrew Bible studies. By the late-nineteenth century, a consensus was forming around the views of J. Wellhausen, whose application of source critical (Literarkritik in German scholarship) exegetical tools to the study of pentateuchal and historical literature produced a new model for the development of Israelite religion.1 Traditional readings of the Hebrew Bible in both Judaism and Christianity had focused on the Pentateuch as the foundation of Israelite religion. In Judaism, the Pentateuch or Torah, served as the ideal revelation of divine instruction to Israel which would form the basis for subsequent Jewish life from Antiquity through modern times. Within the framework of the Jewish Bible or Tanak, the Prophets were viewed as figures who called for the observance of divine Torah. In Christianity, the Pentateuch served as the foundation for the Old Testament or the former Mosaic covenant between Yhwh and Israel that would be superseded by the new covenant or New Testament of Christianity based on the revelation of Jesus Christ. Within the framework of the Christian Bible, the

1

Wellhausen, Prolegomena (1883); Composition (1889).

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prophets prefigured the New Testament presentation of Christ and its rejection of Temple, priesthood, and “law”. Wellhausen’s reconstruction of Israelite religion, based on his reconstruction of the four pentateuchal sources, combines philosophical and theological idealism with anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic bias to posit a progressively degenerative historical process. His understanding of Israelite religion posits that the primitive ideals of divine interaction with human beings devolves into a heavily institutionalized religion in which the interrelationship between the human and the divine is impeded by priestly- or Temple-based ritual and law. J was the earliest source that employed the divine name Yhwh to designate the deity and presented a close personal and interactive relationship between Yhwh and humankind. Wellhausen dated the J source to the ninth century BCE, the early period of the Davidic monarchy, and argued that it represented the earliest religious perspectives of Judah. In Wellhausen’s view, the primitive and anthropomorphic portrayal of Yhwh in interaction with human beings represented an ideal human experience of the divine. It is no accident that such a direct experience of Yhwh presupposed a prophetic model for apprehension of the divine. In Wellhausen’s mind, the prophetic experience of the divine represented the true basis for human interaction with God. Chronologically later than E and D, Wellhausen dated the final P or Priestly source to the post-exilic period of Ezra and Nehemiah, and postulated that its interest in priestly or Temple-based ritual and law represented a further degeneration of the religious ideals presented in J that would be attributed to the rise of the priesthood, Temple, and law (i.e., Torah) as the central institutions of Judaism. Wellhausen’s views concerning the development of Israelite religion and the source-critical analysis of biblical literature provided a suitable background for the work of B. Duhm, the foundational figure in the modern critical study of the prophets and prophetic literature at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Duhm’s study of the theology of the prophets inaugurated his lifelong interest in prophecy and prophetic literature.2 His survey of the prophets emphasized the individual persons or characters of the prophets as the foundational figures in the development of Israelite religion. Duhm was a neo-Romanticist, who argued that the individual prophets did not convey the theological, historical, or dogmatic presuppositions of the past, but functioned as original thinkers who articulated a new understanding of Israelite prophetic religion that was universal in scope, rejected popular forms of nature-oriented religion, and emphasized recognition of Yhwh as the sole, monotheistic author of creation and Yhwh’s word as the moral foundations for human life. Duhm viewed the prophets as religious geniuses whose psychological profiles included the ability to engage in ecstatic behavior, a state of heightened psychological awareness and perception that enabled them to apprehend the divine and the divine word in the midst of human life and history. Having achieved such heightened awareness, the prophets proceeded to convey the divine word to their contemporaries in an effort to convince them to recognize the role of the divine

2

Duhm, Theologie (1875).

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in the world and to act on the moral dimensions of the divine word. Theocracy is the antithesis to Duhm’s understanding of the ideal and universal prophetic teachings of monotheism and ethics. The prophets represent a form of higher religion that looks to an eschatological future in which national identity will give way to universal recognition of Yhwh. Source criticism plays a key role in Duhm’s work insofar as he identifies and strips away the work of the later redactors of the prophetic works so that the authentic words of the individual prophets may be recognized as the basis for their theological worldviews. His commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk enabled him to provide a more secure foundation for his general work on the prophets. Duhm’s commentary on Isaiah continues to stand as the foundational work for modern research on the book of Isaiah.3 In Duhm’s view, Isaiah comprised individual collections of prophetic words that had been edited and expanded by later redactors whose additions served much later theological agendas and perspectives that in turn distorted the words of the original prophetic geniuses. Duhm employed a combination of textual criticism, metrical analysis, and literary-critical or source analysis to identify the original words of the three major prophets whose works appeared within the book. Although many earlier scholars had postulated that a Babylonian-period prophet was responsible for the second portion of the book, Duhm argued that the work of a third prophet, dated to the post-exilic restoration, appeared in Isaiah 56–66. Duhm maintained that Isaiah 1–39 or Proto-Isaiah was based on the work of the eighth century prophet Isaiah ben Amoz, who spoke concerning Yhwh’s transcendence and moral character during the period of the Assyrian invasions of Israel and Judah in the late-eighth century BCE. Isaiah 40–55 was based on the work of Deutero-Isaiah, an anonymous prophet from Lebanon who spoke in ca. 540 BCE concerning the rise of Cyrus to the throne of Babylon and its implications for the return of the exiles to Israel. Duhm maintained that Deutero-Isaiah pointed to Yhwh’s universal sovereignty that must be recognized by all humankind. Isaiah 56–66 was based on the work of Trito-Isaiah, an anonymous prophet from Jerusalem who spoke shortly before the time of Nehemiah in the mid-fifth century BCE about the need to purify the post-exilic community from evil in anticipation of Yhwh’s final restoration of Jerusalem. In addition to his three major prophetic figures, Duhm isolated the socalled Servant Songs in Isa 42:1–4 (7); 49:1–6; 50:4–9; and 52:13–53:12 as the work of another creative genius who drew on Jeremiah, Job, Trito-Isaiah, and Malachi to address questions of the soul. Duhm’s source critical approach likewise informed his commentary on the book of Jeremiah, which must also be recognized as a ground-breaking work for its day.4 He argued that the present form of Jeremiah is an unfinished chaotic mass that comprised a number of basic components or collections. The first was a collection of the poetic words of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1–25 that was haphazardly organized and supplemented by later redactors. Jeremiah’s oracles point to the struggles of an individual to recognize Yhwh in the midst of turmoil much like 3 4

Duhm, Jesaia (1892). Duhm, Jeremia (1901).

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the Psalms. Jeremiah 26–52 follows with a number of appendices, which include Baruch’s life history of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 26–29 and 32–45 and other supplements, such as the book of the future of Israel and Judah in Jeremiah 30–31; the oracles concerning foreign nations in Jeremiah 46–51; and the historical appendix in Jeremiah 52. Because the Septuagint (LXX) text of Jeremiah is shorter than the Masoretic version, Duhm argued that it exposed at least some of the redactional additions to the book made to the MT after the LXX was complete. Even so, the LXX version was the product of later redaction. Duhm’s commentary on Habakkuk identified the first three poems in Hab 1:2– 4; 1:5–11; and 1:12–17 as the earliest oracles of the prophet which raise questions concerning Yhwh’s decision to bring the Chaldeans (Babylonians) to subjugate Judah.5 The last three poems in Hab 2:1–3; 2:4a, 5–12, 13b, 17, 15, 16 and 3:2–16 constitute the prophet’s later attempts to address those questions by positing Yhwh’s judgment against the oppressor. Habakkuk was a visionary prophet who lived during the late Persian period. His reflections on the Babylonian period defined divine purpose in leading Judah to the period of universal peace portended by the rise of Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BCE. Finally, Duhm’s Israels Propheten provided his mature and systematic treatment of Israel’s prophets from pre-Mosaic figures such as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph through the Maccabean era with figures such as Daniel, Deutero-Zechariah, Trito-Zechariah, the authors of Isaiah 33 and Isaiah 24–27, and the organizer of the book of Joel.6 He characterizes the prophet as a genius who is deeply rooted in his people but who also possesses a special something that unites him with the higher spirit that governs the development of the world and that prompts the prophet to become a leader of others. Despite reservations about Ezekiel’s alleged dogmatic and particularistic viewpoint, Duhm viewed Ezekiel as a prophet of high intellect and inspiration. Nevertheless, he never wrote a major commentary to the book. This was due to the work of G. Hölscher, who developed Duhm’s views concerning ecstatic prophecy and source critical analysis and ultimately applied them to a study of the book of Ezekiel. Hölscher’s study of the prophets constituted a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of Israelite prophecy in relation to the ecstatic and visionary experience that permeates the religious traditions of the world and particularly those of the ancient Near East.7 Like Duhm, Hölscher, viewed prophets as religious geniuses whose extraordinary intellectual gifts enabled them to perceive the divine. But he pushed much further than Duhm his attempts to analyze the ecstatic experience in which the prophet would transcend normal experience of the world as part of a process in which the prophet would achieve a sense of unity with the divine. Hölscher maintains that ecstatic experience is characteristic of settled agricultural societies and that it is connected with local sanctuaries. The ecstatic uncontrollably blurts out oracular statements based on an experience of the divine while in a state of uncontrolled trance possession. Israelite prophets may be distinguished from their predecessors by their rationalistic and moral 5 6 7

Duhm, Habakuk (1906). Duhm, Israels Propheten (1922). Hölscher, Die Profeten (1914).

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viewpoints, their ability to recall their experiences, and their ability to employ symbolic language to express their understanding of the divine will. Hölscher moved well beyond Duhm employing metrical and poetic analysis as a basis for distinguishing the original words of the prophets from the redactional additions and reworkings that in his view impeded modern biblical interpretation. His study of Ezekiel applied a poetically-based source critical analysis of the book of Ezekiel in an effort to uncover the original words and authentic message of the prophet.8 Only about one-eighth of the book survived Hölscher’s literary-critical scalpel to reveal a visionary prophet who beheld the divine and spoke of the coming downfall of Jerusalem, Tyre, and Egypt before the might of the Babylonian empire. Hölscher argued that the book must be regarded as Pseudepigraph insofar as it was so heavily edited by legally-oriented and puritanical priestly circles that laid the foundations for post-exilic Judaism.

3. The Impact of Tradition-Historical Research: Gunkel, Mowinckel, Noth, and von Rad Studies: H. Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht1895); Genesis (HKAT I/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1901, 91977); Einleitung in die Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1933, 41985); “Propheten II: Seit Amos”, RGG2 IV:1866–1886; ET: “The Israelite Prophecy since the Time of Amos”, in: Twentieth Century Theology in the Making (ed. J. Pelikan; New York: Harper & Row 1969), 48–75. − S. Mowinckel, Zur Komposition des Buches Jeremia (Kristiania[Oslo]: J. Dybwad 1914); Psalmenstudien, I–VI (Kristiania: J. Dybwad 1921–24); Jesaja-disiplene. Profetien fra Jesaja til Jeremia (Oslo: H. Aschehoug 1926); “Die Komposition des Jesajabuches Kap. 1–39”, Acta Orientalia 1 (1933) 267–292; “Die Komposition des deuterojesajanischen Buches”, ZAW 49 (1931) 87–112, 242–260; “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Word’ in the Pre-exilic Reforming Prophets”, JBL 53 (1934) 199–227; repr. in: The Spirit and the Word: Prophecy and Tradition in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress 2002), 83–99; “Ecstatic Experience and Rational Elaboration in Old Testament Prophecy”, Acta Orientalia 13 (1935) 264– 291, and 14 (1936) 319; Prophecy and Tradition: The Prophetic Books in the Light of the Study of the Growth and History of the Tradition (Oslo: Dybwad 1946; repr. and rev. in: The Spirit and the Word (2002), 1–80. − M. NOTH, Überlieferungsgeschichtlichestudien. Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im alten Testament (3rd edn.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1967); ET: The Deuteronomistic History (JSOT.S 15; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1981); The Chronicler’s History (JSOT.S 50; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1987); Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1948); ET: A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1972). − G. VON RAD, Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuch (BWANT 26; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1938); ET: “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch”, in: The Problem of the Hexateuch and other Essays (London: SCM 1966), 1–78; Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1–2 (Munich: Chr. Kaiser 1957–1960); ET: Old Testament Theology, 1–2 (New York: Harper and Row 1962–65). − H. Schmidt, Die Grossen Propheten (SAT II/2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1923).

Source analysis would continue to develop through the course of the twentieth century as a foundational diachronic method for the study of prophetic literature, but scholars were increasing dissatisfied with the limits inherent in the method.

8

Hölscher, Hesekiel (1924).

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Although interpreters could reconstruct potentially plausible models for earlier sources or collections of material that underlie the present form of the biblical text, it was becoming increasingly apparent that these sources were themselves the product of a long period of oral development. The problem was particularly acute in relation to prophetic literature, which generally portrayed the prophet as an oracular figure who spoke to the people on behalf of Yhwh. Interpreters therefore concluded that it would be necessary to develop exegetical methods that would facilitate the identification of the oral traditions that informed the present text of the Bible and to reconstruct the process of oral development that led to the composition of the biblical text in its written form. The impetus for the development of tradition criticism originated outside the study of prophetic literature, particularly in the work of H. Gunkel, especially on Genesis and the Psalms. Although Gunkel’s work presupposed the classical source criticism of his day, his work was heavily informed by rising interests in folklore studies, especially the role of genre analysis, the social matrices (German: Sitz im Leben, setting in life or social setting) in which literature – both oral and written – were produced and functioned, and comparative religious traditions which at the time were especially concerned with the religious beliefs, ideas, and practices of primitive or preliterate peoples. Gunkel’s dissertation on creation and chaos investigated the mythological traditions concerning creation that appeared within such works as the primeval history of Genesis 1–11 and the apocalyptic book of Revelation in the New Testament in an effort to uncover the social context in which such traditions functioned and the process by which they came to expression in biblical literature.9 This led Gunkel to his major works on Genesis and the Psalms in which he attempted to define the oral genres of literature that had been taken up to form the earliest sources of Genesis and the liturgical forms of expression found in the Psalms.10 Gunkel’s work on prophetic genres was limited in relation to his larger interests, but it was nevertheless influential in the study of prophecy and prophetic literature throughout the first half of the twentieth century.11 Gunkel argued that prophets must be viewed primarily as speakers and not as writers, who spoke on the basis of ecstatic experience of oneness with the divine. Prophets therefore employed relatively short, self-contained, oracular statements that could be easily remembered by the prophet and easily understood by the primitive audiences to which the prophet spoke. Prophets were normally concerned with the future, and would articulate that future in terms of future divine blessing and promise or in terms of future divine judgment. Gunkel’s key prophetic genres therefore included the “reproach” (German: Scheltrede) and the “threat” (German: Drohrede), which constituted the prophet’s judgment speeches which respectively announced the nature of Israel’s wrongdoing and the consequences from the divine that could be expected. Other genres included exhortations to abide by divine expectations, disputations designed to challenge a prevailing viewpoint, judicial 9

Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos (1895). Gunkel, Genesis (1901); Einleitung (1933). For Gunkel’s primary publications on the prophets, see his introduction to Schmitt, Die grossen Propheten (1923), ix-lxx; idem, Propheten II: Seit Amos, RGG IV:1866–1886. 10 11

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speech that would function in the (divine) courtroom, historical reviews that interpret Israel’s history, torah or prophetic instruction, and allegory that would explain an event or concept in terms of another more easily understood feature. Although Gunkel’s work on the prophets was limited, his student, S. Mowinckel, made significant contributions to the tradition-historical study of the prophets. Mowinckel’s early work on Jeremiah presented a source critical analysis of Jeremiah that argued for four basic groups of material in the book.12 Group A included a large collection of authentic sayings from the prophet that appear throughout Jeremiah 1–25; Group B includes another large collection of historical narratives concerning the prophet that appear throughout Jeremiah 19–20; 26; and 28–44, which Mowinckel attributes to Jeremiah’s scribe and assistant, Baruch ben Neriah; Source C includes oracular material in Jeremiah 7–8; 11; 18; 21; 25; 32; 34; 35; 44, which is identified as, “the word which came to Jeremiah from Yhwh”, and which is closely aligned with Deuteronomistic language and theology; and Collection D in Jeremiah 30–31 which introduces concerns with future comfort and restoration into the book. Although Mowinckel’s work has clear affinities with that of Duhm, Mowinckel differs from Duhm by examining both the oral and literary contexts in by which the book of Jeremiah evolved. Mowinckel gave special attention to Baruch ben Neriah and the Deuteronomistic school as the agents who collected the prophet’s sayings, wrote them down, embellished, and shaped them with additional material and their own theological viewpoints, thereby forming the book of Jeremiah. Mowinckel’s Psalmenstudien paid special attention to the role that prophetic literature would have played in the Israelite liturgy, which gave expression to eschatological concerns derived from the prophetic tradition.13 His Norwegian study of Isaiah discussed the development of a prophetic community of disciples, initiated by Isaiah himself, who developed and transmitted the oracles and teaching of Isaiah as well as other prophets.14 Later studies of Proto-Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah focused both on the identification of the original speech units of the prophets in question as well as the roles of their respective disciples in collecting, arranging, and editing the original words of their prophetic masters.15 Mowinckel challenged the prevailing view of Israelite prophets as ecstatics by pointing to the scornful views among the writing prophets such as Hosea (Hos 9:7) and Jeremiah (Jer 23:5:13; 23:9–12).16 He viewed ecstatics as primitive figures who were surpassed by their far more rational successors. Mowinckel’s Prophecy and Tradition17 constitutes his mature statement of his views in which he emphasizes the primary need to identify the original oral formulations of the prophet’s words as well as the need to trace both the oral and the literary trans-

12

Mowinckel, Zur Komposition (1914). Mowinckel,, Psalmenstudien I–VI (1921–24); see especially vol. II, Das Thronbesteigungsfest Jahwäs und der Ursprung der Eschatologie. 14 Mowinckel, Jesaja-disiplene (1926). 15 Mowinckel, Die Komposition des Jesajabuches Kap. 1–39 (1933); Die Komposition des deuterojesajanischen Buches (1931). 16 See Mowinckel, The ‘Spirit’ (1934); Ecstatic Experience (1935, 1936). 17 Mowinckel, Prophecy and Tradition (1946). 13

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mission and redaction of the prophet’s words into the present form of the prophetic books. The growing emphasis on the oral transmission of early traditions and their literary formulations continued to have an important impact on the field of Hebrew Bible studies at large as well as on prophetic literature. G. von Rad took up the question of the pre-literary formation of the J source in his monograph on the form-critical problem of the Hexateuch.18 He pointed to the role that short creedal statements, such as Deut 26:5b–9, played as foundational elements in giving expression to Israel’s self-understanding of its history and its relationship with Yhwh. The Sitze im Leben or societal settings for such traditional creedal statements were to be found in local sanctuaries among the tribes of Israel in the pre-monarchic period. The process of state formation that led to the emergence of the Davidic monarchy in the tenth century BCE stimulated the collection, embellishment, and growth of such local traditions into the J tradition of the Pentateuch that was designed to explain the origins of Israel in relation to the theological and socio-political outlook of the early Davidic monarchy. Thus, the roles of theological traditions that informed historical narrative and theological reflection on such narrative emerged as an essential component of modern interpretation of biblical literature in von Rad’s work. Such perspectives heightened the scholarly understanding of redactors of literary works not simply as mechanical and often misinformed collectors of the works of others but as creative authors and theological thinkers in their own rights who collected, assembled, rewrote, and reinterpreted the earlier work of others. G. von Rad was in turn stimulated by the tradition-historical work of his lifelong friend and conversation partner, M. Noth, who frequently responded to von Rad’s work with very different interpretations. Noth’s monograph on the Deuteronomistic History and the Chronicler’s work were very influential on von Rad’s thinking insofar as they pointed to the Deuteronomistic and Chronistic historians as both redactors and authors who assembled earlier historical traditions into larger historical works that bore their respective theological stamps.19 Noth’s study of the tradition-historical formation of the Pentateuch differed from von Rad’s work by positing five basic tradition complexes that formed the basis for the Pentateuchal narrative, but nevertheless pushed the question of the formation of the Pentateuch as a whole beyond that initially attempted by von Rad.20 G. von Rad’s Old Testament Theology constituted the culmination of his traditio-historical research.21 He examined Israel’s “heilsgeschichtliche” (“sacred historical”) presentation of history as the basis for understanding the Hebrew Bible’s conceptualization of the relationship between Yhwh and Israel and their roles in the historical world. von Rad’s reading depended upon a sharp distinction between historical events as they actually happened and as they were kerygmatically portrayed in biblical narrative to represent Israel’s theological interpretation of history and its relationship with Yhwh. Volume 2 of his Old Testament Theol18 19 20 21

von Rad, Das formgeschichtliche Problem (1938). Noth, ÜberlieferungsgeschichtlicheStudien (1967). Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (1948). von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1–2 (1957–60).

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ogy, which focused on the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, likewise emphasized the differentiation between historical events and prophetic perspective as a means to articulate the prophets’ interpretation of Israel’s historical experience. His interpretation of the prophets emphasized that each was rooted in distinctive religious traditions of Israel, e.g., Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah in the royal Davidic-Zion tradition, Jeremiah in the Exodus, Sinai Covenant, and Conquest traditions, and Ezekiel in the priestly traditions of sacral history and law, which informed their respective theological worldviews and their interpretation of Israel’s experience in their own historical settings. The prophets lived and spoke during times of national catastrophe, such as the Assyrian invasions for Isaiah and the Babylonian exile for Jeremiah and Ezekiel, or in times of national restoration, such as the early Persian-period restoration for Deutero-Isaiah or Zechariah. G. von Rad argued that the prophets therefore played a key role in interpreting the catastrophes suffered by Israel as acts of punishment deliberately brought about by Yhwh as a means to reveal Yhwh’s presence in human history to Israel and the nations at large and to guide Israel to a path of adherence to Yhwh and Yhwh’s expectations. Thus Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah envisioned Israel’s future as an expression of Yhwh’s eternal promise to the house of David, Jeremiah emphasized observance of divine commandments, and Ezekiel and Zechariah emphasized commitment to the sacral traditions of priesthood and Temple as the basis for Israel’s future.

4. Classical Form-Critical Research: The Study of Prophetic Genres and Their Social Contexts Studies: E. Balla, Die Droh- und Schelteworte des Amos (Leipzig: A. Edelmann 1926). − W. Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte des Jeremiah (BZAW 32; Giessen: Töpelmann 1917); ET: Jeremiah’s Poems of Lament (Sheffield: Almond 1987). − J. Begrich, “Die priesterliche Heilsorakel”, ZAW 52 (1934) 81–92. − D. M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford / New York: Oxford UP 2005). − D. L. Christensen, Prophecy and War in Ancient Israel: Studies in the Oracles against the Nations in Old Testament Prophecy (2nd edn.; Berkeley: BIBAL 1989). − J. L. Crenshaw, Education in Ancient Israel: Across the Deadening Silence (New York: Doubleday 1998). − F. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and its Near Eastern Environment (JSOT.S 142; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1994). − F. Ellermeier, Prophetie in Mari und Israel (TOA 1; Herzberg: E. Jungfer 1968). − A. Graffy, A Prophet Confronts His People: The Disputation Speech in the Prophets (AnBib104; Rome: Biblical Institute 1984). − H. Gressmann, Die älteste Gechichtsschreibung und Prophetie Israels (SAT II/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1910) . − Der Messias (FRLANT 34; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1929). − J. Harvey, Le plaidoyer prophétique contre Israël après la rupture d’alliance (Montreal: Bellarmin 1967). − H.Vanlier Hunter, Seek the Lord! A Study of the Meaning and Function of the Exhortations in Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Zephaniah (Baltimore: St. Mary’s Seminary and University 1982). − K. Koch, Was ist Formgeschichte? (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1967); ET: The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method (New York: C. Scribner’s 1969). − L. Köhler, Deuterojesaja (Jesaja 40–55) stilkritisch untersucht (BZAW 37; Giessen: Töpelmann 1923); “Der Botenspruch”, in: Kleine Lichter (Zurich: Zwingli 1945), 13–17. − J. Lindblom, Die literarische Gattung der prophetischen Literature (Lundequistska Bokhandeln, Uppsala 1924). − S. A. Meier, Speaking of Speaking: Marking Direct Discourse in the Hebrew Bible (VT.S 46; Leiden: Brill 1992). − D. F. Murray, “The Rhetoric of Disputation: Reexamination of a Prophetic Genre,” JSOT 38 (1987) 95–121. − K. Nielsen, YHWH as Prosecutor and Judge: An Investigation of the Prophetic

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Lawsuit (Rîb-Pattern) (JSOT.S 9; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1979). − M. Nissinen e.a. (eds.), Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (WAW 12; Leiden: Brill 2004). − D. L. Petersen, The Roles of Israel’s Prophets (JSOT.S 17; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1981). − T. Raitt, “The Prophetic Summons to Repentance”, ZAW 83 (1971) 30–49. − R. Rendtorff, “Boternformel und Botenspruch”, ZAW 74 (1962) 165–177. − I. P. Seierstad, Die Offenbarungserlebnisse der Propheten Amos, Jesaja und Jeremia: Eine Untersuchung der Erlebnisvorgänge unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer religiös-sittlichen Art und Auswirkung (SNVAO; Oslo: Dybwad 1946; 2nd edn.; Universitetsforlaget 1965). − M. A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature (FOTL 16; Grand Rapids/ Cambridge: Eerdmans 1996). − K. A. Tångberg, Die prophetische Mahnrede. Form- und traditionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Prophetischen Umkehrruf (FRLANT 143; Göttingen: Vandenhock & Ruprecht 1987). − R. J. Tournay, Seeing and Hearing God with the Psalms: The Prophetic Liturgy of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (JSOT.S 118; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991). − G. Warmuth, Das Mahnwort. Seine Bedeutung für die Verkündigung der vorexilischen Propheten Amos, Hosea, Micha, Jesaja und Jeremia (Frankfurt a.M.: Lang 1976). − R. D. Weis, “A Definition of the Genre Mas´s´aˉ ’ in the Hebrew Bible” (Ph.D. diss.; Claremont Graduate School, 1986. − C. Westermann, Grundformen prophetischer Rede (Munich: Kaiser 1960); ET: Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech, with a New Forward by Gene M. Tucker (Louisville: Westminster John Knox/ Cambridge: Lutterworth 1991); Prophetische Heilsworte im Alten Testament (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1987); ET: Prophetic Oracles of Salvation in the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1991); Sprache und Struktur der Prophetie Deuterojesajas (CThM 11; Stuttgart: Calwer 1981). − R. R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress 1980). − H. W. Wolff, “Die Begründungen der prophetischen Heils- und Unheilssprüche”, ZAW 52 (1934) 1–22; Das Zitat im Prophetenspruch (BEvTh 4; Munich: Kaiser 1937); Amos Geistige Heimat (WMANT 18; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1964).

An important aspect of Gunkel’s tradition-historical approach was his focus on the identification and analysis of oral speech forms or genres (German: Gattungen, n.b., later form critics distinguished form from genre). Gunkel’s focus on the oral background of biblical literature was based on two fundamental premises. The first was the notion that primitive societies were pre-rational and therefore facilitated a more direct and authentic experience of the divine than modern society with its rational and empirical worldview. The second was that a primitive society such as ancient Israel was preliterate and therefore relied primarily on oral forms of expression. Insofar as primitive people lacked the capacity for written expression and the development of complex ideas, ancient Israelite speech forms or genres tended to be short and stereotypically structured with a standard set of vocabulary so that they could be easily formulated, uttered, and remembered by speakers and their audiences in the ancient world. In the case of prophetic speech forms, Gunkel’s identification of the “threat” (German: Drohrede), an oral form which announced the consequences that Israel could expect from the divine for wrongdoing, was joined by the “reproach” (German: Scheltrede), a more developed form in which the prophet later announced the reasons for Israel’s wrongdoing after having had the opportunity to reflect on the earlier “threat”. Scholars began to refine Gunkel’s prophetic genres. W. Baumgartner demonstrated the dependence of Jeremiah’s laments on the style of the psalms of lament.22 H. Gressmann’s study of prophetic oracles directed against foreign nations indicated a need to distinguish between oracles against individual nations that were not hostile to Israel (German: Heidenorakel, “heathen oracle”) and those against

22

Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte des Jeremiah (1917).

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nations that actually attacked or threatened to attack Israel (German: Völkerorakel, “nation oracle”).23 His work also recognizes an interrelationship between threat and promise which suggested that the two might be bound together, i.e., on the basis of a threat, Israel might return to the divine and thereby receive divine promise. E. Balla’s study of the threat and reproach in Amos observed that a threat (Drohwort) was generally accompanied by reproach (Scheltwort) which presented an explanation of the reason for the judgment.24 L. Köhler argued that the speech forms of the prophets were rooted in the speech forms of messengers sent by kings and other authorities in the ancient world to convey, wordfor-word, a message to another party.25 J. Lindblom’s study of prophetic genres identified the formula, koˉh ’aˉ mar yhwh, “thus said Yhwh”, as “die prophetische Orakelformel”, i.e., “the prophetic oracle formula”, which introduced a divine statement or message delivered by the prophet.26 H. W. Wolff’s study of prophetic judgment and salvation speeches examined the interrelationship between the reason (Begründung, to replace the earlier Scheltwort) that is connected to the threat (Drohwort) by the Hebrew particle, laˉ keˉn or ‛al-keˉn, “therefore”, to establish the fundamental unity and character of Gunkel’s two basic and independent genres.27 His study of prophetic citations argued that the prophet acted as Yhwh’s messenger by quoting a divine word of judgment as part of a legal proceeding in which the prophet would accuse Israel with wrongdoing to justify the reason for the judgment.28 C. Westermann’s Grundformen prophetischer Rede proved to be an important watershed in the study of prophetic speech genres.29 He rejected Gunkel’s Scheltand Drohrede and argued instead that the basic form of prophetic speech is a prophetic judgment speech in which the prophet acted as the divinely-appointed messenger of Yhwh to announce divine judgment on nations and individuals based on accusations of wrongdoing. Westermann’s identification of prophetic speech as messenger speech built on earlier study of the formula, koˉh ’aˉ mar yhwh, which signaled the prophets’ understanding of their roles as messengers of Yhwh in ancient Israel and Judah. He buttressed his argument by pointing to the eighteenth century BCE Mari texts from northern Mesopotamia, in which the Mari prophets employed the messenger formula to indicate that their oracles constituted the words of Ishtar of Arbela and other deities. Westermann accepted earlier proposals to recognize the interrelationship between Gunkel’s Schelt- and Drohrede, not as independent genres, but as the basis for the prophetic announcement of judgment, which included the announcement of judgment per se. In Westermann’s schema, the reason for judgment was connected to the announcement of judgment by the particle laˉ keˉn or ‛al-keˉn, “therefore”, and the announcement of judgment was introduced with the prophetic messenger formula to indicate its divine origin. The announcement of judgment did not function as 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Gressmann, Die älteste Gechichtsschreibung (1910); Der Messias (1929). Balla, Die Droh- und Schelteworte des Amos (1926). Köhler, Deuterojesaja (1923); Der Botenspruch (1945). Lindblom, Die literarische Gattung (1924). Wolff, Die Begründungen (1934). Wolff, Das Zitat (1937). Westermann, Grundformen (1960).

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a prediction of future events; instead it functioned as a communication of divine judicial verdict leveled against the defendant nation or individual. Westermann discussed a number of other fundamental prophetic genres as well. The cry of woe was a variation of the prophetic judgment speech that began with the exclamation, hôy, “woe!”, followed by a characterization of the accused parties according to the sins which they are alleged to have committed. The legal procedure was another variation of the prophetic judgment speech that highlighted the trial setting in which the divine announcement of judgment would have been made. The disputation was a genre based in forensic language and argumentation that challenged the beliefs or contentions of another party. The parable was a symbolic portrayal of a situation, set of events, or person that illustrated and reinforced the prophetic judgment speech. The prophetic Torah or the prophetic instruction speech was a pedagogical genre intended to explain the divine will and to exhort its audience to observe divine expectations. Westermann’s Prophetische Heilsworte im Alten Testament turned to an examination of the prophetic announcement of salvation or blessing to individuals and nations which included a proclamation of salvation followed by a blessing.30 Despite modifications to some aspects of Westermann’s work, such as his conceptualization of the prophetic messenger speech, the analogy with Mari prophecy, and the judicial understanding of the prophetic judgment speech,31 it continues to provide the foundations for the study of prophetic genres.32 One of the most basic genres of prophetic speech is the oracle, which presents divine communication through an intermediary, such as a prophet or a priest. Oracles presuppose no particular formal structure, although they are frequently indicated by the formula, neˇ’um yhwh, “utterance of Yhwh”, which may appear at the beginning, in the middle, or at the conclusion of the oracle. The social setting of the oracle appears to be formal oracular inquiry through a seer, prophet, or priest (e.g., Numbers 22–24), although oracles may appear without such solicitation. A closely related prophetic speech genre is the mas´s´aˉ ’, “the (prophetic) pronouncement”.33 Like the oracle, the prophetic pronouncement has no particular formal structure. It is identified by the use of the term mas´s´aˉ ’, often in the superscription which introduces the pronouncement (e.g., Isa 13:1). The pronouncement focuses on an attempt by the prophet to explain how Yhwh’s actions will be manifested in the realm of human affairs. The prophetic announcement has no particular form other than an unsolicited announcement of Yhwh’s actions or events. It appears in several variations that take up both punishment and blessing. The prophetic punishment or judgment speech announces disaster to individuals, groups, or nations. The basic form of the genre includes three major com-

30

Westermann, Prophetische Heilsworte (1987). E.g., Rendtorff, Botenformel (1962); Ellermeier, Prophetie in Mari (1968); Koch, Was ist Formgeschichte?; ET: The Growth (1969), 205–207, 210–220. 32 For discussion of prophetic speech genres, see Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39 (1996), 22–30; Meier, Speaking (1992). 33 See also Weis, A Definition of the Genre Mas´s´aˉ ’ (1986). 31

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ponents: 1) a statement of the reasons for the coming disaster, generally expressed as an accusation of wrongdoing on those who will suffer the disaster; 2) a logical connector, such as the Hebrew particles, laˉ keˉn or ‛al-keˉn, “therefore”, to establish the relationship between the statement of the reasons for the disaster and the announcement of disaster; and 3) the announcement of punishment or judgment, which proclaims a disaster that will result from the accusations leveled in the first part of the oracle. The form is essentially analytical insofar as it is based in an attempt to identify the causes of disaster as some form of human misconduct that the prophet would deem contrary to divine expectations of human behavior. It may therefore be employed as a means to persuade its audience to change its behavior in order to avoid the announced consequences. The social setting may be found in oracular inquiry. The prophecy of salvation or blessing is a counterpart to the prophetic judgment speech, but it takes up blessing rather than disaster. It includes three basic elements: 1) an indication of the situation that will lead to blessing, often introduced with an appeal for attention or the particle, ya‛an kî, “because, inasmuch as”, which signals Yhwh’s interest in acting; 2) an announcement of salvation or blessing, often introduced by laˉ keˉn, “therefore”, followed by a statement that a projected disaster will not occur or a statement, often introduced with hinneˉnî, “behold, I am”, and a particle, to indicate Yhwh’s actions to bring about blessing; and 3) a concluding characterization that refers to the party who authorizes the blessing, generally Yhwh. The prophecy of salvation originates in cultic settings in which a party will express a lament concerning some troubling situation in an effort to request that Yhwh take action to remedy the problem.34 The reassurance formula, ’al tîraˉ ’, “do not fear”, and its variations indicate Yhwh’s decision to grant the petition for divine redress. The prophetic announcement of a royal savior is a specialized form of the prophetic announcement in which the prophet proclaims and describes the rule of a just and righteous king (e.g., Isa 11:1–10). The genre has no set structure, although it includes the announcement of the new king’s reign, his names, a description of the righteousness and peace that will characterize his rule, and descriptions of the social, political, or cosmic turmoil that preceded the king’s rule and required his intervention. The prophecy concerning a foreign nation is another specialized form of the prophetic announcement that takes up the potential destruction or punishment of a foreign nation that threatens Israel/Judah or behaves contrary to divine expectations. Such prophecies frequently appear in series (e.g., Isaiah 13–23; Jeremiah 46–51; Ezekiel 25–32), although they may also appear individually (Isaiah 34; Obadiah; Nahum). The setting for such oracles lies in the holy war traditions or cultic execration rituals of Israel and Judah in which enemies were curses prior to the onset of war.35 The announcement of a reprieve announces Yhwh’s intention to mitigate a punishment previously promised to an individual. Its characteristic elements in-

34 35

Begrich, Das priesterliche Heilsorakel (1934). Christensen, Prophecy and War (1989).

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clude 1) a reference to some act of repentance by the party in question; 2) the reason for the reprieve; and 3) the reprieve itself (e.g., 1 Kgs 21:19; 2 Kgs 22: 18–20). The prophetic announcement of a sign is a prophetic genre in which the prophet announces an event that will take place at some time in the future to confirm a prophetic oracle. It includes three basic elements: 1) a declaration of an event as a sign from Yhwh; 2) a subordinate clause stating the significance of the sign; and 3) a description of the event that will constitute the sign (e.g., Isa 37:30–32; 38:7–8; Jer 44:29–30). In addition to those speech forms that are inherently prophetic, a number of other genres derived from other social settings (Sitze im Leben) also appear frequently in prophetic speech. The prophetic messenger speech expresses the self-conceptualization of the prophets as messengers or ambassadors of Yhwh to human recipients. The messenger speech constitutes an oral word-for-word report of a message sent by means of the prophet or messenger to another party. The genre is characterized by the appearance of the messenger formula, koˉh ’aˉ mar yhwh, “thus says Yhwh”, as an introduction to the message (e.g., Amos 1:3–5) and sometimes by the simple formula ’aˉ mar yhwh, “says Yhwh”, at the conclusion of the message or in its midst. The societal setting for the prophetic messenger speech derives from the sphere of royal proclamations made by the monarchs of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia to their subjects, allies, and other recipients. The trial genres presuppose forensic language, procedures, and settings, which may include the so-called secular courts that would decide cases of law in the gates of the city and the royal court (1 Kgs 3:16–28; Ruth 4), sacral law that would have been decided in cultic context (Joshua 7; Jeremiah 26), and the sphere of international law or treaties. Formerly known as the trial speech or the rîb, “controversy” pattern, the trial genres generally take up some form of a summons to trial, speeches by the plaintiff and the defendant, and a resolution to the trial, although the elements may vary considerably (e.g., Isaiah 1; 42:18–25; Jeremiah 2; Hosea 4; Micah 6).36 The prophetic disputation is often related to the trial genres insofar as the form is designed to refute a particular viewpoint that would arise in a courtroom setting (e.g., Isa 8:16–9:6; 49:14–25; Jer 33:23–26; Ezek 18:1–20; Mal 1:6–2:9). The original setting appears to lie in wisdom, where viewpoints are critically evaluated (e.g., Job). The basic form includes three elements: 1) a statement of the thesis to be disputed; 2) the counter thesis for which the speaker argues; and 3) the argumentation per se.37 The woe oracle generally functions as a means to criticize specific actions and attitudes of the people and to announce judgment against them. Woe oracles appear individually (e.g., Amos 6:1–7) or in a series (Isa 5:8–24; Hab 2:6–20). The form includes two basic elements: 1) an introductory exclamation, hôy, “woe!”, followed by a participle or noun that describes the actions or attitudes in ques-

36 37

See Harvey, Le plaidoyer (1967); Nielsen, YHWH as Prosecutor and Judge (1979). Graffy, A Prophet (1984); Murray, The Rhetoric (1987).

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tion, and 2) additional materials that elaborate on the situation. The genre may derive from wisdom, funeral laments, or warnings of approaching danger. Prophetic instruction or prophetic Torah is a didactic form employed by the prophets to provide guidance to individuals and groups. It is associated with priestly instruction in which the priests offer divine guidance in ethical action and other sacred matters (e.g., Hag 2:11–13; Isa 1:10–17; Mic 6:6–8). The genre appears to have a wisdom or educational background.38 The prophetic exhortation is an address form employed to persuade individuals or groups to adapt a particular set of attitudes or to follow a particular course of action. It often appears with admonition, which is designed to dissuade an audience from undesirable attitudes or actions. When exhortation and admonition appear together, they constitute paranesis (Jeremiah 7:1–8:3). The form employs no standard set of elements, and it appears to derive from wisdom or cultic settings of argumentation and persuasion (e.g., Deuteronomy 6–11).39 The prophetic liturgy employs no standard form, but prophetic texts often employ liturgical forms such as hymns (Isaiah 12), prayers (Habakkuk 3), complaints (Jeremiah 20; Joel 1–2), entrance liturgies (Isaiah 33), thanksgiving sons (Isaiah 12), theophanies (Habakkuk 3), Zion songs (Isa 2:2–4), and doxologies (Amos 5:8–9). Prophetic liturgies presuppose the cultic settings in which prophetic literature was perhaps produced and performed.40 In addition to the study of prophetic genres, Petersen attempted to define the social roles of individual types of prophets, Wilson attempted to distinguish between northern Israelite and southern Judean prophetic movements, and Cryer and Nissinen et al provide the foundations for studying the interrelationships between Israelite/Judean and ancient Near Eastern prophecy.41

5. The Formation of Prophetic Books Redaction- and Canonical-Critical Approaches General studies: G. Baumann, Liebe und Gewalt (SBS 185; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 2000); ET: Love and Violence (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical 2003). − B. S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress 1979) . − T. Collins (ed.), The Mantle of Elijah: The Redaction Criticism of the Prophetical Books (Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993). − E. W. Conrad, Reading the Latter Prophets: Toward a New Canonical Criticism (JSOT.S 376; London/ New York: Clark 2003). − E. Güttgemanns, Offene Fragen zur Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (BEvTh 54; Munich: Kaiser 1970). − R. Knierim, “Criticism of Literary Features, Form, Tradition, and Redaction”, in: D. A. Knight/ G. M. Tucker (eds.), The Hebrew Bible and its Modern Interpreters (Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1985), 123–200. − N. Perrin, What is Redaction Criticism? (Philadelphia: Fortress 1969). − W. Richter, Exegese als Literaturwissenschaft. Entwurf einer Alttestamentlichen Literatur

38

Wolff, Amos (1964); Crenshaw, Education (1998); Carr, Writing (2005). Raitt, The Prophetic Summons (1971); Warmuth, Das Mahnwort (1976); Hunter, Seek the Lord! (1982); Tångberg, Die prophetische Mahnrede (1987). 40 Tournay, Seeing (1991). 41 Petersen, The Roles (1981); Wilson, Prophecy (1980); Cryer, Divination (1994); Nissinen e.a., Prophecy (2004). 39

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Theorie und Methodologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1971). − M. A. Sweeney, Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature (FAT 45; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2005).

The twentieth century focus on the recovery of the original oracles of the prophets and the identification of oral prophetic speech forms inevitably raised the question of the literary formation of the prophetic literature. The above-noted traditio-historical work of Mowinckel, Noth, and von Rad played an important role in demonstrating that later redactors could not be viewed as largely incompetent and theologically insensitive or self-serving literary mechanics. Instead, it became clear that those figures who had a hand in transmitting, expanding, and shaping biblical literature were actively engaged in reflection on the meaning and significance of the earlier prophetic oracles and narrative traditions and the articulation of these oracles and traditions for readers and listeners from their own times. In short, scholars began to recognize that redactors were themselves creative authors and theologians who contributed greatly to the writing of the prophetic literature.42 Redaction criticism, the study of the editorial and literary development of biblical literature, had its origins in New Testament scholarship with a focus on how the four individual Gospels had shaped the presentation of the life and death of Jesus.43 But redaction criticism began to emerge as an important sub-field in the study of the Hebrew Bible as well, particularly in relation to the prophetic literature. Recognition of the literary character of the prophetic and other biblical works was such that W. Richter began to call for consideration of the Sitz in Literatur, “literary setting,” as well as the Sitz im Leben, “social setting”, of biblical texts.44

5.1. The Book of Isaiah Studies: P. R. Ackroyd, “Isaiah I–xII: Presentation of a Prophet”, Congress Volume (VT.S 29; Leiden: Brill 1978), 16–48; “Isaiah 36–39: Structure and Function”, in: W. C. Delsman e.a. (eds.), Von Kanaan bis Kerala (FS J. P. M. van der Ploeg; AOAT 211; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1982), 3–21. − H. Barth, Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit (WMANT 48; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1977). − J. Becker, Isaias – Der Prophet und sein Buch (SBS 30; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1968). − U. Berges, Das Buch Jesaja. Komposition und Endgestalt (HBSt 16; Freiburg: Herder 1998). − W. A. M. Beuken, Isaiah II. Part 2.Isaiah 28–39 (HCOT; Leuven: Peeters 2000); Jesaja 1–12 (HThKAT; Freiburg: Herder 2003; Jesaja 13–27 (HThKAT; Freiburg: Herder 2007). − J. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah (AB 19; 19A; 19B; New York: Doubleday 2000–2003). − C. C. Broyles/ C. A. Evans (eds.), Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition (VT.S 70/1–2; Leiden: Brill 1997). − B. S. Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2001). − R. E. Clements, Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem (JSOT.S 13; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1980); “The Prophecies of Isaiah and the Fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.”, VT 30 (1980) 421– 436; “The Unity of the Book of Isaiah”, Int. 36 (1982) 117–129; “Beyond Tradition History: DeuteroIsaianic Development of First Isaiah’s Themes”, JSOT 31 (1985) 93–115; Isaiah 1–39 (NCeB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1980). − E. W. Conrad, Reading Isaiah (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress 1991). − K. Pfisterer Darr, Isaiah’s Vision and the Family of God (Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1994). − K. Elliger, Die Einheit des Tritojesaja (Jesaia 56–66) (BWANT 45; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer

42 43 44

See esp. Knierim, Criticism (1985); cf. Collins, The Mantle (1993). Perrin, What is Redaction Criticism? (1969); Güttgemanns,Offene Fragen (1970). Richter, Exegese (1971).

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1928); Deuterojesaja in seinem Verhältnis zu Tritojesaja (BWANT 63; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1933). − O. Kaiser, Das Buch des Propheten Jesaja, Kapitel 1–12 (ATD 17; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1981); ET: Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster 1983). − D. R. Jones, “The Traditio of the Oracles of Isaiah of Jerusalem”, ZAW 67 (1955). − M. McGinnis/ P. K. Tull (eds.), “As Those Who are Taught”: The Interpretation of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL (SBL.SS 27; Atlanta: SBL 2006). − R. F. Melugin, The Formation of Isaiah 40–55 (BZAW 141; Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter 1976). − R. F. Melugin/ M. A. Sweeney (eds.), New Visions of Isaiah (JSOT.S 214; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1996). − D. C. Polaski, Authorizing an End: The Isaiah Apocalypse and Intertextuality (BibInt 50; Leiden: Brill 2001). − R. Rendtorff, “Zur Komposition des Buches Jesajas”, VT 34 (1984) 295–320; Canon and Theology: Overtures to an Old Testament Theology (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress 1993). − J. Van Ruiten/ M. Vervenne (eds.), Studies in the Book of Isaiah (BETL 132; Leuven: Peeters 1997). − B. D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford: Stanford UP 1998). − O. H. Steck, Bereitete Heimkehr. Jesaja 35 als redaktionaelle Brücke zwischen dem Ersten und Zweiten Jesaja (SBS 121; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1985); Studien zum Tritojesaja (BZAW 203; Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter 1991). − M. A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–4 and the Post-Exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Tradition (BZAW 171; Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter 1988); Isaiah 1–39, with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature (FOTL 16; Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans 1996); King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel (Oxford/ New York: Oxford UP 2001). − K. A. Tångberg, Die prophetische Mahnrede. Form- und traditionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Prophetischen Umkehrruf (FRLANT 143; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1987). − R. J. Tournay, Seeing and Hearing God with the Psalms: The Prophetic Liturgy of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (JSOT.S 118; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1991). − P. K. Tull (Willey), Remember the Former Things: The Recollection of Previous Texts in Second Isaiah (SBL.DS 161; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1997). − J. Vermeylen, Du prophète d’Isaïe à l’apocalyptique (EB; Paris: Gabalda 1977–78); J. Vermeylen (ed.), The Book of Isaiah/Le livre d’Isaïe (BETL 81; Leuven: Peeters 1989). − H. Wildberger, Jesaja 1–39 (BKAT 10:1–3; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1972– 1982). − H. G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon 1994); Isaiah 1–5 (ICC; London: T/ T Clark 2006).

The book of Isaiah proved to be a major focus of redaction-critical work on the prophets, especially because of interest in explaining how Proto-, Deutero-, and Trito-Isaiah, came to form a single work.45 Elliger’s early studies of Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah argued that that Trito-Isaiah was a disciple of Deutero-Isaiah who collected, shaped, and developed the master’s work.46 Building on the work of Mowinckel, D. R. Jones argued that Isaiah’s disciples in the form of an Isaianic school had collected and edited the prophet’s oracles in Isaiah 1–5 in order to apply the prophet’s message to the events following the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.47 J. Becker stressed the need for a new redaction-critical assessment of the entire book of Isaiah in which the frequently mentioned “former things” of Deutero-Isaiah would be recognized as a reference to the prophecies of Isaiah of Jerusalem.48 H. Barth extended the discussion to new dimensions by arguing for the identification of an Assyrian redaction in Isaiah 1–39 which posited the impending downfall of the Assyrian empire and the rise of a new Davidic state under King Josiah of Judah in the late-seventh century BCE.49 J. Vermeylen’s study 45 For surveys of research on Isaiah, see the essays by M. A. Sweeney, H. C. P. Kim and R. F. Melugin in: Hauser, Recent Research (2008). Seminal collections of essays appear in Vermeylen (ed.), The Book of Isaiah (1989); Melugin/Sweeney (eds.), New Visions (1996); Broyles/Evans (eds.), Writing (1997); van Ruiten/Vervenne (eds.), Studies (1997); and McGinnis/Tull (eds.), As Those (2006). 46 Elliger, Deuterojesaja (1933); Die Einheit (1928). 47 Jones, The Traditio (1955). 48 Becker, Isaias (1968). 49 Barth, Die Jesaja-Worte (1977).

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complemented Barth’s work by positing a seventh-century Josian redaction of Isaiah 1–35, but it pushed the issue of the redactional formation of Isaiah much further by positing a seven-stage redactional process that traced the development of Proto-Isaiah from the time of Isaiah ben Amoz through post-exilic apocalyptic scenarios.50 P. Ackroyd demonstrated how Isaiah 1–12 had been shaped to present the prophet’s oracles in relation to the concerns of the Babylonian exile and how Isaiah 36–39 served as a transitional unit within the book to link the presentation of Isaiah ben Amoz in Isaiah 1–39 to the works of Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah in Isaiah 40–66.51 R. E. Clements demonstrated seventh century interests in the composition of Isaiah 1–39; the shaping of the prophecies of Isaiah in relation to the fall of Jerusalem; and the links between Isaiah 1–39 and Isaiah 40–66.52 O. Kaiser argued that the final form of the book of Isaiah was the product of Levitical circles rooted in the Deuteronomistic movement.53 H. Wildberger offered a more traditional redaction critical model that affirmed the presence of oracles from the prophet Isaiah, rejected the Assyrian redaction hypothesis, and traced the development of the book of Isaiah through the exilic and early post-exilic periods.54 By the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the question of the formation of the book of Isaiah as a whole was emerging as the key question in Isaiah studies. B. S. Childs’s introduction to the Old Testament sparked considerable controversy by proposing that Isaiah be read as a single book while recognizing that it had been formed through a lengthy historical process.55 Childs’s work was anticipated by R. F. Melugin, who pointed to the analogies between the call narratives in Isaiah 6 and Isaiah 40:1–11 as a basis for recognizing a relationship between the two major portions of the book.56 R. Rendtorff noted the role that terminology such as keˇbôd yhwh, qeˇdôš yis´raˉ ’eˉl, and s. eˇdaˉ qâ, played in Trito-Isaiah and throughout the rest of the book, and argued that Trito-Isaiah was the organizer of the book who edited Proto-Isaiah as a précis to Deutero-Isaiah.57 O. H. Steck pointed to the role of Isaiah 35 as a “redactional bridge” between Isaiah 1–39 and 40–66, and his subsequent work traced the formation of the “Great Isaiah Book” in Isaiah 1–62 through the fourth-third centuries and the redactional continuation of the Isaian corpus in Isaiah 56–59 and 63–66.58 M. A. Sweeney demonstrated that Isaiah 1–4 was the product of exilic and Persian-period redaction that had shaped the formation of the book of Isaiah as a whole, and his commentary on Isaiah 1–39 laid out that process in detail from the time of Isaiah through redactional stages in the Josian, exilic, and early Persian periods.59 C. R. Seitz stressed the 50

Vermeylen, Du prophète d’Isaïe (1977–78). Ackroyd, Isaiah I–xII (1978); Isaiah 36–39 (1982). Clements, Isaiah and the Deliverance (1980); The Prophecies of Isaiah (1980); The Unity (1982); Beyond Tradition History (1985); see also idem, Isaiah 1–39 (1980). 53 Kaiser, Das Buch (1981). 54 Wildberger, Jesaja 1–39 (1972–1982). 55 Childs, Introduction (1979); see now, Isaiah (2001). 56 Melugin, The Formation (1976). 57 Rendtorff, Zur Komposition (1984); see also his essays on Isaiah in Canon and Theology (1993); The Book of Isaiah (1996). 58 Steck, Bereitete Heimkehr (1985); Studien zum Tritojesaja (1991). 59 Sweeney, Isaiah 1–4 (1988); Isaiah 1–39 (1996); see also, King Josiah (2001). 51 52

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focus on the book of Isaiah on Jerusalem/Zion.60 E. W. Conrad and K. Pfisterer Darr emphasized a reader response orientation to the book that focused on the construction of the book by its readers in Antiquity as well as in the present.61 W. A. M. Beuken points to the role of inner biblical interpretation (Fortschreibung) in his attempts to trace the formation of the book through the second century BCE.62 H. G. M. Williamson argues that Deutero-Isaiah must be recognized as the redactor of First Isaiah.63 P. K. Tull (Willey), B. Sommer, and D. Polaski emphasize intertextual approaches in delineating the dialog between the various components of Isaiah as well as with other biblical works with which they interact.64 Finally, the commentary by J. Blenkinsopp represents a more traditional redaction-critical reading of the book that rejects canonical interpretations and recognizes the historical process of its formation from the time of Isaiah through the time of Ezra in the mid-fifth century BCE.65

5.2. The Book of Jeremiah Bibliographies: R. P. Carroll, Jeremiah (OT Guides; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1989). − G. Fischer, Jeremia. Der Stand der theologischen Diskussion (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2007). − S. Herrmann, Jeremia. Der Prophet und das Buch (EdF 271; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1990). − K. Seybold, Der Prophet Jeremia. Leben und Werk (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1993). Studies: L. Allen, Jeremiah: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2008). − M. Biddle, A Redaction History of Jeremiah 2:1–4:2 (AThANT 77; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag 1990). − P.-M. Bogaert (ed.), Le livre de Jérémie. Le prophète et son milieu, les oracles et leur transmission (BETL 54; Leuven: Peeters 1981). − J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB 21; Garden City: Doubleday 1965). − R. P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster 1986). − A. H. W. Curtis/ T. Römer (eds.), The Book of Jeremiah and Its Reception (BETL 128; Leuven: Leuven UP/ Peeters 1997). − A. R. P. Diamond e.a., (eds.), Troubling Jeremiah (JSOT.S 260; Sheffield: Academic Press 1999). − G. Fischer, Jeremia (HThKAT; Freiburg: Herder 2005). − Y. Goldman, Prophétie et royauté au retour de l’exil. Les origins littéraires de la forme massorétique du livre de Jérémie (OBO 118; Freiburg/ Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1992). − W. Gross e.a. (eds.), Jeremia und “deuteronomistische Bewegung” (BBB 98; Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum 1995). − J. Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book of Jeremiah MT (BibInt 40; Leiden: Brill 1999). − W. L. Holladay, The Architecture of Jeremiah 1–20 (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1976); Jeremiah (Hermeneia; Philadelphia/ Minneapolis: Fortress 1986–89). − J. P. Hyatt, “The Book of Jeremiah: Introduction and Exegesis”, in: The Interpreter’s Bible 5 (Nashville: Abingdon 1956), 775–1142. − N. Ittmann, Die Konfessionen Jeremias. Ihre Bedeutung für die Verkündigung des Propheten (WMANT 54; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1981). − W. Janzen, Studies in the Text of Jeremiah (HSM 6; Cambridge: Harvard UP 1973). − M. Kessler (ed.), Reading the Book of Jeremiah: A Search for Coherence (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 2004). − J. Kiss, Die Klage Gottes und des Propheten (WMANT 99; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 2003). − A. Lange, Vom prophetischen Wort zur prophetischen Tradition (FAT 34; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2002). − N. Lohfink, “Der Junge Jeremia als Propagandist und Poet. Zum Grundstock von Jer. 30–31”, in: Bogaert, Le livre de Jérémie (1990), 351–368. − J. Lundbom, Jeremiah: A Study in Ancient Hebrew Rhetoric (SBL.DS 60

Seitz, Zion’s Final Destiny (1991); Isaiah 1–39 (1993); The Book of Isaiah 40–66 (2001). Conrad, Reading (1991); Darr, Isaiah’s Vision (1994). 62 Beuken, Isaiah II (2000); Jesaja 1–12 (2003); idem, Jesaja 13–27 (2007); see also Berges, Das Buch Jesaja (1998). 63 Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah (1994); idem, Isaiah 1–5 (2006). 64 Tull (Willey), Remember (1997); Sommer, A Prophet (1998); Polaski, Authorizing ( 2001). 65 Blenkinsopp, Isaiah (2000–2003). 61

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18; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1975); Jeremiah (AB 21A-C; Garden City: Doubleday 1999–2004). − C. Maier, Jeremia als Lehrer der Tora. Soziale Gebote des Deuteronomiums in Fortschreibungen des Jeremiabuches (FRLANT 196; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2002). − W. McKane, Jeremiah (ICC; Edinburgh: Clark 1986–1996). − E. W. Nicholson, Preaching to the Exiles: A Study of the Prose Tradition of the Book of Jeremiah (New York: Schocken 1975). − K. M. O’Connor, The Confessions of Jeremiah: Their Interpretation and Role in Chapters 1–25 (SBL.DS 94; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1988). − L. G. Perdue/B. W. Kovacs (eds.), A Prophet to the Nations: Essays in Jeremiah Studies (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1984). − K.-F. Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch. Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach der Entstehung des Jeremiabuches (FRLANT 118; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1978). − H. Graf Reventlow, Liturgie und prophetisches Ich bei Jeremia (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn 1963). − C. Rietzschel, Das Problem der Urrolle. Ein Beitrag zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Jeremiabuches (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn 1966). − W. Rudolph, Jeremia (HAT 12; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 31968). − A. Schenker, Das Neue am neuen Bund und das Alte am alten. Jer 31 in der hebräischen und griechischen Bibel (FRLANT 212; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2006) ). − C. R. Seitz, Theology in Context: Reactions to the Exile in the Book of Jeremiah (BZAW 176; Berlin: de Gruyter 1989). − C. J. Sharp, Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah: Struggles for Authority in the Deutero-Jeremianic Prose (London: Clark 2003). − A. G. Shead, The Open and the Sealed Book: Jeremiah 32 in its Hebrew and Greek Recensions (JSOT.S 347; London: Sheffield Academic Press 2002). − H.-J. Stipp, Das masoretische und alexandrinische Sondergut des Jeremiabuches (OBO 136; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag/ Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1994). − L. Stulman, Order Amid Chaos: Jeremiah as Symbolic Tapestry (Sheffield: Academic Press 1998); Jeremiah (AOTC; Nashville: Abingdon 2005). − M. A. Sweeney, Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature (FAT 45; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2005); King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel (Oxford/ New York: Oxford UP 2001); “The Truth in True and False Prophecy”, Form and Intertextuality (2005), 78–93; “The Masoretic and Septuagint Versions of Jeremiah in Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective”, Form and Intertextuality (2005), 65–77. − W. Thiel, Die deuteronomische Redaktion von Jeremia 1–25 (WMANT 41; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1971); Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremiah 26–45 (WMANT 52; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1981. − E. Tov, The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch (HSM 8; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1976); “Some Aspects of the Textual and Literary History of the Book of Jeremiah”, in: Bogaert, Le livre de Jérémie, 145–167; “Jeremiah”, in: E. Ulrich e.a., (eds.), Qumran Cave 4. X: The Prophets (DJD 15; Oxford: Clarendon 1997), 145–20. − P. Volz, Der Prophet Jeremia (KAT 10; Leipzig: A. Deichert 21928). − H.Weippert, Die Prosareden des Jeremiabuches (BZAW 132; Berlin: de Gruyter 1973.

A number of critical issues have appeared in relation to the redaction-critical study of Jeremiah.66 First is the question of the interrelationship between the poetic oracles and the prose narratives of the book. Second is the related question of Deuteronomistic influence in the redaction of the book and the construction of the prophet. And third is the question of the interrelationship between the Masoretic (MT) and Septuagint (LXX) versions of the book, especially since Jeremiah manuscripts found at Qumran include both proto-MT versions and a potential Hebrew Vorlage for the LXX version. Many early- to mid-twentieth century scholars followed Mowinckel’s view that Jeremiah is the author of the poetic oracles of the book and that his scribe, Baruch ben Neriah, must be the author of the prose narratives of Jeremiah and thus the primary redactor of the prophet’s oracles. Nevertheless, each scholar of66 For useful surveys of research on Jeremiah, see esp.Carroll, Jeremiah (1989); Herrmann, Jeremia (1990); Seybold, Der Prophet Jeremia (1993); the essays by Carroll and Diamond published in Hauser, Recent Research (2008); and Fischer, Jeremia (2007). Seminal collections of essays include Bogaert (ed.), Le livre de Jérémie (1981); Perdue/Kovacs (eds.), A Prophet to the Nations (1984); Gross e.a. (eds.), Jeremia (1995); Curtiss/Römer (eds.), The Book of Jeremiah (1997); Diamond e.a. (eds.), Troubling (1999); and Kessler, Reading (2004).

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fers refinements of this viewpoint. P. Volz points to the later editing of the book among synagogue circles in Babylonia, and he argues that the LXX version of Jeremiah is shortened version of the MT.67 W. Rudolph identified the historical Jeremiah as an early supporter of the reforms of King Josiah of Judah, identified Baruch and other supporters as the authors of the accounts of Jeremiah’s oracles, and pointed to Deuteronomistic influence and editing in the narrative portions of the book.68 Rudolph’s careful attention to textcritical issues convinced him that although MT and LXX are distinct textual witnesses to Jeremiah, it is difficult to assign priority to either. J. P. Hyatt explained the absence of reference to Josiah’s reform in Jeremiah by arguing that the call of the prophet in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign (ca. 627 BCE) must refer to the Jeremiah’s birth. He therefore identified Jeremiah with the Deuteronomistic circles that edited his book.69 J. Bright collapsed the differences between the B and C material to argue that the two constituted a single stream of tradition that was ultimately the product of Deuteronomistic composition and redaction.70 C. Rietzschel pointed to the influence of pre-exilic Levitical circles from the Israelite/Judean countryside who initially portrayed Jeremiah as a preacher and paved the way for later Dtr redaction.71 E. W. Nicholson attributes the prose sections of the book to circles in the Babylonian exile interested in shaping Jeremiah as a preacher of Torah.72 W. Thiel builds on Hyatt’s hypothesis with extensive studies of DtrH redaction in Jeremiah 1–25 and 26–45.73 H. Weippert attempted to counter the growing trend toward Dtr redaction of Jeremiah by arguing that the prose material of the book constituted a highly stylized and distinctive artistic prose form (Kunstprosa) that must be identified with the prophet himself.74 J. Lundbom’s study of the distinctive rhetorical style in Jeremiah’s oracles points to Jeremiah and Baruch as the initial authors of the book. His initial work provided the foundations for his three-volume commentary, which argues that the LXX version of Jeremiah is largely the product of haplography.75 W. Holladay’s initial study of rhetorical structure of Jeremiah likewise pointed to the prophet as the author of the oracular material in the book which provided the foundations for his largely historical interpretation of the prophet.76 R. P. Carroll abandoned traditional redaction-critical analysis by arguing that it would be impossible to penetrate through the redactional layers of the text to reconstruct the historical Jeremiah, and argued instead that the Jeremiah presented in the book must be regarded as a literary character created by the book’s authors.77 W. McKane attempts to account for problems in the literary coherence of the presentation of Jeremiah by arguing that the oracles of 67

Volz, Der Prophet Jeremia (1928). Rudolph, Jeremia (1968). Hyatt, The Book of Jeremiah (1956). 70 Bright, Jeremiah (1965). 71 Rietzschel, Das Problem (1966). 72 Nicholson, Preaching (1970); cf. Maier, Jeremia als Lehrer (2002). 73 Thiel, Die deuteronomische Redaktion von Jeremia 1–25 (1971); Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremiah 26–45 (1981). 74 Weippert, Die Prosareden (1973). 75 Lundbom, Jeremiah (1975); Jeremiah (1999–2004). 76 Holladay, The Architecture (1976); Jeremiah (1986–89). 77 Carroll, Jeremiah (1986). 68 69

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the book ultimately represent the work of the prophet, but the book itself is a “rolling corpus” which is the product of a long process of literary accretion and expansion that defies systematic interpretation.78 The commentaries by Holladay, Carroll, and McKane constituted a watershed in the discussion of the book of Jeremiah that pointed to radically different directions, viz., historical, literary, and textual, in the interpretation of the book. Nevertheless, discussion of the book’s many issues has continued unabated since the mid-1980’s. C. R. Seitz, building on earlier work by K.-F. Pohlmann for a golah, “exile”, redaction in Jeremiah, employed a combination of social theory and redaction criticism to argue that the book of Jeremiah presupposes debate among Jeremian and Ezekielian circles concerning the meaning of the initial Babylonian deportation of 597 BCE.79 Discussion of Jeremiah’s role in proclaiming restoration for Jerusalem and Judah, perhaps as early as Josiah’s reform, centers especially on Jeremiah 2–6 and 30–33, which are frequently viewed as reworked versions of Jeremiah’s early pro-Josian oracles.80 Although scholars generally agree that the confessions of Jeremiah interspersed throughout Jeremiah 11–20 represent the prophet’s adaption of the lament psalm, later editing of the laments by Jeremian circles continued to develop their concerns with theodicy and suffering.81 The question of true and false prophecy in Jeremiah has been bolstered by the recognition that Jeremiah, both the prophet and the book, are in debate with other recognized prophetic traditions in the Bible, particularly Isaiah.82 Recognizing that Mowinckel’s source theory of Jeremiah was based on a view of the book’s diachronic formation, L. Stulman proposes a synchronic reading that proposes to make sense out of the book’s convoluted literary structure.83 Finally, G. Fischer emphasizes the book’s dialog with its underlying traditions in its attempt to understand divine action in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile.84 As the redaction-critical debate concerning the formation of the book of Jeremiah unfolded through the course of the twentieth century, text critical scholarship began to return to the question of the interrelationship between the MT and LXX versions of the book. Text critical discussion of Jeremiah was especially stimulated by the discovery of several Jeremiah manuscripts at Qumran, most notably the proto-Masoretic manuscripts, 4QJera (ca. late 3rd-early 2nd century BCE) and 4QJerc (latter half of the 1st century BCE) as well as 4QJerbd (1st half of the 2nd century BCE) which contained a Hebrew text that would likely have served as the Hebrew Vorlage of the shorter LXX text.85 W. Janzen was the first to employ evidence from the Qumran scrolls to argue that the Hebrew Vorlage of 78

McKane, Jeremiah (1986–1996). Seitz, Theology in Context (1989); Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch (1978); cf. Sharp, Prophecy and Ideology (2003). 80 See esp. Lohfink, Der Junge Jeremia (1981); Biddle, A Redaction History (1990); Sweeney, King Josiah (2001). 81 See esp. Graf Reventlow, Liturgie (1963); Ittmann, Die Konfessionen (1981); O’Connor, The Confessions (1988); J. Kiss, Die Klage (2003). 82 See esp. Lange, Vom prophetischen Wort (2002); Sweeney, The Truth (2005). 83 Stulman, Order (1998); Jeremiah (2005). 84 Fischer, Jeremia (2005). 85 See Tov, Jeremiah (1997). 79

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LXXJeremiah represents an early Egyptian textual version of Jeremiah whereas MTJeremiah represents an expanded Babylonian edition of the same basic text.86 E. Tov affirms the priority of the Hebrew Vorlage of LXXJeremiah, and points to revision of the presumed Old Greek underlying the present form of LXXJeremiah.87 More recently, Y. Goldman employs redaction-critical tools to examine the hermeneutics of MTJeremiah’s expansion of the older Vorlage of LXXJeremiah with reference to the portrayal of the house of David.88 H.-J. Stipp extends the argument for the priority of the Hebrew Vorlage of LXXJeremiah by pointing to translational problems in the Greek rendition of its underlying Hebrew text.89 Despite the growing view that LXXJeremiah represents the earlier text, Shead’s study of the open and sealed book in Jeremiah 32 argues that both LXXJeremiah and MTJeremiah show variation and developed from a common Vorlage that precludes assigning priority to either text form.90 M. A. Sweeney attempts to outline the distinctive literary structures of both LXXJeremiah and MTJeremiah in an effort to recover the distinctive hermeneutical perspectives of each.91 A. Schenker likewise examines the communicative function of both the LXX and MT versions of Jeremiah 31, although he continues to argue that LXXJeremiah is the early text.92 L. Allen’s recent commentary presupposes the priority of the LXXJeremiah text, although he focuses on interpreting the MT.93

5.3. The Book of Ezekiel Bibliography: H. McKeating, Ezekiel (OT Guides; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1993). Studies: D. I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1997–1998). − D. I. Bodi, The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra (OBO 104; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag/ Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1991). − S. L. Cook/C. L. Patton (eds.), Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World (SBLSym 31; Atlanta: SBL 2004). − K. Pfisterer Darr, “The Book of Ezekiel”, in: L. E. Keck e.a. (eds.), The New Interpreter’s Bible 6 (Nashville: Abingdon 2001), 1073–1607. − E. Davis, Swallowing the Scroll: Textuality and the Dynamics of Discourse in Ezekiel (JSOT.S 144; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1989). − G. Fohrer, Die Hauptprobleme des Buches Ezechiel (BZAW 72; Berlin: Töpelmann 1952); idem, with K. Galling, Ezechiel (HAT 13; Tübingen: Mohr 1955). − J. Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City as YHWH’s Wife (SBLDS 130; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1992). − M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (AB 22; Garden City: Doubleday 1983); Ezekiel 21–37 (AB 22A; Garden City: Doubleday 1997). − V. Herntrich, Ezekielprobleme (BZAW 61; Giessen: Töpelmann 1932). − C. G. Howie, The Date and Composition of Ezekiel (SBLMS 4; Philadelphia: SBL 1950). − P. Joyce, Divine Initiative and Human Response in Ezekiel (JSOT.S 51; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1989); Ezekiel (London/ New York: Clark 2007). − J. Lust (ed.), Ezekiel and His Book (BETL 74; Leuven: Leuven University Press and Peeters 1986). − A. Mein, Ezekiel and the ethics of Exile (Oxford: Oxford UP 2001). − M. S. Odell, Ezekiel (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys 2005); idem/ J. T. Strong (eds.), The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives

86

Janzen, Studies (1973). Tov, Some Aspects (1981); The Septuagint Translation (1976). 88 Goldman, Prophétie (1992). 89 Stipp, Das masoretische (1994). 90 Shead, The Open (2002). 91 Sweeney, The Masoretic and Septuagint Versions (2005); cf. Hill, Friend (1999), on the oracle concerning Babylon. 92 Schenker, Das Neue (2006). 93 Allen, Jeremiah (2008). 87

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(SBLSym 9; Atlanta: SBL 2000). − K.-F. Pohlmann, Der Prophet Hesekiel/Ezechiel (ATD 22,1–2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1996–2001). − M. A. Sweeney, “Ezekiel: Zadokite Priest and Visionary Prophet of the Exile”, Form and Intertextuality (2005), 125–143. − C. C. Torrey, Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Original Prophecy (New Haven: Yale 1930; repr., New York: KTAV 1970). − W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (BKAT 13/1–2; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1969); ET: Ezekiel (Hermeneia, 2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress 1979–1983).

The book of Ezekiel has received relatively less attention than Isaiah and Jeremiah, but the questions of redaction-criticism and the formation of the book have been no less important or complicated. Following Hölscher’s study of Ezekiel, scholars continued to have difficulty with the literary and theological coherence of Ezekiel.94 Consequently, C. C. Torrey argued that the book of Ezekiel was actually a pseudepigraphical work, written ca. 230 BCE to portray Ezekiel’s condemnation of King Manasseh of Judah and later updated by the Chronicler to portray him as a priest in the Babylonian exile.95 V. Herntrich argued that the earliest portions of the book in Ezekiel 1–39 presupposed the prophet’s work in the land of Israel and that a later disciple edited Ezekiel’s work and added additional material to present him as a prophet of the Babylonian exile.96 C. G. Howie refuted arguments for a setting in the land of Israel and again identified the book as the product of the prophet in Babylonian exile, although it was subjected to later redaction.97 G. Fohrer employs tradition-historical analysis to argue that Ezekiel was a prophet of the exile who spoke to the exilic community, but later tradents reworked the prophet’s material to portray him as a Zadokite priest who addressed the people of Judah.98 W. Zimmerli attempted to bridge the divide between those who questioned Ezekiel’s authorship of the book and those who affirmed it.99 He employed a combination of form- and tradition-critical tools as well as text criticism (giving great credence to the LXX) to identify Ezekiel’s original oracles from the layers of tradition later added by the school of Ezekiel’s disciples who were steeped in the priestly traditions of the Pentateuch. M. Greenberg responded with his “holistic” interpretation of the book rather than an attempt to reconstruct the person of the prophet and the process of the book’s formation.100 Research in the aftermath of Zimmerli and Greenberg has taken up a variety of issues. E. Davis reconfigured Zimmerli’s process of oral tradition-historical development of the book into a literary activity in which Ezekiel’s tradents engaged in a scholarly analysis and development of the prophet’s original words.101 P. Joyce focuses on a theocentric interpretation of the theology of the book of Ezekiel that posits divine initiative as the impetus to rethink Israel’s relationship 94 For surveys of research, see McKeating, Ezekiel (1993) and the essays by K. Pfisterer Darr and R. Levitt Kohn in: Hauser, Recent Research (2008). Seminal collections of essays include Lust, Ezekiel (1986); Odell and Strong, The Book of Ezekiel (2000); and Cook and Patton, Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World (2004). 95 Torrey, Pseudo-Ezekiel (1930). 96 Herntrich, Ezekielprobleme (1932). 97 Howie, The Date (1950). 98 Fohrer, Die Hauptprobleme (1952); idem, with Galling, Ezechiel (1955). 99 Zimmerli, Ezekiel (1969). 100 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (1983); Ezekiel 21–37 (1997). 101 Davis, Swallowing (1989).

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with Yhwh in relation to the crisis of exile.102 D. I. Bodi pointed to Ezekiel’s dependence on the Akkadian poem of Erra, a Mesopotamian plague deity known for bringing chaos into the world,103 which prompted commentaries by D. I. Block and M. S. Odell to examine Ezekiel’s interrelationships with Mesopotamian culture, literature, and iconography.104 J. Galambush pointed to the troubling misogynistic dimensions of Ezekiel’s conceptualization of Jerusalem as Yhwh’s wife in Ezekiel 16 and 23.105 K.-F. Pohlmann worked out his understanding of the golah redaction of Ezekiel analogous to Jeremiah.106 A. Mein argued that the experience of exile prompted Ezekiel to devise an ethical strategy of human passivity in relation to Yhwh with increasing emphases on the personal and domestic spheres.107 K. Pfisterer Darr emphasizes a literary and theological interpretation of Ezekiel with a particular interest in the problem of evil evoked by the experience of exile and the modern experience of the Shoah or Holocaust.108 M. A. Sweeney emphasizes the importance of recognizing Ezekiel’s Zadokite identity and the role of the chronological formula in presenting the literary structure and conceptualization of the book.109

5.4. The Book of the Twelve Prophets Studies: G. W. Ahlström, Joel and the Temple Cult of Jerusalem (VT.S 21; Leiden: Brill 1971). − J. Barton, Joel, Obadiah (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2001). − M. Beck, Der “Tag YHWHs” im Dodekapropheton (BZAW 356; Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter 2005). − E. Ben Zvi, Hosea (FOTL 21A/1; Grand Rapids/ Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2005; A Historical-Critical Study of the Book of Obadiah (BZAW 242; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter 1996); Micah (FOTL 21B; Grand Rapids/ Cambridge 2000); A Historical-Critical Study of the Book of Zephaniah (BZAW 198; Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter 1991). − S. Bergler, Joel als Schriftinterpret (BFATAJ 16; Frankfurt a. M.: P. Lang 1988). − W. A. M. Beuken, Haggai – Sacharja 1–8. Studien zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der frühnachexilischen Prophetie (SSN 10; Assen: Van Gorcum 1967). − K. Budde, “Eine folgenschwere Redaktion des Zwölfprophetenbuchs”, ZAW 39 (1921) 218–229. − E. W. Conrad, Zechariah. Readings (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1999). − J. L. Crenshaw, Joel (AB 24C; Garden City: Doubleday 1995). − M. H. Floyd, Minor Prophets, Part 2 (FOTL 22; Grand Rapids/ Cambridge: Eerdmans 2000. − R. D. Haak, Habakkuk (VT.S 44; Leiden: Brill 1992). − R. Hanhart, Sacharja (BKAT 14/7; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1998). − A. Hill, Malachi (AB 25D; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1998). − H. Irsigler, Zephanja (HThKAT; Freiburg: Herder 2002). − M. Jacobs, Conceptual Coherence in the Book of Micah (JSOT.S 322; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2001). − J. Jeremias, Kultprophetie und Geschichtsverküngigung in der späten Königszeit Israels (WMANT 35; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1970); Der Prophet Hosea (ATD 24,1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1983); Der Prophet Amos (ATD 24,2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995); ET: The Book of Amos (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1998). − B. A. Jones, The Formation of the Book of the Twelve: A Study in Text and Canon (SBLDS 149; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1995). − F. Landy, Hosea. Readings (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995). − K. J. A. Larkin, The Eschatology

102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

Joyce, Divine Initiative (1989); Ezekiel (2007). Bodi, The Book of Ezekiel (1991). Block, The Book of Ezekiel (1997–1998); Odell, Ezekiel (2005). Galumbush, Jerusalem (1992). Pohlmann, Der Prophet (1996–2001). Mein, Ezekiel (2001). Darr, The Book of Ezekiel (2001). Sweeney, Ezekiel (2005).

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of Second Zechariah. A Study of the Formation of a Mantological Wisdom Anthology (Kampen: Kok Pharos 1994). − J. Magonet, Form and Meaning: Studies in Literary Technique in the Book of Jonah (Bern/Frankfurt a. M. 1976). − K. Marti, Das Dodekapropheton (KHAT 13; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1904). − J. L. Mays, Hosea: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster 1969); Amos: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster 1969); Micah: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster 1976). − C. L. Meyers/E. M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8 (AB 25B; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1987); Zechariah 9–14 (AB 25C; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1993). − J. D. Nogalski, Literary Precursors to the Book of the Twelve (BZAW 217; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter 1993); Redactional Processes in the Book of the Twelve (BZAW 218; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter 1993). − J. D. Nogalski/M. A. Sweeney (eds.), Reading and Hearing the Book of the Twelve (SBL.Sym 15; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature 2000). − S. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia; Minneapolis 1991). − D. L. Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8 (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster 1984); Zechariah 9–14 and Malachi (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1995). − E. Pfeiffer, “Die Disputationsworte im Buche Maleachi (Ein Beitrag zur formgeschichtlichen Struktur)”, EvTh 12 (1959) 546–568. − M. E. Polley, Amos and the Davidic Empire (New York/Oxford: Oxford UP 1989). − B. Renaud, Michée – Sophonie – Nahum (Paris: Gabalda 1987). − J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 1991). − B. Renaud, Michée – Sophonie – Nahum (Paris: Gabalda 1987). − W. Rudolph, Hosea; Joel, Amos, Obadja, Jona; Micha, Nahum, Habakuk, Zephanja; Haggai, Zecharja 1–8 9–14, Maleachi (KAT 13,1– 4; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn 1966–1976). − M. Sæbø, Sacharja 9–14. Untersuchungen von Text und Form. (WMANT 34; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1969). − A. Schart, Die Entstehung des Zwölfprophetenbuchs (BZAW 260; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter 1998). − D. A. Schneider, “The Unity of the Book of the Twelve” (Ph.D Dissertation; Yale University 1979). − B. Seiffert, Metaphorischen Reden von Gott im Hoseabuch (FRLANT 166; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1996). − C. R. Seitz, Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets (Grand Rapids: Baker 2007). − E. Sellin, Das Zwölfprophetenbuch (KAT 13; Leipzig: A. Deichert 1929–30). − M. A. Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical 2000); Zephaniah (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress 2003). − N. H. F. Tai, Prophetie als Schriftauslegung. Traditions- und Kompositionsgeschichtliche Studien (Stuttgart: Calwer 1996). − P. Trible, “The Book of Jonah”, in: L. E. Keck e.a., The New Interpreter’s Bible, 7 (Nashville: Abingdon 1996), 461–529. − J. Vlaardingerbroek, Zephaniah (HCOT; Leuven: Peeters 1999). − M.-T. Wacker, Figurationen des Weiblichen im Hosea-Buch (HBS 8; Freiburg: Herder 1996). − A. Weiser/K. Elliger, Das Buch der Zwölfpropheten (ATD 24–25; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1956). − R. E. Wolfe,“The Editing of the Book of the Twelve”, ZAW 53 (1935) 90–129. − H. W. Wolff, Dodekapropheton 1. Hosea (BKAT 14/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1965); ET: Hosea (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress 1974); Dodekapropheton 2. Joel und Amos (BKAT 14/2; Neukirchen-Vluyn; 2nd edn., 1975); ET: Joel and Amos (Hermeneia; Philadelphia 1977); Dodekapropheton 3. Obadja und Jona (BKAT 14/3; Neukirchener-Vluyn 1977); ET: Obadiah and Jonah (ContCom; Minneapolis 1986); Dodekapropheton 4. Micha (BKAT 14/4; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1982); Dodekapropheton 6. Haggai (BKAT 14/6; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1986). − G. Yee, “The Book of Hosea”, in: L. E. Keck e.a. (eds.), The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon 1996), 195–297.

The Book of the Twelve Prophets constitutes a very special case in twentieth century biblical interpretation insofar as it is recognized both as a single book, known as Teˇrê ‛aˉ s´aˉ r. “The Twelve,” in Judaism and as Ton Doˉdekapropheˉton, “The Twelve,” in Christianity, and as a collection of twelve individual prophetic books known as the Minor Prophets. A number of commentaries include all twelve of the prophetic books, but they generally treat them as individual compositions rather than as components of a whole.110 Although a few early studies

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E.g., Marti, Das Dodekapropheton (1904); Sellin, Das Zwölfprophetenbuch (1929–30); Weiser and Elliger, Das Buch der Zwölfpropheten (1956); Rudolph, Hosea (1966–1976).

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attempted to analyze the Book of the Twelve as a whole,111 the historical interests of much of the twentieth century allowed them little influence in the field.112 As with the Major Prophets, redaction-critical study of the individual books of the Twelve Prophets has led interpreters to consider both the diachronic and synchronic dimensions of the formation of each book. Redaction-critical study of Hosea reaches its high points in the commentary by H. W. WOLFF as well as commentaries by J. L. MAYS and J. JEREMIAS.113 WOLFF identifies three major transmission complexes in Hosea 1–3; 4–11; and 12–14 that originate in the words and writings of the prophet and were expanded and edited by the prophet’s disciples to form a kerygmatic work that emphasized Yhwh’s love and called upon Israel to return from its worship of foreign gods. Feminist scholars in particular challenged the apparent misogyny of the book, insofar as Hosea and Yhwh one-sidedly charge Gomer and Israel with adultery, thereby blaming the victim for her own suffering.114 Others pointed to feminine metaphor in the portrayal of Yhwh’s love for Israel.115 Although the book was initially formed during the lifetime of the prophet, the book later functioned in the Josian reform, the post-exilic period, and later times as a means to call upon its audience to adhere to Yhwh.116 Studies and commentaries on Joel emphasize the late composition of the book by pointing to the prophet’s identity as a Jerusalemite cultic prophet, the tendency toward inner-biblical exegesis, and its proto-apocalyptic character, and its bifurcation into two major components, Joel 1–2 and 3–4.117 Synchronic analysis confirms its liturgical character as a work designed to assure its readers of Yhwh’s protection of Jerusalem in the face of threat.118 Redaction-critical study of Amos again reaches its high point in the commentary of H. W. WOLFF as well as in commentaries by J. L. MAYS and J. JEREMIAS.119 WOLFF traces the book from the prophet himself through some five stages of redactional expansion in the post-exilic period. Although many redaction-critics argue that major elements of the book are post-exilic, particularly the oracle concerning the fallen booth of David in Amos 9:11–15, more recent analyses point to the prophet’s Judean identity and the political dimensions of Judah’s subjugation to northern Israel to maintain that Amos’ call for the restoration of the house of David must be original to the prophet.120

111

Budde, Eine folgeschwere (1922); Wolfe, The Editing (1935); Schneider, The Unity (1979). For an overview of scholarship, see Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (2000), 1:xv–xlii. A seminal collection of essays on the Book of the Twelve appears in Nogalski and Sweeney, eds., Reading (2000). 113 Wolff, Dodekapropheton 1. Hosea (1965); Mays, Hosea (1969); Jeremias, Der Prophet Hosea (1983). 114 E.g., Landy, Hosea (1995); YEE, The Book of Hosea (1996); Baumann, Liebe und Gewalt (2000). 115 E.g., Wacker, Figurationen (1996); Seiffert, Metaphorischen (1996). 116 Sweeney, King Josiah (2001), 256–272; idem, The Twelve Prophets (2000), 1:1–144; Ben Zvi, Hosea (2005). 117 Ahlström, Joel (1971); Bergler, Joel (1988); Wolff, Dodekapropheton 2. Joel und Amos (1975); Crenshaw, Joel (1995); Barton, Joel, Obadiah (2001). 118 Sweeney, Twelve Prophets (2000), 1:145–187. 119 Wolff, Joel und Amos (1975); Mays, Amos (1969); Jeremias, Der Prophet Amos (1995). 120 Polley, Amos (1989); PAUL, Amos (1991); Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (2000), 1:189–276. 112

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Scholars generally agree that the book of Obadiah is an exilic or post-exilic composition that condemns Edom for its role in the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.121 Redaction-critical study of Jonah,122 has generally given way to synchronic literary and rhetorical studies that emphasize the role of narrative technique and literary hyperbole in the account of Jonah’s resistance to his prophetic commission to condemn Nineveh.123 Although many interpreters were apt to view Jonah as an obstinate prophet who refused to carry out Yhwh’s commission, post-Shoah theological study demonstrates that the book is designed to address the problem of theodicy, insofar as Yhwh accepts the repentance of Nineveh, which will one day destroy Jonah’s own homeland in Israel.124 Micah is generally read as a redactional work in which the eighth-century prophet’s original oracles were edited to address the sixth century problem of Babylonian exile.125 Although the redaction-critical model is largely correct, the final form of the book presupposes divine judgment as a means to address the theological problem of theodicy and it engages in debate with Isaiah to posit a time when a Davidic monarch will arise to overthrow the oppressor.126 Nahum is generally read as a late redactional composition that portrays Nahum as a cultic prophet.127 Many interpreters decry Nahum’s celebration of violence against Nineveh, but a close reading of the text indicates that it celebrates Yhwh’s justice in bringing down an oppressor that had destroyed northern Israel.128 Questions have been raised about the literary unity of Habakkuk, particularly because Habakkuk 3 is a hymn in praise of Yhwh that differs markedly from the dialog account between the prophet and Yhwh in Habakkuk 1–2.129 Again, a close reading of the text points to the book’s coherence and its role in raising questions about divine purpose in bringing the Babylonians to dominate Jerusalem in 605 B.C.E.130 Zephaniah is frequently viewed as a post-exilic redactional composition that points to Yhwh’s eschatological restoration of Jerusalem following its period of judgment.131 A combination of linguistic and synchronic literary methods132 have aided interpreters in recognizing that Zephaniah is a largely coher-

121 Wolff, Dodekapropheton 3. Obadja und Jona (1977); Ben Zvi, A Historical-Critical Study of the Book of Obadiah (1996); Barton, Joel and Obadiah (2001); Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (2000), 1:277–300. 122 E.g., Wolff, Obadja und Jona (1977). 123 E.g., Magonet, Form (1976); Trible, The Book of Jonah (1996). 124 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (2000), 1:301–334. 125 E.g., Wolff, Dodekapropheton 4. Micha (1982); Mays, Micah (1976). 126 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (2000), 2:339–416; cf. Jacobs, Conceptual Coherence (2001); Ben Zvi, Micah (2000). 127 Jeremias, Kultprophetie (1970); cf. Floyd, Minor Prophets (2000). 128 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (2000), 2:417–449. 129 See Roberts, Nahum (1991); Floyd, Minor Prophets (2000). 130 Haak, Habakkuk (1992); Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (2000), 2:451–490. 131 E.g., Renaud, Michée (1987); cf. Floyd, The Minor Prophets (2000). 132 E.g., Ben Zvi, A Historical-Critical Study of the Book of Zephaniah (1991); Irsigler, Zephanja (2002).

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ent text that was designed to support King Josiah’s program of religious reform and national restoration in the late seventh century BCE.133 Haggai is read as an argumentative text that calls for the restoration of both the Jerusalem Temple and the royal house of David in the early Persian pe-riod.134 Zechariah is generally recognized by redaction-critics as a composite work, which includes the account of the prophet’s visions during the early Persian period of Temple reconstruction in Zechariah 1–8135 and a later proto-apocalyptic section in Zechariah 9–14.136 Zechariah 9–14 is sometimes considered as two discrete texts in Zechariah 9–11 and 12–14. Interpreters have been very interested in the tradition-historical background of Zechariah137 as well as its intertextual and interpretative relationships with earlier biblical literature.138 More recently, interpreters have begun to investigate the literary form and function of the book of Zechariah as a whole.139 Interpreters frequently question whether Malachi should be regarded as a distinct prophet, insofar as the name Malachi means simply, “my messenger,” in Hebrew, or if it should be regarded as an appendix to Zechariah akin to Zechariah 9–11 and 12–14.140 In general, it is viewed as a disputational text from the Persian period that calls for adherence to divine Torah.141 With the emergence of canonical critical approaches to the study of prophetic literature, scholars in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries have turned to the question of the interpretation of the Book of the Twelve as a whole.142 A number of studies, such as those by J. D. Nogalski, A. Schart, and M. Beck have attempted to trace the redactional formation of the Book of the Twelve from the time of the initial composition of the original prophets through the Persian and Hellenistic periods,143 although these studies suffer from a failure to consider the literary form and arrangement of the LXX form and other textual editions of the Book of the Twelve.144 M. A. Sweeney has employed a canonical approach that considers the significance of the LXX form of the book, and C. R. Seitz has emphasized a Christian theological and hermeneutical approach that assumes the MT to be normative.145

133

Sweeney, Zephaniah (2003); cf. Vlardingerbroeck, Zephaniah (1999). Wolff, Dodekapropheton, 6. Haggai (1986); Petersen, Haggai (1984); C. L. Meyers and E. M. Meyers, Haggai (1987); Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 2 (2000), 527–557. 135 Petersen, Haggai (1984); C. L. Meyers and E. M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8 (1987); Hanhart, Sacharja (1998). 136 C. L. Meyers and E. M. Meyers, Zechariah 9–14 (1993); Petersen, Zechariah 9–14 (1995). 137 E.g., Beuken, Haggai – Sacharja 1–8 (1967); Sæbø, Sacharja 9–14 (1969). 138 E.g., Larkin, The Eschatology (1994); Tai, Prophetie (1996). 139 Conrad, Zechariah (1999); Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 2 (2000), 559–709. 140 Petersen, Zechariah 9–14 (1995); Hill, Malachi (1998). 141 Pfeifer, Die Disputationsworte (1959); Sweeney, Twelve Prophets, 2 (2000), 711–752. 142 Conrad, Reading the Latter Prophets (2003). 143 Nogalski, Literary Precursors (1993); Redactional Processes (1993); Schart, Die Entstehung (1998); Beck, Der “Tag Yhwhs” (2005). 144 For discussion of the textual versions of the Book of the Twelve, see esp. B. A. Jones, The Formation (1995). 145 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (2000); Seitz, Prophecy and Hermeneutics (2007). 134

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6. Conclusions and Prospects for Future Study At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the study of the prophetic literature has changed markedly from the work that was done in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Whereas the identification of the original words of the prophets and the earliest literary sources were the primary concerns of earlier scholarship, the field has turned increasingly to consideration of the literary character of the prophetic books. Such a shift includes a number of dimensions, such as the concerns with the historical process of the composition of the prophetic books; the communicative and rhetorical strategies employed in prophetic discourse to engage in dialog with its audience and to persuade it to adopt a given set of beliefs and actions; the intertextual relationships among the prophetic books, both within themselves and with other works; the roles of the textual versions of the prophetic books in discerning both the historical readings of the prophetic literature and their respective constructions of the meaning of the prophetic texts; and the theological and hermeneutical interpretation of the prophetic books.146 Although the course of the twenty-first century study of the prophetic books is yet to be seen, prospects for the future appear to be very bright.

146

See esp. Baumann, Liebe und Gewalt (2000), on feminist hermeneutics, and Heschel, The Prophets (1962), and Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible (2008), on Jewish readings of the Bible.

Chapter Forty-Three

The Psalms – Their Cultic Setting, Forms and Traditions By Corinna Körting, Hamburg / Oslo Sources and studies: A. Aejmelaeus / U. Quast (eds.), Der Septuaginta-Psalter und seine Tochterübersetzungen: Symposium in Göttingen 1997 (Mitteilungen des Septuagintaunternehmens 24; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2000). – A. Alt, “Gedanken über das Königtum Jahwes“ (1945), repr. in: idem, Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel, I (München: Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1953), 345–357. – R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (Edinburgh: Clark 2000). – P. Auffret, La sagesse a bâti sa maison. Étude de structure littéraire dans l’Ancien Testament et spécialement dans les psaumes (OBO 49; Fribourg/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1982). – E. Balla, Das Ich der Psalmen (FRLANT 16; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1912). – J. Becker, Israel deutet seine Psalmen (SBS 18; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk 1966). – R. T. Beckwith, “Courses of the Levites and the Eccentric Psalms Scrolls from Qumran”, RdQ 11 (1984) 499–524. – J. Begrich, “Das priesterliche Heilsorakel”, ZAW 52 (1934) 81–92. – A. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (Bloomington: Indiana UP 1985). – K.-H. Bernhardt, Das Problem der altorientalischen Königsideologie im Alten Testament unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Geschichte der Psalmenexegese dargestellt und kritisch gewürdigt (VT.S 8; Leiden: Brill 1961). – H. Birkeland, Die Feinde des Individuums in der israelitischen Psalmliteratur (Oslo: Grøndahl 1933). – Ch. A. Briggs / E. G. Briggs, The Book of Psalms,1–2 (ICC; Edinburgh: Clark 1906). – W. Brueggemann, “Psalms as Prayer“, in: The Psalms and the Life of Faith (ed. P. D. Miller; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995), 33–66; repr. from Reformed Liturgy and Music 23 (1989) 13–26; “Bounded by Obedience and Praise: The Psalms as Canon”, The Psalms and the Life of Faith (ed. P. D. Miller; Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995), 189–213. – W. Burkert / F. Stolz (eds.), Hymnen der Alten Welt im Kulturvergleich (OBO 131; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/ Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1994). – P. C. Craigie, Psalms (WBC 19; Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers 2004). – F. Crüsemann, Studien zur Formgeschichte von Hymnus und Danklied in Israel (WMANT 32; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1969). – U. Dahmen, Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption im Frühjudentum. Rekonstruktion, Textbestand, Struktur und Pragmatik der Psalmenrolle 11QPsa aus Qumran (STDJ 49; Leiden: Brill 2003). – M. Dahood, Psalms (AncB 16; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1965). – A. Deissler, Die Psalmen, 1–3 (Düsseldorf: Patmos 1963–1965). – G. R. Driver, “The Psalms in the light of Babylonian Research”, The Psalmists (ed. D. C. Simpson; London: Claredon Press 1926), 109–175. – B. Duhm, Die Psalmen (KHC XIV; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; 2. verm. u. verbess. Aufl. 1922). – J. H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms (SBT Second Series 32; London 1976). – I. Engnell, Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell 1943); references in HBOT are to 2nd edn.: Oxford: Blackwell 1967); “Psaltaren”, Svenskt bibliskt uppslagsverk (ed. idem; Stockholm: Nordiska uppslagsböcker; 21962–1963), II, col. 618–657. – M. Emmendörffer, Der ferne Gott. Eine Untersuchung der alttestamentlichen Volksklagelieder vor dem Hintergrund der mesopotamischen Literatur (FAT 21; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1998). – H.J. Fabry, “Der Psalter in Qumran”, in: Der Psalter in Judentum und Christentum (ed. E. Zenger; HBS 18; Freiburg: Herder 1998), 137–163.– E. S. Gerstenberger, Der bittende Mensch (WMANT 51; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1980). – S. Gillingham, Psalms Through the Centuries, I (Blackwell Bible Commentaries; Oxford: Blackwell 2008). – M. Girard, Les Psaume redécouverts. De la structure aus sens (Québec: Bellarmin, Vol. II 1994; Vol. III 1994; Vol. I, 2. edn. 1996; 1. edn. under the title Les Psaumes. Analyse structurelle et interprétation [Recherches, nouvelle série 2;

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Montreal/Paris 1984]). – M. D. Goulder, The Psalms of the Sons of Korah (JSOT.S 20; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1982). – V. Grønbech, The Culture of the Teutons. 1–2 (London/ Copenhagen: Oxford UP and Jespersen og Pios forlag 1931; tr. by W. Worster; first published as: Vor folkeæt i oldtiden; København: Pios Boghandel 1909–1912). – H. Gunkel, “Die Psalmen”, Zur neueren Psalmenforschung (ed. P. H. A. Neumann; WdF 192; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1976, 19–54, repr. from Deutsche Rundschau XXXVIII [1911] 241–261); “Psalmen”, RGG IV (ed. F. M. Schiele / L. Zscharnack; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1913), col. 1927–1949; RGG IV (21930), col. 1609–1627; Die Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 41929; references in HBOT are to 61986); Einleitung in die Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1933; references in HBOT are to 41985). – H. Gzella, ”Die Wiege des griechischen David. Die Diskussion um die Entstehung des Septuaginta-Psalters in der neueren Forschung”, Der Septuaginta-Psalter. Sprachliche und Theologische Aspekte (ed. E. Zenger; HBS 32; Freiburg: Herder 2001), 19–47; Lebenszeit und Ewigkeit (BBB 134; Berlin/Wien: Philo 2002). – P. W. Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls & the Book of Psalms (StTDJ 17; Leiden: Brill 1997). – J. G. Herder, Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie,1–2 (Dessau 1782/83). – H. Herkenne, Das Buch der Psalmen (Bonn: Hanstein 1936). – F. Hitzig, Die Psalmen, 1–2 (Leipzig/Heidelberg: Wintersche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1863/1865). – S. Hjelde, Sigmund Mowinckel und seine Zeit (FAT 50; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2006). – W. L. Holladay, The Psalms through Three Thousand Years (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2000). – S. H. Hooke (ed.), Myth and Ritual (London: Oxford UP 1933); “The Myth and Ritual Pattern of the Ancient East“, Myth and Ritual (ed. idem; London: Oxford UP 1933). – F.-L. Hossfeld/ E. Zenger, Die Psalmen, I-II (NEB; Würzburg: Echter 1993, 2002); Psalmen (HThKAT; Freiburg: Herder II, 2000; III, 2008). – E. Jain / A. Steudel, “Les manuscrits psalmique de la Mer Morte et la reception du Psautier à Qumran”, RevSR 77 (2003) 529–543. – B. Janowski, “»Thronbesteigungsfest im Alten Testament« Ein unveröffentlichtes Manuskript S. Mowinckels und sein wissenschaftlicher Kontext”, ZAW 105 (1993) 270–278; “Die »Kleine Biblia«“. Der Psalter in Judentum und Christentum (ed. E. Zenger; Freiburg: Herder 1998), 381–420; “Das Königtum Gottes in den Psalmen“, in: Gottes Gegenwart in Israel. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, I (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner 22004), 148– 213; (first published in ZThK 86 [1989] 389–454); Konfliktgespräche mit Gott. Eine Anthropologie der Psalmen (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner 22006). – M. Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens (Giessen: Töpelmann [vorm. Ricker] 1905/1912). – J. Jeremias, Das Königtum Gottes in den Psalmen (FRLANT 141; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1987). – L. C. Jonker, “Revisiting the Psalm Headings: Second Temple Levitical Propaganda“, Psalms and Liturgy (ed. D. J. Human/ C. J. A. Vos; JSOT.S 410; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2004), 102–122. – O. Keel, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament. Am Beispiel der Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 51996). – W. Klatt, Hermann Gunkel. Zu seiner Theologie der Religionsgeschichte und zur Entstehung der formgeschichtlichen Methode (FRLANT 100; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1969). – E. J. Kissane, The Book of Psalms (Dublin: Richview Press; Vol. I, 1953). – R. Kittel, Die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (Leipzig: Quelle und Meyer 41921); Die Psalmen (KAT 13; Leipzig: Deichert 1922/1929). – R. G. Kratz, “Die Tora Davids. Psalm 1 und die Fünfteilung des Psalters”, ZThK 93 (1996) 1–34. – K. Koch, Was ist Formgeschichte? (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1964). – M. C. A. Korpel / J. C. de Moor, ”Fundamentals of Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry”, in: The Structural Analysis of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry (ed. W. van der Meer/ J. C. de Moor; JSOT.S 74; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1988), 1–61. – C. Körting, Der Schall des Schofar. Israels Feste im Herbst (BZAW 285; Berlin/New York: de Guyter 1999); Zion in den Psalmen (FAT 48; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2006). – H.-J. Kraus, Psalmen,1–2 (BK XV/1–2; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener 51978); Theologie der Psalmen (BK XV /3; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1979). – A. Krüger, Das Lob des Schöpfers. Studien zur Sprache, Motivik und Theologie von Ps 104 (WMANT 124; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2009). – J. L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and its History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 1998). – M. Leuenberger, “Aufbau und Pragmatik des 11QPsa-Psalters”, RevQ 22/2 (2005) 165–211. – F. Lindström, Suffering and Sin. Interpretations of Illness in the Individual Complaint Psalms (CB.OT 37; Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell 1994). − M. Löhr, Psalmenstudien (BWAT NF 3; Berlin/Stuttgart/Leipzig: Kohlhammer 1922). – O. Loretz / I. Kottsieper, Colometry in Ugaritic and Biblical Poetry. Introduction, Illustrations and Topical Bibliography (Ugaritisch-Biblische Literatur, 5; Altenberge: CIS-Verlag 1987). – M. Luther,“Zweite Vorrede auf den Psalter” (1528), Luthers Vorreden zur Bibel (ed. H. Bornkamm; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; 42005; cf. WA.DB 10/1, 98–104). – R. Lowth, De sacra poesi hebraeorum prealectiones academicae Oxonii habitae (1787), published as Lectures on

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the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews (ed. G. Grégory; London/ Hildesheim: Olms). – J. L. Mays, “The Place of the Torah-Psalms in the Psalter”, JBL 106 (1987) 3–12; “The Question of Context in Psalm Interpretation”, in: The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter (ed. J. C. McCann; JSOT.S 159; Sheffield: Sheffield Acadamic Press 1993), 14–20; Psalms (Interpretation; Louisville: John Knox Press 1994). – J. C. McCann (ed.), Shape and Shaping of the Psalter (JSOT.S 159; Sheffield; Sheffield Academic Press 1993); A Theological Instruction to the Book of Psalms. The Psalms as Torah (Nashville: Abingdon 1993). – M. Martilla, Collective Reinterpretation in the Psalms (FAT II/13; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2006). – R. Meynet, Rhetorical Analysis. An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric (JSOT.S 256; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). – M. Millard, Die Komposition des Psalters. Ein formgeschichtlicher Ansatz (FAT 9; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1994). – S. Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien,1–6 (Oslo 1921–1924; references in HBOT are to the repr. Amsterdam: Schippers 1961); Offersang og Sangoffer (Oslo 1951; references in HBOT are to the repr. Oslo: Aschehoug 1980); Religion und Kultus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1953). – R. Müller, Jahwe als Wettergott (BZAW 387; Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter 2009). – J. Muilenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond”, JBL 88 (1969) 1–18. – R. E. Murphy, “Reflections on Contextual Interpretation of the Psalms”, The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter (ed. J. C. McCann; JSOT.S 159; Sheffield: Sheffield Acadamic Press 1993), 21–28. – H. P. Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs (JSOT.S 218; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1999). – P. H. A. Neumann (ed.), Zur neueren Psalmenforschung (WdF 192; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1976). – S. Olofsson, God is my Rock. A Study of Translation Technique and Theological Exegesis in the Septuagint (CB.OT 31; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1990). – J. Olshausen, Die Psalmen (KEH 14; Leipzig: Hirzel 1853). – J. van Oorschot, “Nachkultische Psalmen und biblische Rollendichtung”, ZAW 106 (1994) 69–86. – E. Otto/ E. Zenger (eds.), “Mein Sohn bist du (Ps 2,7)”. Studien zu den Königspsalmen (SBS 192; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 2002). – R. E. Prothero, The Psalms in Human Life (London1903). – G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1 (München: Kaiser 1957; 91987). – N. H. Ridderbos, Die Psalmen. Stilistische Verfahren und Aufbau (BZAW 117; Berlin / New York: de Gruyter 1972). – H. Ringgren, Psaltarens Fromhet (Stockholm: Diakonistyrelses Bokförlag 1957; references in HBOT are to The Faith of the Psalmists, Philadelphia: Fortress 1963). – H. W. Robinson, “The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality”, in: Werden und Wesen des Alten Testaments (BZAW 66; Berlin: Töpelmann 1936), 49–62; “The Group and the Individual in Israel”, The Individual in East and West (ed. E. R. Hughes; Oxford: Oxford UP 1937). – E. Rohland, Die Bedeutung der Erwählungstraditionen Israels für die Eschatologie der alttestamentlichen Propheten (Diss. masch. Heidelberg 1956). – M. Rösel, “Theo-logie der griechischen Bibel. Zur Wiedergabe der Gottesaussagen im LXX-Pentateuch”, VT 48 (1998) 49–62; “Die Psalmenüberschriften des Septuaginta-Psalters”, Der Septuaginta-Psalter (ed. E. Zenger; HBS 32; Freiburg e.a.: Herder 2001), 125–148. – J. A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsa) (DJD IV; Oxford: Clarendon Press 1965); The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1967). − J. Schaper, Eschatology in the Greek Psalter (WUNT II/76; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1995); “Der Septuaginta-Psalter“, in: Der Psalter in Judentum und Christentum (ed. E. Zenger; Freiburg: Herder 1998), 165–183. – H. Schmid, “Jahwe und die Kulttraditionen von Jerusalem”, ZAW 67 (1955) 168–197. – H. Schmidt, Die Thronfahrt Jahves am Fest der Jahreswende im alten Israel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1927); Die Psalmen (HAT 1/15; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1934). – W. H. Schmidt, Königtum Gottes in den Psalmen (BZAW 80; Berlin: Töpelmann 1961; references in HBOT are to 21966). – K. Seybold, Die Psalmen (HAT I/15, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1996); Poetik der Psalmen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 2003). – P. Skehan, “A Liturgical Complex in 11QPsa”, CBQ 34 (1973) 195–205. – R. Smend, “Über das Ich der Psalmen”, ZAW 8 (1888) 49–147. – J. A. Smith, “Which Psalms were Sung in the Temple?“, Music and Letters 7 (1990) 167–186. – H. Spieckermann, Heilsgegenwart Gottes in den Psalmen (FRLANT 148; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989); “Alttestamentliche ‘Hymnen’”, Hymnen der Alten Welt im Kulturvergleich (ed. W. Burkert / F. Stolz; OBO 131; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag / Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1994), 97–108. – J. J. Stamm, “Ein Vierteljahrhundert Psalmenforschung”, ThR NF 23 (1955) 1–68. – O.-H. Steck, Friedensvorstellungen im alten Jerusalem (ThSt 111; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag 1972). – F. Stolz, Strukturen und Figuren im Kult von Jerusalem (BZAW 118; Berlin: de Gruyter 1970); Psalmen im nachkultischen Raum (ThSt (B) 129; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag 1983). – R. J. Tournay, Seeing and Hearing God in the Psalms. The Prophetic Liturgy from the Second Temple in Jerusalem (JSOT.S 118; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1991; first published under the title: Voir et entendre Dieu avec les psaumes ou la liturgie prophetique du second Temple à Jerusalem). – H. St. J. Thackeray, The Septuagint and Jewish Worship (London: Oxford UP 1921).

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– J. Trublet/ J.-N. Aletti, Approche poétique et théologique des psaumes (Paris: Les Éditions du cerf 1983). – I. Tov, Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research (Jerusalem: Simor, 2nd edn., rev. and enl. 1997). – J. C. Vanderkam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1994; references in HBOT are to Einführung in die Qumranforschung, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1998). – P. Volz, Das Neujahrsfest Jawes (SGV 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1912). − G. Wanke, Die Zionstheologie der Korachiten (BZAW 97; Berlin: Töpelmann 1966). − O. Weber, Literatur der Babylonier und Assyrer (Leipzig: Hinrichs 1907). – A. Weiser, Die Psalmen, 1–2 (ATD 14; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 41955). – M. Weiss, “Wege der neuen Dichtungswissenschaft in ihrer Anwendung auf die Psalmenforschung”, Bib. 42 (1961) 255–302; “Die Methode der ‘TotalInterpretation’”, in: Congress Volume Uppsala 1971 (VT.S 22; Leiden: Brill 1972), 88–112. – C. Westermann, Lob und Klage in den Psalmen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 61983; first published as Das Loben Gottes in den Psalmen; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1954); “Zur Sammlung des Psalters”, in: idem, Forschung am Alten Testament (TB 24; München: Kaiser 1964), 336–343 (first published in: Theologia Viatorum VIII, 1961/62, 278–284). – W. M . L. De Wette, Commentar über die Psalmen nebst beigefügter Uebersetzung (Heidelberg: Mohr 51856). – G. Widengren, The Accadian and Hebrew Psalms of Lamentation as Religious Documents. A Comparative Study (Uppsala: Aktiebolaget Thule 1937); Sakrales Königtum im Alten Testament und im Judentum (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1955). – G. H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (SBL.DS 76; Chico, CA: Scholars Press 1985); “Evidence of Editorial Devisions in the Hebrew Psalter”, VT 34 (1984) 337–352; “The Shape of the Book of Psalms“, Int. 46 (1992) 129–142. – Th. Wittstruck, The Book of Psalms. An Annotated Bibliography, 1–2 (Books of the Bible, 5; Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 1413; New York/London: Garland 1994). – E. Zenger, “Psalmenforschung nach Hermann Gunkel und Sigmund Mowinckel”, Congress Volume Oslo 1998 (ed. A. Lemaire/M. Sæbø; VT.S 80; Leiden: Brill 2000), 399–435; idem (ed.), Der Psalter in Judentum und Christentum (HBS 18; Freiburg: Herder 1998); idem (ed.), Der Septuaginta-Psalter. Sprachliche und theologische Aspekte (HBS 32; Freiburg: Herder 2001). – W. Zimmerli, “Zwillingspsalmen”, Wort, Lied und Gottesspruch. Beiträge zu Propheten und Psalmen (ed. J. Schreiner; Würzburg: Echter 1972), 105–113. – H. Zimmern, Beiträge zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion (Leipzig: Hinrichs 1896–1901); Babylonische Hymnen und Gebete (Leipzig: Hinrichs 1905).

1. Introduction Psalms research in the twentieth century has been incredibly productive1, a wide range of material has been explored, methods have been applied and theological questions have been raised. Nevertheless, there is a recurrent theme visible through all these years of research and there are two figure-heads guiding it. The recurrent theme is the relation between psalms and cult; the two figure-heads are the German Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932) and the Norwegian Sigmund Mowinckel (1884–1965). There is almost no approach or question posed on the Psalms, that does not require a form of response to their scholarly work. Even if a connection to the cult or a specific genre is neglected, a statement is necessary, simply ex negativo. The given headline for the article “The Psalms – Their Cultic Setting, Forms and Traditions” follows up the main questions Gunkel and Mowinckel raised and 1 Wittstruck, Book of Psalms (1994), offers an almost complete bibliography on literature written on the Psalms during the twentieth century. Recommending this tremendous work, of about 1000 pages, I intend to give the reader a good address to start looking for literature including research overviews and commentaries and I myself take the opportunity to reduce the bibliography to a minimum, which is necessary in order to show the main questions that were discussed during the last century.

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points to the impressive impact they had on research. The first section therefore deals with questions on genre and how they were answered by Gunkel as well as discussed in later research. The centrality of the cult as a part of human life, as well as the tradition of God’s enthronement, will be presented in the second section, mainly according to Mowinckel’s reseach. Taking this as a basis, questions around methodological plurality will be treated. Such plurality also exists in psalm research, despite the overbalance of genre research, and includes such topics as the search for a theology of the Psalms, the current approach on “Shape and Shaping of the Psalter” – once more a subject that points to the fact that scholarly work on the Psalms has moved through the years between reading the Psalms as texts used in the cult and reading the Psalms as literature – as well as the challenges for psalm research given by studies on the Septuagint and the Qumran Scrolls. The influence of other fields of research on the scholarly work on the Psalms cannot be underestimated, especially Near Eastern Studies, with its opening up of the literary sources of the Ancient Near East and Egypt, as well as the history of religion; these will not be dealt-with in distinct sections but will be mentioned at appropriate places. This leads to the challenge of writing about psalm research within a limited space. There are too many aspects which cannot be mentioned. Only that which has been decisive, according to our view, will be presented mainly by way of examples, either regarding authors or regarding subjects. Research on the Psalms over the last 100 years has not been isolated, but relates to the influence of prophecy, torah piety or wisdom tradition on the Psalms, their language and their literary growth. The richness of ancient Near Eastern and Israelite iconography and language had an impact on the texts that had to be captured and interpreted. Psalm research is a part of Old Testament studies but with its own profile and with texts that are documents of spiritual life that were through the centuries an invitation to others to join in (Brueggemann).

2. Form- and Genre-Criticism Hand in hand with the start of the twentieth century, a new epoch in psalm research began. The nineteenth century research was governed by the attempt to read the texts against their presumed historical background – which was generally regarded as of the late Old Testament or Maccabean period.2 In accordance with this guideline, B. Duhm came to the conclusion that there is no psalm that brings the unprejudiced reader to the conclusion that it could stem from preexilic times.3 Duhm’s dating of the Psalms – his commentary must probably be regarded as the closure of nineteenth century psalm research – pushes the envelope of what might be possible. He calls the Psalms witnesses of the time in which they were written, collected and used. Being convinced that a precise

2 3

Olshausen, Die Psalmen (1853), 7; Hitzig, Die Psalmen (vol. 2 1865), V-XII. Duhm, Psalmen (1922), XXI.

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dating is necessary and possible, he dates Ps 137, as the oldest psalm, back to the exile; Ps 74 shows the agitation of the pious Jews under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes; Ps 110 was written under the Hasmoneans when the High Priest and king stemmed from the same family.4 Duhm adhered more or less to his conclusions also in the second edition of his Psalm commentary in 1922. But during the 20 years between the two editions, the basis for psalm research had changed completely.

The findings of historical and religious documents in Egypt and Mesopotamia between 1850 and 1900 CE, as well as the subsequent ability to decipher and translate the documents especially during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, led to a new orientation in research.5 One of the first scholars who reacted to this new development was R. Kittel6. He correlated Israelite psalm poetry with Egyptian and Mesopotamian models and asserted the antiquity of parts of the Israelite Psalter, some parts being as old as Israel itself.7 It is not only a question of age, however, but also the question of dependence that is so crucial for research. This is discussed e.g. regarding Ps 104 and the hymn of Akhnaton or the Canaanite background of Ps 139 – problems that are still not completely resolved and which are therefore still the subject of research at the beginning of the twenty-first century.8 Gunkel also expressed his excitement over the material found in the Ancient Near East. He said about the Babylonian hymns that their discovery was the most important incident for psalm research in the nineteenth century.9 However, Gunkel had a perspective on the material that was rather different from his predecessors. The focus was not on a specific historical situation in which a psalm was composed or a certain text as Vorlage, but rather on what was “common” – a “common” situation, an “over-individual” language. What Gunkel found indicated that the texts were not first and foremost composed in relation to individual situations and needs, but rather in relation to their application to more formal worship,10 as their Sitz im Leben – their setting in life. This did not exclude the possibility, however, that a psalm conceived in a particular situation could find its way into the cult, particularly when it reflected a situation that was sufficiently typical. Others had mentioned before that the Psalter had to be regarded as the songbook for the second temple community.11 What was different now was the way Gunkel related the psalms to specific occasions in the cult. The service with its

4

Ibid. XX-XXVI. An overview over the material that was available and the challenges for OT research in the beginning of the twentieth century is given by Kittel, Die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (41921); Jastrow, Religion (1905/1912); Zimmern, Babylonische Religion (1896–1901); Babylonische Hymnen (1905); Weber, Literatur (1907); Driver, The Psalms (1926). More can be found e.g. in Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 6 f. 6 He does it from the 3rd to the 6th edition of his Psalm commentary: Kittel, Die Psalmen (1922/1929). 7 Kittel, Die Psalmen (1922/1929), XXXII. 8 Cf. Krüger, Lob (2009); Müller, Jahwe (2009). 9 Cf. Gunkel, Psalmen (1913, 1929). 10 Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 11. 11 Cf. Briggs / Briggs, Psalms (1906), xx. Different from the conception of the Psalter as a songbook, Duhm was very clear in his statement that most of the Psalms were never sung in the temple, Psalmen (1922) XXVI. 5

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ceremonies as the setting in life gives, according to Gunkel, space for numerous situations where psalms originally had specific functions, and where their language had a formulaic character. Grouping psalms which belonged to the same cultic occasion, and describing these occasions as well as the related texts with form and content, was his primary objective. For the psalms of thanksgiving, form and setting in life could look as follows: Thanksgiving psalms12 (tôdaˉh) accompany the thanksgiving sacrifice (tôdaˉh). The texts give information about the specific situation, such as lifting the cup of salvation (Ps 116:13) or the dance around the altar (Ps 118:27).13 He finds twenty of these songs in the Psalter and beyond.14 The motivation to sing these songs is an experience of rescue from great distress. Important elements of the form or schema which they follow are: 1) an introduction, such as “I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me” (Ps 30:2; NRSV Ps 30:1), with the name of the Lord as the object of praise or as a vocative; 2) a main part that narrates God’s good deeds of various contents, such as “O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit“ (Ps 30:3–415; NRSV Ps 30:2–3); 3) a closure with a confession understood possibly also as a teaching for the community, such as “For his anger is but for a moment; his favour is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Ps 30:6; NRSV Ps 30:5).16 Gunkel completed his reflections on the thanksgiving songs by pointing to the similarities in form found in Egyptian, Phoenician and Babylonian thanksgiving songs. He concluded that Israel and its neighbours had these songs in common from ancient times.17

2.1. Genre according to Already W. M. L. de Wette, in his commentary on the Psalms, followed the suggestion first proposed by J. G. Herder,18 to read and understand the Psalms as part of oriental culture. De Wette classified the Psalms based on repetitions of thoughts, pictures and phrases. He mentioned hymns, demotic psalms, Zion or temple psalms, royal psalms, laments, and religious and moralistic psalms.19 It took almost a century before his approach was taken further and systematized. It was Gunkel who first gave it a foundation that made form and genre criticism a method governing psalm research for almost the entire next century.

12 Interestingly, Gunkel does not distinguish between thanksgiving for the individual and the community like he does for the lament. 13 Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 16 f, 265 f. 14 Pss 18; 30; 32; 34; 40:2–12; 41; 66; 92 (100) (107); 116; 118; 138; Isa 38:10–20; Job 33:26–28; Jonah 2:3–10; Jes Sir 51; PsSal 15; 16; OdSal 25; 29; cf. Einleitung (1933), 265. 15 Gunkel mentions here Ps 30:2–4 (Einleitung, 268). V. 2 has not been repeated because it was mentioned also as the example for the introduction. 16 Gunkel, Einleitung (1933) 265 ff. 17 Gunkel, Psalmen (1913, 1937); Einleitung (1933) 284 ff. 18 Herder, Vom Geist (1782/83). 19 De Wette, Psalmen (51856) 3 f.

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Gunkel established three criteria for defining the genre of the psalms: 1) Setting in the service, 2) common thoughts and sentiment, and 3) mutual form.20 He regarded the form as the most crucial feature ; if scholars just worked carefully enough it would be possible, according to Gunkel, to avoid subjectivity regarding the definition of genre.21 He regarded hymn, communal lament, individual lament and individual thanksgiving as the most important genres for Israelite service. Hymns, (Hebr. tehillîm) are praises of God, his name, his deeds, his attributes: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Ps 103:8). Their sentiment is praise, adoration, exaltation and admiration.22 The hymnic form is characterized by introductory imperatives that call upon one-self and others to praise, followed by an explanation: “Sing to the Lord, for (Hebr. kî ) he has triumphed gloriously” (Exod 15:21). Their setting is the holy place, the court of the Lord. The closer context is offering and festival.23 The communal lament had, according to Gunkel, its setting in the service connected to fasting (e.g. Ps 44:26; Jer 3:25). It was not celebrated regularly, but only when necessary due to drought, famine or war. If the laments are of “pure style” they address God in the 2nd pers.sg. (e.g. Pss 12:2; 44:2; 60:3; 74:1; 79:1), and the group speaks in 1st pers. pl. (e.g. Ps 79). The expressed pain comes to a climax in questions like “why” or “how long” followed by a plea for help (e.g. Ps 79:5). The certainty of being heard and a promise to praise God close these laments (cf. Pss 10:16–18; 12:8 f; 60:14; 79:13; 126:5 f). The Psalms of individual lament form are, according to Gunkel, the foundation of the Psalter.24 The setting in life for these texts is once again the cult. The prayers are spoken in the morning (e.g. Pss 57:9; 59:17) or the evening (e.g. Exod 29:41; Lev 6:13) when a divine oracle or divine intervention is to be expected, and often in connection with offerings (e.g. Ps 5).25 In general, the psalms of individual lament start by addressing God (e.g. Ps 13.2), followed by the lament of two different types: the narration that describes the circumstances of the petitioner beginning in the past but reaching into the present (expressed in present perfect) and the report that describes the present situation (expressed in imperfect).26 The kernel of these songs is the petition, introduced with: “hear my voice” (Ps 64:1; MT Ps 64:2), “hear my prayer” (Ps 39:12; MT Ps 39:13) and many other similar variants (expressed with the imperative often followed by an explanation; cf. Ps 13:4 f). A confession of trust, a protest of innocence, or even a vow of thanksgiving can be combined with the plea. Many of the psalms of individual lament close with a thanksgiving, which often appears very abruptly in the texts (cf. Pss 6:9 ff; 22:22 ff; 31:22 ff; 56:13 ff). This change of mood (Stimmungsumschwung) was given various explanations; Gunkel himself already gave more than one. Referring to Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah, he took into account a salvation oracle that is not mentioned but where the mood of the petitioner changes. Additionally, he stresses that the prayer itself, turning to God, causes the metamorphosis.27

Besides these four main categories, Gunkel described a considerable number of “smaller” genres, subcategories or mixed genres as well as the influence of prophecy and wisdom literature on the form and content of the Psalms. He treated

20

Gunkel, Einleitung (1933) 22 f. Gunkel, ibid. 22 Gunkel, ibid. 68. 23 Gunkel, ibid. 59. 24 Gunkel, ibid. 173. 25 Gunkel, ibid. 176 f. 26 Gunkel, ibid. 212 ff. 27 Gunkel, ibid. 246 f. Regarding this question, it is necessary to note that Gunkel’s Einleitung was published posthumously by Begrich. Esp.§ 6 of the Einleitung shows the influence of Begrich which Gunkel clearly appreciated before his death (Einleitung, 5*). On the specific prophetic oracles Begrich, Heilsorakel (1934), 81–92. 21

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the Yhwh-enthronement psalms as a “smaller” genre or sub-category of hymns, designating them as eschatological hymns.28 Interestingly, this seems to be the result of Gunkel’s discussion with Mowinckel, because these texts are given much more attention and a more prominent place of discussion in Gunkel’s Introduction than they are given in the two earlier published RGG-articles on the subject.29 The genre most closely related is the royal psalms.30 Another important subcategory of the hymns is the so-called Zion psalms.31 Smaller genres are blessing, pilgrimage songs, and the paean or torah psalms.32 Divergences from the standard were regarded as a sign of the religious and poetical strength of the poets going beyond schemas.33 Nevertheless, the diversity of genres to be found in the Psalter, the alterations genres underwent, and the difficulty in finding examples of pure style point to a problem already Gunkel tried to find an answer to. There is first of all a remarkable distance between service/cult and the many psalms. Gunkel himself described it as the liberation of religion from service and Church; it is the soul that steps before the Lord – without the cult as mediator.34 The typical features of form are still present but thoughts and procedures are different from the original genre. Gunkel called these psalms therefore geistliche Lieder (private psalmody).35 Besides the problem that the definition of genre might overrun its boundaries by establishing such a category, the question of the character of the cult is affected. Therefore it is no surprise that it was especially Mowinckel who reacted strongly against the category of private psalmody. In his view, the psalms were per definitionem cultic songs, the natural form of a cultic prayer.36 F. Stolz took up the problem several years later and offered a new perspective on reading a great many of the psalms as texts im nachkultischen Raum (in a post-cultic setting).37 This means that he read them as composed in a context where cult could no longer offer any sufficient orientation or life-creating order. He gave a theological instead of a historical explanation to the phenomenon, because it is not only to be found when the temple no longer existed but can already be seen in the prophecy of the eighth century BCE that expounded the problems of cult and that was looking for God acting beyond the actual cult. Stolz’ answer was that it is individual reflection more than cultic practice that must provide the missing orientation, while the language is still governed by cult terminology.38 The frame for interpretation Stolz proposed was an attempt to explain the dissociation of the Psalms from cult occasions, without cutting the connection completely. 28 Gunkel, ibid. 94. He numbered among them esp. Ps 93; 97 and 99, but takes into account also Ps 47; 96 and 98. 29 Gunkel, Psalmen (1913), 1948; Psalmen (21930), 1626. 30 Pss 2; 18; 20; 21; 45; 72; 101; 110; 132; 144:1–11, cf. also 89:47–52 (Gunkel, Einleitung [1933], 140 ff). 31 Ps 46; 48; 76; 84; 87; 122 (132) (Gunkel, Einleitung [1933], 42, 80 f). 32 Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 293 ff. 33 Gunkel, ibid. 11. 34 Gunkel, Die Psalmen (41929), 45 f; cf. also Einleitung (1933), 398. 35 Cf. Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 28, 398. 36 Cf. Mowinckel, Religion (1953), 117; Psalmenstudien, I (1922), 138–140. 37 Stolz, Psalmen (1983). 38 Cf. Stolz, Psalmen (1983), 18 f.

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2.2. Ongoing Research on Genre In general we can state that scholarly work on the Psalms after Gunkel applied the method of genre criticism by modifying it. Sometimes the result was not much more than an addition of genres, but sometimes it had a major impact on research. Two examples of the latter category follow. C. Westermann published in 1954 Das Loben Gottes in den Psalmen. His aim was to redefine the boundaries of genre as Gunkel proposed them under a theological perspective. This theological basis is, according to him, addressing God in two ways – in praise and in petition.39 Westermann pointed to the inadequacy of Hymnus and Danklied as genre descriptions because they are given either under formal criteria or because of the content of texts and are therefore not comparable.40 Instead, he suggested “praise” for both, splitting it once again into berichtendes (‘declarative’’ ) and beschreibendes Lob (‘descriptive praise’ ). This categorization allowed Westermann to interrelate Israel’s salvation history to the cult categories of the Psalter. The declarative praise came first in Israel praising the Lord of history as the saving God,41 and the praise of the preserving God followed. As a replacement for lament, Westermann chose the term Bitte (‘petition’) as the most continual part of the psalms. The given theological perspective was a step beyond the discussion of a “very unspecific” cult as a setting in life. Westermann wanted to define what lay behind it, the Geschehen vom Menschen zu Gott hin, and this is in the end, for all genres, praise and petition, the praise of God.42 The ongoing work on the hymns – for example, Crüsemann introduced in 1969 the more formal distinction between an imperativischer Hymnus (‘imperative hymn’ ) and a partizipialer Hymnus (‘participle hymn’ )43 – is a sign of the specific problems linked to the reconstruction of pure form elements hardly to be found in the texts and the proposed history of genre based on texts too young to be able to carry the burden of proof. Interestingly, Gunkel called the hymns the genre most easy to detect, while H. Spieckermann expressed his doubt whether there even exists a genre called hymns if it is based mainly on formal elements. Instead he proposes a description of hymns primarily according to their content combined with certain formal aspects.44 But where most researchers of the Psalms and of their genre would agree is on the most fundamental importance of praise for the whole Psalter in accordance with its Hebrew title tehillîm. The second example is chosen in relation to the genre of lament. While Westermann was approaching the subject of form and setting in life under decidedly theological questions, E. S. Gerstenberger was applying sociological tools as well. He took his departure in everyday petition-sayings and their form and function in the primary group.45 Those petition sayings have been applied, according to Gerstenberger, to the individual laments. Based on the supposition that the 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Cf. Westermann, Lob und Klage (61983), 115 f. Cf. Westermann, ibid. 24 f. Cf. Westermann, ibid. 94 f. n. 78, 115 f. Cf. Westermann, ibid. 117. Cf. Crüsemann, Studien zur Formgeschichte (1969). Cf. Spieckermann, Alttestamentliche ‘Hymnen (1994), 100. Cf. Gerstenberger, Mensch (1980), 62.

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lament marked the peak of a petition ceremony embedded in ritual acts of various types – in accordance with Babylonian incantation rituals – he comes to a far-ranging description of the setting in life of individual laments. Neither the individual speaking from his or her innermost heart (Gunkel)46 nor the king as the highest representative of his people in agreement with a hierarchical model of society (Mowinckel)47 stands behind these texts. They have their provenance in the primary group that had its cultic acts beside the official cult and that was rooted in family and clan traditions. Only as a secondary step were they taken up by cult officials and made part of the laments of the official cult. The question that is touched here is the question of Trägergruppen. It is a vital question in research also today, enquiring about those who were formulating, reworking and collecting the Psalms to become the Psalter. The psalms of individual or communal lament48 provoked many other questions than just the one on the setting in life. The interpretation of suffering and sin – also a title of a book from Sweden on the subject49 – is part of an ongoing discussion. Lindström argued that it is primarily the experience of God’s distance that constitutes lament. When alien powers stand between the praying person and God, when God himself turns away in anger, lament becomes audible. God’s presence is needed; life is not possible without it. The examination of guilt, sin and suffering was, according to Lindström, due to the experience of the exile and was thus a later addition to the texts.

Even after this very short presentation, it is difficult to imagine why Gunkel complained that he for many years had no visible influence on research.50 However he came to this judgment, a look at the research history leads to other conclusions. Although there were always voices arguing carefully against Gunkel’s concept of genre criticism, the majority of scholars worked throughout the last century with Gunkel’s concept of genre criticism, modifying it but not giving it up. At the close of the twentieth century the critique against the method of form criticism has become stronger. While not questioning the positive impulses form criticism had on research, its limits are seen more clearly. The high expectations that were bound to the method,51 not only with respect to psalm-research but also to the exegesis of the whole Old Testament, were not fulfilled. Three major points of criticism should be mentioned: 1) The majority of psalms cannot be allocated to a specific genre. Subcategories have to be defined or the texts have to be subsumed under Mischgattungen (‘compound genres’ ); 2) the individual texts get out of focus and the individual creativity is not sufficiently appreciated;52 3) the reconstruction of the so-called setting in life leads to a multiplicity of festival and service types. Hints at a proposed setting were collected from various texts which were reconstructed by analogy with extra-biblical material.53 46

Cf. Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 183. Cf. Mowinckel, Religion (1953), 17. 48 Cf. Emmendörffer, Ferner Gott (1998), with a tradition-historical approach. 49 Lindström, Suffering and Sin (1994). 50 Cf. Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 21. 51 Cf. Koch, Formgeschichte (1964), XIII. 52 Cf. Löhr, Psalmenstudien (1922), 2–4; Muilenburg, Form Criticism (1969), 1–18. 53 Cf. Weiss, Wege (1961), 260 f. Some of the major points of criticism are discussed by Zenger, Psalmenforschung (2000), 409 ff. 47

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3. The Significant Role of the Cult: Tradition- and Cult-historical Research 3.1. Sigmund Mowinckel and the Enthronement Festival In addition to Gunkel his student Mowinckel, who studied in 1911 in Gießen with Gunkel, had a far-reaching influence on psalm studies in the twentieth century. Taking his point of departure, like Gunkel, in the conviction that the identification of the genre of psalms and their function in the religious life of Israel was fundamental for the scientific interpretation of the Psalms, he finally came, due to a different understanding of cult, to conclusions quite dissimilar from Gunkel. While Gunkel came up with the more sociologically influenced perspective on the setting in life, Mowinckel widened the understanding of the cult itself as part of human life. In this respect Mowinckel gained much from the studies of the Danish scholar V. Grønbech. Grønbech understood the cult as a festival, a collective, periodical celebration, as the lively and regenerative centre of religion.54 Mowinckel’s understanding of the cult as a creative, reality-generating drama55 forms the basis for his wide-ranging theory on the Enthronement Festival. Presupposing that the Psalms were cult songs having their part in the drama called cult in general, he can go further saying that the Yhwh-maˉlak-Psalms56 had their part in the Enthronement Festival specifically. “Yhwh has become king” (“… ist (jetzt) König geworden”, PsSt II, 6) is the announcement of what has just happened during the drama. In order to defend this theory, Mowinckel needed to answer two main questions: What is the mythical kernel of the cult drama and when does it take place? The first question he answered by reference to psalm passages like: “For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed” (Ps 95:3–5). Creation and the victory over the powers of the sea, the fight against other gods, the way through the Sea of reeds, the fight against the nations and judgement form the mythical basis for Yhwh’s kingdom and how it is represented in the enthronement psalms.57 The search for an answer to the second question led him to propose a New Year’s festival in Israel celebrated parallel to the Babylonian New Year, the Akitu-festival. While the New Year’s day on the first of Tishri was a post-biblical development, the Israelite New Year’s festival of Old Testament times was, according to Mowinckel, identical with an autumnal festival known as Sukkot, lasting

54

Grønbech, Culture, II (1931), 260 ff. Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien, II (1922), 19. Mowinckel, ibid. 3–4, read as enthronement psalms not just the traditional texts Ps 47; 93; 95– 100 but also Ps 8; 15; 24; 29; 33; 46; 48; 50; 66A; 75; 76; 81; 82; 84; 87; 114; 118; 132; 149 and Exod 15:1–18. 57 Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien, II (1922) 45 ff. The German terminology he used reads as follows: Der Schöpfungs- und Drachenkampfmythus, Der Götterkampfmythus, Der Auszugsmythus, Der Völkerkampfmythus, Der Gerichtsmythus. 55 56

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seven days.58 Besides the Psalms, Mowinckel especially considered the rabbinical tradition in order to describe the basic theological and ritual elements.59 Taking all this into account, he could formulate as the essential aim of the festival: the coming of God accompanied by his gracious deeds and salvation acts.60 “God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our king, sing praises” (Ps 47:6 f; NRSV Ps 47:5 f). Mowinckel’s approach was strongly criticized.61 Gunkel was willing to agree with him insofar that the idea that “Yhwh has become king” today is essential for the genre of enthronement psalms. Nevertheless, they do not express this thought unchanged. Pure enthronement psalms, according to Gunkel, do not exist any longer. Ps 47; 93 and 96–99 have been reworked and have acquired an eschatological perspective. Gunkel drew a parallel to the exilic prophecy, esp. to Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Is 52:7–10), where a similar development can be observed.62 The main critique against Mowinckel’s theory, however, was related to his way of ascribing too many texts to the context of the New Year’s festival while ignoring the individual specifics of each text. How difficult the situation between teacher and former student was can be seen in a document that was handed over to one of the editors of the fourth edition of the RGG by the publishing house Mohr (P. Siebeck) in 1992. It was a manuscript that Mowinckel wrote in 1930 on the “Thronbesteigungsfest im A.T.” to be published in the second edition of the RGG. Interestingly, this article has never been published, nor was one written by another author on Yhwh’s enthronement in the second edition of the RGG. The responsible editor who rejected the article was Gunkel.63

3.2. Further Research: the Cult Pattern and the Central Role of the King The cult-historical psalm interpretation that was strengthened by Mowinckel’s studies had a strong impact on research in Scandinavia and the Anglo-American world. The main links were the idea of a basic cultic pattern in the Ancient Near East and the king understood as the central figure of the cult with its strong impact also on the language of the Psalms.64 58

Mowinckel was of the opinion that Israel’s large festivals in the autumn, which one can read about in Lev 23:23–43: the first day of the seventh month (later New Year), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur; cf. Lev 16) and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), were later segregations of the original great autumn festival. Regarding the history of these three festivals, cf. Körting, Schall des Schofar (1999). 59 A few years before Mowinckel published his Psalmenstudien, Volz wrote a little book on the New Year’s Festival proposing some of the same ideas (Volz, Neujahrsfest, 1912). According to Volz, every God has his day (p.7) and this is the New Years festival (pp.12–19). Mowinckel developed his ideas independently, becoming aware of Volz’s work much later. 60 Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien, II (1922), 107. 61 A good overview over arguments until 1955 can be found in Stamm, Ein Vierteljahrhundert Psalmenforschung (1955), 46–50. 62 Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 116. 63 Mowinckel’s article itself, Gunkel’s remarks, and a short introduction to the scholarship on the subject can be read in: Janowski, Thronbesteigungsfest (1993), 270–278. 64 One of the more recent representatives of research on kingship in the Psalms in Anglo-American scholarship must be mentioned, namely Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms (1976), who bases his

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S. H. Hooke edited in England in 1933 a collection of articles under the title “Myth and Ritual”, where he himself wrote about “The Myth and Ritual pattern of the Ancient East”.65 The aim of Hooke and his co-authors was to extract a cultic mythic pattern that can be found everywhere in the Ancient Near East – a pattern that combines a basic myth with a ritual. The king who had to follow up the mythic events during the ritual is its central feature. It is he who is most important “for the well-being of the community”.66 The Swedish scholar G. Widengren, who started his own research in a comparative study of Hebrew and Accadian psalms, supported these thoughts basically. However, his task was rather a comparison of religion, not of literature, described as follows: “The general religious attitude must have found expression in a phraseology the use of which was not restricted to one branch of literature alone”.67 One important outcome was that in the whole of the Near East the essential features of the Semitic idea of God seem to have been the same. God is characterized as King and Lord.

The conviction that the king was the central figure for the cult – Mowinckel himself saw the yearly celebration of the enthronement of the earthly king as establishing a pattern for the celebration of Yhwh’s enthronement68 – had an impact on the further reading of most of the Psalms. The large group of individual laments, for example, were not understood any longer as private prayers but as prayers of the king in the context of the cultic rituals of the New Year’s festival. It was Mowinckel’s student H. Birkeland who in 1933 came up with a new reading of the individual lament psalms. He published a book dealing with the identity of the enemies of the individual in Israelite psalm literature.69 Whereas Gunkel at first70 saw no cultic individual lamentations in the Psalter, because of the difficulty in defining their cultic function,71 Birkeland proposed a shift in perspective. His argument was based on the insight that the enemies of the individual and the communal lament are the same, i.e. foreign opponents (illness such as that found in Pss 6; 22; 69 or 102 had to be connected with the misery that was experienced in the face of a mighty enemy)72. This, according to Birkeland, pointed to the fact that there was no difference between individual and communal

research on Ancient Near Eastern Sources and participates vividly also in the discussion around the New Year’s festival. 65 Hooke (ed.), Myth and Ritual (1933). 66 Cf. Hooke, Myth and Ritual Pattern (1933), 7. Cf. also p. 8, which offers an overview over the pattern. A comprehensive criticism can be found in: Bernhardt, Altorientalische Königsideologie (1961). 67 Widengren, Accadian and Hebrew Psalms (1937), 18. 68 Cf. Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien, II (1922), 6–10. 69 Cf. Birkeland, Die Feinde (1933). 70 Gunkel denies the existence of such songs in the biblical canon, but proposes that they could be reconstructed, because “wir besitzen unter den P. sehr viele Klagelieder nicht-kultischer Art”. In linking their concern with sickness with cultic acts, we can get an idea of the existence and character of such texts; cf. Gunkel, Psalmen (1913), col. 1937–1939. He later changed this position following the debate with Mowinckel in: Psalmen (21930), col. 1617 f, and posthumously in Einleitung (1933), 173, 176. 71 C.f. Mowinckel, Psalmentudien I (1922) 134 ff. 72 Mowinckel pointed to Birkeland’s work when he wrote later about the question of illness, that the psalms in question were written for the king as well, because his sickness was a national problem (Offersang (1951), foreword; 257).

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lament and that also the individual laments were in reality national – just spoken by an individual. This individual was the king.73 The question of the identity of the “I” in the Psalms was of continued interest in research throughout the century. Although it seemed that E. Balla74 had already proposed a final answer, saying that it was the individual that prayed, the Scandinavian school, as shown above, offered other solutions. Mainly those psalms that mention both the collective and the individual perspective were a challenge, especially for genre criticism (e.g. Ps 44). Later reinterpretation of the “I” as the people, as the result of editorial activity,75 was one possible solution, but reading the Psalms in the light of the concept of corporate personality76 or “Rollendichtung” (role poetry)77 were other possible solutions.

The role of the king in the Ancient Near East remained important in the ongoing research of Widengren78 and I. Engnell, both representatives of the so-called “Uppsala School”. Engnell took up the subject of divine kingship in his study of 1943, although he was not dealing with the Psalms directly but “only the rest of the Near East material”.79 Research especially on the Psalms followed a few years later80 with their consistent cultic interpretation. All Psalms were centred in the royal cult and they show the role of the sacral king. Engnell rejected a “spiritual” interpretation such as the one suggested by Gunkel for parts of the texts. But he went so far as to consider a democratized variant in the literary form that allows “sacral deputies” to perform them.81 Insisting on the very important role of the king for the cult, Engnell wanted to pay special attention e.g. to his collective responsibility as expiator, his positive and negative confession of sins, his passion and death.82 However, also inside the system of cultic patterns and cult centred research a careful shift in the direction of the individual and the individual’s religious experience can be observed, connected with the name H. Ringgren, another scholar from the so-called Uppsala-school.83. While Mowinckel insisted that behind the cult the community is always present,84 Ringgren wanted to look beyond the official cult, seeking to understand the “religious experience in precisely this cultic setting… We must analyse the religion of the Psalms as cultic religion, as piety nourished by the cult and expressed in cultic acts”.85 From this perspective, he saw the temple worship as one of the major elements for Israel’s religious life.86 Another example of the religious experience is fellowship. In the festivals, “in the 73

Cf. Birkeland, Die Feinde (1933), 85, 321–322, 326. Cf. Balla, Ich der Psalmen (1912), in discussing Smend, Über das Ich der Psalmen (1888), 49– 147, who supported the collective interpretation. Cf. also Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 173 f. 75 Cf. Becker, Israel (1966), 22–24; Martilla, Collective Reinterpretation ( 2006). 76 Robinson, Hebrew Conception (1936), and his The Group (1937). 77 Cf. van Oorschot, Nachkultische Psalmen (1994), 69–86. 78 Cf. Sakrales Königtum (1955). 79 Cf. Engnell, Studies in Divine Kingship (1943), VII. 80 Engnell, Psaltaren (1962–1963). 81 Cf. Engnell, Psaltaren (1962–1963), col. 643–644. 82 Cf. Engnell, Divine Kingship (1943), 175 f. 83 Ringgren, Psaltarens Fromhet (1957). 84 Cf. Mowinckel, Religion (1953), 49. 85 Cf. Ringgren, Psaltarens Fromhet (1957), xxi-xxii. 86 Cf. ibid. 1–19. 74

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fellowship of the cult community the pious man experiences communion with God”.87 This section started by pointing to the overarching concept of cult developed by Mowinckel and the Myth and Ritual School, connected with a festival celebrating the enthronement of God and the outstanding role of the king. With Ringgren the circle closes, to the extent that the close relation of God and the king is now paralleled by the individual that experiences communion with this God during the festival.

3.3. A Shift in German Research German research was governed for a long time by the discussion between Gunkel and Mowinckel.88 Nevertheless, without following the concept of cult presented by Mowinckel, an examination of the kingship of God was on hand. A. Alt assumed that the kingship of God was no constitutive element of Israelite religion but had been borrowed from the polytheistic neighbours between Israel’s conquest of the land and the establishment of the state.89 With this conclusion the problem is stated: How do we relate the statements on God’s kingship to the historical traditions of Israel?90 The cult-conceptual angle – in the cult-dramatic act salvation history becomes reality91 – has been exchanged for a history of religions perspective, connected with the names of e.g. W. H. Schmidt and J. Jeremias. In Königtum Gottes in den Psalmen92 W. H. Schmidt took the findings from Ugarit into account. He showed that the title of a king for the highest god was given already by the Canaanites, and Israel had to grapple with this. The formerly favoured eschatological explanation for God’s kingship that was connected to Israelite prophecy lost its dominance. J. Jeremias followed the path provided by W. H. Schmidt and others with their research. A major point of criticism against Mowinckel had been his combination of various themes and psalms in order to define the cultic myth that may lie behind the New Year’s festival in Israel in a way not to be found in the texts. Jeremias therefore combined his studies of Ugaritic psalms with the thorough exegesis of single biblical texts. The result was a careful description of Israel’s particular way of taking up what the Canaanite neighbourhood provided and combining this with what is theologically most prominent in Israel. Jeremias delineated the development in two steps: first, the myth was presented in nominal clauses such as “For the Lord, the Most High, is 87

Cf. ibid. 25. An early rather positive adaption of Mowinckel’s ideas can be found in H. Schmidt, Die Psalmen (1934), cf. also idem, Die Thronfahrt (1927). 89 Cf. Alt, Gedanken (1953), 353. 90 Although he had a different approach from the scholars to be presented here, it was also Westermann (Lob und Klage, 61983) who tried to overcome the dichotomy between salvation history and psalm piety. 91 Mowinckel points here e.g. to traces of the cult drama in Israel‘s history and speaks mainly about the other festivals such as Passover and Sukkot and their traditions (Psalmenstudien, II, 1922, 35–38; 38). 92 Schmidt, Königtum Gottes (21966). 88

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awesome, a great king over all the earth” (Ps 47:2; MT Ps 47:3); second, the nominal clauses with mythical content were connected with verbal clauses of historical content such as “… He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves” (Ps 47:3–4; MT Ps 47:4–5).93 The result was a historically explained universal lordship of Yhwh.94 The centrality of cultic events was not out of focus, however. In his commentary, A. Weiser brought together the history of the cult, religious traditions and psalm poetry with its specific forms.95 The religious traditions he found especially in the Pentateuch as salvation history and law. The cultic frame was given by a yearly-celebrated Jahwe-Bundesfest (‘covenant festival’).96 Weiser understood the silence of the Psalms regarding the harvest festivals, known from the feast calendars of the Pentateuch, as a hint to a different cultic realm. While the harvest festivals were connected to local shrines, the tradition of the Bundeskult was related to a centre, the ark. The core of the Bundesfest was the repeated encounter of God with his people that leads to a renewal of the Sinai-covenant and its salvation.97 The idea of God’s kingship was, according to Weiser, a later development in psalm theology that stood in context with creation theology.98 Liturgical pieces that point to this specific Sitz im Leben are to be found e.g. in Pss 50:2 f, 4, 5, 7, 16; 105:8 or 111:5, 9.99 The list of festivals proposed as representing the “real” character of a New Year’s celebration in Israel could be made much longer. All in all a satisfying solution has not yet been found. Scholars became more careful regarding explanations inside closed systems that sought to integrate various traditions. Research is nowadays concentrated on single subjects such as creation, torah or, still, God’s kingship. But also the material, the Psalms themselves, are still critically examined, taking up the crucial question whether it is at all possible to make statements on cultic acts on the basis of the biblical psalms. The pendulum has swung back to more literary studies of the Psalms. Hints of a concrete setting in life, a cultic act are more cautiously argued, if made at all.100 History of religions research supported and inspired the “new” approaches of Gunkel and Mowinckel, and psalm research is still not intelligible without it,101 either in regard to poetical structures or in respect of explanatory iconography.102 Methodological plurality is at hand.

93

Cf. Jeremias, Königtum Gottes (1987), 51 f; 151. Cf. ibid. 151. He did this from the third edition of his Psalm commentary onward; here the fourth edition is taken into account. Weiser, Die Psalmen ( 41955), 14. 96 Cf. Weiser, ibid. 16. 97 Cf. Weiser, ibid. 18. 98 Cf. Weiser, ibid. 21 f. 99 Cf. Weiser, ibid. 23 ff. 100 The commentary of Kraus is one of the last examples for very broad and concrete descriptions of the setting in life (Psalmen, 21961). 101 With respect to the royal psalms cf. E. Otto/E. Zenger, Mein Sohn ( 2002). 102 Cf. Keel, Welt (1996). 94 95

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4. Methodological Plurality Both biblical studies in general and research on the Psalms in particular have been enriched by a growing number of methodological approaches to the texts. Some have been specifically important for Psalm studies. When speaking about the Psalms, one has to speak about poetry. First impulses stem already from the eighteenth and nineteenth century. R. Lowth did groundbreaking work on the use of parallel lines already in 1753, later known as parallelismus membrorum.103 And it was again Herder who pointed out, in a long chapter on the rhythm and music of the Psalms, that the lyrical art of the Psalms was due to King David’s geniality.104 But also in current research psalm poetry has its place.105 Under a multiplicity of technical terms such as “rhetorical analysis”, in French “analyse structurelle” and “approche poétique”, or in German “poetologische Analyse” or “Stilanalyse”,106 all standing for various kinds of methodological approaches107 or philosophical assumptions, these approaches can nevertheless be summarized by their treatment of the text as poetry. Often this treatment is connected with a text-immanent approach that dispenses with speculations regarding the author and his time, instead intending to describe the text at a synchronic level as thoroughly as possible.108 This has not simply been a turn against a historical reading of the Psalms, however. The focus on psalm poetry was also an expression of criticism against genre-criticism, when it pointed more to the bondage to a given style than to poetic individuality. The interplay of structural elements within the whole of a text needs to be understood in order to find its meaning.109 Rhetorical analysis might also take the effect of a text into account.110 The field of comparative studies of Israelite and Canaanite traditions might even be useful up to a certain point ”in solving text-critical problems or identifying later additions to old compositions” – and thus the historical perspective is back.111 Anthological psalm research, with its centre mainly in French scholarship, took as its point of departure the many allusions to be found in the texts. They stress even more what had been seen already by Gunkel, namely the influence of prophecy and wisdom on the Psalms. According to this tradition, it was especially the post-exilic wisdom school that turned itself towards psalm poetry,

103 Lowth, De sacra poesi (1787). For the current discussion on this specific question, see among others Berlin, Dynamics (1985); Kugel, Idea (1998); Alter, Art (2000). 104 Cf. Herder, Vom Geist, II (1782–1783), 47–93. 105 Cf. Seybold, Poetik (2003). 106 About the different terminology and the different stresses that are put by the authors cf. Meynet, Rhetorical Analysis (1998). 107 This might be structural, aesthetic, stylistic, or rhetorical analysis, semiotics, speech act theory as well as specific poetical techniques typical for the Semitic culture and Semitic languages. 108 Cf. Girard, Les Psaumes redécouverts (1996/1994/1994); see also Trublet/Aletti, Approche poétique (1983). Last but not least, Auffret, La sagesse (1982), should be mentioned; Auffret also wrote a large number of studies on individual Psalms. 109 Cf. Weiss, Die Methode (1972), 88–112; also Weiss, Wege (1961), 255–302. 110 Ridderbos, Die Psalmen (1972). 111 Cf. Korpel /de Moor, Fundamentals (1988), 61; see also Loretz/Kottsieper, Colometry (1987), and especially the commentary of Dahood, Psalms (1965).

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understanding God’s revelation as the main source for wisdom.112 In this milieu psalms were composed or subjected to a − with a French term −“relecture”, under a certain perspective.113 Ps 1 as the opening of the Psalter presents the collection of Psalms as an actualization of prophecy and torah-piety. Based on specific concepts of wisdom it gives an impression of what “relecture” is about. While not having a redactional-critical focus, the approach leads nevertheless to the problem of the growth of single texts and the composition of larger units. A major concern in Old Testament research is reception history. This is especially true for the Psalms. The specific interest in reception history might express awareness that an original historical meaning is difficult to reach, but it points even more to an awareness that there exists a rich tradition that should be explored. It is a tradition of texts that have always been in use. Works by R. E. Prothero and W. H. Holladay frame a century of research on reception history of the Psalms.114 A more recent example is S. Gillingham’s commentary. The structure chosen for the commentary gives an insight into the wide range of reception history, including Jewish and Christian reception as exposition, through instruction, liturgy, translation and finally also aesthetic reception.115 But in addition to a descriptive function, reception history also has a corrective function, as H. P. Nasuti intended to show. His survey is concentrated on past genre definitions as a springboard for a theoretical reflection on the present act of interpretation.116

5. The Search for a “Theology of the Psalms” M. Luther called the book of Psalms “kleine Biblia”, a most beautiful compendium, a short bible.117 It is, according to Luther, a book where anyone, independent of one’s situation, can find words fitting as if they were for oneself. The Psalms are seen as the basic text for individual piety. While Luther pointed to the existential interpretation of the book of Psalms, modern research concentrated its focus more on the history of religions or literary context in order to make assertions on a “Theology of the Psalms”. In addition, the subject was generally treated as a part of an Old Testament Theology, for example, G. von Rad, pointing to the Psalms as Israel‘s answer to God and to his salvation acts.118 It was first in 1979 that H.-J. Kraus came up with a Theology of the Psalms.119 He stressed as well the connections between psalm theology and a theology of the Old Testament. According to Kraus, the book of Psalms offers a Theology of the Old Testament in nuce, related to the Old Testament service, to Israel’s appearance before God. Main subjects of Old Testament Theology like “Yhwh, 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

Deissler, Die Psalmen (1963–1965), 13 f. Cf. Tournay, Seeing and hearing (1991), on the prophetic dimension of the Psalter. Prothero, The Psalms (1903); Holladay, Psalms (1993). Gillingham, Psalms (2008), 2. Nasuti, Defining (1999), 20. Luther, Zweite Vorrede (1983), 65. von Rad, Theologie (91987), 366–367. Kraus, Theologie (1979).

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the God of Israel”, “the people of God”, “the king” or “man before God” are according to Kraus traceable in the Psalter. He also gave some insight on the psalms in the New Testament but he did not point to a specific kernel of psalm theology that gives it a separate place in Old Testament theology. B. Janowski120 turned Kraus’ approach upside down, asking for the theological relevance of the Psalms for an Old Testament theology. Due to the opposite direction of interrogation he took not just a list of individual subjects and ideas into account but the Psalms as a composition of texts with a specific language. Therefore, his result looks rather different. Janowski points from linguistic and poetic perspectives to the necessity of reading the Psalter as a theological whole beyond the connections of single texts. This “theological whole” has a history, a process of the collection and shaping of individual texts. The task for an Old Testament theology as well as for a psalm theology would be to reconstruct this process, to detect concepts and topics that were relevant for the formation of the Psalter.121 The “program” of the Psalms Janowski detects is first and foremost Israel’s answer to God in praise and lament; it is God‘s universal kingship, it is Israel’s answer to the Torah given by Yhwh. Unlike Kraus and Janowski, H. Spieckermann asks directly for the theological centre of the Psalms, for their original piety and their theological way of thinking.122 He sets his approach explicitly in contrast to that of Kraus and others. Without denying that there are traditional lines, the Psalter did not come into existence in isolation. He stresses that it was not the theological traditions of high rank like creation theology, salvation history or law traditions that moulded the religious and theological character of the Psalter, but rather the knowledge about the saving presence of God in his sanctuary.123 Important for his approach was the diachronic reading of texts as well as the comparison with the rich material from the Ancient Near East and Egypt. This made him exclude certain major traditional theological thoughts as the basis and allowed him to conclude that psalm theology rests first and foremost upon the relationship of the individual to God.124 The relationship of the individual to God could also be the keyword for W. Brueggemann’s rather existential approach. Brueggemann’s article on “The Psalms as Prayer”125 was given the title “minitheology of the Psalms”.126 On the basis of the function of the Psalms, which was crucial for Brueggemann’s approach in general, he answered at first that their function is the “invitation and authorization to speak imaginatively beyond these words themselves” to Israel and to ourselves.127 Taking this as a starting point, he developed the idea that this speech to the ultimate “You” was what distinguished Israel’s prayer from all modern subjective treatments. In categories mainly derived from M. Buber, he described the movement of speech from “I” to “You”, “as a yielding acknowl120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127

Janowski, Die »Kleine Biblia« (1998), 381–420. Cf. Janowski, ibid. 398. Spieckermann, Heilsgegenwart (1989). Cf. Spieckermann, ibid. 9. Cf. Spieckermann, ibid. 275–283. Brueggemann, Psalms as Prayer (1995), 33–66. A quote from P. D. Miller in: Brueggemann, Life of Faith (1995), xiii. Cf. Brueggemann, Psalms as Prayer (1995), 33.

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edgement of the source and ground of life that lies outside ourselves”,128 but not beyond the world. Israel prays to “You” who does wonders, Israel does it in praise and lament with confidence in God’s justice. Beginning with Luther and closing with Brueggemann, we can conclude that a theology of the Psalms, if taken as a subject on its own, was not just driven with respect to the history of religions perspective, history of Israel’s piety, or the theology of the Old (and the New) Testament, but also dealt with the existential significance for those who read and prayed these texts throughout history and today.

5.1. “Zion-Theology” Besides the search for a centre of psalm theology, some single topics are still of high importance for the description of psalm theology.129 Zion as God’s dwelling place, Zion, where God’s king is enthroned (Ps 2:6), where the temple is located (Ps 84), where the nations go to praise the Lord (Ps 102:23) and from where God’s blessing streams (Ps 128:5) brings us in terms of the so-called “Zion-theology” close to the centre of psalm theology. Scholars primarily approached “Zion-theology” from two different directions. The first was genre definition. Besides the more formal descriptions of genre like lament and praise, the genre of some psalms was described rather by content – one of these groups consists of the Zion-Psalms. Gunkel subsumed Ps 46; 48; 76; 84; 87 and 122 (132) under Zion-Psalms and called them hymn-like songs, praising Yhwh and Zion.130 The other direction research came from was tradition-history. The definition for “Zion-theology” and Jerusalem cult tradition went hand in hand.131 Apart from some prophetical texts, the survey for both was mainly based on a few psalms132 and on research in pre-Israelite Canaanite religion.133 O. H. Steck systemized the main aspects of tradition, coming to the result that the key for the Jerusalem cult tradition was the concept of Zion as God’s mountain, as Weltberg, where the earthly and the heavenly sphere merge into each other.134 More attributes were connected to this: the city on God’s holy mountain (Pss 48:3; 87:1), which is not destroyable because it is God’s city (Pss 46:5a; 128

Brueggemann, Psalms as Prayer (1995), 35. Mays lists them in his commentary as follows: The Lord reigns, Creation, Salvation, the Warrior, the Judge, the Attributes, the People of God, the City of God, the King of God, the Law of the Lord, the Human response, the Conflict, the Human Predicament, the Servants and the Enemies, the Righteous and the Wicked, the Weak and the Strong, the Sinner, My King and My God (Psalms, 1994, 32–36). 130 Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 42 f; 80 f. Ps 132 Gunkel mentioned in brackets because it is no hymn. 131 Cf. Kraus, Theologie (1979), 101 f; Stolz, Strukturen (1970). 132 Rohland has done ground-breaking work in this respect, taking Pss 46, 48 and 76 in order to give the following attributes of the Zion-tradition: Zion, the highest mountain (Ps 48:3 f.), the paradise river (Ps 46:3), God fighting the chaotic power of water (46:3), God fighting the nations (Pss 46:7; 48:5–7; 76:4,6 f.) (Die Bedeutung, 1956, 142). 133 Cf. Schmid, Jahwe und die Kulttraditionen (1955), 168–197; Stolz, Strukturen (1970); Kraus, Theologie (1979), 94 ff. 134 Cf. Steck, Friedensvorstellungen (1972), 14. 129

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48:2b) and because here are his dwellings (Pss 46:5b; 76:3) – decisive also for the temple theology; chaotic powers, kingdoms and nations (Ps 46:6) that will be repelled. All pictures and traditions that came together in the “Zion-theology” speak about the protective power and predominant force of Israel’s God, enthroned as king on Zion, fighting for his people.135 This broad picture was subjected to major criticism from various directions. The most prominent critic was G. Wanke, writing already in 1966.136 His basic argument was the dating of texts. According to Wanke, the motifs used in the Korahite Zion-psalms (Pss (42/43); 46; 48; 84; 87),137 especially the one of the fighting nations, were young and found their way rather late into the texts. The songs thus do not present a pre-Israelite cult tradition, but an exilic/post-exilic “Zion-theology” focused on God’s city. Further criticism was expressed against the idea of a closed system called “Zion-theology”. Taking more references of Zion in the Psalms into account than just the few on which former research was based, it became, according to the author, clear that Zion is a fundamental topos for the theology of the Psalms, but not a closed system with its own Old Testament history of tradition. Depending on text and context, Zion is an oscillating centre of the progressive development of theology, taking up a wider range of attributes than recognised, though not every aspect at the same time.138

6. “Shape and Shaping of the Psalter” “Shape and Shaping of the Psalter” is one of the important headlines for research in the later part of the twentieth century.139 In 1913, in the first edition of the RGG, Gunkel praised the fact that research has moved beyond the reading of the Psalms as an isolated biblical book and looks at the richness of the material from Babylonia and Egypt: “So ist jetzt an die Stelle eines einzelnen biblischen Buches eine religiöse Dichtungsart getreten, für die wir auch außerhalb des Psalters eine Fülle von Urkunden besitzen”.140 Form- and genre-critic had a strong influence. The individual Psalm was of interest, its genre and its setting in life had to be defined. Examining the Psalter as a collection of texts on the other hand seemed to lead to no results. A consequence was e.g. that Psalms that appear twice (“Doppelüberlieferungen”) with, so it seems, minor differences were ignored in their

135 Cf. Kraus, Theologie (1979), 98 f. But according to Kraus, Zion/Jerusalem is a.o. finally not just a place of fighting but the place where God’s shalom is present – basing this especially on Ps 122 (cf. also Pss 29:11; 85:9; 125:5; 128:6) and in connection with the name Jerusalem. Cf. also Stolz, Strukturen (1970), 181 ff. 204 ff. 215 ff; Steck, Friedensvorstellungen (1972), 25 ff. 136 Wanke, Zionstheologie der Korachiten (1966). 137 Cf. Wanke, Zionstheologie (1966), 32. 138 Körting, Zion (2006). 139 The headline for the following paragraph is borrowed from the title of a book: McCann (ed.), Shape and Shaping (1993). 140 Cf. Gunkel, Psalmen (1913), col. 1929.

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double function for the context. Only one of them receives a treatment regarding form, genre and exegesis (cf. Ps 14//53; Ps 40:14–18//70).141 Nevertheless, new critical evaluations of genre-criticism as well as the interest in the canonical approach raised again the interest in the Psalter as a book. Scholars tried to find new answers to old questions: What is the purpose of the collection of Psalms, the shape of the Psalter as we have it today? Who gave it its shape? Who are the addressees? Some of the observations on the macro structure of the book of Psalms were fundamental for further research. The psalms are presented in groups given by headlines like the Korahite-psalms (Pss 42–49; 84–85; 87–88)142 or the Asaphpsalms (Pss 50; 73–83). Other groups appear under the headline “Songs of Ascents” (Pss 120–134) or “the Lord is king” (Pss 93–99). Larger units are formed e.g. by the allocation lÈ dɛ̆ wid (Pss 3–41; 51–72; 138–144). Four doxologies (Pss 41:14; 72:18 f; 89:53 and 106:48) divide the Psalter into five books in line with the Torah. And last but not least, the whole book is framed by Pss 1 and 2 and the closing praise in Pss 146–150; both textual groups are connected semantically and by their motives. Taking the whole collection of Psalms into account, Gunkel also admitted that the Psalms are partially presented in groups, sometimes on the account of their genre. But he insisted that in general there was no inner connection between them. Gunkel regarded reading a psalm in the perspective of the literary context as useless.143 G. H. Wilson has done essential work to change this.144 He argued for the Psalter as “the result of a purposeful, editorial activity”.145 The division of the Psalter into five books in connection with those psalms that are positioned on the edges of each single book create major headlines for each of the books of the Psalter: Ps 2 introduces the theme of God’s covenant with David, in Ps 41 the king wants to be sure about Gods faithfulness, Ps 72 includes David’s successors and Ps 89 leaves the impression “of a covenant remembered, but a covenant failed”. While books one through three deal with the Davidic covenant, the fourth and the fifth have God’s kingdom over all the earth in focus.146 Also other scholars discussed the division of the Psalter into five books – a torah-like structure. J. L. Mays included it in his studies on the Torah psalms.147 They contain the central clue to the interpretation of the Psalter, defining the hermeneutical principle that the Psalms should be read as instruction.148 With this position, Mays took a big step away from the overshadowing position in psalm research that the book of Psalms was the songbook of the second temple 141

Cf. Gunkel who simply wrote “Ps. 14 vgl. Ps. 53” (Die Psalmen, 41929, 47). Cf. also the scholarly work of Goulder, Psalms of the Sons of Korah (1982), and others who have done research on the character of some of the collections to be found in the Psalter as well as their Northern origin. 143 Cf. Gunkel, Einleitung (1933), 3. Here he is especially critical of Ps 120–134. 144 Wilson, Editing (1985); cf. also idem, Evidence (1984); Shape of the Book (1992), 129–142. 145 Wilson, Editing (1985), 199. 146 Wilson, ibid. 209 ff. 147 Mays, Place of the Torah-Psalms (1987), 3–12; cf. McCann, Theological Instruction (1993); Kratz, Tora Davids (1996), 1–34. 148 Mays, Question of Context (1993). 142

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community. He saw it still in communal use but with the pedagogical intention to teach about God. Brueggemann corresponded to Mays’ central question: “Is it possible and useful to read a psalm as part of the book of Psalms, to understand it under the directives furnished by the book as a whole, to interpret its language by the context?”149 He came to a different evaluation of the role of Ps 1 and its central term “torah” for the whole Psalter. Brueggemann read the book of Psalms from Ps 1 to Ps 150 under the perspective of theological progression, starting with obedience (Ps 1), going through transition (Ps 73) and closing with a confident outburst of praise (Ps 150).150 But the older form- and genre-critical questions have also been made fruitful for the reading of the Psalter.151 M. Millard aimed, in his dissertation from 1994, to describe the composition of the Psalter in accordance with the genre of the single text. He found that the movement from lament to praise, sometimes even stressed by an oracle, is to be found in the arrangement of various psalms.152 In order to prove this, his reading follows smaller collections given by the headlines of the texts. Millard defines the purpose of the collection as a teaching for prayer. Major criticism of the reading of the Psalter as a book came from three different directions. For some scholars, the single text is not sufficiently in focus, for others the synchronic approach is problematic. Last but not least, the definition of criteria for this specific way of reading has been claimed in order to avoid speculation.153 However, research is on its way to filling these gaps. Many contributions have been made regarding single texts, their direct context and their position in the book of Psalms. When it comes to the direct context, two keywords represent the most important methodological tools: juxtaposition and concatenation. Already in 1972, W. Zimmerli pointed to the necessity that exegesis has to go beyond a single text in the cases of the twin psalms.154 Taking just one of many examples, we point to Ps 90–92. Ps 90 begins with a lament on human transitoriness. The petitioner articulates desire to be able to use his or her limited time to become wise. But God’s eternity and his wrath create a great distance between himself and sinful mankind that returns to dust (Ps 90:3,8). According to Ps 91, God himself overcomes this distance, giving his presence and his faithfulness to protect the life of those who know his name (Ps 91:14). Realizing this leads to praising the faithful God. This is the praise of the righteous (Ps 92). Presenting juxtaposition in this way, the concatenation can be added. Ps 90:13–17 has often been regarded as secondary. It might have been added in order to connect the texts. Nevertheless, important formulations from Ps 91 and 92 have been taken up in this passage.155

149

Mays, ibid. 14. Brueggemann, Bounded (1995), 189–213. 151 Cf. already Westermann, Zur Sammlung des Psalters (1964), 336–343. He followed this concept, but not as consistently as it has been done in later research. 152 Millard, Komposition des Psalters (1994), 162 ff. 153 In this respect, Murphy suggests taking the “historical literal meaning as the basic norm, and criterion guide” (Reflections, 1993, 28). 154 Cf. Zimmerli, “Zwillingspsalmen” (1972), 111. 155 Zenger points especially to Pss 90:14 and 91:16, 92:3–5; Pss 90:14b–15a and 91:16; Pss 90:16–17 and Ps 92:5 (Psalmenforschung, 2000, 422). 150

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One of the major commentary projects on the Psalms in German-speaking research takes up the Psalter-oriented exegesis.156 F.-L. Hossfeld and E. Zenger take into account what was already important for Wilson or Mays, the specific position of a text in the macro-structural context. They elaborate on implications of juxtaposition and redactional concatenation. Unlike many predecessors, redaction plays an important role for them. It is of relevance, as has been expressed, for the punctual concatenation but also with respect to the formulation of complete psalms for a literary context. Additionally, redaction comes into focus by taking the composition of psalm groups through their headlines into account. Finally, also form and genre have to be mentioned in the way they point to relevant compositional patterns.157 The most important difference between the recognition of collections inside the Psalter before the 1980’s and after is the evaluation of the connection between the book of Psalms and the cult. Recognizing it as an elaborate arrangement of texts unhinges it from the concrete cultic use and allows it to be seen as a prayer book, a teaching for prayer, a teaching for the sanctification of everyday life – outside the temple and the synagogues.158 The collection shows traces of wisdom-theological editing, which leads many to the conclusion that wisdom schools, i.e. scribes with this background, stand behind the collection (cf. Sir 15:10; 39:6; 44:5). The “David’s Compositions” (11QPsa XXVII 2–11) in particular call David wise (chkm) and tell that he wrote (wyktwb) 3600 psalms. But also the Levites as collectors, having a central role in temple worship,159 especially according to Chronicles, have to be taken into consideration.160

7. The Textual Basis – the Masoretic text, the Septuagint and the Qumran-Psalter Due to the fact that text-critical work done by the commentators is closely linked to their approach in general,161 the actual basis for all scholarly work on the Psalms is discussed last. This does not mean that text critical work is less important. The developments regarding the textual basis with which research is working, and combined with this, the changes in text-critical methodology, emerged just a little more silently than other developments. On the one hand, the tradition of the Septuagint came more into focus, also in Protestant research. On the other hand, the findings of the Judean desert (discovered mainly between 1947 and 1956) provided scholarship with rich material, giving many answers and posing probably even more questions regarding text history and the formation of the canon. 156

Hossfeld / Zenger, Die Psalmen (1993/2002); Psalmen (2000/2008). Cf. Zenger, Psalmenforschung (2000), 416 ff. 158 Cf. Zenger, ibid. 435. 159 References found in the Psalter that point to music and singing are discussed by J. A. Smith, Which Psalms (1990), 167–168. 160 Cf. Jonker, Revisiting (2004), 102–122. 161 “It is of vital importance, therefore, to obtain a clear idea of the subject of the poem and of the development of the poet’s thought, for this is often the only clue to the recovery of the original reading” (Kissane, Psalms, 1953, xxxii-xxxiii). 157

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At the beginning of the twentieth century, the way scholars dealt with the Masoretic text was somewhat different from the way it is dealt with about 100 years later. We find a more or less free use of conjectures, a tendency to “rework” the Masoretic text according to proposed poetical rules or form critical aspects. Questions of style or the definition of a religious historical background also had their impact. Although Duhm’s judgement was extraordinarily harsh in many cases, others at least went in the same direction. They were seeking for an “improvement” of the text. This was seen as necessary because it was sometimes, according to Gunkel, simply not possible to imagine that a text was written the way we have it now in its transmitted form. Pointing to the corrupt state of the Hebrew text, he made clear that it is better to correct the Hebrew text than to write a commentary on the Septuagint instead.162 Adding a refrain, such as Gunkel did e.g. in Ps 46:4, is in this perspective a minor change.163 Others, like H. Herkenne, preferred the Septuagint when the textual basis was unclear.164 A change in perspective, the aim to work closely with the Masoretic text and to explain and interpret difficulties, is to be found in more recent commentaries such as that of Seybold (1996), where this goal is formulated right on the first page. However, Septuagint and Qumran studies developed as independent fields of research also in relation to the Psalms, and are not just restricted to problems concerning the textual tradition165 of the Masoretic text. Results of research on the Septuagint or the Qumran collections have nevertheless had an impact on the study of the Hebrew bible. Both fields have in common that they point to collections of psalms showing variations of the Masoretic Psalter in terms of text order, quantity, content and genre, and both have a strong influence on the discussion of the authority of Scripture and the growth of the canon as well as the use of psalm scrolls in the service.166 Some thirty texts of the Psalter were discovered at Qumran,167 two have been found at Masada, and one at Nahal Hever. No other book of the Old Testament is represented in as many of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This fact underscores the importance of the book of Psalms for the Qumran community.168 While most of the copies preserved a tradition that seems to result in what we know from the Masoretic text,169 witnesses for different traditions do exist. Interestingly, it is 162

Gunkel, Die Psalmen (41929), XI-XII. Gunkel, ibid. 200. 164 Herkenne, Das Buch der Psalmen (1936), 20–26. In general the Psalter of the Septuagint presents at first sight an inconspicuous translation; cf. Tov, Text-Critical Use (1997) 27. 165 On the positive impulse for textual critique given by the Septuagint and the Qumran findings, cf. Craigie, Psalms (22004), 13. 166 The Septuagint Psalter shows differences regarding delimitation (Pss 9 and 10 as well as Pss 114 and 115 are combined, while Pss 116 and 147 are divided each in two texts; a different way of counting goes together with this). Furthermore, the Septuagint has an additional Ps 151, a biographical text on David; the headlines given to the psalms are also more comprehensive (cf. Rösel, Psalmenüberschriften, 2001, 125–148). 167 Discovered in 1956, the Psalms Scroll was unrolled by Sanders in 1961 and published in: Psalms Scroll (1965); Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (1967). 168 Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls (1997), 2. 169 The texts of the biblical Psalms are in close textual agreement with the Psalms of the early medieval Ben Asher manuscripts from Cairo and Aleppo. Cf. Sanders, Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (1967), 9–10. 163

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especially the largest of the Qumran Psalms scrolls that diverges from the Masoretic Psalter, both in the ordering of contents and in the presence of additional compositions.170 It closes with Ps 151, the Greek version of which was known already from the Septuagint. The text arrangement in groups is partly in accordance with the Masoretic Psalter, e.g. Ps 101–103; 121–132; 135–136; 142–143; 149–150. But looking for example at the Psalms of Ascents (Ps 120– 134), the first text is missing and the arrangement closes with Ps 132, a text which is alien among the Songs of Ascents and which again sets David in focus. The following text is Ps 119. Ps 133 is included later between Ps 141 and Ps 144, and Ps 134 is the second last text of the scroll. This is just one of many examples.171 The Psalms Scroll 11QPsa is not the only collection differing from the Masoretic Psalter. Other copies of this variant have been found, two in cave 11 and one in cave 4.172

Observations regarding both the Septuagint and 11QPsa have consequences for the methodological and text-historical studies of the Masoretic text. When it comes to Qumran, the most crucial question seems to be: Is it possible to make a statement, based on the knowledge we have about 11QPsa, about when and under what circumstances the Masoretic Psalter acquired its shape? Does the structure of 11QPsa allow the conclusion that books one to three of the Psalter already had more or less canonical status, while the order and content of books four and five were still fluid?173 Does this mean that 11QPsa preserves a preliminary stage of the Masoretic Psalter? Or is there any evidence for independence, meaning that we have to regard them as two parallel traditions?174 When it comes to “independent” research in both fields, many scholarly questions correlate nevertheless with those that were asked in relation to the Old Testament Psalter. It is for example the attempt to describe the historical-religious profile of the Septuagint and the Septuagint Psalter175 – and the milieu it stems from.176 The setting once again gained a prominent place in discussion; namely the milieu of the synagogue.177

170 Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls (1997) 7. Cf. Dahmen, Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption (2003); Jain / Steudel, Les manuscrits (2003), 530–536; Leuenberger, Aufbau und Pragmatik (2005). 171 The complete order is: Ps 101–103; 109; 105; 146; 148; 121–132; 119; 135 f; 118; 145; 154; 139; 137 f; Sir 51; Apostrophe to Zion; Ps 93; 141; 133; 144; 155; 142 f; 149 f.; Hymn to the Creator; 2 Sam 23:7; David’s compositions; 140; 134; 151. More details about the texts and their completeness can be found in: Sanders, The Psalms Scroll (1965). 172 VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (1998), 160. 173 The most advanced study in this direction is found in Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls & the Book of Psalms. 174 Cf. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (1998), 161. 175 Some scholars are working with questions related to eschatology, torah, concepts on body and soul or different understandings of life after death (cf. Gzella, Lebenszeit und Ewigkeit, 2002). There is an ongoing discussion between those having a broader approach to the Septuagint Psalter and those who share a minimalist view, reducing the potential of the Septuagint studies to questions of textual criticism and textual history, philology and translation technique (for the discussion see: Rösel, Theo-logie, 1998, 49). 176 Cf. Olofsson, God is my Rock (1990); Gzella, Wiege des griechischen David (2001), 19–47. 177 Cf. already Briggs / Briggs, Psalms (1906), lxxx-lxxxi; Thackeray, The Septuagint (1921); Schaper, Eschatology (1995).

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Also regarding 11QPsa the suggestions sound familiar: a meditation and reading book178 or a collection (of canonical and apocryphal texts) for liturgical use.179 Also the role of the Levites is on the agenda.180 The discussion about the use of 11QPsa clearly shows that also the discussions on authority and cultic use of the biblical Psalter are likewise not answered yet. Both fields are intertwined. Thus, we might conclude that the questions around cultic or liturgical practice on the one hand, or the collection and study of the Psalms in schools on the other hand, were posed by psalm research at the beginning of the twentieth century and are still on the agenda. Strong impulses on research came from the outside, from the findings of the poetical texts of the Ancient Near East and nowadays from the findings of the Qumran scrolls. The questions that were discussed at the beginning of the twentieth century are related to central issues also 100 years later, but are now approached under new perspectives and with new tools. And this is due to the characteristic of the Psalms as texts of high importance for the individual and society, in terms of participating in praise and in terms of teaching.

178 A meditation book to be read under the perspective of the inspired and prophetical David, an orientation for the community and its legal order (Leuenberger, Aufbau, 2005, 199 f). 179 Skehan, A Liturgical Complex (1973), 195–205. 180 Beckwith, Courses of the Levites (1984), 499–524.

Chapter Forty-four

The Phenomenon and Literature of Wisdom in Its Near Eastern Context and in the Biblical Wisdom Books By Knut M. Heim, Bristol

Bibliography: R. G. Albertson, “Job and Ancient near Eastern Wisdom Literature”, in: Scripture in Context, II (ed. W. W. Hallo/J. Moyer/ L. G. Perdue; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1983), 213–230. – R. Albertz, “Der sozialgeschichtliche Hintergrund des Hiobbuches und der ‘Babylonischen Theodizee’ [Ludlul Bel Nemeqi]”, in: Die Botschaft und die Boten: FS für Hans Walter Wolff (ed. J. Jeremias/L. Perlitt; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1981), 349–372. – W. F. Albright, “Some Canaanite-Phoenician Sources of Hebrew Wisdom”, in: Wisdom in Israel and the Ancient near East (VT.S 3; ed. M. Noth/ D. W. Thomas; Leiden: Brill 1955), 1–15. – J. N. Aletti, “Proverbes 8:22–31: étude de structure”, Bib. 57 (1976) 25–37; “Séduction et parole en Proverbes I–IX”, VT 27 (1977) 129–144. – L. Alonso Schökel/J. L. Sicre Días, Job: commentario teológico y literario (Nueva Biblia Españiola; Madrid: Christiandad 1983). – F. I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentary; Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press 1977). – J.P. Audet, “Origines comparées de la double tradition de la loi et de la sagesse dans le Proche-Orient ancien”, in: 25. Internationaler Kongress der Orientalisten, Moskau 1960 (1962). – T. Ayuso Marazuela, “Los elementos extrabíblicos de Job y del Salterio”, Estudios Bíblicos 5 (1946) 429–458. – C. J. Ball, The Book of Job: A Revised Text and Version (Oxford 1922). – G. A. Barton, Archaeology and the Bible (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union 1916; 7th edn. 1937). – C. G. Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2009). – A. Barucq, Ecclésiaste (Verbum Salutis, 3; Paris: Beuchesne 1968). – W. Baumgartner, Israelitische und altorientalische Weisheit (Tübingen: Mohr 1933); “The Wisdom Literature”, in: The Old Testament and Modern Study: A Generation of Discovery and Research (ed. H. H. Rowley; Oxford: Clarendon 1951), 210– 237; “Die israelitische Weisheitsliteratur”, ThR 5 (1933) 259–288. – J. Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism (Oxford Bible Series; Oxford: Oxford UP 1983). – A. Bonnora, “La donna excellente, la sapienzia, il sapiente (Pr. 31,10–31)”, RivBib 36 (1988) 137–146. – W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (3rd edn. by H. Gressmann; repr. Tübingen: Mohr 1926). – A. Brenner/ C. R. Fontaine (eds.), Wisdom and Psalms (Feminist Companion to the Bible; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). – G. Boström, Proverbiastudien. Die Weisheit und das fremde Weib in Spr. 1–9 (LUÅ 30; Lund: Gleerup 1935). – L. Boström, The God of the Sages: The Portrayal of God in the Book of Proverbs (ConBOT 29; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1990). – R. Braun, Kohelet und die frühhellenistische Popularphilosophie (BZAW 130; Berlin: W. de Gruyter 1973). – A. Brenner, “Proverbs 1–9: An F Voice?”, in: On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (ed. A. Brenner/F. van Dijk-Hemmes; Leiden: Brill 1993), 57–62, 113–126. – H. Brunner, Altägyptische Erziehung (Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz 1957; 2nd edn. 1991). – G. Buccelati, “Wisdom and Not: The Case of Mesopotamia”, JAOS 101 (1981) 35–47. – E. A. W. Budge, Second Series of Facsimiles of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum (London: British Museum 1923); The Teaching of Amen-EmApt, Son of Kanekht (London 1924). – C. V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Bible and Literature 11; Sheffield: Almond Press 1985). – D. L. Carmody, Biblical Woman: Contemporary Reflections on Scriptural Texts (New York: Crossroad 1989). – J. M. Charles-

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Recherches sur les genres littéraires des textes sapientiaux (Leiden: Brill 1953). – P.E. Dion, “Un nouvel éclairage [Fekherye] sur le contexte culturel des malheurs de Job”, VT 34 (1984) 213–215. – P. Doll, Menschenschöpfung und Weltschöpfung in der alttestamentlichen Weisheit (SBS 117; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1985). – S. R. Driver/ G. B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job Together with a New Translation (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark 1921). – L. Dürr, Das Erziehungswesen im Alten Testament und im antiken Orient (Leipzig 1932). – E. Ebeling, Ein Babylonischer Kohelet (Berliner Beiträge zur Keilschriftforschung, I/1; Berlin 1923). – T. Elgvin/M. Kister/T. Lim/B. Nitzan/S. Pfann/E. Qimron/L. H. Schiffmann/ A. Steudel, Qumran Cave 4: XV: The Sapiential Texts, Part 1 (DJD 20; Oxford: Clarendon 1997). – O. Eissfeldt, Der Maschal im Alten Testament. 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Garcia de la Fuente, “La prosperidad del malvado en el libro de Job y en los poemas Babilónicas

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del ‘Justo Paciente’”, Estudios Ecclesiásticos 34 (1960) 603–616. – F. García Martínez, Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition, BETL 168 (Leuven: Leuven UP 2003). – B. Gemser, “The Instructions of ‘Onchsheshonqy and Biblical Wisdom Literature”, in: Congress Volume: Oxford 1959 (VT.S 7; ed. G. W. Anderson e.a.; Leiden: Brill 1960). – E. S. Gerstenberger, Wesen und Herkunft des “Apodiktischen Rechts” (WMANT 20; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1965). – M. Gilbert (ed.), La Sagesse de l’Ancien Testament (BETL 51; Leuven: Leuven UP 1979); “Le discours de la Sagesse en Proverbes, 8. Structure et coherence”, in: La Sagesse de l’Ancien Testament (ed. M. Gilbert; Louvan 1979), 202–218; “Proverbes 9,1–6”, Cahiers Evangéliques 33 (1980) 23–35; “Le discours menaçant de Sagesse en Proverbes 1, 20–33”, in: Storia e tradizioni di Israele: scritti in onore di J. Alberto Soggin (Brescia: Paideia Editrice 1991), 99–120. – H. 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Mythen und Epen (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 1997). – P. Joüon, “Les temps dans Proverbes 31,10–31 (la femme forte)”, Bibl. 3 (1922) 349–350. – C. Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1–9. Eine form- und motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung unter Einbeziehung ägyptischen Vergleichsmaterials (WMANT 22; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1966); Einführung in die alttestamentliche Weisheit (BSt 55; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1969). – O. Keel, Die Weisheit spielt vor Gott. Ein ikonographischer Beitrag zur Deutung des mǝsah. äqät in Sprüche 8, 30 f. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1974). – D. Kidner, Wisdom to Live By (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press 1985). – A. Klostermann, “Schulwesen im alten Israel”, in: Theologische Studien Theodor Zahn… dargebracht. (Leipzig 1908), 193–232. – K. Koch, “Gibt es ein Vergeltungsdogma im Alten Testament?”, ZThK 52 (1955) 1–42; ET: “Is There a Doctrine of Retribution in the Old Testament?”, in: Issues in Religion and Theology, 4: Theodicy in the Old Testament (ed. J. L. Crenshaw; Philadelphia: Fortress/ London: SPCK 1983), 57–87. – S. N. Kramer, History Begins at Sumer (London: Thames and Hudson 1961); “Man and His God: A Sumerian Version of the ‘Job Motif’”, in: Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient near East: Festschrift Harold Henry Rowley (ed. M. Noth/ D. Winton Thomas; Leiden: Brill 1960). – P. Krieger, “Weltbild und Idee des Buches Hiob, verglichen mit dem altorientalischen Pessimismus”, (PhD Diss., Erlangen 1930). – J. Krispenz, Spruchkompositionen im Buch Proverbia (EHS.T 49; Frankfurt a.M.: Lang 1989). – Th.Krüger, Qoheleth (tr. O. C. Dean Jr.; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress 2004). – C. Kuhl, “Neuere Literarkritik des Buches Hiob”, ThR 21 (1953) 163–205, 267–317 (bibliography). – A. Kuschke, “Altbabylonische Texte zum Thema ‘Der leidende Gerechte’”, ThLZ 81 (1956) 69–76. – W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Clarendon 1960); “Some New Babylonian Wisdom Literature”, in: Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honour of J A Emerton (ed. J. Day/R. P. Gordon/ H. G. M. Williamson; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1995), 30–42. – S. Landersdorfer, Eine babylonische Quelle für das Buch Job? Eine literargeschichtliche Studie (BSt, Feiburg, xvi/2; Freiburg: Herder 1911). – B. Lang, Frau Weisheit. Deutung einer biblischen Gestalt (Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag 1975); “Schule und Unterricht im alten Israel”, in: La Sagesse de l’Ancien Testament (ed. M. Gilbert; BETL 51; Leuven: Leuven UP 1979), 186–201; “Die sieben Säulen der Weisheit (Sprüche 9:1) im Licht israelitischer Architektur”, VT 33 (1983) 488–491; Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: An Israelite Goddess Redefined (New York: Pilgrim Press 1986). – H. O. 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(Kampen: van den Berg 1984), 119–125. – J. Lévêque, Job et son Dieu (EtB; Paris: Gabalda 1970). – Y. Levin, “‘The Woman of Valor’ in Jewish Ritual” [Hebr.]”, Beth Mikra 107 (1986) 339–347. – M. Lichtheim, “Observations on Papyrus Insinger”, in: Studien zu altägyptischen Lebenslehren (ed. E. Hornung; OBO 28; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag 1979); “Chiasm and Symmetry in Proverbs 31”, CBQ 44 (1982) 202–211; Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context (OBO 52; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag 1983); Ancient Egyptian Literature, III. The Late Period, ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 2006). – S. Loffreda, “Raffronto fra un testo ugaritico e Giobbe”, Bibbia e Oriente 8 (1966) 103–116. – N. Lohfink, “Der Bibel skeptische Hintertür”, Stimmen der Zeit 105 (1980) 17–31; Kohelet (Echter Bibel. Kommentar zum Alten Testament; Würzburg: Echter Verlag 1980; 6th edn. 2009). – O. 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Perdue, Proverbs (Interpretation; Louisville, KY: John Knox Press 2000); Wisdom Literature: A Theological History (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press 2007). – O. Plöger, “Zur Auslegung der Sentenzensammlungen des Proverbienbuches”, in: Probleme Biblischer Theologie: Gerhard von Rad zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. H. W. Wolff; Munich: Kaiser Verlag 1971), 402–416. – E. Podechard, Ecclésiaste (Études Bibliques; Paris: Gabalda 1912). – M. Pope, Job (3rd edn.; AB 15; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1973). – H. D. Preuss, “Jahwes Antwort zu Hiob und die sogenannte Hiobliteratur des alten Vorderen Orients”, in: Beiträge zur alttestamentliichen Theologie. FS W. Zimmerli (ed. H. Donner; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1977); Einführung in die alttestamentliche Weisheitsliteratur (Urban-Taschenbücher, 383; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1987). – J. B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton

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UP 1950, 1955, 1969); The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton UP 1954, 1969). – E. Puech, “Les écoles dans l’Israël préexilique: données épigraphiques”, in: Congress Volume: Jerusalem 1986 (VT.S 40; Leiden: Brill 1988). – G. von Rad, Josephsgeschichte und ältere Chokma (VT.S 1; 1953), 120–127; Die Josephsgeschichte (Bibl. Studien, 5; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1954); Weisheit in Israel (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1970); ET: Wisdom in Israel (tr. J. D. Martin; Nashville: Abingdon 1972). – O. S. Rankin, Israel’s Wisdom Literature: Its Bearing on Theology and the History of Religion (Edinburgh: T & T Clark 1936). – H. Ranston, Ecclesiastes and the Early Greek Wisdom Literature (London: Epworth 1925). – R. Reitzenstein, Zwei religionsgeschichtliche Fragen nach ungedruckten griechischen Texten der Strassburger Bibliothek (Strassburg 1901); Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-ägyptischen und frühchristlichen Kultur (Leipzig 1904); Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium (Bonn 1921). – J. K. Riess, “The Woman of Worth: Impressions of Proverbs 31:10–31”, Dialogue. A Journal of Mormon Thought 30 (1997) 141–151. – H. Ringgren, Word and Wisdom. Studies in the Hypostatization of Divine Qualities and Functions in the Ancient near East (Uppsala 1947). – C. L. Rogers, “The Meaning and Significance of the Hebrew Word ʾAmon in Proverbs 8,30”, ZAW 109 (1997) 208–221. – R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (New York: Eaton & Mains 1912, 1926). – D. Römheld, Wege der Weisheit (BZAW 184; Berlin: W. de Gruyter 1989). – H. H. Rowley, Job. (NCB; Nashville: Thomas Nelson & Sons). −H. P. Rüger, “’Amôn – Pflegekind: Zur Auslegungsgeschichte Von Prv 8:30a”, in: Übersetzung und Deutung. Studien zu dem Alten Testament und seiner Umwelt, A. R. Hulst gewidmet (Nijkerk, Netherlands: Callenbach 1977). – M. Sæbø, “From Collections to Book: A New Approach to the History and Redaction of the Book of Proverbs”, in: Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies 1986), 99–106; Sprüche (ATD16/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2012). – J. de Savignac, “Note sur le sens du verset VIII,22 des Proverbes”, Vetus Testamentum 4 (1954): 429– 432. – de Savignac, Jean. “La sagesse en Proverbes VIII 22–31.” Vetus Testamentum 12 (1962): 211– 215. – de Savignac, Jean. “Interprétation de Proverbes VIII 22–31.” Vetus Testamentum Supplementum, 17. Leiden: Brill, 1969, 196–203. – Schaffer, A. “The Mesopotamian Background of Qohelet 4:9–12.” Eretz Israel 8 (1967): 246–250 (in Hebrew). – Schaffer, A. “New Light on the ‘Three-Ply Cord’.” Eretz Israel 9 (1969): 159–160 (in Hebrew). – Schenke, W., Die Chokma (Sophia) in der jüdischen Hypostasen-Spekulation: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der religiösen Ideen im Zeitalter des Hellenismus. Kristiana: Jacob Dybwad, 1913. – Schmid, Hans Heinrich, Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit: Eine Untersuchung zur altorientalischen und israelitischen Weisheitsliteratur. BZAW 101. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1966. – Schmidt, Werner H. “Wie kann der Mensch seinen Weg verstehen?” Weisheitliche Lebenserfahrung – Ein Gespräch mit H D Preuss.” Pages 287–297 in Alttestamentlicher Glaube und Biblische Theologie. Edited by Jutta Hausmann and Hans-Jürgen Zobel. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1992. – Schmökel, H. “Hiob in Sumer.” Forschungen und Fortschritte 30 (1956): 74–76. – Schrader, Eberhard, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament. Translated by O. C. Whitehouse from the 2nd ed. 1883. London; Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1885–8. – Schroer, Silvia. “Die göttliche Weisheit und der nachexilische Monotheismus.” Pages 27–62 in Die Weisheit hat ihr Haus gebaut. Studien zur Gestalt der Sophia in den biblischen Schriften. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1996. – Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ludger, Kohelet. Herders Theologischer Kommentar. Freiburg: Herder, 2004. – Scoralick, Ruth, Einzelspruch und Sammlung. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 232. Berlin; New York: W. de Gruyter, 1995. – Scott, R. B. Y., The Way of Wisdom in the Old Testament. New York: Macmillan, 1971. – Scott, R. B. Y. “Folk Proverbs of the Ancient near East.” Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada 55 (1961): 47–56. – Scott, R. B. Y., Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. Anchor Bible, 18. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1965. – Seow, C. L., Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible v. 18C. New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2008. – Seow, C. L., Job 1–21: Interpretation and Commentary. Illuminations. Grand Rapids, 2013. – Shupak, Nili, Where Can Wisdom Be Found? : The Sage’s Language in the Bible and in Ancient Egyptian Literature. Orbis Biblicus Et Orientalis 130. Fribourg, Switzerland: University Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993. – Sinnot, Alice M., The Personification of Wisdom. Society of Old Testament Study Monographs. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. – Skehan, Patrick William. “The Seven Columns of Wisdom’s House in Proverbs 1–9.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 9 (1947): 190–198. – Skehan, Patrick William. “Wisdom’s House.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 29 (1967): 468–486. – Skladny, Udo, Die Ältesten Spruchsammlungen in Israel. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962. – Snell, Daniel C., Twice-Told Proverbs and the Composition of the Book of Proverbs. Winona Lake, Ind:

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Eisenbrauns, 1993. – van der Sluis-van der Korst, H. and D. van der Sluis. “De Deugdelijkehuisvrouw in Opspraak.” Schrift 69 (1980): 93–98. – von Soden, W. “Das Fragen nach der Gerechtigkeit Gottes im Alten Orient.” Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 96 (1965): 41–59. – Speiser, E. A. “The Case of the Obliging Servant.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 8 (1954): 98–105. – Stamm, Johann Jakob. “Die Theodizee in Babylon und Israel.” JEOL 9 (1944): 99– 107. – Stamm, Johann Jakob, Die Leiden des Unschuldigen in Babylon und Israel. Abhandlungen zur theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments, 10. Zürich, 1946. – Steiert, F.-J., Die Weisheit Israels – Ein Fremdkörper im Alten Testament? Eine Untersuchung zum Buch der Sprüche auf dem Hintergrund der ägyptischen Weisheitslehren. Freiburger Theologische Studien, 143. Freiburg: Herder, 1990. – Story, Cullen I. K. “The Book of Proverbs and Northwest Semitic Literature.” Journal of Biblical Literature 64 (1945): 319–337. – Strugnell, J., Daniel J. Harrington, and T. Elgvin, Qumran Cave 4: Xxiv: Sapiential Texts, Part 2–4QInstruction … with 1Q26 and 4Q423. Discoveries in the Judean Desert, 34. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999. – Terrien, Samuel L. “The Babylonian Dialogue on Theodicy and the Book of Job.” Journal of Biblical Literature 63 (1944): vi. – Terrien, Samuel L. and P. Scherer. “Job.” Pages 877–1198 in The Interpreter’s Bible, 3. Edited by G. A. Buttrick. New York; Nashville: Abingdon, 1954. – Thompson, J. M., The Form and Function of Proverbs in Ancient Israel. The Hague: Mouton, 1974. – Towner, W. Sibley. “Ecclesiastes.” Pages 265–360 in New Interpreter’s Bible, 5. Edited by Leander E. Keck. Nashville: Abingdon, 1989. – Valler, S. “Who Is ʾeˉšet h. ayil in Rabbinic Literature?” Pages 85–97 in A Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature. Edited by Athalya Brenner. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. – Waegeman, M. “The Perfect Wife of Proverbia 31:10–31.” Pages 101–107 in Goldene Äpfel in silbernen Schalen. Collected Communications to the XIIIth Congress of the I.O.S.O.T. Edited by Klaus D. Schunck and M. Augustin. Leuven: Peter Lang, 1989. – Waltke, Bruce K. “The Role of the ‘Valiant Wife’ in the Marketplace.” Crux 35 (1999): 23–34. – Weeks, Stuart, Early Israelite Wisdom. Oxford Theological Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon. – Weeks, Stuart, An Introduction to the Study of Wisdom Literature. T & T Clark Approaches to Biblical Studies. New York: T & T Clark, 2010. – van der Weiden, W. A., Le livre des Proverbs: notes philologiques. Biblica et Orientalia, 23. Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970. – Westermann, Claus, Forschungsgeschichte zur Weisheitsliteratur 1950–1990. Arbeiten zur Theologie. Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1991. – Westermann, Claus. “Weisheit im Sprichwort.” Pages 73–85 in Schalom: Studien zu Glaube und Geschichte Israels. Alfred Jepsen zum 70. Geburtstag. Edited by K. H. Bernhardt. Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1971. – Whybray, R. N., The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament. BZAW, 135. Berlin; New York: W de Gruyter, 1974. – Whybray, R. Norman. “Yahweh-Sayings and Their Contexts in Proverbs 10,1–22,16.” Pages 153– 165 in La Sagesse de l’Ancien Testament. Edited by Maurice Gilbert. Bibliotheca Ephemeridium Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 51. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1979. – Whybray, R. N., Ecclesiastes. New Century Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989. – Whybray, R. N. “The Sage in the Israelite Royal Court.” Pages 133–139 in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient near East. Edited by John G. Gammie and Leo G. Perdue. Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 1990. – Whybray, R. N., The Composition of the Book of Proverbs. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 168. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994. – Whybray, Roger N. “The Wisdom Psalms.” Pages 152–160 in Wisdom in Ancient Israel. Edited by J. Day, H. G. M. Williamson, and R. P. Gordon. Cambridge, Eng: Cambridge University Press, 1995. – Whybray, Roger N., The Book of Proverbs: A Survey of Modern Study. History of Biblical Interpretation, 1. Leiden: Brill, 1995. – de Wilde, A., Das Buch Hiob eingeleitet, übersetzt und erläutert. Oudtestamentische Studiën, 22. Leiden: Brill, 1981. – Williams, P. J. “Theodicy in the ancient Near East.” Canadian Journal of Theology 2 (1956): 14–26. – Williams, R. J. “The Sages of Ancient Egypt in the Light of Recent Scholarship.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 101 (1981): 1–19. – Wiseman, D. J. “A New Text of the Babylonian Poem of the Righteous Sufferer.” Anatolian Studies 30 (1980): 101–107. – Wolters, Al. “Nature and Grace in the Interpretation of Proverbs 31:10–31.” Calvin Theological Journal 19 (1984): 153–166. – Wolters, Al. “S. ôpiyyâ (Prov 31:27) as Hymnic Participle and Play on Sophia.” Journal of Biblical Literature 104 (1985): 577–587. – Wolters, Al. “Proverbs 31:10–31 as Heroic Hymn.” Vetus Testamentum 38 (1988): 446–457. – Wolters, Al. “The Meaning of Kîšôr (Prov 31:19).” Hebrew Union College Annual 65 (1994): 91–104. – Wolters, Al, The Song of the Valiant Woman: Studies in the Interpretation of Proverbs 31:10–31. Carlisle: Paternoster, 2001. – Yoder, Christine Roy, Wisdom as a Woman of Substance: A Socioeconomic Reading of Proverbs 1–9 and 31:10–31 Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 304. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2001. – Zimmerli, Walther. “Das Buch des Predigers Salomo.” in Sprüche/Prediger. Edited by Helmer Ringgren and

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1. Introduction The biblical portrayal of King Solomon as the epitome of wisdom in 1 Kings[Kgs] 5:10–14 (ET 1 Kings[Kgs] 4:30–34) knows him as wiser “than the wisdom of all the sons of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt”. Edomite wisdom may also be implied in Jer 49:7 and Obad 8–9. The main protagonist of the book of Job is portrayed as a non-Israelite (from the land of Uz, Job 1:1), exceedingly rich and thus “greater than all the sons of the East” (Job 1:3), and his three friends are also foreigners (Job 2:11). Methodological approaches to the study of the Old Testament in the early part of the twentieth century followed the concerns of the History of Religion (Religionsgeschichte, Religionsgeschichtliche Schule) and of Form Criticism (Literaturgeschichte, Gattungsgeschichte). By the end of the nineteenth century, a consensus was emerging that the so-called wisdom books of the Bible (Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes) were of generally late date and distinct in character and content among the biblical texts. R. N. Whybray’s comment in his survey of modern scholarship on the book of Proverbs captures this well: “The main cause of the difficulty faced by scholars of this period in finding a place for Proverbs and the other Old Testament wisdom books within their development scheme of the history of the religion of Israel was that there was no known literature with which these books could really be compared. They appeared to be sui generis”.1 Questions regarding the relationship of biblical wisdom to cognate cultures in the ancient Near East begin to be raised towards the end of the nineteenth century, but knowledge of the literatures of Israel’s neighbours is still too limited for significant comparisons.2 Nonetheless, the first two decades or so of the twentieth century see a number of attempts to relate the personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8 and 9 to foreign deities and mythological figures.3 W. Schenke’s proposal in 1913 that the wisdom personification reflects a female deity worshipped

1 Whybray, The Book of Proverbs: A Survey of Modern Study (1995), 2. While this study of the History of Interpretation of biblical wisdom is generally based on original sources, generous use has been made of Whybray’s survey. 2 Toy’s 1899 commentary on Proverbs only listed two relevant works (by T. L. Griffith and M. Jäger) in his bibliography, without significant use in the body of the commentary. H. Gunkel’s article Ägyptische Parallelen zum Alten Testament (1909) displays a limited knowledge of relevant materials 3 R. Reitzenstein, Zwei religionsgeschichtliche Fragen nach ungedruckten griechischen Texten der Strassburger Bibliothek (1901); idem, Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-ägyptischen und frühchristlichen Kultur (1904); idem, Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium (1921); W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (1926). W. Schenke, Die Chokma (Sophia) in der jüdischen Hypostasen-Spekulation: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der religiösen Ideen im Zeitalter des Hellenismus (1913).

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alongside Yahweh as one of his consorts is worthy of note for its anticipation of B. Lang’s similar hypothesis near the end of the century.4 The beginning of large-scale excavations in the ancient Near East (including Egypt) brought to light an ever-increasing flow of ancient texts from the period of the biblical narratives, and the decipherment of the hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts enabled a comparison between the biblical texts and contemporaneous texts, artefacts and architecture from neighbouring cultures. Most significant in this respect is E. W. Budge’s publication, in 1923, of an Egyptian text that displays remarkable similarities with substantial parts of Proverbs 22:17–24:22. The Egyptian text soon becomes known as The Teaching of Amen(em)ope (Papyrus 10474 in the British Museum).5 The existence of a text that is not only comparable with the book of Proverbs in style and content, but contains at least some identical material, now suggests that Proverbs in particular and the Old Testament’s wisdom literature in general may belong to an older, international “wisdom” tradition that had been produced by authors belonging to a particular social class – the scribe or court official (as in the Egyptian material). Soon other relevant materials from Egypt and also from Mesopotamia are identified as “wisdom literature” (strictly a misnomer, as the designation derives from the biblical nomenclature), and comparisons with these begin to influence the study of biblical wisdom. The discovery of the more or less direct link between Amenemope – an Egyptian text – and the biblical wisdom book of Proverbs seems to have captured scholarly imagination to the extent that, consistently, studies probing into the relationships of biblical wisdom with Egyptian materials far outweigh those devoted to uncover relationships with Mesopotamian, Phoenician and Canaanite literature, despite the closer generic similarities between the North West Semitic texts and Proverbs. In his 1995 survey of relevant literature, Whybray could comment that, with the possible exception of S. du Toit’s Bijbelse en Babylonies-Assyriese Spreuken of 1942, “no comprehensive study appears to have been undertaken”.6 Apart from a small number of proverbs in the Amarna Letters, very few examples of wisdom text from Canaan/Phoenicia have been discovered. Nonetheless, adduced similarities in metre, style and vocabulary between biblical wisdom and Ugaritic poetry have prompted scholars like C. I. K. Story (1945) and M. J. Dahood to explore connections between the two literary corpora.7 Stylistic affinities between Proverbs and Babylonian and Sumerian wisdom literature and Ahiqar have been proposed by scholars like J. J. A. van Dijk, H. H. Schmid, W. McKane, J. L. Crenshaw and L Boström. The growing numbers of studies on Wisdom at Qumran include: D. Harrington’s Wisdom Texts from Qumran (1996). Several important editions of relevant text and special studies of the subject appeared near the end of the Twentieth century, and some studies at the beginning of the 21st century. Particularly signif-

4

B. Lang, Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: An Israelite Goddess Redefined (1986). E. W. Budge, Second Series of Facsimiles of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum (1923), Plates I–XIV. 6 Whybray, Proverbs: Survey of Modern Study, 16. 7 C. Story, “The Book of Proverbs and Northwest Semitic Literature,” (1945). Numerous articles by Dahood appear in Biblica, Catholic Biblical Quarterly and other journals from 1961–1982. 5

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icant are T. Elgvin, et al., Qumran Cave 4: XV: The Sapiential Texts, Part 1. Discoveries in the Judean Desert (1997); J. Strugnell et al., Qumran Cave 4: XXIV: Sapiential Texts, Part 2–4QInstruction … with 1Q26 and 4Q423. Discoveries in the Judean Desert (1999); C. Hempel et al., The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought (2002); F. García Martínez, Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition (2003); M. Goff, 4QInstruction, 2013. The scholarly output on biblical wisdom literature in its Near Eastern context in the Twenty-first Century is phenomenal. We begin with a brief history of compendia of translations of ancient Near Eastern texts, as these both reflect scholarly thought at the time of their compilation and shape subsequent scholarship, as they influence common perceptions of parallels. Due to space limitations, the remainder of the chapter will focus particularly on the book of Proverbs, as many of the general studies on biblical wisdom start here. The section on Proverbs is divided into two main parts: (1) The relationship between biblical wisdom and similar ancient Near Eastern texts. (2) Important other themes in the scholarly discussion of the book of Proverbs. The discussions on the books of Job and Ecclesiastes will also focus on their relations with ancient Near Eastern texts, but for reviews of other themes in scholarly discussions readers are referred to the excellent reviews (in German) of H.-P. Müller (on Job) and D. Michel (on Ecclesiastes). Each section ends with lists of important publications, sometimes grouped according to important themes and often provided with brief characterizations.

2. A Brief History of Compendia of Ancient Near Eastern Texts The discovery of ancient Near Eastern texts that showed similarities with the Bible caused much excitement. Towards the end of the Nineteenth Century and through much of the Twentieth, this prompted generous funding for archaeological campaigns, unearthing more and more materials. In addition to first editions in the original languages, these soon begin to be gathered into compendia of translated texts to facillitate comparison with similar biblical texts.8 As early as 1872, Eberhard Schrader published a compendium of cuneiform inscriptions related to the Old Testament (Schrader, Eberhard, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament. Giessen, 1872). A second edition appeared in 1882 and a fully revised version, updated by Heinrich Zimmern and Hugo Winckler, appeared in 1903 (Schrader, Eberhard, Hugo Winckler, and Heinrich Zimmern, Keilinschriftliches Textbuch zum Alten Testament. Berlin: Reuther & Richard, 1903; Winckler had separately compiled his own compendium, by now in its second edition: Winckler, Hugo, Keilinschriftliches Textbuch zum Alten Testament. 8 For the following survey, cf. Hallo, “Introduction: Ancient near Eastern Texts and Their Relevance for Biblical Exegesis.” Pages XXIII–xXVIII in The Context of Scripture, Volume 1, 1955, xiii–xviii.

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Leipzig: 1892, 1903, 1909). In 1904 Alfred Jeremias published a similar work that also covered Egyptian sources in the hieroglyphic script (Jeremias, Alfred, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1904; thoroughly revised editions in 1906, 1916, 1930). Hugo Gressmann’s two-volume work widened the scope to pictures (Gressmann, Hugo, Altorientalische Texte und Bilder zum Alten Testament. 2nd ed. Berlin/Leipzig: W. de Gruyter, 1926–7 ed. Tübingen: J. B. Mohr, 1909). Many of these compendia appeared in English translations (Schrader in 1885–8, Jeremias in 1911). English-language compendia along the lines of the German model were compiled by American scholars R. W. Rogers and G. A. Barton. Using Gressmann’s work as a model, both in the selection of texts and in the inclusion of pictures, J. B. Pritchard compile what soon became the standard edition for many decades: Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ANET) and its companion volume The Ancient Near East in pictures relating to the Old Testament (ANEP). It is organized into different types of texts, such as (1) Myths, Epics & Legends, (2) Legal Texts, (3) Historical Texts, (4) Rituals, Incantations & Descriptions of Festivals, (5) Hymns & Prayers, (6) Didactic and Wisdom Literature, (7)Lamentations, (8) Secular Songs and Poems, (9) Letters and (10) Miscellaneous Texts. Under each section, it included Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, North Semitic and South-Arabian texts and/or inscriptions (where applicable), running into 517 pages of annotated translations. Twenty-nine texts relevant to the biblical Wisdom Literature are included: Fables and Didactic Tales (the Egyptian Dispute over Suicide and The Protest of the Eloquent Peasant, as well as the Akkadian Dispute between the Date Palm and the Tamarisk), Proverbs and Precepts (the Egyptian instructions of Ptah-hotep, for King Merikare, of King Amenemhet, of Prince Hor-djedef, of Ani and of Amenemope, Akkadian Proverbs and Counsels (Proverbs and Counsels of Wisdom), the Aramaic Words of Ahiqar, Egyptians Observations (The Divine Attributes of Pharao, In Praise of Learned Scribes and the Satire on the Trades), Akkadian Observations on Life and the World Order (“I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom” (= ludlul bel nemeqi), A Pessimistic Dialogue between Master and Servant and A Dialogue about Human Misery), Egyptian Oracles and Prophecies (Admonitions of Ipuwer, Prophecy of Nefer-rohu, The Divine Nomination of Thutmose III, The Divine Nomination of an Ethiopian King, A Divine Oracle through Visible Sign and A Divine Oracle through a Dream) and Akkadian Oracles and Prophecies (Oracles concerning Esarhaddon, A Letter to Ashurbanipal, Oracle of Ninlil concerning Ashurbanipal, An Oracle Dream concerning Ashurbanipal and a miscellaneous collection of shorter Prophecies), extending over 48 pages (pp. 405– 452 of the second edition). – Each text has a short introduction with summary of content, provenance and bibliography, followed by a translation with generous explanatory notes. Comments on relationships or similarities with biblical Wisdom Literature are relatively sparse, apart from the entry on Amenemope, which has frequent references to the biblical book of Proverbs. – As Hallo notes in the introduction to The Context of Scripture, “Pritchard’s volume…quickly established itself the pre-eminent compendium of its kind in the post-war period. Comparable efforts by British, French and even German teams made no attempt to replace it, but rather to offer complementary works answering to different require-

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ments”.9 Thus D. Winton Thomas edited a smaller compendium on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the British “Society for Old Testament Study” in 1958, entitled Documents from Old Testament Times, which includes key texts from ANET. A compendium with sole focus on Mesopotamian texts is W. G. Lambert’s Babylonian Wisdom Literature (1960). Its focus on a small but important range of texts permits in-depth treatments that make the texts accessible in facsimile, transliteration and translation, provided with good introductions, rich annotations and bibliographic information. A general introduction and comments throughout discuss connections with the biblical wisdom corpus. This beautifully produced volume has continually remained in print to the present day. More extensive multi-volume reference works in German and French began to appear in two series. These appeared over lengthy intervals as fascicles of several volumes. The third volume of the German series, entitled Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments (TUAT) and edited by O. Kaiser, also included wisdom texts. A new series (TUAT.NF) is currently under production, but the volume on wisdom has not yet appeared. The French series, entitled Littératures anciennes du Proche-Orient, is published under the auspices of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem. The latest compendium of ancient Near Eastern texts relevant to biblical studies is the three-volume work The Context of Scripture edited by W. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger, Jr. The new compendium is organized according to text types rather than genres (as in ANET), divided into separate volumes. Volume 1: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, appeared in 1997 and extends to 599 pages. Its companion volumes, Volume 2: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World (438 pages) and Volume 3: Archival Documents from the Biblical World (406 pages) appeared in 2000 and 2003. The three volumes contain a careful section of familiar and new materials relevant to the study of the Bible. The material relevant to Wisdom Literature is concentrated in Volume 1, which is organized according to linguistic provenance: Egyptian Canonical Compositions, Hittite Canonical Compositions, West Semitic Canonical Compositions, Akkadian Canonical Compositions and Sumerian Canonical Compositions. Materials from each language group are divided into material with Divine Focus, Royal Focus and Individual Focus, and each group of texts ends with a language-specific bibliography. This most recent compendium differs from its predecessors in two main ways: First, materials are presented in their contemporary, horizontal contexts (Paratextuality). The broader literary context, or category, serves as the basic unit of comparison so as to ensure that, as much as possible, like is compared with like and contrasts as well as similarities can be taken into account. Hence, Volume 1: Canonical Compositions presents the closest categorical equivalent to the canon of biblical writings, while Monumental Inscriptions and Archival Documents from Volume 2 and Volume 3, even when comparisons are made, are clearly iden9

W. Hallo, “Introduction: Ancient near Eastern Texts and Their Relevance for Biblical Exegesis”, XXIV.

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tified as belonging to a different category of text. On the next level of organization, texts in Volume 1 are presented together with other texts from the same language (cultural context). Then genre (Gattung) and life setting (Sitz im Leben) determine their sequence, so that in the volume dedicated to “canonical” texts, the basic division is by “focus” – divine, royal or individual. The divine focus embraces genres like cosmologies, myths, hymns, prayers, divination, lamentations and elegies, incantations and rituals. The royal focus embraces genres like epic, instructions, historiography, biography and autobiography, royal hymns and oracles. The individual focus includes narratives, quasi-prophetic texts, instructions, love poems, proverbs, other wisdom literature, just sufferer compositions, dialogues, humorous texts, fables, disputations and school dialogues. (These lists are not exhaustive and not all genres appear in each language group.) – Second, materials are presented with additional information that shows, on a vertical axis, the earlier texts that helped inspire it and the later texts that reacted to it (Intertextuality). Perceived instances of Intertextuality within each linguistic tradition and between different cultures are indicated overtly and systematically in the margins of the translations by means of cross-references. The selection of texts that have traditionally been classed as ancient Near Eastern “wisdom” literature is significant, demonstrating that the editors of the new compendium accord them less prominence than ANET has done: Only a selection of Hittite Proverbs, a Fragment of a Wisdom Text and an excerpt from a Hurro-Hittite bilingual text are explicitly termed “wisdom literature” (under Hittite Compositions, Individual Focus). Other relevant texts include: Egyptian: two Harpers’ Songs (under Divine Focus), Merikare, Amenemhet (under Royal Focus, Instructions), Ipuwer, Eloquent Peasant, Complaints of Khakherre-Sonb (under Individual Focus, “Prophecy”), Any, Amenemope, Satire on the Trades (under Individual Focus, Instructions); Akkadian: Atra-Hasis, Gilgamesh (under Royal Focus, Epic), Dialogue between a Man and his God, A Sufferer’s Salvation, Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, Babylonian Theodicy (under Individual Focus, Just Sufferer Compositions), Dialogue of Pessimism or the Obliging Slave (under Individual Focus, Dialogue); Sumerian, Individual Focus: Sumerian Proverb Collection, Proverbs Quoted in Other Genres (under Proverbs); Shuruppak, Ur-Ninurta (under Instructions); “Man and his God” (under Pious Sufferer Compositions); Dialogue Between Two Scribes, Dialogue Between a Supervisor and a Scribe, Dialogue Between an Examiner and a Student (under School Dialogues). Some texts have been dropped, others been added. Significant is the higher proportion of Mesopotamian text, which hopefully will spark greater interest to balance the earlier bias towards Egyptian texts.

3. The Book of Proverbs Important surveys of literature on Proverbs are C. Westermann, Forschungsgeschichte zur Weisheitsliteratur 1950–1990 (1991) and R. N. Whybray, The Book of Proverbs: A Survey of Modern Study (1995).

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3.1. General Studies on Wisdom Literature in its Near Eastern Context W. T. Davison’s The Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (1904) is the first book-length study entirely devoted to the Old Testament’s wisdom literature. Davison’s study is aware of the foreign connections of biblical wisdom, but discussions of the topic are restricted to a few isolated lines (pp. 5, 14). He briefly notes some affinity between Proverbs and Deuteronomy (116). He dates Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes later than the Solomonic age, but acknowledges the possibility of pre-exilic dates for Proverbs and Job and an early third century date for Ecclesiastes. Significantly, he identifies the authors and recipients of Israelite wisdom literature as a “class of persons” – the Wise (p. 4). – J. Meinhold’s monograph Die Weisheit Israels in Spruch, Sage und Dichtung (1908) seeks to explain its development, aims to demonstrate that it has links to other Old Testament texts (prophets, Deuteronomy) and describes Old Testament wisdom as a distinct concept. O. Eissfeldt’s monograph Der Maschal im Alten Testament (1913) examines the literary form of the proverb (‫ )משׁל‬in the Old Testament. He proposes that the narratives of the Bible contain many folk proverbs (Volkssprichwort) that were originally one-liners, and suggests that many such one-line folk proverbs were incorporated into the book of Proverbs by being expanded into parallel two-line proverbs. Eissfeldt also notes a formal distinction among proverbs between admonitions (Mahnworte) and sentence literature (Aussageworte). The study of proverbs in their own right have largely been neglected. A rare exception is A. Jolles volume Einfache Formen (1930; 6th ed. 1982). His study of the proverb focuses on its literary stage and proposes that proverbs do not aim to teach, but simply to state facts to make claims or to prohibit. The focus on literary form exemplified by Eissfeldt and Jolles has largely been neglected in subsequent decades, due to what may justifiably be called the discovery of the century regarding the connections between biblical and international wisdom literature, the Instruction of Amenemope. In 1923 E. W. Budge publishes his Second Series of Facsimiles of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, including the text of Amenemope. Already in the same year, A. Erman identifies the close similarities between the Egyptian text Amenemope and Proverbs 22:17–24:34, and publishes his findings in the following year in: “Eine ägyptische Quelle der ‘Sprüche Salomos” (1924). In the same year Hugo Gressmann’s, “Die neugefundene Lehre des Amen-em-ope und die vorexilische Spruchdichtung Israels” (1924) identifies the tradents of this international wisdom in the professional scribes situated at the Egyptian court. A. de Buck’s, “Het religieus Karakter der oudste egyptische Wijsheid” (1932) argues that Egyptian wisdom literature was not “secular”, as was commonly believed, although his arguments initially failed to persuade the majority of scholars. J. Fichtner’s 1933 monograph Die altorientalische Weisheit in ihrer israelitisch-jüdischen Ausprägung marks the culmination of the first phase of engagement with the question of ancient Near Eastern relations by proposing that biblical wisdom was foreign in origin and only entered the biblical corpus through adaptation to Israelite sensitivities. Fichtner’s study focuses mainly on the con-

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tents and thought processes of wisdom, but neglects questions related to form and the question about the relationship between the oral and literary origins of biblical wisdom. This line of inquiry finds its continuation in the works of H. Gese, H. H. Schmid, G. von Rad and H.-J. Hermisson. Fichtner and many other German and Anglo-Saxon scholars after him evaluate biblical wisdom from the perspective of German idealism, which, in the wake of the Reformation, saw ethical behaviour grounded in values rather than outcomes, as the ancient Near Eastern and biblical wisdom texts appeared to show. Hence, biblical wisdom is characterized as “eudaemonistic” and utilitarian, motivated by self-interest. During this phase and well into the 1970s, international wisdom continues to be regarded as “secular” by the majority of scholars. W. Baumgartner (1933, 1951) mentions Amenemope and Ahiqar as background literature for Proverbs, Egyptian and Babylonian dialogue literature and “I will praise the Lord of Wisdom” (= ludlul bel nemeqi) as well as Papyrus Insinger for Job, and indirect similarities with Babylonian and Egyptian drinking songs, the Harper’s Song, the Dialogue between Lord and Slave, Egyptian tomb inscriptions, Papyrus Insinger and general acquaintance with Egyptian wisdom in general for Ecclesiastes.10 Ultimately, however, the adduced parallels (apart from Amenemope) do not point to literary dependency, but the texts developed in their own culturally appropriate forms from a common cultural milieu shared across the region. Baumgartner’s 1951 review of literature noted that since Meinhold’s monograph two new aspects of the study of wisdom literature had gained prominence – form-critical analysis of the wisdom literature and a keen interest in the newly discovered relationships with ancient Near Eastern wisdom.11 O. S. Rankin’s Israel’s Wisdom Literature: Its Bearing on Theology and the History of Religion (1936) is an ambitious work that treats biblical wisdom with regard to the influence it had on the growth and content of theological thought. A brief but well-informed review of international connections stresses the “secular” nature of international wisdom and Israel’s theologizing of it. A particularly influential study is Klaus Koch’s essay “Gibt es ein Vergeltungsdogma im Alten Testament?” (1955; ET 1983). His main thesis has been widely accepted and dominated much of the discussion of the relationship between deed and consequence in biblical wisdom literature for the remainder of the century. While objections have been raised from time to time, most notably by Murphy and Whybray, the most extensive and effective critique has been provided in P. Hatton’s Contradiction in the Book of Proverbs (2008). Gese’s volume Lehre und Wirklichkeit in der alten Weisheit (1958) identifies biblical wisdom as derivative of Egyptian wisdom. It draws particularly on the idea and concept of divine order exemplified in Egypt through the female deity Ma’at, who, according to the consensus at the time, personifies a fixed “world order” according to which good deeds invariably engender positive outcomes (concept of retribution, cf. Koch’s “Vergeltungsdogma”, “dogma of retribution”). H. H. Schmid’s Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit (1966), by contrast, seeks to reconstruct the history of development in the thought of the wisdom texts from 10 11

Baumgartner, W., Israelitische und altorientalische Weisheit, 1933. W. Baumgartner, “Die israelitische Weisheitsliteratur” (1951), 259–288.

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Egypt, Mesopotamia and Israel, concluding that they developed somewhat separately in the three cultures. Amenemope, for example, presented a development where, in later times, old certainties had broken down and individual piety played a more important role. Significantly, however, he follows Gese and assumes that the concept of world order (Ma’at) had been adopted in biblical wisdom. Consequently, Schmid sustains the then common assumption that the biblical book of Proverbs displayed a rather mechanistic doctrine of exact retribution without room for personal piety.12 B. Y. Scott’s “Folk Proverbs in the Ancient Near East” (1961) is devoted to the characteristics of folk proverbs. His study assumes close parallels between the development, content and structure of folk proverbs across the biblical world and its neighbours. He follows Jolles’ point, noting that “[n]ot all biblical proverbs are moralistic” and coins an influential description of the form of the folk proverb: “They are short, pithy, and complete in themselves”.13 U. Skladny’s Die ältesten Spruchsammlungen in Israel (1962) is a serious attempt to identify the Sitz im Leben of each collection in the book of Proverbs, following the method of Formgeschichte. Theologically, the book is founded on a God-given world order – the relationship between deed or attitude and consequent fate of the individual. Consequently, complete submission under Jahweh’s authority, as manifest in the world order presumed in the book of Proverbs in particular, is essential for human well-being. Other important contributions are Christa Kayatz’ Studien zu Proverbien (1966), followed by Einführung in die alttestamentliche Weisheit (1969). She takes the Egyptian goddess Ma’at, a personification of the concepts of Truth and Righteous, for a partial model of the wisdom personification in Proverbs. Nonetheless, the portrayal of personified wisdom in Proverbs is thoroughly Yahwistic. Based on the Egyptian parallels, she opposes the relative dating of sentence literature as earlier (pre-exilic, early monarchy) and of the lectures (Lehrgedichte) as later (post-exilic), although this commanded (and still commands) a broad scholarly consensus. – Discussions of Ma‘at have generally over-emphasized the parallels and their significance, as M. V. Fox, “World Order and Ma’at: A Crooked Parallel”, (1995) has demonstrated.14 H.-J. Hermisson, Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit (1968) argues that even the individual proverbs in the Book of Proverbs were composed by a professional class of wise men (as in Egypt), and that this happened in school settings connected with the royal court. Hermisson argues that the individual proverbs and the collections as a whole function conceptually to instruct readers in understanding the divine world order of deed and consequence and aims to train them in adopting behaviour congruent with this concept. G. von Rad’s Weisheit in Israel (1970), translated into English in 1972, became an instant classic and was reprinted in a number of editions. It is the seminal work that prompted the growing interest in wisdom literature in the closing decades of the Twentieth Century. Von Rad acknowledges the possibility of an 12 13 14

Cf. also Westermann, Forschungsgeschichte, 21–22. R. Scott, “Folk Proverbs of the Ancient near East,” 47, 48. M. V. Fox, “World Order and Ma’at: A Crooked Parallel”, (1995).

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older “Sippenweisheit”, wisdom originating from and transmitted among traditional kinship groups and extended family units, following here J.-P. Audet and E. Gerstenberger.15 Nonetheless, in the main von Rad follows the trend to view biblical wisdom from the perspective of similar ancient Near Eastern literature, particularly Egypt. This influence led to a Solomonic enlightenment, and he identifies its authors as a professional class of the wise, and the Sitz im Leben of the wisdom literature were Israelite schools, particularly at the royal court. Like others before, he acknowledges the influence of the Egyptian concept of Ma’at and the concept of a world order, but cautions against rigid understandings of these ideas. His discussion of ancient Near Eastern wisdom is surprisingly short and emphasizes the characteristic traits of Israelite wisdom. Two significant chapters discuss the “limitations” of wisdom (“Grenzen der Weisheit”) and demonstrate that a relationship between deed and consequence (“Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang”) constitutes the basic understanding of reality, but in all wisdom literature divine sovereignty can regularly override this relationship and related notions of world order. In his discussion of the relationship between Job and Ecclesiastes on the one hand and the wisdom tradition in general on the other, he critiques notions of a “crisis of wisdom” (pace H. Gese). W. McKane’s Proverbs (1970) develops the idea that the authors and recipients of Israel’s wisdom literature were a distinctive, political class to its extreme. His discussion of international wisdom extends to 158 pages dedicated to thorough descriptions of the structure and content of eight Egyptian instructions (Ptahhotep, Kagemni, Merikare, Amenemhet, Duauf, Ani, Amenemope and Onchsheshonqy), two texts in the Babylonian-Assyrian instruction genre (Counsels of Wisdom, Ahikar) and collections of Babylonian and Assyrian Proverbs. R. B. Y. Scott’s The Way of Wisdom in the Old Testament (1971) gives a good overview of wisdom writings outside Israel. C. Westermann’s essay “Weisheit im Sprichwort” (1971) proposes that proverbial sayings have been transmitted in two different ways: the primary form of transmission occurs through citation in a situational context, usually in narratives; the secondary form of transmission occurs through their appearance in proverb collections. “Das Sprichwort hat überall sein eigentliches Leben in den noch schriftlosen primitiven Kulturen; alle Weisheit hat hier noch die Form des Sprichwortes”.16 Consequently, Westermann argues that the sole focus on comparison with ancient Near Eastern parallels in much previous scholarship has been one-sided and proposes that proverbs from contemporary non-literate cultures may provide closer parallels for the study of biblical proverbs. J. M. Thompson’s The Form and Function of Proverbs in Ancient Israel (1974) distinguishes between folk proverbs (in narratives, oral) and literary proverbs in

15 J.-P. Audet, “Origines comparées de la double tradition de la loi et de la sagesse dans le Proche-Orient ancien” (1962); E. S. Gerstenberger, Wesen und Herkunft des “Apodiktischen Rechts”. Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament (1965); cf. also J. Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament (1983). 16 C. Westermann, “Weisheit Im Sprichwort”, in Schalom: Studien zu Glaube und Geschichte Israels, ed. K. H. Bernhardt (1971). Quote from: Westermann, Forschungsgeschichte zur Weisheitsliteratu, 28.

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the book of Proverbs. He notes similarities between Sumerian proverbs, Israelite proverbs and proverbs from non-literate cultures. R. E. Murphy’s essay “Wisdom – Theses and Hypotheses” (1978) attempts a synthesis of contemporary scholarship. Most notable is his insistence on combining two hitherto unrelated strands of scholarship – the origins of wisdom are to be sought both in the folk wisdom of kinship groups (Sippenweisheit) and at the royal court. Murphy’s critical survey of scholarship on wisdom entitled “Hebrew Wisdom” (1981) stresses the importance of von Rad’s volume Wisdom in Israel, highlighting in particular von Rad’s emphasis on the religious aspects of wisdom and his analysis of the “limitations” of wisdom. He calls for more nuanced understandings of the concept of “order” as a fundamental underling principle in biblical wisdom and questions the strict understandings of the so-called “deed-consequence-connection” among many scholars. He acknowledges the relationship between Israelite and ancient Near Eastern wisdom, but proposes that Israelite wisdom may have more independence from its neighbours than often admitted. He also cautions against proposals that wisdom thinking influenced other parts of the Old Testament. C. R. Fontaine’s Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament (1982) investigates five proverbial sayings in narrative contexts and proposes that their use in the Old Testament commends a more performance oriented approach to sayings in the book of Proverbs, seeking for the communicative function in concrete situations rather than abstract principles of order. Two essays by F. W. Golka, “Die israelitische Weisheitsschule oder ‘des Kaisers neue Kleider’” (1983) and “Die Königs- und Hofsprüche und der Urpsrung der israelitischen Weisheit” (1986) argue against the existence of schools in Israel and aim to show that Israelite wisdom originated in the context of the extended family/kinship groups (Sippenweisheit). He adds to the discussion the possibility that young people were trained through a so-called famulus system, through an apprenticeship with professional scribes in local contexts. Like Westermann, he proposes that the proverbs of pre-literate modern societies may help the understanding of biblical proverbs.17 P. Doll’s Menschenschöpfung und Weltschöpfung in der alttestamentlichen Weisheit (1985) addresses the perennial question regarding the origin(s)of wisdom – did it originate with ordinary people (Volksweisheit) or in the schools of the royal court (Schulweisheit). In response, he proposes that the treatment of the theme of “creation” in the different parts of the book of Proverbs may give clues to resolve the issue: The creation of the world (Weltschöpfung) only appears in Proverbs 1–9, while the creation of human beings (Menschenschöpfung) only occurs in Proverbs 10–29. This suggests that the formally different parts of the book – instruction versus sayings collections – originated from two different backgrounds. D. Römheld’s Wege der Weisheit (1989) agrees with Schmid that the oldest parts of Proverbs (especially an earlier version of chapters 10–29, as reconstructed by him) lacked the personal piety of Amenemope, but proposes that these have 17

For further development, see Golka, “Die Flecken des Leoparden: biblische und afrikanische Weisheit im Sprichwort” (1989; ET 1993).

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undergone a “Yahwistic redaction”. Ultimately, Israelite wisdom literature borrowed from its neighbours and freely adapted the material for its own concerns. L. Boström’s The God of the Sages (1990) by contrast demonstrates that the book of Proverbs is saturated with God-language, suggesting distinctive monotheistic presuppositions for all parts of the book. In the same year, Steiert,’s Die Weisheit Israels – Ein Fremdkörper im Alten Testament? (1990) rejects the idea that Israel’s wisdom was simply a “foreign import” (Fremdkörper) into the Old Testament. His arguments are based on a comparison of Proverbs with the instruction genre in Egypt, especially Amenemope. H. D. Preuss (1977, 1987), by contrast, continues to maintain the essentially foreign identity and character of Israelite wisdom.18 An edited volume entitled Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East, ed. by M. Noth and D. Winton Thomas and presented as a Festschrift to H. H. Rowley, presents the state of the field in 1960 and witnesses to the continuing interest in the relationship between biblical wisdom and sources from cognate cultures: It includes 22 relevant essays in French, German and English by leading scholars of the day, discussing, among other topics, subjects like the literary aspects of Amenemope (A. Alt), messianic aspects of wisdom (J. Coppens), philological notes on the different wisdom books informed by cognate sources (by W. Albright, by G. Driver and by D. Winton Thomas), a comparison between the Sumerian “Man and his God” composition and Job (S. Kramer), the relationship between wisdom and other Old Testament books (by J. Lindblom and by S. Mowinckel), wisdom and immortality (J. Pedersen), royal wisdom (by N. Porteous and by R. Scott) and connections between Amenemope and Job (G. von Rad). An interesting sub-genre of “philological notes” develops during this time, with W. van der Weiden’s Le livre des Proverbs: notes philologiques (1970) a book-length example. These studies furnish a wealth of linguistic comparisons and data on specific texts, often suggesting new solutions to old exegetical cruces. Another volume of essays, entitled Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom and edited by J. Crenshaw, appeared in 1976. In the introduction, the editor notes that three unresolved issues in research of the time: (1) affinities with other biblical literature; (2) literary forms; (3) structure, esp. with regard to ideas about creation. This and the volume edited by M. Gilbert, entitled La sagesse de l’Ancient Testament (1979), contain a wealth of material similar to the Rowley Festschrift. An even larger edited volume (545 pages) on The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East edited by J. G. Gammie and L. G. Perdue appears in 1990. In 36 essays, the volume addresses two related questions that had continued to divide scholarly opinion in the preceding decades: (1)Were the sages in Israel and elsewhere primarily intelligent individuals who functioned in a variety of social roles and locations, or were they a professional class active mainly in the court, temple, and school and who shaped their own distinctive literary and philosophical tradition? (2) Related to this, were there schools in Israel comparable to the schools in Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia? To this end, the contributors analyze evidence from Sumer, Assyria, Babylonia, Ugarit, Egypt and Israel, as well as later sources 18

For a detailed engagement with the perspectives of Preuss, see Schmidt, Werner H. “Wie kann der Mensch seinen Weg verstehen?”, 1992.

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(including Hellenistic and Roman, apocalyptic and pseudepigraphic, New Testament, Qumranic, Apocryphic writings and early Rabbinic literature) under the following headings: (1) The sage in ancient Near Eastern literature, (2) the sage’s functions and social locations, (3) the sage in biblical Wisdom Literature, (4) the sage in other biblical texts, (5) the sage from before the close of the biblical canon to post-biblical times and (6) the symbolic universe of the scribe. Two characteristic features of the volume deserve special mention because they highlight methodological shifts: First, it includes systematic considerations of female sages in ancient Near Eastern and biblical literature (under headings 1 and 3), reflecting the growing importance of gender inclusivity in scholarly work towards the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. Second, the volume puts significant emphasis on sociology, again reflecting a characteristic shift towards sociological interests and methods at that time. In their preface the editors of the volume stress that the findings suggest a variety of roles and backgrounds for the social location and identity of the sage, but cautiously rule in favour of the sage having an identifiable professional role associated with the royal court. N. Shupak’s doctoral thesis Where Can Wisdom Be Found? (1993) explores shared language in biblical and Egyptian wisdom texts, concluding that the overlap is so significant as to allow the postulate of the existence of schools in Israel. Another significant volume (311 pages) of collected essays is Wisdom in Ancient Israel, the 1995 Festschrift for J. A. Emerton edited by J. Day, R. P. Gordon and H.G.M. Williamson. On 311 pages, in 23 essays, the contributors present the contemporary scholarly landscape in three parts: (1) The ancient Near Eastern setting of wisdom is explored in three contributions: J. Ray on Egyptian wisdom literature, W. Lambert on some new Babylonian wisdom literature and J. Greenfield on Ahiqar. (2) Wisdom in Old Testament and apocryphal texts is explored in thirteen essays. The first of these, by J. Day, explores foreign Semitic (esp. Ugaritic) influences on the book of Proverbs. Another essay explores the limits of theodicy as a theme of the book of Job (see part 3). (3) Key themes that have occupied wisdom scholars over previous decades are explored in the last part of the volume. In addition to theodicy, these include the existence of schools in Israel (by G. Davies; the author cautiously judges in favour of their existence), the personification of wisdom (by R. Murphy), wisdom at Qumran (by A. van der Woude) and wisdom in Old Testament theology (by R. Clements). The selection of articles in this volume suggests a slightly reduced emphasis on the importance of the ancient Near Eastern background, a growing interest in the relationship between wisdom literature and other biblical texts, growing interest in wisdom at Qumran and a growing interest in theological dimension of wisdom literature. A goodly number of introductions to the biblical wisdom literature have appeared over recent decades. J. Crenshaw’s Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction has appeared in three editions at regular intervals (1981, 1998 and 2010), and has served as the introductory undergraduate handbook of choice for a worldwide student population in the last two decades of the Twentieth century. D. Kidner’s Wisdom to Live By (1985) and written from a conservative perspective has good theological observations, explores connections to other biblical books and includes a helpful appendix (16 pages) on international wisdom, stressing biblical

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wisdom’s originality. H. D. Preuss’ Einführung in die alttestamentliche Weisheitsliteratur (1987) opens with a substantial chapter on the place of biblical wisdom as an Israelite offshoot of international wisdom (21 pages), highlighting the search for world order and human behaviour in line with the deed-consequence connection (Koch’s schicksalswirkende Tatsphäre). Ultimately, biblical wisdom remains a Fremdkörper in the Old Testament. J. J. Collins’ Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (1997) explores intertestamental wisdom and its relations to Graeco-Roman and Qumranic literature. R. J. Clifford’s The Wisdom Literature (1998) contains a chapter of 19 pages length comparing biblical and international wisdom. Aiming to make biblical wisdom accessible to modern readers, it also includes intertestamental wisdom, as well as a chapter on the New Testament. The important essays in A. Brenner and C. Fontaine (eds.), Wisdom and Psalms in the Feminist Companions to the Bible series (1998) explore the roles of and attitudes towards women in wisdom literature. Several helpful general introductions to biblical wisdom literature appear in Britain early in the Twenty-first century: K. Dell’s Get Wisdom, Get Insight (2000), A. Hunter’s Wisdom Literature (2006) and S. Weeks, An Introduction to the Study of Wisdom Literature (2010). Two recent studies focus on theology in biblical wisdom: Perdue, Leo G., Wisdom Literature: A Theological History. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007 and Dell, Katharine J., The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

3.2. Interim Summary and Conclusion Methodologically scholars have proceeded along two main lines of approach, characterized by interests in method, focus and explanation of origin. Only a minority pursued both approaches. The first and initial approach is literary, focusing on the linguistic form of wisdom texts as they are found in the biblical corpus of Israelite literature. In the early part of the century and beyond, it favoured the assumptions and tools of form criticism (Form- oder Gattungsgeschichte). Later-on, paroemiology, the linguistic and sociological study of proverbs as folklore, became increasingly important. The second approach developed immense energy from the discovery of the close similarities between biblical and other ancient Near Eastern text, especially A. Erman’s identification, in 1923, of the close similarities between the Egyptian text Amenemope and Proverbs 22:17–24:34. It was conceptual, focusing on key characteristics of content. It was dominated by comparative studies with similar ancient Near Eastern texts. While similarities and a certain amount of interchange between biblical and other ancient Near Eastern wisdom was uniformly acknowledged since 1923, the origin of the phenomenon of biblical wisdom in Israel was seen in two very different settings: the oral tradition of the extended family or kinship groups of ordinary people (Sippenweisheit, Volksweisheit) versus the literary tradition of structured education at the royal court, usually assumed to be in the context of schools (Schulweisheit). Our review highlights the large scholarly output throughout the Twenty-first Century and demonstrates the degree of uncertainty in crucial areas of research,

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including the question of the origin of biblical wisdom. Did it come from oral folk wisdom (Sippenweisheit) encapsulated in one-line folk proverbs (Volkssprüche) that were developed into longer written proverbs (Kunstsprüche) consisting of two parallel lines? Or did it originate from the elite, a class of perhaps even professional wise men located at the royal court, possibly at court schools? What are the theological underpinnings of wisdom? And how does wisdom literature relate to other parts of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament? – Some of these themes have received specific treatment, and to t

3.3. Other Themes in Proverbs Other prominent themes explored in Twentieth Century scholarship include the existence of schools, the nature of the literary structure – whether the materials in Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and 25–29 should be interpreted as individual sayings or in groupings, the Personification of Wisdom, the nature and purpose of repetitions in Proverbs, the relationship of the wisdom literature to other parts of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, the role of women in Proverbs and the ‘woman of worth’ in Proverbs 31:10–31. Most of these discussions also draw on evidence from other ancient Near Eastern wisdom texts. One of the underexplored dimensions of study is the connection between wisdom and law (cf. J. Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament, 1983). The following studies treat education among Israel’s neighbours in the ancient Near East. H. Brunner’s, Altägyptische Erziehung (1957; 2. ed. 1991) is an exhaustive treatment of education in Egypt. Sumerian institutions of education are explored in S. N. Kramer, History Begins at Sumer (1961) and J. van Dijk, La sagesse Suméro-Accadienne (1953). Babylonian and Assyrian education are examined in B. Meissner, Babylonien and Assyrien II (1925). The following studies are among the most significant contributions that specifically address the question of schools in Israel. Several approach the problem with recourse to what is known about education elsewhere in the ancient Near East: R. N. Whybray, The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament (1974), 55–61; idem, “The Sage in the Israelite Royal Court” (1990)133– 139; idem, The Book of Proverbs: A Survey of Modern Study (1995), 22–25 has a helpful review of relevant literature; A. Klostermann, “Schulwesen” (1908), L. Dürr, Das Erziehungswesen im Alten Testament und im antiken Orient (1932); G. von Rad, Weisheit in Israel (1970, 3. ed. 1985), 28–38; H.-J. Hermisson, Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit (1968), 97–136; B. Lang, “Schule und Unterricht im alten Israel” (1979), 186–201; A. Lemaire, Les écoles et la formation de la Bible dans l’ancien Israël (1981); idem, “Sagesse et écoles” (1984); F. W. Golka, “Die israelitische Weisheitsschule oder ‘des Kaisers neue Kleider’” (1983), J. L. Crenshaw, “Education in ancient Israel” (1985); M. Haran, “Literacy and Schools in Ancient Israel” (1988); Puech, “Les écoles dans l’Israël préexilique” (1988), Millard, “An Assessment of the Evidence for Writing in Ancient Israel” (1984), 301–312; D. W. Jamieson-Drake, Schools and Scribes in Monarchic Judah (1991); S. Weeks, Early Israelite Wisdom (1994), 132–156; G. I. Davies, “Were there Schools in Ancient Israel?” (1995). – In conclusion, there is no strong evidence for the existence of schools in early Israel (Weeks). Arguments for the existence of schools remain inferential (Whybray), and the existence of schools is likely (but not certain) based on analogies from Israel’s neighbours (Davies). Widespread implications should not be drawn from arguments based on the existence of schools in ancient Israel.

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Addressing the question of atomistic versus contextual interpretation of Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and 25–29, the following studies support contextual interpretations: H.-J. Hermisson, Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit (1968); R. N. Whybray, “Yahweh-Sayings and their Contexts in Proverbs 10:1–22:16” (1979); O. Plöger, “Zur Auslegung der Sentenzensammlungen des Proverbienbuches” (1971); M. Sæbø, “From Collections to Book” (1986); R. C. van Leeuwen, Context and Meaning in Proverbs 25–27 (1988); T. Hildebrandt, “Proverbial Pairs: Compositional Units in Proverbs 10–29” (1988); J. Krispenz, Spruchkompositionen im Buch Proverbia (1989); Whybray, The Composition of the Book of Proverbs (1994); idem, Proverbs (1994); J. Goldingay, “The Arrangement of Sayings in Proverbs 10–15” (1994); R. Scoralick, Einzelspruch und Sammlung (1995) has an extended survey of literature; K. Heim, Like Grapes of Gold Set in Silver (2001), with substantial reviews of relevant literature. A number of publications by C. Westermann (1990a; 1990b; 1991 [ET 1995]) argue against contextual interpretation. S. Weeks also reject contextual interpretation, but cf. Heim (2001), 15–18. – With the partial exception of F. Delitzsch (1873; repr. 1985), virtually all of the older commentaries rejected contextual interpretations. More recent commentaries that reject contextual interpretations include R. B. Y. Scott (1968); W. McKane (1970); Clifford (1999); Fox (2000; 2009); Longman (2006). – Recent commentaries that support contextual interpretations include Plöger (1984); Alonso Schökel (1984); Meinhold (1991); Garrett (1993); Whybray (1994); Murphy (1998); Perdue (2000; in part); Waltke (2004; 2005).

The first two decades or so of the twentieth century see a number of attempts to relate the personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8 and 9 to foreign deities and mythological figures. Worthy of note are: R. Reitzenstein, Zwei religionsgeschichtliche Fragen nach ungedruckten griechischen Texten der Strassburger Bibliothek (1901); idem, Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-ägyptischen und frühchristlichen Kultur (1904); idem, Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium (1921); W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (1926). W. Schenke, Die Chokma (Sophia) in der jüdischen Hypostasen-Spekulation (1913). W. Schenke’s proposal that the wisdom personification reflects a female deity worshipped alongside Yahweh as one of his consorts anticipates a similar hypothesis near the end of the century: B. Lang, Frau Weisheit. Deutung einer biblischen Gestalt (1975); idem, Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: An Israelite Goddess Redefined (1986). Beyond a range of studies already mentioned elsewhere in this chapter, further important works later in the century include: C. Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1–9 (1966); M. Gilbert, “Le discours de la Sagesse en Proverbes, 8. Structure et coherence” (1979); idem, “Proverbes 9,1–6” (1980); idem, “Le discours menaçant de Sagesse en Proverbes 1, 20–33” (1991); J.-N. Aletti, “Séduction et parole en Proverbes I–IX” (1977); C. V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (1985); G. Boström, Proverbiastudien. Die Weisheit und das fremde Weib in Spr. 1–9 (1935); H. Ringgren, Word and Wisdom: Studies in the Hypostatization of Divine Qualities and Functions in the Ancient Near East (1947); P. W. Skehan, “The Seven Columns of Wisdom’s House in Proverbs 1–9” (1947); idem, “Wisdom’s House” (1967); P. Humbert, “‘Qaˉnâ’ en Hébreu biblique” (1950); W. F. Albright, “Some Canaanite-Phoenician Sources of Hebrew Wisdom” (1955); J. de Savignac, “Note sur le sens du verset VIII,22 des Proverbes” (1954); idem, “La sagesse en Proverbes VIII 22– 31” (1962); idem, “Interprétation de Proverbes VIII 22–31” (1969); W. A. Irwin, “Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?” (1961); H.-P. Rüger, “’amôn – Pflegekind. Zur Auslegungsgeschichte von Prov. 8,30a” (1977); O. Keel, Die Weisheit spielt vor Gott. Ein ikonographischer Beitrag zur Deutung des mǝsah. äqät in Sprüche 8,

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30 f. (1974); R. E. Murphy, “The Personification of Wisdom” (1995); J. M. Hadley, “Wisdom and the Goddess” (1995); M. V. Fox, “ʾAmon Again” (1996); C. L. Rogers, “The Meaning and Significance of the Hebrew Word ʾAmwn in Proverbs 8,30” (1997); V. Hurowitz, “Nursling, Advisor, Architect? ʾAmwn and the Role of Wisdom in Proverbs” (1999); J. M Charlesworth and M. A. Daise, Light in a Spotless Mirror (2003); M. Neher, Wesen und Wirken der Weisheit in der Sapientia Solomonis (2004); A. M. Sinnot, The Personification of Wisdom (2005); A. Lenzi, “Proverbs 8:22–31: Three Perspectives on Its Composition” (2006). The surprisingly high number of repeated or partly repeated verses in the book of Proverbs (over 20%) has often been noted. There are three detailed studies of this phenomenon: D. C. Snell, Twice-Told Proverbs and the Composition of the Book of Proverbs, 1993; R. Scoralick, Einzelspruch und Sammlung, 1995; K. M. Heim, Poetic Imagination in Proverbs: Variant Repetitions and the Nature of Poetry, 2013. Relationships between wisdom literature and other parts of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament have been sought in the Joseph narrative (Genesis 37, 39–48, 50), the book of Deuteronomy, didactic wisdom narratives (weisheitliche Lehrerzählungen, e.g., Daniel, Esther, Tobit), the Psalter (so-called “wisdom psalms”) and the prophetic corpus. Among a large number of publications, the following works may be highlighted: G. von Rad, Die Josephsgeschichte (1954); M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (1972); J. L. Crenshaw, “Method in Determining Wisdom Influence upon ‘Historical’ Literature” (1969). H. D. Preuss, Einführung in die alttestamentliche Weisheitsliteratur (1987) includes a substantial chapter. A volume of collected essays entitled In Search of Wisdom: Essays in memory of John G. Gammie (1993) is dedicated to exploring links between wisdom literature and the rest of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The largest part of J. Day et al. (eds), Wisdom in Ancient Israel (1995), the Festschrift for J. A. Emerton, is given to this topic, no less than eight chapters, plus one chapter on wisdom influence in the New Testament. To these should be added a range of essays in various volumes of collected essays. The poem on the woman of worth in Proverbs 31:10–31 is explored in a range of essays and books.19 Key questions concern its date and relationship to the rest of Proverbs and the beginning of chapter 31, whether or not it should be interpreted literally (a real woman) or metaphorically (an emblem of wisdom), as well as the poem’s contemporary relevance, and whether or not the reference to the “fear of the Lord” in 31:30 was original. Pertinent studies before 1980 include: H.-P. Rüger, “Zum Text von Prv. 31,30” (1969), P. Joüon, “Les temps dans Proverbes 31,10–31 (la femme forte)” (1922), M. B. Crook, “The Marriageable Maiden of Prov. 31:10–31” (1954), E. Jacob, “Sagesse et alphabet: a propos de Proverbes 31.10–31” (1971). Feminist studies from 1980–2000 include: H. van der Sluis-van der Korst and D. van der Sluis, “De deugdelijkehuisvrouw in opspraak” (= the scandalous virtuous housewife) (1980), D. L. Carmody, Biblical Woman (1989), C. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (1985), S. Schroer, “Die göttliche Weisheit und der nachexilische Monotheismus” (1996), 19

A full survey, with bibliography, can be found in A. Wolters, The Song of the Valiant Woman (2001).

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A. Brenner, “Proverbs 1–9: An F Voice?” (1993), S. Valler, “Who is ʾeˉšet h. ayil in Rabbinic Literature?” (1995), M. Masenya, “Proverbs 31:10–31 in a South African Context: A Reading for the Liberation of African (Northern Sotho) Women” (1997), eadem, How Worth Is the Woman of Worth? (2004) and C. R. Yoder, Wisdom as a Woman of Substance (2000). Other studies between 1980–2000 include: M. H. Lichtheim, “Chiasm and Symmetry in Proverbs 31” (1982), A. Wolters, “Nature and Grace in the Interpretation of Proverbs 31:10–31” (1984), J. P. Lettinga, “Een bijbelse Vrouwenspiegel” (1984), Al Wolters, “S. ôpiyyâ (Prov 31:27) as Hymnic Participle and Play on Sophia” (1985), T. P. McCreesh, “Wisdom as Wife: Proverbs 31:10–31” (1985), Y. Levin, “‘The Woman of Valor’ in Jewish Ritual” [in Hebrew] (1986), D. Metlitzki, “‘A Woman of Virtue: A Note on Eshet H . ayil” (1986), E. L. Lyons, “A Note on Proverbs 31:10–31” (1987), A. Bonnora, “La donna excellente, la sapienzia, il sapiente (Pr. 31,10–31)” (1988), A. Wolters, “Proverbs 31:10–31 as Heroic Hymn” (1988), M. Waegemann, “The Perfect Wife of Proverbia 31:10–31” (1989), C. Gottlieb, “The Words of the Exceedingly Wise: Proverbs 31:10–31” (1991), J. Hausmann, “Beobachtungen zu Spr 31,10–31” (1992), A. Wolters, “The Meaning of Kîšôr (Prov 31:19)” (1994), I. G. P. Gous, “Proverbs 31:10–31 – The A to Z of Woman Wisdom” (1996), T. R. Hawkins, “The Wife of Noble Character in Proverbs 31:10–31 (1996), J. K. Riess, “The Woman of Worth: Impressions of Proverbs 31:10–31” (1997), B. K. Waltke, “The Role of the ‘Valiant Wife’ in the Marketplace” (1999).

3.4. Commentaries on Proverbs Toy, Crawford Howell, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs. The International Critical Commentary. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899. This is a substantial commentary with attention to linguistic problems and textual variants. – Oesterley, William Oscar Emil, The Book of Proverbs. London: Methuen, 1929. This is a substantial commentary with numerous helpful observations. – Gemser, Berend, Sprüche Salomos. 2., revised and enlarged ed., Handbuch zum Alten Testament. First Series, 16. Tübingen: Mohr, 1963. The first edition appeared in 1937. It is extremely brief but contains excellent philological notes. – Barucq, André, Le livre des Proverbs. Sb. Paris: Gabalda, 1964. The volume includes good discussion of the Greek text. – Scott, R. B. Y., Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. Anchor Bible, 18. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1965. This volume is very short on Proverbs, only 185 pages on Proverbs + 59 pages general introduction on biblical wisdom, 13 of which on international wisdom. Scott provides the classical formulation that draws a fundamental distinction between the book of Proverbs and the other two wisdom books: “In the neighboring cultures and also in Israel the Wisdom literature was of two main types that apparently represented divergent tendencies among the sages. The first is represented in the Bible by the Book of Proverbs (except for viii 22–31 and xxx 1–4), the second by Job and Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth). The spirit of the former is conservative, practical, didactic, optimistic, and worldly wise. The latter type is critical, even radical, in its attitude to conventional beliefs; it is speculative, individualistic, and (broadly speaking) pessimistic. The former expresses itself char-

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acteristically in brief rhythmic adages and maxims suited to instruction, as well as in longer admonitions; the latter, chiefly in soliloquy and dialogue”.20 – McKane, William, Proverbs: A New Approach. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster Pr, 1970. This is a substantial commentary of 670 pages, with detailed descriptions and summaries of ancient Near Eastern parallels, as well as substantial discussion of the Septuagint. Verses in chs. 10–31 are analyzed in isolation from surrounding material, based on a theory about early secular proverbs being reinterpreted and “theologized” by later sayings. – Ringgren, Helmer. “Sprüche.” in Sprüche/Prediger. Edited by Helmer Ringgren and Walther Zimmerli. Altes Testament Deutsch, 16/2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980.21 This is a short commentary with brief, summary interpretation or paraphrases of the individual proverbs. – Alonso Schökel, Luis, A. Pinto, and J. Vilchez Lindez, Proverbios. Nueva Biblia Española: Comentario Teológico Y Literario. Sapienciales. Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1984. This commentary includes a good survey of research on ancient wisdom. The focus is on literary features of the text. – Plöger, Otto, Sprüche Salomos. Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament, 17. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984. This is a substantial commentary presenting the first attempt in commentary form to analyse smaller editorial groupings of sayings in chs. 10–31. – Meinhold, Arndt, Die Sprüche. 2 vols., Zürcher Bibelkommentare. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1991. This is another commentary that interprets smaller editorial groupings of sayings in chs. 10–31 together. There are 12 pages on parallel wisdom texts from Canaanite, Egyptian and Mesopotamian backgrounds. – Whybray, R. Norman, Proverbs. New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids; Sheffield: Eerdmans; Sheffield Academic Press, 1994. Based on an English translation, but includes numerous helpful notes on the Hebrew text and interprets verses in chs. 10–31 in the context of small editorial groupings. – Murphy, Roland E., Proverbs. Word Biblical Commentary, 22. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998. This is a medium-sized commentary with detailed philological notes and regular comments on contextual arrangements. The introduction includes a brief discussion of Near Eastern parallels cautioning against direct influence. Two helpful excursions at the end of the commentary treat “International Wisdom” and the relationship between Proverbs and Amenemope.22 – Clifford, Richard J., Proverbs: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Norwich, England; Louisville, Ky: SCM; Westminster/ John Knox, 1999. This is a medium-sized commentary full of exegetical insight. The sheer number and quality of commentaries on the book of Proverbs in the final decades of the Twentieth century is astounding and a strong indication of the keen and growing interest in wisdom literature. The massive two-volume commentaries by Fox and Waltke in the first decade of the Twenty-first century, both outstanding in their own ways, demonstrate that scholarly interest continues to blossom: Fox, Michael V., Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 18A, Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 2000. – Fox, 20

R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (1965), IXX. The latest edition of this commentary series on Proverbs is M. Sæbø, “Sprüche” ATD, 16/1 (2011). 22 Cf. also the appendix on international wisdom in R. Murphy, The Tree of Life (1990), 151–179. 21

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Michael V., Proverbs 10–31: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 18B, Anchor Yale Bible. New York: Doubleday, 2009. – Waltke, Bruce K., The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004. – Waltke, Bruce K., The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15–31. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

4. The Book of Job A helpful survey of literature on the book of Job can be found in H.-P. Müller’s Das Hiobproblem (1978; repr. 1988).

4.1. Job in its Near Eastern Context We already noted the discovery of a number of extra-biblical texts that are, at least in some respects, comparable to general themes in the book of Job. German scholars sometimes refer to such texts generically as “Hiobliteratur”. Comparative studies usually focus on the common background to the theme of the righteous sufferer (“le souffrant juste” in French and “der gerechte Leidende” in German). The relevant texts are presented below in the sequence of their discovery. Ludlud bel nemeqi or The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, in earlier discussions sometimes referred to as “Babylonian Job”: The text opens and closes with praise of Marduk, and narrates in the form of a monologue its protagonist’s suffering and eventual restoration, both at the hands of the god Marduk. The most accessible edition of this important text that shares a number of other similarities with Job appears in W. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (1960), 63– 89. Updated and annotated bibliographic references until 1978 can be found in H.-P. Müller, Das Hiobproblem (1978; repr. 1988), 49–51. The most recent update, with thorough discussion, can now be found in Lambert, “Some New Babylonian Wisdom Literature” (1995). Translations into German, English and French are mentioned in Müller, Das Hiobproblem, 50–51. 2. The Babylonian Theodicy 3. KAR 340 = VAT 9943, pl. 25: This short fragment of a dialogue (Streitgespräch) similar to the Babylonian Theodicy is published in W. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (1960), 90–91, just after the edition of the Babylonian Theodicy. 4. Louvre AO 4462: 5. The Dialogue of Pessimism: This is a reasonably long text, probably satirical, presented with an introduction, bibliography, transcription and translation in W. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (1960), 139–149. Formally similar to the book of Job in its pessimistic stance and dialogic form, it is different in out-

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look, probably composed as a sarcastic satire, either highlighting the futility of human life or presenting a humorous portrayal of excessive subservience.23 6. Man and his God (A Sumerian Variation on the “Job” Motif) 7. R.S. 25.460: This is an Akkadian text from Ugarit, presenting in restrospect the move from suffering to salvation, via lament, redemption and praise of the deity Marduk, similar to ludlul bel nemeqi; first publication J. Nougayrol (1968).24 The date is uncertain, but earlier than approx. 1300 BCE. 8. R.S. 25.130: This is an Akkadian text from Ugarit, first published by J. Nougayrol (1968).25 It is compared with Job by J. Lévêque, Job et son Dieu (1970). This text presents a general reflection on the human condition and its relationship to divine sovereignty. Among the earliest attempts to relate comparable biblical and extra-biblical texts are S. Landersdorfer (1911) and C. J. Ball (1922). J. J. Stamm’s comparison of the concept of “theodicy” in Israel and Babylon (1944) highlights the difference between the ancient perceptions of the problem of (innocent) human suffering and more modern, post-Kantian conceptions. Stamm’s monograph Die Leiden des Unschuldigen in Babylon und Israel (1946) also draws on ludlul bel nemeqi. Stamm notes characteristic religious differences, but highlights the common cause that prompted the various texts – a shared wisdom conception across the region, the question of divine justice in the face of (apparently) innocent suffering. S. Terrien’s investigation of “The Babylonian Dialogue on Theodicy and the Book of Job” (1944) notes the following parallels: the sufferers perceive themselves as innocent; they question divine justice; pessimism; faith in ultimate salvation. C. Kuhl’s “Neuere Literarkritik des Buches Hiob” (1953) includes substantial bibliographic documentation and review of literature up to that time. Kuhl highlights the genre of ludlul bel nemeqi (prayer of thanksgiving) and identifies the key difference between it and Job in the fact that the protagonist there shows awareness of culpability (Tablet 2, lines 33–35). A. Kuschke’s “Altbabylonische Texte zum Thema ‘Der leidende Gerechte’” (1956) is able to include two newly discovered parallel texts, and this enables important refinements regarding the theme of “innocent” suffering in Mesopotamian texts: as elsewhere and in contrast with Job, the sufferer in Man and his God acknowledges the possibility of wrongdoing as cause of his suffering. With Job, the appearance of “friends” seems to belong to the genre. H. Gese’s Lehre und Wirklichkeit in der alten Weisheit (1958) sees a number of common features in Babylonian texts about (innocent) suffering and Job, which warrant their inclusion into a common genre, designated “Klageerhörungsparadigma” (paradigmatic response to lament): beginning with descriptive lament 23 24 25

Cf. H.-P. Müller, Das Hiobproblem (1988), 54. Nougayrol, J. “(Juste) souffrant (R.S. 25.460)” (1968). Nougayrol, J. “R.S. 25.130” (1968).

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– paradigmatic middle section (complaint, sometimes dialogic) – restitution of the suffering individual. Gese proposes that the Sumerian e-dubba (school house, lit. “tablet house”) – the very place where the relevant texts were copied and transmitted to successive generations of trainee scribes – was the place of origin for the concept of the Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang, but stresses that the texts in question do not challenge the concept, but presume its veracity. W. von Soden’s “Das Fragen nach der Gerechtigkeit Gottes im Alten Orient” (1935) identifies the following features in common between Akkadian and biblical wisdom texts: poetic language, frequently dialogic form, paradigmatic enumeration of afflictions, frequent portrayal of interlocutors as self-righteous, lack of satisfactory progression or resolution. Questions related to (innocent) suffering are not specific to wisdom thought, but arise from the Sumerian and Semitic religious systems. O. Garcia de la Fuente’s “La prosperidad del malvado en el libro de Job y en los poemas Babilónicas del ‘Justo Paciente’” (1960) highlights that biblical and extra-biblical texts share the common feature that they end on a note that does not permit human critique of divine volition, independent of apparent human merit. G. Fohrer’s commentary Das Buch Hiob (1963) eloquently compares and contrasts the various responses given to the suffering of the apparently innocent. In ancient Near Eastern texts these responses are preparative (“vorbereitend”), in the frame narrative of Job and in the speeches of the three friends and Elihu they are preliminary (“vorläufig”), but in the renewal of the relationship between Job and his God, the response is valid and conclusive (the word “endgültig”, lit. “finally-valid”, is a wordplay). H. H. Schmid’s Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit (1966) also addresses the tension between Tat-Ergehen-Zusammenhang (considered as a static tenet of wisdom ideology) and practical experience. The following quote highlights that the level of rigidity attributed to such a “dogma of retribution” (cf. K. Koch) as reconstructed by modern scholars may not do justice to ancient perceptions of the connection between deed and consequence, whether in Israel or elsewhere. Schmid writes: “The works in this genre take…for granted… the observation that the connection between deed and consequence is sometimes not evident. The solution consists…in the unswerving affirmation of the very connection that has just been experienced as problematic”.26 H.-P. Müller’s Hiob und seine Freunde (1970) and “Die weisheitliche Lehrrede” (1977) draw on ludlul bel nemeqi III 9–47 and AO 4462 stanzas 8–9 to suggest that the healing of Job, which is not explicitly mentioned in Job 42:12–17, is implied in the theophany. Attempts to explain the mediator of Job 33:23 and the witness of Job 16:19–21 against the background of ludlul bel nemeqi can be found in contributions by W. A. Irwin (1933, 1962; but cf. C. Kuhl, 1953). See also S. Mowinckel (1925, 1933). 26 German: “Die Werke dieser Gattung gehen…aus…von der Beobachtung, dass der Tat-Ergehen-Zusammenhang gelegentlich nicht aufweisbar ist. Die Lösung besteht…in der unbeirrbaren Behauptung des soeben als problematisch erfahrenen Zusammenhangs”. H. H. Schmid, Wesen und Geschichte der Weisheit, 132–133.

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J. Gray, “Job in the Context of near Eastern Literature” (1970) drew comparisons between ludlul bel nemeqi and the recently discovered text from Ugarit, R. S. 25.460, highlighting in particular the similarity of all three texts with psalms of lament. In contrast with the majority of scholars at the time, H. D. Preuss, “Jahwes Antwort zu Hiob und die sogenannte Hiobliteratur des alten Vorderen Orients” (1977) is cautious regarding the value of comparisons between Job and ancient Near Eastern texts, while H.-P. Müller, Keilschriftliche Parallelen zum biblischen Hiobbuch (1977) attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of such comparisons through a focus on the problem of theodicy. An interesting branch of scholarship inquired into the origins of the questions of innocent suffering and theodicy. Here W. von Soden’s “Religion und Sittlichkeit nach den Anschauungen der Babylonier” (1935) makes an important and seminal contribution, proposing that ludlul bel nemeqi and the Babylonian Theodicy addressed the tension between apparently innocent suffering and the inscrutability of the gods. This proposal is developed in T. Jacobsen’s contribution to Frankfort, The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (1946). Elsewhere, however, Jacobsen argues that the Sumerian Job suggests a different solution, focusing on human responsibility for their suffering. J.J. A. van Dijk, La sagesse Suméro-Accadienne (1953) stresses the difference between the so-called Job literature and prayer laments, suggesting that the awareness of the problem of innocent suffering may reach back into Sumerian times, W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (1960) acknowledges the presence of the theme from Sumerian times, but highlights an increased awareness of the problem of innocent suffering in the Cassite period. Nonetheless, W. von Soden, “Das Fragen nach der Gerechtigkeit Gottes im Alten Orient” (1965) stresses that doubts regarding the deities’ justice have not yet been verbalised in the Sumerian Job, pace Kramer, “Man and his God” (1960). A range of scholars specifically address the question of literary dependency of the book of Job on Mesopotamian parallels, often acknowledging uncertainty due to lack of clear evidence. The following scholars suggest dependency: C. J. Ball, C. Kuhl, H. Schmökel, J. Lévêque (1970), O. Loretz, Qohelet und der Alte Orient (1964) and J. Gray suggest Canaanite influence. Some scholars suggest indirect influence: S. Terrien (1944), C. Finkelstein. Other scholars argue for independent development, often commenting that the similar cultural and religious milieux prompted parallel developments: O. Eissfeldt, J. J. Stamm (1946), G. Fohrer, R. Gordis (1965). Egyptian influence on the book of Job was first contemplated by H. Gunkel in 1912.27 Polemic exchanges like A Man and his Ba (Streitgespäch) and Papyrus Anastasi I (BM 10247; Streitschrift) seemed comparable, as well as complaints like The Complaints of Khakheperre-sonb and (The Protests of) The Eloquent Peasant. Some key questions emerge: Are the Mesopotamian texts really about innocent suffering? On this, cf. especially W. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (1960), 15–16. The common assumption was that the sufferer deserved what

27

Cf. Müller, Das Hiobproblem, 69.

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he received because of sin. The problem usually was that “the sufferer did not know for what crime he was being punished”. To overcome this dilemma, ancient thinkers “evolved the doctrine that man has no untuitive sense of sin, and only the gods can reveal it to him. Thus sins of ignorance were common, if not universal, and explain why a man without consciousness of sin can nevertheless be guilty before the gods, and so suffer”.28 The other question that remains unanswered is: Do some of the text really belong to the genre or wisdom literature, or do they belong to the prayer genre?

4.2. Commentaries on Job Peake, A. S., Job. Century Bible. London: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1904. – Driver, S. R. and G. B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job Together with a New Translation. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1921. – Hölscher, Gustav, Das Buch Hiob. Handbuch zum Alten Testament, 17. Tübingen: Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1937; rev. 2nd ed. 1952. In line with the first series of HAT, an extremely short volume (102 pages) giving translation and brief exegetical summaries of larger passages, but packed with concise insightful philological notes. – Dhorme, Eduard, Le livre de Job. Paris: Gabalda, 1926. This French commentary is theologically rich and boasts a wealth of philological comment, one of the classic commentaries of the Twentieth Century. A translation into English by H. Knight in 1967 makes it accessible to English speakers without proficiency in French. – Fohrer, Georg, Das Buch Hiob. Kommentar zum Alten Testament. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1963. This commentary provides strong form-critical and exegetical analysis. – Pope, Marvin, Job. 3rd ed., Anchor Bible, 15. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973. Contains in-depth treatment of Ugaritic material in detailed philological notes. – Rowley, H. H. R., Job. New Century Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1970. – Andersen, Francis I., Job: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentary. Leicester: Tyndale Press, 1976. A short commentary written from a conservative perspective, it provides brief insightful comment, linguistic acumen and theological insight. – Gordis, Robert, The Book of Job. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978. This medium-sized commentary offers good resources of Jewish traditions regarding Job. – Terrien, Samuel L. and P. Scherer. “Job.” Pages 877–1198 in The Interpreter’s Bible, 3. Edited by G. A. Buttrick. New York; Nashville: Abingdon, 1954. – de Wilde, A., Das Buch Hiob eingeleitet, übersetzt und erläutert. Oudtestamentische Studiën, 22. Leiden: Brill, 1981. – Alonso Schökel, Luis and J. L. Sicre Días, Job: commentario teológico y literario. Nueva Biblia Españiola. Madrid: Christiandad, 1983. This commentary emphasizes literary analysis of poetry and theological comment. – Habel, Norman C., The Book of Job: A Commentary. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985. This commentary interprets Job as an integrated literary and theological work, taking a narrative approach based on literary analysis of Job as a narrative with a plot developed in three movements. Strength lies in its holistic approach and attention to Job’s literary artistry, at the expense of detailed philological discussions. – Janzen, Gerald J., Job. Interpretation. Atlanta: John Knox, 1985. – Clines, David J. A., Job 1–20. Word Biblical Commentary, 17. Dallas, Tex.: Word Books, 1989. This commentary sets a new standard in commentary writing on the book of Job. The first volume covering Job 1–20 alone is 501 pages long. The commentary treats the book as a whole as a literary unit, contains painstaking philological notes and near exhaustive, thematically arranged bibliographies which open access to the reception history of Job, and comprehensive exegetical comment. Another new feature is a discussion about readerly approaches to the interpretation of Job, including a feminist reading, a vegetarian reading, a materialist reading and a Christian reading. The second and third volumes, extending to 535 pages and 617 pages respectively, appeared in 2009 and 2011. – Good, Edwin M., In Turns of Tempest: A Reading of the Book of Job, with Translation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. This volume offers intriguing literary analyses highlighting ambiguities and exegetical alternatives. – Newsom, C. A. “Job.” Pages 317–637 in New Interpreter’s

28

Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 15–16.

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Bible, 4. Edited by Leander E. Keck. Nashville: Abingdon, 1996. This volume is relatively brief but offers valuable theological insights and astute exegetical comment throughout. Newsom’s recent The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (2003) presents imaginative readings of the different perspectives in the book, based on polyphonic and dialogic readings à la Bakhtin. – Seow, C. L., Job 1–21: Interpretation and Commentary. Illuminations. Grand Rapids, 2013. This is a massive volume combining the strengths of technical commentary and extensive reception history.

The range and quality of scholarly output on the book of Job is astounding. The quality and sheer quantity of commentary writing demonstrates that the fascination with the book of Job continues to grow – with regard to its Near Eastern context as well as for its own sake.

5. The Book of Ecclesiastes D. Michel, Qohelet (1988) and D. Michel, Untersuchungen zur Eigenart des Buches Kohelet (1989) offer helpful surveys of literature on the book of Ecclesiastes.

5.1. Ecclesiastes in its Near Eastern Context Four cultural backgrounds have been proposed for Qoheleth: Egypt, Babylonia, Phoenicia and Greece. Following the discovery of the close relationship between Proverbs and Amenemope in 1924, P. Humbert’s wide-ranging study Recherches sur les sources Égyptiennes de la littérature sapientale d’Israël (1929) argues for very close relations. In his view, Qoheleth knew the Egyptian language and was familiar with relevant literature from Egypt, which influenced his own pessimism and teaching on pleasure (morale du plaisir). K. Galling’s “Kohelet-Studien” (1932) proposes Egyptian influence on several passages in Ecclesiastes. B. Gemser’s 1960 investigation into connections between Ecclesiastes and the late Egyptian Instruction of ‘Onchsheshonqy concludes cautiously that there may be “some connection”. M. Lichtheim’s “Observations on Papyrus Insinger” (1979) compares another text from the Late Period in Egypt with Qoheleth, concluding that their similarities owe nothing to direct or even indirect influence. The similarities arose from widely shared sentiments of anxiety at the time, across the region. Good overviews can be found in M. V. Fox, “Two Decades of Research in Egyptian Wisdom Literature (1980) and R. J. Williams, “The Sages of Ancient Egypt in the Light of Recent Scholarship” (1981). O. Loretz’ Qohelet und der Alte Orient (1964) conducts another wide-ranging investigation into relevant texts from Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece. He rejects direct relations with Egypt and Greece, but affirms close connections with Mesopotamian literature, especially the texts ludlul bel nemeqi, the Babylonian Theodicy and the Gilgamesh Epic.29 Schaffer (1967, 1969) also argues for direct re29

The latter text had been called “Ein babylonischer Kohelet” by the author of its first publication: E. Ebeling, Ein Babylonischer Kohelet (1923).

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lations with Gilgamesh. R. Braun, Kohelet und die frühhellenistische Popularphilosophie (1973) acknowledges thematic overlap between Qohelet and Egyptian texts, but denies direct and even indirect influence. Similarly, he rejects the direct relations with Babylonian texts adduced by Loretz and Schaffer. Müller, Kohelet (1978, 1988) admits the possibility that Qoheleth knew works like Gilgamesh and “quoted” from them, but denies deeper connections or dependencies.30 Phoenician influence (from Ugarit) has been proposed especially by M. Dahood, in a range of articles (1952, 1962, 1965, 1966) that particularly investigate philological similarities and specific ideas. More recent surveys of Phoenician/ Canaanite influence on wisdom in general can be found in J. Day, “Foreign Semitic Influence on the Wisdom of Israel and Its Appropriation in the Book of Proverbs” (1995). Prior to the discovery of similar texts from the ancient Near East, the natural comparative literature had been that from Greece. As early as 1792, G. Zirkel, Untersuchungen über den Prediger, had drawn this connection. A majority of recent scholars also support Greek influence rather than an ancient Near Easter background, e.g., H. Ranston,31 M. Hengel,32 H. Braun, N. Lohfink,33 J. Gammie.34 – By contrast, W. Lambert’s review and discussion of recent discoveries of relevant texts includes comments on a text which shows that the “vanity of vanities” theme so central in Qoheleth already appeared in Mesopotamian texts before 1600 BCE.35 In the words of the editors of that volume, “[t]his newer evidence will obviously have to be taken into account when the case for Qoheleth’s having been influenced by Greek philosophy is being considered”.36

5.2. Commentaries on Ecclesiastes Podechard, E., Ecclésiaste. Études Bibliques. Paris: Gabalda, 1912. – Hertzberg, H. W., Der Prediger. 2nd ed., Kommentar Zum Alten Testament, 17/4. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1963. – Barucq, A., Ecclésiaste. Verbum Salutis, 3. Paris: Beuchesne, 1968. This is a brief commentary containing useful, perceptive comments throughout. – Gordis, Robert, Koheleth – the Man and His World. 3rd ed. New York: Schocken, 1968. – Galling, Kurt. “Der Prediger.” Pages 73–125 in Die Fünf Megillot. Edited by Ernst Würthwein, Kurt Galling, and Otto Plöger. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1969. This is a technical yet brief commentary. – Lauha, Aarre, Kohelet. Biblischer Kommentar Altest Testament, 19. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978. This is an extensive technical commentary proposing a complex redactional scheme with several editorial layers. – Lohfink, Norbert, Kohelet. Echter Bibel. Kommentar Zum Alten Testament. Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1980; 6th ed. 2009. This is a relatively brief commentary packed with 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

D. Michel, Qohelet, 57. H. Ranston, Ecclesiastes and the Early Greek Wisdom Literature (1925). M. Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus (1969; 1973; ET 1974). N. Lohfink, Norbert. “Der Bibel skeptische Hintertür” (1980); idem, Kohelet (1980, 2009). J. G. Gammie, “Stoicism and Antistoicism in Qoheleth” (1985). Lambert, “Some New Babylonian Wisdom Literature”, 36–42. J. Day, R. P. Gordon, and H. G. M. Williamson, “Introduction”, in Wisdom in Ancient Israel, 3.

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good exegetical insights. – Crenshaw, James L., Ecclesiastes. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987. This volume contains a helpful history of interpretation. – Fox, Michael V., Qohelet and His Contradictions. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series, 71. Sheffield: Almond, 1989. This influential treatment focuses on the complexity and unity of Ecclesiastes, despite tensions between various statements in the book. – Towner, W. Sibley. “Ecclesiastes.” Pages 265–360 in New Interpreter’s Bible, 5. Edited by Leander E. Keck. Nashville: Abingdon, 1989. – Whybray, R. N., Ecclesiastes. New Century Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989. – Murphy, Roland E., Ecclesiastes. Word Biblical Commentary, 23a. Dallas: Word, 1992. – Fox, Michael V., A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999. – Fox, Michael V., Ecclesiastes. The JPS Bible Commentary. Jewish Publication Society, 2004. – Krüger, Thomas, Qoheleth. Translated by O. C. Dean Jr., Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. – Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ludger, Kohelet. Herders Theologischer Kommentar. Freiburg: Herder, 2004. – Christianson, Eric S., Ecclesiastes through the Centuries. Blackwell Bible Commentaries. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. – Seow, C. L., Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible v. 18C. New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2008. – Bartholomew, Craig G., Ecclesiastes. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.

6. Conclusion and Outlook into the Twenty-first Century The discovery of ancient Near Eastern texts that are comparable to biblical wisdom literature near the beginning of the century has prompted intense scholarly engagement and phenomenal academic output. In the opening decades and into the middle of the century, many specialists on Near Eastern culture were also specialists in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. As the disciplines of Egyptology, Assyriology and Sumerology were still in their infancy, it was possible for biblical scholars to be abreast with the newest developments in these fields. Yet much initial output was hampered by early misunderstandings of the newly emerging evidence. The thought that international wisdom literature was “secular” is a case in point. As the century progressed the disciplines have matured and become more specialist, as well as more independent of Biblical scholarship. Many specialists in Near Eastern cultures now show relatively little interest in Biblical concerns, and the majority of Biblical scholars have only a rudimentary knowledge of the neighbouring disciplines. This is both necessary due to the sheer mass of material now available for study and to be welcomed, as more independent inquiry promises to yield more balanced results. Nonetheless, the history of scholarly engagement at the interface of the disciplines of Biblical Studies, Egyptology, Assyriology and Sumerology demonstrates that these disciplines have benefited each other throughout the Twenty-first Century. None would be where they are now without their sister disciplines. Thus a more promising approach for future cross-fertilization lies in interdisciplinary

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work where teams of scholars from the different disciplines collaborate on specific projects that emerge from shared concerns and subject matter. Such renewed collaboration may yet yield fresh solutions to some of the many challenges that have occupied scholars over the last one hundred years or so. As the publications from the opening years of the Twenty-first Century included in this chapter demonstrate, one thing is certain: Interest in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament continues to flourish, and the Twenty-first Century is witnessing a burgeoning field of academic endeavour. It can only benefit from the independent insights of ancient Near Eastern study, and vice versa.

Chapter Forty-five

The Study of Law and Ethics in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament By Eckart Otto, Munich Bibliographies and Surveys of Research-History: E. Otto, “Biblische Rechtsgeschichte. Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung”, ThRv 91 (1995) 283–292; “Altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte”, ThLZ 130 (2005) 853–858; “Neue Literatur zur biblischen Rechtsgeschichte”, ZAR 12 (2006) 72–106; “Das Recht der Hebräischen Bibel im Kontext der altorientalischen Rechtsgeschichte”, ThR 71 (2006) 389–421; “Perspektiven der neueren Deuteronomiumsforschung”, ZAW 119 (2007) 319–340. − W. Schottroff, “Zum alttestamentlichen Recht”, VuF 22 (1977) 3–29. − J. W. Welch, A Biblical Law Bibliography (Toronto Studies in Theology; Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press 1990); “A Biblical Law Bibliography – 1997 Supplement”, ZAR 3 (1997) 207–246; “A Biblical Law Bibliography – 2002 Supplement”, ZAR 9 (2003) 279–318. Studies: R. Achenbach, Die Vollendung der Tora. Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hexateuch und Pentateuch (BZAR 3; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2003); idem/M. Arneth/E. Otto, Tora in der Hebräischen Bibel. Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte und synchronen Logik diachroner Transformationen (BZAR 7; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2007); idem, “Das Heiligkeitsgesetz und die sakralen Ordnungen des Numeribuches im Horizont der Pentateuchredaktion”, The Books of Leviticus and Numbers (ed. T. Römer; BETL 215; Leuven: Peeters 2008), 145–176; idem/H. Neumann (eds.), Reichsrecht und Lokalrecht. Zur Konkurrenz und wechselseitigem Einfluss divergenter Rechtsordnungen im Alten Orient (BZAR 12; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2009). − K.-P. Adam, “Law and Narrative. The Narratives of Saul and David Understood within the Framework of a Legal Discussion on Homicide Law (Ex 21:12–14)”, ZAR 14 (2008) 311–335. − A. Alt, “Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts” (1934), Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel, I (Munich: Beck 1953), 278–332. − C. B. Anderson, Women, Ideology and Violence. Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law (JSOT.S 394; New York: Clark 2004). − O. Artus, Les lois du Pentateuque. Points de repère pour une lecture exégétique et théologique (LD 200; Paris: Les Editions du Cerf 2005). − G. Barbiero, L’asino del nemico. Rinuncia alla vendetta e amore del nemico nella legislazione dell’Antico Testamento (Es 23,4–5; Dt 22,1–4; Lv 19,17–18) (AnBib 128; Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico 1991). − P. Barmash, Homicide in the Biblical World (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2005). − O. Behrends (ed.), Der biblische Gesetzesbegriff. Auf den Spuren seiner Säkularisierung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2006). − H. V. Bennett, Injustice Made Legal: Deuteronomic Law and the Plight of Widows, Strangers, and Orphans in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2002). − J. S. Bergsma, The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran. A History of Interpretation (VT.S 115; Leiden: Brill 2007). − H. J. Boecker, Redeformen des Rechtslebens im Alten Testament (WMANT 14; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1964; 21970); Recht und Gesetz im Alten Testament und im Alten Orient (2nd edn., Neukirchen-Vluyn 1984). − P. Bovati, Re-Establishing Justice. Legal Terms, Concepts and Procedures in the Hebrew Bible (JSOT.S 105; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1994). − G. Braulik, Studien zur Theologie des Deuteronomiums (SBAB 2; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1988); Studien zum Buch Deuteronomium (SBAB 24; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1997); Studien zum Deuteronomium und seiner Nachgeschichte (SBAB 33; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 2001). − G. Brin, Studies in Biblical Law. From the Hebrew Bible to the Dead Sea Scrolls (JSOT.S 176; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1994). − J. P. Burnside, The Signs of Sin. Seriousness of Offences in Biblical Law (JSOT.S 364; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2003). − C. M. Carmichael, The

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Laws of Deuteronomy (Ithaka, NY: Cornell UP 1974); The Origins of Biblical Law. The Decalogue and the Book of the Covenant (Ithaka, NY: Cornell UP 1992). − A. Cholewin´ski, Heiligkeitsgesetz und Deuteronomium. Eine vergleichende Studie (AnBib 66; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum 1976). − F. Crüsemann, Die Tora. Theologie und Sozialgeschichte des alttestamentlichen Gesetzes (Munich: Kaiser 1992). − A. Eberharter, Das Ehe- und Familienrecht der Hebräer mit Rücksicht auf die ethnologische Forschung dargestellt (AA V/1.2; Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1914). − C. Edenburg, “Ideology and Social Context of the Deuteronomic Women’s Sex Laws (Deuteronomy 22:13–29)”, JBL 128 (2009) 43–60. − Z. W. Falk, Introduction to Jewish Law of the Second Commonwealth (AGJU 11/1–2; Leiden: Brill 1972); Hebrew Law in Biblical Times (Provo, UT: Brigham Young UP/Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 22001). − J. J. Finkelstein, “The Ox That Gored”, TAPhS 86 (1966) 355–372; “The Goring Ox. Some Historical Perspectives on Deodands, Forfeitures, Wrongful Death and the Western Notion of Sovereignty”, Temple Law Quarterly 46 (1973) 169–290. − E. B. Firmage/B. G. Weiss/J. W. Welch (eds.), Religion and Law. Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 1990). − M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1985). − A. Fitzpatrick-McKinley, The Transformation of Torah from Scribal Advice to Law (JSOT.S 287; Sheffield: Sheffield UP 1999). − H.-J. Gehrke (ed.), Rechtskodifizierung und soziale Normen im interkulturellen Vergleich (ScriptOralia 66; Tübingen: Gunther Narr Verlag 1994). − E. S. Gerstenberger, Wesen und Herkunft des “apodiktischen Rechts” (WMANT 20; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1965). − J.-Chr. Gertz, Die Gerichtsorganisation Israels im deuteronomischen Gesetz (FRLANT 165; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1994). − M. Greenberg, “Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law”, Studies in Bible and Jewish Religion. Yehezkel Kaufmann Jubilee Volume (ed. M. Haran; Jerusalem: Magnes Press 1960), 5–28; “More Reflections on Biblical Criminal Law”, Studies in Bible (ScrHie 31; Jerusalem: Magnes Press 1986), 1–17. − R. Haase, “Über Bemühungen um öffentliche Sicherheit und Ordnung in keilschriftlichen Rechtscorpora und in der Torah”, ZAR 6 (2000) 61–67. − A. C. Hagedorn, Between Moses and Plato. Individual and Society in Deuteronomy and Ancient Greek Law (FRLANT 204; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004); idem/R. G. Kratz (eds.), Religion and Law in the Eastern Mediterranean World (Oxford: Oxford UP 2009). − A. C. J. M. Hamilton, Social Justice and Deuteronomy. The Case of Deuteronomy 15 (SBL.DS 136; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1992). − F. Horst, Gottes Recht. Studien zum Recht im Alten Testament (ThB 12; Munich: Kaiser 1961). − F.L. Hossfeld, Der Dekalog. Seine späten Fassungen, die originale Komposition und seine Vorstufen (OBO 45; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1982). − C. Houtman, Das Bundesbuch. Ein Kommentar (DMOA 24; Leiden: Brill 1997). − B. S. Jackson, Essays in Jewish and Comparative Legal History (Leiden: Brill 1975); “The Ceremonial and the Judicial: Biblical Law as Sign and Symbol”, JSOT 30 (1984) 25–50; Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law (JSOT.S 314; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2000); Wisdom-Laws. A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1– 22:16 (Oxford: Oxford UP 2006). − A. Jepsen, Untersuchungen zum Bundesbuch (BWANT 41; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1927). − C. H. W. Johns, The Relations between the Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples (The Schweich Lectures 1912; London: British Academy 1914). − I. Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence. The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995). − S. Lafont, Femmes, droit et justice dans l’Antiquité orientale. Contribution à l’étude du droit pénal du Proche-Orient ancien (OBO 165; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1999). − G. Lasserre, Synopse des lois du Pentateuque (VT.S 59; Leiden: Brill 1994). − E.-A. Lee, Forschungsgeschichte der Diskussion um das apodiktische Recht (Diss. theol. Munich 2003). − J.-F. Lefebvre, Le jubilé biblique Lv 25 – exégèse et théologie (OBO 194; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003). − M. Lefebvre, Collection, Codes, and Torah. The Re-characterization of Israel’s Written Law (LHB/OTS 451; New York: Clark 2006). − B. M. Levinson (ed.), Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law. Revision, Interpolation and Development (JSOT.S 181; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1994); Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York: Oxford UP 1997); “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (FAT 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008). − E. Levy (ed.), La codification des lois dans l’antiquité (Université Marc Bloch de Strasbourg. Travaux du Centre de Recherche sur le Proche-Orient et la Grèce antiques 16; Paris: De Boccard 2000). − C. Locher, Die Ehre einer Frau in Israel. Exegetische und rechtsvergleichende Studien zu Deuteronomium 22,13–21 (OBO 70; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1986). − N. Lohfink, Studien zum Deuteronomium und zur deuteronomistischen Literatur, I–V (SBAB 8, 12, 20, 31, 35; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1990, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2005). − D. Markl, “Narrative Rechtshermeneutik

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als methodische Herausforderung des Pentateuch”, ZAR 11 (2005) 107–121; Der Dekalog als Verfassung des Gottesvolkes. Die Brennpunkte einer Rechtshermeneutik des Pentateuch in Ex 19–24 und Dtn 5 (Herders Biblische Studien 49; Freiburg, Br.: Herder 2007). − J. W. Marshall, Israel and the Book of the Covenant. An Anthropological Approach to Biblical Law (SBL.DS 140; Atlanta 1993). − J. G. McConville, Law and Theology in Deuteronomy (JSOT.S 33; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1986); idem/K. Möller (eds.) Reading the Law. Festschrift G. J. Wenham (LHB/OTS 461; New York: Clark 2007). − A. Menes, Die vorexilischen Gesetze Israels im Zusammenhang seiner kulturgeschichtlichen Entwicklung (BZAW 50; Berlin: Töpelmann 1928). − A. Merx, Die Bücher Moses und Josua (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1907). − J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB 3; New York: Doubleday 1991–2001). − H. Najman, Seconding Sinai. The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (JSJ.S 77; Leiden: Brill 2003). − Chr. Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch. A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus (FAT II/25; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007). − E. Otto, Wandel der Rechtsbegründungen in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte des antiken Israel. Eine Rechtsgeschichte des „Bundesbuches“ Ex XX 22–XXIII 13 (StBib 3; Leiden: Brill 1988); Rechtsgeschichte der Redaktionen im Kodex Ešnunna und im „Bundesbuch“. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche und rechtsvergleichende Studie zu altbabylonischen und altisraelitischen Rechtsüberlieferungen (OBO 85; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1989); Körperverletzungen in den Keilschriftrechten und im Alten Testament. Studien zum Rechtstransfer im Alten Orient (AOAT 226; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1991); “Del Libro de la Allianza a la Ley de Santidad. La reformulación del derecho israelita y la formación del Pentateuco“, EstB 52 (1994) 195–217; “Town and Rural Countryside in Ancient Israelite Law. Reception and Redaction in Cuneiform and Israelite Law”, JSOT 57 (1993) 3–22; “Vom Bundesbuch zum Deuteronomium. Die deuteronomische Redaktion in Dtn 12–26”, in: Biblische Theologie und gesellschaftlicher Wandel. Festschrift N. Lohfink (ed. G. Braulik/W. Groß/S. E. McEvenue; Freiburg, Br.: Herder 1993), 260– 278; “Das Heiligkeitsgesetz Leviticus 17–26 in der Pentateuchredaktion”, Altes Testament. Forschung und Wirkung. Festschrift H. Graf Reventlow (ed. W. Thiel/P. Mommer; Frankfurt a.M.: Lang 1994), 65–80; Kontinuum und Proprium. Studien zur Sozial- und Rechtsgeschichte des Alten Orients und des Alten Testaments (OrBC 8; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1996); Das Deuteronomium. Politische Theologie und Rechtsreform in Juda und Assyrien (BZAW 284; Berlin: de Gruyter 1999); “Ermeneutica giuridica nella Bibbia ebraica”, Ars Interpretandi 4 (1999) 215–241; Das Deuteronomium im Pentateuch und Hexateuch. Studien zur Literaturgeschichte von Pentateuch und Hexateuch im Lichte des Deuteronomiumrahmens (FAT 30; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2000); Gottes Recht als Menschenrecht. Rechts- und literaturhistorische Studien zum Deuteronomium (BZAR 2; Wiesbaden 2002); “Recht im antiken Israel”, in: Die Rechtskulturen der Antike. Vom Alten Orient bis zum Römischen Reich (ed. U. Manthe; München: Beck 2003), 151–190.328–329; Das Gesetz des Mose (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2007); “Die Rechtshermeneutik im Pentateuch und in der Tempelrolle“, Tora in der Hebräischen Bibel. Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte und synchronen Logik diachroner Transformationen (R. Achenbach/M. Arneth/E. Otto; BZAR 7; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2007), 72–121; “Scribal Scholarship in the Formation of Torah and Prophets: A Postexilic Scribal Debate between Priestly Scholarship and Literary Prophecy – The Example of the Book of Jeremiah and Its Relation to the Pentateuch”, The Pentateuch as Torah. New Models of Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. G. N. Knoppers/B. M. Levinson; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2007), 171–184; Altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte. Gesammelte Studien (BZAR 8; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2008); “Anti-Achaemenid Propaganda in Deuteronomy”, Homeland and Exile. Festschrift B. Oded (ed. G. Galil e.a., VT.S; Leiden: Brill 2009); “Das Bundesbuch und der ‘Kodex’ Hammurapi. Das biblische Recht zwischen positiver und subversiver Rezeption von Keilschriftrecht”, Reichsrecht und Lokalrecht. Zur Konkurrenz und wechselseitigem Einfluss divergenter Rechtsordnungen im Alten Orient (ed. R. Achenbach/H. Neumann; BZAR 12; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2009); Die Tora. Studien zum Pentateuch. Gesammelte Aufsätze (BZAR 9; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2009); “The History of the Legal-Religious Hermeneutics of the Book of Deuteronomy from the Assyrian to the Hellenistic Period”, Religion and Law in the Eastern Mediterranean World (ed. A. Hagedorn/R. G. Kratz; Oxford: Oxford UP 2009). − S. Paganini, The Covenant in the Light of Cuneiform and Biblical Law (VT.S 18; Leiden: Brill 1970). − A. Phillips, Ancient Israel’s Criminal Law. A New Approach to the Decalogue (Oxford: Blackwell 1970); Essays on Biblical Law (JSOT.S 344; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2002). − E. Ring, Israels Rechtsleben im Lichte der neuentdeckten assyrischen und hethitischen Gesetzesurkunden (Stockholm: Victor Petterson/Leipzig: Buchhandlung Gustav Fock 1926). − A. Rofé, Deuteronomy. Issues and Interpretation (Edinburgh:

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Clark 2002). − R. Rothenbush, Die kasuistische Rechtssammlung im “Bundesbuch” (EX 21,2–11.18– 22,16) und ihr literarischer Kontext im Licht altorientalischer Parallelen (AOAT 259; Münster: Ugarit Verlag 2000). − A. Schenker, Versöhnung und Widerstand. Bibeltheologische Untersuchungen zum Strafen Gottes und der Menschen, besonders im Lichte von Exodus 21–22 (SBS 139; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1990); “La plus ancienne formulation de la peine avec sursis dans l’histoire du droit. La notion de peine avec sursis dans la Bible?”, ZAR 6 (2000) 127–154. − K. Schmid, “Kollektivschuld? Der Gedanke übergreifender Schuldzusammenhänge im Alten Testament und im Alten Orient”, ZAR 5 (1999) 193–222. − W. Schottroff, Der altisraelitische Fluchspruch (WMANT 30; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1969). − H. Schulz, Das Todesrecht im Alten Testament (BZAW 114; Berlin: Töpelmann 1969). − J. Stackert, Rewriting the Torah. Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code (FAT 52; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007). − H. U. Steymans, Deuteronomium 28 und die adê zur Thronfolgeregelung Asarhaddons. Segen und Fluch im Alten Orient und in Israel (OBO 145; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1995). − J. Van Seters, A Law Book for the Diaspora. Revision in the Study of the Covenant Code (Oxford: Oxford UP 2003). − T. Veijola, Das 5. Buch Mose. Deuteronomium Kapitel 1,1–16,17 (ATD 8,1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004). − J. W. Watts, Reading Law. The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch (The Biblical Seminar 59; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1999); idem (ed.), Persia and Torah. The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (SBL.SS 17; Atlanta: SBL 2001). − M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford UP 1972); Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes Press/Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995); The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel (VT.S 100; Leiden: Brill 2004). − J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Berlin: Georg Reimer 1883; 61905). − B. WELLS, The Laws of Testimony in the Pentateuchal Codes (BZAR 4; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2004); “Sex, Lies, and Virgin Rape: The Slandered Bride and False Accusation in Deuteronomy”, JBL 124 (2005) 41–72; “The Covenant Code and Near Eastern Legal Traditions: A Response to David P. Wright“, Maarav 13 (2006) 85–118. − R. Westbrook, “Biblical and Cuneiform Law Codes and the Origins of Legislation”, RB 95 (1985) 247–264; Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Law (Cahiers de la Revue Biblique 26; Paris: Gabalda 1988); Property and the Family in Biblical Law (JSOT.S 113; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1991); idem (ed.), A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law (Handbook of Oriental Studies 72/1–2; Leiden: Brill 2003). − M. Witte/M. Th. Fögen (eds.), Kodifizierung und Legitimierung des Rechts in der Antike und im Alten Orient (BZAR 5; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2005). − D. P. Wright, “The Laws of Hammurabi as a Source for the Covenant Collection“, Maarav 10 (2003) 11–87; “The Compositional Logic of the Goring Ox and Negligence Laws in the Covenant Collection (Ex 21:28–36)”, ZAR 10 (2004) 93–142; “The Laws of Hammurabi and the Covenant Code: A Response to Bruce Wells”, Maarav 13 (2006) 211–260.

1. The Legal History of the Hebrew Bible in the Horizon of an Ancient Near Eastern Legal History The study of law and ethics of the Hebrew Bible deals with the normative aspects of life, so that law and ethics are like two overlapping circles, which partly deal with the same texts of the Hebrew Bible. But they use different hermeneutical approaches. The description of biblical law is a strictly historical endeavour, which interprets legal texts of the Bible as part of an Ancient Near Eastern legal history, whereas the study of ethics mostly interprets the same texts under the perspective of the canon as the following descriptions. The nineteenth century passed on to Old Testament scholarship of the early twentieth century the hypothesis of J. Wellhausen that the legal history of the Old Testament was an offshoot of the preexilic prophets.1 But in the early twenti1

See J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena (1905), 363–424.

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eth century many scholars, who accepted J. Wellhausen’s source-critical hypotheses for the literary history of the Pentateuch, became critical of his late dating of the predeuteronomic legal material of the Old Testament. A. Merx, who deeply influenced M. Weber, was a typical representative of this revision of J. Wellhausen’s reconstruction of Israel’s history of religion. The biblical law codes should no longer be seen simply as an outcome of prophetic theology but as having their own historical dynamics, so that he used them as a framework for the reconstruction of the literary history of the Pentateuch.2 This legal historical approach was to a degree confirmed when in 1901 the stele of the “Codex Hammurapi”3 was found in Susa and the editio princeps published by V. Scheil in 1902.4 Very soon the close parallels between this old Babylonian law collection and biblical laws, especially those of the Covenant Code in Exodus 21–23, became evident, and an intensive debate was started in 1903 by scholars, who voted for a direct literary dependence of the Covenant Code upon the Laws of Hammurapi5 or the reception of an archaic semitic law code by both the laws of Hammurapi and the Covenant Code.6 Others denied any reception of Babylonian laws in the Covenant Code because the societal background of the biblical laws seemed to be more archaic and less developed than that of the old Babylonian laws,7 or the Babylonian laws were looked upon as more secular and less religiously motivated than the Covenant Code.8 Before the publication of the old Babylonian law, scholars of the Old Testament discussed the following question from the perspective of J. Wellhausen to Old Testament scholarship of the early twentieth century’s concept of “denaturation” (Denaturierung): why sacral laws (fas), which for J. Wellhausen were intermingled with “profane” laws (ius) in the oral priestly Torah, were separated from each other and then again united in the Covenant Code, and whether this unification was a process of secularisation of the sacral law and an outcome of prophetic cult-critique,9 or a kind of sacralisation of originally “profane” law.10 By the comparison of biblical law with Babylonian law the quest for the religious nature of biblical law received a more satisfactory basis than the theories of denaturation, secularisation and resacralisation from the

2

See A. Merx, Die Bücher Moses (1907). For a transcription and translation of the Akkadian text see M. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (Atlanta 1995), 71–142. 4 See V. Scheil, Textes élamites-sémitiques: deuxième série (Mémoires de la délégation en Perse, 4; Paris 1902). 5 See e. g. S. Oettli, Das Gesetz Hammurabis und die Thora Israels. Eine religions- und rechtsgeschichtliche Parallele (Leipzig 1903); R. Kittel, Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft in ihren wichtigsten Ergebnissen (Leipzig 1901; 31917), 20–30. For a history of research see E. Otto, Rezeption (2009). 6 See D. H. von Müller, Die Gesetze Hammurabis und ihr Verhältnis zur mosaischen Gesetzgebung sowie zu den XII Tafeln (Vienna 1903; repr. Amsterdam 1975); H. Grimme, Das Gesetz Chammurabis und Moses (Cologne 1903). 7 See W. L. Wardle, Israel and Babylon (London 1925), 252–293; M. San Nicolò, Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte im Bereiche der keilschriftlichen Rechtsquellen (Oslo 1931), 77; M. David, “The Codex Hammurabi and its Relation to the Provisions of Law in Exodus”, OTS 7 (1950), 149–178. 8 See J. Hempel, “Gottesgedanke und Rechtsgestalt in Altisrael”, ZSTh 8 (1931), 377–395. 9 See R. Smend (sen.), Die Erzählung des Hexateuch auf ihre Quellen untersucht (Berlin 1912), 180. 10 See A.Bertholet, Kulturgeschichte Israels (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1919), 207. 3

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nineteenth century could deliver. But up to now there was, and still remains, the danger of a shortfall in these studies, should the Babylonian law be interpreted as only secular without taking into account the royal ideology of the time, which meant the religious legitimation of law. A new level in the research-history of biblical law was reached when A. Alt introduced form-critical methods into its interpretation.11 He distinguished between casuistic laws constituted by a protasis and an apodosis and apodictic laws of prohibitives or injunctives, which were typical for the Decalogue. This apodictic law consists of absolute commandments or more often prohibitions, with no conditional qualifications. Also the môt jûmaˉ t laws of capital punishment (Exod 21:12–17), the ’arûr-sentences (“cursed be …”) in Deut 27 and the prohibitions of incest in Leviticus 18 were classed by A. Alt among the apodictic laws. These form-critical classifications were supposed to answer the question of the origin of these laws. For A. Alt the apodictic style of these sentences hinted at the divine authority oftheir origin, so that Israel came to know these divine laws in the desert. The casuistic law, in contrast, was of the form “if x then y”. For A. Alt Israel came to know this kind of law from the Canaanites in the Promised Land. The ‘setting in life’ (Sitz im Leben) of this type of law was the local courts. The Canaanite legal tradition was, according to A. Alt, part of a gemeinsame Rechtskultur (“common legal culture”), which explained the similarities between the old Babylonian legal tradition, which was represented by the Codex Hammurapi, and the Canaanite tradition. This was preserved in the Covenant Code. With this approach, A. Alt formalised and popularised the dissertation of his student A. Jepsen.12 The main problem with this hypothesis was the fact that a form-critical classification cannot answer the question of the origin of a text, but only its function. Certainly, the theological interpretation of the apodictic law as God-given was, at first glance, rather convincing, because it could solve some theological problems, which arose from the Wellhausian literary critical approach to the Sinai pericope, which came to the conclusion that the Decalogue was from a literary perspective a late insertion into the Sinai pericope, so that the narrative that Yhwh had given the Decalogue to the people of Israel appeared as a late fiction. This literary critical result created some theological problems concerning the question of whether the Decalogue was of a revelationary or merely fictional character. A. Alt could offer a solution for this theological challenge without denying the literary critical results of J. Wellhausen simply by giving form-critical arguments for the divine origin of the Decalogue.13 M. Noth then sought to further ground the thesis of his teacher A. Alt concerning the sacral origin of apodictic law by the hypothesis of its cultic function and the respective central sanctuary as the place where the apodictic and casuistic laws of the Covenant Code as an Israelite Amphiktyonenrecht (“law of the amphiktyony”) were brought together.14 It took nearly thirty years until A. Alt’s interpretation of the divine origin and cultic function of apodictic law was convincingly ques11 12 13 14

See A. Alt, Recht (1953), 278–332. See A. Jepsen, Bundesbuch (1927). For the Decalogue see also below II. See M. Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme (BWANT 4/1; Stuttgart 1930), 97–100.

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tioned by E. S. Gerstenberger,15 who recognized the originally profane function of the apodictic prohibitives in an archaic family-setting as a kind of Sippenethos (“clan ethic”) of ethical instructions by the pater familias. One may doubt if it is necessary to presume a “wisdom” in the extended families and lineages.16 Not “wisdom” but law was the context for the apodictic injunctives and prohibitives, which served the didactic internalization of basic norms of family-life. These were protected by the general authority of the sanctions of the môt jûmaˉ t-laws (Exod 21:12–17). G. Liedke underlined the point that the Hebrew Bible itself differentiated terminologically between the casuistic laws as mišpat. and apodictic sentences as h. oq or h. uqqaˉ . mis.waˉ was used for prohibitives and injunctives and tôraˉ for vetitives, imperatives and jussives. This differentiation confirms that the essential aspects of A. Alt’s distinction between apodictic and casuistic laws were adequate and valuable for the interpretation of the legal history of the Hebrew Bible. G. Liedke also confirmed Alt’s thesis that the local courts were the origin of casuistic laws. H. Schulz interpreted the môt jûmaˉ t-laws, which were formed by a participle or relative-sentence as a protasis and the set form of the words môt jûmaˉ t (“he shall surely be put to death”) as an apodosis, as a legal category of its own, that was not part of the casuistic or apodictic laws, although it had a close connection with the prohibitives of the apodictic laws.17 The history of this category, which Schulz has called Todesrecht (“laws of capital offenses”), should have its origins in tribal communities (Gen 26:1–11) and represent the legal authority of the tribal community. Later on, according to Schulz, it found its “setting in life” in local cultic communities. W. Schottroff dealt with the ’arûr-laws (Deuteronomy 27*).18 The ’arûr-formula (“cursed be …”) had its original “setting in life” as a means of direct legal revenge in extended families (Mittel der Sippenrache). With the restriction of direct legal reactions by court-procedures, the ’arûr-laws took on the function of a supplement to legal procedures in cases which were not dealt with by witnesses. After a phase of form-critical discussions about the origins and functions of casuistic and apodictic laws, questions of the legal perspectives in the literary compositions of the law collections arose once again. This was already a topic in the literary critical school of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in the discussion of the relation between ius and fas, but this discussion lost its meaning under the form-critical concentration on the single legal provision. E. Otto could demonstrate that the Covenant Code was formed out of small collections dealing with one legal topic, e. g. bodily injuries (Exod 21:18–32), material damages (Exod 21:33–22:14) and legal procedures (Exod 23:1–3.6–8). The same technique of redacting law codes out of smaller collections was used in Ancient Near Eastern legal history, as in the old Babylonian law collections of Ešnunna and

15 See E. S. Gerstenberger, Wesen (1965). For the research-history of the apodictic law see E. A. Lee, Forschungsgeschichte (2003). 16 See the counter-arguments by H.-J. Hermisson, Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit (WMANT 28; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1968), 81–92. 17 See H. Schulz, Todesrecht (1969). 18 See W. Schottroff, Fluchspruch (1969).

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Hammurapi and in the Middle Assyrian and Hittite laws.19 Also the techniques of redaction were identical in the Mesopotamian and Biblical law collections. The question of the early twentieth century, which was intensively discussed after the publication of the laws of Hammurapi, namely how to describe the relation between the Babylonian and Biblical laws, acquired a new perspective by paying attention to the literary context of the single legal provisions, so that the question could be sharpened: Were the separate single legal provisions and the methods and aims of collecting the provisions in law collections of an internal “Israelite” origin, or did they originate under external influence or were they even of external, especially Mesopotamian origin? D. P. Wright came to the conclusion that the casuistic mišpat. îm of the Covenant Code were transformations of the laws of Hammurapi in the neo-Assyrian period.20 It was not so much the equivalence of single legal provisions that was for him the basis of his arguments, as it was in the early twentieth century, but the logic of redaction in the Covenant Code transforming the arrangements of laws in the collection of Hammurapi. However to detect the logic of transformation of the Babylonian redaction in the Covenant Code created problems, so the presupposition arose that it would have been a matter of national pride on the part of the Judeans in the neo-Assyrian period to have a law collection comparable to the laws of Hammurapi.21 D. P. Wright’s approach included the thesis that most of the single casuistic mišpat. îm of the Covenant Code were of Babylonian origin, while B. S. Jackson countered with an indigenous “Israelite” origin of the casuistic laws of the Covenant Code as “self-executing” laws, which were not connected with court-procedures but with private dispute resolution.22 Judicial decision making in ancient Israel was of a charismatic divine nature. This theory was part of a far-reaching discussion about the nature of legal provisions in the Ancient Near East. This discussion started with the observation of B. Landsberger that the laws of Hammurapi were not quoted as an authority in legal documents.23 F. R. Kraus took this observation up and interpreted the old Babylonian legal sentences as material for the curriculum of scribal education comparable to the omen-literature.24 R. Westbrook confirmed this thesis so that for him the legal provisions of cuneiform law had no prescriptive but only descriptive functions. This meant that they were connected with the legal practice in such a way that they expounded the principles upon

19 See E. Otto, Rechtsbegründungen (1988); Kodex Ešnunna (1989); Körperverletzung (1991); Rechtsgeschichte (2008), 83–119. See further J. Renger, “Law and Legal Custom During the Old Babylonian Period”, I diritti del mondo cuneiforme. Mesopotamia e regioni adiacenti, ca 2500–500 a. C. (ed. M. Liverani/C. Mora; Pavia 2008), 183–207.186–193. 20 See D. P. Wright, Law of Hammurabi (2003), 11–87; Compositional Logic (2004), 93–142; Covenant Code (2006), 211–260. 21 See B. Wells, Covenant Code (2006), 85–118. 22 See B. S. Jackson, Semantics (2000); Wisdom-Laws (2006); see further P. Bovati, Justice (1994), 30–166. 23 See B. Landsberger, “Die babylonischen Termini für Gesetz und Recht”, Symbolae Paulo Koschaker Dedicatae (ed. J. Friedrich e.a.; Studia et Documenta ad Iura Orientis Antiqui Pertinentia, 2; Leiden 1939), 219–234. 24 See F. R. Kraus, “Ein zentrales Problem des altmesopotamischen Rechts: Was ist der Codex Hammurabi?”, Genava 8 (1960), 283–296.

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which the courts exercised their legal procedures of deciding cases.25 But this thesis did not yet explain the origins of the single provisions of law in the Bible. The biblical casuistic legal provisions had their origins in the decisions of local courts, i. e. in oral narratives and individual legal decisions.26 These narratives had the function of abbreviating the proceedings at court by delivering prototypes of decisions, which guaranteed a certain degree of continuity of legal decision-making. The casuistic legal provisions, as a derivation of these legal narratives, were collected for the training of professional judges, who were appointed in the late pre-exilic period (Isa 10:1; Deut 16:18). These collections of casuistic mišpat. îm, which became part of the Covenant Code, had the same function as comparable collections of cuneiform laws. The legal education was the point of international contacts between Mesopotamian and Judean legal traditions.27 R. Rothenbusch interpreted the collection of casuistic laws in the Covenant Code as a kind of royal inscription in analogy to the old Babylonian laws of Hammurapi.28 But the tradition casting a law collection in the form of royal inscriptions ended with the old Babylonian period,29 so that the question remains why a revival of this tradition in all the Ancient Near East should have happened in the first millennium in Judah only with a collection of laws that did not even mention a king. The cuneiform law-codes that were, like the laws of Hammurapi, framed by a prologue and epilogue for the sake of royal ideology, had a different function from those without a frame.30 The former served as royal propaganda depicting the king as the guarantor of just order in the world, the latter as material for the legal education of scribes. This was the original function for the collection of laws, while the function as a symbol of the just king by framing the law collections was a secondary one.31 Obviously the royal scribes used law-collections of the Edubba’a (“house of tablets”) to create steles that served the purpose of royal propaganda like that of the laws of Hammurapi. The same happened in biblical law. Also here the collections of casuistic laws were used for a secondary function, but this time not by royal scribes as in Mesopotamia but by priests interpreting the legal material theologically. The casuistic laws, which originated in the local courts, represented one of the three roots of biblical legal history.32 The local courts served to resolve conflicts between the families of a community. The goal of local court-procedures was the suppression of violence and the furthering of community by substituting repa-

25 See R. Westbrook, “Cuneiform Law Codes and the Origins of Legislation”, ZA 79 (1989) 201–222; Law Codes (1985), 247–264. 26 See C.Locher, Ehre (1989), 81–117. 27 This kind of internationality was also characteristic for wisdom literature. 28 See R. Rothenbusch, Rechtssammlung (2000). 29 See B. Kienast, “Altorientalische Codices zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit”, Rechtskodifizierung (ed. H.-J. Gehrke), 13–26; “Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im keilschriftlichen Rechtswesen”, ZAR 2 (1996) 114–130. 30 See E. Otto, Rechtsgeschichte (2008), 83–119. 31 For the different hypotheses concerning the functions of cuneiform law collections see S. Jackson, A Comparison of Ancient Near Eastern Law Collections Prior to the First Millennium (Gorgias Dissertations 35; Piscataway, NJ: 2008), 37–115. 32 See E. Otto, Rechtsgeschichte (2008), 1–55.

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ration and healing for retaliation.33 The second root of early biblical law was the family with the apodictic laws of probibitives and injunctives, the laws of capital offenses with the apodosis môt jûmaˉ t (Exod 21:12–17) and the prohibitions of incest (Lev 18*). The absolute, unconditional character of these laws reflected the authority of the pater familias, who originally had the power to enforce these laws and implement the sanctions. Already in pre-exilic times the local courts took over the legal functions and power of sanctions that had been vested in families. The courts regulated these functions by replacing the automatic punishment for a crime with a process that took the reasons and the circumstances of the crime into consideration. An example of this is the legal differentiation between murder and bodily injury followed by the death of the injured (Exod 21:12–14; Deut 19:1–13). These two types of casuistic and apodictic laws did not need explicit legitimation or religious authorization, since their natural functions of conflict resolution and enforcement of basic norms provided adequate warrants. Behavioural norms not regulated by laws were grounded in the solidarity of extended families and clans. As the obligation for vendetta shows, the degree of solidarity within a group depended on family ties, based on the veneration of the ancestors. Only with the increasing social differentiation of rich and poor in the eighth century BCE in Israel and Judah was it necessary to develop the horizontal law for conflict resolution into a socially vertical ethic of solidarity with the weak in society in Exod 21:2–11; 22:20–26; 23:10–12. This transformation was the task of priestly scribes, who formed the Covenant Code out of the originally separate collections of laws. This development from a horizontal law for conflict resolution to an ethic of societally vertical solidarity with the personae miserae needed the weight of priestly religious authority in order to summon the political and economic elites of the country to care for the poor and the needy. Social conflict gave rise to the religious interpretation of law, which was developed into a social ethic, which already required the love of the enemy in Exod 23:4–5. The priestly scribes, who created the Covenant Code, also included some provisions of cultic law as the third root of biblical law. Thus they set forth the altar-law in Exod 20:24–26 and laws prohibiting sorcery, bestiality, and sacrifices to other gods in Exod 22:17–19. Taking the literary and legal history of the Covenant Code into account, it is possible to shed some light on the controversy between M. Greenberg, J. J. Fin33 This was also true in the case of bodily harm, where immediate redress of the victim and his relations had been sanctioned originally through the lex talionis, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Exod 21:22–24), and so did not require public trial. Through the casuistic law concerning bodily harm (Exod 21:18–19), this retaliation was disallowed, and reparation became a legal requirement, under the supervision of courts. The late rabbinic interpretation of the lex talionis, by means of a list of financial substitutes in cases of bodily injuries, did not meet the law’s original intention, but it continued a process of reinterpretation begun in the casuistic laws of the Covenant Code. It is a serious misunderstanding if the lex talionis is taken to be representative of the law of the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament and if the Hebrew Bible’s God is interpreted as a “god of vengeance” different from the New Testament’s God as a “god of love”. The principle of retaliation as a legal means of redress was already rendered obsolete by casuistic law, as a matter of control by legal process, before casuistic law ever was given the theological status of divine law representing God’s will, see E. Otto, Kontinuum (1996), 224–245.

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kelstein, and A. Phillips on the one hand and R.Westbrook on the other about the peculiarity of predeuteronomic biblical law in its Ancient Near Eastern environment. R. Westbrook posited a “common law” in the Ancient Near East including the law of the Bible, which had its roots in a common ideological and societal culture in the early eastern Mediterranean world.34 M. Greenberg and J. J. Finkelstein were of the opinion that the main difference between Ancient Near Eastern and biblical law was the incompatibility of the value of human life with material goods due to a different anthropology. The biblical anthropology was rooted in the narratives of divine creation of human beings in Genesis 1–2, which differed from any Ancient Near Eastern creation-myth.35 A. Phillips interpreted the Decalogue as a testimony of Israel’s criminal law on capital offenses. Due to its divine origin, having been revealed by Yhwh, it was without any comparable analogy in the Ancient Near East.36 This kind of interpretation of the Decalogue presumes that it was an original and constitutive part of the narrative of the Sinai-pericope. But as J. Wellhausen had already demonstrated, there are very good reasons to suppose that the Decalogue in Exodus 20 was a literarily secondary insertion into the Sinai-pericope, and that the more original Decalogue was that in Deuteronomy 5, which was not older than the exilic period,37 so that a theory of revelation could hardly explain why biblical criminal law was not directly comparable to Ancient Near Eastern criminal law. More striking was the theory of different anthropological value-systems as an explanation for the special nature of biblical law. But this was not a matter of the single legal provision but of the theological redaction of the legal corpora like the Covenant Code and Deuteronomy.38 The differences were not that of anthropology but of Judean priestly ethics, developed out of the differently rooted laws by the priestly scribes and redactors of the Covenant Code, Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code. The book of Deuteronomy was a reformulation of the Covenant Code in the late pre-exilic period, most probably in the time of the king Josiah in the seventh century BCE.39 There is a debate as to whether the reformulation of the Covenant Code by the book of Deuteronomy had the intention of replacing it by “recycling” it.40 More convincing, however, is the idea that the book of Deuteronomy was meant to function as a supplement to the Covenant Code in such a way that the book of Deuteronomy, as the revision, served as the hermeneutical key for the interpretation of the Covenant Code, the revised text.41 It is precisely

34 See R. Westbrook, History (2003), 1–92. For a critical discussion of the theory of “common law” see B. M. Levinson, Theory (1994). 35 See M. Greenberg, Postulates (1960), 5–28; Criminal Law (1986), 1–17; J. J. Finkelstein, Goring Ox (1973), and The Ox that Gored (1981), 1–89. 36 See A. Phillips, Criminal Law (1970); Biblical Law (2002). 37 See F.-L. Hossfeld, Dekalog (1982). 38 Differences in the regulations of murder and fatal accidents between cuneiform and biblical laws were due to different societal situations of the “setting in life” in the Mesopotamian and biblical contexts. 39 See E. Otto, Vom Bundesbuch zum Deuteronomium (1993), 260–278; Deuteronomium (1999). 40 See B. Levinson, Hermeneutics (1997); J. M. Stackert, Rewriting (2007). 41 See E. Otto, Kontinuum (1996), 112–122; Tora (2009), 248–256; see further H. Najman, Sinai (2003) 1–15.

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in this way that the relation between the Covenant Code and Deuteronomy was interpreted by the legal hermeneutics of the final Pentateuch (Deut 1:1–5).42 The late pre-exilic dating of this first edition of the book of Deuteronomy was confirmed by the intensive neo-Assyrian influence on this book43 and the proximity of the deuteronomic programme of cult-centralization to the pre-exilic deuteronomistic account of Josiah’s programme of a cult-reform in 2 Kings 23. This insight was the pivotal one for the historical interpretation of the book of Deuteronomy since the time of W. M. L. De Wette.44 There were and there are no sufficient reasons to give up this insight.45 The book of Deuteronomy, being a reformulation of the Covenant Code, based itself on the latter’s commandments of social ethics and developed Exod 23:4–5 into the main principle of all the deuteronomic ethics, demanding brotherly conduct even toward the enemy (Deut 22:1–4). This approach gave rise to a programme of social solidarity with the poor and needy in society.46 The authors of the book of Deuteronomy could refer to the social ethics of the priestly authors of the Covenant Code and develop an even more intensive programme than that of the Covenant Code including debt release each sabbatical year (Deut 15:1–11), the prohibition of taking interest (Deut 23:20–21) and the limitation on a creditor’s entitlement to take pledges (Deut 24:6, 10–13, 17b). For Judean intellectuals from the priestly circles of the Josianic period this programme could prove the superiority of Yhwh, in whose name the book of Deuteronomy was announced, over the Assyrian king as representative of the god Assur, whose duraˉ ru-decrees of debt release could remain ineffective since they could be nullified through special contractual stipulations. In the book of Deuteronomy, as in the Covenant Code, law and ethics were based neither on the state nor on the king but directly upon the will of God, so that their validation did not depend on the state. The book of Deuteronomy grounded the ethics of economic solidarity in daily life on the programme of a cultic community, in which there should be no distinction between persons because of gender or social status.47 At the central sanctuary, the integrated cultic community was to celebrate its origin in the liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. In the exilic period the pre-exilic book of Deuteronomy acquired a new legitimation by means of a deuteronomistic frame in Deuteronomy 1–3; 5–11; 29–30*.48 When the temple of Jerusalem as a programmatic central sanctuary was lost, this framework legitimized the book of Deuteronomy now as a set of Mosaic speeches conveying the divine will for the 42

See E. Otto, Gesetz des Mose (2007), 85–103; Tora (2009), 490–514. See R. Frankena, “The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon and the Dating of Deuteronomy”, OTS 14 (1965) 122–154; H. U. Steymans, Deuteronomium 28 (1995). 44 For W. M. L. De Wette’s dissertation of 1805 see P. B. Harvey jr./B. Halpern, “W. M. L. de Wette’s ‘Dissertatio Critica …’: Context and translation”, ZAR 14 (2008) 47–85. 45 See for the state of Deuteronomy-research E. Otto, “Deuteronomiumsforschung”, ZAW (119) 319–340. 46 See M. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy (1972), 282–297; F. Crüsemann, Tora (1992), 251–273; E. Otto, Gottes Recht (2002), 92–275. For the gender-aspect in the book of Deuteronomy see C. Pressler, Women (1993); G. Braulik, Studien (1997), 81–118; V. H. Matthews e.a. (eds.), Gender (1998); C. B. Anderson, Women (2004). 47 See G. Braulik, Studien (1988) 161–218; N. Lohfink, Studien III (1995), 219–260. 48 See E. Otto, Deuteronomium (2000), 110–155; T. Veijola, Deuteronomium (2004). 43

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life of a new “Israel” in the Promised Land after the exile (Deut 12:1).49 In the period of the exile, the authors of the book of Deuteronomy had the intention to provide, with its blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 28, the guiding principles for the success or failure of the life of the entire people. After the exile, however, the failure to implement this legal programme and its social-ethical principles became a theological challenge, which was solved by the authors of the Hexateuch in Genesis to Joshua, who connected the book of Deuteronomy with the priestly source (P) and its supplements in Genesis 1 to Leviticus 16. The theology of the priestly source was characterized by the idea of a covenant of grace in Genesis 17 and a conception of the narrative of the source, which made sure that Israel could not fail again. Conflating Deuteronomy with P created a new balance for the deuteronomistic theology in the post-exilic period. The authors of the Hexateuch regarded Yhwh’s greatest gift to His people as the land, while the authors of the Pentateuch, who cut off the book of Joshua from the Hexateuch and created in this way a Pentateuch, regarded the Torah as the still greater gift. These post-exilic authors were responsible for integrating the Decalogue and Covenant Code in Exodus 20–23. The post-exilic literary mediation between the exilic conceptions of the deuteronomistic book of Deuteronomy, which was connected with the deuteronomistic book of Joshua, and the Priestly Code involved profound postexilic theological discussions about Israel’s identity as it related to God’s history of salvation. The scribal techniques used by these priestly authors who formed the post-deuteronomistic and post-priestly narratives of the Hexateuch and Pentateuch can be best observed in the legal material of the Covenant Code. The priestly authors of the post-exilic period supplemented the early pre-exilic legal collection, which was the source for the pre-exilic book of Deuteronomy, with a post-exilic interpretation in the context of the Sinai-pericope in Exod 20:22–23; 21:1; 22:19b, 21, 23, 24bα, 30; 23:13–33. There is a debate regarding whether there was a Holiness School apart from the priestly source (P) and the book of Deuteronomy and whether this school was responsible for the Holiness Code in Leviticus 17–26. There is a further debate as to whether this Holiness School was already of pre-exilic origin, as J. Milgrom and I. Knohl suppose, or if it was post-exilic, as is the opinion of Chr. Nihan.50 The alternative reckons that the late post-exilic redactors of the Pentateuch were the authors of the Holiness Code, who then correlated Covenant Code, Decalogue, Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code.51 These priestly scribes in the Holiness Code used the Covenant Code as their hermeneutical key to interpret the book of Deuteronomy and the priestly source. In Lev 19:18 Deut 22:1–4 was developed into a commandment to love one’s enemy as one’s neighbour.52 In Lev 19:34 it was further developed into a commandment to love the stranger.53 The social programme of Deuteronomy was further developed in Leviticus 25 49

See N. Lohfink, Studien II (1991), 229–256. See J. Milgrom, Leviticus (1991–2001); I. Knohl, Sanctuary (1995); Chr. Nihan, Torah (2007). 51 See E. Otto, Heiligkeitsgesetz (1994), 65–80; Tora (2009), 46–142; R. Achenbach, Heiligkeitsgesetz (2008), 145–176. 52 See H.-P. Mathys, Nächstenliebe (1986). 53 See M. Zehnder, Umgang mit Fremden in Israel und Assyrien. Ein Beitrag zur Anthropologie des „Fremden“ im Licht antiker Quellen (BWANT 168; Stuttgart 2005). 50

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through the limitation of rights over human labour and land, leading to a prohibition to take Judean but not gentile slaves.54 Rights with regard to land were limited to usufruct and were further limited temporarily. Land could not be sold in perpetuity, but should revert to its original owners in the Jubilee Year, which was celebrated every fiftieth year. These programmes of social solidarity in the Holiness Code, which were thus based on the book of Deuteronomy, were, however, scarcely implemented in Persian and Hellenistic times. The legal hermeneutics of the final form of the Pentateuch has become a point of discussion quite recently. In this discussion N. Lohfink, D. Markl and E. Otto took part. One of the main problems of a legal hermeneutics of the Pentateuch was the relation between the promulgation of laws at Mount Sinai and in the land of Moab, i. e. the relation between the Sinai-pericope and the book of Deuteronomy. For N. Lohfink the book of Deuteronomy had the function of an enactment of the laws of the Sinai-pericope.55 This interpretation is balanced by the insight that the enactment of laws in the book of Deuteronomy was part of a narrative “counter-world” of the Pentateuch without the intention of a direct legal force. For D. Markl, on the other hand, the legal provisions of the Pentateuch were supposed to have a direct impact on Judean society. The Decalogue was meant to be a kind of constitution and the authoritative basis for all the other laws.56 The Decalogue in Exodus 20 was repeated in Deuteronomy 5, since, after forty years of wandering, Moses had acquired new experiences that led him to actualize the Decalogue.57 For E. Otto, in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses expounded the revelation of the Decalogue and Covenant Code at Mount Sinai (Deut 1:1–5).58 This explained the differences between the Decalogues in Exodus 20 and Deut 5. In this way Moses became the first Schriftgelehrter (“scribal exegete”), who on the last day of his life expounded the Torah for Israel’s living in the Promised Land.59 After his death (Deuteronomy 34), the Mosaic function to promulgate God’s will was transferred to the scroll of the Torah, which was written down by Moses on this day (Deut 31:9–14) and which was intended to accompany the people crossing the river Jordan migrating into the Promised Land. From now on, the only access to God’s will was by interpreting the Torah. By this aetiology of the competence to expound the Torah, scribal priests of the late post-exilic period legitimized their claim to possess the right and privilege for the scribal exegesis of the Torah as a function they inherited from Moses.60 In the Temple Scroll priestly dissidents protested against these claims of Zadokite priests to represent the legitimate exegesis of the Torah by improving the text of the book of Deuteronomy and transferring it into God’s mouth at Mount Sinai. This created the impression that Moses had degraded the divine revelation by expounding it in the land of Moab.61 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

See J.-F. Lefebvre, Jubilé (2003); J. S. Bergsma, Jubilee (2007), 9–18.81–105. See N. Lohfink, Studien V (2005), 181–232. See D. Markl, Rechtshermeneutik (2005), 107–121. See D. Markl, Dekalog (2007). See E. Otto, Tora (2009), 480–489. See E. Otto, Rechtshermeneutik (2007), 72–121. For the priestly function of expounding the Torah see E. Otto, Rechtsgeschichte (2008), 564–

602. 61

See E. Otto, Rechtshermeneutik (2007), 105–121; S. Paganini, Tempelrolle (2008).

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The legal hermeneutics employed by the priestly authors of the Pentateuch were entirely different from the hermeneutics of the prophetic schools of literary “prophecy” in the post-exilic period, especially of the circles of “Tradentenprophetie”, which were responsible for the formation of the book of Jeremiah.62 The post-exilic priestly and “prophetic” circles were as close to each other in their use of the same scribal techniques as they were different from each other in their hermeneutical approaches to the Torah. The post-exilic authors of the Pentateuch claimed that with Moses’ death the Torah was completed so that nothing should be added or taken away (Deut 4:2; 13:1). The authors of the prophetic “Tradentenprophetie” in the book of Jeremiah refuted this priestly theory (Jer 26:2) with their claim that God’s revelation went on until Jeremiah, who should be the last prophet in a long chain of prophets (Jer 26:5), who received their words directly from God. Their words should not be diminished, but again and again new words of God followed and were added, contradicting the priestly “canonical formula” and its hermeneutical implications relating to the priestly theory of divine revelation, which should have ended with Moses’ death in Deuteronomy 34. The prophetic circles were convinced of the divine authority of the words of the prophets, which should not be considered inferior to the words of the Torah. These discourses between post-exilic priestly and prophetic circles dealt with fundamental questions, what revelation of Yhwh was, if it ended with the final chapter of the Torah or if there was an ongoing revelation of God by the prophets, so that there was not only access to God’s will by expounding the Torah, but also by prophetic words. And these circles argued about whether divine interference into the history of His people ended with Moses’ death or if there was a continuity of God’s involvement into the affairs of His people,63 especially by sending prophets, who also announced God’s plans for the future of His people. These prospective plans of Yhwh could be construed in contrast to the priestly theory of the final function of the Torah, as in Jer 31:31–34, for example, with the idea of a new covenant connected with a Torah, which was no longer written down by Moses (Deut 31:9) but by Yhwh directly on the hearts of His people.64 The history of research of the legal history of the Bible of the last twenty years came back to some aspects of the late nineteenth century as they were represented, e. g., by J. Wellhausen. But the scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were looking for the setting of law in the late Hebrew and “early “Jewish religion of the post-exilic period. The scholars of the twentieth century following A. Alt were looking for the origins of biblical law, its “setting in life”

62 See E. Otto, Torah and Prophets (2007), 171–184; Tora (2009), 515–560. For the term and phenomenon of a post-exilic literary “Tradentenprophetie” see O. H. STECK, Der Abschluß der Prophetie im Alten Testament. Ein Versuch zur Vorgeschichte des Kanons (BThSt 17; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1991), 61–63.167–170. 63 The priestly authors of the post-exilic Pentateuch by Deut 34:10 refuted the deuteronomistic theory of Deut 18:15–18 that God would raise up a prophet like Moses, that there arose not a prophet like Moses since Moses’ death, whom Yhwh knew face to face; see E. Otto, Deuteronomium (2000), 227–230. 64 See A. Schenker, Das Neue am neuen Bund und das Alte am alten. Jer 31 in der hebräischen und griechischen Bibel (FRLANT 212; Göttingen 2006).

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in the Israelite society and its relation to the Ancient Near Eastern legal history, especially of Mesopotamia. This impetus of research was changed again in the last twenty years of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. More and more relevant became the question of the setting of law in the literature of the Hebrew Bible especially in the Pentateuch. This change of research-paradigms concerned diachronic and also the synchronic approaches to the Pentateuch, which have been becoming more and more important. For the diachronic approaches, the insight was pivotal that non-priestly tests were not at all necessarily pre-priestly but also post-priestly. This insight was the result of the end of the so-called documentary-hypothesis of J. Wellhausen and other scholars of the late nineteenth and of the twentieth centuries.65 The only document, i. e. source, which was confirmed, was the priestly source (P), and a second pillar for the creation of the Pentateuch was detected, i. e. the book of Deuteronomy, which had been separated from the Hexateuch or Tetrateuch already by J. Wellhausen and even more by M. Noth’s theory of an exilic Deuteronomistic History from Deuteronomy 1 to II Kings 25.66 Now the book of Deuteronomy returned to the Pentateuch as its constitutive part. This gave back to the Pentateuch the purpose it had possessed from its very beginnings, to be Torah. Here in the deuteronomistic-exilic book of Deuteronomy the pre-exilic law-code, which had been a revision of the Covenant Code, was connected with the narratives of Moses, and Mount Horeb/Sinai and Israel’s wandering from Mount Horeb to the land of Moab. This was together with the conflation of the priestly source (P) in the post-exilic period the birth of the Pentateuch. There was thus a pre-exilic prehistory, during which priestly scribes had already “theologized” collections of “profane” law by connecting them with sacral laws and interpreting them through provisions of social ethics, thus forming the Covenant Code. The revisers of the Covenant Code in the late pre-exilic book of Deuteronomy took over this theological interpretation of law, which was the prerequisite of the deuteronomistic connection of law and narrative in the exilic book of Deuteronomy. The perspective of the literary history of the Former Prophets and the Torah were deeply changed in the last years. The literary productivity concerning the narrative started more powerfully in the former Prophets in 1 Samuel – II Kings, while in the Pentateuch only short narratives of the Patriarchs and a Moses-Exodus-narrative were written down apart from the law collection of the Covenant Code and the book of Deuteronomy. The situation changed in the exilic period with the priestly source (P) and the deuteronomistic books of Deuteronomy and Joshua. But especially in the post-exilic period the Hexateuch and the Pentateuch took on this collection of texts and with them the legal hermeneutics of the Torah as the basis for a proto-rabbinic scribal practice developing a new kind of legal literature.

65 See Th. B. Dozeman/K. Schmid (eds.), A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (SBL.SS 34; Atlanta 2006). See also the contribution of D. Carr in this volume. 66 For the history of research see Th. Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History. A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (New York 2005), 13–43.

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2. The Ethics of the Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context Surveys of Research-History: W. C. Kaiser Jr., “New Approaches to the Old Testament Ethics”, JETS 35 (1992) 289–297. − E. Otto, “Forschungsgeschichte der Entwürfe einer Ethik im Alten Testament”, VuF 36 (1991) 3–37; “Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament. Neue Studien zur Ethik des Alten Testaments“, ZAR 9 (2003) 210–219. − Chr. H. J. Wright, “The Ethical Authority of the Old Testament: A Survey of Approaches“, TynB 43 (1992) 101–120.203–231. Studies: J. Barton, “Understanding Old Testament Ethics”, JSOT 9 (1978) 44–64; “The Basis of Ethics in the Hebrew Bible”, Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. A. Knight; Semeia 66; Atlanta: SBL 1995) 11–22; Understanding Old Testament Ethic. Approaches and Explorations (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 2003). − B. C. Birch, Let Justice Roll Down. Old Testament Ethics, and the Christian Life (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press 1991); Bibel und Ethik im christlichen Leben (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 1993); “Moral Agency, Community, and the Character of God in the Hebrew Bible”, Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. A. Knight; Semeia 66; Atlanta: SBL 1995), 23–42. − W. S. Bruce, The Ethics of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 21909). − M. D. Carroll Rodas/J. E. Lapsley (eds.), Character Ethics and the Old Testament. Moral Dimensions of Scripture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 2007). − J. L. Crenshaw/J. T. Willis (eds.) Essays in Old Testament Ethics. J. P. Hyatt In Memoriam (New York: Ktav 1974). − F. Crüsemann, Bewahrung der Freiheit. Das Thema des Dekalogs in sozialgeschichtlicher Perspektive (Munich: Kaiser 1983); idem/W. Dietrich/H.-C. Schmitt, “Gerechtigkeit-GewaltLeben. Was leistet eine Ethik des Alten Testaments? ”, Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament (ed. B. M. Levinson/E. Otto; Altes Testament und Moderne 13; Münster: LIT Verlag 2004), 145–169. − E. W. Davies, Prophecy and Ethics. Isaiah and the Ethical Traditions of Israel (JSOT.S 16; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1981); “Ethics of the Hebrew Bible: The Problem of Methodology”, Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. A. Knight; Semeia 66; Atlanta 1995), 43–54. − P. Delhaye, “Le recours à l’Ancien Testament dans l’étude de la théologie morale”, EThL 31 (1955) 637–657. − H. Delkurt, Ethische Einsichten der Alttestamentlichen Spruchweisheit (BThSt 21; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1993). − W. Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments, II. Gott und Welt; III. Gott und Mensch (Stuttgart: Ehrenfried Klotz/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1935; 71974). − W. A. L. Elmslie, “Ethics”, in: Record and Revelation (ed. H. W. Robinson; Oxford: Oxford UP 1938), 275–302. − J. A. Fager, Land Tenure and the Biblical Jubilee. Uncovering Hebrew Ethics through the Sociology of Knowledge (JSOT.S 155; Sheffield: JSOT Press 1993). − J. A. Fisher, “Ethics and Wisdom”, CBQ 40 (1978) 293–310. − D. Friedmann, To Kill and Take Possession. Laws, Morality, and Society in Biblical Stories (Peabody, MA 2002). − P. J. Haas, “The Quest for Hebrew Bible Ethics: A Jewish Response”, Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. A. Knight; Semeia 66; Atlanta: SBL 1995), 151–160. − J. Hempel, Das Ethos des Alten Testaments (BZAW 67; Berlin: Töpelmann 1938; 21964). − E. Herms, “Die Gegenwartsbedeutung von Daseinsverständnis und Ethos der Bibel, besonders des Alten Testaments”, Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament (ed. B. M. Levinson/E. Otto; Altes Testament und Moderne 13; Münster: LIT Verlag 2004), 171–180. − W. Houston, “The Character of Yahweh and the Ethics of the Old Testament: Is Imitatio Dei Appropriate?”, JTS (NS) 58 (2007) 1–25. − G. P. Hugenberg, Marriage as Covenant. Biblical Law and Ethics as Developed from Maleachi (VT.S 52; Leiden: Brill 1994). − D. Human (ed.), The Ethics of the Psalms (HBL/OTS; New York: T&T Clark 2009). − W. Janzen, Old Testament Ethics. A Paradigmatical Approach (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press 1994). − W. C. Kaiser Jr., Toward Old Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 1983). − B. N. Kaye/G. J. Wenham (eds.), Law, Morality, and the Bible: A Symposium (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press 1978). − M. Köckert, Leben in Gottes Gegenwart. Studien zum Verständnis des Gesetzes im Alten Testament (FAT 43; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2004). − J. L’Hour, Die Ethik der Bundestradition im Alten Testament (SBS 14; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1967). − J. D. Levenson, “The Theologies of Commandment in Biblical Times”, HTR 73 (1980) 17–33. − E. Levine, Marital Relations in Ancient Judaism (BZAR 10; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2009). − B. M. Levinson/E. Otto (eds.), Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament (Altes Testament und Moderne 13; Münster: LIT Verlag 2004). − N. Lohfink, Unsere großen Wörter. Das Alte Testament zu Themen dieser Jahre (Freiburg, Br.: Herder 1977); Option for the Poor. The Basic Principle of the Liberation Theology in the Light of the Bible (Berkeley, Cal.: Bibal Press 1987). − H.-P. Mathys,“Liebe deinen Nächsten wie dich selbst”. Untersuchungen zum alttestamentlichen Gebot der Nächstenliebe

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(Lev 19,18) (OBO 71; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag/Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1986). − V. H. Mathews/B. M. Levinson/T. Frymer-Kensky (eds.), Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and in the Ancient Near East (JSOT.S 262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998). − H. McKeating, “Sanctions against Adultery in Ancient Israelite Society. With Some Reflections on Methodology in the Study of Old Testament Ethics”, JSOT 11 (1979) 57–72. − J. Meuilenburg, The Way of Israel: Biblical Faith and Ethics (New York: Harper 1961). − H. G. Mitchell, The Ethics of the Old Testament (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1912). − Chr. Münchow, Ethik und Eschatologie. Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). − E. Nadorni, Rise Up O Judge. A Study of Justice in the Biblical World (Peabody, MA 2004). − S. Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible. A Study in the Ethics of Violence (Oxford: Oxford UP 1993). − E. OTTO, “Die Applikation als Problem der Politischen Hermeneutik”, ZTK 71 (1974) 145–181; “Kultus und Ethos in Jerusalemer Theologie. Ein Beitrag zur theologischen Begründung der Ethik im Alten Testament”, ZAW 98 (1986) 161–179; Theologische Ethik des Alten Testaments (ThW 3/2; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1994); “Of Aims and Methods in Hebrew Bible Ethics”, Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. A. Knight; Semeia 66; Atlanta: SBL 1995), 161–172; “False Weights in the Scales of Biblical Justice? Different Views of Women from Patriarchal Hierarchy to Religious Equality in the Book of Deuteronomy”, Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. V. H. Matthews e.a.; JSOT.S 262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998), 128–146; “’Um Gerechtigkeit im Land sichtbar werden zu lassen …’. Zur Vermittlung von Recht und Gerechtigkeit im Alten Orient, in der Hebräischen Bibel und in der Moderne”, Recht – Macht – Gerechtigkeit (ed. J. Mehlhausen; Veröffentlichungen der WGTh 14; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 1998), 107–145; “Human Rights: The Influence of the Hebrew Bible”, JNSL 25 (1999) 1–20; Krieg und Frieden in der Hebräischen Bibel und im Alten Orient (Theologie und Frieden 18; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1999); “Woher weiß der Mensch um Gut und Böse? Philosophische Annäherungen an ein Grundproblem der Ethik“, Recht und Ethos im Alten Testament. Gestalt und Wirkung. Festschrift H. Seebaß (ed. S. Beyerle e.a.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1999), 207–231; “Gerechtigkeit in der orientalischen und okzidentalen Antike. Aspekte für den ethischen Diskurs in der Moderne im Spannungsfeld zwischen Max Weber und Ernst Troeltsch”, Das ethische Gedächtnis des Abendlandes. (ed. C. Gestrich; Beihefte zur Berliner Theologischen Zeitschrift 19; Berlin: Wichern Verlag 2002), 44–64; “Sozialethische Programme zur Überwindung nationaler Schuldenkrisen in der Antike und ihre programmatische Bedeutung für die Überwindung der heutigen Internationalen Schuldenkrise”, Die Diskussion um ein Insolvenzrecht für Staaten (ed. M. Dabrowski e.a.; Volkswirtschaftliche Schriften 530; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 2003), 97–122; “Encountering Ancient Religions: Law and Ethics”, Religions of the Ancient World (ed. S. I. Johnston; Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2004), 84–97.519–521; “Recht und Ethos in der ost- und westmediterranen Antike. Entwurf eines Gesamtbildes”, Gott und Mensch im Dialog. Festschrift O. Kaiser (ed. M. Witte; BZAW 345/1; Berlin: de Gruyter 2004), 91–110; “’Wer wenig im Leben hat, soll viel im Recht haben’. Die kulturhistorische Bedeutung der Hebräischen Bibel für eine moderne Sozialethik“, Recht und Ethik im Alten Testament (ed. B. M. Levinson/E. Otto; Altes Testament und Moderne 13; Münster: LIT Verlag 2004), 181–188; “Zwischen Imperialismus und Friedensoption. Religiöse Legitimation politischen Handelns in der orientalischen und okzidentalen Antike”, Religion, Politik und Gewalt (ed. F. Schweizer; Veröffentlichungen der WGTh 29; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2006), 250–266; “Myth and Hebrew Ethics in the Psalms”, Psalms and Mythology (ed. D. Human; LHB/OTS 462; New York: T&T Clark 2007), 26–37; “Die Rechtsgeschichte von Familie und Ehe im antiken Judentum der Hebräischen Bibel. Die Dialektik genealogischer und religiöser Normenbegründung im Familienrecht”, Ehe-Familie-Verwandtschaft. Vergesellschaftung in Religion und sozialer Lebenswelt (ed. A. Holzem/I. Weber; Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 2008), 65–88; “’Gender Mainstreaming’ im biblischen und altorientalischen Recht”, ZAR 14 (2008) 475–486; “Narrative Begründung von Ethos in der Ethik des Alten und Neuen Testaments”, Ethik des Neuen Testaments (ed. F. Horn/R. Zimmermann; WUNT 238; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009) in print. − H. van Oyen, Ethik des Alten Testaments (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 1967). − P. Paris, “An Ethicist’s Concern about Biblical Ethics”, Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. A. Knight; Semeia 66; Atlanta: SBL 1999), 173–179. − C. S. Rodd, Glimpses of a Strange Land. Studies in Old Testament Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 2001). − J. Rogerson, Theory and Practice in Old Testament Ethics (JSOT.S 405; London: T&T Clark 2004). − R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press 1973); Law and Society (Vallecito, Cal: Ross House Books 1982). − W. H. Schmidt, Die Zehn Gebote im Rahmen alttestamentlicher Ethik (EdF 218; Darmstadt: WBG 1993). − H.-

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C. Schmitt, “Die Gegenwartsbedeutung der Ethik des Alten Testaments”, ZTK 95 (1998) 295–312. − F. Segbers, Die Hausordnung der Tora. Biblische Impulse für eine theologische Wirtschaftsethik (Darmstadt: WBG 2002). − J. M. P. Smith, The Moral Life of the Hebrews (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1923). − A. Soete, Ethos der Rettung – Ethos der Gerechtigkeit. Studien zur Struktur von Normenbegründung und Urteilsfindung im Alten Testament und ihrer Relevanz für die ethische Diskussion der Gegenwart (Würzburg: Echter Verlag 1987). − O. H. Steck, Welt und Umwelt (Biblische Konfrontationen 1006; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1978). − E. Testa, La morale dell’Antico Testamento (Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana 1981). − K. van der Toorn, Sin and Sanction in Israel and Mesopotamia. A Comparative Study (SSN 21; Assen: Van Gorcum 1985). − A. Tosato, Il matrimonio israelitico. Una teoria generale (AnBib 100; Rome: Institutum Biblicum Pontificium 1982). − J. G. Trapiello, El problema de la moral en el Antiguo Testamento (Barcelona: Herder 1977). − G. Wallis, “Natur und Ethos. Erwägungen zur Ethik des Alten Testaments“, Theologische Versuche 7 (1976) 41–60. − M. Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Das Antike Judentum ([1921] ed. E. Otto; Max Weber Gesamtausgabe, I/21.1–2; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2005). − G. J. Wenham, “The Gap between Law and Ethics in the Bible”, JJS 48 (1997) 17–29; Story as Torah. Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2004). − R. Wilson, “Approaches to Old Testament Ethics”, Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation. Festschrift B. S. Childs (ed. G. M. Tucker; Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1988), 62–74; “Sources and Methods in the Study of Ancient Israelite Ethics”, Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. A. Knight; Semeia 66; Atlanta: SBL 1995) 55–63. − Chr. J. H. Wright, Living as the People of God. The Relevance of Old Testament Ethics (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press 1983); Walking in the Ways of the Lord. The Ethical Authority of the Old Testament (Leicester: Apollos 1995). − E. Würthwein/O. Merk, Verantwortung (Biblische Konfrontationen 1009; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1982).

The first problem of an ethics of the Hebrew Bible is to define its difference from a theology of the Old Testament or a history of religion of the Hebrew Bible. The second problem is a hermeneutical one. Should the starting point for an ethics of the Old Testament in the context of a Christian theology be the actual ethical challenges of modern societies in a globalized world or should the task of an ethics of the Hebrew Bible be only a strictly historical one? And if either modern societal problems or the historical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible should be the starting point for an ethics of the Old Testament, what is its relation to an ethics of the New Testament?67 The complex conflation of all these problems was the reason that the ethics of the Hebrew Bible was treated as a kind of stepmother in Old Testament scholarship, as by R. E. Clements noted in his outline of the history of Old Testament scholarship: “The subject of Old Testament ethics proved to be a most difficult one to deal with … The literature devoted to it has been surprisingly sparse”.68 This is especially evident in German-language scholarship. There have been only two “Ethics of the Old Testament” written by Old Testament scholars in the last seventy years, by J. Hempel69 and E. Otto,70 and one written by a scholar of systematic theology H. van Oyen.71 A short sketch of the ethics of the Old Testament and New Testament under the rubric of Verantwortung (“responsibility”) and related to a philosophical ethics with the same

67 68 69 70 71

See E. Otto, Ethik des Alten und Neuen Testaments (2009). See R. E. CLEMENTS, A Century of Old Testament Study (London 1976), 107. See J. Hempel, Ethos (1938). See E. Otto, Theologische Ethik (1994). See H. van Oyen, Ethik (1967).

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title by H. Jonas72 was written by E. Würthwein and O. Merk.73 Compared with the great number of theologies of the Old Testament and history-of-religion approaches to the Hebrew Bible, which have appeared in the last seventy years, this small number of only two German ethics of the Old Testament in the full sense of the title is significant and demonstrates the problem of writing an ethics, although such an endeavour would seem to be of great importance in light of the significance of Old Testament and Hebrew Bible scholarship for Christian and Jewish theology. In the Anglo-Saxon and south-European world, some more ethics were written but most of them either by evangelical or conservative Catholic authors.74 Thus B. S. Childs summarized: “In spite of the great interest in ethics, to our knowledge, there is no outstanding modern work written in English that even attempts to deal adequately with the biblical material as it relates to ethics”.75 Whoever chooses an approach to ethics starting with modern ethical challenges will be confronted with the problem of a plurality of ethics, e. g., bio-ethics, medical ethics, political ethics, ethics of peace, social ethics, economic ethics, legal ethics, family ethics, and gender ethics.76 Whoever chooses the historical approach with the Hebrew Bible as a starting point is not only confronted with the “nasty gap” (der garstige breite Graben) of history (G. E. Lessing, Werke, VIII,13) between Antiquity and our modern world but also with the plurality of different ethics within the Hebrew Bible, which diverge and even contradict each other. Old Testament ethics of the early twentieth century solved this problem by starting with J. Wellhausen’s reconstruction of the history of Israelite religion and positing a paradigm of the progressive development of religion. This approach characterized the works on ethics by H. G. Mitchell and especially J. M. P. Smith77. Both of these studies were closely related to each other by their theologically liberal approach and were the result of German scholarship of the late nineteenth century. For J. M. P. Smith, most noteworthy for an ethics of the Old Testament was the great progress made by the Hebrews in their thousand years of moral discipline.78 But this progress was not one dimensional. J. M. P. Smith described three phases of development of Israelite ethics: the ethics of a pre-prophetic cult-religion, a prophetic phase as an ethical climax, and a post-prophetical decay in the period of the Torah. This value judgement was based on an idea of denaturation as a decisive trait of Israelite religious development, and connected with this process was a cultural shift to ethos by the prophets and the discovery of the individual as a religious-ethical subject by the prophets. The climax of Old Testament ethics was Isaiah 53 with the idea of the productive power of vicari-

72

See H.Jonas, Das Prinzip Verantwortung (Frankfurt M. 1979). See Würthwein/Merk, Verantwortung (1982). For E. Würthwein’s approach see further Schmitt, Ethik (1998). 74 See W. C. Kaiser Jr., Ethics (1983); R. J. Rushdoony, Law (1973); Society (1982); E. Testa, Morale (1981); J. C. Trapiello, Moral (1977); Chr. J. H. Wright, Ethics (1983); Way of the Lord (1995). 75 See B. S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster 1970), 124. 76 See e. g. F. Segbers, Hausordnung (2002), as an example of biblical contributions to a modern ethic of the economy. 77 See H. G. Mitchell, Ethics (1912); J. M. P. Smith, Moral Life (1923). There were no comparable German ethics before that of J. Hempel, Ethos (1938). 78 See Smith, Moral Life (1923), VIII. 73

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ous suffering.79 With Ezekiel the decay began, so that eventually ritual, and this meant the Torah, dominated ethics. “The soulless legalism of later Judaism was the direct descendant of Ezekiel’s ritualistic interpretation of religion”.80 The dissociation of the Jews from other people groups was one of the results, although even in this phase of “decay” there remained some counter-tendencies of a Jewish universalism in Isaiah 56–66 and in the books of Ruth and Jonah. For J. M. P. Smith Israel’s history was that of a moral institution that served the ethical education of this people. “Their course in education was not by any means an easy one; but by hard experience they learned hard lessons and at the price of suffering they achieved a degree of moral excellence that still challenges the admiration of men”.81 Smith described Israel’s religion and with it its ethics as very flexible, so that “the outstanding characteristic of Hebrew ethics was evidently its capacity for growth”.82 At almost the same time M. Weber developed a different perspective.83 He was convinced of the power of ideas to influence the societal structures of ancient Judaism and by that the course of history in a complex dialectic of ideal and material interests.84 W. Eichrodt included a chapter on ethics in his theology of the Old Testament.85 He described the dialectic between a natürliche Volkssitte (“natural morals of the people”), which connected the people of Israel with their Ancient Near Eastern surroundings, and an ethics of Covenant, which was revealed at Mount Sinai. Eichrodt followed A. Alt’s interpretation of the apodictic laws especially of the Decalogue as sentences of divine origin.86 But in contrast to J. Wellhausen and A. Alt, he connected the Decalogue directly with a divine revelation, so that, contrary to J. M. P. Smith, it was not human beings who were the subjects of a process of ethical development, but Yahwh himself by the revelation of His will and leading His people. The prophets took this up and overcame a utilitarian ethos and discovered the ethically responsible individual. To a degree Eichrodt intended to mediate between motives of a liberal theology of the nineteenth entury and those of the new dialectical theology of K. Barth. J. Hempel gave up the effort to describe ethical developments in favour of an analysis of the structure of an ethics.87 Following M. Weber, J. Hempel began his ethics with a description of the social plurality of origins of ancient Israel and thus a plurality and complexity of diverse ethical approaches. Due to this natural diversity the decisive aspect of ethics was making a decision of loyalty to Yhwh, which also meant renouncing any attempt at rationally justifying Yhwh’s ethical demands due to the fact that Yhwh’s revelations in history were the only 79

J. M. P. Smith, “The Ethical Significance of Isaiah Chapter 53”, JR 8 (1923) 132–140. See J. M. P. Smith, Moral Life (1923), 179. 81 Ibid. 328. 82 Ibid. 217. 83 See M. Weber, Judentum (1921). 84 See E. Otto, Max Webers Studien des antiken Judentums. Historische Grundlegung einer Theorie der Moderne (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2002). 85 See Eichrodt, Theologie (1935). 86 See above I. 87 See J. Hempel, Ethos (1938). For the biography and political background of J. Hempel see C. WEBER, Altes Testament und völkische Frage. Der biblische Volksbegriff in der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft der nationalsozialistischen Zeit, dargestellt am Beispiel von Johannes Hempel (FAT 28; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2000). 80

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legitimate justification. In this sense, an ethics of the Old Testament should be principally theocentric and from a human perspective heteronomous. For such an ethics, “the good” was what was ordered by God and because it was ordered by Him. The ethical character of God himself was demonstrated by His renunciation of revenge and punishment. The “humanity” of God should initiate a theomorphism of human beings. For J. L’Hour the ethics of the Old Testament was a description of a covenantal ethics. He interpreted his own outline as a contribution to the process of aggiornamento (“accommodation”) due to the second Vatican-council with the request of a stronger biblical basis for Catholic moral theology.88 A covenantal ethos was supposed to be Israel’s answer to the divine acting in history. It was not the law that was Yhwh’s purpose in establishing the covenant but to gain Israel as a partner for a dialogue. The law was only a means serving this divine intention. L’Hour’s outline of ethics did not aim at a comprehensive ethic but dealt with the problems of justifying a biblical ethic, which derived its structure from the form of Hittite “vassal-treaties”.89 Ethics structured by covenant had the advantage of describing the unity of biblical ethics with an integrating centre in a period when modern people were coming more and more under the impression that modern ethics had lost its centre. At just that time in the sixties of the twentieth century, when J. L’Hour published his outline, the mood changed against a biblical covenant-theology. It was argued that there was no Israelite covenant-form comparable to the Hittite vassal-treaties and that, following J. Wellhausen, the concept of covenant was rather late in the history of Israelite religion.90 One of the reactions of Old Testament scholarship was to renounce a comprehensive ethic in favour of limited topics like an ethics of nature which only became relevant in the seventies and eighties of the last century.91 J. Barton recommended renouncing a complete ethics at all, because he was of the opinion that this was an impossible enterprise and that one should concentrate on ethical motives in different parts of the history of Israelite society.92 Following this approach, a greater number of studies were published on the ethics of wisdomliterature, prophets, the Psalms, or the Decalogue.93 New approaches came from an evangelical corner. The authors of these ethics were again convinced that they knew of an overall principle, which could organize the ethics of the entire Old Testament as its structural-theological centre. Chr. J. H. Wright, People of God, discovered such a centre in a triangle with Yhwh as the “theological angle”, His people of Israel as a “social angle” and the land as 88

See J. L’Hour, Ethik (1967). See K. Baltzer, Das Bundesformular (WMANT 10; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 21964). See L. Perlitt, Bundestheologie im Alten Testament (WMANT 36; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1969). The idea of a covenant between God and His people was a late pre-exilic creation using neo-Assyrian motifs of a contract (adê) between deity and man; see E. Otto, “Die Ursprünge der Bundestheologie im Alten Testament und im Alten Orient”, ZAR 4 (1998) 1–84. 91 See G. Wallis, Natur und Ethos (1976), 41–60; O. H. Steck, Umwelt (1978). For an ethics of the economy see above n. 78. 92 See J. Barton, Ethics (1978), 44–64, but see also below. 93 See e. g. H. Delkurt, Ethische Einsichten (1993); E. W. Davies, Prophecy and Ethics (1981); E. Otto, Kultus und Ethos (1986), 161–179; Ethics in the Psalms (2007), 26–37; W. H. Schmidt, Zehn Gebote (1993). 89 90

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an “economic angle”.94 The ethical teaching of the Old Testament is for him first and foremost God-centred. It presupposes God’s initiative in grace and redemption. The relevance of the “social angel” is that when we seek to interpret an Old Testament text ethically we must not stop short at the question, “what does this say to me?”. One must study the passage within its own social context of life in Israel and then ask what it means for the present community of God’s people and human society at large. The “economic angle” functioned in the Old Testament as proof of the relationship between God and His people, as a kind of thermometer that reveals both the spiritual temperature of the theological relationship between God and His people and also the extent to which Israel was conforming to the social shape required of her in consistency with her status as God’s redeemed people. The ethics of the Old Testament structured this way should be “covenantal, canonical and comprehensive”.95 Chr. J. H. Wright’s approach can be called progressive-evangelical, while the Old Testament ethics by W. C. Kaiser Jr. was conservative-evangelical, which used the classical dogmatical scheme of creation, fall and resumption to legitimize an ethics of values of typical white middle-class Americans.96 R. J. Rushdoony, on the other hand, did not intend to legitimize these values but to change the modern western value-system according to the Old Testament, especially according to the Book of the Covenant in Exodus 21–23 and the book of Deuteronomy. This would create some problems today, should the stubborn son be stoned by the community as mandated by Deut 21:18–21?97 J. A. Fisher argued against these ethics, asking “whether ethicists may not be narrowing their science too much by simply making it a matter of moral teaching. If the church is viewed within such an ambit of moral conclusion, it becomes more and more an enforcer than a revealer … That all biblical statements are ‘time conditioned’ in the sense that they arose out of existing experience is granted. That they are ‘conclusions’ betrays a mentality which is linked to system of principles and conclusions. Rather than a conclusion, the Bible looks upon such statements as the beginning of a perception”.98 The first German attempt to write an ethics of the Old Testament, which is not prescriptive but consequently descriptive, was carried out by E. Otto.99 He organised his ethics around three major areas: 1. the history of legal and ethical rules in the Old Testament, especially in wisdom literature and in the collections of these rules in the Pentateuch, demonstrating how ethical rules developed out of laws; 2. the theological legitimation of legal and ethical rules, reconstructing the process of the theologization of rules in the Pentateuch, Prophets and Writings; and 3. the consequence of moral conduct and the broad field of theodicy.

94

See Chr. J. H. Wright, People of God (1983). See further idem, Walking (1995). See Wright, People of God (1983), 63. The Old Testament creation narratives, according to this author, provide a framework of ideals and principles for economic life. These ideals are tempered by the realism of its comprehensive doctrine of the fall but should also be elevated by the transcendent dimension to which it relates all of life, including economics. 96 See W. C. Kaiser jr., Ethics (1983). 97 See R. J. Rushdoony, Biblical Law (1973); Law and Society (1982). 98 See J. A. Fisher, Ethics (1978), 310. 99 See E. Otto, Ethik (1994); see further idem, Ethics (1995), 161–172. 95

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W. Janzen took a different approach in his study.100 For E. Otto the unity of Old Testament ethics was the diachrony of its history, while for W. Janzen it was the canon. Janzen himself felt that his approach related to that of B. C. Birch,101 who also construed a canonical ethics, which intended to open the Old Testament as an ethical resource to the church, while E. Otto saw the main addressees also in the secularized citizens of modern western society, who no longer remember the biblical roots of modern secular values like human rights.102 In a synchronical-canonical approach W. Janzen interpreted stories of the Old Testament as ethical model stories; he distinguished between familial, priestly, wisdom, royal and prophetic models. These paradigms, shaped by stories, deliver the entire structure ethics, and this, in turn for W. Janzen, means a primacy of story over law, i. e., ethos over ethics. Old Testament scholarship has in recent years dealt intensively with the problem of how to mediate methodologically between diachronic and synchronic-canonical approaches. At the moment it is open to consider what the outcome of this discourse will be and how to correlate a synchronic-canonical approach to diachronical perspectives.103 But whatever the new perspectives will be, they will also open up new approaches to the ethics of the Old Testament.104 One possible perspective connects narrative and law in the Torah and focuses on the ethical implications of the legal hermeneutics of the synchronically-read Pentateuch in relation to other parts of the Hebrew Bible canon.105 In the meantime C. H. Rodd renounced an overall programme of ethics of the Old Testament in favour of some glimpses of an ethics as a “strange land”, dealing with topics like “ethics and purity”, “ethics and honour”, some semantic studies and those of the problems of an imitatio Dei as a model for Old Testament ethics, sanctions and motivations in the Old Testament.106 For C. H. Rodd, the quest for special features of biblical ethics in comparison to the Ancient Near East was guided by the desire for ethical directive today, although our ethical challenges were not those of the Old Testament: ethically the Old Testament is a “strange land”. Neither a theology of revelation nor a canon can give an Old Testament ethic actual relevance. The first requirement should be to abandon the propositional view of revelation, and with it the belief in the Bible as an external authority.107 While C. S. Rodd favoured respect for the hermeneutical “nasty gap of history” as a starting point for any adequate modern reflection on an ethic of the Old Testament, G. J. Wenham was convinced that the ethical substance of biblical narrative is of direct ethical relevance today. The implicit authors of biblical narratives gave ethical directive to the readers. In this way G. J. Wenham came 100

See B. Janzen, Ethics (1994). See B. C. Birch, Justice (1991). 102 See E. Otto, Ethik (1994), 81–116; idem, Human Rights (1999), 1–20; idem, Gerechtigkeit (2002), 44–64; idem, Sozialethik (2004), 181–188. 103 See the bibliography in A. Groenewald, “Changing Paradigms: Old Testament Scholarship Between Synchrony and Diachrony”, South African Perspectives on the Pentateuch Between Synchrony and Diachrony (ed. J. Le Roux/E. Otto; LHB/OTS 463; New York 2007), 108–123. 104 See above I. 105 See E. Otto, Tora (2009), 641–678. 106 See C. S. Rodd, Glimpses (2001). 107 See ibid. 327. 101

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to the conclusion that Old Testament ethics were as much about grace as about law. Thus, G. J. Wenham’s categories for interpreting Old Testament narratives were derived from Christian dogmatics. They declare that God, the all-holy, is also God, the all-merciful.108 J. Barton pleaded for an ethic that “lies beneath the surface” of the texts, so that, and here he follows109 G. J. Wenham, the narrative should be an important source for ethics. But he did not follow the synchronic approach of G. J. Wenham, so that again the question remains open, how to correlate a diachronic-historical reading of the Bible with an ethical-synchronic approach. For J. Rogerson an ethic of the Old Testament has to deal historically and critically with the values of Old Testament ethics, which are embedded within definite historical contexts.110 As a consequence, the natural morality of a society removed thousands of years cannot match that of our day, so that we cannot use the Bible in a prescriptive but only in a descriptive-exemplary way. By constructing the development of biblical ethical ideas, we can obtain examples of “imperatives of redemption”, which led to the formulation of structures of grace. The challenge of these processes for us today may well be that we should be asking what imperatives of redemption make claims upon us today. A new approach to the ethic of the Hebrew Bible is the programme of character ethics that should be rooted in the nurture, formation, and socialization of a particular self-conscious community.111 This approach has its starting point in current political, cultural and societal challenges like the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, the poverty of migrant workers in North America or the recurrence of state violence in South America. The prerequisite of meaning of the Bible in these conflict-areas is a consequence of contextualization in a modern or post-modern world. The alternative to these approaches is a consistent contextualization of Hebrew Bible ethics in its historical context of the Ancient Near East. Ethics as a theory of morals considers maxims of conduct in the Ancient Near East and the Bible from the point of view of the normative good, seeking its cultural foundations, and the consequences of good action.112 It brings to awareness aspects that implicitly govern action, to the extent that action is morally qualifiable. In the Ancient Near East, including the Hebrew Bible, moral action was characterized by a synthetic view of life, which assumed a correspondence between the way that people fare in life and their deeds. The distinction between “what is” and “what ought to be” was foreign to the Ancient Near East and the Bible, as was any distinction between moral duty and one’s fate in life. In the ancient way of thinking, people “consisted” of their actions, so that their existence was determined by fulfilling their obligations. The basis for an ethics of the Hebrew Bible as part of Ancient Near Eastern ethics is its anthropology. In the Ancient Near East the moral quality of an action was measured by the extent to which it was in accord with the community’s values and maxims; this accord was expressed by the way that

108 109 110 111 112

See J. G. Wenham, Story as Torah (2004). See J. Barton, Ethic (2003). See J. Rogerson, Ethics (2004). See M. D. Carroll Rodas/J. E. Lapsley (eds.), Character Ethics (2007). See E. Otto, Encountering (2004), 84–97.

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justice was defined. The West Semitic root s.dq did not mean justice in the sense of a iustitia distributiva, but rather solidarity and loyalty to the community in one’s actions, such that the noun s.dq/s.adiq could be formed in the plural.113 This was also true for the Hebrew Bible. In Ancient Near Eastern and related biblical shame cultures, the collective memory of society ensured that perpetrators were reciprocated with their own evil deeds; it also granted an honourable reputation to those loyal to the community, while humiliating the evildoer. Biblical stories confirm this kind of ethical mechanism. Yhwh’s first task, then, was to guarantee a correspondence between a person’s deeds and a person’s fate. In a polytheistic pantheon this function could fall to special gods such as Shamash, the sun-god of Mesopotamia. In a biblical context this function of the sun-god could be either integrated into Yhwh’s character as in Psalm 72 or separated and personified as a substitute figure such as Wisdom in Prov 1:20–33; 8:1–36. Only when experience ran counter to the synthetic view of a correspondence between the quality of one’s deeds and one’s life, did the insight gain ground that the correspondence was precarious and that the gods used a higher authority for direct retribution. With this development, motives stemming from sacred law and the law of contracts, in which the divinity directly punished infringements of sacred duties or of clauses in a sworn contract, were transferred to the broad field of moral action. In the Hebrew Bible, especially in the book of Deuteronomy, this process of transference can be observed. In late biblical literature this solution of divine interaction came again into a crisis, so that new solutions of the challenge of “theodicy” were tried in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes.114 The Decalogue postponed divine retribution until the third or fourth generation to keep the possibility open for a return back to the fulfilment of God’s will (Exod 20:5). Since experience also failed to confirm these theories in every case, the apocalyptic thinkers came to the conclusion that divine retribution could be interpreted as a judgement imposed on the dead in an afterlife as well (Daniel 12). The decisive point in this process was to keep to the idea that Yhwh was just (s.dq/s. adiq) in His actions even if human experience seemed to contradict that. There was no room in the biblical idea of God for an arbitrary divine will, which was only domesticated by means of human divination as in the Ancient Near East.115 In the Ancient Near East a person could lead a successful life by following the state authorities represented by the king, who was viewed as a tool of the imperial god as king over the divine pantheon and creator of the world. For a fulfilled life it was therefore necessary to obey the laws of the state. An Assyrian myth about the creation of human beings and the king made a distinction between the creation of normal human beings (lullû-ameˉluˉ), who were supposed to relieve 113 The Egyptian term ma’at also denoted a iustitia connectiva of active solidarity and reciprocity of action; see J. Assmann, Ma’at. Gerechtigkeit und Unsterblichkeit im Alten Ägypten (Munich 1990); E. Otto, Ethik (1994) 117–142. 114 See E. Otto, Ethik (1994), 160–174. 115 See J. N. Lawson, The Concept of Fate in Ancient Mesopotamia of the First Millennium. Toward an Understanding of Šimtu (Orientalia Biblica et Christiana, 7; Wiesbaden 1994); B. Groneberg, “’Anzû stiehlt die Schicksalstafeln’. Vorherbestimmung im Alten Orient”, Vorsehung, Schicksal und göttliche Macht. Antike Stimmen zu einem aktuellen Thema (ed. R. G. Kratz/H. Spieckermann; Tübingen 2008), 23–39.

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god of the toil of cultivating the land, and the creation of the king as a “human being who by virtue of his superiority makes decisions (malıˉku ameˉlu)”.116 The king was granted rule over people and the power to wage war following the god’s instructions. In the Ancient Near East the synthetic view of life, in which good actions corresponded to success, was linked with the loyalty to the state. It was valid only in the context of the order of state rule and was limited even there, since from the time of its creation humankind was ordained to deprivation and toil for the benefit of the gods and the state as embodied by the king. The Hebrew Bible endorsed the contrary anthropological view. In contrast to the Mesopotamian creation myth, it did not recount the story of the creation of the world and human beings as the conclusion of a complex cosmogony and theomachy. Rather it places the creation of the world and humans in accordance with a monotheistic concept of God, at the very beginning (Genesis 1). Humans were not created to labour in atonement for the sins of the gods, but to give shape to the world as Yhwh’s representatives. In Mesopotamian royal ideology, the motif of God’s representative (salmu) made in the image of God, was reserved for the king. The Bible opposed the negative anthropology, which bound humankind to the state legitimated by god, by applying the motif of being created in the image of God (s.aelaem) to every individual and democratizing the royal ideology this way. For the first time in the cultural history of the Ancient Near East, ethical values were disengaged from loyalty to the state. Next to the anthropological foundation of an ethic of the Hebrew Bible in an Ancient Near Eastern context, the question of values comes up, i. e. especially the definition what “the good” was. For the people in the Ancient Near East before and independent from any ethical theory, it was traditional conduct, in the sense of what was customary and therefore “normal”, that was considered good. In the Ancient Near East as in the Bible this promotion of social cohesion was inseparably linked to the concept of “justice”, as was shown by the justice-edicts of Mesopotamian kings and the biblical jubilee, which served to reduce social tensions. But these terms also confirm the traditional character of the concept of justice, because they did not imply the idea of justice in the sense of social equality, and thus the justice-edicts and the biblical jubilee were not promulgated with the intention of ending social inequality. Thus, “the good” as such, which was simply what had always been considered in human action as normal, did not imply an “ought” or obligation, separate from what was. In the Bible, this traditional stratum of a natural ethics was imbued with tendencies that superseded this natural ethic by virtue of the motives of the divine actions of Yhwh, which can be summarized as directed by self-limitation and renunciation of revenge.117 This difference between an Ancient Near Eastern and biblical concept of God in relation to moral values, which implied divine actions, was the cradle of an “ought” in biblical ethics. The degree of connection between human ethics and divine behaviour varied in the Ancient Near East and the Bible. In Ancient Near Eastern thinking the key 116

See W. Mayer, “Ein Mythos von der Erschaffung des Menschen und des Königs”, Or 56 (1987)

55–68. 117

See E.Otto, Ethik (1994), 104–111.

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difference between human and divine beings was that the latter were immortal but nor morally infallible. In fact, most of the Mesopotamian deities in the myths would have been heavily punished were they to have been judged by standards of human ethics. They could be described as rather indifferent to the social norms of human interaction. In the Bible norms of neighbourly solidarity turned into divine norms representing the will of Yhwh, enforcing models of social solidarity in the Covenant Code and the Book of Deuteronomy.118 The prophets and the circles of intellectuals, who took their cue from them, measured the behaviour of the “Israelite” people by standards propagated by the collections of law and informed the people what the consequences for failing to comply would be. The hostility of Judaic religion to magic combined with monotheism’s closing off the possibility of ascribing any misfortune experienced in life to adverse deities and to the negative anthropology derived from it, increased the need for an ethical shaping of life, since misfortune could be the result only of human activity. The rationalization of religion was further increased by the political experience of Judean people of being at the mercy of the great powers of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Hellenists, with all the resulting consequences for the fate of the individual. It gave rise to the question of how such experiences could be reconciled with a belief in Yhwh as an ethical god. As a consequence, eschatological thinking became universal, which subjected the entire population of the world to Yhwh’s ethical will and sought in it the solution to problems of theodicy for Judah. The high degree to which rationalization was achieved in the Old Testament permitted Judaism and its offshoot, Christianity, to survive as world religions, whereas the religions of all the other ancient centres of power perished.

118

See above I.

Chapter Forty-six

Problems and Prospects of a ‘History of the Religion of Israel’ By Joachim Schaper, Aberdeen Sources: R. Albertz, Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit, 1. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende der Königszeit (GAT 8/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1992); 2. Vom Exil bis zu den Makkabäern (GAT 8/2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1992); A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, 1. From the Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy (London: SCM Press 1992); 2: From the Exile to the Maccabees (London: SCM Press 1994); “Hat die Theologie des Alten Testaments doch noch eine Chance? Abschließende Stellungnahme in Leuven”, JBTh 10 (1995), 177–187. − W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1940). − G. W. Anderson, The History and Religion of Israel (New Clarendon Bible. Old Testament 1; London: Oxford UP 1966, 21974). − J. Barton, “Alttestamentliche Theologie nach Albertz?”, JBTh 10 (1995), 25–34. − F. Baumgärtel, Die Eigenart der alttestamentlichen Frömmigkeit (Schwerin in Meckl.: Bahn 1932). − A. Bertholet, Kulturgeschichte Israels (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1919); A History of Hebrew Civilization (tr. by A. K. Dallas; London/ Calcutta/ Sydney: George G. Harrap & Comp. 1926). − W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard 1903). − K. Budde, The Religion of Israel to the Exile (New York 1899); Die Religion des Volkes Israel bis zur Verbannung (Amerikanische religionswissenschaftliche Vorlesungen 4; Gießen: Ricker 1900; third edition published as Die altisraelitische Religion [Amerikanische religionswissenschaftliche Vorlesungen 4], Gießen: Töpelmann 1912). − F. Crüsemann, “Religionsgeschichte Israels oder Theologie? Elementare Überlegungen zu einer falschen Alternative”, JBTh 10 (1995), 69–77. − G. Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina (7 parts in 8 volumes; Gütersloh: Bertelsmann 1928– 1942); Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, Vol. 8: Das häusliche Leben, Geburt, Heirat, Tod, Fragment; sowie Gesamtregister für die Bände I–VIII (ed. J. Männchen; Berlin a. o.: de Gruyter 2001). − A. Dillmann, Handbuch der alttestamentlichen Theologie (ed. R. Kittel; Leipzig: Hirzel 1895). − B. D. Eerdmans, De godsdienst van Israël (Huis ter Heide: De Wachttoren 1930). − W. Eichrodt, Religionsgeschichte Israels (Dalp Taschenbücher 394D; Bern: Francke 1969). − G. Fohrer, Geschichte Israels von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (UTB 708; Heidelberg/ Wiesbaden: Quelle und Meyer 61995); Theologische Grundstrukturen des Alten Testaments (Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann 24; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1972); Geschichte der israelitischen Religion (Heidelberg: Quelle und Meyer 1968); History of Israelite Religion (tr. D. E. Green; London: SPCK 1973). − F. Giesebrecht, Die Grundzüge der israelitischen Religionsgeschichte (Aus Natur und Geisteswelt 52; Leipzig: Teubner 1904, 31919). − W. C. Graham/ H. G. May, Culture and Conscience: An Archaeological Study of the New Religious Past in Ancient Palestine (Chicago: Chicago UP 1936). − H. Gunkel, Genesis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 31910); “Die israelitische Literatur”, in: P. Hinneberg (ed.), Die Kultur der Gegenwart: Ihre Entwicklung und ihre Ziele (Teil I, Abteilung VII; Berlin 1906), 51–102. − J. Hempel, “Die alttestamentliche Religion”, in: B. Spuler e.a. (eds.), Handbuch der Orientalistik, I/8.1 (1964), 122–146. − G. Hölscher, Die Profeten: Untersuchungen zur Religionsgeschichte Israels (Leipzig: Hinrichs 1914); Geschichte der israelitischen und jüdischen Religion (Sammlung Töpelmann I/7; Gießen: Alfred Töpelmann 1922). − W. James, Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902 (New York/ London: Longmans, Green 1902). − B. Janowski, “Theologie des Alten Testaments: Plädoyer für eine integrative Perspektive”,

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in: A. Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume Basel 2001 (VT.S 92; Leiden/ Boston: Brill 2002), 241–276. − Y. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, 4,1/2. The Babylonian Captivity and Deutero-Isaiah (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations 1970); The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (tr. and abridged by M. Greenberg; Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1960). − E. Kautzsch, Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments (ed. K. Kautzsch; Tübingen: Mohr 1911). − A. Kayser, Die Theologie des Alten Testaments in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung dargestellt (ed. E. Reuss; Strassburg: Friedrich Bull 1886, 21894, rev. by K. Marti). − R. Kittel, Die Religion des Volkes Israel (Leipzig: Quelle und Meyer 1921, 21929); ET: The Religion of the People of Israel (tr. R. Caryl Micklem; London: G. Allen & Unwin 1925). − E. König, Geschichte der alttestamentlichen Religion (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann 1912); Theologie des Alten Testaments, kritisch und vergleichend dargestellt (Stuttgart: C. Belser 1922). − A. Kuenen, De godsdienst van Israël tot den ondergang van den joodschen staat, 1–2 (Haarlem: A. C. Kruseman 1869–1870). − N. P. Lemche, “Warum die Theologie des Alten Testaments einen Irrweg darstellt”, JBTh 10 (1995), 79–92C A. Lods, La religion d’Israël (Histoire des religions; Paris: Hachette 1939). − M. Löhr, Alttestamentliche Religions-Geschichte (Sammlung Göschen 292; Berlin/ Leipzig: de Gruyter 1906); Israels Kulturentwickelung (Straßburg: Karl J. Trübner 1911); A History of Religion in the Old Testament (International Library of Christian Knowledge; London 1936). − N. Lohfink, “Fächerpoker und Theologie: Herausgeber-Nachgedanken zu der Diskussion”, JBTh 10 (1995), 207–230. − K. Marti, Geschichte der Israelitischen Religion (Strassburg: Friedrich Bull 1897; [third, rev. edition of A. Kayser, Die Theologie des Alten Testaments in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung dargestellt, ed. E. Reuss; Strassburg: Friedrich Bull 1886 [21894], 41903, 51907]); Die Religion des Alten Testaments unter den Religionen des vorderen Orients (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1906); The Religion of the Old Testament: Its Place among the Religions of the Nearer East (Crown Theological Library 19; tr. G. A. Bienemann; London: Williams & Norgate 1907). − S. Mowinckel, Religion und Kultus (tr. A. Schauer; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1953). − H.-P. Müller, “Fundamentalfragen jenseits der Alternative von Theologie und Religionsgeschichte”, JBTh 10 (1995), 93–110. − A. Penna, La Religione di Israele (Biblioteca di scienze religiose. Sezione 9: Religioni non cristiane 7; Brescia: Morcelliana 1958). − R. H. Pfeiffer, Religion in the Old Testament: The History of a Spiritual Triumph (New York, NY: Harper 1961). − H. Renckens, De Godsdienst van Israël (De godsdiensten der mensheid 14; Roermond: J. J. Romen 1962; The Religion of Israel (New York : Sheed and Ward 1966). − R. Rendtorff, “Die Hermeneutik einer kanonischen Theologie des Alten Testaments: Prolegomena”, JBTh 10 (1995), 35–44. − H. Ringgren, Israelitische Religion (Religionen der Menschheit 26; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer 1963; Israelite Religion(tr. D. E. Green; London: SPCK 1966. − W. H. Schmidt, Alttestamentlicher Glaube und seine Umwelt: zur Geschichte des alttestamentlichen Gottesverständnisses (Neukirchener Studienbücher 6; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener 1968); Alttestamentlicher Glaube (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 102007). − E. Sellin, Beiträge zur israelitisch-jüdischen Religionsgeschichte; Vol. 1. Jahwes Verhältnis zum israelitischen Volk und Individuum nach altisraelitischer Vorstellung (Leipzig : Deichert 1896; Vol. 2. Leipzig: Deichert 1897); Die alttestamentliche Religion im Rahmen der andern altorientalischen, Leipzig (Deichert 1908); Alttestamentliche Theologie auf religionsgeschichtlicher Grundlage, Vol. 1: Israelitisch-jüdische Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer,1933); Vol. 1: Theologie des Alten Testaments (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer 1933). − R. Smend, Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte (Sammlung theologischer Lehrbücher; Freiburg i. B./ Leipzig: Mohr Siebeck 1893). − W. R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: The Fundamental Institutions (London: Black 1889); Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: Second and Third Series (JSOT.S 183; ed. J. Day; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995; Die Religion der Semiten (tr. R. Stübe; Freiburg i. Br./ Leipzig/ Tübingen: Mohr 1899). − B. Stade/A. Bertholet, Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments; 1. Die Religion Israels und die Entstehung des Judentums (GThW, series 1, part 2, vol. 2,1; Tübingen: Mohr1905); 2. Die jüdische Religion von der Zeit Esras bis zum Zeitalter Christi (GThW, series 1, part 2, vol. 2,2; Tübingen: Mohr 1911). − A. R. Stedman, The Growth of Hebrew Religion (London: G. Bell and Sons 1936). − T. Sundermeier, “Religionswissenschaft versus Theologie? Zur Verhältnisbestimmung von Religionswissenschaft und Theologie aus religionswissenschaftlicher Sicht: Zum Gespräch mit Rainer Albertz”, JBTh 10 (1995), 189–206. − T. L. Thompson, “Das Alte Testament als theologische Disziplin”, JBTh 10 (1995), 157–173. − J. K. W. Vatke, Die biblische Theologie wissenschaftlich dargestellt, 1. Die Religion des Alten Testamentes nach den kanonischen Büchern entwickelt (Berlin: Bethge 1835). − R. de Vaux, Les institutions de l’Ancien Testament, 1–2 (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf 1958, 1960); ET [in one volume]: Ancient

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Israel: Its Life and Institutions (London: Darton, Longman and Todd 1961). − T. C. Vriezen, De Godsdienst van Israël (Zeist: W. de Haan/ Arnhem: van Loghum Slaterus 1963; The Religion of Ancient Israel (London : Lutterworth Press 1967); Hoofdlijnen der Theologie van het Oude Testament (Wageningen : H. Veenman & Zonen 1954); ET: An Outline of Old Testament Theology (Neuijen; Oxford: Blackwell 1958, 21970). − M.-T. Wacker, “‘Religionsgeschichte Israels’ oder ‘Theologie des Alten Testaments’ – (k)eine Alternative? Anmerkungen aus feministisch-exegetischer Sicht”, JBTh 10 (1995), 129–155. − W. L. Wardle, The History and Religion of Israel (The Clarendon Bible; Oxford: Clarendon Press 1936). − M. Weber,“Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis”, in: idem, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (ed. J. Winckelmann; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 71988), 146–214; Das antike Judentum (Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie III; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1921; Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen: Das antike Judentum. Schriften und Reden 1911–1920 (ed. E. Otto; MWG I/21; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2005). − J. Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (Berlin: Reimer 1876–77, 31899); Geschichte Israels (Berlin: G. Reimer 1878); Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Berlin: Reimer 1886); Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte (Berlin: Reimer 1894); idem, “Israelitisch-jüdische Religion”, in: H. Pinneberg (ed.), Die Kulturen der Gegenwart, 1/4 (1905), 1–38. − A. Wendel, Säkularisierung in Israels Kultur (Beiträge zur Förderung (BFChTh 2, 32; Gütersloh: Bertelsmann 1934). − W. M. L. de Wette, Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1. Kritischer Versuch über die Glaubwürdigkeit der Bücher der Chronik (Halle [Saale] 1806); 2. Kritik der israelitischen Geschichte (Halle [Saale] 1807). − W. Wrede, Über Aufgabe und Methode der sogenannten Neutestamentlichen Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1897). Secondary literature: Anonymous, “Adolphe Lods”, in: Syria (T. 26, Fasc. 3/4; 1949) 397–399. − J. Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language ([London:] Oxford UP 1961). − J. Bayet, “Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Adolphe Lods, membre de l’Académie”, Comptes-rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 101 (1957), 315–327. − H. Blumenberg, “Enttäuschende Grenzgänge”, in: idem, Lebensthemen: Aus dem Nachlaß (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1998), 168–169. − E. A. Clarke, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA/ London: Harvard UP 2004). − O. Eissfeldt, “Israelitisch-jüdische Religionsgeschichte und alttestamentliche Theologie” (1926), in: idem, Kleine Schriften 1 (Tübingen: Mohr 1962), 105–114; “Werden, Wesen und Wert geschichtlicher Betrachtung der israelitisch-jüdischen Religion” (1931), in: idem, Kleine Schriften 1 (Tübingen: Mohr 1962), 247–265. − F. Jaeger/ J. Rüsen, Geschichte des Historismus: Eine Einführung (München: C. H. Beck 1992). − W. Klatt, Hermann Gunkel: zu seiner Theologie der Religionsgeschichte und zur Entstehung der formgeschichtlichen Methode (FRLANT 100; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1969). − T. Krapf, Yehezkel Kaufmann: Ein Lebens- und Erkenntnisweg zur Theologie der Hebräischen Bibel (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum 1990). − B. Maier, William Robertson Smith: his Life, his Work and his Times (FAT 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009). − Murrmann-Kahl, Entzauberte Heilsgeschichte: Der Historismus erobert die Theologie 1880–1920 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlags-Haus Mohn 1992). − L. Perlitt, Vatke und Wellhausen: Geschichtsphilosophische Voraussetzungen und historiographische Motive für die Darstellung der Religion und Geschichte Israels durch Wilhelm Vatke und Julius Wellhausen (BZAW 94; Berlin: Töpelmann 1965. − P. de Rivière, “William Robertson Smith and John Ferguson McLennan: The Aberdeen Roots of British Social Anthropology”, in: W. Johnstone (ed.), William Robertson Smith: Essays in Reassessment (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995), 293–302. − J. W. Rogerson, “Setting the Scene: A Brief Outline of Histories of Israel”, in: H. G. M. Williamson (ed.), Understanding the History of Ancient Israel (Proceedings of the British Academy 143; Oxford: Oxford UP for the British Academy 2007), 3–14. − J. Schaper, “Auf der Suche nach dem Alten Israel? Text und Geschichte in der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft auf dem Hintergrund der Historischen Kulturwissenschaften”, ZAW 118/1 and ZAW 118/2 (2006), 1–21 and 181–196; “William Robertson Smith’s Early Work on Prophecy and the Beginnings of Social Anthropology”, in: JSTh 1 (2008) 13–23. − R. Smend Jr., Deutsche Alttestamentler aus drei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1989). − W. Zimmerli, “Biblische Theologie: I. Altes Testament”, TRE VI (1980), 426–455.

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1. The Rise of the ‘History of Israelite Religion’ Genre in Old Testament Scholarship It is commonly assumed that it was the publication of R. Smend’s Lehrbuch that heralded the beginning of a period in Old Testament scholarship which saw ‘(Biblical) Theologies of the Old Testament’ marginalised in favour of ‘Histories of Israelite Religion’, indeed witnessed the former being transformed into the latter.1 However, Smend was not really the pioneer of this shift. He had a predecessor in the Netherlands. A. Kuenen was the first Old Testament scholar to publish a History of Israelite Religion that had clearly shed the eggshells of the Theology genre, refuting very clearly the old, “churchy” view, “de zienswijze, die men de kerkelijke noemen kan”.2 Kuenen turned against the traditionalists and advocated an unambiguously historical, unprejudiced approach to the religion of Israel, seeing it as embedded in the ancient Near East and subjecting it to a comparativist approach.3 The new type of ‘Histories’ was better in tune with the general trend of biblical scholarship in what might be called the ‘age of historicism’.4 Vatke can be seen as the godfather of all ‘Histories of Israelite Religion’,5 in the sense that he was the first scholar to publish a thoroughly historical exploration of what he, Vatke, called the ‘religion of the Old Testament’,6 in itself not a particularly appropriate title, given the subject matter of the volume and the way in which the author explores it. As Albertz has rightly pointed out, the influence of Hegel’s system on Vatke led to the interesting fact that the latter could perceive the post-exilic period as one of ‘synthesis’, and thus – contrary to all his contemporaries and most Christian scholars in subsequent generations – positively.7 Wellhausen was inspired by Vatke’s work but unimpressed by Hegel’s philosophy of history, with the result that his own work is a fine example of the professionalized historical work of the alter nineteenth century but lacks the unified ‘vision’ of Vatke’s reconstruction of Israelite and Jewish history – and his positive view of the post-exilic period.8 Wellhausen in turn inspired a number of his students to produce ‘Histories of Israelite Religion’. As pointed out, the first book published under this kind of ti1

Cf. Chap. 23 in HBOT III/1 (2013), 625–650, by J. Schaper, on the effects of the rising tide of eighteenth-century historical thought and fully developed nineteenth-century historicism on the writing of Old Testament Theologies and Biblical Theologies of the Old Testament from Gabler to R. Smend sen.: “The Question of a ‘Biblical Theology’ and the Growing Tension between ‘Biblical Theology’ and a ‘History of the Religion of Israel’.”. 2 A. Kuenen, De godsdienst van Israël (1869–1870), 7. 3 Cf. ibid. where Kuenen allies himself with the new approach to the history of the ancient Israelites’ religion: “de nieuwe godsdienstwetenschap: Zij plaatst zich op het standpunt niet van het geloof dat gene waarheid erkent buiten den kring waarin het zelf heerscht, maar van de onpartijdige waardering, die in plaats van overall denzelden maatstaf aan te leggen de verscheidenheid in haar recht erkent en het goede opmerkt waar en onder welken vorm zij het aantreft”. 4 Cf. Chap. 23 in HBOT III/1 (2013) and F. Jaeger/J. Rüsen, Geschichte des Historismus: Eine Einführung (München: C. H. Beck 1992). 5 On Vatke, see also Chap. 23 of HBOT III/1. 6 Cf. the accolade in Albertz, Religionsgeschichte Israels (1992), 22. 7 Cf. Albertz, ibid. 8 On Vatke and Wellhausen, cf. Perlitt, Vatke und Wellhausen (1965), pass.

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tle in German, purposely avoiding the designation of “Old Testament Theology”, was R. Smend’s Lehrbuch. The authors of some studies that were published as ‘Biblical theologies’ had effectively crossed the Rubicon; their ‘theologies’ were ‘histories’ in all but name:9 E. Kautzsch’s Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments, edited by K. Kautzsch and published in 1911, is a case in point. Others were transformed, by revisors and editors, from ‘theologies’ into ‘histories’, Kayser/Marti being the most significant example.10 Marti revised A. Kayser’s Theologie des Alten Testaments in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung dargestellt (1886, 21894) and published his second revision – i.e., the third edition of Kayser’s Theologie – under a new title, Geschichte der Israelitischen Religion, while not acknowledging a substantial difference between the two genres: Unter Geschichte der israelitischen Religion, wie unter Theologie des Alten Testaments versteht man diejenige Disciplin, welche sich mit der Darstellung des religiösen und ethischen Inhalts des Alten Testaments befasst. Korrelat ist die Darstellung des entsprechenden Inhalts des Neuen Testaments. Und beide Teile zusammen bilden die Geschichte der biblischen Religion oder die biblische Theologie.11

Marti’s view is quite surprising – harmonising, as it does, the old view and the new. Whatever his motive, at the time when he published the third edition, under its new title, the trend towards Histories, as opposed to Theologies, had become irresistible: K. Budde’s Die altisraelitische Religion was published in 1905 (this was, very unusually, a translation of a work of Budde’s which had first appeared in English, under the title The Religion of Israel to the Exile, in 1899). In the same year – 1905 – B. Stade’s Die Religion Israels und die Entstehung des Judentums, came out, the second volume of which was to be authored by A. Bertholet. Not all authors of Histories were historical-critical scholars of a theologically liberal disposition. E. König was one of the few ‘conservatives’ who opted for the new genre; he published his Geschichte der alttestamentlichen Religion in 1912, but, characteristically, he also published, in 1922, a Theology. W. Zimmerli called the transition from Theologies to Histories a Verfremdung.12 He had a specific example in mind, but presumably he was passing a comment on that whole process of transition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, calling it a Verfremdung implies that there was a choice, that the transition was a mistake and might have been avoided. But was that really ever an option? Rather, the transition towards Histories was an inevitable and incontrovertible effect of the historicist permeation of all historical disciplines. In addition to the effects of historicism proper,13 there was the additional impact of contemporary research in the study of religion, especially in the psychol9

This has rightly been pointed out by Albertz (1992), 25, n. 32. See above Chap. 23. K. Marti, Geschichte der Israelitischen Religion (1907), 1. 12 Cf. W. Zimmerli, Biblische Theologie (1980), 438, with regard to E. Kautzsch’s Biblische Theologie (1911) in comparison with B. Stade’s Religion Israels (1905). Cf. our discussion above, in Chap. 23. 13 On the overpowering impact of historicism on Protestant theology, cf. Murrmann-Kahl, Entzauberte Heilsgeschichte (1992), pass. 10 11

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ogy of religion: William James published his Varieties of Religious Experience in 1902. On another front, social anthropologists started to widen the horizons of Old Testament scholars. And, of course, there was one famous Old Testament scholar and Semitist, of the same stature as his personal friend Wellhausen, who can rightly be called the ‘father’ of social anthropology: William Robertson Smith.14 Smith’s influence on the Old Testament scholarship of his time was momentous and extended to the German scene: his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites were translated into German by R. Stübe and published in 1899. Nowhere else in Europe or North America was there an individual propagator of a religious-historical approach of a stature comparable to Smith’s. However, the University of Göttingen produced the famous Religionsgeschichtliche Schule,15 an informal association of scholars which so greatly contributed to the inauguration and the subsequent development of the new ‘genre’ of the ‘History of Israelite Religion’. Although R. Smend – who was a pupil and friend of Wellhausen’s – cannot be counted among the members of the History of Religions School, he was influenced by the questions which the members of that school asked and the methodology they advocated. The new stress on what one would now call the ‘sociology of literature’ (or, more precisely speaking: the social history of literature), which expressed itself in the concept of the Sitz im Leben of literary ‘forms’, led to a focus on the actual cultic practices of the ancient Israelites, as reconstructed by means of an up-todate historical methodology which had been developed, in the second half of the nineteenth century, in subjects such as History, Biblical Studies, and Classics. In this context, the methodological work done by H. Gunkel and W. Wrede, in Old and New Testament Studies respectively, by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Usener in Classics (in the compendious sense of Altertumswissenschaft) and Droysen, in History, was of particular importance. The History of Religions School was a typical product of the age of historicism in its later stages and provided a great service to Biblical Studies: it thoroughly modernised them and enabled biblical scholars to ask new questions. Of the members of the School, and especially of the spiritus rector among its Old Testament scholars, H. Gunkel, it can be said that they did not “accept the explanations proffered by ancient writers” but asked “questions that the texts themselves do not ask, exploring that which past societies fail to divulge. Such procedures … would generate new hypotheses and explanatory models for the field”.16

14 On William Robertson Smith as the founding father of social anthropology, cf. P. Rivière, “William Robertson Smith and John Ferguson McLennan: The Aberdeen Roots of British Social Anthropology”, in W. Johnstone (ed.), William Robertson Smith: Essays in Reassessment (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1995), 293–302, and the excellent new biography: B. Maier, William Robertson Smith: his Life, his Work and his Times (FAT 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009). 15 Cf. Chap. 23 in HBOT III/1. 16 E. A. Clarke, History, Theory, Text (2004), 166. Clarke says this of M. Finley and his criticism of and contribution to the study of ancient history. It applies equally well to the contribution made by H. Gunkel and his colleagues.

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Rogerson has stated that “Gunkel’s treatment of the Old Testament … was based upon evolutionary theories”,17 and he adds that “[f]rom the theological point of view he [Gunkel] believed that he could show how much had been achieved during Israel’s history by the development of its religion from the popular superstitions implied in the folk-tale motifs to the noble ideal of the prophets”.18 The ‘evolutionist’ – or rather: progressivistic – position which characterizes Gunkel’s reconstruction of Israelite religious history and was foreshadowed in Wellhausen’s work, also permeates, mutatis mutandis, the contributions of many later scholars.19 Such progressivism can serve as the basis for narratives that ostensibly ‘just’ present a History of Israelite Religion but ultimately make a theological point, implicitly extolling the perceived unique contribution ancient Israel made to the history of religion. It is that kind of progressivism which is a hallmark not just of Gunkel’s work but also of contemporary contributions such as Albertz’ History (1992), of which we shall hear more later. One of the ‘second-generation’ members of the History of Religions School was G. Hölscher. His Geschichte der israelitischen und jüdischen Religion (1922) is a particularly good example of the fruit the new approach was starting to bear and also betrays the influence of British social anthropology on Old Testament studies. Here we have a fully developed history of Israelite and Jewish religion along the lines of enquiry established by the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule. During the same period, other innovative work was being done. After authoring and publishing, in 1911, the second volume of the Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments started by B. Stade – which was effectively a History of Israelite Religion in all but name, A. Bertholet produced a work in 1919 which was utterly innovative in outlook but failed to establish a new ‘school’ in Old Testament studies, presumably simply because few of Bertholet’s contemporaries were able to comprehend what a groundbreaking book he had written. Its title was Kulturgeschichte Israels, and Bertholet describes his self-set task as follows: “Inhaltlich galt es, die innere Gebundenheit von Israels Kultur an den Boden, auf dem sie sich ausgewirkt hat, zum Ausdruck zu bringen”.20 Bertholet was inspired by R. Kittel and B. Duhm and describes it as the latter’s merit “to have stressed the nexus between the history or religion and the history of culture” (“[d]en Zusammenhang von Religions- und Kulturgeschichte betont zu haben”).21 This remark is the key to understanding the significance of Bertholet’s book: it was his aim “erkennen zu lassen, wie viel das Verständnis von Israels Religion durch die Beschäftigung mit seiner Kultur gefördert wird”.22 Bertholet was also influenced by the work of Adolphe Lods, a French Lutheran biblical scholar and epigraphist of whom we shall hear more later. Bertholet 17

Rogerson, Brief Outline (2007), 10–11. Ibid. 11. The term ‘evolutionist’ is not intended to indicate dependence on the evolutionary theory of (Social) Darwinism but simply to clarify that the concept underlying Gunkel’s reconstruction is progressivistic. 20 A. Bertholet, Kulturgeschichte Israels (1919), V. 21 Ibid. V. 22 Ibid. V. 18 19

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spoke of Lods’ magisterial study of beliefs in an after-life in Semitic cultures as the ‘standard-work’ in the subject.23 It was probably not by chance that a very similar study was published, in several instalments, in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik,24 at the time when Bertholet prepared his Kulturgeschichte for the press. Max Weber, better known as one of the greatest German sociologists, wrote his remarkable history of ‘ancient Judaism’ (a misnomer: in fact, he treats all of the history of Israel and Judah, from the pre-state beginnings of Israelite culture to the post-exilic ‘restoration’) as part of a series of studies on the economic ethics of world-religions (known as Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen). Although – or maybe: because – his primary focus was on the nexus between ethics, economics, and religion, Weber’s study must be mentioned here: it could not have been written without the pioneering work of Wellhausen (on whom Weber relies to a great extent) and the History of Religions School. It is fascinating to see how the endeavours of Old Testament scholars feed into Weber’s analysis of the social and cultural history of Israel and Judah. Since Weber had no primary knowledge of the Hebrew texts to speak of (although he was, in principle, able to read them, having learnt some Hebrew at his Gymnasium), he relied on the work of the specialists in all the relevant disciplines, synthesizing it and using it to great avail when formulating his own questions. He was doing, to great effect, what he himself had described as one of the main tasks of the historian: to ask new questions.25 Another important work needs to be mentioned in this context, although it is neither a Religionsgeschichte nor a Kulturgeschichte: G. Dalman’s Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina. It was published, in eight volumes, from 1928–1942, and was based on the insights won in decades of painstaking work in Palestine.26 Here we have what, in today’s terminology, could be described as a summary of the material culture of Palestine, based on the evidence Dalman had found during his extensive travels in Palestine and Syria, amply documented (not least by means of a wealth of photographic material). Why should Dalman’s magnum opus be mentioned here? Because it was the result of a widespread interest in the material culture of contemporary Palestine as a key to a better understanding of the cultural and religious history of the ancient Israelites in Palestine. The all-pervasive interest in and fascination with ancient Israelite history had very practical consequences: ultimately motivated by his pietistic upbringing and involvement in the Christian mission, Dalman effectively became the chronicler of the life of the Palestinian peasantry of his time, simply because he thought – quite rightly – that the observation of everyday life in Palestine could furnish biblical scholars

23 “Adolphe Lods”, in: Syria, T. 26, Fasc. 3/4 (1949), 397–399. On Lods, cf. also J. Bayet, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Adolphe Lods (1957), 315–327. 24 Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 44 (Tübingen: Mohr 1917–1918), 52–138.349– 443. 601–626, and Vol. 46 (1918–1919), 40–113. 311–66. 541–604. Later republished in one volume by his widow, Marianne Weber. 25 Cf. M. Weber, Die “Objektivität” sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis, in: idem, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre (1988), (146–214) 166. 26 The eighth and final volume was eventually edited by J. Männchen of Greifswald University: Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, 8. Das häusliche Leben, Geburt, Heirat, Tod, Fragment; sowie Gesamtregister für die Bände I–VIII (Berlin e.a.: de Gruyter 2001).

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with insights into the Lebenswelt of the ancient Israelites. The technological development especially in the region’s agriculture had been so minimal that the early twentieth-century evidence gave scholars a fairly precise idea of a peasant’s life more than two thousand years earlier. Similarly, in the other areas of Palestinian Arab everyday life, which Dalman explored, similar conclusions could be made. It is remarkable that Bertholet’s, Dalman’s and Weber’s works appeared at more or less the same time. It seems that conceptualising the history of Israel and its religion as a Kulturgeschichte was (as sometimes happens in scholarship) ‘in the air’ – and that it had its kairos around 1920. No other Kulturgeschichte Israels or ‘Weberian’ social history of Israel has since appeared. At the eve of the Second World War, Adolphe Lods published his Religion d’Israël, a fine overview of the development of religion in the course of the whole history of ancient Israel in the widest sense. Lods, a Lutheran pastor and scholar who eventually served as vice-president of the famous Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, was one of the few biblical scholars of his time who had a serious interest in the social history of religion, presumably inspired by the academic culture of laicist France, a culture that has tended to marginalise theology in the academy, which forces theologians and biblical scholars to expose themselves to the critical scrutiny of colleagues in other humanities and in the social sciences – and consequently sometimes leads to truly innovative work in theology and biblical studies. Several scholars in the period under scrutiny produced both a History of Israelite Religion and a Theology of the Old Testament. Sellin, to name one example, was convinced that there was still room for Old Testament Theologies but could not escape the pull of the new approach, as he effectively concedes in the title of his work; in his Alttestamentliche Theologie auf religionsgeschichtlicher Grundlage (1933) he attempted to unite a properly historical approach with an exposition of Old Testament theology, comprising an Israelitisch-jüdische Religionsgeschichte (as the first volume) and a Theologie des Alten Testaments (as the second volume of the overall work). Earlier, he had already published a volume on Die alttestamentliche Religion im Rahmen der andern altorientalischen (1907). In the history of the ‘History of Israelite Religion’ genre, Dutch scholars have been remarkably over-represented and continued to pursue the religionsgeschichtliche approach after the Second World War. The disproportionately high contribution to the discipline is probably due to the fact that A. Kuenen had been the discipline’s trail-blazer and had set a high standard. B. D. Eerdman’s De Godsdienst van Israël, published in 1930, and H. Renckens’ De Godsdienst van Israël (1962) and T. C. Vriezen’s De Godsdienst van Israël (1963) should be mentioned here. However, it is also true that at least one of them – i.e., Rencken’s Godsdienst – is in effect a Theology, not a History.

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2. Histories of Israelite Religion between the Wars and after the Second World War The most significant English-language contribution to the genre of History of Ancient Israelite Religion was a book that did not sport any such title: W. F. Albright’s From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process.27 As Albright states, “[t]he purpose of this book is to show how man’s idea of God developed from prehistoric antiquity to the time of Christ, and to place this development in its historical context. This task does not, however, consist merely in the accumulation of historical details; it involves an analysis of the historical patterns which emerge from the mass of detail. It is, therefore, a task both for the historian and for the philosopher of history”.28 However, what Albright actually does, after two grand introductory chapters called ‘New Horizons in History’ and ‘Toward an organismic [sic] philosophy of history’, and a third entitled ‘Praeparatio’, is to sketch, on the remaining 160 pages, a history of Israelite religion which is centred on the development of Israelite monotheism and reconstructed in conjunction with Israel’s and Judah’s general history. Although the author claimed to be writing a historical and philosophical book, he effectively produced a history of Israelite religion that has, in fact, many of the characteristics of a Biblical Theology of the Old Testament: it is not for nothing that the title of his third chapter is reminiscent of the Christian concept of praeparatio evangelica, while the last chapter carries the title ‘In the Fulness of Time’ and ends with a section called ‘Jesus the Christ’. Albright’s book became a standard-work for generations of American (and Israeli) scholars and was a remarkable success in vast parts of the Western world. The ascendancy of Barthianism in the German-speaking theological world (and beyond) between the wars and its triumph after the Second World War had a significant (and often crippling) effect on all decidedly historical work in the theological disciplines. This is true not just of subjects such as Church History (in Barth’s view a mere Hilfswissenschaft), but also of the historical work done in other disciplines, including the genres of the History of Israel and the History of Israelite Religion. The rise of Dialectical Theology in the 1920s had foreshadowed this development. In 1926, O. Eissfeldt, an adherent of the history-of-religions approach, commented on that phenomenon and tried to accommodate the desire for a ‘theological’ reading of the Old Testament, while stressing the complementarity of the historical and the theological approaches: Die historische Erfassung des AT vermag niemals über Relatives und Immanentes hinauszukommen, und andererseits ist der von einem absoluten und Transzendenten ergriffene Glaube nicht das Organ, das die Religion des AT als eine geschichtliche Größe begreifen könnte.29

It is not for nothing that the ‘renaissance’ of Old Testament Theology took place after the Second World War: after historicism had already come under fire as a 27 28 29

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press 1940. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (1940), vii. Eissfeldt, Israelitisch-jüdische Religionsgeschichte und alttestamentliche Theologie (1926), 109.

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result of the devastating experience of the Great War, Barth’s neo-Orthodoxy – perceived by many to be the winner of the theological-political debate surrounding the rise and fall of Nazism – seemed to deal theological historicism the death-blow: neo-Orthodoxy achieved the reputation of having been the only theological ‘camp’ in Protestantism that withstood Nazism. It was the high esteem in which Barthianism was held that contributed further to the demise of the religionsgeschichtliche view of Israel’s history and theology and the rise of the Theology of Old Testament genre. H. Blumenberg once wrote: Die Ersatzbewegungen zu den Verzichten, die der theoretisch-wissenschaftliche Geschichtserfolg der Neuzeit verlangt oder auferlegt hatte, verlaufen sich in der Leere der Räume, in die sie eindringen.30

The perceived vindication and resultant restoration of the discipline of Biblical Theology, in its respective forms in German-speaking scholarship and in North America after the Second World War has to be seen in this perspective: as a restorative enterprise, the result of desperation over the encroachment of historical thinking onto theological ‘territory’ and the consequent ‘historical relativism’ – which a neo-Orthodox Protestant concept of revelation in the Barthian mold was perceived to alleviate. However, British and Scandinavian Old Testament scholarship proved largely immune to Barthianism: a fine example of a religionsgeschichtlich approach to ancient Israelite religion was published in 1963, when H. Ringgren’s Israelitische Religion came out. As we saw earlier, some Dutch scholars also continued to follow a History of Religions approach. The renaissance of the genre of Old Testament Theology, directed against the Histories that had been a result of the Geschichtserfolg characteristic of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, was an Ersatzbewegung in Blumenberg’s sense. Its most interesting, and most enduring, fruit was, of course, G. von Rad’s Theologie des Alten Testaments, which shows that – while it is a document of the desire to salvage theology from the onslaught of history – the impact of ‘historicism’ could not be escaped: Nacherzählung (‘retelling/renarration’) was the only remaining option; a return to the old type of Old Testament theology had become impossible. The propagators of Old Testament Theology, savouring their Pyrrhic victory over the religionsgeschichtliche approach to the history of Israelite religion, did not realise that the Geschichtserfolg of European modernity was really inescapable. They were then taught that lesson by James Barr who, in his Semantics of Biblical Language, brought down the edifice of a certain type of Biblical Theology; i.e., the type that could be demolished by a sustained argument from linguistics. Latter-day proponents of the genre have realised that they have to adjust their arguments and become more sensitive to the linguistic problems generated by the old-fashioned type of Biblical Theology. But are they also sufficiently sensitised to the perennial problems posed by historicism?

30

H. Blumenberg, Enttäuschende Grenzgänge, in: idem, Lebensthemen (1998), 168–169.

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3. Attempts at Mediation As we have seen, ever since the inception of the History genre there have been those who thought that both ‘genres’ were worth their while. In the time after the Second World War, and despite the overpowering influence of Barthianism, G. Fohrer authored both a History of Israelite Religion and a Theology, or at least something that laid the groundwork for a Theology: Theologische Grundstrukturen des Alten Testaments, published in 1972. He also authored a History of Israel, of which more later. Fohrer was one of the few scholars who thought it methodologically acceptable to produce both a History of Israelite Religion and a Theology of the Old Testament. In that sense, he followed authors like Sellin. Fohrer’s decision to publish both a History and a Theology can probably best be described as an illustration of the ambivalent and ambiguous situation after the Second World War, as a compromise between the Barthian position and the irrefutable need for a thoroughly historical investigation of ancient Israelite and Jewish religion. There was a similar case in the Netherlands. T. C. Vriezen’s De godsdienst van Israël, of which we heard earlier, came out in 1963, nine years after Vriezen had published his Hoofdlijnen der Theologie van het Oude Testament. In the former, Vriezen makes a special effort to situate the emergent Israelite religion in the context of the religions of the neighbouring peoples: Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians and ‘Canaanites’, Aramaeans, ‘some Transjordanian peoples’, Edomites, and ‘North Arabian tribes’. He then follows a fairly conventional approach, starting with the religious situation in 1000 BCE, ‘the prehistory’, ‘Yahweh’ and moving on to the ‘victory of Yahwism’, followed by ‘new forms of life, state and religion’, ‘the great prophets’, ‘reformation and downfall’, ‘regeneration and recovery’, and ‘centralization and disintegration’. Another example of a History that very much reminds one of Theologies, is the greatest Israeli contribution to the genre so far, i.e. Y. Kaufmann’s Toledot ha-emunah ha-yisraelit (“History of the Religion of Israel”), written in Hebrew and published in eight volumes. It covers the whole of Israelite religion from the beginnings to the end of the Second Temple period, as indicated by its subtitle. A one-volume “abridgment [that] attempts to convey the essence of the [first] seven volumes” was published, in English, in 1960 under the title The Religion of Israel.31 Kaufmann’s History could be described as an ‘Anti-Wellhausen’, a sustained effort to demonstrate that Wellhausen got it wrong at all the key junctures of research into ancient Israelite religion. One of the central points of Kaufmann’s argument is the claim that Israel’s religion did in fact start out with an Ur-Monotheismus that later degenerated and produced the religious views and practices attacked by the great prophets from the eighth century onwards. Since the publication of Kaufmann’s massive work, however, researchers (from very diverse backgrounds) have conclusively proven that the Ur-Monotheismus theory based on the biblical account is a figment of the scholarly imagination. As B. Halpern 31

That is how the translator, M. Greenberg, describes the enterprise in his preface.

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has rightly stated, “[o]nly in the context of an analysis of international and domestic discussions can the whole course of the crystallization of monotheistic theologies be understood. Kaufmann’s work, while cognizant of these complications, concentrated primarily in intellectual history”.32 As Halpern says, the polemical (and, one might add, apologetical) nature of Kaufmann’s argument and his ahistorical treatment of the concept of monotheism represent “two significant imperfections”.33 Disagreeing with Halpern’s ultimately positive evaluation of Kaufmann’s achievement, one might add that the ‘imperfections’ ultimately resulted in Kaufmann’s failure to reconstruct the actual history of Israelite monotheism, and of Israelite religion in general. A very different book, but similar in the sense that it is also effectively situated between the genres of History and Theology, is W. H. Schmidt’s Alttestamentlicher Glaube, a remarkably successful compendium which has been used by generation after generation of German-speaking theology students.

4. The Recent Controversy During the last fifteen to twenty years, the debate about the respective merits of ‘theologies’ and ‘histories’ has been reignited, at least in the German-speaking world. The most vociferous advocate of the ‘history’ genre has been R. Albertz, who published his own History in 1992. He has argued against the ‘Old Testament Theology’ genre and the historical and theological presuppositions that often go with it. We shall soon address some of the points he makes.

4.1. The History of Israelite Religion and/versus the Theology of the Old Testament In the debate about the relative merits of Histories of Israelite Religion and Theologies of the Old Testament, some of the voices on both sides have claimed exclusivity for the position they advocate: there are some who actually deny that Theologies can be written in the first place, and some who claim that there is no scholarly basis for Histories of ancient Israel or, for that matter, for Histories of Ancient Israelite Religion. The ‘camps’ do not really divide along the lines of the ‘maximalist’ vs. ‘minimalist’ debate of recent years. There are ‘minimalists’ who have time for a “historically legitimate Old Testament Theology”34 – but not for Old Testament Theologies in the traditional sense, while others of the same camp are extremely critical of Old Testament Theology in any shape or form.35 According to some ‘minimalists’, the (alleged) lack of historical ‘reliability’ of the Old Testament 32 33 34 35

B. Halpern (2009), 15. B. Halpern (2009), 55. Thompson, Das Alte Testament (1995), 166. Cf. Lemche, Die Theologie des Alten Testaments (1995), pass.

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precludes both the reconstruction of the history of the ‘historical’ Israel – as opposed to ‘ancient’ or ‘biblical’ Israel (to use P. R. Davies’ terminology) – and the writing of Theologies. According to others, the absence of historical ‘reliability’ makes room for theological interpretation and, indeed, for the (re)construction of a theology (or theologies) of the Old Testament.36 Scholars who take this line may wish to claim W. M. L. de Wette as their intellectual ancestor,37 of whom it has been said that, “[i]n modern terms, de Wette’s views on Old Testament history were decidedly minimalist. (…) De Wette’s remark concerning his negative treatment of the narrative parts of the Pentateuch, ‘die Geschichte verlor, aber die Religion gewann’ (…), well summarized his position”.38 The passage here alluded to is found in de Wette’s Beiträge (1806–07) and echoes the famous remark made by Immanuel Kant when he characterized his achievement by stating, in the preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason: “Ich mußte also das Wissen aufheben, um zum Glauben Platz zu bekommen”. The opposition between ‘history’, on the one hand, and ‘religion’, ‘faith’ or ‘theology’, on the other, reasserts itself in these remarks and, since at least the late eighteenth century, has been the scarlet thread running through the debates we are examining here.39 At the opposite end of the spectrum, among the ‘maximalists’, both Theologies of the Old Testament and Histories of Israelite Religion are, of course, perfectly acceptable, while in the current climate – and given the demands of the polemical debate , Histories seem to receive more attention (not necessarily Histories of Israelite Religion, though, but rather Histories of Israel). As so often, the conflict boils down to a scholar’s view of the relation between history and theology. Among the ‘maximalists’ we find scholars like I. Provan, V. Phillips Long and T. Longman III who have published a work called Biblical History of Israel. The title encapsulates the message: it claims that ‘biblical Israel’ and ‘ancient Israel’ (in Davies’s terminology) are identical. The authors and their ideological allies receive support from cognate subject areas, most notably from A. Millard in Assyriology and K. Kitchen in Egyptology.

4.2. History of Israelite Religion versus Old Testament Theology – which has Pride of Place? Authors of Old Testament Theologies like to claim that the genre to which they are contributing has pride of place among the classic sub-disciplines of Old Testament scholarship. Take B. Janowski’s statement, for instance: Was die Aufgabenstellung angeht, so geht die “Theologie des Alten Testaments” einen Schritt weiter als die “Religionsgeschichte Israels”. Zum einen weil ihre Hauptquelle, das Alte Testament, bereits ihrem Ursprung nach “das große für das Handeln Gottes in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und

36 37 38 39

Cf. Thompson, Das Alte Testament (1995), 166 – this is at least what he seems to be saying! Cf. Chap. 23 of HBOT III/1. J. W. Rogerson, Brief Outline (2007), 6. Cf. my discussion of this fundamental problem in Chap. 23 above; also Schaper (2006), pass.

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Zukunft” ist, und zum anderen – damit zusammenhängend –, weil sie nicht nur nach der Genese der Überlieferung, sondern auch nach deren Geltung fragt. Sie stößt damit in den Bereich des Systematischen oder sagen wir vorsichtiger: des Denkens in Zusammenhängen vor.40

From a theological point of view, and on the basis of the traditional understanding of the ‘architecture’ of (Protestant) theology, this view seems to make sense. Is it valid, though, if the insights of historicism are taken seriously and theology is perceived as a historische Kulturwissenschaft?41 As far as the question of the ‘supreme’ genre of Old Testament studies is concerned, Albertz states, in his History, that he “cannot disguise the fact that in the present situation I regard the history of religion as the more meaningful comprehensive Old Testament discipline”,42 and he lists a number of reasons for that view. Probably the most important of those are that, firstly, the ‘history of Israelite religion’ genre “corresponds better to the historical structure of large parts of the Old Testament” and, secondly, “takes seriously the insight that religious statements cannot be separated from the historical background from which they derive or against which they are reinterpreted”.43 Amongst other things, Albertz also stresses that the History genre “is not compelled to bring down its varying and sometimes contradictory religious statements to the level of intellectual abstraction”.44 The reasons given by Albertz apply to the historical nature of the approach in question, and they are historical reasons. However, having given his historical reasons for a historical approach, he also enumerates a number of other reasons for preferring the ‘history of religions’ genre to that of ‘Old Testament theology’: he sees the former as “describ[ing] a dialogical process of struggle for theological clarification, demarcation and consensus-forming” and likens it to “the present-day synodical or conciliar ecumenical learning process of the churches and Christian-Jewish dialogue”.45 He claims that the ‘history’ genre finds the “continuity [of the Israelite religion] not in any religious ideas which have to be appropriated by Christians but in the people of Israel itself” and “openly dispenses with any claim – even a concealed one – to absoluteness and deliberately does theology [sic!] under the eschatological proviso”, thus “facilitat[ing] dialogue with the other religions”.46 Albertz’s second set of reasons for his advocacy of the ‘history of religion’ genre partly consists of theological claims and pragmatic considerations. The argument he advances in favour of the ‘history of Israelite religion’ genre is very different from the reasons which the protagonists of the History of Religions School and other historically-minded scholars gave for their work in this field. Their approach has rightly been characterised as making “a clear distinction between the perspective of history and that of dogma, attacking the confusion be40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Janowski, Theologie des Alten Testaments (2002), 265. Cf. Schaper, Auf der Suche nach dem Alten Israel (2006). Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, 2 (1994), 16. Ibid. 16–17. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 17.

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tween them on the part of A. Ritschl” – the “purpose [of the History of Religions School] was to subject Israelite religion, Judaism and Christianity to strictly historical study, carried out not for theological reasons (e.g., in order to arrive at a ‘rational religion’), but purely for its own sake, with a historical synthesis as the goal”. Consequently, “Israelite religion itself was understood as a piece of ‘history,’ a process taking place according to the ‘laws’ of intellectual, spiritual, and social life”.47 Albertz’s project is very different. On the one hand, he seems a staunch defender of historical criticism: Ich werde den Verdacht nicht los, daß die alttestamentliche bzw. biblische Theologie auf einige von uns vor allem deswegen weiterhin eine Faszination ausübt, weil sie als wohlfeiles Immunisierungsmittel gegen eine noch so radikale historische Kritik eingesetzt werden kann.48

Albertz thus seems to see his work as an affirmation of historical criticism, subscribing as he does to the tenets of historicism. On the other hand, he sees himself as ‘doing theology’49 in the shape of history and makes the History of Israelite Religion work towards ulterior aims, aims that go beyond the sole aim of ‘doing history’ – which is to ‘do’ it well. It could be argued that Albertz blurs the “clear distinction between the perspective of history and that of dogma” established so carefully by the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule in the tradition of the late enlightenment and nineteenth-century historicism.50 While Albertz’s heuristic hermeneutical analogy between the “dialogical process of struggle for theological clarification, demarcation and consensus-forming” supposedly characterizing the history of Israelite religion and “the present-day synodical or conciliar ecumenical learning process”51 is historically inaccurate, his statement that the “continuity” of Israelite religion is not to be found “in any religious ideas which have to be appropriated by Christians but in the people of Israel itself” is in itself not a result of historical research but a dogmatic assertion: the Hebrew Bible (and the religion of Israel, one might add) has had a zweifache (!) Nachgeschichte, to quote the title of a Festschrift52 – and that is not a dogmatic assertion, but a historical fact.

47

Fohrer, History of Israelite Religion (1973), 20. Albertz, Hat die Theologie des Alten Testaments doch noch eine Chance? (1995), 178. It will come as no surprise to the reader that the present author shares Albertz’s suspicion. Also, cf. Albertz’s highly pertinent and accurate evaluation of R. Rendtorff’s Old Testament Theology, in: Albertz, ibid. 179: “Der Entwurf einer kanonischen Theologie des Alten Testaments etwa, den R. Rendtorff vorgelegt hat, scheint, zumal er sich grundsätzlich auf das Letztstadium der Traditionsgeschichte bezieht, den großen Vorteil zu bieten, von aller bisherigen oder noch zu erwartenden historischen Kritik nicht mehr berührt werden zu können. Der kanonische Text liegt vor, selbst dann, wenn es kaum etwas von dem er redet, realgeschichtlich je gegeben haben sollte”. 49 See above, n. 41. 50 For the distinction between history and theology as seen by the late enlightenment, especially by the Göttingen Mythische Schule and some of the most important historians at Göttingen University, and by historicism (which further developed their insights), cf. Chap. 23 of the present volume. 51 Cf. above, n. 42. 52 Cf. the title of a Festschrift dedicated to R. Rendtorff: Die hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte; similarly Janowski, Theologie des Alten Testaments (2002), 275. 48

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Finally, it is even more astonishing to read that, in Albertz’s view, the ‘history of religion’ approach “deliberately does theology under the eschatological proviso”, thus “facilitat[ing] dialogue with the other religions” because of its comparativist approach. Firstly, it is hard to see why and in which sense a History of Israelite Religion should ever “do theology”, whether “under the eschatological proviso” or not. If it did, the boundary between history and dogma would not only be blurred; it would collapse. Historical reconstruction, in Albertz’ work, seems to have a teleological point, seems to be characterised by certain progressivist assumptions, not unlike some of the early examples of the genre, e.g., Gunkel. Albertz effectively extols the supposed unique contribution made by ancient Israel. The difference between Albertz and the earlier protagonists of the genre is that Albertz is more obviously ‘theological’. From a historian’s point of view, his approach is simply unacceptable – because a historical investigation should never be goal-orientated, even if the goal is a noble one, like inter-religious dialogue. The only aim of the historian should be a methodologically sound reconstruction of the history he or she is investigating. The desire to present a reconstruction that will be politically or otherwise useful must never direct the historian’s work. It will inevitably skew his or her work and must be avoided at all costs. By now it will be more than obvious that Lohfink was right when he described Albertz’s project as a ‘Theology of the Old Testament’ in disguise: “Hier kürt Paris als seine Helena die Religionsgeschichte, doch es geht um die Weitergabe von Theologie. Wer das verkennt, hat Albertz verkannt”.53 But the problem lies yet deeper. In the epic battle between history and theology, Albertz is sitting on the fence. In the context of the study of the Old Testament, the conflict between the ‘historians’ and the ‘theologians’ has always had the subtext of what ‘party’ was going to define the nature and purpose of Old Testament study, and that battle in itself is a rehash – under the impression of the Kirchenkampf and of Barthianism, but in a very different garb – of the older battle between the conservatives of the late nineteenth century and the History of Religions School. The overwhelming victory of Barthianism ensured that ‘merely historical’ scholarly genres like the ‘history of Israelite religion’ and the ‘history of Israel’ were relegated to the sidelines. Writing a ‘theology of the Old Testament’ was now again considered the crowning achievement of an Old Testament scholar’s career, and G. von Rad’s Theology of the Old Testament was (and continues to be) thought of as the apogee of the genre. When Albertz turned against that general sentiment vis-à-vis Old Testament theology, he tried to bring about a re-orientation in Old Testament studies. However, Albertz’s History is indeed reminiscent of the Theologies he turns against. It is as if the ‘atmosphere’ of the confessional urge cultivated in Continental Protestant theology – especially in the German-speaking world – had become inescapable: even Histories now started to ‘feel’ like Theologies. There actually is a remarkable parallel between the nature and effect of Albright’s From the Stone Age to Christianity and Albertz’s History of Israelite Religion. Both books speak to the needs of an educated, historically orientated public which wants an academically responsible account of

53

Cf. Lohfink, Fächerpoker und Theologie (1995), 210.

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Israelite religious history yet yearns for a ‘deeper’ meaning, for a kind of religious or quasi-religious reassurance which is normally provided by Biblical Theologies.

4.3. The true ‘queen’ of the genres of Old Testament scholarship, and the History of Israelite Religion Attention needs to be paid to one of the problems that are rarely ever discussed by Old Testament scholars but are nevertheless real conceptual problems. I am referring to the relation between two scholarly ‘genres’: the ‘History of Israelite Religion’ and the ‘History of Israel’. On the one hand, there are examples of the former which effectively have the scope and depth of a full-scale ‘History of Israel’, like R. Albertz’s History of Ancient Israelite Religion – on the other, there are Histories of Israelite Religion which have been published alongside Histories of Israel: G. Fohrer published both a Geschichte der israelitischen Religion and a Geschichte Israels (which is unusual in that it attempts to cover the whole timespan [v]on den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, to quote its subtitle). How does one separate the history of the religion(s) of Israel from the overall history of Israel? Of course Old Testament scholars might choose to opt for such a separation, but it might not be a good choice. Fohrer, when he opted for that choice, decided to divide up the subject matter and dealt with political history in his Geschichte Israels, while he centred the Geschichte der israelitischen Religion on religious concepts and cultic practices (not disregarding, though, the nexus between religious, political and social developments in its exposition). However, the most fruitful approach surely is to aim at a reconstruction of the history of Israelite religion in the context of its overall history – to aim, in short, at the histoire totale postulated by the French École des Annales. If there is indeed a defining genre in Old Testament scholarship, one that can be seen as the ‘queen’ of Old Testament sub-disciplines, it is the History of Israel, not ‘Old Testament Theology’ or the ‘History of Israelite Religion’. It is in the writing of a History of Israel that requires all the skills of the textual critic, the exegete, the archaeologist and the historian, in order (first) to establish the textual and archaeological basis of the enquiry, (second) to interpret the texts and the artefacts and (third) to reconstruct the processes and events that constituted Israelite history – ‘history’ being understood as the sum total of Israelite life as it unfolded in politics, economics, religion and everyday culture. It is here that the Old Testament scholar encounters his or her most challenging task. Wellhausen’s contribution to the study of the Old Testament illustrates the point: his way from the Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (1876–77, 31899) to the Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1886; first published as Geschichte Israels, 1878) and on to the Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte (1894) shows that a History of Ancient Israel has to be built on the ground prepared by the work of the exegete and the historian of institutions (cf. the subject matter of the Prolegomena!) – once that is accomplished, there will be no need for a separate history of Israelite religion. Writing a History of Israelite Religion requires a concentration on one sub-set of cultural practices

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at the exclusion of others. This carries the danger that other cultural practices – like politics, the economy, etc. – are neglected to such an extent that the reconstruction of the religious history is itself hampered. Albertz saw that danger; although he called his opus magnum a History of Israelite Religion, he obviously wanted it to be – and it is – much more than that: Albertz engages with the social and political history, too, and as a result his book might as well have been called a ‘History of ancient Israel and Judah’.

5. Epilogue What is the ‘outlook’ for the study of the History of Israelite and Judahite religion in the twenty-first century? The enterprise as such, in the boundaries defined by the History of Religions School, is probably a dying genre. Should it continue to concentrate more or less exclusively on religious developments, it will not survive – and if it does, it will be a mere shadow of its former self. It needs to be (re-)united with the ‘History of Israel’ in order for the latter to be transformed into a truly historical enterprise that can rightfully be considered the ‘queen’ of Old Testament sub-disciplines. Of course, this view will only appeal to those in the discipline who conceive of the study of the Old Testament as a thoroughly historical enterprise. What we have just said of the ‘History of Israelite Religion’ approach is equally true of the ‘Old Testament Theology’ genre, though. It is equally in danger of concentrating exclusively on religious developments; indeed, that is built into its fabric. Authors of Old Testament theologies should therefore be particularly cautious not to fall into the traps of ahistorical approaches to the subject matter. This brings us back to our earlier remark concerning the lessons learnt from James Barr’s work. Indeed, the linguistic lessons have been learnt – but is that equally true of the historical ones? Do the approaches to the (Biblical) Theology of the Old Testament that can be said to have survived Barr’s onslaught – and I am thinking here especially of J. Levenson’s , H. Gese’s, and B. Janowski’s contributions – stand up to the challenges posed by a renewed and refined ‘historicism’? Should they not rather be ‘translated’ into histories of Israelite religion? Ultimately, the whole ‘architecture’ of Old Testament studies will have to be reconsidered. The emergence of genres such as the ‘Theology of the Old Testament’, and the ‘History of Israelite Religion’ did not come ‘natural’. It was the result of contingent developments in Old Testament studies and other historical disciplines. Albertz has something to say that is potentially very helpful with regard to the future of the study of ancient Israelite religion. Following H. G. Kippenberg, he advocates the introduction of a ‘discourse model’ (Diskursmodell): Aufgabe der Religionsgeschichte Israels ist es dann, mit Hilfe historischer Rekonstruktion den in den alttestamentlichen Texten ‘gefrorenen’ Dialog in ein lebendiges Streitgespräch verschiedener israelitischer Menschen und Gruppen zurückzuübersetzen. Inhalt der Religionsgeschichte ist es

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dann, den fortlaufenden Diskurs unterschiedlicher israelitischer Gruppierungen darüber zu beschreiben, wie bestimmte geschichtliche Entwicklungen von Gott her zu deuten seien und was nach seinem Willen angesichts dieser geschichtlichen Herausforderungen zu tun sei.54

Although not all of the Old Testament material can be subjected to a scrutiny along the lines described by Albertz, the bulk of it can – and probably should – be examined with the help of such a ‘discourse model’. This would help to establish the history of Israelite religion as a sub-division of the history of Israel in the context of Old Testament studies as perceived as a historische Kulturwissenschaft55 – without the clandestine desire for normativity implied in some of the earlier attempts at writing Histories of Israelite religion.

54 55

Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion (1992), 23. Cf. Schaper, Auf der Suche nach dem Alten Israel (2006).

Chapter Forty-seven

Old Testament Theology – Preliminary Conclusions and Future Prospects By Bernd Janowski, Tübingen Bibliography: M. Albani, Der eine Gott und die himmlischen Heerscharen. Zur Begründung des Monotheismus bei Deuterojesaja im Horizont der Astralisierung des Gottesverständnisses im Alten Orient (ABG 1; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2000); “‘Kannst du die Sternbilder hervortreten lassen zur rechten Zeit…?’ (Hi 38,32). Gott und die Gestirne im Alten Testament und im Alten Orient”, Das biblische Weltbild und seine altorientalischen Kontexte (ed. B. Janowski/B. Ego; FAT 32; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2001, 22004), 181–226. − R. Albertz, “Religionsgeschichte Israels statt Theologie des Alten Testaments! Plädoyer für eine forschungsgeschichtliche Umorientierung”, JBTh 10 (1995/22001), 3–24; “Hat die Theologie des Alten Testaments doch noch eine Chance? Abschließende Stellungnahme in Leuven”, JBTh 10 (1995, 22001), 177–187; Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit (GrAT 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1992); “Die Exilszeit als Ernstfall für eine historische Rekonstruktion ohne biblische Texte: Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften als ‘Primärquelle’”, Leading Captivity Captive. ‘The Exile’ as History and Ideology (ed. L. L. Grabbe; JSOT.S 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1998), 22–39; “Jahwe allein! Israels Weg zum Monotheismus und dessen theologische Bedeutung”, Geschichte und Theologie. Studien zur Exegese des Alten Testaments und zur Religionsgeschichte Israels (BZAW 326; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2003), 359–382. − M. Arneth, “Die antiassyrische Reform Josias von Juda. Überlegungen zur Komposition und Intention von 2 Reg 23,4–15”, ZAR 7 (2001) 189–216. − J. Assmann, Fünf Stufen auf dem Wege zum Kanon. Tradition und Schriftkultur im frühen Judentum und in seiner Umwelt (Münstersche Theologische Vorträge 1; Münster/Hamburg/London: LIT 1999): Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich: Hanser 1992); Ägypten. Eine Sinngeschichte (Munich: Hanser 1996) 20, = ET: The Mind of Egypt (New York: Metropolitan Books 2002); “Gerechtigkeit und Monotheismus”, Freiheit und Recht (ed. Chr. Hardmeier e.a.; FS F. Crüsemann; Gütersloh: Gütersloher 2003), 78–95. − J. Barr, History and Ideology in the Old Testament. Biblical Studies at the End of a Millenium (Oxford: UP 2000). − E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner 1984). − G. Braulik, “Deuteronomium 2:16, 18–34, 12” (NEB.AT 28; Würzburg: Echter 1992). − M. Büttner, Das Alte Testament als erster Teil der christlichen Bibel. Zur Frage nach theologischer Auslegung und “Mitte“ im Kontext der Theologie Karl Barths (BEvTh 120; Gütersloh: Gütersloher 2002). − F. Crüsemann, „Religionsgeschichte oder Theologie? Elementare Überlegungen zu einer falschen Alternative“, JBTh 10 (1995, 22001), 69–77. − I. U. Dalferth, “Die Mitte ist außen. Anmerkungen zum Wirklichkeitsbezug evangelischer Schriftauslegung”, Jesus Christus als Mitte der Schrift. Studien zur Hermeneutik des Evangeliums (ed. Chr. Landmesser e.a.; FS O. Hofius; BZNW 86; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1997), 173–198. − U. Daniel, Kompendium Kulturgeschichte. Theorien, Praxis, Schlüsselwörter (stw 1523), (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 2001). − W. Dietrich, “Wer Gott ist und was er will. Neue Theologien des Alten Testaments”, EvTh 5 (1996) 258–285. − W. Dietrich / U. Luz, “Universalität und Partikularität im Horizont des biblischen Monotheismus”, Vergegenwärtigung des Alten Testament (ed. Chr. Bultmann e.a.; FS R. Smend; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2002), 369–411. − Chr. Dohmen, “Probleme und Chancen Biblischer Theologie aus alttestamentlicher Sicht”, Eine Bibel – zwei Testamente. Positionen biblischer Theologie (ed. Chr. Dohmen / Th. Söding; UTB 1893; Paderborn e.a.: Schöningh 1995), 9–16; “Biblische Auslegung. Wie alte Texte neue Bedeutungen haben können”, Das Manna fällt auch heute noch.

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Beiträge zur Geschichte und Theologie des Alten, Ersten Testaments (ed. F.-L. Hossfeld / L. Schwienhorst-Schönberger; HBSt 44; Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder 2004), 174–191. − H.J. Fabry, “Der Text und seine Geschichte”, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (ed. E. Zenger e.a.; KStTh 1/1; Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne 31998), 36–65; “Die Qumrantexte und das biblische Kanonproblem”, Recht und Ethos im Alten Testament (ed. St. Beyerle e.a.; FS H. Seebass; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener 1999), 251–271. − I. Fischer, Die Erzeltern Israels. Feministisch-theologische Studien zu Genesis 12–36 (BZAW 222; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1994); Gottesstreiterinnen. Biblische Erzählungen über die Anfänge Israel (Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne: Kohlhammer 22000). − Chr. Frevel, “Du sollst dir kein Bildnis machen! – Und wenn doch? Überlegungen zur Kultbildlosigkeit der Religion Israels”, in: Die Sichtbarkeit des Unsichtbaren (2003), 23–48. − C. Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System”, The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books 1973), 87–125. − J. Chr. Gertz, “Die Stellung des kleinen geschichtlichen Credos in der Redaktionsgeschichte von Deuteronomium und Pentateuch”, Liebe und Gebot (ed. R. G. Kratz / H. Spieckermann; FS L. Perlitt; FRLANT 190; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2000), 30–45. − C. Ginzburg, History, Rhetoric and Proof, (The Menahem Stern Jerusalem lectures; tr. B. Langstaff (from German); Hanover, NH: Historical Society of Israel / University Press of New England 1999). − M. Görg, “Jahwe”, NBL 2 (1995) 260–266. − L. L. Grabbe, “Hat die Bibel doch recht?”, SJOT 14 (2000) 117–139. − W. Groß, Zukunft für Israel. Alttestamentliche Bundeskonzepte und die aktuelle Debatte um den Neuen Bund (SBS 176; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1998); “Ist biblisch-theologische Auslegung ein integrierender Methodenschritt?”, Wieviel Systematik erlaubt die Schrift? Auf der Suche nach einer gesamtbiblischen Theologie (ed. F.-L. Hossfeld; QD 185; Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder 2001). − Chr. Hardmeier, “Systematische Elemente der Theologie in der Hebräischen Bibel. Das Loben Gottes – ein Kristallisationsmoment biblischer Theologie”, JBTh 10 (1995, 22001), 111–127. − F. Hartenstein, “Die unvergleichliche ‘Gestalt’ JHWHs. Israels Geschichte mit den Bildern im Licht von Dtn 4,1–40”, Die Sichtbarkeit des Unsichtbaren. Zur Korrelation von Text und Bild im Wirkungskreis der Bibel (ed. B. Janowski/N. Zchomelidse; AGWB 3; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft 2003), 49–77. − H.-J. Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie und Religionsgeschichte Israels (ThLZ.F 3; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2000). − E. Herms, “Die Erneuerung durch die Bibel. Über den Realismus unserer Erwartungen für die Kirche“, in: idem, Kirche für die Welt. Lage und Aufgabe der evangelischen Kirchenim vereinigten Deutschland (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1995), 118–230. − Th. Hieke, “Vom Verstehen biblischer Texte. Methodologisch-hermeneutische Erwägungen zum Programm einer ‘biblischen Auslegung’”, BN 199/120 (2003) 71–89. − F.-L. Hossfeld, “Das Werden des alttestamentlichen Bilderverbotes im Kontext von Archäologie, Rechtsentwicklung und Prophetie. Thesen”, Die Sichtbarkeit des Unsichtbaren. Zur Korrelation von Text und Bild im Wirkungskreis der Bibel (ed. B. Janowski/ N. Zchomelidse; AGWB 3; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft 2003), 11–22. − F. Jaeger/B. Liebsch /J. Rüsen /J. Straub ( eds.), Handbuch der Kulturwissenschaften, 1–3 (Stuttgart: Metzler 2004). − B. Janowski, “Der eine Gott der beiden Testamente. Grundfragen einer Biblischen Theologie” (1998), in: idem, Die rettende Gerechtigkeit. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, 2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1999), 249–284; “‘Verstehst du auch, was du liest?’ Reflexionen auf die Leserichtung der christlichen Bibel”, Wieviel Systematik erlaubt die Schrift? Auf der Suche nach einer gesamtbiblischen Theologie (ed. F.-L. Hossfeld; QD 185; Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder 2001), 150–191; “Die heilige Wohnung des Höchsten. Kosmologische Implikationen der Jerusalemer Tempeltheologie”, in: idem, Der Gott des Lebens. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, 3 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2003), 27–71; “Kanon und Sinnbildung. Perspektiven des Alten Testaments”, Schriftprophetie (ed. F. Hartenstein e.a.; FS J. Jeremias; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2004), 15–36. − B. Janowski / E. Zenger, “Jenseits des Alltags. Fest und Opfer als religiöse Kontrapunkte zur Alltagswelt im alten Israel”, JBTh 18 (2003), 63–102. − J. Jeremias, “Neuere Entwürfe zu einer ‘Theologie des Alten Testaments’”, Theologie und Exegese des Alten Testaments / der Hebräischen Bibel: Zwischenbilanz und Zukunftsperspektiven (ed. B. Janowski; SBS 200; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 2005). − O. Kaiser, “Gott, II”, RGG4 3 (2000), 1100–1104. − O. Keel, “Religionsgeschichte Israels oder Theologie des Alten Testaments?”, Wieviel Systematik erlaubt die Schrift? Auf der Suche nach einer gesamtbiblischen Theologie (ed. F.-L. Hossfeld; QD 185; Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder 2001), 88–109; “Zeichensysteme der Nähe Gottes in den Büchern Jeremia und Ezechiel“, Gottes Nähe im Alten Testament (ed. G. D. Eberhardt/K. Liess; SBS 202; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 2004), 30–64. − O. Keel /Chr. Uehlinger, Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole. Neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang

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unerschlossener ikonographischer Quellen (QD 134; Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder 41998). − R. Kessler, “Rolf Rendtorffs kanonischer Entwurf einer Theologie des Alten Testaments”, EvTh 63 (2003). − R. Kittel, “Die Zukunft der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft”, ZAW 39 (1921). − E. A. Knauf, “From History to Interpretation”, The Fabric of History. Text, Artifact and Israel’s Past (ed. D. V. Edelman; JSOT.S 127; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 1991), 26–64; “Die Mitte des Alten Testaments”, Meilenstein (ed. M. Weippert/St. Timm; FS H. Donner; ÄAT 30; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1995),79–86; “Audiatur et altera pars. Zur Logik der Pentateuch-Redaktion”, BiKi 53 (1998) 18–126; “Mythos Kanaan”, Welt und Umwelt der Bibel 21 (2001) 40–44; “History, Archaeology, and the Bible”, ThZ 57 (2001) 262–268. − K. Koch, “Der doppelte Ausgang des Alten Testaments in Judentum und Christentum”, JBTh 6 (1991), 215–242; “Gefüge und Herkunft des Berichts über die Kultreformen des Königs Josia“, Alttestamentlicher Glaube und Biblische Theologie (ed. J. Hausmann/ H.-J. Zobel; FS H. D. Preuß; Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne: Kohlhammer 1992), 80–92; “Israel im Orient”, Religionsgeschichte Israels. Formale und materiale Aspekte (ed. B. Janowski/M. Köckert; VWGTh 15; Gütersloh: Gütersloher 1999), 242–271; “Israels Rolle in der altorientalisch-hellenistischen Religionsgeschichte: Antwort an Rolf Rendtorff, Anfragen an Gerhard von Rad”, Theologie in Israel und in den Nachbarkulturen (ed. M. Oeming/K. Schmid/A. Schüle; Altes Testament und Moderne 9; Münster: LIT 2004), 25–49. − R. Koselleck, “Standortbindung und Zeitlichkeit. Ein Beitrag zu historiographischen Erschließung der geschichtlichen Welt“, in: idem, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 21984), 176–207, = ET: “Perspective and Temporality: A Contribution to the Historiographical Exposure of the Historical World”, Future’s Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (tr. K. Tribe; Cambridge, MA / London: MIT Press 1985), 130–155; Zeitschichten. Studien zur Historik (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp 2000). − R. G. Kratz, “Redaktionsgeschichte/Redaktionskritik, I” TRE 28 (1997), 367–378; “Schrift, Heilige”, TRE 30 (1999), 402–407. − Th. Krüger, “Einheit und Vielfalt des Göttlichen nach dem Alten Testament”, MJTh 10 (1998) 15–50. − N. P. Lemche, Die Vorgeschichte Israels. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ausgang des 13. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Biblische Enzyklopädie, 1; Stuttgart / Berlin / Cologne: Kohlhammer 1996), 224. − J. D. Levenson, “Warum Juden sich nicht für biblische Theologie interessieren”, EvTh 51 (1991) 402–430. − Chr. Levin, Die Verheißung des neuen Bundes in ihrem theologiegeschichtlichen Zusammenhang ausgelegt, (FRLANT 137; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1985); “Das vorstaatliche Israel”, ZThK 97 (2000) 386–403. − N. Lohfink, “Eine Bibel – zwei Testamente”, Eine Bibel – zwei Testamente. Positionen biblischer Theologie (ed. Chr. Dohmen/ Th. Söding; UTB 1893; Paderborn e.a.: Schöningh 1995), 71–81; “Fächerpoker und Theologie. Herausgeber-Nachgedanken zu der Diskussion”, JBTh 10 (1995), 207–230; “Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft als Theologie? 44 Thesen”, Wieviel Systematik erlaubt die Schrift? Auf der Suche nach einer gesamtbiblischen Theologie (ed. F.-L. Hossfeld; QD 185; Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder 2001), 13–47. − U. Luz, “Ein Traum auf dem Weg zu einer Theologie der ganzen Bibel. Ein Brief an P. Stuhlmacher”, Evangelium – Schriftauslegung – Kirche (ed. J. Ådna e.a.; FS P. Stuhlmacher; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1997), 279–287. − H.-P. Müller, “‘Tod’ des alttestamentlichen Geschichtsgottes? Notizen zu einem Paradigmenwechsel”, NZSTh 41(1999) 1–21; “‘JHWH gebe seinem Volke Kraft’. Zum Hintergrund der alttestamentlichen Geschichtsreligion”, ZThK 98 (2001) 265–281; “Monotheismus und Polytheismus, II”, RGG4 5 (2002) 1459–1462. − K. E. Müller / J. Rüsen (eds.), Historische Sinnbildung (re 55584; Hamburg: Rowohlt 1997). − H. Niehr, „Israel, II.3“, RGG4 4 (2001) 294–296; Der höchste Gott. Alttestamentlicher JHWH-Glaube im Kontext syrisch-kanaanäischer Religionen des I. Jahrtausends v. Chr. (BZAW 190; Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter 1990); Religionen in Israels Umwelt. Einführung in die nordwestsemitischen Religionen Syrien-Palästinas (NEB, Suppl. vol. 5; Würzburg: echter 1998). − M. Oeming, “Biblische Theologie als Dauerreflexion im Raum des Kanons”, Eine Bibel – zwei Testamente. Positionen biblischer Theologie (ed. Chr. Dohmen/ Th. Söding; UTB 1893; Paderborn e.a.: Schöningh 1995), 83–95; idem (ed.), Theologie des Alten Testaments aus der Perspektive von Frauen, (BVB 1; Münster: LIT 2003). − M. Oeming / K. Schmid (eds.), Der eine Gott und die Götter. Polytheismus und Monotheismus im antiken Israel (AThANT 82; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag 2003). − E. Otto, „Israels Wurzeln in Kanaan. Auf dem Weg zu einer neuen Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte des antiken Israels“, ThRv 85 (1989) 3–10; “Israel, II.2”, RGG4 4 (2001) 293 f. − I. Provan, “In the Stable with the Dwarves: Tradition, Interpretation, Faith, and the History of Israel”, Congress Volume Oslo 1998 (ed. A. Lemaire/ M. Sæbø; VT.S 80; Leiden e.a.: Brill 2000), 281–319. − G. von Rad, “Das Alte Testament ist ein Geschichtsbuch” (1952), in: Probleme alttestamentlicher Hermeneutik, Aufsätze zum Verstehen des Alten Testaments (ed. C. Westermann; ThB 11; Munich: Kaiser 1960), 11–17; Theologie des Alten

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Testaments, 1. Die Theologie der geschichtlichen Überlieferungen Israels (Munich: Kaiser 1957; Gütersloh: Gütersloher 101992); Theologie des Alten Testaments, 2. Die Theologie der prophetischen Überlieferungen Israels (Munich: Kaiser 1960; Gütersloh: Gütersloher 101993), = ET: Old Testament Theology, 1–2 (tr. D. M. G. Stalker; New York e.a.: Harper & Row 1962; repr. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox 2001); “Aspekte alttestamentlichen Weltverständnisses”, Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament (TB 6; Munich: Kaiser 1965), 311–331; “Offene Fragen im Umkreis einer Theologie des Alten Testaments” (1963), Gesammelte Schriften zum Alten Testament, II (ThB 48; Munich: Kaiser 1973), 289–312. − R. Rendtorff, “Zur Bedeutung des Kanons für eine Theologie des Alten Testaments” (1983), in: idem, Kanon und Theologie. Vorarbeiten zu einer Theologie des Alten Testaments (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1991), 54–63; Die “Bundesformel”. Eine exegetisch-theologische Untersuchung, (SBS 160; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk 1995); Theologie des Alten Testament (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1999); “Die Hermeneutik einer kanonischen Theologie des Alten Testaments. Prolegomena”, Der Text in seiner Endgestalt. Schritte auf dem Weg zu einer Theologie des Alten Testaments (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 2001);“Gerhard von Rad und die Religionsgeschichte”, Theologie in Israel und in den Nachbarkulturen (ed. M. Oeming/ K. Schmid/ A. Schüle; Altes Testament und Moderne 9; Münster: LIT 2004), 17–24. − J. Renz, “Der Beitrag der althebräischen Epigraphik zur Exegese des Alten Testaments und zur Profan- und Religionsgeschichte Palästinas. Leistung und Grenzen, aufgezeigt am Beispiel der Inschriften des (ausgehenden) 7. Jahrhunderts vor Christus”, Steine – Bilder – Texte. Historische Evidenz außerbiblischer und biblischer Quellen (ed. Chr. Hardmeier; ABG 5; Leipzig: EVA 2001), 123–158. − P. Ricoeur, “Gott nennen”, Gott nennen. Phänomenologische Zugänge (ed. B. Caspar; Freiburg / Munich: Alber 1981), 45–79. − J. Rüsen, Historische Vernunft. Grundzüge einer Historik, I: Die Grundlagen der Geschichtswissenschaft (KVR 1489; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1983); Historische Orientierung. Über die Arbeit des Geschichtsbewußtseins, sich in der Zeit zurechtzufinden, (Cologne/ Weimar/ Vienna; Böhlau 1994); Zerbrechende Zeit. Über den Sinn der Geschichte, (Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau 2001). − M. Saebø, “Vom ‘Zusammen-Denken’ zum Kanon. Aspekte der traditionsgeschichtlichen Endstadien des Alten Testaments“, JBTh 3 (1988) 115–133. − K. Schmid, “Der Geschichtsbezug des christlichen Glaubens. Überlegungen zu seiner Genese und theologischen Bedeutung”, Das ist christlich. Nachdenken über das Wesen des Christentums (ed. W. Härle e.a.; Gütersloh: Gütersloher 2000), 71–90. − H.-Chr. Schmitt, “Religionsgeschichte Israels oder Theologie des Alten Testaments?”, Von Gott reden. Beiträge zur Theologie und Exegese des Alten Testaments (ed. D. Vieweger/ E.-J. Waschke; FS S. Wagner; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1995), 45–64. − A. Schüle, “Deutung, Reflexion, Überlieferung. Die Ebenen eines konzeptionellen Theologiebegriffs. Zugleich eine Erinnerung an Gerhard von Rads Verständnis alttestamentlicher Theologie”, Theologie in Israel und in den Nachbarkulturen (ed. M. Oeming/ K. Schmid/ A. Schüle; Altes Testament und Moderne 9; Münster: LIT 2004), 1–15. − W. Schütte, “Der Priestertitel kmr”, BN 199/200 (2003) 42. − L. Schwienhorst-Schönberger, “Einheit und Vielfalt. Gibt es eine sinnvolle Suche nach der Mitte des Alten Testaments?”, Wieviel Systematik erlaubt die Schrift? Auf der Suche nach einer gesamtbiblischen Theologie (ed. F.-L. Hossfeld; QD 185; Freiburg/ Basel/ Vienna: Herder 2001), 48–87. − R. Smend, “Die Mitte des Alten Testaments” (1970), Die Mitte des Alten Testaments. Gesammelte Studien, I (BevTh 99; Munich: Kaiser 1986), 40–84; “Theologie im Alten Testament” (1982), in: idem, Mitte des Alten Testaments (1986) 104–117; “Richtungen. Ein Rückblick auf die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft im 20. Jahrhundert“ (2000), in: idem, Bibel und Wissenschaft. Historische Aufsätze (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2004), 265–280. − M. S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism. Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford: UP 2000). − H. Spieckermann, “Die Verbindlichkeit des Alten Testaments. Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen zu einem ungeliebten Thema” (1997), in: idem, Gottes Liebe zu Israel. Studien zur Theologie des Alten Testaments (FAT 33; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2001), 173–196; “Theologie, II/1.1”, TRE 33 (2002), 264–268. − O. H. Steck, Die Prophetenbücher und ihr theologisches Zeugnis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1996); Gott in der Zeit entdecken. Die Prophetenbücher des Alten Testaments als Vorbild für Theologie und Kirche, (BThSt 42; Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001). − G. Steins, “Der Bibelkanon als Denkmal und Text. Zu einigen methodologischen Aspekten kanonischer Schriftauslegung”, The biblical Canons (ed. J.-M. Auwers / H. J. de Jonge; BETL 163; Leuven: UP 2003), 177–198. − Th. Sundermeier, Was ist Religion? Religionswissenschaft im theologischen Kontext. Ein Studienbuch (ThB 96; Gütersloh: Gütersloher 1999); “Religionswissenschaft versus Theologie? Zur Verhältnisbestimmung von Religionswissenschaft und Theologie aus religionswissenschaftlicher Sicht. Zum Gespräch mit R. Albertz”, JBTh 10 (1995, 22001), 189–206. − Th. Thompson, The Bible

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in History. How Writers Create a Past, (London: Pimlico 1999). − Chr. Uehlinger, “Gab es eine joschianische Kultreform? Plädoyer für ein begründetes Minimum”, Jeremia und die “deuteronomistische Bewegung” (ed. W. Groß; BBB 98; Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum 1995), 57–89; “Bilderkult, III”, RGG4 1 (1998) 1565–1570; “Bilderverbot”, RGG4 1 (1998) 1574–1577; “Bildquellen und ‘Geschichte Israel’. Grundsätzliche Überlegungen und Fallbeispiele”, Steine – Bilder – Texte. Historische Evidenz außerbiblischer und biblischer Quellen (ed. Chr. Hardmeier; ABG 5; Leipzig: EVA 2001), 25–77; “Medien altorientalischer Theologie: Antwort an K. van der Toorn”, Theologie in Israel und in den Nachbarkulturen (ed. M. Oeming / K. Schmid / A. Schüle; Altes Testament und Moderne 9; Münster: LIT 2004), 139–176. − J. van Oorschot, “Geschichte als Erinnerung und Wissenschaft – ein Beitrag zu ihrem Verhältnis”, Erzählte Geschichte. Beiträge zur narrativen Kultur im alten Israel (ed. R. Lux; BThSt 40; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner 2000), 1–27. − J. van Oorschot / M. Krebernik (eds.), Polytheismus und Monotheismus in den Religionen des Vorderen Orients (AOAT 298; Münster: Ugarit Verlag 2002). − R. de Vaux, Histoire ancienne d’Israël. Des origines à l’installation en Canaan (Paris: Gabalda 1971). − T. Veijola, “Text, Wissenschaft und Glaube. Überlegungen eines Alttestamentlers zur Lösung des Grundproblems der biblischen Hermeneutik”, JBTh 15 (2000), 313–339. − S. Wagner, “Zur Frage nach dem Gegenstand einer Theologie des Alten Testaments” (1996), in: idem, Ausgewählte Aufsätze zum Alten Testament (BZAW 240; Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter 1996), 25–46. − E.-J. Waschke, “Zur Frage nach einer alttestamentlichen Theologie im Vergleich zur Religionsgeschichte Israels”, in: idem, Der Gesalbte. Studien zur alttestamentlichen Theologie (BZAW 306; Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter 2001), 253–266. − M. Witte/ St. Alkier (eds.), Die Griechen und der Vordere Orient. Beiträge zum Kultur- und Religionskontakt zwischen Griechenland und dem Vorderen Orient im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (OBO 191; Fribourg, Switzerland /Göttingen: Academic Press / Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003). − M. Witte/ St. Alkier (eds.), Die Griechen und das antike Israel. Interdisziplinäre Studien zur Religions- und Kulturgeschichte des Heiligen Landes (OBO 201 Fribourg, Switzerland /Göttingen: Academic Press / Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004). − K. Woschitz, “Achsenzeit”, RGG4 1 (1998) 97. − E. Zenger, “Heilige Schrift der Juden und der Christen”, in: idem e.a., Einleitung (31998), 11–35; “Der Monotheismus Israels. Entstehung – Profil – Relevanz”, Ist der Glaube Feind der Freiheit? Die neue Debatte um den Monotheismus (ed. Th. Söding; QD 196; Freiburg/ Basel /Vienna: Herder 2003), 9–52; “Der Psalter im Horizont von Tora und Prophetie. Kanongeschichtliche und kanonhermeneutische Perspektiven”, The Biblical Canons (ed. J.-M. Auwers/ H. J. de Jonge; BEThL 163; Leuven: UP 2003) 111–134. − Z. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel. A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London/ New York: Continuum 2001). − W. Zimmerli, “Rezension G. von Rad”, VT 13 (1963) 100–111; “Mitte des Alten Testaments”, EvTh 35 (1975) 97–118; Grundriß der alttestamentlichen Theologie (Stuttgart/ Berlin/ Cologne/ Mainz: Kohlhammer 41982), = ET: Old Testament in Outline, (tr. D. E. Green; Atlanta: John Knox Press 1978); “Biblische Theologie, I”, TRE 6 (1980) 426–455. − W. Zwickel, “Religionsgeschichte Israels. Einführung in den gegenwärtigen Forschungsstand in den deutschsprachigen Ländern”, Religionsgeschichte Israels. Formale und materiale Aspekte (ed. B. Janowski/ M. Köckert; VWGTh 15; Gütersloh: Gütersloher 1999), 9–56; “The Bible in History”, Bib. 82 (2001) 293–298. Sources are neither open windows, as the positivists believe, nor fences obstructing vision, as the skeptics hold: if anything, we could compare them to distorting mirrors. The analysis of the specific distortion of every specific source already implies a constructive element. Carlo Ginzburg1

R. Rendtorff opens his Theologie des Alten Testaments with the proposition that “(t)he Old Testament is a theological book”.2 That is undoubtedly correct, and in the fundamental sense that the word ‘God’ holds together the diverse writings

1 2

Ginzburg, History (1999), 25. Rendtorff, Theologie des Alten Testaments (1999), 1.

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of the Old Testament, serving as its “greatest common denominator and the uniting force”.3 This assertion, however, demands a precise definition of how ‘theology’ is to be understood. No such definition is provided by Rendtorff; instead, he continues: “For this reason (sic!), a presentation of ‘Old Testament theology’ hardly requires particular justification”.4 A precise definition of ‘theology’, one that takes into account both its formation – historical, systematic, canonical – and its development, is, however, essential. The need for such a definition is beyond dispute; on the contrary, I would venture to gainsay the assertion that a precise definition of ‘theology’ is unnecessary. Indeed, such a definition is needed not only in the face of challenges posed by the history of Israelite religion but with a view to both biblical theology and Christian-Jewish dialogue, precisely those topics that Rendtorff has time and again taken as given. I shall begin with a survey of scholarship over the past forty years (Part 1), in order to construct a basis for a fresh approach (Part 2).

1. Survey of Recent Scholarship When one sets out to delineate future tasks in one’s own academic field, one would do well to recall the history of that field – not to lament the past but to identify past trends and to set criteria for the present position. A number of striking watersheds demands attention. One such watershed was created by R. Kittel’s lecture on “Die Zukunft der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft” in 1921,5 another by G. von Rad’s epic Theologie des Alten Testaments.6 It should be noted in passing that von Rad had scarcely completed his two-volume exposition (1957/1960) before his “Offene Fragen im Umkreis einer Theologie des Alten Testaments”7 appeared. In this latter work, von Rad was concerned not only with the question of the unity or, rather, the centre (Mitte) of Scripture,8 but with the question of the relationship between revelation and history. Both of these issues form the basis of his concept of an “Old Testament theology as re-telling”.

3

Veijola, Text (2000), 329. Rendtorff, ibid., but cf. idem, Hermeneutik (2001), where Rendtorff assumes a “very broad concept of ‘theology’” (37): “How it is to be defined more precisely, and in detail, remains to be seen in the actual outworking of the theological interpretation of the Old Testament texts” (37). For debate or, rather, conversation with Rendtorff see Groß, Auslegung (2001), 112 ff, and Kessler, Entwurf (2003), 375–384; see also the article by Jeremias, Neuere Entwürfe (2005), 125–158. 5 Kittel, Zukunft (1921), 84–99; see in addition Smend, Richtungen ( 2004), 266 ff. 6 Von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments 1(1957/101992) and 2 (1960/101993). On the critical debate concerning von Rad’s Old Testament theology see, most recently, Spieckermann, Verbindlichkeit (2001), 178 ff; idem, Theologie (2002), 264–268; Schüle, Deutung (2004), 1–15; Rendtorff, Gerhard von Rad, ibid. 17–24; Koch, Israels Rolle, ibid. 25–49; and Jeremias, Neuere Entwürfe (2005). 7 Von Rad, Offene Fragen (1973), 289–312. 8 See below. 4

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1.1. Theology of the Old Testament as Re-telling The issue of the relationship between revelation and history in Old Testament studies has come to a head in the past twenty years, in a way that “threatens to divorce theological thought from its traditional foundation”.9 The prognosis that the object of Old Testament scholarship “will in the future no longer (be) the history of the Israelite people…but, at most, the history of the mentality of the writers of the Old Testament narratives” appears to be only reasonable.10 One can no longer speak of a extra-literary fundamentum in re; it is no longer the connection of the text to the history which it represents that is being or should be considered, but “the connection of the text to its writer, its readers, and, finally, ourselves”.11 The problem as outlined here is concerned with the theory of perception. In its most extreme form it consists of the supposition that the “present deconstruction of history operative in Old Testament studies (is) a mirror of a loss of reality in contemporary religiosity”.12 “Should we assume that the Old Testament narrators of history produced works of fiction,” asks H.-P. Müller, justifiably, “because we ourselves suspect a religious view of history of being fictitious and, herewith, religion of being illusory?”.13 Over against this assumption, Müller poses the thesis of “a latent meaningfulness of reality” on which “the question of meaning can be centred”. In order to allow a myth of history, the world must, also in its historical dimension, be mythologizable; the religious counter-world must arise, as always, out of a merely suspected Vorfindlichkeit. In the final analysis, the human being who, interested in life, constructs a counter-world to ‘reality’ is not only Res cogitans but rather part of the Res extensa. He has, together with his powers of perception and his inclination to correct reality, in the course of evolution emerged from this; thus the assumption implies, that the world can have two separate meanings but it cannot be meaningless if the human being poses the question of meaning and if this question appears meaningful to him/ her, at least. As the opposite of the ‘reality’ that he likewise only supposes, he creates religious, philosophical, artistic, and other counter-worlds; because he himself is also part of ‘reality’, however, he is able to connect counter-worlds with a ‘reality’ from which his thought emanates in an evolutionary fashion.14

The straightforward theses proposed by N. P. Lemche are far removed from such differentiations. There is still work to be done here on the theory of history. “It 9

Müller, ‘Tod’ (1999), 1. Lemche, Vorgeschichte Israels (1996), 224. 11 Ibid. On Lemche’s approach see, most recently, Müller, ‘Tod’ (1999), 8 f; Barr, History (2000), 59 ff, 102 ff; Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 34 ff; van Oorschot, Geschichte (2000), 1–27. The approach first taken by Lemche was radicalized by Thompson, Bible in History (1999), and the critique by Grabbe, Bibel (2000), 117–139; Zwickel, Bible in History (2001), 293–298. Further to the entire debate see also Provan, In the Stable (2000), 281–319). 12 Müller, ‘Tod’ (1999), 20. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. For the correlation of meaning and history see also Assmann, Ägypten (2002), 7–8: “To put it more technically, those experiences are themselves semantically organized. The world in which we live, act, and feel is a meaningful structure, and its meaning is made up of collective projections and fictions. Hence narration and the construction of fictions of coherence is not simply and solely the work of historians, but rather a necessary condition for any kind of historical awareness”. 10

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is not necessary”, as O. Keel cuttingly remarks concerning Lemche’s approach, “to demolish the entire house because of a dripping tap or a faulty light switch”.15 In other words, one should not demolish the entire house of Israelite history if cracks and gaps appear in the sources or if the evaluation of those sources changes. Revision is, rather, the methodical tool, the applied historical term, which, as J. G. Droysen has already noted, does not appear in the sense of the alternative to factual history vs. history of mentality and which is handled in a differentiated way by contemporary historical and cultural scholars.16 In this regard, I need only mention the work of R. Koselleck,17 J. Rüsen,18 J. Assmann,19 and C. Ginzburg.20 Corresponding differentiations apply to our view of Old Testament theology. Von Rad, seeking to prevent actual and imagined history from drifting apart, and reacting to the pendulum swings of Old Testament studies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,21 sought to characterize the correlation of revelation and history as the intertwining (Ineinander) of Israel’s “world of thought” and “world of history”. And for this reason, that “the decisive events in this history” were “of course themselves an object of the faith of Israel”.22 The most legitimate form of Old Testament theology, according to von Rad, is “re-telling”. If we cannot divorce Israel’s theological world of thought from her world of history, because the picture of the latter was itself a complicated work of her faith, this at the same time means that we must also submit ourselves to the sequence of events as the faith of Israel saw them. In particular, in tracing the different confessional material, we must beware of striving to reconstruct links between ideas, and systematic combinations, where Israel herself never saw or distinguished such things. We should exclude from the start what is most characteristic of Israel’s theological activity if we refused to take seriously the sequence and the inner connexion of the world of history as Israel herself arranged them for her own purposes. This unquestionably raises great difficulties for our Western way of theological thinking…But it would be fatal to our understanding of Israel’s witness if we were to arrange it from the outset on the basis of theological categories which, though current among ourselves, have absolutely nothing to do with those on whose basis Israel herself allowed her theological thinking to be ordered. Thus, re-telling remains the most legitimate form of theological discourse on the Old Testament.23

The price of this “re-telling” – and herein lies the real problem – is high, however, paid as it is at the expense of Israel’s religious and social history. If indeed

15

Keel, Religionsgeschichte Israels (2001), 99. Cf., for instance, Knauf, History (1991), 27 n. 2. 17 See in addition Koselleck, Standortbindung (21984), 176–207, = ET: Perspective (1985), 130–155, and idem, Zeitschichten (2000). 18 See in addition Rüsen, Historische Vernunft (1983); idem, Historische Orientierung (1994), and Zerbrechende Zeit (2001). Rüsen’s approach is associated with the concepts of the “historical formation of meaning” (Historische Sinnbildung) and the “history of meaning” (Sinngeschichte)”, respectively; Müller/Rüsen (eds.), Historische Sinnbildung (1997). 19 See in addition Assmann, Ägypten (1996), 15 ff, = ET: Mind of Egypt (2002), 5 ff. 20 Cf. above, n. 1. 21 For the history of research see Albertz, Religionsgeschichte Israels (1992), 20 ff, and Smend, Richtungen (2004), 265 ff. 22 Von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments I (1957/1992), 134, = ET: Old Testament Theology, I (1962/2001), 120. 23 Ibid. 134 f = ET 120 f. 16

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“Israel’s faith is grounded in a theology of history”24 and if the Old Testament is virtually a “history book” ,25 then the question must be raised as to the nature of this history. It is, after all, the history – and no other! – that serves as “experiential realm of revelation”26 in which the religious and the social history of Israel also participate. How else can one make sense of the social critique of the prophets or the Deuteronomist’s critique of images without assuming that Yahweh acts in a single, actual history? Von Rad separates the “experiential realm of revelation”,27 which is bound up with the religious and social history of Israel, from the theology of the Old Testament, because he wants to stress the “kerygmatic intention”.28 As a result, Old Testament scholars are left with a serious problem of plausibility. The problem consists in the fact that the history of Israelite religion and society forms the necessary mental and cultural framework that first allows one to speak of a salvation history (Heilsgeschichte) which transcends that very framework; and that von Rad denies “the spiritual and religious world of Israel”, as he terms the history of religion, its own construction of meaning and theological rank. In this regard, however, history threatens to become a mere accident of revelation, while revelation loses its historical foundation, its fundamentum in re.29 While it goes without saying that von Rad had intended no such result,30 one must, nevertheless, pose further critical questions at this point. Our thesis – that the history of Israelite religion and society forms the necessary framework that makes it possible to speak of a salvation history which transcends this very framework – is based not so much on a model of foundation/superstructure as on a model of foreground/background. The interaction between religious and social history as “foreground” and salvation history as “background” allows us, aided by the concept of “history of meaning”, to adopt the supposition that history is a complex coherence of forms which can be either broken apart or transcended, respectively. While history in this sense leads to new meanings of reality,31 it has a meaning created by a society through religious, social, and economic interaction. This meaning of history can be described as follows: 24

Ibid. 118 = ET 106. See his programmatic article, Geschichtsbuch (1960), 11–17; cf. in addition, more recently, and with conceptual differentiations, Schmid, Geschichtsbezug (2000), 74 ff, and Schüle, Deutung (2004), 7 ff. 26 Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 45. 27 For a programmatic treatment see von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments I (1957/1992), 117 f, = ET: Old Testament Theology I (1962/2001), 105–106, and in addition Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 45, and Albertz, Theologie des Alten Testaments (1995/22001), 178 ff. 28 Von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments I (1957/1992), 118, = ET: Old Testament Theology (1962/2001), 106, cf. idem, Offene Fragen (1963/1973), 290. 29 Cf. Müller, ‘Tod’ (1999), 3 f. 30 According to von Rad, “historical space” is not empty, but full, and filled by “appointed foundations of salvation history, in whose shadows the historical action of that time unfolded and from which it could then be understood. These foundations themselves contain very specific promises. The historical activity represented at any one time shows a part of the way along which Yahweh is moving history towards the fulfilment of this promise. This aspect is what we call the history of tradition” (Offene Fragen [1963/1973] 290). 31 This occurs, for example, through the visionary development of the enigmatic reality of God in ancient Israelite prophecy (e.g. in the visions of Amos, Amos *7–9), which casts all events in a new light – the light of God; see here Steck, Prophetenbücher (1996), 149 ff, who, taking up the concept of “metahistory” introduced by K. Koch, likewise speaks of “history of meaning“ (Sinngeschichte). 25

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‘Connection’ and ‘direction’ also have something to do with space and time. The essential point here is that meaning is produced by societies living within particular contexts of space and time. For space and time are not abstract categories within which all civilizations evolve in the same way. Rather, they are fictions of coherence produced by specific human societies at specific junctures. And history, the spatio-temporal evolution of civilizations, cannot be regarded independently of the particular fictions of coherence produced by these civilizations.32

If “meaning” is taken to mean the essence of the capacity for interpretation that human consciousness must bring to any encounter with god or gods, with the world, and with oneself in order to create a meaningful life, then the history of religion and society thematises this capacity for interpretation as social discourse, a discourse which is reflected in the literature of the biblical tradition. As Chr. Hardmeier notes, one must keep in mind that even the process of interpretation which has been handed down is itself handed down or, rather, related as a theological, God-oriented address in the reciprocal I-Thou address and, alternatively, argument between God and human beings. In other words, the social discourse that is reflected in the biblical literary tradition has occurred as theological discourse, and must for its part be considered as such.33

The above-mentioned interrelationship between the history of Israelite religion and society, on the one hand, and Old Testament theology, on the other, involves a “double structure of discourse”34 by which the social level of discourse encompasses the specifically theological in the sense of an inclusive relationship. In this way, one can avoid posing a “true” theological level of meaning over against a “merely” (religio- /socio-) historical level of meaning, and, by so doing, also avoid an abstract concept of theology. With regard to G. von Rad’s concept of theology, problems concerning plausibility arise at another point, namely, the question of the unity or, rather, the “centre” (Mitte) of Scripture. Given the diversity of the traditions, von Rad asks, how can one speak of a unity of the Old Testament, of an “all-unifying fundamental idea”?35 His reply: One cannot at all, except with “the aid of a cross-sectional method” which arranges its essential contents together into a closed conceptual system.36 That method must, however, lead us up a blind alley, for “nothing that has been articulated in the relevant tradition had any validity at all at that time”.37 32 Assmann, Ägypten (1996), 17 f. = ET: Mind of Egypt (2002), 5–6. For “history of meaning” (Sinngeschichte) as an overarching hermeneutical category see Janowski, Kanon (2004), 15–36.847 33 Hardmeier, Systematische Elemente (1995/22001), 113 n. 6 (italics mine). 34 Cf. ibid. 35 Cf. ibid. 36 Ibid. 292 f. 37 Ibid. 293; cf. in support of this position Albertz, Religionsgeschichte Israels (1995/22001), 11, n. 40. Von Rad uses the example of Old Testament historiography to clarify the “great venture” (großes Wagnis) that Israel undertook “by arranging together entirely diverse legendary materials…to represent the particular mode of Yahweh’s intervention in history not only in anecdotal form but in the range of a period of time spanning several generations”, cf. Offene Fragen (1963/1973), 308 f. That is, however, something other than the development of “concepts of unity”, which, because they “do not work entirely satisfactorily with the materials, (are) to be carefully kept at bay until the true unity of the Old Testament allows itself to be perceived anew – as likely as not only due to some preliminary work which is still to be done” (ibid. 310).

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In this respect, it is “a serious question, whether and in what sense we may still make use of the singular designation, ‘Old Testament theology’”.38 As is well known, W. Zimmerli responded with a critique calling for the “venture of ‘Zusammen-Denken(s)’”, in other words, the venture of seeking “the unity of divine action behind the diversity of events”.39 With admirable clarity, fully displayed in his Grundriß der alttestamentlichen Theologie (which first appeared in 1972),40 Zimmerli writes: Must not any Old Testament theology carry out the venture of ‘Zusammen-Denkens’ to a degree greater than has taken place here, with the attempt to preserve as far as possible the purity of the kerygmatic approach and the individual testimonies? The Old Testament has a centre. It intends all the way down the line to bear witness to Yahweh’s activity with Israel and the world. It holds the view that this Yahweh–in all the historical vitality of his deeds – is one and the same down through all the thousand years of history testified to here.41

The controversy between von Rad and Zimmerli is of exemplary significance, showing as it does that the unity of the Old Testament cannot be established with the aid of a “cross-sectional method”, that is, from a particular term (covenant, righteousness, divine lordship, etc.) or textual corpus (First Commandment, Deuteronomy, etc.).42 In this regard, one must concede the points made by R. Albertz43 and J. D. Levenson44 in their respective critiques. The legitimacy of Old Testament theology is, in my opinion, not yet disproved, however.

1.2. History of Israelite Religion as a “Summarising Discipline” The “enquiry into that which was typical of faith in Yahweh is the only way that we can reclaim the concept that has become so problematic for us, that of the unity of the Old Testament”.45 In this parting caution from his 1963 essay, von Rad has in view the issue of the Proprium of the Old Testament. In the following 38

Von Rad, ibid. 294. Zimmerli, Rezension (1963), 100–111, cf. idem, Mitte des Alten Testaments (1975), 97–118, and idem, Biblische Theologie (1980) 445. 40 Zimmerli, Grundriß (41982), = ET: Old Testament Theology (1978). 41 Idem, Rezension (1963), 105, cp. idem, Grundriß (41982) 11, = ET: Outline (1978), 14: “From this perspective, too, it is advisable to take as our point of departure that focal point where the faith of the Old Testament specifically confesses the God of Israel under the name of Yahweh. It will be clearly evident that this ‘focal point’ does not present an ‘image’ of God to be understood statically. The God who is invoked by the name ‘Yahweh’ repeatedly demonstrates his freedom by dashing to pieces all the ‘images’ in which humanity would confine him This takes place not only in Exodus 3:14, in the account of how the divine name is revealed to Moses, but to an equal degree in the great prophets, or, in the realm of wisdom, in Ecclesiastes and Job”. Zimmerli’s category of the “Selbigkeit Gottes” (see n. 67) should, however, be modified by newer insights into the “gradual transformation of the understanding of God that results compellingly from exegesis with a religio-historical orientation, such as iconography”; cf. Koch, Israels Rolle (2004), 29. 42 Further to discussion about the “centre of the Old Testament” see Janowski, Der eine Gott (1999), 273 ff, and, most recently, Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Einheit (2001), 48–87 (for an enumeration and critique of the most important proposals, see 54 ff); and Büttner, Das Alte Testament (2002). 43 Albertz, Plädoyer (1995/22001), 11. 44 Levenson, Warum Juden (1991), 421. 45 Von Rad, Offene Fragen (1963/1973), 311. 39

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years, this issue certainly underwent a paradigm shift. Indeed, even as further attempts were made to pursue this enquiry from Old Testament texts, the “external evidence” of the history of Israelite/Palestinian and Ancient Near Eastern religion increasingly made itself felt alongside these texts. In this way, the previous delimiting model (a) was superseded by an integrative model (b). According to this new model, Israel, from its beginnings, did not stand in religious and cultural contrast to “Canaan”; instead, it was, schematically represented, part of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cultures and, in particular, of the Syro-Palestinian sphere. (a) Delimiting model Israel versus Canaan (b) Integrative model Israel in the context of both Syro-Palestinian religion and Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian religions (from c. 1500 BCE): Asia Minor Greece Egypt

Ugarit West Syria Phoenicia Philistia etc.

Aram Ammon Israel & Judah Moab Edom etc.

Assyria Iran Babylon

“There were religion(s) in Palestine”, H. Niehr comments in this regard, “long before Israel and Judah, so that a history of the religion of Israel and Judah, therefore, focuses only on certain epochs within a larger historical continuum”.46 Although long assumed that Israel had from the start differed from its religious context, it has become increasingly clear that Israel’s roots, in large part, if not exclusively, lay in Canaan.47 The consciousness of differentiation was a later development. It was formed during the Neo-Assyrian crisis of the eighth and seventh centuries, when undivided loyalty to Yhwh, by means of pre-exilic prophecy and, above all, Josianic Deuteronomy (Deut *12–26), became a theological programme.48 The road to the demand for exclusivity was long and, as demonstrated by the difficulties regarding cultic images,49 anything but straight. The methodical consequences of this shift were realized in the 1980s by P. D. Miller, B. Halpern, and M. D. Coogan, among others,50 and reduced by R. Al46 Niehr, Israel (2001), 294; see in addition also idem, Religionen (1998), 237 ff, and Koch, Israel im Orient (1999), 242–271, and idem, Israels Rolle (2004), 30 ff. 47 See in addition the study by Niehr, Der höchste Gott (1990), 181 ff.183 ff, which refers to the “Canaanite matrix of Israelite religion”; on this point, see also Otto, Israels Wurzeln (1989), 3–10; Knauf, Mythos Kanaan (2001), 40–44. 48 According to E. Otto, the model for this programme can seen in the “subversive reception” of Neo-Assyrian culture, i.e. in opposition to Neo-Assyrian hegemonial power, texts of this culture were “subversively received” and used against their authors. “The subversive reception reaches its peak in a political theology that defines the person in Israel not in terms of subjugation to a religiously elevated state, but as the direct counterpart of God as a member of his people”; cf. Otto, Israel (2001), 294. 49 See below, 26 f. 50 See Niehr’s account in: Der höchste Gott (1990), 183 ff, and Albertz, Plädoyer (1995/22001), 3 ff.

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bertz in 1995 to the handy formula: “the history of Israelite religion instead of Old Testament theology!”.51 The goal was the relocation of “those objects with which Old Testament theology had been concerned into another discipline”,52 namely, into “the history of Israelite religion”. The merits of the latter discipline, in Albertz’s view, lie in its critical containment of the subjective factor, in its historical method free from apologetic undertones, not only in the historical world but also in its interpretative context.53 By contrast, “Old Testament theology” is characterized by the strongly subjective nature of the discipline, its concept of theology with its “unexplained coexistence of historical method and normative claim”,54 as well as its changing interpretative context (from the Israelite author up to the modern reader/exegete).55 The whole is made even more difficult by the discussion about the “centre” of the Old Testament, with its “hermeneutical pressure to harmonize”56 or, as J. D. Levenson terms it, “the Christian urge to systematize”.57 This does indeed pose a problem. The fact that the claims of theology have, as Albertz goes on to note, time and again led scholars to devalue the religious environment of Israel,58 and that Old Testament theology, as a Christian discipline, bears the “seed of anti-Judaism”59 within it, only exacerbates the situation. In his critique, Albertz has touched on a number of questions long pressing but until now never thoroughly discussed.60 That he has raised such questions is to be welcomed. At the same time, I question whether all his diagnoses are correct and whether all his prescriptions offer prospects for the future. I shall confine myself to the key points: The fact that Old Testament theology is a Christian discipline does not, in my opinion, render it unfit for Christian-Jewish dialogue. More on that below.61 I would also argue that the claim of Old Testament theology to represent the “uniqueness”, or, better said, the “self-concept” (Eigenbegrifflichkeit) (B. Landesberger) of Israelite religion can be supported without doing so at the expense of its ANE environment.62 And, finally, the concept of theology inherent in the designation “Old Testament theology” is not obsolete; it cannot, as Albertz proposes, simply be replaced by the term ‘religion’.63 The most recent discussion on the subject of the “centre of the Old Testament”64 has shown that a distinction must be made here.

51

Albertz, ibid. 3 ff. Lohfink, Fächerpoker (1995), 210. See in addition Albertz, Plädoyer (1995/22001), 14 ff, cf. also idem, Religionsgeschichte Israels (1992), 30 ff. 54 Albertz, Plädoyer (1995/22001), 8. 55 See ibid. 6 ff. 56 Dohmen, Probleme (1995), 13; see also Steck, Gott (2001), 100 ff. 57 Levenson, Biblische Theologie (1991) 421, cf. 404 ff, 415 ff, 421 ff. 58 See in addition Albertz, Plädoyer (1995/22001), 12 f. 59 Ibid. 13. 60 Cf. Lohfink, Fächerpoker (1995), 210 f. 61 See in addition below, 46 f. 62 See in addition below, 23 ff. 63 On Albertz’s use of the concept ‘religion’ see Sundermeier, Religionswissenschaft (1995/22001), 189–206; further to this topic see idem, Religion (1999). 64 See the remarks made above, n. 42. 52 53

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This distinction must already be made with regard to the concept of the “centre”. The geometrical metaphor of a ‘centre’ suggests the image of a circle with centre and periphery. Historical processes which – like the history of faith in Yahweh – span a long period of time and include innumerable stresses and breaks, cannot be reduced to a conceptual ‘centre’, so that everything that is less or not central – although what would that be? – slides to the ‘periphery’. Instead of ‘centre’ one could – sticking to geometry – as Zimmerli does, speak of a “perspectival vanishing point…that cannot be grasped on the surface of the picture, but which lies behind it, and to which everything perceived on the surface remains oriented”.65 The search for the “unity of divine action behind the diversity of events” threatens to become the search for the still point behind the details of the picture; if that danger is avoided, then the chance of seeing this inner unity remains. Accordingly, if the ‘centre’ of the Old Testament does not and cannot exist as a centre of meaning (Sinnmitte) of a pluriform collection of texts, but only as main themes and secondary themes, questions that are taken up and pursued again and again, including those that are only foreshadowed or even abandoned,66 so the traditions of the Old Testament in their social, political, and religious diversity bear witness to the factual and effective centre (Sach- und Wirkmitte) of an event; and indeed to an event that continuously has to do with Yhwh’s work towards Israel and the world.67 If, according to one of Zimmerli’s principles, the inner coherence of Old Testament discourse about God is to become valid,68 this event must be considered in terms of the “incomprehensible relatedness (i.e. of all Old Testament statements) to the historical way of Yahweh with his people, with the world and humanity”.69 It is always concerned with the Yhwh -Israel relationship or, as R. Smend has shown with regard to the two-part “covenant formula” (Deut 26:17;19 ff), with the fact that YHWH is the God of Israel and that Israel is the people of YHWH. Yahweh, the centre of the Old Testament – this definition is said to be insufficient. It is, in fact, capable of and in need of supplementation. The Old Testament is concerned with this God, not in and of himself, but in his relationship to human beings, a relationship described by the word covenant. In this respect, for their sake, the name of God – be that whatever it may – is named. For that reason, it is appropriate to transcribe this relationship explicitly into the definition of the centre of the Old Testament. Since the human partner of the God Yahweh is the people of Israel, one might come up with the formula: Yahweh, the God of Israel. And alongside this formula might appear,

65

Zimmerli, Mitte (1975), 117; cf. Levin, Verheißung (1985), 11. Cf. Dalferth, Mitte (1997), 178; further Knauf, Mitte (1995), 79–86. 67 In view here is the definition of ‘centre’ (Mitte) proposed by W. Zimmerli in connection with the concept of the “Selbigkeit Gottes”: The Old Testament “continually holds fast to faith in the Selbigkeit of God, whom it knows by the name of Yahweh. Through all the changes, it believes that this God Yahweh wants to be involved with his people Israel. Even in all the temptation and all the pain, ‘that the right hand of the Most High has changed’ (Ps 77.11), the godly flees to this confession and ‘calls to mind’ the former deeds of the Lord (Ps 77.12). Here, in Yahweh himself, who has made himself known in his deeds of bygone days, he finds the really valid continuity to which he can hold fast”; cf. Zimmerli, Rezension (1963), 111. 68 Cf. idem, Grundriß (41982, 9 = ET Outline (1978), 12: “Any ‘Old Testament theology’ has the task of presenting what the Old Testament says about God as a coherent whole”. 69 Idem, Biblische Theologie (1980), 452. 66

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accordingly, its complement: Israel, the people of Yahweh. We are not here playing games with formal analogy. What is fundamentally said in the ‘self-introductory formula’ ‘I am Yahweh (your God)’ does provide the “determining force underlying the overall message of the Old Testament” – but it also, entailing as it does God’s gift and command, necessarily requires the continuation pronounced in the sentence, “I will be your God, and you shall be my people”. If Yahweh is the first article of the Old Testament witness, then Israel is the second; and neither of the two articles is what it is without the other.70

The inner coherence of the Old Testament is shown not by the “covenant formula” as such – which is not representative of the entire Old Testament and which is, moreover, a product of later tradition formation71 – but by that which was actually intended with it. This distinction between text (Old Testament) and object (God’s turning toward Israel) makes it possible adequately to determine movements and changes in relation to God, the world, and humanity which are comprehensible in the Old Testament, i.e. related to that actual centre. This “historical self-movement of God in his turning to the world”72 is the enduring substance of the biblical tradition and thus the object of any “Old Testament theology”.73 Any interaction with the Old Testament which allows itself to be driven by this insight will seek its inner coherence not in a concept or corpus of texts but in both the historical turning of Yahweh to Israel and in the “concrete – the incarnate-social dimension included – ‘life movement’ of faith in the God of Israel”.74 At this point, on which, incidentally, the newer treatments, despite all their differences in starting point and development, are in definite agreement,75 “Old Testament theology” is once again on the agenda.

2. Arguments for an Integrative Perspective As might be clearly shown by the survey of recent scholarship, there are good reasons for retaining the discipline of “Old Testament theology”. To be sure,

70 Smend, Mitte (1986), 74; on this point, see also the remarks made by Janowski, Der eine Gott (1999), 278, n. 135, and Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 31 ff.74 i.a. 71 See Rendtorff, Bundesformel (1995), and Groß, Zukunft (1998). 72 Steck, Gott (2001), 101, n. 42. 73 Cf. ibid. 70 ff. H. Spieckermann has recently sketched an outline of Old Testament theology under the heading of a “divine declaration of love”, identifying “God’s self-determination to love” as its origin (cf. 202 ff); see Liebeserklärung Gottes (2001), 197–223. Spieckermann sifts through the traditions of the Pentateuch, Prophets, Psalms, Wisdom literature and Apocalytic, tracing the lines of a theology of the entire Bible as far as the New Testament: “God’s self-determination to love manifests itself in his eternal decision to enter into a particular love affair with humanity. It takes the shape of a unique and irreplaceable love affair, God’s love for Israel. This first becomes evident in the Old Testament from the testimony of Christ, which is attested in the New Testament. Nothing alien is thereby brought to the Old Testament; rather, its own fundamental message is congenially revealed, within a biblical theology. The New Testament, in hermeneutical terms, serves as midwife to the Old Testament, and the Old Testament is, in historical-theological terms, the womb of the New Testament (cf. Heb 1,1–2)” (202 f); cf. also idem, Theologie (2002) 264 ff. 74 Herms, Erneuerung (1995) 160. 75 See in addition the account by Dietrich, Gott (1996), 258–285, and Spieckermann, Verbindlichkeit des Alten Testaments (1997/2001), 178 ff.

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these reasons still remain to be laid out argumentatively. This will be accomplished in two stages. Firstly, as recent discussion about the “history of Israelite religion” has shown, “Old Testament theology” cannot be divorced from the historical reality of Israel, that is, it cannot be plausibly divorced from the history of its religion and its society, because it would otherwise lose its fundamentum in re.76 Secondly, if biblical hermeneutics is to stand any chance, then the enquiry into the inner coherence of the Old Testament, that is, into the thought structure of its knowledge of God, humanity, and the world, must not be abandoned.77 This act of systematisation is, in my opinion, bound up, in a way which must still be defined, with the phenomenon of the canon. In the next section I will consider the correlation between the history of religion and theology (2.1.) and then the relevance of the canon for Old Testament theology (2.2.).

2.1. The Correlation between the History of Religion and Theology Let us begin with an elementary point. Old Testament scholarship analyses the witnesses of a religion, which has, in its historically-actualised form, passed away. What we as historians are able to say about that religion depends on reconstruction. We cannot expect ancient Israel to answer our questions with its own voice, because there is no member of this culture still living. What we do have are the archaeological, iconographical and literary sources, whose meaning must be reconstructed case by case. In so doing, it is to be assumed that that which makes history ‘history’ is never derived from the sources alone. Rather, “a theory of possible history is required so that the sources might be brought to speak at all”.78 There is always more at stake in historical knowledge that what is contained in the sources. A source can exist or be discovered, but it can also be missing. This, then, makes it necessary here to take the risk of making statements which are perhaps not completely founded. But it is not the patchiness of all sources – or their excess, in the case of recent history – which hinders the historian in establishing, on the basis of sources alone, either past of contemporary history. Every source – more precisely, every remnant that we transform into a source by our questions – refers us to a history which is either more, less, or in any case something other than the remnant itself. History is never identical with the source that provides evidence for this history. If this were so, then every cleanly flowing source would be the history we sought.79

The insight that the value of a source always depends on what one asks and how one asks it is shared by both Old Testament exegesis and historical science. This is the well-known standpoint of the observer. When one turns to the Old Testament, however, one faces a more serious problem, because the Old Testament is itself testimony from a particular standpoint, i.e. the testimony of authors who have interpreted and “summed up” the respective historical reality from the aspect of Yhwh’s turning toward/turning away from Israel, in other words, sub 76 See in addition also Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 34 ff; Müller, Tod (1999), 1 ff and idem, JHWH (2001), 275 ff. 77 Cf. Schüle, Deutung (2004), 1 ff, and Uehlinger, Medien (2004), 153 ff. 78 Koselleck, Standortbindung (21984), 206, = ET: Perspective (1985), 158. 79 Ibid. 204 f.

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specie Dei.80 Taking into account “the material lack of documents”81 –the absence of any Isaiah scroll from the late-eighth century, etc. – the Old Testament serves, for the purposes of historical reconstruction, not as a “primary source” but as a “secondary source”. Thus Chr. Uehlinger, in the course of discussion about the hierarchialisation of “primary and secondary sources”, rightly stresses that the Old Testament – in contrast to archaeological, epigraphical, and iconographical documents – does not contain any “primary sources” – if by “primary sources” one means documents which allow themselves to be dated according to archaeological criteria and which occur in temporal proximity to the relevant reported event.82 Even if primary sources can “offer a tendential historical mixture, while tertiary sources, conversely, can convey historically reliable information”,83 a historiographical question must in principle proceed from them. 2.1.1. The History of Israelite Religion This principle likewise applies to the religious history of Israel – which, R. Albertz’s impressive achievement notwithstanding, still remains to be written. What Albertz has achieved is more a theological and social history of Old Testament texts and those who produced them and passed them on than a history of Israelite/Palestinian religion:84 the latter requires a different starting point and must conform to other parameters.85 Such a history would have to begin with datable archaeological, epigraphical, and iconographical relics from the Iron Age II-C (c. 850–587 BCE) in order – in the second stage – to place these in relationship to biblical texts relating to this epoch of Judah’s history. A prominent example of this approach is Uehlinger’s attempt to find a plausible basis for the report of the so-called Josianic reform in 2 Kgs 23:4–20,86 that is, to develop criteria for the correlation between the history of religion and textual analysis that would allow one to link the primary findings from seventh-century Judah – seal amulets, 80 On the “summierende Geschichtsschreibung” of the Old Testament see Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 41 f. 81 Uehlinger, Kultreform (1995), 59. 82 Cf. ibid. 59 f, and Uehlinger, Bildquellen (2001), 31 ff. The differentiation between “primary sources” and “secondary sources” is not intended as a value judgment, as though “secondary sources” were of less importance. It should be taken to mean only that the Old Testament represents a second-rank source (“secondary source”) for historical reconstruction, but a first-rank source (“primary source”) for Old Testament theology; see Renz, Beitrag (2001), 126 ff, where he sketches a typology of sources based on function. 83 Uehlinger, Kultreform (1995), 60; on this point, see also Knauf, History (1991), 26 ff, and Zwickel, Religionsgeschichte Israels (1999), 41 ff. Taking the exilic period as an example, Albertz, Exilszeit (1998) 22–39, has recently described the problem as outlined here, and shown that “primary sources”, such as the Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions, are very close to the events they describe, able to produce quasi-“paradigmatic” (p. 35) or, as the case may be, “theologized ancient historiography” (p. 36). To deduce from that fact that the reports are unhistorical would be to draw a false conclusion (pp. 34 ff). 84 Cf. Uehlinger, Kultreform (1995) 61 and n.17; Lohfink, Fächerpoker (1995) 207 ff; Zwickel, Religionsgeschichte Israels (1999) 41 ff; Keel, Religionsgeschichte Israels (2001) 100 and n. 13. 85 Such representations are made by Keel/Uehlinger, Göttinnen (41998) and by Zevit, Religions of Ancient Israel (2001). 86 See in addition Uehlinger, Kultreform (1995) 64 ff; see further Koch, Kultreformen (1992) 80– 92; Arneth, Reform Josias (2001) 189–216.

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terra cotta, and Hebrew inscriptions – with the references to the reform in 2 Kgs 23:4–15. The result is a modicum grounded in the history of religion and textual analysis from which the cultic reform measures of Josiah can be set in relation to the “reception of Assyrian-Aramaic astral cult customs in the late eighth / early seventh century: the removal of the horses and chariots of the sun god and the dissolution of the institution of the kemârîm (v.5*)”.87 Whether the roof altars mentioned in v. 12 also belong to this context is open to question.88 The passage reads as follows in translation (NRSV with revisions / additions): (4) The king commanded the (high) priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second order, and the guardians of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of Yhwh all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. (5) He (i.e. Josiah) deposed the kmr-priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in ‹the› high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who made offerings to Baal, to the sun/the sun god, the moon/the moon god, the fixed stars/the constellations, and all the host of the heavens. (6) He brought out the image of Asherah from the house of Yhwh, outside Jerusalem, to the Wadi Kidron, burned it at the Wadi Kidron, beat it to dust and threw the dust of it upon ‹the graves› of the common people. (7) He broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of Yhwh, where the women did weaving for Asherah. (8) He brought all the priests out of the towns of Judah, and defiled the high places ‹where› the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; he broke down the ‹high places› of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city. (9) The high priests, however, were not allowed to come up to the altar of Yhwh in Jerusalem, but ate unleavened bread among their kindred. (10) He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of ‹Ben-›hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech. (11) He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, ‹at the entrance› to the house of YHWH, by the chamber of the eunuch Nathan-melech [in the Parvah House], which was in the precincts; then he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. (12) The altars on the roof (of the upper chamber of Ahaz), which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, he (i.e. the king) pulled down from there and ‹broke in pieces›, and threw the rubble into the Wadi Kidron. (13) The king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the ‹Mount of Olives›, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Astarte the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. (14) He broke the pillars in pieces, cut down the Asherah, and covered the sites with human bones. (15) Moreover, the altar at Bethel, [the high place] erected by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin – he pulled down that altar [along with the high place]. [He burned the high place], crushing (it) to dust; [he also burned ‹the› Asherah]. (2 Kgs 23:4–15)89

This example demonstrates how difficult and painstaking such a correlation of “primary and secondary sources” is in one single case, but also how essential 87 Uehlinger, ibid. 73; on v.5 see also Albani, Sternbilder (2001/22004) 185, 187, 192 f, 205 f; Arneth, ibid. 208 and, on kmr, Schütte, kmr (2003) 42. The question as to whether the measures taken by Josiah were intended as a proper programme is not easy to answer; both sides of this question are considered by Uehlinger, Kultreform (1995) 80 f. 88 See Uehlinger, Kultreform (1995) 79 ff. On the removal of the Jerusalem Asherah (v.6) see ibid. 81 f. 89 This translation forms the basis of Uehlinger’s analysis, ibid. 64 ff. The Predeuteronomic basis (unclear in v. 12) is marked in bold, while the Deuteronomic parts of the text have been left in normal type. For present purposes, further literary differentiations can be dispensed with; see Koch, Gefüge (1992), 80 ff, and Arneth, Reform Josias (2001), 193 ff.

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this “fragile combination of indices”90 is, if one wishes to make well-grounded assumptions about the relationship between (religio-social) history and theology. Another, but no less critical example is the history of the prohibition of images. Such a prohibition cannot be plausibly explained by postulating the “transcendence of Yhwh”91 or by pointing to a late explanatory text such as Deut 4:1–40.92 It can only be explained in terms of the history of religion, i.e., it must be reconstructed against the background of the archaeologically-, epigraphically-, and iconograpically-evidenced use of cultic images in Palestine/Israel.93 The prohibition of images is not a ban on art; neither does it forbid the pictorial representation of certain phenomena of the visible world. It is directed specifically against “the making and the use of material cultic images, whether those of the one (one’s own) God or those of other deities”.94 The distancing of the Judaistic faith in Yhwh from the cult of images is connected in theological terms with the confession of faith in the one and only God, a confession that takes its definitive form in the exilic/post-exilic era,95 but whose prehistory stretches back into the pre-exilic era.96 The development of the Old Testament prohibition of images (and Old Testament texts which prohibit images) can only be explained in the context of the difficulty concerning cultic images in Iron Age Palestine/Israel, in other words, on the basis of the correlation of religious history and theology. The above-mentioned examples illustrate the point that the pre-exilic religion of Israel and Judah is a living system of signs and symbols, whose coherence can be understood by means of the correlation between the history of religion and theology. Despite points of contact between the two disciplines, there is a clear division of tasks.97 A “history of Israelite religion” is responsible for the reconstruction of the system of religion symbols and their effects on everyday life. A more precise definition of the concept “system of religious symbols” is provided in an essay by C. Geertz98, who described religion as a “cultural system”. “Culture”, according to Geertz, refers to a historically-transmitted system of mean-

90

Ibid. 81. Thus de Vaux, Histoire ancienne d’Israël (1971), 434 f. 92 Thus von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments, I (1957/1992), 230 ff; cf. idem, Aspekte (1965), 316 f. On Deut 4:1–40 see Hartenstein, „Gestalt“ Jhwhs (2003), 49–77. 93 See the overview by Uehlinger, Bilderkult (1998), 1565–1570, cf. Hossfeld, Das Werden (2003), 11–22, and Frevel, Bildnis, ibid. 23–48. 94 Uehlinger, Bilderverbot (1998), 1574 (emphasis in original). 95 On the other hand, the exilic emancipation from the cult of images unleashed new forces for the creation of “mental images of God” which no longer required material expression by means of a cultic image (see ibid. 1576). 96 On monotheism in ancient Israel (and in its environment) see, most recently, Albani, Der eine Gott (2000); Smith, Biblical Monotheism (2000); Dietrich/Luz, Universalität (2002), 369–411; Müller, Monotheismus (2002), 1459–1462; van Oorschot/Krebernik (eds.), Polytheismus (2002); Assmann, Gerechtigkeit und Monotheismus (2003), 78–95; Oeming/Schmid (eds.), Der eine Gott (2003); Albertz, Jahwe allein 2003), 359–382; Zenger, Monotheismus Israels (2003), 9–52. 97 See below, 30 ff. 98 Geertz, Religion (1973), 87–125; on the following, see also Janowski, Wohnung (2003), 29 ff. On the definition of “religion” see also Sundermeier, Religion (1995/22001), 25 ff, whose definition reads as follows: “Religion is the communal response of human beings to the experience of transcendence that takes shape in rite and ethics” (ibid. 27); on this see also idem, Religionswissenschaft (1995/22001), 198 f; Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 46 ff. 91

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ings, expressed in symbolic form, which help human beings to share, to preserve, and to develop further their attitudes toward life. According to Geertz, symbols …function to synthesize a people’s ethos – the tone, character, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood – and their world view – the picture they have of the way things in sheer actuality are, their most comprehensive ideas of order.99

As a cultural system, Geertz explains, religion tunes human actions to an envisioned cosmic order and, vice versa, projects images of cosmic order onto the plane of human experience. The system of religious symbols formulates a basic congruence between a particular way of life (“ethos”) and particular ideas of order (“world view”), and in so doing sustains each with the borrowed authority of the other. Geertz thus defines a religion as …(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.100

We can clarify this interrelationship between the “conception of a general order of existence” (world view) and the “moods and motivations in men” (ethos) – mediated by verbal and/or pictorial signs – by referring to an Old Testament example. Let us transfer these elements into the system of symbols of the Jerusalem temple theology and then refer back to the central image of Yhwh as king as it is used in the royal/enthronement psalms, Songs of Zion, creation psalms, Songs of ascent, and – with particular anthropological urgency – in the songs of lament and thanksgiving found both in individual psalms (Ps 3–14) and also in texts such as Is 6,1–5; Ezek 1; 10f*; Jer 17,12; Is 66,1 f, etc.101 Concept of YHWH, the God-King of Zion as the central theme of Jerusalem temple theology ↕ Its verbal and/or pictorial expression via elements of the system of religious symbols Places: Temple as “Urhügel”, “mountain”, “palace”, “throne”, “house”, etc. Time periods: Temple/throne “from the beginning”, “from of old”; temple/creation relation Rites: Enthronement of Yhwh /New Year festival, consecration of the temple, etc. Symbols:

99 Geertz, ibid. 89. On the current discussion about the concept of culture see Daniel, Kompendium (2001), 443 ff, as well as Jaeger/Liebsch/Rüsen/Straub (eds.), Handbuch (2004). 100 Geertz, ibid. 90 (emphasis mine). 101 See in addition Janowski, Wohnung des Höchsten (2003), 29 ff.

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Cherubim, seraphim, lions, bulls, palm(ette)s, lotus blossoms, pomegranates (decoration of the Jerusalem temple); sacred trees, etc. Texts: Songs of Zion, royal Yhwh psalms, royal psalms, creation psalms, psalms of ascent; songs of lament and thanksgiving, etc. ↕ Corresponding to this expression, faith in YHWH, the God-King of Zion If, in addition, one takes into account the architectural and iconographical aspects of the Solomonic temple as reconstructed by Palestinian archaeology, then the theology of the Jerusalem temple appears as a system of religious symbols which, with its images and symbols of Yhwh, the God-King, offered primary orientation to the people of Judah/Jerusalem in the time of the kings. To the limited extent that a language allows itself to be reconstructed out of its words alone, so also does the orientation of a culture allow itself to be read out of isolated images and rites. Whoever wants to understand a language must learn its syntax and grammar; and whoever wants to understand a religion must “focus his gaze on complex constellations, wherever they are to be found”.102 Such constellations are to be found in the system of religious symbols that serves as a sort of “inventory of signs” of a culture. 2.1.2. Old Testament Theology / Theology of the OT Religio-historical analysis is concerned, therefore, with the religious framework, i.e. the connection of the relevant archaeological, epigraphical, and iconographical data to a historically-comprehensible whole.103 There are here, as the following overview makes plain, objective points of contact with the tasks assigned to “Old Testament theology”. The approach is, however, different. The history of Israelite religion

Old Testament theology

enquires into the historical context of Old Testament traditions and the religious, cultural, and contemporary factors which underlie them:

enquires into the Old Testament traditions both in their literary and redaction historical context and in their theological form:

Religious history of the “God of the fathers”: “God my/your father”, etc.

Narrative perspective of the patriarchal traditions, Gen 12–36

Early history of Yahwistic faith I: source/etymology of the name Yhwh104

Narrative perspective of the Exodus tradition(s) Exod 1–15

102 103

Keel/Uehlinger, Göttinnen (41998), 14. See Waschke, Zur Frage (2001), 253–266.

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Early history of Yahwistic faith II: Yhwh in the context of Early Iron Age representations of deities

Narrative perspective of the traditions regarding Yahwistic wars, Exod 14:14–25; 15:2 1b i.a.

Late Bronze / Early Iron Age ancestor worship / cult of the dead

Witch of Endor 1 Sam 28:*3–25 i.a.

Ancient Near East sun-god traditions

Solarisation of Yahwistic faith, Is 1:21–26, Zeph 3:5, Ps 84:12 i.a.

Development of Judaistic monotheism; Yhwh in the context of polytheistic pantheons of deities (Kuntilet-‘Ag’rud, Hirbet el-Kom i.a.)

Literary and theological history of mono-Yahwistic statements, Deut 6:4 f i.a.

Religious history of the prohibition Literary and theological history of of images; cultic / divine images in the texts which prohibit images, Exod Israel’s environment (cult stands from 20:2–4 par. Deut 5:6–8 i.a. Taanach; Masseboth) Representations of Jerusalem theology in the Hebrew epigraphy of the eighth century BCE105

Royal Yhwh psalms Ps 93, etc. Songs/psalms of Zion Ps. 46, 48, etc.

Primary relics from seventh- / sixth-century Judah (seal amulets, terra cotta, epigraphy)

Records of reform 2 Kgs 23:5*11*12*(?) i.a.

Silver amulet from Ketef Hinnom

Aaronic blessing Num 6:24–26

Neo-Babylonian astral cult, Marduk theology

Monotheism of Deutero-Isaiah Is 43:10 f; 44:6–8 i.a.

Hellenistic literature and philosophy

Refutation of Greek literature and philosophy in Ecclesiastes

This table is incomplete to the extent that a third column could be added to show the influence “exercised by ANE theologies, explicitly or implicitly, on the Old Testament, both where they are accepted and where they are rejected”.106

104 By contrast, enquiry into the early history of the Yahwistic faith is viewed as unnecessary by Levin, Das vorstaatliche Israel (2000), 386–403: “It (i.e. the YHWH-Religion) is to some extent manifest by its proper name from the ninth century as a state cult in the Northern Kingdom under the Omrian dynasty, and can also have found its way at that time into the Davidic dynasty of Judah, which was related by marriage to the Omrian dynasty. Nothing is known about the period prior to this time, and nothing needs be known, either for the history of religion or for theology” (p. 393). One does not have to be a positivist (in the sense of C. Ginzburg, see above p.1) to keep this question open; see Görg, Jahwe (1995), 260–266. 105 See Renz, Beitrag (2001), 144. 106 Uehlinger, Medien (2004), 152.

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K. Koch107 and Chr. Uehlinger108 have recently illustrated by several examples the relevance for the Old Testament of “ANE theologies” – that is, the theologies of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, etc. – in the form of objective analogies or direct cross-interconnections. The discussion becomes even more complex if one takes Ancient Greece into consideration, as does one of the more recent trends in research.109 As far as the division of labour is concerned, “Old Testament theology” certainly goes a step further than the “history of Israelite religion”, in the first place because its primary source, the Old Testament, is by its origin “the great paradigm for the activity of God in the past, present and future”110 – and, connected to this, in the second place, because Old Testament theology is concerned not only with the genesis of the tradition but with its validity.111 Thus Old Testament theology advances into the field of systematic thought or, to phrase it more cautiously, the field of thinking in correlation (Denken in Zusammenhängen).112 One could take Old Testament theology, in the first place, to refer to something brought to the Old Testament from the outside. It is, in fact, anchored in the structure of its texts. The primary medium of Old Testament theology is the word, not the word dissolved into the world of images and symbols, as occurs in the history of Palestinian-Israelite history, but the word in close correlation to it. Always bound up with the word, however, is a reflective function which bridges the distance between word and reality with interpretation.113 The form of such interpretation varies. It expresses itself as narrative, as prophetic word, or as prayer. In this way, experienced history is invariably collected, recalled, realised, and handed down, and in such a way that the comprehensive horizon of a common experience – the turning of God toward Israel – is either preserved or appears anew. This phenomenon can be described in the words of R. Smend as the “theologisation of originally ‘pre-theological’ traditions”, that is, as “theology in the Old Testament”.114 One can point to numerous examples of this phenomenon of “theologisation in the Old Testament”. For instance, the patriarchal narratives (Gen 12–26) – which are neither biographies of nor reportage about people from a gray antiquity (“Age of the Patriarchs”) but narratives about the history of Israel’s

107

Koch, Israels Rolle (2004), 32 ff. Uehlinger, ibid. 156 ff. 109 See in addition Witte/Alkier (eds.), Die Griechen (2003), and iidem, Die Griechen (2004). 110 Levin, Israel (2000), 386. 111 Cf. Spieckermann, Liebeserklärung Gottes (2001), 199: “One can well-nigh conceive of the transition from the history of Israelite religion to Old Testament theology as the transition from the plurality of truth claims to the binding perception of one truth claim. The commitment to one particular truth claim opens up the truth of the chosen approach first and foremost in its profundity”; cf. idem, Theologie (2002), 264: “One can speak of theology in the Old Testament there where Israel’s experiences of God find expression in conceptions which deliberate upon contingent encounters with God with regard to their basis, their coherence, and their timeless validity”; and Kaiser, Gott (2000), 1100–1104. 112 Cf. Smend, Theologie im Alten Testament (1986), 111. 113 See in addition Schüle, Deutung (2004), 1 ff. 114 See in addition ibid. 110–111 ff. 108

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origins,115 in other words, narratives that reach back to the past in order to cast light upon the present. It is precisely this light that creates structure in the experiences for the contemporaries. Or the “short historical Credo” of Deut 26:5116 that represents a late summarizing product of the tradition of Israel’s oldest history, which belongs, within its Deuteronomic framework, in the context of the yearly offering of the first fruits. After putting the first fruits in a basket, the individual Israelite (father of the family…“you”) shall go to the chosen place and there, before Yhwh, make the confession that interprets the blessing of the harvest as the fruit of his forefathers’ deliverance out of Egypt.117 Ritual framework (1) When you have come into the land that Yhwh your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, (2) you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that Yhwh your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that Yhwh your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. (3) You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to YHWH your God that I have come into the land that he swore to our ancestors to give us.” (4) When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of YHWH your God, (5) you shall make this response before YHWH your God: (NRSV) Form of prayer (Credo) Events prior to the formation of the people in Egypt 5a*.b “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor;118 he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. Hardship 6 the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, Lament 7a we cried to Yhwh, the God of our ancestors; 115 See in addition Blum, Komposition der Vätergeschichte (1984), especially 478 ff, and Fischer, Erzeltern Israels (1994), and idem, Gottesstreiterinnen (22000). 116 On the interpretation, see Braulik, Deuteronomium 2 (1992), 191 ff, and, more recently, Gertz, Stellung (2000), 30–45; on the following cf. also Janowski/Zenger, Jenseits des Alltags (2003), 66 ff. 117 Within the Deuteronomic framework (v.1 f, 10b, 11), v.3 f and v.10a may belong to a later literary stratum, cf. Gertz, Stellung (2000), 36 ff. By contrast, the recapitulation of salvation history in vv.5a*-9 was penned by a Deuteronomic-Deuteronomistic hand. Whether v.5a* (“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor”) and v.10a represent the oldest pre-Deuteronomic version of the offering prayer (see, for instance, Braulik, ibid. 191) cannot be proved on the basis of literary criticism, see Gertz, ibid. 118 See GB18 2 s.v. ‫דבודֽ אבא ֽ[עאבד‬ ֺ ]ְ Qal 1, or: “ein dem Untergang naher Aramäer”, cp. Gertz, ibid. 36.44.

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Prayer heard 7b Yhwh heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. Deliverance 8 Yhwh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10a So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, YHWH, have given me”. Ritual framework (10b) You shall set it down before Yhwh your God and bow down before Yhwh your God. (11) Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that Yhwh your God has given to you and to your house. If Deut 26:1–11 is read on the level of its final textual form, a time is reached once a year in the cultic life of Israel at which the Israelite farmer publicly affirms – to himself and to others (“we”, “us”) – the reality of his life, in so far as he confesses his faith in the God of the Exodus.119 The horizon of interpretation is that of the way in which Yhwh has led the people of God out of slavery in Egypt up to the present time in the Promised Land “flowing with milk and honey” (v. 9bβ). By reciting this creed, the Israelite farmer not only recalls the epoch of salvation history long past; but he also reckons it, as is evident in the following verses, as ‘now’, that is, at the moment of the festival: “So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, Yhwh, have given me” (v.10a). With regard to the issue of the origin of the Old Testament and its theological form, we have here the case of an active reception of salvation history which assumes not simply observers but “participants in the tradition, because they alone have an interest in actualization and application”.120 The example of Deut 26:1–11 allows one to draw the inference concerning the biblical literary tradition: the point here is God’s deliverance and blessing, not in the disassociated objectivity of the report, but in appropriative participation in the biblical tradition, and, consequently, not as discourse about God, but as a confession of his turning toward them, a turning experienced daily and yearly. So, in this way, the collective memory grows in Israel, resting upon the two foundational pillars of “repetition” and “realization”.121 While repetition guarantees that each celebration – the annual offering of the first fruits – is connected to the previous celebration – the festival of the year before – thus creating a “ritual 119 Regarding Israel’s origins in Egypt, emphasized in v.5a*-9, see Gertz, ibid. 43 ff. Further to the model “Not – Klage – Erhörung – Rettung” in vv.*5–9 see Braulik, ibid. 192 f. 120 Dohmen, Biblische Auslegung (2004), 177. 121 See Assmann, Gedächtnis (1992), 17 f.

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coherence”122, realization draws an event long past – such as the Exodus out of Egypt – into the relative present. By so doing, it invests the present with a fundamental horizon which might offer an orientation beyond the day-to-day business and forge an identity. This horizon is the fundamental salvation history – realised in the medium of collective memory, as it is reflected in the Exodus traditions or in the narratives of Israel’s patriarchs, and in the narratives … the well of Beer-lahai-roi, of Abraham in Mamre, of Jacob at Bethel and at theJabbok, and many other, multiple stories of sanctuaries out of sunken religions that Israel embraced as its own stories. In retrospect, there is no doubt that Yahweh has revealed himself in them. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he has chosen Israel along with them. That means, however, that Israel has appropriated not only the stories as empty hulls for its perception of God, but also, with those stories, its “forefathers’” experiences of God which bridge the long spaces of time and with which Israel knew itself to be joined.123

The above-mentioned examples show that the essential function of theology is explication, in particular, explication of discourse about God as it has been reflected in the biblical texts.124 As an explication of discourse about God, Old Testament theology – as does any theology – renders an account of the faith. This explication increasingly appears in discursive form, using concepts and building didactic sentences, employing arguments and undertaking scholarly interpretations.125 According to this definition, the discipline of “Old Testament theology” displays the discursive character of biblical tradition, i.e. it endeavours to understand the diverse and, at times, contradictory statements regarding Yhwh and Israel as aspects of a “Systematik von Redevollzügen” which “considers the manifold discourse about and to God in the texts themselves which have been passed down, and which rethinks this discourse as a symbolic-interactive relational event”.126 As far as its methodical construction is concerned, any “Old Testament theology”, first and foremost, has to be focused on the Old Testament texts and their religious, social, and literary history and not on dogmatic loci (themes and

122

Ibid. Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 55. Cf. ibid. 16 f. This definition agrees with that provided by Wagner, Gegenstand (1996), 41. Wagner has defined the task of Old Testament theology on the basis of the concept of “Gottesrede” and its twofold meaning as genitivus objectivus and genitivus subjectivus,: “Discourse about God is… more than recitation, more than re-telling or imitation. Discourse about God, that is also praise of God, confession, mediation on God, suffering from God and his world, scepticism, mistrust, and the curse flung at God, that is the conscious turning toward and the conscious turning away from God, the proclamatio and the traditio, and also the contradictio. But the expanse of the horizon must also be apprehended in the functional realm of the genetivus subjectivus. Divine discourse is not only the comprehensible and the clear, salvation-bringing Word of God, divine discourse is also the dark and incomprehensible speaking, activity, and dealings of God in nature and history, in collective and individual destiny, divine discourse is also the creative and sustaining, the directing and the judging and the giving word. Theology has to do with the consolation and the claim of God and with the claim and the consolation of the human being!”; cf. also Waschke, Frage (2001), 260 ff. 125 See Smend, Theologie im Alten Testament (1982), 111 ff. The phenomenon of canonization comes into view along with scholarly interpretation; see the following remarks. 126 Hardmeier, Systematische Elemente (1995/22001), 112 f, cf. Keel, Religionsgeschichte Israels (2001), 93. 123 124

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concepts).127 Such a theology will, by means of historical enquiry, encounter developments and structures which have shaped the texts in different ways from their origins to their final forms. Of particular importance is the observation that the texts in question were not only collected, but selected, commented upon, and supplemented. Since this process of redaction is theologically significant for the formation of the Old Testament as a collection of writings, any Old Testament theology must continue to pay careful attention to each of those “interfaces” (Schnittstellen),128 such as Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomic history, or the Priestly Source, which have been decisive for the redaction of Old Testament texts as well as the process of canonization. The term “canonization” raises an issue which must be considered in the concluding section of this essay.

2.2. The Hermeneutical Function of the Canon The issue inherent in the term “canon” is concerned with the rule for the development of Old Testament traditions and their theological validity. Old Testament theology should “not only summarise those theological concepts found in the Old Testament”,129 but also say which of these are valid, for this reason, that the Old Testament is not only a document of the history of Israelite religion but a coherence of meaning that understands itself to be the authoritative representation of the life experiences and values of a community of faith.130 How is this coherence achieved, and what does it mean for Old Testament theology? In order to answer this question, let us refer once more to the phenomenon of redaction. Redaction, as R. G. Kratz defines it, is “the editing of a given text within the framework of the written tradition and the reforming of this text into a new whole”.131 In contrast to the study of preliminary stages (Vorstufenkonstruktion) 127 Cf. Waschke, Frage (2001), 256; further to this postulation see also Crüsemann, Religionsgeschichte (1995/22001), 76 f; Lohfink, Fächerpoker (1995), 230, and Schmitt, Religionsgeschichte Israels (1995), 49 ff. If, therefore, a preliminary decision is hereby reached concerning the construction of an “Old Testament theology”, considerable leeway, however, still remains regarding the outworking of this task (in literary-historical, theological-historical, or canonical terms). Good arguments can be made for all three of these options, although not given in detail here. If, however, the phrase “integrative perspectives”, included in the subtitle of this volume, is to have any meaning, then it is precisely with a view to the arrangement of “Old Testament theology”; see Jeremias, Neuere Entwürfe (2005), 127 ff. 128 On the term “Schnittstellen” see Waschke, ibid. 257. Uehlinger, Kultreform (1995), 84 refers, for example, to the era of Josiah and his successors down to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple as an “Achsenzeit” both for the religious history of Judah and for Old Testament theology, cf. also Keel, Zeichensysteme (2004), 46 ff, and, in general, Woschitz, Achsenzeit (1998), 97. The epoch of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE would be one such “Schnittstelle” with regard to the development of Old Testament traditions and therewith for the formation of Old Testament theology; on this topic, see also Smend, Theologie im Alten Testament (1982/1986), 111 ff. 129 Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 70. 130 See also Groß, Auslegung (2001), 111: “The belonging of a writing to a canon implies the judgment that the writing is, at least in theory, of present normative meaning for the group which accepts this canon”. On this understanding of the canon, see Assmann, Gedächtnis (1992) 93 ff.103 ff; idem, Fünf Stufen (1999) 11 ff; Lohfink, Bibel (1995), 71–81, further Herms, Erneuerung (1995), 171 f; Spieckermann, Verbindlichkeit des Alten Testaments (1997/2001), 174 ff; Janowski, Der eine Gott (1999), 283 f; Hermisson, Alttestamentliche Theologie (2000), 25 ff,.66 ff i.a. 131 Kratz, Redaktionsgeschichte (1997), 367.

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used in the history of religion and tradition, redaction criticism – which illuminates the “process of textual formation in its literary and factual dimension”132 – leads to the synthesis of that which has developed (Synthese des Gewordenen) by tracing the formation of a text from its beginnings through all of its literary stages up to its present form (final form), and by, at each stage, enquiring into the religio- and sociohistorical implications”.133 None of these possible preliminary stages is – as the example of 2 Kgs 23:4–15134 shows in hindsight – handed down unchanged; all of them have been redacted from a later, mostly exilic/post-exilic point of view. Redaction does not entail the eradication of older texts or concepts, but the reformulation of their original meaning under new conditions of understanding.135 If redaction criticism thus reveals the diversity of the biblical tradition in its literary and factual dimension, then the question cannot be avoided as to how this can be reconciled with the thesis regarding the canon as a coherence of meaning: Is this meaning created initially by the canon, and the canon alone, or is this meaning merely expressed by the canon, to the extent that it reveals the accumulation and nuances of meaning that are excavated by redaction criticism?136 This issue – central for Old Testament theology – entails various aspects which will be sketched below. 2.2.1. Inscripturation (Schriftwerdung) and Canonization As clearly demonstrated by recent scholarship, inscripturation and canonization are not identical, though they are closely related to one another.137 How to ex-

132

Ibid. The religio- and socio-historical dimension of the texts, therefore, is anchored here; see, for example, the traditions regarding the revelation of the name YHWH in Exod 3:*12–15 and Exod 6:2–8. While these “theological programme” texts find their meaning in themselves and in their respective literary contexts, they do not, in my view, dispense with further enquiry into their implications for history of religion (etymology and source of the name YHWH, hypothesis concerning ‘God of the fathers’); for a different opinion, see Waschke, Frage (2001) 262. A text such as Exod 3:14 lives, among other things, from the tension between the etymology and the religious history of the name YHWH (derived from H . WY “to blow, to fall”, cf., for example, Görg, Jahwe [1995], 261 f) and its theological interpretation in the context of Exod 3,*12aβ-15 (above all, note the promise of aid in v.12a). 134 See above, 23 ff. 135 Cf. Kratz, ibid. 370: “Out of an old text, by means of redaction, emerges a new one which is, however, not new at all, but which claims to be entirely old and which is concerned to balance the various textual, factual, and temporal layers against each other”. 136 On this alternative see Groß, Auslegung (2001), 116 ff.128 ff, 139 ff, i.a. In his critical evaluation of the thesis proposed by Lohfink, Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (2001), 13–47, namely, that all the books of the canon have together made a canonical declaration, Groß presses his point home: “Whoever intended such an elevated meaning, created this total referentiality, ever thought these theological thoughts? Not the composers of the individual books down to the last editors. Very well, perhaps those who were responsible for the canonization? Admittedly, nothing is now known about their identity, criteria, and intentions” (p. 129). These questions are, in my view, legitimate. For all that, the question concerning the hermeneutical function of the canon for the understanding of the biblical text (“canonical meaning”) not only remains unanswered, but has to be raised more fundamentally and comprehensively than before; see here Zenger, Psalter (2003), 111–134; Steins, Bibelkanon, ibid. 177–198; and Hieke, Verstehen (2003), 75 ff. 137 See Kratz, Schrift, Heilige (1999), 402–407. 133

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plain this relationship in historical terms remains a matter of controversy.138 On the one hand, the redactors of the biblical texts set important ideas regarding content in motion which make the later process of canonization possible without determining it. On the other hand, canonization is not a phenomenon which, in any secondary sense, crowns a literary process that has already been concluded. The forces which drive the process of canonization must be “understood as the sum of the literary-theological impulses involved in the formation of biblical texts (B. Childs, J. A. Sanders), on the one hand, and the forces of those communities that live with and out of the texts (D. M. Carr), on the other hand”.139 Both forces may, at times, interact with one another, so that a process – one which is essential for the development of “theology in the Old Testament” – of “Zusammendenkens”140 of the respective single traditions (Pentateuch, Prophets, Psalter, etc.) which belong together can occur. 2.2.2. Transition from Canonization to the closure of the Canon The transition from canonization to the closure of the canon is fluid. The closure of the canon is the act by which the text/s receive/s its/their normative form and function. From that point, the text/s is/are no longer productively “carried on” but instead “copied” and subject to external interpretation.141 As a written-down “cultural memory”, the canon is a complex structure: it ‘seals’ the historically-developed sense of a pluriform collection of writings and, at the same time, opens it anew. Indeed, it is closed to the outside by the inclusion of selected texts and by the exclusion of rejected ones, by reason of its inner diversity and the complex architecture of its parts, but it is open for new constructions of meaning. The older texts/textual strata do not function simply as preconditions of understanding for the final texts, created by redaction(s), but they themselves are of theological significance.142 As a collection of comparable texts with relevant meaning, the

138 See the thorough discussion by Saebø, ‘Zusammen-Denken’ (1988), 115–133, cf. further Kratz, Schrift, Heilige (1999), 403 ff. 139 Fabry, Text (31998), 40; see also Groß, ibid. 125 ff. On the further thesis proposed by Fabry, Qumrantexte (1999), 251–271, that “the canon of sacred scripture…is primarily not a well-ordered entirety of meaning, but…(bears) all the marks of a product that has come into being through negative exclusion” (254); see Zenger, Psalter (2003), 126 f. 140 See here Saebø, ‘Zusammen-Denken’ (1988), 121 ff, and Jeremias, Neuere Entwürfe (2005), 127 ff. On the process of this “Zusammen-denkens” and, as the case may be, the integration of that which belongs together (Zusammenschlusses des Zusammengehörigen) see Knauf, Audiatur (1998), 18–126. 141 Cf. Assmann, Gedächtnis (1992), 93 ff, who defines this process in the following terms: “A canonical text…embodies the normative and formative values of a community, the ‘truth’. These texts want to be taken to heart, followed, and translated into practical reality. In this regard, there is less need for recitation than for interpretation. It reaches the heart, not the mouth and ear. However, the text does not speak directly to the heart. The way from the listening ear or the reading eye to the understanding heart is as long as the way from the graphic or phonetic surface to the formative and normative meaning. Thus any contact with canonical texts calls for the third factor, the interpreter, who steps between the text and those whom it is addressing, and who releases the normative and formative impulses embedded in the surface of the text. Canonical texts can only unfold their meaning within the three-way relationship of text, interpreter, and listener” (94 f). 142 See in addition also Groß, Auslegung (2001), 139 f.

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canon forms the “framework within which the various voices are raised” but it “does not take their place”.143 2.2.2.1. Canon and theology The canon defines and guards the disparate individual texts which are formed from various perspectives on the same points of reference (Yhwh and Israel), i.e. the same question (Yhwh’s turning to Israel and Israel’s response to Yhwh).144 All theological leitmotifs and central concepts that have played a role in the discussion about the “centre” of the Old Testament can be classified within these parameters.145 Of particular importance is the insight that the canon is a complex quantity which portrays something akin to a “contrastive unity”.146 In this sense, it corresponds to the polyphony of Old Testament discourse about God, which in the diversity of its expression is a mirror of the unity of God.147 To anyone seeking a criterion for the inner coherence of the Old Testament, Zimmerli’s reference to “faith in the Selbigkeit of God” lends itself well:148 God whom the Old Testament knows under the name Yhwh and whose witnesses it explains in manifold and, at times, contradictory ways”.149 An Old Testament theology should allow for three afore-mentioned aspects: on the level of individual texts and textual connections for the reconstruction of their historical implications, religious, social, and theological; on the level of books and parts of the canon for the “venture of Zusammen-Denkens”150; and on the level of the canon for the development of the diverse and contrastive discourse about God which desires, again and again, to find new expression as God’s address to human beings.151 Old Testament theology should not overlook the fact that the final form of the Old Testament was no accident, but “can far better be described as a purposeful Zusammen-Denken which, in theological terms, has been characterised, above all, by the knowledge of the effective word of God”.152 Israel’s knowledge of God, the world, and humanity is reflected in the canon, which, as a frame of reference, delimits and guards the individual biblical texts, but which also opens up space for effective development and contrastive dialogue.153 Whether we allow them this space or not depends upon ourselves and our theological (re)constructions. 143

Ibid. 134, cf. 129 ff.139 ff, and Waschke, Frage (2001), 263 ff. Cf. Waschke, Frage (2001), 264; idem, Einheit der Theologie (2001), 267–277; and Schmitt, Religionsgeschichte Israels (1995), 52 ff. 145 See above 10 ff.15 ff; see besides Waschke, Frage (2001), 264. 146 Zenger, Heilige Schrift (31998), 19 f, cf. also Oeming, Biblische Theologie (1995), 89 ff. 147 On the polyphony of Old Testament discourse about God, see also Ricoeur, Gott (1981), 45– 79; and Krüger, Einheit (1998), 15–50. 148 See above p. 17, n. 67. 149 Cf. Waschke, Einheit (2001), 275: “The Old Testament achieved its coherence neither in a uniform theological concept, nor therefore out of a uniform image of God, but in the relatedness of all records and traditions to YHWH, the God of Israel”. 150 Zimmerli, Rezension (1963), 105, cf. above p. 43, n. 142. 151 In view here is the standpoint of the observer, fundamental for biblical exegesis; see Dohmen, Biblische Auslegung (2004), 177, 185 ff, and, further, Waschke, Frage (2001), 261. 152 Saebø, ‘Zusammen-Denken’ (1988), 124. 153 See in addition Dohmen, Biblische Auslegung (2004), 174 ff. 144

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3. Concluding Thoughts My deliberations on the conditions and the principles of “Old Testament theology” are determined by the issues at the forefront of German-speaking Old Testament scholarship in the last thirty years. They represent my own personal standpoint. Just as important is the other point of view expressed in the designation, “Old Testament”. This designation is a Christian one; and “Old Testament theology” is, consequently, a Christian undertaking. In conclusion, I wish to respond to the accusation that any Christian “theology of the Old Testament” bears in itself the “seed of anti-Judaism”,154 and that it is, therefore, unfitted for Christian-Jewish dialogue. A fundamental insight of recent scholarship consists of the observation that Israel’s Bible, historically speaking, had a “double exit” (doppelten Ausgang): in the form of the Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash, on the one hand, and in the form of the Old Testament, on the other.155 That has two implications: Firstly, Israel’s Bible has undergone “different ways of continuance and ‘completion’ of which the New Testament is only one possible way”.156 And: with Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash, Judaism has developed a form of reception of biblical traditions fully as independent as the Christian form but containing other moments of truth.157 If we as Christians take this insight seriously, then we must recognize, at the same time, that both Jews and Christians read the biblical writings in a canon that presupposes a different group identity in each case – the Church here, the Synagogue there.158 Since “canon” signifies that the text in question – here the Old and New Testament, there Israel’s Bible with Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash – is a coherent texture of meaning, composed as the correct and authoritative representation of the life experiences and values of a community of faith, then we Christians are, therefore, faced with the task of reading the twofold Christian Bible as one canonical text. This twofold Christian Bible is “the historical outcome of a canonical process which cannot be explained solely on historical grounds”, because: “The canon is the appropriate external form of the inner intention to make binding the true witness of the writings in question”.159 Christian theology and the Christian Church, therefore, are bound – indeed, at every moment of their existence! – to enquire into the relationship of both Testaments and the witness to one God which has been handed down in them. Only when we read and theologically interpret the Old Testament in this sense, as the first part of a twofold Scripture, will we be able to speak in any appropriate

154

Albertz, Plädoyer (1995/22001), 13. Further to the “double exit (doppelten Ausgang)” of the Old Testament see Rendtorff, Bedeutung des Kanons (1991), 54–63; Koch, Der doppelte Ausgang (1991), 215–242; Zenger, Heilige Schrift (31998), 11 f; Janowski, Der eine Gott (1999), 255 ff; Groß, Auslegung (2001), 135 ff i.a. 156 Luz, Traum (1997), 281. 157 Cf. Spieckermann, Verbindlichkeit des Alten Testaments (1997/2001), 193 f. 158 On the following see Janowski, Der eine Gott (1999), 281 ff, and idem, Leserichtung (2001), 179 ff; cf. also the set of theses proposed by Spieckermann, Verbindlichkeit des Alten Testaments (1997/2001), 192 ff. 159 Spieckermann, Verbindlichkeit des Alten Testaments (1997/2001), 176. 155

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way of the one God of both Testaments. And only if we do not, in the process, lose sight of the historical fact of the “double exit” will we also be able to nip theological anti-Judaism in the bud. The explanation of this fact in historical and theological terms is one of the key future tasks of any “Old Testament theology”.160

160

A further future perspective can be found in the intensive consideration of feminist aspects; see the articles in Oeming, (ed.), Theologie des Alten Testaments (2003).

Chapter Forty-eight

Modern Theories of Translation with Special Regard to Recent Bible Translations By Jan de Waard, Amsterdam Works cited : K. Aland, “The Text of the Church?”, Trinity Journal 8 (1987), 131–144. − K.-B. Aland, Der Text des Neuen Testamentes. Einführung in die wissenschaftlichen Ausgaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik (Stuttgart 1982). − J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford 1968). − G.  J. M.  Bartelink, Hieronymus Liber de optimo genere interpretandi (Epistula 57). Ein Kommentar (Leiden 1980). − D. Barthelemy, Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, 2. Isaïe, Jérémie, Lamentations (Fribourg/Göttingen 1986). − W.  Benjamin, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers”, in: H. J. Störig (ed.), Das Problem des Übersetzens (Darmstadt 1969). − M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford 1971). − R. G. Bratcher/ W. D. Reyburn, A Translator’s Handbook on the Book of Psalms (New York 1991). − C. C. de Bruin, De Statenbijbel en zijn voorgangers. Nederlandse bijbelvertalingen vanaf de Reformatie tot 1637 (Haarlem 1993). − M. Buber, Zu einer neuen Verdeutschung der Schrift. Beilage zum ersten Band: Die fünf Bücher der Weisung: Verdeutscht von Martin Buber gemeinsam mit Franz Rosenzweig (Heidelberg 1954); Das Buch der Preisungen (Köln, 1963); − C. Buzzetti, La Bibbia e la sua communicazione (Torino: Leumann 1987); La Bibbia e la sua traduzione (Torino: Leumann 1993). − J. C. Catford, A Linguistic Theory of Translation (London 1967). − M. B. Dagut, A Linguistic Analysis of Some Semantic Problems of Hebrew – English Translation (Jerusalem 1971). − F.  Delitzsch, Biblischer Commentar über die poetischen Bücher des Alten Testaments, Dritter Band: das Salomonische Spruchbuch (Leipzig 1873). − H.  Dürbeck, “Neuere Untersuchungen zur Sapir – Whorf – Hypothese”, Linguistics 145 (1975) 5–45. − J. P. Dufour, Tradition et innovation. Recherches sur la traduction de la Bible version “autorisée” par le roi Jacques I d’Angleterre 1611 (Thèse de doctorat de troisième cycle; Saint-Etienne: Université de Saint-Etienne). − P. Ellingworth, “The Scope of Inclusive Language”, BiTr 43, Nr. 1 (1992) 130–140. − D. N. Freedman, “Preface” in J. W. Welch (ed.), Chiasmus in Antiquity. Structures, Analyses, Exegesis (Hildesheim 1981). − M.  Govaert, “Critères de la traduction”, in: K. R. Bausch/ H. M. Gauger (eds.), Interlinguistica. Sprachvergleich und Übersetzen. Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Mario Wandruszka (Tübingen 1971), 425–437. − E. A. Gutt, Translation and Relevance. Cognition and Context (Oxford 1991); Relevance Theory. A Guide to Succesfull Communication in Translation  (Dallas/New York 1992). − F.  Güttinger, Zielsprache. Theorie und Technik des Übersetzens (Zürich 1963). − B. Hatim/ I. Mason, Discourse and the Translator (London/ New York 1990). − J. Heller, “Grenzen sprachlicher Entsprechung der LXX.  Ein Beitrag zur Übersetzungstechnik der LXX auf dem Gebiet der Flexionskategorien”, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Orientforschung 15 (1969), 234–248. − T.  Hermans (ed.), The Manipulation of Literature. Studies in Literary Translation (London 1985). − Z. C. Hodges/A. L. Farstad (eds.), The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text (Nashville 1982). − H. Hövelmann, Kernstellen der Lutherbibel. Eine Anleitung zum Schriftverständnis (Bielefeld 1989). − W. von Humboldt, Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (Darmstadt 1949). − R. Jakobson, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation”, in: R. A. Brower (ed.), On Translation (Harvard 1959). − R. Kassühlke, “Bibelübersetzen trotz kultureller Distanz”, in H. Reinitzer (ed.), Das Dolmetschen für Kunst und Arbeit sey. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Bibelübersetzung, VB 4 (1982) 151–163; “Beobachtungen und Überlegungen zum Thema ‘Studienbibel’”, in: S.  Meurer (ed.), Mittelpunkt Bibel.Ulrich Fick zum 60. Geburtstag (Stuttgart 1983), 133–147. − A. de Kuiper, “Aquila Redivivus.

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Idiolectics: A Dutch Idiosyncrasy”, in: R.  G. Bratcher/ J.  J. Kijne/ W.  A. Smalley (eds.), Understanding and Translating the Bible 80–85 (New York 1974). − S.  Levinson, Pragmatics (Cambridge 1983). − J. P. Louw, “Discourse Analysis and the Greek New Testament”, BiTr 24, Nr. 1 (1973) 101–118. − M.  Luther, Biblia Germanica (Facsimile Edition of the Luther Bible of 1545; Stuttgart 1967); idem, in: J.  K. F.  Knaake/ G.  Kawerau/ P.  Pietsch (eds.), Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 38 (Weimar 1883); idem, Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen (Ausgabe von E. Arndt; Halle/ Saale 1968). − J.-C. Margot, Traduire sans trahir. La théorie de la traduction et son application aux textes bibliques (Lausanne 1979). − J. Massyngberde Ford, Revelation (Garden City, NY 1975). − B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek NewTestament (London/New York 1993); The Early Versions of the New Testament. Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations (Oxford 1977). − S. Morenz, “Feurige Kohlen auf dem Haupt”, ThLZ 78 (1953) 187–192. − G. Mounin, Les problèmes théoriques de la traduction (Paris 1963). − P. Newmark, Approaches to Translation (Oxford 1981); A Textbook of Translation (New York 1988). − E. A. Nida, Bible Translating (London 1961); Toward a Science of Translating. With Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating (Leiden 1964); Componential Analysis of Meaning. An Introduction to Semantic Structures (The Hague/Paris 1975). − E. A. Nida/ W. D. Reyburn, Meaning Across Cultures (New York 1981). − E. A. Nida/ C. R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation (Leiden 1982). − H. M. Orlinsky, Essays in Biblical Culture and Bible Translation (New York 1974). − J. Ortega y Gasset, Miseria y Esplendor de la Traducción. Elend und Glanz der Übersetzung (Munich 1957). − C. Rabin, “Cultural Aspects of Bible Translation”, Sion Nr. 7–8 (1971) 237–246. − K. Reiss, Texttyp und Übersetzungsmethode. Der operative Text (Kronberg/Ts. 1976); Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Übersetzungskritik. Kategorien und Kriterien für eine sachgerechte Beurteilung von Übersetzungen (Munich 1971); “Elend und Glanz der Übersetzung oder: Was haben die kleinen grünen Männchen vom Mars mit dem Übersetzen zu tun?”, in: W. Pöckl (ed.), Europäische Mehrsprachigkeit (FS zum 70. Geburtstag von Mario Wandruszka; Tübingen 1981); “Adequacy and Equivalence”, BiTr 34, Nr. 4 (1983) 301– 308; “Frauengerechte Sprache?” (Paper presented to the September 1990 meeting of the UBS Europe Middle East Subcommittee on Translation). − K. Reiss/ H. J. Vermeer, Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie (Tübingen 1984). − J.  Reiling/ J.  L. Swellengrebel, A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of Luke (Leiden 1971). − W. M. W. Roth, “The Numerical Sequence x/x+i in the Old Testament”, VT 12 (1962) 300–311. − H. P. Rüger, “Der Umfang des alttestamentlichen Kanons in den verschiedenen kirchlichen Traditionen”, in: S. Meurer (ed.), Die Apokryphenfrage im Ökumenischen Horizont (Stuttgart 1989), 137–145. − F. Schleiermacher, “Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens”, in: H. J. Störig (ed.), Das Problem des Übersetzens (Darmstadt 1969), 38–70. − R. Schoell / W. Kroll, Corpus Juris Civilis. III Novellae (Berlin 1895). − I. L. Seeligmann, The Septuagint Version of Isaiah. A Discussion of its Problems (Medelijden en verhandelingen van het voor-aziatisch egyptisch genootschap “Ex Oriente Lux”, 9; Leiden 1948). − M.  Snell-Hornby, Translation Studies. An Integrated Approach (Amsterdam 1988). − D.  Sperber/ D.  Wilson, Relevance. Communication and Cognition (Cambridge, MA 1988). − G.  Steiner, After Babel. Aspects of Language and Translation ( London 1975). − G. Toury, In Search of a Theory of Translation (Tel – Aviv 1980). − C.  M.  Turbayne, The Myth of Metaphor (New Haven/ London 1963). − I.  Vachon – Spilka, “On Translating the Mental Status Schedule”, Meta 13 (1968) 4–20. − J.  P. Vinay/J. Darbelnet, Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais. Méthode de traduction (Paris 1968). − J. de Waard, “Biblical Metaphors and their Translation”, BiTr 25, Nr.  1 (1974) 107–116; “The Translator and Textual Criticism”, Bib. 60 (1979) 509–529; “La Septante: une traduction”, in: R.  Kuntzmann/ J.  Schlosser (eds.), Etudes sur le Judaïsme Hellénistique (Paris 1984), 133–145; “The Notion of Equivalence in the Science of Translating”, in: J.  Karavidopoulos e.a. (eds.), Diakonia. In Memoriam Vasilios Stogiannos 295–306 (Thessaloniki 1988); “Translation as Cultural Transfer”, in: K. C. Felmy e.a. (eds.), Kirchen im Kontext unterschiedlicher Kulturen. Auf dem Weg ins dritte Jahrtausend 745–751 (Göttingen 1991) L. de Regt/J. de Waard/J. Fokkelman, Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in The Hebrew Bible (Leiden, 1996). − J. de Waard / E. A. Nida, From one Language to Another. Functional Equivalence in Bible Translating (Nashville 1986). − H. Wegener, Frauengerechte Sprache in der Bibel in Blick auf die Revision der Guten Nachricht (Vortrag gehalten während des Jahresausschusses der deutschen Bibelgesellschaften, November 1989). − E.  R. Wendland, The Cultural Factor in Bible Translation (London 1987); “Culture and Form / Function Dichotomy in the Evaluation of Translation Acceptability”, in: J.  P. Louw (ed.), Meaningful Translation: Its Implications for the Reader 8–40 (Reading/ New York 1991). − C.  Westermann, Genesis (BKAT I; Neukirchen 1982). − J. W. Wevers, ‘Septuagint’,IDB IV, 273–278. − H. Wildberger,

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Jesaja (BKAT X; Neukirchen 1982). − W. Wilss, The Science of Translation. Problems and Methods (Tübingen 1982). − W. L. Wonderly, Bible Translations for Popular Use (London 1968). − B. Zuber, Das Tempussystem des biblischen Hebräisch. Eine Untersuchung am Text (Berlin/ New York 1986).

1. Presuppositions Any discussion of the theme Bible Translation has to be based on two general presuppositions and one specific one. The first two are: translation is possible and a science of translation exists. The last one is: a translation of the Bible is permissible. The first premise considers the possibility of translation. In his letter of 23 July 1796 to August Wilhelm Schlegel, Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote: Alles Übersetzen scheint mir schlechterdings ein Versuch zur Auflösung einer unmöglichen Aufgabe. Denn jeder Übersetzer muß entweder an einer der beiden Klippen scheitern, sich entweder auf Kosten des Geschmaxks und der Sprache seiner Nation zu genau an sein Original, oder auf Kosten seines Originals zu sehr an die Eigentümlichkeiten seiner Nation zu halten. Das Mittel hierzwischen ist nicht nur schwer, sondern geradezu unmöglich..

This utterance has to be understood in the light of the new discovery of the “Physiognomie der Völker” in Romanticism and therefore in the light of another judgment of the same von Humboldt: “Die Sprache ist gleichsam die äußerliche Erscheinung des Geistes der Völker: ihre Sprache ist ihr Geist und ihr Geist ihre Sprache, man kann sich beide nicht identisch genug denken”.1 One century later, the same thinking can be found with one of the principal representatives of the Sprachinhaltsforschung (linguistic content research), Leo Weisgerber, in the axiom: “quod non est in verbo, non est in mente”.2 Against this viewpoint, G. Mounin has, already more than forty years ago, correctly observed that the theory of the impossibility of translation is exclusively based upon exceptions.3 Further research in the field of translation problems has confirmed Mounin’s thesis. Wills no doubt marks the state of present knowledge when we writes: “This means that, in principle, any source language text can be replaced by a target language text having a comparable communicative function (with the exception of certain lyrical productions)”.4 According to the second premise, the existence of a ‘science of translating’ is obligatory. Such an existence has frequently been denied. The most extreme example of such a rejection is found with Peter Newmark: “In spite of the claims of Nida and the Leipzig translation school, who start writing on translation where others leave off, there is no such a thing as a science of translation, and never will be”.5 Such an extreme position can no longer be shared.

1 2 3 4 5

von Humboldt, Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues (1949), 60 f. Dürbeck, Neuere Untersuchungen zur Sapir – Whorf – Hypothese (1975), 5. Mounin, Les problèmes théoriques de la traduction (1963), 266. Wilss, The Science of Translation (1982), 45. Newmark, Approaches to Translation (1981), 113.

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On the other side, the use of the term ‘translation science’ is not without problems. When, for example, representatives of the so-called ‘Manipulation School’ use the Dutch term ‘vertaalwetenschap’ something totally different is expressed as with the expression ‘Übersetzungswissenschaft’ in the sense of the Leipzig School. For that reason, in modern research preference is frequently given to the use of a more neutral term like ‘Translation Studies’ as an independent discipline.6 The specific premise concerns only translations of religious texts in general and of the Bible in particular. It states that Bible translation is allowed. As Rabin observes: “We ought therefore to start with the basic question: should sacred scripture be translated? ..In traditional Islam, there were at most interlineary glosses. In some Islamic countries the Qu’ran is still taught without translating it into the language of the pupils”.7 In medieval Judaism the situation is the same. In so far as translated texts exist, they serve for a better understanding of frequently obscure source texts which remain the only ones allowed for liturgical use. In a very extreme way the scroll Megillath Tanith from the first century has expressed itself. There it is stated that when the Torah had been rendered into Greek, during three days a full darkness came over the world. Also the sixteenth treatise of the Corpus Hermeticum, Horoi, deplores the day in which the divine instruction had been rendered into the Greek language. This “Elend der Übersetzung” has, of course, nothing to do with a certain loss in the process of translating as already expressed by the grandson of Jesus ben Sira in the introduction to his Greek translation of the book: “You are therefore asked to read this book with good will and attention and to show indulgence in those places where, notwithstanding our efforts at interpretation, we may seem to have failed to give an adequate rendering of this or that expression; the fact is that there is no equivalent for things originally written in Hebrew when it is a question of translating them into another language”.

2. Translation Equivalence Bible translation is therefore possible and allowed and it can become the object of scientific discussions. Historically, the center of discussion has really only been the question of faithfulness in translating. This is comprehensible since ‘sacred scripture’ is concerned, the rendering of God’s speaking in human language. The question of ‘faithfulness’ has often only been hinted at as in the expression of an anonymous person in the period of the Renaissance: “With translations it is like with women, when they are beautiful, they are not faithful, and when they are faithful, they are not beautiful”. Or as in the clever play upon words of Matthias Claudius: “Wer übersetzt, der untersetzt”. In a more elaborate way, Bible translator Jerome expresses himself when he quotes with approval Horatius:

6 7

Snell-Hornby, Translation Studies (1988), 7–37. Rabin, Cultural Aspects (1971), 242.

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Auch Horaz, ein scharfsinniger und gelehrter Mann, empfiehlt dem erfahrenen Übersetzer in seiner Ars Poetica dasselbe: “und Ihr sollt nicht den getreuen Übersetzer spielen indem Ihr einen Text Wort für Wort wiedergibt”.8

For the rest, however, the Middle Ages are only interested in literal translation as the quotations of Jerome in Boethius and Johannes Scotus Erigena show. The last one observes: Wenn man meine Übersetzungsweise undeutlich findet, dann soll man mich nur als den Übersetzer dieses Werkes betrachten und nicht als den Erklärer. Vor allem habe ich Angst mich den Fehler des ‘getreuen Übersetzers’ zuschulden kommen zu lassen.9

The single quotation marks try to underline the irony. Only at the present time is the idea of ‘faithfulness’ in translation described and defined in a completely new way by means of the categories of equivalence and adequacy. In this chapter the definitions given by Reiss (1983), Reiss/Vermeer (1988) and de Waard (1988) have been adopted.10 Equivalence should then first of all be described with regard to the source language, the source text and the source culture.

2.1. Source Languages and Source Texts With regard to Bible translation in general the major problem is that we do not possess an original text of the Hebrew and Aramaic Bible nor of the so-called Deutero-Canon and that we never will have one! For the Christian New Testament the situation is in so far different that we have the same critical text in two different editions: Nestle-Aland, Novum testamentum graece in its 27th revised edition, and the UBS Greek New Testament in its fourth revised edition. In the last one, an apparatus with approximately 1500 variants semantically important for translators is found. These variants are followed by an evaluation of a degree of certaint: A means that the running text is certain, B that the same is almost certain, and C that it is difficult to decide whether the variant should be in the running text or in the apparatus. Further, translators have access to a textual commentary written by Metzger11 in which the reasons for the evaluation by the committee are explained. The identical text of both editions have generally become the base text of modern translators although the discussion about the majority text (textus receptus) remains a hot issue.12 Still more difficult is to define the second stage of the text of the Hebrew Bible. This stage consists of the earliest form or forms of text which can be determined by the application of techniques of textual analysis to existing textual evidence.

8

Bartelink, Hieronymus Liber de optimo genere interpretandi (1980), 13. Patrologia Latina 122, 1032. 10 Reiss, Adequacy and Equivalence (1983), 301–308; Reiss/Vermeer, Grundlegung (1984), 124– 170; de Waard/Nida, From one Language to Another (1986). 11 Metzger, A Textual Commentary (1993). 12 Hodges/Farstad, The Greek New Testament (1982); Aland, The Text of the Church? (1987). 9

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The most frequently used source text is the so-called ‘Leningradensis’, manuscript EBP 1 19a from the Russian National Library at St. Petersburg, dating from the beginning of the eleventh century (1008 AD). This is not only the base text of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, but also that of the new edition of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta of which now six volumes are available: 18, Megilloth; 20, Ezra and Nehemia; 5, Deuteronomy; 17, Proverbs; 13, The Twelve Minor Prophets, and 7, Judges. In order to obtain the second stage of the Hebrew text a full analysis has to be made of the more than ten centuries older manuscripts from Qumran and of the primary translations like the Septuagint (as Heller correctly remarks: “das erste grosse Übersetzungswerk der Weltliteratur, das sich bemüht das Hebräische ins Griechische ..zu transponieren”13). The other primary translations to be investigated are the Syriac translation of the Peshitta and the Aramaic translations of the Targums. Of great importance further are the Greek translations by Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, and the Latin translations of the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate. It will be clear that first of all the different methods and techniques of translation used by translators of individual books have to be studied in detail before a difference in Hebrew Vorlage could be taken into account, as I have discussed elsewhere.14 However, most translators are no experts in textual criticism. For that reason already more than twenty years ago the United Bible Societies have undertaken a project in which about 5000 important textual problem cases would be discussed and evaluated. This project has now been completed and after the publication of five preliminary volumes, five final volumes under the title Critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament are now available. That only minor differences in the vocalization of the Hebrew consonant text can have important consequences for the translation, can be briefly demonstrated. Whether one renders the beginning of the second line of Isa 3:12 with “(Youths oppress my people,) women rule over them” (NIV) or with “(O my people, their oppressors pillage them) and extortioners rule over them” (NJB) finally only depends on whether one vocalizes the Hebrew text with Symmachus, the Vulgate and the Peshitta as nashim (‘women’) or with Septuagint, Aquila and Theodotion as noshim (‘usurers’). The difference in the first line is significant but conditioned by the textual decision in the second line. The committee has unanimously adopted the second vocalization,15 and thanks to its discussion the Bible translator has now access to a more reliable source text. It also occurs that there is no doubt about the correct form of the source text one interprets but much uncertainty with regard to its meaning. When a translator has to deal with a source text which is more than a thousand years old in a restricted corpus exclusively in written language, this is very often the case. Especially the so-called hapax legomena, words which occur only once, cause difficulties in translation. By comparing these words with related words in related Semitic languages, scholars have often tried to solve these problems. That some 13 14 15

Heller, Grenzen sprachlicher Entsprechung der LXX (1969), 234. de Waard, La Septante: une traduction (1984), 133–145. Barthélemy, Critique textuelle, 2 (1986), 23.

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accidents have happened in the relatively short history of ‘comparative philology’ is shown by a number of ‘pan-babylonian’ and ‘pan-ugaritic’ readings of the Hebrew Bible which most probably have nothing in common with the intended meaning of the Hebrew text. Many of these comparative philology treatments illustrate the neglect of the simple linguistic truth that the meaning of an expression is the meaning which the expression has in its own language, not the meaning which the related form in a related language has. The lack of correspondence in the meanings of the German-Dutch word pair ‘Ausfahrt/uitvaart’ (funeral!), or of the French-English word pair ‘habit/habit’ or even of the English-German word pair ‘home/Heim’ may serve as a convincing illustration of this truth. In spite of all this, and as J. Barr has convincingly shown, ‘comparative philology’ can be of great importance for the methodology of translating. The weak points of this approach are not of phonetical or morphological nature, but of semantic character. Reliable semantic criteria have to be developed as, for example, the contextually conditioned notion of ‘contiguity’.16 To give a small example: when one interprets the text of Eccl 2:25 with the Einheitsübersetzung in the following way: “wer leidet Schmerzen, ohne daß es von Gott kommt?”, one can justify this translation by making an appeal to the related Akkadian word hashum, ‘be anxious’. However, when one provides a rendering as in the New American Bible: “For who can .. drink apart from him?”, we can find a comparison with Arabic hawita and hasa. Finally, when one reads with the revised Luthertext: “Denn wer kann … genießen ohne ihn?”, one can quote as comparison Ugaritic hsh, ‘pleasure’. In fact, only the last translation is acceptable when the criterion of ‘contiguity’ is applied. The translator of classical Hebrew is confronted with what is usually called a ‘dead’ language, but this can, in a paradoxal way, show the importance of so-called ‘field-linquistics’. Accordingly the father of modern Arabic literature, Yusuf Al Khal, who has devoted the last period of his life entirely to the new Arabic Bible translation, has demonstrated that Arabic language and culture can contribute gratly to a better understanding of the Hebrew source text. Some examples may illustrate this. Song 4:9 has generally been rendered as in the Revised Standard Version: “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace”. The jewel and the necklace with their lack of climax do not reach a right understanding of the text. On the other hand, the cultivated Arab speaker immediately understands that next to the “glance of your eyes” only “the gracious turn of your neck” can be meant. He will quote immediately the Yemenite poet Aus-Ibn-Hager who compares the beloved one with a gazelle which stretches its long neck shaking the leaves off the Arak tree. Earlier Bible translations like the Leyden Translation and Moffatt simply present this understanding: “you have ravished my heart, with a glance from your eye, with a turn of your neck”. No Arabic speaker will understand the uttering of Esau to Jacob in Genesis 25:30: “Give something of that red, that red there”. However, when he hears in Hebrew ‘adom Arabic’dam (a natural flavour), then he has to do with a normal cultural expression and a long

16

Cf. de Waard, The Translator and Textual Criticism (1979), 524–525.

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commentary on Esau becomes totally superfluous. Therefore the arguments from field-linguistics should not be neglected by those who live in academic seclusion. One should, however, also take into consideration that Bible translation not only concerns the Bible, but also many different confessions with their own hermeneutics, their own canon of the Bible and their own text traditions and that they require faithfulness with regard to all these traditions.17 One is faced with a great number of Oriental versions like Coptic, Sahidic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Georgian, Old Slavonic, which generally speaking depend on Greek text traditions and therefore in certain Bible books such as Isaiah and Proverbs have sometimes little in common with the Hebrew Bible. It is true that the chapter on Text and Canon in the so-called “Guidelines for interconfessional cooperation in Bible translating”, as they have been established by the United Bible Societies and the secretariat for the promotion of Christian unity of the Vatican in 1968 and profoundly revised in 1987, has rendered great service. It is also true that with some of the autokephalos Orthodox churches special arrangements have been made. However, not all translation projects are interconfessional and no general consensus exists between independent Orthodox churches with regard to translation. One can therefore easily understand the problems and frustrations of the translators of the most recent Armenian translation when they had to take the classical Armenian Grapar version as their source text and ‘correct’ this classical text there where the translators of the classical text had misunderstood their Greek Vorlage and the Greek Vorlage again where it was in conflict with the Hebrew source text! And finally they also had to describe the most important divergences in footnotes appended to the new translation. Nevertheless, such a laborious work is extremely important because of the relation between scientific openness on the one hand and traditional restraint on the other. It is only through scientifically justified textual choices that mutual appreciation is made possible. For example, in the present state of our knowledge, one can only say that the Old Greek version sometimes testifies to greater originality. In the case of Isa 53:8, the Masoretic text reads “an affliction for him /for them”. Almost no modern translation renders the nominal form. Many translations, mostly without saying so, translate the verbal form of the Qumran scroll 1QIsa, translating with minor variations “(for the transgression of my people) he was stricken”. “However, translators are encouraged to do neither the one nor the other, but to follow the Old Greek which reflects the oldest Hebrew parent text, and translate as in the New Jerusalem Bible: ‘having been struck dead for his people’s rebellion’”. In verse 11 of this same chapter, the Masoretic text is lacking an object after the verbal form “he will see”. Instead of trying to supply different objects from the context which are none of them convincing, one better follows with three Qumran scrolls the object they include: “light”, especially since this reading is also supported by the Old Greek.

17

Cf. Rüger, Der Umfang des alttestamentlichen Kanons (1989), 137–144.

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2.2. Source Culture and Problems of Translation With the exception of Greece and Israel where one can define Bible Translation with a certain right as an intracultural communication, everywhere else Bible translation exclusively concerns intercultural communication with all the problems implied. As has been stated in Nida/Reyburn: “All communication across cultures involves problems of meaning, for the words of any language have meaning only in terms of the ideas, values, and circumstances of concrete human lives”.18 The greatest problems of translation are due to the cultural distance in communication.19 Certain, culturally new, interpretations are therefore necessary in the transfer process. In Indoeuropean languages ‘joy’ is mainly experienced in the heart, but in many Chadic languages the seat of joy is in the liver whereas in Hebrew the kidneys are the seat of enjoyment. In the Hebrew source culture the ‘heart’ is not the seat of feelings but of decisions of the will. Therefore, the “hardening of the heart” in Hebrew has nothing to do with insensitivity, but with the refusal of certain actions even against one’s better judgement. One could, for example, literally render the Hebrew expression “hardening the heart” into the Fulani language, but this gives the wrong sense. For in that language “hardening the heart” means to ‘be courageous’. The Fulani equivalent of the Hebrew will be “hardening the head”. Such a new cultural interpretation is certainly not restricted to the domain of feelings, it is also obligatory when culturally conditioned gestures are concerned. When, for example, in Luke 18:13 a tax collector is “beating his breast”, he expresses by this symbolic act regret and repentence. However, by the same gesture the Motswana of South Africa express self-awareness and a certain degree of agressiveness. In that culture the functional equivalent of the gesture woud be: “he seized his beard”. In other cultures again the equivalent gesture would be “seizing the abdomen” or “beating the head”.20 Culturally conditioned new interpretation does, however, not mean unverifiable cultural substitution. Translation should always be controlled by the application of clear and accepted rules. When, for example, Matt 6:19: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume” has been rendered in the Toradja language with “You should not accumulate cotton on earth, which the white ants and rust consume”, this translation should be considered functionally equivalent. For the general Greek word for ‘treasures’ which has no literal equivalent in the Toradja language, has been replaced by the specific word for ‘cotton’ because ‘cotton’ is the greatest treasure for the Toradja. Further, the substitution ‘white ants’ for ‘moth’ is allowed since both insects belong to the same semantic domain.

18 19

Nida/Reyburn, Meaning across Cultures (1981), 1. Kassühlke, Bibelübersetzen trotz kultureller Distanz (1982); Buzzetti, La Bibbia (1993), 46–

20

Reiling-Swellengrebel, A Translator’s Handbook (1971), 602 f.

61.

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A new cultural interpretation may also be required in the case of the rendering of simple metaphors.21 For figurative expressions are frequently based upon supplementary components of meaning which again are culturally conditioned: “Language does reflect in certain aspects of its semantic structure those aspects of the culture which for one reason or another have become salient in the lexical contrasts. For example, in many languages of matrilineal societies the kinship term which carries the supplementary component of ‘watchful care’ is the designation of maternal uncle, not that of father. Similarly, in some matrilineal societies Christians have insisted on speaking of God as ‘our mother’, rather than addressing him as their ‘father’. They have rejected a reinterpretation of the diagnostic components of their term for ‘God’ in favor of what they regard as the more relevant supplementary components”.22 Therefore, apart from so-called “borrowed” metaphors such as ‘fox’, the metaphors of the source culture can only very seldom be literally translated. Since they are bearers of the impact, they should preferably be replaced by different, but equivalent, metaphors of the receptor language, if possible, within the same semantic domain. For example, the Tonga farmer will never understand the worry of the psalmist in his cry: “many bulls encircle me” (Ps 22:13) since for him ‘many bulls’ represent fortune. Only when the bull is replaced by the dangerous and unpredictable water buffalo, can the original impact be maintained.23 In the same way it may be difficult to understand that the Hebrew figure ‘cleanness of teeth’ (Amos 4:6) refers to famine reason why it has been substituted in Français Courant by le ventre creux. Cultural reinterpretation may finally be necessary in the domain of metaphysics. This is particularly valid in the case of translations of ‘spirits’ or of the central notion of ‘Holy Spirit’. The frequent literal rendering with words referring to ‘pure’ and to ‘breath’ which have no figurative extension in the receptor language at all, is, of course, no real solution. For that reason, in many Tchadic languages the risk of a translation such as “the shadow of God” has been taken in spite of some unwanted components of meaning. The advantage has been the avoidance of the use of Arabic loan-words which frequently introduce still further unwanted components of meaning.These two examples very clearly show how translation is nothing else than “eine Sondersorte kulturellen Transfers”.24 On the other side, the border lines of legitimate translation are more difficult to define. Actualizing a biblical message by transferring events from a remote past into present time, as, for example, has been done in Clarence Jordan’s Cottonpatch Version, can probably better be marked as a “modern transcription” than as a translation. And maybe such a judgment relates to a certain theological assessment of the notion of history. The question also remains how certain cryptic modern interpretations are to be evaluated. No doubt on the cultural basis of an Anglo-American puritanism, the Today’s English Version has eliminated the notions of ‘womb’ and ‘breast’ 21 22 23 24

Cf. Dagut, A Linguistic Analysis (1971), 96–146; de Waard, Biblical Metaphors (1974), 107–116. Nida, Componential Analysis (1975), 36. Wendland, The Culturtal Factor (1987), 70; Culture and Form (1991), 23. Reiss/Vermeer, Grundlegung (1984), 13.

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from its translation of Ps 22:9 (10). Where other common language translations such as the New International Version still render the text with “Yet you brought me out of the womb; / you made me trust in you / even at my mother’s breast”, the Today’s English Version communicates in an almost uninteresting way: “It was you who brought me safely through birth, and when I was a baby, you kept me safe”. Apart from matters of exegesis, the question whether such a culturally conditioned new interpretation is legitimate is very important since this English version pretends to be a model for translations in the third world and having in mind “people everywhere for whom English is either their mother tongue or an acquired language”, in other words, the many receptors in very many cultures who could perhaps have appreciated the lost figures and who would perhaps have preferred to become “victims of new metaphors”25 rather than victims of the loss of metaphors. The difficulty of defining the borders of legitimate translation is finally also determined by the fact that Bible translation concerns texts from past cultures the details of which are often ignored by the specialists of today. Criteria are frequently lacking in order to be able to decide whether in certain texts one has to do with cultural gestures or with culturally conditioned idioms. When, for example, in the period when Psalm 23 was composed the host in the context of a salutation ceremonial still anointed with oil the heads of his guests, we are simply faced a cultural gesture. Many translators will render the gesture of the original culture, with or without a cultural note, rather literally as in the New Revised Standard Version: “you anoint my head with oil”. However, if the gesture no longer exists, the text expresses in an idiomatic way the feature of hospitality and one could consider the possibility of a rendering as provided in the Contemporary English Version: “You honor me as your guest”. Since the anointing of the head with oil still occurs in such late texts as Luke 7:46, the definition of a cultural gesture seems more likely: “to rub a guest’s head with olive oil was part of the prescribed etiquette followed by a solicitous host as he welcomed his guests”.26 On the other hand, in the case of the expression “on Edom I fling my shoe” (Pss 60:8 and 108:8) one should decide for the opposite. For although this is a symbolic act expressing the right of possession, the gesture was no longer understood. This is clear from the rather early book of Ruth where it has been explained (4:7). For that reason, many translators take the liberty of handling this expression in the same way as other idiomatic expressions. The Bamun translator took the liberty to replace this idiom by a functionally equivalent idiom which originally also was a symbolic act: “I plant my lance in the land of Edom”. In modern European translations occasionally a double translation has been preferred, keeping the figure and supplementing its meaning as, for example in Die Gute Nachricht: “auf Edom werfe ich meinen Schuh, um mein Besitzrecht anzuzeigen”. In the past the meaning has frequently been misunderstood as in the French Capuchin translation of 1762: “Je porterai mes pas jusques dans l’Idumée”.

25 26

Turbayne, The Myth of Metaphor (1963), 27. Bratcher/Reyburn, A Translator’s Handbook (1991), 234.

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3. Receptor Languages and Receptor Texts 3.1. Typology of Translations It would, of course, be possible to present a historical description of Bible translations following more or less the course of history. One would then start with the Ancient Versions, first of all those in Semitic languages (Aramaic, Syriac and Coptic), then the Greek translations with their revisions, followed by the Old Latin versions and Jerome with his Vulgate, in order to finish with the Armenian, Georgian and Slavonic versions. Further one could devote oneself to the translations from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation paying particular attention to the translation by Luther, Robert Estienne and the so-called Geneva Bible as well as to the influential King James Version. After a treatment of Schleiermacher one could finish with a description of contemporary confessional and inter-confessional versions. Although this is the course which is usually followed, it seems to be clearer and more profitable to provide a typological description of Bible translations. In such a description the following types could be distinguished: interlinear translation, literal (or : word for word) translation, philological translation and communicative translation. 3.1.1. The Interlinear Translation In the major written languages of the world word for word translations are frequent. Each word of the Hebrew or Greek original of the first line is matched by an equivalent of the receptor language on the next line in exactly the same slot. The aim of such a bilingual Bibel edition is to lead the user to a better understanding of the source language. However, even in translations which use exclusively the receptor language, the interlinear translation has sometimes been preferred as the ideal type of translation of a holy text: Die wahre Übersetzung ist durchscheinend, sie verdeckt nicht das Original, steht ihm nicht im Licht, sondern läßt die reine Sprache, wie verstärkt durch ihr eigenes Medium, nur um so voller auf das Original fallen. Das vermag vor allem Wörtlichkeit in der Übertragung der Syntax, und gerade sie erweist das Wort, nicht der Satz als das Urelement des Übersetzers. Denn der Satz ist die Mauer vor der Sprache des Original, Wörtlichkeit die Arkade.27

An early example of such literalism is the Jewish Bible translator Aquila from the second century, according to Origen “a slave of the Hebrew expression”. He often goes so far that he tries to render what he considers to be the etymology of a Hebrew word into Greek. For example, the first word of the Hebrew Bible br’šyt (“In the beginning”) he does not render as in the Septuagint with ejn arche/ but with ejn kefalaivw/ (“In the head”) simply because he derives the Hebrew word from a different primary noun with the meaning ‘head’. A literalism in the rendering of grammatical and syntactical features is shown, for example, when 27

Benjamin, Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers (1969), 192.

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Aquila renders the Hebrew accusative indicator (’et) with the incomprehensible Greek preposition syn (‘with’). As a result, Wevers’s conclusion becomes clear: “In fact, Aquila’s text can be understood only by one who is familiar with the Hebrew”.28 Nevertheless, this translation was still used in the Synagogue in the midst of the sixth century. For in a novella of February 13, 553, the Emperor Justinian decided that the translation by Aquila could be used in spite of the fact that the author belonged to a foreign race and his translation shows important differences from the translation of the Septuagint.29 It should also be noted that each period of history has known its Aquila redivivus. For example, in the field of Syriac translations, Thomas of Harkel, bishop of Mabug, had already in 616 finalized a revision of the New Testament which can be characterized as a slavish adaptation to the Greek original: die bis hin zu gleicher Wortstellung und Übernahme griechischer Wörter in syrischer Transliteration so weit geht, daß nicht nur der gute syrische Stil, sonder sogar die Klarheit des Ausdrucks leidet.30

Similarly in the domain of German translations of the last century, one can refer to Die Schrift verdeutscht von Martin Buber gemeinsam mit Franz Rosenzweig, in which Hebrew nomina are rendered by German nomina, and, in addition, expressions derived from the same Hebrew root are marked by the use of expressions derived from the same German root. When such derivations do not exist in the receptor language – and this is, of course, mostly the case – they are simply reconstructed from the prehistory of the receptor language or they are invented and introduced as neologisms. Buber explains this himself with an example:31 Das Nomen ’kodesch’, gewöhnlich durch ’heilig, das Heilige’ wiedergegeben, ist ein dynamischer Begriff, der zunächst einen Vorgang, den der Heiligung, des Heiligens und des Geheiligtwerdens, später erst auch das Heiligtum bezeichnet; daher nicht ‘heilige Menschen’, sondern ’Menschen der Heiligung’, und nicht ‘heilige Gaben’, sondern ‘Darheiligungen’; die Priesteranteile an diesen sind ‘Abheiligungen’, die Gegenstände, die alles was sie berührt zu sakral Ausgesondertem machen, ‘verheiligen’ es, und das Innerste des Heiligtums heißt nicht ‘das Allerheiligste’, sondern als der Ort, von dem alles im Heiligtum sein Geheiligtsein empfängt, ‘das Heiligende [eigentlich: die Heiligung] der Heiligtume.

In fact, the reader is faced here with a theological postulate as Buber explains elsewhere:32 Die hebräische Bibel will als Ein Buch gelesen werden, so daß keiner ihrer Teile in sich beschlossen bleibt, vielmehr jeder auf jeden zu offengehalten wird; sie will ihrem Leser als Ein Buch in solcher Intensität gegenwärtig werden, daß er beim Lesen oder Rezitieren einer gewichtigen Stelle die auf sie beziehbaren, insbesondere die ihr sprachidentischen, sprachnahen oder sprachverwandten erinnert und sie alle einander erleuchten und erläutern, sich mit einander zu einer Sinneinheit,

28 29 30 31 32

Wevers, Septuagint, IDB IV, 273. Schoell/Kroll, Corpus Juris Civilis, III (1895), 714–718. Aland, Der Text des Neuen Testamentes (1982), 204. Buber, Verdeutschung der Schrift (1954), 20. Buber, Preisungen (1963), 211–212.

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zu einem nicht ausdrücklich gelehrten, sondern dem Wort immanenten, aus seinen Bezügen und Entsprechungen hervortauchenden Theologumenon zusammenschließen.

The same considerations are behind the Dutch idiolect translation33 and behind the French Bible translation (in the Christian sense!) by Chouraqui. A good example from the last example is the rendering of Gen 1:8a: “Elohim crie au plafond: ‘Ciels’”. An understandable translation would simply run: “God named the dome ‘Sky’”. The interlinear translation is therefore characterized by an emphasis on the isolated word, by a word for word correspondence, a maximal imitation of formal linguistic aspects, and by a literal rendering of figurative language.34 The same characteristics show at the same time the borders of this translation type and the implicit impossibility of reaching a translational equivalence as defined in this contribution. On the other hand, the interlinear translation can offer an important help to get a better insight into the source language and its structure. Therefore, for certain well defined purposes and certain specific receptors it can function as an adequate translation. 3.1.2. The Literal Translation There is no very clear separation line between interlinear translation on one side and literal translation on the other. Because of this lack of clearness, several translation specialists, like Vinay-Darbelnet,35 Vachon-Spilka36 or Govaert,37 use both distinct notions as synonyms. It is true that both types of translations are, especially in related languages, frequently identical as can be noted, for example, in the English sentence “They were agreeably surprised” and its German counterpart “Sie waren angenehm überrascht”. However, even in related languages they can be non-identical. The literal rendering of the English sentence “I have read the book” in German will be “Ich habe das Buch gelesen” and the interlinear translation *“Ich habe gelesen das Buch”.38 By translating from languages belonging to a different language family, identities are almost excluded. The following comparison between an interlinear and a literal translation of the Hebrew text of 1 Sam 2:1 into English may show this. And-she-prayed Hannah and she-said : It-has-exulted heart-mine in-JHVH, It-is-raised horn-mine in–JHVH, It-is-widened mouth-mine upon-enemies-mine, Because I-have-rejoiced in-salvation-thine.

33 34 35 36 37 38

de Kuiper, Aquila Redivivus (1974), 80–85. Buzzetti, La Bibbia (1993), 181–197. Vinay/Darbelnet, Stylistique comparé (1968), 48. Vachon-Spilka, On Translating (1968), 18–19. Govaert, Critères de la traduction (1971), 432–433. Wills, The Science of Translation (1982), 88.

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And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord; my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation.

(Authorized King James Version)

This example clearly shows the principal difference between the two translation procedures: the interlinear translation takes into account the rules of the syntax of the source text whereas the literal translation takes the rules of the receptor language as standard. This typological distinction is of great importance, since the literal translation is one of the most current translation types. Even in our time this type is still used in the teaching of foreign languages. As noted by Reiss-Vermeer: Dieser Typ dient dazu, zu überprüfen ob der Lernende lexikalische, syntaktische und stilistische Elemente der Fremdsprache korrekt erfaßt hat und sie mit den Mitteln seiner Muttersprache angemessen wiedergeben konnte (und umgekehrt).39

The literal translation is still praised by a number of translation specialists as the ideal type: “My thesis, however, is that literal translation is correct and must not be avoided, if it secures referential and pragmatic equivalence to the original”.40 The classical European Bible translations from the Reformation period belong most of them to this translation type. When, for example, the interlinear translation of Jer 3:5 would run as follows: “Will he reserve for ever, keep to the end?”, the King James Version translates: “Will he reserve his anger for ever? Will he keep it to the end?”. Because the English syntactical grammer demands in both cases an object, whereas Hebrew can make use of an understandable ellipse of the object as a rhetorical figure. Interestingly, the cursive script indicates that these words are lacking in the original and are added here. In this case, no doubt the scientific conscience of the translators becomes transparent. In the contemporary Dutch States General translation, the same words are in parentheses. In this way an existing, international, reformed, system of scientific use has been taken over which had already been practiced in Dutch translations as those of Utenhove and Marnix.41 Such a practice is not found with Luther although he does not render the same text in an essentially different way: “Willtudenn ewiglich zürnen und nicht vom grim lassen” (Luther, 1545). This absence may relate to the fact that Luther is part of a translation tradition characteristic of the the early high German period: “nicht von Wort zu Wort, sondern von Sinn su Sinn”.42 As stated by Luther himself: “alle Schulmeister leren, das nicht der sin den worten , sonder, die wort dem sinn dienen und folgen sollen”.43 Nevertheless, in the case of literal translation there can be no question of equivalence in the way equivalence has been

39 40 41 42 43

Reiss/Vermeer, Grundlegung (1984), 134. Newmark, Approaches to Translation (1988), 68–69. de Bruin, De Statenbijbel (1993), 278. Hövelmann, Kernstellen (1989), 42. Luther,Biblia Germanica (1545/1967), 11.

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defined in this contribution. In a comparison between the Dutch Deux-Aes Bible, inspired by Luther (Dordrecht, 1580), and the official Dutch States General translation (1637), it has been clearly demonstrated how hebraizing the language of the States General translation frequently is and, as far as the New Testament is concerned, by the Hellenizing way the translators express themselves by even copying constructions like nomen+genitivus absolutus (Rom 9:1) and accusativus cum infinitivo (1 Cor 12:3) directly into the receptor language.44 Although with our definition of equivalence, an older term such as “formal-equivalence translation” can no longer be used, that which has been said in this connection with regard to literal translation remains valid. This method of translation “attempts to reproduce several formal elements , including: (1) grammatical units, (2) consistency in word usage, and (3) meanings in terms of the source context. The reproduction of grammatical units may consist in: (a) translating nouns by nouns, verbs by verbs, etc.; (b) keeping all phrases and sentences intact (i.e. not splitting up and readjusting the units); and (c) preserving all formal indicators, e.g. marks of punctuation, paragraph breaks, and poetic intention… A consistent formal equivalence translation will obviously contain much that is not readibly intelligible to the average reader”.45 On the other hand, the positive evaluation of literal translations made by Nida in the same context also remains true: “ ..they are often perfectly valid translations of certain types of messages for certain types of audience”. The borders of literal translation become of course immediately apparent in cases where an identical linguistic form is lacking in the receptor language. The Greek language, for example, does not have a specific causal form like the Hebrew. For that reason, the Septuagint translator of Isaiah paraphrases in three different ways his Hebrew parent text: (1) by using a verb like ‘to do’ or ‘to make’ followed by a second verb or an adjective as in 43:23: “I did not make you tired of incense”; (2) by causative-active transformation, like in 41:22: “tell us (let us hear) what things shall come to pass”; (3) through causative-passive transformation as in 42:9: “before its appearance it will be made known to you (I will make hear)”.46 To quote another example, a number of languages in the world do not have a passive verbal form. As noted by Nida-Taber: “The problems of active and passive constructions also figure largely in the problems of transfer. This is especially true in languages which may have no passive at all, or which may have a decided preference for the active. In such cases passives must be changed into actives or pseudo-actives, e.g., They received punishment”.47 This then means that the participant implicit in the text when identifiable by the context – which mostly is the case – should be explicitly mentioned. Although a certain change with regard to the focus of the original cannot be denied, such a procedure remains obligatory. Even in those cases where God seems to be the implicit agent for the thesis defended by many exegetes of the existence of a so-called “passive of divine avoid44 45 46 47

de Bruin, De Statenbijbel (1993), 274. Nida, Toward a Science of Translating (1964), 165–166. Seeligmann, The Septuagint Version of Isaiah (1948), 55–56 Nida/Taber, The Theory and Practice (1982), 114.

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ance” is a pure invention of theologians.48 When, however, in certain languages a passive verbal form occurs but with a less frequent distribution, or with a more frequent one as in Nilotic languages, than in Hebrew or Greek, a regular literal translation may become impossible for stylistic reasons. These few examples may already be sufficient to describe some of the border lines of literal translation beyond which the application of this translation type becomes impossible. 3.1.3. Philological Translation Only partly different from the literal translation is the philological one, which has also been characterized as the learned translation.49 On this translation type the translation method represented by Schleiermacher is based: Aber nun der eigentliche Uebersetzer, der diese beiden ganz getrennten Personen, seinen Schriftsteller und seinen Leser, wirklich einander zuführen, und dem letzten, ohne ihn jedoch aus dem Kreise seiner Muttersprache heraus zu nöthigen, zu einem möglichst richtigen und vollständigen Verständnis und Genuß des ersten verhelfen will, was für Wege kann er hiezu einschlagen? Meines Erachtens giebt es deren nur zwei. Entweder der Uebersetzer läßt den Schriftsteller möglichst in Ruhe, und bewegt den Leser ihm entgegen; oder er läßt den Leser möglichst in Ruhe und bewegt den Schriftsteller ihm entgegen. Beide sind so gänzlich von einander verschieden, daß durchaus einer von beiden so streng als möglich muß verfolgt werden, aus jeder Vermischung aber ein höchst unzuverlässiges Resultat nothwendig hervorgeht, und zu besorgen ist daß Schriftsteller und Leser sich gänzlich verfehlen.50

In the case of Schleirmacher and his philological translation, the first movement of bringing the reader to the author is concerned. In the correct description of Reiss: Die Funktion der gelehrten Übersetzung besteht also darin, dem gebildeten und interessierten Leser der Zielsprache, der die Ausgangssprache nicht oder nicht ausreichend behrrscht, das Eindringen in fremde Geistes- und Vorstellungswelten zu erleichtern, ihm der eigenen Sprache fremde, nicht oder noch nicht heimische ästhetische Prinzipien, künstlerische Auffassungen und Verfahrensweisen nahezubringen.51

The receptor therefore gets informed about the way in which the author of the source text has communicated with his receptors. In this kind of teaching the formal characteristics of the source text, its thematical structure, and the specific style of its author, take a central position. Although this “process of understanding” certainly implies alienation, the degree of alienation between different translations of this type may vary greatly. Ortega y Gasset is in this respect certainly an extreme case.52

48

Margot, Traduire sans trahir (1979), 199. Güttinger, Zielsprache (1963), 28. 50 Schleiermacher, Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens, in: Störig, Das Problem des Übersetzens (1969), 47. 51 Reiss, Texttyp und Übersetzungsmethode (1976), 101. 52 Ortega y Gasset, Miseria y Esplendor (1957), 86–89. 49

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During many centuries this type of philological translation has been considered as the ideal translation type in the area of rendering world literature (Belloc, Brower, Cary, Goethe, Nabakov, Pasternak) and philosophical texts (Toury).53 It is therefore not amazing that many Bible translations can be classified under this type. One should particularly cite the editions of the so-called Jerusalem Bible in major languages of the world, the New American Bible and the New Revised Standard Version in the English language area, the editions of the Bible de la Pléiade and of the Traduction œcuménique de la Bible in French. In all these cases commented Bible editions are concerned in which a more or less elaborate material in footnotes explains the obscuritues of the translation. To take again the example of 1 Sam 2:1, the translation of the New American Bible is, not taking into account some different textual decisions, not unlike the literal translation: And as she worshiped the Lord, she said: “My heart exults in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God. I have swallowed up my enemies; I rejoice in my victory.”

Only the obscure ‘horn’ has now been explained in a footnote as symbol of strength and other texts on the same are cited for comparison. Still more explanations can be found in editions like the Stuttgarter Erklärungsbibel and The New International Version Study Bible. Introductions into individual biblical books, detailed explanations of the Bible text, textual references, wordlists identifying different objects and cultural features which may not be known to all readers, comments on text traditions, chronologies and maps, they all move the reader to the author. In more recent days, however, it is thought that these ‘study Bibles’ do not necessarily have to be connected with the philological translation type. Even for the communicative translation type such editions seem to be very important and necessary.54 The philological translation may be fully adequate. However, one can rarely speak in this type of translation about equivalence with the source text. The only exception could be with Bible texts of the so-called expressive text type. In these texts the focus is entirely on the sender of the text, on the artistic way in which he or she has expressed his or her emotions. In that case, analogy in translation can only be reached by a method in which full identification with the author/sender takes place.55 As noted by Reiss elsewhere,56 in such a case it is understandable that translators zur Übernahme von Konventionen der Ausgangskultur neigen, also den philologischen Übersetzungstyp bevorzugen, weil die konventionelle Ausdrucksweise ohnehin vom Autor individualisiert wird – besonders in Sprachkunstwerken von hohem Rang.

53 54 55 56

Toury, In Search of a Theory (1980), 117. Kassühlke, Bibelübersetzen trotz kultureller Distanz (1982), 133–147. Reiss, Texttyp und Übersetzungsmethode (1976), 20 Reiss/Vermeer, Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie (1984), 197.

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3.1.4.0. Introductory Remarks It is important to note that an initial impetus with regard to this translation type in the field of Bible translation exists. I am particularly thinking about the insight of Jakobson that “languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they can convey”.57 Through contrastive linguistics it has been shown that the lack of correspondences between languages is especially found in deictic categories. With this constatation the main problem in Bible translation in languages which possess so-called “honorific pronouns” is sharply elucidated. One of the most complicated problems is probably presented in the Tamil language of certain villages in which six pronouns of the second person exist which render different gradations of the relationships between sender and receptor.58 Another initial impetus has been provided by Catford’s attempt to set up a linguistically oriented theory of translation. The emphasis put on contextually determined meanings of words as well as on the situation context of the language event, has been of considerable importance for Bible translation. In addition, his comparison between Russian and English verbal aspects59 has helped to solve one of the main problems of Bible translation, how to transfer the Semitic verbal aspect system into the mainly temporary Indo-European verbal system. The simple fact that many contemporary Bible translations in the same language frequently differ from each other in that they place the same source text in the past, in the present or in the future, has been a source of confusion for many modern receptors. Zuber is also no doubt correct in considering the rendering of 53% of the 6000 analysed Hebrew finite verbal forms by the present tense in the Einheitsübersetzung as an unsatisfactory solution.60 How the right understanding of a Hebrew verbal aspect can change the understanding of a whole text, may briefly be explained by the case of Jonah 4:5. In nearly all translations this verse is rendered in more or less the same way, as follows: “Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city”. However, instead of translating “and made a booth for himself there”, one should render “he planned to make a booth for himself there”. In other words, he wanted to do this, but he did not do so. This is the only translation which fits with an understanding of the context and which does not make the story of the fast growing bush in the next verse incomprehensible. Only the ancient translators have desperately tried to relate booth and bush to each other, without having been able to convince anybody. The proposed translation has even had consequences for the discourse structure of Jonah: the story of 4:5–9 in a temporal frame precedes the dialogue of 4:1–4. It has already become clear that the translation of tense and aspect creates numerous problems for Bible translators. An East-African language such as, for example, Cichewa makes a distinction between a past which still influences the

57 58 59 60

Jakobson, On Linguistic Aspects of Translation (1959), 236. Levinson, Pragmatics (1983), 69–70. Catford, A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1967), 73–75. Zuber, Das Tempussystem des biblischen Hebräisch (1986), 83.

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present and one which no longer does so. Many languages possess separate verbal forms for a recent past and a past which is further away; and, sometimes, parallel to this, distinct forms for a near future and a future far away. Other languages again like the Hopi language in Arizona, do not have any word, grammatical form or idiomatic expression for time, or even for movement. Only aspect is obligatory. It will be clear that the necessary transpositions to be made in translation present questions to the source text which frequently can only be answered in an extremely hypothetical way. In the light of the present situation, the value of these early impulses is rather limited. As noted by Hatim/Mason: “Yet much of the discussion is about structural contrasts between language systems rather than about communication across cultural barriers and about individual, de-contextualised sentences instead of real texts. Thus, translation theory becomes a branch of contrastive linguistics, and translation problems become a matter of non-correspondence of certain formal categories in different languages”.61 In these preliminary remarks not only should the early impulses be mentioned, but also two recent new impulses, the influence of which on Bible translation is not yet fully evident. The first one is related to the appearance of the so-called ‘Manipulation School’. In this school the importance of linguistics is only recognized when the translations of “unmarked, non-literary texts” are concerned. Linguistics is not able to analyze and to demonstrate the many layers of literary works. These can only be handled by the science of literature. The paradigm of the study of literary translation contains much to look forward to: “a view of literature as a complex and dynamic system, a conviction that there should be a continual interplay between theoretical models and practical case studies; an approach to literary translation which is descriptive, target-oriented, functional and systemic; and an interest in the norms and constraints that govern the production and reception of translations, in the relation between translation and other types of text-processing, and in the place and role of translation both within a given literature and in the interaction between literatures”.62 Important for Bible translation is the important insight that with regard to the receptor language “all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose”.63 However, the statement that the reproduction of an original is nothing but a complete utopia and the rejection of any question of equivalence of texts resulting from this statement, create many problems for the translation of texts which are not only literary, but also religious. The second new development is the origin of the so-called ‘Relevance Theory’. According to Sperber/Wilson this is “a new approach to the study of human communication. This approach is grounded in a general view of human cognition. Human cognitive processes, we argue, are geared to achieving the greatest possible cognitive effect for the smallest possible processing effort. To achieve this, the individual must focus his attention on what seems to him to be the most relevant information available. To communicate is to claim an individual’s attention: hence to communicate is to imply that the information communicat61 62 63

Hatim/Mason, Discourse and the Translator (1990), 26. Hermans, The Manipulation of Literature (1985), 10–11. Hermans, ibid. 9.

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ed is relevant. This fundamental idea, that communicated information comes with a guarantee of relevance, we call the principle of relevance. We argue that the principle of relevance is essential to explaining human communication. We show how the principle of relevance is enough on its own to account for the interaction of linguistic meaning and contextual factors in utterance interpretation”.64 The importance of relevance theory for translation in general and for Bible translation in particular has recently been developed in two different publications by Gutt.65 It should be admitted that what has been said, for instance, about the multiple layers of the intended message of Matt 2 and about the secondary communication situations in this chapter is worth reading. However, it has not yet become sufficiently clear how these considerations can influence in concrete terms the ultimate form of the translated text. 3.1.4.1. The Communicative Type of Translation This type of translation is in the context of Bible translation finally the result of a movement going back to Nida and his initial concept of “dynamic equivalence translation”, directed to the receptor language. ‘Dynamic equivalence’ is “the quality of a translation in which the message of the original text has been so transported into the receptor language that the response of the receptor is essentially like that of the original receptors. Frequently, the form of the original text has been changed; but as long as the change follows the rules of back transformation in the source language, the message is preserved and the translation is faithful. The opposite principal is formal correspondence”.66 In today’s discussion the term ‘dynamic equivalence’ is no longer used: ”The expression ‘dynamic equivalence’ has, however, led to some confusion, since the term ‘dynamic’ has been understood merely in terms of something which has impact and appeal. Accordingly, to avoid misunderstanding such terminology, this text employs the expression ‘functional equivalence’, particularly since the twin bases for effective translation seem to be best represented in a socio-semiotic and socio-linguistic orientation, in which the focus is upon function”.67 The functional equivalence translation, sometimes also called “socio-semiotic translation” is in its recent realizations not essentially different from the “communicative translation”. For in both cases we are concerned with eine Übersetzung die man zumindest sprachlich nicht die Übersetzung ansieht; eine Übersetzung die in der Zielkultur bei gleicher Funktion unmittelbar der (alltäglichen, literarischen, oder künstlich-ästhetischen) Kommunikation dienen kann und dabei dem Original (möglichst) in allen seinen Dimensionen (syntaktisch, semantisch und pragmatisch) gleichwertig, äquivalent ist.68

64 65 66 67 68

Sperber/Wilson, Relevance (1988), vii. Gutt, Translation and Relevance (1991); Relevance Theory (1992). Nida/Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation (1982), 200. de Waard/Nida, From one Language to Another (1986), 36. Reiss/Vermeer, Grundlegung (1984), 135.

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In order to be able to serve this communication, at least two conditions have to be fulfilled. In the first place, the form of the receptor language should be today’s form of that language. Some examples of the opposite exist: Emile Littré, one of the leading translation experts of the nineteenth century, produced a Dante translation in the langue d’oïl of the thirteenth century, and in the last century Rudolf Borchardt made a Dante translation in “Dante German”, a highly personal early, new, High German, a strange amalgam of High, Low and Middle High German and Alpine dialects. In the field of Bible translation, the new Czech Bible translation can be cited in which the quotations from the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament have been rendered in an archaic language in a supposed conformity with the situation of the original koine reader! Steiner may have been right with his statement: “Archaicism internalizes. It creates an illusion of remembrance which helps to embody the foreign work into the national repertoire”,69 but he was certainly correct with his assertion in the same context: “Strictly speaking, every act of translation except simultaneous translation as between earphones, is a transfer from a past to a presence”.70 This implies that any rendering into an archaizing form of the receptor language is an absurdity. For the produced text has no relationship with the source text which was completely ‘modern’ when it came into being. And the reader who has to make do with such a translation because he does not master, or not master sufficiently, the source text, does not know what to do with a text in the form of his mother tongue to which he has no access. The necessity of having at one’s disposal a translation in the present form of the receptor language makes it also obligatory that the age of the translators is not so advanced that the language of the translation is already obsolete at the moment of its publication. The same necessity also requires, in view of the sometimes rapid evolution of language, a thorough revision or a new translation within 30 to 50 years after the first publication of the text. In this respect Bible translation differs from other literary productions. The second condition which has to be fulfilled is that the present form of the receptor language should not be manipulated by modern ideologies. This danger exists especially in European languages when such topics as, for example, ‘inclusive language’ or ‘Frauengerechte Sprache’ are concerned. As Reiss notes: “What is required is sensitivity and a difficult balancing act on the narrow ridge between the possibilities and limits of inclusive language. Above all, one should avoid replacing the usage branded as ‘sexist’ by openly feminist usage”.71 The warning by Ellingworth certainly remains valid: “the feminist challenge should at least stimulate them (i.e. translators, especially male translators) to check more carefully, case by case, whether male-oriented features of their translations are in fact present in the text, or whether they derive from their own male oriented presuppositions, still active in the late 20th century”.72 It is true that modern Bible translations do not use male-oriented language, especially when the source text does not encourage such a use. For example, one 69 70 71 72

Steiner, After Babel (1975), 347. Steiner, ibid. 334. Reiss, Frauengerechte Sprache? (1990). Ellingworth, The Scope of Inclusive Language (1992), 137.

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would no longer, as in the King James Version, render Prov 26:12 with “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit?” but, as in the New Revised Standard Version, with “Do you see persons wise in their own eyes?”. Simply because the Hebrew `ish used in the original does not have the specific meaning ‘man’, but the generic meaning ‘person(s)’. On the other hand, in the German language area the use of such expressions as Jüngerinnen has been defended.73 However, from here to the “An Inclusive Language Lectionary Readings for Year A” (Prepared for experimental and voluntary use in churches by the Inclusive Language Lectionary Committee appointed by the Division of Education and Ministry, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., Atlanta, 1983) in which ‘Lord’ becomes ‘Sovereign’, ‘God the Father’ ‘God the Mother and Father’, ‘Son of Man’ ‘The human one’ and ‘Kingdom of God’ ‘realm of God’, is a rather decisive step. In such ideolectic transpositions the danger exists to forget that finally all talking about God remains figurative language not to be literalized and that, on the other side, in the descriptions of divine activities of the Hebrew Bible female features are not lacking. After these two conditions, other important themes like the ways of communicative translation and the intended receptors, can be taken up. 3.1.4.2. The Ways of Communicative Translation In communicative translation the obligation of translators is “to employ a functionally equivalent set of forms which in so far as possible will match the meaning of the original source-language text”.74 In the rendering of Ps 23:1 in the New Revised Standard Version: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”, for example, is this not the case. For this translation uses the English verb ‘to want’ in a meaning which no longer belongs to modern English language use. Still worse is the rendering in the New English Bible: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall want nothing”. The apparent suggested absence of all desires is almost a confession of Buddhist doctrine, far away from any Hebrew conception. Therefore the revisor of the Revised English Bible correctly changes the translation into “The Lord is my shepherd; I lack for nothing”. However, even the last translation cannot be compared with the communicative rendering presented by Jerome: Dominus reget me et nihil mihi deerit, “The Lord rules over me and I will lack nothing”. Jerome has dared – for the first time in the history of Bible translation and maybe for the last! – to transcribe the metaphor of the shepherd and – semantically speaking – to render it as an event. Such a functionally equivalent set of forms is particularly necessary in those cases where idiomatic expressions in Hebrew are concerned which can easily be misunderstood. For example, in the messages to the neighbours of Israel in the first two chapters of the book Amos the stereotype formula “for three transgressions (of X) and for four” regularly re-occurs. However, in none of these occurrences these transgressions are specified afterwards. In fact, neither a literal nor a symbolic use of these numbers has been made. As Roth has clearly shown, this 73 74

Wegener, Frauengerechte Sprache (1989). de Waard/Nida, From one Language to Another (1986), 36.

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numerical sequence x/x+1 seeks to express a climax.75 Communicative translation expresses this functionally with an intensive rendering “crime upon crime” or “crime after crime” and offers a good translation model for the many languages in the world in which numbers can only be understood literally. A more difficult search for a functionally equivalent set of forms should be undertaken in the case of rhetorical discourse structures. Since a Handbook of Hebrew Rhetoric is still lacking in spite of its urgent importance for translators,76 it would be easier to take an example from Greek rhetoric, which has been extensively more studied, in this case Luke 9:57–62. In the only valid analysis, the discourse forms a triptyque in which the first (57–58) and the last part (61–62) show a parallel structure of the cola, and, if taken together, lead to a paradox in terms of content. This paradox, however, is solved in the middle part (59–60), more particularly in its last full sentence (colon 14).77 In receptor languages in which structurally the climax never arrives in the center of a well defined discourse unit, but always at the end, one would therefore consider a reversal of the middle and last part. Such a consideration is fully valid since the phenomenon of chiasm or “introverted parallelism” can be characterized with Freedman as a “widespread phenomenon, especially in ancient literatures where it occurs in great abundance”.78 On the other hand, the universality of such a structure has not yet been proven. However, communicative translation is also anxious to find a functional equivalent set of forms in the case of such rhetorical processes as, for example, “literary insertion”, a process which takes place on a lower level of the hierarchy of the text such as paragraph or sentence and which in the case of the paragraph can frequently only be identified with great difficulty. To take the example of Ps 24:6, the surface structure of this verse can be analyzed in the following way: (1) This is the generation of Jacob, of those who seek him (ABX) (2) This is the generation of those, who seek him, Jacob (AXB) (3) This is the generation of those, who seek him, who seek your face, Jacob (AXYB). The Hebrew construct state relation “generation of Jacob” has in (2) been dissociated by the insertion of the participle “who seek him” whereas in (3) an additional insertion “who seek your face” has taken place. In contrast with most modern translations which change the Hebrew text, Die Gute Nachricht has recognized the rhetorical process of literary insertion and it has produced a functional equivalent form: So sind die Menschen, die nach Gott fragen/ und in seine Nähe kommen dürfen. So sind die wahren Nachkommen Jakobs.

The necessity of finding a functional equivalent will become parcicularly clear in the following cases.

75 76 77 78

Roth, The Numerical Sequence x/x+i (1962), 300–311. de Waard Fokkelman, Literary Structure (1996), 242–251. Louw, Discourse Analysis (1973), 108. Freedman, Preface (1981), 7.

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(1) When a formal correspondence in the receptor language would produce a wrong meaning. For example, the idiomatic expression used in Prov 25:22: “For you will heap coals of fire on their heads” could easily be misunderstood when literally rendered as a kind of torture. And the widespread interpretation that the coals of fire heaped on the head would stand for “burning shame” is very doubtful. For the communicative translation it is therefore difficult to define a legitimate paraphrase of the source text. A solution may be found in the comment made by Delitzsch: Das Brennen der aufs Haupt gelegten Kohlen muß ein schmerzlicher, aber heilsamer Erfolg sein; es ist ein Bild der sich selbst schuldigende Reue, auf Hervorbringen dieser gerichtet hat das dem Feinde erwiesene Gute ein edles Motiv.79

Such an interpretation produces the transition to a legitimate paraphrase as given in Die Gute Nachricht: “Damit bringst du ihn dazu sich zu ändern”. The insight of Morenz that this Hebrew idiomatic expression may stem from an Egyptian lamentation ritual, would reinforce this interpretation.80 (2) When a loan word in the receptor language would amount to a semantic zero which can therefore be charged with a wrong meaning. For example, in many Indian languages of South America for ‘God’ the Spanish word ‘dios’ has been used, most probably for reasons of prestige. However, as Nida noted: “in almost every case the people will immediately try to equate this new name of God with one of the gods of their own religious system… In the Aztec culture in Mexico it turned out that Dios was equated with the sun..”.81 (3) When a formal correspondence in the receptor language would cause a serious lack of understanding. So, for example, in Deut 30:6 when it is stated “the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants”. A communicative translation will feel the necessity either to paraphrase as in Français Courant with: Le Seigneur votre Dieu lui-même purifiera votre cœur et celui de vos descendants, or as in TILC with Il Signore, vostro Dio, cambierà il vostro cuore e quello dei vostri discendenti or as in the Good News Bible with “The Lord your God will give you and your descendants obedient hearts”. Although all three paraphrases are acceptable, preference could be given to the Italian one in which the very specific ‘circumcise’ simply has been replaced by the very generic ‘change’. The only loss in the transfer is that of associative meaning of ‘circumcise’. (4) When a formal correspondence in the receptor language would produce an ambiguity not intended by the original author. There are only very few intentional ambiguities in and outside the Hebrew Bible. Beyond dispute is the famous case of the “number of the beast” in Rev 13:18: “let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty six”. In this case we are confronted with a kind of cryptogram. As noted briefly by Massyngberde Ford: “Here our author uses the method of

79 80 81

Delitzsch, Biblischer Commentar, III (1873), 411. Morenz, Feurige Kohlen (1953), 187–192. Nida, Bible Translating (1961), 205.

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gematria, that is, the process of adding up the numerical value of the letters that made up a proper name”.82 Although the interpretation remains very difficult and one has to calculate with the numerical value of the letters of the Greek alphabet as well as with that of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the general conception at present is that we have to use the Hebrew alphabet and that the reference is to Caesar Nero. The use of a cryptogram has in this case certainly been inspired by political reasons. One should admit that at least some of the original receptors could solve the cryptogram, this in contrast with the modern receptor. Nevertheless, the communicative translation will respect such an intentional ambiguity explaining it in a footnote. It is extremely difficult to ‘prove’ cases of intentional ambiguity or double entendre in the Hebrew Bible. One should certainly conclude that most of the socalled ambiguities found in the source text can in no way be traced back to the author. They are far more connected with our lack of knowledge of the historical and cultural back-ground of the text. For the communicative translation it is therefore improper to present passages of a text open to multiple interpretation as an intended ambiguity. For this would suggest wrong intentions on the part of the author as if he would not be engaged in the communication of a message but in a language game. In addition, the translator would charge his or her receptor to decide which one of the multiple meanings would be the correct one. However, it is the translator who has access to the scientific discussions and he is therefore in a far better position to take the right decisions. He or she is therefore the most qualified person to introduce the, in most cases, majority interpretation into the translation and, if necessary, the alternative interpretations into a footnote. Such a behaviour should, of course, not be interpreted as an intervention which deliberately takes away from the receptor the freedom of decision making. As an example of an ambiguity not intended by the author one could take an example of what has been called “associative meaning”.83 The text of Gen 49:14– 15 could very literally be rendered as follows: “Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens. And he saw that rest was good, and that the land was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute” (King James Version). For the communicative translation method such a literal translation is impossible, however, because of the negative associative meaning of the word ‘ass’. In the source text the ground of the comparison ‘strong’ has been made explicit, but in this case that explicit information does not facilitate understanding. For a strong ass remains an ass and ‘strong’ only reinforces the pejorative meaning of the metaphor! In addition, the intended contrast between the mule and the wild ass84 or between forced labour and freedom, is not at all communicated in the literal translation. The communicative translation is therefore at least obliged to change the metaphor into a comparison. In addition it may be felt obligatory to restructure for a good understanding the text of both verses and to render one way or another the poetic character of the Hebrew text. This has been done, for example, in Die Gute Nachricht: 82 83 84

Massyngberde Ford, Revelation (1975), 225. de Waard/Nida, From one Language to Another (1986), 146–152. Westermann, Genesis (1982), 266.

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Du, Issachar, beugst deinen Rücken/ und schleppst als Sklave schwere Lasten./ Genauso wie ein dürrer Esel/ brichst du darunter in die Knie./ Du zahlst den Pries für deine Sehnsucht/ nach einem schönen Land/ und einem Leben ohne Mühe!

In order to obtain a comprehensible version, it would, however, also be possible to change only the metaphor into a comparison, not to restructure the text and to apply a minimal paraphrase as done in TILC: Issacar è come un asino robusto/ gravato dalle due ceste del basto. / Ha visto che la regione era amena/ e bello l’habitarvi:/ ha curvato la schiena per portare il carico/ ed è divenuto uno schiavo che paga il tributo.

(5) When a formal correspondence would in the receptor language result in an affected style or a style which is no longer smooth. One should admit that the text of Isa 34:11 is not easy to understand, but a rendering as the one found in the King James Version: “And he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness” not only makes the understanding even more difficult, it should also be rejected for stylistic reasons. It is the task of communicative translation to formulate in a stylistically acceptable way the two main thoughts of the passage (a) that the land as belonging to nobody will have to be remeasured again and (b) that it will be absolute desert.85 One of the ways in which this could be done is illustrated in the translation of Die gute Nachricht: Der Herr mißt das Land mit der Meßschnur ab und setzt die Grenzsteine ein, damit es für immer wüst und unbewohnbar bleibt.

In communicative translation any stylistic distortion should at all cost be avoided. Especially common language translation is constantly in danger of becoming a victim of changes of language level unacceptable in the light of the source language. Two main factors are under consideration for such an unacceptable change: on the one side the relative lack of experience of many translators and on the other side the terrible impact of vulgar language or language levels close to it. For vulgar language, a world wide phenomenon, is a language mastered by everyone but it cannot be used under all circumstances. Especially in the field of Bible translation one should be particularly reminded of this fact. One should also take into account that communicative translation, although in world wide use in common language translations, as well described by Wonderly, does not remain restricted to this sole type of translation. There are also communicative translations at the level of elementary language as, for example, Français fondamental using a vocabulary of fifteen hundred words, and communicative translations on a literary level of the language like the New English Bible and the Revised English Bible in which all the resources of the receptor language are exploited. In order to demonstrate the differences between a communicative translation on the literary language level and one on the level of the common language, the 85

Wildberger, Jesaja (1982), 1346.

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example text of 1 Sam 2:1 could be taken again, the literary level to be taken first as represented by the New English Bible, followed by the common language level as present in Die Gute Nachricht: Then Hannah offered this prayer: My heart rejoices in the Lord, In the Lord I now hold my head high; My mouth is full of derision of my foes, exultant because thou hast saved me.

Hanna betete: Herr, du hast mich fröhlich gemacht, Du hast mich wieder aufgerichtet und mich gestärkt! Jetzt kann ich über meine Feinde lachen. Ich bin voller Freude, weil du mir geholfen hast.

In this description of the ways of communicative translation, the intended receptors were always taken into account. However, a somewhat fuller presentation of these receptors may finally be desirable. 3.1.4.3. The Receptors 86

Reiss has correctly noted:

Translatorische Kompetenz schließlich umfaßt die Fähigkeiten, das Ergebnis der Ausgangssprachlichen Textanalyse mit allen ihren Implikationen, text-, textsorten-, und texttypgerecht in der Zielsprache wiederzugeben und dabei auch das beim Zielsprachlichen Leser voausssetzbare Vorwissen und seine Leseerwartungen zutreffend einzuschätzen, so daß die Kommunikationsvermittlung glücken kann.

First of all, therefore, the presumed knowledge of the receptor should be estimated in such a way that one can be sure that the produced text will be correctly understood. This was already one of the main concerns of the translators of the “Authorized Version” of 1611. Speaking in the name of all the translators, Miles Smith has rendered this concern in a long introduction under the title “The translators to the reader”. One can only regret that this introduction for unknown reasons has no longer been reprinted since the early editions.87 One can read in this introduction, for example, the following: Lastly, wee haue on the one side auoided the scrupulositie of the Puritanes, who leaue the olde Ecclesiasticall words, and betake them to other, as when they put washing for Baptisme, and Congregation in stead of Church; as also on the other side we have shunned the obscuritie of the Papists, in their Azimes, Tunike, Rational, Holocausts, praepuce, Pashe, and a number of such like, whereof their late Translation is full, and that of purpose to darken the sence, that since they must

86 87

Reiss, Elend und Glanz (1981), 416. Dufour, Tradition et innovation (1983), 103.

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needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof, it may bee kept from being vnderstood. But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itselfe, as in the language of Canaan, that it may bee vnderstood euen of the very vulgar.

The same concern is also shown by Luther when he observes:88 man mus die mutter jhm hause/ die kinder auff der gassen/ den gemeinen mann auf dem marckt drumb fragen / und den selbigen auff das maul sehen / wie sie reden / und darnach dolmetzschen / so verstehen sie es den / und mercken / das man Deutsch mit jn redet.

One can only say that this concern with regard to the receptors has again been placed on the foreground of communicative translation. The attention on the double frustration of the modern reader has been frequently noted. So, for example, by Orlinsky: “Moreover, the Bible frequently does not lend itself to ‘do-ityourself’ comprehension, and the modern would-be reader found himself doubly frustrated in his attempt to understand what he was reading”.89 The receptors should therefore be able to understand the translated text. And this means in reality that they should be able to understand it in the right way. For example, in Isa 7:20 the New Revised Standard Version presents the following rendering of the Hebrew text: “On that day the Lord will shave with a razor the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well”. Linguistically, the “hair of the feet” is very clear. Nevertheless, most readers of English will have great difficulties in understanding this text correctly. Has this text to be understood in an allegorical way, the hair on the head standing for “mighty people”, the hair on the feet for “ordinary people” and the beard for “the elders of the community” as sometimes has been defended? In that case, the modern reader can only be led to an accurate understanding by means of a footnote. However, most modern versions, most probably correctly, preferred a non-allegorical interpretation, only hindered by the understanding of the “hair of the feet”. Some of them changed the feet into legs evoking the certainly not intended modern “depilation”. The source language most probably uses here a euphemism, however. And the accurate understanding would therefore be met in such translations as Einheitsübersezung and Gute Nachricht with their rendering “pubic hair”. Even with this clear translation the question still remains whether the modern reader of a translation immediately grasps the meaning of these symbolic gestures as disgrace. However, one of the essential aspects of the communicative translation is that this type of rendering should enable the receptors of the translation to react correctly to the communicated text. Functional equivalence also means that the receptors of the translated language B react in an equivalent way with regard to the translated text as the first receptors of the original language A did with regard to the original message. Everybody will agree that in view of many uncertainties any statement in this respect will be highly hypothetical. Anyway a high degree of equivalence of reaction should be present, or requires to be presupposed. Otherwise, the translation will miss one of its main purposes.90 88 89 90

Luther, Biblia Germanica (1545/1967), 32. Orlinsky, Essays (1974), 397–398. Nida/Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation (1982), 23

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This is of particular importance in the case of what has been called the “operative text” which has been conceived “um einen Textempfänger in seiner Meinung zu beeinflussen und in seinem Verhalten zu Aktionen oder Reaktionen zu provozieren”.91 Many texts of the Hebrew Bible belong to the operative text type and it is one of the main concerns of the communicative translation that the construction of the translated text makes a maximal action and reaction possible. For example, the long series of conditional sentences in Proverbs 2 will not be literally reproduced with conditional sentences in the receptor language when these would have, as is frequently the case, a negative connotation so that no optimal reaction can be reached. What has been said above is also of importance for the translation of so-called “expressive” texts. For in these texts the artistic expression of the original should be matched by an analogous artistic design in the receptor text creating an analogous impact. The effect of the Hebrew text Amos 5:5: hagilgal galoh yigleh with its quadruple consonantal sequence gl and with its initial or final consonant h is completely lost in the following flat English translation: “for Gilgal shall surely go into exile”. Only the inspiring German rendering of Wellhausen: “Gilgal wird zum Galgen gehen” guarentees an analogous artistic design and analogous impact. Finally, the receptors should also correctly be identified in the answers provided to the central question: “Who informs whom (and whom not) about what (and what not) and under which circumstances?”. In fact, any translation will be determined by its target or skopos. A Bible translation for children has nothing in common with a translation for the intelligentsia, nor can a translation to be read privately be equated with a translation to be read aloud or sung. A Church Bible cannot be identical with a Bible in a common language. Although these theses may seem to be self-evident, it should nevertheless be underlined that communicative translation, as a result of inadequate translational strategies, has missed sometimes the defined skopos and produced a text unable to move any reader.

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Reiss, Texttyp und Übersetzungsmethode (1976), 35.

Chapter Forty-nine

An Epilegomenon to the Project of History of Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament By Magne Sæbø, Oslo The book itself remains as at the first unchanged amid the changinginterpretations of it. Benjamin Jowett1

The history of interpretation of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament (HBOT) appears to be astonishingly rich and varied. Looking back at the long road of biblical interpretation through the ages – as it tentatively has been described in the individual essays of the present HBOT Project – one may truly be amazed with the great complexity of the matter and how varied and compound the theories and practices of the biblical interpretation have proved to be. In general, the biblical interpretation history reveals itself as a very multifarious history; its inner contrasts are many and diverse. By presenting this entangled history of interpretation critically one may be reminded of the old Jewish saying that “God speaks in the language of man”. This well-known dictum is first of all expressing that God’s speaking to man is sharing the ordinary conditions of human language and communication; in a historical perspective, however, one may also take into consideration the ‘other side’ of the matter, namely that God’s speaking is met by man’s varied reception of it – man’s limited understanding and interpretation considered. The double issue of both God’s speaking and man’s diverse reception and interpretative understanding has been an object of intense research and extensive scrutiny through the centuries, from Antiquity onward − as has been exposed in the present Project. Further, God has not only spoken “in the language of man”, but he has also spoken “in many and varied ways” to man (cf. Heb 1:1); and this phenomenon of disparity in God’s words and acts constitutes an essential point in biblical interpretation, not least in the interpretative history of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, and even more so as the diversity of man’s reception, understanding and interpretation of the Word of God to some extent may be related to the disparity in God’s speaking and acting as tested by the Scripture. 1

B. Jowett, “On the Interpretation of Scripture”, in: Essays and Reviews (9th edn.; London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts 1861), 330–433, 337.

An Epilegomenon to the Project of History of Interpretation of the HBOT

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As it was indicated at the beginning of the present Project,2 the long and complex history of interpretation of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament seems to exhibit a double character. The double character of the matter, on the one hand, has to do with the phenomenon of God’s speaking in the language of man, but on the other hand, it affects the ways in which the Scripture’s manifold expressing of God’s speaking has been received and interpreted by man. This double aspect of the biblical interpretation history seems not always to have been adequately recognized. That be the case, however, it will be even more crucial to grant it an attention that it historically deserves − which is a main point of the present Project. As for the double aspect of the biblical interpretation history, however, it may also be crucial to observe that the Holy Writ as the Word of God, on the one hand, seems to have been an acting subject that has made its way to man – over the ages and under most different historical circumstances and in ever new translations – and thereby has challenged individuals and peoples, theologians and churches through generations. In all this, on may say, there has been and is a movement ‘forward’. God’s speaking has, on the other hand, also been an object of man’s reception, related to how man as the receiver of the Word of God has understood and interpreted God’s speaking and acting, be it in the form of different methodical ways, or how the interpretation has been carried out in different historical periods and in different situations; in all these various activities it may be said that there has been a movement ‘backward’. By looking ‘back’ at the text in historical distance – also by seeing how the text has reached its final form – one has tried to perceive its meaning. This double character of the matter constitutes a central aspect of the biblical interpretation history, and it has been of prime interest for the present Project. Incontestably, however, it will always be a great challenge to accomplish an appropriate understanding and description of the variegated process and history of biblical interpretation. One may even say that both the question of Philip: “Do you understand what you are reading?” and the answer of the Ethiopian: “How can I without someone to guide me?” (Acts 8:30)3 in countless ways, through the centuries up to the present, have gone along with the history of interpretation. The many individual contributions to the HBOT Project may have demonstrated the broad complexity of the historical process in question – as there always existed a great variety of aspects, not to say depths and mysteries, which the biblical text − remaining “unchanged” − has presented to its readers and interpreters. At the same time, the various essays of the Project have exhibited how man’s reception, understanding and interpretation of the Scripture has been “changing” through the centuries; the Word of God has indeed been received, understood and interpreted most differently by man, both historically and individually. Already every translation of the biblical pristine text is marked by its translator and may even represent, more or less, an expression of his or her character as far as it has been affected by the reception and understanding of the text. That may even more be the case as the interpreters in this long and complex 2 3

See HBOT I/1 (1996), 20–26. Translation with REB.

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history have been so many and dissimilar, and as they have lived and acted in different times and realms and in various communities of faith. Together, however, the many interpreters constitute a choir of many and different voices – and that may be the first challenge to any historiography of biblical interpretation. The problems of biblical interpretation, which the historiographer has to deal with, are indeed numerous and have a wide range, from the basic ones to the more technical questions. First of all, the history of interpretation has constantly actualized the basic question of ‘meaning’, thereby also how manifold an interpretation of a text may be: for what is really to ‘read’ a text and to fully ‘understand’ its ‘meaning’? This fundamental question may have been at the bottom of many ‘changing’ approaches and methods that through the ages have tried to come to grips with the ‘unchanging’ text of Scripture. Generally, however, the many ‘changing’ approaches and different methods, which more or less had their ‘time’ when they were ‘in fashion’, have in the present Project deliberately − or one may say fundamentally − been restricted to the hermeneutical questions as their main objective. The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament has surely also had a broad and manifold influence in culture, art and politics,4 but this wider outlook could only in a limited way be taken into account here; though, the cultural and philosophical context of the biblical interpretation has to some extent been taken into consideration.5

4 Cf. i.a. L. Diestel, Geschichte des Alten Testamentes in der christlichen Kirche (Jena 1869), § 74, “Das A. T. in Cultus, Kunst und Recht”, 773–777. 5 See i.a. HBOT I/1 (1996), Chaps. 6 and 22, Vol. I/2 (2000), Chaps. 24 and 27, Vol. II (2008), Chaps. 4–6, 15–16, 20 and 26, Vol. III/1 (2013), Chaps. 2–6.

Contributors Abbreviations Indexes (Names/Topics/References)

Contributors John Barton (b. 1948), Emeritus Oriel & Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture, University of Oxford, UK. Selected publications: Amos’s Oracles against the Nations (Society for Old Testament Study monograph series 6; Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1980); Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (London 1984; sec. edn. with two new chapters 1996); Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (London 1986 /New York: 1988; sec. edn. 2007); People of the Book? The Authority of the Bible in Christianity (London / Philadelphia 1988); sec. edn. with additional chapter 1993; third edn. with a further additional chapter 2010); The Spirit and the Letter: Studies in the Biblical Canon (London 1997); American edn. Holy Writings, Sacred Text (Louisville 1998); Joel and Obadiah: A Commentary (Louisville 2001); The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville 2007); The Theology of the Book of Amos (New York / Cambridge 2012); Ethics in Ancient Israel (Oxford 2014). Hendrik Bosman (b.1952), Professor of Old Testament, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Selected publications: (co-editor), Old Testament Storytellers (Cape Town 1988); (co-editor), Plutocrats and Paupers: Wealth and Poverty in the Old Testament (Pretoria 1991); (co-author), Interpreting the Old Testament in Africa (New York 2001); (co-author) The Ten Commandments: The reciprocity of faithfulness (Louisville 2004); (co-author), Exile and Suffering (Leiden 2009); (co-author), Fragile Dignity: Intercontextual Conversations on Scripture, Family and Violence (Atlanta 2013), (co-author), In the Name of God: The Bible in the Colonial Discourse (Leiden 2014); Co-editor, Scriptura: Journal of Bible, Religion and Theology in Southern Africa. Mark A. O’Brien (b. 1945), Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Divinity, Melbourne, Vic., Australia. Selected publications: The Deuteronomistic History Hypothesis: A Reassessment (Göttingen 1989); (co-author with Antony F. Campbell) Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations (Minneapolis, MN 1993); (co-author with Antony F. Campbell)  Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History: Origins, Upgrades, Present Text (Minneapolis, MN 2000),  (co-author with Antony F. Campbell)  Rethinking the Pentateuch: Prolegomena to the Theology of Ancient Israel (Louisville, KY 2005), The ABC of Sunday Matters: Reflections on the Lectionary Readings for Years A, B and C (Adelaide, SA 2013), Restoring the Right Relationship: The Bible on Divine Righteousness (Adelaide, SA 2014). Antony F. Campbell (b. 1934), Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at Jesuit Theological College within the United Faculty of Theology, Parkville, Australia. Selected publications: The Ark Narrative (1 Sam 4–6; 2 Sam 6) (SBL.DS 16; Missoula, MT 1975); Of Prophets and Kings: A Late Ninth-Century Document (1 Samuel 1–2 Kings 10) (CBQ.MS 17; Washington, DC 1986); The Study Companion to Old Testament Literature (Wilmington, DE 1989); Sources of the Pentateuch (with Mark O’Brien; Minneapolis, MN 1993); Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History (with Mark O’Brien; Minneapolis, MN 2000); 1 Samuel. (FOTL 7; Grand Rapids, MI 2003); Joshua to Chronicles: An Introduction (Louis-

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Contributors

ville, KY 2004); 2 Samuel. (FOTL 8; Grand Rapids, MI 2005); Rethinking the Pentateuch: Prolegomena to the Theology of Ancient Israel (with Mark O’Brien; Louisville, KY 2005); Ancient Bible Modern Faith (Mahwah, NJ 2010); Experiencing Scripture: Intimacy with Ancient Text and Modern Faith (ATF Press, Adelaide 2012); under the pseudonym Frank Gil, Have Life Abundantly: Grass Roots First (ATF Press, Adelaide, 2013); Opening the Bible: Selected Writings of Antony Campbell SJ (ATF Press, Adelaide 2014).  David M. Carr (b. 1961), Professor of Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Selected publications include: From D to Q: A Study of Early Jewish Interpretations of Solomon’s Dream at Gibeon (Scholars Press 1991); Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Westminster 1996); The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality and the Bible (Oxford 2003); Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Western Scripture and Literature (Oxford 2005); Introduction to the Old Testament: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts of the Hebrew Bible (Oxford 2010), along with (a briefer version incorporated in) Introduction to the Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts (with Colleen Conway; Oxford 2010), The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (New York 2011); Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins (New Haven 2014). David J. A. Clines (b. 1938), Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield. Selected publications: I, He, We and They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53 (Sheffield 1976); The Theme of the Pentateuch (Sheffield 1978; French transl. 2011); (co-editor), Art and Meaning: Rhetoric in Biblical Literature (Sheffield 1982); (co-editor), Midian, Moab and Edom: The History and Archaeology of Late Bronze and Iron Age Jordan and North-West Arabia (Sheffield 1983); Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (London 1984); Job 1–20 (Waco, TX 1989; Korean transl. 2006); (co-editor), The Bible in Three Dimensions. Essays in Celebration of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Department of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield (Sheffield 1990); What Does Eve Do to Help? and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament (Sheffield 1990); (co-editor), Telling Queen Michal’s Story. An Experiment in Comparative Interpretation (Sheffield 1991); (co-editor), The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield 1993); (co-editor), Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages: Essays in Honour of R. Norman Whybray on his Seventieth Birthday (Sheffield 1993); (co-editor), Among the Prophets: Imagery, Language and Structure in the Prophetic Writings (Sheffield 1993); The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, 8 vols. (Sheffield 1993–2011); (co-editor), The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson (Sheffield 1995); Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield 1995; Korean transl. 2000); (co-editor), Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies (Sheffield 1998); (co-editor), The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives (Sheffield 1998); On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967–1998, 2 vols. (Sheffield 1998); (co-editor), Weisheit in Israel: Beiträge des Symposiums »Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne» anlässlich des 100. Geburtstags Gerhard von Rads (1901–1971), Heidelberg, 18.-21. Oktober 2001 (Münster 2003); Job 21–37 (Nashville 2006); On Psalms (Kelaisi lun shi pian: Fan yi liao zuo zhe zai Zhong yuan da xue de yan jiang he bu fen lun wen) (Hong Kong 2008); The Concise Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield 2009); (co-editor), A Critical Engagement: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of J. Cheryl Exum (Sheffield 2011); Job 38–42 (Nashville 2011); (co-editor), Making a Difference: Essays on the Hebrew Bible and Judaism in Honor of Tamara Cohn Eskenazi (Sheffield 2012); (co-editor), The Reception of the Hebrew Bible in the Septuagint and the New Testament: Essays in Memory of Aileen Guilding (Sheffield 2013).

Contributors

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Walter Dietrich (b. 1944), Professor emeritus of the Faculty of Theology, University of Bern/Switzerland; Dr. theol. in Münster, Habilitation in Göttingen, Dr. theol. h.c. in Cluj and Helsinki. Selected publications: Prophetie und Geschichte (Göttingen 1972); Jesaja und die Politik (München 1976); David, Saul und die Propheten (Stuttgart 1987; 2nd edn. 1992); (co-editor), Ein Gott allein? JHWH-Verehrung und biblischer Monotheismus (Fribourg/Göttingen 1994); (co-author), Die dunklen Seiten Gottes (Neukirchen-Vluyn, vol. I, 1995, 5th edn. 2009; vol. II, 2000, 3rd edn. 2009); Die frühe Königszeit in Israel (Stuttgart 1997; ET: The Early Monarchy in Israel, Atlanta 2007); Von David zu den Deuteronomisten (Stuttgart 2002); Theopolitik (Neukirchen-Vluyn 2002); (co-editor), König David – biblische Schlüsselfigur und europäische Leitgestalt (Fribourg/Stuttgart, 2003); (ed.), David und Saul im Widerstreit – Diachronie und Synchronie im Wettstreit. Beiträge zur Auslegung des ersten Samuelbuchs (Fribourg/Göttingen 2004); (co-author), Gewalt und Gewaltüberwindung in der Bibel (Zürich 2005); David. Der Herrscher mit der Harfe (Leipzig 2006); Samuel (BKAT 8.1; Neukirchen-Vluyn 2011); (ed.), Seitenblicke. Literarische und historische Studien zu Nebenfiguren im zweiten Samuelbuch (Fribourg/Göttingen 2011); Die Samuelbücher im deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk (Stuttgart 2012); Gottes Einmischung (Neukirchen-Vluyn 2013); (co-author), Die Entstehung des Alten Testaments (Stuttgart 2014); Nahum–Habakuk–Zefanja (Stuttgart 2014). Steven E. Fassberg, Professor of Hebrew Language at the University of Jerusalem, Caspar Levias Chair in Ancient Semitic Languages; Harvard University, A.B. 1978, Ph.D. 1984. Written or edited numerous books and over 60 articles. Selected Publications include: A Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments from the Cairo Genizah. Harvard Semitic Studies 38 (Atlanta, Georgia 1990); Studies in the Syntax of Biblical Hebrew (Jerusalem 1994); The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Challa. Semitic Languages and Linguistics 54 (Leiden 2010); Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives (Jerusalem 2006) [with A. Hurvitz]; Hebrew in the Second Temple Period: The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Contemporary Sources. Proceedings of the Twelfth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature and the Fifth International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira, Jointly Sponsored by the Eliezer Ben-Yehuda Center for the Study of the History of the Hebrew Language, 29–31 December, 2008. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 108 (Leiden 2013) [with M. Bar-Asher / R.A. Clements]; Shaʕarei Lashon: Studies in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Jewish Languages Presented to Moshe Bar-Asher (Jerusalem 2007) [with A. Maman / Y. Breuer]; English editor of Z. Ben-H . ayyim, A Grammar of Samaritan Hebrew Based on the Recitation of the Law in Comparison with the Tiberian and Other Jewish Traditions (Jerusalem/Winona Lake, Indiana 2000). Dagfinn Føllesdal (b. 1932), Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and Professor emeritus at the University of Oslo. After studying mathematics and science in Oslo and in Göttingen he earned his PhD. at Harvard in 1961. He taught there until he returned to Norway to teach there and at Stanford University from 1966. Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences and various other academies and has served as President of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Written or edited around 25 books and 200 articles, mainly on Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Science and the Humanities as well as 20th Century Philosophy. Books include: Husserl und Frege (Oslo 1958), Referential Opacity and Modal Logic (Dissertation, 1961, Oslo 1966, London/New York 2004), Michael Frauchiger (ed.), Reference, Rationality, and Phenomenology: Themes from Føllesdal (Berlin 2013).

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Contributors

Anselm C. Hagedorn (b. 1971), DPhil habil., Privatdozent of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Theologische Fakultät, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Selected publications: Between Moses and Plato. Individual and Society in Deuteronomy and Ancient Greek Law (Göttingen 2004); Die Anderen im Spiegel. Israels Auseinandersetzung mit den Völkern in den Büchern Nahum, Zefanja, Obadja und Joel (Berlin/New York 2011); (editor), Perspectives on the Song of Songs – Perspektiven der Hoheliedauslegung (Berlin/New York 2005); (editor), Die Erzväter in der biblischen Tradition. FS für Matthias Köckert (Berlin/ New York 2009; together with H. Pfeiffer); (editor), Aspects of Amos. Exegesis and Interpretation (London 2011; together with A. Mein); (editor), Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean. Interdisciplinary Approaches (Oxford 2013; together with R.G. Kratz). Knut Heim, Revd. Dr. Presbyter (an ordained minister) in the Methodist Church of the United Kingdom, is Lecturer in Old Testament at Trinity College, Bristol, UK. His Phd, completed at the University of Liverpool, is on editorial clusters in the book of Proverbs. His most recent book, also on Proverbs, examines the phenomenon of variant repetitions. He has published numerous articles and essays on all of the poetic books of the Hebrew Bible. His new monograph on metaphors in biblical poetry, which includes a reception history of personified wisdom, is due to appear in print. He currently works on a new monograph on parallelism in the Psalms. His bibliography includes: Like Grapes of Gold Set in Silver: An Interpretation of Proverbial Clusters in the Book of Proverbs (BZAW 273; Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter 2001); Poetic Imagination in Proverbs: Variant Repetitions and the Nature of Poetry (Bulletin for Biblical Research. Supplement Series 4; Winona Lake 2013); Lady Wisdom: A Portrait Through Time. Studies of the Bible and its Reception (Berlin forthcoming). Bernd Janowski (b. 1943), Professor emeritus of Old Testament, Evangelisch-theologische Fakultät der Universität Tübingen, Germany. Selected publications: Sühne als Heilsgeschehen. Traditions- und religionsgeschichtliche Studien zur priesterschriftlichen Sühnetheologie (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1982; 22000); Rettungsgewissheit und Epiphanie des Heils. Das Motiv der Hilfe Gottes „am Morgen“ im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1989); Gottes Gegenwart in Israel. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments 1 (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1993; 22004); Stellvertretung. Alttestamentliche Beträge zu einem theologischen Grundbegriff (Stuttgart 1997; 21998; Korean transl., Seoul 2005); Die rettende Gerechtigkeit. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments 2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1999); Konfliktgespräche mit Gott. Eine Anthropologie der Psalmen (Neukirchen-Vluyn 2003; 42013: FTr: Genf 2008; ETr: Philadelphia 2013); Der Gott des Lebens. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments 3 (Neukirchen-Vluyn 2003); Ecce Homo. Stellvertretung und Lebenshingabe als Themen Biblischer Theologie (Neukirchen-Vluyn 2007; 22009); Die Welt als Schöpfung. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments 4 (Neukirchen-Vluyn 2008); Ein Gott, der straft und tötet? Zwölf Fragen zum Gottesbild des Alten Testaments (Neukirchen-Vluyn 2013; 22014); Der nahe und der ferne Gott. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments 5 (Neukirchen-Vluyn 2014); (co-author), Psalmen 1–150 (BK XV [new edition], Neukirchen-Vluyn 2012ff); (editor), Der ganze Mensch. Zur Anthropologie der Antike und ihrer europäischen Nachgeschichte (Berlin 2012); (co-editor), Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1986ff); (co-editor), Forschungen zum Alten Testament (Tübingen 1991ff); (co-editor) Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1991); (co-editor), Gerechtigkeit. Richten und Retten in der abendländischen Tradition und ihren altorientalischen Ursprüngen (München 1998); (co-editor), Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Tübingen 41998–2005; ETr: Leiden / Boston 2006–2013); (co-editor), Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testament. Neue Folge (Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2004ff); (co-editor), Tod und Jenseits im alten Israel und in

Contributors

713

seiner Umwelt. Theologische, religionsgeschichtliche, archäologische und ikonographische Aspekte (Tübingen 2009); (co-editor), Der Mensch im alten Israel. Neue Forschungen zur alttestamentlichen Anthropologie (Freiburg / Basel / Wien 2009). Douglas A. Knight (b. 1943), Drucilla Moore Buffington Professor of Hebrew Bible, The Divinity School, and Professor of Jewish Studies, College of Arts and Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Selected publications: Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel (Missoula, MT 1973; 3rd edn., Atlanta / Leiden / Boston 2006); (editor), Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament (Philadelphia / London 1977; FTr. Paris 1982); (editor), Julius Wellhausen and His Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Chico, CA 1983); (co-editor), The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (Chico, CA / Philadelphia 1985; Korean transl., Seoul 1998); (co-editor), Justice and the Holy: Essays in Honor of Walter Harrelson (Atlanta 1989); (editor), Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible (Atlanta 1995); Law, Power, and Justice in Ancient Israel (Louisville, KY 2011); (co-author), The Meaning of the Bible (New York 2011); General Editor, Library of Ancient Israel series (Louisville, KY). Corinna Körting (b. 1967), Professor of Old Testament and History of Ancient Near Eastern Religion at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Selected publications: Der Schall des Schofar. Israels Feste im Herbst (Berlin/New York 1999); Zion in den Psalmen (Tübingen 2006); “Isaiah 62:1–7 and Psalm 45 – or – Two Ways to Become Queen”, in: Continuity and Discontinuity. Chronological and Thematic Development in Isaiah 40–66 (ed. L.-S. Tiemeyer/H. Barstad; Göttingen 2014); “Singing, Praying and Meditating the Psalms. Exegetical and Research Historical Remarks”, in: Singing the Songs of the Lord in Foreign Lands. Psalms in Contemporary Lutheran Interpretation (ed. K. Mtata/ K. W. Niebuhr/ M. Rose; Leipzig 2014). Antti Laato (b. 1961), Professor in Old Testament Exegetics with Judaic Studies, Faculty of Theology, Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU). Selected publications: History and Ideology in the Old Testament Prophetic Literature: A Semiotic Approach to the Reconstruction of the Proclamation of Historical Prophets (ConBOT 41. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1996); A Star Is Rising: The Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Ideology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations (International Studies in Formative Christianity and Judaism; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1997); „About Zion I will not be silent“. The Book of Isaiah as an Ideological Unity (ConBOT 44; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International 1998); Who Is the Servant of the Lord? Jewish and Christian Interpretations on Isaiah 53 from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (SRB 4; Turku: ÅAU/ Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns 2012); A. Laato / J. de Moor, Theodicy in the World of the Bible (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers 2003). Manfred Oeming (b. 1955), Professor for Old Testament Theology in the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Selected publications: Das Alte Testament als Teil des christlichen Kanons? Studien zu gesamtbiblischen Theologien der Gegenwart (Stuttgart 1985; 3rd edn. Zürich 2001); Das wahre Israel. Die „genealogische Vorhalle“ 1 Chr 1–9 (BWANT 128; Stuttgart 1990); Einführung in die Biblische Hermeneutik (Einführungen; Darmstadt 1998; 4th edn. 2013; Czech transl. Vyšehrad 2003; ET: Centemporary Biblical Hermeneutics. An Introduction, Aldershot 2006); Das Buch der Psalmen, Band 1, Psalm 1–41 (Neuer Stuttgarter Kommentar. Altes Testament 16/1; Stuttgart 2000; (with K. Schmid), Hiobs Weg (BThSt 45; Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001); Verstehen und Glauben. Exegetische Bausteine zu einer Theologie des Alten Testaments (BBB 142; Berlin 2003); (ed.) Theologie des Alten Testaments aus der Perspektive von Frauen (BVB 1; Münster 2003; (editor) Claus Wester-

714

Contributors

mann. Leben – Werk – Wirkung (BVB 2; Münster 2003; (co-editor), Geschichten vom Tod, der Liebe und dem Leben. Neue Zugänge zur Bibel (Herrenalber Forum 39; Karlsruhe 2003); (co-editor), Der eine Gott und die Götter. Polytheismus und Monotheismus im antiken Israel (AThANT 82; Zürich 2003); (editor), Benno Jacob – der Mensch und sein Werk (Heidelberg 2003); (co-editor), Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne (ATM 8; Münster 2004); (co-editor), Theologie in Israel und in den Nachbarkulturen (ATM 9; Münster 2004); (co-editor), Das Alte Testament und die Kunst (ATM 15; Münster 200)5; (co-editor), Judah and the Judaens in the Persian Period (Winona Lake 2006); Der verborgene Gott. Biblische Perspektiven zur Frage der Theodizee (Herrenalber Forum 51; Karlsruhe 2007); (co-editor), Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpreten (AThANT 88; Zürich 2007); (with J. Vette), Das Buch der Psalmen, Band 2, Psalm 42–89 (Neuer Stuttgarter Kommentar. Altes Testament 16/2; Stuttgart 2010); (co-editor), Literary Construction of Identity in the Ancient world (Winona Lake 2010); (co-editor), Judah and Judeans in the Achaemenid Period. Negotiating Identity in an International Context (Winona Lake 2011); (co-editor), Neu aufzubrechen, den Menschen zu suchen und zu erkennen. Symposium anlässlich des 100. Geburtstags von Hans Walter Wolff (BThSt 139; Neukirchen-Vluyn 2013). Dennis T. Olson (b. 1954), Charles T. Haley Professor of Old Testament Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ. Selected Publications: The Death of the Old and the Birth of the New: The Framework of the Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch (Chico, CA 1985); Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses: A Theological Reading (Minneapolis, MN 1994; 2nd edn., Eugene, OR 2005); Numbers, Interpretation Commentary (Louisville, KY 1996; Japanese transl. Tokyo 2000; Korean transl. Seoul 2000; Italian transl. Torino 2006); “The Book of Judges,” New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. II (Nashville, TN 1998), 721–888. General editor, Studies in Biblical Literature series (Atlanta, GA 1998–2004); General Pentateuch editor, The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (Berlin 2006–2014). Eckart Otto (b.1944) Ordinarius em. of Theology of the Old Testament at the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Honorary Professor at the University of Pretoria and Lehrbeauftragter Professor at the Hochschule für Philosophie in Munich. Selected publications: Deuteronomium 1–11 (Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament, 1–2; Freiburg/Basel/Wien 2012); Deuteronomium 12–34 (Herders Theologischer Kommentar zu Alten Testament, 1–2; Freiburg/Basel/Wien 2015 forthcoming); editor of Max Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Das antike Judentum, in the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe I/21.1–2, 2 vol. (Tübingen 2005). Area editor Altes Testament of the RGG4, editor of Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte (BZAR) and coeditor of the Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte (ZAR). Magne Sæbø (b. 1929), Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Theology, MF – Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo, 1963–99. Editor of HBOT; President of IOSOT 1995–98. Selected publications: Sacharja 9–14. Untersuchungen von Text und Form (WMANT 34; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1969); On the Way to Canon. Creative Tradition History in the Old Testament (JSOT.S 191; Sheffield 1998); “Zur neueren Interpretationsgeschichte des Alten Testaments”, ThLZ 130 (2005) 1033–44; (editor), Esther, in: Biblia Hebraica quinta editione, 18 (Stuttgart 2004). Joachim Schaper (b. 1965), Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom. Selected publications: Eschatology in the Greek Psalter (WUNT II/76; Tübingen 1995); Priester und Leviten im achämenidischen Juda (FAT

Contributors

715

31; Tübingen 2000); ‘Wie der Hirsch lechzt nach frischem Wasser  …’: Literarische, biblisch-theologische und religionsgeschichtliche Studien zu Psalm 42/43 (BThSt 63; Neukirchen-Vluyn 2004); (editor), Die Textualisierung der Religion (FAT 62; Tübingen 2009); „Exodos/Exodus/Das zweite Buch Mose“, in: M. Karrer/ W. Kraus (eds.), Septuaginta Deutsch: Erläuterungen und Kommentare zum griechischen Alten Testament, 1: Genesis bis Makkabäer (Stuttgart 2011) 258–324; (co-editor), The New Cambridge History of the Bible, I: From the Beginnings to 600 (Cambridge 2013). Co-editor, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments. Seizo¯ Sekine (b. 1950), Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ethics, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo, Japan. Selected publications: Die Tritojesajanische Sammlung (Jes 56–66) redaktionsgeschichtlich untersucht (Berlin 1989); (co-editor), Dictionary of Ethical Thought (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 1997); Old Testament Thought: 24 Fragmentary Reflections (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 1998); Transcendency and Symbols in the Old Testament: A Genealogy of the Hermeneutical Experiences (Berlin 1999; translation from Japanese, Tokyo 1994); (editor), Views of Life & Death and Bioethics (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 1999); (co-author), The Old Testament and the Modern World (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 2000); The Search for Ethics: An Approach from the Bible (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 2002); (editor), Ethical Studies of Religion (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 2003); A Comparative Study of the Origins of Ethical Thought: Hellenism and Hebraism (Lanham, MD 2005; translation from Japanese, Tokyo 2001); (co-editor), Dictionary of Practical Ethics (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 2007); (co-author), The Birth of Western Philosophy (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 2010); (editor/author), The Story of Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac: Akedah Anthology (Japanese monograph, Tokyo 2012); Philosophical Interpretations of the Old Testament (Berlin 2014; translation from Japanese, Tokyo 2008). Jean Louis Ska, SJ (b. 1946), Dr. Bibl. Exeg., Professor of Biblical Exegesis, Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. Selected publications: “Our Fathers Have Told Us”. Introduction to the Analysis of Hebrew Narratives (Rome 1990); Introduction à la lecture du Pentateuque (Bruxelles 2000; ET: Winona Lake, IN 2006); Il libro sigillato e il libro aperto (Bologna 2005; ET: Paris 2011); The Study of the Pentateuch (Tübingen 2009); Il cantiere del Pentateuco. 1. Problemi di composizione e di interpretazione. 2. Aspetti letterari e teologici (Bologna 2013). S. David Sperling (b. 1941), Julian Morgenstern Professor of Bible and Near Eastern Literature, Hebrew Union College-Jewish institute of Religion, New York, NY. Selected publications: Students of the Covenant. A History of Jewish Biblical Scholarship in North America (Atlanta, GA: SBL 1993); The Original Torah. The Political Intent of the Bible’s Writers (New York; New York: University 1998); editor, Bible Division, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edition, 2007. Marvin A. Sweeney (b. 1953), Professor of Hebrew Bible, Claremont School of Theology, and Professor of Tanak, Academy for Jewish Religion California. Selected publications: Tanak: A Theological and Critical Introduction to the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis, 2012); Reading Prophetic Books (FAT 89; Tuebingen: 2014); Reading Ezekiel: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Macon, 2013); Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah (Minneapolis, 2008); The Prophetic Literature: An Introduction (Nashville, 2005); Isaiah 1–39, with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature (FOTL 16; Grand Rapids, 1996); Isaiah 40–66 (FOTL 17; Grand Rapids, forthcoming, 2016); The Twelve Prophets (Berit Olam; 2 vols., Collegeville, 2000); Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic

716

Contributors

Literature (FAT 45; Tuebingen, 2005); 1 and 2 Kings (OTL; Louisville, 2007); Zephaniah (Hermenia; Minneapolis, 2003); King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel (Oxford and New York, 2001); Isaiah 1–4 and the Post-Exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Tradition (BZAW 171; Berlin and New York, 1988); Founding Editor, Review of Biblical Literature (1998–2004); Editor, Hebrew Studies: A Journal Devoted to Hebrew Language and Literature (2006–2011); Co-Editor, Forms of the Old Testament Literature Commentary Series (1995–present); Vice-President, National Association of Professors of Hebrew (2013–present). Jan de Waard (b. 1931), 1966–1972 UBS Translation Consultant in Francophone Central Africa; 1972–1992; UBS Translation Consultant and Coordinator for Europe and the Middle East; 1977–1979; Professor of Old Testament, University of Strasbourg; 1980–1982; Guest Professor at the University of Geneva, Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and Orthodox Seminary of St Petersburg; 1983–1993; Professor of Translatology, University of Strasbourg; 1988–1996; Professor of Tranlatology, Free University of Amsterdam. Selected publications: 1965 A comparative Study of the Old Testament Text in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah. Ed. J. van der Ploeg O.P. , Volume IV Leiden Brill. (Reprint 1966.); 1971 The quotation from Deuteronomy in Acts 3. 22, 23 and the Palestinian text: Additional Arguments. Biblica 52. 537–540; 1973 Translation techniques used by the Greek translators of Ruth. Biblica 54 (4). 499–515; 1977 The chiastic structure of Amos 5. 1–17. Vetus Testamentum 27. 170–177; 1978 Translation techniques used by the Greek translators of Amos. Biblica 59. 339–350; 1979 The translator and textual criticism. Biblica 60. 509–529; “Homophony” in the Septuagint. Biblica 62(4). 551–561; 1986 From one Language to Another (co-author with Eugene A. Nida) Nashville Thomas Nelson; 1996 Hebrew Rhetoric and the Translator. Co-editor of: Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in the Hebrew Bible 242–251. Assen: Van Gorcum and Eisenbrauns; 2004. Ruth: In: Megilloth. BHQ: Vol. 18; 2008. Proverbs. BHQ: Vol. 17.

Abbreviations 1. General and Non-literary Abbreviations Abt. ad loc. Arab. b. BCE BH Bk. c. CE cf. ch./chap(s). col(s). cr. d. Diss. e.a. e.c. ed(s). edn. ET f(f) fol. FS FT G GT HB Heb. hgg. i.a. i.e. ibid. j. Lat. LXX MA

Abteilung ad locum Arabic babli; ben / bar; born Before Common Era Biblia Hebraica Book circa / around Common Era confer, compare chapter(s) column(s) Copyright died Dissertation et alia/i and others exempli causa editor(s) / edited by edition English translation following unit(s) / page(s) folio Festschrift French translation Greek version German translation Hebrew Bible Hebrew herausgegeben inter alia id est ibidem jeruschalmi (cf. y.) Latin Septuagint Middle Ages / Mittelalter / Moyen Age MT Mas(s)oretic Text Ms(s)/ms(s) manuscript(s) ND Neudruck NF Neue Folge

n(n). no(s). NS NT obv. OG OS OT P pass. p(p). pl(s). pl. pr. Q q.v. r ref(s). repr. rev. RV s.a. sect(s). s.l. sg. s.v. Syr. TaNaK

Tg(s) tr. UP v v(v). var. Vg VL vol(s). vs. y.

note(s) number(s) New Series New Testament obverse Old Greek Old Series Old Testament Peshitta passim page(s) plate(s) plural printed / printing Qumran quod vide recto (cf. v) reference(s) reprint(ed) revised Revised Version sine anno section(s) sine loco singular sub voce Syriac Tora Nebi’im Ketubim (‘Law, Prophets, Writings’), acronym for the Hebrew Bible Targum(s) translated / translatio University Press verso verse(s) variant Vulgate Vetus Latina volume(s) versus yerushalmi (cf. j.

718

Abbreviations

2. Acronyms of Cited Rabbis Besht / ha-Besht Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov Malbim Rabbi Meir Leibush / Loeb ben Yehiel Michael Radak Rabbi David Qimhi (Kimhi) Ralbag Rabbi Levi ben Gershom / Gersonides Rambam Rabbi Moses ben Maimon / Maimonides

Ramban Rambeman Rasad Rashbam Rashi

Rabbi Moses ben Nahman / Nahmanides Rabbi Moses Mendelssohn Rabbi Saadiah Gaon Rabbi Samuel ben Meir Rabbi Solomon Yishaqi (ben Isaac)

3. Abbreviations of Periodicals, Yearbooks, Reference Works and Series Abbreviations of periodicals are in italic AASOR AASF AASP AAug AAWB

AAWG

ABD ABG ABRep ACQR DB ADPV AER/AEcR AWEAT

AEWK

AGP

Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae Archives of the Archdiocese of St. Paul Analecta Augustiniana Abhandlungen der kgl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen; cf. AGWG Anchor Bible Dictionary Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte American Biblical Repository American Catholic Quarterly Review Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins American Ecclesiastical Review Archiv für wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testaments Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Pietismus

AGPh AGTL AGWG

AHB AHR AHSJ AHST AJS AJSL AJTh AKG AKuG AnBib ANET AnGr ANVAO

AÖG APh

Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (und Soziologie) Arbeiten zur Geschichte und Theologie des Luthertums Abhandlungen der (kgl.) Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen Allgemeine historische Bibliothek American Historical Review Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu Arbeiten zur Historischen und Systematischen Theologie American Journal of Sociology American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures American Journal of Theology Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte Archiv für Kulturgeschichte Analecta Biblica Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament Analecta Gregoriana Avhandlinger utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo Archiv für österreichische Geschichte Archiv für Philosophie

Abbreviations

ARefG ARelG ARWAW

ASGW ATA ATD AThANT

AUL AUU AWEAT

BASOR BB BBB BBC BBKL BCAT BEATAJ

BETL BEvTh BFBS BFChrTh BGBE BGBH BHK BHQ BHR BHRef

Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte Archiv für Religionsgeschichte Abhandlungen der RheinischWestfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Abhandlungen der Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Alttestamentliche Abhandlungen Das Alte Testament Deutsch. Neues Göttinger Bibelwerk Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Acta Universitatis Lundensis Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis Archiv für wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testaments Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Biographia Britannica Bonner Biblische Beiträge Blackwell Bible Commentaries Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (Bautz) Biblischer Commentar über das Alte Testament Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Judentums Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Beiträge zur Evangelischen Theologie The British and Foreign Bible Society Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Hermeneutik Biblia Hebraica (ed. R. Kittel) Biblia Hebraica Quinta (ed. A. Schenker e.a.) Bibliothèque d’humanisme et renaissance Bibliotheca humanistica et reformatorica

BHS BHTh Bib. BibOr BibR BJRL

BKAT BLGNP

BMS BN BNYPL BRHE BThSt BTT BWANT BZ BZAR

BZAW BZNW

CBC CBET CBQ CBQ.MS CBSC CGG CH CHB CHR ChW CIS

719 Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (ed. K. Elliger / W. Rudolph) Beiträge zur historischen Theologie Biblica Biblica et Orientalia Biblical Research Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester Biblischer Kommentar. Altes Testament Biographisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlandse protestantisme Berlinische Monatsschrift Biblische Notizen Bulletin of the New York Public Library Bibliothèque de la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique Biblisch-Theologische Studien Bible de tous les temps Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuem Testament Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte Beiträge zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Beiträge zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Cambridge Bible Commentary Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly. Monograph Series The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Christlicher Glaube in moderner Gesellschaft Church History The Cambridge History of the Bible Catholic Historical Review Christliche Welt Corpus inscriptionum Semiticarum

720 CNedThT ConBOT CRINT CThM CTJ DAB DABu DB DBH DBS DBAT DBI

DBInt

DBF DB.S DHI DJD DLZ DMBI DNB

DS DtPfrBl DVfLG

ECCA EcR EdF EEF

Abbreviations

Cahiers bij Nederlands theologisch Tijdschrift Coniectania Biblica. Old Testament Series Compendia rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Calwer theologische Monographien Calvin Theological Journal Dictionary of American Biography, 1–20 (1928–1958) Dichter des Alten Bundes Dictionnaire de la Bible Dictionary of the Bible (ed. J. Hastings) Dictionary of the Bible (ed. W. Smith) Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (ed. R. J. Coggins / J. L. Houlden) Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, A-J, K-Z (ed. J. H. Hayes) Dictionnaire de Biographie Française Dictionnaire de la Bible. Supplément Dictionary of the History of Ideas (New York 1968–1973) Discoveries in the Judaen Desert Deutsche Literaturzeitung Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters (ed. D. K. McKim) Dictionary of National Biography (London 1885–1901)  / Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford 2004) Enchiridion symbolorum … (ed. Denzinger / Schönmetzer) Deutsches Pfarrerblatt Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity The Ecclesiastical Review Erträge der Forschung Egypt Exploration Fund

EH EHPhR EHS.T EKGB EKZ EncBB EncBi EncBr EncEnl EncJud EncPh EncRen EPH ERE EstB ET ETH EthSt ETR EvTh Exp. ExpB FAT FKDG FOTL FRLANT

FSThR

FThSt FuF GGA GodBij

Exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament (Münster) Études d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe 23: Theologie Einzelarbeiten aus der Kirchengeschichte Bayerns Evangelische Kirchenzeitung The Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible Encyclopaedia Biblica Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopedia of Enlightenmemnt Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem) Encyclopedia of Philosophy Encyclopedia of the Renaissance Études de philologie et d’histoire Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 1–13 (1908–1926) Estudios Bíblicos Expository Times Études de théologie historique Erfurter theologische Studien Études théologiques et religieuses Evangelische Theologie Expositor Expositor’s Bible Forschungen zum Alten Testament Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte The Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Forschungen zur systematischen Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Freiburger theologische Studien Forschungen und Fortschritte Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen Godgeleerde Bijdragen

Abbreviations

GTA GuG HAL HAT HBOT

HBT HDG HDTG HF HHMBI

HHS HK(AT) HSAT HThK HThS HJ HR HS HSM HTIBS HTR HUBP HUCA HUTh HWP HZ IB IDB ICC

Göttinger theologische Arbeiten Geschichte und Gesellschaft Hebräisches und Aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament Handbuch zum Alten Testament (Tübingen) Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation; I/1: Antiquity, 1996; I/2: The Middle Ages, 2000; II: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, 2008 Horizons in Biblical Theology Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte Handbuch der Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte Historische Forschungen Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters (ed. D. K. McKim) Harvard Historical Studies Handkommentar zum Alten Testament Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments Herders theologischer Kommentar Harvard Theological Studies Historisches Jahrbuch History of Religions Historische Studien Harvard Semitic Monographs Historic Texts and Interpreters in Biblical Scholarship Harvard Theological Review Hebrew University Bible Project Hebrew Union College Annual Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie Historische Zeitschrift The Interpreter’s Bible Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible The International Critical Commentary

IOSOT IliffRev IMW

Int. JA JAAR JAOS JARCE JBL JBR JBTh JDTh JE JHI JHP JJS JJTP JMRS JNES JNWSL JPh JPTh JQR JR JRAS

JRH JSNT.S

JSOT.S

JSTh JThI JTS

721 International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament Iliff Review Internationale Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik Interpretation Journal Asiatique Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Bible and Religion Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie Jewish Encyclopaedia Journal of the History of Ideas Journal of the History of Philosophy Journal of Jewish Studies The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Journal of Philology Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Religion Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland Journal of Religious History Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series Journal of Scottish Thought Journal of Theological Interpretation Journal of Theological Studies

722 JZWL KAT KEH KEK KHC KIG KiKul KJV KK

KUSATU

KVR LCL LHBOTS LuJ LuthQ MGH MGWJ

MennQR Mikra

MQR MSU

MThS.H MThSt MThZ NABU

Abbreviations

Jüdische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben Kommentar zum Alten Testament Kurzgefaßtes exegetisches Handbuch Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament Kirche in ihrer Geschichte Kirke og Kultur King James Bible / Version (the Authorized Version) Kurzgefasster Kommentar zu den heiligen Schriften Alten und Neuen Testamentes Kleine Untersuchungen zur Sprache des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt Kleine Vandenhoeck-Reihe Loeb Classical Library Library of Old Testament / Hebrew Bible Studies Luther-Jahrbuch Lutheran Quarterly Monumenta Germaniæ historica Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums Mennonite Quarterly Review Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. M. J. Mulder; CRINT II/1) Methodist Quarterly Review Mitteilungen des SeptuagintaUnternehmens der Gesellschaft / Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen Münchener theologische Studien. Historische Abteilung Marburger theologische Studien Münchener theologische Zeitschrift Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires

NAWG NCB NGWG

NDB NEB NedThT NZSTh OBO ODNB OLA OLZ OrChrP OM OTE OTL OTS PAAJR PaThSt PBA PBInst PEF PEQ PhB PhJ PhR PIASH

PKZ

PLO PR PRE3

Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen New Clarendon Bible Nachrichten der (kgl.) Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (und der Georg Augusts Universität) zu Göttingen Neue Deutsche Biographie New English Bible Nederlands(ch)e Theologisch Tijdschrift Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Orientalia lovaniensia analecta Orientalistische Literaturzeitung Orientalia Christiana Periodica Oriente Moderno Old Testament Essays Old Testament Library Oudtestamentische Studiën Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research Paderborner theologische Studien Proceedings of the British Academy Pontifical Biblical Institute / Pontificio Istituto Biblico The Palestine Exploration Fund Palestine Exploration Quarterly Philosophische Bibliothek Philosophisches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft Philosophische Rundschau Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Protestantische Kirchenzeitung für das evangelische Deutschland Porta linguarum orientalium The Presbyterian Review Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft

Abbreviations

PSBA

Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (cf. TSBA) PThM Pittsburgh Theological Monographs QKIJRG Quellenkunde der israelitischen und jüdischen Religionsgeschichte RB Revue Biblique RBén Revue bénédictine de critique, d’histoire et de littérature religieuses RdQ Revue de Qumrân RE Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche REB Revised English Bible REncPh Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy REJ Revue des études juives RevSR Revue des sciences religieuses RGG3/RGG4 Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (3. / 4. edn.) RHE Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique RHPhR Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses RHR Revue de l’histoire des religions RKZ Reformierte Kirchenzeitung RLA Reallexikon der Assyriologie RoC Records of Civilization. Sources and Studies RSR Recherches de science religieuse RSV Revised Standard Version RSyn Revue de synthèse RThPh Revue de théologie et de philosophie RV Revised Version RSV Revised Standard Version Saec. Saeculum SaH Saat auf Hoffnung SAJEC Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity SAT Die Schriften des Alten Testaments SB Sources Bibliques SBAB Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände SBB Stuttgarter biblische Beiträge SBEc Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica SBL.MS Society of Biblical Literature. Masoretic Studies

SBL.MT SBONT SBS SBTh Sef. SEÅ SHAW

SHKBA

SHCT SHVL

SIH SJ SJOT SJT SKGG SNVAO

SOR SOTS.M SPCK Spec. SRTH SSAW

SSL SSN StGen StPB StThB SThZ STL

723 Society of Biblical Literature. Masoretic Texts Sacred Books of the Old and New Testaments Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Studies in Biblical Theology Sefarad Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften Schriftenreihe der historischen Kommission bei der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Studies in the History of Christian Thought Skrifter utgivna av Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet i Lund Studies in Intellectual History Studia Judaica Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Scottish Journal of Theology Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft Skrifter utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo Studies in Oriental Religions Society for Old Testament Study. Monographs Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Speculum Studies in Reformed Theology and History Sitzungsberichte der sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense Studia Semitica Neerlandica Studium generale Studia post-biblica Studien zu Theologie und Bibel Schweizerische Theologische Zeitschrift Studia theologica Lundensia

724 STPIMS

StT StTh SThGG

STRS SWALBI

SWI TAzB ThB TCBS TSBA

ThBl ThLBl ThLZ ThPh ThQ ThR ThStKr ThSW ThW ThRv ThT TRE TThZ ThZ TS TSBA TSJTSA

TSTP TTD

Abbreviations

Studies and Texts. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto) Studi e Testi. Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana Studia Theologica Studien zur Theologie und Geistesgeschichte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts Studien und Texte zur Religionsgeschichtlichen Schule Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Institute of Jews from Germany Studies of the Warburg Institute Texte und Arbeiten zur Bibel Theologische Bücherei Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (cf. PSBA) Theologische Blätter Theologisches Literaturblatt Theologische Literaturzeitung Theologie und Philosophie Theologische Quartalschrift Theologische Rundschau Theologische Studien und Kritiken Theologische Studien aus Württemberg Theologische Wissenschaft Theologische Revue Theologisch Tijdschrift Theologische Realenzyklopädie Trierer theologische Zeitschrift Theologische Zeitschrift Theological Studies Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology Texts and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America Tübinger Studien zur Theologie und Philosophie Theologisk Tidsskrift / Teologisk tidskrift for den danske folkekirke

TTN

TU

UCLA UJE UUÅ VB VC VIEG

VMAW

VT VT.S VuF WdF WMANT

WO WTJ WUNT

WZH.GS

WZKM YJS ZA ZAH ZAR ZAW ZDMG ZDPV

Theologisk Tidsskrift for den evangelisk-lutherske Kirke i Norge Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur University of California – Los Angeles The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift Vestigia Bibliae Vigiliae Christianae Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte, Mainz Verslagen en Mededeelingen der kgl. Akademie van Wetenschappen Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum. Supplements Verkündigung und Forschung Wege der Forschung Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Die Welt des Orients Westminster Theological Journal Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Gesellschafts- und Sprachwissenschaften Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde es Morgenlandes Yale Judaica Series Zeitschrift für Assyriologie Zeitschrift für Althebraistik Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins

Abbreviations

ZHF ZHTh ZKG ZKM ZKTh ZKWL ZLThK

Zeitschrift für historische Forschung Zeitschrift für historische Theologie Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie Zeitschrift für kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirchliches Leben Zeitschrift für die lutherische Theologie und Kirche

ZNT ZNW ZVPsS ZSTh ZThK ZRGG ZWTh

725 Zeitschrift für Neues Testament Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie

Indexes Names/Topics/References

Names (there may be minor differences in the spelling of some names) Abadie, P. 427 Abegg, M. G. 300, 334 Abegunde, S. O. 253, 257 Abou Absi, Z. 150 Absalom Achenbach, R. 460, 462, 594, 596, 606 Ackermann, S. 58 Ackroyd, P. R. 488, 516, 518 Adam 177, 289 Adam, A. K. M. 159 Adam, K.-P. 594 Adamo, D. T. 253, 259, 262 Aejmelaeus, A. 302, 335 f., 343, 349, 531 Aguilar, M. I. 221, 248 Ahab 405, 429 Ahaz 359, 495, 659 Ahlström, G. W. 336, 354, 426, 525 Aichele, G. 154, 156 f., 166, 196, 211, 221, 245 Akao, J. O. 253, 259 Aland, B. 674, 678, 686 Aland, K. 674, 678, 686 Albani, M. 642, 659 f. Albertson, R. G. 559 Albertz, R. 58, 90–92, 300, 318, 393, 426, 444, 447, 459, 461, 470, 475, 487, 559, 622,f., 625 f., 628, 634, 636–38, 640–42, 645, 649–54, 658, 660, 672 Albrektson, B. 19, 221, 243, 336, 343 Albright, W. F. 12, 45, 49, 59, 82, 96, 98, 100 f., 121, 176, 221, 223, 239, 241–44, 248, 300, 313, 327, 380 f., 394, 400, 409, 415–21, 423 f., 437, 464, 496, 559, 577, 581, 622, 631

Aletti, J.-N. 534, 548, 559, 581 Alkier, St. 646, 664 Allen, L. 519, 523 Alonso Schökel, L. 151, 55, 581, 584, 589 Alt, A. 71, 81, 125, 137 f., 176, 191, 248, 300, 323, 327, 400, 413, 418, 420, 445, 450, 468, 531, 546, 577, 594, 599 Alter, R. 96, 111 f., 149, 152, 221, 249, 300, 306, 310, 378, 531, 548 Ames, F. R. 221–23 Amit, Y. 152, 384, 467 Anaxagoras 432 Andersen, C. B. 58 Andersen, F. I. 269, 282, 559, 589 Anderson, C. B. 594, 605 Anderson, G. A. 58, 154 Anderson, G. W. 19, 137, 197, 300, 303, 339, 399, 561, 622 Anderson, J. C. 167 Anderson, W. H. 150 Andiñach, P. R. 221, 248 Andrew, M. E. 269, 282 f. Apel, K. O. 29, 36 Appiah-Kubi, K. 253 Aristotle 30, 32 Arneth, M. 594, 596, 642, 658 f. Arrandale, R. 170 Artaxerxes 491 Artus, O. 460, 462, 594 Aschkenasy, N. 155 Assmann, J. 619, 642, 648 f., 651, 660, 666, 668, 670

Names

Ast, F. 33 Aucker, W. B. 470 Audet, J.-P. 559, 575 Audring, G. 404 Auffret, P. 531, 548 Augustin, M. 488, 565 Augustine 192, 263 Auld, A. G. 454, 458, 470, 476, 488, 496 Aurelius, E. 454 Austad, T. 19 Avalos, H. 166, 221, 251 Ayuso Marazuela, T. 559 Babington, B. 156 Bach, A. 154, 156, 160 f., 166, 221 Bächli, O. 175–78, 412 Baden, J. 433, 464 f. Baeta, C. G. 253, 259 Bailey, R. C. 166, 221, 250 f. Baker, D. B. 401 Baker, D. W. 422, 467 Bal, M. 154, 160–62 Baldermann, I. 196–98 Ball, C. J. 559, 586, 588 Balla, E. 347, 509, 511, 531, 545 Ballhorn, E. 196, 200, 218 Balthasar, H. U. von 171 f., 174f, 187–94 Banks, R. 269, 280 Barbiero, G. 594 Bar-Efrat, S. 152 Barkay, G. 454, 456 Barmash, P. 594 Bar-On, S. 460 f. Barr, J. 19, 55, 63, 76, 96, 105, 196, 198, 210, 211, 212, 221, 243, 300, 326, 335, 624, 632, 642, 648, 674, 680 Barstad, H.M. 93, 300, 321, 336, 359 f., 365, 368, 395, 430–32 Bartelink , G. J. M. 674, 678 Bartelmus, R. 155 Barth, F. 75, 221 Barth, H. 516 f. Barth, J. 45, 47 Barth, K. 96, 101–03, 105, 107, 119, 170–72, 174–81, 183, 185, 188, 193, 199, 203, 209, 246, 316 f., 326, 330 f., 410, 614 Barthel, J. 196, 217 f. Barthelemy, D. 674, 679 Barthes, R. 113, 300, 332 Bartholomew, C. G. 196, 559, 592 Bartlett, J. R. 423

727

Barton, G. A. 559, 569 Barton, J. 19, 23 f., 29, 58, 61, 67, 96, 121, 148, 154 f., 159, 164, 196, 210 f., 237, 525, 610, 615, 618, 622 Barucq, A. 559, 583, 591 Bauckham, R. 161 Bauer, A. 162 Bauer, H. 48, 55, 57 Bauks, M. 454, 458 Baumann, G. 515, 530 Baumbach, G. 170 Baumgärtel, F. 403, 622 Baumgartner, W. 56 f., 126, 133, 171 f., 178, 197, 203, 399, 509 f., 559, 562, 573 Bayet, J. 624, 629 Bea, A. 140, 488 Beardsley, C. 111 Beauchamp, P. 158 Beaude, P.-M. 155 Beck, J. A. 150 Beck, M. 525, 529 Beck, R. N. 19 Becker, E.-M. 467 Becker, J. 516 f., 531, 545 Becker, U. 93 Becking, B. 154, 162, 423, 428, 430 Beckwith, R. T. 531, 558 Beek, G. W. van 417 Beek, M. A. 150, 409 Begrich, J. 125, 129, 509, 513, 531, 538 Behrends, O. 594 Bellah, R. N. 221, 228 Ben Zvi, E. 126, 141, 406–08, 430, 525 Bendavid, A. 52 Bendix, R. 394, 397 f. Bendor, S. 58 Benjamin, D. C. 60, Benjamin, W. 674, 658 Benjamin, W. 674, 685 Bennett, H. V. 58, 594 Bennett, R. 45 Bentzen, A. 409, 434, 436, 447 Benzinger, I. 58, 62, 81, 409 Ben-Zvi, E. 126, 141 Berge, K. 336, 365 Berger, K. 19 Berger, P.L. 92 Berges, U. 516, 519 Bergler, S. 525 Bergsma, J. S. 594, 607 Bergsträsser, G. 45, 47, 53

728

Indexes

Berlinerblau, J. 58, 90, 385 Bernhardt, K.-H. 531, 544, 565, 575 Berquist, J. L. 58, 92, 430, 488 Bertholet, A. 58, 62 f., 75 f., 81, 562, 598, 622 f., 626, 628 f. Besier, G. 19 Bethge, E. 171, 182, 185, 623 Betti, E. 29, 38 Beuken, W. A. M. 516, 519, 525, 529 Beyer, K. 56 Biddle, M. E. 57, 519, 522 Binney, J. 269, 275 Biran, A. 422 Birch, B. C. 610, 617 Bird, P. A. 161 Birkeland, H. 336, 344, 347 f., 352, 531, 544 f. Black, F. C. 154, 167, 221, 244, 302 Black, M. 674 Black, M. 674 Blank, S. H. 150, 373, 376 Blau, J. 57 Blenkinsopp, J. 58, 92, 95, 196, 217, 430, 432, 444, 453–55, 461, 500, 516, 519, 559, 575, 580 Block, D. I. 523, 525 Blum, E. 68, 197, 200, 270, 300, 310–12, 338, 368, 433, 442, 444, 446, 448–51, 453, 457–61, 464, 467, 642, 665 Blumenberg, H. 624, 632 Bodel, J. 58, 60 Bodi, D. I. 523, 525 Boecker, H. J. 445 f., 594 Boer, R. 149, 161, 164 f., 221, 223, 226, 248, 269, 284, 428 Bogaert, P.-M. 519 f. Böhl, F. M. T. 49 Bonhoeffer, D. 171, 174, 181–87, 194, 246 Bonnora, A. 559, 583 Boorer, S. 270, 283, 445, 448, 453 Bordreuil, P. 427 Bosman, H. L. 22, 24, 253, 255 Boström, G. 559, 581 Boström, L. 559, 567 Bosworth, D. 170 Botta, A. F. 221, 248 Botterweck, G. J. 57 Bousset, W. 559, 566, 581, 622 Bovati, P. 594, 601 Braaten, C. E. 96, 106, 197 Brakelmann, G. 171 Bratcher, R. G. 674, 675, 684

Braulik, G. 300, 312, 454, 594, 596, 605, 642, 665 f. Braun, R. L. 488, 559, 591 Brekelmans, C. H. W. 455, 461 Brenner, A. 150, 157, 161–63, 559, 565, 579, 583 Brett, M. G. 19, 165, 196, 211, 270, 283 f. Brettler, M. Z. 371, 383–85, 406 f., 423, 461 Breward, I. 269, 272, 275–78, 280 Briend, J. 81, 420 Briggs, Ch. A. 55, 235–37, 277 Briggs, E. G. 531, 536, 557 Bright, J. 96, 100, 221, 241, 300, 327, 400, 409, 417, 420, 467, 519, 521 Brin, G. 594 Briquel-Chatonnet, F. 427 Britt, B. 154, 166 Brock, B. 170 f. Brockelmann, C. 45, 47 Brooke-Rose, C. 96 Brooks, C. 111 Brower, R. A. 679, 691 Brown, F. 55 Brown, J. P. 58 Brown, M. J. 221, 250 Brown, W. P. 221, 409 Broyles, C. C. 516 f. Bruce, F. F. 298 Bruce, W. S. 610 Brueggemann, W. 196, 198, 217, 531, 535, 550f., 554, 563 Bruin, C. C. de 674, 688, 689 Brunner, H. 559, 561 Bruun, H. H. 394 Buber, M. 188, 191, 290, 550, 674, 686 Bubner, R. 36 Buccelati, G. 559 Bucer 182 Buckley, V. 269, 279 Budde, A. 196 Budde, K. 525, 622 Budge, E. A. W. 559, 567, 572 Buhl, F. 55, 409 Bultmann, C. 395, 642 Bultmann, R. 20, 136, 171–73, 175, 192, 308 Burden, J. J. 253, 263 Burguière, A. 392 Burke, P. 156, 168, 392 Burkert, W. 531, 533 Burnett, J. S. 453, 464 Burns, D. 422

Names

Burnside, J. P. 594 Buss, M. J. 150 f. Butler, J. T. 171 Buttenwieser, M. 373 Büttner, M. 642, 652 Buzzetti, C. 674, 682, 687 Byrd, J. P. 24, 221, 226, 235, 238, 252 Calder III, W. M. 67, 404 Calduch-Benages, N. 467 Callahan, A. D. 221, 250 Calvin, J. 182 Camp, C. V. 148, 161, 559, 581 f. Campbell, A. Campbell, A. F. 24, 126, 270, 282 f., 399, 445, 453 f., 470, 484 Campbell, J. K. 88f Campbell, K. M. 58 Campenhausen, H. von 196, 209 Capetz, P. E. 170 Carley, K. W. 270, 283 Carlson, R. A. 336, 354 Carmichael, C. M. 594 Carmody, D. L. 559, 582 Carr, D. M. 163, 431, 445–47, 453 f., 457, 460 f., 463, 509, 515, 609, 670 Carroll Rodas, M. D. 610, 618 Carroll, L. 29, 38, Carroll, M.D. 156, 159, 610, 618 Carroll, R. P. 58, 92, 94, 96, 157, 159 f., 163 f., 196, 300, 324, 336, 359, 519, 521 Carruthers, J. 154 Case, S. J. 222, 230 Cassuto, U. M. D. 377 f. Castel, F. 426 Catford, J. C. 674, 692 Cazelles, H. 423, 426 Ceresko, A. R. 150 Chalcraft, D. J. 58, 67, 95 Chaney, M. L. 58, 85 Chant, B. 269, 280 Chapman, S. 196, 212, 217 Chardin, P. T. de 192 Charlesworth, J. M. 560, 582 Chia, P. 165 Chidester, D. 264 Childs, B. S. 19, 96, 105–08, 154, 194, 198– 214, 216–18, 232, 331, 349, 439, 452, 670 Chomsky, N. 29, 40, Christensen, D. L. 509, 513 Christianson, E .S. 154, 156, 560, 592

729

Chung, P. 170 Clark, D. R. 222 Clark, S. 392 Clarke, E. A. 624, 627 Claudius, M. 677 Clauss, M. 394, 426 f. Clements, R. E. 18 f., 58, 71, 77, 85 f., 92, 196, 300, 303, 309, 323, 426, 516, 518, 578, 612 Clevenot, M. 164 Clifford, R. J. 560, 581, 584 Clines, D. J. A. 114, 148, 151–54, 156–62, 560, 589 Coats, G. W. 161, 443, 445 f. Cohen, C. 382, 385, 387 Cohen, D. 48, 54 Cohen, H. 67 Cohen, M. 45, 386 Collins, A. Y. 161, 232 Collins, J. J. 197, 560 , 579 Collins, T. 515 Confucius 31 Conrad, E. W. 171, 270, 283, 515, 519, 525, 529 Coogan, M. D. 427 Cook, S. L. 59, 90, 199, 419, 496, 523 Cooke, G. A. 50 f. Cooper, A. 387 Cooper, J. S. 45 Coote, R. B. 85, 393, 422, 424, 445 Court, J. M. 170 Cowley, A. E. 55 Cowley, R. W. 253 Craigie, P. C. 531, 556 Creanga˘, O. 163 Crenshaw, J. A. 59 Crenshaw, J. L. 126, 509, 525, 560, 562, 567 f., 580, 582, 592, 610 Croatto, J. S. 153, 222, 247 Crook, M. B. 560, 582 Cross, F. M. 222, 243, 300, 417, 454, 470 Crowell, B. L. 165 Crüsemann, F. 59, 67, 91, 171, 184, 186, 445, 447, 458 f., 531, 595, 605, 610, 622, 642 Cryer, F. H. 445, 448, 509, 515 Culler, J. 96 Culley, R. C. 60, 93, 152, 159, 168, 222, 249, 252, 357 Cullmann, O. 203, 212 Cunningham, A. 168 Curtis, A. H. W. 519 Cushing Stahlberg, L. 154

730

Indexes

Dagut, M. B. 674, 683 Dahm, U. 59 Dahmen, U. 531, 557 Dahood, M. J. 48, 50, 531, 560, 567, 591 Daise, M. A. 560, 582 Dalferth, I. U. 642, 655 Dalman, G. 62 f., 622, 629 f. Daly, M. 96, 109 Daniel, U. 642 Darbelnet, J. 675, 687 Darwin, C. 236, 371 Dasenbrock, R. W. 29, 39 David, M. 560, 598 Davidson, D. 42 Davies, A. 155 Davies, E. W. 161, 396, 610, 615 Davies, G. I. 560, 580 Davies, P. R. 91, 95, 150, 156, 163, 300, 422 f., 432, 635 Davison, W. T. 560 Day, J. 19, 59, 30, 428, 488, 560–63, 565, 578, 582, 591, 623 Day, P. L. 91, 161 Deborah 241, 243, 469 Deininger, J. 67 Deissler, A. 531, 549 Delhaye, P. 610 Delitzsch, F. 98, 300, 314, 337, 374, 376, 560, 581, 674, 698 Delitzsch, F. 98, 300, 314, 337, 374, 376, 560, 581, 674, 698 Delkurt, H. 610, 615 Dell, K. J. 560, 579 Delsman, W. C. 516 Demandt, A. 67, 404 Dentan, R. C. 467 Derrida, J. 96 f., 114, 159 f., 302, 332, 395 Detweiler, R. 153, 159 Dever, W. G. 59 f., 222, 243, 300, 318, 404, 417, 422, 428, 431, 467 Dhorme, E. P. 48 f., 560, 589 Diamond, A. R. P. 150, 519 f. Dickson, K. A. 253, 259, 263 Diebner, B. 438, 442, 450 Diesel, A. A. 461 Dietrich, W. 24, 249, 300, 311, 363, 395, 426, 445, 461 f., 467 f., 470, 610, 642 Dijk-Hemmes, F. van 161–63, 383, 559 f., 567, 580, 588 Dijkstra, M. 162 Dillmann, A. 622

Dilthey, W. 32 Dion, P.-E. 560 Dixon, A. C. 269 Dobbs-Allsopp, F. W. 150 Dohmen, Ch. 155, 197 f., 217 f., 642, 644, 654, 666, 671 Dolgopolsky, A. 45 Doll, P. 560 Donaldson, L. E. 165 Donner, H. 50, 56, 197, 426, 445 f., 467, 563, 644 Douglas, M. 84 f., 87, 90, 300 Doyle, B. R. 269, 277, 280 Dozeman, T. B. 149, 151, 162, 165 f., 445, 453, 460, 463, 609 Draper, J. A. 253, 264, 266 Driver, D. 198, 217 Driver, G. R. 45, 54, 531 Driver, S. R. 55, 98, 300, 307, 490, 560 Droysen, J.G. 32, 627, 649 Dube, M. Dube, M. W. 165, 253, 255, 262 Duesberg, H. 300, 325 Dufour, J. P. 674, 701 Duhm, B. 300, 501 f., 531, 535, 628 Dumbrell, W. J. 270, 280 Dürbeck, H. 674, 676 Durkheim, E. 77, 397 Dürr, L. 560, 580 Eaton, J. H. 531, 543 Ebach, J. 96, 106 f. Ebeling, E. 49, 560, 590 Eberharter, A. 595 Eco, U. 96, 117, 396 Edelman, D. V. 406, 408, 467, 644 Edenburg, C. 595 Eerdmans, B. D. 434, 622 Efthimiadis-Keith, H. 168 Ehrlich, A. B. 374, 377 Ehrlich, E. L. 409 Eichrodt, W. 96, 102 f., 176, 178, 188, 203, 300, 316 f., 336, 370, 610, 614, 622 Eidevall, G. 336, 358 Eissfeldt, O. 300, 307, 470, 473, 476, 560, 572, 588, 631 Ela, J.-M. 253 Elgvin, T. 560, 565, 568 Eli 471, 473 Elijah 72, 197, 321, 337, 469, 482, 485 f., 515 Eliot, T.S. 111

Names

Ellens, J. H. 168 Ellenson, D. 371 Ellermeier, F. 509, 512 Elliger, K. 454, 516 f., 526 Ellingworth, P. 253, 259, 674, 695 Elliott, J. H. 59, 69, 91 Elmslie, W.A.L. 610 Elsmore, B. 270, 283 Emerton, J. A. 59, 61, 85, 445, 453 f., 457, 461, 488, 560–63, 582 Emmendörffer, M. 531, 541 England, J. 269 Engnell, I. 337, 341, 343, 346, 350–55, 358 f., 361 f., 531, 545 Ericsson, B. 337, 360 Eriksson, L.O. 337, 349 Erman, A. 560, 572 Eskenazi, T. C. 154, 159, 161, 383 Esler, P. 59, 87, 92, 394 Estienne, R. 685 Evans , P. W. 156 Evans, C. A. 157, 386 f., 516 f. Exum, J. C. 148, 150–52, 154–57, 159, 161, 166, 168 Eynikel, E. 470, 477 Ezeogu, E. M. 253 Fabry, H.-J. 57, 454, 531, 643, 670 Fager, J. A. 610 Fahey, T. 67, 69 Falk, Z.W. 595 Farisani, E. 253 Farstad, A. L. 674, 678 Fei Gaoyin 296, 298 Felder, C. H. 166, 222, 250 Feldmeier, R. 198, 218 Felmy, K. C. 675 Fewell, D. N. 152, 157,161 Fichtner, J. 560, 573 Fiensy, D. 253 Filson, F. V. 417 Finkelstein, C. 560, 588 Finkelstein, I. 59, 92, 140, 337, 366, 379f, 414, 427f Finkelstein, J.J. 595, 604 Firmage, E. B. 85, 595 Fischer, G. 519f, 522 Fischer, I. 163, 170, 643, 656 Fish, S.E. 96, 116, 212, 333, 396 Fishbane, M. 157, 383, 388, 595 Fisher, C.S. 239

731

Fisher, J. A. 610, 616 Fitzpatrick-McKinley, A. 595 Fleischer, G. 445, 451 Flint, P. W. 199, 300, 334, 532, 556f Floyd, M. H. 525 Fogarty, G. P. 19, 24 Fögen, M. T. 597 Fohrer, G. 426, 470, 476, 523f, 560, 588f, 622, 633, 637, 639 Fokkelman, J. P. 152, 300f, 332, 445, 452 Føllesdal, D. 7, 24, 29 Fontaine, C.R. 157, 161, 163, 559f, 579 Foster, R. L. 151f, 221, 222, 223, 237 Foucault, M. 120, 395 Fowl, S.E. 148, 198 Fowler, R. M. 153 Fox, J. 45 Fox, M. V. 382, 385f, 455, 560, 574, 582, 584, 590, 592 Fox, N. S. 59, 382, 386f Frankfort, H. 59, 588 Fransen, P. I. 300, 325 Frazer, J. G. 59 Freedman, D. N. 58, 199, 222, 243, 244, 269, 282, 416, 417, 674, 697 Frei, H. 106, 198, 205 Frei, P. 445, 451 Freud, S. 37, 394 Frevel, C. 394, 454, 458, 469, 643, 660 Frick, F. S. 59, 81, 83, 90f, 222, 248 Friedman, R. E. 387, 453, 464f, 470, 479 Friedmann, D. 610 Frieling, S. 155 Fritz, V. 427 Frontain, R.-J. 150, 155 Frye, N. 96, 112, 149 Frymer-Kensky, T. 163, 380, 383, 611 Fuchs, E. 161 Fuller, R. H. 223 Funk, R. W. 222, 231, 232, 233, 238, 375 Füssel, K. 164 Gadamer, H.- G. 7, 19, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 42, 44, 103, 212, 289 Galambush, J. 383, 523, 525 Galling, K. 176, 434, 436, 488, 523f, 560, 591 Gammie, J. G. 60, 560, 562f, 565, 577, 582, 591 Garbini, G. 426f, 431 Garcia de la Fuente, O. 560 García Martínez, F. 561, 568

732

Indexes

Gardiner, P. 19 Garr, W. R. 46, 50 Gass, E. 150 Gaubert, H. 59 Gauger, H. M. 674 Gebre-Amanuel, M.-S. 254, 260 Gehrke, H.-J. 595, 602 Geist, M. 171 Gellman, J. I. 163 Gellner, C. 155 Gemser, B. 561, 583 Genette, G. 113, 332 Geoghegan, J. C. 470 Gephart, W. 67f Gerhardsson, B. 337, 350f, 358 Gerleman, G. 337, 343, 369 Gerstenberger, E. S. 24, 427, 488, 491, 531, 540, 561, 575, 595, 600 Gertz, J. C. 67, 71, 444f, 454, 460, 461, 462, 463, 595, 643, 665f Gese, H. 19, 199, 561, 573, 574, 575, 587 Gesenius, W. 52, 55, 56, 57 Geus, C. H. J. de 365, 512 Gibert, P. 399, 432 Gideon 405, 412 Giesebrecht, F. 622 Gifford, P. 253, 261, 267 Gilbert, M. 561f, 565, 577, 581 Gilgamesh 314, 340, 356, 369, 560, 571, 590f Gilkes, C. T. 253, 256, 261f, 264 Gillingham, S. 154, 531, 549 Gillmayr-Bucher, S. 157, 471 Ginsberg, H. L. 46, 380f, 384 Ginzburg, C. 643, 646, 649, 663 Girard, M. 531, 548 Gitin, S. 59, 423 Glueck, N. 379, 417 Goethe, J W. von 130, 180, 691 Goettsberger, J. 488, 496 Goff, M. J. 561, 568 Golden, J. M. 59 Goldingay, J. 496, 561, 581 Goldman, M. 279 Goldman, S. 150 Goldman, Y. 519, 523 Golka, F. W. 253, 561, 576, 580 Gollwitzer, H. 177, 178, 179 Good, E. M. 150 Goodman, N. 29, 33 Gordis, R. 561, 588f, 591 Gordon, C.H. 222, 237, 371, 383,

Gordon, E. I. 561 Gordon, R. P.561, 562, 563, 565, 578, 591 Gorringe, T. 164 Gosh, P. 67 Gosse, B. 460f Gottlieb, C. 561, 583 Gottschalk, L. 19 Gottwald, N. K. 58f, 85, 91, 140, 161, 164, 198, 211, 222, 248, 300, 327, 398, 420, 428 Goulder, M. D. 289, 532, 553 Gous, I. G. P. 561, 583 Govaert, M. 674, 687 Grabbe, L. L. 59, 90, 91, 92, 95, 400, 406, 423, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 431, 432, 642f, 648 Graf Reventlow, H. 17, 20, 71, 302, 399, 520, 522, 596 Graf, K. H. 98, 270, 273f, 282, 303, 406, 434f, 456, 465 Grafton, A. 19 Graham, B. 280 Graham, M. P. 413, 467, 469, 488, Graham, W. C. 622 Graupner, A. 195, 464 Gray, G. B. 560, 589 Gray, J. 561, 588 Gray, L. H. 45 Green, C. 182 Green, D.E. 57, 622, 646 Green, J. B. 158, 170 Greenberg, M. 377, 378, 379, 380, 382, 383, 384, 385, 435, 459, 523f, 595, 603f, 623, 633 Greenblatt, S. 96, 120 Greene-Mccreight, K. Greenspahn, F. 371 Greenstein, E. L. 159, 387 Greenwood, D. 151, 158 Greer, R. 198,210 Gregorios, Paulos Mar 253, 260 Greimas, A.J. 113, 158, 332 Greschat, M. 19, 399 Gressmann, H. 8, 12, 125, 127, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 141, 145f, 399f, 403, 465, 509, 511, 559, 561, 569 Griffith, T. L. 561, 566 Griffiths, J. G. 561 Grønbech, V. 74, 308, 337, 342, 345, 348, 532, 542 Groß, W. 519, 520, 596, 643, 646f, 656, 668, 669, 670, 672 Groves, J. 198

Names

Gruber, M. I. 150, 375, 388 Gruson, P. 170 Guest, D. 163 Guillaume, P. 429, 454, 458 Gunkel, H. 8, 12, 14, 100, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 143, 145f, 203, 290, 300, 307f, 315, 347, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 410, 414, 465, 505f, 532, 534, 535, 536, 537, 538, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545, 546, 547, 548, 551, 552, 553, 556, 561, 588, 622, 624, 627f, 638 Gunn, D. M. 59, 148, 150, 151, 152, 154, 161 Gunneweg, A. H. G. 173, 182, 426 Guthe, H. 409 Gutiérrez, G. 222, 247f Gutt, E. A. 674, 694 Güttgemanns, E. 515f Güttinger, F. 674, 690 Gzella, H. 46, 532, 557 Ha, J. 460f Haag, E. 195, 427 Haak, R. D. 59, 95, 525 Haas, P. J. 610 Haase. R. 595 Habel, N. C. 270, 283f, 561, 589 Habermas, J. 7, 29, 32f, 36f Hackett, J. A. 300, 321 Hadley, J. M. 561, 582 Haelewyck, J.-C. 46f Hagedorn, A. C. 8, 24, 59, 87, 595f Hägglund, B. 198, 202, 209 Hahn, H. F. 17, 19, 76 Haldar, A. O. 300, 321, 337, 358 Hallbäck, G. 156 Halligan, J. M. 59, 90 Hallo, W. W. 386, 423, 559, 561, 568, 569, 570 Halperin, D. J. 168 Halperin, S. 150 Halpern, B. 388, 404, 406f, 605, 633f, 653 Hamilton, A. C. J. M. 595 Hammershaimb, E. 337, 344f Hammerstein, F. von 254, 259 Hammurapi 596, 598f, 601f Hänel, J. 489, 496 Hanhart, R. 467, 525, 529 Hanson, K. C. 125, 404, 410 Hanson, P. D. 59, 94, 223, 301, 324 Haran, M. 382, 454, 455f, 465, 561, 580, 595 Hardmeier, C. 126, 144, 642f, 645f, 651, 667

733

Harink, D. 170 Harper, A. 270, 274, 277 Harrington, D. J. 561, 565 Harris, J. 269, 279 Harris, V.W. 87 Harris, Z. 46 Harrisville, R. 198 Hartenstein, F. 643, 660 Harvey, B. 605 Harvey, J. 470, 509, 514 Harvey, V. 29, 37, 44 Hatim, B. 674, 693 Hatton, P. 561 Hauge, M. R. 337, 347 Hauser, A. J. 151f, 420, 500, 517, 520, 524 Hausmann, J. 445, 561, 564, 583, 644 Havea, J. 270, 283f Hawk, L. D. 150 Hawkins, A. 393 Hawkins, P. S. 154, 168, Hawkins, T. R. 561, 583 Hayden, T. 270, 275f Hayes, J. H. 253, 426, 500 Haynes, S. R. 126, 148, 152, 158 Heacock, A. 163 Heaton, E. W. 561 Hebert, G. 269, 280 Heidegger, M. 7, 29, 34f, 37, 289 Heim, K. M. 14, 559, 561, 581 Heller, J. 674, 679 Helmer, C. 57, 198, 341, 489, 566, 584 Hempel, J. 8, 75, 125, 136, 435f, 447, 598, 610, 612, 613, 614, 622 Hendel, R. S. 84f, 301, 334 Hengel, M. 64, 561, 591 Hengstenberg, E. W. 98, 237 Hennecke, S. 154 Hennis, W. 67 Herder, J. G. 468, 532, 537, 548 Herion, G. A. 59 Herman, M. 60 Hermans, T. 674, 693 Hermes 30 Hermisson, H.-J. 561, 573f, 580f, 600, 643, 648, 650, 656, 657, 658, 667f Herms, E. 610, 643, 656, 668 Herntrich, V. 523f Herrmann, K. 200 Herrmann, S. 301, 426, 467, 519f Hertzberg, B. 156 Hertzberg, H. W. 188, 561, 591

734

Indexes

Heschel, A. J. 500, 530 Hess, A. 155 Hess, R.S. 401 Hetzron, R. 45 Hidal, S. 337, 356 Hiebert, T. 419, 445, 453, 464 Hieke, T. 643, 669 Hildebrandt, T. A. 562, 581 Hill, A. 525, 529 Hill, J. 270, 283, 519, 523 Himbaza, I. 253, 257 Hirsch, D. H. 155 Hirsch, E. D. 29, 38, 395 Hitler, A. 182 Hitzig, F. 532, 535 Hjelde, S. 337, 347, 532 Hodges, Z. C. 674, 678 Hoffmann, H.-D. 470, 475 Hoftijzer, J. 46, 435f Hoglund, K. G. 488, 563 Holladay, W. H. 549 Holladay, W. L. 151, 519, 521f, 532 Hölscher, G. 14, 94, 301, 306f, 353, 356, 501, 504f, 562, 589, 622, 628 Holter, K. 253f, 257, 258, 259, 260, 336f, 370 Holzem, A. 611 Homan, M. M. 156 Homer 30, 188 Hooke, S. H. 60, 601, 314, 337, 341, 342, 343, 532, 544 Hoppe, L. J. 60 Horn, F. 611 Hornsby, T. J. 222, 251 Horst, F. 595 Hospers, J. H. 45 Hossfeld, F.-L. 170, 218, 532, 555, 595, 604, 643, 644, 645, 660 Houston, W. J. 150 Houston, W. 610 Houtman, C. 433, 595 Hövelmann, H. 674, 688 Howard, D. M. 151f, 368f Howie, C. G. 523f Hoyos, H. 562 Huang Ximu 296, 298 Hübner, H. 198 Huehnergard, J. 45f, 49f Hugenberg, G. P. 610 Huizinga, J. 407f Human, D.J. 532, 610f Humbert, P. 562, 581

Humboldt, W. von 675, 687 Humphreys, S.C. 83 Humphreys, W. L. 150, 445, 563 Hunter, A.G. 163, 423, 562 Hunter, S.F. 277 Hunter, V. 509, 515 Hupfeld, H. 445, 449 Hurowitz, V. 382, 384, 562, 582 Hurvitz, A. 52, 55, 387, 454f Husserl, E. 7, 29, 34f, 37 Hutton , R. R. 60 Hutton, J.M. 431 Hvithamer, A. 156 Hyatt, J. P. 126, 140, 412,420, 519, 521, 610 I. R. Kitzberger 167 Iggers, G. 19, 392 Illman, K.-J. 337, 349 Irenaeus 192, 209 Irsigler, H. 339, 525 Irwin, W. A. 230, 237, 562, 581, 587 Iser, W. 96, 116f, 212, 333, 396 Ishida, T. 285, 288 Ishtar 511 Ittmann, N. 519, 522 Jackson, B. S. 595, 601f Jackson, H. 269, 279 Jackson, J. J. 151 Jacob, J. 273 Jacobs, M. 525 Jacobsen, T. 562, 588 Jaeger, F. 19, 624f, 643, 661 Jagersma, H. 426 Jähnichen, T. 171 Jahnow, H. 161 Jakobovits, L. A. 29, 40 Jakobson, R. 674, 692 James, W. 238, 622, 627 Jamieson-Drake, D. W. 60, 400, 562, 580 Janowski, B. 15, 170, 196, 198, 218, 384, 394, 453, 532, 543, 550, 622, 636f, 642, 643, 644, 651, 656, 661, 665, 668, 672 Jantsch, J. 404 Janzen, B. 617 Janzen, D. 60, 92, Janzen, G. J. 562, 589, Janzen, W. 519, 522f, 610, 617 Japhet, S. 377, 384, 454, 456, 488, 490, 497, 498, 499 Jarick, J. 488

Names

Jasper, D. 148, 155 Jastrow, M. 237, 375, 532, 536, 562 Jauss, H. R. 96, 117f Jay, E. 155 Jeffrey, D. L. 154f, 382, 386f Jehoiachin 354, 473f, 479 Jenkins, P. 254, 256, 260, 264f, 267 Jenks, G. C. 269 Jenni, E. 57, 488 Jenson, R. 96, 106, 197 Jepsen, A. 435, 437, 446, 470, 565, 595, 599 Jeremias, A. 562, 569 Jeremias, J. 93, 445, 525, 532, 546f, 559, 643, 647, 668, 670 Jobling, D. 91, 158, 159, 160, 161, 164, 385 Jobling, J. 150 Johns, C. H. W. 562, 595 Johnson, A. R. 60, 301, 316, 321, 350 Johnson, B. 337, 343, 370 Johnson, W. 165 Johnston, R. K. 156 Johnston, S.I. 611 Johnstone, W. 64, 454, 467, 498, 624, 627 Jolles, A. 562, 572, 574 Jones, B. A. 525, 529 Jones, B.C. 150 Jones, D. R. 517 Jonker, L. C. 166, 532, 555 Josipovici, G. 96, 111 Jost, R. 163 Jotham 495 Joüon, P. 55f, 285, 562, 582 Joyce, P. 168, 523, 524, 525 Jung-Kaiser, U. 155 Jüngling, H.-W. 454 Kabasele Mukenge, A. 254, 259 Kaesler, D. 67 Kahle, P. 53, 55, 333 Kahle, S. 337, 343 Kaiser Jr., W. C. 610, 613, 616 Kaiser, O. 19, 337, 364, 433, 517f, 562, 570, 611, 643, 664 Kalberg, S. 67 Kalimi, I. 488 Kalu, O. 254, 261 Kalugila, L. 254 Kamionkowski, S. T. 163 Kapelrud, A. 337, 351, 360 Karavidopoulos, J. 675 Kartveit, M. 337, 365

735

Käsemann, E. 29, 36 Kassühlke, R. 682, 691 Kaube, J. 67 Kaufmann, Y. 378, 379, 380, 384, 435, 455, 496, 595, 623f Kautzsch, E. 55, 623, 626 Kawerau, G. 675 Kayatz, C. 301, 325, 562, 574, 581 Kaye, B. N. 269, 610 Kayser, A. 623, 626 Kebekus, N. 445, 446 Keck, L. E. 523, 526, 563, 565, 590, 592 Kee, C. 386f Kee, J. 149 Keel, O. 301, 320, 532, 547, 562, 581, 643, 649, 658, 662, 667f Kegel, M. 96, 98 Kegler, J. 195, 488 Keinänen, J. 337, 364 Kelle, B. E. 427 Keller, R. R. 170 Kelso, J. 168 Kennedy, J. M. 164 Kermode, F. 96, 111 f., 149 Kessler, H. 170 Kessler, M. 150 f., 519 Kessler, R. 60, 81 f., 91, 394, 427, 438, 441–43, 447, 644, 647 Keulen, P. S. F. van 471, 483 Khadra Jayyusi, S. 422, 428 Khal, Y. Al 680 Kida, K. 285–87, 290–92, 295 Kidner, D. 562 Kienast, B. 45, 47, 602 Kiesow, K. 489 Kijne, J. J. 675 Kim, E. K. 293 Kim, H. C. P. 517 Kim, J. W. 293 f. Kim, T. H. 199 Kim, U. Y. 165 Kimbrough, S. T. 75, 77, 79 Kimilike, L. P. 254 Kimoti, H. W. 254 Kinet, D. 427 King, P. J. 60, 222, 417 Kirk-Duggan, C. A. 154, 163 Kirk-Duggan, C. 161 Kiss, J. 519, 522 Kissane, E. J. 532, 555 Kister, M. 560

736

Indexes

Kitchen, K. A. 422, 425, 427, 431, 635 Kittel, G. 96, 104 Kittel, R. 62, 126, 133–35, 409 f., 413, 496, 532, 536, 598, 622 f. 628, 644 Klappert, B. 170 f., 174 f., 184 Klatt, W. 126, 130, 399, 532, 624 Klauck, H.-J. 154, 157 Klausnitzer, W. 171 Klein, A. 171 Klein, L. R. 150 Klein, W. 488, 498 Kleinig, J. W. 488, 497 Klopfenstein, M. 197, 461 f., 468 Klostermann, A. 458, 496, 562, 580 Knaake, J. K. F. 675 Knauf, E. A. 393, 416, 426 f., 454, 458, 470, 644, 648 f., 653, 655, 658, 670 Knierim, R. 9, 126, 128, 142, 144 f., 147, 199, 282, 515 f. Knight, D. A. 10, 20, 22, 24, 64, 126, 221 f., 226, 232, 242, 248, 337, 350, 500, 515, 610–12 Knight, G. A. F. 270, 280 Knight, H. 560, 589 Knohl, I. 384, 433, 454, 459, 465, 595, 606 Knoppers, G. N. 222, 245, 252, 428, 430, 470, 488, 596 Knoppers, G. 461 Koch, K. 19, 24, 126, 130, 139, 142–44, 188, 301, 320, 325, 445, 451, 454, 457, 509, 512, 532, 541, 562, 587, 644, 647, 650, 652 f., 658 f., 664, 672 Köckert, H. 170, 175 Köckert, M. 338, 358, 445, 447, 450, 454, 460, 610, 644, 646 Koehler, L. 56 f. Kofoed, J. B. 423 Kogan, L 48 Kohata, F. 286 Kohl, H 384 Köhler, L. 188, 338, 370, 509, 511 König, E. 623, 626 Koosed, J. L. 156 Korpel, M. C. A. 532, 548 Körting, C. 531, 543, 552 Koselleck, R. 644, 649, 657 Kottsieper, I. 532, 548 Kovacs, B. W. 520 Kramer, S. N. 562, 588, 580, 588 Krapf, T. 379, 624

Kratz, R. G. 62, 64, 93, 319, 445, 458, 460, 464, 470, 477, 532, 553, 595 f., 619, 644 f., 668–70 Kraus, H.-J. 17, 20, 60, 96, 98, 188, 199, 301, 313, 324, 532, 547, 549–52, 601 Krauter, S. 198 Krecher, J. 467 Kreitzer, L. J. 154 Krieger, P. 562 Kriessler, M. 171 Krispenz, J. 562, 581 Kroll, W. 675, 686 Kronholm, T. 338, 370 Krötke, W. 170, 175, Krüger, A. 532, 536 Krüger, T. 93, 460 f. Krüger, Th. 562, 592, 644, 671 Kuenen, A. 403–406, 456, 465, 479, 623, 625, 630 Kugel, J. L. 198, 206, 210, 532, 548 Kuhl, C. 562, 586, 587 f. Kuhn, Th. S. 20 Kuiper, A. de 675, 687 Kuntzmann, R. 675 Kuryłowicz, J. 45, 47 Kuschel, K.-J. 171 Kuschke, A. 562 Kutscher, E. Y. 46, 51f, 54 Kutscher, R. 46 L’Hour, J. 615 Laato, A. 24, 336, 338, 355 f., 359 f., 362–64 Lacy, E. de 45, 47 Lafont, S. 595 Lambert, W. G. 562, 578, 585, 588 f., 591 Landersdorfer, S. 562, 586 Landmesser, Ch. 170, 198, 200, 489, 642 Landy, F. 149, 168, 525 Lang, B. 67, 72, 83, 168, 562, 567, 580 f. Lange, A. 519, 522, 561 Lange, H. O. 562 Langston, S. M. 154 Lapide, P. 185 Lapsley, J. E. 223, 610, 618 Larkin, K. J. A. 525, 529 Laslett, P. 60, 63 Lasserre, G. 595 Lategan, B. C. 153 Lattke, M. 281 Latvus, K. 338, 364 Lauha, A. 338, 352, 562, 591

Names

Lauster, J. 170, 175 Le Roux, J. H. 254, 259, 617 Leach, E. R. 83, 85–87, 90, 301, 328 Leander, P. 55, 57, 565, 590, 592 Lee, A. C. C. 165 Lee, D. 19 Lee, E.-A. 595, 600 Lee, H. W. 285, 293–96 Lee, K. S. 162 Leeuwen, R. C. van 562, 581 Lefebvre, J.-F. 595, 607 Lemaire, A. 20, 61, 157, 301, 325, 406, 426, 433, 464, 534, 562, 580, 623, 644 LeMarquand, G. 253 Lemche, N. P. 58, 60, 74, 301, 327, 338, 365 f., 393, 397, 404–06, 411, 413, 420, 422–24, 426–27, 431, 623, 634, 644, 648 Lemke, W. E. 417 Lemon, R. 154 Leneman, H. 155 Lenski, G. E. 60 Lenski, J. 60 Lenzi, A. 562, 582 Lerner, G. 222, 237, 246 Leslau, W. 45 Lessing, G. E. 20, 613 Lettinga, J. P. 562, 583 Leuenberger, M. 532, 557 f. Levenson, A. 374 Levenson, J. D. 378, 384, 610, 644, 652, 654 Lévêque, J. 563, 586, 588 Levin, Ch. 395, 430, 445–47, 451, 463, 644, 655, 663 f. Levin, Y. 563, 583, Levine, B. A. 371–73, 380, 382, 385 Levine, E. 610 Levinson, B. M. 68, 163, 222, 245, 410, 449, 595 f., 604, 610 f., 675, 692 Levinson, S. 675, 692 Lévi-Strauss, C. 85 f., 113, 301, 329, 331 Levy, B. 371 Levy, L. 75, 77 f. Levy, T. E. 60 Levy, T. 417 Lewis, C. S. 38, 97, 110 f. Lewis, J. J. 270, 283, Lewis, S. M. 29, 37, 119 Liang Gong 296 f. Liberman, S. 169 Lichtblau, K. 67, 69

737

Lichtenberger, H. 61, 68–70, 80 f., 561 Lichtheim, M. 563, 583 Liebsch, B. 643, 661 Liebschütz, H. 67, 69 Liesen, J. 467 Liess, K. 394, 643 Liew, T.-S. B. 165 f., 221 f., 251 Lim, S. K. 285 Lim, T. H. 470 Lim, T. S. 293, 295 Lim, T. 560 Linafelt, T. 148, 156 Lindbeck, G. 97, 106 Lindblom, J. 60, 301, 321, 338, 356 f., 361, 500, 509, 511 Lindström, F. 338, 350, 370, 532, 541 Linville, J. R. 470, 476 Lipschits, O. 383, 430 f., 461 Littré, E. 695 Liu Hengxian 296, 298 Liverani, M. 420, 427, 432, 601 Lo Lung Kwong 296 Locher, C. 595, 602 Loewenstamm, S. 57, 377 Loffreda, S. 563 Lohfink, N. 218, 445, 448, 454, 457, 470, 519, 522, 563, 591, 595 f., 605–07, 610, 623, 638, 644, 654, 658, 668 f. Löhr, M. 532, 541, 623 Long, B. O. 156, 168, 420 Long, D. S. 171 f., Long, V. P. 92, 401, 422, 425, 467, 635 Longacre, R. E. 445 f. Longman, T. 19, 92, 420, 422, 425 f., 581, 624, 635, 704 Loretz, O. 532, 548, 563, 588, 590 f. Louw, J. P. 675, 697 Love, J. 67 Lowth, R. 532, 548 Lu Sihao 296, 298 Lubac, H. de 192 Lundbom, J. 519, 521 Lust, J. 445, 455, 461 f., 464, 523 f. Luther, B. 404 Luther, M. 36, 185, 197, 532, 549, 551, 675, 685, 688 f., 702 Luther, M. 36, 185, 532, 549, 551, 675, 685, 688, 689, 702 Luz, U. 97, 118, 642, 644, 660, 672 Lyons, E. L. 563, 583 Lyons, W. 198, 211

738

Indexes

Ma’at 575 Macdonald, N. 198 Machholz, C. 442, 454, 457 Machinist, P. 18, 24, 386, 417, 465 Macpherson, J. 222, 230 Macwilliam, S. 163 Magonet, J. 526 Maier, B. 64, 624, 627 Maier, C. 520 f. Maier, G. 199 Maier, J. R. 161, 164 Maimonides 373 Malamat, A. 39, 301, 321 Malina, B. J. 60, 68, 91 Maluleke, T. S. 254, 265 Manthe, U. 596 March, W. E. 97, 223, 500 Marduk 585 f., 663 Margolis, M 237, 375 f., 379 Margot, J.-C. 675, 690 Markl, D. 595, 607 Markschies, Ch. 467 Marshall, D. G. 29 Marshall, J. W. 596 Martey, E. 254 Marti, K. 64, 526, 563, 623, 626 Martilla, M. 533, 545 Marx, K. 37, 68, 394, 397, 435 Masenya, M. J. 563 Masenya, M. 254, 583 Masoga, M. 254 Mason, I. 674, 693 Massyngberde Ford, J. 675, 699 Mathews, S. 238 Mathews, V. H. 611 Mathys, H.-P. 488, 491, 494, 606, 610 May, H. G. 419, 622 Mayes, A. D. H. 20, 60, 66, 68–71, 77–79, 161, 301, 303, 309, 394, 470, 483 Mays, J. L. 197, 410, 526, 533, 551, 553–555 Mazar, A. 59, 379, 414 Mazar, B. 380 Mazzinghi, L. 427 Mbiti, J. S. 254, 262 f., 265 McBride, S. D. 223, 244 McCann, J. C. 533, 552 f. Mcconville, J. G. 198 McCracken, D. 150 McCreesh, Th. P. 563, 583 McEvenue, S. E. 445, 451, 453, 596 McGinnis, M. 517

McGrail, P. 155 McKane, W. 20, 301, 311, 325 f., 520–22, 563, 567, 581, 584 McKeating, H. 523 f., 611 McKenzie, S. L. 126, 148, 152, 158, 413, 444, 467, 469–471, 488 McKinlay, J. E. 270 McKinlay, J. 161, 165, 283 McKnight, E. V. 153, 385, 396 Meek, T. J. 230, 237 Mehlhausen, J. 20, 611 Meier, S. A. 509, 512 Mein, A. 523, 525 Meissner, B. 47, 376, 563, 580 Melcher, S. J. 166, 221, 251 Melugin, R. F. 151, 200, 517 f. Mendenhall, G. E. 60, 71, 90, 140, 222, 237, 248, 301, 322, 327, 398, 420, 428 Menes, A. 596 Merk, O. 612 f. Merx, A. 70, 301, 333, 596, 598 Mesha 48, 404–06 Metlitzki, D. 563, 583 Mettinger, T. N. D. 157, 338, 362, 367–69 Metzger, B. M. 298, 675, 678 Meurer, S. 489, 674, 675 Meurer, S. 674 f. Meurer, T. 489 Meyers, C. E. 77 Meyers, C. L. 222, 146, 383 f., 526, 529 Meyers, E. M. 384, 526, 529 Meynet, R. 533, 548 Michel, D. 120, 395, 449, 461, 563, 568, 590 f. Migliore, D. L. 171, 178 Mildenberger, F. 20 Miles, J. 165f, 701 Milgrom, J. 85, 382, 454–56, 459–60, 596, 606 Millard, A. R. 339, 368, 563, 580, 635 Millard, M. 533, 554 Miller Jr., P. D. 223 Miller, C. W. 221 Miller, D. G. 197 Miller, J. M. 426 Miller, P. D. 171, 184, 198, 252, 381, 417, 531, 550, 653 Milne, P. J. 158 Milton, S. 32 Min, Y. J. 293 Minear, P. S. 97, 107 Minor, M. 149

Names

Miranda, J. P. 222, 247 Miron, M. S. 29, 40 Miscall, P. 153, 160 Miskotte, H. 173 Mitchell, H. G. 237, 611, 613 Miyamoto, H. 286, 293 Moberly, R. W. L. 07, 105, 198, 217, 301, 331 Moenikes, A. 470 Moir, J. S. 223, 230, 236, 238, 244 Mojola, A. O. 254, 256 Möller, K. 163, 596 Molnar, P. D. 171 Molony, J. N. 269, 275 Momigliano, A. 67, 69 Moon, H. S. 293 f. Moor, J. C. De 338, 362, 370, 532, 548 Moore, M. B. 427 Moore, S. D. 154 f., 159, 165–167 Morag, S. 51, 53, 54 Moran, W. L. 49, 563 Morenz, S. 675, 698 Morgan, D. F. 198 Morgan-Guy, J. 155 Morgenstern, J. 223, 231 f., 239 f., 375 f., 378 Mosala, I. J. 164, 167, 254, 265 Moscati, S. 45, 47 Moses 30, 59, 99, 101, 112, 134 f., 154–56, 179, 192, 194, 197, 235, 241, 261, 170, 182, 303, 308 f., 312, 314, 317, 322 f., 336, 341, 343, 364 f., 373, 375, 377, 379, 406, 421, 431, 437, 440, 442 f., 447 f., 450, 457, 460, 462–66, 469, 471–73, 482, 488 f., 595 f., 598, 607–09, 652 Mosis, R. 488, 499 Mounin, G. 675, 676 Mowinckel, S. 125, 138, 301, 315, 324, 339, 341, 347–49, 353, 355, 361, 435, 388, 505, 507, 516 f., 532–34, 539, 541–47, 563, 577, 587, 623 Mugambi, J. N. K. 254 f. Muilenburg, J. 126, 147, 151, 223, 249, 249, 533, 541 Mullen Jr., E. T. 470 Müller, H.P. 399, 467, 563, 568, 585 f., 588, 591, 598, 623, 644, 648f–50, 657, 660 Müller, J.-O. 155 Müller, K.E. 644 Müller, R. 533, 536 Müller, W. M. 55 Münchow, Ch. 611 Mundele, N. A. 254

739

Muraoka, T. 52, 56, 270, 279, 285 Murphy, R. E. 533, 553, 563, 573, 578, 581 f., 584, 592 Murray, D. F. 509, 514 Murtagh, J. 563 Mussner, F. 198 Mveng, E. 254, 259 Na’aman, N. 59 Nadorni, E. 611 Najman, H. 596, 604 Nakazawa, K. 286, 290 Namiki, K. 286, 290–92 Nash, W. L. 419 Nasuti, H. P. 533, 549 Nathan 338 f., 357, 367, 482, 492 Ndiokwere, N. I. 254 Neher, M. 563, 582 Nelson, R. D. 301, 311, 470 Nentel, J. 470, 483 Nero 699 Neumann, K. 60, 75 Neumann, P. H. A. 532 f., 594, 596 Neusner, J. 85, 198, 206, 372, 386 f. Newing, E. G. 254, 257 Newmark, P. 675, 676, 688 Newsom, C. A. 223, 237, 563, 589 Nicholson, E. W. 66, 301, 309 f., 323, 520 f. Nicholson, E. 433, 445, 453, 457 Nicholson, S. 150, 155 Nida, E. A. 675, 676, 678, 682, 683, 689, 694, 696, 698, 699, 702 Niditch, S. 384 f., 400, 611 Niehr, H. 644, 653 Nielsen, E. 74, 339, 344 f., 346, 352 Nielsen, K. 157, 339, 358, 369 f., 510, 514 Niemelä, P. M. K. 339, 342 Nihan, Ch. 433, 455, 457 f., 460, 596,606 Nissinen, M. 59, 93, 95, 154, 301, 336, 338 f., 358 f., 362, 364, 367, 470, 510, 515 Nitzan, B. 560 Nivison, D. 29–31, 44 Noah 307, 425, 504 Noble, P. R. 20, 198, 211 Nogalski, J. D. 199, 526, 529 Nolan, P. 60 Nöldeke, T. 45, 47 Noll, K. L. 427, 429, 470 Norin, S. 339, 368 Northrop, F. 96, 112, 149 Norton, D. 155, 199

740

Indexes

Noth, M. 20, 60, 71, 77, 97, 100 f., 125, 138, 140–42, 248, 270, 290, 301 f., 308 f., 325, 327, 394, 398, 400, 405, 407, 409, 412–16, 418, 420 f., 426, 429, 436, 446, 453, 456 f., 463, 468f–470, 473–77, 480–82, 485, 487 f., 490 f., 496, 505, 508, 516, 559, 562 f., 577, 599 Nougayrol, J. 563, 586 Novak, D. 171 Ntreh, B. A. 254, 259 Nunes Carreira, J. 467 Nutu, E. 154 Nyende, P. 254, 257f, 265 O’Brien, J. M. 453 O’Brien, M. A. 283, 483 f. O’Connor, K. M. 56 O’Kane, M. 155 O’Leary, E. L. 47 Odashima, T. 286 Odell, M. S. 523–25 Oden, T. C. 154, 156, 254, 266–68 Oduyoye, M. 254 Oeming, M. 20, 97, 103, 154f, 170, 172, 195, 198, 217, 383, 410, 430, 488, 491, 497, 644–46, 660, 671, 673 Oesterley, W. O. E. 409, 563, 583 Oettli, S. 409, 598 Økland, J. 161, 164 Olbricht, T. H. 151 Olmo Lete, G. Del 155 Olofsson,S 533, 557 Olshausen, J. 533, 535 Olson, D. 196, 198 Olyan, S. M. 58, 60, 85, 156, 163, 168, 223, 245, 388 Omri 405 Oorschot, J. van 533, 545, 646, 648, 660 Ord, D. 445 Organ, B, E. 427, 631 Origin 192, Orlinsky, H. M. 230, 233, 371, 381, 416, 675, 702 Orlinsky, H. M. 230, 233, 381, 416, 675, 702, Orlinsky, H. 371 Ortega y Gasset, J. 675, 690 Osborn, E. 155 Ottley, R. L. 409 Otto, E. 60, 67, 70–74, 175, 301, 312 f., 394, 445, 448, 455, 458, 460 f., 533, 547, 559, 584, 591, 594, 598, 601–08, 610–12, 614–20, 624, 644, 653

Otzen, B. 339 f., 358 Overholt, T. W. 60, 92–94, 336, 339, 357 Owan, K. 254 Owen, J. M. 171 Oyen, H. Van 611 f. Paddison, A. 171 Paganini, S. 596, 607 Page, Jr., H. R. 97, 160, 223, 250, 302 Pakkala, J. 338 f., 362, 364, 367, 470 Pannenberg, W. 173 Pardes, I. 162 Paris, P. J 223, 250 Park, K. M. 162 Parpola, S. 339, 258 Parrat, J. 254 Patte, D. 158, 223, 226 Patton, C. L. 523 f. Paul, S. M. 54, 60 Paulson, G. N. 171 Pazeraite, A. 163 Peake, A. S. 20, 301–03, 307, 563, 589 Peckham, B. 470 Peden, W. C. 223 Pedersen, J. 60, 74–76, 78, 81–82, 248, 301, 315, 337, 339, 342, 344–46, 352 f., 577 Peleg, Y. 163 Peltonen, K. 339, 365, 488, 496 Penna, A. 623 Penner, T. 165 Pentiuc, E. J. 50 Perdue, L. G. 20, 60, 199, 202, 520, 559 f., 563, 565, 577, 579, 681 Perlitt, L. 60, 64, 97, 98, 301, 313, 323, 438, 445, 455, 458, 559,625, 624 f., 643 Perrin, N. 515, 516 Perrot, C. 426 Person, R. F. 470 Petersen, D. L. 60, 150, 223, 500, 510, 515 f., 526, 529 f. Petrie, S. F. 418 Pfann, S. 560 Pfeiffer, E. 526 Pfeiffer, R. H. 435 f., 447, 623 Pfisterer Darr, K. 516, 519, 523–25 Phillips, A. 157, 159, 596, 604 Phillips, C. 385 Phillips, V. 335 Philo, 373 Pietsch, P. 429, 675 Piggin, S. 269, 277 f., 280 f.

Names

Pilch, J. J. 60 Pinneberg, H. 624 Pippin, T. 154, 160, 166 Piskorowski, A. 168 Pitt-Rivers, J. 83 f., 87–90 Pixley, J. 166, 223, 247 f. Plato 29 f., 59, 83, 595 Platvoet, J. 254, 264 Plöger, O. 94, 301, 324, 489, 499, 563, 581, 584, 591 Pöckl, W. 675 Podechard, E. 563, 591 Pohlmann, K.-F. 489 f., 520, 522, 524, 525 Pola, T. 455, 458 Polaski, D. C. 162, 517, 519 Polley, M. E. 526 Polotsky, H. J. 45 Polzin, R. M. 158 Polzin, R. 52, 455 Pope, M. 568, 589 Pope, R. 396 Popper, K. R. 20 Popper, K. 39 Portier-Young, A. 150 Pottier, B. 171 Powell, M. A. 149 Pressler, C. 60, 605 Preuss, H. D. 469, 561, 563 f., 577, 579, 582, 588 Prickett, S. 155 Prior, M. 165 Pritchard, J. B. 563, 569 Propp, V. 97, 113, 158 Propp, W. 198, 382 Prothero, R. E. 533, 549 Provan, I. W. 92, 422 f., 425, 480 Provan, I. 199, 470, 635, 644, 648 Przywarra, E. 192 Puech, E. 564, 580 Pui-Lan, K. 165 Punt, J. 254 Pury, A. de 426, 433, 443, 446, 448, 455, 461, 462, 470 Pusey, E. B. 97 Pustkuchen, J. F. 435 Putten, B. van 471 Puukko, A. F. 339, 342, 352 Pyper, H. C. 163 Pyper, H. S. 167 Pyper, H. 159

741

Qimron, E. 51 f., 57, 560 Quast, U. 336, 343, 531 Quensel, B. K. 68, 72 Quine, W. Van Orman 7, 29 f., 39, 40 f., 43 f. Quinn-Miscall 153 Rabenau, K. von 399 Rabin, C. 45, 46, 675, 677 Rad, G. von 5, 9, 12, 14, 89, 97 f., 103 f., 125–28, 138–42, 145, 176, 178, 188, 191, 196–98, 201,203, 216, 223, 240, 242, 282, 290, 301, 308 f., 312, 316–18, 324–26, 318, 330, 349, 402, 404 f., 410–12, 436, 439, 443, 447, 467, 471, 476, 489 f., 505, 508 f., 516, 533, 549, 563 f., 573–75, 577, 580, 582, 644–47, 649–52, 660 Radkau, J. 67, 69, 394, 397 Radwajane, A. N. 469 Rahner, K. 196 Rainey, A. F. 49, 427 Räisänen, H. 167 Raitt, T. 510, 515 Ramberg, B. 29, 39 Rankin, O. S . 301, 325, 564 Ranston, H. 270, 277, 564, 591 Raphaël, F. 68 f., 71 Rashkow, I. 168 Ratschow, C. H. 173 Rawls, J. 29, 33 Redfield, J. 60, 83 Redford, D. B. 438 Redford, D. 438–40 Regt, L. J. 301 Rehberg, K.-S. 68, 71 Rehoboam 495 Reid, S. B. 150 Reiling, J. 675, 682 Reinhartz, A. 149, 371 Reinitzer, H. 674 Reiss, K. 675, 678, 683, 688, 690, 691, 694, 695, 701, 703 Reitzenstein, R. 564, 566, 581 Renaud, B. 526 Renckens, H. 623, 630 Rendtorff, R. 20, 97, 105, 112, 171, 199, 201, 216 f., 301, 309 f., 331, 338, 433, 438, 440–44, 446–51, 453, 457, 463, 466, 510, 512, 517 f., 623, 637, 644–47, 656, 672 Renner, J. 282 Renner, J. T. E. 270 Rentoul, J. L. 274

742

Indexes

Renz, J. 51, 645, 658, 663 Reyburn, W. D. 674, 675, 682, 684 Rezetko, R. 470 Rian, D. 336, 347 Richardson, H. N. 56, 104, 489 Richter, W. 126, 140, 302, 332, 445, 464, 515 f. Ricoeur, P. 7, 29, 36–38, 97, 119 f., 289, 302, 306, 330, 395, 645, 671 Ridderbos, N. H. 533, 548 Riess, J. K. 564, 583 Rietzschel, C. 520 f. Rignell, L. G. 340, 362 Ring, E. 69, 83, 596 Ringe, S. H. 223, 237 Ringgren, H. 57, 74, 337, 339–42, 344, 347, 349 f., 355 f., 533, 545 f., 364, 566, 581, 584, 623 Rinsum, H. J. Van 254, 264 Ritterband, P. 371 Rivière, P. de 624, 627 Roberts, J. J. M. 526, 704 Robertson Smith, W. 60, 64, 82, 90, 93, 624, 627 Robertson, D. A. 148 Robinson, E, 55, 238 Robinson, H. W. 20, 75, 302, 315, 533, 545, 610 Robinson, H. 302 f., 313, 334, 409 Robinson, R. B. 159 Rodd, C. S. 611, 617 Rogers, C. L. 564, 582 Rogers, R. W. 569 Rogerson, J. W. 24, 61 f., 68, 148, 155 f., 302, 304, 316, 422, 426, 467 f., 624, 628,635 Rogerson, J. 64, 156, 611, 618, Rohland, E. 533, 551 Rollins, W. G. 168 Römer, T. C. 23, 416, 429, 433, 445 f., 448, 454, 457 f., 461 f. , 464, 470, 484 f., 519 f., 594, 609 Römheld, D. 564 Rooke, D. W. 61, 163 Rorty, R. 96, 254 f. Rose, M. 96, 302, 312, 396, 446, 448 Rösel, H. 470, 476, 556 Rösel, M. 533, 557 Rosenthal, F. 57 Rost, L. 302, 309 Roth, C. 377 Roth, G. 68

Roth, M. 598 Roth, W. M. W. 68, 377, 470, 598, 675, 696, 697 Roth, W. 470, 696, 675, 697 Rothenbush, R. 597 Rothstein, J. W. 489, 496 Rowe, K. 199, 217 Rowland, Ch. 67, 110 Rowley, H. H. 20, 21, 302 f., 325, 491, 559, 562–64, 577, 589 Rudolph, W. 435–37, 455, 489, 491, 496, 520 f., 526 Ruffing, A. 489, 491 Rüger, H. P. 564, 581, 582, 675, 681 Ruiten, J. Van 517 Runions, E. 156, 159 Rupprecht, K. 438, 442 Rüsen, J. 19 f., 624 f., 643–45, 649, 661 Rushdoony, R. J. 611, 613, 616 Russell, L. M. 162 Rüterswörden, U. 56, 195, 413, 469 f. Rutledge, D. 159 Ruwe, A. 455, 458 Sæbø, M. 19–21, 61, 157, 340, 357 f., 370, 406, 426, 455, 489 f., 498 f., 526, 529, 534, 564, 581, 584, 644 f., 670 f., 704, 706 Sáenz-Badillos, A. 46 Salmon, J. M. 61 Sanders, J. A. 157, 212, 386 f., 417, 533, 556, 670 Sanders, J. 199, 201 f., 212–17 Sanders, P. 95 Sandmel, S. 13, 435–37, 446 f., 457 Särkiö, P. 340, 364 Sarna, N. 382 f. Sasson, J. M. 45, 223, 228, 241, 252, 388 Sattler, D. 170 Saulnier, C. 426 Saunders, E. W. 223, 229, 231–34 Savignac, J. de 564, 581 Sawyer, D. F. 85, 168 Sawyer, J. F. A. 97, 118, 154, 157, 163 Scalise, C 199, 217 Schaering, L. S. 417 Schäfer-Lichtenberger, C. 61, 68–70, 80 f. Schaffer, A. 564, 590 f. Schaper, J. 533, 557, 622, 624–26, 628, 630, 632, 634–36, 638, 640 f. Schart, A. 526, 529 Schechter, S. 373 f.

Names

Scheetz, J. 199, 217 Scheffler, E. 168 Schelhas, J. 172, 175, 178, 191, 193 Schenke, W. 564, 566, 581 Schenker, A. 520, 523, 597, 608 Schiffmann, L. H. 560 Schipper, J. 166, 221, 251 Schlegel, A. W. 676 Schleiermacher, F.D.E. 32, 115, 170, 183, 675, 685, 690 Schleifer, R. 159 Schlichting, W. 170 Schloen, D. J. 61, 417, 419 Schlosser, J. 675 Schluchter, W. 67–69 Schmid, H. 302, 312, 323, 325 f., 399, 433, 438, 442–44, 448, 533, 551, 564, 567, 573 f., 576, 587, 597, 609, 644–46, 650, 660 Schmid, K. 170 f., 175, 410, 416, 431, 433, 445, 454, 460–64, 471, 477 Schmidinger, H. 155 Schmidt, B. 59 Schmidt, L. 136, 433, 446, 448, 455, 457 f. Schmidt, W. H. 446, 448, 457, 533, 546, 611, 615, 623 Schmitz, B. 427 Schmökel, H. 464, 588 Schnabel, E. 199 Schneewind, J. B. 254 Schneider, D. A. 337, 526 Schoell, R. 675, 686 Scholz, S. 162, 165, 223, 251 Schoors, A. 427 Schorsch, I. 371, 378, 380 Schottroff, L. 91, 162 Schottroff, W. 61, 91, 164, 594, 597, 600 Schrader, E. 302, 320, 496, 564, 568 f. Schroer, S. 162, 564, 582 Schröter, J. 170 Schroven, B. 171 Schüle, A. 644–47, 650, 657, 664 Schult, H. 438, 442, 450 Schulte, H. 471, 473, 476 Schulz, H. 399, 597, 600 Schüssler Fiorenza, E. 109 Schütte, W. 645, 659 Schwáb, Z. 153 Schwantes, M. 223, 248 Schwartz, B. J. 384, 433, 455, 457, 464 f. Schwartz, G. M. 45 Schwartz, R. 149, 152

743

Schwienhorst-Schönberger, L. 564, 592, 643, 645, 652 Schwöbel, Ch. 170 Scoralick, R. 564, 581 f. Scott, M. 199 Scott, R. B. Y. 230, 237, 399, 564, 574, 577, 581, 583 f. Scullion, J. J. 270, 282, 438 Seckler, M. 199 Seebass, H. 446, 448, 643 Seeligmann, I. L. 199, 202, 204, 379, 449, 467, 675, 689 Seeligmann, I. L. 199, 202, 204, 379, 449, 467, 675, 689 Seeman, D. 163 Segbers, F. 612 f. Seger, J. D. 223 Segovia, F. F. 165–67, 221, 223, 225 f., 251 f., 254, 263 Seibt, G. 68 f. Seierstad, I. P. 340, 357, 510 Seiffert, B. 526 Seitz, C. R. 24, 97, 518, 520, 522, 526, 529 Seitz, C. 105, 199, 209, 217 Sekine, M. 286–88, 292, 295 Sekine, S. 11, 24, 285 f., 288, 292, 295 Sellin, E. 176, 340, 370, 409, 470, 526, 623, 630, 633 Selwyn, G. 273, 279, 281 Semler, J. S. 302, 306 Seow, C. L. 95, 296, 298, 564, 590, 592 Seters, J. Van 223, 242, 245, 302, 312, 380, 407, 409, 423, 438–40, 442–46, 448, 457, 462 f., 467, 471, 475, 597 Seybold, K. 519 f., 533, 548, 556 Sharon, D. M. 158, 384, 387 Sharp, C. J. 150 f., 520, 522 Shead, A. G. 520, 523 Shectman, S. 162 Shepherd, D. 156 Sherman, R. J. 171, 178 Sherwood, Y. 97, 109, 115, 118, 154 f., 159 f., 302, 332 Shmueli, E. 68 f. Shupak, N. 564 Sicre Días, J. L. 559, 589 Silberman, L. 97, 99 Silberman, N. A. 59, 337, 366, 427 f. Simbandumwe, S. S. 254 Simkins, R. A. 58 f., 90 Sinnot, A.M., 564, 582

744

Indexes

Sivan, D. 48–50 Sjöberg, M. 155 Ska, J. L. 18, 151, 391, 408, 426, 433, 446, 451, 455, 457, 461 Skehan, P.W. 533, 558, 564, 581 Skinner, Q. 40, 254, 307 Skladny, U. 564 Slivniak, D. M. 160 Sluis, D. van der 565, 582 Sluis-van der Korst, H. van der 565, 582 Smalley, W. A. 675 Smend, R. 20, 23 f., 62, 64, 71, 97, 107, 171, 175, 302, 306, 311, 363, 395, 399, 406, 408, 410, 414, 467 f., 471, 481, 483, 533, 545, 598, 623–25, 627, 642, 645, 647, 649, 655 f., 664, 667 f. Smith, J. A. 533, 555 Smith, J. M. P. 612–14, 237 Smith, J. Z. 340, 368 Smith, M. S. 302, 340, 368, 455, 645 Smith, T. J. 270, 272, 274 Smith, W. R. 60, 64, 82, 90, 92 f., 97, 248, 623 Sneed, M. R. 58, 164 Snell, D.C. 378, 564, 582, 675, 677 Snell-Hornby, M. 675, 677 Socrates 30 Soden, W. von 47, 565, 588 Söding, T. 197f., 217f., 642, 644, 646 Soete, A. 612 Soggin, J. A. 61, 302, 400, 404–6, 412, 426, 561 Soisalon-Soininen, I. 302, 335 f., 340, 343 Sollamo, R. 302, 335 f., 340, 343 Solomon 59, 85–87, 161, 188, 257, 281, 309, 328, 360, 367, 373, 400, 405 f.,420, 428, 472 f., 479, 484, 494, 495, 499, 566, 659 Sommer, B. D. 157, 212, 383, 384 f., 517, 519, 562 Spangenberg, I. J. J. 151, 172 Sparks, K. L. 149, 433 Speiser, E. A. 89, 379 f., 382, 419, 565 Sperber, D. 675, 693, 694 Sperling, S. D. 24, 371 f., 374 f., 382–86, 388 Speyr, A. von 187 Spiekermann, H. 198, 218 Spinoza, B. de 198, 304, 468 Sprondel, G. 61 Stackert, J. 455, 460, 597, 604 Stade, B. 403–5, 468, 623, 628 Staerk, W. 435 f.

Stager, L. E. 60, 417, 419 Staley, J. L. 167 Stamm, J. J. 169, 282, 533, 543, 565, 586, 588 Stanton, E. C. 223, 236 f. Steck, O. H. 93, 155, 218, 461, 517 f., 533, 551 f., 612, 615, 645, 650, 654, 656 Stedman, A. R. 623 Stegemann, E. W. 171 Stegemann, E. 68, 164, 171, 249 Stegmüller, W. 29, 32 Steiert, F.-J. 565, 577 Steiger, L. 171 Steinberg, N. 162 Steiner, G. 675, 695 Steins, G. 196, 200, 211, 217 f., 489, 491, 645, 669 Stemberger, G. 198, 218 Stempel, R. 45, 47 Stendahl, K. 97, 123 Stenhouse, J. 269, 274 Stern, E. 59, 61 Sternberg, M. 97, 111, 152, 446, 452 Steudel, A. 532, 557, 560 Steymans, H. U. 597, 605 Stipp, H.-J. 520, 523 Stocking, G. W. 61 f. Stoellger, P. 455, 458 Stolz, F. 531, 533, 539, 551 f. Stone, K. 54, 163, 221–24, 238, 240 f., 251, 313 Stordalen, T. 336, 340, 359, 369 Störig, H. J. 674, 675, 690 Story, C.I.K. 567 Straub, J. 643, 661 Strong, J. T. 394 Strugnell, J. 565, 568 Stuhlmacher, P. 197, 200, 644 Stulman, L. 520, 522 Sugirtharajah, R. S. 165, 167, 253 f. Sun Yi 296 Sundberg, W. 198 Sundermeier, T. 623, 645, 654, 660 Süselbeck, H. 171, 182 Suzuki, Y. 286 Swedberg, R. 394 Sweeney, M. A. 24, 126, 141, 145, 196, 199 f., 384, 480, 500, 510, 512, 516–18, 520, 522–30 Swellengrebel, J. L. 675, 682 Swindell, A. C. 155

Names

Taber, C. R. 675, 689, 694, 702 Tai, N. H. F. 296 f., 526, 529 Tallqvist, K. 340, 349 Talmon, S. 157, 222, 244, 386, 387 f. Tångberg, K. A. 336, 340, 359, 510, 515, 517 Taschner, J. 200 Tate, A. 111 Taylor, M. A. 223, 236 Tengström, S. 340, 365, 455, 457 Terrien, S.L. 237, 563, 565, 588 f. Terry, M. S. 29, 32, 83 Tertel, H. J. 340, 546 Testa, E. 612 f. Thackeray, H. St. J. 533, 557 Thiel, W. 61, 71, 469, 520 f., 596 Thomas Aquinas 32 Thomas, D. W. 20, 32, 125, 302, 325, 334, 339, 366, 422 f., 433, 531, 559 f., 562–64, 570, 577, 584, 589, 592, 686 Thompson, J. A. 270, 282 Thompson, J. 171 Thompson, R. J. 270, 282 Thompson, T. 61, 340, 380 Thompson, T.L. 61, 223, 242, 302, 327, 340, 380, 400, 405, 407, 408, 409, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 427, 428, 431, 432, 438, 565, 623, 634, 635, 645, 648 Tigay, J. H. 340, 356, 380, 382 f., 386 f. Tillich, P. 37, 194, 289 Tolbert, M. A. 162, 223, 225 Tönnies, F. 95 Toorn, K. van der 61, 431, 612, 646 Torres, S. 253 Torrey, C. C. 237, 524 Tosato, A. 612 Tournay, R. J. 81, 510, 515, 517, 533, 549 Toury, G. 675, 691 Tov, E. 51, 199, 334, 387, 520, 522 f. Tov, I. 534, 556 Towner, W.S. 565, 592 Trapiello, J. G. 612 f. Trible, P. 151, 162, 223, 246, 249, 529 Troeltsch, E. 67, 71, 302, 320, 611 Trowitzsch, M. 171 Trublet, J. 534, 548 Tsukimoto, A. 286, 292 Tucker, G. 126, 144, 150, 196f., 222f., 229, 232, 251, 500, 510, 515, 612 Tull (Willey), P. K. 151, 517, 519 Turbayne, M. 675, 684

745

Turner, .S 67 Turner, H 68 Turner, M 170 Uehlinger, Chr. 92, 643, 646, 657, 658, 659, 660, 662, 663,664, 668 Ukpong, J. S. 167, 254, 262 Ullendorff, E. 45 Ulrich, E. C. 300, 334 Ulrich, E. 520 Vachon – Spilka, I. 675 Valeta, D. M. 151 Valler, S. 565, 583 Van Harvey 29, 37, 44 Vander Stichele, C. 165 Vanderkam, J. C. 534 Vanlier Hunter, H. 509 Vatke, J. K. W. 64, 97, 98, 301–4, 313, 623 f. Vaux, R. de 59, 64, 81–3, 89, 302, 327 f., 394, 412, 416, 420 f., 426, 623, 646, 660 Veenhof, K. R. 427 Veijola, T. 302, 311, 338–41, 354, 362–64, 367, 370 f., 482 f., 487–89, 597, 605, 646 f. Vermeer, H. J. 675, 678, 683, 688, 691, 694 Vermeylen, J. 517 f. Vernes, M. 403–06 Vervenne, M. 445, 455, 457, 460–62, 464, 517 Veyne, P. 391, 394 Viberg, Å. 341, 359 Vignolo, R. 151 Vinay, J. P. 675, 687 Vlaardingerbroek, J. 526 Voderholzer, R. 170, 192 Vogels, W. 168 Vogelweide, W. von 33 Voigt, F. 72 Voigt, R. 46 Volz, P. 75, 435–37, 455 f., 520 f., 534, 543 Vorländer, H. 438, 441 Vries, S. J. De 488, 497 Vriezen, T. C. 45, 642, 633 Waard, J. de 23, 301, 674, 675, 676, 678, 679, 680, 682, 683, 684, 686, 688, 690, 692, 694, 696, 697, 698, 699, 700, 702 Wacker, M.-T. 162, 526, 624 Waegeman, M. 583 Wagner, N. E. 222, 231, 438, 439, Wagner, S. 60, 222, 231, 386, 387, 438, 439, 440, 442, 455, 458, 645, 646, 667

746

Indexes

Wagner, V. 455, 458 Wälchli, S. 471 Waliggo, J. M. 254 Wallace, H. N. 270, 283 Wallis, G. 612, 615 Wallis, L. 223, 238 Walsh, J. T. 152 Walsh, R. 156 Waltke, B. K. 56, 565, 581, 583, 585 Waltke, B.K. 56, 565, 581, 583, 584, 585 Wang Zhongxin 296, 298 Wanke, G. 534, 552 Wardle, W. L. 598, 624 Warfield, B. 235, 278 Warmuth, G. 510, 515 Warner, M. 152, 159, 200 Warren, A. 111 Waschke , E.-J. 645, 646, 662, 667, 668, 669, 671 Washington, H. C. 163 Watson, C.W. 88 Watson, D. F. 152 Watson, F. 97, 105, 302, 331 Watts, J. W. 597 Watts, J. 445, 451, Waweru, H. W. 254, 266 Weber, I. 611 Weber, M. 8, 55, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 82, 90, 248, 288, 394, 397, 398, 404, 405, 598, 611, 612, 614, 624, 629 Weber, Marianne 67, 629 Weber, O. 55 Webster, J. 171 Wechsler, H. 371 Weder, H. 170 Weeks, S. 61, 565, 579, 580, 581 Weems, R. J. 223, 247, 250 Weems, R.J. 223, 247, 250 Wegener, H. 675, 696 Weiden, W.A. van der 565 Weimar, P. 446, 489 Weinberg, J. P. 489, 499 Weinfeld, M. 61, 64, 382, 455, 456, 582, 597, 605 Weippert, H. 469, 471, 480, 520, 521 Weippert, M. 427, 644 Weir, H. E. 223, 236 Weis, R. D. 23, 510, 512 Weiser, A. 349, 526, 534, 547 Weisgerber, L. 676 Weiss, B. G. 595

Weiss, M. 534, 541, 548 Welch, A. C. 383 Welch, J. W. 302, 311, 594, 595, 674 Welker, M. 173, 183, 410 Wellek, R. 111 Wellhausen, J. 8, 11, 14, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71, 74, 78, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 108, 122, 130, 134, 197, 248, 273, 274, 282, 290, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 310, 311, 312, 313, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 322, 323, 324, 326, 328, 330, 331, 341, 373, 378, 380, 391, 398, 404, 406, 409, 418, 433, 445, 446, 451, 456, 464, 465, 468, 479, 489, 493, 496, 501, 502, 597, 598, 599, 604, 608, 609, 614, 615, 624, 625, 627, 629, 633, 703 Wells, B. 597, 601 Welten, P. 61, 489, 491 Wendel, A. 624 Wendel, E. G. 171 Wendland, E. R. 675, 683 Wenham, G. J. 163, 401, 422, 596, 610, 612, 617, 618 Wénin, A. 460, 463 Werblowsky, R. Z. 254, 259 West, G. O. 165, 253, 255, 262, 265, 266 Westbrook, R. 597, 601, 602, 604 Westermann, C. 57, 126, 128, 138, 410, 430, 435, 446, 447, 471, 476, 510, 511, 512, 534, 540, 546, 554, 565, 571, 574, 575, 576, 581, 644, 675, 699 Wette, W. M . L. de 122, 468, 496, 534, 537, 605, 624, 635 Wevers, J. W. 335, 438, 676, 686 Weyde, W. 24, 341, 360 Whedbee, J. W. 150 Wheeler Robinson, H. 20, 75 White, H. C. 159f White, H. 394f, 407 White, L., Jr. 223, 251, Whitelam, K. W. 61, 393, 422f Whybray, R. N. 157, 302, 310, 325, 338, 341, 364, 435, 443, 446, 565, 566, 567, 571, 573, 580f, 584, 592 Widengren, G. 341, 349, 353f, 356, 534, 544 Wildberger, H. 517, 518, 676, 700 Willi, T. 430, 489, 490, 491, 492, 494, 497 Williams, J. G. 223, 238 Williams, J. J. 255, 263 Williams, P.J. 565 Williams, R.J. 565, 590

Names

Williamson, H. G. M. 150, 426, 467, 489, 490, 497, 498, 499, 517, 519, 560, 561, 562, 563, 565, 578, 591, 624 Willi-Plein, I. 446 Willis, J. T. 57, 337, 610 Willis, T. M. 61 Wilson, D. 675, 693, 694 Wilson, D. 675, 693, 694 Wilson, G. H. 534, 553, 555 Wilson, R.R. 61, 89, 92, 93, 94, 150, 302, 323, 341, 357, 510, 515, 612 Wilss, W. 676 Wimbush, V. L.167, 221, 223, 250 Wimsatt Jr., W. K. 111 Winckler, H. 302, 320, 468, 496, 568 Winnett, F. V. W. 223, 230, 237, 435–37, 439 f., 442, 447, 462 Winnett, F. V. 13, 223, 230, 237, 435, 436, 437, 439, 440, 442, 447, 462 Winter, S. 171, 199 Winton Thomas, D. 20, 334, 562f, 570, 577 Wise, I. M. 373, 375 Wiseman, D.J. 20, 565 Wit, H. de 255 Witte, M. 444, 445, 446, 447, 454, 460, 461, 463, 467, 471, 597, 611, 646, 664 Wittenberg, G. H. 164 Wittkau, A. 20 Wittram, R. 20 Wittstruck, T. 534 Wojcik, J. 155 Wolde, E. van 157 Wolfe, R. E. 526 Wolfenson, L. B. 200, 206 Wolff, H. W. 126, 302, 320, 412, 438, 441, 442, 443, 445, 471, 476, 510f, 515, 526, 529, 559, 563 Wolters, A. 565, 582f Wonderly, W.L. 676, 700 Wood, D. 171

747

Woschitz, K. 646, 668 Wrede, W. 624, 627 Wright, Ch. H. J. 612f, 615f Wright, D. P. 85, 597, 601, Wright, G. E. 49, 100, 104, 197, 199, 223, 242, 379, 400, 416, 417, 418, 419, 489 Wright, J. W. 489, 494, Wright, J.L. 492 Würthwein, E. 471, 483, 560, 591, 612f Wüstenberg, R. K. 171 Wynn-Williams, D. J. 270, 283, 446, 451, 453 Xiaoming, G. 296 Yamauchi, E. M. 255, 267 Yee, G. A. 385, 526 Yee, G. 148, 158, 161, 164, 165, 167, 223, 247 Yoder, C.R. 565, 583 Yoreh, T. 464 Yorke, G. L. 255 You Bin 296 Younger Jr., K. L. 561, 570 Zenger, E. 155, 200, 218, 446, 448, 452, 455, 458, 489, 491, 531, 532, 533, 534, 541, 547, 554f, 643, 646, 660, 665, 669, 670, 671, 672 Zevit, Z. 388, 455, 456, 646, 658 Zhu Weizhi 296f Zimmerli, W. 20, 64, 197, 203, 399, 414, 467, 524, 534, 554, 563, 566, 584, 624, 626, 646, 562, 655, 671 Zimmermann, R. 611 Zinkuratire, V. 255, 259 Zirkel, G. 566, 591 Zobel, H.-J. 445, 561, 564, 644 Zuber, B. 676, 692 Zulu, E. 255, 264 Zunz, L. 489f Zwickel , W. 646, 648, 658

Topics in the main text Aborigines, -al 272, 275, 284 academy, -ic 115, 145, 187, 224, 262, 268, 278–79, 286–88, 292, 296 conference 259 interpretation 267 legitimacy 373 networking 259 organization 258–59 society 258, 286 acceptance 271 accretion 310–11 act: see God act-consequence relationship 325 adversary 276 advocacy reading, -er 108–10, 115, 123 aesthetics 135, 136, 188, 382, 387, 469 criticism 249 aetiological 408, 432 affairs 272 agenda 304 agrarian 65 agriculture, -al 267 ahistorical 189 Akkadian 45, 49–50, 381–382 allegory, -ical 206 alliance twelve-tribe 288 allusion 157 amalgamation 112 Amarna tablets 49 ambiguity 153 Ammonite 48 Amorite 49, 421 analysis, -lytic 35, 39, 208, 277 contextual 283 critical 136, 273, 283–84 phenomenological 34 postcolonial 284 social 320 structure 145 amphictyony 71, 141

analysis 273 ancestor 225, 241–42 Anglican, -ism 272, 275, 279 aniconism 368 Annales movement/school 121, 329, 392–393 annals Assyrian 406 Bamboo A. 31 anthropology, -ical, -logist 75, 77, 82–90, 92, 95, 225, 308, 365–66, 397, 604, 620 social 315, 328–29, 331 Anthropomorphism 402 anticipation 177 anti-historical 112, 317 anti-intellectualism 278 anti-Jewish 99 anti-modernist 277 antisemitic, -tism 99, 304, 371, 373–374 Antiquity 21, 29, 31, 405 apocalyptic, -cism 92, 94, 189–90, 260, 324 Apocrypha, -al 51 apologetic, -ist 241, 366 apostasy 183, 261 application 123 subtilitas intelligendi vs. subtilitas applicandi 123 approach biblical 282 canonical 101–108, 111, 116, 196–218, 330–32 diachronic 149 formcritical 125–47 historical-critical 91, 97, 279, 292 modern 263 post-modern 263, 284 pre-modern/critical 263–65 synchronic 149 theological 103 traditio-historical 125–47 Arab, -bic 53, 61–62 Aramaic 45–57, 123, 377 biblical 54

Topics

archaeology, -ical, -ist 61, 81, 83, 92, 100, 121–22, 224, 228, 240–42, 287, 306, 328–29, 376, 379–380, 418–420, 429, 468, 660 biblical a. 100–01, 121, 228, 240, 242, 379–380 Syro-Palestinian a. 101 archetypes biblical 228, 242 architecture 136, 260 tabot 260 art 136, 706 Assyrian 358–59 neo-Assyrian 359 Assyriology 375–376, 386–387, 417 authentic 177, 263 author, -ship 113, 122, 172, 149, 153, 168, 172, 175, 310 authority, -ial, -tative 65, 69, 78, 107, 160, 167, 180, 183, 206–07, 208, 211, 231, 251, 273 parental 183 of O. T. 316 autobiography 111 Baal 368 ‘Babel-Bible’ controversy 314 Babylonian 53 Baptist 278 beauty 136 behaviour, -rism 40, 91 Berber 46 bet din 374 Bible, -ical, -licist 22, 206, 209, 271, 316 aesthetic reading 111, 135 authority 273 Bomberg edition 333 commentary 282 contradiction 214 criticism 117, 119, 122, 136, 148–69 critical edition 388 Hebrew 200, 212, 285 Hebraica (BH) 333–34 hermeneutics 32, 110 Holy Writ 22 Japanese Colloquial 286 as literature 111, 151, 382 manuscript 334 movement 22, 104 as one/single book 112 Oxford B. 334 research 287

749

scholar, -ship 282, 287, 371–388 studies, recent 21, 29–44, 99, 118, 196–252, 269, 271, 277, 285 translation 292, 375 understanding of 271, text 127, 136 cf. theology; translation Black Obelisk 429 blood 191 blood-bond, Blutsgemeinschaft 65 blood-vengeance 82 Buddhist 116 Canaan, -ite, -tism 48–50, 241 boundary 216 land of 216 canon, -ical, -ization, -izer 31, 102, 105–07, 111, 123, 176, 179, 193, 196–252, 271, 306, 334, 668–671 approach 116, 200–01, 212 authoritative 211 composition 201 conscious, -ness 204–05 context 208 criticism, -cal 200, 212–14, 243, 294, 331 intentionality 208 interpretation 216 method 200 pluralism 214 process 204, 214–215 Catholic,-cism 22, 187, 193, 256, 272, 276, 277, 279–80 Celt 272 centralization 79 Chadic 46 chaos 178, 302 charisma, -tic 69, 72–73, 181 Christian, -ity 22, 36, 116, 173, 177, 181, 190, 193, 200, 206, 256, 275, 286, 288, 297 christology, -ical 174, 176, 192, 195, 291, 324 Chronicler 314, 492, 497–499 Chronistic historiography 488–499 chronology, -ical 70, 77 Church 80, 105–106, 145, 173, 176–177, 183, 187, 193, 202, 208, 210, 241, 247, 260, 268, 271, 276, 279, 282, 330, 672 life 272 circumcision 80 citation 157 city 76

750 civil rights 228 civilization 162, 241 clan 65–66, 78 class 70 classification 136, 138 cognitive dissonance 324 coherence 122 collective, -istic 65, 78–79, 89, 114 college 257, 272–73, 276–79 See seminary colony, -ial, -ization, -ialism 247, 255–57, 261–62, 271–73, 279 penal 272 Commandments, Ten 183, 303, 322 Urdekalog 322 commentary 32, 112, 179, 292, 377, 383 textual 122 communication 41, 115 community 66, 73–74, 79, 86, 213 c. of faith 108, 116, 211, 214, 218 global 268 interpretive 116 Jewish 216 comic 151 comparative 377, 385, 625 religion school 134 composition, -al 249, 283 techniques 249 condemnation 179 confess, -ion, -al 183, 281 of faith 317, 660 of sin 183 status confessionis 176 conflict 211 Confucianism 31 tradition 31 Five Classics 31 congregation 177 cuneiform 47 conquest of the land 216, 327 contemporaneity 189 confessional 260 Congregationalist 276 conservative 97, 99, 226, 263, 282, 317, 327–28, 366 content 133 context, -ual, -ualize 138, 208, 256–63, 283 Asian 296 ecclesial 260–61 interpretation 256

Indexes

linguistic 45 social 77 theological 106 continent 272, corporate, esp. personality 75, 315 Council Second Vatican 256 counsellor royal 320 court 320 covenant (berith) 66, 69, 71, 76, 103, 177, 191, 198, 288, 317, 319, 323, 354, 398 Covenant Code 71, 598–599, 603–609, 621 covenant formula 655–656 covenant-mediator 323–24 covenant-renewal 323 broken 288 new 288 creation, -tor, -ship 189, 215, 274, 314, 318, 616, 620, Credo/Creed 106, 140, 215, 665 criticism, -tic/cal 36, 108, 114, 119, 133, 146, 213, 272–73, 276–77, 281, 307, 330, 366, 373–74, 379, 385 analysis 278, 282, 365 aesthetic 249 autobiographical 167 biblical 136, 140, 148–69, 293, 373, 377 canonical 105, 211, 213, 243, 287, 331 cultural 166–67 feminist 160–62, 295 form 122, 125–47, 287, 295 gender 162–64 genre 149–51 higher c. (Literarkritik) 97–101, 112, 121, 257, 271, 275–76, 304, 374–76 historical 97–101, 103, 105, 107–108, 110, 112, 114, 115, 117, 121–24, 179, 200, 205, 243, 259, 273, 329, 385–386 ideological 160–69, 252 liberal 106 literary 143, 149–51, 179, 277, 287, 384, 385 materialist/political 164 minority 166 New Criticism 152–153, 210 postcolonial, -ism 165, 252 political 167 practical 111 psychoanalytic 168–69

Topics

751

psychological 295 reader-rsponse 153–54, 385 reception 154–57, 167 redaction 217, 287, 295, 516 rhetorical 151–52, 249, 287 social 211, 320 sociological 287 source 134–136, 287, 378 structural 287 study 280 text 375–376, 384–385 traditio-historical 101, 125–47, 287, 309 See Bible; source; cult, -ic 66, 79, 131, 138, 151, 191, 204, 245, 315, 321–22, 324, 359, 367–69, 534–547 aconic 368 centralization 429 setting 205, 262 culture, -ral 29–44, 69, 76, 145, 162, 167, 224, 262, 271, 288, 345, 397, 402, 660–661, 706 context 706 criticism 167 African 262 appropriation 167, Arab 61 Greek, ancient 342 Kulturgeschichte 75 Nordic 342 traditional 257 Western 167 cuneiform 47 curiosity 271 curriculum 279 curse 76 Cushitic 46 custodianship 284

Deutereonomy 380 Deuteronomistic History 141, 245, 309, 311, 313, 328, 363–64, 429, 442, 469–488, 489 basic core (DtrG) 311 dating of 313, framework 310 layers 306, 313 nomistic redaction (DtrN) 311, 363 prophetic redaction (DtrP) 311 See redaction Deuteronomism 292, 518 diachronic 83, 259, 294 dialectic, -al 188, 206, 212, 292 dialogue 195 dictionary / lexicon 48, 55 etymological 48 theological 57 disaster 322 disease 268 discrimination 250 dispute, -ation 274, 278 divine 79 Deuteronomist 274 disagreement 115 discipline 298 discourse 153, 667 dissertation doctoral 283 Divino Afflante Spiritu 140, 244 doctrine, -nal 177 documentary (hypothesis) 304, 306–07, 310–13, 373–75, 378, 405, 435–436 double exit 672, 705 doublets 310 doxa 188 drama 116

Darwinism 274, 278, 313 Decalogue 183, 289, 292, 322, 599, 604, 614–615, 619 death 76, 177–78 deity of 178 deconstruction 159–60, 385 degree 276, 279–81 denomination 279, 281 development 122, 281, 314 social 80 devotional 194 deus absconditus 179 determinism 180 Deuterocanonical books 188

ecclesiastical 272, 299 ecology 248, 251 ecojustice 284 economy, -ic 69–70, 72, 248–49, 397 ecstacy, -tic 94, 320–21 ecumenical 210, 267, 281 edit, -tion 203 Edomite 48, 50 education system 278, 298 theological 284 egalitarian 248 Egyptian 46, 49, 54 Egyptology 385 Eidgenossenschaft 65, 70–71, 398

752

Indexes

Einleitungswissenschaft 122 eisegesis 108 El 368 elect, -ion 178–79 elite 247 Elohist 274 emeth / emuna 189 empiric, -al 40, 271 endogamy 65, 86–87 encyclical 276 Enlightenment 107, 205, 255 ‘Solomonic Enlightenment’ 312 enthrone, -ment 315, 348–49 divine 315 epigraphy, -phic 45, 50, 243, 660 Semitic 45–57 epistemology 43 eroticism 195 erroneous 276 eschatological 189–191, 497 ethics, -cal 73, 80, 175, 182–83, 185, 215, 303, 398, 594–621 education 614 liberation 248 natural 620 obligation 315 ethnic, -nicity 70, 87, 224–26, 249 ethnocentrism 63 ethnography, -ic(al) 84, 86, 93 ethnological 131 ethos, -ical, -ics 73, 215, 303, 323 etymological 48, 131 evangelical, -ism 274, 276, 277–80 evolution, -ary 228, 274, 304, 313 exasperation 115 excavation 329 Execration Texts 49 exegesis, -get, -ical 20, 22, 86, 177–78, 207, 259, 261 biblical 176, 383 methodology 23 Patristic 176 text’s final form 106 theological 176 See interpretation exile, -ic 66, 79–80, 216, 275, 288, 430, 524 age 313 existentialism 330 exploitation 251 exodus 241, 317–318 exogamy 86

explicit 117 explorer fabula 153 fact 140 faith 95, 140, 145, 176, 186, 271, 306, 330–31, 660 Christian 95, 106, 178, 207 Jewish 207 rule of 203, 209 Fathers 107, 333 family 76, 78–79, 81–82, 401 fasting 80 female 89–90, 268 feminine, -ism, -ist 108–09, 162, 245–46, 248, 266, 385 imagery 246 movement 247, 383 fertility 241 festival 138, 260, 349 enthronement of Yhwh festival 138, 315, 349 New Year 361 Succoth 138 harvest 138 feudal 78 folktale 113, 132 folklore 135, 385 foreigner 86 form 24, 125–47, 152, 213, 249 classification 129 criticism, -al 141, 142, 144, 147, 151, 249, 315, 324 elements 24 final 203, 213–14, 216, 292, 334 fixed 137 form-critical, -cism 125–47, 308 Formgeschichte 24, 125–47, 308 Gattung 24, 129, 139, 151, 308 language of 132 literary 142 oral 129, 140 genre 145, 151 Psalms 552–555 research 133 setting 24, 292 Sitz im Leben 24, 92, 132, 193, 204, 627 source 133 sub-unit 145 types, -ical 129, 131 unit 144–45

Topics

formalism 112, 152 Russian 113, 152 Former Prophets 313–14 Formgeschichtliche Schule 399 Fortschreibung 310–11, 325 free, -dom 178–181 functionalism 77 fundamental, -ist 99–100, 175, 211, 261, 278 Fundamentals, The 278 future 319 gender 284 criticism 162–64 genetic 122 genre 122, 129, 134, 139, 151, 403 criticism 151 research 132, 135 typical 131 geography, -ical 135 setting 262 geological 131 Geschichtstheologie 444 globalize 22 glory 190, 193 theologia gloriae 189–190 Gnosticism 210 God 127, 227 (mighty) acts of 309, 317–18 dying and rising 368–69 glory 188 hidden 289 God’s word 127 golȃ 430 Gospel 36, 215 Great Depression 278 Greek version 333–35 guide hermeneutical 213 guilt human 151 halakhah 206 hamartiology 179 healing 261 Hebrew 45, 48, 50–54, 123, 374, 377 biblical 45–57, 258, 380, 382 classical 57 epigraphic 57 Late Biblical 52, 387 modern 381 Proto-Hebrew 49

753

Tannaitic H. 54 thinking, thought 75–76, 104 hermeneutics, -ical 29–44, 108, 173, 175, 193, 201, 207–08, 262, 289, 293, 612, 668 biblical 110, 294 canonical 196–252, 668 Chinese 30 critical 37 h. circle 33–34 Horizontverschmelzung 35 meaning 38–39, 42 method 287 New Herm. 34–36 process 213, 215 ‘relective equilibrium’ 33 suspicion, of 37–38, 252 theocentric 215 Hexapla 53 Hexateuch, -al 139, 442, 464 hierarchy 260 hierocratic (circles) 94 history, -ic(al), -icity, -ian, -cisation 20–25, 82, 96–124, 130, 135, 140, 147, 176, 205, 241–42, 273, 292, 326–327, 330, 365–66, 401–403, 406, 408, 432, 625, 667 chronology 428 contemporary 21–25 critic, -ism 97–99, 108–09, 119–24, 176, 203, 331 development 122 distance 21–22, 705 epoch 21 factual 649 figure 179 Geistesgeschichte 146 Heilsgeschichte 140, 242, 309, 317–18, 325, 330, 650 hellenistic period 414, 431 historico-critical (School) 96–124 of Israel 92, 100, 176–77, 314, 365, 391–432 intellectual 134 Jew, -ish 378 Kulturgeschichte 628–629 melting pot 271 minimalism 327–28 Nacherzählung 632, 641 New Historicism 120–21, 394–399 Patristic 260 period 177 philosophy of 177

754

Indexes

political 328 pre-Settlement 317, reception h. 96–124 reconstruction 176 relativism 632 religion, -ous 314–318, 622–641 of Israel 622–641 research 21, 391–432 revolution 365–66 sacred 190–91 salvation, of 410–412 secular 190 setting 292 social 66, 72, 224, 658 Succession Narrative 412 spiritual 135 storytelling 132 total h. 393 telos 176 tradition 351 transmission 146 Wirkungsgeschichte 96–124, 271, 275, 278 Zeitgeschichte 21 See Israel; historicity 423 literal 261, 420 historiography, -er 121, 245, 255, 318, 400, 402, 406–409, 412, 467–499, 706 hiv/aids 256, 618 holy 291 Holiness Code 73, 604, 606 Holocaust 231 hominid 256 honour 89–90 hope, -ful 319 horizon 37 fusion of 36 hostility 271 human, -ity 79, 208, 256, 274 humanities 32 hymn, -ody 260 book 260 iconographical 660, 662 idealism 136, 191 identity, -fication 145, 216, 225, 284 ideology, -logical 91, 160, 299, 367–369, 620 criticism 211 national 210 idolatry 79

image 153, 368, 660 cf. aniconism immigrant 271 impact 271 incarnation 186, 208 independence 257 indigenous 271, 281, 284 indeterminacy 159 indigenous 271 individual, -ism 66, 75, 79–80, 267, 325 inerrancy 241, 273 infrastructure academic 268 inscription 30–31, 48, 51, 54 Aramaic 54–55 plaster 48 inspiration 97 fundamental 92 national 324 intention 208 interaction 91 intermarriage 225 interpret, -ation, -ter 22, 30–31, 36, 42, 44, 104, 116–17, 146–147, 167, 193, 213, 218, 262, 268, 271, 277–78, 320, 667, 672, 704–706 African 262–67 biblical 136, 147, 181, 213, 262 community 333 comparative 262 canonical 196–252 christological 178–79 ecclesiastical 120 figural sense 207, 217 Fathers 333 Fortschreibung 519 historical-critical 97–101, 103, 105, 107–08, 110, 112, 114, 115, 117, 121–24, 179, 200, 205, 211, 419 historical-psychological 176 inner-biblical 201 Jewish 206 method of 31 modern 262 pre-critical 262 pre-modern 262–63 post-modern 262 Rabbis 333 sensus literalis 206–07 spiritual 206 theological 106, 179, 181, 194, 212, 218

Topics

typological 178 validity 153 cf. hermeneutics intersubjetivity 34 intertextuality 157, 208, 217, 369 intolerance 278 irony, -ic 113, 115, 151, 153, Israel, -ite 86 early 365–66 ancient 297 history of 275, 365–66, 391–432 prehistory 400 religion 318 Jahwe, see Yahweh Jehovist 274 Jesus Christ 177–180, 183, 194, 205 Mediator 179 Jew, -ry, -ish 22, 173, 206–07, 279, 282, 304, 371–88 Ashkenazim 372 Eastern European Jewry 371–72, 374 Emancipation 372 Kashrut 261 literature 374 orthodox, -y 374, 377 people 291 Reform rabbinate 376 scholarship 388 study 372, 383 Talmud 372 theology 384 Wissenschaft des Judentums 372–73 Job 291 Book of 178–80, 291 journal scholarly 274 theological 258 Judaism 69–70, 99, 206–07, 212, 260, 288, 297, 303, 313, 330, 378 judgment 190 divine 320 justice 76–77, 247–48 kabod 188, 191 kebod Yahweh 189 kerygma 330 king, -dom, -ship 65, 72, 76, 78, 82, 191, 216, 275, 288, 315, 321–22, 347, 350–55, 363–69, 401, 620, 661–662 divine, sacral 354–55, 369

755

kinship 89 knowledge 91 Komposition 310 Landnahme 140 language 36, 39–42, 44, 122, 133–34, 143, 271, 385 Aramaic 123 Canaanite 50 English 224 European 224 grammar 48–49, 55 Hebrew 123, 282, 377 learning 41 Near Eastern 385 receptor 685 See Semitic Latin tradition 31 law 66, 69–71, 135, 215, 245, 249, 288, 387, 398, 594–621 apodictic 139, 599, 603, 614 Babylonian 598, 600–602 casuistic 137, 139, 599, 600–603 criminal 604 L. Code 70, 72, 603 dietary 260 food 315, Israelite 137 ius/fas 600 Law 23, 92, 137, 242, 303 law-giver, -ing 72, 309 law speaker 323 origins 137 racial 378 recite 323 See Pentateuch layer 306, 313 legal, -ism, -tic 69, 72, 92, 246, 303–04, 307, 313, 315, 378, 398, 597–621 legend, -ary, / Sage 100, 128–31, 138, 266, 306, 377, 400–402 legislation 303 lex post prophetas 303 lexicography 135, 387 liberal 274, 276, 277, 279 liberation 108, 181, 247–48 library 272 life 76 common 76 continuation 178

756 eternal 369 renewal 178 social 76 Tree of 369 linguistic 131, 180, 249, 346 comparative 287 literary 33, 111, 148, 249, 362–63 analysis 113 critic, -cism 112, 128, 143, 149–57, 294–95, 331–32 formalism 210 forms 136 genre 147 reader, -ing 112, 283 literariness 152 literary-critical 23–24, 96–124, 128, 149 Literary-critical School 96–124 Literarkritik 146, 444, 452, 501 setting 143 sources 23, 100 structuralism 158 system 332 type 143 literacy 249, 400 literature 122, 136, 144–45, 147, 151, 162 Arabic 344 Avesta 344 biblical 377 Qur’ an 344 literalism 241 linguist, -tic 39, 45–57, 105 logos 193 logic 136 loyalty 284 Lutheran 173, 182, 282–83 lyric 129 magic 398 male 89, 109 manifest 89 Maori 272, 274–75, 279, 283 marginalization 251 marriage 82 martyr 181 Mas(s)orah, -ret, -tic 23, 55, 306, 520 Proto-Massoretic 244 text 23, 212, 306 versions 306 matrimonial 86

Indexes

matrix 147, 211 social 164 economic 164 meaning 30, 38–41, 44, 84, 110, 116, 118, 123, 136, 145, 153, 158, 160, 670, 706 original 123 sensus literalis 206 mediator 187 medieval 375, 382–383 Mesha stele 405 message 332 messenger angelic 260 Mesha Stele 48 Messiah, -nic, nism 177, 189, 194, 275, 355 metacommentary 114 metacritical 117 metaphor 44, 152–53, 267, 358 metaphysical 180 method, -ology, -ical 21–25, 32, 66, 69, 81–82, 93, 127, 143, 146, 251, 259, 262, 293, 295, 358 365–69, 408 comparative 93–94, 440 contemporary 148–69 critical 32, 148, 342 diachronic 287 exegetic 262 form (criticism) 125–47 historical, critical 32, 121, 148, 158, 176, 205, 329, 405 descriptive 91 hypothetico-deductive 32–33 literary-critical 23–24, 92, 107, 342, 358 pluralism, -ity 23–25, 367–370, 548–549 Protestant 22 sociological 295 Methodist 276 Middle Ages, mediaeval 31, 107 midrash, -ic 114, 201, 206, 382, 672 comparative 214 migration 414 mikra (Bible) 377 milieu cultural 76 minister 279 minority 248, 251 mishpat 189, 600 missionary 257, 262, 272, 278 Moabite 48 modernity, Modernism 115, 187, 267, 276

Topics

monarchy 66, 78, 242, 306, 328, 428 monogamy, -ous 65 monolatry, -rous 71, 312 monotheism, -ize, -izing, -istic 98, 195, 215–16, 241, 292–93, 303, 307, 312, 315, 318, 378–379 468, 620–621, 663 ethical 241, 319, 322, 378 Ur-Monotheismus 633 moral, -ity 73, 115, 241, 323, 615 motif 153, 307 multicultural, -ism 225, 271, 281 multilingual 225 music 136 mystic, -al 189, 358 myth, -ological 77, 85, 89, 215, 241, 266, 314, 318, 342–43 Nacherzählen 104 name 18 divine 367–69 narrative, -ology 62, 85–86, 92, 112–13, 122, 131, 135, 151–53, 215, 242, 309, 346, 365, 385, 400, 403, 408–409, 452, 663 Eden narrative 369 Sender/Receiver 158 Succession Narrative 309 Nash Papyrus 419 nation, -al, -ism 78, 373 native 256 natural sciences 30, 32–33 Near East Ancient 314, 341, 355, 358 Neoprotestantism 178 New Critical 113 New Testament 31, 36, 116, 136, 176, 184–86, 188, 195, 200, 289, 297, 374, 672 news 277 nobility 73 nomad, -ic, -ism 65, 77, 82, 398 nonconformist 275 object 34–35 objective, -vity 108, 109, 113–14, 292 obscurantism 278 occupation, peaceful 413–414 Old Testament 183, 185–86, 188 ontology, -cal 206, 293 Hebraic 293 orthography 243

757

pacifist 181 pagan, -ism 64, 242 paleography 243 parables 215 paradox 153 parallelism 48, 152 pariah (-people) 69–70, 74 parliament 276 parshanut 377 party 73 pastor, -al 322 patriarch, -chal, -chy 78, 89, 100, 246, 268, 306, 309, 327, 379, 400, 403, 409 patriciate 73 patristic 268 pattern 143, 354 peace 76 peasant farmer 70, 72 Pentateuch (cf. Law) 23, 101, 103, 127–28, 188, 191, 215–16, 273–74, 282, 303, 308, 310–11, 313–14, 317, 373, 376, 433–466 D-editing 310, 450–451 Documentary Hypothesis 127–28, 274, 453 macro-structure 310 non-P material 442, 447 priestly layer 454–464, 606 source 314, 439 source criticism 133, 303, 312–313, 441–442 See Dtr. History; Law Pentecostal 210, 261, 280 penultimate 186 people chosen 190 of Israel 191 perception 40–41 Persian period 189 Pharisaism 303 phenomenology, -ical 30, 34–35, 37, 324 phen. reduction 34 philology, -cal, -ist 24, 158, 224, 335, 376–377 commentary 292 comparative 55 Semitic 24, 45–57, 344, 377, 385 philosopher 187 Greek 190 philosophy, -ical 24, 25, 31–32, 35, 246, 289, 292, 330, 625, 706 analytic 30

758

Indexes

Ding an sich 38 Semitic 24 Phoenician 48, 50 pietism 278 plot 152–153 pluralism, -istic 214, 302 dialogical 214 political 65, 72, 86, 320 poem 111, 377 poetry, -etic 48, 111, 132, 152, 249, 452 archaic biblical 54 dramatic 291 politician,-tical 181–182, 228, 248–49, 267, 292, 320, 398, 400, 706 pollution 84 polygamy 65 polytheism, -ist 216, 318, 378 poor, poverty 65, 109, 183, 228, 247–48, 256 postcolonial 266, 284 post-critical 106 post-exilic 66, 79–80, 94, 98, 204, 314, 406 postmodern, -ism, -nist 112–16, 252, 267, 332 post-structuralism 113, 159 post-war 279–80 posivitist 100 pottery 419 poverty 226, 261, 268 power 164, 188 prayer 151, 184 Prayerbook 184 pre-critical 108, 109 predict 324 pre-exilic 73, 100 prefiguration 177 prejudice (Vorurteil) 35, 37 Presbyterian 276, 277 prevenience divine 317 priest, -ly, -hood 69, 71–73, 76, 303 Priestly Code / Source (P) 80, 191, 274, 303, 310–11, 314, 317 primitive 75, 78, 80 mentality 76–77 privatization 267 profane 79 progress, -ively 278 prophecy 72–73, 92–95, 135, 177, 189, 319–26, 377 messianic 324

prophet, -tic/cal, -ism 24, 69, 71–72, 76, 79, 93–95, 114, 151, 191, 247, 288, 290, 292, 303, 307, 317, 319–326, 356–63, 500–530 classical 321–22 cultic 321 doom 319 Former Prophets 313–14 mediator 322 message 320–21 movement 93 politician 320–21 religio-historical 360 as social phenomenon 321, 324 study of 322, 324 symbolic acts 359 tradition, tradent 323, 360 Protestant 22, 193, 202, 256, 274–76, 279, 315 prototype 178 proverb 266 Psalms 177, 184, 195, 290–91, 347–350, 531–558 psalmistic 191 royal 347 pseudepigraphic writings 250 psychoanalysis 37 psychology, -ical 75–76, 346, 357, 359 social 93 Punic 48 puns 115 purity 84 Qumran 555–558 Rabbi, -nic 107, 206, 215, 333, 380, 387–388, race, -ism 226, 247, 274 unity of 274 rationale 322 theological 106 rationalism 304 reader, -ing 110, 114–15, 172, 208, 260, 263, 332–33 advocacy 108 aesthetic 112 Christological 291 close 152–153 contextual 284 competence 212 feminist 109 historical 112

Topics

holistic 378 multi-layered 211 resistant 109 -response 115–20, 153, 211–12, 333 synchronic 378 theological 208 reality 182 divine 205, 207 reception criticism 154–57 history 156, 174 reconciliation 177, 179 reconstruction historical 104 redaction, -al, -tor 309–310, 363–364, 528 basic core (DtrG) 311 criticism 213, 217, 528 framework 310 nomistic (DtrN) 311, 363 prophetic (DtrP) 311 Redeemer God as 215, 318 redeem, -emption 289, 318 reform 320 Reformed 173 Reformers 107, 333 regula fidei 209–10 relative, -ism 113 relevance (of O.T.) 173 religion, -ous, -osity 66, 69, 73, 80, 145–46, 226–29, 249, 271, 316, 652–654 ancient 291 ‘civil’ 228 comparative 342 distinctiveness of 315 ethical 319 history of 314–18, 622–641 human 291 of (ancient) Israel 97–98, 304, 314–18, 341 natural 317 Persian 344 priestly 331 prophetic 291 See Yahweh; Religionsgeschichtliche Schule 399, 627–628 Renaissance 21 repentance 320 representation formulaic 268 resistance 271, 284

759

responsible 322 retribution 325, 619 revelation 176, 178, 215 progressive 313, 315, 317 revivalistic 277 revolution, -ary 247, 371, 378 Mosaic 378 peasant 428 rhetoric -al 152, 366 question 249 rich 65 righteous, -ness 76, 291 rite, ritual 73, 78, 80, 275, 303, 323, 342–43 Roman-Catholic 22, 173, 202, 275 romanticism 136 royal 663 rural 267 S/sabbath 80, 261 sacrament, -al 193 sacred 79 sacrifice, -ficial 84, 317, 403 saint 260 salvation 309 history 189 Samaritan 281 sapiental 191 Satan 178, 180 scepticism 113 science natural 32–33 social 32, 36 religion 258 schism 193 scholar, -ly, -ship 245, 262, 272, 274, 276, 280, 283, 286–88, 294, 388 African O.T. 262, 267 biblical 230–40, 260, 300 Catholic 282 Christian 313 Jewish 311, 371–88 Myth and Ritual school 314–15 Old Testament 137, 260 religionsgeschichtliche Schule 314 secular 313 Scandinavian 315 Western 292–293 Schriftgelehrter 607 script cuneiform 341 hieroglyphic 341

760

Indexes

Scripture (Holy), -al 105, 173, 176, 182, 200, 202–03, 207, 227–28 unity of 201 proof 177 scroll Dead Sea S. 51–52, 57, 287, 292 Qumran Psalms 212 sect 95 secularization 73, 267 sedek / sedaka 189 semantic 292 seminary 274–75 Catholic 282 See college semiotics 211 Semitic(s) 45–57, 279, 303, 375 coaparative 46–48 Northwest S. 46–50 vocalization systems 55 sense plain 377 separation, -tism 278 of church and state 275 Septuagint 188, 206, 256, 333–35, 343–44, 360, 380, 520–523, 529 Cambridge S. 334–35 Göttingen edn. 335 sermon 151 servant (in Deutero-Isaiah), Servant Songs 289, 361–62, 380 settlement 317–318, 327 urban 65 sex, -ism, -ual, -lity 109, 163–64, 247 heterosexism 247 honour 89 sheol 189 significance of O.T. 170–95 sin 76, 86, 320 doctrine of 179 national 320 Sitz im Leben 403, 516, 599, 608–609 Sitz in Literatur 516 skepticism 195, 293 slave, -ry 256, 666 social 61, 69, 79, 84, 92, 146, 228, 249, 603, 621 analysis 320 class 164 critic, -ism 211, 319–20 development 74

function 93 group 77 history 76, 91, 248 inequality 245 institution 78, 80 interaction 63 life 58–95 matrix 120 order 68 position of authority 162 problems 65 relation 89 science (model) 91, 315, 329 setting 292 socio-cultural 83 socio-historical 73 standing 89, structure 65–66, 69–70, 74, 78, 145, 248 tensions 72 societal organization 249, Socialism 174 society 65–66, 68–69, 72, 77, 83, 89, 92, 151, 177, 268, 274, 278, 286, 320, 324, 615 sociology, -ical 58–95, 68–69, 74, 77, 79, 92, 143, 229, 245–46, 324–25, 328, 385, 397 solarisation 663 solidarity 78–79 soteriology 179 song 135 soul 76, 346 source(s) 105–106, 131, 138–39, 305, 307, 309–11, 314, 365, 378, 408, 495–497 analysis 130, 307, 329 criticism, -cal 127–130, 137, 149, 319, 378 Priestly 378, 380, 434, 609 speech 151, 180–81 Spirit 177, 193, 210 Holy 193, 203, 205 status university 278 story 153, 215, 266, 308 stratification 311 strand 310 pre-priestly 310 priestly 310 strophe 249 structure, -alism 112–13, 152, 158, 160, 210, 212, 332, 385 layer 332

Topics

post-structuralists 332 school 113 study/ies ethnic 383 institute, -ion 260 scientific Bible 257–58, 381 style, -istic 152 elusive 115 variation 310 superstition 268 subjective, -ity, -vize 108, 109, 120, 292 suffering Jewish people, of the 291, personal 291 sun-god 314 symbol, -ic 241, 275, 289, 661 Synagogue 105 synchronic, -ally 83, 104, 112, 158, 259, 294 synthesis 280 Syriac version 335 taboo 84 tale 307, 377, 379 Talmud, -ic 375, 672 Targum 335 teacher 278 t/Temple 78, 80, 216, 311, 499 First 51, 54 Holy of Holies 314 Second T. 52, 92, 212–213, 313 testimony 181–182, 393 scriptural 209 Tetrateuch text 147, 172, 175, 208, 306, 333–35, 555–558 analysis 332 anonymous, -mity 332 apparatus 334 biblical 127, 179, 193, 295, 335 book 298 criticism 127, 135, 176, 212, 375 eclectic 334 emendation of 306, 334 families 244 final form 106, 111, 330, 334 function 147 Hebraica 334 Hebrew 259 history of 244 indeterminacy 159 ‘in front of’ 306 intention 145, 152

761

legal 31, 317 local 244 manuscripts 334 Mas(s)oretic 212, 334, 343–44 religious 31 Rezeptionsgeschichte 333 structure 153 version 333–35 Vorlage 344 wording 153 Wirkungsgeschichte 333 cf. reader texture 249 theme 153, 310 theocentric 215 theocracy, -tic 65, 73 theodicy 289, 291 theologian 181 theologia/y, -gical, -iation 20, 66, 72, 99, 173, 189, 208, 259, 281, 298, 331–32, 634–639, 671 academic 178 biblical 102, 104–105, 194, 201, 203, 210, 228, 240–43, 280, 309, 331, 632 centre (Mitte) of 651, 655 Chinese 298 college 271 Dialectical 173–74, 181 disciplines 276 discourse 263 doctrinal 178 dogmatics 173 Eigenbegrifflichkeit 654 fundamental 178, 191 Judaic 190 legitimacy of O.T. th. 652 liberal 174 modern 280 oral 262 pluralism 263 prosperity 261 Psalms, of the 549–552 salvation 177 seminar 260 study 257, 278, 280–81 symbolic 262 Systematic Th. 170–95, 318 Theologia gloriae 189–90 Th. of O. T. 122, 188, 194, 316–17, 369–70, 642–673 training, school 257, 260

762

Indexes

uniqueness 654 written 262, Third World 210 thought 136 structure of 160 Tiberian 53, torah/Torah 80, 194, 207, 213, 215–16, 288, 374, 607–608 identity-creating 216 oral 206–07 scroll 375 Torah story 216 Torah-community 80 written 206–07 traditio / tradition, -al, -dent 24, 104, 112–13, 122, 200–01, 213, 215, 306, 322–23, 365–66, 379, 400–401, 405, 429, 432, 666 ancestral 442 Arab 31 biblical 200, 380 Chinese 31, 298 Confusian 31 French intellectual 113 history, -ic, -cal 125–47, 191, 309, 310, 351–353 international 215 Latin 31 legal 71, 215 native 215 oral 138, 242, 306, 308, 344, 351–53, 356, 385, 400 pentateuchal 141–42 religious 74 re-shaping of 204–05 setting 292 settlement (Landnahme) 140 social discourse 651 textualization of 204 Traditionsgeschichte 24 Tradentenprophetie 608 tragedy 151 transcendency 289 translate, -ion 39–40, 42–44, 271, 279, 287, 290, 333, 674–703 Bible 256–57, 291, 674 Coptic 256 equivalence 677–678 Ethiopian (Ge’ez) 256 Greek 333 indeterminacy of 44 interconfessional 256, 291

Latin 333 literal 257 Old Latin 256 radical 40 Rwandan 257 source text 256, 678–684 structure 257 Syriac 333 Yoruba 256–57 Zulu 256 See Septuagint treaty 322 Tree of Life 369 tribe, -al 65, 78–79, 82, 288, 413, 428 twelve-tribe system 112, 141, 414–416 truth 76, 114, 136, 175–76, 181, 207, 216 Ugaritic 48–50, 382–383 ultimate 186 understanding 290 unique 318 university 108, 146, 257, 273–74, 281 ural 252 usus elenchticus 183 utopian 312 value moral 88 system 88 vassal-treaty 615 Vatican 275, 282, 615 version 333–35 victory 322 violence 247 virtue 86 vocalization system 53 Babylonian 53 Tiberian 53 Vulgate 334 war 276, 401, 663 See World War wife 247 wisdom 92, 135, 174, 215, 242, 326, 369, 615 folk 266 literature 177, 291, 317, 325–26, 566–593 theology 189 witness 208, 672 dual 209 woman 246–47, 250, 268

Topics

word 177, 188 God’s 127, 170, 185, 191, 193 world order (Weltordnung) 325 world-view 315, 342 World War I 272, 276–81 World War II 174, 279, 286

763

worldliness 181–82 worship 138, 204, 378 Yahweh 176–77, 181, 303, 313–15, 318, 378 freedom of 179 Yahwism 313, 319

References Bible Genesis

1 1:1–2:4a 1–11 1–12 1:8a 1:28 1–2 2 2–3 2:4b–25 2:15 2:18 3 3:17 ff. 6:3 6–9 11:6–7 12 12:1–3 12:1, 4a, 6a, 7, 10–20 12:6 12–19 12–26 12–36 13:1–2 13:7 13:14–17

83, 85 f., 88, 96, 102, 104, 111, 125 f.,128–131, 133 f., 138 ff., 145, 154, 159, 168, 170, 183, 188, 198, 206, 215 ff., 223, 241, 245, 270. 274, 276, 282, 284, 300 f., 318, 328, 340, 352, 366, 376, 380, 382 f., 388, 399 ff., 401 ff., 403 f., 410. 412, 419, 422, 434–438, 445, 447, 449, 452–455, 457, 460–463, 473, 477, 505 ff., 622, 675, 699 189, 307, 401, 606, 620 313 203, 334 447 687 251 402, 604 473 246, 369, 459 313 65 401 246 65 401 401 401 450 437, 447 440 401 437 664 447, 662 440 401 437

13:18–19 13–19 14 15 15:13 16 16:1–3a, 4–9, 11ab, 12 17 18:1a, 10–14 20:1–17 20–22 21:2, 6–7 21:8–21 21:25–26, 28–31a 22 22:20–24 24:10–27 25–35 25:13–16 25:30 26:1–11 27:1–45 28 28:1–5 28:10–13, 16–19a 28:10–22 28:13–15 29:1–12 34 34:1–31 35:21–22a 35:22 36:10–14 36:20–28 36:31–39 37:36–38.30 37–50 37:39–48

449 469 401, 459 145, 300, 437, 459, 462 401 450 401 606 440 440 437 440 450 440 402, 450 415 112 469 415 680 600 457 462 456 449 449, 451 449 112 86, 88 f. 449 449 437 415 415 401 449 447 582

765

References

46:1–5 49:1–27 49,1b–28 49:3–4 49:14–25 50:24

462 243 449 437 698 462, 464

Exodus

1–15 1–19 1:6,8 2:15–22 3:1–4:18 3–4 3–14 3:8 3:12 3:12ab–15 3:14 6:2–8 11:1 12:40 14:5 14:14–25 15 15:1–18 15:21b 18 19 ff. 20 20–23 20:2–4 20:5 20:22–23 20:23–23:19 20:22–23:33 20,22b–23,33 20:24–26 21:1 21–23 21:2–11 21:12–14 21:12–17 21:18–19 21:18–32

96, 107, 149, 162, 165 f., 192, 197, 203, 224 f., 247, 253, 300, 333, 376, 382, 384, 387, 401, 434 f., 439, 442, 447, 450, 452, 455, 460 ff. 346, 353, 662 469 462 462 450 289 442 669 669 652, 669 669 421 401 421 663 449 243, 542 663 450 70 604, 607 606 663 619 606 352, 434 460 289 603 606 598, 616 603 603 599 f., 603 603 600

21:22–24 21:33–22:14 22:17–19 22:19b, 21, 23, 24ba, 30 22:20–26 23:1–3.6–8 23:4–5 23:10–12 23:13–33 23:14–19–34: 18–26 29 34:11–26 34:10–28 34:17–26 35–40 40 40,33

603 600 603 606 603 600 603 603 606 455 458 461 434 352 191 458 458

Leviticus

1–10 9 14 16 17–26 18 19:18 19:34 23 23:23–43 25

83 ff., 88, 315, 382, 384, 454 f., 458 ff., 594, 596, 606 191 458 174, 178 174, 178, 606 73, 352, 434, 458 ff., 606 65, 599 606 606 459 543 606

Numbers

6:24–26 22–24 28–29

83, 376, 382, 434, 439, 442, 447, 450, 458, 462 f., 594 456, 663 321, 512 191, 459

Deuteronomy 59, 61, 73 f., 78 ff., 82, 189, 205 f., 215 f., 270, 274, 282, 286, 291, 301, 308, 311 f., 315, 323, 338, 363 f., 382, 386 f., 398, 429, 434, 445, 447, 450, 454 ff., 458, 460– 464, 466, 471–474, 476 f.,

766

1 1:1–2 1:1–4 1:1–5 1–3 1–30 1:6–18 1:8 1:19–3:20 3:21–28 4 4:1–40 4:2 4:25 4:28–30 4:29–30 5 5–11 5:6–8 6 6–11 6–25 6–28 6:4 6:4 f. 6:18 7 10:14–22 12 12:1 12–26 12:20–28 12:25 13:1 13:19 14 15:1–11 16:18 17–18 17:2 17:14–15 17:14–20 17:16–17 18:9–22 18:15–18 18:15–22 19:1–13 20

Indexes

480–486, 572, 582, 595 ff., 604–607, 609, 611, 616, 619. 621, 652 f., 668, 679 477, 481, 483, 609 487 471 605, 607 458, 483, 485, 605 484 471 471 471 471 479, 485 660 608 472 483 484 483, 485, 604, 607, 605 663 472 515 483 484 419 663 472 485 485 472 606 653 485 472 608 472 485 605 602 485 472 472 472 472 472 608 482 472, 603 472

20:1 21:9 21:18–21 22:1–4 23:1–9 23:4–5 23:20–21 24:6, 10–13, 17b 25:17–19 26 26:1–11 26:5 26:5–9 26:5a–9 26:5b–9 26:5–11 26:9 26:10a 26:17 26:19 ff. 27 27:20–23 28 29 29–30 30:1–14 30:6 31 31:1–8 31:9 31:9–13 31:9–14 31:14–15 31:29 32 32–34 32:48–52 33:2–29 34 34:1–3 34:1–6 34:1,7–9 34:1–4,9 34:1–12 34:7

419 472 616 605 f. 485 605 605 605 472 317 666 665 666 666 507 308 666 666 655 655 599 f. 65 606 479 605 485 698 483 485 608 323 607 387 472 176 485 458 243 461, 483, 605, 607 f. 487 485 458 471 471 473

Joshua 57, 140, 192, 216, 242, 265, 303, 307 ff., 327, 338, 364, 395, 404, 414 f., 429, 431, 457 f., 463 f., 468, 471, 473 f.,

767

References

1 1:1–6 1–12 1:7–8 1:7–9 1:23 2–8 2–12 2:24 3–4 4:19 5–12 5:10–12 6–7 6:26 7 7:26 10–11 13 13–21 13–22 18:1 19:51 20 22:9–34 23 23:4–12 24 24:26 24:29

476 ff., 480 f., 483 f., 486, 606, 609, 659 477, 484 f. 481 471, 478, 484 481 484 474 477 477 485 485 457 484 457 485 472 472, 514 487 485 478 484 471 457 457 472 485 478 f., 481, 484 f. 485 415 f., 442, 464, 477 464 473

3–16 3:7, 12 3:11 4:1 4–5 5 5:19 6–8 6:1 8–9 8:23 9 9:8–15 10:1–3 10:1–5 10:6 11:1–11 12:7 12:8–11 12:8–15 13:1 13–14 13–16 16:31 17:6 17–21 18:1 19:1 20–21 21:25 Samuel (1–2)

140, 152 f., 283, 308 f., 328, 336, 363, 474, 476 f., 482 f., 485, 492 f., 496, 609

Judges

1 1–2 1:1–2:5 2 2:1 2–3 2–9 2–11 2:6–3:6 2:6–16:31 2:11 3–12

148, 150, 154, 158, 160 f., 243, 301, 308 f., 327, 338, 364 f., 383 ff., 395, 398, 405, 414, 421, 471, 474, 477, 480–483, 485, 679 478, 481 479 471, 485 484 474 478 484 485 484 f. 471 472 469

477 472 473 472 473 469 241 405, 412 472 472, 482 363 86 363 473 471 472 86 473 473 471 472 86 485 473 363, 472 471, 482. 485 363, 472 363, 472 415 363, 472

1 Samuel 1 1–7 1–14 2 2:1 3:11–14 3:20 4–6 4:3 4:18 7 7–12 7:11–12

309, 471 270, 469, 477, 480, 484 471 469, 477 485 687, 691, 701 482 472 485 131 473 485 474, 478, 480, 482 f. 487

768 8 8–12 8:5 8:7 8:10 ff. 9–10/11 10 10:17–27 10:24 12 12:12 13 13–15 13:13–14 15 15–18 16–17 16–31 18:10–11 19:10–11 21:11–16 24 26 27:1–7 28 28:3–25 31

Indexes

482, 485, 487 472 472 363 363 473 94, 482 482, 485 472 477, 482, 484, f. 363 477 471 363 472, 482, 485 402 473 472 473 473 473 473 473 473 482 663 473

2 Samuel 309, 354, 402, 472 472 f. 472 354 473 472 364 131, 472, 493 363 f., 367, 479, 482, 487, 492 7:6., 11a., 22–24 363 7:24–25, 29 478 8 484 8:15–18 367 9–19 485 9–20 412 9–24 354 11 492 11–12 131 12 482 12:11, 14 472 12:15 472 1 1–24 2–7 5:4 5:6–11 5:12b 6 7

16:21–22 20:23–26 21–24 22 22:5–51 22:51 23 23:1–7 23:7 24 24:1

472 367 485 492 243 364 492 364 557 482, 493 493

Kings (1–2) 204, 283, 308, 388, 428, 470, 472–477, 480, 482 ff., 486, 495 f., 1 Kings 1 1–2 1–11 1:39 2 2:1–4 2:2b–4 2:4 2:11 3 3:1–15 3–11 3:16–28 4:1–20 4:30–34 5:6 5:10–14 8 8:25 8:44–53 9:1–9 9:4–5 9:6–9 10:14, 26–29 11 11:1–3 11:6 11:7 11:30–39 11:36 11:42 12:1

309, 472 495 412 472 495 469, 477, 492 485 482 363 473 477 485 484 514 367 566 472 566 472, 474, 485, 487 363 479 485 363 479 472 469, 480, 485 472 472 487 472 364, 479 473 484

769

References

12:1–15 12–22 13 14:10–16 14:17 15 15:4 15:11 15:29 16:1–4 16:12 16:23–34 16:30 16:34 17 17–19 18:1–4 18:13–16 20 20:35–43 21 21:19 21:41 22 22:39–54

472 472 484 f. 472 472 477 364 472 472 472 472 485 472 472 485 469 429 429 485 472 485 514 480 321 f., 485 485

2 Kings

1:1–2, 17–18 1–25 1:6 1:17 3:1–3 3–8 7 8:16–29 8:19 9:1–10:36 10 11–12 12:2 13:2 15:9 17 17:7–19 17:7–20 18 18–20 18:3 19

303, 352, 429, 469, 471 f., 474, 476 ff., 480 f., 609 485 472 472 472 485 469 485 485 364, 479 485 270, 484 484 472 472 472 473 f., 479 f., 483, 485 484 478 477 429, 480 472 477

19–20 19:34 20 21 21–23 21–25 21:2 21:3, 15 21:10–15 22–23 22:2 22:8–20 22:16–20 22:18–20 22:19–20 23 23:4–15 23:4–20 23:4b, 19–20, 25–30 23:5 23:5, 11, 12 23:12 23:15 23:16–18 23:23 23:25 23:25–27 23:26 23:26–25:30 23:37 24–25 24:3–4 24:9, 19 25 25:4–6 25:21 25:22–26 25:27 25:27–30

408 478 480 479, 496 477 480, 485, 487 472 479 309, 483 f. 429, 474 472 484 483 514 484 472, 477, 479, 605 659, 669 658 479 659 663 659 484 484 483 480 362 483 480 472 477 309 472 477 ff., 481, 609 487 484 479 473 354, 474, 479, 481, 485, 487

Isaiah 14, 95, 97, 102, 106, 112, 118, 134 f., 152–155, 189, 192, 197, 200, 202 f., 216 f., 235, 241, 270, 280, 282 f., 286, 289 f., 305, 312, 318, 321, 323, 325, 334, 336–339, 344, 351, 355, 357 f., 360 f., 367, 369, 379, 381, 386 f., 480, 483, 503, 507, 509,

770

1 1–4 1–5 1–12 1–35 1–39 1–62 1:10–17 1:21–26 2:2–4 2:4 5:8–24 6 6:1–5 7:14 7:20 8:16–9:6 8:23b–9:6 10:1 11:1–9 11:1–10 12 13:1 13–23 14:4b–23 24–27 28–32 28–39 33 34 34:11 36–38 36–39 37:30–32 38:7–8 38:10–20 40:1–11 40–55 40–66 41:22 42:1–4 42:1–4 (7) 42:5–9 42:9 42:18–25 43:10 f. 43:18 43:23

Indexes

516–519, 522, 524, 528, 538, 543, 610, 623, 658, 675, 681, 689 514 518 517 319, 516, 518 518 503, 512, 517 f. 518 515 663 515 214 514 518 661 359 702 514 359 602 359 513 351, 515 512 513 150 504 319 516 504, 515 513 700 429 518 514 514 537 518 360, 362, 367, 503 518 689 361 503 361 689 514 663 214 689

44:6–8 44:29–30 46:9 49:1–6 49:7 49:14–25 50:4–9 50:10–11 52:1–10 52:7–10 52,13–53,1 52,13–53,12 53 53:2–12 53:4 53:8 53:11 56–66 56–69 63–66 66:1 f.

663 514 214 361, 503 361 514 361, 503 361 351 543 361 344, 361, 503 360, 362, 613 361 360 362, 681 344, 681 503, 614 518 518

Jeremiah

1–25 2 2–6 3:5 7:1–8:3 7–8 11 11–20 13 17:12 18 19–20 20 21 22:10–12 23:5–13 23:9–12 25 26 26–29 26–45 26–52 26:2

14, 94, 150, 157, 162, 189, 270, 282 f., 301, 305, 311 f., 319 f., 325, 357, 361, 386 f., 440, 475, 503 f., 507, 509, 519–524, 538, 596, 608 503, 507, 521 514 522 688 515 507 507 522 488 661 507 507 515 507 362 507 507 507 507, 514 504 521 504 608

771

References

26:5 28–44 29 30–31 30–33 31 31:31–34 32 32–45 33:23–26 34 35 37–44 40–41 44 46–51 49:7 52

608 507 488 504, 507 522 523, 608 608 507, 523 504 504 507 507 492 479 507 504, 513 566 504

Ezekiel

1–20 1–39 1:10 f. 3:17–19 8 16 18:1–20 18:29–30 22 23 25–32 28 33:21 40–48

14, 79, 163, 168, 176, 189, 270, 283, 322, 325, 361, 436, 440, 454 f., 504 f., 509, 523 ff., 614 382 524 661 79 488 247, 525 514 79 488 247, 525 513 369 488 80

Joel

1–2 3–4 3:10

112, 301, 321, 333, 337, 360, 504, 525–528 515, 527 527 214

Amos

1:3–5 2:7b–8 4:1–13 4:6 5:1–27 5:5 5:8–9 6:1–7 6:4–7 8:14 9:11–15

112, 114, 189, 205, 269, 282, 300, 305, 319, 336 f., 340, 355, 357 f., 360, 368, 376, 505 f., 509 ff., 515, 525–528, 650, 696 514 360 360 483 360 703 515 514 360 360 527

Obadiah 8–9

372, 513, 525–528 566

Jonah

2:3–10 4:1–4 4:5 4:5–9

118, 151, 168, 196 f., 223, 249, 270, 280, 381, 388, 425, 492, 526, 528, 614 537 692 692 692

Micah Hosea

1–3 2 4 4–11 9:7 12 12–14 12:8–9

189, 247, 269 f., 282, 319, 323, 343, 355, 358, 386, 509, 509 f., 525 ff. 527 247 514 527 507 462 527 65

6 6:5 6:6–8

159, 164, 269, 282, 319, 355, 509, 525 f., 528 514 321 515

Nahum 513, 526, 528 Habakkuk 1–2

503 f., 525 f., 528 528

772 1:2–4 1:5–11 1:12–17 2:1–3 2:4a, 5–12, 13b, 15–17 2:6–20 2:11–131 3 3:2–16

Indexes

504 504 504 504 504 514 515 515, 528 504

Zephaniah

3:5

337, 360, 376, 386, 509, 525 f., 528 f. 663

Haggai 205, 384, 525 f., 529 Zechariah

1–8 9–11 9–14 12–14

270, 285, 319, 358, 504, 509, 525 f., 529 384, 529 529 358, 384, 529 529

Malachi

1:6–2:9

341, 360, 376, 386 f., 503, 525 f., 529 514

Psalms

1 1–41 2 2:6 3–14 3–41 6 8

12, 14, 52, 125 f., 132 ff., 138 f., 151, 154, 171, 177, 184, 195, 204 f., 212, 218, 222, 249, 270, 282, 290 f., 301, 315, 324, 334, 336–342, 347–350, 355, 363, 365, 373, 376, 388, 447, 504, 506, 510, 517, 531–545, 547–559, 563, 565, 579, 610 f., 615, 656, 674 205, 549, 553 f. 355 539, 553 551 661 553 544 542

9 10 14 15 18 20 20:2 21 22 22:9 22:10 22:13 23 23:1 24 24:6 28 29 29:11 30 30:1 30:2 30:2–3 30:2–4 30:3–4 30:5 30:6 32 33 34 40:2–12 40:14–18 41 41:14 42 42–49 42–89 43 44 45 46 46:3 46:4 46:5a 46:5b 46:6 46:7 47 47:2 47:3 47:3–4

556 556 553 542 243, 537, 539 539 346 539 544 684 484 683 684 696 542 697 347 542 552 537 537 537 537 537 537 537 537 537 542 349, 537 537 553 537, 553 553 552 553 349, 355 552 347, 545 539 539, 542, 551 f., 663 551 556 551 552 552 551 348, 539, 542 f. 547 547 547

References

47:4–5 47:5 f. 47:6 f. 48 48:2b 48:3 48:3 f. 48:5–7 50 50:2 f., 4, 5, 7, 16 51 51–72 53 60 60:8 61 63 66 68 69 70 72 72:18 f. 73 73–83 74 75 76 76:3 76,4., 6 f. 77:11 77:12 78 80 81 82 83 84 84–85 84:12 85:9 86 87 87:1 87–88 89 89:47–52 89:53 90 90–92

547 543 543 539, 542, 551 f., 663 552 551 551 551 542, 553 547 205 553 553 347 684 347 347 347, 537 347 544 553 539, 553, 619 553 554 553 536 542 539, 542, 551 552 551 655 655 492 347 542 542 347 347, 539, 542, 551 f. 553 663 552 205 539, 542, 551 f. 551 553 354, 363, 383, 553 539 553 554 554

90–150 90:14b–15a 90:16–17 90:3,8 90:13–17 90:14 91 91:14 91:16 92 92:3–5 92:5 93 93–99 95–100 95:3–5 96 96–99 97 98 99 100 101 101–103 102 102:23 104 105 105:8 106 106:48 107 108:8 109 110 111:5, 9 114 115 116 116:13 118 118:27 119 120–134 121–132 122 125:5 128:5 128:6 132

773 349, 355 554 554 554 554 554 554 554 554 537, 554 554 554 315, 348 f., 539, 542 f., 557, 663 553 542 542 493, 539 348, 543 315, 539 539 315, 539 537 539 557 544 551 251, 536 493, 557 547 493 553 537 684 557 536, 539 547 542, 556 556 537, 556 537 347, 537, 542, 557 537 557 553, 557 557 539, 551 f. 552 551 552 539, 542, 551

774 133 134 135–136 136 137 137 f. 138 138–144 139 140 141 142–143 144 144:1–11 145 146 146–150 147 148 149 149–150 150 151 154 155

Indexes

557 557 557 492 536 557 537 553 536, 557 557 557 557 557 539 557 557 553 556 557 542 557 554 556 f. 557 557

Job

1:1 1:2 1:3 2:11 3–37 16:19–21 28 33:23 33:26–28 38–39 38–42 42 42:7 ff. 42:12–17

15, 150 f., 156 f., 159, 168, 171 176–181, 189, 195, 222, 247, 270, 284, 286, 291, 335 f., 338, 343, 369, 375 ff., 387, 425, 467, 503, 514, 559–566, 565, 572 f., 575, 577 f., 583, 585 f., 590, 619, 652 566 179 566 566 179 587 190 587 537 251 179 181 179 f. 587

Proverbs

1–9 1–15 1:20–33 2 7 8:1–36 8–9 8:22 8:22–31 8:30 8:30a 8:30 f. 9:1–6 10:1–22:16 10–15 10–29 10–31 15–31 22:17–24:22 22:17 24:34 25–27 25–29 25:22 26:12 30:1–4 31 31:10–31 31:19 31:30

14, 15, 195, 214, 253 f., 301 f., 325, 343, 376, 385, 467, 559, 565–569, 571 f., 574–584, 590 f., 679, 681 325, 576, 581, 583 f. 585 581, 619 703 247 619 566 581 581 f., 583 582 581 581 f. 581 580 581 325, 576, 581 584 f. 585 567 572, 579 581 580 f. 698 696 583 583 580–583 583 582

Ruth

4 4:7

149, 155, 157, 161, 165, 200, 246, 270, 280, 385, 614, 684 514 684

Song of Songs (Canticles) 151, 154 f., 161 ff., 168, 189, 246, 375, 467 4:9 680 Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) 15, 151, 154, 156, 189, 195, 214, 217, 344, 373, 375 f.,

775

References

4:9

559 f., 563, 565 f., 568, 572 f., 575, 583 f., 588, 590 ff., 619, 652, 663 680

9–10 9:1–10:44 10:18–44

492 491 492

Nehemiah Lamentations 150, 168, 189, 336, 343, 376, 386 f., 569, 674 Esther 51, 148, 150, 154, 157, 386, 492, 582 Daniel

7 ff. 12

51, 150, 190 f., 199 f., 205, 217, 260, 504, 582 190 619

Ezra

1 1:1–3a 1–5 1–6 1–8 1:2–4 1:9–11 2 2:1–70 4:6–6:18 4:7, 11 4:11–16 4:17–22 5:7–17 6:3–5 6:6–12 6:13–22 7 7–10 7:8 7:11 7:12–26 7:12–8:36 7:13–26 8 8:1–14 8:26–27

13, 51, 66, 83, 152, 184, 190, 206, 253, 376, 383, 388, 411, 416, 430, 469, 482, 488, 492, 502, 519, 679 491 490 490 491 491 492 492 491 292 491 491 491 491 491 491 f. 491 491 491 491 491 491 491 492 491 491 492 492

1 1:1 7:72a 1:1–7:3 1–7 7 7–8 7:6–72 7:72b–8:18 8 8–13 9:1–10:40 11:1 13:31 13

13, 51, 66, 152, 184, 190, 253, 376, 383, 388, 411, 430, 469, 488–492, 502 f., 679 491 491 492 491 491 490 492 491 491 f. 491 491 491 491

Chronicles 13, 51 f., 125, 139 f.. 168, 190, 245, 339, 343, 362, 365, 384, 404, 410, 412, 469 f., 488–499, 505 1 Chronicles 1 1–9 10 11–12 12:1–22 12:23–38 12:39–41 13:1–4 13:1–14 14:1–7 14:8–16 14:17 15:1 15–16 15:2 15:3 15:4–10 15:11–15 15:13 15:16–24

497 365, 497 497 497 494 494 494 493 493 493 493 493 493 494 493 493 493 493 499 493

776

Indexes

15:25–28 15:29 16:1–6 16:7–36 16:8–36 16:37–43 17:7–14 21 21:1 22 22:8 23–26 27:1–5 27:25–34 28:1–10 28:3 28:5 28:11–21 29:1–9 29:10–19 29:20–25 29:23

493 493 493 493 497 493 499 499 493 494 499 494 494 494 495 499 499 494 495 494 495 499

2. Chronicles 1–9 7:12–18 7:14 9 10–36 11:5b–10a 13:5 20:34 25:6–8a 27:5 28:18 32:2–4 32:5 32:30 32:32 33 33:10–13 33:14a 35–36 35:20–24 35:24–25 36 36:21 36:22–23

497 499 498 497, 499 497 495 499 492 495 495 495 495 495 495 492 498 497 495 490 495 362 497 497 490

Matthew 2 6:19 1,18–25

91, 102, 118, 308 694 682 359

Mark 1:12 7

209 68

Luke 7:46 9:57–58 9:57–62 9:59–60 9:61–62 14 18:13

308, 675 684 697 697 697 697 214 682

John 188 Acts 8:30 15:8 15:10

242, 674 705 210 210

Romans 9:1 9–11

36, 174, 199 689 171, 206

1 Corinthians 12:3

689

1 Thessalonians Hebrews 1:1 1:1–2

209, 704 656

2 Peter 1 John Revelation/Apocalypse 13:18 698

777

References

Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Ben Sira / Ecclesiasticus 52, 56 f., 190, 482 Wisdom of Solomon 188 2–5 360 Oden Salomos 25 29

Psalms of Salomo 15 537 16 537 Sirach 15:10 39:6 44:5 51

537 537

555 555 555 537

Hellenistic-Jewish Literature Philo 232, 373, 436